#23 Michael S. Seaver - Award Winning Leadership Consultant

Michael S. Seaver is an award-winning executive coach, leadership consultant, keynote speaker, and author. He’s on a mission to unlock human potential to help people uncover and live a more meaningful and authentic life. His unique methodology has revolutionized how leaders can live authentically and how organizations engage employees. He offers no-nonsense strategies to help people find confidence in their life’s narrative, commonalities across generations working today, and ways to communicate with emotional intelligence.

👉🏽How to Contact Him:

-Website: https://michaelsseaver.com/  

-My members-only newsletter: https://michaelsseaver.memberful.com/join 

🫡 My Why: I’ve seen the cost of poor leadership — how it can destroy morale, break trust, and in the worst cases, lead to lives lost, including through suicide. That’s why I’ve committed my life to helping others lead with purpose. Through Tales of Leadership, I share real stories and actionable insights on how to overcome adversity and become the kind of leader people remember for the right reasons.

👉🏽Leadership Resources: https://linktr.ee/talesofleadership

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Together, we will impact 1 MILLION lives!!!

Every day is a gift, don't waste yours!
- Joshua K. McMillion

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

You're listening to the Tells the Leadership Podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader, what I like to call PAL. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership. Welcome back to Tells the Leadership. This is episode 25. I am your host, Josh McMillian, the founder of McMillian Leadership Coaching, and an active duty Army officer with over 15 years of leadership experience. And I am on a mission to build better leaders, what I'd like to call purposeful, accountable leaders or PALs. And my vision is to end toxic transitional leadership practices in both the military and the civilian workforce by sharing transformational stories and skills. Michael is an award-winning executive coach, a leadership consultant, a keynote speaker, and an author. He is on a mission to unlock human potential to help people uncover and live a more meaningful and authentic life. Let's go ahead and bring on Michael. All right, Michael, thank you for being a guest on Tells the Leadership. How are you doing, brother? I'm doing great. What about you, Joshua? I can't complain. It's been a, we always say a busy day, uh, but I've been highly focused uh being an active duty army officer and uh a part-time podcaster. Time is challenging, but I find a way.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, man. Good for you. This is like there's so many blessings available to us, and it really does come down to making those difficult choices about where do we distribute time.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yep, absolutely. So the first thing that I would love to hear and define for our listeners is who are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

So Michael Siever, uh, I value authenticity. My life's work is very much about unlocking human potential. Uh, like I'm a partner to Tiffany, I'm I'm cat dad to Cleopatra, I'm dog dad to Phoebe, and I'm an executive coach. I'm, you know, I'm a team trainer, uh I'm a writer, I'm an author. There are many things that I am, uh, but I think when it really comes down to it is I'm a human being. And I think I struggled with that many times throughout my life because I got so focused on doing and I realized that I'm a human being, and I really want other people to see the simplicity in that too.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

I think one of the key words that you said there is authenticity. And you kind of get lost throughout this journey. One of my goals on on TELS of leadership is to bring transformational leaders like yourself on and share your journey. But one of the common themes that I've seen with people, especially in in the military, is that you're so focused on the job and the present that you don't really do a deep dive of who you are. I was like, who is Michael when he shows up? Like, what kind of leader does he want to be? What are your core values? And I I love that word, authenticity, because if you don't show up, people will know and they they will totally call you out on that.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

They will. Yeah, I and oftentimes when I'm providing executive coaching, I use either an online activity or a deck of cards for people to learn what their core values are because there aren't a lot of places in society where we do uncover one's core values. So authenticity, uh, growth, and spirituality are my top three. They're they're wildly important for me, and they're the standard by which I make a lot of choices and decisions.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

How did you find your core values?

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Uh I just uh years ago, I lived in uh Phoenix, Arizona, and happened across an organization called the Peak Fleet. And they had at the time a card of decks. I think there were 55 cards inside the deck where you could go through a process and uncover your top core values. I believe they've recently added a couple of additional core values, but they also now have an online activity. And because my friend Brian was involved and now owner, I went through the activity and it was so enlightening because I got to really think through what's truly important to me. And then what percent of the day am I living this core value? And once I got to some depth and understanding about how to live the core values with more intentionality, life got pretty damn good.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah, that's one thing that I'm so I'm a weirdo. Uh most of my free time I love to journal and read about uh leadership. And I'm I'm kind of right now in a process of how I defined my core values and and trying to help people understand that. And it's hard. Like I it's a deep reflection in your past. And I think it's looking at leaders that uh for me, I I looked at every leader that I ever had and seen what kind of commonalities did I respect out of them, and then what kind of commonalities just I I did not respect, because we all have bad leaders, and what really helped me out too was the shared values of the organizations that I work in. And you being an executive coach, I think that that's so key with culture of I think it starts with the hiring. You have to hire people that are aligned with the values, because if you get that right, then you can train them to be successful.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah. Yeah, well said. I want to piggyback on what you just said, Joshua, because it's important. Is there's there's significant value in reflecting on your life's experiences to be able to say, what elements of this did I like? What other elements or dimensions did I not like? And what Brian and and his business partner Jen talk about through the Peak Fleet is that they really want you to get to the core of which values are you using when you're making your life's most difficult decisions? And so give you that time to reflect, give you those time to like think about the lessons you've learned as you've navigated life and then kind of project out into the future what is the legacy you desire to leave? What do you want to pass on to the generations that follow? And then sit down with these now 58 core values and say which ones are most important to me. And you're right, when you start to think about uh who is it that you're going to bring into your organization, values alignment or mission alignment should absolutely be the first like character trait that you're looking for because you can teach hard skills, right? You can teach people those things, but someone's ability to contribute is more so based on their values or what they uh what their life's mission might be.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah, as I wrote down essentially, core values are a filter. And you said something that is absolutely key, and I love it because I always reflect in like decisive moments, there is a decision fatigue that kind of sets in. And how does that happen with leaders? I don't think they truly know what their core values are, but if you if you understand your core values, and I I'm an acronym junkie because I'm in the military, I have to create an acronym for everything. So RID, so respect, integrity, and duty. So I always go through those when I have to make a decision that is affecting, you know, a million-dollar program that I'm managing or potentially someone's life. I always go through that and I filter it. And hey, yep, I'm good with it and I can live with the decision.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

