The Authenticity Paradox: Becoming a Relevant Leader Part 2
00:13 - 00:25
Christian Napier: Good morning everyone. Welcome to another episode of Teamwork a Better Way. I'm Christian Apier and I am joined by my very thankful and gracious co-host. Spencer, Spencer, how you doing?
: I am thankful. I'm thankful to be with with you today. It was a Beautiful weekend. How was your Thanksgiving weekend?
00:34 - 00:45
Christian Napier: Our Thanksgiving weekend was nice. It was pretty small and intimate, but the food was amazing and I had leftovers all weekend. So mission accomplished there. How about yours?
: Was wonderful. We had more family than we expected and and the house was was bursting and and so it was wonderful. Do you have any specific food that is a you know, a
01:02 - 01:02
Christian Napier: Napier family tradition
: that everybody looks forward to?
01:05 - 01:05
Christian Napier: The stuffing.
: The
01:07 - 01:42
Christian Napier: stuffing? It's the stuffing. I love the stuffing. I don't know why, but for whatever reason, this is really the only time of the year that we eat it, but I think it's delicious. I don't know why we don't eat it at other times of year. And then my wife makes a killer pumpkin pie. And actually our daughter drove down from Seattle and spent Thanksgiving with us, her and her husband. And she now has the tradition of making the pies. And so she made the pies this Thanksgiving and yeah, the crust is to die for. How about
01:42 - 01:43
Christian Napier: on your side?
: Well, I make the pies in our family. So I make the pumpkin pie and everybody says they love that. We love, there's so many things that we love. I love sweet potato pie. My wife's family did this, what's called yams and apples. And I just, I can't get enough of those. They're just so good. But yeah, lots of delicious food. And you know today, this is a little bit of a, you know, this podcast is a little bit historical and I was just telling you before, today is an interesting day. It's the 39th anniversary of my
: mother's passing. She was an amazing lady who who died way too young. I mean she was 50 years old in 1 day. Yesterday was her was her birthday. She would have been 89. So this is my my lovely mother and I know there's many listeners that have challenges, you know, with loved ones that they've lost. It's just nice to remember those that have meant so much to us. So I'm thankful for those memories and all the wonderful things that my mother represents.
02:52 - 03:16
Christian Napier: Yeah, I express that same gratitude as well. And I remember a few years ago, Spencer, you had your uncles and aunts and cousins and whatnot online on a Zoom call that were and you were sharing memories and I was grateful to be a small part of that just helping to record it.
: That's very touching. I remember that and that was a very special time. And you had this great software that you created to record family memories. And what a, what a great idea that was. And we were able to have these interviews with my uncles and play music of her singing. And you got to hear that. I completely forgot that. That's awesome.
03:42 - 03:51
Christian Napier: Yeah, it was a lot of fun and they shared some really beautiful memories. And like I said, it was an honor to be a part of it. And you've done a-
: My friend Charles from Ottawa is chiming in. Thank you, Charles. That's very kind of you to say.
04:01 - 04:23
Christian Napier: Well, Spencer, I know last week we started a conversation on authenticity and you're 1 of the most authentic people that I know and you wanted to continue that conversation today because there's a lot more to say on that topic and so I'll turn the time over to you to pick a spot where we left off.
: Well, if you recall last time when we were talking about how important authenticity is to being an effective leader and there are certain circumstances that actually get in the way of that being a new leader where you feel like you have to have all the answers. Self-advocating a lot of times some people feel very uncomfortable self-advocating and that can be a problem if you're trying to grow in your career. And also receiving feedback if you're not open to that feedback. Those are some places that we struggle. And we talked about different sports analogies and you ended
: up the podcast really focusing on the fact that sometimes we can make up for those weaknesses through members of our team and relying on those team members that have strengths that are not our own. And I believe that's true in some circumstances, especially when it comes to competencies. Yet, when it comes to leadership and communication, you and I have to be able to expand our strengths. I'm not suggesting that if you're not good at technology that you need to make that a strength, right? I mean, rely on team members that have those strengths. Yet, individually, we
: must systematically and strategically work on our strengths. It was interesting. I hope you don't mind me getting a little. I'm going to reference a script for you. I don't know if you've ever heard of the parable of the talents of any of you listening. And there's this story of someone who gave talents or the lord of this kingdom gave a sum of money, if you will, to, he gave 10 to 1 and 5 to another and 1 to another. And after a while, came back to check on these 3 individuals to see what they'd done with
: these talents. And the first 1 had doubled the talents and the second 1 who had 5 had doubled it, and the 1 that had 1 didn't do anything with it. And so the Lord of the Kingdom took that away and gave it to the person who had 10. And I think there's some relevance here. Each of us have been given a set of talents, if you will. And the whole strengths-based idea is just focus on those talents. And I say no. I say multiply them and grow other or new talents. I don't know if you've ever
: thought of it that way in terms of looking at our weaknesses and saying, let's add those to our positive talents.
06:56 - 07:36
Christian Napier: I know, it's really interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way. I thought about the talents kind of equaling our strengths, right, the things that we have, and we end up increasing those strengths and doing more with those strengths. But I like the idea of actually bringing our weaknesses into that as well, and working on our weaknesses to complement our strengths. I think that's really, really interesting. What have you seen? You know, why, you know, just to go back to this parable, you know, 1 individual didn't do anything with the gift that he'd been given.
