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Any leader out there that leads people in leads a team, you have to have a high confidence level with a low ego.

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And you're very effective.

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And the reality is, the best leaders build other leaders.

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And to build great teams, each person on the team needs to have the capacity to make mistakes, as long as they're learning lessons from them.

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The reality is that we all are going to make mistakes.

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And when you're afraid to make a mistake, you become really timid and you become really guarded and you become really calculated.

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You should be talking 20% of the time and listening 80% of the time.

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So if you're a leader and you notice that you're the only one in the room talking, you probably have a little bit of an ego problem going on.

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Stressed about keeping your team strong and a chaotic world, meets Sky Michaels.

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On today's Executive Connect podcast, we're going to meet him.

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He's coached over 30,000 pros and built a heart-driven approach to leadership that's all about you.

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I'm locking resilience, boosting morale and growing 1% better every day.

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Stick around as we discover how kindness and accountability can transform your team and your life without the burnout.

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Welcome, Sky!

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And thank you so much for having me on. I'm thrilled to be here.

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I love it. I'm so excited to dive in and I'm already scrolling, but my personal motto is 1% better every day.

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I love it and I can't wait to dive into it.

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So let's talk about your career journey.

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First of all, remarkable.

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You've led coaching efforts for 30,000 people at Compass, while launching with Heartcoach.

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Can you tell us a little bit about that journey?

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And what inspired you?

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For sure. I'll give you really quickly to my background.

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I graduated from Syracuse University as a division one athlete.

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I was a high school history teacher.

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And I very quickly, once I started teaching, realized how poor I was.

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And so I got into Real Estate just as a side gig.

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And over decades of selling Real Estate, it really grew into this career-erows coaching and training agents.

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And I leveraged my teaching background inside of Real Estate.

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And in 2018, I helped Compass launch in Philadelphia, the PA New Jersey Delaware region.

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I sort of was a managing director and helped launch it.

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And I don't know if you remember this, but we had this little thing called COVID hit in 2020.

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Yeah, remember that?

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And so we all got shut down.

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And I remember I was like leading my region.

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And I was so frustrated by the end of March because I was drinking, eating, watching Tiger King.

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And I was like, what was in the reality TV shows?

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And I'm like, what am I doing?

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Yeah, that's what I was doing.

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Oh, God.

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And it was one of those situations where I sort of said, fuck it.

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Like, I'm going to get up at 6am in the morning and I'm going to invite people that I coach

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or I manage to do it with me.

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So I formed a group called the Six Ambers.

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And very quickly it started to spread all across the country.

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And in addition, I formed coaching at Compass, which mean 10 other sales managers.

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And it was our effort at delivering coaching and training while everyone was in lockdown

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at home.

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So is the first time where I was able to get really national exposure and then luckily about

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a year later I became the head of coaching all across the country for Compass.

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So I was traveling around the country and I was delivering a lot of programming virtually

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in person individually.

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And we had 30,000 agents that we were coaching and training.

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And it was such an amazing experience, but I also really, you know, I have two young kids,

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not young teenagers now.

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And I knew at the end of the day that I'm really a born entrepreneur.

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And at the end of the day I was feeling that burnout that you mentioned in the beginning

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of the introduction.

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And I was just, you know, those days where you just don't feel passionate anymore and

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you just feel like you're sort of checking the box off.

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And that's not how I'd live my life.

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And I knew I needed to make a change.

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So at the end of 2023 and into 2024, I made the decision to leave Compass and form my own

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coaching company, which is called with-heart coaching.

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So that's what I'm doing right now is I'm running this amazing coaching company and delivering

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again, coaching virtually and in person and doing speaking engagements with this company

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right now.

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Yeah, first of all, I do remember those COVID days and I do remember so many of us became

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or did things that we weren't super proud of like mindlessly scrolling through whatever

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TikTok and watching too much TV and drinking too much alcohol and laying around.

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But I think the interesting beauty of that is we opened our mind up to what we should be

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doing when we turned off all the distractions.

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And we really got focused on what is our life mission, where are we driving towards.

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And so one of the things I want to talk about, I love the word resilience.

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I don't know why it should spend my word over the last few years.

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And I feel like it's such an important word and it's such an important place to building

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resilient teams, especially in the world we live today with changing political systems,

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changing technology, what's correct on media.

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It's really just a unique time to teach people what and how to be resilient.

