The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:06 - 00:00:39:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Leadership isn't really about us as the leader, and yet who we are as the leader plays a huge role in our ultimate success or failure as a leader. In other words, if we want to be a better leader who serves outcomes and others effectively, we must work on ourselves too. And that is what we're talking about today, ourselves as leaders, and what we can learn from psychology to help us understand ourselves better and then ultimately lead better.

00:00:39:12 - 00:01:03:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders like you grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger, positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world. If you are listening to this podcast, you could be with us live in the future on your favorite social platform. You can find out when those episodes will happen.

00:01:03:04 - 00:01:31:09
Kevin Eikenberry
And so you can therefore join us by joining us on our Facebook or LinkedIn groups, two of the places where we simulcast these live events. You can just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to learn more, get connected and find out when will be live. Today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, Flexible Leadership. Navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence.

00:01:31:11 - 00:01:56:22
Kevin Eikenberry
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 set of tools to create great results for their organizations and team members. That's what flexible leadership provide you. Learn more and order your copy now at remarkable podcast.com/flexible.

00:01:57:00 - 00:02:23:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And with that, it's time for me to bring in our guest. Let me pull him up here and then I will appropriately introduce him. And then we'll dive in. I guess today is Sebastian Page. He is the head of global Multi-Asset and the chief investment officer at T Rowe Price. He has more than two decades of leadership experience and has done extensive research on positive sports and personality psychology.

00:02:23:21 - 00:02:52:10
Kevin Eikenberry
He currently oversees a team of investment professionals actively managing over 500 billion in assets under management. He has written two finance books, Beyond Diversification What Every Investor Needs to Know, and then coauthored Factor Investing and Asset Asset Allocation. He's won six annual Research award paper paper awards. He has appeared regularly on CNBC, and he was on Bloomberg TV again this morning.

00:02:52:12 - 00:03:13:14
Kevin Eikenberry
And in 2022 was named a top voice in finance by LinkedIn. He has been quoted extensively in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Barron's. His latest book, and the reason he's here is not to talk about beyond diversification or factor investing. But his new book, The Psychology of Leadership. It is the focus of our conversation. He's joining me today.

00:03:13:15 - 00:03:21:20
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm sure probably from his office. But he lives in Maryland with his wife and children. Sebastian, so glad to have you with me this morning.

00:03:21:22 - 00:03:34:05
Sebastien Page
Kevin I'm super excited. First of all, I love doing podcasts. And second, you just held the book and you had all these post-it notes. That means you're going to have a really good discussion.

00:03:34:07 - 00:03:54:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Or these are all the things I didn't agree with. No, that's not true. Okay. I'm teasing. I am totally teasing. I am excited to have you. I love the book. And, you know, there are some folks that have recommended it that that apparently, you know, and that I know as well, which is fantastic. And, so let's just dive in.

00:03:54:15 - 00:04:18:02
Kevin Eikenberry
You've written you're you're in the finance world. You've written books about the finance world. And so now this so the intro says, well, yes, you're in the finance world, but you're also a leader. But why? What what's what leads you here? Like why? What's your journey to this book and specifically why this book?

00:04:18:04 - 00:04:47:22
Sebastien Page
Kevin, I was, struggling with some job related stress at the time, and I decided to look into sports psychology. I met with a sports psychologist who lives here in Maryland. His name is Doctor Daniel Zammit. He's a fascinating guy. In addition to being a sports psychologist. He also has 40 holds 40 national titles in the sport of handball.

00:04:48:04 - 00:04:51:17
Kevin Eikenberry
I think he was only 38. And when you wrote a book, I think I read 30.

00:04:51:18 - 00:05:13:14
Sebastien Page
It keeps winning. And so this is like it looks like squash, but you're hitting the ball with your hands. So this is sports psychologist who's figured out the mental game of high performance in practice. So we sit down and he tells me the story of his best match ever. And it's fascinating because it was like ten years ago.

00:05:13:15 - 00:05:34:03
Sebastien Page
He remembers every point in the match. He remembers where the ball was, at what time he remembers. He's got like a tear in his eyes. I was on my knees and I make an extreme shot. And then the play by play, and then it's a complete letdown because he goes, oh, and then I lost the next two points.

