Replacing Hidden Beliefs With Intentional Action

But we'll go ahead and get up and running. Welcome to yet another edition of Our Beyond Limits. I am Kevin Spindt. I'm our chief growth officer here at The Pacific Institute, and we do this session on the first Friday of every month. This is the first, not the first Friday of this month because it was on the second and we figured most of you are enjoying your holiday.

So throughout the balance of this year, we'll do these on the first Friday of every month. Chances are in July, there'll be a 4th of July hiccup. But what we do is we try to get folks together like yourself so that we can host these executive briefings, share some of our insights, some of the things that we feel are important, and then try to connect those dots, to the things, I'm sorry, connect those dots to the things that are important in your world that are salient for you. And try to make sure that we can help you in your endeavor to become better leaders, maybe even better human beings if you've not been here before. Just a little bit about The Pacific Institute in general.

At a very high level, we're a 54-year-old company. We are founded on the principles of positive psychology and what we believe is this, that you, your team, your organization, you are perfectly designed for the results that you're getting right now. You're absolutely flawlessly designed to get the results that you are getting right now. You've been perfectly designed to do exactly that. And if you don't wanna make any changes, it's been nice seeing you, but you should drop off of this call because only the folks that are interested in making changes and that are looking for more are really the ones that we should be talking to.

Now more can be defined in a million different ways. That can be more growth, that can be more alignment, that might be more energy or innovation, that might be more revenue if that's important to you. But bottom line, it's gonna start with the way that you think. What we like to say here is, before you do it, you're going to think it. So everything that takes place, every action, every reaction, it's all based on a thought that starts between your right ear and your left ear.

So what we wanna do is tap into your causative power, your ability to make those changes happen around you and be the cause agent in your environment. So at The Pacific Institute, we help people do exactly that. We unlock people's ability to think differently, act differently, and ultimately create the type of future that they want intentionally. So you might be a successful person and you might be thinking, I got here by accident. That's okay.

We'll go ahead and unpack what has helped you be successful and work towards that. You might be somebody who's striving for more success and think, I don't know how to get there. You're in the right place. Here's what we believe. Beliefs drive behavior.

Like I said, you gotta think it before you do it and behavior drives results. Now, most of the folks here are leaders in one sense or another, whether that's an official leader because you have it by title at work or whether you're a leader of other humans in your family or just generally lead people. But if you lead others, you're focused on results and like all you want those results to go up. And if you're a leader in an organization, you oftentimes have those results attached to your name and your job. In order to do that, there needs to be a strategy in place, a strategy that we need to follow.

And in order for a strategy to work, there has to be behaviors. We all have to do the thing. The strategy can't just be to say, dig the ditches. We have to go dig the ditches. But if you look at the top of the screen, we know that behavior comes from our beliefs.

So the most important factor then is understanding what are the beliefs that are then driving the behavior, and then can it support that strategy? Here at The Pacific Institute, that intersection of beliefs and behavior is what we call culture. Another way of saying culture is that's the collective self-talk of all of the people in your organization. That's what they say to themselves. That's what the break room walls would say.

If they could talk about what's really going on, what's acceptable, what's not acceptable, bottom line, it all starts with that individual person though a quote from our founder from 50 some odd years ago, Lou t said, all meaningful and lasting change first starts on the inside and then it works its way out. So what we want to think about is what are the things that we're gonna do internally? How are we gonna change ourselves internally before we then change the external result? And I don't wanna bury the lead. That all starts with our mindset that starts inside of our head, right between right ear and left ear.

So the first thing I wanna do is everybody go ahead and open up that chat. I'm gonna ask for participation from absolutely everybody that has a keyboard. We do a little something at the beginning of our session that it's called exactly as you see on the screen. Something good, God, tell me something good because we want to turn on our Raz, our reticular activating systems, the things that are going on in the world. So everybody take a minute or 90 seconds and I'd like to see here at the beginning of 2026, let's see that chat fill up with answers.

Tell me anything. That's good. I'll go first. My 14-year-old son got his braces off yesterday and he can't stop licking the front of his teeth. It's like the best day in the world for him.

