Stop Living on Autopilot and Lead with Purpose | Michael B. Clegg | The Sean Trace Show

In this episode, I sit down with leadership development expert and Q Works Group CEO Michael “Clegg” Clegg to explore why being busy isn’t the same as being productive. We unpack how unclear priorities, weak boundaries, and the habits we quietly tolerate can drain our energy and keep us trapped in a “default future.” Clegg shares how a devastating accident in 2023 forced him to reassess his life, rediscover his purpose, and build everything around three pillars: freedom of time, money, and purpose. 

We also discuss the power of saying no, using the Eisenhower Matrix to eliminate distractions, and choosing a North Star that guides your daily decisions. From self-awareness and leadership under pressure to honest feedback, personal growth, and work-life balance, this conversation offers practical ways to stop overcommitting and start living with intention. I walked away reminded that real change doesn’t begin with confidence, it begins with commitment, clear standards, and the courage to get uncomfortable. 

What are you tolerating right now that’s keeping you from becoming the person you know you could be?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you're not focused in on a priority, you're not going to achieve as smoothly as you'd like. And we all know this, most people, and everybody talks about it now. You gotta, you gotta shake the comfort. You gotta go do, but it's true. You cannot grow without discomfort. You might get lucky, but consistently you will not. And that's where most people get things wrong when you want to start or make a change in anything. It doesn't matter if it's health, wealth, um, their personal lives. It doesn't matter. Anything that requires change has to start with commitment first. Most people put off and delay because they want to start with confidence. They want to feel good. They want to know that they can do it well. Well, competence comes before confidence. Commitment comes before courage. So if you think of this, Dan Sullivan calls it the four C's, you have to start at commitment. There's there's no other way. Because if you wait for confidence or competence, you're gonna be waiting forever. And that's why there are people that make changes and are extremely successful, and there are people that don't. And that's, in my opinion, the pinnacle or where the haves and the have nots begin. Because most of us are starting from a similar point of opportunity, right? Some of us are starting on first base, some of us have started on third base. I recognize that, but all of us have the same opportunities. So, you know, and I and I fully believe in equal opportunities. I don't believe in equal outcomes.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Welcome everybody back to the Sean Trace Show. I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I have a really awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

So my name is Michael Clegg. Everyone calls me Clegg, even my wife. It's one of those old college things that never died. Um, I have been in the staffing and placement business for almost 30 years, which is hard to believe to say that out loud. Uh, I've been on the big corporate side for 20 of those years, and then decided to purchase a business back in 2018, which is where I'm the CEO now, QWorks Group. In between all of those years, I have always had an affinity towards leadership development, people development, my own personal development. And along the way, started a leadership development business, uh, recently merging that with QWorks Group, which is uh super exciting for us because it's it's really going to expand our offering. Because I'll be frank, from a staffing perspective, there are very few differentiators when it comes to uh different staffing companies. And so the fact that we not only place the leaders, but we help them develop along the way is a huge differentiator. And and uh interestingly enough, Sean, I I usually get the question asked when you know, what is your what's your what's your core person, uh your your ICP, right? What's the core client that you're looking for? What industry? The cool thing about what I do is it's in industry agnostic. I'm working with Fortune 5 organizations. I'm working with organizations that have 50 or less employees. So it's been a great ride, a ton of fun. And I'm sure we'll get into this a little bit. Last three years have been the best and the worst three years. I I don't know how better to say that because um uh they're becoming the best upon reflection. And that's that's a big that we'll I'm sure we'll get into some of that. So yeah, I'm Clegg.