Rules of Resilience with Valorie Burton (Part 2)

Perry Holley:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:
And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining us. As we get started, just a reminder, if you have maybe a leadership challenge at work in the organization, maybe you’re looking for some training, I want to encourage you to go to MaxwellLeadership.com/ExecutivePodcast. There you’ll see a button that will give you the option to download the learner guide that we create for every lesson, but also to explore options. And what we talk about in these sessions is what’s going on in the real world. Organizationally, we, we have an incredible bench of facilitators and coaches and Perry’s in the field, I’m in the field, and we’re just talking about real issues. And so if we can help you there, just let us know. Well, we’re super excited because part two with Valorie is about to happen.

Chris Goede:
So much so that we, we think we need part three and four and five because as we looked at part one, we obviously went over, but we didn’t cover all the things we wanted to. So we’re going to dive into some of the practical stuff today. Valorie, thanks for being here.

Valorie Burton:
It’s fun. Thanks for having me.

Chris Goede:
Yes, we love having her here. Those of you that don’t know Valorie, I want to encourage you. Go listen to episode one and then Perry’s going to tell you a little bit about why we’re here and why Valorie’s with us today.

Perry Holley:
So rules of resilience. Just been out about a month and a half or so. Two months maybe. Fantastic tool. Go back and listen to episode one around how you put a personal resilience plan in place for your life, for your team, for your organization. I think to get started, maybe just reminding. Let’s go. What is that resilience plan.

Perry Holley:
Maybe give a high level overview of adaptive skills and protective resources and preventive measures. I’ve had to learn preventative is not a word. I keep saying preventative. It’s not preventative. It’s preventive.

Valorie Burton:
The word is preventive. Many people say preventative. And I’m like you, preventative is not a word. But someone like looked it up and sent it to me and said, oh, really? You can say that, but it seems repetitive.

Perry Holley:
Yes, it does. So anyway, sorry, a little Side note there.

Valorie Burton:
Preventive.

Perry Holley:
We’re going with preventive. All right. I like resources, effective resources, preventive measures and adaptive skills. But building this personal resilience plan and why that’s important, maybe just give our listeners and that it can be learned.

Chris Goede:
That was the biggest takeaway from last week, is that all of you go, okay, this is great. Another. No, no, this is a skill. And Valorie put it on the bottom shelf so that we can learn it. And we actually talked about examples of us in the airport being able to use that in our last week episode. So dive in.

Valorie Burton:
Yeah. So, you know, it’s not only is this a skill that can be learned, but it can be strengthened because we all have some level of resilience already. Right. You may not be able to explain and break down why you’ve been so res. Or what the common thread is through the different challenges that you’ve been able to overcome. So what I explain in Rules of Resilience is that we have a personal system of resilience, and there are three pillars in that system. And so whether you have been intentional about cultivating those or not, you still have a personal system of resilience. It just, you might have a weak one or you might have a strong one.

Valorie Burton:
Wherever you are, you can always strengthen it more. And it’s comprised of adaptive skills, which is what’s going on inside. It’s your attitude, it’s how you think, it’s how you strategize. It’s those protective resources. That’s the external stuff that you call on to help you be more resilient. It’s past experience and training. It’s people that might be able to help you. It’s resources that can help you, and then preventive measures, which is those proactive choices that you make that lessen the likelihood that you’ll have adversity or stressors in the first place.

Perry Holley:
You know, before I let you go, just thinking about. And you’re a mom and we’re parents as well, but I just think that I’ve been noticing at home, I’ve had a real chance to talk about some of these with younger folks, that. Good point. That emotions tend to run a little high and a little hot and upset. And it’s not just for younger folks. It can be for anyone. But I just know that, have you seen. We talk a lot about business and leadership and all that, but leading in my home, I’ve noticed this is a great teaching opportunity around how to deal with life.

Valorie Burton:
Absolutely.

Perry Holley:
Have you seen that?

Valorie Burton:
Absolutely. Now, the place Where I first learned, like, the research, a lot of the research around resilience was when I was in grad school at the University of Pennsylvania. Interestingly, a lot of the work that they initially did over time was with kids.

Perry Holley:
Oh, wow. Interesting.

Valorie Burton:
I really believe resilience should be learned in schools. It should be taught at a very young age so that we’re practicing and understanding and not so surprised by the unexpected, but able to like, shift gears and go, oh, here’s what I need to do. Because I’m now dealing with an unexpected challenge or I’m trying to succeed, but the doubts are coming.

Chris Goede:
Et ceter, somebody said something about me on social media, right? Like all of the pressures that they have now, different than when Perry was growing up or when we were growing up. Right.