Let's see some other people's. Something's good. 100 year anniversary, that's something great lolly. Michelle's answer of the power coming back in time for coffee is also something great. Wonderful example. Why something good as I get to see Richard Resnick in an airport.

Good to see you Richard Wife got a new job. Congratulations, Gerald. Aw, Sawyer La Marathon. Congrats. First track meet of the year.

I also have a daughter who runs track you biting those fingernails down to the nubs all season long. Fourth week of the Air Force. Thank him for his service. 21 years in business for Jeff Bradley. Congratulations. Thank you.

We love to start sessions with things like this. We highly encourage you to do the same thing with your teens. Nobody here is in a worse mood than they were five, you know, 90 seconds ago. All we ask is try to focus on the positives. We're gonna focus on a bunch of positives through the balance of our section today.

I'm gonna ask folks to keep using the chat. This has been great. We love seeing those answers. I've got John, I've got Mark Anthony who are gonna be here helping me keep an eye on those.

Feel free to put any questions you have in there as well, but thank you for sharing your something good. So let's go ahead and get started here earlier, actually, I should say last year, at the end of last year, there was an article that came out. Raise your hand or wave at the screen if you happen to see this article that showed up from the Harvard Business Review at the tail end of last year. Hi Richard, good to see you. Here were the takeaways in the 2025 Harvard Business Review article.

This one here, the Hidden Beliefs That Hold Leaders Back, executive Coach Muriel Wilkins outlined that there are some unconscious beliefs that often undermine leadership effectiveness. I can already see people's heads nodding along that they understand that there are some beliefs that get in the way of effectiveness. What we want to do is go ahead and highlight what those seven limiting beliefs are. So from the over 300 individuals coached by executive coach Muriel Wilkins, she identifies these as the seven limiting beliefs that show up across high performing professionals. What we're gonna do today is identify what those seven are, and we're gonna try to work through some of the antidotes, some of the physical actions that you can take to try to work past those limiting beliefs and perhaps maybe even turn them into a liberating belief.

These are subtle, these are oftentimes things that you don't want to admit at first, but reason we like to have these cameras on. I want you to look around the room and see how many people start nodding their heads when you see these seven beliefs showing up. So these are the seven that we believe can be reframed through intentional and high trust behaviors. We're gonna explore exactly how to do that. But let's start by looking at what those seven are, if you believe that one of these is true, nod your head, wave at the screen.

Say yes in the chats. First one is I need to be involved. The belief that is, as a leader, I absolutely have to be involved in everything. Belief number two, I need it done now, not 10 minutes from now, not tomorrow, but right. And if I'm mad enough about it stinking, now I know I'm right, ergo everybody else is wrong, but I know that I am right, especially when I know that I'm right.

I can't make a mistake. How could I ever make a mistake as a leader? Those are not allowed. If I can do it, so can you. Seven footers who can dunk you have a problem?

I can't say no. What if I say no? I'm supposed to be the person that says yes and last and definitely not least last. I don't belong here. I don't fit in.

Now if you were looking at your screens, I saw a lot of people nodding along saying that yes, in fact, I believe that I have some of these beliefs as well. So what we're gonna do is spend a little bit of time on each and every one of those and we're gonna see if we can learn a little bit from each other along the way. So number one, belief. Again, I need to be involved.

Wave your hand if you feel like you've ever had this belief. I'm leaving mine up because I've definitely felt this before. Now as leaders, let's go ahead and see in the chat, what does this look like for you? What happens to a team when the leader feels like they have to be involved in everything? When the leader feels like they have to be involved in all decisions?

Let's play the tape out. What's that look like? Thank you for the quick answer. Gemma, there is a bottleneck. Soyer says we get less production love, Kelly's answer, micromanagement and it slows things down.

You mean to tell me that if I have to rubber stamp absolutely everything, I'm gonna slow this organization down in case I didn't lay a thick enough layer of sarcasm, I'll come back stronger next time. Good answers here. Richard says there's less motivation. Team doesn't trust its own judgment. They feel less empowered.

Anybody feel good about these things that are showing up? Is anybody seeing some positives? I haven't seen anybody respond that says we're assured that everything has been okayed by the boss so we can identify the problems. We know that it's a problem, but we also know that we still tend to have this belief from time to time. Here's some of the symptoms.