I love that. Yeah, good for you. That's that's the exact strategy we should all be using, man. So thanks for embodying that for us.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

So I would love to hear how you define leadership. Leadership? The way that I see this is when someone has the capacity to live their core values each day, they are now embodying a way of life that others are naturally drawn or attracted to, and that they can then safely emulate, right? So the the human species, we all have a very distinct desire to grow and develop ourselves, but we also then have an even deeper desire for contribution, right? We actually desire for the growth and development of others. So to take our own life's lessons learned, learn as much as we possibly can from them, embody a different leadership style, and then share that, pay it forward, make others' lives better. So leadership is being able to live your sometimes what I call an earth school curriculum, go through the various things that you're learning, live it authentically, learn your lessons, and then pay that forward. But I think the way that we are best leaders is when we uh lead by example. And so there's a lot of things that we can say uh or do, but there's a very, very strong difference between what we say or do. So I pay more attention to what a person does, where they distribute their money, where they distribute their time, who are they spending time with. That to me matters way more than something that they might say. So leadership is really living authentically and allowing others, giving others that safe space to do roughly the same for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Earth school curriculum. I don't think I've ever heard that, but I I absolutely love it. Um, there was a leader that said something to me a long time ago, and I can't remember to trade it, but you have to align your deeds with your words. Uh, but I think the most important part is is the deeds. And you you crystal clear said that.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

So where did your leadership journey begin?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah. It started very, very early, Joshua. Uh, I was raised in Michigan in a very, very small town of 2,500 people. And at age 12, I started working in the family's landscaping and lawn maintenance company. And so from age 12 until 24, I cut a lot of grass, shoveled a lot of dirt, plowed a lot of snow. And so at age 15, uh, I was asked to start leading teams or crews. And so that was probably the very first experience I had with leadership was at age 15, managing some folks who might have been double or triple my age. And it was kind of trial by fire all those years ago. And so as a result of many of the mistakes that I made and many of the experiences that I had in my teenage years or throughout my 20s, I do love the fact that I can be a leadership coach now because I learned so much from those early life experiences about what to do and what not to do.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah. What were some of the challenges that you ran into in those informative years?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah. You know, my my grandfather and my father, my grandfather started the business in 1953. My dad bought it from him, I think, in 1987. And so in in the mid-1990s, uh, I was uh just becoming of age to be able to start to lead. So it was about 1995 uh when that happened. It also happened that as I was beginning in these leadership roles, my father was also diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia. And so there was almost effectively right away an absence of leadership from above me. And not any problem or necessarily fault of their own, but part of it was that there was a lot of trial by fire. I had to do things through making mistakes and learn from making mistakes because my father was healing. My grandfather did have a full-time job during the day. And so there were other things that I did not have a coach or a mentor per se. And so the lack of that, plus the health concerns and the other things that were happening in my family, there was distractions, there was a lot of mistakes made. There was that lack of coach and mentoring that I could have used back then. And so these are the things that we navigate in life. Things aren't always perfect, and we have to do the best that we can with what is presented to us. And I'm so thankful for those experiences then as they played out the way that they did, because I've been able to help so many more folks today.