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Happy to be here, man. Dude, that's awesome. Well, I'm happy to have you. And I, you know, I I reached out because, you know, when I look at a lot of what you do and who you are, there was a lot that popped out right, you know, right at the beginning, because you look at a lot of these things that people are are are are engaging with, routines and and lifestyle stuff, but you know, and I wanted to ask you right from the get-go, for someone listening right now, like how should they identify what they're tolerating that's draining their energy and what's the first step to address it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah. Well, I think you said a key word there, tolerating. And, you know, it's it's interesting. You know, I talk about inside of Leadership Square, which is my leadership coaching division. I named it Leadership Square for really two reasons the power of two. So if you think of leadership and squared with the little superscript two, the power of two is connection and culture. And I often say culture is what you tolerate. Culture is to organizations what personality is to people. And in both cases, you are what you tolerate. Your culture is what you tolerate. So what are the things that are quietly draining us? If you don't have a North Star, everything's gonna be a drain. Because what ends up happening is you have seven, eight, nine, ten priorities. I mean, interestingly enough, the word priority was Latin for one. It wasn't until the last 150 years that we actually changed it in Webster's dictionary from priority to priorities, plural. It's always been a singular word. And and by nature, you know, back in the back in the days, labor uh certainly wasn't scarce, but there weren't a lot of labor laws, and and whoever held the gold made the rules. And uh protecting labor wasn't one of those. So priority became priorities so we could get more out of workers. Well, now you have us here in the here in the the 2000s plus now, which don't have a priority or a North Star. And that's the biggest challenge because what happens is we end up really truly getting into other people's urgencies, become our priorities. And so it's very reactive. So without that North Star, we're unable to be proactive. So we naturally fall into reactive nature because feeling busy feels productive, even though we know busy isn't necessarily good. I would, I would much prefer my team to work 20 to 25 hours a week and get accomplished what they need to get accomplished, what our expectations and our standards are, than work 45 or 50 to grind out and do that. Like that to me, that doesn't make a lot of sense. So um I love that you use the word tolerate because that's that's where everything starts. It's it's what are you letting in? And it typically is something that is right under our nose that we're not even really recognizing.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

I love that. A couple things. First of all, tolerating and just spinning the wheels. And you're right. It's interesting, right? Very interesting experience. Embarrassing a bit, if I share why you're gonna like laugh, but so I'm really allergic to poison oak. And yeah, this story just starts weird already. Like, I live in Southeast Asia part of the year, and we don't have poison oak here. And I live in the city, you know, so I just like my cares and worries about poison oak went out the window. And yet I found out something really not fun. I uh love cashews as well. Now, cashews, when you get the cashew with the skin on, I did not know that cashews are actually a relative of the poison oak and poison ivy family. They are no idea. Right? Now, they all contain Uruchol. I'm probably saying that wrong, which is the compound that makes you itch. Now, when you eat cashews, they've been boiled and the skin's been removed, so it's the delicious inside. The toxins are on the skin or in the fruit. I got a whole box of so can you have me? Hold on one second. I got a whole box with the skins on. And a whole box with the skins on, and I ate the whole box. And it was, it went bad. It was like not good, and then I had a massive, massive, massive reaction. Like 70 to 80% of my body covered in poison oak rash. So you essentially had an anaphylactic shock. Except I wasn't, I it wasn't epipin, it was just my skin was red, rash, itchy, and like I was like, oh, this is, and it didn't happen for like four days afterwards. So it was like as it started working its way out in my sweat, yeah, it just started all of the toxins in my sweat coming out. Now, here's the weird thing, right? Something that you don't realize is this. We don't pay attention to everything. We don't pay attention to, are you feeling your hand right now? No, I don't feel my hand right now. It's there, but when I focus on it, I can feel it. But normally your brain just kind of it's extra, it's extra. But when everything is stimulated, like I was having, there were a couple of days where I felt my foot, I felt my hand, I felt my ankle, I felt everything that was having a problem, I felt. And that stimulus was just, it made every other interaction close to impossible. Like I my daughter's trying to talk to me, and I was just like, I can't even finally, I was like, I need to go to the drugstore and get all the medicine. What medicine? All the medicine. I got it. I got a doctor. Yeah. I don't like to take medicine much, but like, man, I needed it. Got in the like they got me in the treatment protocol. It's been four days since then, and I'm definitely feeling better. But like one of the things is is like those stimulus, everything, everything is overwhelming when you don't have that focus, we don't have a reason. You know, and like I was able to still do my podcast in spite of it. Luckily, I didn't get anything in my face, but I was able to do my podcast in spite of all that because I had my why. That signal, you know, was there. But I also, you know, like the noise is there, you have to put up with stuff, but you know, at the same time, sometimes you got to figure out what to trim because that noise will eventually be too much. So, you know?