The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:04 - 00:00:38:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Lots of discussion about leadership development is all around skills, and rightfully so. But what about character? And more specifically, what about character skills? It's a fascinating and valuable conversation for us to have, which is exactly why we're having it today. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger, positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world.

00:00:38:20 - 00:00:57:02
Kevin Eikenberry
If you're listening to this podcast, you could join us in the future for live episodes on your favorite social media platform. Well, unless your social media platform is something that we don't or we aren't on, like if your favorite is discord. Well, then I'm not. I can't help you with that. But but seriously, we're on a multiple platforms, and we'd love to have you join us.

00:00:57:02 - 00:01:14:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Then, if you want to do that. You can get this information sooner. By the way, no disrespect to discord in that comment. So you can get access to these live, but you need to know when they're going to be right. So if you're connected to us and the podcast itself on LinkedIn or Facebook, we make announcements about when those are going to be.

00:01:14:20 - 00:01:53:11
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's the best way for you to find out. So join our group, for Facebook by going to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or our LinkedIn group at remarkable podcast.com/linkedin. How about that? Today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, Flexible Leadership Navigate Uncertainty and Lead with Confidence. It's time to realize that styles can get in our way, and that following our strengths might not always be the best approach in a world more complex and uncertain than ever, leaders need a new perspective and a new set of tools to create the great results that their organizations and team members want and need.

00:01:53:12 - 00:02:19:03
Kevin Eikenberry
That's what flexible leadership provides you. Learn more and order your copy at remarkable podcast.com/flexible. Seems logical to do that. I hope you will do exactly that and let me. I can get my mouse to cooperate. There we go. There she is, the lovely and talented Meredith Bell. Let me introduce her and then we will dive in. Meredith Bell is the co-founder and president of Grow Strong Leaders.

00:02:19:05 - 00:02:48:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Her company publishes online tools that help leaders strengthen their character and communication skills so they can build strong relationships and inspire others to perform at the highest level. Meredith is the author of three books and the host of the Grow Strong Leaders podcast, which I have been a guest on. She believes in building strong relationships herself. She and her two business partners have worked together for 31 years, and many of the customers have done business with them for over 20 years.

00:02:48:16 - 00:02:58:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Is a pleasure to introduce Meredith to all of you because like I said, I've known it for a long time, but this is the first time she's been on the show, so. Meredith, welcome.

00:02:58:18 - 00:03:03:02
Meredith Bell
Thank you. Kevin, I'm excited to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

00:03:03:04 - 00:03:31:17
Kevin Eikenberry
So let's see, we've got we've got hellos from Irving, Texas. Good morning, Christina and the metroplex. And we've got Paula from Ohio. So we had two people that have that have done as I asked. So if others of you are here follow their lead, tell us where you're located. So, so, Meredith, your, your bio or the intro that I used is, is pretty straightforward and to the point.

00:03:31:19 - 00:03:56:18
Kevin Eikenberry
It doesn't really tell us a lot about you beyond that, I'm curious, like, you've been in this business for a long time, but I'm guessing when you were a ten year old girl, you probably didn't figure that you'd be in the business of leadership development. So, like, how do you how do you get here? Give us a little bit more about the journey that gets Meredith to doing this great work.

00:03:56:18 - 00:03:58:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And I was having this conversation.

00:03:58:22 - 00:04:23:16
Meredith Bell
So funny you said when I was ten years old, because I know exactly what I was doing and wanted to do when I was ten, which was be a teacher. I would organize kids, you know, into a classroom, and I would be the teacher. And I ended up going into that profession, elementary school. But you know what happened, Kevin is after a few years, I realized I didn't care for the repetitive lesson plans.

00:04:23:18 - 00:04:38:12
Meredith Bell
And so I ended up getting my masters and I got into various school board positions, being a supervisor and then a director of federal programs. And then I realized I don't do bureaucracy very well, and I'm down to politics very well.

00:04:38:14 - 00:04:44:11
Kevin Eikenberry
So what you're saying is you can't find a stuff about a job that you didn't do well, so you kept finding it. Moving on to something else.

