TLP518: The Bravery Effect: Jill Schulman on Why Courage Is a Skill, Not a Trait

Speaker A: This is the Leadership Podcast and we study leaders. This is episode 518 featuring Jill Schulman, keynote speaker, USMC M, veteran bravery expert and best selling author.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Leadership Podcast. Jim and Jan interview leaders who, uh, are blazing new trails. They'll read the best sellers, they study trends, they'll provide thought leadership and the latest research when it comes to inspiring and leading others. They'll get you access to the great leaders of our time and help you learn from the very best. Now your hosts, Jim Vasilopoulos and Jan Rutherford.

Speaker A: Thank you for joining us today. This is Jim Vasilopoulos, founder of Rafty Advisors, and this is the Leadership Podcast.

Speaker C: Hey, everybody. Jan Rutherford here, founder, uh, of Self Reliant Leadership. Thanks for making us part of your day as we study leaders. And Jim said it earlier, this is episode five 18. That means we've got over 500 episodes in our catalog and all of those episodes can be found@theleadershippodcast.com and this episode, like so many of our past episodes, is proudly sponsored by Darlie. Trusted by war fighters and firefighters since 1908, they are dedicated to equipping, uh, our military and first responders with the essential tools they need for mission success, from fuel and firefighting pumps to drones and tactical solutions. You can learn more about this great company and their people who serve our nation's heroes at D A R L U I Com. Darlie, you serve others, we serve you.

Speaker A: And today we have a wonderful guest courtesy of, uh, friend of the show, Michael Peppin, former retired commander from the U.S. navy. Great guy who is a good friend of mine for many years, introduced me to Jill and he said, you gotta meet Jill, she's gotta be on your podcast. So we welcome Jill to the show. Thank you for being a guest here, Jill.

Speaker D: Oh, well, thanks for having me. Any friend of Mike's is a friend of mine. And I'm so impressed. 518 episodes. You guys started this podcast before everyone started podcasting, so that's amazing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: 10 years.

Speaker A: 10 years. Yeah. Let me introduce you a little bit because Jill's an amazing woman. She's a Marine, uh, Corps veteran, keynote speaker, expert in the science of bravery. That I think is what's really interesting. She's got a master's in applied positive psychology. She helps leaders push limits, take action, and perform at their best. She's also the author of a wonderful book that I really enjoyed, the Bravery Effect. So this is an accomplished woman. We're going to learn a lot today. But before we get into the Details of bravery. Jill. What's not in the public bio?

Speaker D: What is not in the public bio? I'll tell you one interesting fact that no one would ever guess is in my background, my top sport that I was the most competitive in, uh, in fact, I was one of the top athletes in the state of Minnesota in this sport. You want to guess it? What's the most unlikely sport?

Speaker C: Wrestling.

Speaker D: That would be a good one. Now, the opposite of toughness. Marine. I was a highly accomplished synchronized swimmer.

Speaker C: That's a hard sport.

Speaker D: It is a hard sport. But, uh, I don't know if it really goes with my, like, tough girl, Marine Corps officer, science of bravery vibe. So can we keep that between us? Oh, no, it just went out to your entire podcast. But that's okay.

Speaker C: I think that's a really tough sport. I think that's a really hard sport. I don't think of that as, like, foo foo at all, really.

Speaker D: Okay. So my husband will always make jokes. Like, if we're in the pool on vacation, do you want to do some synchronized swimming for us? Or when it's on the Olympics, you know? Yeah, I just am the butt of the jokes. But I'm okay with it because you're right, it is a tough sport. It is physically demanding. You can't breathe half the time because you're underwater. And then you have to come up and look poised. You know, unlike if I'm lifting weights and I can just, uh, make that face. So I really enjoyed it. In, in high school, didn't you have

Speaker C: to put Vaseline on your teeth so you could smile easier?

Speaker D: We didn't do Vaseline on the teeth. We're going off on that. But we would wear basically a nose plug so you don't get water up your nose. And the other thing we had to do is we were not allowed to shave our legs. As a 16 or 17 year old girl, you want to shave your legs because when you shave your legs, you cannot feel the level of the water. So if you allow, imagine like if I'm laying on the beach and I've shaved my legs, if a, uh, fly lands on me, like, you don't feel it. So you have to be able to feel the water level.

Speaker C: Oh, wow.

Speaker D: Yeah. So you don't shave your legs.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker D: That's the one secret.

Speaker C: Yep. Wow.

Speaker D: Kept the boys away, too.

Speaker C: You'd be able to feel the water really good.