00:05:34:04 - 00:06:06:00
Sebastien Page
I go, wait, wait, timeout. You lost the game. And he goes, absolutely, I lost the game. But to him, it had nothing to do with how happy he was about that match in the mindset of a sports psychologist. He was playing a much stronger opponent. And that day he realized he belonged in another league. In the game, he had gone through a step change in his skills and the win or the loss.

00:06:06:02 - 00:06:29:19
Sebastien Page
It meant nothing to him. And so I start thinking about this mindset, and we started talking and he became a consultant for the book, and he helped me with the research and some ideas. But just that mindset of sports psychology. And by the way, so many links that are unexplored between sports psychology and business leadership, but also with investment and investing.

00:06:29:21 - 00:06:33:19
Sebastien Page
So there's there's a lot of that in the psychology of leadership.

00:06:33:21 - 00:06:41:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And we'll get to some of that. Oh, by the way, to finish the story. None of the championships were won until after.

00:06:41:05 - 00:06:42:04
Sebastien Page
That's right. Right.

00:06:42:09 - 00:06:45:01
Kevin Eikenberry
That's right. A component of that. I mean.

00:06:45:03 - 00:07:13:01
Sebastien Page
Getting look, Kevin, like I talk about this in the book, Federer went viral maybe a year ago. I don't know if you caught this. He was speaking to students who are graduating a commencement, and he said, okay, we're right here. Yeah. Was it one of the post-its? Oh, I see, it was underlined. Yeah. So so Federer goes. I've played 1500 games in my career and I've won about 80% of them, so that makes sense.

00:07:13:01 - 00:07:50:18
Sebastien Page
One of the top tennis players of all time. But then he looks at the students and he says, guess the percentage of points that I've won. And the answer is 54%, which is just the slight edge repeated over time. Consistently. But then he went on to say, whatever game you play in life, you're going to lose. So my journey for this book was I was stressed out about job stress, and I just wanted to learn to embrace it and maximize performance around job stress and how to handle it.

00:07:50:18 - 00:08:04:00
Sebastien Page
So sports psychology became super interesting, in that context. And then I expanded into positive psychology as well as personality psychology, which is a lot of fun.

00:08:04:02 - 00:08:34:17
Kevin Eikenberry
So yeah, we can talk about I want to talk a little bit more about why you ended up with the three, but I want to say something first. For me, I always I mean, I'm a sports fan. And so those kinds of stories intrigued me and I know intrigued many but don't but turn some people off. So what I want to say first is that while there are all sorts of great insights in this book from the world of sports and sports psychology, that's not what this book is.

00:08:34:17 - 00:08:59:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And so if you're listening and saying, wow, Kevin, I'll listen next week, because you won't have a sports guy on. I would say no, that this is not a book that leans so far there as to be the. Nor will this conversation lean so far. There has to be a turn off to those of you that aren't sports fans and would rather, you know, do anything than watch the Super Bowl, for example.

00:08:59:07 - 00:09:19:04
Sebastien Page
It's not a book about, it's not a book about. It's not a book about sports. All about resilience, mental resilience. Sports psychology is fascinating because it's not about winning. It's about losing. And what you do with the setbacks and the losses that applies to your entire life, your professional life, your leadership and more.

00:09:19:06 - 00:09:36:00
Kevin Eikenberry
100%. So. So why you sort of told us how sports psychology became a part of your thinking, which led to the book, but why the other two? Why positive psychology and personality psychology? How do they inform the book and why are they important in this conversation?

00:09:36:00 - 00:10:05:21
Sebastien Page
Excuse me? I start to think about long term goals. And when you think about long term goals, the longer term you think, the longer your time horizon and the closer you get to positive psychology questions. What makes people thrive over time? What makes leaders and organizations thrive over the very long run? But Kevin, for goals, let me tell you another story.

00:10:05:23 - 00:10:31:10
Sebastien Page
My friend Phil sold his cryptocurrency business for $1 billion, and he gave all of it to charity. You remember this from the book itself? And, that morning, when he decided to give all of it away, he was eating his cereal in his kitchen. An angel appeared to him. So this is where I disclosed this is a made up story.

