174. Unlocking the Innovators Mindset with Dr. Gena Gorlin

💭 Ever wondered how exercising judgment and making meaningful choices can transform your work and environment?

Join us as we sit down with clinical psychologist Dr. Gena Gorlin, who shares her fascinating journey from Ukraine to the United States and her dynamic career in psychology and the arts. In this episode, Gena provides valuable insights into the builder's mindset, offering strategies to overcome anxiety and imposter syndrome that often plague innovators and leaders. Discover how raising the psychological ceiling can drive impactful changes across various fields.

Her conversation with Mick Spiers takes a deep dive into the essence of human agency and character development, using everyday experiences and high-profile examples like Jeff Bezos to illustrate the importance of integrity over conformity. She explores the interplay between fundamental human needs such as love, belonging, and survival, and how they often overshadow the desire for freedom and correctness. By shifting our values and beliefs, Gena argues, we can prioritize personal empowerment and assertiveness to bring about meaningful change.

We also challenge the conventional views on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, suggesting that creativity and innovation are not just luxuries but essential components for both survival and higher-level needs. Through historical contexts and recent events like the COVID-19 pandemic, we discuss how necessity drives innovation. Rounding out the episode, we explore the ambitious nature of human innovation, the process of rewiring our implicit beliefs, and the creation of lasting habits and resilience. Tune in for practical strategies on stepping out of your comfort zone and achieving continuous improvement.

🌐 Connect with Dr. Gena:
• Website: https://genagorlin.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/genagorlin/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genagorlin/

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Chapters

• 0:00 Unlocking the Builder's Mindset
• 10:20 Character Development and Personal Empowerment
• 16:08 [Ad] Business & Society with Senthil Nathan
• 16:56 The Hierarchy of Needs and Innovation
• 16:56 (Cont.) Character Development and Personal Empowerment
• 24:04 [Ad] Virtual Rockstar
• 24:55 (Cont.) The Hierarchy of Needs and Innovation
• 25:03 Pursuit of Better
• 37:47 Rewiring Our Implicit Beliefs for Change
• 45:28 Building Lasting Habits and Resilience
• 56:11 Building Resilience and Character Change

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

There is something very special in the mindset of entrepreneurs and innovators, the people that start up new companies or develop new innovations that go on to change the world, the type of people that are never satisfied with the status quo and always looking to improve the world around them. In today's episode of The Leadership Project. I'm joined by Gena Gorlin, a clinical psychologist who specializes in the builder's mindset. We unpack the characterisation of a builder and discuss what it takes to change your own mindset and to develop the mindset of an innovator and entrepreneur. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Gena Gorlin. Gena is a clinical psychologist who focuses on coaching founders around a concept called the builders mindset, and that's what we're going to unpack today, and whether you're a founder or not, the concept behind the builders mindset is going to be applicable to you in your leadership and how you approach your team, your organization, and all of the work that you do, including yourself. So without any further ado, I'm really excited to unpack this concept with Gena today. Gena, I'd love it if you would please introduce yourself to the audience and give us a little flavor of your very interesting background, including your past before you landed in this world around psychology and the builders mindset.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 1:36

Sure thing. And thank you so much for having me on so I, as you mentioned, Mick, I'm a clinical psychologist. Let's go. Okay, to give you some flavor. So I'm a first generation immigrant, zero generation immigrant, technically, because I immigrated here with my family when I was a kid, when I was seven, from the now high profile Ukraine, given everything happening, there no family, everyone's okay. I know people ask, but that's really shaped my a lot of my approach and perspective, I would say. And then I knew I wanted to study psychology from very early on. I also wanted to be an opera singer and a violinist and a musical theater star when I was in high school. And I actually insisted on this is probably speaks to my eventual kind of perspective and approach that I just really needed to do it all and I needed to to rule, rule things out the hard way. So I actually did a dual degree program at a conservatory and at a university. So Tufts University and New England Conservatory, they have this five year dual degree program where you could do two bachelor's degrees for the price of one, and in roughly the time of one, it was insane. I quit after a year and a half, but I needed to try. Then I doubled down on my real love, which is psychology. And I went to graduate school in clinical psychology, mainly because I realized that's the best way to position myself, to get to still do it all in this case, meaning to be a researcher, to be a teacher and to be a therapist, to do private practice and to be licensed, and to be able to take on all kinds of roles, to be very versatile, both in and out of academia. And then I really took advantage of that in my subsequent professional career, when I decided to really shift my focus toward coaching and in some cases doing therapy with entrepreneurs, ambitious innovators, leaders, people who are charting their own path, or self creating, as I sometimes describe it, and I've really doubled down on taking the the learnings of clinical psychology, everything I've learned from my research, from the science of behavior change, from doing lots and lots of therapy and applying it to what I see as an underserved population, Though not often spoken of that way, which is the group of people who are trying to break new ground, who are trying to do hard things, and the reason they need psychological support is not, per se, because they have a mental health problem, although many do struggle with mental health problems. But that's not the distinguishing characteristic. The distinguishing characteristic is that they're trying to do something where there's no playbook, because they're the ones inventing the playbook, or they're disrupting, you know, their industry, or they're trying to design a new approach to team building or leadership, they're trying to create a new model, create a new template For doing whatever it is they're doing, and that's what makes it hard, and that's what brings on the anxiety and the imposter syndrome and the, you know, communicational breakdowns, and all the things I'm sure we'll talk about, but that the impact I can have by really partnering with such people and. Of helping them raise their psychological ceiling, just kind of how I think about my work, that impact in my mind is massive, because then they're going to go on to impact the world in a better way, I hope, right, than if these psychological obstacles had limited them. So that's what I'm up to now.

