Charting Success with Dean Lindsay and Ashley Stahl
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Every year seems to get crazier and crazier right now, but we're going to be talking, as we always do at the end of the year, we like to move away from some of the confrontations, the politics, and everything else that Breaking Battlegrounds normally spends our time covering. And Chuck Warren, your co-host, and I, Sam Stone, like to bring you a little bit of breaking

positivity, a little bit of how can you do and achieve things that maybe you hadn't yet and that are your dreams and hopes for your life. And in that vein, we have an author, someone I know we're both very excited to talk to, Dean Lindsay. He is the author of How to Achieve Big Fat Goals, CEO of Progress Agents, and popular host of the upbeat business program, The Dean's List, airing on C-Suite Network TV. So Dean, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me. I am honored. Dean, first of all, how did you get involved in this side of the business? Coaching, training, writing books? Did you have a career before that or you decided, I'm an optimistic guy, I'm a visionary guy, I always wanted to do this?

You know, that's part of it, that last part of it. But no, I guess I started more in the psychology of performance. Business communication was my degree. But then I spent the 90s as a somewhat successful actor, struggling musician. And what that really means is I was an acting coach.

Yeah, and I was an acting coach over here in Dallas, Texas. We kind of have a conservatory, and I was one of the coaches. And I realized that really acting is really a whole lot about understanding the goals, understanding the motivation of what the character is trying to achieve. And I had some really cool opportunities. I got to be Leanne Rimes' acting coach once.

And on a movie that she did with Bernadette Peters. And I went, huh? Because what made that relationship successful was really understanding the character anyway.

And that kind of led me to looking kind of outside the box of how I could, you know, basically be of service and support my family. And so I'd always had a, you know, good presentation style. I don't know if you guys watched the video. Yes, yes, we did. Yeah, cool. And then I just said, hey, you know, let's see if we can't.

Take these timeless principles. These are all timeless principles and shake them up and toss them out there in a fresh way. And that's what I've gotten to do here for 27 years. Dean, I've never thought of it this way before, but something you said kind of just struck me. As an actor, you're having to put yourself into these roles that you're taking on and trying to understand their mindset. Yeah.

How much does that help you as you got better at that, understand the mindset, put yourself in other people's shoes out there in the world? Yes, that's exactly it. Well, empathy is a huge part of it, but even empathy for yourself of understanding what propels you to action. The conversation that we'll really have in reference to Big Fat Goals is the psychology of how we make decisions. That's

That's really what the book's about, and that's really everything I'm talking about. But I don't say that. Uh-oh, we let the cat out of the bag. But that's really all goal setting is, is really goal commitment, and how do you gain goal commitment? And also that's committing to a character. I mean, that's also what they say about an actor, right? Right. They get lost in the role. And so I just kind of spun that in my noggin for a while and –

And that's where we are. Let me ask you this question. You know, so your book, you wrote a book, How to Achieve Big Fat Goals. And fat, folks, is spelled P-H-A-T, which means pretty hot and tempting. First of all, how did you come up with that title? Did it take you a while? Did you play around with it?

Yes, it was FAT for a long time because I was trying to make goals heavy in people's minds. It was about weighing down the benefits of the goal. So it still was about fat, but I didn't have the cool way to say it.

And then I saw that fat meant, you know, pretty hot and tempting. I first heard that with Chris Tucker, said that in the movie Money Tops with Charlie Sheen. And pretty hot and tempting. But see, we're being tempted all day long to follow somebody else's goal, you know? And that includes just going through the drive-thru, you know, instead of eating something healthy. So your goal has to be the prettiest, the hottest, and most tempting. And so that's...

That's all that, you know, that popped in there. As you've gone and done coaching and seminars, what is a goal that you think most people should really pursue to make their life better?

Ouch. That is almost something that I try to stay away from. I don't know. I can tell you that progress is subjective. So I can definitely tell you, I can definitely share in this, I guess it would be something I would say from the beginning, that it has to be your goal. You need to make it your goal. You have to believe it. You have to believe it and want it. You have to want it. You have to want, you have, it has to be your, you have to internalize the reasons that

for you to be able to consistently move towards the goal. Now, one of those reasons might mean that you don't want to, that you want to avoid pain, but that's still a reason. You can be guilted into doing something and you don't realize that's your goal, but you've made it your goal because you don't want to feel the guilt of not doing the goal. So you did internalize it, and you might be begrudgingly, but you did internalize it. So even though you don't think that's your goal, you're working towards that goal. It's heady, but that's where we're at.

We're with Dean Lindsey, and you can find him at DeanLindsey.com. By the way, Lindsey has an A, not an E in it. And you can also find him on Instagram and LinkedIn. And also you can email him at Dean at DeanLindsey.com. And he is the author of the book, How to Achieve Big Fat Goals. Do you find it? Here's a question for you. And Sam and I have a lot of friends. You have these conversations.

How many people do you think have just never really sat down and had the real hard introspective moment to determine what they want to do, what they want their goals to be? I mean, how many people have you sat down and you and I went and talked to 20 people on the street? How many people can really articulate what their goals are?

To the degree that it's propelling them to consistent positive action, I'd say less than 15%. So what do people need to do, and I'm sure this is part of your book, what do people need to do to get to that first step, to have a goal that has meaning and resonance with them? Yeah.