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of your more productive, you know, the Elon Musk of the world, regardless of what you think about him politically, he's done a pretty good job from a business perspective. And he's an engineer mindset by trade, right? He'll tell you the the only way that you can grow is by saying no. You have to learn what to cut out. And I think it was Steve Jobs that said something like, I have 10,000 good ideas brought to me every single day, where I pay attention to are the things that that we say no to, because um otherwise things continue to add up. And and here's the other thing, too, Sean, that I think is is it's the good and the bad about repetition. We all need reps. Like I get leaders asking me all the time, hey, you know, if I'm if I'm gonna really be living the core values, how how often am I saying this? How often am I repeating myself? And I'm like, when you feel like you're blue in the face and you've you've said it too much, say it again. So repetition is a good thing in that. And as leaders, we need to repeat the things that we expect. Now, as humans, we live something that Dr. Benjamin Hardy calls the default future, which means we are doing the same thing day after day after day, which is also repetition. That's the downside of that, right? You mentioned, you know, are you aware of your hand? Well, you are now because now we're looking at our hands, we're seeing our hands, we're feeling our hands. And Dan Sullivan says it best, who Dan Sullivan, Ben Hardy wrote three fantastic books together. And I've studied under Ben, and Ben's just phenomenal, and his outlook on being the future self is phenomenal. But Dan Sullivan says your eyes, your eyes can only see, or your brain can only comprehend what your eyes can see and your ears can hear. So, to your point about the hand, if you're not looking, sounding, feeling anything with your hands, your brain doesn't register it. And that's the same thing with being your future self or a North Star. If you're not focused in on a priority, you're not going to achieve as smoothly as you'd like. And we all know this, most people, and everybody talks about it now. You gotta, you gotta shake the comfort. You gotta go to, but it's true, you cannot grow without discomfort. You might get lucky, but consistently you will not. And that's where most people get things wrong when you want to start or make a change in anything. It doesn't matter if it's health, wealth, um, their personal lives. It doesn't matter. Anything that requires change has to start with commitment first. Most people put off and delay because they want to start with confidence. They want to feel good, they want to know that they can do it well. Well, competence comes before confidence. Commitment comes before courage. So if you think of this, Dan Sullivan calls it the four C's, you have to start at commitment. There's there's no other way. Because if you wait for confidence or competence, you're gonna be waiting forever. And that's why there are people that make changes and are extremely successful, and there are people that don't. And that's, in my opinion, the pinnacle or where the haves and the have nots begin. Because most of us are starting from a similar point of opportunity, right? Some of us have started on first base, some of us have started on third base. I recognize that, but all of us have the same opportunities. So, you know, and I and I fully believe in equal opportunities. I don't believe in equal outcomes.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

That's so interesting. You know, one of the things too, like, um it's like as people are trying to get things going, like, like you're right, like at the end of the day, if you're dealing with something, uh today, today was a tough day. I'm trying to get back in shape. I'm trying to get back in the gym regularly. And I, the last three days in a row, got in, loved it, had great days, crushed it, woke up sore today. But I had a marathon day. I had to shoot four music videos for my wife. And then I had to come back and work with my team and do some videos. We had 150 videos that we have to get edited and exported by the end of the week for clients. Um, you know, it's it's moving. We got a lot going on. And what I'm saying is like, I'm overwhelmed. But you know, five years ago, I was overwhelmed working as a teacher. You know, you're overwhelmed in a lot of places. But I want to ask you this because if someone wants to improve their daily routine this week, they're feeling overwhelmed, they want to figure something out, it doesn't matter where you're at. How do they define, decide which one change will create the biggest impact in their life?