Mick Spiers: 5:19

Yeah. Really good, Gena. I want to unpack two things there. The first one very interesting point, and there is still some stigma out there in society. So I'd like to address one thing is a lot of people will think about a clinical psychologist as where someone has got mental illness or has got some kind of problem, and using a resolving mindset, they're trying to resolve something from their past or even resolve something from their present, whereas what you said was raise the psychological ceiling. So psychology is not just about resolving issues. It's about raising performance. It's about high performance. It's about addressing the art of the possible and going forward. So thank you for bringing that up. I think that's important to note. Then from there, what I'd love to know is what makes that important to you. This working with people that are breaking new ground, it's when I look at you talk about that it seems quite important to you. What is it about it that makes it important to you?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 6:22

It's a great question that I could go on and on about, a couple things. So, I think fundamentally, they represent to me, a kind of human ideal that inspires me, that I personally aspire to, that I'm inspired by my clients every day. They're doing things that I can't even dream of doing, and that, you know, I hope to someday be able to even begin to emulate. And I get to help them with that by bringing my own little bit of expertise to helping, you know, unblock certain emotional confusions, or kind of helping them to get clarity on their own complex decision making process, but like they are emulated to me, like they represent humanity at its best, they are living their fullest lives. They are out there, breaking new ground and failing and trying again and getting back up and, you know, experimenting with different ways of, whether it's marketing their product, whether it's, you know, leveraging AI and and trying to, like, grapple with unsolved problems that you know, the world's greatest minds are grappling with. And like, there they are, you know, kind of in the bullpen, trying to figure this stuff out, like they are living fully. And to me, I've really come to see that human ideal. I've come to see the builder, which is why I talk about the builder's mindset, like the person who is really taking charge of building their life their way, like it's their distinct path, right? Like they have set things up in their life, so that they are drinking that life to the least, so that they're like, fully alive to every moment and choosing the experiences that are important to them, choosing the people they want to experience those things with and and I feel more alive in their presence. So, you know, I know that's a bit of a fuzzy, warm and fuzzy kind of touchy feely answer, but it's a very honest one for me, like I that's who I want to empower, because that's who I want to learn from.

Mick Spiers: 8:37

Tell me, What?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 8:37

I come in, because they care.

Unknown: 9:38

All right, let's go.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 9:49

That's great. So I'm glad you're asking, yeah, hear your question. Maybe a two part question. One, is there a certain subset of people? Is there a personality profile for which this. Kind of ambitious, innovative career and life is suitable, and maybe then the second part of the question is, what's different about them, if so, right or or, how do they overcome what seem to be these near universal confines that keep the rest of us scared, right, or keep us repeating the status quo. So on the first question, yes and no, I think there's a really important sense in which I would answer no, because, you know, when I said it's a human ideal, when I said it's what I these people kind of embody, what I myself aspire to. What I mean by that is that they are these very like high profile or kind of like very in your face, exemplars of what I actually think all of us within our scope and sort of to the extent of our personal kind of like reach and preferences and capacity is better off doing, namely, making our own choices at kind of exercising our own judgment about whatever it is we do day to day. And this can apply to like when you're waitressing, you know, by day, going to school by night, or, you know, vice versa. Or for somebody who, like is a cashier, let's say, you know, so Jeff Bezos talks about how he served, he flipped burgers at, I don't remember where McDonald's right as a teenager. And you could imagine, you know, not knowing, someone's going to become a Jeff Bezos, or someone who will never be a Jeff Bezos, but actually is just going to be a really competent, really engaged, really thoughtful customer service person at a, you know, at a restaurant. Like there is a way of approaching that work, where you're really showing up to it, where you're making choices, where you notice inefficiencies, and, you know, silly, outdated ways of doing things, and you replace those, you know, with a slightly better way, right? Like you even just set up the environment so that the credit card swiping machine is closer to the customer, and the customer doesn't have to, you know, reach over for things and knock things over. And like, you're trying to improve the customer experience, right? And you love your job, and you care about it, and you show up to it, and you think about what you're doing. To me that is another that is just as legitimate a manifestation of that human ideal as Jeff Bezos founding Amazon, actually. And so I don't actually think and it's hard in the same ways that it's hard just to get kind of on a smaller scale, but like, there are all kinds of pressures in you to do it the way that your manager has always done it, and you're scared to piss off the manager and maybe they'll fire you, and if you'll, you know, if you get fired, maybe you'll never get another job. And anyway, it's just easier to go with the flow and not rock the boat and you know, and it's easier to keep your mouth shut when someone's treating you a little bit badly, and to not stand up for yourself, and then that becomes a vicious cycle that then leads you to feeling really, really constrained and disempowered in your personal relationships. Right? Like the default is that we struggle with these things, and each of us within our scope, you know, relative to whatever our life projects. I believe each of us has the capacity, each of us has that eight inner internal agency to do differently, to think for ourselves, to challenge that status quo. So,so what's the fundamental difference, then? Is it? Is it courage or the, you know, the desire to act despite the fear, What? What? What's the great question. I mean, I think, yeah, I think there's a middle. I think that the mechanism for becoming that kind of person, the mechanism for kind of, what differentiates the people who characteristically engage with life in the way I'm talking about, and the people who characteristically don't is precisely that it's character. And I don't think that your character is something you could just, you know, snap your fingers, and overnight you just become super agential and assertive and, you know, start doing everything your own way and not worrying about what other people think doesn't work that way. It's not an easy fix. It's not an overnight which is why, you know, I work with people, often for a fairly long stretch of time to really help them to radically better themselves. And there's a whole process to go through in order to do that. But crucially, you can do that. You can change your character. And that's in a way, that's the currency in which ideal is the currency of character change.

Mick Spiers: 14:44

All right. So, let's unpack that a little bit more, and I've got an idea in my head that I want to test with you. I feel like I'm very spoiled today. I get to test my own hypotheses with a clinical psychologist. This is wonderful, right? So, so one of the, one of the things that we we talk about when we talk about things. Like peer pressure. And you can think about things like the ash experiment and and the like that sometimes. And we think about hierarchy of needs. I'll use glasses choice theory as the example here, where our need for survival, our need for love and belonging, becomes more important than anything else, right? And you spoke about freedom before people do want freedom of choice, and they do want freedom from oppression, but a superior need is the need for love and belonging and the need for survival. And when we talk about peer pressure, we then get in these situations where the need for love and belonging becomes greater than the need to be right. And what I'm hearing from you here in this character, this is what I want to test with you, that when you were talking about character, and I'm talking about values and beliefs, etc, that these people, the ones you know you talked about in the shop, where they go, Oh, this isn't quite right. This doesn't work. Where the need to be right becomes greater than the need for love and belonging. Kind of the script flips. How does that sit with you?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 16:47