Let me share something like this. It's very natural for us to resist what we view as change, but we embrace what we view as progress. And in the book, I'll add what I call the six P's of progress. And when I say weigh down a goal, I mean, you need to weigh down the goal and really, really continually, continually remind yourself of progress.

how you're going to feel the unique right mixture of what I call the six P's of progress, pleasure, peace of mind, profit, prestige, pain avoidance, and power. The more we weigh down the benefits of the goal in our mind, the more other options of what we could choose to do with our time may still be good, but they're not the best option, so we continue to move towards our goal.

Dean, obviously you've achieved an amazing career, but which goal that you set out using this have you achieved that you feel has changed your life or those around you the most positively?

Probably writing books, probably sitting and writing books. It's not a fun activity. And so I have to sit there and remind myself of why am I doing this, remembering what's all the benefits that I'm going to get to get on a radio program and do interviews and stuff. And so...

Yeah, we're sorry for that. So, yeah, I didn't want to write these books. I wanted to be an author. I wanted the benefits of being an author, but I didn't want to write a book. What is your writing process like?

Oh, well, I am spoiled, I guess you just kind of say it. My wife is from Sweden, and the summers they will go to Sweden for about three weeks, and that's my day. I just knock it out, and I wouldn't say I have a book, but I'll have 65%, 75% that they could be massaged over a couple more months, and then you do the packaging and all that stuff. But

I will sit and gut it out. And then the writing process also is a lot of, like...

I'll tell you this. I lay out the book already in the dimensions I'm going to print in. How about that for a tip? Oh, that's interesting. That's really interesting. We've had a bunch of authors on. It's really interesting. So when you look at Big Fat Goals, I was writing it in a 6x6, and I knew where the page turn was going to be. So when you're looking at it, it's more like art. You know what I mean? It's

It's kind of laid out. I did that. I laid it out. Well, that's a very smart way of doing it for a gentleman who goes and talks about goals because you're visualizing what you want to do with it. Oh, do you know what else I do? I hire the graphic designer. He already knows the book's coming, and so we're already working on the –

for a while I'm trying to, you know, correct all the typos. I try to get people to do that on internet sites all the time and they never want to do it. No, no, no. Somebody's like, no, idiot, just design the site. We'll fix it and put it in between. Let's go, let's go. Because then, with Big Fat, I love this cover. When I saw that cover, I was like, oh, now we got something, guys. Let's go, you know? So,

That's another thing. I didn't think about that. That would be another thing because now it would pain me. It would hurt me to not have gotten that book and that cover out into the world. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, 100%. That's really interesting. We ask that question of authors on the program all the time. That's one of the most interesting answers we've ever gotten, Chuck.

It's a great... Well, that's why I got on the call. Well, that's why he's a radio guest, right? Yeah. We're not bringing anybody on here. Oh, this is fantastic. It's Dean Lindsey at DeanLindsey.com. People didn't know how to typeset. People didn't know how to type. Dean, um...

Let me ask you this question. What is a goal you had that you apply these principles to, and now it's just part of the fabric of your life? I would say my marriage, parenting, being a good team with my wife, throwing it out there in a positive way so my daughters can excel. That's kind of a... Give me an example of parenting. We obviously have a lot of parents listening to the show. Give me an example of parenting, how you've applied this. We have two minutes until we go to break, but quickly, if you can just give us how you would handle this with parenting, with a goal. Just one goal for your kids.

Well, it's not a goal for my kids. It's a goal for me and a goal for my wife is to create that environment, to always be a positive, to offer them my best, to not bring crap home, to not, you know what I mean, all that stuff to the door to give them full attention. Those are all daily things that I do that...

I can't make their success my goal, but I can make my goal creating an environment that I believe will foster their success.

Do you have things written down that you follow daily, weekly, monthly, to make sure you're staying attuned to that goal to provide that for your children? They evolve. But, you know, some of those, that's actually kind of how you built the question. You asked me how much we're kind of in the fabric. So once I get into the fabric, no, I don't have written down compliment my wife. But I daily try to compliment my wife in front of my children.

That's fantastic. I love that. Folks, we're going to be coming back with more here in just a few moments from Dean Lindsay. You can check him out. Dean Lindsay, as Chuck said, Lindsay with an A dot com. Check out his book, How to Achieve Big Fat Goals. He's also the CEO of the Progress Agents LLC. And I want to talk a little bit about that when we come right back in terms of building a successful business culture looks like and how you how Dean Lindsay

contributes there to that. We also have upcoming in our second segment, Ashley Stahl. She is a counterterrorism professional turned career coach, spokesperson, and author of the bestselling book, U-Turn, Get Unstuck. And it's a very long title. So we'll get to that when we bring her on here. Breaking Battlegrounds back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, you've been hearing us talk about why refi for a while now. If you're about to start setting your financial goals for the coming year,

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Why Refi really offers a fantastic opportunity for people to help achieve their financial goals for the new year. So check them out, investwyrefi.com, or again, that number is 888-WYREFI24, and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. And now we're continuing on with Dean Lindsay. He is the author of How to Achieve Big Fat Goals. You can check him out, deanlindsay.com. And Dean, one of the other things you do is as CEO of the Progress Agents, you're

You're a successful business culture strategist. If someone calls you in and says, I'm really concerned about our business culture, where do you start teaching them how to change that and create a positive business culture in and around their industry?