: Yeah, this is just the way I am. It's the excuse that we have. This is the way I've been made this way, and so I need to just be who I am. And that's the person with the 1 talent, I
07:49 - 08:30
Christian Napier: think. And the interesting thing about that person is he hid that talent, you know, and it was really out of fear. And sometimes fear can cause us to not work on our weakness. Because we, you know, we, we have to be vulnerable, you know. We have to be willing to acknowledge that we have a weakness, and we have to be vulnerable, and that might be exposing our weakness to others. And so we, you know, we don't want, we don't want to face the risk of, you know, shame or humiliation or further failure if we expose that
08:30 - 08:44
Christian Napier: weakness to others. And so oftentimes we try to hide it. So I think that's a really good lesson that you shared Spencer, that we've got to be willing to be vulnerable and authentic and real and expose our entire selves.
: And you're so right. And that's actually getting into 1 of the solutions of how to be what I call flexibly authentic. And Charles is again piping in, thank you so much. He actually listed the whole parable of the talents from Matthew 25 in LinkedIn. So if anybody wants to read that parable it's right there. Thank you Charles for doing that. And you know we try to be very careful. We're talking usually business principles here yet. This is a principle that has precedence from you know thousands of years of human development and I think you know we
: get wisdom wherever we can. So that's what I wanna share with you. But let me just reiterate what I call the paradox of authenticity. And as you progress in your career, Christian, you're gonna have an opportunity, and I'm not talking just to you, I'm talking to everybody that's listening to us, you're gonna have an opportunity to learn and grow and change. And that's gonna cause you to be uncomfortable, right? And so, some may feel this temptation to kind of rely on what has always worked in the past. And, you know, behaving in ways that come natural
: to you, just like what we talked about a minute ago, is just this is who I am, this is the way I, this is the way, you know, I need to be. Well, I just had dinner with a friend in Toronto, and brilliant young woman who I had coached in the past. And she was somebody that was working with a major retail firm and she came to a place where she was afraid that her directness, her assertiveness was preventing her from progressing in her career. And so she had to see herself as she needed to become,
: not who she was right now, to progress in her career. She would like to say, I just speak my truth, so to speak. I drop truth bombs. You don't want your communication to come with a detonation warning, Christian. And so as a result, people were not always taking her as seriously as she wanted. And so there's this paradox of her saying, well, I need to speak my truth because that's who I am. That's my natural style. And that natural style is actually preventing her from progressing in her career, which is also her motivation and desire as
: a leader. You see that paradox right there?
11:15 - 11:16
Christian Napier: Yeah, absolutely.
: And so she had to see herself as she needed to become to be that successful person. Well, that's different than who she is now. And who she is now is different than she was 5 years ago and 5 years before that. We're constantly progressing and changing. And the paradox is, is at what point do we say that we're our authentic self? Christian, I mean, if you say your authentic self is right now, does that mean you can't change anymore? You have to set in stone who you are as a person from this point on?
11:47 - 11:57
Christian Napier: Absolutely not, right? I mean, I can be authentic in this moment, but I will be a different person 5 years from now than I am today.
: Well, doesn't that make you inauthentic because you're changing?
12:00 - 12:19
Christian Napier: I think there are some core values that I will, I'm confident that I will maintain those core values in 5 years, but I will have learned new things and I will have developed new capabilities, you know, in the next 5 years. At least that's my hope. I hope I don't stagnate and get stuck in a rut.
: Perfect. And that's really what that... So this is the paradox that we're talking about is that we have this sometimes fixed idea of what it means to be authentic. Let me give you another example. I was coaching a CEO. He's a perfectionist, very controlling. And his natural style is what we call pace setting, meaning he wants to care about the team, but he also has this high need for perfection, and he wants everybody to do things the way he does them. And so he ends up being a little coercive. And right now the team has lowered
: engagement. He has high turnover and frustration on the team. They turned to me for help, both he and his team, and he to be able to get out of his own way. If he's unwilling to add to his leadership style, and we talked about the 6 leadership styles last time. There's a coercive style, there's an authoritative style, there's a pace setting, coaching, affiliative, and democratic. If he's unwilling to add to the authoritative and the coercive style and bring in more of that affiliative and democratic style, his small company will fail. And that's a paradox because it's
: like, well, I have to be who I am. And so this is the challenge that we have. I'll give you 1 more silly example. I was in Indonesia last year. I was there this year as well. But I was introduced to this concept of salad, Javanese salad for breakfast. Now I don't identify as somebody that eats salad for breakfast. My authentic self and experience mean that's not who I am until now. Because I love Javanese salad for breakfast. It's amazing. I'm not a different person but I've learned to appreciate and embrace different things as I grow.
: Here's this other comment from James Kimani. So he says, we must use the talents in us to grow in business and career. Yeah, and those, James, I think what you're saying is those are a platform for us to grow and add to those talents, hopefully, because as you grow in your career, you're going to be taking on new responsibilities. You're going to be faced with new challenges, new problems as you grow. A new competition coming in, how do you deal with those challenges if you stay who you are today? You have to learn to adapt, to
: grow, and to be flexibly authentic is what I like to call it. So go ahead comments and then I want to get to the I want to get to the solutions now.