unknown 11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

And where where did you take that? So after those kind of informative years, keep walking me through your leadership journey.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Sure. So uh in the year 2003, I got married and my wife and I moved from Montague, Michigan to Phoenix, Arizona. So big transformation. Uh, and so I was thankfully I was able to get a job at the Four Seasons Resort in North Scottsdale, where I was a supervisor for uh a team of front desk agents and concierge agents. And so I had these experiences in a small town family business of being a leader, but then you go to the Four Seasons Resort where there is probably 12 or 13 different countries represented in the employee base, and then you're serving people from all over the world. And so we went from this environment that was pretty entrepreneurial to me plugging in as a supervisor in an environment where there was a lot of scripture. So we had to follow scripts, we had to wear particular things, there was a definite flow to the experience for the guest. And that was such a good learning for me because I got to learn how to anticipate guest needs based on the particular guest needs, right? Because you'd have very, very high-ranking people come to the property. And so it was wonderful to have that experience. So, so the and the second piece was after uh I finished my time working in the hospitality industry, I ended up going to the Thunderbird School of Global Management. And there uh I learned that I was probably destined in some way to become a coach. And it was never something that I had ever considered before. So, as a full-time MBA student, and this was the year 2008, I ended up being assigned a coach from the university. And so she gave me a series of assessments, and we went through a variety of coaching sessions for me to understand that all of my life's experiences, my communication preferences, my motivations, my values, my talents and skills actually aligned very well with leadership development, human resources, organizational development. And I had never considered that. So as I was going through that, that was a really, really fun experience because as a second-year student, I decided to work for the school as a career coach to first-year students. So in my in my youth, right, I was part of this entrepreneurial business that was growing and developing. And then I immediately went to the four seasons and some other hospitality organizations to learn customization and anticipation of a particular person's needs. And then I go to school, and now I'm being given all of these skills about how to be a coach, right? How to pull things out of a person. And it was so fun for me.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah, your spark, and I would say hearing that, that was your spark of in the leadership, but also one of the things that I've found through my journey is being able to connect your passion with your purpose. I think you had a passion or leadership, but you discovered your purpose in that moment. And then when you do that, you create momentum. Um, there's so many things that you you touched on that I want to talk about. Trial by fire. That was one in your informative years. That is absolutely key, um, especially when you're just starting out. And one of my main missions with this entire podcast is to capture leaders who are just starting on their leadership journey and help guide them in the right direction. Because there's two paths that we can all take. You can go down the toxic leader realm, what I like to call a transitional leader or a transformational leader. And I applaud you for going down the right path, brother. Um, and then SOPs moving into that next job, having standard operating procedures in the military. I'm not even joking. We have battle plans for every single thing you could think of. And Murphy hits, I think there's a quote by Mike Tyson, we all have a plan until we get punched in the face. But if you have a plan, you can at least deviate from it, but you you know where you're operating. But I love that, I love that spark.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah, it really was for that. And I'm glad that you described it that way, Joshua, because after the way that I described it to myself all those years ago was that I lost track of time doing it. And that's how I knew it was interesting to me, is that it would be 11, you know, o'clock at night, 11:30 at night, and I would still be providing coaching to these other students. And I didn't realize that it was 11, 11:30 at night. And that's how I knew that the spark that that there was something that I really needed to do. But I had also absorbed a pretty large loan, uh student loan, in order to become a part of the school. And so right after I graduated, I went to a very large not-for-profit healthcare system to work as the director of talent sourcing. So in human resources. But after doing that for about 20 months, I got pretty burnt out. I got pretty tired. It was a very valuable experience. I achieved a lot of goals there and I was grateful for it, but I was missing that one-to-one coaching piece. And so it was, it was formally in October of 2011 that I launched Siever Consulting or the coaching practice as it stands today. And so leaving this uh very comfortable corporate job to be able to launch something completely from scratch uh was a very difficult move because I was pretty naive. I didn't really know exactly what it was that I was walking into. But thankfully, I was able to teach classes at a local university uh to be able to produce enough money to cover all of my life's expenses uh while building business nights and weekends. So it was such a fun experience for me to say, I'm gonna try this corporate thing for a couple of years, realized it wasn't my jam because the spark wasn't there. So left, right, and started the business, was teaching classes to be able to further figure out where do I best apply the spark.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

I think a lot of people get stuck in a level of complacency, that they'll stay in a job or in a environment because they know it. It's a lesser evil. And I applaud you for being able to pull yourself out and chase your dreams, but how how did you do that? Like walk through that steps is how did you overcome that internal fear?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Uh, I think the the thing that drove me early on, and I'll be very transparent, is I didn't want to be remembered as my father's son. And and I I think we we all have a goal, something we want to run towards, but I also made sure that I had something I was running from. And that was really important to me was to set the goal of I want to be an entrepreneur because my grandfather and my father were entrepreneurs. I desire to be a coach. I don't know what this is going to look like, I don't know how long it's gonna take. But I also had this fear of it not working or to have to go back to something that I was safe in before, whether it was the family business or whether it was a full-time job for corporate. So I intentionally, in those early years, told myself that every activity that I can do that produces the most stress in me, I realized that was not the healthiest approach, but I but I but I had took the stress on intentionally to number one, run away from something that I didn't want to be, number two, run towards something that I desired to be, and told myself, what can I challenge myself? How much stress can I produce in myself to learn something I've never done? So I had never taught a university class. And so I taught classes in human resources, I taught classes in entrepreneurship, I taught classes in entrepreneurship. So I forced myself to learn things and become good at speaking because I'm an introvert. I am much better. I would be a great accountant, I would be a great engineer, I'd be a great coder, but I taught myself how to do these things so that I could finally feel comfortable that I was not going to have to go back to parts of my life that were uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

One thing that so you and I share that you probably don't know, but I am an introvert too. So I have to kind of force myself out. Uh, and then I got to recharge my battery. So after this, I'll probably go have some quiet coffee. Um but I'm seeing a trend throughout your journey, and I love it, is that you are always putting yourself in positions of increased stress. And I read a book called The A-Team, and it talks about a concept of an S-curve, is that whenever we start something, we're going to see slow growth, but eventually we're going to become good at it and exponential growth. But then we hit a plateau. And that is the moment that you stop growing, or you continue growing and do something that's hard. And you realize that you weren't a public speaker, so you embraced it and you took it on. That that is awesome, brother.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yeah, thank you for saying that. It's so I, as you as you heard me say earlier, right? Uh, authenticity, growth, spirituality. So you what you're hearing is what you're picking up on very astutely is the idea of growth. And and it's difficult, uh, but it's also very rewarding. And so as the business started to kind of get off the ground, it initially was resume writing, interview, support and help, LinkedIn crafting, right? All those things, 2011, 2012, 2013. So then I challenged myself, right? We got to that point on the S curve where it got comfortable, and I decided to become certified to deliver the disc and a motivators assessment and an emotional intelligence assessment. So that challenged me because now all of a sudden I could help with career development, but I could also provide trainings and coaching to teams of individuals to communicate better. So did that for a couple of years and then realized that the marketplace was changing. So I challenged myself to come up with a personal branding process, right? So all of a sudden, I think it was 2016, 2017, I'm doing a lot of personal branding coaching and blogging and writing about that particular topic. So then in 2018, I was approached by a couple of organizations to do executive coaching and organizational change consulting. And again, another step up on the S-curve for me because I hadn't done it before, but I was willing to try. So I did that for a few years and then uh coronavirus started in the early part of 2020. And in my business, the things that I had scheduled for Q1, Q2, and even Q3 of that year, I could the revenue was effectively pushed off to later in the year or early the following year. So I had that summer to write, and I just decided to start writing. And so I wrote the book, I know, uh, that summer. And that was one of probably one of the hardest experiences I've ever gone through professionally, uh, because I hired a writing coach to help me and she challenged me in ways that I didn't think were possible. And you would just think, like, uh I've I've written hundreds and hundreds of blogs. Like I enjoy the process of writing. But when you have a writing coach who sees your story through a completely different lens than you do, that is so enormously helpful, but also really hard at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