unknown 15:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Well, I think you said the first thing is you have to determine where you want. So is it health? Is it wealth? Is it something personal? Is it something family related? Whatever the key theme is, you have to have that because once again, otherwise you're going to be saying yes to everything. Yeah. We we do not have a lack of information in this world today. We have information overload. So you mentioned noise. Well, you got to find the signals. The signal is what is your priority? The signal is what is your North Star? Doesn't matter what we call it. So if it's, hey, I I want to lose 10 pounds, well, then I've got to get up and go to the gym. You know what? There might be something I have to do. I typically I'm working on my book first thing in the morning because that is when I'm at my freshest. Um I I feel sharp in the morning. I feel alive in the morning. I try to go outside in my backyard and get some writing in. But if I say, you know what, the gym is actually really crowded at 6:30 or 7. I need to be at the gym at 4:30 or 5, then I have to switch my route. So I'm gonna have to say no to writing that three or four weekdays that I've decided to go to the gym. That doesn't mean that I don't have to write at all, but if my priority is health, something has to shift. We cannot live in that default future. And that's why I'm a big fan of that. I mean, three years ago, Sean, I had an accident. And long story short, I coached high school football here in North Carolina in the U.S., and I was coming back from a tournament, and we had just beat our crosstown rival. Interestingly enough, it was the Southeast Region Tournament, big tournament, and we end up playing our neighbors for the championship. And we won. It's the first time we beat this team in seven years. After that, you get the trophy, the whole nine yards. The parents are insane, crazy, because it's the first time we beat this team. And I'm driving home and a guy jumps off a bridge in front of my truck. And unfortunately, I have a big truck and that individual did not survive. Now, terrible tragedy, awful circumstances, awful, awful experience, as you can imagine. But I owe a lot to that accident, all of the changes in my life, which I've made a significant amount in the last three years since the accident, because what that accident caused for me was deep introspection, deep reflection on my life. And what I realized was the previous decade, I was living the default future. I was comfortable, I was content, I'd stopped dreaming. And that's what my TED talk was on was this whole idea of being your future self and getting beyond, because there's a lot of bad stuff that happens in the world today. I mean, we're in a crazy world, and I think the world's always been crazy, but it's more visible to all of us, you know, that information overload, that noise, so to speak. So I was able to really lock in and start going, okay, when I realized I was living that default future, I knew that I needed to put some priorities in place. And so I said, okay, I want freedom of time, I want freedom of money, and I want freedom of purpose. Those are the three things that I want in my life. And so each one of those three key pillars, I have something that I'm working on. If it doesn't fall into those three pillars, it's not getting worked on. Now, that's not to say that I'm not, that I'm perfect, that I don't screw up. And I'm an ideator and I'm a visionary. So I've never seen a bad idea. So I'm trying all types of new things, but I have to come back in to those three core pillars. So that's what people have to do. They have to identify what is that thing. And I do not recommend more than three, right? I mean, I'm just sitting here talking about priority being singular, and I'm already talking about three pillars, but our brain operates in threes. So if you see a lot of things online, typically it's like, what are the top three of this? What are the top three of that? Like the holisticals idea. We have to focus in on something. Anything else that doesn't fall, you have to say no. And there is so much power in no. So much power in no. So that would be the recommendation.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Well, that that leads to my to my next question because there is so much power in no. But um, I'm the type that like I have a shirt that's one of my favorite shirts, and it says literally the shirt, may the bridges I burn light my way. And I'm like, hey yo, I love that shirt. You know, but like for me, it's really easy to cut things back, you know, just because I can aggressively do it, just because I I I like simplifying things. I like figuring out what is it that's really the most important things. But some people, that's not their thing. My wife, you know, she had this one contract that she was looking at doing with this business, and it was not good. And they were like, it was uh to go on this show, and then like to appear on the show, they wanted a non-compete, fully exclusive booking contract for three years. And I was like, no, no, no, they haven't done no, they just no, yeah. And but the thing is, is like she was really worried about burning bridges. She was really worried about separating, you know, and so but you know, overcommitting to areas of our life can be like entering a contract for multiple years that we're not setting like separating from. You know, you think