A great question. Let me start by pushing back on the framework a little bit, because I actually have somewhat of a hairdo heterodox view on the Hierarchy of Needs idea. First of all, Maslow didn't quite, I mean, as often happens, there's been sort of some drift and understanding, you know, and in the popularization of the theory. So Maslow, I'm not necessarily knocking on Maslow, who originally came up with this concept that, at least as it's understood today, the kind of popular representation of the hierarchy of needs, I think, gets some things importantly wrong. Because if you think about this idea that, well, first we need to survive, we need, you know, food, and we need a roof over our heads, and we need to, like, be safe, and then we need to be loved, and then we can worry about, like, pursuing the truth and self actualizing. How would that work in a context where we don't already have this advanced, sophisticated civilization around us? So imagine if we're on a desert island, or if we're, you know, I don't know hunter gatherer, so that we're trying to actually figure out, you know, there's no agriculture yet, and like, we have a need to survive by finding food. How would we go about that? Would we go about it through just kind of, like reflexive, kind of, you know, fight or flight based reactive, like, let me grab at the first thing that looks like it might be edible and just shove it in my mouth. Oh, that would be a path to demise, like, what we would actually have to do is we would have to learn a lot about our environment and think it through and innovate. And that's, you know, in fact, there's a long history of innovation that's led to where now, you know, in in the kinds of countries, at least, where I know you and I live, it's very rare for us to even like we don't worry about starving, we worry about obesity, right? We worry about eating too much. But that's because people have applied their human ingenuity, their agency, their innovative spirit, to solving that problem, motivated by survival, right? Like that's what gives rise to that pain, if you think about, you know, the in the context of covid, suddenly, you know, there were these memes going around where the Hierarchy of Needs had been inverted, such that Wi Fi was at the bottom. And like, suddenly, you know, and or toilet paper, that's what it was. It had been Wi Fi, now it was toilet paper. And like, you know, takeout or delivery, whatever, right, where we're suddenly realizing, like things that we've taken for granted are suddenly being, you know, taken away from us, or rather, the normal means of getting our needs met have suddenly been yanked out from under us. And part of what that meant is like we had to get creative. We had to innovate. We had to, you know, look at all the innovation that came out of covid, you know, horrific though. You know, it's been an awful worldwide pandemic, but like, this is the sort of context out of which human progress and ingenuity springs right like now, you know, just we're talking over zoom, and it's become such a normal everyday occurrence people, you know, so many people are working remotely. I do most of my therapy and coaching remotely, like was unheard of. However many years ago that that it would just be so easy, right? The ways that I mean, the food delivery kind of industry all Instacart has emerged as this major competitor to Amazon, and it's Amazon Fresh experiment, right where now I can't remember the last time I went grocery shopping because I had to, because now, you know, there's this new, innovative, technologically enabled way for me to get my needs met, right? And so I don't actually think it's true that like creativity, innovation, knowledge, pursuit is a luxury that comes after we have met our survival needs. I think there's something really flipped about that idea. I think it's actually through our ingenuity, our independent thinking, our willingness to sometimes challenge the status quo, that we get our needs met, and that includes our needs for love and belongingness. Because the person in the you know, in Starbucks, McDonald's, who is prioritizing their need for belongingness in the sense that, like, they want to get along with the manager and be liked by the manager, so they don't mention the fact that they feel threatened every time the manager, you know, makes fun of their outfit or whatever like, are they getting real belongingness in that circumstance? I don't think so. I think they're getting a kind of temporary illusion of belongingness, in the sense of like they don't piss off the manager in the moment. But they're also creating a growing rift between their Gen, you know, their full self that has the needs that it has, and sees what it sees, and this manager, who increasingly is actually trampling on the person's needs and doesn't realize it, right? So I don't actually think that these fundamental needs ever really need conflict, and when they seem to conflict, I think it's because of something we're doing wrong. It's because of some lack of perspective or some psychological hangup that's sort of keeping us from really seeing the full road and the kind of the full picture within which we're trying to live and thrive.

Mick Spiers: 22:10

That's really interesting, Gena, and thank you. I've never had it, had it described like that before, and it's really going to be something that I go away and stop and reflect and think upon for sure about the fact that these needs, actually, in normal everyday life, are congruent, and there's only moments in time where it comes into into conflict. And I'm I'm sure we'll

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 22:30

Perceiving conflict.

Mick Spiers: 22:31

Yeah.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 22:31

Yeah. And then it's a radical view, and I'm happy to

Mick Spiers: 22:34

Yeah.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 22:35

But that will turn on at any time.

Mick Spiers: 22:36

It's that exception that that then drives the way we think about what we're seeing in front of us, though around that conflict. And I think that we'll probably come back to this avoidance of conflict later, based on the pre conversation you and I had, I want to now come back to this innovation and this I think, plays strongly into the builders mindset. What I heard from Eugenia is that necessity driving innovation. So covid was a great example, and I think the world proved itself to be more resilient than we ever gave it credit for, individually and collectively. So there's that necessity driving innovation. But what I'm trying to unpack with this builder's mindset, these builders, they're they're innovating regardless of necessity, right? So, so we might have it inherent inside us that that when pushed into a corner, we're going to innovate and get creative and get ourselves out of the corner. But these builders are like everyone else is happy right now, and yet they're going, No, I'm not happy. I want something more we couldn't have. Yeah, I want to bring something into it. Could be better. Yeah. So tell me what's different between that person that innovates despite necessity versus the new, let's say the normal human being that will innovate during necessity.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 24:34

