The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:11 - 00:00:44:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Leadership is hard and so is being a leader. To succeed and thrive. To become our best. Our guest today says to become unconquerable. You need to master not just the skills and techniques of leadership, but yourself. And that's where we're going to focus today on the inner game. Excuse me of leadership. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively, to make a bigger, positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world.

00:00:44:09 - 00:01:12:18
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast, you could join us in the future for live episodes because nearly all of these episodes are first streamed live. You can find out when they're happening and get other, updates and things that are going on with the podcast by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to join and get in on the fun and frivolity.

00:01:12:20 - 00:01:36:14
Kevin Eikenberry
I hope you'll do that now. Today's episode is brought to you by our remarkable master classes. Pick from 13 important life and leadership skills to help you become a more effective, productive, and confident leader while overcoming some of the toughest challenges you face. Learn more and sign up at Remarkable Master class.com. And now that's my cue to bring in our guest.

00:01:36:16 - 00:02:04:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And so I'm going to add him if you're watching. There he is. Let me introduce our guest today. His name is Nathan Tanner. Nathan is an executive coach who helps CEOs, founders and high impact leaders scale themselves and their companies. He has been an HR leader at neighbor, DoorDash, LinkedIn, and Lehman Brothers. He has coached leaders at high growth startups and bellwether companies like DoorDash, Google, Autodesk, Electronic Arts, LinkedIn, Procter and Gamble and Lyft.

00:02:04:09 - 00:02:29:01
Kevin Eikenberry
He's the author of two books, Not Your Parents Workplace and his new book, The Unconquerable Leader. Nathan has been an advisor at Y Combinator and writes for Forbes, Inc.. Fast Company and Nathan Tanner Dot net. He's an Iron Man triathlete. If you read his book, you'll learn more about that. He holds an MBA from BYU and was trained as a coach at Coe Active Training Institute.

00:02:29:03 - 00:02:39:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Nathan lives with his wife and their four children in southern Utah. Today he's our guest. And Nathan, thanks for being here. So glad you're here.

00:02:39:06 - 00:02:42:09
Nathan Tanner
Thank you much. thank you so much. I appreciate it. Good to be here.

00:02:42:14 - 00:03:05:18
Kevin Eikenberry
So, I'm going to say something. Usually I start with a question. Today. I'm going to start with a comment. in reading this book, I'm going to tell all of you that, you know, I don't I don't have guests here or I haven't read the book, or vetted the these guests in a way that I'm already sort of recommending them by them simply being here.

00:03:05:20 - 00:03:27:11
Kevin Eikenberry
But I want to tell you, Nathan and I, we tell everyone else that, when I read this book, The Unconquerable Leader, here's one of the things that I noted. I noted that if we as leaders want a good example in writing of being vulnerable, Nathan's a great example. He's a role model for me. The books, the stickers.

00:03:27:11 - 00:03:43:10
Kevin Eikenberry
You mean the stories that he tells in the book? Many of them are not pretty about himself. many of them, sort of bear his. He bears his soul, and he does it in a way not to make us feel uncomfortable, but rather I think he's obviously making a point as an author, but he's giving us a great example.

00:03:43:10 - 00:03:49:10
Kevin Eikenberry
So I want to just start there, Nathan, and say thank you for your example of vulnerability in the book.

00:03:49:12 - 00:03:51:16
Nathan Tanner
I appreciate that. Thank you.

00:03:51:18 - 00:04:10:18
Kevin Eikenberry
now, having said that, question I often start with, which is the journey, like when you were ten years old, you probably didn't say, hey, I'm going to write books about leadership. I'm going to coach leaders. I'm guessing right. I'm guessing like fireman, astronaut, something like that. Doctor. and maybe mom had a different answer than you did.

00:04:10:20 - 00:04:17:00
Kevin Eikenberry
But my question really is like, how do you like what leads you to write this book specifically?

00:04:17:02 - 00:04:47:02
Nathan Tanner
Yeah. I, I didn't it's it's really interesting. I didn't actually think of myself as a writer until I was probably 30 years old. I had had very little writing experience. and actually, I was I was writing for free for, a publication called the Bleacher Report. while I was an investment banking analyst and got a lot of reps doing sports writing.