00:10:31:11 - 00:10:34:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I'm reading the first part. I'm like, oh, this is good. And then.

00:10:34:02 - 00:10:34:16
Sebastien Page
Yeah, yeah.

00:10:34:18 - 00:10:36:01
Kevin Eikenberry
All right. Go ahead.

00:10:36:03 - 00:11:07:06
Sebastien Page
So the angel goes, look, I'm going to give you one of three gifts. I can give you infinite power. I can give you infinite fame, or I can give you infinite wisdom, or I actually. And then he offered absolute wealth. Like, I can give you just whatever you want in terms of money for your entire life. And so my friend chose wisdom.

00:11:07:06 - 00:11:25:13
Sebastien Page
And as you would expect, first time in human history that someone has absolute wisdom. Cameras flashing, journalists convene. What will the person with absolute wisdom say? It's the first time in human history this happens and the story goes, he said. I should have taken the money.

00:11:25:14 - 00:11:28:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Money? I should have it. Yeah. I literally laughed out loud.

00:11:28:15 - 00:12:08:10
Sebastien Page
When I and you know, this is tongue in cheek, but it's to help my readers reflect on positive psychology and long term goals. I asked a group of students I was presenting on stage a couple weeks ago to about a thousand students, and there were maybe, Kevin Gen Z, right. So university students roughly. And I said, how many of you would take a gummy, a gummy bear out of a jar of 100 gummy bears, knowing that four of them are poison or and are going to kill you?

00:12:08:12 - 00:12:19:06
Sebastien Page
And, I said, if I gave you $1 million, would you do it? Just for the record, Kevin, you wouldn't do it right? Yeah, I don't like. So this is a I also.

00:12:19:06 - 00:12:21:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Know where this is headed. So it's a.

00:12:21:03 - 00:12:47:16
Sebastien Page
Way to frame positive psychology. But what was I was genuinely taken aback on stage by the number of hands that went up. I would I would I would pick a gummy out of 100, knowing that for our poison, for $1 million, I got maybe 15% of the audience, maybe 20. And so to me, that speaks to what I call goal induced blindness, where you have a goal, it's measurable, right?

00:12:47:16 - 00:13:18:09
Sebastien Page
You want to be wealthy, you want that amount, and you sacrifice your well-being. You take on unreasonable risks, or even you start cheating. Sacrifice your sense of ethics. So positive psychology will show that over time, real people's happiness, ability to thrive is driven by one single factor more than wealth, fame, wisdom. That's why the angel story, right? Which one would you pick?

00:13:18:11 - 00:13:45:04
Sebastien Page
And that is the quality of people's relationships in their lives. And that's been studied over 80 years. It's one of the most fascinating studies I talk about in the book, because it's been going on for several generations. And the findings are all about positive psychology. What makes people thrive over time. And so it's the quality of their relationship.

00:13:45:04 - 00:14:10:12
Sebastien Page
And in the book, I also talk about other factors of positive psychology and how they relate to business and setting goals and managing people. Those are engagement, meaning we talk a lot about the why. It's kind of a buzzword and, long term accomplishments. So I discovered that positive psychology has a ton of applications to business and leadership.

00:14:10:14 - 00:14:36:10
Kevin Eikenberry
100%. So, that for that for gummy story, leads to one of the 18 principles in the book. And we're going to get to those in just a second. But as, you mentioned to me before, we went on camera or I guess before we, I hit the like button, that, you know, you mentioned that there's, quite a bit in the book about goals, and it's actually one of the things that I had in my notes.

00:14:36:12 - 00:14:59:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And so it's a book about leadership. It's a book about the psychology of leadership. And so why why is why is things related to goals. Our relationships to goals are thinking about goals such a huge part of the book. Why did you make that choice specifically?

00:14:59:22 - 00:15:29:17
Sebastien Page
Two things Gavin. The number one job of the leader is to set the goals. Because if as a leader, you don't set the goals, who will? Second? And this is gonna sound like I'm selling my book, but I truly believe it. We're all leaders in one aspect or the other of our lives. It's not about managing. It's not just about managing people inside a corporation.

