The Art of Mentally Strong Leadership: Cultivating Grit and Taking Bold Risks with Scott Mautz

Unlock the powerhouse within you as Scott Mautz unravels the essence of mental strength in leadership. Feel the vigor of our latest Rebel HR episode, where Scott, a beacon of insight with a corporate wisdom arsenal, joins me, Kyle Roed, to illuminate the path to becoming a Mentally Strong Leader. Our discourse dives into the heart of emotional regulation, revealing that a staggering 90% of high-achievers possess a high degree of mental fortitude. With Scott's guidance, we dissect the transformative journey of cultivating this trait, akin to a rigorous mind gym, and the profound impact it can have on your professional landscape.

Ever wondered how risk-taking and leadership intertwine? We've got the answers as Scott and I examine the art of bold decision-making within the corporate arena. Drawing parallels with the gamble of casino games, Scott imparts strategies from his book that elucidate the rules of risk-taking, encouraging a culture of courage and innovation. Learn how to steer through the complexities of workplace dynamics, making calculated risks that foster growth and ingenuity. This episode is a masterclass in nurturing the confidence and executive presence needed to lead with conviction and inspire teams to new heights.

Gratitude swells as we wrap up a conversation brimming with actionable insights. Scott's generous offering, a special gift for our listeners, promises to fortify your journey to personal and professional excellence. Join us in this enlightening exchange of revolutionary ideas, and stay connected through our social media and website for a continual stream of wisdom in the human resources realm. Embrace the tools, embrace the transformation, and let Rebel HR be your guide to the extraordinary mental strength that defines the greatest of leaders.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SCOTT MAUTZ, author of THE MENTALLY STRONG LEADER, is the founder and CEO of Profound Performance™, a keynote, training, and coaching company. Mautz is a former Procter & Gamble executive who successfully ran four of the company’s largest multi-billion dollar businesses, he is also the multi award-winning author of Leading from the Middle, Find the Fire, and Make It Matter. Mautz has been named a “CEO Thought-leader” by The Chief Executives Guild and a "Top 50 Leadership Innovator" by Inc.com, He is faculty on reserve at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business for Executive Education and is a top instructor at LinkedIn Learning. He lives in San Diego.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

This is the Rebel HR podcast, the podcast about all things innovation in the people's space. I'm Kyle Rode. Let's start the show. Welcome back, rebel HR community. This is going to be an amazing conversation. I'm already excited. I have been waiting patiently to have this conversation because I think this is going to be a critical tool in our toolbox as HR professionals. With us today we have Scott Mounts. He is a keynote speaker and author of the new book the Mentally Strong Leader Build the Habits to Productively Regulate your Emotions, thoughts and Behaviors, something that we all deal with every single day. Scott, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Thanks so much for having me on. I can't wait to talk about the sweet spot of human resources trying to regulate when we want to strangle somebody.

Speaker 1: 0:58

I love it, I love it. Yeah, there is a sweet spot there. It's like an equation. We work in the gray it's like ah, where am I at?

Speaker 2: 1:07

That's right, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Well, thank you again so much for fitting us into your extremely busy schedule. You're all over the place and you've got this new book out. I'm really excited to dig into it today and to spend some time talking about it. The first question that I have is you know, I know that undertaking a book is no simple task. There's a lot that goes into it. There's a lot of energy and, in some cases, some heartburn that goes into writing a book, and so I'm curious, knowing that, what motivated you to write a book on this topic?

Speaker 2: 1:46

Yeah, I grew up in corporate America, probably like many of the listeners, kyle to this show and I spent almost three decades really studying what made great leaders great why do achievers achieve at the end of the day? And I kept noticing a really interesting thing over and over and over again, which is this concept of mental strength, separating the wheat from the chaff, if you will. Again, you mentioned it a little bit within the title of the book, but mental strength is the ability to regulate your emotions, your thoughts and your behaviors for productive outcomes, even in times of adversity. It's said another way. It's how we manage internally so that we could lead externally. And I think, kyle, I think we all intuitively understand that you have to be able to self-regulate emotions, thoughts and behaviors to succeed. I think we all know that. But here's a clue. Let me let you in on a secret. It's really hard, it's really hard to do that.