Speaker A: No doubt, no doubt. Now, my sister was a synchronized swimmer, so I have a much respect for the sport. I don't think she was as Serious as not shaving the legs part. I think the reason why it gets a bad rap is because that video that Martin Short and who was the other. Was it Martin Short and Dana Carvey or something like that that did, like, a thing on SNL about.

Speaker D: Oh, yeah, the snl. Yep, exactly. Let me set the record straight. Like, you only have to not shave your legs for about two to three days. I was not braiding the hair on my legs when I was 16m. It was just right before a competition. So I just got, uh.

Speaker A: It.

Speaker D: Gotta set the record straight.

Speaker A: Got it.

Speaker C: All right.

Speaker A: I wanna get into this because I enjoyed your book and it was like kind of a business parable. So it's a really good story. But the one that caught me, the one that had, like, visuals that I just had, almost giggling, was at the beginning of your book where you talk about the story of you, like, in your journey, like, becoming a Marine and kind of getting off the bus and stuff like that. So it's like, help us understand a little bit about why this synchronized swimmer said, I'm going to join the Marines.

Speaker D: Yeah, you know what the reason I pursue a career in the Marine Corps is? Number one, I did have a grandfather that was a Marine, So he fought in World War II, but he never talked about it. Like a lot of vets, he actually fought in the Battle of Tarawa, one of our bloodiest ballots. So we never ever talked about it. But I think that it was a little, like, seed that was in my brain. But really, the reason I wanted to pursue the Marine Corps is it was my ticket to get free college, to be able to see the world, and also to pursue a career in something that had great purpose and meaning. So, really, for all those reasons, and I had an amazing childhood in Minnesota. But I think my mom and dad, they had jobs they didn't necessarily like, and they just did it for a paycheck. So sometimes you have great examples of, like, I want to do that I'm inspired by. But you also learn from examples of what you don't want. So I decided to apply for this Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship, R, O, T, C. And it was part of Naval, Because Marines are part of the Navy. And somehow I earned the scholarship and it was a free ticket to go to school anywhere I wanted to in the United States. And then the day that you graduate, you know, is the day that you get commissioned and you start your career. So it was such a great path to get my college paid for. No college debt, and then also start My career as an officer in the Marine Corps.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so you showed up on your first day looking like what, a stunt

Speaker D: double to L and Legally Blonde. Yes. So a little bit about the story. So, like I got in a scholarship and I was absolutely thrilled and I was actually a little pretty confident. Like I did pretty well in sports, you know, and I was captain of my sport. So I had leadership and I had great, you know, physical fitness and you had to have the academics. So I was in all the AP classes, you know, had great GPA and then also was a leader in my class and like student council. So I was feeling pretty confident getting on a plane, headed to the University of San Diego. So back to San Diego. Jan, we were just talking about. So I'm on a plane and headed to San Diego and I put a lot of thought into a really important decision that I wanted to make to make the best possible first impression. Now what does an 18 year old girl think about? We think about our outfit, like what am I going to wear, you know, to make the best first impression? So I really put a lot of thought into it. I did research and Marine Corps officers are not allowed to wear jeans. So I can't wear jeans. It's not allowed. I didn't want to wear a dress because a dress would be too girly. So I found the most fabulous outfit. It was hot pink with white polka dots, but it was like silk shorts that went down to my knees. And I wore like little pumps, not like really high heels. So like little perfectly matching, like the exact shade of pink pumps. And I even had my nails like match. I thought I looked very professional, like Legally Blonde. And so if you just imagine that scene of Jill and people are listening, can't see me, but I have blonde hair, like longer blonde hair, and I'm in the hot pink. And I'm reporting into my Marine Corps option, Naval ROTC unit for orientation, which is code for boot camp. A week before college starts. And then just think of that and then think of anything, you know, about the Marine Corps. And that was the start of my journey. In fact, that first day, we're all lining up to report into our unit. And it's naval ROTCs. People who want to become a naval officer and people who want to become Marine Corps officers are all reporting in the same unit. And there's a big line of people and all the other women pretty much are going left, which are going the naval, you know, officer route. Not a lot of us going to the right. There were two females that Went to the right. The rest of it were males. And most of the males reporting in were former enlisted Marines that they were such high performers, they basically were able to go to college as an active duty Marine. So, like, I'm peeling off, going to the right, going, what did I do? Because I did not look like anyone else. And the senior, the upperclassmen who are running this orientation slash, like boot camp, I think they were salivating, going like, oh, ho, ho, ho, we've got the person we're going to pick on. So that was my first day. And I always share the story, and you already know that I became a Marine Corps officer, so it ended up being a good thing. But on my first day, one of the upperclassmen that I looked up to the most, I mean, he was like, he had the chiseled jaw. He was like the guy in charge. He came up to me and leaned over to what I thought was going to give me a little, you know, words of encouragement. He leaned over and actually said, you will never make it as a Marine Corps officer. And not even seriousness, not even with, like, spite, but more of you're, uh, a joke. And, you know, in that moment, that was incredibly hard to hear, but it was actually such a profound driver of my success because there are so many moments, and I have lots of stories, but we won't get into all of them. But there's so many moments that I wanted to quit because the journey was so hard in a lot of different ways. And it was that comment by that gentleman that drove me that I wanted to prove him wrong. So part of me being brave and showing up each day is because I wanted to prove him wrong. And so I'm so thankful he did that the first day.

