2424 - The Neuro Leadership Edge for Mental Fitness and Executive Success with MSP Team Building's Claire Hayek

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0:46Visit podverify.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, it is the one, the only Claire Hayek. Claire, you are the founder of Mind, Soul, Purpose Team Building. You are found on the web at mspteambuilding.ca and clairehayek.com. Claire, it's great to have you. Well, I'm really happy to be here, Josh. Thank you. Yes, well, it's great to have you. And before we start talking about the work that you do in the world, I should point out, I should point this out to you. Okay, if you weren't going to say it, I'm going to say it. You can search Claire Hayek on Spotify.

1:31Claire's got some music there. Claire's done some good stuff over the years. For over 30 years, you've produced music. And I'm going to, as soon as this episode is done recording, I'm going to go listen to your stuff. So is there a track that would be a good introduction to Claire Hayek, the artist? Wow, that's tough. That's a tough question, man. You got it. I mean, you have a couple of remixes here. This looks intriguing. Yeah, I've worked a lot with a lot of DJs recently. My album that I've actually released, it's been a while now. That's Intention. That would really be my own work, 100%. The work that I've done with DJs, I'm always the songwriter, the singer-songwriter, but obviously the music production is theirs.

2:18But hey, it depends on the style. You like EDM, check out the latest releases. Otherwise, it definitely hit the album in tension. I will. I will. Yes, I do like EDM. Have you heard Madonna's new song? Very EDM. Actually, I haven't. Oh, yeah. I mean, as of when we're recording this, it just came out, but it's very, very EDM. Claire, I didn't mean to kind of point out what you might be doing for fun. When you're not at work, what are you into? Oh, gosh. I love to travel. Travel is my biggest passion. But if I would say something daily, on a daily basis, I love to walk, connecting with nature, you know, just really just get out there, especially when it's nice outside.

3:05Yeah, so restorative. You know what I started doing is hanging out in my front yard, which is kind of a 70s and 80s thing to me. It's like, like, I just don't see people sitting out in their front yard that often, at least in my neighborhood. Everyone's just kind of in the back. I mean, I live in Florida. So it's funny you say that because just before this, you know, we're here and I, you know, I connected. I was in my front yard. So there's something about it, you know. I'm all for it for sure. Yeah. Well, it was precipitated because we have a new puppy. And so the puppy made more sense for him to kind of like run around the front yard or whatever.

3:46But I just grabbed a chair. I'm like, man, I feel like I need a tea or a beer or something. I don't know. It's just kind of. And, you know, the advantage to the front yard. And I'm like realizing this is like, you know, you kind of see your neighbors a little bit, you know, walking by. If they're walking a dog or whatever or driving by, you wave at them. And I'm like, hey, I should be doing this more often. A better connection. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So there we go. There's our fun thing of the episode. And to our friend that's listening, here's your assignment. Go sit in your front yard tonight.

4:16See what happens. If you need to borrow a puppy, you can borrow Benji. He's quite a handful. So Claire, let's talk about the work you do. By the way, I should point out as well, you're a podcaster, neuroleadership, you're a neuroleadership expert. The name of your podcast is The Neuro Leadership Edge with Claire Hayek. But Claire, why don't you tell me about or tell us the work that you do with MSP team building? Yeah, I mean, you know, the way I put it, I say that we don't do team building. We build teams. And that's really the foundation of the work we do. But if I were to really focus on our main thing is pressure-proof leadership operating system.

5:03And basically, it's to help leaders, founders, C-suite, execs that are holding all this pressure, sometimes alone or, you know, everything's kind of like on their back, to help them build the foundation so they can stay aligned, clear, and communication is laser-focused. Everything is just performing well, even when that strong wave hits or that tsunami comes in and those foundation are solid. So they can lead with calm authority and make the right decisions. Because otherwise, and from a lot of research that I've done, I'm actually researching and writing a book called Calm Under Fire, a lot of the leaders in the C-suite I speak to, we actually put number on the cost of inaction, the cost of not building those foundation when pressure hits.

5:58And we're talking millions of dollars. And one decision that goes wrong or sideways, it can cost a lot, a lot of money. And unfortunately, that's not on the actual financial statement. So I'm here to really help them upgrade their operating system so they are solid no matter what's happening. Whatever the tsunami is coming, bring it on. We're ready. Right. Well, you have worked with a number of big brands. I just, oh, I lost your ribbon. I was just going to read off all of these companies and now I can find it. Do you mind mentioning who you've worked with? I mean, you've worked with like the biggest of the big Pfizer, Lindt, Airbus, TD, Deloitte, Staples, Siemens Energy.

6:45uh l 'oreal uh all right so what what message are you bringing to these teams to help them to become more productive and happier yeah you know the the main thing is all about you need to lead yourself first before you can lead others so the way a leader shows up the way a leader um is training and training i mean their mental fitness so it's not mental health of course mental fitness affects mental health, but really where's your brain at? You know, the fact of the matter is when you do an assessment, you can actually measure the percentage of your brain actually working for you and the percentage that is keeping you alive by sabotaging you because it doesn't want you to be bold or to make certain decisions because it's not comfortable with that.