Speaker 2: 2:48

So I noticed throughout the years that what kind of separated people who were good at their job and they were managers from true leaders, ones that just cracked the code, the cheat code for achievement, were leaders that had this incredible quiet mental strength about them.

Speaker 2: 3:04

They had this ability to control their emotions and productively regulate them for good outcome. They were very thoughtful and intentional about how they thought about things and how they showed up to the organization, and they even spent time building habits to increase their mental strength over time, effectively training their brain for achievement, and we'll talk more about that later. So I started to identify this idea of mental strength being almost the leadership superpower of our time, separating the people who just manage from those who truly achieve. And I remember thinking because I've been thinking a lot about this topic I have to share what I've learned with the world about the importance of mental strength and how to achieve it through practical tools that I started developing years ago and testing and retesting. So it's that drive to share the power of increasing and becoming mentally stronger with the world that really drove me to write the book the Mentally Strong Leader.

Speaker 1: 4:05

I really appreciate you calling it out. You know this is really hard. It's really hard, right. I mean, and I think again, intuitively, we all understand, like you know, we have to have some level of mental strength and some level of like regulation in how you know, how we interact with the world. But, and especially in an occupation where you deal with human beings on a regular basis and that's kind of the majority of your job, whether you're in HR or leadership or interacting with your family you know that this is this is not an easy thing to do, and I think one of the things that I appreciate that you've done with this book is you know that this is not an easy thing to do, and I think one of the things that I appreciate that you've done with this book is you've put it into a context that can then be used as a toolkit, right, so there's a way to start to think about okay, how do I actually kind of work the muscle of mental strength?

Speaker 1: 5:04

And I think that that's something where, um, it can be frustrating, where where maybe we, we, we, we read an article or we or we get some coaching on on being mentally strong, but there's not the, the, the rigor or the tools or the tactics on how to actually do that. And the reality is you have to practice. Right, it's a practice, it's also a journey. So you can't just read a book and be like, all right, I checked the box, done, now I'm mentally strong, all right, and I'll prove it because I've got this book behind me. But I'm going to lose my mind the minute that something doesn't go right. And maybe I need to, maybe I need to read the book.

Speaker 2: 5:44

Yeah, yeah, and you know. Building on that, kyle, you know I want to. I want to help put your listeners at ease because we all know, as we said, that this is really hard to do. It is really hard to self-regulate your emotions, thoughts and behaviors, to show up as mentally strong. But here's the good news.

Speaker 2: 6:03

I asked 3,000 executives a central question Thinking of the highest achieving organizations that you've ever been a part of, the ones that overcame the most obstacles, thinking of those times, what were the attributes of the key leaders in that moment? And over 91% described the same exact profile of a leader. And what they didn't know the respondents didn't know at the time is they were describing mentally strong leaders that were exercising and flexing six core mental muscles, the six mental muscles that make up mental strength, and those are fortitude, confidence, boldness, decision-making, the ability to stay focused on your goals and the ability to, as a leader, to message positively to their troops, keep a positive demeanor about yourself and a quality of your presence and an integrity to your intent. So the reason I share that is through my research, I've identified that mental strength. Not only is it the cheat code for achievement, increasing mental strength is how you train your brain for achievement. And you do that by building six core mental muscles, these six that I've just described.

Speaker 2: 7:16

Now in the book the Mentally Strong Leader to help people do that, it starts with a mental strength self-assessment. You can take the assessment. It's 50 different questions. It takes you about 15 to 20 minutes of quiet, deep thinking time and not only will you get a score that equates to your overall mental strength score, you also get a score by mental muscle how do I do on fortitude, how do I do on confidence, how do I do on boldness, et cetera, and the other three muscles I described as well. And then the Mentally Strong Leader book gives you tips for how to level up in the areas that you want to. And here's the good thing People don't have to feel daunted by that, like, oh, there's six mental muscles that I have to build all the time.