It's a great question. So, again I actually think it's more difference in degree than a difference in kind, even though it's so dramatic, it might really look like a difference in kind. I think the most ambitious innovators, in a way, have the widest gaze and the farthest gaze, in terms of where they see room for the improvement of the human condition, which all of this really is about, like, you know, I mean, in a sense, you could say, well, there's never been any necessity for, you know, vaccines and all this medical technology and the internet. And, you know, people have survived for a little while painfully, but they've survived without all the leasing. So, do we need that? Like, do we really need, you know, like, do we need cars and, you know, air conditioning and, I mean, and there's real like, conflict in the world around whether we need these things and whether they're worth the trade offs with the environment. And to what extent are we just trying to play God when we try and make these innovations Right? Like, in what sense do we need that? Well, in the sense that, to the extent that we want to live, both literally, in the sense of, like, the longer we want to live, the better our medical knowledge and, you know, technology needs to be, and clearly that's still a work in progress, like, we can still do better, and there are still people innovating in longevity research, right? And then, you know, trying to cure cancer, and all the different ways that, like, we could be healthier and more resilient as a species and as individuals, right? And that also applies to the quality of life in terms of, like, what? How many choices do we have available to us? How many different ways, you know, like, the fact that I routinely coach people. Not only on their professional but their personal lives. You know, who are out in the dating world, right? And they're just cursing the dating apps, and it's so hard, and you know, they don't want to have to get rejected again and and it's just like, how do I know when I should or shouldn't go on the second date myself? And there are all these people who you know, and all the swiping, and what they don't realize is the luxury of being able to make all these choices about and being able to meet people who you never have just met at a bar, but based on, like, some match algorithm that allows you you know, to talk to people because you have shared interests, people who are in a different state, people who you know are in a different income bracket, or whatever, where before for most of human history, who you mate with was just prescribed for you, right? Like there just wasn't even a question of choosing who to love and who to marry, or whether to marry, or the configuration in which you want your romantic relationships too, right? The fact that we have all these choices is a massive achievement, like it wasn't, it wasn't the default. And so to me, all those things could be seen as part of the necessity that you talk about. You know that you mentioned where how high we set our sights, like there's no real cap. That's why I talk about raising the ceiling. There's no limit on how much better and richer and more diverse and more resilient and more interesting human life can get. Certainly we haven't approached any such ceiling or come anywhere close to it. And I think the most ambitious people see that like they set their sights farther, like, dang it, I want to cure cancer. I don't want to just, you know, come up with this one, you know, temporary like and ban aid solution or whatever it may be.

Mick Spiers: 28:08

Yeah. This is really interesting, Gena. Now my curiosity is getting away with me. So much today, I want to unpack that a little bit more. So this pursuit of better, I love it first of all, then that pursuit of better is going to show up in a few different ways. And the pictures I was thinking of when you were talking is that pursuit of better might take a materialistic turn, and that is not necessarily a path to happiness, by the way, this material. I just want a bigger car. I want a better house, etc. And we all, I think it's well documented now that when you get that bigger house, you just want another bigger house, etc. It's, it's not exactly, not exactly a pursuit of happiness there. But then when you said, I want to cure cancer, etc, the pursuit of better is more about impact

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 29:01

So, this is. And yeah, I'm really glad you're raising this. I'm actually writing a piece on this topic as we speak. So hopefully there will be a substack post soon that addresses more fully. But this is another area where I think we have, we think in a false dichotomy about this whole issue of, like, pursuing materialistic values, let's say, versus whatever is the other thing, like, spiritual, meaningful? What is it? I think there's something, you know. I think there's a deep, seated and historically old false dichotomy at play. Where, like, what does it mean for someone to just want a bigger house? Why do they want a bigger house? Do they want because nobody just wants a bigger house for the heck of it, and nobody wants more money for the heck of it. They want it for something. Maybe it's for what they think it symbolizes. They think, Well, if I have a bigger house, then all these people are going to drive by and see my big house, and then I can show up about the big house that I bought to all of these fancy, you know, whatever, tech, you know, founders, or all of these, you know, hoity, toity, like PTO parents who like or when I go back for my reunion, I'll show them how cool I am. And it like, yes, it's all just be. It's all hot air like none of this is real. It's all trying to affect the illusion of something good in other people's eyes. And I think that's often what's actually being measured by the kinds of studies you're talking about, which find that people who are just like piling on material goods don't end up happier. Because the important question is like, Well, why are they doing that versus I think there can be really good reason to want a particular sort of house that happens to be luxurious and large, like you have a vision for the kind of experience you want your family to have, you know, growing up like you want your kids to be able to, Like, dash off down the hall and experience the freedom and the you know, just like open space of like, you know, whatever open plan, whatever you call that, you know, this is something my husband and I have talked about when we were thinking about whether to buy a house, you know, or you want to have a big yard so that you can really realize. A vision of, you know, like hosting kid activities, or, you know, or having big family gatherings, or whatever it is, like that it means something to you, or you want it to be a space where you can also sometimes bring the team for, you know, like where you really get to curate the environment. I mean, Steve Jobs, I think may come up more than once in this conversation, because I I've been thinking of him and his story a lot lately, as I think about the builders mindset. Like, he was very thoughtful, just as he was thoughtful about the design of his products, he was very thoughtful about the design of his spaces, especially sort of later in life, when he was married and had kids and, like, wanted to create a certain kind of Bohemian esque, you know, kind of hippy dippy, but also, like, spacious experience for his family, like he wanted his kids to feel like the world is their oyster, and to be able to plant stuff in the garden. And, right? Like, is that materialistic? You know, it costs a lot of money, and, you know, and he had it in mind, I imagine, in part as one, one benefit of getting a bigger profit or getting a bigger return on investment on his products, is like, what can this buy me? But like, it's not a question of what status is it going to buy me in the eyes of these peers. It's what kind of life will I be able to design for myself and for my loved ones? And that means a very different question.

Mick Spiers: 32:40

Yeah. I really like it, you know, and the things that I'm hearing there, when I hear you talk, is, one is driven by service of self and our own ego and how we want to be seen by others, and the other one is service of others, service of others, and providing experiences to others and and from a more altruistic kind of element, in terms of why I might do that. Yeah, really interesting.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 33:10

Can I be a sore thumb and do it again? Thing where I say, actually there's a false pick? I know it gets annoying. It gets ridiculous at a certain point, but I think it's sort of the same. I'm a bit of a broken record, because there's, I think, a core underlying theme where I would frame it a little differently. I think what's happening with the first case is it like, is it service of self? Are you serving yourself in the sense of like, you're gonna be happier, richer, more fulfilled your life? You know you're gonna drink your life to the least, because you got this bigger house that will impress the other moms. Like, is that real? Or is it about a BS impression of yourself that you're trying to uphold having a realistic just to cut you off? That's what? Yeah, no, I know that's probably what you mean, but I actually think it's important, because, you know, go ahead.

