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Tales of Leadership
#127: Travis Bradberry - Self-Awareness Wins Leadership
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Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning author of the #1 bestselling book The New Emotional Intelligence and the world’s leading authority on emotional intelligence, with more than 5 million books sold worldwide. With dual Ph.D.s in clinical and industrial psychology, he has dedicated his career to making emotional intelligence practical and accessible. His work has been featured in major outlets including TIME, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review.
Driven by a passion to help people apply emotional intelligence in their everyday lives, Dr. Bradberry built a successful company that provided EQ assessments and training to Fortune 500 organizations before selling the business just prior to COVID. After briefly stepping away, he returned to writing and researching emotional intelligence, believing it is more important today than ever in helping leaders and individuals thrive.
Connect with Travis Bradberry:
-Website:https://leadx.org/
-LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travisbradberry/
-Book: amazon.com/New-Emotional-Intelligence-Travis-Bradberry/dp/B0DVRGB979
Tales of Leadership is a leadership platform dedicated to developing Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) through real stories, shared experiences, and practical insight. Each episode breaks down the decisions, failures, and defining moments that shape leaders in the arena—offering honest, experience-driven lessons you can apply immediately. It’s built for those who want to grow with intention, elevate how they lead, and make a lasting impact—because leadership isn’t about rank, it’s about responsibility, and the greatest leaders live by one principle: deeds, not words.
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Self-Awareness As The Foundation
SPEAKER_00Most people are not really skilled at self-awareness, right? Yeah. This is a finding I I've seen over and over again, just you know, and I discussed this in the book. Just 36% of people are able to accurately identify their emotions as they happen. It's just not a skill a lot of us have. It's a skill a lot of us need a lot of work on. And that's really important because self-awareness is the foundation to emotional intelligence. You cannot hope to do things differently until you increase your self-awareness, until you see what it is you need to be working on, where your deficits are, also what your strengths are. And a lot of people are not, when it comes to their emotions, they aren't even very good at leaning into their strengths. They don't even realize what their strengths are and how they can magnify those.
SPEAKER_03Welcome
The Show Mission And Mindset
SPEAKER_03to Tells of Leadership. Our mission is simple: to develop a better leader by arming you with the tools required to lead with purpose, integrity, and accountability. This podcast is designed to do one thing. Help develop a more purposeful and accountable leader, what I like to call a path. Leaders who are in the arena, making tough decisions, lifting others up, and choosing people over their own egos. Through real stories and conversations with leaders who have walked that path. Powerful leadership lessons, you'll gain the wisdom needed to tackle any obstacle this world can throw. If you're ready to step into the arena and become the leader your team, your family, and your community need, you're in the right place. This is Tells of Leadership. All right, team, welcome back to Tells the Leadership. I am your host, Josh McMillian. Tells the Leadership is a veteran-owned podcast and leadership platform dedicated to helping develop more purposeful and accountable leaders, or what I like to call a PAL. And through real conversations, through shared experiences, we explore the defining moments that shape leadership, the successes, the failures, and the lessons learned along the way. It's about practical wisdom, earned through experience and a mindset required to lead with purpose, integrity, and accountability. The mission behind Tells the Leadership is simple: to eliminate toxic leadership by developing leaders who do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Leaders who inspire others through actions, take ownership when things go wrong and choose deeds over words every single day. Because leadership isn't about rank or titles, it's about responsibilities. If you're looking for leadership resources to help you along your journey to grow, to include additional podcasts, to include leadership articles and more, you can go to two places. The first one is Linktree slash Tells of Leadership. That's a one-stop shop. It has everything there. And you can also go to tellsofleadership.com. That is the primary website that I am currently building, and everything is there to include additional resources. Now let's jump into today's conversation. Today
Meet Dr. Travis Bradbury
SPEAKER_03I'm going to be interviewing Dr. Travis Bradbury. He is an award-winning author in the number one best-selling book, The New Emotional Intelligence. Dr. Bradbury is the world's number one emotional intelligence author, having sold more than five million books. He has written for or been covered by Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, Fortune Forbes, Fast Company, and the Harvard Business Review. I spent an hour with Travis going through emotional intelligence as he has defined it. And I will tell you, I never bring someone on the show if I have not read their book and wholeheartedly endorse them. As I'm trying to build a more purposeful, accountable leader, one of the biggest things that I have in there is deeds, not words. And through this experience, I have learned some dead space that I have when it comes to emotional intelligence. But today is a phenomenal episode. So there's two things that I'll challenge you with just up front. Go get this book, take it, and at the end of it, do the emotional IQ test to see where you sit and how you can get better. And then two, spend some time reflecting on who you are, because that is one of the biggest things that is going to make you a better leader today. So let's jump right into this episode. All right, Travis, welcome to Tales of Leadership. Again, I appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to talk about something that I'm deeply passionate about, um, leadership and then also emotional intelligence.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm I'm thrilled to be here.
SPEAKER_03I think one of the first areas that before we jump into your book, and I'll tell you, I have it took me probably about four months to go through your book. And it's not because I didn't have the time, it's because I I had a hard time not taking notes. Uh so I've literally wrote more probably words in your book than you wrote yourself, which was awesome because every time I flip a page, I found myself either going through a story or an experience that I had when it came to how I interacted with people, uh especially within the military community, and then just sending time reflecting on it. So, first of all, your book was an absolute home run. I have more feedback from that that I'm gonna constantly go back to. And I took the emotional intelligence test today, too. So maybe we can go into that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, that's really nice to hear. I mean, I think if you're approaching the book that way, you're really doing it the right way because it's ultimately a self-reflection exercise. I mean, yeah, the the the it's it's intended to guide you to new types of thought around how you approach people, how you approach EQ. So if it's if it's forcing you to think, it's doing its job.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, a hundred percent. Uh so I always like kind of shaping these episodes with really delving back into what where did your journey start before you wrote this book, or you became like one of the leading authorities on emotional intelligence and like one of the top authors in the US? Where did your journey start to get to where you are right now?
SPEAKER_00Well, I suppose it started with my mother growing up on a farm in South Dakota. That that's an environment where there's not a lot of uh there's a lot of focus on doing, not a lot of focus on uh talking about how you're feeling. Um, and so I'm I mean, I I grew up in in a great home, but there wasn't necessarily a lot of time spent focusing on emotions. And you know, I've always been a very driven person and sort of a high achiever, and I was an undergrad at UCSD learning about basically the seminal study that Peter Salave did at Yale on emotional intelligence, and it was like a light bulb went off. That it's there's this whole other skill set beyond your intellect that's a massive indicator of how you do in life. Yeah, and and I felt a little shortchanged that uh it was something that I wasn't taught, you know, growing up. So I, you know, I did undergrad in three years, and so by the time I started my my graduate program at 21, I was doing my own research. And you know, it was just it was very it was driven by passion, it was driven by me being something that I wanted to study. And I realized by the end of my second year of the program, people were calling me the emotional intelligence guy, which I thought was a little strange, but I but I realized, you know, that that that's really what I was all about. And I ended up starting a business with a professor halfway through grad school that focused on, you know, it started with emotional and self emotional intelligence assessment. We dove right into emotional intelligence training, ended up building a hugely popular program. Um, and I just really dedicated my career to studying, you know, studying EQ, but but really my niche has been helping people to use it, right? I I learned that early on that that my value was to distill it's sometimes complex research, but oftentimes just more than than the average person is willing to go dig up themselves and bring it to them with tools that they could use to apply it. You know, I mean that's that's really my niche.