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So can you talk a little bit about how you help leaders cultivate resiliency in their

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teams while still maintaining empathy and growing the employees?

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Ready to lead smarter and invest wiser?

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On the Executive Connect podcast, we unpack executive strategies for wealth and influence.

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Hit the subscribe button now.

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Don't just watch acts.

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And I can't agree more.

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I mean, there's never been a time where resiliency is more needed and more necessary in business

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leadership and entrepreneurs and anyone that's out there trying to build something big.

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If you are not resilient, you will crumble in this day and age.

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And it has never been more important.

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So for me, when I'm trying to teach people about resiliency, one of the biggest things that

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we start with is ego.

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And I have a line that I use in my coaching and my training, which is ego is the enemy.

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And ego is one of the situations where when our ego rages, it really makes us so incredibly

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fragile.

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Even when on the outside we may look like we're this big bad, you know, leader and yelling

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and screaming and all this stuff and I'm right and all this things.

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And the reality is that any leader out there that leads people and leads a team, you have

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to have a high confidence level with a low ego to be very effective.

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And this is the first step in building resiliency because of the fact that if you have a really high

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ego and your ego is raging, all of a sudden you're going to be running a team that is

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just waving in the wind and trying to just please you as this egotistical leader.

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And the reality is when you're the best leaders, build other leaders.

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And to build great teams, each person on the team needs to have the capacity to make mistakes

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as long as they're learning lessons from them.

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And when you're working for a really someone who has a really big ego and their ego is raging,

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what happens as someone on the team, you shrink and you're afraid to make mistakes and learn

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lessons from them.

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So when I run teams or I'm coaching people who are running teams, the first thing we need

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to do is we need to check our ego and make sure the decisions we're making were making

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with a really low ego and a high confidence level.

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And what that does, it creates an environment for people where they can actually elevate

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their game and start to do things at a at a at a greater level because of the fact that

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they have the capacity to grow to become the best version of themselves.

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And they're not afraid of making a mistake and learning a lesson from it.

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The reality is that we all are going to make mistakes.

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When you're afraid to make a mistake, you become really timid and you become really guarded

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and you become really calculated.

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And when you think about someone who's really resilient, they don't have those attributes.

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A resilient person is not timid, right?

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They're very bold and they make decisions and they move forward.

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They constantly get one percent better.

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They constantly strive for improvement, right?

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They're not afraid to voice their opinion, you know, and have their voice be heard, right?

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And again, so that the resilient team leaders or people that are leading people, you have

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to start with checking your ego at the door and owning everything in your world.

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And when you start to do this, this is one of those big pieces that I think resiliency

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and ownership go hand in hand, right?

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Because of the fact that if I'm a leader and I have a low ego with a high confidence level

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and the people around me know that.

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All of a sudden now, they are gaining this idea that they have a lot of ownership in the

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process and they're going to elevate above what's required and do more than what's required.

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So those are the two things that I think that I start with is number one, let's check

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where is your ego?

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Where are the issues you're having?

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Are these issues being caused by your ego and are these issues being caused by you shutting

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your team down because you're raging up here, right?

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It's not about you, it's about us.

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And then we go back into ownership, right?

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What is it?

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You have to be any problem on the team is my problem and I own it.

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And if every person on the team adopts that mindset and that mantra, you will have the most

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resilient team that can withstand anything that's thrown up them because of the fact that

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every single person on the team has an ownership mindset and that problem is attacked at all

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levels and it creates that resiliency that you want as a leader.

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Yeah, 100%.

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Let's talk a little bit about what you like mistakes.

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I know younger in my career, I was petrified to make a mistake and I would be recovering

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perfectionism kind of person.

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So I would make sure I was always on point, I didn't make any mistakes fast forward to today.

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I personally love mistakes because every time I make a mistake, I'm learning what I did

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wrong and what the right way to do things.

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And so I've kind of built up that confidence muscle over the years in my career and I wish

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I had gone back earlier and been more confident in being comfortable with making mistakes or

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asking questions, not out of fear of being judged.

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So I love that you mentioned that.

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I want to talk a little bit about, like I love that you mentioned the egos.

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I think all of us have been around very egotistical, ego-driven people.

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So let's talk a little bit about, let's say somebody who works for somebody who is very

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egotistical and like the example you gave, they're kind of shrinking in their role.

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What are some of the things they can do to work through that?