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Christian Napier: Well I really like the food analogy with the Javanese salad. Why? Because when I was a when I was a kid I was known as a picky eater. I would only eat certain things. But over time, as I left the nest and got out into the world, I learned to like a lot of different kinds of cuisines. And I think that holds for most people, right? Our palates have expanded since the time when we were children or teenagers. We like a lot more foods now than we did in those formative years. And even to this day,
15:47 - 16:33
Christian Napier: I enjoy trying new dishes, right? And I can learn, and I like new things that I've been exposed to recently. And so I think that's a great analogy for this, right? We, I'm not inauthentic to my childhood self because I like to eat spicy food. And I didn't like spicy food when I was a kid, for example, right? My palate has evolved over time. And I suspect that most people have had similar experiences. And so what we're doing here, Spencer, if I'm right, you're advocating for us as leaders to expand our palette, right? Our palette of
16:33 - 17:00
Christian Napier: leadership styles. And sometimes it takes a little time for a new cuisine to grow on us, right? We need a little time to get used to it, and then after a while it becomes amazing. Other things we try and immediately we love them. But there's sometimes there are foods that are an acquired taste. For me, it was mole. I lived in Mexico for 2 years. The first time I tried mole, I wasn't a huge fan, but over time I grew to really
: love it. Now you love it. We get it all the time, don't we?
17:02 - 17:35
Christian Napier: We get it all the time at our, you know, our favorite hangout, Red Iguana. And I love it, but it was an acquired taste for me. And I think that's what you're telling us we need to do. We need to acquire tastes for these different kinds of leadership styles and and as we do we'll see our leadership palette expanded and it will bring us a lot more joy and fulfillment because we now can tackle new problems that we couldn't tackle before because our skills were limited.
: That's exactly what I'm saying. A couple years ago I was in Lebanon and my good friend, Greta Kelsey and her husband, Robert, they took my wife Jan and I to this restaurant. We had the whole place to ourselves. Their friend was this proprietor of this place called El Delb in a city just outside of Beirut. And we had this amazing meal, but then they just cooked everything for us, including kibbeh, which is basically raw lamb, and then sheep intestines stuffed with sheep sausage. And the biggest, and we tried all those and they brought out 1 thing
: that they're like, they challenged me to eat. That was goat hoof. And it had, you know, it was kind of gelled in this, in this sauce and in this liquid and it had little hairs on it. And so I ate it. And the restaurant proprietor says, you are now
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Christian Napier: Lebanese. Because
: I was willing to eat that and I still don't identify as a goat hoof lover, but I love to try new things and grow. But that's exactly right. And it's going to be uncomfortable put on these new styles. And that's part of growing as a leader. I wish I could... I have so many more examples. I don't know if we... I think I ought to give this example because there's probably people that are listening to this that might identify. A lot of times, if you're working for a professional firm where you have partners that have demands
: on your time, that can be difficult. I'm actually going to speak at an architecture firm next week, and this is 1 of the challenges that some of the employees are having is, You know, they have project managers and also just different experts on different projects. Well, you have a, you know, basically a member, executive member has all these different projects and every project manager and project architect will work on multiple projects. And so there's competition for people's times and that creates some tension of who do I prioritize? What partner do I prioritize and how do I
: deal with this? Well, several years ago I was coaching a CPA in a New York CPA firm who was going through a very, very similar problem. The partners were giving him different client jobs to work on. This individual based on his profile, highly, highly perfectionistic, high conformity, low extroversion, really struggles to express himself, low dominance, and just a dedicated, hardworking individual. But he's so focused on getting everything right, He never wants to be wrong. He takes longer than he should on his clients filings or reports. So then the partners get angry with him and say, you
: need to speed up. That actually causes him to slow down because he doesn't want to disappoint anybody. And he's got all these different competing partners and he doesn't know how to manage that. How do you kind of get out of your way to be able to manage that environment? So difficult. My son-in-law was working for an investment bank, Charles Bank in Boston, had the same situation. Partners made demands, but they don't talk to each other to coordinate their needs. Christian, have you ever had a similar situation? How do you manage these priorities when you're not in
: a leadership position?
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Christian Napier: Yeah, that's happened and that is a great question, right? I'm curious to hear about the advice that you gave to this client who was struggling with all of these competing priorities. So,
: all right, so here's, I gave them options. Number 1, you could drop everything and respond to an emergency, right? If it's an emergency, you could drop everything. That's 1 option. Number 2, you could get to a stopping point. Say, I'd love to help you. Let me get to a point where I can stop and then respond. Number 3, not taking care of an emergency. You could just say, Listen, I'm too busy. Number 4, you could communicate your expectations to both partners and make sure that each partner has all of their projects, they understand what priorities you're
: currently working on. I remember Stephen Covey talked about his number 1 lieutenant 1 time. He went to him and said, hey, I need you to take care of something. Here is the CEO of the company coming to you. It's really hard for you to say no. Well, what this individual did is he said, hey, listen, I want you to see all the projects I'm working on. So he basically took him over to his Kanban chart, right? His project list, you know, backlog and current working on. He said, here are all the priorities that I'm currently working
: on, Stephen. Which of these priorities would you like me to delay while I work on this new 1? Because I can't add it to my current, I don't have the capacity to do this on top of it. So something has to give. And in this case, it's really important that this individual who struggles expressing themselves learn how to get uncomfortable in speaking up and say, listen, I'm working on this project for this other partner and would you go and talk to them and see if you can negotiate with them about this priority taking precedence over that
: 1. Put it back on the partners because they're the ones that need to have the conversation and say, listen, I'm happy because you don't want to say, no, I'm too busy to the people who employ you. So listen, I would love to do this. Here's my dilemma. Can you help me with partner ABC and have that conversation? And then I'm happy to jump on this right away. What do you think?