00:04:44:11 - 00:05:08:09
Meredith Bell
I yeah. And so with no business background at all, I decided to leave, which was really strange back then, because once you had a job in education, especially at the levels I achieved, it was like you got it made, but that wasn't fulfilling to me. So one of the things I had always loved, though, besides the teaching, was I was fascinated around communication skills.

00:05:08:10 - 00:05:35:12
Meredith Bell
I had done a lot of trainings for teachers, and so I decided to start my own business and started doing trainings for small businesses initially, and then expanding to larger organizations around interpersonal skills. And that led to working with a lot of leaders and doing leadership development in a variety of areas. But the core was always around how you show up, how you interact with others.

00:05:35:12 - 00:06:06:17
Meredith Bell
Who are you being in this job as a leader? And then in 91, I met Danny Coates. He was a solo consultant doing similar work. We started collaborating and put our two businesses together and brought in a third partner. At that time, and we've been working together ever since. We made another major shift in 94 to become a product company, rather than conducting trainings and doing consulting work, because we felt we could have a greater impact.

00:06:06:17 - 00:06:30:08
Meredith Bell
And honestly, we were looking for a 360 feedback tool at the time in the early 90s and a good one that met our needs didn't exist, so we decided to create one. So we hired a developer and, beta tested it with clients and realized we've got something here. So we made another leap into something we'd never done, which was via software company, and we've just never looked back.

00:06:30:08 - 00:06:56:04
Meredith Bell
So we're now into 33 years of working together and still just as passionate as ever about making a difference in the lives of leaders. Because we know when we do that and help them be more effective in how they show up and how they interact with others, that is going to have a ripple effect with, everybody else in their lives, both at work and at home.

00:06:56:06 - 00:07:19:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, that's a great that's a great through line to where we're headed, because I mentioned it in the open and it's really where we're going to focus. We're gonna talk a lot about Danny's latest book, Grow Strong Character, which obviously you're a part of, even though you're not on the cover of. And so I want to start with that word character, and I want to explore that word a little bit in a couple of different ways.

00:07:19:05 - 00:07:41:13
Kevin Eikenberry
So for those who are watching, I'll put it up on the screen. But like y you said, you you all started around communication skills and you still do a lot of work around communication skills as connected to this work as well. But why character? Why focus there? Why is that so important from your perspective?

00:07:41:15 - 00:08:03:08
Meredith Bell
You know, this is something Danny and I have studied separately and together for more than 20 years. This whole idea of what is character and why is it important for leaders. And so when I've done some programs, I will ask the audience, you know, to enter into the chat, what do you think of what comes to mind when you hear the phrase strong character?

00:08:03:10 - 00:08:39:23
Meredith Bell
And inevitably, words like integrity. That's the word that comes up the most. And, you know, trust and honesty. And for us, what we realized is it's really a composite of different behavior patterns or habits that we develop over time. So integrity is an aspect of character. Trust is an aspect of character. And so it's this idea that and we use the term character skills intentionally because to us skills are behavior patterns that can be developed.

00:08:40:01 - 00:08:48:12
Meredith Bell
And so this idea of is character fixed. You know, do you either have it or you don't. We all have some character or some.

00:08:48:13 - 00:08:51:08
Kevin Eikenberry
One that's called a character many times, but I don't think that's what you're going to.

00:08:51:08 - 00:09:18:07
Meredith Bell
Go for. Exactly. But when we think of strong character as a leader, we all get a sense of what that represents, and we believe this is an area that can be developed. It just as we can strengthen communication skills like listening or giving feedback. So character is us is a composite of various skills that can be developed over time.

00:09:18:09 - 00:09:36:19
Kevin Eikenberry
I think you're saying you just said them both, but I want to underline for everyone you said two things that are important. Number one is it's not a thing, it's a bunch of stuff, a composite. We're going to talk about some of those in a second. And second of all, you believe that it's not fixed. There's not stuff you were born with.