SPEAKER_03I think when I grew up, so I grew up in rural West Virginia. Um kind of like that uh coal mining belt where deeds, not words, uh you you live throughout like the values that you bring to the table or what you what you sew. And then going into the military, I had zero emotional intelligence kind of leading up through that because especially combat arms and what I've done in the past, it was based upon your physicality as like how you show up to achieve the mission. And uh and a funny story before we dive into this is I I was I had my first interview when I transitioned to acquisitions uh with one of my 06 colonels, and she asked me what my soft skills were. And I looked at her and I was like, ma'am, I have no soft skills because I didn't know what that meant. I thought she was calling me soft.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that was by answering her question, though, really, in a way.
SPEAKER_03100%. I answer it by not having any clue, and that spurred something in me to like, okay, this is a clear weakness of mine. How can I get better, especially if I'm gonna be in the realm of working with more civilians? I need to learn how to communicate, read body language, do all of those things uh to kind of get to the desired end state. And I've been on a journey for a couple of years now, just trying to master leadership from my my mind's eye, and then bringing amazing people like you on. And how blessed are you, man, that you found your purpose so early in life and you have continued to refine that. And I really can see that the testament of the book that you wrote, it's it's a hundred percent phenomenal. And I guess I start off here is how do you define elevator pitch emotional
Defining Emotional Intelligence Simply
SPEAKER_03intelligence at the high level?
SPEAKER_00Sure. The emotional intelligence is awareness of your emotions uh or of emotions in yourself and others, and what you do with that awareness, how you use it to guide your behavior. People who are emotionally intelligent understand what's going on beneath the surface in themselves and in other people, and they're able to allow that to drive a sort of an innovative approach to difficult situations and sometimes even everyday situations. I think people who are not emotionally intelligent tend to get blindsided by their feelings. You know, their emotions end up driving the bus. And people who are emotionally intelligent and understand what's behind what's happening, have an uh an interesting, uh, more effective way to approach things.
SPEAKER_03One of the things that I'm starting to see now is themes, and then high high performing leaders have a very high functional EQ. And I think that that's something that at least within the military, that we don't often value, especially within more combat arms. And I think there's a skill that requires that. But from your perspective and from your research, what are some of the most common professions? I'm curious that has a lack of emotional intelligence.
SPEAKER_00What I find is it's
EQ In Careers And Culture
SPEAKER_00it's not the only professions that lack emotional intelligence are those that self-select for don't self-select for it. So I'll give you an example of a way the military does self-select for it or an aspect. So at this point, cadets are have to go through this sort of grit test, right? And Angela Duckworth made a whole study of grit based on that. And and that some aspects of that sort of mental fortitude are are emotional intelligence skills, so that's kind of an accidental bringing in of high EQ people. What I see tends to be less profession-focused and more uh organizational culture focused. So in my 2005 book, uh there was a graph that showed that EQ tends to go down above middle management in the typical organization. And uh the same thing in my 2009 book, but in this new book, I found that that it's changing, that companies are increasingly value, value in EQ for people above middle management, and EQ scores are actually going up. And that's important because the top performers within any job within any job title are those with the highest levels of emotional intelligence. And emotional intelligence actually becomes an even more distinguishing characteristic the more refined your profession is, because you're operating in a very narrow range of skill sets. If you're a surgeon, guess what? You know, 95% of the people in your profession are as skilled or within the same bubble skill set as you. And it becomes these other skills, these soft skills that dictate your performance.
SPEAKER_03So soft skills, pun intended, uh, based on the previous story. Yeah, absolutely. The that that's an interesting perspective, is that I think that's one of the things that I've noticed when senior military leaders, especially at like the senior 06 level, um, and then the general level, what separates those individuals is a hundred percent their emotional intelligence. Like at as a like an acumen level of just being a senior military leader, they're at the same bar, but they're not at the same bar when it comes to how they interact with themselves, process their emotions, and then how they go into the world and interact with other people. So that's a that's a really interesting way of shaping that. Do you think that with the rise of more uh focus on bringing in people from diverse backgrounds has kind of shaped the rise of being more focused on EQ recent?
SPEAKER_00You know, I just think I I I I don't a diversity of of perspectives, of opinions, of backgrounds. I mean, it it only helps, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, what I've seen is just a greater acceptance of psychology in general.
SPEAKER_02Ah, okay.
SPEAKER_00You know, right? Because I was an 80s kid, uh a 90s kid in high school, and and there was a transformation happening. I mean, um Goldman's emotional 95 emotional intelligence book being on uh you know the cover of Time Magazine and on Oprah, that was a big deal that people were even thinking about psychology and and starting to translate it to uh a workplace skill, right? A career success kind of skill. Um, so for me, I just I just think that's been the biggest driver is this this transition toward towards understanding that that soft skills matter because I mean when I was doing this stuff at the turn of the millennia, I heard over and over again, this is just a fad. Why are you focusing your career on this? And a decade later, people were still saying that. Now nobody says that because it's it's accepted as fact. So there's a lot of momentum behind it, and there's a lot of change behind it these days. Which the the flip side of that is the organizations that aren't applying this, the people that aren't applying this really, really stick out like a sore thumb in this environment.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, a hundred percent. And before we we start breaking into the the different types, is I've a hundred percent noticed that too, especially working with industry. You can tell when people view their employees not as a person that I need to try to lead and cultivate and grow, uh, but as an object to get a result out of. And I always kind of think of that as like a transitional leader. And the metaphor is I need to get across this creek. So I'm gonna use you as a stepping stone to get across this creek so I can achieve whatever I need to achieve at the end, versus people who try to hold the rope and pull people with them and raise them up along the way.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. That's that's a nice metaphor, and and and and it has a lasting impact on people, right? Um, everyone will help you across the creek in that moment, but they'll make plans for the next time around if they don't feel valued and they don't feel like treat being being treated like like a human being and and and their skill set being valued.