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Christian Napier: I think it's an interesting dynamic in law firms, right? Because total associates, right? They've got utilization targets or billable targets that they need to hit or they want to exceed so they get bonuses, which means that they've got to build trust with partners. They have to deliver for them so that the partners will feel confident in giving them projects. And so, when it comes to this particular associate, you know, it's not only a matter of, you know, how do I prioritize, but my livelihood could be at stake. If I don't manage this correctly, then I may
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Christian Napier: lose the trust of a partner and then my pipeline of work will decrease and it will have a financial impact on me, you know, because I'm not, I may not be able to hit my target. So I really empathize with this individual, you know, because these are real life challenges. And when you first mentioned the thing, I was thinking in the back of my mind, the Eisenhower matrix, right? I was thinking, oh, you know, we've got the urgent and important and the not urgent and important and so on and so forth. But how do you manage
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Christian Napier: that when every partner has their own Eisenhower matrix?
: They have their own priorities. That's exactly right. And their lack of Communication is the problem. It's a partner problem. The problem is that now becomes your problem because they're not communicating. So it's very unfair for that associate or for that lower level team member to manage this but you absolutely have to manage expectations. And that actually shows, it's you showing your awareness and empathy and emotional intelligence when you can have a conversation that is, you know, just like we talked about here, I absolutely want to help you. However, on my plate right now, I have these
: priorities. And do you want me to go with you to have that conversation, or can you have that conversation and then come back? But that's about building trust with those that you work with, that you're not just, sometimes you have to self-advocate. You know what we were talking about. And it's very uncomfortable for this person to do that because he just wants to be right. He just wants to do what's right for the team. He's an incredible team player. But his own behavioral traits are causing him to work literally 18 hours a day during tax season.
: And he has no life, no balance, and completely stressed and anxious, and is afraid to make any kind of mistake because he didn't want to get yelled at. So learning how to get out of his own way is that's his next progression is to be able to have those assertive conversations, not be aggressive, not be compliant, but to speak up assertively in a way that saves his mental health and at the same time shows that he's willing to, or whoever you are, that you're willing to work. So let's start to transition now into some things that
: you can do to be the success story in your own life. I wanna share with you what I have learned, Christian, that's helped me and still helping me change my behavior and learn and grow. And there's 5 steps. The first step is to increase your self-awareness. It always starts with self-awareness. What are your strengths? What are your blind spots? Own those. Get to know them. Don't be... I guess that some challenges... Sometimes people don't want to know what their weaknesses are. When I give people assessments, they're like, okay, what's the bad news? Like, you know, we
: all have bad news. We all have blind spots and weaknesses. Just embrace that. That's that's that's who you are. You have great strengths as well. Be confident in those strengths. Don't be dragged down by the fact that you have weaknesses. We all have them. Okay? So there's a lot of ways that you can do that. You can take a behavioral assessment. You can work with a coach. You can have somebody internally in your organization that is giving you feedback, that's a trusted advisor, you can have a 360 assessment. I warn people about 360 assessments because they
: can be used negatively to, it have to be used the right way. So that it's a, because sometimes when people have the, the right to give feedback anonymously, they can say things that are hurtful. And so it's good to get feedback that is accurate. And so if you do that in the right way and the organization uses these 360s in the right way, it can be very powerful. And I do that for my clients and protect them from feeling beat up in any way. And they use that as a very positive way to create self-awareness. So
: start with the fact that you are complex and you have to embrace this complex nature of you that sometimes you'll behave in contradictory ways. And it's part of your identity. So here are a couple of statements that you can use to self-evaluate. Listen to this. It's just to self-evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. I am often confused by my feelings. If you are confused by your feelings, you're not alone. But that's an example of sometimes you might feel 1 way and sometimes you might feel another. I am aware of important elements of my true self and those
: that are unimportant. What are the important parts of your true self and what are those that are not so important? I understand my motivation and my desires. That's a hard 1. Sometimes we don't stop and evaluate, why do we behave certain ways? What are our motivations to behave in these ways? What is it that you really desire? And that takes some honest self-reflection. I proactively attempt to understand myself as much as possible. What do you think about those statements?
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Christian Napier: I really like those statements And this idea of awareness, you know, being self-aware, we've talked about it before, you know, from a survivalist perspective, if you're a hunter, your circle of awareness should be greater than your circle of influence, right? If it's the other way around, then you are never going to catch the prey that you're seeking after. But I wanna look at those again through the lens of your law firm associate, your attorney. And I wanna ask a question. Can our weaknesses be strengths or vice versa the law the the attorney is a perfectionist as
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Christian Napier: you said And sometimes you look at that as a weakness. Okay, it's taking me too long to get my work done because I'm a perfectionist. But, you know, and I'm reading into the story here because I don't know what's going on, but from what I can tell, this attorney is overburdened with work, which means that the partners think he's good. He's good because he's very thorough. His work is very high quality. So his perfectionism is a strength and it's also a weakness. That's correct. His inability or not an inability but his lack of desire to communicate
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Christian Napier: with the partners and say I'm getting over burden with this work there's also a strength and a weakness why his his his strength is I'm willing to take on work I don't just go ahead and say no you know I want to be helpful at the same time it's causing him work-life balance issues because you know So partners probably look at him and say, he's willing to do everything that we ask him to do. That's a positive. But there's the negative side of it, which is his life gets out of balance. Then he has this difficulty
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Christian Napier: communicating and saying, and like you say, self-advocating, right? So I'm curious to hear from your perspective, and again, agreeing with all of the recommendations that you made there, how as we evaluate ourselves, we may look at ourselves negatively and see weaknesses where actually the opposite may be true as well. Hey this is actually a good thing you know this I have a strength here but it can also be a weakness if I don't find that right balance. That's right. What do you think about all that?