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Yeah.

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The first thing you want to do is you apply this 80/20 rule of, you should be talking 20%

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of time and listening 80% of time.

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So if you're a leader and you notice that you're the only one in the room talking, you probably

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have a little bit of an ego problem going on.

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When I'm leading great teams, I actually want to be saying, "Oh, very little."

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And I want to be listening to other people talk because now I know that other people are

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actually going, "When I do talk, it's going to be extremely powerful and effective."

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And I know that other people have a voice in the room and feel heard and seen.

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And therefore they're going to be striving and working harder for me and towards the goal,

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whatever the goals are, objectives we're trying to accomplish.

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So the first thing you want to do is ask yourself that 80/20 rule.

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Am I talking, I should only be talking 20% of time and I should be listening 80% of the

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time.

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So your next team meeting almost do like have a little in the back of your mind, have a

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mental check or if you have a great operations manager who you trust, you could even say,

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"Hey, let's record this meeting."

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And you know, you don't need to do this scientifically, but just sort of keep track of how much

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I'm talking versus how much I'm allowing other people to talk.

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And it's a really great way to sort of test this egotistical theory and see if you have

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this going on.

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The other thing is if you notice that you are constantly frustrated by other people and

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the actions that they're doing or not doing, it could be because of the fact that you

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have an ego or an ownership problem as well.

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So if you notice you're going home at the end of the day and your partner or your wife,

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your husband or whoever it is at home and all you're doing is complaining about the people

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you work for, often we need to look in the mirror and say, "Wait a minute, what am I doing

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to contribute to these problems?"

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Or what am I doing to actually not create a powerful environment where again, I'm allowing

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people to make a mistake but not make a mistake and be punished for it, make the mistake

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and grow from it.

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And that's it, I think the key thing we need to start to think about.

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And these are some of the signs you need to look out for as a leader is am I frustrated

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because people aren't doing something?

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Most likely, it's a you problem, not a them problem.

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You either didn't explain it well enough, you don't have the right systems in place,

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there is an environment that you have created that's not collaborative, right?

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Or whatever it might be.

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You don't know the exact circumstances but you always as a leader needs to be looking

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in the mirror and double checking yourself.

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And I actually keep a piece of paper with me at all times, it's a Roman parable.

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So in Rome, when the military leader, the emperor would win a military campaign, they would

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put a parade back into the city of Rome, they would put a slave in their left ear, whispering,

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"Ego is the enemy, ego is the enemy."

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As a reminder that no matter what you do, you always got to make sure the real enemy is

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your ego and you always have to be checking it.

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And that's the real key to growth and the real key to success is actually creating a world

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where you are really, really confident and really, really low ego or really humble.

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And it's a really interesting dichotomy to sort of walk down when you can create that.

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Yeah, I love it.

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It made me think my mom always to tell us, "Is kid you have two ears in one mouth?

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We got to use them proportionately."

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And so that always runs in my head.

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I want to talk a little bit about leading with the heart and really the power of kindness

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and accountability.

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I know you've often spoke about leading with heart and balancing kindness and accountability.

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How can leaders incorporate these values while driving results for their organizations?

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It's one of my favorite topics because I think we've been fed a little bit of a lie in business

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and in our leadership environments that you need to actually be hustling and grinding

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and doing things that you see this on Instagram or YouTube, right?

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All these, like, ultra-masculine messages around like hustle grind.

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And this hustle and grind culture, I think, is actually when you are in that hustle and

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grind culture.

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It's actually accomplished way less than when you are in a culture of kindness and empowerment.

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And it's a really, again, it's an interesting dichotomy, right?

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Because you can't, kindness is mistaken for being walked over or like being a pushover.

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That's not what kindness is.

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Right?

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Kindness is being able to lead and make the people around you feel and know that they matter

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to you.

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And that is like, if we define kindness in that way, all of a sudden now, your power and

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your influence over people is multiplied tenfold as opposed to you pushing people to their

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breaking point where they feel like they don't matter and the only thing that matters are

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your KPIs, your objectives, your goals, whatever it might be in hitting those things.

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When people feel like you, they matter to you and you are leading with that kindness or

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heart or care, they'll do anything for you.

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They'll push so hard for you.

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And that is one of the key factors that we need to start to adopt in business culture

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is we need people to feel and know that they matter to us.

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And it's not that we're not going to have standards.

