205. The Secrets Behind Mental Toughness and Leadership with Matt Phillips

Discover the secrets of high-performance leadership as we sit down with Matt Phillips, the dynamic founder of Matt Phillips Coaching. From a professional baseball career to the corporate world, and now a sought-after high-performance coach, Matt's journey is nothing short of inspiring. He offers invaluable insights into the mental toughness required to excel in both sports and business. Learn how aligning your words with your actions can make a significant impact on your leadership style, and why embracing a high-performance mindset is crucial for success.

Ever wonder how to truly maximize your productivity and focus? We've got you covered. Matt and our hosts explore effective time management strategies and the power of reflective learning. Discover the importance of carving out time for strategic thinking and how intentional actions can lead to groundbreaking innovations. Whether it's fine-tuning your role modeling skills or optimizing team collaboration, this episode is packed with practical advice to help you and your team thrive.

As we wrap up, we explore the pivotal role of daily habits in achieving greatness, drawing parallels between legendary athletes and successful leaders. Matt shares his perspective on building mental toughness through resilience, emphasizing the synergy between innate talent and cultivated skills. Finally, we highlight the significance of connection and collaboration in unlocking leadership potential. Join us for an episode brimming with inspiration and actionable guidance, perfect for anyone eager to elevate their leadership game.

🌐 Connect with Matt:
• Website: https://www.mattphillipscoaching.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattphillips15/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattphillipscoaching

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Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

What are the key attributes that make great leaders Great? What makes high performers achieve great heights in today's episode of The Leadership Project, we are joined by high performance coach Matt Phillips. Matt shares with us the secrets behind high performers, their mental strength, their daily habits and their intentional focus are the things that set them apart. Matt Phillips provides us with actionable insights on how we can build the mental strength of high performance athletes and how this can translateinto our leadership. Enjoy the show. Hey everyone and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Matt Phillips. Matt is the founder of Matt Phillips coaching, and he's an expert in high performance leadership, and that's what we're going to unpack today. So without any further ado, Matt, I would love it if you would say hello to the audience. Give us a little bit of a flavor of your background, and I'm curious to know what inspired you into this world of High Performance Coaching and high performance leadership?

Matt Phillips: 1:13

Well, first of all, Mick, thanks for having me super excited to be here. Shout out to all your listeners. Everybody watching, listening right now. I am based in Denver, Colorado, here in the United States, and so excited to be with you and spend a little time with you today. You know, a quick background about how I got into what I do and how I do it. I actually always start with my athletic background, because it plays an important role in how I coach and how I lead teams to this day, but I was very fortunate. Played, you know, a variety of different sports growing up, but baseball was my main sport, so I had an opportunity to I played here in high school, here in Colorado. I played division one college baseball at Curtin University in Omaha, Nebraska, for those of you familiar with Omaha, and then had a professional opportunity overseas. So athletics was a huge part of my life, and that'll play into kind of how I got into what I'm doing here in a minute. But after I was done with baseball, and, you know, retired, hung up the cleats, as they say, I went into the corporate world. It's actually began my career with in audits and accounting with Ernst and Young. I did a three years in Kansas City, Missouri. I did a three year international assignment in Zurich, Switzerland, and then moved back to the States, where I worked, to consult it for more. Excuse me, numerous fortune, 500 companies in everything from business development to operations accounting as well. You know, long story short, I came to this point. I won't call it a midlife crisis, but I was asking these really deep questions, right? And one of the questions that was rolling around in my head was, was, Is this really what I meant to do? And my answer to that was always, I didn't really know, but there was something gnawing at me. There was something bigger, greater, grander, that I believed I was supposed to do, an impact on the world, that I was supposed to make. And you know, I think we all have that in our life, right? And that could be in the walls of a corporation. That's great for me. It meant that I needed to transition out. And the one thing I should say two things that I've always been passionate about. The first is building teams. This goes all the way back to the baseball days of how do we form a team? How do I show up my best to help that team ultimately win the championship? Like, what do we need to do? What adjustments we need to make to make that occur? And the second thing that I've always been super passionate about is that high performance piece. So like more that individual development, right? So how do I get the best out of myself? And then also, how do I make that happen for others? And so as I began to look at, what is that next step? That's when I got into leadership. I got into the mental toughness. Which will I know we'll talk about today, because I believe that the sky's the limit for all of us, right? There is that possibility out there? If we first believe that it's out there and that we have to position our mindset to make that occur, we have to remove those those roadblocks to make that happen for each and every one of us. So over the past 12 years plus years, we've celebrated our 12th year anniversary in May this year. I'm fortunate to wake up every day and work with leaders from different corporations, middle management for corporations. I mean, you name it. We work with them to build leaders that are unbelievably mentally tough. That's how I got into what I'm doing now, Mick.

Mick Spiers: 4:20

Yeah, great, Matt. I'm curious about two things there. Let's unpack one at a time. So we often hear the words high performance and sporting analogies all the time. So in the business world, so I played a bit of sport in my background as well, but not to your level, not to this professional level. A lot of the times in corporate rooms, we'll use sports metaphors to try to make it something quite relatable to the people in the room, to bring a concept to life, or whatever the case may be, because quite often we watch sport, but it's not, it's not for. On the professional athlete side of things, can you open the curtain a little bit for us and give us a perspective of what high performance means to a professional athlete? We all think we know, but I'd love to know from you?

Matt Phillips: 5:15

The way I define it, Mick, is when an athlete believes that they're performing at their highest level possible. They a couple things. One is most important is they know they're doing whatever is necessary to position themselves to be successful. And I think sometimes we hear this phrase of you know, it's not about the result, it's about the process, right? But the high performers understand that like I need to identify what high performance is like, where I want to go, how I want to get there, and then commit to that daily work to make that possible. And the daily work can be anything from, you know, extra repetitions. It might be reading, it might be working on mental toughness, things. It might be analyzing game, film, it might be a whole slew of things, but they sit back and they know the daily things are happening. And I say the same thing in business too. When we're leaders and organizations and we're we're looking to have an impact on the people that report to us right now or our colleagues around us as we progress up the ranks, it's we have to have this high performance mindset, which means that I'm going to look at where my strengths are, where my weaknesses are, and make sure I've built a plan to do the daily work to continue to elevate my performance. Because high performers understand that the work's never done, like it's literally never done, and it's that kind of mindset that when integrated into your daily routine, it makes all the difference in the world.

Mick Spiers: 6:50

I love this Matt, and this is, I was curious to know this, where, where this might go, because when we're in those sessions where we're either in a boardroom and we're talking strategy, or we're trying to bring some kind of leadership lesson to life, or whatever the case may be, and we use these sports metaphors, the ones that we default to are the metaphors about game day. And yet, when I was listening to you, everything you spoke about was the daily work and the process that led up to game day. You didn't speak about game day, much about at all, and you said it was, you know, it was about the process, not so much about the result. Do we get these metaphors wrong? Like, when we when we use sports metaphors in corporate world, and we have this picture of a baseball player hitting a home run on game day. It was the things that the baseball player did every single day of the week leading up to Game Day that led to that home run, not the swing of the bat was the pinnacle of the moment, but there was so much more that went into that.

