Mindful Leadership – Brad Lomenick
SUMMARY
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Leadership is one of those things you never arrive at even though you might have a title or position. Mindful leadership needs more than that.
Mindful leadership is a process. You need to be willing to go on that journey and be a life time learner.
If you have influence, then you’re a leader and you own mindful leadership skills.
The ability for us to garner a platform or to create people who listen to us or watch us or paying attention to us has never actually been easier with today’s technology.
In this age, to be a leader doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be the boss or have many people working for you. It’s about your impact and influence to other people, this is actually mindful leadership.
A leader builds people up through his mindful leadership. They’re not at the top of the pyramid but they go to the level where the people are and they build them up higher.
The idea of a today’s leader is someone who’s willing to risk with his mindful leadership and willing to stand up when others are sitting down. They’re willing to step out when others are stepping back.
You don’t have to be in charge anymore to be a leader but you do have to be out in front to be a leader.
Everybody at some point is a leader and possesses mindful leadership.
You’re a leader at every moment in your life and you have the possibility of creating influence.
The first person you have to lead is yourself. If you’re going to be a great leader, you have to lead yourself well with your mindful leadership skills.
Becoming a great leader is about you achieving greatness which can boost your mindful leadership skills further.
H3 Leadership – A leader who is humble and is hungry and hustles is a leader who is going to make a difference.
A hungry leader is somebody who says, “I never arrived. I constantly want to be better.”
Curiosity is one of the great ways for you to gain credibility really quickly and ask great questions.
You’re actually creating intimacy and connection with people by honouring them in a conversation and in a relationship because you’re elevating them to a place where they have the power and they’re being given the honor in the relationship. You’re seeking to learn more about them and it’s just such a great posture to have as a leader and also as a boss.
Anybody who’s leading people, the best way for you to honor your people is actually to be curious about what’s going on in their world.
TRANSCRIPTION: MINDFUL LEADERSHIP – BRAD LOMENICK
What Does Mindful Leadership Mean
Luis Congdon
What does it mean to be a great leader and how can we exemplify the best qualities of mindful leadership with the people in our lives whether it’s our family, our friends, the people that we work with or our teammates around us in sports or at the gym, anywhere in our lives? How can we be the best possible leaders and what does that even really mean?
Well, in order for us to have that discussion, we’ve brought on mindful leadership expert and author Brad Lomenick. He’s written the book Be Humble. Stay Hungry. Always Hustle. It’s a fantastic book that really looks at what is the catalyst for leadership and how we can be great leaders. So without further ado, let’s bring on Brad.
Kamala Chambers
It is so great to have you on Thriving Launch Brad. Are you ready to launch?
Brad Lomenick
I’m ready. Let’s do it.
Kamala Chambers
All right. Well, one thing I know you are a genius at is mindful leadership and teaching other people how to be leaders, how to grow teams, and maintain teams. I’d love to hear just your perspective on leadership.
What makes a leader and why is it important?
Brad Lomenick
The first thing is I’m definitely not a genius.
I think one of the first things about leaders that I admire and great leaders are they realize they’re on the journey and leadership is one of those things you never arrive at even though you might have a title or position. You might have a seat at the table that says you’re in-charge but I would argue and submit that…
Brad Lomenick
To give you a real simple definition, I have to sort of revert back to one of my mentors. A guy named John Maxwell, who many of your listeners would probably know of. I mean, he’s written lots and lots of leadership books explaining mindful leadership.
Luis Congdon
John Maxwell is fantastic. I saw him speak at a two day event and he is incredible. The guy is filled with so much wisdom. He presents and leads in a very dynamic, powerful and yet, this very humble and fully human being at the same time.
Brad Lomenick
Yeah. John really helped me define my own leadership and I worked for John for many years. We started Catalyst, which was a big part of my history and my story for gathering young leaders. However, Maxwell says “Leadership is influence.”