about that. Like you join a gym and then you realize the gym's not really working for me. I don't like this gym. Uh people are on their cell phones or something. That's every gym now. But like, you know, like you got to make the change. But like when someone realizes they're overcommitted, how do you advise them to set a boundary without blowing up relationships? Because you know, I tend to light the fuse and run, but you know, probably not the best thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah. Well, I'm I'm an information and an idea hoarder. So I'm probably a little more like your wife where I'm constantly adding things. And you said something, you're doing a great job of leading me down the road. Um, you know, you said tolerate earlier, you said boundaries there. You have to have boundaries, right? Your boundaries essentially are a set of standards, right? So there are standards for the things you're going to do, and there are standards for things that you will not do. And the boundaries is Your standard for the things that you will not do. Boundaries is just a set of guardrails. As I said earlier, culture is to companies like personality is to people. Culture is just a set of standards, values, beliefs, expectations. Boundaries are no different. Truly, boundaries are no different. And what you find is you're you're going to be attracting a lot of the similar types of things that you're going to have to say no to. So it does get a little easier. Now, over commitment, as I said, I am an information and idea hoarder. I mean, even in the projects that create within my AI platform, I am constantly putting some, I call it the parking lot. And so the tools that I use know that when I have an idea, that if it's not inside of my three pillars, it goes into what's called the parking lot. And so this parking lot, every time I have a session, which I am, I am utilizing AI probably three to four hours every single day, I am, I am putting things in the parking lot constantly. Because what happens is when I do a weekly review of the parking lot, if it doesn't fit, one, it won't let me. It'll say, this is not one of your core pillars. If it's something that I get to sneak in, it will say, okay, you can do this because you can pair this with that. I don't have to do that mentally anymore because I have tools that are doing that for me. I live in something that's called the Eisenhower Matrix. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but if not, I certainly Google it.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

You used to, I love it. Can you explain for people who are um aware of it what it is?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Absolutely. First and foremost, you can Google Eisenhower Matrix. This was this was designed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. And essentially it is a matrix, it's a framework, right? What ultimately is there's four quadrants. But if you were to think of the top two quadrants, right? The one on the right is important but not urgent, right? And you list those items. And in the top left, it's important and urgent. So obviously the top left are the things that you want to be doing now and knocking out. The bottom left is um is not important, not urgent, and you can just delegate that off, right? You can you so you can go through all of these, these, this framework. And honestly, there's you can get a hundred different versions of it, but at the end of the day, it's these four, and the things that I focus on is when do I learn to delegate to my, to, to, to my teams? And if you don't have teams, right, that's even more important to understand and stay within this framework. I had, I had used it a lot when I was a younger leader. It was critically important. I don't know where along the way I got sidetracked or stopped, and I still write things down. I write things down, I'll take a picture, and then I'll send that to my AI platforms, right? And um because that helps me. It helps keep me on track on the things that I'm doing. And oh, by the way, the things are important. I have been redoing, been reusing the Isa How matrix for about four months now. I've done more in the last four months than I did the entire year last year because I'm significantly more productive. Because one, I'm inside of my pillars, and that's that's an important piece about these boundaries, right? That we talked about a second ago, is when you get outside of those, outside of those pillars, that becomes the noise and that becomes the distractions, which we all have them. And as long as we all have these phones and and iPads and notifications on for every daggone cool app is being created every single day. Um, you know, I mean, I tell my kids all the time, like, stop doom scrolling.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