Speaker 2: 8:02

If you go to the gym, kyle, you don't go in with a mindset of I'm going to build every muscle all the time with every workout. Right, wednesday might be leg day, thursday might be shoulder day and chest day, I don't know. You go in deciding to build certain mental muscles and that's what the Mentally Strong Leader book allows you to do. You can create your customized mental strength training program based on how you scored on the mental strength self-assessment and then pull the levers to build those muscles accordingly. So it doesn't have to feel like a daunting thing. We all have a baseline of mental strength to work from Kyle. It's not like the opposite of mental strength is mental weakness. We all have a baseline to work with. You just need to know what muscle to work on at what times, and the Melody Strong Leader book helps you do that with over 50 plus proven tools that will help you do that.

Speaker 1: 8:52

So I think this is such a powerful approach and I think it's super, super necessary too, because you can't look in the mirror and be like, oh, I need to develop my shoulders because my posture's bad. Right, no, you're, I mean, you're like. You're like, oh, that interaction went horribly, why? And? And if you don't have like some sort of like somebody or something, or you haven't, maybe you're not fortunate enough to to have somebody that can help you be self-reflective on, hey, maybe you know, maybe you should have had a little bit more confidence in that meeting, or you know what you knew, the right answer. You should have been more bold and I think we could have prevented this from going sideways a couple weeks ago.

Speaker 1: 9:37

And I think the other thing that's really critical about this topic is so much of our jobs all jobs today are about thinking right. They're knowledge jobs. So many knowledge workers exist in this world. Why would we not actively work out our minds to make sure that we are ready to achieve and perform within our jobs Not dissimilar from an athlete getting ready to go and work out so that they can run a 100-meter dash right and work the appropriate muscles so that they can be effective? But we need to be thinking about it the same way as it relates to our brain.

Speaker 2: 10:18

Yeah, that's exactly right. And importantly, kyle, you know the Melanie Strong Leader helps you with that workout process that you were just describing, because you do that through habits, right? That's why the subtitle of the book is Build the Habits to Productively Regulate your Emotions, thoughts and Behaviors. And I have been studying habit-building science for a very, very long time and in the Mentally Strong Leader we embrace or I embrace, embrace in the writing of the book several different core principles of creating habits. You know, the first being you have to have repetitions. If you want a form of a habit for better confidence, you have to have repetitions in practice to enable you to do that. Repetitions happen through systems and frameworks that you can put in place that automate that behavior. And every one of the 50 plus tools in the Mentally Strong Leader are essentially systems or frameworks to help you get those repetitions.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Point number one about habit building. Point number two and there's three of them also in the Mentally Strong Leader, we have embraced the habit building science rule of if you want to build a habit, you have to start with one small step, but you have to know what that first small step is so you can begin. Many habits are never formed because they were never started to be formed. And there's a section for every habit.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Out of the 50 habits and tools in the Mentally Strong Leader that will help you identify what's the first small step you should take in building this new habit to be bolder at work. And the third habit building science element built in it builds around the inflection point of when you're trying to build a habit for goal focus, to stay more goal focused, another of the core mental muscles. What do you do in moments of weakness? What do you do when you find your attention being diverted and sucked away by other things which, by way, happens all to all of us, all the time, every single day? There's also a section called in moments of weakness for every tool so that you know how to overcome that moment when you're falling down to actually build the habit that will lead to increased mental strength, powerful.

Speaker 1: 12:24

You know, I think you know it's been this is probably more self-reflective than anything. It's been interesting over the last few years how focusing so much on your core strengths can kind of put you into this mindset, the habit of not thinking about, um, the times where you're, where you are kind of weak, right, or you have that right, and it's easy to kind of ignore that. But but you know, the reality is, if you do um, you know it can be really detrimental or or I call it like a derailer, right, you know? And at the end of the day, I also think and and feel free to, you know, contradict this if your research says otherwise. I I also think that you know, we kind of naturally have these tendencies to be strong in certain aspects of these mental muscles and and ignore some of the others.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Right, like, and I like to stick with the weightlifting analogy it's like I love doing bench press, but you know, but everybody says never skip leg day, but but gosh, I hate doing, you know I hate doing deadlifts, it's just not, you know, it's not my strongest. But the reality is, if you replace that with, you know, I'm great with, I'm great with messaging, but I'm not so great at boldness. You know you're, you're, you're going to have a, an imbalance. Somewhere right that's going to show up in some way, shape or form.