Mick Spiers: 33:57

Yeah, it's about the story you tell yourself, about yourself and how you want to be seen by others, not not services of self, as in something that's going to fulfill you. It's just that's important. Yeah,

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 34:09

Yeah. But why that's really important is that, in the second case, it's not, I would not call it altruism, because I actually think it's importantly selfish, in the sense that it's your life that you're building. You're not doing it for a bunch of strangers in Africa or wherever it is that everyone now currently believes that you should be donating all your money, right? Like, and maybe there are causes you care about, and you donate some of your money to those causes, but like, you have the self assertion and sort of like the self confidence, the self love, to prioritize your life and like your family and your kids and your community and like the things you care about. And I do think it sort of has to be personal in that way, in a way that I actually think there's a conception of, like, selflessness and altruism that I actually think corrodes that where, like, either, either you're going to be one of these materialists who just wants to impress, you know, the PTO moms, or you're going to be like mother trees, right? Or like, or you're not going to think about yourself at all like, that's a false dichotomy where there's no room for, like, a genuine interest in the self as an agent in the world building an awesome life, which I'm all about ultimately. So I just wanted to throw that in there.

Mick Spiers: 35:30

No, it's really good. And not everything has to be a dichotomy either, right? So it can be, it can be a spectrum, and there can be self fulfilling kind of elements that come into this way that we leave. And we, we know from things like the gratitude study from Seligman, etc, that we know that that's where real fulfillment can actually come from. And you, you know, you could call, you know, all these philanthropists, did they do it for themselves, or did they do it for others? And the answer is, bit of both. Bit the birth.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 36:01

Yeah and yeah. And I think there's a way to do things for others that is 100% aligned with, and not just aligned with, but that is actually for you in the sense that these, this is, these are the people you value and the causes you value, and that means something to them. These are like, this is a world you want to. To build for yourself as you're living in it, and your, you know yourself is an extended self, right? Like my kids are part of me, my, you know, the students that I've mentored, that my clients, they're part of me, like their fates are now wrapped up with mine, right? Like I will be worse off if a client of mine decides to walk off a cliff, or, you know, metaphorically or literally, right? So in that sense, I don't again. There's no conflict. There's no trade off there, on you and them.

Mick Spiers: 36:46

Now what I want to circle back to something that you mentioned quite some time ago, but we've, we've been getting quite deep on a few other things you said about character change. There's going to be at least some people, I'm going to say, from more of a fixed mindset approach, but there's going to be some people who say, Yeah, but you are who you are. You can't change who you are. What do you mean by character change?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 37:12

Yeah. So this, I have written a substack piece about and so anyone who wants to get the even longer answer. It's called in defense of radical self betterment. So I kind of it's like whole long piece where I lay out a kind of approach, my approach to that kind of character change, but briefly, it's the process of reprogramming ourselves, right? So, you know, we have, I think everyone knows we have lots of habits that we've internalized, right? We if we had to consciously and effortfully and explicitly rethink and replan every you know, moments kind of decision and action, then we would be completely paralyzed. We couldn't walk, we couldn't talk, we couldn't much less, like run a team or a company, right? So so many of the things that we do day to day are automatized. They're now just part of our our code, if you will. Right? There are programs that are running on autopilot, and a lot of those formed really early. They got programmed when we were maybe three or five right or or even when we were in our teens or early adulthood, but at a point where, like, we weren't either fully conscious of or in charge of the inputs and how we process them right, and so maybe we ended up with a kind of implicit fear of the other people and the power that they wield over us and the ways that we are kind of tyrannized by them, if we aren't on our best behavior, right? And maybe that's based in real experiences that we had. We all felt relatively helpless to some extent, in the face of, you know, the parents or teachers or whoever was in positions of authority over us, because that literally was like we couldn't go anywhere, we couldn't do anything without those grown ups to help us and to support it. And so we've internalized certain models of ourselves, of the world, of what's possible, of what's, you know, worthwhile, you know, I think you would put it really nicely, of like the art of the possible, my remembering that phrase, you tend to really resonate with me, right? Like we have all these implicit programs that go all the way down to sort of core beliefs, like mental models, that then trickle down to the kind of the filters through which we see and hear and pay attention and remember the things that happen to us. Right? We know about confirmation bias, such that you can remember and notice the things that are congruent with your already held assumptions and beliefs, and you tend to sort of neglect the things that aren't right. And so like, anytime someone's a little bit mean to us anytime that, you know, we try to stick our neck out, and then nobody seems to care or pay attention. That just reaffirms that, Aha, see, I have no real power to affect outcomes in social conflict. Let's say, or, you know, I, if I rock the boat, then there will be massive blowback, and I won't be able to handle it. It's going to be intolerable. And part of the way we maintain those programs is that we act them out by, let's say, avoiding the confrontations that we're scared of because we think they would be catastrophic, which, in turn, then leads us to actually have less power in our relationship. And, you know, feel more like walked all over because we're not actually telling anybody you know what we want or need, or we're not kind of inserting our own input right into the decision making, and so that then just reinforces for us, Aha, see, of course, I can't speak up because, like, look, I have no power here. You know these other people who are? You know, it's just others or the world that got the agency, and not me. And the The Road to Character change is it consists of, and I put this in a stepwise kind of sequence, because there's a logical sequence to it. But of course. Not clean and linear. Of course, it's highly iterative, but if you kind of think logically, like, what do you need to do in order to change your program? First, you need to know what it is, and so a huge part of the work is in just like self awareness and building that self knowledge, just like noticing, monitoring, observing patterns of feelings, thoughts, behaviors that then point us to underlying, you know, mindset or assumptions that then we can start to consciously, deliberately and challenge and part of the work of challenging them is even just in using our current adult knowledge and cognitive ability and sophistication to rethink those old assumptions, right? Like, wow. So I, like, emotionally, I tend to act as if, and feel as if I, like, have no power over this person. Is that true? Or, you know, or, like, as if this person, it means Ill, like, as if this person is going to hurt me. Is that? What's the actual evidence? Like, what do I actually know? Can I bring other information to bear that I'm not you know that isn't automatically getting inputted to the program, right? But like, I have conscious agency over what I seek out right as kind of corrective evidence, like, maybe I can, maybe I can rethink this assumption now that's still not going to make the feeling the way. I'm still going to feel really scared and really anxious and threatened and insecure when I go to, you know, give the hard feedback or have the hard conversation with the person, but intellectually at least, like I'm kind of on board with it, not probably being as bad as it feels. And to get over the feeling, I'm actually gonna have to go and do it a bunch, the only way to ultimately rewire ourselves and change our program is to put ourselves out there, emotionally into the very situation that feels scary or dangerous. You know, that are that kind of run against our program, and go ourselves, walk ourselves by the hand through those situations, to be able to see that they go different, to be able to sort of collect the counter evidence in real time, right where, like, where we have skin in the game. Like, wow, that was a really awkward and hard conversation, and actually we ended up feeling closer and more aligned at the end of it. That was unexpected. Like, now actually trust them more, and they trust me more, and now we're, like, lighter, you know, like, now we're going out for drinks. That was not at all my mental model of how this was gonna go. And, like, having a bunch of experiences like that that you accumulate to gradually pull up those programs and replace them with new ones.