Speaker C: Uh, I'm glad that you started off with a struggle story, if you will. You know that one of the last things you do as a Marine is something called the crucible. And, you know, which is a severe test. And so many of us are caught in what we call, or, uh, you call a comfort trap. It keeps us from ever experiencing those struggles that help us grow. Can you talk about the science behind that?

Speaker D: Yes. And so I'm definitely a tough girl, but I am an academic nerd. So thank you for asking me for the science, the comfort trough that I describe in the book. You know, when a lot of people avoid what is uncomfortable or what is hard or what they fear in an effort to make themselves happier in the moment. But based on the research on experiential avoidance, which is academic speak for running away from what you fear. Those who consistently avoid what's uncomfortable or scary, that leads to the onset of anxiety and depression. So short term, people want to do what's easy and comfortable and not scary because they want to be happy in the moment. So for their mental health, they think, I don't want to do what's scary. But in the long term, it actually creates lower levels of, uh, mental wellbeing. And the reason I call it the comfort trap is each time in that moment where you want to do something but it's a little bit scary and you decide to take a step back to be safe and to not experience that discomfort, your self confidence takes a little bit of a hit. Your self efficacy goes down, which causes you, the next time you're faced with a challenging situation, you're less apt to, to take a step forward. So it's one of those things, you start spiraling down and you become weaker. But here's the good news. The good news is the opposite is true as well. And that's where, you know, I obviously am an expert in the science of bravery. I'm um, on a mission to help people do scary things, to do brave things, you know, even when it's hard. Because each time you take a step forward in the presence of fear, you take a little bit of, uh, a power away from the fear. And then your self confidence goes up a little bit more. And then the next time you're faced with a challenge or something that's scary, you're more apt to take that step forward. So you end up having an upward spiral. So we want to avoid the comfort trap when you feel the fear. I teach people I want them, um, to move forward anyway.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm guessing that most of the people listening right now are thinking, well, I'm brave, you know, I'm good with all that. I'm um, okay getting out of my comfort zone. It's the other people who aren't. And I'm wondering, you know, kind of philosophically. I remember when I went to basic training, the folks that were from tough environments were like, this is a piece of cake. And the people that weren't from tough environments, it was harder. And um, you hear in the business world all the time, oh, uh, these people coming up now, they haven't lived through a recession, they haven't had hard times. They're entitled. Things were handed. Do you think there's ways for leaders to accelerate the ability to deal with adversity and to be brave? Or is it. Absolutely. We have to go at a certain pace, and that's an individual thing. Or can leaders actually create crucibles, if you will, that will, you know, build the ability to adapt and to lead to high performance?

Speaker D: Yes. Oh, my gosh, I have so much to say to this.

Speaker C: Good, good.