00:04:47:04 - 00:04:50:01
Nathan Tanner
which is maybe a maybe, maybe a separate topic.

00:04:50:01 - 00:04:51:14
Kevin Eikenberry
That's a whole other story.

00:04:51:16 - 00:05:19:19
Nathan Tanner
It is. It's a whole. It's a whole different story. yeah, I, I wrote this book. largely for my clients. and it starts with an experience that I had. so when I was at DoorDash, I was a couple years in and I joined DoorDash at 250 employees. I was leading the team. the company was growing very rapidly, doubling headcount every single year.

00:05:19:21 - 00:05:44:04
Nathan Tanner
The valuation went from 600 million to 71 billion. During my time there. And it was just a crazy, chaotic period. And I felt like for much of that time, I was just like trying to survive, holding on for for dear life. And I had this experience a couple of years in where I felt so stretched with work responsibilities, with family responsibilities.

00:05:44:04 - 00:06:19:04
Nathan Tanner
We had three kids at the time. we have four now. church responsibilities, all of these different things. And it just all came to a head. one Sunday morning, my work responsibilities had changed. The scope of my role was, was was lessening. I got injured, sick, and I had this moment, my family was going to church that day, and I just had this severe panic attack, and I found myself, like, on the ground in my bedroom, crying uncontrollably.

00:06:19:05 - 00:06:40:11
Nathan Tanner
And I've never experienced anything like that before. I haven't experienced anything like it since it was my daughter's second birthday, and I had to like, they're getting home from church and they're ready to book and ice cream, and I'm like, I can't handle myself right now. I need to get out. and I just disappeared, and I missed my daughter's birthday entirely.

00:06:40:13 - 00:07:01:23
Nathan Tanner
And what's interesting, Kevin, is this is around the same time I was planning on becoming a coach. looking to serve and help people. And I had this empty bucket. How do you. How do you fill someone else's bucket if yours is empty yourself? And. And that was the moment where I realized, like, okay, I need to do a lot of work.

00:07:02:00 - 00:07:19:21
Nathan Tanner
I may be showing up externally at work and with other people, but internally I'm kind of a mess and I need to I need to to work on some things. And so that that experience and then the experience working with a lot of clients who have gone through similar challenges, really. What drove, writing this.

00:07:19:21 - 00:07:50:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Book and the subtitle of the book, I don't think I said it earlier, is Mastering the Internal and External Game. And and I would say by page count, it's two thirds ish, maybe a little more than that. of internal versus external and that's and and I hinted in the open that that's what we were going to focus on because as I read it, I was thinking about what are the things that maybe, might be most valuable to listeners, but also things that maybe we haven't talked about here as often over time.

00:07:50:05 - 00:08:13:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And I certainly realized for those of you listening that, you haven't listened to all 430, 438 other episodes, interviews. But my point being that, Nathan, I think there's some really, interesting, useful stuff we can talk about here. And so I'm just sort of going to pick and choose some stuff, and we'll just have a little conversation about those things at the beginning.

00:08:13:02 - 00:08:33:00
Kevin Eikenberry
you tell some more stories about the stories that you tell about yourself. And we all have stories that we tell about ourselves. And so let's just talk about what you mean by that. Give us an example. Because we all have these things like we've decided, I call it how what we define as our identity. tell us about what you mean by that.

00:08:33:00 - 00:08:39:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And then let's talk briefly about how do we create a new story. Consciously, intentionally create a new story for ourselves.

00:08:39:17 - 00:09:09:23
Nathan Tanner
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. so an example of this is, Lehman Brothers. so I, was a 2008 college graduate, joined Lehman Brothers, this, like, great investment bank. And so excited I got this job on Wall Street, and I'm a month, two months into the job, Lehman brothers goes bankrupt. Largest bankruptcy in US history. And you know, I I'm there for a transition to a different bank.

00:09:09:23 - 00:09:25:16
Nathan Tanner
But ultimately, a few months later, I get laid off. And as I go through this experience, I'm out of work for what feels like an eternity. It's probably I think it was about four months. But like when when you're career to date is a couple of months, it's.

