1629 – The Essence of A Leader with Soul Salt’s Lyn Christian

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:58with us right now it's lynn christian lynn you are the owner of soul salt you're found on the web at soulsalt.com and your book is soul salt your personal field guide to confidence purpose and fulfillment lynn it's great to have you thank you josh it's wonderful to be with you yeah so give us an overview of who you work with. You work with a lot of leaders, a lot of folks that are, you know, they may find themselves in demanding roles, right? Right. And so I gravitate a lot to the entrepreneurial leader, somebody who has a small business. They've been there maybe three to 10 years. They love what they do.

1:42They're ready to level up and they're not quite sure what that means, but they know they need that next level. Sometimes what that means, Josh, is they need to learn how do they grow their people. Sometimes it means they need some succession planning. Often what they need, and even in conjunction with those other two things, is they need to get back to the essence of who they are as a leader and understand, how do I make the decisions? How do I stay at the helm? How do I stay on purpose? How do I lead through difficult, not only decisions, but difficult, tumultuous times and stay true to myself, as well as guiding people through hard times so we can survive another year, another five years, another 10 years.

2:26Those are questions that take a lot of courage, and some people don't stop to ask those. But I'm looking for the leaders who do stop because that's a critical time to get support. And these people don't need help. They're good at what they do. They just need some support to iron it out a little bit and to feel stronger. You know, Lynn, in my experience, you know, and then, you know, you kind of throw a couple of other things from my history into this. And self-reliance feels like such an admirable trait. And I think sometimes as leaders, we say, well, listen, as a, you know, as a high achieving person, as someone who has high expectations for myself, I ought to be incredibly self-reliant, but I feel there's some, you know, there's some, you know, like some of that is really healthy and really helpful.

3:23But I think that that can become a problem when we feel like we don't, or somehow it's weak to ask for help. Right. Well, so I think you're onto something. And part of my history is I've studied the neuroscience. And when you're an I, and you feel like that you have to be self-reliant, and it's lonely at the top, and yes, it is lonely at the top. I mean, at the end of the day, it all comes down to you making good decisions and you being strong and having vision. Yes, that's true. Somebody has to lead. And you've picked that position. However, that doesn't mean that you do it in a vacuum. And so if we become so self-reliant that we cut ourselves off from the team and the thinking and the energy that can combine underneath our efforts and lift us as we lift them, if we become a we, all the neurochemistry changes.

4:16And so people become more creative, they become more innovative, they become more courageous. And if you are living in that little vacuum of self-reliance and you have to shoulder it and you have to be the tough person that goes it alone, you're cutting yourself out of growth and opportunity, connection, and you're growing into something that might stagnate at some point. So, you know, another thing that I commonly hear, Lynn, and I would really love your take on this is, you know, and I think could be part of that, you know, where the leader is not quick to to support themselves emotionally, perhaps, or, you know, it's like, I feel like I see a lot of leaders are very quick to get that academic knowledge.

5:07Like, how do I, what are the, you know, this tactical leadership skills or marketing skills or, you know, just hard entrepreneurial skills. I think I don't see a lot of apprehension to that, right? Like we want all of that, but then, you know, when it comes to, you know, and I think personal growth, I think everyone's open to that, But then actually like taking the time and having an intimate conversation with a coach where we can start unpeeling maybe that are worrying us or stressing us, or I'm not at my max and how do I get there? You know, one of those biggest things that I commonly see would be just burnout.

5:48What's your experience with burnout with executives and leaders? So there's two things that are going on in your comments. Let's hit the first one and then we'll come back to burnout. I commonly, by the way, the fact that I kept it to only two points is actually a fan of this show. It's like, wow, he actually did pretty good there. Usually it's five, six. Okay, go. I'm sorry. Go for it, Lynn. No, they actually can be conflated together. So you started with emotional support and how do they get it? And it's today, we can no longer allow our leaders to not understand self-regulation, to not understand their nervous system, to not understand how does the neurochemistry of what they say and do pull people to them or push them away?

6:29How does the neurochemistry inside of them either help them go into that boardroom with 120 % confidence and calmness or not? And so self-regulation and emotional support is something that if you don't have that as a leader right now, my opinion, you're going to get left behind because other people are going to be making better decisions. They're going to feel better in their skin. They're going to be able to focus. And I'm in martial arts. And when I win a medal and when I podium on a, you know, in a match, it's because I've kept the emotional support of self in every single bout. and I'm able to keep myself collected because I have a team.