7:37It thinks it's danger. What? Yes, absolutely. So the brain's job is to keep you alive and not to. Yes, right. So the idea is when I talk about mental fitness, when I talk about leaders, like, where's your brain at? You know, is your brain really working for you? Have you trained your brain? Have you dismantled those patterns that are not really serving you anymore, that actually are holding you back and making you play at a small level? So the idea is really for leaders and founders, et cetera, to be able to play at the level they were built for. And I'll tell you, we're all built to play at a very high level.

8:14We just kind of default to the status quo and default to our old patterns because that's just the way it has been all these years. So when you step into that level, you step into your power and you're much happier, you're much more focused. You are showing up steady and calm, no matter what's going on. And everybody around you, that's how you inspire and you influence a whole culture around you because you are modeling that calm authority. It's not, you guys need to do the work. I'm perfect. Oh no. It's something that is really underestimated. A lot of leadership teams, they carry the weight, but they're not taking care of themselves.

8:58Yeah. All right. Well, let's have a moment for a little bit of grace for our leaders that are listening right now. How can we take better care of ourselves? yeah i mean uh god where do i start that's a big question you know for one thing for one i mean the simplest thing is when you're under pressure or you feel like something's coming at you and you're going oh my god because the first thing you're going to do you're going to default to a survival pattern so you might freeze you might just blur something out that you and go why did i say that That's not what I wanted to say. Make a rash decision or completely retrieve and go hide somewhere.

9:41Right. It's it's it's just the way it is. Or say something just to please somebody and not mean what what what you wanted to do and not do what you really wanted to do. So I think the best advice I can give to leaders out there is to pause. You don't have to jump into answering anything when that wave is coming. I know it's weird. It's like, no, run for your life. No, actually, the best thing to do is you, I'm talking one second to two second pause. And what that does, and you know, deep breath, deep breath. You don't have to meditate for 20 minutes. Deep breath. Just be aware that this is coming.

10:19I really want to jump at this or I really want to hide or I really want to freeze right now. But just calm down. One to two seconds. If you can do five, it's perfect of breathing, deep breathing. What that does, it gets you out of your amygdala. This is your fight or flight center and brings you back into your prefrontal cortex, your brain CEO. So now you have access to your skills. You are talented. You're wonderful. You're very skilled, obviously, right? But when pressure hits and you're no longer in that brain center, that CEO is serving you anymore. So you need to pause, interrupt that craziness and bring it back, that blood flow, literally, consciously.

10:59You're bringing it back into the prefrontal cortex. so you can make that right decision and not, and it's not costing you your health, your, your, and this way you can also regulate your, your nervous system, slow it down, take a breather. How do you believe the room reads that when a leader goes through that process? Oh, it's wonderful. You should try it. I don't know if you're in certain positions like that, but it really calms everybody down. It calms the room. And it really has this powerful effect. And you've seen it. We've seen a lot of this on TV. One of the biggest, most successful leaders and founders and entrepreneurs out there, one is with Steve Jobs.

11:46I'm sure if you Google it, where he was asked something, a question that was a bit tough for him to answer. I think he took a long 20-second pause. It's a long time. You think one, two, three, and all the way to 20. That's long. Especially in an interview where it's in videos. A whole room of press, right? And he took those 20 seconds. That's dead air in broadcasting. He commanded the room. Now, I'm not saying that's what you should do, but I'm talking about one second to two seconds, five seconds tops. it just kind of puts things in perspective and calms you first and calms everybody because people see like wow okay we can thank you for giving us that five seconds to breathe everybody's breathing with you at this time and the most important part is when you speak after is is is to kind of realign everybody around you and say okay what is the most important thing right now that little smallest smallest action we can do right now to move in the right direction these are the facts.

12:47This is what we know. This is what we can control right now. This stuff we can't control right now. So what is that little thing, little step, action that we can take in the right direction? Even if it is, we're going to sleep on this, or we're going to take an hour and regroup. It could be that small and that little. It doesn't have to be the big decision. And that just, now we're all in our prefrontal cortex. We're all in our brain CO and wonderful things happen. We're actually making rational decisions, aligned decisions. Now we're just clicking again. And so we literally, by just doing that, we got rid of all this noise.

13:27It's so powerful. It's so simple. Yeah, I'll stop here because I can go on forever. I feel like you do this in a live workshop, but I'm just, I'm envisioning, you know, just kind of having people go through the exercise of like, okay, now everyone's going to pair up. You're going to ask each other questions. And before you answer, you're going to pause for two to three seconds and you're just going to note how that feels. And I can speak for myself. And I know that there are some other folks that might be a little ADHD, you know, as business founders. and oftentimes I have so much enthusiasm for the contribution that I want to have in the conversation or the interest that I want to show that I know that it's very easy for me to sometimes be very quick to jump in there.