Y'all hit it on the head pretty well, but this belief often leads to micromanage. Like many of you said, bottlenecks diminished trust. It happens across the entire team. Leaders are unintentionally sending a message that they don't trust you to execute, that you're not able to do it. If I have to go to the boss for absolutely everything first I start to lose that efficacy that I can make these decisions on my own.

So it starts to snowball. So what do we do? What do we do about that? There's some antidotes that are available at the end of our session today. There'll be an opportunity to send me an email.

If you do, I will send you all of these. So if you don't feel like screenshotting or taking notes, I can send it to you at the end. But here are some of the action-based things. Some of the things you can actually do that work as antidotes for the hidden belief of I gotta be involved. Set clear expectations at the beginning of a project.

Really be clear about what's coming. Make sure that the headlights are on so folks know what to expect and what's coming next. Create a shared check-in rhythm. Stay informed without having to take over. Make it part of a regular cadence, not showing that up and interrupting to make sure that Kelly's doing her darn job, but just doing a regular check-in at a regular time.

Consider asking questions like, what decisions can this team make without me? That helps reinforce that autonomy. If you know anything about Daniel pink, autonomy is huge when it comes to motivation and we love motivated employees. Acknowledge when your presence is creating dependency. Acknowledge when you can say, you know what, it's me.

Hi, I'm the problem. And take a step back. Taylor Swift fans, that was for you. And then lastly, model trust, right? By giving public credit for others' decision making, right?

When I see Jacqueline make a good decision, I wanna reward that. That was a good decision. I wanna reward the action of the good decision and being a person who thought independently and worked autonomously, right? So let's think about this on the positive side of things. What's one task or decision that you could perhaps release to your team this month, not next month, here in January, 2026.

What's one task that you could let go to your month to your team? Now cut to Kevin in the confessional. I could release hosting this session, but I need to be involved. For the record, I have these beliefs too. I am one of you.

What are some of the things that you could let go? What are some of the things that you've been doing that you could let go of this month given just a moment for some answers to trickle in there? There we go. Starting to see a few there. Acknowledging team to manage check-ins.

I like this sourcing of candidates. In the interest of time, we're gonna move on

to belief number two, nod your head wave at the screen. Let me know if you have the urgency. Belief. I need it done. I, a lot of us know what this looks like, but let's share in the chat what it looks like in your organization.

What does constant urgency do to a team's energy or to their focus? S constant urgency. As somebody who's worked in many startup companies in the past where there's this constant target of making your monthly number or the last day of the month becomes this all out 23 hour sprint to make the number. What does that do? Kelly says it interrupts.

Jeffrey says fatigue. Scott says it stresses people out. Yeah, it causes burnout. If everything is urgent, is everything really urgent? What James just said, if everything is important, nothing is important.

Exactly right. So we know what it looks like. Good news is we are all experts in seeing what it looks like. We know exactly what those symptoms are, right? It creates false urgency, reactive execution, and like most of you said, burnout.

It replaces thoughtfulness with speed, right? It focuses people on doing things right away and puts speed over accuracy. So what do we do? What are the antidotes at The Pacific Institute? Here's some action based antidotes that we believe can help with this particular belief.

If you happen to have the hidden belief of I need it done now, you could start by clarifying the timeline based on the importance, not the emotion. If you find yourself in a leader that if it's on your mind, it's as urgent as your next conversation. Clarify the timeline based on what's really important, not just what's on your mind at the moment, especially if you're a highly emotional person. Pause before assigning urgency. Ask what would really happen if this waited a day or two?

If this waited 48 hours, what would really happen? Would it be catastrophic or would it simply just be 48 hours later? Or share priorities with your teams, not just the tasks. Let them know what you're doing, what your priority is, what the most importance are. Let them see what your stack ranking is so that they don't believe that all things have the exact level of importance.

Replace pressure with process, but help others map out how they're gonna execute, not just a matter of telling Chris exactly what has to happen. Perhaps it's mapping out the steps along the way, building out the cookbook, not just giving what the final product is. And then of course, all of us who happen to speak with our voices, check your tone. Careful that your urgency isn't creating an unintentional negative effect because human communication is very heavily based on the tone that we use. In fact, it's 37% of all of our human communication is the tone of our voice.