00:09:36:21 - 00:10:00:23
Kevin Eikenberry
But rather a skill or a behavior. And which means that you can learn it, develop it, which is where we're going to spend some of our time today. So I love all that. And in this composite that you're talking about, isn't just integrity and trust. You got 36 character skills. And trust me, everybody, I am not going to ask her to list all 36.

00:10:01:01 - 00:10:13:08
Kevin Eikenberry
We're not going to talk about all 36. But, like, how did you come up with the list and how did it become sort of the the basis of the work?

00:10:13:10 - 00:10:48:07
Meredith Bell
You know, we we looked at all kinds of aspects of who were being when we looked at what is character really consist of. And we decided that it made sense to group them into three different areas. They're all interconnected, but it's a way of getting your head around, you know, a variety of skills that make up character. So the first one is around building a stronger self, and the second one is building stronger relationships, and the third is building a stronger work ethic.

00:10:48:08 - 00:11:15:03
Meredith Bell
And so we found that there were a dozen for each of those that kind of fell under that umbrella. Of each of those three. And and they're all interrelated, Kevin. But what we did by separating them out is we looked at what are some discrete things you could practice to get better at this particular area. That's an important aspect of character.

00:11:15:08 - 00:11:35:05
Meredith Bell
So people can self-assess or get input from others if they had this list and say, when you read this list, if I were to work on one thing to really strengthen it and it would make a difference in my relationship with you and my relationship with others, what's that one thing? Yeah, that would be.

00:11:35:07 - 00:11:56:10
Kevin Eikenberry
And we're going to talk about a few of them here in a minute. And have you give us some of that practical stuff. One of the things that that struck me or that made me, got me thinking is I was reading the book, is that these all makes sense to me? But you and you and I.

00:11:56:15 - 00:12:31:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Denny, I think I know, are all from the United States, where all of within reason, the same general age. And so I guess I have a two part question. And it relates to, worldwide or global applicability, to what? How did you think about that in terms of other cultures, number one, and what feedback have you gotten about this list, which seems like inherently excellent and obvious to me, but I'm wondering if I'm from another part of the world, if all of these would be the same for me.

00:12:31:08 - 00:12:39:12
Kevin Eikenberry
I know that many would. I'm just curious sort of how you how you thought about that number one. And number two, if you've gotten feedback around that.

00:12:39:14 - 00:13:26:20
Meredith Bell
Yes, we looked for items, skills that would be universal no matter what, what culture, what is it we value as human beings in this little area that we think of as character? So that was one of the things and I have gotten feedback. It's more anecdotal, you know, that people definitely relate to these. And of course, even within, say, the United States or North America, you have certain aspects of character or even within a given company that are valued highly, by folks and really emphasized as being, I won't say more important than others, but given greater emphasis over time.

00:13:26:22 - 00:13:52:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Which I think is a really important point, because, you know, there are 36 and in the. With the goal of being complete, it's fabulous. And with the goal of working on getting better, you can't do 36 things right. You can't work on 36 things. Right. So one of those is, as you already said, self awareness. Or getting some feedback from others.

00:13:52:06 - 00:14:21:18
Kevin Eikenberry
And those are both useful ways to help you prioritize. But your last point is, I think, really important as well, which is, hey, which of these sort of matter more in our organization? Or which of them match up with some organizational competencies, perhaps whether they're these exact words or not. And so I think that's a really good way for an individual to think about, how do I use your your group's work or the book or whatever to, to decide where to go and where to start.

00:14:21:18 - 00:14:32:12
Kevin Eikenberry
What would you add to that? We're going to talk about 2 or 3 of these goals here in a second, but, what's your advice about how should people get started?

00:14:32:14 - 00:14:55:23
Meredith Bell
Yeah. Well, one thing you could look at is what values have we as a company adopted? Because a lot of companies, as you know, Kevin, you facilitate workshops around identifying what is, you know, our mission, our vision and our values. And companies often invest a lot of time and money in crafting these values. What do we stand for?

00:14:55:23 - 00:15:27:01
Meredith Bell
What's important to us where we often see a gap is once those have gotten created and even communicated to others, what are we doing as an organization to help people develop into those? Yes, and that's where there's the gap. And that's one of the reasons we actually created a program to help people learn to practice these. So I think a first step where people could start is look at has our company created a set of values.