Valorie Burton:
Different set of pressures.

Chris Goede:
But yeah, they’re dealing with that. And that’s a brilliant idea to be thinking about this teaching at that level.

Valorie Burton:
One of my biggest compliments so far when we talk about feedback for the book is our middle child, my bonus daughter Addie, had texted me one day. She’s a freshman in college, and she was like, hey, can I get in your audible? I want to listen to the book. Well, of course you can.

Perry Holley:
Yes, absolutely.

Valorie Burton:
And while she was reading, she would text me ever so often and go, oh, awesome. Oh my goodness, I didn’t know this. Or this is so helpful. I’m recommending that she named two friends. She’s like, they need to read this. And so, you know, this is very practical stuff. It’s for us as executives, as leaders. But I mean, your six year old needs resilience too.

Valorie Burton:
You know, they need to understand when something doesn’t go their way. How do I handle this and what do I need to not be so surprised by what am I saying to myself? And is it helping me? Right, or is it causing a tantrum? That’s right, all of those things. But especially when we look at teens, there’s more anxiety than ever before. They’re dealing with so, so much.

Perry Holley:
Totally agree. Making them just awareness that you have a choice here around how you receive whatever’s happening and how you view it and how you your next step. These are all part of your plan. And can you become more resilient? I thought, I wish I’d have had it at a much earlier age to think through how I can control myself a little more. And it goes to this EQ aspect of how you handle your emotions and letting things get on top of you. So fighting back from all the stress and stressors that are happening around us.

Chris Goede:
I think the principles. No, I know the principles are the same. It’s how we communicate them to different levels. Like, I’m thinking about your example. Right. Like we would talk about it with an executive team. The principle is the same. The language and the words are a little bit different than a six year old.

Valorie Burton:
Exactly.

Chris Goede:
About how we’re going to control what we can control. Right. Like no mom is going to do this now. You get to control what your behavior is and what that looks like. And when we think about kids, it’s always, I always. I would say, hey, let’s not be reactive to a coach, to a boss, to a leader. Like, let’s think through and proactively. How are we going to present ourselves? And in essence, we could begin teaching this at all levels.

Chris Goede:
So yeah, we could do a whole lesson on parenting around this topic.

Valorie Burton:
Parenting requires a lot.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Valorie Burton:
Yes.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Okay.

Chris Goede:
I was gonna go how we would teach our kids resilience. I’m going now where Valorie is, which.

Perry Holley:
Is as parents, we need to become extremely resilient parents.

Chris Goede:
I was talking to my sister last night on the PH and she’s raising 14 year old twin boys right now. And she’s like, hey, would you two. Talking to Sarah and I, my wife, would you two just. Would you come over and just parent for about a week? And then we’re on speakerphone. I go, no. She’s like, wow, that was awful fast and kind of rude. I’m like, yeah, I don’t know how we got through it. We survived.

Chris Goede:
Right. I’m done.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Chris Goede:
And it’s just so. You’re exactly right. Maybe we ought to do it on how to parent now. We talked in the last episode. We used a lot of the language around these rules, but what we didn’t do is slow down a little bit to let Valorie talk about the importance of each one of the rules. Just so you get a really good understanding. So I’m going to go through the first five, just get you to react against them. Tell them a little bit about again.

Chris Goede:
Remember, we’re talking to leaders and organizational leaders and to teams and the power of this. And then Perry’s going to jump into the next five, lead you through that. You ready? Because I feel like if we just keep talking, we will never get to this. I’m going to stop the conversation. First one. And I love that this is number one. Expect the unexpected.

Valorie Burton:
Yes.

Chris Goede:
Talk to us.

Valorie Burton:
That is the foundational. And the second half of that really is. And be ready to handle it. Expect Expect the unexpected. Stop being so shocked by the unexpected. Be ready for it when it happens. And so this is an important rule for two reasons. And I think this is an important thing for us to talk about around resilience, that it’s not just for bad things that happen.

Valorie Burton:
It’s not just, oh, my goodness, things are not going as planned things. You know, whatever the negative is, it’s important for that. And we often think of resilience just for overcoming a setback or something negative that has happened. But we need resilience for the unexpected opportunities that happen.

Chris Goede:
Great point.

Valorie Burton:
And so, you know, I start the book off talking about Michelle Williams, the former member of Destiny’s Child, and how she got thrust into this opportunity to be a part of one of the best selling groups of all time when they were replacing a member of the team. And that was such. It was a moving train. So she had to jump in and just learn it and go with it and show up confident at the same time. She talks. You know how she’d walk into a room with Beyonce and with Kelly Rowland and knowing the fans were like, where are the other people? Who is this?