So what's something that you've been treating? Lemme get your turn to cut in the confessional. What's something that you've been treating as urgent that maybe doesn't need to be? I love the answer from James there. That's a quote from John Wooden.

Be quick but don't hurry. What's something you've been treating urgent that maybe, maybe isn't as urgent as has to be? Ah, reporting is a very honest answer from Sawyer. Thank you for leading with us. Yeah, those year end metrics, mandatory training requirements back under the very honest answer.

Wanted it in a week but could actually wait for a month.

Been there. Question to think about for yourself is what emotion starts bubbling up in you as you start thinking about letting it go. For many folks, it's terrifying. The idea of letting go and a lot of 'em, they realize I never needed to hold onto this in the first place. We use that reticular activating system, our awareness to be aware.

So we're just paying attention. We're just being aware to start with hidden belief. Number three, and I'm certain about this one, I know I'm right. Be honest. How many people have this one a lot?

I know I'm right now if you didn't raise your hand, how many people have children and they absolutely know that they're right, right? It's true across the board all the time. But we've all been around those leaders, we've all been around those people. We've all been around those humans. Sometimes we call them our something in laws that always know that they're right.

But what's it like when that happens in the workplace? What happens when a leader always has the answer? I'll even air quote that always has the answer. What does that look like? Ooh, I like that first answer.

Reduced creativity. Yes, A cult of personality develops. I like that. A lot of folks are really saying that creativity gets cut out by show of hands, how many people here hire for creativity? They want creative human beings.

Those that think outside the box. Meanwhile, I know I'm right, is the behavior that shuts that down. No growth is a good answer. Teams don't want to share. If I'm right and you give a different answer, what does that mean?

You are? People don't like that feeling. So the symptoms, most of these were covered in the chat. Just to recap, this belief shuts down collaboration and innovation. I like Sawyer's answer.

The team feels belittled. The team feels less than they feel worth less, which is the same as feeling worthless, psychological safety. When teams are waiting for directions, they're simply not, not taking the next step forward. So what do they need to do? What are some of the actionable antidotes?

What are the physical things that we can do if we know that we sometimes have this belief and if we are honest and say to ourselves, maybe I'm not always right. Ask for other perspectives before offering your own solution. If you find yourself being the leader who always speaks first, take a page from Simon Sinek's book. Be the leader who speaks Last, last, hear those other perspectives before you hear your own. By the way, you get to sound like a genius 'cause you get to go with the best sounding idea at the end.

Replace with, here's what I think. With what are you seeing? Find out from others. Get feedback from what they're seeing first. Again, your opinion doesn't have to be the first one.

When people feel empowered to give that opinion, you'll oftentimes find that your perspective was blocking you from something that was really important. In feedback sessions. Listen to the whole statement. If you're the person who, the moment you have a solution, your listener turns off because you've already moved into the advice monster, try to keep the advice monster at bay. Keep that to yourself.

Listen to the end of the statement and then respond. By the way, that's hard. Much easier to say than it is to do. Change some language. How else could we see this?

Try to get other opinions. Create a permissive environment where other opinions are encouraged. And finally, you can document how a shared idea led to a better outcome. When a good idea comes up, broadcast it, announce it. We had plans to do it this way.

Mike brought us the following idea. That was wonderful. We're going to do it that way. Now. I like the answer in the chat there.

You can share best practices concerning surfacing, limiting beliefs. Excellence. On that note, what's one question that you could ask more often to invite input from your team or within your organization? What question could you ask? What am I missing is a great question.

I like that. How have you seen this done differently in the past? Ellie says, who else would have a perspective on this? All of these are involving we answers. I love it.

This is great. Very, very good answers. I really like about the answer that Randy just put in there. Is it led with vulnerabilities? I don't know how to fix this.

Who has an idea?

Be the brave leader who's willing to say, I don't know. I love that. All right, moving along with our beliefs. We're about to cross the halfway point here. Hidden belief number four, I can't make a mistake.