00:15:27:03 - 00:15:54:21
Meredith Bell
And what's interesting is I did a Google search on what are the most common values that, companies tend to adopt. And every one of these characters skills that are in our book, in our program, are listed in some version of all of those values. So this idea of integrity, you know, of excellence, of service, of innovation, we have the word creativity.

00:15:54:23 - 00:16:26:08
Meredith Bell
They're all there. So they're it's interesting. Values and character are closely aligned. And so a first question someone might ask is what is it? My company is saying we stand for? And is there a gap in how I am being in relation to those values that may let's just take you know, most companies would not have patience, right, as one of their stated values.

00:16:26:08 - 00:16:26:22
Meredith Bell
Now.

00:16:27:00 - 00:16:30:16
Kevin Eikenberry
It's one of them that you wanted us to talk about, and then I'll let it get ready for us.

00:16:30:16 - 00:17:03:01
Meredith Bell
So that's under under this. But but it kind of patience connects very closely to service and excellence. If we want to provide excellent service to our customers, doesn't that mean we have to be showing up, being patient to want to understand, staying calm? So, you know, they're all there. There are aspects of a value that have the multiple character skills associated with them.

00:17:03:03 - 00:17:29:17
Kevin Eikenberry
So let's just stay with patients for a second. I figured you just picked it because you looked at me and you said, well, Kevin needs to develop some patience. I didn't know why you picked that one specifically when you sent me some notes. If someone who's watching or listening would like to work on their patience, let's talk about some.

00:17:29:18 - 00:17:42:02
Kevin Eikenberry
But let's talk about some tactical things. What are 2 or 3 things people could do today or tomorrow to help them build or consciously focus on, work on their patients?

00:17:42:04 - 00:18:08:12
Meredith Bell
So let's talk first about what is patients, right. It's this aspect of remaining calm and unruffled in situations. Often where we have no control over the timing, or it's learning to wait for the right time before taking action. And so think about four different aspects as we think about how could I apply this? Let's look at four different areas around patients.

00:18:08:12 - 00:18:36:10
Meredith Bell
One is patients with myself. So what could I do to exercise that kind of patients. Well it's listening to my self-talk when I'm learning something new. Am I being impatient with myself and judging myself and being critical because I'm not getting it fast enough? Right. So that's one area. Is noticing. How am I responding to myself when I'm in this situation?

00:18:36:10 - 00:19:08:02
Meredith Bell
And I don't know how to do something? Then what can I do to calm myself down and recognize, hey, I'm taking this a step at a time. So just looking at that and then see, this is where patience and awareness are interrelated because we're noticing, right? Okay. Another area is patience with others. And so here is a couple of very practical ways to exercise patience with others.

00:19:08:04 - 00:19:35:21
Meredith Bell
Notice when their pace is different from yours. So if you tend to be somebody that moves quickly, talks fast, and you're you've got someone in front of you that seems to be taking a while to get to the point, it's easy to start looking at your watch or give some other non-verbal that is saying to the person, get to the point without saying those words, and it can send the message to the other person.

00:19:35:23 - 00:19:57:12
Meredith Bell
You're not as important as my time right now, and so we can be again, be aware that when I'm interacting with this person, maybe how can I set the stage with them to let them know up front, I only have five minutes, or here's what would be most helpful to me is if you will tell me what's the key point, what's the key takeaway?

00:19:57:15 - 00:20:38:18
Meredith Bell
And then you can fill in the details, let them know how you need the information to be delivered so they understand that, that you are not reacting necessarily to them as a person, but to their style. Just as a simple example. So also one of the things when dealing with other people is thinking about what do I appreciate about this person so that I send the message to them as they're speaking, you matter to me, and therefore I'm not focused on trying to get them to hurry up and indicate I'm, you know, I'm I'm becoming very impatient with them.