Matt Phillips: 8:02

It is. And, you know, I always say that it's not that they're the references are wrong. I think we use some phrases that we think people know what we mean, but they really don't like they're squishy. So you and I both playing in the leadership space as an example, right? It's, you know, we'll often use the phrase that, you know, like we need to be great leaders. And everyone in the room is like, yes, let's be great leaders, right? This is a athletic team. This is a in a boardroom, right? Let's be great leaders. And yet, when they agree with you, or when they say that, at least, this is my perspective, that I don't think they have a clue what you mean, because that could mean 1000 different things to like. Mick, if you and I are going back and forth, and your listeners too, I thought we come up with a massive list of, you know, I'm gonna sit here and be like, Well, I'm gonna show up earlier. Mick, what are you gonna do? And you're like, I'm gonna stay later, Matt, that's what I'm gonna do to show my leadership. Or this is what I'm gonna do. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be rah, rah. I'm gonna be the quiet. You know, we by example leader, it's we have to take some of these concepts and, like, boil it down, like, provide that context. Like, when I say this, this is what it means. This is how, more importantly, it shows up. You know, I always use this phrase of, well, I'll tell you a quick story I was writing. This is a couple years ago. So we have three kids, 18 year old daughter, 16 year old son and 12 year old daughter. Old daughter, and we are riding home. I was running home with my son from baseball, probably about four or five years ago at this point, and I was trying to explain to him this concept when your parents and this is true of leadership, when you're a leader, but as parents, there's a saying, and the saying is your children are watching. Now I don't know if that's a just the United States saying or or if that translates overseas, but that's the saying here. We say your children are watching. The phrase is not your children are listening, right? Because if my children actually listen to me, I mean, life would be so, so much easier. Right? And maybe some of your people, if they listen to you, that'd be great. It'd be so much easier. But the phrase your children are watching, right?So that's when I talk about, when we get to this a couple things. One is we have to define like, these high level words, like leadership, or it's all about the team, like, we have to, we have to get down to like, this is what it means. This is what it looks like, so that when our people are watching us, lead like they see that actually happen. And I think it's such an important thing, I'll tell you one quick story. It was funny with my son. I asked him, I said, What's I said? For example, son, I said, if I tell you to do push ups, but you never see me do a push up. What are you going to do? He goes, I won't do a push up. I'm like, that's a perfect example. And then here's, here's the question I asked him, and you got to be really careful with the questions you ask, right? I asked him, What's one thing I tell you to do, but I don't do and I the kid does not miss a beat. Mick. And he goes swearing. And I go, Well, bleep. And I kind of jokingly said the S word, Iwon't swear on your show today. Mick, but, but I go, boop. And we both started laughing, and I said, Son, that's exactly right. I can't as a leader of the household, in this case, as your father, my actions have to be finding up to my words, but it starts with this is what I mean by those, those words in the first place, and this is what you're going to see me do.

Mick Spiers: 11:28

I love this, Matt, this is a great start to some things that people can really think about in their own lives. And yes, people are watching. Our team members are watching. In your case, I'm so glad that you had that moment with your son, by the way, and great openness and transparency from him to be able to identify something on the spot, by the way. But you know, we often think of leaders. We think about the power of our words, and it's important that we're careful in selection of our words, but it's our actions that speak louder than the words, and whether it's corporate culture or role modeling of behaviors, so much more is caught than taught. So it's not about what we say, it's about what we do. And I'm going to put it down to two categories, and I'd love to hear your reflections on this, Matt, there is a term for this, by the way, called reflective learning. And it's and it's not or instantly what you think it is. It's those little side words, glances that you your team are taking. I'm going to use a a child analogy here as well. My wife andI took our son for his first swimming lesson recently, and that moment he enters the pool is one of those reflective learning moments where he takes these little sidewards glances out of the corner of his eye and what he's looking for, because he trusts us as his parents. It could have been any other loved one. He could have been his grandparents, whoever was with him at that moment, he's taking these little sidewalks glances, and he's just looking to know, am I supposed to be enjoying this? Is this supposed to befun? Am I supposed to be scared? What am I supposed to be right now? And that happens in boardroomsaround the world as well, in any leadership team meeting where the team might be debating some really hot Lee, you know, hot topic that everyone's discussing, and they're taking these little sidewalks glances, what does the boss think of this? And they're looking for little signals. So we've got to be careful of these signals that we project. And then the second category is the role modeling that we need to be careful thatwe're role modeling the behavior that we want to see in others, and that our own behavior matches the behavior that we've said that we want to see. So you telling your son we don't swear, and then you swearing is incongruent. Sorry, Matt, but you're right, and that happens in the corporate world as well. Yeah, we behave this way. Do we? Did you behave that way last week when you when you belittled someone in a meeting, or whatever the case might be, how does that sit with you? Both, the reflective learning of people are looking for these legal little signals. Should I be happy right now? Should I be angry? Should I be excited? First of all, and that's nothing has been said. It's just body language. And then secondly, the role modeling of behaviors.

Matt Phillips: 14:31

They're both spot on. And when I look at the body language, first of all, I think again, you look at the studies, right? That's the majority of how we communicate, is watching people's body language, right? So if I'm in a meeting and I'm bored, well, either I'm going to be late, really, way, way back, or I'm going to be on the, you know, on the boardroom table, with my hand up on my face, and I'm just not going to be paying attention at all. So we're picking up on those cues at. Absolutely right. The eye rolls things of that nature. I always talk about zoom as an example, or teams, or whatever happened platform you happen touse that those platforms we have to be so careful on. And I can't tell you how many times I hear people talk about, you know, my boss wants me to pay attention on the Zooms right, avoid distractions. I want my team to do the same thing. And yet, when I get on with individuals, Nick, and I'm sure you've had this experience, your listeners had this experience, and and I'll model it here, if you can't. I know this is, this willbe audio and video, right? But I'll be talking to someone, and they're like this. Okay, so, Mick, how's it going? Like, how's life? Am I even looking at you at the moment, but I'm paying attention. Mick, don't worry, my screen just happens to be over here, right? I'm paying attention to you, though, and the meanwhile, I'm seeing you move around, do things like that. Well, yeah, so we expect that of our, you know, the individual we work with, and yet, our our actions aren't lining up right. So, you know, even coming on today, I'm very specific of you know, making sure the setup is right, the lights are on that I've got, you know, what you see behind me right here, and I'm trying to position your face, Mick, as we're going through this, to be like in the center of the screen. So you you know, I'm trying to look at you, and it's you and me, and it's nobody else, and I've shut down my email, I've shut down my calendar, I've shut down my text, like all these things, because I want to be in it with you. And so, you know, not only are we watching and looking at like my boss, look all over the place, so clearly they're not paying attention, but also we've got to take the action to, like, if we say we're going to pay attention, then I as the boss, I'm going to be that modeler of to use your word, right? And I'm going to turn off my email, I'm going to turn off my instant message. I'm going to turn this off so I can be in it with you all. I mean, we're interrupted every 12 minutes and 30 seconds, and then it takes us, like, 24 minutes to get back refocused on the thing we were focused on before. So it's those little things that I think, as leaders, it's we have to decide first for the to be the model. Like when I get in these scenarios, it could be boardroom, it could be a meeting you're having. It could be a zoom call, or teams call. What am What am I going to do to make sure that I'm showing up the best for this? And if the best means leaving your cell phone back at your office on youdesk, then you leave your cell phone at the office on your desk so that you can be in it with them, or whatever that looks like. We have to define that for us, like this is how I'm going to show up, so to model it, right? And then I'm going to have conversations with my team too, as uncomfortable as they may seemto be, like, hey, you know, what does that look like for you? And how are you modeling this as leaders? And that's a great way to mentor, you know, mentor individuals. I think sometimes easier said than done, right? I was talking a lot about the confidence to have those types of conversations. But to answer yourquestion, I think it's we have to be constantly analyzing, like, where's my face? Where's my body language,right now, what message am I trying to get across, non verbally, and then verbally, like, what are they not? You know, the verbal nonverbal cues is massive.