: Well, first of all, I always say that any strength overused can become a weakness. And that's something that we have to be aware of. Any strength overused can become a weakness. And so, this is what, actually it's the CPA firm that this individual was working for. Because he would not say no and because he was so accurate and wanted to be perfectionistic, he took too long. So he was actually getting criticized for being too perfectionistic. Okay, you just trust yourself. Let go of that. I'll give you an example. He had a friend of his come and
: ask him a tax related question, which he knew the answer to. So He gave the answer to the friend and then went and double-checked to make sure that he gave the right answer. That took twice as long than it needed to because he wasn't trusting himself because of this innate need to avoid being wrong at all cost. Well, that's what they're saying is just, dude, just trust yourself, let go. You don't have to be, listen, if it's 99% perfect, it'll be okay. Let go of the 100%, you can never, never. So some people take their strengths
: too far and then it becomes a problem, Christian. That's what we're talking about here. So start with that awareness of where those strengths and weaknesses are. That's great. Now, step Number 2, this may, I don't know if this will rankle anybody, but it's, you've got to learn humility. And I'll give you an example. Think about what would have happened when Kelvin told me that I needed to make changes. And he said he'd give me 6 months. What would have happened if I had been defensive when he gave me that feedback? You can't treat me that way.
: You can't talk to me that way. You know, I'm hardworking and dedicated. I'm working 80 hours a week for $40, 000 a year. I'm outta here, I quit. I would have missed all kinds of career advancing experiences because I wasn't willing to let go of my need to be in control. I want you to reframe how you feel about your behavioral weaknesses. They are an opportunity to learn and grow. Pride is avoiding our faults and really to appear better than we really are. And pride, in my opinion, is antithetical. It's the opposite of being authentic. Maybe
: you feel that you are already humble because you have certain leadership styles, for example, like the affiliative, that's about bringing people together, the democratic, you know, hearing other people's voices, and the coaching, And you think that the coercive and the authoritative and the pace setting people are the problem, right? They're the ones who are aggressive and really, that's the opposite of humility if you think that that everybody else is the problem and not you. You can be assertive without being aggressive And again, remember you're being true to your values, not just thinking you're better or worse
: than other leaders. And we can all benefit from more humility. So here's a couple of questions that I have about your level of humility. Can you objectively process positive and negative information about you? Can you receive feedback without being fragile, self-protective, self-serving, especially if you made a mistake. It takes humility to process information about yourself without bias. It's certainly hard for me, I don't know about you.
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Christian Napier: Yeah, it can be hard. You know, another angle that I think is really interesting on this humility thing goes back to your experience in Lebanon and trying to go for it. And, And the proprietor of the restaurant then saying that you are now Lebanese, right?
: Yes.
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Christian Napier: So I'll just go back to an experience that I had working down in Rio de Janeiro. So I go down there and I start working and I don't speak Portuguese. I spoke some Spanish and so I gave it a shot. I tried speaking in Portuguese. It was not great. But I gave it a shot. And what I found was that the people, the Brazilians there, gave me a lot of grace. And they were appreciative that I tried, right? Even if my Portuguese wasn't great, at least I made an effort to do something. And I think, Spencer,
38:57 - 39:32
Christian Napier: it takes humility to go out of your comfort zone to try to develop a skill that you don't necessarily have. It can be scary, but when people see you give it a shot, more often than not, they're willing to give you some grace and be appreciative and grateful for the effort. You don't do it to score points with other people, I mean, as part of the authenticity thing, but I don't know if you've seen that in your work experience or with clients that you serve, where if someone is actively trying to work on a weakness, that
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Christian Napier: other people will see that and they will appreciate it.
: I talk about that very concept, Christian, interesting that you brought that up. I teach a class called Strengthen Your Brand, Communicate with Power and Influence. 1 of the questions that I ask is, when you make a mistake, are you given grace? In other words, it's uncharacteristic because you are somebody that's working hard and giving a huge effort that when you make a mistake, they're like, wow, Christian, that's so unlike Christian. We'll give you a pass. Or because you made a mistake, are you getting punished because it's like the same old sloppiness and lack of attention to
: detail. Effort always brings, I think, appreciation and willingness to give you, I believe that 100%. And I, you know, some cultures have a little more acceptance when you try to speak their language. The French, not so much. I go to France and they're like, shut up, speak English. You go to Italy, they're like, a-brach-a-me, because you speak their language, right? I'm actually starting to learn Portuguese because I'm going to Brazil next October. Very excited about that. But I do that not to show off, but to show that I care, and that I want to connect with
: them, and that they're, you know, let people know they're important. I've been studying Greek now for 4 years because of my work in Cyprus and Greece, just because most of them speak English and I'm like, wow, that's impressive. And it impresses me that, you know, that people are willing to learn my language. I want to try to learn theirs. I think that's a form of humility. So next step, step number 3, I want you to focus on just 1, no more than 2 weaknesses. And based on your personality trait, 1 of the things that I've offered
: in the past, if you're listening to this, and email me or message me on LinkedIn, and ask for a pro scan, Listen, pay for it, it's $50 US, but it's totally worth it. And then we can identify, based on your traits, what are some of the problems that you have. So let me give you a couple of examples. If you are a high dominant, it's possible that you take on too much and you have a difficulty delegating. You can intimidate others due to your intensity level. That's the case of that 1 gal who's working for the
: retail company in Canada, right? You can be preoccupied with the need to control people, circumstances and surroundings. You can have self-imposed stress and tension. Your demanding nature can divide teams and people. I have a whole list of about 20 things that you could identify. If you're a high extrovert, Sometimes you can have a need to be liked or have difficulty focusing. You have sometimes attention to completion challenges. Thinking about what you want to say next instead of truly listening. Again, another 20 lists there. If you are high pace or slash patient, you can be a conflict
: avoidant. You can put off decisions to avoid disharmony and controversy. You have this need to be a peacekeeper so you don't want any any controversy or conflict and the list goes on. If you're high conforming, maybe you struggle making quicker decisions without all the facts, like the examples I've been sharing. Maybe you look at the downside, the pessimistic side, and so your negativity can cause you to be dismissed sometimes. Well, let me give you 1 example. Let's just use for the example, maybe I have difficulty listening and I'm thinking about what I'm going to say before
: I speak. So let's give this a, I need to change, because I'm always interrupting people instead of listening to what they have to say, I'm thinking about my response. Let's say that's my weakness, right? That's something that I can overcome. But some people say, well, that's just who I am, right? I have to speak up and no, you don't. So what's the opposite of that weakness? You find the opposite of the weakness. And in this case, the behavior that I want to cultivate is listening patiently before responding. So step number 3 is you find the weakness.