That that is powerful. What you just said is then that's what a coach does. Um, regardless of whatever you're hiring a coach for, they can see through you and they can see um the the true problem or your true story and they can pull it from you. Powerful questions to elicit a response. So there's so many questions I want to ask. One is how did you determine authentically to build your own brand? Because that was something that I struggled with of because our our digital reputation that we put out there, our digital brand, it is our reputation. It's our character. It's who we are. Like if you go on LinkedIn or if you go on my Instagram, like how do I want people to feel when they see me digitally? And that's that's tough.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah it really is. And I think it's it's morphed and changed over time as as my brand or my experiences has have changed. But back then when it initially started I based it on my experience as a coach right so I wanted to have some credibility in the marketplace. And so I was able to say I've done this or I have this certification. I'm offering services that are in alignment with my experiences, right? So I think there's a credibility in that. And I had also been exposed to some some ideas around color, right? So different colors have different meanings to the human mind psychologically. So part of my brand was wearing particular types of color, right? Particular colors, you know, in the community. So part of it was what what skills do I have, what experiences do I have? What can I sell? Part of it is the color that I've chosen for the things that I wore, business cards, websites, all of those things. And I think another part of it was reflection on a series of things that other people had said about me. So I intentionally went back and whether it was through LinkedIn or just through private email, tried to figure out how is it that someone actually perceives me? And so this was published in Harvard back in the year 2006, but it's what's referred to as the reflected best self exercise. And that doing that exercise with a bunch of people around me from different buckets of my life helped me to see myself in a light that I didn't actually consider. And the information that came back was that the thing that that they appreciated most about me was my capacity to listen at a depth that other people couldn't in their lives and that I heard what was not being said. And that really struck me because I was inherently doing it but not really realizing it. So it's like what experiences and skills do you have? What colors do you want to project? What does the marketplace believe about you? And then how do you move forward with that?

SPEAKER_01 24:25

That's a great response. And one of the biggest things that I was hung up on was the collars like because it was so it was so true. Another thing that you mentioned and I I don't know if everyone maybe understands this, but could you walk through what the disk profile is and then emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yeah. So the the disk profile uh there's Myers Briggs there's discreneetics there's predictive index there's any number of of assessments that are out there. And these assessments are designed to help you understand your overt natural communication or behavioral profile. Right? So disk is designed to understand do you are you task oriented or are you people oriented or are you an introvert or an extrovert or what combination of those four kind of common traits are you? And so there's so much information that can come out of that from your strengths, what are your core fears, how do you respond under stress, various things that you would like to know about yourself that people are going to be able to see about your word choice, about your tone of voice, or about your body language because each of those four styles projects a particular version of that. Now emotional intelligence there are five core dimensions from the the place that I am certified to deliver the assessment through and three of them are focused on self, right? So EQ is effectively how aware are you of your own emotions and what triggers them and what you're doing to regulate your response to them or andor how are you then aware of others' emotions and what it is that you do to affect them. So the first three dimensions of EQ self-awareness self-regulation and motivation are your awareness of yourself. The second uh number four number five are others focused and so those are social awareness and social regulation. And so my work in those buckets actually has picked up quite a bit recently because we have all learned in the last couple of years that we're far more capable of change than we thought we were, right? Because at the beginning of 2020 we all went through change. But what I've seen in the last couple of years, Joshua is that people are now expressing themselves in new ways that they hadn't probably pre-2020 and they're asserting themselves in different buckets of their life in ways that they wouldn't have before. So it was really interesting to go through being certified in those two areas but then also to see them become today more and more and more important because they're so important today.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah. So kind of wrapping up your early journey what would be one of the biggest lessons that you remember?

SPEAKER_00 26:58

From the from like let's say from working in the landscaping business to um spending a lot of starting your coaching company. Yeah all the way up to the very beginning of that I think I defaulted to and I hope everybody hears this in a way and I want you all to to do it in a way that's safe for you is that I prioritized growth and development sometimes at the expense of my own health or my relationships. And so that was you know having been raised in that environment cutting grass and shoveling dirt right you just work a lot in that environment. So in the early years of my development or the early years even of my business, I would prioritize the stress and the growth and the hard work over my own health and well-being and of that of the folks around me. And that led to the divorce of my first marriage and a couple of relationships that didn't work out. And so I realized that some of the things that I valued most about life I actually didn't make the right time for. So everybody listening find a balance between growth and stress and pressure for yourself with making sure that you're surrounded by people in a different level of balance emotionally.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

And I know you're an expert on work and family balance. Could you kind of walk us through how how to achieve that yeah it it's it's pretty challenging.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