Perry Holley:
Right?

Valorie Burton:
But she had to keep showing up with that level of confidence of knowing, hey, they wanted me in this group, I have what it takes. I’ve been preparing for this. She had done some pretty major things already that were preparing her and all of us sometimes hopefully end up with those unexpected opportunities. The question is, are you gonna be ready for it?

Chris Goede:
So.

Valorie Burton:
Or will you somehow, when that big opportunity comes, let the doubt, the anxiety, the lack of confidence actually undermine where you’re really trying to go? And I think that’s a really important point here around resilience. It’s not just for the negatives, it’s for the positives too.

Perry Holley:
It kind of counterintuitive to some people when you say it because they say, well, our example last week, we’re at the airport, flights are canceled, there’s little hope of anything happening. And then I say, rule one, expect the unexpected. Was I supposed to expect that my flight would be canceled? Well, flights get canceled, right?

Valorie Burton:
It happens.

Perry Holley:
Is that a total surprise, Perry, that flights don’t? Sometimes.

Valorie Burton:
And you knew there was a shutdown.

Perry Holley:
I knew the government had been shut down for weeks and the FAA was not, you know, so really, Perry, was it that unexpected? I go, you start questioning yourself, going, but then you go to my system, what are my adaptive resources? How am I thinking about this unexpected? It should have been expected. How am I thinking about these things? And then what are my resources that I could call on? And then what are preventive? What can I have done in advance? All of a sudden it starts to make sense. But a lot of people push back on that one thinking and it can.

Valorie Burton:
Lower your stress level. So, for example, we can be shocked by things that happen repeatedly because maybe we don’t know which thing is going to happen.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Valorie Burton:
But if you really think about it, you know that the project never goes exactly as you planned.

Perry Holley:
That’s right.

Chris Goede:
We have contingency plans and line items and funds.

Valorie Burton:
And so what’s the point of getting all worked up when it doesn’t? You might not know exactly what’s going to go wr, but you know something, it’s gonna. It’s gonna.

Perry Holley:
Team meeting ever come off without something? Right? No. So we expect it. It’s gonna.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. I have five. I have five examples right now. I’d like to share. I like what you said, though. Expect the opportunities in front of you as business leaders. I think one of the things that we. No, I know we have to.

Chris Goede:
We’ve gotta be ready to take advantage of opportunities when they show up. And so are you expecting this? Are you expecting that?

Perry Holley:
What.

Chris Goede:
What is that for your business or your team? And to begin to think about it like that, differently. That’s a great thought. All right. Rule number two, okay. Choose thoughts that strengthen you. Again, we talked about this last week in the example. Expand on that a little bit for us.

Valorie Burton:
You have got to raise your thought awareness in the face of a stress or in the face of a challenge. What are you saying to yourself? Because sometimes if you’re not aware of your thoughts, and it’s really your thoughts are getting in your way because your thoughts lead to what you feel, what you say, what you do. Right. So if you are feeling anxious, there is some sort of thought that danger is on the horizon, you’re not gonna be able to handle it. Some variation of, I can’t do this, something’s gonna overwhelm me completely. Sometimes you’re saying something to yourself and you’ve never said it out loud. And if you would become aware of your thoughts, you would realize how ridiculous the thought is that you’re having.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, that’s so good.

Valorie Burton:
But the power of that is that you get to decide, am I going to keep this thought, or is there a different way to think of it? Right. So you might say, you know, your example you gave last week of, you know, my flight got canceled. I’m trying to see the grandkids. The thought could actually Be I am an awful dad and grandpa. I should have planned to come three days earlier so I would have had.

Perry Holley:
It’s only 1200 miles.

Valorie Burton:
And so sometimes we don’t notice all the things that we are saying. And so really being intentional about being aware of your thoughts helps you put things into perspective.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Valorie Burton:
To choose thoughts that actually move you forward. I can’t do this may turn into, you know, I haven’t done this before but this is going to be an opportunity for me to rally resources and learn something new. I haven’t done this before but I’ve done some other things that were actually harder than this. And so when you say that to yourself suddenly you have more confidence. So it’ really important to notice what you’re saying to yourself because sometimes our thoughts are really out there.

Perry Holley:
We get a really bad habit of not thinking. I have a choice that I might. I have a default thought and I have to go with it. No, no I don’t. I can actually stop that and and choose a thought.

Valorie Burton:
Yes.

Perry Holley:
I love it. Thought awareness. That’s a great.

Valorie Burton:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Concept.

Valorie Burton:
You know what, what shows up as a thought that you get to choose whether you keep.