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It's not that we're going to hold people in standards.

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It's that we are going to allow them to become the best versions of themselves because

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of the fact they do feel like they matter.

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And you can relate this, think about your family, your family, you would do anything for your

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family, your kids, your husband, your spouse, your parents, etc.

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And the reason is, they're family, but they also matter to you and they know that.

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And when something matters to you, you will work so hard to strive and achieve that.

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So I think a lot of leaders that are out there listening to this, you got to ask yourself

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the question, do do my people know and feel that they matter to me?

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And it can't be, if you just go in and say, hey, you matter to me, great job, everyone.

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It can't just be this verbal, you know, diarrhea that you're spewing, right?

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It actually has to be done in actions and in feelings and in like the policies you implement,

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the way you run meetings, the way that you talk to individuals, right?

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If you look and you know nothing about an individual's life, most likely your team is not

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functioning at its highest level, right?

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Because at the end of the day, we need to know that people, people need to know that they

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matter to us in order for them to start to really work at their optimal level.

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And again, it really, really goes back to that ownership kind of a principle as well.

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So when someone knows that, yeah, I agree.

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And I think people realize when it's transactional, right?

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They realize that, you know, hey, Sky, how's your day going?

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Okay, so what we got to do now is get started.

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Like they know that we're just checking a box, like there's no boss and we're bulldozing

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to the next thing.

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I think in a culture and a world that's so get it done yesterday, you know, what are you

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doing for me today and transactional when you're not leading with your heart, people can tell

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that you're just kind of showing up.

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And so I, first of all, I love your shirt.

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I always feel like I'm personally under construction.

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So I love this shirt.

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I need to get it.

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I want to talk about continuous improvement and kind of what I said at the beginning,

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the principle of one percent better every day.

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I love that.

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How can, let's talk a little bit about breaking that out and what it means and how can organizations

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create a culture of continuous improvement and becoming better while driving results?

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Can you share a little bit about how companies can do this?

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Well, I think, and again, going back into sort of this shift we've seen inside our culture

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of we only care about the results.

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We don't care about the process and the systems that got us to those results.

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A lot of our companies, a lot of our leaders, you know, when you're only focused on the

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results and you don't focus on the small, tiny, atomic steps that it just gets to these

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results or what you strive to get to, what happens is you're creating a situation where

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people feel that what they're doing does not matter and that they're never going to be successful

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in anything that they do.

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The key to this concept of accomplishing really, really big results goes back into almost

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ignoring what the result is and only hyper focusing on the moment.

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There's a line I use that I try to teach people.

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I call it, "I didn't create it.

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I heard this.

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Be where your feet are."

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If we imagine life or anything we're trying to accomplish as a mountain that has no top

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that you're just continually climbing and you think of this world where we live in, a

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lot of people have so much anxiety about getting to the top or getting to the result they're

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striving for that they have no idea where their feet are and they trip up and they get

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so messed up in the moment.

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And then they look behind them and they say, "With regret and judgment and all that stuff

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and the real key is being where your feet are and then telling yourself, I'm just going

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to get 1% better today.

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What is the smallest thing I can do today or in this moment that will move me one step forward

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and one step closer up this mountain knowing that it's never going to end.

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There's never a top to the mountain because the minute I achieve the result I'm striving

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for, what am I going to do?

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I'm going to create another result.

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I'm going to create another goal.

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I'm going to create another destination that I'm striving for.

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So the idea of 1% better every day really goes into finding joy and enjoyment in the journey

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not in the destination, right?

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Not in the results.

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And the reality, like we all get obsessed, let's just take health, for example, like,

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hey, I want to lose weight.

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Well the reality is if we lose 10, 15, 20 pounds, that will be achieved that result.

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That was an effort of months and months of little, small, tiny decisions we made to

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get there.

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It wasn't the result that mattered.

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It was the decisions in the moment that mattered.

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And that whole concept of being where your feet are and accepting that where I am right

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now is exactly where I was meant to be.

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And what is this 1% thing that I can do that is going to move me forward towards a goal

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that I want to achieve, right?

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And that's a key.

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I think that's so great.

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I started this three years ago, this kind of, at the time, I'm like, this is a goofy practice,

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but I want to start writing more, like handwriting.

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And so I started writing every day, something I learned that day.

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It could be something I learned about me and something I learned about my family or the

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kids or my neighbors.