So it's doable right but what I attempt to do for folks when I'm helping them to discover themselves is I I give them a series of assessments if the if they engage me right so one disk number two the 12 driving forces which is what motivates us three core values so that we understand what it is that that we really value over life. The the fourth thing is basically a past present and future questionnaire to be able to say what what led me to today? And then the fifth is what are the strengths what are your talents what are the things you're absolutely great at so what I would like for someone to do is first and foremost collect those five data sets about themselves right so that we have a very strong level of self-awareness or window into the self. So what that does is as you become more self-aware you begin to notice the opposite communication style, a different motivator, a different core value in the people around you. And instead of being emotionally triggered by those things, you recognize it and say, okay, I recognize this person's living by this core value, although it's different than my core value, I want to love, honor, and respect that person because that's that's his or her earth school curriculum, right? So just because it's not mine, just because I don't value or I'm not motivated by that thing, I shouldn't automatically look down on somebody else because they have a different motivator or core value. So it really is about self-awareness, offering grace and respect to those around us because their earth school curriculum is different and then trying to find structured time throughout the week for really intentional relationship building. And I don't think that many people actually really genuinely spend the time doing that because our society is so chaotic and fast paced. But if we can find that intentional time for relationship building things could get pretty good pretty fast.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Team I want to take a quick break from this episode and personally invite you to join our tribe. Are you looking for a community of leaders if you are a leader at any level join our purposeful accountable leaders private Facebook or LinkedIn group we would love to have you at the table. My mission is to create a community that allows leaders to ask questions celebrate wins and share blessings. All I ask is that you follow the fear be respectful be humble be present and add value to the community you can find the link in the show notes to either join the Facebook or LinkedIn group or simply just search purposeful accountable leaders. Back to the podcast you said two things there that was really key one don't judge other people based on what they prioritize but two is relationships and that that is fundamental the secret sauce that's the secret in leadership is you got to figure out a way to build relationships and how you say it authentic authentic relationships in the military our time has always struggled and I I've always had a hard time balancing work and family to the point of you know sharing a vulnerable story and my wife will probably hate me about this but there were times that I catch her when I come home and you know she's just bawling based on what we had to go through at the time and I really looked at one of my commanding generals and um he came up with a work breakdown structure kind of of work family self and he has four categories of hey what's a routine action what's an important action what's a critical action and a vital action and then list those out between work family and yourself. So for example um if my daughter has a birthday that is more important than a normal meeting that we would do at work and you have to see it you have to write it out and it I think everything that I've seen with you it starts with quiet reflection time and thinking and that that is key.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

So I would love to hear how how how do you get into the right mind that creative juice yeah thank you being an introvert I do my best thinking when I'm alone and so I have a a yoga practice that I keep even in my office upstairs in in Tiffany in my house. And so three to four times a week it's sometimes a 15 minute is sometimes a 30 minute yoga flow just to make sure that I can control my breathing and calm my nervous system. Right. That's that's a big one. There's a couple of parks not too far from where we live so I find myself at least once a week just going for a two to three hour walk through nature and just feeling Mother Nature just feeling the balance. I also have a journal that I keep each day. So it's just a a spreadsheet on my computer that I've kind of morphed into a place where I can just type notes. And so in addition to the yoga and the breathing activities in addition to spending time in nature there's always a quiet period in the morning before Tiffany wakes up where it's just easy for me to just type a bunch of stuff down. What am I feeling what am I thinking what went well what do I need to plan for right? It's kind of the prioritization that you just referenced a second ago Joshua. So it those things matter immensely for me because I can go back into those spreadsheets because I've been keeping them since 2010 and I'm serious about that. I can go back to 2010. So so it's I can type any keyword into the find function and I can go through and see to myself when was I thinking about that when was I talking about that when was I journaling about that so I am being an introvert Joshua being an introvert uh I have found a way to act on patterns not on episodic emotion. And the journal has been a very key piece of that because it's easy for us when we're confronted by something in the world around us to act very emotionally in the moment. But it it's much more empowering and powerful to take that time each day to make sure that we look back at the patterns of our own choices or things that are happening around us and then say this pattern has been very serving to me. I'm going to continue it or this pattern has been disserving I'm going to stop spending time with that person. I'm gonna stop eating that food I'm gonna stop doing that habit or activity. So being in that place allows for better decision making that benefits all of us in some way long term.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

I love that boils it down to self-care. And I think as a fellow introvert that's what our superpower is is is is self-care and it's it's quiet time and it's not as selfish. And for the longest time I think the reason that my work and family was unbalanced is that I wasn't taking the time to charge my batteries and then I was going at work in a depleted state and then I was coming home in even more of a depleted state and I and I started journaling not in 2010 which is awesome a year ago and I got to get a better system down because I have a stack of notebooks. But it's I I think of it as like a battery almost is that we are charging our batteries to 100% in a non-selfish way and then we're showing up at work authentic and we're giving our energy out because that's what leaders do. And then we come home and that's even more important if you have a family or a significant other and sharing that energy and then eventually we got to go back to the charging station.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

We do. And that's where I think trying to do that as you know for whether you're introvert or extrovert right introverts like Joshua and I we tend to do that alone. Extroverts recharge their battery by you know being on a competitive sports team or going out to a restaurant with friends or some sort of a social event. Right. So doing what you feel is appropriate to recharge your batteries is really important. So you know 20 years ago across the world there was very much of a focus in on what's your career, how are you going to make money? What are you doing to prepare for retirement? And we're in this place now where society has shifted quite a bit because of the rise of affluence across most societies. So now we have this capacity where most societies are a little bit more affluent. They're a little bit more safe. We all can now take a quick look in our heart to say I can work for this this entity and that would be very fruitful and good and or I can become the CEO of my own business right just like Joshua and I have done in our own respective ways, right? We've become the CEO of our lives, our own businesses. And so we're seeing this really big transition where we used to be able to get in a car and have some alone time before we got home, right? 10, 15 years ago. That doesn't exist anymore. So we have to manufacture our own recharging time. So for me I found a way to do that before Tiffany wakes up and our pets are active. But each person does it differently. I have a number of clients who their only alone time is 10 o'clock at night. And that's when they recharge their batteries right so that that is a really important piece for each of us is to say, I need to prioritize this and at what time during the day and throughout the week can I put it on my calendar now so that nothing else gets in the way. And so if you were to look at my calendar Joshua there's a bunch of stuff already blocked out so that nobody gets in there that it's just me. Can you go over that?