: Step number 4, you find the opposite. Okay, so whatever is the opposite of that weakness. If I have difficulty listening and paying attention now, I want to listen patiently before responding. Now before I go on to step 5, I want to say something about this idea of opposites. 2 years ago when I went to Bali, I noticed my wife and I both noticed everywhere there was this pattern. There was this I didn't notice it till I saw a truck full of men that were wearing this black, white, and gray cloth, like checked cloth. Have you seen
: that before?
44:53 - 44:55
Christian Napier: I have not seen that before, no.
: Let me see if I can show a picture of what I'm talking about here. At the bottom middle, do you see that? Yeah. Okay. And when we got to the airport, you can see that right under that Bally. I didn't even notice it. We took this picture, there's black and white checks, and the curbs on the street were black and white everywhere we went. Then there were people at the airport wearing these sarongs. And I didn't even notice it until I started. They started, I just saw it everywhere. I saw it wrapped around trees, cloth, and
: temples, was this black, white, and gray. And so I asked somebody there locally, what does it mean? And here's what they said, the Balinese believe that we have both black and white in ourselves, And the balance of both sides creates the perfect gray life. The colors represent being able to reconcile contraries. Think justice and mercy, day and night, fast and slow, execution and planning, sweet and bitter, joy and sorrow. The best leaders can embrace seemingly contradictory leadership styles such as coercive and democratic, affiliative and authoritative, pace setting and coaching. It's about resisting extremes and embracing polarity.
: What do you think about that?
46:28 - 46:40
Christian Napier: I think it's a beautiful lesson. It makes me wonder who got more out of going to Bali, the people that you serve or yourself. Because you learn so much.
: I'd love to learn. I'm not saying that you're going to go from black to white or from white to black, but if you can hit that perfect balance of gray, that's the idea, that's a success. You're not gonna be perfect in all of your weaknesses, but if I can start to listen more patiently more often, that's gonna make a positive impact as a leader, isn't it?
47:01 - 47:05
Christian Napier: Oh, absolutely. I would imagine 100% for sure.
: Yeah. What about
47:07 - 47:08
Christian Napier: the lessons? So this
: takes us to step 5. Step 5 is measure your success every day and measure it on a scale from 1 to 10. Use what many coaches call the the the daily questions. I learned this from Marshall Goldsmith. You know he wrote some great books on on coaching. He's he's got a bunch of them. But he shares this idea and it probably goes all the way back to Franklin, Ben Franklin. I'm sure it goes back even further than that. But what he says is, take your weakness, find that opposite of it, right? And then you ask this
: question, Christian, did I do my best, did I do my best to listen patiently before responding today? I score myself on a scale from 1 to 10. And I know you get 10 every day, but for me that's gonna be hard. And I have to be completely honest with myself. Don't sugarcoat it. If you suck that day, you know, give yourself a 2 or 3, whatever it is. But instead of self-judgment, what you want to do is you want to replace that with curiosity. Why did I struggle with listening patiently today? So this does 2 things
: for you. It focuses on the behavior that you want to create and it starts to create more awareness as to why and when you struggle. And every week, what I want you to do, if you're listening to this, is average your score for the week. So let's say it's 6.3 right now. Keep working on this every week until you get up to an 8 or a 9 and then you can start working on another weakness because you know what that's something that you've already improved. It might take you a month or 2 but if you just
: focus on 1 or 2 things at a time, you'll be able to knock them out and start adding some of these weaknesses to the strengths asset column.
49:11 - 49:45
Christian Napier: I really love that idea, but you can't do it Unless you've done the other steps, right? Yeah if you're not aware of a problem or you or you can't even tell when I Mess this up or that up then there's no way that you measure right? So you have to build that awareness first. And so I like, I think these steps are important, not just individually, but also sequentially, the way you've laid this out. I love this five-step formula.