Mick Spiers: 43:57

Yeah. I love it, Gena. Let me play back what I'm hearing from you, and the power of beliefs is coming through. And whether that's a limiting belief or an empowering belief, right? If it's a limiting belief, it's something that's holding you back. If it's an empowering belief, it might actually drive you into action and about the story that you tell yourself, about yourself inside your head, I'm the kind of person that and finish that sentence, whether it's conscious or subconscious, it's it's there, and are you going to challenge that belief? Is it true? Is that really true? Right? Yes, yeah. I really love that. And so am I the kind of person that eats healthy, or am I the kind of person that I don't have any willpower. I just, I just indulge myself, right? So all of those things, all the way through to in the world.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 44:45

And even like, so sorry, and just to really, and even like, is that even the right question for me to act like, am I a person well, but do I have to either be that kind of person or this kind of person, or like, am I thinking in a black and white way that I'm excluding other possibilities, right? Or I'm like, maybe there's more nuance here. So, yeah, that's part of the work. Go ahead.

Mick Spiers: 45:05

All right. So challenging these beliefs. And then what I heard once, once we've challenged the belief in going, Hey, is that true? Then I'm hearing a little bit of discomfort. I'm hearing that the change is going to come from stepping out of my comfort zone to try something that might be contra to the original belief, just to experiment, to go, Okay, well, I've asked myself, is it true? Now I'm going to try and I'm going to test. So let's talk about that, avoiding the feedback that you know that you should be giving to one of your team members or even your boss. Let's say it's uncomfortable. Yeah, it's uncomfortable. But you tell your story in your head that it's going to go horribly, but then when you do it and it's not as horrible as you thought, well then you've got a new belief. How does that sit?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 45:56

Gradually and eventually?

Mick Spiers: 45:57

Gradually.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 45:57

No, really. Well put, yeah, and it's not going to be an overnight, one time deal, but like, it's incremental, and you start to notice it usually pretty quickly once you've tried it once. But, you know, but there are lots of ways we can sabotage it for ourselves, because remember, these programs are, you know, well rehearsed. They go way back. They you. Know, they're ingrained, and so part of the work is sort of just recognizing and having realistic expectations about like, oh yeah, this is going to take a lot of time. Not going to be linear. I'm going to regress a lot, you know, two step forward, one step back. And that's all part that's in the nature of what it looks like to change these part of myself, right? That's all the nature of psychological change. And good for me that I'm persisting through those setbacks, So like.

Mick Spiers: 46:47

That's good. How do we how do we make, how do we make it a lasting change? Gena, so let's keep on using this feedback one, and the reason why I keep circling back to this one is this is The Leadership Project. And for all leaders listening to this, have a good think about this. We know that giving feedback is one of those limiting beliefs for me, not for everyone. If you're good at this, well done.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 47:08

A lot of us. A lot of heck of a lot of us. Shocking a lot of us, including you know, those

Mick Spiers: 47:11

For a lot of us, of us who like supposedly should know better. All right, so this is a limiting belief for many of us. We avoid conflict, we avoid giving that feedback, even though we actually, most of us appreciate getting the feedback ourselves, because once you get the feedback, you can do something about it. There's something that stops us, right? So what I want to talk about now is lasting change. So let me use the same analogy or the same example for that. So let's say that someone does that. They've got that limiting belief about giving feedback at something is holding them back. They do what you just said. They challenge is that belief really true? And they tell they ask themselves the question enough so that they will act they'll go out of their comfort zone, they'll have the courage to go and give the feedback. They give the feedback, and it goes much better than they ever expected, and their life goes on, but then three months from now, they're back to I hate giving feedback. How do we make it a lasting change?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 48:19