00:15:29:19 - 00:15:54:13
Sebastien Page
It's about your family. And different people in the family will express leadership over time. It's about your community. It's about your church. So again, I'm conscious, like I'm maybe I'm trying to broaden the audience. I do think anyone can benefit from better leadership in their own lives, even if they don't have people reporting to them. And so that's the second thing why it's so important to think about goals.

00:15:54:16 - 00:16:02:16
Sebastien Page
Leaders set goals. If you don't, who will, who will? And second, we all we're all leaders in some aspects of our lives.

00:16:02:18 - 00:16:20:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I often I often talk about capital L leaders are those people that have a job title. Right. Have a responsibility which is sort of the the main focus or what we would think of when we think of a book like this. But but all of us in all sorts of our parts of our lives are small l leaders, right?

00:16:20:17 - 00:16:32:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Even at work, if we're on the team and not leading the team and all those sorts of things, because we are leading when people choose to follow and people, some people are choosing to follow us on a regular on a regular basis, maybe more than we even realize.

00:16:32:12 - 00:16:41:11
Sebastien Page
That's so well said, right? You might not be managing the team, but people take their cue from how you're behaving, how you're performing and.

00:16:41:13 - 00:16:43:09
Kevin Eikenberry
What's good or L by the way, everybody.

00:16:43:11 - 00:16:49:03
Sebastien Page
What for good or ill or whether you want it or not, you find yourself being a leader.

00:16:49:05 - 00:16:49:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:16:49:20 - 00:16:54:09
Sebastien Page
And having clarity on goals is key to effective leadership.

00:16:54:11 - 00:17:17:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And of the 18 principles, there are some that are very much about goals. And one of them, and I've highlighted a couple. I know there are a couple that you wanted us to talk about, and I've highlighted a couple others that I thought would be useful for us to talk about. Hopefully we can get to all of those, not to all 18 everybody, but but you also, wrote some of them in ways that are intriguing.

00:17:17:09 - 00:17:22:17
Kevin Eikenberry
And so you might be a finance guy, but you got a little marketing blood in you, my friend. So the first one.

00:17:22:19 - 00:17:24:09
Sebastien Page
That it's a compliment.

00:17:24:11 - 00:17:41:03
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm. It's meant as one, I promise you. Principle number one, you say don't die on Everest. And I put the question mark on there. Like, seriously, what are you talking about here? It's an extension of your gummy bear story. So what do you mean? That we shouldn't die on that? We ought to be careful not to die on Everest.

00:17:41:05 - 00:18:09:19
Sebastien Page
It's about goal induced blindness. The number one example in the literature, in psychology of goal induced blindness are Everest. That's my gummy example, where you have a 4% chance of dying matches the probability that you'll die if you want to summit Everest based on historical data. So it's the prime example in the research and psychology of goal induced blindness.

00:18:09:21 - 00:18:36:07
Sebastien Page
But there are plenty of other examples. I had goal induced blindness at the beginning of my career because I wasn't taking care of my health. I was working nonstop around the globe, I was traveling, I was jetlagged, I just wasn't taking care of myself. That's a form of goal induced blindness. Another one is just losing your way in terms of ethics and cheating.

00:18:36:07 - 00:19:03:07
Sebastien Page
That's a prime example, one of the best example examples of goal induced blindness. And you know, Kevin, this happens in business like blue chip. Like really good companies. Volkswagen somehow decided they should actually fudge their emission numbers. Wells Fargo started creating dummy accounts just to show more accounts opened. That was the goal that they looked at. Right.

00:19:03:07 - 00:19:06:09
Sebastien Page
And the measurable goals are particularly potent in that.

00:19:06:09 - 00:19:28:17
Kevin Eikenberry
So let me stop you right there, because I think everyone who's listening, if you remember that, either one of those. But if you remember the Wells Fargo thing, everyone who wasn't there would say, like, seriously, people are actually opening dummy accounts. And I think that's the point that we become blinded by it. And the thing that struck me and I've certainly read, a lot about the the research around Everest and all that.

00:19:28:17 - 00:19:56:08
Kevin Eikenberry
But the thing that you wrote that if I read before I had forgotten, I don't know how I could have you talk about people. You know, there's a death zone. There's this area in which where most of those deaths that occur occur. And so you're talking about people like literally walking over dead people now. Yeah. I don't know if they're actually visible or not, but the, the, the metaphorical power of that is was incredible to me.

