EAP 203: Growth Mode Activated - Ryan Gottfredson on Mastering Mindset for Extraordinary Change
In this energizing episode of the Early Accountability Podcast, host Kimi Walker welcomes Dr. Ryan Gottfredson, a leadership development coach, author, researcher, and consultant, who specializes in helping leaders and organizations unlock their greatest potential through the power of mindset. Dr. Gottfredson shares his personal journey from a transformative high school sports psychology class to becoming a professor at California State University, Fullerton, and an internationally recognized consultant and author of three influential books, including Success Mindsets, The Elevated Leader, and his newest release, Becoming Better: The Groundbreaking Science of Personal Transformation.
Together, Kimi and Ryan dig deep into what it truly means to lead—not just in action, but in being. They unravel the crucial distinction between the “doing” and “being” sides of self-development and how traditional focus on skills and tactics often overlooks the inner operating system that shapes leadership, growth, and personal transformation. Dr. Gottfredson introduces practical strategies for vertical development, the role of self-awareness, and actionable techniques for cultivating foundational mindsets. Their conversation is packed with powerful analogies, real-world examples, and motivational reminders that elevating your impact always starts from within. Listeners will leave with a renewed understanding that sustainable progress and accountability are rooted in intentional self-elevation, not just checking off to-dos.
Topics Covered in This Episode
- The difference between “doing” and “being” in leadership and personal growth
- How vertical development upgrades your inner operating system for lasting transformation
- Mindset shifts foundational to consistent, resilient leadership
- Self-awareness as the critical early step toward meaningful change
- Practical tools to regulate reactivity and increase intentionality (e.g., meditation, journaling)
- Distinguishing between self-serving and service-oriented leadership for maximizing team impact
About Ryan Gottfredson
Dr. Ryan Gottfredson is a pioneering leadership development expert, best-selling author, and mindset researcher. As a professor at California State University–Fullerton, Ryan blends academic insight with practical strategies to help leaders elevate their thinking and performance. He is the author of acclaimed books including Success Mindsets, The Elevated Leader, and Becoming Better, all of which focus on the power of vertical development and mindset transformation. Through his consulting work, Ryan partners with organizations to create more self-aware, adaptable, and effective leaders by rewiring the way they think.
Connect with Ryan Gottfredson
- Website: https://ryangottfredson.com
- Email: ryan@ryangottfredson.com
Connect with Kimi Walker:
- Visit: earlyaccountability.com
- LinkedIn: Kimi Walker
- Facebook: Kimi Walker
- Instagram: Kimi Walker
- YouTube: Kimi Walker
Transcript
Kimi Walker here and welcome back to the next episode of the
Speaker:Early Accountability Podcast.
Speaker:Excited to have our guest here today.
Speaker:We have Ryan, who is a leadership development, coach, author,
Speaker:research and consultant.
Speaker:He's known for helping organizations in the development of leaders.
Speaker:So Ryan, I'm very excited to have you here with us here today on the show.
Speaker:Why don't you go ahead and just introduce yourself to the audience, tell how you
Speaker:got into all the works that you've done.
Speaker:Tell us a little bit about the books that you've authored and what we're gonna get
Speaker:into it with some early accountability.
Speaker:Yeah, this will be great.
Speaker:Thank you so much for having me and it's great to be with
Speaker:you if you're listening in.
Speaker:I as mentioned, I'm Ryan Gottfredson.
Speaker:I consider myself to have two full-time jobs, one of my full-time jobs as a
Speaker:professor at California State University, Fullerton where I teach and do research
Speaker:on leadership, but then I employ my research and translate it into,
Speaker:the consulting work that I do, I work with organizations all over
Speaker:the world to develop their leaders, primarily through a focus on mindsets.
Speaker:And as Kimi as you mentioned, I've written three books.
Speaker:My first book is called Success Mindsets.
Speaker:My second book is called The Elevated Leader, and my new book
Speaker:that just came out is called Becoming Better, the Groundbreaking
Speaker:Science of Personal Transformation.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:So the audience listening, I'm a little bit under the weather, so
Speaker:you have to excuse my voice, but we are powering through today because
Speaker:I'm gonna have, like we said, we're gonna have a successful mindset and
Speaker:we're gonna make the best of it.
Speaker:And I'm very excited about the topic.