00:20:38:19 - 00:20:58:21
Kevin Eikenberry
You can only think about one of those things at a time anyway. So just pick a different one to think about. Yeah. Right. And because if once I shift my focus away from my impatience in that moment, now that's not where my where I'm at. And so if we're trying, if we become self-aware of that and can shift, that can be the trigger to shift.

00:20:58:21 - 00:20:59:18
Kevin Eikenberry
It can be a really useful.

00:20:59:21 - 00:21:28:14
Meredith Bell
Yeah. Well, and also as a parent, you know, if you have one child or multiple kids, you might have one of them that really triggers you, you know, they know just what to do to get a reaction out of you. And if you focus on I'm I'm going to be patient right now and you know, and not react, not allow yourself to be triggered, then you can respond in a more appropriate way that helps build a relationship and strengthen it and not undermine.

00:21:28:16 - 00:22:02:10
Meredith Bell
So two other areas in terms of where we get to exercise patience every day, situations where we have to wait, whether we're stuck in traffic or a long line at the grocery store, you know, it's easy in a car to start cursing or, you know, getting upset or, you know, yelling at other drivers. But what does that do to our emotional well-being when we respond in that kind of agitated way versus looking at, okay, I'm stuck in this traffic, what options do I have right now?

00:22:02:14 - 00:22:33:00
Meredith Bell
Maybe I could focus on my breathing. Yeah, right. And and so calming myself down so I realize how earth shattering is it if I get there five, ten minutes or whatever later relative to staying calm in the moment so that I don't get myself all worked up into this mess. So when I get wherever it is I'm going, I'm now in this agitated state.

00:22:33:02 - 00:22:35:09
Meredith Bell
So what can I do while I'm waiting?

00:22:35:11 - 00:23:09:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. So, Janice, on LinkedIn sends a note a minute ago that says sometimes in the midst of stressful situations, it's hard to maintain self-awareness. So Janice Meredith has just been describing to us how to how to do that in that kind of a moment. But do you have anything else you would add? More generally, because self-awareness is one of this is one of the character skills, but it's also directly connected to so many of them, because if we're unaware, or as I often say, blissfully unaware, we can't change anything because we know.

00:23:09:05 - 00:23:20:13
Kevin Eikenberry
And so anything you would add just now don't want to. I don't want to dive deep in self-awareness because I've got a couple things I want us to talk about, but would you what would you say to help or to give some thoughts for Janice there?

00:23:20:19 - 00:23:59:22
Meredith Bell
You know, that's a that's a really good point. And I think part of it is having that conscious intention. I'm, I'm, I'm becoming more patient and have that top of mind. And so is this an opportunity for me to exercise patience, noticing, if I'm starting to feel agitated or upset or angry or whatever the negative feeling is in a situation where I'm required to wait, you know, and I'm and I don't have control, this is an opportunity for me to practice patience.

00:24:00:00 - 00:24:21:22
Meredith Bell
So I make a new choice. In that moment, I choose to remain calm. I think it's looking at how we want to be in the moment and focusing on that and not, I don't want to be this. I don't want to be that. So it's not a negative kind of thought. It's going through our head. It's an affirmation about on myself being.

00:24:22:03 - 00:24:44:21
Meredith Bell
And I wanted to just throw in. The fourth area of patience is the big things. Like if we've applied for a job, you know, or a promotion or we're waiting to get the results back from a test related to our health, and we don't have any control over the timing. There are all these things where we have to be patient.

00:24:44:22 - 00:25:15:14
Meredith Bell
And a, you know, a perfect example is I have, a family member who's, health is not good. And I've been responsible for contacting people about helping with different situations as well. I don't always get the call back at the time that I would like, you know, or I don't get the response or some. There's a lot of unknowns in this situation where I could spend a lot of time worrying about, oh gosh, what's going to happen?

00:25:15:14 - 00:25:48:04
Meredith Bell
What are we going to do instead? I've been able because I've been practicing patients for a long time, I'm able to let go and say, you know what? I trust the timing of this. I don't have control of this. And I trust that things or the answer will come that it's going to work out. And I think that's one of those things that is key to any character skill is practicing it over time, builds the pathway in our brain that allows us to do it automatically in those important situations.