Speaker D: Yes, yes, and yes. But first of all, I just want to, you know, talk about where people think that they're brave. Like, they're just like, well, I'm just a brave person or I'm not scared of anything. And if someone says that they're not scared of anything, I will call the BS and I'll say, go to my website and take my free, uh, bravery assessment. And then they realize, they come back and go, oh, maybe I'm not as brave as I thought. Now, if we can define bravery for a moment, because as soon as I define bravery, then people change their mind. I said bravery is defined as voluntary action in the presence of fear toward a noble, worthwhile goal. If you're not a little scared, you're not being brave. So if you say, oh, I'm m fearless, I'm so brave, like that actually does not fit the definition. Because in order to be brave, there has to be discomfort. There has to be the presence of fear. And this goes, Jan, to what you were saying is what can leaders do? Let's bring this to real life. Like, when it comes to bravery, it's very personal because it's about overcoming what your fears are. And everyone has different fears. And you know, as you mentioned, just the crucible as this experience in the Marine Corps. Now I was an officer, so we went through something, the basic school. We didn't go through the crucible. I wish they would change it so that us officers could go through that same crucible experience. But the concept of a crucible, is that that big struggle, you know, the reason why I think the Marine Corps served me so well is because it was really hard for me to earn the title of United States Marine. The path to getting there, like, I have lots of stories where I struggled for a couple of years, and because of the struggle, it was so much more meaningful. And this is what we know clearly in the science is that we are born to strive. So it's the struggle that makes us stronger. So as leaders, back to your question about as leaders. We need to make sure that we're creating that little bit of struggle so that our people are striving so they can learn and grow and increase in their self confidence and their self efficacy and their self love. I mean, that is the best way we can serve them. So we have to push each person out of their comfort zone. And as a leader, you've got to know each of your people. And what might be the right level of challenge for Jim, in the way I challenge him, is going to be different from Jan, which is going to be different from Mike. So we don't want to overwhelm someone and say, climb Mount Everest tomorrow. If they've never climbed a hill, it's going to be too overwhelming. So what we know is that to best serve our people, to be the most successful and to be the happiest, because I'm a happiness scientist, my master's from the University of Pennsylvania is in the field of positive psychology. So I can say this with scientific certainty. If you push your people to move toward what they fear, which will make them uncomfortable, they will not only be more successful and perform better at work. And I care about that, but what I care a lot more about is I want them to have higher levels of life satisfaction and happiness and self love. And that is the promise of bravery.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, this is such an interesting topic and it ties together so many facets of things we've covered over the years, especially the positive psychology, which I love. There's so much I want to dig into, and we will yet. But there's one area that I thought was really good because I think, you know, you highlight some areas people forget, like, you know, what is bravery? And not only that, like everyone's level of what creates a condition of fear is different, which I think really comes through in the story that you tell. But there are some profound myths that you kind of dispel about bravery. Before we get into the story, I think it's important for us to talk about what are these myths that, you know, have us get wrong when we consider what bravery is?

Speaker D: Yeah, well, the one already revealed, which is bravery isn't fearless. Bravery is acting in the presence of fear. But we've already talked about that. But the other major myth that I'm trying to overcome is that people think that bravery is a trait that we're just born with. And either I'm brave or I'm not brave. But bravery is a skill that anyone can and everyone should build in order to be the most successful and live their best life. And so when we look at, even in positive psychology, we look at all the strengths of humans and something called the via character strengths. It's the most widely researched, you know, strengths based system, you know, and bravery is one of those strengths and it's something that you can build the capacity for bravery, you know, so if someone has a low level of bravery, they absolutely can build their bravery to a higher level. And this is where I get super excited. Like, this will be in my next book, which is like the Neuroscience of Bravery. So just like our body, our muscles, when we challenge our bodies, the more we challenge our bodies, if the more we run, our body adapts to become better at running. We look like that gazelle. If we keep running and running and running. If we go and we lift really heavy weights, our body is going to start adapting so that we can be more ready to lift the weights and we're going to grow the muscle. So the same thing happens in our brain. So when we challenge ourselves by doing the hard things, psychologically, our brain changes. And this is fascinating in the couple areas of the brain. So there's something called brain plasticity. So the way we use our brain, what we focus on, changes the makeup, our brain, the size of different parts of our brain. So when we choose to take a step forward in the presence of fear, and the more we push ourselves to do something uncomfortable, the more you're gonna give a little workout to your brain. But we see changes in the prefrontal cortex, the executive functioning of the brain, which can override our emotional reaction to run away from fear. But there's also a part of the brain called the acc, the anterior cingular cortex. And even within there, there's the mid singular cortex within the acc, and that's really known as the courage part of the brain. That's the part of the brain when you know, you do something you really don't want to do, it actually gets larger. And so not only do a couple parts of our brain get stronger, like a muscle gets larger. In addition, when we look at the functional mri, A, uh, functional MRI is just looking at the neural pathways that light up between different parts of the brain. So we actually see more neural pathways between the prefrontal cortex and the MCC in the brain. So it's just fascinating. So I want your listeners to know, if you're thinking, like, I'm just not a brave person, it's just like someone saying, like, I'm just not strong, I could never do a pushup, or I could never, you know, bench a hundred pounds, I would say, well, you can't bench a hundred pounds yet, but you can. And you need to pick up the weight that hurts, that's uncomfortable, and you need a lift. And the next day you'll be a Little bit sore. And if you keep doing that, over time, you're going to be able to get there. And it's the same thing with bravery. It doesn't happen overnight. And that's maybe another myth is some people think that, oh, bravery is just like running into a burning building. You know, if I'm a firefighter or just running into battle as a United States Marine or as the soldier. And bravery isn't just those moments. I mean, those are examples of extreme bravery. So yes, let's honor those. But bravery is much bigger than that. If bravery is defined as voluntary action in the presence of fear toward a noble, worthwhile goal, there are opportunities to be brave every single day. And there's little moments in the workplace, like, I have an idea to share with a group, but I'm a little scared to share it. Do we raise our hand and we share the idea, or are we too scared that it may not be accepted or supported so we keep quiet? Or you know, maybe another example is I need to have a, ah, difficult conversation with someone or leaders. I need to give feedback and it's going to be uncomfortable and I'm a little bit scared of their reaction. Do I deliver the feedback that's going to be uncomfortable, that's going to help serve the other person. Or maybe the third thing is, and a lot of times I speak to audiences on how do they take ownership for their career. Or even women that say, like, how can I advance my career? And that is many times people are scared to volunteer for a stretch assignment because they're not going to be perfect or they're not going to put their name in a hat for a promotion because they, I'm just not ready yet. Again, those are examples in real life of, uh, being brave, which is taking a step forward in the presence of fear toward a noble, worthwhile goal, or doing the opposite of being brave, which is taking a step back, which a lot of people, we can call that cowering for just a moment. Imagine this. Take someone in their career, if day in and day out, when they have the opportunity in those small moments to be brave, to take a step forward, they're going to share their idea, they're going to have the difficult conversation and they're going to volunteer for that stretch assignment. Imagine that person's career a year down the road, five years down the road, 10 years down the road. Like you can see, this is the effect. That's why I named the book the bravery effect. Like it has a compound effect over time. So we have an ability to have agency to control the path of our career and our life. But we have to be brave. And of course, the opposite is true. If every time we decide to cower, then we become victims and say, like, uh, I just can't, right? And we become weaker. So I don't even remember the question I just went on to. I don't know what the question was, but.