Mick Spiers: 18:20

This is really powerful, Matt, and I'm going to say in three different ways and play it out for you. First of allis all of our team members, what they want in the workplace is they want to feel seen, they want to feel heard, and they want to feel like they matter. So if you're in a teams call or even a physical meeting and you're sitting there distracted on your cell phone, or you're doing emails at the same time as a teams meeting, you're sending a signal that actually you're not the most important person in my world right now,this email is more important than you, and that's not the signal that We want to send as a leader this the second part is then the congruence, like, if we're saying to people, Hey, be present at these meetings and we are demonstrating behavior that's other, then we're going to send that signal, even to the point if we'resaying to people, Hey, This is a really important meeting team, and then we're off doing an email on the side. Well, okay, can't be that important. It can't be that important. So this, the role modeling is coming in,the congruence is coming in, but also then the respect to show I see you, I hear you, you matter to me. I'mI've got all of my distractions away. The most important person in my world right now is you. So we're we're we're both role modeling the behavior that we want to see. We're demonstrating respect that we see here and and value our team members, and we're making sure that we're not in grew with messy, incongruent with. Messages that we're sending about the importance of the meeting that we might be about to have. And by the way, the other whammy here is the meetings become more efficient because you're not having to tell people hey, you're on mute or Hey, like getting people distracted away from they were doing an email in the background, and I'm going to test this one with you, because I think that multitasking becomes a badge of honor for many people, they think they're so efficient because I did six meetings today, but I also punched out all my all my emails that I was doing in the background. But the truth is, is that you did neither of those very well. The email that you wrote was poorly written because you weren't focused, and the meeting was inefficient because you weren't focused. How does that sit with you?

Speaker: 21:31

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Matt Phillips: 22:17

Time is our biggest enemy. It's also our biggest blessing. So how we use it becomes important, right? I'm not telling anything. No one. Everyone's heard that use your time well. Everybody's heard that when we talk about high performance, the high performers understand that they actually have to use their time well, to maintain the focus. And when I look at, you know, a perfect example, I was talking with one of my one on one coaching clients, EVP, at a company I work with, and they're they've got a couple really big projects, and so she felt that it was going slower than it should, because they'd get in these one hour update meetings every week go away with the to do's. She felt like people were distracted on those and then all of a sudden, I just dragged and dragged and dragged and dragged. And again, I I've experienced that a lot when I was in the corporate world, and still to this day, we have to be very, very careful with that. Well, my question to her was, you know, hey, well, a couple things. One, because I love, I love asking this question of people, like, when you're working on specific projects, things like that. I love if you can to get people in a room for an extended period of time, if it's appropriate, right? So, if you can accelerate your progress by spending more focused time together. You change the game, right? So with these little updates, you know, 30 minutes here, 60 minutes here, it takes longer and longer and longer. It's like we're pushing kicking the can down the road. As we say, instead of how do I really take a step back, create timeas a leader to think and really think strategically about okay with this project? How do I what do we need to do to move this thing forward, quickly or most effectively, where we can get our entire team as focusedas humanly possible during this meeting, just to knock things out. And what I find is that often when you do that, and you set very clear expectations, like work in the room for four hours and for these next four hours, virtually or in person, we're going to do this, this and this, and that's our entire focus. There's no emails, no I am again, setting the kind of parameters, if you will. But it's amazing how much you accelerate your progress just because of that focus, right? Again, the brain, you have to manage your brain, and the brain wants to look different places. In case, I guess a tiger jumps out, but the brain is at its best. Your energy is at its best when it's hyper focused. So it's those types of things the way it comes across, as far as again, it goes back to like, asking leaders, and I ask all your listeners right now, like, how much time do you have carved out per week just to think about leadership, to think about kind of where your department's going, or where your company's going, just to think about some of your internal and external clients that you're dealing with, but just to think and let the brain go where it needs to go, because we're in such a rush constantly, we're busy, busy, busy. My sister in law, I remember asking her years ago, I called her one day, I'm like, how are you? And she goes, I'm so busy. And I paused for my. I replied, and I said, I know you're busy. I want to know how you're doing, and we have to create that spacefor ourselves as leaders. Right? A finishing a task is could be part of the job, but it's taking a step back from it being like, but should I really be doing that, or should someone else be doing that? Like? Is this the most effective way to do that? We have to create that space, to have that that really just let the brain be curious and let it just tell us where we need to go and what we need to change.

Mick Spiers: 26:12

Yeah, I really like this, Matt, there's three highlights I'm taking from this as well. Really interesting. And to me, it does come down to intentional focus. Would be the theme of this. And are we spending enough time thinking and planning before we do is the first thing. So we had a guest previous on the show, PatrickTian, that taught us this thing called a rhythm system. And if we spend more time intentionally thinking and planning, then the doing part is going to be infinitely more successful than if we just stay in firefighting mode and just doing, doing, doing. And we're all over the place, but we're not really heading towards our ultimate goal, whatever the case might be. So if we spend more time intentionally, thinking and planning, the doing becomes so much better. The second theme is the collaboration. Are we spending enough time together for the thinking and the planning? Because we are smart together, there's so much more that we can do together than any individual, regardless of whether they are the superstar on the team. They're only one human being. And when we get together and CO create, we can create something much bigger than any of the individuals could do. And then the third little thread that I'm picking up, Matt, and I'm going to throw a baseball metaphor at you, hopefully, hopefully it goes, Okay, not a baseball expert, but we'll give it a shot. The third one is, what activity are we doing right now, and are we being intentionally focused on making sure that we're doing this activity the right way? And the metaphor that jumped into my mind when we're talking before about distractions and we're talking aboutpeople doing emails in the middle of a teams meeting, I was thinking of baseball practice, and here's where my metaphor might fall down. So you're gonna have to help me here. Imagine that the team are practicing fly balls, and the player who's supposed to be hitting the balls into the outfield for the outfielders to catch is also doing email. So he's swinging a bat, but he's also doing email on the side. And the players that in the outfield supposed to be practicing catching their fly balls. And then I know throwing it to the second base player is is also doing emails. Oh, hang on, hang on, there's a ball coming. Oh yeah, yeah, I got it. And and then they're going to throw it to the second bass player who's also doing emails, is that practice going to be effective?