Chris Goede:
Okay so let me, let me build off this minute this best selling author America’s coach. What I call her. I don’t want you to coach me right here in this situation but maybe on one rides home when I’m calling you from sitting Atlanta traffic. You know what I was thinking about when you talked about that? The thought I tell myself in that situation. So I’m wired as all kinds of personality assessments. Right. Enneagram3 and achiever. In that situation I would be telling myself dad Gummet like I didn’t get Sarah to the grandkids.

Chris Goede:
Like I like I would be immediately because of how maybe somebody’s listening and going well that’s just how I’m wired. But what I love about what you just said is and I’m coaching myself right now, I’m thinking about it like I immediately go to that because I didn’t achieve what we set out to do. So however you’re wired, I love you said we’re going to have an immediate thought but we don’t have to stay in that thought. And that’s where these rules come in. Because then when you’re talking about hey, I need to go ahead and choose the thoughts that strengthen me right now. Telling me that negative story as an achiever and not achieving it is not what’s going to strengthen me in that situation. Remember I said don’t coach me right here in front of 8 million people. And Sarah’s listening.

Valorie Burton:
But we want to help the people too.

Chris Goede:
Yes. Okay.

Valorie Burton:
Okay.

Chris Goede:
All right.

Valorie Burton:
So just bear with me. I got a question. Because you said I didn’t get Sarah. I’m not getting Sarah to the grandkids, which is a fact.

Chris Goede:
Correct. But.

Valorie Burton:
But there’s something you’re telling. And since I didn’t get Sarah to the grandkids, what is that? What’s the negative thing that says about me?

Chris Goede:
Correct.

Valorie Burton:
That’s the thought.

Chris Goede:
That’s correct. And what I just picked up on too was I didn’t. It wasn’t my I, it was the faa. It was a government shutdown.

Valorie Burton:
You’re claiming yourself.

Chris Goede:
Correct. But as an achiever, like when I set out, it don’t matter what’s in my way. I’m gonna go get that.

Valorie Burton:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
And so I wanted to share that, just be vulnerable. But as that’s how I’m wired. And so however you are wired, you gotta have the self awareness to be able to understand and then apply these rules of resilience. And you can immediate have a different thought pattern in how you go about that. And each of us are wired, by the way. So is your team. We talk about leading our team the way they need to be led. We need to be aware.

Chris Goede:
And we talked last week about the conversations that we’re hearing as leaders. Being alert and aware of what’s going on can help you drive and change the culture. We’re only through three. We’re going to speed this up a little bit.

Perry Holley:
We’re going to do picking up paper.

Chris Goede:
We’re going to get it. All right, so number we’re going to talk about Rule 4 or control the control balls.

Valorie Burton:
Right.

Chris Goede:
Talk us a little bit about that.

Valorie Burton:
Control the controllable. Accept the rest.

Chris Goede:
Accept the rest.

Valorie Burton:
Change everything except the rest. Oftentimes we’re worked up about things that are not within our control.

Chris Goede:
Can’t control it. That’s right.

Valorie Burton:
It’s called an external locus of control. Right. The most successful people have an internal locus of control. They look at what can I control. I can control my attitude. I can control how I strategize. I can control whether I ask for help. I can control the choices that I make right now.

Valorie Burton:
Right. I don’t control whether the government shut. Right. I don’t control some decisions the company may be making that I don’t have influence over. Right. I don’t control the weather. I don’t control whether the flight got canceled. Right.

Valorie Burton:
But what Do I control? This creates a big shift, and it’s an acceptance of these things. I don’t control. What do I control? And then you actually begin being proactive about the things that are within your control. And there is something about that. Yes. That lowers our stress level because we’re like, okay, this is what it is, but what can I do? I don’t have to show up miserable. I don’t have to have a negative attitude about it. I don’t have to make this more difficult or complicated than it needs to be.

Valorie Burton:
And so those things actually shift how we show up and how we manage our challenges.

Chris Goede:
When you do that too, and you’re able to control that, this leads to the next rule. What I love about that is when you’re in that mindset and you can do that, you can then begin asking yourself questions of how do I rally my resources? Which is another rule. The power of things that we have at our disposal. All of us have different things, and how do we rally them in order to help us in that situation? Give us a little bit more context behind that one.

Valorie Burton:
Yeah, I think what’s really important with rallying your resources, really tapping into that second pillar of protective resources, but being intentional, I think, about really cultivating your resources. You begin looking at, for example, your relationships a bit differently. You don’t want to sever relationships just unnecessarily. You want to treat your relationships with a sense of reverence and appreciation. Not only because sometimes it’s about what you’re going to be able to do for others and what you learn from that, but also someone else might be the answer to a future challenge that you have. So really rallying those resources, mentors that you may have, connections that you may have, you look at your money differently because you realize it’s a resource.