You can think about title, you can think about power, you can think about position, you can think about hierarchy, you can think about, “I’m in charge”, “I’m your boss,” and all those potentially are true about leadership but I would say that the true definition of mindful leadership is just that. It’s influence.
If you have influence, then you’re a leader. That brings all of us into the equation. It allows for mothers to say they’re a leader because their influence in their children. It allows neighbours to say they’re a leader. It allows people who are running an organization, people on a team, students in a school, and teachers.
Luis Congdon
What you’re saying about mindful leadership is really powerful to me because I think about children and how a lot of times as we’re growing up, we feel like we are not leaders or we’re not influential and yet, now that I’m an adult, when I’m around kids, I’m influenced by them and I’m impacted by them. I want to learn from them. I want to see how they think and how they feel.
I wanted to give this talk and I was nervous about it and everything. I remember this kid saying to me that it doesn’t matter how old you are, you have the ability to impact and influence people. What you’re saying is so true and it’s awesome that you’re saying it.
Brad Lomenick
Never before have we lived in a time where this has been truer because technology and all the things that we now are used too like social media, the ability for us to garner a platform or to create people who listen to us or watch us or paying attention to us has never actually been easier.
All the sort of traditional lines that you would have said like leaders are on one side and everybody else is on the other. All those lines are gone now because I can start a company at 19 or 20 or I can start a blog and all of a sudden, 6 months later, 10,000 people are reading my stuff online and I’m a leader.
You might not think you are at that point but you truly are influencing people with your mindful leadership skills. You don’t have a bunch of people working for you. You’re not a boss necessarily. This is just the new age of what it means to have impact and influence. That’s how I would describe it.
Kamala Chambers
A mentor said to me that I really took to heart was that a leader builds people up and they’re not at the top of the pyramid but they go to the level where the people are and they build them up higher. That really stuck with me when I started creating teams, when I got my first staff, and all of that.
Brad Lomenick
Yeah. I would say too Kamala, that the leader today is not just in charge but they’re out in front. The idea of a today’s leader is someone who’s willing to risk and willing to stand up when others are sitting down. They’re willing to step out when others are stepping back.
You don’t have to be in charge anymore to be a leader but you do have to be out in front to be a leader. You have to be willing to step in when you’re called on. This is another thing about leaders today is the great leaders and the ones are in the trenches with their team.
The old days of, “I’m the CEO and I’m the president and I sit in my corner office and drink a spritzer and put my feet up on the desk and bark out orders to all the minions,” are over. That may be true still in some industries but great leaders today are the ones down in the trench with their team. They’re getting the fingers dirty. They’re in the ditch digging in the dirt and it doesn’t mean you do that all the time but you have to be willing to stay and beside your team as well as staying in front of your team and get in the trench with your team if you’re going to have influence today.
Defining Mindful Leadership
Luis Congdon
That really reminds me a lot looping back around to John Maxwell again and a series and a training that I took of his all about creating great leaders and one of the things that he said is that, “If you want to be a leader and be someone that creates influence, you first have to be someone who’s achieved what other people want to achieve.” That’s the true definition of mindful leadership.
You have to be somebody who’s done it or is doing it and is really actively pursuing success in an area and the more that you have that particular success and the more you’re doing it, the more that other people will join you on your mission and you create this movement but it takes you being involved in it first. What I like about that and what I like about what you’re saying is first, everybody at some point is a leader. You just need to recognize your mindful leadership skills.
All of you thriving launchers listening, you right now are a leader. When you show up to work, when you say, “Hello” to your partner or you say, “Bye” to your best friend or whatever it might be or you’re interacting with a group of people, anytime you’re with people, you are in a leader role.
What I like what you’ve done is you stripped this idea that a leader is someone that’s elevated and put up there by the people and is giving a name tag that says “Manager” or “CEO.” They’re given a corner office. Until that point, you’re leader. You’ve stripped that away and you said, “You’re a leader at every moment in your life and you have the possibility of creating influence”.
The Essence Of Mindful Leadership
Brad Lomenick
Here’s the other reality.