: Thank you. And it's not going to be easy. It's going to take, you know, I show pictures when I speak, I show pictures of me at the top of a mountain, right? I have South Mountain down by Moab, 11, 817 feet. Deseret Peak over here, 11, 035 feet. Mount Nebo, 11, 933 feet. Mount Tipinogos, 11, 700-something feet. I've climbed all these mountains and I show myself in my social media about being at the top of the mountain. Well, 1 of the things that that I don't usually show is what it looks like getting up to the
: top of the mountain. Here's a picture of that. It sucks, okay? I'm in pain. I don't think I'm going to make it. I'm trying to carry my almost 300 pounds up that mountain. And it takes effort. When you get to the top of that mountain, it's euphoric. You feel so great. Doing difficult things changes us. Becoming the leader that you are meant to become is life changing in a couple of ways because, and I'm gonna explain this, leadership is an act of balancing all these different contraries, but it takes effort. It doesn't feel natural. It doesn't
: feel authentic. If you take your fingers and just put them together like this, Christian, go ahead, just interlock your fingers. Now move them 1 finger off. How does that feel?
51:19 - 51:20
Christian Napier: It feels a little uncomfortable.
: It feels uncomfortable. So that's right. And so doing things that don't seem natural are uncomfortable. I heard this quote 1 time and it led me to get this book called Dopamine Nation.
51:37 - 51:37
Christian Napier: I don't
: know if you've heard of this book. Have I shared this before?
51:40 - 51:41
Christian Napier: I've heard of the book.
: By Anna Lemke, Stanford psychiatrist. She did research on, She's a psychiatrist and she's helping people with addictions, overcoming all these, I'm talking about serious addictions and changing their behavior. So many, many people today just want to be happy, right? They want to experience pleasure. They want to have fun. And so we have more pleasure today available to us than at any time in the history of the world. We can see thousands of entertainment options right at our fingertips within our own homes. We can go to live theater and movies and bands and expos and we can
: have any kind of food we want at any time. We can buy food and put it in electric ovens and have food available to us in minutes. We don't have to have any patients. We have car washers. We have dishwashers. We have AI machines that clean our house or maids that can clean our house. How much pleasure do we have available to us and yet we're still not happy. You look at our ancestors, maybe our great grandparents who worked harder. Now I'm not saying that you're not working hard Christian, but think about just providing the basics.
: Probably your great grandparents had it harder and yet more likely they were happier than us. Well, it turns out the more pleasure we experience, the less the brain releases dopamine. It actually creates an equilibrium. If you have too much dopamine, the brain says, I gotta balance this out here. And you get less pleasure because you are seeking too much pleasure. On the other hand, when you do something difficult, Let's say you're shy and you talk to somebody on a stranger on an elevator. Don't you feel proud of yourself after doing that? What about if you climb
: a mountain or you go exercise? Every day you wake up at 6 and 5 in the morning you go exercise. You feel this dopamine rush every time you do something hard. And it turns out that physiologically our brains reward us when we put ourselves through hard things. So the more you're willing to get uncomfortable, remember I said in the very beginning of our first episode on this last time that our happiness comes from utilizing our strengths with the strategic focus on strengthening our weaknesses. When we do those difficult things, we have greater happiness and success. You've
: heard of the statement, the greater the battle, the greater the victory. Well, it turns out that that's not just a positive motivational phrase, it's science. And I just, I wanna tell 1 last story before we end. You know, I'm a behavioral analyst with PDP, Professional Dynametric Programs. Every year we have a conference and 1 of the other analysts was bragging that he helps engaged couples make sure they have happy relationships by making sure they're compatible. In other words, he'll tell you, Christian, if you take his assessment that you're gonna be happy in marriage or you're not,
: and I think that's such a load of crap. And I'll tell you why. Because if he were to assess my wife and me, he would have told us never to get married. We are more opposite, we're opposite in every way. She's high, I'm high dominant, she's low dominant. I'm high extroverted, she's low extroverted. She's high patient, I'm low patient. She's high conforming, I'm low conforming. She's short, I'm tall. She's a night person, I'm a morning person. I mean, we can't be any more different. And part of what I'm teaching here is how do we work with
: people that are different than us? Every strength that she has is my weakness. My strengths are her weaknesses. This was December 1st, New Year's Day, excuse me, January 1st, 2023, we were in LA, downtown LA, because we were going to the Rose Bowl when the University of Utah was playing Penn State. We went to the Rose Bowl and on Sunday, we went to church in inner city LA. We were driving down this main strip and we're reading all these Spanish signs and every once in a while I'd read 1 out loud and Jana would just laugh
: because she does the same thing but she doesn't do it out. She does it inside her head because she's a you know think-to-speak person. I'm a speak-to-think person. On the way home the same thing happened and I shouted out, Poo Poo Sariya, what's that? And she giggled. She says, I wanted the same thing. But you know what Spencer, you always say things out loud and and so we just had this conversation about our differences. It was really funny. She turned and she said, you know what? You're not as extroverted as you used to be and I
: think that's my fault. I said rubbish. I'm less extroverted today because I love you. You know, I love it when Janet comes home from book club or something that she's done and she just, you know, she talks to me and I can listen. But those never happen in the morning. I never talk to her in the morning. Why? Again, because I love her. Our relationship works because we value our relationship over our own personal comfort zones. Some people say, you should just be who you are. You should be with somebody who accepts you for who you
: are. And again, I say rubbish because listen, if she just accepted me for who I am, I can be a pretty terrible person. I'm a better person because I married somebody that challenged me to be better. I'm a better human being because I'm not just saying this is who I am, except me for who I am. We live in a world that thinks you're happy when there is no hardship or challenge. We have songs that say, you be you and I'll be me. I would rather be around people who inspire me to grow and develop and
: keep the best of who I am and improve those things that are weaknesses that I need to improve. And I consider you in that category, Christian. And I know we've gone a little bit long, but I just wanted to share those thoughts with you today.