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And it's crazy when I go back and look at the 1% better, how much we are just learning

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growing, experiencing beings, just trying to do a good job while being light.

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And so I think when you chop things up in 1%, like you were saying, the gym is a perfect

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example.

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And I thought early in my career, I had to eat that, that elephant, one bite in one big bite.

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And I'd go out at my day and I'd go after that one big bite and I couldn't do it.

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I just, no matter how many hours I worked and how hard I tried, it wasn't happening.

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But when I took it, like you were saying, 1% better, it was amazing how easy it was to

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do the things when you look at it in smaller segments versus the full bite.

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I think the other thing to add on top of that too is that we often don't celebrate our

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wins enough. And when you only celebrate the result, right?

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Once a year, we're going to celebrate the award ceremony.

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Are we hit the sales goals?

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And that's a once a year celebration.

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But the reality is we were born on this earth to be happy and joyful and have fun and

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wake up and be excited about our day.

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So when you can also add a small level of celebration into that 1% accomplishment, that's

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another big thing.

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I'm not saying like every day you get a trophy, right?

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But if there's something you can do that celebrates the fact that you improve that day, it allows

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you to really experience the joy of the journey into the goal in this every day kind of a

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way.

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So you writing down your one win is a real, that's a form of celebration that, you know, it's

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such a powerful thing because you actually are acknowledging what you did that day that

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got made you better.

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And that's so huge.

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And it again, it allowed you to celebrate that accomplishment 365 times in a year, you know,

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that's so great.

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Yeah.

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And you just funny to go look back at some of this stuff.

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I'm like, wow, was that that hard for me back then?

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Yeah.

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And today things that were, you know, the hardest things back then are like the easiest things

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now.

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Yeah.

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I want to switch a little bit.

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I feel like right now in the world, everybody is uncertain.

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They're not confident.

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They're struggling with what's going on with the economy and politics and all the M and

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A activity.

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So the world is rapidly changing.

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There's a lot of uncertainty.

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Leaders are navigating really tough times and uncharted waters.

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So how can we prepare leaders effectively to lead their teams when all they can do is

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they can focus on is, you know, the stock market or who's in the, you know, the White House

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or whatever else is going on around them.

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So how do we keep morale high at the same time?

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Oh, so such a great question.

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I know one that I'd probably help people deal with every single day.

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The very first thing we need to do is we, we as a culture have become obsessed with the

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urgency, right?

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Like, what is the most urgent thing that is flashing across our plate?

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And I think, you know, again, I'm holding myself on for anyone that's listening, right?

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I pull up my cell phone and there's all these beeps and blinges and notifications and I

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click on it and all of a sudden I'm in this black hole of like politics or social media

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or a comparison.

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So the first thing we need to do is we need to understand that really great things are not

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accomplished when we're in the urgency mode.

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Really great things are accomplished when we hyper focus on what's important.

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So as a leader in these times when things are so uncertain, you have to constantly be surfacing

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and talking to your team about what is important in the big vision in the picture and then how

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does that relate to today in a non urgent manner?

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So I'll just use Real-Sea as an example, right?

399
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So in Real-Sea, you know, it's really, really important for you to maintain deep and meaningful

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relationships with your past clients, but it's not urgent.

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So as a team leader, you know, if I coach many Real-Sea team leaders as an example, one of

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the things that you need to do is you need to instill very small practices every day that

403
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allow people to refocus on the big rocks, the important things in their business that

404
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don't have an immediate result, will not produce immediate gratification, but produce very

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long-term gratification and extremely big results.

406
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And answering that email about a client needing to drop off a check or answering, you know,

407
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someone texted you about what's the lockpots code, right?

408
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Like even though that feels so urgent, all of a sudden what we're doing is we're getting

409
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into this loop or there are a tornado of urgency.

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And what happens is the important things, the big rocks we need to move in our business,

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get pushed day by day by day, week by week by week, month by month by month and then year

412
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by year, we never do the important things.

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So as a leader, the biggest thing you need to do is simplify down what are the one, two,

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or no more than three things that are so important to our business.

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And then what's the smallest thing we're going to do today to move forward towards these

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important things and then we're going to focus on the urgent stuff.

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But if you start your day with important things, eat the frog first, the big rocks, right?

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Whatever it is that you, whatever analogy works for you, you have to as a leader be constantly

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resurfacing, the important but not urgent things that need to be worked on and then create

420
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a hyper focus on them.