SPEAKER_03So kind of digging into the book now, so you the way you structured this I would is genius, by the way. Uh, you you
Why The Book Includes A Test
SPEAKER_03quickly define the terms of what we're going to be discussing, uh, then how you can apply it and the practical application of the tests that you need to take. So you tie accountability to it, which I think is a lot of the things that I miss or I'm I'm missing in a book when I'm reading it for self-development. It's great that you give me all these tools and resources, but then I have to go on the backside of that and think through, okay, where are my weaknesses and spend more time reflecting, versus you already have an emotional intelligence test at the end that you can take. And then I'll quickly identify, all right, these are my top deficiencies that I should spend some more time being way more deliberate on. Could you walk me through kind of quickly how and why you structured your book that way?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So, okay. First, you don't need to have the most in-depth understanding of what emotional intelligence is to begin applying it in your life. Um, you know, a couple of chapters delving into what it is and how it operates, that that lays the foundation for you to get to work. Because ultimately, what matters for you as an individual is what emotional intelligence is for you and the environment that you're applying it in. So you know, that's why just the front third of the book is what it is, and the back two-thirds is let's get to work. Let's start applying this and let's start thinking about what it what it means for you. So that's very deliberate. And and that process of digging in and getting to work and increasing your self-awareness and thinking about yourself, that's that's where that's where it happens when it comes to increasing your EQ. The assessment portion, the test that comes with the new emotional intelligence is absolutely essential. You need an objective picture of where you stand today. And you're not going to be able to do that effectively without an emotional intelligence test. You know, and that test is something that my company, Leadex, you know, we sell for $50, you know, all day long to corporations, but I have to include it with the book. I would be a complete hypocrite if I wasn't allowing my readers to take that test and get this snapshot of their strengths and weaknesses because it really guides where you spend your time. Um and that's why your test results even pinpoint which of which which three of the 60 strategies in the book you should get to work on first because you're going to get the most uh the most from it.
SPEAKER_03When you're disseminating this to clients, do you have themes um of common weaknesses
The Biggest EQ Blind Spots
SPEAKER_03that people have? Is there usually like, hey, this is the the biggest blind spot that everyone has when it comes to emotional intelligence versus I guess like personal competence and then social competence? Is there ones that just are universal that stick out all the time?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Uh the the biggest being most people are not really skilled at self-awareness, right? Yeah. This is a finding I I've seen over and over again, just you know, and I discussed this in the book. Just 36% of people are able to accurately identify their emotions as they happen. It's just not a skill a lot of us have, it's a skill a lot of us need a lot of work on. And that's really important because self-awareness is the foundation to emotional intelligence. You cannot hope to do things differently until you increase your self-awareness, until you see what it is you need to be working on, where your deficits are, also what your strengths are. And a lot of people are not, when it comes to their emotions, they aren't even very good at leaning into their strengths. They don't even realize what their strengths are and how they can magnify those. The other thing, and I discussed this in the book, and it was really interesting because right before I started working on the book, I did a series of keynotes for uh one of the largest telecommunications companies in the nation, you know, very top of the Fortune 500. And and we did a lot of uh data analysis for them, and it confirmed something that I've seen over and over again. And that is, and this is a high EQ organization, but they were very skilled at self-management until they weren't. And what that means is their focus on it, they were good at it, but when their stress got out of control, that's when their self-management skills come out, right? So it's as long as I'm able to keep my stress at a certain level, I'm really good and I'm focused. And when that derails, everything derails. So that became the focus for them. And and they're not alone. So a lot of the book is focused on this as well is stress management techniques and trying to keep yourself in that zone where you have perspective and control.
SPEAKER_03I think that's that's one of the strengths that I had was stress management techniques. And I think that's just based off how I was raised. Going through, you know, ranger school, I think was one of the real foundation pieces for me of going through a 60, it was 90 days for me because I failed one of the cycles. So I had to redo it because I loved it so much. But having to lead people who have limited food, limited sleep, and you're mentally and physically exhausted, and then not being overly emotional, how you handle that and then go into combat or whatever we do within military, uh, like that's a skill set that I think is really universal from a veteran perspective or combat or a military perspective. But it's much harder that I've seen. And civilian side, because you you never really want to rock the boat. I guess if that makes sense. You don't want to try to have stressful uh events, but Murphy gets a vote. Uh, you you don't fight the plan, you fight the enemy, and things happen. And I think people don't view it that way. And it it does churn. So that's awesome. That that's at least a theme, because that was where that was one of my theories kind of going into this conversation, is that was kind of universal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and well, you know, based on our interactions, you you strike me as as a very deliberate person, right? And that's that's uh a makeup that thrives in the military environment. And that is a makeup that is great for stress management because you have to be proactive and deliberate in managing stress. And I think that's what what what bites people in the behind is is they get a little carried away and they say yes to too many things, they aren't deliberate. And and that's actually the method that I teach in the book is to try to get people to be more deliberate about how they manage stress. Again, keeping yourself in that optimal performance zone. There's no better way to manage stress.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So, okay, so we defined emotional intelligence at a high angle. Uh, now could you break it up um between like the four quadrants
The Four EQ Skills Framework
SPEAKER_03that they have? So the two personal uh competencies, social companies, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and then relationship management. What I what I'd like to try to do um is kind of break down each one of those. And I I chose three that really stuck with me. Um, and I'm curious if we could maybe walk through some of those. But 100%, I want to get your feedback on it. So if I missed one, I'd love to see which ones were the biggest themes as we walk through there. But if we could start with social awareness, if you could kind of define that one in the first personal competence.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah, sure. So you mean self-awareness, right? Start yeah, self-awareness. Yeah. So the personal competence is the aspects of emotional intelligence that are about you. And the the book is is structured around four EQ skills. So these first two skills about you are self-awareness and self-management. Self-awareness is how well you understand your emotions, but also your tendencies. So it's not just understanding your emotions in the moment, but being aware of the situations where you thrive, the people and and and environments that push your buttons and derail you and hijack your emotions. That this that is the awareness piece. And self-management is what you do with that, right? Guiding what you're feeling to achieve a positive result. It isn't about stuffing your feelings, it isn't about turning them off, it's about addressing them, understanding them, and and actually using them as a source of uh of motivation to get the kind of action that is going to get results.
SPEAKER_03With the first one, I always see that from a leadership perspective. You can't lead other people until you learn to lead yourself. Self-leadership is really the building block of what you need to do in terms of going out and influencing others. And I always think of influence as like the term, if I had to put a rose on what leadership is. One of the things that I pulled from the self-awareness strategies out of the 18 that you listed was kind of taking
Sleep And Stress Change Everything
SPEAKER_03care of yourself. In your opinion, do what do you think is the most important strategy from the self-awareness strategy? If someone were to have to pull one of those from the book, and I know they're built based on each individual's case, but from your perspective, which one do you think would be the most impactful?