Chris Goede:
It’s a resource.

Valorie Burton:
It’s a protective resource that can help you when you’re dealing with a challenge in a corporate environment, you’re looking at that budget a bit differently. You may look at your ability to influence that budget.

Perry Holley:
That’s great.

Valorie Burton:
A bit differently, because now you’re seeing your influence as a protective resource, which goes back to the relationships. So it’s an easy one to remember, rally your resources, but it’s also about you being very intentional about cultivating those resources. And I want to point out, because everybody, you know, we all have a different level of resources at our disposal. So rallying your resources is also about being able to show up with authenticity right when there is a need. Sometimes rallying your Resources means finding somebody who’s already been there and done that.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Valorie Burton:
What would they recommend? When did they go through a similar situation? Because now they’re giving you their knowledge. Knowledge is a resource.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Valorie Burton:
They’re giving you their wisdom. And so rallying your resources isn’t just, oh, I don’t have the money.

Chris Goede:
No, no.

Valorie Burton:
Resources do you have at your disposal that will help you navigate your challenge?

Perry Holley:
Good.

Chris Goede:
All right, the last one for me I want you to cover is rule 8, which is find the opportunity in the challenge.

Valorie Burton:
Yes. Yeah.

Chris Goede:
Optimistic approach.

Valorie Burton:
So optimism is a strength for me.

Chris Goede:
Yes, it is. Positive psychology is your background. I love it.

Valorie Burton:
But it really is about realistic optimism. Right. So when there is a problem or potential risk, you want to be able to see it. But to be optimistic about your ability to find a plan, to work through or work around it, or to come up with a plan B or C or D, that’s what is really important here. So the coaching question you want to be asking yourself in the face of just about any challenge is what’s the opportunity in this challenge? Because if we just see it as a challenge or stressor, it’s there to make you miserable as opposed to, is there an opportunity in it? That does not mean that you would choose the challenge if you could do it over and over.

Chris Goede:
Correct? That’s right.

Valorie Burton:
It means that if you’re dealing with it, you’re going to glean a lesson from it, you’re going to get some wisdom from it. Or, you know, the challenge could be maybe there’s. You know, many of us have been through a situation where a client goes away or we endure a layoff or a spouse or one of our kids deals with a layoff, but at the end of the day, maybe it pointed you in another direction that ended up having some benefits. Right. And so when you realize there may be an opportunity in the challenge, you look at that challenge very differently.

Perry Holley:
See, a girl broke up with me in college, opened the door for me to meet her next door neighbor who was now my wife.

Valorie Burton:
There we go. Perfect example.

Chris Goede:
The great philosopher Garth Brooks once had a song that said unanswered prayers. I’m grateful for a lot of unanswered prayers back in high school and college.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I love it.

Perry Holley:
Now we’ve really got off. Resilience. Way to go. So just a reminder, we’re talking about rules of resilience. There’s a personal resilience system that you can build. It’s built of three pillars, adaptive skills, which are the inside, the way you think and what’s going on inside of you, Protective resources, things that you put around you that are kind of external to you, and preventive measures that your future self. Thank you. And then on top of that, 10 rules.

Perry Holley:
I think it’s important to say the 10 rules don’t line up under the pillars. The 10 rules weave in and out of the three pillars and they apply all over the place. So we covered five. The next one has to be rule number three. Focus on the vision, not the obstacle. This paid big with me with Delta that night. Go ahead.

Valorie Burton:
So it can be very easy when obstacles show up for us to laser focus on them. And when we focus in front of you, they start feeling bigger and bigger and bigger. So much so that the obstacle can start to crowd out the vision. You’re not even seeing what the goal is. You’re just so focused on the obstacles. It’s really important to use your vision as a tool, like a magnet that pulls you forward.

Perry Holley:
What are we trying to accomplish in this? This didn’t work. What could? But we don’t forget where we’re going. The plan might not have worked, but the vision didn’t change.

Valorie Burton:
This is really important when, for example, as a team, you get overly focused on talking about the problem, even amongst team members, can you believe they did this? And it just becomes like a whole back and forth. All you’re focused on is the problem. And so at some point, and as a coach, oftentimes I have just paused clients and said, hey, so what do you want? What do you want? Is one of the most simple and powerful questions you can coach yourself with. And it points you to the vision. Right? So you may be having a challenge with a team member and all you’re focused on is what they are doing wrong or what problem this is creating. The bigger question is, what do you want? What do you want in this relationship with this team member? What do you want as a team now? What would have to change? What action, what step would need to happen in order to move in that direction? And sometimes you find there’s a whole list of things and you may even find your part in it, right? Even if the other person is 80, 90%. Did you set a boundary? Were you clear about the instructions that were given? Did you communicate well? Has the person had a chance to kind of share their perspective and vent a little? Maybe we just need to get that cleared out and then we can see the vision again. But when we over focus on the obstacle, we can actually get stuck there and go Down a rabbit hole and forget what the overall vision is.