Speaker:So leadership is something we haven't had a lot of here talking about
Speaker:leadership and just development how did you get just, let's just start off.
Speaker:How did you get into this sector?
Speaker:How did this become of interest for you?
Speaker:I'm gonna take you back to high school.
Speaker:I took a class in high school.
Speaker:I'm not sure it's offered in very many high schools but
Speaker:I was thrilled to take it.
Speaker:So I grew up playing sports and the class that was offered my senior year
Speaker:of high school was sports psychology.
Speaker:And I was just thinking, this is gonna be great.
Speaker:It's gonna help me to be a better athlete, perform better on the court, on the field.
Speaker:And so I took this class and it ended up being a life changing class for me.
Speaker:I still remember the books that I had to read.
Speaker:I had to read four books in one semester in high school.
Speaker:So one of them was Stephen R. Covey's seven Habits.
Speaker:And then I read three books that were written by basketball coaches
Speaker:and they were all about leadership.
Speaker:So it was one book by Pat Riley, another book by Mike Krzyzewski,
Speaker:and another book by Rick Najera.
Speaker:And I remember thinking as a senior of high school, if I could write books like
Speaker:this for a career, that would be awesome.
Speaker:But I had no clue how to even go about doing that.
Speaker:And so I just put that in the back of my mind and went about living life.
Speaker:And fast forward a couple of years later, I was living in Boston,
Speaker:Massachusetts, and I met a professor at Harvard Business School and
Speaker:I asked him, what did you teach?
Speaker:Or what do you teach?
Speaker:And he said, organizational behavior.
Speaker:And I said, what's that?
Speaker:And I don't remember his answer, but I remember what I thought,
Speaker:which was this sounds like sports psychology, but for business.
Speaker:And that's where I was like, I think this is my home.
Speaker:So I ended up graduating with my bachelor's degree in finance.
Speaker:But I went directly into a PhD program in organizational behavior and I
Speaker:did my dissertation on leadership.
Speaker:And that provided me the foundation for everything that I do now.
Speaker:But if it's okay, let me just share one of the things that I
Speaker:learned during my PhD program.
Speaker:So having to do my dissertation on leadership, I had to review
Speaker:the last 70 years of leadership research and that was awesome.
Speaker:I just felt like I was learning so much.
Speaker:But one of the things that I observed was that really over the last 70
Speaker:years, academics have been asking and seeking to answer one primary
Speaker:question, and that question is, what do leaders need to do to be effective?
Speaker:And I think it's a good question and we have some good answers to that
Speaker:question, but that question didn't sit very well with me because it
Speaker:feels a little bit shortsighted.
Speaker:Because to me, leadership isn't about doing things.
Speaker:It's not about checking the box, it's about being a certain type of person,
Speaker:being a person that could be a positive influence on the world around them.
Speaker:And as I was finishing up my PhD, I decided as I transitioned into my
Speaker:role where I'm at Cal State Fullerton, is I wanna do research that taps
Speaker:into the being side of leadership.
Speaker:How do we help leaders become better?
Speaker:How do we help them to become more positive in influences a greater
Speaker:light in the world around them?
Speaker:And so that's been my area of focus for the last 12 years.
Speaker:And what, what has led to the books that I've written.
Speaker:Okay, awesome.
Speaker:So I have a question for you.
Speaker:I have a few.
Speaker:So here on Early Accountability Podcast, we are, self-improvement.
Speaker:We focus a lot on people who are in the early or beginning
Speaker:stages of a new endeavor or even sometimes just sustainability.
Speaker:So this could be a personal or professional shift or change
Speaker:with your focus on mindset.
Speaker:How do you help leaders cultivate like that early accountability mindset with
Speaker:their teams ensuring like productivity, but I also wanted to say with dealing
Speaker:with big changes, so having to.
Speaker:And it doesn't have to be big.
Speaker:I shouldn't say big because it doesn't have to be big but we are about like the
Speaker:change, the pivot, the pause, the move.
Speaker:How do you help them navigate that and navigate that with teams?
Speaker:I know that's something I always struggle with too or that's why
Speaker:I got into early about coaching.
Speaker:I made a lot of changes, but I have also done a lot of things too
Speaker:with like organizational wellness.