00:25:48:06 - 00:26:05:19
Kevin Eikenberry
It feels like we could have done this entire episode. Everybody just on patients. Janice has another comment and I'm going to comment on it says lack of control. Janice says lack of control is one of the biggest drivers of burnout. Here's the thing. As as Meredith just said, being clear, you know, there's very little we have control over.

00:26:05:19 - 00:26:25:12
Kevin Eikenberry
At the end of the day, we have control of ourselves. And so the if we if we focus on not having control, that's going to be really challenging because there's so little we have control of except ourselves. But what Meredith, what you were saying is what we do have control of is the choices that we make. Right?

00:26:25:12 - 00:26:51:12
Kevin Eikenberry
So make so in that moment where I'm frustrated, in that moment where I'm feeling burnout, in that moment, whatever that is, in that moment of impatience, make using wisely as one of my mentors augment, you know, would say, using wisely your power of choice. Right? Absolutely. A true, true thing. So, there are 35 other character skills, and I knew that you wanted to talk about patients.

00:26:51:12 - 00:27:14:21
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm glad we did. I want to have you talk a little bit about one that's in here. That I think that most of us would say, okay, this is a good thing for me personally, but I want to help. I want you to help us think about why this one is important. And it's in the category of relationships, why this one is important to us, specifically as a leader.

00:27:14:22 - 00:27:22:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay. And it is. Forgiveness. So let's talk about forgiveness for a.

00:27:22:05 - 00:27:23:22
Meredith Bell
Loved.

00:27:24:00 - 00:27:32:07
Kevin Eikenberry
As it relates to us as a leader. What would you say about that?

00:27:32:09 - 00:28:10:17
Meredith Bell
You know, I want to say one thing first is forgiveness is a strength. Sometimes people think, oh, if I forgive this person, I'm overlooking this harm that was done to me or this hurt that I experienced. And honestly, when you forgive someone, the greatest beneficiary is you, because you are letting go of the negative feelings that you're carrying around about this person, about this situation, about the action that they did or didn't do, or the words they said or didn't say.

00:28:10:18 - 00:28:39:12
Meredith Bell
And so it's really for our own mental and emotional well-being that we learn to forgive. And it doesn't mean we have to, you know, try to block it out of our mind. We're not saying deny it ever happened, but we're saying, let go of those negative feelings that you've attached to this memory, because this is something that in order to forgive someone, it's something that's happened.

00:28:39:14 - 00:28:45:12
Meredith Bell
Right. So we're looking at the past, recognize that we can't change the past.

00:28:45:14 - 00:28:46:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Yep.

00:28:47:00 - 00:28:53:04
Meredith Bell
But we can change how we think about the past and how we think about that person.

00:28:53:10 - 00:29:17:19
Kevin Eikenberry
And which from a leadership perspective, if that person is on our team or is in a related team or is a peer, that's a huge piece. Everybody. And that's really where where I wanted to have a second about this, because where you started, Meredith, I think it's so critical that a lot of people are unwilling to or afraid to forgive because it feels like a sign of weakness.

00:29:18:01 - 00:29:39:11
Kevin Eikenberry
And a lot of people in their mind, in their role of leader. Capital L positional leader, they feel like they're not supposed to. I can't let them see me sweat. I can't, I can't, I can't show vulnerability, even though there's lots of talk about vulnerability. And so, I just think that's a really useful thing for us to consider.

00:29:39:13 - 00:29:54:13
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm guessing that everybody realizes that Meredith and I could have a very long conversation. And we have had them off camera, if you will. And I do know also that the clock is moving and there's a few more things I want us to do. I'm going to give you a chance to.

00:29:54:13 - 00:30:30:20
Meredith Bell
Say one other thing here about about forgiveness. I think it's useful when we think about our our willingness or unwillingness to forgive someone else, to first back up and look at how have I judged them, how have I judged this action? Because sometimes we take personal offense over something, especially as a leader. You know, if somebody didn't do what they were supposed to do, and then we feel like it makes us look bad, we can carry this resentment towards the other person instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt.