Matt Phillips: 28:45

That's a great metaphor, and 100% not, right? That's well done with that. It's, I think, you know, when I came up, it was almost like activity was rewarded, right? That I this is just me speaking, right? But it's like, if I was busy, if I was, like, cranking on stuff all day long, like, that was a good day. And then I have other days where it's like, maybe I didn't have that much of a workload, or shifting clients or something like that,and I had some downtime, and I would think to myself, like, I should be doing something. I should be doing something right now. And as you progress up the ranks in business, you find that that time doesn't have to be replaced with other, like tasks and to do's. Instead, it needs to be replaced with a strategic thought, with like, making sure the intentionality is there. Like are everything you talked about right on this project. Are we taking a step back to figure out, Is this most efficient, and just to let the brain again, be curious and be creative in what like, what we're here to do? And I think that's often a misconception of like, or a struggle that I see leaders have is that there's free time, and they don't know what to do with it, and I didn't know what to do with it, right? And I remember even starting this business 12 years ago, I sometimes even to this day, I'm like, Well, I feel like I should be doing something. It's three in the afternoon, and, you know, I got a kid's practice coming up at four, you know, four or five or a game or something. So I know I've got this window of two and a half hours before that game or practice, I should be doing something instead of some days, I've learned to train myself to take a step back, and some days it's creative thought. It's where am I in the business? There's no I can't check a box. I can't I guess I could write strategic thought on a piece of paper and then I scratch it off. For to make myself feel better, and I sometimes I do that, but it's understanding like there's a there's a purpose for each kind of moment and each period of time, and we just have to assess that and understand that. You know, maybe sometimes it's okay as a leader to get up from your desk and go around, start talking to people, but I'm not getting stuff done. Well, you're motivating the team. You're connecting with other, relationships with the team, and maybe virtually. Some people say, like, well, I work at home, and that's harder to do. Well, I bet you could set up little 15 minute chats with your people, or and have a chat with them, which is just like walking over to them, but just saying, hey, I want to catch up. How's life? What's new? We're not going through your to do list. I just want to chat you up a little bit, right? And so it's using that, that that time, wisely, right? And then when you're done, you're done, it's like, okay, well, I guess we're rove rice to heritage early in my career. I don't think this is I mean, again, you want to show your value, do all those things. But, I mean, there were days when I get done at 445 right? What would I do? Mick, I would sit therepretending to work until about 508 because I don't want to leave too early. And then I get up at 508 chat with someone on the way out, just to get to 515 and then I move on my way. But it's just understanding, I'm not saying cut out of work early. That's not the point, but it's just we have constantly assessing those sorts of things. You know, I always tell the story. Mick, too. You know, one of the things we built a number of years ago now is what we call our high performance leadership program. So it's an online program withgroup coaching that's built for mid level managers and companies, right? And I got some advice from oneof my coaches to create space to think this is before the formulation of this thing. So I work from home a lot, but I also have a co working space that I go to. And I went up and I talked to my wife and said, I've got so much in my brain right now, and I'm trying to figure out, like, what's the next evolution for this business, right? So leaders out there who are for big corporation, this could be a project for you, it could be the team structure. It could be like, whatever you want to fill in, right? But for me, it was like, what's the evolution of this business? And I said. I told my wife, I said, Do you mind if I go up and just spend as much time as I need to in front of my happy place? And my happy place Mick is in front of a whiteboard with aneraser in one hand and a marker in the next in the other, and I went up there that day. I ended up being up there for about four hours, and all I did was allow my brain to ask questions, and there wasn't a right, there wasn't a wrong, but it was just this analysis, I think to myself, like, okay, so, you know, we've got all these people who, you know, some are at work. Some are like, physically, some are at home. There's the hybrid people, like, how could we reach all these people? Like, well, we could do this and I'd write it up there, or we could do this and I'd write it over here, and out of that four hour session, me allowing my brain just to go where it needs to go, that's where the whole high performance leadership program came from. Literally, I walked out of that room with a brand new product, like, clear as day of like, this is exactlywhat I need to do. And I'm so thankful that I got that advice, because doing that going up there just to beby myself and I'm talking, I mean, people, thank goodness no one came by. They would have thought I was crazy because I was talking to myself out loud. It's like, me myself and I in the room. But now I've been able to grow that at a bunch of different companies. But that's where the importance of space to think as leaders. It's highly it's vastly underestimated the importance of that.

Mick Spiers: 34:31

Yeah, I love it, Matt. So the badge of honor that we see a lot, and you, you're touching on it before with your sister, but the badge of honor of I'm busy being busy. But are you really busy being effective and stopping and asking yourself the question, what intentional action right now is going to serve me and serve others well? And sometimes the answer might surprise you. Your example of you needed that mental space to be able to create a new program that would never have happened if you just stayed in firefighting mode the whole time. But asking yourself that question, what action is going to serve me well, the answer might surprise you, and it can come down to, what is your job? What is your real job? Your realjob is to create the environment where other people can do their very best work and to inspire them into meaningful action. So it could be the walk around the office, checking in, hey, hey, everyone, because everyone wants to feel seen, everyone wants to feel heard, everyone wants to feel like they matter. It could even be get up behind your desk mat and go for a walk and get some fresh air. Give yourself a 15 minute break, and you're going to come back fresh. Yeah. So thinking, instead of just going, Oh, it's, it's 3:30 right now, I should be doing something. Well, stop and think, What is that thing that would serve your best right now?