But the thing is, like, I want to, I jumped in there and I interrupted. So for everyone to know, I just interrupted because my dog was vomiting across the room. But it's there's so much noise. There's so much distractions around, you know, and like even here, I'm trying to focus. I don't have my phone out, but like, as I want to get something done, my North Star is this podcast episode tonight, you know, and I want to get it out because I I like having conversations that I think will help people, you know? But yet we're we are surrounded by things that are distracting and you know, how do you handle these distractions and then get back on track? You know, so you get something that falls outside of your for your pillars, you know, and maybe it pulls you off, you know, like the washing machine breaks and you gotta divert onto that and it's not in line. How do you find ways to get back in line once you because I know, like this is one of the things that I think in fitness, like you see people going to the gym, they start failing and they go, I'm a failure, and then they don't go back to the gym. Like, and I think that's one of the things. How can people bounce back and stay or get back on track once they kind of fall off the wagon, so to speak, you know?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Yeah, honestly, I I go back to the Eisenhower matrix because when I when I say I am a hoarder of information and ideas, I legitimately mean that. I am yeah I use an assessment that I've used for eight years. It's the best thing out there, and I've used them all, especially in corporate America. I've used Disc, uh Cultural Index, Myers Briggs, Predictive Index, Colby, Hogan, Enneagram, you name it. I've used them all because I love that stuff. I'm a lover of information. I like learning. Well, I've used PDP, and not a lot of people have heard of it. It's a, it's uh been around for 50 years, though, but it's 98% accurate. Inside of that, there's a working style that we call high thrust. That's me. I'll give you an example, and this this will likely resonate with a lot of people. Um last year before the holidays, I text my wife and I said, I'm about, like a good husband should, I'm about to leave the office. Is there anything you need me to pick up on the way home? Right? Fair enough. She calls. Well, I answer the phone right in because my wife is a texter, not a talker. So I'm like, okay, I'm in trouble. And she's like, hey, she's like, Clegg, the master bath toilet is constantly running. I was like, oh, say no more. I'm gonna go to the hardware store, I'll pick up a kit, and I'll fix it on the way home. She immediately says to me, Sean, she goes, Are you actually going to fix the toilet tonight? Or do I need to be prepared to be without a master bath toilet over the holidays? And I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, Clegg, I'm already envisioning waking up in the middle of the night, stepping on tools, stepping on the kit, the toilet not running. And I'm like, I promise you, I will fix it tonight. High thrust people love starting new projects. And this is where a lot of distraction comes from. And this is why I say I'm a hoarder of that stuff, because I love doing new stuff. Wife calls, says, I need to fix the toilet. I'm like, heck yeah. I'm not a plumber. I don't get excited to do plumbing, but I get excited to start a new project. The problem and the downside of high thrust people is we don't necessarily like finishing. We get so distracted that it's the shiny new toy or squirrel, and we're often running to something different. Now that I know that about myself, my wife knows that I'm high thrust. And that's why she was like, I don't think you're going to finish it tonight. Will you? That was her giving me a deadline kindly, right? In both of my divisions, in QWorks group, I have Katie, our president, who knows that I'm high thrust. So she helps me maintain a distraction-free environment. When I get distracted with a new project or something, she cuts it off and she said, Clegg, you're thrusting again. I'll go, okay, okay. Anna, who's my EA in the leadership development side of things and leadership squared, she, and by the way, both of them have the expectation to tell me when I'm off track, to tell me when I'm being lacking discipline, to tell me when I'm outside of the pillars. If they don't, if I if I start running and I'm not within my swim lane where I'm supposed to be, and they don't tell me, that's when they hear it from me because they are expected. We need that. In order for us to win at the level that we want to win, I have to have those boundaries and guardrails. And they are that for me. But it starts with self-awareness. You have to know what are those things. For me, it's anything new. If it's not new, if it's some like just random whatever, you know, that default future, that's not as distracting to me. It's the shiny new toys that are distracting to me. But now that I've been operating with this high thrust knowledge for almost a decade now, it's easier for me to do that. And that's where most people, most people think that they're self-aware. In fact, the data is 95% of leaders believe that they're self-aware, but only 10 to 15% actually are, because most people believe in introspection and reflection, that that encompasses all of self-awareness. Well, that's only half the problem. That's only half the equation. Internal self-awareness is what I just shared with you. It's how do we land on other people? That's external self-awareness, and that's where we often are lacking. So without those guardrails and boundaries, we're going to be distracted. We're going to be all over the place. We're going to be lacking priorities. That's why.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