00:30:30:20 - 00:31:05:14
Meredith Bell
And what's a common thing that is talked about now? You know, assuming positive intent. If we can do that, we're going to find ourselves needing to forgive less often because we haven't been judging them in the first place. We've taken the time to have the conversation about what was going on with them and helping them understand their impact on us or others, and I think that just frees us up to not hold on to or even have to begin with, these negative interpretations of things.

00:31:05:15 - 00:31:19:23
Kevin Eikenberry
If we're talking about this from a leadership perspective and as a member of your team, then chances are you are having conversations and you should do exactly what you said, have a conversation about it. But we can even think about this doing what I call plausible cause analysis. What are the possible reasons, plausible reasons why they did what they did?

00:31:20:00 - 00:31:38:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Guess what? Most of them have nothing to do with you. And I remember a conversation I had with my daughter once when she was in high school about something and said, guess what? Kills? Remember, most of the time people aren't thinking about you like what they did that you felt like was a slight had probably odds are didn't have anything to do with you at all.

00:31:38:15 - 00:31:59:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Now I know it impacted you in that moment, but how it relates to how you feel about the other person? Pretty tenuous connection there that we want to be really careful about. I need us to move on and finish it, but I'm going to give you a chance in a minute to tell us a little bit more about how we can connect with you and about some of the programing that you guys have related all this.

00:31:59:16 - 00:32:13:11
Kevin Eikenberry
But before we do that, a couple of other thought questions for you. Number one, Meredith, when you're not doing all this work helping organizations and helping leaders, what do you do for fun?

00:32:13:13 - 00:32:20:11
Meredith Bell
My favorite activity for the last 20 some years has been birdwatching. I mean, some of you.

00:32:20:11 - 00:32:24:21
Kevin Eikenberry
That are, on a video, you can see a bird over her. Well, I can't say shoulder.

00:32:24:22 - 00:32:47:04
Meredith Bell
But it's a great look. Erin. Yeah. My husband and I just love getting out with nature. We're not one of these that are, you know, world travelers trying to rack up lots of different species. We're very content even sitting on our deck just watching the birds come to the feeders. But going out to parks and just observing nature in action and in particular birds.

00:32:47:04 - 00:32:54:03
Meredith Bell
There's so much to learn about them, their behavior. It's it's been really fun.

00:32:54:05 - 00:33:00:21
Kevin Eikenberry
And the only thing you knew for sure that I would ask you, is what are you reading these days? Meredith?

00:33:00:23 - 00:33:05:15
Meredith Bell
Well, you know, most recently I read your book because you thought.

00:33:05:15 - 00:33:09:08
Kevin Eikenberry
What a beautiful answer everybody wants. What a beautiful.

00:33:09:09 - 00:33:32:23
Meredith Bell
It's on my show. And, of course, this whole idea of being flexible as a leader, I think is so important. And I really enjoyed your take on what it means to be flexible in that. And of course, it ties in beautifully with character, because we have one of our character skills and our work ethic is around flexibility.

00:33:33:04 - 00:33:51:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Yes, we talked to you about it being the last one. Like we've got to move it up the list. It can't be number 36. I'm just teasing. It is, it's, it is. There it is. Number 36. That's that's for sure. So, other than my book, which I love that you said that, anything else that you want to share here?

00:33:51:17 - 00:34:33:23
Meredith Bell
You know, one of my favorites that I go back to a lot is The Power of Awareness by Neville Goddard, because it's. Well, it ties in with everything we've been talking about. How do I visualize myself? How do I visualize others, and therefore what do I bring to my relationships? What do I bring to situations? And, he's got some great stories in that book around thinking about if I have a negative attitude towards someone, and I'm always seeing them as criticizing me, how am I showing up when I interact with that person?

00:34:34:01 - 00:34:58:09
Meredith Bell
And he challenged this woman in one scenario. She was complaining to him up one side and down the other about her boss always criticizing her. So he gave her an assignment to instead of imagining these arguments with him, which she did on her way to work. And after work, she started imagining him complimenting her and giving her positive feedback.