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Because that was key and that was something that I had to force discover by reading the book Indistractable time blocking.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Yeah I don't know if I know it through the exact lens that you do but I'll I'll describe it from my context is I end up serving a lot of of leaders around the nation that are their heads of departments, their vice presidents, their presidents, their C-suite, their executives and they end up getting pulled in a lot of different directions. And so it's easy if you're an executive to be pulled in a lot of directions or if you're one or two levels down, it's easy to be a yes person. So it's very difficult to say no. And so one method by which we say no, one method by which we manage our own time and energy is to make sure that weeks in advance we block our calendar for the things that matter most to us. So that could be in alignment with your life's mission, your Earth school curriculum, your core values, your motivations but just take the time whether it's uh the first of the month or whether it's a Sunday afternoon or evening whatever you need to do, just make sure that you block time in the days that you need it to make sure that you're recharging. And Joshua said something really important a second ago which was that after a lot of people time he needs to make sure that he goes back and does that recharging. So if I know that I have a meeting heavy day coming up, I will make sure that I block a two or three hour timeframe right after those meetings to make sure that I have time for integration. So partially it's saying here are the things that I'm gonna block my calendar for personally. I play at a volleyball league, right? I'm doing all this hiking I have these yoga and exercise activities that I block time for. But then there's also this intentional looking forward to say this feels like it's going to be a big heavy day for me as an introvert having to perform as an extrovert I'm gonna block two hours right after the last meeting is done so that I can just come down. So it's it's about intentionality I think Joshua but maybe maybe you were taught it a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Yeah the the way that I see it um and I love how you do it in a long-term perspective right a lot of people do not like to say no but if it's on my calendar hey I'm sorry I I have this um um disappointment at that time I I I can't do that and inside it you get that um oxytocin release uh chemical release in your body but I think for me how I've learned to do it because a calendar is a reflection of your core values and I I tell my team that I was like hey if you have your children's baseball games or if you have a birthday coming up or you have a doctor's appointment I challenge you to put that on the calendar because I want to see that because it tells me what you prioritize in life and for me how I do it is four main categories and I time block my day for self I time block my day for work I time block my day for family and then I time block my day for coaching my passion and for me that works best. So in the mornings it's always myself and this is my weird routine for a day uh four four in the morning to seven is devoted to self and that's where I recharge my batteries and I don't get up in the four because I enjoy it I do it because I have to and then from eight to seven well I'm trying to convert army time 5 p.m it is dedicated to the army and then from five to nine five to eight depending is dedicated towards my family and then the rest of that time till 22 well 10 o'clock at night sorry is dedicated for coaching and what I found out is when I keep it broad like that it allows me to not necessarily get stressed out. If I'm going from one meeting to another okay this has to happen exactly in 15 minutes and then I should be reading a book versus okay I have two hours whatever life is going to throw at me I will hit it in that two hours but when it's up it's done and I'm going to the next one and for me that's that's really helped I I'm an infantryman by heart always joke that I'm one degree away from uh eating crayons in the military and marines so I can follow the KISS principle keep it simple stupid and that that is my whole life philosophy. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

It's important man good for you for for I love that structure. In my work, you know my contracts with my clients are in some cases that I almost am available 247 to them. Yeah and and so the the four bucket structure that you have is awesome. Uh I I would struggle a little bit in that because of the unexpected things that come to my plate from clients. It's not that I couldn't do it. I just understand that for these folks that I'm supporting and helping, they're in very, very different time zones or in other parts of the world. And so me having to be a little bit flexible with some of that and saying, okay, I want to distribute time into this particular area knowing that some things are going to shift or possibly change but I feel accomplished if my my energy is pretty balanced throughout the day or if I've kind of accomplished those major goals that I have for myself or that I feel that I've left clients or family in a place that they're better off today than they were yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah. So I'd I'd love to transition to the present. Where are you currently at on your leadership journey?