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100% and I think that goes back to leading ourselves, right?

422
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I'm talking about the big rocks.

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I don't know, like you were saying, I get thousands of emails, all kinds of text messages,

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constant calls and pop-ups and this and this and this.

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If you're always replying, you're really lost in leading yourself.

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And so I want to switch gears and talk prioritizing self-care and your wellbeing.

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I know I am somebody who prioritizes healthy selfish habits every single day because I can't

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help others if I am not centered in me.

429
00:31:15,460 --> 00:31:23,340
So I know you encourage people to prioritize their wellbeing without feeling guilty.

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So how does that impact leadership performance?

431
00:31:27,220 --> 00:31:34,060
It's everything, everything and you use a term I love, healthy selfish, right?

432
00:31:34,060 --> 00:31:40,220
We need to reencil this mindset that it's actually, the word selfish as long as we use it

433
00:31:40,220 --> 00:31:47,100
with healthy, it's actually self-loved and you have to love yourself first or else everyone

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else that you're trying to take care of will suffer.

435
00:31:51,100 --> 00:31:57,180
Even if you don't recognize it and we often will use the excuse that we are responding

436
00:31:57,180 --> 00:32:01,820
to the unspool for other people and therefore they have to come before us as an excuse

437
00:32:01,820 --> 00:32:04,260
to not take care of ourselves.

438
00:32:04,260 --> 00:32:09,260
And this happens all the time for business leaders where they're so burned out and so

439
00:32:09,260 --> 00:32:15,660
depleted because all day, every day they're just pouring all this energy into other people

440
00:32:15,660 --> 00:32:21,780
and they forget how important they are to the success of the whole organization.

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And when you are a leader and you're fully depleted, your team is going to suffer.

442
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And when you run a family, you're your parent and you are depleted, your kids are going

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to suffer.

444
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But when I wake up early in the morning and I fuel my body and I take care of my mind and

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I infuse my spirit with energy.

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The minute those kids wake up, they feel the full force of me as a parent.

447
00:32:46,740 --> 00:32:53,780
The minute I show up to my team, my team feels my full force of energy and when you do that,

448
00:32:53,780 --> 00:32:56,260
you don't even need to speak.

449
00:32:56,260 --> 00:32:58,260
People will feel you.

450
00:32:58,260 --> 00:33:03,700
They will feel the energy just pouring off of you when you show up in your most powerful

451
00:33:03,700 --> 00:33:04,780
self.

452
00:33:04,780 --> 00:33:10,380
So for everyone on this call, you have to take care of yourself in order to achieve anything

453
00:33:10,380 --> 00:33:13,020
big and use the term healthy selfish.

454
00:33:13,020 --> 00:33:17,380
I'm going to be healthy selfish right now and I'm going to go work out in the morning

455
00:33:17,380 --> 00:33:19,580
or at night or whenever at my day.

456
00:33:19,580 --> 00:33:25,940
And yes, for me, because my business and my schedule, my family are really important

457
00:33:25,940 --> 00:33:26,940
to me.

458
00:33:26,940 --> 00:33:32,100
For me, that means I need to reprioritize my morning and I'm going to wake up early before

459
00:33:32,100 --> 00:33:37,300
anyone else gets up and make sure I start my day in a powerful way.

460
00:33:37,300 --> 00:33:40,580
And it means that at night, I'm not going to binge watch TV.

461
00:33:40,580 --> 00:33:44,700
You know, I'm going to get to bed on time so I can wake up in the morning because I know

462
00:33:44,700 --> 00:33:50,300
the fact that when I invest in myself in this really, really powerful way, bursting in

463
00:33:50,300 --> 00:33:55,540
the morning, the trickled down effect to the people around me is, I can't even tell

464
00:33:55,540 --> 00:34:00,140
you how powerful it will be for the people that surround you.

465
00:34:00,140 --> 00:34:05,300
And I think there's a really passionate right now about really trying to coach people away

466
00:34:05,300 --> 00:34:11,020
from being addicted to cell phones because of the fact that I think if you're listening to

467
00:34:11,020 --> 00:34:16,660
this and the answer is yes, if you sleep with your cell phone right next to your head, there's

468
00:34:16,660 --> 00:34:21,220
a very high likelihood that you are addicted to your cell phone.