Speaker A: But you gave me kind of a good segue because we talked about firefighters a little bit, we talked about our first responders. And you know, our sponsor, Darlie, is a, uh, family owned business in the Midwest that is a trusted supporter and partner to the US Military and first responders for over a century. So from mission critical defense equipment to innovative firefighting solutions, they're the company, Darlie, that ensures our heroes and our brave heroes are equipped for success. You can learn more about them and Darley's dedication to excellence@darley.com that's D A R L E Y Com.

Speaker C: Thanks, Jim. Hey, Jill, I wanted to ask you about the connection between discipline and bravery and stoicism.

Speaker D: Oh, you're speaking my love language. You know, I stumbled upon stoicism or just even philosophy when I was studying at Penn. And you know, as I was doing my research on bravery and I started reading more stoicism, just like, oh, my gosh, there are so many parallels. And I realized that all this modern science that I'm citing, it's the same stuff that the stoics have been saying forever. So there's a lot of parallels. I just found that there are a lot of universal truths in humanity that we've always known. You can find it in scripture, you can find it in stoicism, you can find in science. You know, but for me, the way my brain works is if I know there's scientific evidence that backs it up, it makes me more confident to be able to do it. So for my brain, I love that I have both ancient wisdom and the modern science to tell us that we should move forward in the presence of fear, that fear is a signpost that is pointing us toward the thing that we should do versus something we should run away from. And Jan, since you asked that, like, this is a quote that is, you probably can't read it here. I'll read it to you. But this is a quote I have in front of me. It's framed in my office, and it's from Epictetus. And I've got, like, statues of all my favorite Stoics. Seneca, Marcus, uh, Aurelius, and Epictetus. In my office here. But this quote from Epictetus says, how long are you going to wait before you demand the best of yourself? And I see that every day. And it really inspires me to do the hard thing, to do the scary thing each day. And I don't know if you guys follow Ryan Holiday. I just saw him. I was in Dallas for a speaking gig. Cause, you know, I'm a keynote speaker for large companies. So I was doing a keynote in Dallas, and I was on my way home, and he was speaking in Phoenix. So I stopped and I saw him, and I bought a VIP ticket to be able to meet him. And it was just awesome because he's got a book called Courage Is Calling, you know, and he talks all about how courage is one of those virtues in stoicism, and he does such a great job of amplifying it, and I gotta admit, kind of an embarrassing moment here. So most people have his books, and they're going up to him and they're asking, will you sign my book? Will you sign my book? Well, I've already bought all of his books signed, because you can buy a signed version. So I already have a signature in my books. I didn't need that. But I had my book that I signed to him, and he said, you know what? I have never had someone come to one of my events and give me a signed copy of their book. Instead of asking, I turned totally red. But I just said, I'm like, I just want you to read this, because I have, like, this dream. I'm like, he only has books in his bookstore called the Painted Porch in Austin, Texas, if he believes in the book. So I gave him a copy and a little bravery. And I just said, I would just. I'd be so honored if you take time to read it and if you like it. So I have no idea.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's kind of my.

Speaker D: My dream. I hope he reads it and puts my book.