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Yeah this is a a very new beginning for Tiffany and I because raised in Michigan 18 years in Phoenix Arizona about 11 months ago we moved from Phoenix to Cary North Carolina which is right between Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill. So it's right in the middle. And we we came here because we wanted to have access to four seasons of weather we wanted to be a little bit closer to family mine in Michigan hers in Connecticut and uh we she wanted to start a business. And so my business has pretty much remained the same uh in that I'm still doing coaching the team trainings still exist um being a published author has been fun because speaking engagements and stuff like that have have come in and that's been great. I launched a members only newsletter so that I could spend more time writing and that's been really fun and fruitful for me to have that time. But I think the biggest leadership growth that has happened for me probably in the last year or two has been Tiffany is about ready to open a wine and champagne bar. And I have never in my life opened any type of brick and mortar location right I've either worked In the family business or uh worked for a pretty large corporate entity or starting my own business, which has been predominantly virtual or very low overhead. And so to help and be supportive to her through the launching of this brick and mortar business has been a wildly important but also fun leadership experience for me. Because as a coach, as a mentor, as a guide, as a leader, I'm learning the value of making sure that I'm being the best supporter that I can to her as a partner, but also as basically an employee. So we have made the decision that I, for the short term, am temporarily working with her to support her in the launch of the business until we have certificate of occupancy and then she can hire staff full-time. So my leadership development isn't from right now, it's not necessarily from me as a leader, right? It's me as a follower. It's me as a supporter. It's me as a as a person who is learning the various things about watching Tiffany go through stressful situations, watching her grow and develop, celebrating her as she's having these really cool wins, getting media features and and having other things happen. So after, you know, basically 11 years of being the face of a business, it's nice to have about a year right now where my leadership development journey is learning basically the value of receiving and supporting. And it has been so fun.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Yeah, that's amazing. And I struggle with that starting out with my my coaching company is I have I have to have my wife help me. I literally, you know, Zig Ziggler says we all have 24 hours in a day. Well, well, but the army takes at least 12 of my hours um each day. And I had a hard time initially seeing my wife as the love of my life, if that makes sense, and then not getting that mentality of okay, employee, I need you to do X, Y, and Z for me because I love you. So I had a I had a hard time managing that relationship. And I know where you're at in your life, I think you had that level of maturity of where you you understood that boundary.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Yeah. It thank you, Joshua. And it it took a while to get there. But after having done so many trainings on emotional intelligence and spent so much time in the arena with people to see their challenge was challenges with spouses and all the stuff that come with it, I willingly took on this role to support Tiffany because I I love her deeply, right? You know, this is this is my person. And I, as a, as a romantic partner, want her to be successful uh in her own way professionally, right? Independent from me. But then also realizing that my skills that I've developed over the last 11 years can be highly beneficial to her short term. And so it's it's this willing role to going back to what we talked about at the beginning of the conversation on the S curve, it's that I'm it's like kind of rising at that part of the S where this is a task that set that I've not really done before. I don't understand loans through the SBA. I don't necessarily understand various things with uh when it comes to uh leases and landlords and all that stuff, right? These are things I've not learned before. But I'm like, hey, I can challenge myself to learn something new I've not learned before because I promise myself I'm gonna be able to use this skill two, three, four years down the road. So having taught so many of these skills, I said, can I apply this to myself? Can I really find an appropriate balance to open new lines of communication with Tiffany that are not just romantic and personal? And to really willingly move this forward for both of us because very soon I won't have to be a part of the business in that professional context, right? She'll have staff to be able to do it. So it's like, can I challenge myself for this period of time and make it happen? And it's been going great. I've learned so much about myself. She's doing great. So it just feels right.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

That's an amazing like pattern that I that I've seen. 15 years old, Michael, all the way till now. You're you're still doing that S-curve, man. And I I I I applaud you for that. And I love how you said in the arena. You are in the arena. All right. So I want to know about your book. I know. I I see it in the back corner over there. What inspired you to write that book and what were some of the most important parts of it?

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Yeah. I had a lot of anxiety and nervousness at being an introvert, right? To be able to share parts of my story. And as I've already mentioned so far, Joshua, is that the the writing coach that I had helped me was a bit more extroverted. And so she was wonderful at the interviewing of me and pulling my stories out, my client's stories, my personal stories. And and so the the act of writing was so wildly important for me. Having her pull stories out that I didn't feel comfortable to tell was also really important. So the book is nine core chapters, and each chapter is a story either of my life or from a client's life. And then there's kind of a main thesis, and then there's basically a five-step process. And this is across each chapter. And then there's a couple more stories to kind of bring the point home with some basic psychology research. So the first three chapters of the book are designed to help a person end and let go of something. So if it's loss, if it's fear, if it's some sort of emotional release that they need to do, the first three chapters would help somebody do that ending. The second three chapters are more about how do you define your personal brand, how do you become more emotionally intelligent, how do you design this new identity for yourself? So that's kind of an emotional neutral zone where you're experimenting and discovering yourself and then figuring out how are you going to apply it. And then the third three chapters to end the book are about, okay, you have this new identity. It's now your time to go be a coach. And it's now your time to teach others how to be a coach. And it's now your time to effectively design community. And so the book begins with a story about when for me, back in 2019, I was really struggling. Uh, I almost committed suicide, right? Life was pretty hard and I was really significantly struggling. So I opened the book with a story about not wanting to be on Earth anymore, go through the nine chapters, and then close with a little bit more of a heartwarming story about if you're gritty and you're resilient and you're persistent, here's what it is that you can get for yourself: happiness, engagement, joy, fulfillment, deep, meaningful relationships. And so very difficult process for me to write the book because the writing coach pulled things out of me that I didn't think I was ready to share. But the act of writing was so immensely therapeutic that I'm really grateful that I did it. And so the book is available, Amazon, Barnes Noble, you know, Google, Apple, all those places, ebook, audiobook, and print. Uh so it's really just a what is it that a person how do they prefer to consume that material? But if there's that person that's listening that feels a little bit disengaged, feels a little bit unsure, wants to know what their earth school curriculum is, they can figure out a way through the book to be able to uncover some of those things about themselves.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