That's a great question. The first thing is I had to really dig in and do some interviews to really understand what they really mean in reference to that. And then you also just have to really gauge their commitment. I mean, are they really wanting to deep dive into it, or are they just wanting somebody to hop up there and kind of explain it from 30,000 feet? Are they checking a box for HR, or are they trying to create fundamental change? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if you're really trying to make – if you're really trying to do a fundamental change –

or in what I'd call progress. See, I don't believe in change management. I believe that that's a false term. If it's the next right move to make for the organization, that's not change, that's progress. It's progress leadership. Nobody wants to change and they certainly don't want their change managed. We resist what we view as change. We embrace what we view as progress. It is vital to understand

what your team members view as progress, and then position what the organization wants to do as steps to help them achieve those goals.

I love that dichotomy between change and progress. How much do words matter when it comes to – It's not – yeah, but that's not it. I'm not talking about the words. People do that. People want to say, okay, we'll start calling it progress instead of change. It doesn't matter what you call it. It matters how they feel about it. It matters what they feel in their gut, not the term. And so when I say progress leadership, that's really trying to say that that's a start, but you've got to understand internalized reasons create movement. Right.

Internalized reasons create movement, not an awareness of a movement that somebody else wants somebody to make. Internalized reasons create movement. And organizations are only as strong as their team members' personal goals and the team members' belief that the organization's progress helps them progress towards those goals.

That is really profound. I love that. I was just reading off of page 153. That's on page 153 of Big Fat Gold. Okay. Well, I obviously still need to get the book and read it because this is – This is like a 20-point font, 20-point font. So you're saying I don't need to go to the ophthalmologist before I get this? No, I'll read it to you. You haven't found it. It's on audio. It's on audio. He'll read it to you. It's on audio. Okay.

I did. I did the whole thing. Read all the author, kid. You know, the problem, Chuck, is I do need 20-point font now to read it. That's just terrible. We are of that age. Or Dean Lindsey, DeanLindsey.com. You can find him on Instagram with Dean O. Lindsey and LinkedIn. And you can also email him at Dean at DeanLindsey.com. How important is it for management in a business?

to work with their team members and help them work through their goals that they become achievable.

How part of that is that leadership of a manager or owner of a business? You know, there's certain levels of goals. I wouldn't say that everybody needs to come straight. When you say their goals, are you talking about their life goals? No, business goals, business goals. I mean, there's obviously a line in the sand you don't cross. But let's just talk about business goals, helping them advance, helping them to do better at their job, which means them brings in more personal satisfaction.

Absolutely. No, it's vital, but you also need – a manager needs to understand that's really what's propelling that person to action, the environment within the organization is one part of it, but it's really also what they do with that income, especially sales. I mean, if I was a sales manager and I had – I mean, one of my sales teams wanted a boat, I wouldn't be reminding them of their sale goals. I'd be showing them boats. Right. Right.

Is this the boat you're going to get? You know, here's our commission. Go out and sail. But let me ask. Let's step back a little bit further than that. I understand that. You should give them a visual. Right. And you're helping them internalize reasons to create this movement. OK. Right. But how much should a manager or owner be following up with them to making sure they're staying on track to achieve the goals that they have set with you?

I think that's a great question. That, I think, is exactly the conversation that you have with that individual. And so you have agreed upon, you know, like, you know, we say we're going to check in every week, every month, every six weeks. What's comfortable for you, for you to know you're moving towards that and the non-MU can answer any questions. So that...

the more we cookie cut this stuff, the more it's not going to work. Different people want to be more engaged, and people different, and there's different engagements. So that's where the conversation, because some people might see your involvement as progress, and others view it as change. And you either need to respect that they view it as change or help them see it as progress. So let's take that question and apply it to raising children.

How much should a parent be involved in helping their children set goals that they want to set and following up with them and mentoring them to help them achieve those goals? I don't even know how much to even say how important that is. It's vital. I'd say more

More than ever. I don't even know how to like say, you know, that's totally the rapport that you have with your child makes that so much easier. It flows naturally versus, you know, it all builds up. The terms almost always get back to saying everything plays. As a parent, compared to when we grew up, when it seemed like childhood was a lot simpler.

Do you think that's a lot more important now to help your kids build that sort of framework for themselves? Because it seems like childhood has gotten a lot more complicated in the last 20 years. You know, I would say 80% of me wants to say yes to that. The only part of me that wants to say the opposite is now, you know, I'm thinking, oh, my daughter doesn't know much.

you know, where I had to, I had to go out if I wanted to see my friends in the eighties, I had to go down in the dragon, you know, go through Jack in the box, you know, go through the drive-thru and look around and see who's around. But now everybody can do it online. So in one regard, it's a little bit easier, but that does lend itself to them, you know, kind of isolation. I think it's a very, you know, I mean, frightening time to be a parent, but, uh, again, that kind of circles back around to, um, you know, awareness of that. And, um, uh,

You know, one thing I think maybe our culture might do a bit too much is kind of go, you're 18, you know, get on out there in the world. You got to learn sometime. And I'm like, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if we shouldn't hold on there a little bit longer. And, you know, I'm not sure every lesson has to be...

learn hands-on. Can't we, you know, look at some of this and not even get to those roadblocks or those hurdles or those bumps? Can't we smooth that out a little bit? So anyway, that's what I say about the parenting stuff. That's helpful. Thank you. Well, Dean, we appreciate you joining us today, folks. You can find

Dean and his videos and his courses and all the things at DeanLindsay with an A dot com. And his audio book so you won't even need it. You won't even need to read it. You can just listen and go into work or the gym or where the case may be. Dean, thank you for joining us. Have a fantastic new year and we hope to talk to you soon. Thank you. Have a good day.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Big thank you to our prior guest, Dean Lindsey. Remember, folks, you can check him out at DeanLindsey.com. Up next, someone Chuck and I are very excited to talk to, Ashley Stahl is a counterterrorism professional turned career coach, spokesperson, and author of the bestselling book, U-Turn, Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, Design Your Dream Career. And also of the podcast by the same name, Ashley Stahl, welcome to the program.