14:17And I think as well, if I think back to my upbringing, my mom was pretty quick, and in terms of like in a conversation, she's going to get all in there. So I probably could reflect a little bit of stoicism in my tone. Yeah. And you know, Josh, if I may add, it's not a rule. No. You need to take a pause. It's just when we're feeling. Actually, the first step is being self-aware and recognizing right now I'm overwhelmed. Right now, if you're in flow, you're in flow. Why are you pausing? But if you're feeling overwhelmed, and it's very specific to high pressure situations, Sometimes we're not even aware that we're overwhelmed.

15:01The pause is just like, okay, I'm overwhelmed. So right away, I took away the power out of being overwhelmed because I named it. It's like, okay, no biggie. Let me move on here. You're already in your prefrontal cortex just by naming what's really going on. And another thing I want to add, if I may, is that the brain is neuroplastic. We can rewire it the way we want. So we are not, even if you're ADHD, even if you have a certain way of, I can totally relate to what you said, Josh. I'm like that when I get really excited and I'm like, oh my God, I don't want to say this. And I had to literally, I've been working on this for more than three years.

15:40I had to literally rewire my, you know, I just want to jump in. But every now and again, I'm like, it's okay. I want to jump in. It's fine. But you know what? That pause sometimes is just magical because it just changes everything. And the more I did it, the more I was able to control it consciously. I want to pause right now or no, I don't know. No time for pause. This is in flow. Let's go. Let's ping pong, you know. So so this is the this is the difference being conscious of and not being driven by your brain the way it wants to go with all the noise. You are the one deciding what I'm doing here.

16:16I am in control of my brain and how the wiring is going to go. what's going to help me and serve me and my people, my family, my, my, my, my partner, my pets, you know, it's a, it is, it affects everybody around you. It's pretty powerful. I gotta say. Yeah. Okay. So tell me a little bit about MSP team building. Um, how do you work with organizations? What does that typically look like? Are you doing workshops? Are you consulting? yeah i mean um there we have a lot going on but there's of course the all the the team building activities that that we we we offer but that our main work is in the pressure proof leadership system so that the way that works is that pretty much i come in we assess where's the gap where are you failing when pressure is hitting and pretty much right now everybody's in that the uncertainty, disruption, et cetera.

17:11I'm not going to go into what's going on in the world right now. But we go in, we assess, we're like, okay, here's the gap. This is where you're failing as an executive team when pressure hits. So we identify the gap and there's usually a lot of one-on-one, a lot of research to understand the behavior. Then we go in a full day and together with the executive team, we will build the pressure-proof leadership system to implement in order that actually serves your organization and serves your operation. So it's not just a one size fit all. And what that means is that certain protocols or behaviors and commitments from the executive and leadership team on when pressure hits, this is how we're going to close that gap.

17:58And because it's tailored and designed collectively, then we get everybody's buy-in, right? It's got to serve you. And this is pretty much implemented at least 30 days so we can build those foundation, at least start building those foundations. Because I got to tell you, one day workshop, two hour facilitation, they're great. They're building your skills. But if you want to change behavior, if you want to upgrade your level of performance, it's a rewiring of your old habits that are not serving you and if in order to rewire i mean google it you know you gotta you need to it's in repetition so this is why i say it started about 30 days because now we're anchoring in because when i default the wrong thing then we're like oh the protocol let's follow it again here we go so it's practice in real life it's not a one day off site where everybody's great and then by the weekend we forgot what we learned it's literally practice in your day-to-day and it's serving you as you practice it and again it starts in 30 30 day kind of path that i call path a otherwise 90 days or a full year that is the best way we are serving organizations and leadership teams right now and it shows the roi is tremendous yeah because Like I said, one miscalculated decision or miscommunication in certain industries, that can cause not only reputation, retention goes down the drain, culture is beat, or you lose a big, big client that is, you know, we're talking millions of dollars.

19:41Yeah. Yeah. No, there are absolute consequences to our culture being off. And it's frustrating as a leader when you know that there's an issue. Maybe you have the resource. Maybe you don't have the resources to resolve it. But it looks as though, as I'm kind of looking at a lot of work you do, it looks as though, Claire, you get to have a lot of fun at work as well because your activities and your workshops are a lot of fun going on. And I'd advise to our friend that's listening, really simple, you just go to mspteambuilding.ca and you can see some of the work that Claire and her team do. Claire, what would you recommend they click on when they go to your website?

20:27I think the Lego serious play activity is the most, I would say the most, not only fun, but the most strategic and gets you the best ROI. it's one of these workshops that we are really reflecting together and starting to change you know instill those new patterns that are really serving us but while having fun right um and of course on clairehayek.com uh slash pressure dash proof dash leadership you can have a bit more information on the actual path that i was talking about very specific to leadership teams and we're talking up to 10 people, very, very focused, but otherwise like a team activity or strategy or anything going on, you can weave in Lego series play in any, anything, because it's very tailored.

21:15Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I got there. So I went to Claire Hayek.com and I clicked on take this scorecard and you've got a quiz here, scorecards, how pressure proof is your leadership? Probably pretty valuable information intel to get. Claire Hayek, this has been a great conversation. Also, your podcast is The Neural Leadership Edge with Claire Hayek, which to our friend that's listening to our conversation right now, just do a quick search and you can find Claire's podcast. Claire, it's been a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Josh. Thank you for having me.

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