Speaker C: It's funny you mentioned Ryan Holiday. I was in a bookstore in Southern California last weekend, and I always look at the business sections and, you know, it's always interesting. Most places I went where I was at the book section was, you know, about this wide. The business book section. There's hardly anything, but every one of Ryan Holiday's books were in there in

Speaker D: the business section, not just in the philosophy.

Speaker C: Right. Yeah, that was interesting. But speaking of positive psychology, we've had Kim Cameron on twice.

Speaker D: Oh, awesome.

Speaker C: From Michigan. I'm sure you know who he is.

Speaker D: He's a legend. Yeah, he's a, uh, leader in positive organizational scholarship, which is the application of positive psychology in the workplace. Yeah.

Speaker C: Well, as you know from his work, he talks about the psychology of abundance. And I'm wondering, you know, again, to my question to you about bravery and your work, that whole idea of abundance, that operating from an abundance mindset versus a scarcity, I mean, does that play into your work?

Speaker D: Yeah, I'd say the way that there's an intersection between abundance and what I teach in my book is I talk about a brave tribe. So in order to build the skill of bravery, we talk about, we need to focus on our mindset, which is, I call it a warrior mindset. Just so that everyone thinks it's really tough and kind of badass to have like a, uh, brave mindset. Not sometimes. When you say positive mindset, half the people like, roll their eyes. So we first start with cognitive psychology of how to really master our mindset to be brave. And then we get into behavioral psychology and then we get into social psychology. So within social psychology, that's where I address abundance a little bit. But what I teach is sometimes in order for us to achieve our goals, we sometimes hesitate or we're scared of admitting that we don't have all the answers. We're sometimes scared of asking for help, admitting that we're not perfect. And so that's one of the things I teach is if you want to be brave and you want to do something you've never done before, it is wise to ask for help. So the first thing about bravery is go to someone who's accomplished something that you are seeking to accomplish. For me, it was like writing my book. I'd never written a book before, so I had a couple of mentors. My mentors were Ken Blanchard, who I'd known for years because I was teaching his situational leadership to organizations, you know, across the world, globally. And so I had a relationship with him. So I would go to him and I would ask for help because I would get stuck. So I just want everyone to feel like, let's normalize, like challenges and getting stuck and feeling overwhelmed and having self doubt. These are things that are normal when you are trying to do hard things and try to do ambitious things. And we need to be brave enough to seek out people who have been more successful than us and ask them for help to learn from them. So I remember when I was talking to Ken Blanchard once, I had just, I had had the writer's block. And so many people have writer's block. Like I have all these Great ideas, and I want to write a book. But then I would sit down to write and I would just get stuck. It just would not come out. And so I was having, you know, a check in with him, and he said, jill, the same thing happens to me. And I said, what? You're Ken Blanchard. You have like 48 bestselling books. How can that be possible? He goes, oh, same thing happens to me. He's like, that's why I dictate. And he goes, jill, you talk a lot. Which is kind of a joke because I probably talk too much. He goes, but when you talk about the science of bravery, it just comes out. So why don't you try dictating? So there's just one example of where I got stuck and he helped me get unstuck. So we have to ask for help, but then we also. So I say, you have to extend your hand out and ask for help. And then I use examples from the military, like, if we have a mission to accomplish and we are stuck and we are pinned down, what do you think Marines do? What do soldiers do? First of all, we don't just stay there and have inaction. What we do is we call in support, we call in air support, we call in reinforcements. So we need to do that. We need to feel comfortable, be brave enough to ask for help, to call in reinforcements in order for us to be brave. So we need to ask for a helping hand, but we also need to extend a helping hand to others. And that's where abundance comes in. Like, you know, people are going to help us. We need to help others. We need to extend the hand to help others. Not only will it help them, but based on the pro social literature out there, when we help others, it not only gives them a, uh, boost in their positive emotion because they get the help. It actually gives us more of a benefit as the one helping them. So I get so much joy in helping others. Like, just earlier today, there was someone who wants to write a book and is so eager. So I did a quick call with him and he's like, thank you so much. Like, the fact that you're taking time to do this. And I told him, I'm like, this is bringing me joy as well. So we've got to have that abundance mindset. If we think there's scarcity, then we're not going to want to help anyone else become successful. So we all lift each other up. So that's probably my overlap. That's probably the extent of it is in. In the brave relationships of asking for help, asking for feedback, and then providing assistance and support to others and then giving other people feedback.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I think, like, it's modeled pretty well with the main character of your parable, Alex, you know, asking for help and kind of, you know, uh, being vulnerable in many ways. I thought the story was really good. I don't know what this says about me, but there were times when I kind of wanted to punch Alex. There were a couple times just like, alex, come on, dude. But, you know, that's just me. There's a process he followed that went through, and there were kind of three stage gates, and I think those are really important to kind of COVID at a broad level to say, like, to encompass, like, what is the process that someone kind of goes through. So you could just quickly kind of summarize those. I think that would be helpful.