00:09:25:16 - 00:09:26:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Like you're right.

00:09:26:20 - 00:10:00:09
Nathan Tanner
Yes. If it felt like forever. And and so I had this, I had this experience where I'm, I'm unemployed, I'm struggling to find work. And these negative stories I start telling myself are like, oh, probably got let go because you're not smart enough. Because you're not good enough because because of all of these things. And I end up getting a job, at a much smaller company, at a retail bank, and I'm allocating baby clothes to, to different stores.

00:10:00:11 - 00:10:22:20
Nathan Tanner
and then these opportunities pop up to get back into investment banking. And I interview for a bunch of them, and all of them fall through, and it's like, same story is coming back. You're not smart enough, you're not good enough. All of this. And then a couple weeks later, one of them reaches out and they say that the candidate we plan to hire, he didn't show up.

00:10:22:22 - 00:10:42:07
Nathan Tanner
so we're going to open up a final interview for you. And at that point, my wife and I, we didn't have any kids at the time, but we we moved to a smaller apartment, and I kind of, like, embraced this mediocre life or mediocre mindset of like, okay, I'm just I'm just going to lower my expectations because I can't do this.

00:10:42:09 - 00:11:11:19
Nathan Tanner
And then I had this moment while I was walking to work. I'd already told them, no, I didn't plan to interview for this. And I decided I had a strong impression, a strong feeling of like, you have to do this. Like you can't just give up. You can't just like, continue to tell this old story. So I ended up interviewing and, getting the job, and that was key in me starting to tell myself a new story of like, okay, maybe I'm not excellent at this.

00:11:11:19 - 00:11:37:17
Nathan Tanner
Now, but I can be, And so I think I think we have, I have learned, through myself and working with other people that we have the power to tell ourselves a new story. and it starts first with recognition. Like recognizing the story that you're telling yourself. and so I invite people to ask themselves two questions.

00:11:37:19 - 00:12:04:23
Nathan Tanner
The first is, what is a story you're telling yourself that no longer serves you? And this can be a lot of different things. This can be about your job, your potential, your, physique, your health, your whatever, your relationships, whatever it may be. What's the story you're telling yourself that no longer serves you? And then the second piece is, what is the story you would prefer to tell instead?

00:12:05:01 - 00:12:18:07
Nathan Tanner
And then once you once you recognize what that story may be, then, okay, how do I how do I create some evidence? how do I show myself that I have the power to tell this, this new story?

00:12:18:08 - 00:12:45:19
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that, and a few chapters later, you you know, I've been doing this for Nathan a long time. Not just this podcast, but this work. And, and the number of books in this general genre that I've read is sizable. We'll just leave it at that. and you talk about something in a chapter that I don't recall ever reading or ever hearing, certainly not in this level of specificity.

00:12:45:23 - 00:13:08:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And I think it's really fascinating. And it relates to the stories we tell ourselves, because you suggest that we can consider to create characters in our lives. So talk about this idea, because to me, there's a connection between the stories and this character creation. But tell us about how this would work, what it is, and how it would work for us as a leader.

00:13:08:07 - 00:13:10:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Wherever we sit in our organizations.

00:13:10:20 - 00:13:47:19
Nathan Tanner
Yeah, so often we hear that we should show up as the same person, and in every situation there should be there should be consistency with with how we show up. And while I think there's some truth to that, I have found what is required to be a successful CEO or what's required to be a successful employee or entrepreneur is very different than a successful husband or wife or significant other, or a parent or, you know, the various different roles.

00:13:47:19 - 00:14:06:17
Nathan Tanner
And so one of the lessons that that I've learned in life, is this power of character, creation, of identifying the roles that we have and what it takes to be successful in each one of those roles is in that second part.

00:14:06:19 - 00:14:26:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Nathan, like all of us, recognize roles like. And so if we stop right there, people say, what are you crazy, Kevin? Everyone talks about understanding roles, but you're taking it far further than that. You're saying, okay, okay, if if my my role as author wasn't like that, since both of us are one, like, what does that really look like?