Thank you so much for having me. Ashley, let's first start with the question a little bit about you. You were basically in national security. You were working with the Pentagon and doing trainings. And then you said you wanted to take a different career track.

Yeah. Is this something you always wanted to do or you found out through your course of college and your work that this is something I'm really passionate about and I think I'm good at? You know, it's so interesting because when I look back to being in college, I remember going to the career services office and feeling really lost on what path to choose. And I remember she kind of gave me those tips.

three-worded directive, like, do what you love and the money will follow, or like, follow your bliss. And I just remember kind of leaving more confused than I was in the first place. And my best defense was just majoring in three different things, not because I was a high achiever necessarily, but because I was...

indecisive. And I just remember, you know, kind of just picking things that felt like they were interesting to me because that was all I could really grab onto was what was interesting. And what I would learn later is that there's a really big difference between being

a consumer of something, a happy consumer of something, versus a successful producer of whatever that thing is. For example, I am a happy consumer of fashion products and I like to read about politics sometimes, but by no means does that mean I should be a fashion designer or a politician, per se. So I think a lot of people have that confusion and all we have to grab onto is our interests and also these high impact moments that leave a mark on us in our lives.

you know, maybe somebody listening right now had a conversation or a parent or a friend, and that conversation really left a mark on them and influenced who they want to be in their career, and they went on with it without questioning it. So that was kind of what got me into national security, and it didn't take very long there for me to realize that it wasn't the right path for me. And I think a lot of people who...

pursue their interests will follow to to find that i mean granted right now the most generally accepted statistic is about 27 of the workforce is using their degree in their job so what that tells us is that the majority of people have not let their you know college education or whatever education or experience influence the path that they've chosen

Ashley, what would you tell somebody if they are feeling like they're stuck in a career because they have a specific degree or just because that's all they've ever done? What would you tell them is the first step to getting unstuck and moving themselves forward? Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is to remember that your degree or your experience that you've chosen is

is here to serve you. You're not here to serve it. Too many people think because I have this degree or because I have this experience, I need to keep serving it. That's not what a fulfilling career looks like. I think that the pressure we feel

in our careers, it's almost like in preschool. I remember my first crush in preschool. It's almost like our parents telling us to marry our first crush. It's like, how are we supposed to know what we want or who we are? But that's what we're doing in our careers. - That's a great point. - So I would say the most important thing is just to remember that it's also about how you talk about your career. So if you're feeling stuck and you wanna make a pivot, the first thing is to ask yourself, what is the thread of the past

meaning what is the core skillset that you've used in the past and how can you harness that into some sort of narrative that makes sense for recruiters, headhunters, as you continue on in the future. So I would say that's the first thing is just about the structure

story that you are telling people about your career. Too many people look at their resume and just regurgitate it versus asking themselves, what is the pivot that I want to make? And what is the story between the skills I was using in the past and the skills that I need to be using for the direction I want to go in the future? And how do I make sense of that for people who are listening to me? So that's the first thing. The second thing

is to really remember that when you are in between, when you're feeling stuck, you don't want to be like a lost octopus with tentacles grabbing everywhere. And I think people want to grab onto a plan for the sake of having it.

What's more important is to ask yourself, how can I get reconnected to myself? So instead of saying, what is the next job I need to do? What is the proper pivot? I would ask yourself, what are the people, places, things that make me feel connected to myself? Because when you're cut off, when you're disconnected, you're not usually able to really feel what feels right. And I mean, given that our gut is called our second brain, there's more than 200 million neurons or whatever the research is that keeps coming out

What we know to be true is that there's an intelligence and a wisdom to our bodies. And so I think the first thing is just getting reconnected to ourselves, that we can really feel when something feels right. I love that. We're going to be coming back with more from Ashley Stahl in just a moment, folks. You can check her out, ashleystahl.com, also on Apple and wherever you get your favorite podcasts, the U-Turn podcast with Ashley Stahl, Breaking Battlegrounds, back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to the New Year edition of Breaking Battlegrounds with host Chuck Morin. I'm Sam Stone. We're going to be continuing on with Ashley Stahl. You can check her out at ashleystahl.com. Her U-Turn podcast is on Apple and all your other favorite podcast formats, and she is the author of the bestselling book U-Turn, Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, Design Your Dream Career. We're going to continue on with her in just a moment, but if you are trying to

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So we're with Ashley Stahl. And Ashley, you gave a TED Talk. It was the three key questions that helped you unlock your authentic career. I'm going to read the questions. I want you to talk to them.

But I think what's important for people to understand is you have to be introspective to answer these questions. And the one thing I respect about you, it seems like you really did the mental work. You made yourself vulnerable to find out the answer to these questions for you. And to do that takes courage. You know, we say leave your job and do something that takes courage. But it also takes more courage sometimes than just...

gut it up inside and say, what are my answers to these questions? So when you did this presentation on TED Talk, you asked, what am I good at? What do people tell you you're good at? And ask yourself, what is holding me back? So you can go over those three points and maybe give some case-like studies of real life examples for people on that.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the first thing is I went to graduate school for psychology and one of the most apparent understandings that I had of the human experience is it's such that there's really two core dynamics people are usually navigating. The first dynamic is the fear of the unknown.