469
00:34:21,220 --> 00:34:26,700
And we don't recognize that billions of trillions of dollars have been spent to create a device

470
00:34:26,700 --> 00:34:32,260
that is actually making us unhappy and unhealthy and disconnected.

471
00:34:32,260 --> 00:34:38,580
So my challenge to anyone listening to this is take all your notifications off your phone.

472
00:34:38,580 --> 00:34:39,580
You don't need them.

473
00:34:39,580 --> 00:34:41,100
You don't need to be reminded.

474
00:34:41,100 --> 00:34:46,220
Put your phone across the room at night and challenge yourself to give yourself a little bit

475
00:34:46,220 --> 00:34:51,980
of space in the morning before you dive into text, email, social media because in many

476
00:34:51,980 --> 00:34:56,540
you open up text, email, social media, you're toast.

477
00:34:56,540 --> 00:35:02,260
You're already injecting stress and anxiety and overwhelm and comparison mindset.

478
00:35:02,260 --> 00:35:08,460
So for me, one of my goals is to not have any electronic influence for at least 30 minutes

479
00:35:08,460 --> 00:35:11,300
of my day before I get my day going.

480
00:35:11,300 --> 00:35:18,300
My cell phone is across the room.

481
00:35:18,300 --> 00:35:22,300
I use an alarm clock.

482
00:35:22,300 --> 00:35:25,300
I don't use my cell phone for the alarm.

483
00:35:25,300 --> 00:35:26,300
I wake up.

484
00:35:26,300 --> 00:35:27,300
I've heard it hit it off.

485
00:35:27,300 --> 00:35:28,300
I go downstairs, drink my coffee.

486
00:35:28,300 --> 00:35:29,300
I meditate.

487
00:35:29,300 --> 00:35:30,300
I read.

488
00:35:30,300 --> 00:35:31,300
I get ready to work out.

489
00:35:31,300 --> 00:35:32,300
I go grab my cell phone.

490
00:35:32,300 --> 00:35:33,300
I'll go to the gym.

491
00:35:33,300 --> 00:35:35,300
And this way it allows me to have some space to connect spiritually and emotionally and intellectually

492
00:35:35,300 --> 00:35:36,300
myself.

493
00:35:36,300 --> 00:35:37,300
And then I do use my, you know, I go to the gym and I'll have my cell phone with me.

494
00:35:37,300 --> 00:35:40,300
You know, but at that point, I'm like working out and sweating.

495
00:35:40,300 --> 00:35:45,300
You know, I can deal with anything that's coming in on that cell phone, you know, because reality,

496
00:35:45,300 --> 00:35:50,300
only thing the cell phone brings, 90% of it is bad news.

497
00:35:50,300 --> 00:35:51,300
It's not good news.

498
00:35:51,300 --> 00:35:53,300
So why am I going to wake up in the morning?

499
00:35:53,300 --> 00:36:00,300
And if my kids came to me and said, Hey, dad, should I wake up in the morning, stressed out and overwhelmed or happy and motivated?

500
00:36:00,300 --> 00:36:02,300
And I'm going to say happy and motivated.

501
00:36:02,300 --> 00:36:09,300
But 95% of us, maybe 99% of us are waking up and taking up a device that is making us unhappy.

502
00:36:09,300 --> 00:36:15,300
So if you're listening to this challenge yourself, just do it for a day or a week, right?

503
00:36:15,300 --> 00:36:17,300
And just see if there's an impact.

504
00:36:17,300 --> 00:36:19,300
Turn up all your notifications.

505
00:36:19,300 --> 00:36:30,300
Dedicate yourself to a healthy, selfish routine and challenge yourself to have even if it's a minute or five minutes of space before you pick up and open your cell phone.

506
00:36:30,300 --> 00:36:33,300
I guarantee you're going to see an impact in your life.

507
00:36:33,300 --> 00:36:36,300
More importantly, you're going to see an impact in the lives of the people around you.

508
00:36:36,300 --> 00:36:41,300
I love that. I think there's so much in that.

509
00:36:41,300 --> 00:36:43,300
It's an addiction, right?

510
00:36:43,300 --> 00:36:45,300
It's eyes open and grab the phone.

511
00:36:45,300 --> 00:36:46,300
What happened?

512
00:36:46,300 --> 00:36:47,300
What do I need to do?

513
00:36:47,300 --> 00:36:53,300
And when you open it, the instant reaction is there's all kinds of pop-ups.