Speaker 2: 13:46

Yeah, that's right. And you know what's interesting, kyle, just to follow through your example. So let's say you really hate leg days and in the case of mental strike, let's really say you hate the idea I'm making this up of being bolder, which would not be the case for you, given the name of this podcast right. Maybe it's just aspirational Scott.

Speaker 2: 14:04

Maybe it's aspirational right. Maybe it's just aspirational Scott, maybe it's aspirational right. But let's say, you know, a listener out there is like, okay, I got it. Mental strength you know the core mental muscles are got it. Fortitude, confidence, boldness Okay, I feel good about those. Then there's decision-making, goal focus and messaging. Yeah, goal focus, I'm not so good at that. I hate even thinking about that.

Speaker 2: 14:23

Here's the beauty of the Mentally Strong Leader the book, the approach it's the only book with over 50 plus proven tools that have all been tested. But they've been designed, kyle, as a menu, so that even if you're like gosh I hate the thought of working on goal focus, right, becoming more goal focused, or I hate the thought of being more bold there are multiple tools within each chapter about that muscle that allow you to choose from. Because we know in habit building science that if you don't find a routine that fits, something that's right for you, that you really like, you're really going to fall into trouble and you're never going to start the process of building that habit. So there's a menu of options to choose from. So for even those muscles you're reluctant to build, I am sure you will find a tool within the menu to help you build that muscle.

Speaker 1: 15:13

So I want to dig into that a little bit because I think it, I think it'd be helpful for our, for our listeners, to kind of maybe walk through a little bit of the tool.

Speaker 1: 15:21

And I think the other thing I wanted to mention is, as you were talking about forming these habits, is, you know, I love the fact that you're focusing on this this is a small step to start right, like it's not, like you're, you're not gonna, you're not breaking the world with this, like with this habit you're, you're starting small.

Speaker 1: 15:40

You know you're starting with five pound weights. You know you go in easy and eventually you continue to build up the you know, the mental strength. And so I want to, I want to focus in on one of the one of the areas that I think our profession as a whole could do a whole lot more with, and that is boldness, because I think a successful HR professional that's really been successful at bridging the gap between administrative to strategic human resources typically has the ability to have some boldness, and I think confidence kind of is included in that as well. So, for those HR professionals that are maybe struggling with that, or they don't necessarily want to make waves, but they know that there's something they need to say? How would they use this book to go through and, like, walk us through how that works, like, okay, I've done the assessment. I know that I need to work on this. What are some of the tools that I can start with to make some of these incremental changes in my habits?

Speaker 2: 16:49

Yeah, in the boldness muscle, in that entire chapter there's a whole menu of options, and I'll just highlight one of the tools that I think HR professionals can find very, very powerful, and I'll set it up with just a quick story. Kyle, have you ever been to the casino, to a casino, before? Sure?

Speaker 1: 17:09

I've lost.

Speaker 2: 17:10

I've lost decent amount of money at a casino before and I'm not talking about in the middle of the work day, when you should be working I'm talking about as far as, as far as anybody at my company knows yeah, as far as anybody's coming on.

Speaker 2: 17:21

So I, I uh maybe you can relate to this I had, uh I had a casino client who had a very I was doing some leadership work for them, a keynote in a workshop for them and some different leadership topics, and over dinner one night they were telling me about a very interesting throughput problem that they were having on the casino floor, meaning that the ratio of people that were standing around watching one game on the floor in particular to the ratio of people that were actually stepping up and putting their money down and playing the game was out of whack. It was causing kind of a throughput problem. There was traffic jams, with not enough money being spent and too many people watching. So let me first I ask you to take a guess at what casino game you think that that might have been if you had to take a wild guess, and then I'll tell you the answer and link it to what it has to do with your question.