Yeah. I mean, like, some of this parallels any other habit chain that we might undertake. And I feel like everybody experienced some form of it. Like you build an exercise routine, and then there's, you know, a big life changer. You get thick for a while and whoops, like you're off the wagon. And then, you know, like it takes two weeks, supposedly, give or take, for, like, a typical kind of, like, physical habit, to catch on, and then it takes no time at all for it to have a slide flip aside. And then, if you've been for a year, then it's gonna, it'll take a bit more for its backside, and it's gonna take less time for you to get back on again. And if you're you've been at it for five years. So some of it, I think, really is, yeah, like it takes time to program ourselves, and the default is that we're going to backside. So plan for that and save it direct to it, or have periodic checks for yourself, knowing, Oh, yeah. So I probably don't need the daily journaling anymore that I needed at the beginning to make this into a habit, but I probably could still use like, a weekly journal, right? Because otherwise I'm going to forget and I'm going to follow up, you know, or when, when things get really tough, or when I'm exhausted, because I'm doing a fundraise and I'm sort of worn thin, and don't have my kind of, you know, my full mental resources on hand, like I'm just gonna backslide into avoiding I won't even realize it's happening, and so it's already festered, and so let me have my periodic cycle for myself, or, better yet, maybe check into a culture with a partner or with a friend, right, like someone who can help keep me accountable. And maybe we're keeping each other accountable because there are ways that each of us is pregnant, right? So that's one thing. It's just like knowing it's going to be hard and you'll forget and being realistic with yourself about how often do you need those external prompts that you put into place because you're the one designing your environment to serve you and your desired change. So how do you want to design your environment so that it pings you periodically, so that it sets you up for success, for continued success. So that's one thing that's just like, super gentle for any habit that you're trying to change. And these are, you know, a type of habit that you're changing. And I mean, another thing, which I wanted to say earlier, and it also applies to this question of maintenance, is that it's very natural for us to assume that we have to be able to feel it in order to do it like this is a very common even like the idea of make it till you make it. It's like pretend you don't feel anxious and uncertain until actually you don't, and actually there's something wrong with that way of thinking, because it implies that you can't feel anxious and do it anyway, which is a problem, because the whole technology of pain, you've got to be able to feel anxious and do it anyway. You've got. Do it when you don't feel like it, because that's what's going to teach you later. I feel like but like we talked about, like you've got to be able to go have the conversation when you feel really anxious and you've got the knots in your stomach and it's awkward and you lost sleep at night, just like pre ruminating on the conversation and how horribly it's going to go, even in spite of all your, you know, tools like and you still go and do it. That's the way to change, and then you keep doing that. So I think getting comfortable with discomfort is one of the key kind of fundamental underlying resilience factors for being able to sustain the kind of changes like that's the meta habit. It's one of the meta habits that you want to constantly be attending to and strengthening, so that then all the particular habits don't backfire the moment that it's a little bit uncomfortable, right? Like the moment that those feelings creep back in which they will because they're pretty hardwired and not by the time we're adults. Of like, oh shoot, I'm really scared to have this conversation again. Like, that's okay, as long as you know, you can still go have it basically.

Mick Spiers: 52:22

Yeah. I really like it, Gena. And some of the things that are popping into my head the last bit there having some really realistic expectations of what success is going to look like. And if you had a different perception of what success was going to look like, you might get disappointed when, oh, okay, it never got comfortable. I need to be able to live with the idea that being comfortable with being uncomfortable, so I can act in the face of the discomfort regardless. I think that's a really good one for us to learn, particularly around that feedback part. It might never come natural to you, but the results are worth it.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 52:59

Fully, so yeah.

Mick Spiers: 53:02

Yeah.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 53:02

And it will incrementally get more natural, to which I do think is important.

Mick Spiers: 53:07

Yeah.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 53:07

It's like, there is real payoff, and it's non linear, yeah, and it's incremental, and that's just in the nature of it.

Mick Spiers: 53:15

And the other one I'm hearing a lot there is about the resilience, all right, so, so the habit building. And, you know, there's all those studies around take 66 days on average to build a new habit, etc, but what? What people then get into their mind that it has to be perfection every day. But habit building is actually it's more about what happens when it doesn't go right? What do you do? Do you drop your bundle and go the diet's a classic one for this. One is, I'm trying to eat healthy every single day of my life. I have a hamburger one day and then, oh, I've blown my diet now.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 53:53

What the hell effect?

Mick Spiers: 53:54

Yeah.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 53:55

Yeah.

Mick Spiers: 53:55

I might as well.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 53:55

I mean, and that's the yeah, it's not because someone has a cheeseburger that they end up failing at their goal. It's because when they have the cheeseburger that's now their excuse to stop trying to go right? It's classic. Yeah, we have all sorts of terms for this, you know, in the behavior change literature, which sounds like you're familiar with, but yeah, I mean a framework I've often come back to but I haven't. I didn't make this up, but I like it. It's a lapse versus relapse versus a lack framework, which I learned in the context of I was doing like, an Obesity Intervention, behavior change intervention for obesity. And just, it's so helpful to be able to distinguish like. So a lapse is you have a day where you eat a cheeseburger and whatever follow up, or if you're trying to, you know, quit smoking or drinking, like you have a drink, you have a cigarette, or maybe you even go a week where you're just, you know, back to your old habit. A relapse is where? Oh, well, I have a lapse. Now I'm off the wagon. Oh, well, okay. And then you kind of keep going like that for a while, and now that you know that, now you're, like, closer to being back to where we now, you kind of relapse. A collapse is when you've just really stopped crying forever and like, the only way for it to become a collapse is going to die, because until that day, you can decide, you know that you're gonna get back on the wagon right and try again, but, like, Don't let a lapse become a relapse, and don't let a relapse become a collapse. And just, I really like that kind of framework for it.

Mick Spiers: 55:31

Yeah, love it, and I think that you can translate that into your leadership practice. Everyone listening to the show, so you're out there trying to build yourself as a leader and become the leader that you wish you always had and the leader that your team deserve. Not everything's going to go to plan every single day. So you need these resilience tools to be able to go, okay, it didn't work today, but I'm going to go again tomorrow. And I don't mean you know the definition of insanity. Try the same thing over and over again, expect a different result. It's about resilience and flexibility and adaptability. To be able to go, oh, okay, that was interesting. And the awareness and noticing and naming when something oh okay, well, that didn't go exactly how I am planned. What am I going to do slightly different next? Time not not just drop, drop your bundle and never try again. What am I going to do differently next time to to try again? How does that sit with you, Gena?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 56:29