00:14:26:09 - 00:14:40:10
Kevin Eikenberry
And when am I in that role? And being very specific about that and how that's then different from another role in my life. I love in the book where you talk about a person who said it's buy time of day, this time of day, they're this person. So say a little bit more about that.

00:14:40:10 - 00:15:10:04
Nathan Tanner
Yeah, yeah, a great, great, great example of that. I have a client who was a startup CEO, and he was very, very good at going heads down, like creating the, the vision of the company articulating, or in his mind, like crafting the product roadmap, executing things. He was not very good at leading his team and communicating that.

00:15:10:06 - 00:15:30:05
Nathan Tanner
And he was also not very good at showing up with his significant other and with friends. And so he had he had put all of this energy into this very important role. But, but, but a singular role. And so together we created three different characters. The first was what we called the unicorn CEO. His name is, his name's Tyler.

00:15:30:11 - 00:15:50:17
Nathan Tanner
And this is, you know who who is the unicorn CEO? It's a people first energetic leader who listens more than they talks. this this this leader sets this unicorn CEO sets aside time to be with people. and and that's a role that that he's going to play from 9 a.m. to 5 a.m., like that's it.

00:15:50:19 - 00:16:04:08
Nathan Tanner
Other people are in the office. That's the role. The second role was loving partner, fun loving present for parents, significant other friends. And that was the role from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m..

00:16:04:10 - 00:16:22:15
Kevin Eikenberry
But notice everybody how specific Tyler made it, right? It wasn't just like, okay, I this role, but like here are the behaviors. That's the part that I think is so powerful about the way you describe it, Nathan, is those behaviors like, here's what that looks like to me when I'm in that role, not just, hey, now I'm going to be at home and I'm going to try to be focused on my wife.

00:16:22:19 - 00:16:23:14
Nathan Tanner
Like, yeah.

00:16:23:14 - 00:16:27:00
Kevin Eikenberry
It's more you're talking about something far more specific than that.

00:16:27:02 - 00:16:53:09
Nathan Tanner
Yeah. And the reason why this specificity becomes really important is when you're working with world class leaders, people who are excellent at what they do. They have a tendency to overindex on that area. They don't want to put the over index their their time, their attention at the expense of other things that are very important in their lives.

00:16:53:11 - 00:17:16:12
Nathan Tanner
And so when I'm working with a leader, usually it's not, hey, a no showing at work, but I have this awesome, like life outside of it and all my relationships are great. It's usually like, oh, my work is so important and I building this business. But like, I'm not, I'm not the, the, the parents that I want to be or the spouse I want to be or my health or whatever it may be.

00:17:16:12 - 00:17:36:23
Nathan Tanner
And so getting very specific into how you're going to show up, when you're going to show up, some of them, they've even set like specific alarms of like, okay, it is £0.05 or at 6 p.m., whatever it may be. Now you're going to switch into to that mode. and it's, it's, it's, it's been really, really fun to, to see how they, how they show up.

00:17:36:23 - 00:17:38:16
Nathan Tanner
It's it's being intentional.

00:17:38:18 - 00:18:04:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. It really is ultimately about being intentional and and, and the idea of the alarm, I think in one case, you're talking about someone having music that goes with it. it is it's sort of a ritual that helps us make that shift, which is a really useful sort of thought as well. one of the chapters, starts out with something that some who are listening to this might see as heresy like, and I don't remember the title exactly.

00:18:04:01 - 00:18:24:01
Kevin Eikenberry
I don't want to take the time to look at it, but, but it's about deciding where to under-perform, and people who are listening might say, what are you talking about? Like, I want to be really good at everything. I've got a lot that I need to be good at. I have high expectations of myself. That's probably why I'm listening to a podcast called The Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

00:18:24:05 - 00:18:31:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, but you're saying decide where to underperform. What do you mean and why?

00:18:31:09 - 00:18:59:11
Nathan Tanner
So yeah, there's there's this quote we often hear of, like how we do, how we do something is how we do everything. and, while it sounds good, I think that it is garbage because, like, we and this is one of the things I've learned is like, there's limited energy in a given day. And the to do list we have, I'm sure everyone is thinking this like the to do list just gets larger as each day goes along.