You're not allowed to make mistakes. Leaders are supposed to be perfect. So what does that happen? What does it look like? What does fear of mistakes do to risk taking in teams?

What does the outcome, when the leader believes that they cannot make a mistake, but they have to be bulletproof, mistake free. Yeah. Answers coming in right off the bat are pretty consistent. Stalling love. Michelle's answer.

Perfectionism leads to avoidance. Yeah, the team can hide mistakes. If we don't take risks, it'd be really hard to grow. I agree with you, Andy. It creates a culture of fear, which is no fun.

Let's see what some of these are looking more like, right? This leads to perfectionism like most of us said paralysis, just stalling, just holding still and missed opportunities. We're not taking advantage of things because we're just letting 'em pass by, right? It stifles innovation. It burdens the leaders with over analysis and under confidence.

This is not an environment that most of us want to work in. So what do we do? What are the antidotes? What are the physical actions that we can take? Here's what we suggest.

Start team meetings with a learning win. Something that came from a failure. Failure. Start by saying, who failed this week and what did we learn from it? I can't remember who the author was that used to talk about at the dinner table growing up.

Their father would go around the table and make everybody start the dinner conversation with What did you fail at today and what did you learn? Consider that for something to do at a team meeting. What did you fail at today and what did you learn? Instead of the typical meeting, which is let's brag about all the things, things that we did great since yesterday. Label your own past mistakes and what you learned from them.

We have a wonderful leader here at The Pacific Institute who's on a plane right now who does a wonderful job of leading through mistakes and being vulnerable about that. It makes working for such a human very easy. Thank you, Richard. Model acceptance of mistakes by admitting them in real time. This is a tough one.

A lot of us can admit a mistake yesterday. Can we admit it? The moment it happened works a heck of a lot better. When we do consider questions like what's the worst case scenario? If we did move forward, what would happen if we moved forward at 90% done?

Instead of what I believe is a hundred percent done? As somebody who lives in a house with a competitive gymnast, perfectionism is a scary, scary thing and creates a lot of fear and apprehension. When you are striving for perfection, when you change away from that environment, there's a lot more growth. So build in structured debriefs to normalize learning from mistakes. Accept that mistakes are going to be part of the process.

Don't wait for a mistake to happen and then address it as though it's the problem. Plan for that and learn from the misses. What's a mistake that made you a better leader? This is an opportunity to be vulnerable. What's something that made you a better leader?

A mistake you made in the past? I put mine in there first. Good, honest answer from Jeffrey hearing, but not listening. Randy, I love that as an activity we do here called what went Well that works basically the same way. List three things that went well during the day and then what you're looking forward to tomorrow as a way of imprinting for tomorrow.

Great stuff. I'm really glad that Richard put the answer in there because that's what happens for a lot of folks. A lot of us think about a mistake and we're trying to think about an action, but one of the things that comes up a lot is you believe that everything that you've done is set in stone. I've already hired the team. I already have what I need in place and then you try to correct from there.

I made the perfect hire two years ago, but if you've outgrown or that person has outgrown, that's an example of not recognizing a mistake that maybe we don't have the right people in the right seats. That the team that you have may not be the team that you thought you have.

Questions are a good starting point. Moving on from here into belief number five. This is a really, really tough one. This one comes up a lot, particularly for individuals who've had backgrounds in sports, but the belief that is, if I can do it, so can you. The assumption that if it was something that I can do, well absolutely everybody else can do it.

If it's easy for me, ergo, it's going to be easy for you. Very few things could be further from the truth. How does this belief, this belief that everything that I can do, you can do and vice versa. How does this affect team development? What does this look like?

Yeah, people start making shortcuts. No focus on strength or motivation. Yes, yes. Short and sweet answer from Michelle, but I agree. It's undermining as a leader.

It also starts to shape your belief around the people around you. What's wrong with this person? It was so easy for me. Ali says it encourages everyone to try to perform the same and not express differences. Yes, absolutely.

If we think about a team in a non-work context, if we think about a team in maybe a sporting context, it is not terribly valuable to have everybody have the exact same skill sets. Having different skill sets adds diversity to all types of teams. It's sometimes easier to see in sports than it is in the workplace, but that belief that everybody should be able to do all the same things instead of having some people have skill sets in some areas and some in other areas. So what is this? What do we do about it?