Matt Phillips: 35:52

Yes, yes, you're making me think of I was with the leadership team. Well, we, this is year four with the leadership team. It was probably about two years ago. I noticed something with the group, and it was around priorities, right again. It's not going to shock anyone that they had a lot of them. I imagine some of the listeners had a lot of them. And I asked them, and this is a great exercise to do, I asked them, I said,Okay, take that list, that's great. But what are the top three? If you can only do three, what would they be? And some of the groups could not boil it down to three. And to your point, that gets back to that intentionality, right? Of like we all have lots of things to do, but what are the few versus the many that aregoing to move the needle for your company, business team? Like, fill in the blank revenue, like, Whatever, whatever measurement you're trying to drive, what's the biggest bang for the buck? And that's why we don't, you can't see. But like, if I look down to my right, there's a board down here, a whiteboard shocker, but it has the like, five priorities and areas where I know, if I'm in those areas, I'm moving the needle on the business. Yeah, if I'm outside of those, I've got to question myself and be like, wait, wait a minute. And my wife is the CEO of the business, and she'll come in and be like, what are you working on? I'll tell her something. And you know, if I'm not in one of those five categories, she'll be like, You got to get refocused.And I'll go have my little pity party, right? And be like, Oh, why? She tell me what to do, but she's right. And I've come to that realization quicker now. I'm like, she's right. And as leaders, we have sometimes like,oh, let's add that priority. My next question, what comes off the list? Yeah, and again, unless we take time to think about it, we're all back to time. Like one of my coaches says, it says this, he has this phrase, I won't take credit for it, but it's, we're all familiar with, ROI, right? Return on Investment. We spend dollars we want to return, right? We hire someone I want to return. But he talks at length about rot return on time. What's your return on time? Because we do so many things that are complete waste, and that's at work and at home too, by the way. So it's like, what's a better use of time? You sitting, you know, on the couch with your wife watching television or husband watching television, or going out in the backyard and having a chat with your husband or wife. You may have a different answer than me, but that's the spending I know what my answer is.

Mick Spiers: 38:33

Yeah, the connection.

Matt Phillips: 38:35

Right.

Mick Spiers: 38:38

Yeah. Love it. So I love that you've got the accountability with your top five. I love that you've got an accountability partner in your wife and COO that says, hey, you on your top five right now. That's really cool. So the empowerment of your team to share these top three, top five, whatever the case may be, andthen hold each other to account to make sure that you are sticking to those things and this return on time. Time is our most valuable non renewable asset. So are you making the most of that time that you're afforded every day to make sure that you're focused on the things that are most important, and the top three, top five, whatever it is for you, the one I always think about Matt is, do you want to do 30 thing, 36 things really badly, or do you want to do three things incredibly well? And which one's going to make more difference?

Matt Phillips: 40:13

So very true.

Mick Spiers: 40:16

I want to come back to something that we touched on early days. Man, which is the in the sports metaphors where we talk about game day, and I'm hearing from you in high performance athletes, that is actually all of the little actions that happen leading up to game day. How do we convert that thinking intothe workplace that it's not just about game day, it's about all of the planning, the preparation, putting in the work off the field to make sure that the performance on the field is at the level it needs to be. What would that look like in a corporate world?

Speaker: 40:53

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Matt Phillips: 41:39

I always start with from a higher level of, you know, what's my vision for this team, right? And what's my philosophy around leading that team that's going to allow us to get to that place? And I always start there because it's, it's just creating that picture of, like, this is, this is where we're going. And people, you know, we talk about leadership when we talk about people joining companies, things like that. Bottom line, people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to know where it's going. They want to know it's going to be a fun ride. Not necessarily perfect, right? It won't be perfect, but they want to enjoy themselves along the way, right? And get those opportunities. And so as leaders, we have tostart there of like, okay, this is where we're going, and that this is how I'm going to show up to a lead, and how I believe if we show up this way as a team, we're going to be ultra successful. And it's not just saying that like, you know, you know, it's, you know, it's all about the team, right? And let's go get it every day and, you know, let's go win this one. And it's, it's taking that and saying that we want to win, we want to do those things. It's okay to use those phrases, but I always talk about like that, we've got to take this leveldown, which is either painting a picture of what that looks like in motion, like kind of the daily stuff, or creating a movie, right? So it's like Scene one, Act One, or I always reverse those. Mick, maybe it's Act One, Scene one, I don't know, but obviously not in the in the movie business, but, but it's like saying, okay, when we talk about this thing as a team, this is what it's going to look like in motion. So I'll use an example. I said before. It's like, hey, like, we want to be hyper focused when we're in meetings, right? So because we're going to be most efficient effective, have the best chance to win, right? All those sorts of things. Great, great. Here's what it's going to look like, right? We walk in the room and, you know, everyone sets their cell phones as silly as this is, like in the basket, or nobody brings a cell phone in, or we all get on the Zoom, and we're going to shut down. And we're going to talk about it like, okay, everybody'sshut down email. I am these sorts of things like, and now people are like, Oh, I know what that means, right? Instead of just saying, Hey, stay focused, we say, well, stay focused. And we have a great chance now, because we've shut down these three things. And so it's, it's painting that picture. This is what it lookslike. And then we've got to actually do that. So when we talk about the daily things, we have to show up and shut down those things. We have to show up and make sure that our camera is pointed straight at the zoom and not off to the side, and be that example for people. So that's when I talk about those daily kind of behaviors that we're trying to get across. It starts with, this is where we're going. This is what we're we need to do to show up the right way. And these, this is what it's going to look like, and just like kids watching us, like if I tell my son to do a push up and he sees me popping push ups out there where I came home and I might I didn't have my 100 push ups today. Did you do any? Then he can make his decision what he wants to do, right? Little different with kids and stuff, right? But you know.

Mick Spiers: 44:41

That's right, that's right, Matt, and the what I'm taking away from this here is is coming back to actions speak louder than words, but now I'm hearing little actions add up to the impact that we're trying to have.So telling people to be focused on the Zoom meeting is just a statement Yes. Having the action of putting my phone away in a basket, whatever the case may be, and being present in the meeting and the little things, they all add up to the congruence that we're looking for, yes, the things that we're committing to.

Matt Phillips: 45:17

Yes.