Speaker:So I know a little bit of like the organizational side, but how do
Speaker:you come to, from that telling the leader, the person who I guess you say
Speaker:creates this kind of ripple effects?
Speaker:We need to do a big change.
Speaker:We have to have this big shift in this organization.
Speaker:How do you help them navigate that?
Speaker:Yeah, so I'm gonna ask you a question.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So if I want to be effective at navigating change, navigating
Speaker:uncertainty, navigating complexity, am I gonna be more successful because of
Speaker:my knowledge or skills, or because of my emotional intelligence, my mindsets
Speaker:on my emotional regulation ability?
Speaker:what I wanna say is execution and yes, emotional intelligence.
Speaker:But I think sometimes too, there also has to be some, and I'm coming from a
Speaker:weight loss or a wellness perspective.
Speaker:'cause that's what I know the most.
Speaker:So I'm just thinking from making that change.
Speaker:So let's say when I, at the beginning, when I also over 120 pounds on my own
Speaker:there is no secret to losing weight.
Speaker:Move more, eat less.
Speaker:It, you need a negative.
Speaker:Caloric deficit is not anything out there, but how many people
Speaker:struggle to do that, right?
Speaker:So there may be some things I say in that tweaks that I have learned
Speaker:had to learn from my nutritionist or my dietician or my doctor.
Speaker:But the motivation was to get up and actually do
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:I feel like,
Speaker:so you're spot on, right?
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:I'm gonna say, most people, correct me if you think I'm wrong, most
Speaker:people know how to lose weight
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's not a
Speaker:have the skills to lose weight.
Speaker:Most do yes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Right And there, yeah, there's surely some people that may have
Speaker:some sort of genetic disposition or illness or something like that.
Speaker:So here's what's really a helpful way for us to think about this.
Speaker:We have two different sides of ourselves.
Speaker:We've got what I call our doing side, and this is think about the an X axis.
Speaker:Our doing side is our talent, our knowledge, our skills, and our abilities.
Speaker:We have another side of ourselves, which I call our being side.
Speaker:Think about the Y axis and our being side is about our
Speaker:emotional regulation abilities.
Speaker:It's our mindsets, it's our character, it's our psyche, it's
Speaker:our emotional regulation abilities.
Speaker:And when it comes to, let's just use losing weight here, for example,
Speaker:when it comes to one's ability to lose weight, my argument would be.
Speaker:Is it has to do less with their doing side, with their knowledge and skills.
Speaker:I think we generally have the knowledge and skills to lose weight, where the
Speaker:reason why people struggle to lose weight has more to do with their being side.
Speaker:And where we got into this is to ask about navigating change, navigating
Speaker:uncertainty, navigating complexity.
Speaker:If we wanna navigate a difficult environment, we
Speaker:are gonna be more effective.
Speaker:If we can improve along our being side more than we improve along our doing side.
Speaker:But here's the tricky part about this 99% of our development
Speaker:efforts focus on our doing side.
Speaker:You think about our education systems, our athletic programs, most
Speaker:of our organizational development efforts is all about gaining new
Speaker:knowledge and gaining more skills.
Speaker:And I'm not saying that's not helpful.
Speaker:We surely need that to a certain degree.
Speaker:But if we wanna become more effective at navigating life, we've
Speaker:gotta focus on our being side.
Speaker:And the problem is most people don't recognize that we have a being side.
Speaker:Therefore, most people don't focus on their being side.
Speaker:But if we can awaken to our being side, evaluate our altitude along our being
Speaker:side, then we could be empowered to upgrade and elevate along our being side.
Speaker:And one of the things that I would suggest coming back to the weight loss
Speaker:is ultimately losing weight isn't about gaining more knowledge and more skills.
Speaker:It's about changing our relationship with both food and ourselves.
Speaker:We've gotta change our relationship ourselves, and
Speaker:that's all about the being side.
Speaker:And so if anybody's gonna take anything away from what we talk about today,
Speaker:I hope it's that core idea that if we want to elevate, if we want to
Speaker:improve, if we want to become better, we've gotta focus on the being side.
Speaker:And it's just, most people don't focus on it because they
Speaker:don't know that it's there.
Speaker:Do you equate being with doing.
Speaker:And I guess even going to the example, I know what you got, the sports psychology
Speaker:great too, which is wonder wonderful.