00:19:56:08 - 00:20:19:19
Kevin Eikenberry
But the point is that when the goal becomes so, we are so laser focused on it, whether it's getting to the top of the mountain or whether it's having making the number, if you're Wells Fargo, we we it seems obvious to someone who's not there. But when you're in at that moment of blindness, it is really powerful. So what do we need to be knowing about that to overcome that?

00:20:19:19 - 00:20:30:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Because none of us are probably going to climb Everest. If you have climbed Everest, let me know. I want to have you on the show. But I mean, that's not what any of us have done. Likely. So what do we need to take from that?

00:20:31:01 - 00:20:58:10
Sebastien Page
So, you know, at the end of the chapter, don't die on Everest. I always have at the end of each principle, a little sort of quirky conclusion, just to keep my readers going in the psychology of leadership. And at the end of that one, I go, if you ever think about climbing Everest just because it's there or some other reason, here's the most useful advice you'll get in this entire book.

00:20:58:12 - 00:21:23:13
Sebastien Page
Don't. So my wife was reading my book and tried to help with editing and she said, okay, this this is this is good. So the goal in doing blindness, first of all, you have to realize that it's a side effect of something that's important for success, which is measurable goals. I'm not here, Kevin. Telling everybody abandoned goals, abandoned measurable goals.

00:21:23:14 - 00:21:43:11
Sebastien Page
They're there. Reasons why you might want to abandon goals for sure. But if you're running a business, you got to measure things. You want to compete, you want to have aggressive goals and you want to go after them. And that includes for people making more money, go ahead. That's not a bad goal in on its on its own.

00:21:43:13 - 00:22:05:20
Sebastien Page
So I just want to clarify that. Give that put that caveat in place, because I don't want the two of us to sound like, okay, just just don't have ambition, right? Or don't care about money. That's trite. However, where I go in the book is there's an optimal point, and there's a point beyond which you become so obsessed with your goal that you will suffer from goal induced blindness.

00:22:05:20 - 00:22:38:18
Sebastien Page
Now, your question was, what do you do about it? First of all, what are the most underrated skills in leadership? Is the ability to quit. Know when to quit. That's a skill you can build. Annie Duke as she was kind enough to endorse my book. She's got a fantastic book just about quitting and how it's one of the most underrated skills in life in poker, because she was former professional poker player and in business when to fault someone, the world record for, Everest summits is like 30.

00:22:38:20 - 00:23:07:09
Sebastien Page
And those that do that, that can go repeatedly, somewhat safely because a lot of the debts are actually unpredictable, no matter how good you are. But those that maximize safety, they have that skill. They know exactly when to quit, when to turn back. It developed, developed that skill. And one of the best ways to develop that skill is that whatever happened before is almost irrelevant.

00:23:07:11 - 00:23:35:18
Sebastien Page
It's a sunk cost. It's almost irrelevant to your decision whether or not to continue, whether it's a project or an endeavors. I've invested so much in this, and it can be a relationship to. Yeah, but you're miserable, so look forward, not backward, and then evaluate your decision. So those are all skills that I help readers develop in the psychology of leadership, that help mitigate goal induced blindness.

00:23:35:18 - 00:23:49:00
Sebastien Page
You also want to have measure. You want to know when it's, creeping in. Right. So customer complaints or just you want to have your radars out to capture it. So you remove the blinders.

00:23:49:00 - 00:24:07:10
Kevin Eikenberry
If you and I would say we want the radar to coming, we're not just from ourselves because it's very easy to be self blinded, but to have whether it's customers, whether it's our the rest of our team, whatever, and figure those things out along the way so that we don't find ourselves so singly sing clearly focused that those other problems start to show up.

00:24:07:12 - 00:24:11:18
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm looking at the clock, and there's no way we're going into all the stuff that I wanted to talk about.

00:24:11:20 - 00:24:14:09
Sebastien Page
Which does this chart. We should do another one.

00:24:14:09 - 00:24:37:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Which doesn't surprise me, at all. I want to I want to talk about, number 11, which you suggest not only don't die on Everest, but that, we should think about death. So let's because this is also goal related. And so I'd like us to talk about this one for a second. What's the principle here?