00:34:58:11 - 00:35:19:07
Meredith Bell
And so she showed up differently in in her interactions with him. And guess what? He started giving her compliments. He started changing the way he interacted with her because of how she was interacting with him. We have so much more power than we think in our relationship.

00:35:19:07 - 00:35:20:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Control the other person.

00:35:21:00 - 00:35:35:22
Meredith Bell
Right? When we look in and say, what can I do myself? Instead of complaining about this person, what it said about how I am being with them that might be contributing to this situation.

00:35:35:22 - 00:35:57:20
Kevin Eikenberry
What can I do that might change the outcome? It's a fabulous question. So, what where do you wanna point people? We will have links to those books. We will have links to, Meredith's book as well as Danny Coach book that we've been talking about. Grow strong character all in the show notes for you all. But where else do you want to point people?

00:35:57:20 - 00:36:02:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Tell us a little bit more about how they can get Ahold of you. They can learn more about what you're doing.

00:36:02:14 - 00:36:28:00
Meredith Bell
Sure. My favorite platform is LinkedIn. I'm on the others, but I'm probably the most active on LinkedIn, and our website is the best place to learn about us. What we offer and my podcast is Grow Strong leaders.com, and we have a program called GSL for Growth Strong Leaders skill Builder, which covers these 36 character skills and ten communication skills.

00:36:28:02 - 00:36:51:08
Meredith Bell
And you know, Kevin, I know your approach to learning and developing habits. And what we've built into this program is very congruent, where we're very much aligned there where we are emphasizing the practice, not just knowledge. So you get a tip and then you go out and practice it, and you come back and you reflect on how it went and your responses get shared with a coach.

00:36:51:12 - 00:37:10:01
Meredith Bell
This could be a coach you hire. It could be a peer coach or your manager. But someone else who cares about your success cares that you're doing the work that you said that you will do. So support and accountability and then asking for feedback along the way to find out how am I doing? Are you seeing any difference?

00:37:10:03 - 00:37:33:16
Meredith Bell
You know, Marshall Goldsmith calls that feed forward because also you're wanting to know, what could I do to be even better in this particular area. So we're getting that input from others. So we found out find out how they're experiencing us. So we've combined all those elements into this program, which is a very powerful behavior change process.

00:37:33:18 - 00:37:56:12
Kevin Eikenberry
You can go to grow strong leaders.com everybody to learn more about that and to and to see, find Meredith's podcast and much more. And and please do connect with her on on LinkedIn. I know she would love that. So, Meredith, before we go, before I say goodbye to you, I need to ask a question of the entire listening audience whenever you happen to be listening.

00:37:56:12 - 00:38:14:11
Kevin Eikenberry
And that is it's a question that I ask every week, actually. It's a question of now what? What are you going to do now as a result? Which ties directly to what Meredith was just saying, like learning a skill is one thing, practicing it is something else. Listening to a podcast is one thing. Taking action on what you learned is something else.

00:38:14:13 - 00:38:35:05
Kevin Eikenberry
And it's not my goal here to tell you what you should go do from this conversation, but rather for you to urge you to find for yourself where where you are. Where do I need to go? What were there specific ideas you got around patients that would help you? Are there just the understanding of the different types of patients?

00:38:35:05 - 00:38:52:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Did that help illuminate something for you? And from that, what will you do? It's not just like, oh, that was interesting. Now what what will I do with that moving forward? If you do that, this will be a far more useful, investment of your time. Meredith, thank you so much for being here. I've been looking forward to this.

00:38:52:15 - 00:39:01:09
Kevin Eikenberry
I really don't know how we got through almost 500 episodes before we had you on, but we solved that now.

00:39:01:11 - 00:39:06:02
Meredith Bell
And it's been wonderful conversation. I appreciate being here with you.

00:39:06:04 - 00:39:24:17
Kevin Eikenberry
It's my pleasure. So everybody, if you enjoyed this, make sure you tell someone else to come listen to this and make sure you're subscribed wherever you're watching or listening so you don't miss any future episodes, because we'll be back again next week. And so I hope you will be do for the next episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.