Speaker 1: 18:13

Oh, a bunch of people watching. I'd probably say I don't know like roulette.

Speaker 2: 18:21

Okay, it could be that that's actually the second bigger throughput problem, but in this case the real problem was the craps table. Craps and for people that don't know what craps is, it's a game you play. It's a dice game that you play and it's in a sunken kind of table and if you look at the table, it is incredibly complicated to look at from an outsider's perspective. There's all kinds of boxes and rules and numbers written on it and what the casino was learning was that people were literally afraid to step up and roll the dice and spend their money. Have you ever heard that saying step up and roll the dice? That comes from casino, from the craps game.

Speaker 1: 19:00

I'll admit I'm not one of those guys. I'm like I don't get this. I'm not throwing my good money after bad. I don't know how the hell this all works.

Speaker 2: 19:07

Exactly right. And the casino was discovering that people were afraid to step up and risk their money because they didn't understand the rules of the game. Now, meanwhile, back at the office, right Back at your company, guess what's happening? Employees don't want to step up and take the risk and be bold and take risks every day because they don't understand the rules of risk-taking in the organization. And one of the tools I talk about in the book, you know, in general, in building risk, in helping, there's quite a few tools on how to help the organization be bolder, but one of them I talk about is about establishing the rules of risk-taking.

Speaker 2: 19:44

If you're a leader, if you haven't done this yet, imagine if you had a conversation with the organization and you said guys, this is what a good risk looks like, this is what a bad risk looks like, this is what happens when you succeed with a risk. This is what happens when you fail with a risk, and hopefully it's not. You know an awful thing. Here's who needs to approve what level of risk for what point. Here's what you need to have to be able to move forward with a risk without asking for permission and so on. And in the Mentally Strong Leader, in the boldness, fortitude, habit, muscle section the boldness section of the book I outline more than 20 questions that you can ask and share with your organization. Either share them as a leader or ask them as an employee to get super clear on the rules of risk-taking, because when you are, my research shows you are far more likely to engage in bold risk-taking behavior Make sense.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Yeah, yeah, totally. I also think, like you know, especially for you know I'm thinking like the avatar, somebody who maybe isn't as comfortable like in the gray right, like I think there are some people who are like they're very formulaic and there's, like you know, there's rules of engagement. It's got to be fairly debilitating to be like stuck and maybe have a big idea but not feel like it fits within the paradigm of the organization's risk tolerance. So I think that's a really I hadn't really thought about it in that way, but it makes sense. If you want people to have this like dreaming big boldness and the ability to think, use all the buzzwords you want, think outside the box, all this stuff you know. First they have to know where the lines are.

Speaker 2: 21:30

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2: 21:31

As I say, you know, in the Mentally Strong Leader in the boldness section of the book, to build that muscle, if you want to create boldness and foster a risk-taking spirit, you have to send the right signals and impede the wrong impulses.

Speaker 2: 21:46

You send the right signals by being clear about what the rules of risk-taking are and showing that you'll reward them in some ways and celebrating when people actually fail risks, and then you also impede the wrong impulses that we normally have around risks, which are we engage in a lot of irrational risk-avoiding behaviors. We'll do things like institute a systemic, institutional no meaning. There was a piece of research that showed that just one in 50 managers Kyle, just one in 50 managers could raise a concern about an idea and that would be enough to kill an idea that would have been good. Moving forward it becomes a systemic no that all it takes is just a little bit of momentum behind a negative impact towards a bold risk that somebody wants to take and it can kill it. So you have to really send the right signals and impede the wrong impulses if you want to imbue a risk-taking spirit in your organization.

Speaker 1: 22:39

Wow, so that's fascinating to me. So now you're like, now you're going to be selling like 2% of a negative context could kill a potentially great idea. That's fascinating to me. Think about that, like, that's like, and literally having people, like people's pictures coming to mind, like the person that you know is going to be the person that says no, and then I gotta believe I'm sure the research proves this out once you get enough no's, you just stop. You're gonna stop asking that's exactly what happens.