Perry Holley:
Now you’re back to controlling the controllables instead of. Of all over the place about things I can’t control. What do you want? I love this question.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, it’s a great question.

Perry Holley:
All right. This one, I think needs Rule 6. It says, Close your growth gap. And I find that when I tell this to people, it gets a little muddy. So put some clarity around. What are you talking about? A growth gap.

Valorie Burton:
So all of us, whenever we set goals, we tend to think of them as what I call performance goals. They’re very measurable. Right. It’s the revenue that’s going to come in the house that you’re going to buy. If it’s personal goal. Right. How much you’re going to weigh this time next year. They can be very, very easy to say if I look, you reached it.

Valorie Burton:
You didn’t reach it. Unfortunately, most people don’t identify how they’re going to need to grow in order to get to where they want to go. And your growth gap is the way you’re going to need to grow to get there. Because if you didn’t need to grow, in some ways, you probably would already be at that point.

Chris Goede:
That’s great. That’s what I was thinking about. Yeah.

Valorie Burton:
So we like to look at what steps do I need to take. But I mean, you can have two people with the same goal. One person takes the steps, the other person is back here stuck. They might be overanalyzing. It might be fear that’s in the way. It might be a lack of leadership skills that’s getting in the way. And so making sure that every single one of your goals has a growth goal that goes in it. And that growth goal explains how you’re going to close the gap between where you are and where you are.

Perry Holley:
Is this where you introduce Mindset? Did you work with Carol Dweck?

Valorie Burton:
I never had the opportunity to work with Carol Dweck, but she wrote Mindset, did so much work on growth. Mindset. Mindset that is just so life changing.

Perry Holley:
Sounds really good. And to add that in here, to think that I have this great place I want to go, but am I able? And so what is my growth goal that I need to develop in me so that I can attain that and.

Valorie Burton:
Not being afraid of growth. A lot of times we look at areas where we need to grow. That’s just not my area. You don’t have to be perfect in the area where you need to grow. But if there were 1, 2, 3, things that you might be willing to stretch and do a little differently. It could completely open up the pathway to where you’re really wanting to go.

Perry Holley:
And the term was about getting unstuck, that sometimes resilience helps us get unstuck.

Valorie Burton:
Absolutely.

Perry Holley:
And when I’m not having resilience, I’m feeling stuck. I’m never gonna make it. I’m never gonna do it. Well, now I have my growth goal. The Next 1, Rule 7 said, I love this one. Don’t pretend, don’t defend. Yes, this is a good one.

Valorie Burton:
Yeah. So authenticity is a hallmark of resilience. And so, you know, you cannot conque what you won’t confront. So it’s really important to notice where you might be pretending there’s not really a problem. Right. So the don’t pretend is don’t pretend things that are okay that are not.

Chris Goede:
That’s right. It’s real.

Valorie Burton:
And as a leader, this is so important because, you know, there may be some things you don’t really want to deal with. Pretending that you know where this is going is okay, what this person is doing is okay, and you know it’s not. Yeah, don’t pretend, don’t pretend is about, you know, really what you’re saying to yourself, pretending to yourself, don’t defend, is when you expect other people to pretend with you. Right. So when they bring up the issue and they see the issue and you get defensive, we’re all like, right? It’s a sign.

Chris Goede:
That’s so fun.

Valorie Burton:
I talk in the book about some work in the aviation industry that I learned from my husband, who’s a pilot. And many people don’t realize that over the last about 25 years or so, the rate of, like, fatalities from commercial airline accidents in the United States plummeted.

Perry Holley:
Thankfully, yes.

Valorie Burton:
Up through the 90s, hundreds of people per year died in commercial airline accidents. And the main thing that changed in the US is that this program was implemented that allowed pilots to self report errors without their license being pulled or them having some kind of penalty or punishment. And then the aviation industry said, hey, we’re going to study, right? We’re going to notice first of all, our pilots self reporting a similar error. And we need to pay attention to that. We can go to the aircraft makers. We can actually share information between airlines. We can use this in our training. And so by allowing them not to pretend that that something didn’t go wrong, but to actually be able to report it, it gave them the information to start saying, how can we keep people safer?