What's the The action? I like Richard's question. We'll get to that in a second. Ask team members how they prefer to learn rather than just assuming it, right? Find out from people.

Do they learn best by doing? Do they need to get their hands on? Do they do best by having a joint work partner that helps with them? Do they need to see it demonstrated? Just one more time.

Everybody learns in a different way, but that is a way that you can reach out to the individual and understand their learning style. Set expectations collaboratively, not just based on what your comfort zone is. Let let people determine what their own stretch and comfort zones are. If you put people into your comfort zone, that's not exactly how it works. Have touchpoints for coaching, not just results.

Planned conversations about coaching, not planned conversations to discuss what happened and what didn't, but actual touch points to have the real conversations. Recognize and name progress even when it looks different than your own. Great. I went from step one to two to three to four. Well, maybe you're taking a different path.

Just because it's not the same path does not mean that there's something wrong with it. Letting people know that you recognize that they're making progress and that you can see the way points and that they are demonstrating another way to success is just as valuable as I'm doing it the exact same way as you. In fact, probably more so. Richard's question. We don't want to instill the belief in our employees that if it can be done.

So how does that reconcile here? Well, I'm gonna put float that question to the group. Group. I'm curious what the smart people on this call would say. See if we get an answer on this because this next prompt is the answer to Richard's question.

What are some of the things that you can do to customize support for someone on your team? I like that. Meet people where they are. Allow employees to choose a development path. I like Jeffrey's action plan for the individual.

Make plans for persons, not people. I like that a lot. Yeah, learn about your team. I like Mike Mike's answer a lot. Those are human beings.

They have names and social security cards and all sorts of different things. They're actual people and each one learns differently. Good, good answers in here, Richard. You see? You ask a question like that and we get a treasure trove of good answers.

Thank you everyone for putting those in. Moving along with our beliefs. In the interest of time, this is one that comes up a lot,

especially first time leaders. How dare you say that word that you don't want to hear. No. Raise your hand if you have this belief. I can't say no.

So what happens to a leader's effectiveness when they never say no? Yeah. Burnout. Overwork. Yeah.

To the manager, to the leader, to the executive. They get scattered. Consider the question from another standpoint. What happens to children who have parents that never say no, we don't wanna have spoiled employees, do we? We lose sight of our strength.

Yeah. Kelly hit it on the head. Lot of really good answers here. Lot of really good answers here. So here's some symptoms.

Most of these look like they were covered. This leads to blurring of priorities. They're not crystal clear overwork. 'cause if you can't say no, eventually you're going to burn out, right? It dilutes the effectiveness of the leaders, but it also cuts down on the efficacy of those individuals.

I know that my boss is gonna say yes to this, so I don't really have to do all of the work. I can just get most of it done. If I push this off to Jim, he'll take care of the rest of it. So what do we do to solve for that? What are some of the action plans?

Use a calendar to audit low impact demands. Get rid of 'em. Pay attention to the little things that don't need to make their way across your desk. Say no by pointing to strategic focus, not personal preference. They know based on the plan, not on your emotions.

Practice declining and offering an alternative resource or a timeline. Push it to another timeframe. I like this one. Schedule white space for thinking and recovery and defend it. Give yourself recovery time.

This is an important one. You have to be able to say no. You have to be able to secure your own time. You also have to be able to recharge your own battery. I've probably told this story in a session before, but I'll tell it again real quick.

Simon Sinek tells a story all the time about the two lumberjacks. The two lumberjacks that go to the work at the exact same time every day, nine to five. They start at the same time. They finish at the same time every day though, one of the lumberjacks disappears for about an hour, doesn't do any work during that hour. And when he comes back at the end of the day, the one that disappears for the hour, he's chopped more wood, they're using the same ax, they're chopping for the same amount of time.

They were trained by the same person. And this goes on and it goes on and it goes on. And after a while, the second lumberjack comes back, he goes, I don't understand. And every day we chop wood at the same time. We finish at the same time and you disappear every day for an hour.