Speaker:'cause I really usually have not had this, like I said, I haven't had
Speaker:leadership, but I don't think I've had anybody's sports psychology either.
Speaker:So you have a lot of things that kind of intertwine with stuff I do too
Speaker:which I love.
Speaker:So do you equate being with doing.
Speaker:So I don't, I keep them separate.
Speaker:And here's a couple of ways to think about it.
Speaker:Yeah, I it if we have the doing side is a lot like the tools in our tool belt.
Speaker:That's gonna be helpful.
Speaker:But what matters the most is the person wearing the tool belt.
Speaker:And that's more along the lines of our being side.
Speaker:And so if we've got this X axis, which is the doing side, the Y axis, which
Speaker:is the being side, and if we have two people with the same level of doing.
Speaker:But they are at different altitudes along the being side.
Speaker:What we're gonna find is the person who has that higher altitude along their
Speaker:being side, they're gonna get more out of their knowledge and their skills.
Speaker:They're gonna get more out of their doing, so the way that I'd say it, it again,
Speaker:it's not bad to focus on the doing and what we need to do, but our capacity to
Speaker:be successful with our doing has more to do with our being side than it does
Speaker:our knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Speaker:And you emphasized a concept called vertical development in leaders.
Speaker:One, could you for audience or myself, give us greater understanding of what
Speaker:you mean by vertical development and what mindset shifts do you feel are critical?
Speaker:To maintain consistency in their personal and professional growth,
Speaker:especially if they're facing new challenges within what they are leading.
Speaker:Yeah, question.
Speaker:So there's multiple layers here, right?
Speaker:So we've talked about the doing side, we've talked about the being side.
Speaker:What adult development psychologists have found is they've discovered
Speaker:that we can develop in these two different ways, we could develop
Speaker:along our doing side, and that's what they call horizontal development.
Speaker:That's why I say we could call this the X axis, right?
Speaker:It's horizontal development, but then vertical development is about improving
Speaker:along the Y axis, our being side.
Speaker:And so there are these two different ways to develop and so those are
Speaker:some term, that's some terminology.
Speaker:That I'm, it's fairly new.
Speaker:It's only about a decade old, but it's starting to catch on.
Speaker:So when we in organizations, they're starting to realize we have
Speaker:largely been focusing on downloading new apps onto people's iPads.
Speaker:But what we've gotta focus on is not on downloading the apps, but
Speaker:on upgrading the operating system.
Speaker:And so then, the second part of your question was about mindsets.
Speaker:So mindsets is one of the best things for us to focus on if we wanna elevate
Speaker:along our being side, because our mindsets play a crucial role in our
Speaker:body's internal operating system.
Speaker:So let me give you some examples of this.
Speaker:So Kimi, if it's okay, let me ask you, how do you think most
Speaker:people make meaning of failure?
Speaker:Something to avoid or something to approach
Speaker:Avoid,
Speaker:avoid, right?
Speaker:Why do you think, why would you say most people will try to avoid failure?
Speaker:'Cause it doesn't feel good,
Speaker:It doesn't feel good.
Speaker:It makes us feel bad, right?
Speaker:And we may feel some shame and it may be a sign that we lack competence, right?
Speaker:So it's natural for most people to want to avoid failure, but failure may be the most
Speaker:important thing for us to learn and grow.
Speaker:And I would, I imagine you would agree with me, Kimi.
Speaker:I have learned and grown more from my failures than any of my successes.
Speaker:So our body can make meaning of failure as something to avoid.
Speaker:It can also make meaning of failure as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Speaker:Who do you think is gonna be more successful in their life?
Speaker:Somebody who always seeks to avoid failure, or somebody who's
Speaker:willing to try new things and step into the potential of failure.
Speaker:I think definitely the people who take, try to find the lesson in it,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what this is, what we're actually gauging is actually, this is one way to
Speaker:gauge one's altitude along our being side.
Speaker:If we aren't very willing to step into failure, that means our bodies
Speaker:are wired for self-protection.
Speaker:And that's a sign that our body, our internal operating system
Speaker:operates at a lower being side level.
Speaker:But if we have the capacity to step into learning zone challenges where
Speaker:it might be ripe for us to fail, that means that we're gonna operate
Speaker:more, is what I call a value creator.