And the other dynamic is your misery in your current state. Most people are not willing to leap into their fear of the unknown until they are so miserable in their current situation that they can't bear it anymore. And so my goal in these questions is to get people to be reflective when they're lukewarm so that they don't have to unnecessarily suffer when it doesn't have to be the case in their career. So the first question of what are you good at, it really –

is what the message is of all of my work, my book, my podcast. It's around this idea of don't do what you love, don't follow your passion, but instead do what you are. How many people do you find as you coach that, as you coach people and you ask that question, we ask ourselves, what am I good at? How often does that differ from what other people think they're good at?

Well, I mean, the research is really interesting. There's a lot of research in relationships, especially where friends can tell if a couple is headed for divorce sooner than the couple itself can.

that comes from the science of happily ever after. He did some really good research. And I think that this is kind of the case with career is that people around us are very valuable, neutral observers. They have no skin in the game, but seeing what our results are, especially if we meet a

colleague in the workplace. If we ask them, what do you think I'm good at? Their only win is telling us where they're getting benefit from us. And that is straight results and output, which is very useful to know. A lot of people don't know much about themselves beyond what their favorite music is and what their favorite snack is.

maybe what their favorite place is to visit. We don't spend a lot of time connecting to ourselves. And it makes sense because growing up, in a way, you know, I have a German shepherd, a hundred pound dog that looks like a wolf. And he's very domesticated. Like he learns through me what it means to be good and what it means to be bad. And we go through that as humans. And so by the time we come out of our parents'

conditioning in our households, we really don't tend to easily know what we're good at unless that's been fostered, nurtured, and reflected back without an agenda beneath it. Most of us come into a household and there's like a thermostat set by our parents

about what's possible, what's available, what success looks like, what failure looks like. And unless as we get older, we question that thermostat, that whole set of beliefs, we are really operating under them. And so, you know, when I ask people, what are they good at? What I'm really asking them to question is where are you providing results?

Because there's an incredible amount of research that supports the idea that you are going to be more fulfilled and happy when you're doing things that you're good at. But would you agree that most people don't know what that is, Ashley? I mean, I don't think most people know what that is. And I think that is probably...

one of the leading causes of why people are unhappy and lonely. They don't know what they are. They don't know how they're wired. Yes, and I think that's why the second question, so the first question being what are you good at, that's a self-reflection question. If somebody's struggling with that, I think that's why I really came up with the second question is what do people tell you that you're good at? Because it's okay if somebody's listening right now and they really can't answer that question. A lot of people might be able to tell us what they're interested in,

but they might not know the nuance beneath it of what they're good at, right? Like, for example, if I think about the fashion industry, there's a lot of different jobs in that pie, right? There's communications, there's different forms of PR, right?

There is operations. There's so many different pieces of the pie. And so people might say they're interested in a certain pie, like fashion or government or whatever it is, finance. But really getting intimate with what are all the slices of this industry's pie?

And how can I start asking questions to people around me to help me attune to where I'm providing results? So my answer is it's really okay if people can't yet answer that question. You know, a lot of people hire life coaches and I think life is the ultimate coach. Sometimes you need to be with life and be with the question and see what the answer is. And I think that conscious choice to ask yourself, what am I good at? I'm going to pay attention to my life right now and see what's

feedback I'm getting from people, from projects, to start to see what that answer is. Chuck, I know you have to sneak out of here in a few minutes before the end of the program because you're up on a deadline here. Folks, we are obviously going to continue with Ashley Stahl. Any final question from you before you got a book? So what do you think holds most people back, Ashley?

That's your third point of your talk. What holds most people back? I mean, I hate to say it because it's so common that you're hearing psychologists say this, but it really is their belief system. With every new belief about what's possible, in a way, an old version of you is kind of dying because that old version of you was operating through a set of norms that no longer has to be the case.

And so you see things differently. And because you see things differently, you do things differently. So I would say the biggest thing that holds people back is, you know, just the limited mindset that they have, the fears that they have. Yeah. And just the desire for comfort.

People are really afraid of the unknown, and I think their beliefs are what infuse that fear into them of making the unknown a scary thing versus a friendly thing. And believing that your career has to be scary versus your career being an experiment and that the cost of admission is trial and error. Ashley, I want to go back to something you were talking about in terms of learning what you're good at.

In my experience in the corporate world is in light of what you're talking about, I kind of think now maybe they're making a mistake. Everything is really around positive. The messaging in HR and on the employee side is about positive reinforcement. We've got to build them up to do better at their job. Are companies missing an opportunity there to...

Simply be more honest and do a better job of getting people into areas that they would be more successful at instead of just reinforcing. You know, I have had a lot of companies come to me over the past five years asking me to come in and help their employees figure out what is their core skill set so that instead of having the employees leave, you

and find a new job elsewhere, they can be reassigned within the company. And that retention strategy has been saving companies a lot of money. I do think people, especially in the millennial generation, and I guess I'm gonna give myself a hall pass for saying this because I am a millennial, have been more sensitive to feedback.