Perry Holley:
Yes. Wow. Fantastic. Rule 9 says this is a good one too. Know when to grit, know when to quit.

Valorie Burton:
Yes.

Chris Goede:
I think you need to go back. If you haven’t listened to episode one. I think actually Perry talked about a personal example. He uses this.

Perry Holley:
Well, this is how it ended up with the flights canceled and grandkids waiting and all that was just don’t pretend that it’s, that this is government thing’s going to shut down. It’s going to end tonight and I’m going to go tomorrow. As I said, we could grit this out and go stay up till midnight and catch a flight that actually did and that we checked it, it did go, but it got in at 4am which would have disrupted the entire family. It would have been a mess. And we could have gritted it out, but we decided to quit. We said, is it really safe to fly right now? Is this really something we should be paying attention to? Is this really, you know, keep the vision in mind and pass the obstacles? I was employing all of these to do that. But give me a couple words on what. Know when to grit.

Perry Holley:
Know when to quit.

Valorie Burton:
Yeah. So you know, grit is our passion and perseverance for, you know, long term goals. And we tend to think of as just sticking with something. But sometimes, sometimes and most of us grew up with, you know, never give up. You know, quitters never win, winners never quit. But that’s not actually true all the time.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Valorie Burton:
You’ve got to have purpose in what you’re doing and sometimes quitting is the best option. Like you said, Perry, you could come up with another option later. Doesn’t mean you’re quitting on seeing your grandkids, of course, but right now might not be the right time. And so being able to give yourself permission to analyze and say, when should I keep going? And again, that passion for perseverance, you’ve got to have passion for what it is that you are doing. And that means having a sense of purpose in what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. So when you think about that as a team, sometimes you, you’ve picked up initiatives and it was good for a season and you just keep doing it because it’s what you’ve always done.

Perry Holley:
That’s right.

Valorie Burton:
But is it time to say, hey, this was good for that season but some things have shifted and changed. If we shifted our strategy, we would actually be in a much better place. Right. We see a lot of companies doing that now with AI. Right. So 10 years ago this wasn’t so much of a concern. But Maybe the way you’ve been doing it isn’t going to really be a good thing. As you move forward, you may need to change strategy.

Valorie Burton:
So know when to grit. No one to stick with it, because sometimes you’re very close to your breakthrough, but sometimes quitting is actually a really good thing.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I mean, cut your losses. I think about, from a business perspective of, you know, coming out of January, you look at it and you go, do we need to keep doing that? Right. Like, and then what does that impact have on the team? And sometimes you do.

Perry Holley:
You just need.

Chris Goede:
You need to quit doing it. I often see businesses that stay too long where they end up slowly dying versus, hey, we’re just gonna. We’re gonna quit this. We’re gonna go a different direction. And that’s how you. That’s how you build a resilient team in a resilient organization. Okay, rule number 10. Okay.

Chris Goede:
Close your energy gap. In the first part with you, we talked a little bit about energy. Talk to the audience, explain this about this energy gap, and then how do you close it?

Valorie Burton:
Yeah. So this one, for me was the biggest revelation because I don’t think we talk enough about the energy that is required to be successful and the energy that’s required to be resilient. So, for example, we just talked about know when to grit, know when to quit. Grit takes a lot of energy. Right. So if you think about the challenge in front of you and you rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. Right. And probably we talk about big leadership challenges.

Valorie Burton:
Probably up there. Eight, nine, A ten.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Valorie Burton:
And then you ask yourself, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much energy do I have right now? Meaning mental energy, physical energy?

Chris Goede:
Do you want me to answer that right now or, like, is people missing you out? Yeah, that’s. I mean, it’s so true.

Valorie Burton:
Yeah. So if your energy is a five and you look at all the challenges in front. When I say challenges, I don’t just mean the one goal. I mean, how many goals are there? Right. What are the changes you’re having to make adjustments to what’s going on in your personal life as it relates to what’s happening professionally? Yeah. Right. When you put all of that together, if you’re at a 10 and your energy is at a 5, you’ve got a pretty big energy gap. And so you’ve got to be able to replenish your energy, but you replenishing is about your reserves.

Valorie Burton:
Right?

Perry Holley:
Right.

Valorie Burton:
Sometimes we not only don’t have enough energy, we have run through reserves and so you may find yourself at a point where you had, you know, used to be passionate, you used to have all the energy and now for the same things, you just feel burned out.

Perry Holley:
Is this a protective resource or a preventive measure? Both. That you protect your.