00:18:59:12 - 00:19:04:16
Nathan Tanner
We wake up, we get things done from it. But like we never fully accomplish.

00:19:04:18 - 00:19:06:14
Kevin Eikenberry
It's never, it's never, it's never zero.

00:19:06:14 - 00:19:07:19
Nathan Tanner
Like the yes.

00:19:07:19 - 00:19:10:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Do list is never zero.

00:19:10:16 - 00:19:38:20
Nathan Tanner
Yeah. And and so so I've, I've found, in order to focus on the things that are most important, it can be very valuable to pause on that and actually dive into those things that are not important or the things that we're okay with letting slip. and so, you know, an example of this, with some of my work, this is like, okay, I'm going to intentionally underperform at networking.

00:19:38:20 - 00:20:04:16
Nathan Tanner
I'm not going to be at every conference. Like, because of what I focus on right now, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to intentionally underperform at cooking. We're just going to live off of off of takeout for for a while. And, and being intentional about what we're not going to excel at, I think can become very freeing because we don't have this, like, baggage over our shoulders that's telling us should like, should I should be doing this.

00:20:04:16 - 00:20:14:18
Nathan Tanner
I should be doing that. I'm not good enough. That's like, no, let's just call it out. Like, that's going to have to go on the back burner for now. And I'm okay with it. I'm very okay with it.

00:20:14:20 - 00:20:35:03
Kevin Eikenberry
That relates to something else that I wasn't necessarily going to bring up, but but it relates to something else in the that you talk about, which is the idea of not worrying about what other people think. Right. Because one of the reasons we put on ourselves, right, is that we're saying, well, you know, that person they're cooking, why am I not cool?

00:20:35:05 - 00:20:54:08
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm capable of cooking. I wonder what people are going to think of me when I do this, that, or the next thing. So talk about that, a little bit more. Use a great example, great sports example in the book. But, just this one is hard for lots of people, right? like not worrying about what other people think.

00:20:54:10 - 00:21:22:10
Nathan Tanner
Yeah, yeah. And this this this this one is, very easy to say and very hard to live. I am as guilty of this one as anybody. I mean, I chose early on in finance. I chose a career that was viewed from the outside as something that was, attractive. It was hard to get a job in investment banking, and I found myself several years ahead of, like, I don't like this.

00:21:22:10 - 00:21:49:20
Nathan Tanner
Like, why am I do that? Why am I doing this? Why did I go down this path? and then I made this big career switch to human resources, and, if if investment banking is viewed as a sexy career path, human resources is kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum. And I was so worried and focused on like, oh, what are my what are my finance friends going to think about me if I make this jump?

00:21:49:20 - 00:22:05:11
Nathan Tanner
Like, what are people going to say? How do I answer their questions? And just in my mind, I'm I'm, you know, telling myself a story and but I'm like, I feel like this is the right decision for me. It makes sense for me. I'm moving forward, going down. This path.

00:22:05:13 - 00:22:10:19
Kevin Eikenberry
And still you've got this nagging, what are they going to think going on?

00:22:10:19 - 00:22:43:10
Nathan Tanner
Yes, yes. And then, but as I told people I was making the switch, they were either very supportive or they didn't really care. Like there's like 1 or 2 people who I think were like, oh, why are you doing that? And then I answered the question like, oh, that sounds great. And for me, you know, I love this quote, that's attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt of you wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they they do.

00:22:43:15 - 00:22:59:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Go about you. Yes. I remember, what I think my daughter might not even remember it, but I felt like it was one of my better parental coaching moments when my daughter was in a spot. I'm like, how much time do you spend thinking about the others in class? She was not much. I said, that's how much time they're spending thinking about you.

00:22:59:06 - 00:23:14:00
Kevin Eikenberry
She was all worried about how things showed up in a presentation and this and that. And it's exactly right. And, and and yet I raised my hand when, when you said some, some of us have a hard time with that. I sometimes have a hard time with it, too. I'm glad we brought that up. And we talked about that a little bit.

00:23:14:02 - 00:23:37:19
Kevin Eikenberry
there's another thing that you talk about in the book, and it's in that it's in the external game section, but to me, it requires a whole lot of personal understanding to even be able to do it. So, and I have, I, I've read and I've seen some of this before. We did an excellent job of talking about what you call the personal operating system.