That's great, and it sort of reminds me of like one of my most oft pedaled behavior change goals. And I think of virtues of character, actually, because it enables so many of the others. And so essential for powering around behavior change is what I call self honesty, which is what it sounds like being honest with ourselves and striving to be ever more honest with ourselves. And that includes things like, Oh yeah, wow. I've really been avoiding hard conversations. I've been back into, you know, I've gotten back to my way you're like, wow, yeah, I think they might be right about this one actually, kind of being on me that I really dropped the ball, or, you know, I've been claiming myself and everyone around us that, like, we have product market fit. But actually maybe we kind of don't, you know, like, if you're a founder, and for that, for us to be able to really attack that as a virtue in its own right, and to then, like, pride ourselves, because I think it's really right to pride ourselves on that self honesty as a virtue, realizing, like, this is necessary. This is a necessary prerequisite to any further change that I want to make, because if I can't trust myself, if I can't sort of trust my mental model to be self correcting and sort of truth tracking, then I have no power to change anything, because I am not even going to admit it, right, and because I don't even know, because I can't even genuinely track my progress. I'm sort of like, you know, I've lost before I've entered the ring, and that's the default, because it's really easy to be at ourselves. It's really easy to write ourselves in subtle ways that we're barely aware of, you know, especially when it comes to our self effect, right? And my mistakes that we might make it even the responsibility we do or don't have, and so to be able to really like practice and pride ourselves on practicing self honesty as a virtue in the film, right it? I think it's a tremendous motivator for them changing a bunch of the particular things that we self honestly acknowledge aren't there yet. Yeah, like, we can have all sorts of faults and problems and still have this solid foundation for loving ourselves enough to be worth changing for you know, because at least we're keeping it real, and that's a big deal. It's no small thing to be keeping it real with ourselves.

Mick Spiers: 58:56

Yeah, I love it. I love, love this concept of self honesty and being honest with ourselves about where we're at. So look, Gena, we've, we've covered a lot of ground. Today. I'm going to attempt, because there's so much things, so many things that we covered, gonna attempt to recap a few of them. So so we've been talking about this builders mindset, these, this idea that we're going to challenge the status quo, the pursuit for better, but think tapping into what is the real motivation behind why we want to challenge for better. We've talked spoken about character and character change, and that it is possible and addressing limiting beliefs, to be able to ask yourself the question, is this belief, this ingrained belief that I have, is it really true? Is it really true? And then being able to step into discomfort to test whether it's true, and to notice and name what happens, so that we can start building these habits about having the resilience to that when things don't go exactly the way that you're expected, that you do try again, you might adapt and change, but you'll try again, not just, not just give up at the first hurdle. And about this self honesty, to really check in with ourselves as to go, Well, you know, it's still the same question, is it really true? Is it really true? And the the stories that we tell ourselves checking in as to whether we're true and and these are the things that can make lasting, habitual changes in our leadership, in the work that we do, in our relationships. Have a really good if you need to listen to this episode a few times, listen to the things that Gena has been saying, and look at yourself in the mirror and see what there applies to you and what you can put into your own leadership journey. All right. So thank you so much, Gena, this has been a wonderful conversation. I've absolutely adored it. I'd love to now go to our final four questions. These are the same questions that we ask all of our guests. So first of all, Gena Gorlin, what's the one thing you know now that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 1:01:03

That it was worth holding out for better. It would have saved me a hell of a lot of time and heartache, like I don't need to go on a bunch of crappy days and, you know, kind of making. Ice with a bunch of not very interesting, like lab, like researchers, I mean, in every domain of my life, like, I could just hold out for better and better.

Mick Spiers: 1:01:33

Yeah, love it, all right.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 1:01:35

I could say more, but it's probably kind of.

Mick Spiers: 1:01:37

I like it . Yeah, it's, it's self explanatory. I like it. But what's your favorite book?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 1:01:43

Yeah, so it's the fountainhead by Ayn Rand, which is potentially a big can of worms culturally and people, you know, has a lot of different connotations for people, but it's very straightforwardly, my favorite book. This one's actually an easy one for me. I read it when I was 16, and it was the kind of book that's like, there's a before and after for me, like it changed my whole kind of life trajectory. And I mean, put it simply, it portrays a literal builder, because he's an architect, the story of Howard work. He's an architect who starts out, he has us been expelled from college when we first meet him, and when the story starts, and he's kind of indifferent, and he's fine, and actually kind of okay with it, because he's already moving on to the next step in his career of kind of building his times, of building his way and pulled into vision. And the whole story is one of believing along with a major character in the story, not to spoil it for those who haven't read it, but kind of believing he's doomed to fail, and being completely mystified as to why he still persevered, and then ultimately seeing by the inexorable logic of the book, like, yeah, of course he wins. Of course he makes it, because his way work, and like, the rest of my life is different because of that. Like, I don't have to give up on my integrity

Mick Spiers: 1:03:05

Very,

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 1:03:05

I have belongingness

Mick Spiers: 1:03:05

Very, very congruent with everything you shared with us today. Or, thanks, Gena, what's your favorite quote? Pretty much this one's much harder, because it definitely changes day to day week, but I will have to go with it. So there are two Steve Jobs quotes that I'm like, battling in my head for current favorite status. But yeah, I'm gonna go with the one that I think after more of the essence of me, you may have run into it before. It's the one where he was doing some interview from liberal art college. Again, is that to kind of sum up his own like, philosophy of life, or, you know, or something like the question you asked about, what does he wish he knew? And he says everything around you that you call life was made up by people who are no smarter than you, and you can change it. You can take it. You can make something that people want to use, like you can rewrite history, you can rewrite the future, and once you realize this, then nothing ever be the thing. Love it a little bit of a paraphrase, but I think they got off of it.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 1:04:10

Get like, Yeah. Yeah, well done.

Mick Spiers: 1:04:13

And finally, Gena, there's going to be people listening to this episode that have been completely enthralled about this concept builders, character change all of these things. How do people find you, If they'd like to know more about you and your work?

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 1:04:28

Subscribe to my substack. You can subscribe for free, builders.genagorlin.com and then if you want to reach out to me personally, you can do that through my website, genagorlin.com or if you're a founder looking for coaching, it's genagorlin.com/members, Gena Gorlin.

Mick Spiers: 1:04:48

Yeah, all right, and we'll put the links in the show notes as well, Gena, so people can find it. So, thank you so much for your time today and for sharing your your insights and wisdom. I feel richer for having this conversation, and I know that the audience will as well. So thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Gena Gorlin: 1:05:06

I learned a lot too. Thank you for your thoughtful question.

Mick Spiers: 1:05:11

You've been listening to The Leadership Project. In the next episode, I'll be joined by Dan Tocchini, where we unlock the secrets of courageous leadership and creative conflict resolution. Don't forget to subscribe to The Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video Leadership Project YouTube channel. We bring you live editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to streams video podcasts and curated videos on all things subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can leadership, personal development and high performance mindsets follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as every single week. we learn together and lead together.