Speaker:And so here's some key differences when we think about our
Speaker:altitude along our being side.
Speaker:When our bodies are wired more for short term self-protection, that's a signal
Speaker:we operate at a lower being side level.
Speaker:But if our bodies are willing to step into short term discomfort, like failure
Speaker:in an effort to learn and grow and create value in the long term, that's a signal
Speaker:that we're higher up on our being side.
Speaker:And so what we've just talked about.
Speaker:Is the difference between, and I imagine most people have heard this
Speaker:terminology, the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.
Speaker:So a fixed mindset is more self-protective in the short term it's a signal of a lower
Speaker:being side altitude, a growth mindset.
Speaker:It is a willingness to step into short-term discomfort and is an indication
Speaker:that we're higher up on our being side.
Speaker:So does that hopefully integrate these ideas between vertical
Speaker:development and then mindsets.
Speaker:'cause as we elevate our mindsets, we're also elevating along our being side.
Speaker:That makes it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker:So I wanna talk, it's starting to come together as I see what you
Speaker:say about, your being and the axis.
Speaker:I wanna talk about foundational mindsets and so well from success
Speaker:mindsets and becoming better.
Speaker:What are some foundational skills that are important for people to have?
Speaker:One, it all starts with self-awareness.
Speaker:The more you know, we've gotta become aware of our mindsets.
Speaker:So one of the things that I do when I go and I speak to groups, I'll ask the
Speaker:audience how many of you think you have.
Speaker:Really high quality mindsets.
Speaker:I get almost everybody that raises their hand, but I also have a
Speaker:personal mindset assessment.
Speaker:In fact, it's free on my website @ryangottfredson.com, but I've had
Speaker:over fifty thousand people take my mindset assessment and across those
Speaker:50,000 people, or what we do is with this mindset assessment is we assess
Speaker:the quality of our mindsets across four different sets of mindsets.
Speaker:Fixed in growth is one of the four sets of mindsets, and so what we
Speaker:found across the 50,000 people who have taken this mindset assessment.
Speaker:Only 2.5% are in the top quartile for all four sets of mindsets.
Speaker:So what I've learned is that most of us think that we have good or high
Speaker:quality mindsets, but in reality we don't because all of us have some.
Speaker:Self-protective strategies built into our body because of either our life's
Speaker:experience or our current culture.
Speaker:And so that this is inherently a challenge because we, if we want to
Speaker:improve our mindsets, we first have to awaken to the fact that we may not
Speaker:have the most high quality mindsets.
Speaker:Okay, so I have I guess to piggyback off of that, so I have
Speaker:a, like more leadership one.
Speaker:So an elevated leader.
Speaker:An elevated leader, your book.
Speaker:You discuss profound leadership principles.
Speaker:How do these principles contribute to a leader's increased
Speaker:visibility and influence.
Speaker:I know influence is really important ensuring that their efforts are
Speaker:consistently recognized, but also that they're not like minimizing
Speaker:the efforts of those who are making everything possible, if that makes sense.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Like not oh, I'm here and I'm in the spotlight, but hey, what
Speaker:about all these people who are doing all this on the backside?
Speaker:In a way, and I'll bring this to life here in just a second, but in a way you're
Speaker:recognizing a lot of leaders lead from a position of, Hey, look at me like this is
Speaker:a status thing for me to become a leader.
Speaker:But I think we would all agree the very best leaders.
Speaker:Don't lead for a self-serving motive.
Speaker:They lead in a manner in which they are serving something bigger than themselves.
Speaker:And so let me bring this to life.
Speaker:So Kimi, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you four different desires.
Speaker:You tell me whether or not society says these are good or bad desires.
Speaker:Is that okay?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:The desires are to look good, be right, avoid problems, and get ahead.
Speaker:Do you think, does society say these are good or bad desires?
Speaker:All good.
Speaker:So society says these are good because who likes to look bad, be wrong,
Speaker:get passed up and have problems?
Speaker:Nobody, right?
Speaker:But when someone has these desires to look good, be right, avoid problems,
Speaker:and get ahead, where's their focus?
Speaker:Self.
Speaker:Themselves.
Speaker:And so these four desires that I just brought up are actually fueled by
Speaker:the more self-protective mindsets.
Speaker:And when I first learned about mindsets for myself, I was one of these people who
Speaker:said, oh yeah, I've got good mindsets.