Brad Lomenick
Sometimes, we forget about that part of mindful leadership but that’s the most important because if you can’t lead yourself, then you can’t lead others and so much of leadership is actually you be great.
Becoming a great leader is about you achieving greatness. Like what you said, if you’re not living it out, then you can’t expect the people that are supposed to be watching you, and being led by you to live it out.
Kamala Chambers
I’d love to hear a little bit more about something we could embody or practice. All of us here at Thriving Launch, what can we do to be a better leader? How to strengthen mindful leadership?
Brad Lomenick
It’s really simple. The essence of mindful leadership is to be humble, stay hungry, and always hustle. It’s the H3 leadership. Let live those out and I have said that to many young leaders over the years. When they said, “Boil it down, Brad. I want the simplicity. I want the elementary version. I want the phrase I can remember,” and that was the answer I would give. Be humble. Stay hungry. Always hustle.
There are obviously lots of different habits that have to be underneath each of those big buckets and those categories of leadership but I love that premise that…
Brad Lomenick
Here’s the key. I know you got to be balanced in this. You got to do all 3 of them. You can’t have a skim of its score card of leaders with an A if you get an F in one of those and I know lots of leaders who are incredibly humble but don’t do anything. They don’t have any hustle to them and so, they have a posture of humility but they’re not accomplishing anything and just the opposite is true.
I know lot of leaders who hustle like crazy and it’s all about them. They’re trying to get there. They’re building their kingdom and their empire, and the people who work for them despise them. They don’t like being around them.
We have to leave this imbalance to have mindful leadership. It has to be a 3 legged stool that are equally standing up straight so you can actually stand on that stool and be a leader who is all 3.
Luis Congdon
One of the things that comes up for me is I hear you talk about this is they all feel pretty self-explanatory. I can get what being hungry is. I can get what having hustle is. I can get what being humble is but what I start to think about is that hunger can be hard to keep when you have goals and you achieve them.
Have you found any hacks or anyways to help people stay hungry? Because on our path, we have goals and we achieve them or we don’t and then it’s just hard to stay hungry.
Curiosity and The Mindful Leadership
Brad Lomenick
That’s such a true statement Luis. John Maxwell is one of the examples I use a lot of a leader who’s hungry and here is a guy who has accomplished it all. He sits on the top of the mindful leadership mountain. If there is a leadership mountain, he’s sitting up on top of it taking pictures.
Luis Congdon
Yeah. He is the leadership guy. He is that guy.
Brad Lomenick
He is. I watched John because I worked with him for many years. I watched him at conferences after he would speak about mindful leadership. He would go sit in the front row. He would get his yellow pad out and he still uses a yellow pad to this day. He has a cell phone but he doesn’t really use that much.
He has a yellow pad and he has one of those four-colored pens. You know what I’m talking about? You can actually choose between black or red or green or blue. He gets his pen out and he’s taking notes. Just that posture, like the picture for me of a leader who’s hungry is the leader who’s arrived, who is number one. They can cast but they still are sitting in the front row with that yellow pad out and they’ve got the four-colored pen and they’re leaning forward in their chair taking notes.
That’s the image for me that I want to be as a leader and this is true at every level and every stage of your journey, is as soon as you feel like you’re now the man or the woman or you’re now the captain of you industry or you figured out something. Then take the posture of front row, yellow pad, four-colored pen, and you’re taking notes. That’s what a hungry leader is. It’s somebody who says, “I never arrived. I constantly want to be better.”
Let me give you one more. This is when I found to be true especially for young leaders and for those of us who are trying to elevate our status or get better at mindful leadership or move up in the ladder of influence, is be curious.
Brad Lomenick
The people who I’m always admiring as leaders are the ones who are the most curious about mindful leadership. They’re inquisitive. They constantly are peppering me with questions even though they are the ones in the room who should be giving all the answers.
When you walk into a room and you feel like your job is to be the expert, turn the tables and just be the best question asker that you can possibly be and it will elevate you, I promise you.