Speaker 2: 23:17

So you have to do the opposite. You have to establish risk taking as a necessary skill to build if you want to be the best leader that you can be. It's up to the leaders to establish the expectation and to create more of an institutional yes than an institutional no. In the early days, amazon used to institute an institutional yes, meaning if you were a boss, you had to write a memo a one or two page memo indicating why you wouldn't support an employee's idea, because the default was to yes, not to no. And I think in many organizations Kyle, we've seen it flip in that institutional no's and grounded, and it's just something that, as leaders, we have to really push back against.

Speaker 1: 23:57

Yeah, totally, you know it's bad. Yeah, another example like a, like an institutional incentive. Literally, you know, mars, uh, in their R and D department, has an incentive that has a requirement to fail X percent of the time. Right, like, and if you, and if you don't hit that, then then you're not taking enough risks in order to be effective in the research and development department. So, like, think about that, like you know, and and um, you know, especially if you, if you're in an industry or an organization where you do have research and development or innovation as a key component, there are ways to make this a part of the organization as well, not just on a personal level, but almost societally within your organization.

Speaker 2: 24:41

Yeah, that's exactly right. That is a way to establish risk-taking as an expectation, set a number to it.

Speaker 1: 24:47

I like that yeah, yeah, now you're talking HR language. You're like, oh, I can do something with that right Again. But it's a small gesture, even if you set it as like a 1% of somebody's incentive plan, but you put it as a measurement that matters, that's going to get people to raise their eyebrows and listen oh, that's new right, that's right. I love it, I love it. I wish I could take credit for that, but I can't.

Speaker 1: 25:16

The other one I want to maybe talk a little, you know, really kind of specifically about is confidence, because I think it's one thing to think big, it's one thing to be bold. It's one thing to think big, it's one thing to be bold. It's one thing to be rebellious in mind and spirit, which is what I think most of my listeners are. It's another thing to have the confidence to say something about it and to actually stand up for what you believe is right or what you know is something that might be challenging or uncomfortable for the organization here. So I'm curious for those of us that maybe are struggling with confidence or looking for ways to build, you know kind of build that resilience and strength to be confident enough to speak up, what are some tactics that we can be thinking about as it relates to our own personal confidence levels.

Speaker 2: 26:04

Yeah, in the Mentally Strong Leader, in the confidence chapter. You know I talk about building the confidence habit, confidence being one of the six core mental muscles that equate to mental strength. There's a couple of particularly powerful tools and there's quite a few of them in the confidence chapter, you know, including how to build your executive presence, which I get asked about a lot, but a couple of my favorite tools in that section about building confidence. They have to do with two things, kyle Monitoring and managing your relationship with self-doubt and monitoring your relationship with yourself. And I'll explain both. Think about that for a second what that statement means. To monitor your relationship with self-doubt it assumes that self-doubt always exists, because guess what, kyle, it does. And in my research I've seen this and this shouldn't be of any surprise. Even in the most confident people on the planet, there is still some level of self-doubt and there are danger zones. You can be, you know, overconfident all the way to the point of you can be paralyzed by a fear of failure. And in between there's this ability to manage a healthy self-doubt, to understand that there's some level of self-doubt is always going to be there. It's up for you to manage, and I talk about that a lot in the Mentally Strong Leader and the Confidence chapter. There's another tool that I'm going to talk a little bit more depth about, which is managing relationship with yourself, which is there's in the book.

Speaker 2: 27:30

There's a in the mentally strong leader. There's what I call the self-acceptance scale, and an interesting thing happens it goes all the way from self-acceptance, which is where it's the highest level of self-regulation, because you're regulating your emotions, your thoughts and your behaviors. You're very self-aware, you're very accepting of yourself on one side of the scale All the way to the other side of the scale, which is imposter syndrome, where you're having a difficult time accepting where you're at, what you've accomplished, who you are, why you are and how you got there. And in between on the self-acceptance scale why you are and how you got there and in between on the self-acceptance scale, there's all kinds of confidence bugaboos, from approval-seeking behavior to comparing to others which is something I still have to work on, and I teach this stuff for a living to negative inner chatter, beating yourself up over and over and over again with negative thoughts, to the sense of I'm not enough.