7:15I have coaches. I have support people. I train to be able to stay in that moment with the moment and make the best decision possible. So that's one thing. We need more support as leaders in different areas than we've ever thought before. It's not just mental. And I have a TED Talk that talks about this. We have a functional brain in our heart and our gut. They have complex neural networks. And a lot of today's leaders will understand that when they make a gut decision or they follow their heart and it's not just their prefrontal cortex or their neocortex making a decision. So learning how to be savvy without emotional support, anybody listening to this, you felt like kind of had a hunch that that was true.

7:58It's true. The other part is burnout. There's so many reasons why we burn out. And a lot of times it's because we don't have the healthy practices to build our own personal and professional resilience. resilience personal resilience might mean and I know these people are busy I'm one of them I'm one of these busy entrepreneurs I don't start my day without getting out of bed and stretching a little bit and then I have a two-minute meditation and a one-minute focus practice and then bam I'm into the day but if I don't have those there's a certain bit of sovereignty and a certain bit of understanding myself that I can't access then we go to the professional piece do you have an educational track?

8:38Do you have a recreational track? Are you going in and seeing your medical professionals? Do you have a mentor, a coach, a therapist? Do you have an emotional track taken care of? So, you know, professionally, are you studying about finances if you need to? Do you stay up on the latest from HBR? All these things where you can build your resilience so that when you know what hits the fan, you don't falter. You might wobble a little, but you don't stay down. You can bounce back. And so emotional support can conflate into getting it so that you can help mitigate against burnout. Another thing that causes burnout, Josh, and I write about this in my book, a lot of us don't understand pseudo strengths.

9:28We understand that we have strengths and superpowers and we understand we have weaknesses. And the notion from Gallup and all the research is lead with your strengths, mitigate against your weaknesses. But the number one cause of burnout that I find in business today is because people are working from pseudo strength. And that's something that I've coined, a term I've coined. And what it is, is it looks like a strength. People look at you and they go, you do that better than I do here. You take it. You're so much better. But as you do it, it takes more out of you. It takes the juice out of you.

9:57And so really, even though you can do it, better than most people. The question is, should you, because it's wearing you out. It's weathering you down from the inside out to spend too much time on those things. And it also is an opportunity cost because you're not using the 80 % of your time in your superpower, which is the thing that you can leverage to catapult you and your business further. And so there are some dynamics going on there. And I'm glad you brought these up because I think these are two really big topics. Like when When I sit with a Thinkers 50 and I'm learning from some of the best minds out there in business, and they're talking about mindfulness and meditation and focus and taking care of the emotional side of the executive or the leader as much as the intellectual side, I know I'm on track.

10:46Yeah. Lynn, let's say someone's like, okay, you know what? This is a really great reminder. I deserve to check in with myself. I deserve to process this. with. Because, you know, I find a lot of us, you know, a lot of folks in leadership positions, maybe they can talk with a spouse, maybe they could talk with a partner or a friend, maybe there's someone within the organization that they could talk about some of this stuff. But I dare say that I think just the dynamics typically are, there are a few people who I think, I guess I'll speak for myself, right? Where I don't know that I want to share all of my fears and concerns with any one person in my immediate network, you know, because there might be some fears that I don't want to cause them to be fearful when it's probably, you know, just kind of purely emotional.

11:41It's coming from my own insecurity or, you know, whatever, right? But, you know, again, getting to the eighth part of my question here is that, is, you know, how do we find a great, how do we identify a coach that's going to be a good fit for us who can help us with the things that we need most? Is there a directory? Is there, you know, how do we vet a good coach? Okay. So let's back into it from, again, you know, you set your questions up really well. So the first thing I would say is you're right on, Josh. I agree with you. We can talk to a spouse or significant other. We can talk to some of our trusted inner circle.

12:22You know, it research shows that each leader probably has five people that they really trust that they talk to the most, that they listen to the most, which actually there's a flip side to that. You're probably not listening to the other 10 or 20 that you might learn something from. So just a little side note there, but we do have our little posse that we go to and that's good. We need them. We need that team. We need that support. However, when you get a coach, we are trained to understand the neuroscience and the neuroscience tells us that there are neurons in your brains that will not fire unless we ask certain questions in a certain way that make you smarter and you find some of your own answers.