Speaker D: So in the book the Bravery Effect, the main character is Alex, who is someone that is struggling to be brave and is allowing fear to control his behavior. And his career is frustrating. His home life isn't that great. And it's interesting how sometimes there is a correlation. Like, sometimes if you're. I want to help people be successful and happy at work, because when they're successful and happy at work, they're usually successful and happy at home. If someone is miserable at work, it's not like they can flip a switch and then just go home and be happy. So this is Alex, the main character. So in order for Alex to get out of this rut of his, he meets this wise mentor that teaches him basically these three stages, these three skills, you know, of how to become brave. So the first one is learning to change his belief system, his mindset. So he learns about the power of yet, which is based on Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset. Moving from a fixed mindset, like, I could never do this to. It's possible for me to be able to develop that skill with hard work and effort. We also talk in the book, he also learns how stress or challenges are enhancing. It's the literature from, like, Aliyah Crumb from Stanford as well on how she teaches. If your relationship, what your belief about stress and challenges is going to be predictive of your response, both physiologically and psychologically. You know, so he learns about embracing the suck. You know, we say that in the Marine Corps and the Navy seals, and I don't know if it's in the army as well. But, like, when there are challenges and when there is struggle, that is where we're growing. So we do a lot in the cognitive side first. That's the first step. He's got to change the way he thinks. And then he has to learn about just even when you're scared, you've got to take a step forward. And so the second step is learning that, you know, a lot of people think that once I'm confident when I'm ready, then I'm going to take a step. So the second step is realizing that's m not the way confidence works. And this is based on Albert Bandura's research and self efficacy where it's when you take a step forward on shaky knees, that's what builds confidence. So when you don't feel quite ready and then you take a step forward and you try and you learn, that's what builds confidence. So taking a step not feeling ready is how you feel more ready in the future. So he has to learn that relationship between don't wait until you feel ready. I mean, that's the opposite of bravery, right? Because then there's no fear there. So it's taking a step forward in the presence of fear. Or don't wait for the perfect time. Don't wait until you feel ready. Don't wait until you feel confident. You gotta take the step first and that builds that confidence. So that's the second thing is really based on behavioral psychology and there's more to it than that, but that's the high level. And then finally the final lesson he learns is you can't do this alone. You need to curate a brave tribe. You need to build a brave tribe. And what Alex learns is sometimes the people that you hang out with right now may not be the right people that are going to help you build your bravery. And I can't remember the Stoic that said this. I think it was Seneca that says, surround yourself with those who will call forth your best and basically will not let you tap out even when you want to. So you've got to figure out who's that brave tribe. And so what Alex had to learn is for him to do this brave thing, he had to think about who's done, who's got the wisdom and the experience that's done the brave thing. And then I need to be brave enough to ask them for help. But you've got to surround yourself with. When I say curate, it's very intentional. Curate is think of someone who curates in a museum. They're very carefully selecting the exact right pieces. So to be brave, you need to think about what is the task or the Goal that I'm specifically accomplishing to do that is that I'm afraid of. And then you curate the brave tribe for that specific experience for you to be brave. And if you surround yourself with those people, they will. Hearing their story of their struggle like I did from Ken, makes you feel like it's normal. And then they're going to be the ones that you call when you're struggling. There's going to be ups and downs on your path to success. On the ups, they'll be there to give you a high five, but they're really there to help you on your days where you're down so that you keep going. If you don't have a brave tribe, the likelihood of you persisting through challenges is much lower. In fact, Angela Duckworth, who wrote the book Grit, she is from Penn. She just lectured to us when I was back in October. And she has a new book that's going to be all about the environment. Create the environment. She goes, I was missing something in Grit. And her next book's gonna be all about it, right? So we have agency to create the environment that will help us be successful. So that's really the third. So brave mindset, number one, think, you know, master the mindset. Two, realize that you will take a step forward scared, and you're supposed to be feeling the fear. And then third is surround yourself with a brave tribe to help you be brave. And if you can do those three things, they're all reinforcing to one another.

Speaker A: And I just want to kind of commend you on, you know, Janet and I have written books, so, you know, you look at this and the format you choose is, you know, it's difficult decision. And so I thought, you know, you've got a very kind of technical approach, a very scientific approach to, you know, how you want to do this, but it's not presented that way. You know, the parable format is a great way to kind of digest these concepts. But I really liked, like, the chapter at the end that said, oh, and here's how all this stuff plays in and, like, walking through. And here's where it all kind of ties into actual scientific research. So, you know, really, really well done.