You know, it's interesting too because we all want to think that we are the best versions of ourselves when we show up when the problem happens. Of course. I was noticing that last week when I had that allergic reaction. I was like sitting there thinking, I told my wife, I was like, I had to go get a bunch of medicine because I was feeling awful. And I was a jerk, man. I was just an absolute a-hole. Yeah. And, you know, but yet sometimes we don't have those excuses as to why we're doing that. You know, and when someone notices a bad version of themselves showing up under pressure, what steps can they take to change that pattern and be a better version of themselves, you know?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Yet the only way that we know we're not being the best version of ourselves is if someone else tells us that. And I want to, I want to pause on that and take a beat on that for a second because like I always get this like, huh? When I say that. When I was still an athlete and playing ball, when I didn't feel at my best, but I competed and still had great outcomes. Like those things happen. So it's not just that. It's when we ask people for feedback, that's the only way that we really can tell. And so even when I'm working with organizations and working with leaders inside of organizations, I always ask them for two sponsors. And what I mean by it, it could be a boss, it could be significant others inside of their sphere of influence. Sphere of influence, sorry. We don't want to stab them. But so, so when we look at this sphere of influence, I have a very high-candor conversation with them that, and I teach them the difference of being nice versus being kind. Because here's the thing is we have to have people being kind, which means they're likely going to tell us things that we do not want to hear about ourselves. It's necessary because it's the only way that we learn that we're not being the best version of ourselves. Because most of us, to your point, think that we're nines and tens uh when in reality we're fives and sixes. And by the way, if we're fives and sixes personally, we can't be nines or tens professionally. It's not congruent. It does, it doesn't work that way. Like that's the misalignment that we're talking about. So it starts there. By the way, all of us have a second version of ourselves that is under pressure. In fact, that's usually the person that shows up to work because we have deadlines, we have consequences, we have, we have quotas, we have other people that we have to uplift. If we're leaders, number one job is to develop others. So we have all these other things which require us to feel the pressure. Now, one last thing with that. As I mentioned, I use the assessment PDP. Once again, I can use any of them. So I'm not like, there's nothing that's in it for me. Use whatever you want. But but the part of why I stuck with PDP, first was this accuracy. Like 98% accurate is pretty good. But the second thing was it measures the pressure. So it doesn't just measure the four cornerstone traits of like, are you dominant? Are you outgoing? Are you patient? Are you a rule follower structure? It measures how do you make decisions, it measures what is your working style, it measures your capacity to do work, it measures the pressures. What, how are you? So it's the beginning look of how others likely see you. That creates a dialogue. Now, when I have two sponsors inside of the organization, that starts bringing this external self-awareness to light. Because when these sponsors are now being kind, not nice, nice typically is a level of comfort. I don't want to hurt Sean's feelings. I don't, I, you know, that's it's not my place to say that. Well, if you're one of my confidants, it really is your place to say that. It's an expectation. And as leaders, we have to give the people around us those expectations. And the problem is the higher we go, the less feedback we get. Continue to go higher, not only is it less feedback, but the feedback we get is nice, not kind. And there's an extremely big difference. We say, I don't, I don't want to hurt Sean's feelings because I'm protecting Sean, but we're lying to ourselves. I'm protecting my comfort because it's uncomfortable for me to tell you that whatever it may be, I need to tell you, right? So that's a I know I went around the the building to get to the front, which is about the pressures, but it all comes back down. And that's that is the tip of the spear for me is helping people understand the gap. Because if you don't understand that gap of who you naturally are versus how you show up, which is what others see. Think about that. If I'm naturally not dominant, but now I'm under pressure and now I'm barking orders, my tone and body language are very aggressive, even though I go, well, I'm not dominant. Well, ask all the people that I lay in the wake of my path from having tone and body language, right? In a very aggressive manner. People are going to see me as dominant, even though that's not a natural trait, but that's how I show up under pressure.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

It's interesting too, because there are people that have, when you figure out that North Star and what you're going towards, um, you know, there might be more than one. You know what I mean? And I I mean, like sometimes people will have a North Star, I want my business to be successful, I want to focus on my family. And you have to find ways to align all of your stuff, you know, and I think that that's a a journey in and of itself. But like, if someone feels like success is costing them too much or something else is costing them too much, how do they reassess without throwing everything away?