Speaker:But the more I started to learn about mindsets, I started to realize.
Speaker:These desires really resonate with me, which says something
Speaker:about the quality of my mindsets.
Speaker:And so what I've come to learn is that, as I've studied mindsets,
Speaker:is there's better desires to have.
Speaker:So instead of a focus on looking good, we should focus on learning and growing.
Speaker:Instead of focusing on being right, we should be focused on finding truth.
Speaker:Instead of avoiding problems, we should be focused on fulfilling a purpose.
Speaker:And instead of avoiding getting passed up, we should be focused on lifting others.
Speaker:And if we could be focused on learning and growing finding truth, fulfilling a
Speaker:purpose, and lifting others, we're gonna lead from a place that is inspiring.
Speaker:As opposed to self-serving.
Speaker:And at the end of the day, as we shift our mindsets, we become
Speaker:somebody that others want to follow.
Speaker:And at the end of the day, that's the number one lesson of leadership.
Speaker:If we wanna be effective leaders, we've got to become somebody
Speaker:that others want to follow.
Speaker:And it all starts with mindsets.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:That's super good.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So Ryan on the early Accountability podcast, we focus on taking action.
Speaker:We need it I have started to more like intertwine that
Speaker:sometimes we need to pause, right?
Speaker:And
Speaker:sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:the action we need to take instead of just always doing.
Speaker:So from a mindset perspective, what is one often overlooked, you would say early
Speaker:step that could significantly improve a leader or even I feel like an individuals
Speaker:communication when it comes to team commitment or just consistent action.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think a good way for us to, so I'm gonna answer your question, but I'm gonna
Speaker:say a good way for us to gauge our being side altitude is by asking the question,
Speaker:how quickly, how reactive is my body?
Speaker:How quickly do I react?
Speaker:To situations in my environment.
Speaker:So for example, if I get cut off driving on the freeway, am I quick to react or am
Speaker:I more intentional about how I respond?
Speaker:So the more reactive our body is, that's a sign that we're
Speaker:lower on our being side altitude.
Speaker:So the reason why I bring this up is because.
Speaker:If we want to elevate along our being side, we've gotta figure
Speaker:out a way to lessen our reactivity and improve our intentionality.
Speaker:And so what are some tactics that we could do to do this?
Speaker:At a most basic level, so I'm gonna call this a surface
Speaker:level strategy is meditating.
Speaker:Meditating is one of the most important things that we could do for
Speaker:helping us to develop the capacity.
Speaker:To better regulate our body's nervous system, because the more that we
Speaker:can regulate our body's nervous system, the less reactive we will be
Speaker:and the more intentional we'll be.
Speaker:So things like meditation, yoga gratitude, journaling, even cold
Speaker:plunging, these are all kind of surface level tactics that have been proven.
Speaker:To help us better be able to regulate our body's nervous system.
Speaker:So I think that's a, I'm gonna call that a starter level strategy.
Speaker:I'm gonna say some deeper level strategies are focusing on mindsets,
Speaker:and that's largely where I play.
Speaker:There's even deepest level strategies and these are interesting.
Speaker:These oftentimes we need a professional to help us out, but this involves
Speaker:a focus on healing our body.
Speaker:So if we've got trauma in our past.
Speaker:That means doing work to heal our trauma.
Speaker:If we've got some neurodivergency issues like for example, ADHD, that
Speaker:might mean that we need certain therapies that are supportive of
Speaker:helping people to rise above the limitations of those neuro divergencies.
Speaker:So an example of a form of therapy that does that is called neurofeedback therapy.
Speaker:It's literally designed to rewire our mind.
Speaker:So those are some really deep level strategies.
Speaker:I'm not gonna suggest we start there, but those surface level strategies
Speaker:are a perfect place to start.
Speaker:Meta meditating, gratitude journaling, yoga, cold plunges, et cetera.
Speaker:I definitely believe in mindfulness.
Speaker:I've done some mindfulness trainings myself participated in some and done some
Speaker:and implemented some too in schools with students and there's a lot that goes into
Speaker:mindfulness that really just helps with that ability to respond and not react.
Speaker:So I do wanna ask a question one about, piggyback off what we're
Speaker:talking, what you're talking about with re responding and not reacting.