And I think feedback is the superhighway to being able to show up powerfully in your career. And so I think employers do need to give it. But I think the phenomenon of seeing so many toxic managers, so many managers who are drive-by delegating, who are bullying employees,

their employees. I think that there's a responsibility companies have that is much deeper than giving employees feedback. I think the higher responsibility is managing managers and how they're communicating with their staff because

They're not going to be able to have a lot of influence in their feedback if they're not kind and respectful and psychologically sound in how they're communicating with their direct report. You know, to talk about it sort of related or unrelated, if you will, TEDx by one of my favorite speakers and author Simon Simonak talked about his experience working with special forces and the fact that.

they had identified that maybe the highest performing applicants weren't the right ones, that trust was more important than performance. Does that tie into what you're talking about here? Yeah, I think that there is really something to that and to his research around performance. I'm curious what your thought was on what he found. Well, I thought that was really interesting because as we do hiring for whether it's political work that I do or other areas,

we're always looking in hiring for the highest achievers, the highest performers, and there's a competition to get those folks. And I really started to think in listening to that that maybe we were looking at the wrong things. We were looking at the wrong metrics for what we considered the highest performer. And I wonder if that ties into your work and your research in just talking about how –

A lot of times, maybe what's limiting someone is that they're not in the right lane for themselves. Yeah. Yeah, I think absolutely. You know, if you're spending most of your day operating outside of your core skill set, there's obviously the zone of growth where maybe there's a skill set you want to sharpen, you want to invest in, and you want to make better, and it becomes a nature versus a nurture sort of debate. I think it's great for employees to grow. I think it's just really important that they're contributing where they're

they're most gifted. As it relates to Simon Sinek, I know he did a lot of research around shared purpose. I do think a lot of people in the workplace feel a sense of low energy because they're not necessarily actually low energy, they're feeling low on purpose.

And, you know, as you referenced my TED Talk, actually the past year and a half, I've ghostwritten 57 TED Talks, and I've helped book over 90% of those clients on stage for TEDx. Oh, wow. And it's just been really interesting because the people that are coming to me to change the world, to have a message around their work, to leave a legacy, they're

and to invest in something like that with me are people who really feel fueled by something that is beyond themselves. And I think it's understandable that if we spend 90,000 hours of our life at work, that's two-thirds of our time awake on this planet.

It makes sense to me that a lot of people want it to count, but I also think that there's some expectations management. We're told, you know, we grew up in an era where people were told that they should love their jobs. I think love is a very strong word for work. I think people should really like what they're doing. Sometimes when people operate out of the belief that they should love what they're doing, there's not much of a threshold for them to do things that they don't want to be doing in their job.

uh... i can clear my felt you know writing on the pet talks for clients uh... booking them on stage writing books i consider myself someone who loves what they do uh... but if i really take a look at it i really like what i do because about one day a week i'm dealing with like a tech glitch or my you know some sort of payroll you know numbers thing that i don't want to be dealing with and i still look at my work through the mindset of loving what i do so

I think managing people's expectations of what does it really mean to love what you do and what about just the idea of really liking what you do and the crux of that to me is really working in an area that you're gifted and being able to use your career as a tool, as a gymnasium to try things on and figure out where you are really making an impact at work. - I absolutely love that. Ashley Stahl, thank you so much for joining us today folks.

Make sure you tune in for the podcast segment. But if we do not get to talk to you, we very much appreciate every one of our listeners out there. And we love having you as part of this program. And for all our guests, thank you so much for joining us throughout this year. And folks, you can keep in touch with Ashley and her work at AshleyStahl.com or catch her podcast wherever you get your favorite podcasts. The U-Turn podcast with Ashley Stahl available on Apple and all others. Breaking Battlegrounds back next year.

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Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds, the podcast-only segment. We very much appreciate you tuning in today. And since this is our last opportunity to say hello and thank you for tuning in throughout the year, we hope everyone has a phenomenal new year and keeps to your resolutions because God knows I don't.

But I hope some of you do. Keep them simple. I think people try to make a list of too many things. Pick one or two. You know, my problem, I think, is – and it ties to some of the stuff we talked today about Dean Lindsay, big fat goals, right? Right. Right.

I think maybe setting more realistic goals. Yeah. I, you know, I used to have a long list a decade ago or so, and I've made them simpler the past year and I, and I find I get them done. Yeah. It's just one or two things. It's the incremental progress, which I look back and I say, Oh, I'm so glad I made that goal. And if you're looking, if folks are looking for like one, one idea from this show,

The thank you note. Yes. As far as a resolution goes, man, that is just a good one. Gratitude. People need to hear it. A thank you note a day. I did something this Christmas where I took a lot of time. And each day right before Thanksgiving through Christmas, I would send a Christmas card, but I would actually write something of some value in it, something I appreciate about him, something I was grateful for.

I have been surprised at the lengthy handwritten responses back, thanking me for friendship and thank you for thinking of them. And it just meant more. We're in this age now, I do with my kids, you stand out of the picture of the family, say Merry Christmas, right? There's not much thought into it except, you know, someone has to put the shutter fly together and you have to mail them out. But doing this, I was surprised. And it didn't have to be people typically on my list, people I just sort of

I thought about daily, who should I send this to today? And it's been remarkable and it's something I want to continue to do to recognize people that way. Sometimes you have to do email. I mean, sometimes when I travel, as you know a lot, I do it on a plane. Those have been nice. But just the handwritten letter that has some depth to it matters.

It's a big deal. That was the best idea. That may have been the best idea on this show all year. Yeah. Folks, in case you don't know, Kylie's corner is not today because our Kylie is getting married this weekend. She is...

The fastball of life. She is a fastball of life. She is marrying a now member of the Boston Red Sox, so I can cheer for him this year. Yes, yes. He was on the Lousy Mariners before. And I can't stand the Mariners, so that was terrible. I had to bite my tongue. Mariners and Blue Jays, why do they just cause me such aggravation and anger? Well, they should. I don't understand it either, but they should. No, I mean, as a baseball guy, look, that was killing me. We have Kylie, and I have to be, like, supportive.