00:24:37:06 - 00:24:40:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Why does it matter to us?

00:24:40:18 - 00:25:07:19
Sebastien Page
Imagine that you're at the end of your life. Ask yourself if you reflect back, what will you be most proud of? And if you're asked, what will you answer? You know which factors drove your happiness. And this is what the research shows. It's a lot more about relationships with people around you than money or fame or anything else.

00:25:07:21 - 00:25:34:21
Sebastien Page
And so think about death is kind of morbid, but it's a philosophical concept of completely zooming out on your life. And that is, Kevin, an incredibly positive thing to do because you gain perspective. It makes you more resilient to the day to day ups and downs, to the day to day setbacks. And that's where I was most of my career.

00:25:34:23 - 00:26:01:08
Sebastien Page
Overreacting to the day today. But if you say I have a lifelong mission, it brings meaning into your life. Stephen Covey has one of the I think it might be the best selling book on self-improvement of all time, The Seven Principles of Highly Successful People. One of his principles is begin with the end in mind, and he pushes it like, just what do you want to reflect on at the end of your life?

00:26:01:10 - 00:26:18:22
Sebastien Page
And then he walks back and goes, let that guide your values and your day to day decisions. So it's incredibly powerful, and it's one of those things that has been in the literature, in philosophy and in psychology for thousands of years.

00:26:19:00 - 00:26:36:20
Kevin Eikenberry
One thing that said about Stephen Covey is he wrote about stuff that had that that had been around forever, but he wrote it in a way and gave us a new handle for it, which made it extremely valuable, which is one of the reasons, if not the one of the most, read books purchased and read books on self-improvement ever.

00:26:36:22 - 00:26:56:19
Sebastien Page
I'll tell you. I'll tell you, Kevin, I one of it's very hard. I don't know about your experience. It's very hard to find the right title for a book. Did you did you, I don't know if you share that experience, but for me, it was like, oh, this one, that one. And then my agent and and and at some point it was, the end in mind.

00:26:56:20 - 00:26:56:23
Sebastien Page
Yeah.

00:26:57:00 - 00:27:21:14
Kevin Eikenberry
That was before I really get where we're really trying to go. Yeah, absolutely. So, there's 18 principles. We've really only talked about two. And that's really all at this point we have time to talk about. But I want to ask another important question. So when we were talking with Sebastian Page, the author of Psychology of Leadership, and we'll tell you all about how to get a copy, I mean, you know, how to go to Amazon, but we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute.

00:27:21:16 - 00:27:42:02
Kevin Eikenberry
And that will be in the show notes and all those things. But one of the things that I want us to talk about, I in the open, I said this book in many ways is about us as a leader and that leadership. But yet leadership isn't really about us. What advice would you have for someone if they were, if they were working to apply some of the principles in the book?

00:27:42:04 - 00:27:57:06
Kevin Eikenberry
How can they use that wisdom to help their teams? What advice do you have for us now, putting our leader hat back on, and how do we help our teams with some of these ideas?

00:27:57:08 - 00:28:24:20
Sebastien Page
There's several counter-intuitive findings in the psychology of leadership, and they all relate to helping your team perform best. You're right, Kevin, realize it's not about you. It's about how you can foster a culture of high performance and develop others within the team. But some of the counterintuitive findings in the book are, for example, we all think leaders need to be fantastic communicators.

00:28:24:22 - 00:28:56:17
Sebastien Page
Well, the higher you go in your organization, the more you need to be a listener, not a talker, a listener. And that's a little bit counterintuitive. It was for me as I was climbing up the corporate ladder, are we think leaders need to be decisive and make quick decisions all the time. Well, some of the best leaders I've known knew which decisions were urgent and which decisions actually required some level of strategic patience, which is much harder and counterintuitive for hard charging leaders.

00:28:56:19 - 00:29:22:17
Sebastien Page
We think leaders need to be unflappable and not feel stress. Absolutely not. Sports psychology will tell you that optimal performance does not occur at zero stress. In other words, stress increases performance up to a point, after which it hurts performance. But so leaders have to embrace that in their organization, with people they work with and for themselves. And then we all think leaders need to build consensus right?