Speaker 2: 28:29

And, by the way, if I could tell your listeners anything today, it would probably be. You are enough and you don't have to take on everything by yourself. Actually, I think I'd like to repeat that If you're watching, I'm going to take off my readers here. You are enough. I'm going to take off my readers here. You are enough and you don't have to take on everything by yourself. And I talk about this range of self-acceptance bugaboos that can happen. And if you look at confidence as on a scale from I can be self-accepting all the way to imposter syndrome, and in between I can fall victim to approval seeking and comparison and negative inner chatter and I'm not enough, if you become aware of all the ways we cave into a lack of confidence, you're probably not going to be surprised to find I also have tools in the book in the Mentally Strong Leader, to counter each one of those ways that we tend to fall down on the confidence front.

Speaker 1: 29:24

Absolutely, and I think you know it's one of those things that um, again, it's it's. We all have the those moments of, of self-doubt and um, and the way that we treat ourselves in those moments really, really matters. Um, and, and I think what you know, we are not alone and we've got to remember that and I think you know that's. That's part of what this community is all about. That's part of, Scott I'm you know what what this book is all about is to help people, you know, kind of kind of overcome some of these things and make this a better place for all of us, right? So really appreciate you putting in in the effort and and I just love this, love this book. So again, the book is the mentally strong leader build the habits to productively regulate your emotions, thoughts and behaviors. Available where books are sold. We will also have a link to to that book, so you can click right in and and and find the book. Check it out today, scott, thank you again for developing the book and putting these tools out there for all of us to use. With that, I want to switch gears we're and find the book. Check it out today.

Speaker 1: 30:25

Scott, thank you again for developing the book and putting these tools out there for all of us to use. With that, I want to switch gears. We're going to jump into the rebel flash round. Are you ready? I'm ready, all right, here we go. Question number one where do we need to rebel?

Speaker 2: 30:40

I think we need to rebel, ready for this one, against ourselves and the quiet voices or the not so quiet voices that we hear in our heads, telling us we're not enough, we're not good enough, that other person is better. We need to stop and pause and chase authenticity rather than approval. Rebel against that dragon in your head that's barking at you that you're not good enough that dragon in your head that's barking at you that you're not good enough.

Speaker 1: 31:11

I love it. Authenticity versus approval I love that. I think that. I think that we could all do with a little bit of that in our lives. So question number two who should we be listening to?

Speaker 2: 31:18

To the people that know you and love you the most. In other words and I'm sure this is an HR staple, human resources staple listen to the people around you that know you best. That can help you plug in and figure out the things you need to work on. One of the big elements of mental strength is feeling secure enough to ask people around you for help and how you can grow your fortitude, confidence, boldness, decision-making, goal focus and improve your messaging as a leader. So turn to folks around you that know best for feedback. Love it.

Speaker 1: 31:51

Love it All right. Last question here how can our listeners connect with you?

Speaker 2: 31:55

Yeah, you bet you can go to scottmautzcom S-C-O-T-T-M-A-U-T-Zcom, and I put together a gift for your listeners, kyle, if they go to scottmoutscom slash mentallystronggift. Put that in your search parameters scottmoutscom slash mentallystronggift. They can download a 60-page PDF for free which includes the mental strength self-assessment if they want to get a head start on it before they get the book, to find out what their scores are for each metal muscle and overall, and it also includes prompts to help you get the most out of the book and space to take notes, and it's a really nice, all encapsulated workbook. So scottmouncecom slash mentally strong gift.

Speaker 1: 32:37

Love it, love it. We will have that link right there in the in the show notes, the podcast player. Open it up, click in. And, scott, just love the opportunity to connect with you today. Again, thank you so much for putting this book out there. You're going to help a lot of us, so thank you.

Speaker 2: 32:52

Thank you so much, and thanks for what you do too, kyle.

Speaker 1: 32:56

All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast. Big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at Rebel HR podcast, twitter at Rebel HR Guy, or see our website at rebelhumanresourcescom. The views and opinions expressed by Rebel HR Podcast are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast baby.