Right? Well, we want to be supportive. And we want to be supportive of Isaiah. But I want the Mariners to lose every game. Exactly. Exactly. So I'm psyched he's a member of the Red Sox. I think a couple things this year that have been interesting in the world. One is the sanctuary cities who are having meltdowns about the immigration problem. Another one, Denver yesterday. So we put this up on our social media. So we can tell if you're listening to the show because I'm going to tell you who said it. But Sam, who...

Who said the falling this past week from Illinois? These immigrants have come over here. They've been raping people. They've been breaking into homes. They're like savages as well.

They don't speak their language and they look at us like we're crazy. Who said that? I forget his name, the mayor, right? No, it's Teresa Haley, president of the Illinois NAACP. Oh, I thought it was Brandon whatever, the mayor who had said that. No, that is Teresa Haley, the president of the Illinois NAACP.

Folks, if you think the NAACP and the BLM are all for racial unity and loving one another. Oh, no, no, no. You are smoking something you picked up from the back of a convenience store. I cannot believe someone made a statement. Can you imagine what we do? Trump called them rapists. He didn't even go this far. Right. And he was the biggest xenophobe that's ever come to America.

Well, I mean, that's so. And as Barry Weiss's crew said, the funny thing about this is the difference is Trump never made a career of telling everyone they're a racist. Right. The NAACP makes that their main thing.

Well, they do now. Yeah. I mean, that's actually one of the sad things is for a long time, the NAACP, I mean, and if you actually read it for the advancement, advancement being the key word, their focus was on like educational attainment. Not anymore. On family growth and supporting communities and economic interests. Now they're just a racial, divisive racial complaint group. It has been amazing. Again, we talked about this earlier in the year. Yeah.

it was seen very much at the time as a stunt by Abbott and DeSantis and others shipping these folks. And folks, it was, but it's a stunt. You have to do stunts sometime to work. And now you're getting these mayors and you're seeing that the sanctuary theory is a nice way to browbeat us to make us all feel like we're

bad people. But when the reality hits their shore, hits their border, all of a sudden it's a crisis of unimaginable proportion. Well, you had the mayor of Denver yesterday blasting the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, for this. And I'm like, you know, at the end of the day, there's the population of illegal immigrants is so enormous in Texas, in Arizona, in New Mexico, in a bunch of other states that

These folks are taking a drop in the bucket of what we— A literal drop. A literal drop in the bucket of what the southern states have been dealing with for over a decade, basically, and it's too much for them. Well, according to Teresa Haley, they're all a bunch of rapists, and they're breaking into homes. So I'm telling you, it's not that. I was at Flying to Utah the Friday before Christmas, and—

I was waiting for my boarding my flight to Delta and two gentlemen came up. They habla no English. I knew that. And all of a sudden I knew what they've done. They had been shipped to the airport. So I helped them get to the Frontier Airlines. Kind young men. Then I went again, my flight to Salt Lake and there was a line. I think I sent our group text a video. There's probably another couple dozen setting.

Men and women, children. Look, nice people. This is not... Look, I disagree. Look, let's go. Say there's 100 people. One's probably a bad apple, maybe two or three, right? Most of these are just trying to make a better life for their family. But the immigration issue is a problem. We can't afford it. No.

We can't management. We can't get them to adapt to our culture, which is important. The difference between now and two periods, right? The period preceding Barack Obama, essentially, which was largely Mexican migration back and forth, which was just for work and a lot of people coming here seasonally, right? Right. That didn't affect the United States culturally because the people who did come here to stay had plenty of time to assimilate.

Right. And for the society to absorb them. Which is important. Assimilation is important. It's as important as the budget issues. Yeah, absolutely.

And then you go back further and the left always likes to bring up, you know, bring us your tired, huddled masses, blah, blah, blah. Well, immigration in that era was immigration for work, not welfare. 100 percent. And as long as you have a welfare system that applies to people, look, most of the world is much poorer than the United States.

And that is not the fault of the United States. Let's be honest. It doesn't matter what these – let's say all the world is poorer than the United States. I hate when they try to show me these economies like, oh, give me a break. I've been there. I know what it is. This is ridiculous. Oh, come on. We have like Liechtenstein in Monaco. I mean there are places that are wealthier than this. Let's transfer Secretary of State Antony Blinken has posted the following today.

As I reflected on the miles traveled, countries visited, and intense diplomacy over the past year, I am proud of our work to build stronger partnerships and strengthen global peace and security. Just for people to know, I think he's drunk. A war has broke out in Ukraine. Israel's in war. Venezuela's almost ready to invade a neighbor.

China is mulling Taiwan, actually has a plan, 27, 20, 30. Yeah, no, they basically announced they're going. Our soldiers are being fired at by Iranian-backed rebels, which we're not even handling that correctly. The immigration, what, it's amazing. I can't point to a single, I want to be fair. I can't point to a single foreign policy success of this administration. No, you know, this administration is,

And they're purveyors of propaganda on social media. They do the old George Costanza line. If you remember in Seinfeld, Jerry had to pass a polygraph for a girlfriend because he said he wasn't watching Melrose Place. So Elaine says you need to talk to an expert, which is George, a perpetual liar. And he goes and talks to him and says, Jerry, if you don't believe it's a lie, he said, if you believe it's true, it's not a lie. Right. I really think they believe this.