What in the world? How do you do this? The first lumberjack comes back, he says, every day I go home at lunch and I sharpen my ax. That's what humans have to do as well. We have to be able to recharge our battery, which means sometimes we have to be able to say no to that task.

Go home, play with your kids. Go for a run. Do whatever you have to do to sharpen your own ax. 'cause you're gonna get more done if you look out for yourself. What's one low value task that you could say no to so that you can sharpen your ax?

Ah, an honest answer. Attending every single meeting, we can say no to a meeting. What Else can we say no to? Great answer. Stacy.

Say no to things that somebody else could be doing because they would be developing if they did it. Give just a second for some answers to come in.

All right, in the interest of time, moving on to our seventh and final hidden belief. This is a big one. I don't belong. Here I am in the wrong seat. This one is also known as imposter syndromee.

With that belief of I don't belong here, or they can tell I don't belong here. How might a belief like this shape a leader's behavior, visibility, actions. What's it look like when we have this, I don't belong here. Belief, lack of confidence, lack of efficacy. Trying to imitate others, right?

And when you're trying to imitate others, you're very rarely being your authentic self. The best version of you wanting to know everything. Absolutely. Lack of confidence. Ending up being sensitive to criticism.

So we know what it looks like. We're good at this. We know what this one looks like a lot. You, you all hit it right on the head. Imposter syndrome.

Reduction in confidence. Less of a voice or influence. These leaders get blocked from taking big actions. Wally, hit it right on the head there at the bottom. Paranoia, they just get terrified.

Nobody wants to be scared. So what can we do physically? What are the actions? Keep a list of impact moments and review them. Pay attention.

Identify the times when you do actually belong. It'd be more than you think. Seek direct feedback to align your perception with how others see you. If you don't know how to do that, please reach out to us. There's lots of ways.

Don't live in a vacuum. Prepare for key moments with evidence-based self-talk, not emotions. Get yourself talk, right? You do belong there. Say yes to visible opportunities even if you don't feel ready.

Ready isn't a feeling that happens before you do the thing. And then surround yourself with a personal board of directors who reinforce your growth. Surround yourself with people who are constantly in your corner. Have home field advantage with the people around you that support you. So let's see an example.

What's one way you think you could show up with more confidence this month? I'd love to see a bunch of answers on this one. Failure is learning. Great answer, Jeff. Gerald says, do something that scares you.

I love that. Yeah. Take more risks. Start the startup. Yeah, embrace the imperfection.

Love that answer, Richard. Yeah, correct. The negative self-talk. Change that conversation that happens in your head. You believe every word that your right ear tells your left.

So let's get real focused on saying positive things to ourselves. Good answer, Stacy. Learn just for the sake of learning. We're doing great. Wonderful answers.

Nearing the end of our time here. So let's get some takeaways. It's been some really good stuff. I'm gonna put up my email in just a minute for everybody to uh, to send out. But just a couple quick takeaways from the things that we've talked about here today.

So, hidden beliefs. They typically stem from things that are in the past, right? All of our beliefs come from the things in the past. And most of these are really, they're just things that are there to protect us. We're creating habits.

Most of it is stuff that doesn't serve us anymore.

Most of the time when we have one of these seven beliefs, it's not really serving us that well. It's coming from the wrong place, but they create ripple effects and they really impact how effective we are as leaders. How the team morale is, how we're able to collaborate. So simply just naming them, bringing 'em up to the surface, being aware, disrupts some of the unconscious influence that allows us to take a little bit more control. Intentional strategies, stuff that we do on purpose can shift the entire culture and leadership.

All of this, it starts with clarity, being clear with self, being clear with others. The reason that we started off each one of these seven beliefs with you being able to tell us what it looks like is because there's nothing special about putting these seven things up on the screen. We already know what they are. All we did was label them. But it's important that we pay attention to what those are because if we don't have the awareness of recognizing how we act and how people react when we have those beliefs, then we're just gonna keep the cycle going.

And the goal is we want to try to break that pattern. We wanna interrupt that pattern and do something different. And that starts with the awareness. So hopefully by being able to identify what these seven are, we can start to take some actions about how we can move towards maybe correcting for them and not having those downstream implications as frequently. The common themes that came up across the board and you checked off all of these as we talked, were clarity, being crystal clear about goals, expectations, timelines and communication.