SPEAKER_00It yeah, it it it really depends on on the person. It really, really does. I I can't say that any any of the single strategy, self-awareness strategies is more important than any other because it depends on your unique makeup. I I think that understanding, you know, and that's like why the test is so important, understanding what's unique to you and what you need to work on, what's going to open doors for you, that's that's what's so important.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, with me, what really resonated was I noticed a theme through those of managing your stress, getting enough sleep, managing stimulants, like the role that coffee plays, all of those things are extremely important to me. And what I've learned is that my emotional intelligence dips as I get less sleep. So sleep is my little excuse monster. If I get less sleep, I turn into those snicker commercials where you just don't want to be around me until I have one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and I'll give you an example of that being unique to people. So I'm someone, even though I'm I'm uh fairly type A and and hard driving, I just need a lot of sleep biologically. I always have. Um, if I'm not getting eight to nine hours, it's it's it's a problem. So it's always been something I'm very aware of. The people that can sneak by on four and a half, five hours tend to be less aware of this and and and and more surprised when sleep is a problem for them because it's not in their face all the time. So everyone needs to get enough, believe me. Everyone needs to know what what their threshold is. And that's why I dedicate a strategy to that and explaining you know what happens in your brain, right? Why you have these, you know, you need sleep because these toxic proteins build up in your brain throughout the day. They're a byproduct of normal neuronal activity. And the reason you feel like crap if you pull in all night or you sleep two hours is you literally have toxic proteins impeding how your neurons function. Because your brain can only clear them out when you're getting um deep sleep and REM sleep. So, you know, there's a biological basis for it. And I try to coach people into understanding like what their threshold is and how to make it a priority.
SPEAKER_03Have you ever looked into like different types of like heat and cold therapy in terms of like stress management of how that potentially affects emotional intelligence, like doing uh cold plunge or long-term exposure within like a sauna, like cumulatively over a week? Have has that ever been something that people have done, at least from your coaching perspective, on kind of managing stress?
SPEAKER_00You know, everything I've seen has been focused on sort of physiological outcomes, health-related outcomes. Yeah, but it is interesting how temperature can affect your body and how it responds. You know, going back to sleep, a lot of people don't realize that you fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply when you're in a cold environment.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00So, and and and that was something again, because sleep was such a focus of mine that I discovered early on. And I just I invest, you know, $50, $60 a month in cranking my AC up, even in the winter.
SPEAKER_03In California, that's expensive. I live there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and granted, I live in California, so it's not it's never 30 degrees outside in the night, but you know, whatever temperature the room is at, I temporarily say I it needs to be three degrees colder. I want cold air blowing on me when I fall asleep. So yeah, there's there are physiological components that that can affect your mental state. Um, I just haven't really seen, you know, a sauna study connected to EQ.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that I always find that like fascinating because I jumped on that uh cold plunge. I have some like nerve damage and stuff in my neck. So every morning, uh four in the morning, I wake up like I'm a robot and I go jump in my 45 degree water cold plunge. And just the overall, not necessarily stress management, but how I mentally and cognitively feel is a game changer. I go in there foggy, um, not feeling the best, kind of feeling sorry for myself, thinking that this is stupid that I'm getting ready to jump into cold water. And then immediately after, like I am a different person. I am fully switched on and I'm ready to go attack the day. Uh, but that's uh a self-battle every morning that I have to do. I was just curious if you've ran into that yet from just the amount of studies that you've done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and not to not to drive too far out of my lane, but um a lot of of and and I talk about this in the book, just sort of the the environment that we live in is not the environment that our our brains were built for, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh technology, computers, you know, this is stuff that's that's 40, 50 years old uh versus eons of physical development of the human body. And the same could probably be said for being in a cold environment. I mean, uh 10,000 years ago, when you woke up, my guess is your butt went out into the cold. And there's a a benefit for that. I mean, I also I have my cervical spine fused, I've had plenty of neck problems, and I was thinking when there was a cryotherapy place near town, uh in our near my home, I was doing that every single day. Um, and I absolutely felt mental benefits from that. I don't know what what the specific component is, but I I understand how you're saying it it made you feel good, and there's you know got to be some biological basis for that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, a hundred percent. So kind of continuing with the self-management, uh, the or sorry, the self-awareness. The other one that
Growth Mindset And Neuroplasticity
SPEAKER_03I noticed in the theme, and I kind of added several in there was just a growth mindset. I think you have to begin to shift your perspective on how you encounter stressful events, but also just being a creative problem solver. So there were several in there, reflect on avoiding guilt, uh learning from mental mistakes, uh taking your brain off autopilot. But I really I think one of the key things that stuck with me is just developing a growth mindset. And that's very hard for people to do. Could you kind of walk me through that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, ultimately, life is a series of you know, pluses and minuses, right? Setbacks, challenges. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. And and being able to approach challenges with a growth mindset, yeah, uh, seeing seeing setbacks as an obstacle to overcome, a temp as a temporary setback as opposed to a reflection on your lack of capacity and your lack of ability and your lack of skill absolutely changes how you approach things. And, you know, there's these little triggers for how we think that capture a lot of how the brain operates. And that's why I like the growth mindset work so much. And I use that as a strategy because ultimately seeing failure as an opportunity for growth it exists for a lot of people. And it's just a way to very quickly shift your brain, shift your mindset and move on without having to think too hard about what you're doing.
SPEAKER_03Today's show sponsor comes from 10th Mountain Whiskey and Spirit Company. They are a philanthropic award-winning craft distillery located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. For being a listener of Tales of Leadership, you get 10% off on any order using the promo code PandoCommando when you place an order at 10th Whiskey.com. Both of those are in the show notes, so you'll be able to find them. 10th Mountain Whiskeys and Spirit Company honors heroes and they craft a legacy. I've commanded two organizations in the 10th Mountain, and both of which are very deeply impactful to me. This is a company that I stand behind. And if you're looking for a great bottle of bourbon, look no further at 10th Mountain Whiskey and Spirit Company. Back to the show. I I never thought about failure as an opportunity until I went to go get my um systems engineering masters. And then you talk about iterative process. Well, how do you iteratively develop something, a system or whatever it is? You you typically fail. And then once you fail, you build and you make that better and you continue to iterate on it until you get to peak performance. Uh, but I think within life, we always get stuck on I failed, it's final, or I'm never going to overcome that obstacle. And I my mindset always goes back to, and again, military, there's four types of effects that an obstacle can do. It can block, turn, fix, or disrupt, but it's up to us to choose which one that is. Uh, is it going to block you or is it just going to disrupt you on your path to kind of move forward? That when you encounter kind of more civilian perspective from this side, what is one of the biggest um intentional acts that someone I guess can do to begin to cultivate a growth mindset?