I – They have to. They really have to believe it. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of speechless over that, right? I think this is the bubble thing, which all of us, you and I, everybody on the show – Folks, you've got to have friends of different religions, different work experiences, different life experiences, so we don't fall into what we'll start calling the Biden bubble. And that's the thing. I mean –

Maybe they believe it or maybe it's just straight up gaslighting. It's hard for me to tell because sometimes this administration just flat gaslights people. I think they do that, but I think they've said it enough. They believe it. I mean, let's talk about another catastrophe under this man's watch. Remember the Chinese balloons? Yeah. So NBC News investigations came out this week that the administration didn't only want to conceal it from the American people, which I can sort of get. National security, sometimes I get it and everything doesn't need to be a book. There's a debate on that. OK, I'll give it.

I'll say it's debatable. There's room for either argument. I'll say it's debatable, okay? That's fair. But they also wanted to hide it from Congress. Which is bull-loney. Yeah, it's just bull crap. Yeah. And so— We're in the podcast segment. We can say bullshit. I forgot. Look, I get wanting to avoid unnecessary wars. Right.

But when did we become the pinata of China-Iran? Well, that's – I mean that's the amazing thing to me is with what's going on with Iran and their support of all these terrorist organizations that are attacking the United States and their direct attacks on the United States, the fact that every single mullah – every leader of Iran does not have a cruise missile with their name painted on the nose right now –

Yeah. Yeah. And that's how you end this. What Trump did with General Soleimani. Mm-hmm.

Shut around terror supporting activities down until Trump was out of office. Why? Because those mullahs, their only real concern is their own wealth and power. Stay on the throne. Yeah. And so when you say, listen, you step out of line, we're not going to kill some poor schlub who's in uniform for you, some private in your army. We're going to kill you. Exactly. The New York Times this week had really a great piece on the rape and

and the terror of Hamas on women. It was well-documented, actually what we expected from the old great lady of newspaper actually reporting that as comparison to the piece they did on Biden's trying to, again, justify all the money. And the funny thing about it is, sure, the Bidens live in 10,000 square foot home. Sure, they do winter vacations in Vail or they're down in the Caribbean island friend. But according to Jill Biden, they're middle class because, you know, they have middle class values because they make their own sandwiches. Right.

That's literally in the story. That's literally in the story. They make their own sandwiches. Does it make me upper class that I can bake a quiche? Apparently so. I mean, it's just amazing on me.

One last thing I want to talk about before we close, the acronym Y-I-M-B-Y. You talk about this all the time. And now Elizabeth Warren is sort of like, well, we got to get rid of this stuff. We got to start building homes. For folks, yes, in my backyard. So explain to it what it is, Sam. You go on about this all the time. Yeah. So this is obviously a passion issue for me when it comes to housing because there are two fundamental issues in housing. One is we don't have enough people to swing the hammer. So you need more skilled tradespeople. Right.

And immigration would help a little bit with that. And so would a focus of moving away from saying everyone needs to go to a four-year college. Correct. The wealthiest guy I grew up with didn't go to college. He started an excavation. He got his heavy machine operator's license, started an excavation company. He's worth close to a billion dollars. So there's plenty of paths to great success that way. But the other person is NIMBYs.

Not in my backyard. But that's actually morphed in the last few years to something our mutual friend Tim Mooney likes to say about these folks is that

NIMBY has become bananas. Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone. And this is the root cause of the housing crisis in this country is opposition from neighbors and mostly where the opposition is strongest has been in big blue, hard left cities. And we dealt with this here in Phoenix. Right.

I would get some opposition from the conservative neighborhoods if you were going to put a big apartment structure in. There would be people who were opposed to it. Density issues. Yeah. But if I had that exact same project in a blue neighborhood, the opposition would be through the roof. There was a perfect example here in Phoenix where somebody who – there's an old golf club, country club, Phoenix Country Club right downtown, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they have a huge amount of land, their parking lot and all this.

The club, like a lot of golf, is in trouble. They wanted to put a big apartment tower in where part of their parking area is. And this is right near Phoenix's downtown core. This is everything the left says they want. It's on heavy-duty transit. It's a major corridor. It's right near downtown. It's their wish list. It's their wish list. And that project got shut down and stopped by these leftist groups. Right.

The same people who say they want 15-minute cities and everyone needs to ride the bus and all this. They don't want it. My problem is they're so full of crud. Because remember when we did the initiative on light rail? Yeah. And we polled people, why do you support light rail? The number one reason was it will take other cars off the road in front of me. It's not my car. Yeah, exactly. Right. So these people are full of it. And this is a big issue we need to build. So Elizabeth Warren on her tweet yesterday said –

We must bring down costs, which means we need more supply. Plain old economics 101, which she's now concerned about.

Folks, as we close it, we appreciate your listenership this year. We appreciate your ratings. We appreciate you sharing it with friends. We want to close with this year. We all need a step up to make our communities better, our families more sound, our businesses stronger. And that's going to be on you. And we're going to leave it here with a recording of The Man in the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt. And he makes a great comment at the end of it. It says...

If he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or know defeat. Folks, get out there, risk, take some action, your cities, your communities, your neighborhoods. We're counting on you to show leadership and everybody can be later in their universe, in their families.

We wish you the best for the coming weekend, and we wish you for a prosperous 2024. Don't drink and drive. Do not drink and drive. There's lots of Uber. Have a great week, and we'll let you play it. Jeremy, go ahead. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride and cynicism.

There are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds or feigns to hold an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails,

comes to second achievement. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again.

because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deed? Who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions? Who spends himself in a worthy cause? Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement? And who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly?

so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.