First of all, thank you, you know, for sharing a deeply passionate story, a vulnerable story, but also taking the the courage to write that in a book where, you know, potentially millions of people can share it. And one of the journeys, and I don't think I've ever shared this with a guest before, but this kind of spurred it, is the reason I've gone down this entire path, becoming a coach, doing a podcast, trying to create better leaders is that I reflected on a mission statement that I made for my life. How can I affect one million veterans in the next 10 years? Why do I want to affect that? Is because I've had more friends than I can count either attempt suicide, commit suicide, and I want to break that. So I understand that mental struggle and the vulnerability that it takes to overcome that. So I'm going to read this book and I I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Yeah. Thank you for that, Joshua. And and you know, when I was reading through uh at least the one of the initial blogs on your website, right? Here's this guy born in West Virginia, coal mining, military family, right? All that stuff. And so there's parallels between, because I was born in 1980, so just a couple years before you, but the the parallels are roughly the same, right? Small town, Michigan, West Virginia, you've got this family that that has a way of life that's pretty static and they really enjoy it. And I love that in that blog you talked about how your sister was your role model, right? And so for me, it was my my older cousin. And so I think we have these individuals where, or we have these beginnings of life where things are a little bit shaky, they're a little bit hard, but they give us some good values. And we always have that person in our life we can look up to. For me, it was my cousin, for you it was your sister. And that's kind of the driving force that carries us later, right? And we can use that in some meaningful way. So I love the fact that even inside your logo for your business, there's a lion. Well, if you're looking at the camera, there's a massive lion right behind. I saw it and it got me excited. So that there's something about the energy from uh from lions and responsibility to care for others around them and to manage that and to care for the pride, if you will, uh, or be willing to accept the attacks but still keep moving forward meaningfully, right? There's something about that energy that's important. So I love the fact that our our stories are uh very, very similar in how we've navigated life to get to this place of saying, I'm willing to share a little bit of vulnerability about myself in the hopes that someone else doesn't have to go through this, that your Joshua, my pain can become a purpose. Right. And I I've said this quote uh quite a bit, and I think it's important, is a person's life's mission is oftentimes uncovered when they can become the person they needed when they were younger. Right. So the core of that, what that means is that in in our early years, we all have some sort of challenge that we encounter, right? So it's different for each person. And then around late 20s, early 30s, we we transition into a different phase of life and we learn how to overcome the challenge. So there's a process, we figure it out. But then the highest and best use of our time for the next, let's say, two decades in our 30s, 40s, possibly early 50s, is to help others overcome the exact same challenge that we overcame for themselves, right? That's why Joshua became a coach, right? He is helping people. So he's seen pain around him in some way, and he's saying, I want to solve that challenge for other people. So, as a former employee of my family's business where I didn't have that coach, I didn't have that mentor, I really wasn't allowed to be my authentic self. It doesn't really surprise people that I'm a coach, mentor, guide who helps others become the most authentic version of themselves. So be the person you needed when you were younger. And if you can do that, it's so deeply meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

The similarities and parallels now, and one, thanks for you know reading the blog, but it is truly insane to think about the parallels between between our life and what drove us, what drove us in into coaching, and it's those pain points. And I always and I learned this when I was getting my my master's degree in engineering, uh, learning curve efficiency, right? Is as as you produce something, you get you know better at it. Well, in coaching, we've already walked that path, we've already felt that pain, and we're confident enough in who we are sharing vulnerable stories to shorten that learning curve for other people. That was beautifully said. Be brief, be brilliant, be present, and be gone. Question one. What do you believe separates an ordinary leader from an extraordinary leader? Self-awareness.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

Yeah. Extraordinary leaders know themselves more deeply and then project that safety and security out to those around them. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 56:12

Second question: What is one resource that you could recommend to our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 56:16

I mentioned it already. Uh, thepeakfleet.com to learn your core values. Yep. And the book I know.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

Yes. And then the third question is if you had the ability to go back in time and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_00 56:35

Yeah. Based on what I said just about 15 minutes ago, I worked too much. I would invite my younger self to work just a little bit less and create more rapport, more harmonious relationships with those folks around me.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Final question. And this is a doozy. How can our listeners find you and add value to you?

SPEAKER_00 56:55

So thank you, Joshua. I know Amazon, Barnes and Obo, Google, and uh, Apple, you can find that book uh on all those channels. My website is michaelseaver.com. My middle name is Scott, so that's why there's the second S in there. So please visit MichaelsSaver.com. It's a repository for folks who are looking to go from that place of disengagement to that place of fulfillment, right? There's online courses, there's books, there's free downloads, there's 450 articles that I've written over time. So there's plenty of material there that you can search and explore for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

Yeah. Uh and all of those will be in the show notes uh for for this episode. So if you're listening to this, don't worry about feverishly writing it down. It's all captured nice and pretty in the show notes for you. Michael, this has been honestly one of my favorite podcast recordings that I've done so far. Thank you for being intentional with your time for the past hour and sharing your stories with me. All right, team. It is time for our after-action review. What are the top three takeaways you should have from this episode with Michael? First, is this has been one of my favorite episodes to date that I've recorded. We stayed after probably 10 minutes to just continue to talk and chat. And if we would have recorded that, that would have been continue fire of information that he was sharing with us. But the first takeaway is learn to control your time. As a leader, as we continue on our leadership bridge, we gain more influence, position, authority, title. The one thing we don't gain more of is our time. You have to learn to time block. And we talked about that, time bending. But the most important thing is planning forward. When you can plan your calendar out in advance, you can learn to say no when people ask you for things. If you do not control your time, someone else will, and you're never going to get it back. Number two, work family self. I do not like the word balance. I think if you chase balance in your life, it's unattaining them. And when you do finally achieve balance, you're going to continue to try and chase that goal of living a balanced life versus being intentional in the moments with your work and with your family and with yourself. And what we discussed, and one of the key takeaways, is self-care. If you learn to take care of yourself, then you can show up authentically like a battery, charging your own batteries and give energy at work and with your family and learn to live in harmony, not chasing the goal of living a balanced life, living a harmonious life. The last thing is being a lion. So my family crest is defend the defenseless. And it has a picture of a lion in the shield. A lion is something that I deeply resonate with because, in my eyes, what is a lion? It is strength under control. A lion knows when to attack, a lion knows when to protect their tribe, but a lion also knows when to be part of the tribe, be part of the family. And as a leader, you have to learn to control your leadership style. You can't show up 100% alpha, meaning you're demanding people to do things, and you can't show up 100% beta wishing that people will do things. You have to learn to be a mix of both. And being a lion, in my eyes, is that it's strength under control. Hey, if this episode brought you value, do me a favor, leave a comment, leave a review, but more importantly, share it with someone who's just starting out on their leadership journey. I'm your host, Josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yours. I'll see you next time.