SPEAKER_00The thing that I see over and over again is how much driven successful people are willing to suffer to get ahead.
unknownYeah. Right.
SPEAKER_00But when it comes to increasing their self-awareness, they can't tolerate it and they won't do it. And they just they do this, you know, they they they they're they're and that's because we've been taught that our flaws are immutable, right? They're a reflection, you know, we have strengths and weaknesses. You know, people will I I've been a surfer my whole life since I was 12 years old. I do it just about every day. And people say, Oh, you how come you didn't go pro? And I said, Well, because I'm not a great athlete. That's why, you know, there's just certain things I can and can't do. And there are characteristics, physical characteristics, or or even your IQ is fixed at an early age, right? IQ is the rate at which you can assimilate new information, it's measured relative to your peers. So there are qualities that we can't change. Therefore, we're taught that why am I going to focus on my weaknesses? Well, uh, emotional intelligence operates on a brain pathway that's actually very uh flexible and malleable and plastic. It changes with effort. So it's unique to, you know, I may be, I may have, I may not have fast twitch muscle fiber, so I'm never gonna be a professional athlete, but I can physically change my brain and improve my emotional intelligence. So people need to learn that when it comes to self-awareness around their behavior, around these soft skills, that leaning into that discomfort yields results, right? Whereas if I give up my career as a psychologist because I think I'm gonna turn pro at sport, I'm never gonna get results, right? That is not a malleable skill set, but emotional intelligence is.
SPEAKER_03I I uh had an opportunity to go to Hawaii for a month for work as we're standing up a new organization, and I tried surfing. I will tell you those the smallest waves in the world, but when I stood up, I was like, I am the greatest surfer of all time, and it's awesome.
SPEAKER_00And let me tell you, all my middle-aged friends they that are that are just you know average Joes at surfing, all think they're the greatest surfers in the world. It's that that that the sport it tricks you. That's what makes it fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I went to the North Shore after that and I saw some of the 20-foot waves, and that was towards the peak season of January, February is when the bigger waves are coming in. I was like, no, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00Like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that'll change your mind going out there.
SPEAKER_03So it's funny that you talk about uh like how you can retrain your brain. It really taps into neuroplasticity. I kind of wrote that down is that we can, as long as we stay routined and disciplined over a period of time, we can retrain how we do certain tasks or how we think through problems. And I kind of I think honestly, that's a beautiful transition into the next category, which is self-management strategies.
Gratitude And Better Self-Management
SPEAKER_03And one of those that I pulled out was kind of cultivating gratitude. Uh, I think that that is probably one of the hardest things that I had to do personally, of looking for the good, especially in bad. And I'll give you an extreme case. Uh, I lost one soldier that still haunts me to this day, and I've lost several uh from rural West Virginia, and he died from a tragic accident. And I thought, like, how can I find gratitude or be grateful in that specific instance? Like a very extreme example. And I spent some time reflecting and praying on it. Uh, and I thought through his parents were from rural West Virginia, about 30 minutes away from where I met my wife. Uh, the haulers of West Virginia, Hurricane was the name of where it was at. I was put in that position, I think, and I'm grateful for the opportunity because I was able to help the family process that strategy. Um, and as I started thinking through that, it helped me mentally get over that event where I viewed myself as a failure because a leader fails with anything that their organization propels to do. And the extreme point was, hey, you lost a soldier, you did the worst thing that you could do as a leader. From your perspective, cultivating gratitude, uh, how can people do that and why is it important in motional intelligence, especially as we transition to the next one, which is the self-management strategies?
SPEAKER_00Well, your your anecdote really points to the way I see this because there's two aspects to cultivating an attitude of gratitude. One is being grateful for positive things. Our brains um grow numb to the winds very quickly. That's just how how how the brain is wired. If you think about again, 10,000 years ago, uh a sustenance, you know, type existence, you're struggling every day just to survive, um, perhaps perhaps that mentality isn't isn't necessarily going to get you to plant the crops for the next season or whatever, you know. So so being focused on threat is is is uh an evolutionary um advantage for the brain. But it doesn't necessarily operate well in this environment that we live in. And when you try to just take these brief moments to focus on what you're grateful for, it can change your mentality very quickly and lower your stress levels. The example I I cited in the book was this great study at UC Davis, where they did something very simple, and that they just required people, uh, subjects in the experimental group, they had calendar invites that went off you know four times a day, and all they had to do was stop and think of something they were grateful for. The control group had a calendar invite that went off four times a day, and the instruction was to just stop and think. And cortisol is a stress hormone. Cortisol levels in the experimental group went down by 23%. It took them four minutes a day to do that, right? Focusing on positivity matters. Now, cultivating an attitude of gratitude in a quote unquote negative environment when you're dealing with something challenging like the like the loss of life, that is about having a growth mindset, right? There's gratitude for the situation, and that is that I can learn something from this. And what is the loss of that soldier's life? What you know, what is it producing if not learning, right? There's value in that, and and and it's honoring someone or honoring the challenge of a situation by trying to say, how can I grow from this? How can this make me better? How can this sort of sharpen my saw? Um, or or even uh yeah, so so to me, gratitude also has connection to the the development of a growth mindset.
SPEAKER_03This is why I love podcasting. Um, I get an opportunity to talk to someone on emotional intelligence for an hour, really, just to help me selfishly become a better leader. Like really, at the end of the day, this is one of the reasons I absolutely love podcasting. You're you kind of explaining that to me was awesome. I appreciate you kind of walking through that. I never tied it to kind of developing a growth mindset, I always looked at cultivating gratitude from a negative standpoint. It's easy to hunt for the good stuff, it's hard to hunt for the good stuff in bad times. And maybe unfortunately, I've just been put in more bad times than than most people have. So I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I you know, for me early in my career, it was, you know, podcast didn't exist, right? And it was this sort of all these media interviews, they last two minutes long, and you're supposed to drop your sound bites, and that's how it's supposed to be. It's awkward. Podcasting is fun, you just have a conversation and explore a topic, and yeah, I really enjoy it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I I've noticed the theme now that you and I both have uh we have to have our sleep in self-management strategies. You had sleep hygiene, uh, which was something that I also enjoyed. Could you walk me through sleep hygiene?