And not leaving anything up to chance. Trust in others and in self and in the organization. Inquiry over instruction. Ask stinking questions and then when you're done, ask some more reactivity to intentionality. So pause before acting.

Cool. Part about when you pause is it gives you extra time to listen. And finally, visibility and voice. Feeling seen, heard and empowered. The most valuable thing that we can do for employees is have them be seen, heard and understood.

AKA empowered. So it's not about fixing leaders that are broken, it isn't. It's about equipping leaders who are great leaders already with the tools to be more conscious, more courageous, and ultimately more connected. And when we do that, we can start transforming ultimately what is possible in the long run. We have a new opportunity that is coming up next week.

One week from today, we're gonna be doing an Executive Impact session. Eric Spindt, yes. Related to me, that's my older brother is going to be hosting an Executive Impact session one week from today. He's going to be explaining how he's used a strategy cascade to bring culture to every level of his organization over the past 15 years. I'll be sending out some information via email, but in the chat I'm gonna go ahead and add, excuse me, I'm gonna go ahead and add the link in the chat here, just a moment so that you can check that off and join that session.

We'll also be putting out an email. This is an opportunity for those to learn from the CEO seat, what it looks like to, uh, go through a culture transformation over a long period of time.

In addition to that, we are starting a series of open sessions this month of our Invent Your Future 2.0 session. Handful of folks who are here on this call have been to these sessions before and uh, hopefully they'll have some good things to say. I'm gonna play a quick little video. This is gonna round out the end of our time today. Uh, there is a link on the screen that you can scan the QR code and I'm gonna put some information here in the chat in just a little bit.

But this video will be the end of our time today. So I wanted to say thank you to everybody for being here. This is just a two minute, quick little clip that goes over our Invent Future 2.0. I will be sticking around, so if anybody has any questions or concerns, let me know. Thank you Mark Anthony, for putting the correct link in the chat.

So are you just reacting to your career or are you actively creating it? Let's check out a new blueprint. This isn't about tactics, it's about a new you. True leadership really does start from the inside. So yeah, forget just learning new skills.

This is a total mindset shift, a whole new way of thinking. Okay, part one, reimagining leadership. So what does this actually look like in practice? Basically, if you're an emerging leader, a manager, or even a senior exec, this is for you. All right?

Part two is all about building your foundation. It's a four session journey to your future. This is your roadmap. We start with awareness and build all the way up to lasting motivation. Session one kicks off with a simple idea awareness.

How does your perception shape your reality? You'll learn a framework for building trust and how to recognize your own belief autopilot. Then in session two, we get into the beliefs and habits that are secretly running the show. And this is huge. You'll learn how to turn those limiting beliefs into drivers for real growth.

Okay, part three, leading with clarity. This is where that internal work starts making a real world impact. Session three is all about mastering that conversation you have with yourself. It's a game changer. You'll learn to spot unhelpful thoughts and turn that inner critic into your biggest champion.

And session four is where we make it all stick. This is about lasting change. In designing your vision, you'll create vivid goals and use affirmations that actually rewire your thinking for success. Alright, part four, designing your future. So what's the end result of all this?

First up, you'll gain a real self-awareness that builds genuine unshakeable confidence. Second, you'll finally align what you believe on the inside with how you show up as a leader. Third, you get practical habits and communication skills that will instantly elevate how you perform. And finally, a clear vision that keeps your momentum going long after the program is over. Because in the end, your future is yours.

You get the tools to design it, live it, and lead it. So that just leaves one question, what future are you going to design? So I put the link in the chat there and if anybody would like to attend that session, please send me an email. We're running a couple of discounts currently. There are group rates available for that.

That first session begins in the middle of February. So we'd love to see you there. If anybody has any questions, I am going to stick around until folks drop off. But as always, thank you so much for your time and your attention. Hopefully we see you next week for our Executive Impact and we, we will be back again on the first Friday of February, which is February 6th for our next Beyond Limits.

Everybody have a wonderful weekend.