Valorie Burton:
This goes through all the pillars. Yeah. Because you’re looking at, it deals with mental energy. Right. Decision fatigue, for example. Right. As a leader, you’re making decisions all day long. When you find yourself at the point where person’s asking one more question and you’re snapping at them about a simple question, you know, you may have a little decision fitness, your mental resources are finite.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Valorie Burton:
It’s not exhaustive. So you’ve got to make sure that, okay, are you making too many decisions as a leader? When we, we all know you should be delegating, you should be developing your people.

Perry Holley:
That’s right.

Valorie Burton:
But that’s actually one of the ways that you gain more energy. And you may feel like it’s going to take me so much time to do that. Right. But that’s a preventive measure. I’m going to invest the time on the front end to develop my people.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Valorie Burton:
And then so that on back it, I’m going to realize, oh my gosh, look how much energy that my future.

Perry Holley:
Self will thank me for that because yeah, yeah, yeah. So good.

Valorie Burton:
So it, it threads through all of it is the emotional energy. And this for me is kind of fun because my, my favorite subject in positive psychology is is this research around positive emotion. And the reason is because we tend to think, oh, you know, if I’m successful at this, whatever this is the money I’m going to make, the relationship I’m going to have, then I’ll be happy. Happy. But the research shows it’s the other way around. It’s not our success that causes long term happiness, it is our happiness that actually causes us to be successful. Because when we experience positive emotion, it does a host of things. It actually broadens your scope of thinking so you’re actually more creative.

Valorie Burton:
When you experience more positive emotion, you actually make better decisions. When you’re in a positive state of mind, you actually build stronger relationships, which should be an obvious one. Right. We all like being around people who are more positive. And so that’s one of the ways we build up. When you’re going through difficult times, it’s even more important to make sure you’re as much as possible cutting out the negative. You know, be around that friend, that team member that makes you laugh or is more light hearted. Right.

Valorie Burton:
So There’s a lot of different ways we build up and close that energy gap. But as a leader, you’ve got to really notice and notice your impact on your team. Right. Because that’s impacting their energy gaps. Yeah, yeah.

Perry Holley:
As you.

Chris Goede:
And we said, leadership is contagious. And Perry says all the time. People are watching you all the time.

Perry Holley:
All the time, all the time.

Chris Goede:
And I love what you said as you kind of wrapped up there. And this is. I mean, we are just skimming the top of the waves here, of the content that’s in. In this book that Valorie wrote. But literally, your happiness, right, Your energy and happiness will drive the success of. Of the team. And it’s how you’re going to show up. It’s how you’re going to show up.

Chris Goede:
So as we wrap up today, let me give a couple closing thoughts. And. And then we. With episode four, it feels like we’ve done just on record. You now hold the record with two consecutives. The most word spoken, the longest podcast just. It’s been so engaging. Right.

Chris Goede:
This is so relevant to us as leaders. And, yeah, like, for that, yes, we’re going to send you a podcast. Speaking of plaques, I was thinking about this. Resilience is, you know, it’s not something you think about culture. And everybody goes, oh, we got the values on the wall and that’s our culture. Whatever. No, same thing with resilience. It’s not a plaque on the wall.

Chris Goede:
Leaders, we’ve got to live this out. We got to understand these rules. We have to model it. And especially when we’re under pressure, like when things get tough or we’re back into a corner or we’re at the airport and we’re sharing a story, we’ve got to model that as leaders because then our team, it’s contagious. Our team is going to follow that. And so we just want to encourage you as we wrap up. When Valorie went after this, her thing was, man, I want to. For the individual contributor, I’m going to write this.

Chris Goede:
Everybody’s got a plan. Everybody’s got something inside. I’m going to help them articulate and bring that out. But we also thought about your team. We also thought about the organization. How do we become more resilient, especially with. Think about the amount of change that organizations go through now more than ever. You wrote a course for us on leading through change.

Chris Goede:
This is part of what needs to be talked about, is how do we become resilient? I just want to encourage you to go to MaxwellLeadership.com/ExecutivePodcast there click on the Explore options and in the box just put resilience and we’ll follow right up with you. Perry is the lead facilitator on this. Really hand in hand with Valorie and we developed the training and we would love to serve and add value to you at that time. Content piece.

Perry Holley:
So terrific. Well thank you Chris. Thank you Valorie. Thank you. What a great opportunity to learn that. This is a skill that we need to be developing and you get so many opportunities every day to practice it. I’m learning. There’s no lack of time to practice this.

Perry Holley:
So as Chris said, if you’d like to get the learner guide, learn more about resilience or other offerings, the five levels of leadership, you can do all that at MaxwellLeadership.com/ExecutivePodcast. You can also leave a comment or a question for us there. We love hearing from you and very grateful you’d spend this time with us today. Today. That’s all from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.

Transcript created by Castmagic.