00:23:37:21 - 00:23:56:16
Kevin Eikenberry
You we don't have time to go into a lot of depth about it, but I'd love for you to give people an idea about what you mean by it, because I think it's valuable, and I I'll say this, I think it's especially valuable, if that's possible, maybe more valuable if you lead remotely. because people have less interaction with you.

00:23:56:16 - 00:24:00:18
Kevin Eikenberry
So, so with that set up, what do you mean by the personal operating system?

00:24:00:20 - 00:24:18:01
Nathan Tanner
I'll start with I completely agree, Kevin, that that it is more important if you're if you're working with people remotely. so this idea came from a, an executive who joined DoorDash, who's the head of engineering, and when he joined the team was in a, you know, state of, there's a lot there's a lot going on.

00:24:18:01 - 00:24:46:03
Nathan Tanner
And he needed to very quickly build trust, execute on the roadmap. And he came in and had this personal operating manual that included his manager style. It included the core values that he had, when and how to communicate email versus slack versus text. how he like to set expectations, of the team, and, and accountability. And he shared this with the team.

00:24:46:05 - 00:25:11:12
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's the part I want to underline for everybody. Right. Like a lot of what you just said, Nathan, people have heard and maybe even are doing some of it, but but the extent to which the specificity to which and the fact that it's written down, not just talked about in some meetings, right, but like written down and shared as a manual, I think is what makes it makes it makes it perhaps more powerful.

00:25:11:14 - 00:25:34:18
Nathan Tanner
absolutely. And in the book, I share a couple of examples of that I don't I give recommendations and questions one can answer to complete a and operating manual for themselves. But what I found the real value is twofold. The first is going through the process and answering, okay, what is my leadership style? How what expectations do I have for my team?

00:25:34:21 - 00:25:55:00
Nathan Tanner
What do I want them to know about me so that we could build trust? And just going through and doing that work ourselves. And then the second is sharing it with other people so that so that they know because like, no, everyone wants to please their boss, get along well with them. And often we're kind of learning through trial and error.

00:25:55:02 - 00:26:14:15
Nathan Tanner
And I found that going through this process and creating it and sharing it with your team is just an excellent way to shortcut that process. and it's especially valuable for when you're new to an organization or when new people are joining an organization. And that's the piece with remote work where you just see people in person less frequently, that it becomes really valuable.

00:26:14:21 - 00:26:32:21
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that, is that there's obviously lots of things, Nathan, that you and I could talk about and, I'm confident that's true, but is there any specific thing we haven't talked about, maybe something that you feel led to talk about real quickly? Before we go into the final section of the show?

00:26:32:23 - 00:26:58:08
Nathan Tanner
Yeah. so one of one of the chapters and this is, this is probably my my favorite chapter in the book, and it's the story where I, I share this experience of, of running an Ironman. it's, you know, 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile by 26.2 mile run. And the chapter title is called Doing Hard Things.

00:26:58:10 - 00:27:27:06
Nathan Tanner
And I, I just love, you know, so several of the, the concepts from the chapter and they don't they don't come from me, is the need to deliberately seek out discomfort. and I have found this personally and I've seen in others that like, unless we are regularly seeking out discomfort, the comforts we enjoy today very quickly become discomforts down the road.

00:27:27:07 - 00:27:54:03
Nathan Tanner
And I talk about this idea of doing, a soaking of doing like one thing very, very challenging once a year that kind of resets the expectations. And in the book, I share the story of, like, I had this flight that was delayed 30 minutes and I wasn't going to be able to see my family that night. And I remember in that moment thinking like, this is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to me.

00:27:54:05 - 00:27:56:08
Nathan Tanner
And I'm like, sitting in this air conditioned experience.

00:27:56:11 - 00:27:59:16
Kevin Eikenberry
First world problem, Nathan, first of all.

00:27:59:18 - 00:28:26:14
Nathan Tanner
Yes. And that it's a kind of embarrassing to share this story. And I had this I actually read this book is called The Comfort Crisis from Michael Easter. And some of the concepts in the chapter come from him. And I'm like, well, something needs to change because I'm like embarrassed that I'm now saying these words of like, okay, clearly I am not doing enough challenge things to reset expectations for, for what my life is.