People will walk away from conversations with you and they’ll say, “That person is really smart,” and you just want to look at them and go, “I didn’t say anything. I just asked you really good questions.”
Kamala Chambers
This is just making me think about curiosity and how important it is for intimacy and relationships as well and not just business. That’s something that we’ve explored a lot here on Thriving Launch is how curiosity can bring us closer to other people. It brings us closer and more present to what’s happening in life in each moment because if we’re curious, then we’re always seeking.
That’s one thing Luis, I’m sure you know. You’ve experienced this too about podcasting. We get to ask questions all day to incredible people and that curiosity has really taken us to a whole different level in our business because we’re asking those questions even if we think we know about a subject, we still ask.
Luis Congdon
Definitely. Brad, for me, you’re like basically quoting one of my favorite books. It’s one of the most well-read books in the world of business and influence and it’s that book by Dale Carnegie.
Brad Lomenick
Luis Congdon
Yeah, it’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Every great business person or successful leader I’ve come across has told me they’ve read that book enhance mindful leadership skills.
Brad Lomenick
It’s a classic. It’s on the shells of all great leaders and Brian Grazer, who is a well-known producer in Hollywood, he just recently came out with a book. It’s called A Curious Mind. I listened to an interview that I believe Lewis Howes or Tim Ferriss, somebody did with Brian Grazer.
He was talking about how he’s gotten ahead in Hollywood because he’s lived that this premise of curiosity and he said, “Here’s the reason this works. It does help with life and I learn things but it actually has helped me in business because when I’m going after an actor like Denzel Washington, if I’m really interested in Denzel Washington’s world and I’m curious about his family, I’m giving honor to him by asking him really good questions. I want to know what makes him tick. You don’t think he’s going to choose to work on my project compare to somebody else,” and it was such a light bulb for me of, “Wow! That’s true”.
It’s like what you said Kamala. You’re actually creating intimacy and connection with people by honouring them in a conversation and in a relationship because you’re elevating them to a place where they have the power and they’re being given the honor in the relationship. You’re seeking to learn more about them and it’s just such a great posture to have as a leader and also as a boss.
Anybody who’s leading people with his mindful leadership, the best way for you to honor your people is actually to be curious about what’s going on in their world.
Luis Congdon
To add power to what you’re saying too, my background is actually in marriage education and that’s what I did for 3 years. I’ve worked with the nation’s largest research project and after seeing over 300 married couples with children, one of the things I realized is that, the most happy and successful couples, and when I say, “successful couple”, I really mean that they enjoy. Mindful leadership in relationship is important. They’ve been together for a long time. They have a beautiful relationship. They’re healthy and I noticed that hands down, every single one of them said, “Everyday I’m learning something new about my partner. Every day, there’s something to be amazed by with my partner.”
And so, this doesn’t just work in the field of when we say “Leadership”, I think of business or I think of sports but leadership is also in your relationship, a connection that you have with anyone. In a relationship like a marriage or you’re dating somebody, being curious is one of the keys to success.
Brad Lomenick
You can always tell the difference between somebody who is truly curious because they have good intentions or even the way people ask questions compared to somebody who is asking you a question in order to set up their answer. Those are the people that we tend to sort of move away from at dinner parties. Those are the people we don’t necessarily like to be around them much because you can tell pretty quickly that the honor they’re trying to give is back to themselves. That’s not the mindful leadership.
The people who ask great questions are the ones who are truly interested in the answer. They’re not just setting up the opportunity for them to be the hero or for them to be the expert in the conversation.
You’re taking an approach that is one of full disclosure of my intentions in the sense that I just want to learn like I want to honor you. I want to learn. It will help me but I’m not here to ultimately at the end of the day, make it about myself.
Kamala Chambers
It’s been so great having you on Thriving Launch Brad. Thank you so much for coming, we love your insights about mindful leadership.
Brad Lomenick
Awesome. Thanks guys for having me.
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