Speaker D: Oh, uh, thank you. And I had to get out of my comfort zone, so I'm a little bit more comfortable staying in the science lane and just talking about all the evidence. But I had a, um, hidden motivation here, too. And the hidden motivation is I buy a lot of business books, and I usually read the first half, but sometimes I just Leaf through the rest of it. So if you write it as a parable, people are gonna actually read it all the way till the end. So that was a motivation. And stories do help messages stick. And I have a hope and a desire that the two people that I dedicated the book to will actually read it someday. And those are my daughters. I'm, um, still holding my breath, but I'm hoping one day.

Speaker C: How old are they?

Speaker D: They're 18 and 20. My 20 year old, she actually started reading it because she found one of the Easter eggs. The Easter eggs are, like, the little parts to the book that only they would discover. And she called me, oh, Mom. And I'm like, so I just can't wait. When they finally read the whole book, they're going to find all these other, like, little things in the story that is designed really for them. So I'll have to let you know when that day happens.

Speaker C: Joe, let me, as we kind of close out here, I'd love to, as a kind of a last question, ask about, you know, where you personally have fallen short in the bravery effect.

Speaker D: You know, I think when I look back, I just see the thread as the best moments in life are when I chose to take a step forward in the presence of fear, like earning the title of Marine, like making a choice to leave the Marine Corps and go to the civilian world, which was scary. Um, starting my own business 12 years ago and now going back to school. But, you know, I say one thing comes to mind as you ask that. I remember when I was 27, actually, I was at my first national sales meeting when I was in pharmaceutical sales. And this is when there's thousands of people. I mean, I was in a huge big pharma company, and I'm sitting in the audience, and I was blown away. It was so amazing. And there was a keynote speaker, and I remember him to this day. I remember his message. His name was Keith Harrell. He had a book called Attitude is Everything. And he was so inspiring, so incredibly inspiring. And I'm like, wow, I want to do that someday. I want to do that someday. I want to write a book. I want to speak on the big stages. I was so inspired by him that I chased him down. Like, he's leaving and, like, I chased him down and I asked him some questions, and he probably spent 15 minutes with me giving advice. That's when I was 27 years old. And how old am I now? Well, I'm, um, 51 years old, and I'm finally doing what I really wanted to Do. And I bring this up because, you know, you think about what is the thing that you really want to do in life. And sometimes good gets in the way of great. I had a good career, but I was scared to go out on my own and to write the book and to put myself out there. Right. And so sometimes you get, you know, if your job is good and life is good, it makes it really hard to, like, leave the comfort of good. I was kind of in a comfort zone, Right. Things were easy. I mean, life was good. But for life to be great. And this is what positive psychology is. It's not about going from a life of misery to a life of being good. It's going from, my life was good, my career was good. But if I want to thrive, if I want to flourish, if I want to really go after my dream, it was writing a book and having my own research. And I'm proud to say that I'm finally doing it. But why did it take me so darn long? Because I was scared, and I let fear keep me small. So I wrote this book for other people, but I think I wrote it for myself as well.

Speaker A: Uh, it's a common thread with a lot of these books.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker A: Jill, thank you for being on the show. You have any closing thoughts for our listeners? Anything you want to leave them last? Parting thoughts?

Speaker D: Yeah. I just want to challenge each and every one of you to think about what is the thing that you've always wanted to do and what is stopping you. And I just encourage you to be brave and take steps toward it, because it will lead to the most extraordinary life. So that's why I always say everyone should or everyone can, and everyone should learn to be braver. So hopefully it resonates. And what I do in companies is we really talk about the science of bravery in the workplace, because many times in the workplace, what holds people back from performing at their best is they're scared of rejection. They're scared of putting themselves out there. They're scared of asking for help. So it can be bravery in small ways. It can help you become more successful in your current job, or if you've always wanted to make a shift and do a different job, you know, bravery is the universal skill that will help you accomplish all of those things.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you for being on the show. We really appreciate it. And, you know, for our listeners, that's all we have for you this week. We'll include ways for you to connect with Jill and learn all about being brave in our show notes. So make sure to visit us@theleadershippodcast.com and remember, the world is not limited by IQ. We are all limited by bravery and creativity. Eric Astro Teller

Speaker B: thanks for listening to the Leadership Podcast. To listen to more shows or to access the books and content discussed on this show, be sure to visit the leadershippodcast.com the material in this podcast is copyright by Rothke Advisors and Self Reliant Leadership and must have written approval before commercial application.

Speaker D: Sam.