Sleep Hygiene Caffeine Alcohol Screens
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so okay, the quality of your sleep often matters more than how much you get. And for a lot of people, they have busy lives, stressful jobs, little kids at home. You know, there's just you know, nine hours isn't realistic. And and so maybe it's just gonna be seven. Yeah, but you want that seven to be the best you can make it absolutely. And most people don't realize how they're shooting themselves in the foot. So your brain can only achieve this this deep, high quality sleep when it isn't being impeded by something. And there's I'll say three things that impede it the most. Um, one is a st any sort of stimulant, and the biggest one that that people blow it with is caffeine, drinking caffeine after lunchtime. Caffeine has a really long half-life, six hours. So if at three o'clock you're having espresso because you're dragging in the afternoon, you know, good luck getting quality sleep at nine or 10 p.m. because 50% of that is still going to be in your system. And it's gonna prevent your brain from getting the depth, the level of sleep that it needs. On the flip side, things that Sedate you and help you sleep, also affect your brain in a way that affects you know that that damage this the sleep cycle and prevent you from reaching natural quality sleep. So if you're uh an ambient person or you know uh taking Benadryl because it makes you groggy to sleep, or three glasses of wine, you really want to wean yourself off of this stuff slowly and allow your body to achieve a natural state of sleep. Um, the other one that people kill themselves with that's poor sleep hygiene is is blue light in the evening. Sunlight in the morning, it uh it's high in blue wavelength light. This halts melatonin production. In the afternoon, sunlight is orange and red in wavelength increasingly, which allows your brain to produce melatonin and prepare you for sleep. So if you uh have a nice big uh MAC monitor like I do, and you and at 9 30 at night you're trying to get a project done for an hour and bathing yourself in that blue light, it's gonna impair your sleep. So, sleep hygiene, how how you how you how you approach it is a big has a big impact.
SPEAKER_03It's funny, I I spent um probably like $60 for each one of these curtains, but they're the drawdown curtains that have aluminum on the inside and it blocks out every single piece of light. And I spent so much money on my bed more of those than I should, because I've learned that sleep is something that I have to have. And I've uh I even went a step further. I don't know if you have one of these or not, but it's a whoop. Uh, it tracks all my biomechanics of like how long I sleep, how long I stay awake, or my uh micro awakes of how long my deep um REM sleep is every night. And I've learned for me, I need to have at least eight hours of sleep because in that eight hours of sleep, I'll probably have 30 to 40 minutes of just awake time, um, which is a lot, but that's what I've learned. I need about seven hours and 20 minutes to get all the REM sleep that I need. So that means I needed a full eight hours of sleep. So I totally nerded out on this because I wanted to try to improve.
SPEAKER_00I'm three weeks into my aura ring. So I'm I'm doing the same thing. I was a little late to the game on that. I I didn't realize I was just learning how much data it provides, it's really interesting, you know, on your sleep cycle. Um yeah, it's great, it's a great tool.
SPEAKER_03One of the things you have to tell me how this like have a glass of wine. So one of the things I'm trying to do this year is not to drink it at all, which is an extreme because I love bourbon. Uh, it's like my favorite thing in the world. Uh, but I if I have one shot of bourbon or like one drink throughout the night before I go to bed, my sleep quality erodes by like over 60%. Uh, it is insane. But just a little bit of alcohol. I feel like I'm really tired and I feel like I'm getting really good sleep, but like, hey, I look at the science behind it. Nope, I slept like poop last night and I'm gonna feel like poop today.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I and it that comes back to a half-life issue as well. I'm I'm I'm struggling to remember the specific math. I can't remember if you burn a quarter or half a drink an hour. But the idea, you know, if you have a glass of bourbon at 5 p.m. and you go to bed at nine or 10, you're gonna do a lot better than if you have it at 8 or 9 p.m.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00Because you want to give your body enough time to process the alcohol and get it out of your system. You know, that's it's it's it's it's deceptive. It tricks you. Any anything that sedates you is really tricky because it's like, wow, it makes me sleepy and I feel like I sleep great. I was groggy, but no, it it actually works against you. Oh, that's hilarious. But I had that I had that the other day. I I don't drink a lot, and and we're at a brewery at four o'clock in the afternoon, you know, and and and I had a couple beers and I slept great that night because I had six hours to get it out of my system, and that's big difference between that and 8 p.m.
SPEAKER_03We would always go to uh folktale winery. Uh, it was out by Carmel. It was a little winery out there, like Carbell by the Sea, and it was amazing, like the best wine that I've ever had. And now I'm just looking about like while I was going through my master's degree, I was not helping set the conditions at all. Uh, because I was out of wine like all the time. So, transition to the next one. Now we're kind of focusing more on how we interact with people, not versus how we we interact ourselves,
Listening And Clear Communication
SPEAKER_03the social awareness strategies. So I've kind of fed a couple from my perspective. Which one was your favorite that you chose from from that section?
SPEAKER_00My favorite social awareness strategy. Tell me yours.
SPEAKER_03I think mine is being a great communicator. Because at the end of the day, how we orally and uh verbally communicate to people determines the success of mission outcomes, especially in the military. And it also requires you to be malleable. So I come from rural West Virginia. I could go back and I can have a conversation with my dad or someone from that background who speaks a totally different dialect of English, versus having a conversation with a high functional engineer who has an aerodynamic degree in something that I can't even pronounce. Understanding how to communicate to people is a skill set that separates, in my opinion, good leaders from extraordinary. It's that little bit of extra and they understand how to do it. That's a that's something that I've always been trying to improve on. So that that 100% was was my favorite.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's interesting. And and and I think it's something that that that people tend to lose sight of because you do need to tailor your communication to the recipient. And that's hard to do if you're not thinking about how the recipient sees you, sees the world, right? And and and the I believe there's a strategy in the book, you know, walking a mile in their shoes, yeah. Um, really trying to see what the world looks like through someone else's eyes. Um, and I think that points to probably my favorite strategy is being a fabulous listener.
SPEAKER_03I I wrote that one down. That was my second favorite one.
SPEAKER_00So that's yeah, I I think that people listening is one of these skill sets that we all think we're good at. You know, just like I think 90% of people think they have above average IQ. Yeah, and that's mathematically impossible. You know, um, and and it's listening is a similar thing. People think they're great at it, and most people are terrible at it because you have to do the one thing that most people struggle with, and that is focus on the other person more than you do on yourself during a conversation. We don't do that, we think about how what they're saying affects us, what we're gonna say next, what we need to be doing next after this conversation, and we're not in the moment focusing on the other person.