00:29:22:19 - 00:29:38:11
Sebastien Page
But very often leaders need to be disagreeable and make a tough decision. And for extremely agreeable leaders, that can be difficult. You're really not a leader if you can't make the tough decision. That's going to make some people unhappy at some point in time.

00:29:38:12 - 00:29:58:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Principle 15 right there by everybody, by the way. So listen, I want us to to start to wrap up, I've got a couple of sort of questions which, which might on the surface seem, different than where we've gone so far. But I'm curious. Sebastian, what do you do for fun?

00:29:59:00 - 00:30:21:10
Sebastien Page
I love to run. I'm a runner. I talk about it in the book. I actually have a runner on the on the in the front of the book, which relates to sports psychology a little bit. Running is, Kevin an intrinsic motivation? Right? You go out running, it's dark and no one cares. No one's watching you.

00:30:21:12 - 00:30:37:17
Sebastien Page
You're not impressing anybody at the beach with skinny arms or a low heart rate. So to me, it's a great activity for relaxing. And by the way, it can be social too. I run with people more than 50% of the time. I'm out with other runners.

00:30:37:19 - 00:30:40:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And what do you what are you reading these days?

00:30:40:04 - 00:31:07:20
Sebastien Page
Sebastian I just finished a book, The Gambling Man by. It's about my associate, Masayoshi Son. The CEO of SoftBank. They almost went bust about four times. Is a fascinating leader, maybe not a leadership style to emulate in different ways. But before that, I read the Nvidia way, which is about Jensen Huang and Nvidia is a really important company right now.

00:31:07:22 - 00:31:29:20
Sebastien Page
And that is a more interesting leadership style as well. So, Gavin, you know, I like I like to read, about billionaires. I have a few chapters about billionaires. Maybe we'll talk about that some other time. But, those are two of them. And they have fascinating leadership styles, and the books are pretty honest, so I'd recommend them the Nvidia way and the gambling man to have.

00:31:29:22 - 00:31:43:02
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll have links to both of those in the show notes and of course, links to everything related to the psychology of leadership as well. Sebastian, where do you want to point people? How can they connect with you? Where do you want to let them know about you?

00:31:43:04 - 00:31:52:23
Sebastien Page
Find me on LinkedIn very easy. Type my name. You'll find me. Or go to Psychology of Leadership dot net dot and Etsy.

00:31:53:01 - 00:32:13:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Psychology of leadership dot net. I didn't have that in my notes right to put it on the screen. For those of you watching Psychology of Leadership dot net or find Sebastian on LinkedIn, you will be glad that you did that. So before we finish, everyone, I want to ask you the question that I ask every at the end of every episode.

00:32:13:21 - 00:32:34:03
Kevin Eikenberry
It's a simple question with an important answer, and the answer is one only you can answer. And that is now what? What will you do with this? The information from this conversation, this conversation was perhaps, entertaining. It might have been educational. It might have been inspirational. None of that will matter unless you take action on what you learned.

00:32:34:03 - 00:32:54:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And you must decide what action you will take. There are at least two of us here that hope that one of those actions is to buy a copy of this book. But beyond that, what ideas did you get from this conversation that you want to go take some action on? It's the answer to that question that makes this 30 ish minutes worth your time.

00:32:54:00 - 00:32:54:23
Kevin Eikenberry
I hope you'll do that.

00:32:55:04 - 00:32:58:14
Sebastien Page
Hopefully no one's going to go and tried to climb Everest. Gavin.

00:32:58:16 - 00:33:14:05
Kevin Eikenberry
And one of those goals is to just leave Everest alone. You know, if you did this, if you went 30 times, you start doing the probabilities. The odds of the dying seem to be going up, although you would hope you'd look maybe learning something along the way. So listen, everybody, first of all, Sebastian, thanks so much for being here.

00:33:14:05 - 00:33:15:04
Kevin Eikenberry
It was a pleasure to have you.

00:33:15:06 - 00:33:16:08
Sebastien Page
Thank you. Likewise.

00:33:16:10 - 00:33:31:09
Kevin Eikenberry
And everybody else, if you enjoyed this, tell somebody else, make sure you're subscribed wherever you're watching or listening to this so you don't miss any episodes, including next week, because we'll be back next week with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. We'll see you then.