Speaker:What are techniques or how would you tell a leader, or a person in leadership,
Speaker:or who's responsible for a team?
Speaker:In situations where it feels like you need a reaction, like there is
Speaker:something, an emergency has happened or it's very pressing and you need
Speaker:a very immediate kind of solution.
Speaker:Even if you need some time to get like the long-term solution.
Speaker:I don't know if that makes any sense, but like we need something right now.
Speaker:This is, the team is bleeding.
Speaker:Like we need you to come in.
Speaker:You have to come in right now, you have to do something.
Speaker:Those are situations where I guess to me, it feels like I, you do have to react,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Our body feels the urgency of that situation, right?
Speaker:But the best leaders try to stay out of urgent mode.
Speaker:And they stay in important mode.
Speaker:And so I'm gonna steal an idea.
Speaker:From there, there's this founder and conductor of the
Speaker:Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.
Speaker:His name is Benjamin Zander.
Speaker:He's got a great TED Talk.
Speaker:He's also caught, got a great book called The Art of Possibility
Speaker:that he wrote with his wife.
Speaker:And he has a fantastic, some fantastic advice for this question.
Speaker:And he says like, when a fire pops up, we don't race to put it out.
Speaker:What he encouraged us to do is to sit back and say, how fascinating, right?
Speaker:So by, by saying how fascinating it puts us in a mental place where it's, we're
Speaker:not taking ourselves too seriously.
Speaker:And I think that's really important.
Speaker:We're also creating space between us and that urgency, because what I see
Speaker:a lot of leaders do is when that fire pops up, they race to put it out.
Speaker:Rarely is the leader, the best person to put out the fire.
Speaker:And so with the best leaders, when that fire pops up, they say How fascinating.
Speaker:And then that allows them to get into the right mindset to say,
Speaker:okay, there's a fire over here.
Speaker:But is that my biggest pressing issue?
Speaker:Or my most important issue 'cause it may not.
Speaker:So we may wanna let that fire burn, or we get to ask the question who's
Speaker:the best person to put out that fire?
Speaker:And so I think that just by asking that or by stating how fascinating,
Speaker:it allows us to create the appropriate psychological space to best address that
Speaker:issue from a more strategic perspective as opposed to a reactive perspective.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:That's a great perspective a great perspective on it.
Speaker:So Ryan, how can the audience find out more about your offerings, your new book?
Speaker:Tell us more about your new book, where they can go to purchase it.
Speaker:The formats it's available in, and just where we can find out
Speaker:more about all of your offerings.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Thanks for asking.
Speaker:So I, yeah, I encourage anybody.
Speaker:Who wants to become better to grab my new book called Becoming
Speaker:Better, the Groundbreaking Science of Personal Transformation.
Speaker:You could find that in any major book, retailers a paperback ebook, an audiobook.
Speaker:But one of the things that you should get a sense of given our what, the
Speaker:things that we've talked about.
Speaker:Is becoming better all starts with self-awareness.
Speaker:And so I've got some tools on my website, some self-assessments,
Speaker:a mindset assessment, a vertical development assessment, and if you go
Speaker:to my website, take those assessments.
Speaker:And if you're interested.
Speaker:Hit me up on social media.
Speaker:I'm primarily on LinkedIn, but I'm really on all social media platforms.
Speaker:Hit me up on social media and say, I took your assessment and I'm happy
Speaker:to jump on a call to talk through your individual results with you.
Speaker:I just appreciate you listening into this and want to give back to you.
Speaker:So if that's a way that you want to connect with me, I'd love to do
Speaker:where can they find you on the web?
Speaker:ryangottfredson.com
Speaker:So that's a mouthful, but I'll let you look it up.
Speaker:It's
Speaker:We'll put it in, we'll put it in the show notes definitely so the audience
Speaker:can definitely get linked to you.
Speaker:We'll definitely have the books in the show notes.
Speaker:I'm gonna do the audio version of the book.
Speaker:I love audio books, so I'm definitely so ready to listen to becoming better.
Speaker:I'm gonna start on that asap.
Speaker:But yes, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker:We really appreciate you coming and bringing your expertise.
Speaker:I've learned a lot you gave us a lot of gems leaders and just in life.
Speaker:So thank you so much for coming on the show until the audience, until next time.