Mick Spiers: 45:17

Yeah. Okay, really powerful,

Matt Phillips: 45:19

Yeah, and I'm such a believer in the compounding effect, right, personally and professionally. So, and I'm sure people know the concept, they've read the books, things like that, it's, it's the individuals who understand the importance of it, like this, is why I'm doing this, because that drives you, that drives the behavior, right? If I know why I'm doing this, then I will show up and do those things. And I could be working out three times a week. It could be doing 10 push ups a day. It could be reading 10 pages a day, like, whatever it is. It's like dedicating yourself to like, there is no secret to high performance. Like, there, there, there is no secret. We know what it is. We know that if we decide to show up, like, understand our strengths and weaknesses and and try to figure out, how do we optimize our performance, and we figure out, what are those things, if we do the little things consistently, that's going to get us where I want to go, right? I go on and on, but like, it's we know what to do. It's just a matter of choosing to do them. And I'm such a. You're in, like, simplify it and stay consistent, and you will look back and be blown away at where you go. Right? There's this one major league hitter that I've worked with who credits his success of getting to the major leagues because he did. Clearly, he's got a level of talent. Clearly, I would argue everyone on this call has a level of talent, otherwise you would not be in the role that you're in. But he credits himself getting to the major leagues because he took 30 extra swings every single day. It started in high school and continues to this day, right? 30 extra swings took took him about three minutes. There you go. No oneelse did it, no one else did it. And he credits that dedication to so it's like, in three minutes a day, could you read an article on leadership and in three minutes a day be better? Could you do three minutes of sit ups, three minutes of push ups, three minutes of something and have a drink of water in the morning, every morning, consistently. Like, what could you do this little that you could stick with? Because you know that, like, I don't know if I get super excited about this Mick, because, like, like, the reason I started this business is I wanted to find out what's possible. And that may be cliche to a lot of people, but it's like, Let's go figure it out. Let's go find out. And I've had ups and downs, and some stuff's worked, and some stuff has just been atrocious. Like, it never No, no revenue at all. But it's like, I want to go find out. And so if I'm going to find out, I got to be willing to optimize myself, my performance, understand my thoughts, my beliefs, what's getting in my way. And once you start working on that stuff, and that's through reading podcasts surrounding show, the great people, I mean, doing going to the gym three times a day, like, that's the way you work on yourself, then that'd be the gym. Like, go meditate three times a day, I don't know, or three times a week, whatever it is, yeah, but it's understanding, like, Man, I can create this massive amount of momentum for myself to go get the career I want, or start the business, or do this or do that, like, it's there, and people have done it. I listened to Arnold Schwarzenegger a 15 minute video with him last night, actually, and he talked about the first step is, like, having this vision right. And then he said, along the way, you're going to get a bunch of naysayers right, but, but he said I was so focused on that vision and coming to United States and, you know, winning all these awards and stuff like that, and becoming an actor. He said, I utilize my time so, like, intentionally that I was at the gym four or five hours a day. I was taking classes for eight hours a day. I was then, you know, going to acting class at night, and then I was sleeping, and I was repeating the whole thing again. But he was trying to figure out, what do I need to work on to become the best? And he just used his time really well. Well, first of all, Anderson his vision. He decided to use his time really well, and he just did the things consistently. Yeah, and you look whether you like Arnold or not, I guess, right? I don't know, but let's say you like him, like even he said in the thing, he's like, people have done this before, but I wanted to do that, and he just made those daily choices to do those things and and again, I don't want to make it sound simple than it is. It's not necessarily easy, right? This, the road to high performance is simple, right? We know the form of like this. You do these things, and you have the best opportunity to position yourself to be successful. But now I've got to do it. I've got to choose to do it.

Mick Spiers: 49:37

Yeah, I really like this, Matt, because it's, it's it is simple, but it's not easy. It requires commitment. It requires a level of focus and consistency. So what? So what I'm hearing here use your Arnie example, but I'm going to go into a couple of other sports metaphors here as well. So I'm hearing vision, I'm hearing the avoidance of distraction, and then I'm hearing the compounding effect of daily habits. So to use the Arnieexample, not, not a single one of those arm curls built his biceps. It was the compounding effect of all of the curls that he did. And if it was 10 extra reps per day compared to everyone else, and becomes Mr. Mr. Universe, right? That's the compounding effect of those daily habits. I'm going to throw a couple of other ones now. Going to go two completely different sports, because I actually don't know baseball that well. I'm going to have to study it a little bit at some point, but, but let's go with golf. So famous South African golf player, Gary Player, was famous for this. So he was a journalist, was asking him about a lucky shot that he had on the 13th hole of some championship that he won. Oh, you're really lucky on the 13th hole today. And he said, Oh, funny thing is, the more I practice, the luckier I get. The more I practice, the Likert I get. And then I'll going to go to a tennis analogy, and I'm going to use Novak Djokovic as my example, but I could have used Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal. What is it about those guys that make them the greatest of all time? It's in the clutch moments they've put the. Work in in practice, that in those clutch moments where, let's say, Djokovic is playing Alcaraz, and he's down a break point, and he just somehow brings out this down the T ace, was it that he magically came up with that in the moment? No, he'd practiced that go to serve so many times that in the clutch moment, it didn't fail him. How does that sit with you?

Speaker: 51:49

We'll be back after a quick break. Welcome to practical wisdom for leaders, the podcast where we help you become a great leader. I'm Dr Scott Allen, and each week, I engage with world leaders, senior executives, nonprofit trailblazers and professors from universities around the globe. We explore all aspects of leadership, executive development, personal growth, bad leadership, women in leadership, decision making, and so much more,tune into practical wisdom for leaders, for critical insights to help you lead and live with purpose.

Matt Phillips: 52:34

It's always in the moments that people don't see that's where greatness is made, and you see it in every athlete, all the people that you mentioned, and many, many more, right? It's in those moments where I interviewed this man named Jason Terry. I could talk about all the you know, athletes I've interviewed, buthe played 19 years in the NBA, won a national championship in college, won a NBA championship with the Dallas Mavericks, but 19 years, and I remember asking like, how did how in the world did you survive 19 years in the NBA? Because that's pretty rare. And he talked about a couple of things. One was his love for the for the game, and I'm a firm believer in that you have to love what you do. And again, we throw those words around, but like, isn't that just genuinely more fun, right? When you actually like your job? When you It's not saying, again, it's not easy. I have stuff I do that I don't like to do, like taxes and accounting and certain things that I don't really want to do, but you do them because I love what I do. Like impacting people. And so he started, he said it was the love. He loved the X's and O's. He loved the strategy. He loved everything about it. Because of that, he was willing to do the daily work that other people weren't. And for him, that meant, like, 500 shots a day. And he knew that he needed to do those sothat when he showed up for the game that his team knew he was prepared to help them have the best chance to win. And that's what I think this whole thing is about, of like, we just have to make that choice, right? And I asked him to I said, There's got to be days you didn't really want to do it. Like I have those days I really don't feel like doing that. And he said, but then I'd always go back. He said, Yes, I did. But he said, I always go back to if I do this, I'm positioning my team to be most successful. And so he would get up and he'd go wherever he was on the road home, and he'd go do it. And I think that's the power in in a lot of this stuff, right? That's where the grades kind of come through, because they've run these scenarios through it. The other key point, and, you know, Mick, that within this, and this gets brushed over a lot, but obviously when people ask what I do, I very simply say, I'm a leadership coach, right? That's the kind of simplest way, executive coach, leadership coach, something like that. But then I quickly pivot, and I say, where we're different is we focus on the one true differentiator that I've seen athletics in business, as an entrepreneur like everywhere, and that's what we call mental toughness. It's the mindset piece, right? And this is what these athletes and great business leaders and all these that's what they work on, too. So it's, how do I make sure I'm showing up confident, right? So I use the word, like, when we very first started, like the phrase I should say of an uncomfortable conversation, right? And, well, is it really uncomfortable? Are we gonna do we have the confidence to go have that conversation? Like, how do we challenge that so weshow up a confident leader? That doesn't mean we have the right answer. It doesn't mean we know what the next step is. I can still show up confident in that we will figure this out. We can figure this out like together as a team or individually, right? But how do we maintain that focus as well? Right? So like the grades practice, not they practice losing focus, but they're going to be distracted. So it's training themselves to come back to the moment, right? I always talk about the emotional control necessary. I don't know if anyone listening or watching has ever lost their emotions on someone maybe at home, maybe at work, or where you get that email and you're just so fired up and things like that. That, but it's, how do you train yourself to have the ideal reaction, not just a reaction, right? And then the intentionality and how we like what we're working on every day. And so I always go back to like we've got to build leaders who are mentally tough, which means confident, focused, emotionally in control. They have the energy they need to perform, and they stay committed to that intentional, consistent action. Call out the definition of high performance. Call it the definition of mental toughness. Call it my definition of leadership, right? This is what we're trying to drive. That's where the grades, too, they understand I need to maximize the mental game. It's not just always physical. It's the mental and emotional game that I can master. And when you do that, holy moly. I mean, let's say Novak misses that shot down the line. It goes barely out. He might not be happy about it, but you better believe when he gets up for that next serve, he is prepared to hit that best shot right there.