12:59So how do you find a really good coach? I would look for somebody who's credentialed, preferably for me through the International Coach Federation. So they either have an ACC credential behind their name, which is an associate credential, PCC, which is a professional, or they have the MCC like I do with a master certification, because you know that person's qualified. We have to jump through hoops and stay current in order to understand the science of coaching. Yes. And I'll just point out, so my wife is a licensed marriage of family therapist. So again, with coaching, when you have that certification, there are ethical considerations that are included in that.

13:35If you're just working with a coach who, you know, they've just got opinions and they've got some success, that's great. But there are no guarantees on how they're going to structure that relationship. It could be the, it's a wild west if they're not adhering to a code of conduct or they don't have the framework and the tools, you know, despite their background. Like, it's better. I just, you know, again, my personal bias is I think usually you're going to have a more statistically successful outcome. That's my own opinion. But I think so too, because we really are trained to be on your agenda, but we're also trained, I should say, and we're also trained to snuff out things that you wouldn't think of.

14:22So get referrals from people that you trust, who they've seen, you can go on the ICF website and search. I have people find me all the time through my SEO where like executive coaching or they put down coaching and then the thing that they need and they'll find me. I think referrals and doing some searches are good. Here's a caveat. When you find a coach, if they don't offer a free discovery session, back away. any good professional who's trying my opinion any good professional who is trying to reach you because you're their audience or say no to you and refer you to somebody that's a better fit will want to test who you are in a free discovery and let you do the same so that you're hiring each other gosh yes right and so if they have a great intake process and they can get you into a discovery and you can feel if it's a right fit or not, the chemistry is there or not.

15:17And then you have an honest dialogue. Should we look at a proposal or not? Or should I refer you out? If somebody is going to show up that way, then you know that you have quality. And then if you've hired somebody, if you're not getting clarity every session, the hallmark of good coaching, Sir John Whitmore wrote about this long ago. He was the leader of business coaching and England was ahead of us. So he's from England. He started this little thing in business. If you don't get clarity in your sessions with your coach so that you can take more purposeful action, and if you don't get challenged every once in a while, then you probably are not with the best coach.

15:55You know, if they don't take notes and you report in on things. I also like to have a retainer with my clients. Some coaches, you know, you want to have access. You want to send notes. You want to Marco Polo. You want to have that access. So look for that too, because if you're an executive or if you're running a small business, you need to have somebody on the sideline with you at least five days a week that you can check in with. Not that you're going to check in every day, but if you need it, you don't want to say, well, let's just talk about that in two weeks when we have our session. Well, two weeks is going to be too late.

16:26Your book, Soul Salt, recently published. Congratulations. Who needs to grab this book immediately? By the way, it's both in Kindle. It's in paperback as well. So who needs this book and what would you expect the transformation that they would experience to be? Right. So we'll also have the audio version out soon. Oh, that makes me happy. Yeah. July of 2023. So who I wrote it for is anybody who feels like they're suspicious, that there's more to themselves than they're actually accessing. because what happens is we get in and we excavate eight specific areas of the salt of your soul and a term that my clients came up with after they worked for me for a while so they named my company we find those eight places i show you where to excavate you find your answers and then when you live true to those you're going to find out your best self shows up you feel more true you have more peace of mind you have that confidence you're more on purpose so anybody who feels like the suspicion is inside of them, I could be better, I could do more, I could be more true, or anybody who doesn't want to get to the end of their life and regret that they lived up to other people's expectations more than they lived up to their own.

17:41How's that? Yeah, I dig it. And that book is available. It's on Amazon, it's on every bookseller. But again, you can go to soul salt.com. And you've got the book there listed as well, Lynn. For anyone else, it's going to the website soul salt.com. What would you recommend that they I mean, they've heard our conversation, they want more Lynn, right, Lynn, you and your team? What would they where do they go from here? Oh, I would say go to the blog. Go to our blog. We have so many articles there and diets. and they're all free and they're things that you'll probably find a lot of, you know, if what we're saying resonates, there's a lot of free stuff there.

18:22We have just packed it. In fact, some people write back to me, this happens in my sessions, but they write back to me after this and they go, how did you know I needed to hear that? And so because of the nature of who I am and what happens in our session, sometimes the words you need are the things I say in the session. And so we've actually crafted that same kind of intuitive, compassionate, savvy sense of what the needs are out there and put those in our blogs. So those are all free. Go to those. Yeah. All right. Soulsalt.com. Lynn Christian, it's been wonderful having you. Thank you so much for joining us.

19:02Thank you for the great conversation. And thank you so much for the great work that you do in the world. Janash, thank you. Thank you for the gift of being here.

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