SPEAKER_03So that was one of the hardest parts for me, too. As so, going back to being a fabulous listener, avoiding distractions. So, whenever I have the opportunity to kind of lead a team, one of the things I love doing is if we have a meeting, all electronics stay outside, phones, all of it just stays outside. So we're we're intentional, or if I have a conversation with someone, especially if I'm working on some podcast or something, and my son walks in. As much as I don't want to do it, I will completely disassociate myself from the screen and everything that I'm doing, and I'll turn around physically and I'll be be with him. It has taken me a very long time to learn to listen to people without an agenda. Uh so I'm not listening to you to try to drive a point that I want to drive. I want to listen to you and understand where you are coming from, like empathetic listening. That is a another skill set that separates good from great leaders, just the ability to listen without an agenda.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it's and if it's something you don't do naturally, you can train yourself to do it. And you can reap the same benefits from someone who just naturally has been doing this as a result of you know, just whatever the environment they grew up in, or you know, it's it's that's the beauty of EQ is these very specific skills. Uh, first of all, there's very low risk in trying them, right? What do you have to lose applying it? And and I see this over and over again. You know, I've been doing this for a long time now. People say it's amazing when I try it, what it does and how people respond to me. Yeah, and I've always heard this, it's the same thing. People will say, I went through your EQ training at work and I read your book, and the way my spouse responds to me is night and day. I wasn't even thinking about applying it at home. Well, emotional intelligence is a foundational skill. We have more than 400 emotional experiences every single day. They are the primary driver of our behavior. And when you focus on them, it trickles into everything you say and do.
SPEAKER_03Hopefully, my wife never listens to this because she's going to be like, Well, you haven't learned a single thing, Josh. I'm sure there's something. Um, so the last one on this one that I also loved, and I think it's one of the hardest, is trusting your intuition. That is, I think, a trait and a talent that not everyone necessarily has of being able to do
Trusting Intuition With Real Science
SPEAKER_03that. Could you walk me through how that ties to emotional intelligence of trusting your intuition?
SPEAKER_00Well, trusting your intuition is an awareness strategy, right? Because you are fed the, you know, there's a really interesting study conducted at the University of the Netherlands that I discuss in the book.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And what they found is that people who are blind because they have lesions on their visual cortex, what that means is their eyes operate perfectly, their optic nerve sends the signal to the base of their brain where the visual cortex processes what the eyes see. If you have lesions in your visual cortex and it doesn't work, your brain doesn't know what your eyes are seeing. Therefore, you have you're blind. It's blackness. What they did is they put these people in front of computer monitors that flashed images of people demonstrating strong emotion. And if you have sight, there are mirror neurons in your brain that ensure that you involuntarily mimic the emotion that you see on the screen. So if someone's angry, you will involuntarily furrow your brow a little bit. If someone is really happy, you'll crack a little smile. This is just a social function of the brain. And they found that these people who were blind because of the cortical lesions were having the same reactions as the people with sight. This really kind of freaked the researchers out because our understanding of the brain was that every signal has to travel to the base of the brain. It then travels across the brain to the limbic system where emotions are generated, and then you have rational thought about it. Well, this led to the discovery that there's actually signals that that as you you see something, it it you know it travels along your optic nerve, it was branching off to the limbic system, ensuring that you're actually having an emotional reaction to what you see before you're even aware of what you see. Oh wow. This is intuition. There's other forms of intuition, but this is an important aspect of intuition. We've all experienced this. I guarantee you, you've walked into a room full of people and you can feel something's going on. You have no idea what it is. It's not because everyone's going, you know, and there isn't an obvious physical thing happening, but you can feel it. That's intuition, and so it's a social awareness strategy strategy to try to key into this and try to understand what your brain is telling you.
SPEAKER_03I think that that that's universal too, because that reminds me of uh a time when when I was in Afghanistan and it was right before we had like a very large like combat firefight, but it was like a stillness in there. I could just sense that there was something off. And that was if I had to put a time on when I 100% like listened to my intuition, it was that time, and it paid dividends because like immediately after we we were attacked by I think over like a hundred different Taliban fighters at the time, but I could sense it, and it's hard to put that into words to someone who maybe has not felt that, but how you just explained it is a hundred percent spot on. You can feel emotions before you enter into a room and you can put words to it. It's it's your body's way of just picking up on social cues or people's body languages or facial expressions, whatever it is. Your body can process emotions, which is crazy to me, before you can even think through it, which is insane.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and emotions are often the most powerful around survival, right? It's it's survival instinct. If if uh you know, like my neighbor's got this uh this uh rescue Doberman, yeah that just it just wants to bite somebody, you could tell, right? And when he gets if I'm walking down the street and he's real wound up, it's it's interesting how strong of a reaction you can get. Uh and so my guess is you were in an environment where either you saw something you know in your environment that you couldn't quite process it at a distance or it wasn't, or a sequence of events that your brain is picking up on to perceive the threat. And and that strong emotion is intuition, and and and people who are adept at understanding this are very effective decision makers. And you don't have to be in a firefight in Afghanistan to have strong emotion in an environment that can guide you to a more effective outcome.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, unfortunately, all of my uh experiences are extreme on the opposite end. Uh but yes, 100% like how you listed that is that villages, there's people moving, there's people gardening, there's people doing farming and all this stuff. But when people go away and they lock their doors, it's like the wild west, or there's little girls playing and their their fathers are running out and grabbing them, like you know, extreme case that something something is getting ready to happen. Um, they've been notified, but uh but that is universal. And I love how the science of like leadership is like it's universal regardless of whatever field that you find yourself in, just how you process that information. The last one. So this one was probably my favorite in terms of relationship management strategies, and the biggest
Relationship Skills And Surviving Bad Bosses
SPEAKER_03one that stuck out to me um was toxic leaders and bad bosses, how to survive a bad boss. I I read that one several times uh because I I loved it, talking about the red flags and the different types of toxic leaders. But before we we dive into that, would you mind kind of laying out flat relationship management?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, relationship management is using the other three emotional intelligence skills in concert to get a more effective outcome for your relationship. Um, it's it's it's awareness of what's going on with you, awareness of what's going on with the other person, and using your self-management skill to reach a more effective outcome. I'll I'll I'll spend 30 seconds on my favorite relationship management strategy. Uh, you know, it's it's being willing to lose the battle to win the war. Okay. And that's because we love, it's the biggest mistake people make when it comes to relationship management. We are so set, uh, we're so enamored with proving that we're right, that in the moment we will dig in and win some meaningless small battle that overall that erodes the overall quality of the relationship. So I behave in a way that's obstinate and prove that I'm right, haha. And and people remember, right? So being able to read the room and being able to pull back, that's losing the battle to win the war. I'm gonna do this for the good of the relationship in this moment.
SPEAKER_03That was one of my weaknesses on the EQ test as we we wrapped it up because I will tell you point blank, I am ultra competitive and I will win. Uh, but I'm getting better with that uh as as I'm continuing to grow and mature and kind of going on this journey. But that was a hundred percent one of my weaknesses. So, all right, getting into how to survive a bad boss. How Travis, how how can I survive a bad boss from an emotional intelligence perspective?