Mick Spiers: 57:17

Yeah, there's something very special about that, and I've seen this in in Roger Federer, Rafael Natal and Novak. Is that tough, the mental toughness that you're talking about, the ability to control their emotions. Not every tennis player can do that. We've seen that. We've seen them completely lose it, and then over one point, they'll lose it over one point, and then before you know it, they've lost the entire set because they've let their emotions get away from them. There's an interesting stat that Roger Federer shared with the world recently Matt, which was that he has won 80% of the matches that he's played in his career, 80% which is just incredible. But how many of the points did he win? 54% he won 54% of these points, and he and he won 80% of his matches. And the difference was when he lost a point, he was able to process it, learn from it, and then let it go, because he can't play that point again, that point's already played. What he can do is focus on this point, this very next point. So it's that ability to let go of that and then immediately control my emotions. Go right? What do I need to do now? No, no good regretting the last shot I made. Or it might even be, by the way, Matt, it might be a terrible line call from an umpire. Umpires are human. You've got an an incredibly bad line call, and you're infuriated at the injustice of the world. How could this possibly happen to me? Isn't going to change it. So what are you going to do? Are you going to go into a spiral and lose the entire match over a silly line call, or you're going to go, Well, okay, that's one point. Roger Federer can lose 46% of his points and still win 80% of his matches. That's one point. Let it go. Focus on this point. How does that sit with you?

Matt Phillips: 59:14

Here's the misconception. People think that Roger Federer was born that way, and I would argue he trained that way.

Mick Spiers: 59:22

Yeah, yeah, good. Tell me more.

Matt Phillips: 59:24

He prepared himself. We, we talk about, like, there's natural born leaders, like, it's this concept Mick of like,is it nature or nurture? So nature is, you're born with it. Nurture is you develop it. And it's like great athleteswith like Roger Federer's emotional control, was he born with it, or did he develop it? That's million dollar question, isn't it, leaders in your organization's leader listening right here like our leaders, Are leaders born or are they developed? And my at least belief on this is that there's an absolute nature part of it, like you have to be born and you can swing it to Dragon right. You have to be born and have this kind of tendencyto go, like, want to lead people, at least the desire to lead people, right, and or at least you enjoy being around people. Put it that way, but we underestimate the power of the nurture, which is the development of it. And again, when you look at a federal when you look at like, all these greats, when you look at JasonTerry, things like that, it was their work on, like the mental side in that case, or the emotional control, where you know what that bad line call, for example, I guarantee early in his career, and I haven't gone watch and watch film of this to prove this. So maybe I'm wrong, but I imagine at some point, Rod Roger was, like, really upset, and it like tainted the way he played, maybe for a point or two, right? Maybe he was like, that developed. But when he works with coaches things like that, they talk about these things, so it's like, hey, he reacted this way. Is that how you want to react? What did that do? What do I need to learn from this good or bad? And they talk about and they develop a plan, so that way, when it goes out next time and Matt Phillips, line judge, who needs his glasses, calls it out when it was actually in that he doesn't get mad at the point or Matt Phillips or anything like that, but he looks and he's like, Okay. I'm ready for this. I know how to react.

Mick Spiers: 1:01:22

So you're right. Yeah, 100% right, because I look back at old footage, etc, he was always naturally talented. That was like, as in, the gifted element was there. But then what happened over time? Just like his backhand got better and better as his career went on, because the more work that he did, his mental toughness got better because of the work that he did. So he built his resilience just like his muscles. So we go back to our Arnold Schwarzenegger example, the the reps of the arm curls in the gym. Same thing withmental toughness. It's the it's the repetitions and the resilience that builds up over time. Because in a career that spans that period of time, including the NBA player that you're talking about, it's all these micro moments that are building up my resilience, and I get to choose how I respond to each of those moments.

Matt Phillips: 1:02:17

Well, even Jason Terry, I think, in business too, like this is life, but we feel those pressure moments, right? You walk in Wimbledon and Billie Jean King, there's that quote from her saying, pressure is a privilege. Yeah, right. So it's kind of how you look at it, right? But I asked Jason Terry said, How'd you deal with the pressure? Were you playing in the NBA, going from the championships? I mean, how'd you deal with that pressure? And I'll never forget, he goes, Matt. He goes, let me tell you what pressure is. I was one of 10 children raised by a single mother, and every night we didn't know if there'd be food on the table, and yet somehow, every night, maybe not at the time we wanted it, but my mother would walk through that door with food for all of us. He says, You want to talk about pressure, that's what it is. Not me shooting a basketball. So I wasn't raised by a single mother with nine other siblings. I don't have that experience, but I can certainly leverage that right? It's not, it's not put on your rose colored glasses, but I can look at it andsay, Okay, how do I relate this to business? Well, first of all, other people have it way worse than me. Or maybe I'm feeling the pressure of I've got to get this project done, or maybe this pressure of this presentation in the boardroom in front of all these people. What if we chose to look at it differently? Whatif we're trained ourselves to get refocused on what really matters walking into that room? So a lot of times that pressure that we feel and that athletes feel, it's focused on us. It's focused on me, right? So what are they going to think of me? What are they going to think of my presentation? What are they going to thinkof my plan to do this thing, instead of shifting that perspective a little bit to how do we move this project forward the right way. How do I present this in a way that's going to help most people in the way these people need to hear so we can make a decision, or whatever the presentation is about, but it's a contextual focus on others, not self and so again, we've heard this all those sorts of things I go back to, like when we talk about from a mental perspective, these are things that can be trained. Because we're going to default back when I talk about mental toughness too, it's, I always tell people like, I think mental toughness gets this. It's one of those phrases, right, that we talked about beginning. It's like, one of these squishy phrases that might Yeah, I talk about mental toughness people like, I want to be mentally tough. Well, here's the thing. So I've already talked about the elements of it that kind of the confident, focus, emotional control, things like that, right? Here's the way I talk about resiliency or a strong mindset or mental toughness, whatever you want to talk about, whatever phrase you want to use. It starts with, we are all getting off track. You will get off track. I will get off track. All your listeners are going to get off track at some point, an email is going to be sent, somebody's going to say something. Some situations going to happen that you're going to get thrown off track. As we train our mindset, that time gap shrinks from getting off track to getting back on. That's as simple as it is, right? So the thing that derailed you for five weeks we go to work, and that becomes five days the next time it happens, and then it becomes five hours, and then five minutes and then five seconds. That's the goal. So, but we have to train that. We have to do the daily things like over and over again to make that happen. So that's why, when we look at these greats, whatever that great person you have in your mind, maybe it's your mom, maybe it's your dad. Maybe it's a leader you've had at work. Maybe it's an athlete that you watch right maybe now you'rein tennis land with Mick and I right now. I don't know, but whoever that is, that person has learned and trained themselves to get back on that track quicker every single time.