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Well, I think the first thing is you have to identify what are your boundaries and what are you not saying no to. Yeah. Because I don't know. To me, success is for me, success is all three of those pillars being achieved. Freedom of time, money, and purpose. My purpose is, you know, it started as I want to humanize 100,000 leaders. And then I did my TED talk and I got, you know, just a lot of views very quickly, which was awesome. I think it's in like the top four or five percent on TED Talks, which is super cool. Um so I I changed that to a million because I want to impact a million lives. So that's one pillar for me, right? The money part, that's a big part of it. But that also impacts family. And I don't mean from obviously my family gets to live off of how well or how well I don't do, but I mean, what are the things back at home that we need to cut so that there is more disposable income? So we are saving more. So we are going on like today, right? And the rest of the week, I'm here, I'm at the beach, I'm on vacation. That was unplanned. And I was like, you know what? I have been traveling, busted my butt. I'm gonna take my family to the to the beach for three or four days. And so we're doing it, right? I'm a better dad and a better husband in these last three years since I have really dived deep into those three pillars. Um, so how I spend my time is a direct reflection on what's the most important to me. I still coach high school football. Well, guess what? I had practice this morning from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. There went my writing time. There went my, there went my gym time. So what am I gonna do? What am I saying no to? You have to, you have to, you have to say no to something. Now, that doesn't mean I'm gonna sacrifice my health. So, but I'm gonna have to change if that's a key pillar of mine is to I'm 52 now. I'm not a spring chicken anymore. Health has got to be increasingly more important because when I was running that default future when I was younger, it was all about climbing the corporate ladder. I wasn't a great husband, I wasn't a great father, which meant I wasn't being the best version of myself. So the only way that I can measure success is if I'm winning in all three pillars. That doesn't mean I'm not busting my butt and I'm where I want to be. Heck no. Like, I I don't know that I'll ever, I don't know that there's ever a finish line for me. That's just not my my, I'm not a retiring type. That's why I started speaking so that when I do finally walk away from the day to day, that I can still speak for a living because I enjoy it. I love, I love helping other people. And and at times being that people pleaser gets me in trouble. But that's something that I'm aware of. So I look out for those things. Most people have no idea who they are, Sean. It's because they don't spend any time, because they're so busy, they don't spend any time writing down what are the most important things. And if you can have three most important things, you can be successful. You you won't be overcommitted if you if you have boundaries and standards and saying no. You just won't. But look at your calendar. Is everything there part of one of your three pillars? If it's not, you got to get rid of it. It's an easy no. Right. Uh, where can people go to learn more about you and what you do? Yeah, I LinkedIn's probably the easiest because right now we still have two different websites. Um, it's Michael B. Clegg uh on on LinkedIn. That would likely be the easiest place to go. We're creating communities on the school platform now that are free. Um, so I'm gonna have more information in the coming weeks about that because leadership development shouldn't just be for organizations that can spend millions of dollars. The small businesses need it more than the larger organizations. And by the way, only 27% of companies actually spend money on leadership development. And those that do, it's an average of 10 years that those leaders are in leadership roles before they get any formal training. So there is a significant lack in the market here in the U.S. for leadership development. So I've created a free school community that we just got started that is going to put people um in a position to have development without paying a dime. And there's going to be a lot of really good free stuff there. And you can go to school.com and that's S K O O L, school.com forward slash leader lens L E N S