58:25 - 59:02
Christian Napier: Well, I appreciate you for being real and vulnerable and what a beautiful tribute to your wife. And you know, I think 1 thing that's really important there is to distinguish between getting in a you know a situation where it's mutually beneficial as opposed to a situation where the other person is just not willing to change because that, or yourself, you're not willing to change because that can be very destructive. And so many relationships have failed because, you know, 1 person, 1 party thought in, I can change this person, right?
: But that's the world we live in. It's just utilize your strengths. Just be you.
59:07 - 59:48
Christian Napier: Not thinking, A, that that person may or may not want to change, and B, not even looking inward to think, what can I change about myself? So what you have demonstrated here, I think very ably, and what you've taught us here today is that we need to have the intestinal fortitude to look inward, then get outside of our comfort zone. And when we do that, you know, our relationships will blossom. And that is the wonderful blessing of this flexible authenticity that you're teaching us, Spencer, is that, you know, at the end of the day, it will
59:48 - 59:59
Christian Napier: help us foster more meaningful relationships with others, which will bring us the real joy in our lives that we'll feel that real dopamine.
01:00:00 - 01:00:22
Speaker 1: That you were talking about, you know, we can't do it by ourselves and it's not something that we do alone. We, you know, we are meant, we are social creatures, we're meant to be with each other. And if we can be flexibly authentic, then it will bring real satisfaction and lasting joy to our lives. So I appreciate you taking the time to teach us all here.
01:00:23 - 01:00:31
Speaker 2: No, I thank you for being patient with me to share those concepts. Something I'm very passionate about that I've been thinking a lot about.
01:00:31 - 01:00:52
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I could not tell if you were passionate or not, Spencer. I mean, you were very, just kind of low key today. I was, yeah, I was kind of wondering, well, you know, Spencer really believed what he's talking. No, no, it's clear as day to anyone who is watching or listening that this subject means a lot to you and you're very passionate about
01:00:52 - 01:01:30
Speaker 2: it. I appreciate it. The risk, I'm gonna say 1 last thing. I've talked a little bit about the parable of the talents. Well, I wanna read something that I value personally. This is a, it's a spiritual saying here. It says, and if men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness. I give unto them weakness that they may be humble and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me for if they humble themselves before me and have faith in me then will I make weak things
01:01:30 - 01:01:40
Speaker 2: become strong unto them. So not only is this science-based, experience-based, but also spiritually-based.
01:01:43 - 01:01:58
Speaker 1: May I share 1 last spiritual element to this? Yes, please. So this is the, you know, kind of going back into the scripture again, the parable of the young rich man, right? So he approaches the Savior,
01:01:59 - 01:01:59
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ,
01:01:59 - 01:02:22
Speaker 1: and he asks the question, you know, what do I lack? And the Savior goes and says, well, you've done this, this, this, I've done all these things from my youth. And the Savior says, well, 1 thing thou lackest, you know, sell everything you have and give it to the poor and he couldn't do it you know this was his 1 weakness that he was not willing to overcome
01:02:22 - 01:02:23
Speaker 2: of it
01:02:23 - 01:03:06
Speaker 1: and I've looked at that parable from a couple of different lenses 1 is you know we we have to focus on our weakness if we really want to find that joy. Number 2, Jesus told them 1 thing they'll lackest. Sometimes we beat ourselves up because We think we're trash. And here the Savior is saying, everything you do is awesome. There's just 1 thing that you need to work on. Just work on this 1 thing. And sometimes We need to give ourselves a little bit of grace. You know, we so, you know, I, but I, I think
01:03:06 - 01:03:18
Speaker 1: that parable teaches us a lot about, you know, we've got to be willing to work on our weakness. If we really, really want to achieve all our, our full potential potential.
01:03:18 - 01:03:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's the right way. Yeah.
01:03:19 - 01:03:31
Speaker 1: I agree. And realize that fullness of joy that is that is ours if we are willing to Work on our weaknesses and really become the complete human beings that were meant to be
01:03:31 - 01:03:46
Speaker 2: Well, hopefully nobody is offended by this These are universal truths that I think can be applicable no matter what your faith or belief is or or lack of of belief. If you're agnostic or atheist these are things that I think will enrich in better lives.
01:03:48 - 01:04:20
Speaker 1: I agree and yeah we we we bring you these things from a certain lens but we hope that that you know that you know we're doing it from from a place of sincerity And we believe those lessons apply irrespective of where you're at in life. So Spencer, this has been a wonderful hour. We've gone, I think this is probably a record. I don't remember the last time we went this long. If our viewers and our listeners, they want to learn more about how to become flexibly authentic. What's the best way for them to connect with you?
01:04:20 - 01:04:34
Speaker 2: Say hello to me on LinkedIn. Yeah, just reach, that's the easiest way. Find me Spencer Horn there. And how can our listeners get ahold of you, Christian? Because I know several of them want to hire you.
01:04:35 - 01:05:00
Speaker 1: Just LinkedIn, same. Just look up Christian API on LinkedIn, you'll find me there. So Spencer, a wonderful hour. Listeners, viewers, thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate it. We appreciate you. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. We'll catch you