Mick Spiers: 1:05:58

Yeah, love it. It's this ability to reset, learn, let go, and move forward. And if we can shorten the cycle, then we're we're getting somewhere, and we we put in the work to continue to shorten the cycle. Love that a lot. I also want to play back a little bit about what you're saying about Jason Terry before a. Around, are we catastrophizing what pressure is? What is real pressure, and are we? Are we catastrophizing the current moment that we're in? And to take a bit of perspective, taking is really interesting, and there's an element in history of reframing as well, right? So you spoke about his love and his passion and his purposearound basketball. And you've mentioned before about taking 500 free flow, free throw shots in practice, so that on game day, it's just a habitual thing. He knows how to put it into the net. You can look at that in one of two ways. You can either say, I have to take 500 shots today, or I get to take 500 shots today. And because he loves his sport, just like a Djokovic or a Federer, they love their sport, and he isn't he lucky, he gets to take 500 basketball shots today.

Matt Phillips: 1:07:20

Yes.

Mick Spiers: 1:07:20

Wow, that's amazing. Oh, I not. I have to, yeah.

Matt Phillips: 1:07:25

So true. I think about from a leadership perspective too, right? I want to be a great leader. I want to progress in my company. I want to progress my organization. I get to spend 10 minutes a day reading about leadership. I get to spend an hour a week just thinking about my team, and how do I become a better leader and do all these things I get to do that to make my dream happen. That's such a powerful place to play from.

Mick Spiers: 1:07:50

Alright, I love it. Matt, there's been so many really key takeaways here today, the the intentional focus, themental toughness, the resilience, the reframing of what we get to do every day. There's many takeaways for our audience today. I really appreciate your your time and your wisdom and your insights. I'd like to now take us to our Rapid Round. So these are the same four questions that we ask all of I guess, what's the one thing you know now? Matt Phillips, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Unknown: 1:08:21

To be honest, I wish I knew how to ask for help quicker.

Mick Spiers: 1:08:33

Yeah, okay. Oftentimes we try to figure things out on my own, instead of going to the person who could accelerate mygrowth and being humble enough and confident enough to do that, even when I was scared to do it. Yeah, if we would come back to toughness and strength, asking for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. Yeah, very good one. What's your favorite book?

Matt Phillips: 1:09:01

Favorite book, and instead of my own, I won't, I won't do a shameless plug better. I'll pull one right now. I'llshow you it. There's so many that I like, there's so many that I like, but probably my favorite one right now. I I mean, I could hold up a bunch of them, but I just love, I love, like the military stuff, like Extreme Ownership. Mark Devine has written a number of different books, like the way of the seal as an example. I love those sorts of things because it's just, again, glimpses into their minds. I've got, like, a team Tebow book up here Drew Brees book for you football like American football fans out there. Those are just some of like, just a glimpse into the minds of the best.

Mick Spiers: 1:09:49

Really good, Matt. What's your favorite quote?

Matt Phillips: 1:09:52

So my favorite quote is actually one that I'm sure you all are familiar with, but Teddy Roosevelt, the Man in the Arena and I just love how is he says, you know, it's not the critic who counts, not the man who pointsout how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man or woman who is actually in the arena right, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who come short, again and again. And I could go on, but it's just that, like, take a chance, do the work. You're gonna fail, that's totally okay, get back up. Like, I just, I love that resilience, resiliency of that quote.

Mick Spiers: 1:10:35

Yeah, I love it. All right. Really good, Matt. And finally, there's going to be people that are really interested in what we've been discussing today around high performance mindsets and high performance leadership. How do people find you if they'd like to know more?

Matt Phillips: 1:10:49

Yeah, easiest ways, honestly, head over to my website. So mattphillipscoaching com, you'll see on there. You know, I do one on one coaching with different executives workshops at companies, things like that. And we also, I Well said, sir, and we'll put those links in the show notes as mentioned our high performance Leadership Program, which is really built for kind of mid level managers and organizations. And it's really everything we do is that combination of the leadership topics and also the Mental Toughness topics, because, again, we remove some of the roadblocks. I believesky's the limit, right? We can experience life and have some fun along the way too. So Matt Phillips coaching is really the easiest way, and then I'm always a big LinkedIn guy, so head over to LinkedIn, and it's Matt Phillips one five. Matt Phil was 15, and connect me there. Just reach out. I mean, shoot, send me an email mattphillipscoaching.com too. I just love connecting, talking leadership and all I know is just like with what you're doing, Mick, and that's why I'm so thankful to be on today, is we are absolutely all of usstronger together, right? And and the more we lean into that, and the more we embrace that, again, it's just optimizing performance, accelerating results, enjoying life and business along the way. well, so makes it easier for people to find it. Thank you so much for your time today, for your gift. We got return on time today from you listen. This was an investment of our time to take the time to listen to you. It was an investment of your time to share your wisdom with us. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you Mac and thank you to all your listeners as well.

Mick Spiers: 1:12:25

You've been listening to The Leadership Project. In the next episode, it'll be a solo cast where I'll be sharing my reflections about high performance mindsets and what I took away from this great conversation with Matt Phillips. Today, I will also be sharing my weekly leadership reflections from this week. I'm also really pleased to tell you that we now doing our weekly live stream show again. We took a small break while we went through some illness, and we also moved house, but we're now back on track, and we'll be doing our weekly live stream shows. This week's show is going to be all about how to build your own leadership credo. If you're getting great value from our content, we would love it. If you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, or your preferred podcast service. You can also subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where you get these weekly video podcasts, our weekly videos and the live stream show that I was talking about, if you haven't already, you can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, where we bring you tips every single week about how to become the leader you wish you always had. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video 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 subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can 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 we learn together and lead together.