00:28:26:14 - 00:28:29:01
Nathan Tanner
So that's that's one thing I'll share.

00:28:29:03 - 00:28:40:11
Kevin Eikenberry
So Ironman, we mentioned that before. You just mentioned it again. I like to ask people what they do for fun. I don't know if Iron Man's count as fun, but what do you what do you do for for fun?

00:28:40:13 - 00:29:07:08
Nathan Tanner
Yes. I play a fair amount of pickleball. I, I do really enjoy training for and competing and Iron Man's, but I, I just I found that that's where I do my best thinking, like, I'm away from the office. I'm outside. I have a I have a plan that I'm able to execute. I could see regular progress.

00:29:07:08 - 00:29:28:05
Nathan Tanner
And so it's it's. I don't know if fun is the right word, but I found it to be very, very rewarding, in a sense that it kind of helps. It helps me to, to, to do hard things and resets expectations for, for what those, what those hard things are. So I'm not in the, in the airport complaining about my delayed flight.

00:29:28:07 - 00:29:41:23
Kevin Eikenberry
There you go. so the thing you knew I was going to ask you is what you're reading. So what's something you've already mentioned? The comfort crisis. But what what is something else that you're reading now or or. Nathan, I've read recently.

00:29:42:01 - 00:30:08:15
Nathan Tanner
Now, a book that I just finished, it's called The Anxious Generation. and it's from Jonathan Hite. I think that's how it's pronounced. I have four kids that are ages five through 13, and this book talks a lot about challenges that have been going on to the current generation, especially with the introduction of iPhones and social media and all of those things.

00:30:08:17 - 00:30:30:23
Nathan Tanner
And I found that book to be very helpful. And thinking about my own habits with technology as well as, you know, with kids, how do we how do we manage, how do we manage that? So that's that's a book that I think has been a very insightful one, not a not a leadership book. but certainly leadership applications that did come from it.

00:30:31:01 - 00:30:41:08
Kevin Eikenberry
so, Nathan, where can we connect with you? Where do you want to point people? Where can they get a copy of the book? The Unconquerable Leader. Like, where do you wanna point people?

00:30:41:10 - 00:31:02:01
Nathan Tanner
Yeah, the book is available. I go to Amazon. it's paperback, Kindle, audiobook. if you want to say hi on LinkedIn, a very active on LinkedIn. And we'd love to connect with you there. and then I have a landing page, Nathan Tanner. Net and, yeah. Check out the book. I hope that you, I hope that you enjoy it.

00:31:02:01 - 00:31:04:15
Nathan Tanner
And please do say hi about meeting new people.

00:31:04:17 - 00:31:22:22
Kevin Eikenberry
All right. Awesome. so, everybody, I have a question that I want to ask you that I ask every single episode. I think I've asked my last question of Nathan, but now I have one for you. And that question is. Now what? What are you going to do as a result of the last 30 or so minutes?

00:31:22:22 - 00:31:50:22
Kevin Eikenberry
What it maybe there's a book that you want to read. I certainly encourage you to get a copy of The Unconquerable Leader. but what else did you take from this? Maybe this. The idea of seeking out discomfort is worthwhile for you to consider. Maybe you heard something about, intentionality, which to me is a big key. Throughout the course of our conversation, maybe you heard some questions about, the stories you tell yourself that you want to think a little bit more about.

00:31:50:22 - 00:32:10:04
Kevin Eikenberry
I don't know what it is that you take from this episode, but I do know that if you do more than just listen and consume but actively apply something, this will be far more valuable to you than it would have been otherwise. So I leave you with that as always. Now what? The other thing though, that you can do is of course, make sure you come back.

00:32:10:08 - 00:32:30:14
Kevin Eikenberry
If you found this useful. I hope that you will subscribe wherever you're listening from. I hope that you will, maybe suggest this to someone else to join us. Maybe review it, depending on where you are, you know how to do those things. As a podcast consumer, I hope that you will do those things, and I hope you'll be back next week for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.