SPEAKER_00Surviving a bad boss is is tough, but it's really similar to a lot of the strategies in the book that focus on dealing with toxic people. It's it's it's really similar to um family members because it's someone you're stuck with. And the recognition that most people well, first okay, there's two things. Most people are not very good at setting boundaries with people who need them. Yeah, it's just a skill set a lot of people don't have. It's something I break down in the book. And if you're dealing with a boss that's bad or so bad that they could be described as toxic, you have to know how to set boundaries and where you can. So that's the bulk of the exercise that I break down in the book. You know, and and you'd be surprised you even with a boss, you have more control than you realize. And exercising control over what you can is is very liberating. Like it it levels the playing field as as much as you possibly can.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I loved how you you listed out the red flags and the different types of toxic leaders that are out there. And then because that that's the first point. You have to get oriented to the target, understand like what you're what you're fighting or what you're facing. And then once you understand that, then pulling the tools in your rucksack to employ. So, how can I be a more effective communicator? How can I help guide this individual's uh feelings emotionally to kind of get to a desired outstate of how we can move together and advance forward? And it's that was I think the hardest piece I think that most people will have is the relationship management. Now you have all of these pieces together in unison and you have to orchestrate them effectively. And you have all these different moving pieces of how people are talking, how they communicate, their body language, how you're processing emotions, that is the Super Bowl. Um, what is the highest profession that you believe has the best ability for relationship management throughout your studies? What is what is the one that consistently just performs very high?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, as I mentioned previously, there's a lot of self-selection for EQ in different professions. Um and the the the profession where you see a lot of natural selection for EQ is is in sales. And you know, there's actually a really, really interesting study of this in the US Air Force, which, you know, is a is a branch of the military that that LEDX is starting to do a lot of work with. Um, you know, they there's a lot of focus on emotional intelligence training at the Air Force. And they were one of the first to bring emotional intelligence into their selection process because they found that you know they were turning over something like um, you know, a very high percentage of their civilian recruiters annually. So they'd hire these people, they would train them, and then if they didn't hit their quota in year one, they were gone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And what they did is they took the same selection criteria they had before and they added an emotional intelligence test. So they hired from the same pool they would have hired, but they only hired those with a high EQ. And their turnover went down to less than 5%. You know, the cost savings is is is in is in the high millions now from this program. So and and and you see that where not not every organization is as um uh um obviously proactive around EQ as the Air Force, but they tend to hire people with these high relationship management skills because those are the people that are are convincing salespeople. You know, they they read the room, they understand the needs of the client, and they and they they make the deal happen.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing, man. Um yeah, I didn't uh have you looked outside of just uh the the Department of War, you're working a lot with the Air Force right now. I know the Army has the Army coaching program. That was one of the things that spurred all of this of me kind of going through an ICF type accreditation and learning that I love doing that. Have you have you been able to work with Ledex into any other uh DOD or DOW?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, the interesting thing about Ledex is, you know, I I built another business which I sold in 2019. So over, you know, I ran that yeah, I ran that business for 18 years, uh, you know, we and we made inroads into a lot of organizations, including the Army. So people are starting to discover that I'm working with Ledex now, that I have a brand new program, a brand new book, a brand new test, and and and it's a it's such a good program. So a lot we're we're starting to win a lot of people over uh to this new business. And I'm sure the army will will be on board soon enough.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's amazing, brother. It's time for our final show segment that I like to call the killer bees. These are the same four questions that I
The Killer Bees Rapid Takeaways
SPEAKER_03ask every guest on the Tales of Leadership podcast. Be brief, be brilliant, be present, and be gone. Question one. What is the one lesson that you hope readers will take away from reading the book, The New Emotional Intelligence?
SPEAKER_00That your success in life hinges on your self-awareness. Spending time, investing time in increasing the skill pays massive dividends.
SPEAKER_03The next one is what is one piece of advice that you would give someone who's just starting out on their leadership journey?
SPEAKER_00Your success as a leader is dictated primarily by how well you understand other people, right? Your your business. To get results through people is that's that's the job of a leader, and that is just hinges on understanding people.
SPEAKER_03I love it, man. Last one, easiest one. How can our listeners find you and how can they add value to your mission?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so there's a there's okay, there's a few places. Obviously, uh, would love for you to read my book, The New Emotional Intelligence. Uh, you can follow me on LinkedIn. I I publish there, and I now have a weekly newsletter at TravisBradbury.com that you can sign up for. Uh, a new article every week has the same kind of insights we're discussing here around applying different aspects of emotional intelligence, developing a growth mindset, etc. So it's it's that's a fun new thing that I'm working on. I think I'm up to 150,000 subscribers now. So it's you know, growing quickly.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing, man. Well, it's been an absolute honor and a privilege of just walking through, and it's really cool to read a book, be very diligent in it, then get the opportunity to talk to the author and ask the questions that I've wanted to be able to do. That's again 100% why I love podcasting. And thanks for just being intentional for the hour and walking me through that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm glad we got to do this. So thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_03All right, team. Time for a quick after action review. What's the one big thing that I took away from today's
After Action Review And Challenge
SPEAKER_03episode? I've shifted it from the top three to the one. Uh, one of which is just because I am extremely busy uh with my army career. So I don't want to spend three hours filming a podcast. So I've condensed it down to the one big thing. And the one big thing is that your body processes emotions before you even have the time to understand it. That is, once you understand that fact, absolutely a game changer. When you walk into a room, the intuition that you feel, the body language that you're looking at, all the information and the stimulus that is flooding into you is shaping how you are going to show up in the world. When you can understand that and you can have some tactical patience. And if you remember the acronym that I've gone through, stop, silence your mind, take a tactical pause, observe your surroundings, and then pursue with purpose. If you can do those things, you are going to be a beast when it comes to leading in this world. And it doesn't matter if it's leading yourself, leading an organization, leading your family, or leading a community, if you can process emotions and you can understand emotions, you will take your leadership to the next level. You're going to move from great to extraordinary. And remember, John C. Maxwell, what's the difference between great and extraordinary? Extra, that little bit extra that elevates you above your peers. All right, team, if today's episode has challenged you to think or helped you see leadership in a more clear picture, thank you for spending time with me. I am grateful you're a part of the Tells of Leadership community. All of this is a major effort that I do to set this up and I genuinely appreciate it. But remember, leadership isn't about what we hear, it's about what we do next. So here's a challenge: take the idea from today's conversation and put them into action. Lead yourself better. Invest in your team, family, community, and pursue the kind of leadership that leaves people better off than when you found them. If you want to help this movement grow, here are a few simple ways that you can take action. Number one, subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to. Leave a review that helps out tremendously in helping other people discover the show. Share this episode, and most importantly, apply a lesson from today in your life and then share it with me. I would love to hear how this show has impacted your life. My mission is bold. Our mission at Tells the Leadership is bold to impact 1 million lives by building better leaders, purposeful, accountable leaders, those who choose action over ego and live out deeds, not words. As always, I am your host, Josh McMillian, reminding you every day is a gift. Don't waste your time. I'll see you next time.
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