514
00:36:53,300 --> 00:36:59,300
So you're already starting your day, like fight or flight, anxious.

515
00:36:59,300 --> 00:37:02,300
And so your wires are scattered, right?

516
00:37:02,300 --> 00:37:09,300
So as hard to maintain focus, the smartest, most brilliant discipline people can't do it.

517
00:37:09,300 --> 00:37:20,300
So if you don't start from a place of control and leading yourself through your morning, I think of the mornings like I'm a super Mario fan.

518
00:37:20,300 --> 00:37:28,300
So I'm going to correlate it to like the star and the mushrooms and supercharging my day, like a battery.

519
00:37:28,300 --> 00:37:34,300
I look at it like a battery. I have so much battery life in my day.

520
00:37:34,300 --> 00:37:41,300
And when I'm constantly in a place of anxiety or reaction or stress,

521
00:37:41,300 --> 00:37:45,300
the battery is depleted quicker and faster.

522
00:37:45,300 --> 00:37:46,300
So true.

523
00:37:46,300 --> 00:37:54,300
So when you start your day, like what you said, where you're leading yourself, you're centering yourself, where do I have to do today?

524
00:37:54,300 --> 00:37:59,300
How am I feeling? Oh, my knee hurts today. Okay, maybe I shouldn't do deadlifts.

525
00:37:59,300 --> 00:38:04,300
Maybe I shouldn't go running. Maybe I should just walk and do upper body.

526
00:38:04,300 --> 00:38:12,300
Now, if you're starting your day in a place of reaction, would you even notice that your knee hurts?

527
00:38:12,300 --> 00:38:17,300
Probably not, because you're focused on what you're doing, not checking in with yourself.

528
00:38:17,300 --> 00:38:24,300
So it's spot on. It's it's healthy selfish and it's self less to be there.

529
00:38:24,300 --> 00:38:36,300
And I love kind of this dialogue because I think so many people, I've gotten into my own obses and doing this during a high stress time in my life.

530
00:38:36,300 --> 00:38:46,300
And so I've done the like litmus test to how I'm feeling without that morning phone versus with the morning phone.

531
00:38:46,300 --> 00:38:50,300
And it's unbelievable the difference.

532
00:38:50,300 --> 00:38:58,300
Crazy. And and and you will feel your initial feeling will be, oh my god, like anxiety, because it is an addiction.

533
00:38:58,300 --> 00:39:03,300
And if it helps, picture your cell phone as a six pack of beer.

534
00:39:03,300 --> 00:39:07,300
Would you wake up and open a beer the first thing? No, no, no one would. But what do we do?

535
00:39:07,300 --> 00:39:14,300
We actually wake up and that's what we're doing because the dopamine hits that they've designed, you actually get a dopamine hit.

536
00:39:14,300 --> 00:39:26,300
When you get a notification and you answer it, it actually is triggering the same thing in your brain as if you were drinking or doing a drug or right like doing something that hits your dopamine.

537
00:39:26,300 --> 00:39:34,300
Now, unfortunately though, the reality is answering that or opening that notification does open a floodgate, but it gives your brain that dopamine hit.

538
00:39:34,300 --> 00:39:40,300
And that's why it's so hard for us to do this because our brain is constantly craving that right?

539
00:39:40,300 --> 00:39:55,300
So it wants to answer the notification. So that's why you take all your notifications off and it gives you a little bit of an ounce of control where you're making a conscious decision to go into text message or email or social media.

540
00:39:55,300 --> 00:40:01,300
You're not you're not battling your own brain because it sees that Instagram message pop up.

541
00:40:01,300 --> 00:40:16,300
You know, post from, you know, whatever your CNN or whatever it might be and you click on it, you know, and all of a sudden now you're in this net, you're reading this news and the stuff that has no impact in your life.

542
00:40:16,300 --> 00:40:29,300
Instead of waking up, meditating, praying, reading, working out, whatever your self-care routine might be, it doesn't matter what it is, but you have to practice it.

543
00:40:29,300 --> 00:40:31,300
You have to.

544
00:40:31,300 --> 00:40:45,300
It's 100%. It's a practice. It is not something that happens overnight and you know, the busiest people in the world if they can figure it out. I promise you can figure it out.

545
00:40:45,300 --> 00:40:56,300
I want to just thank you so much for being here and I want to get any final thoughts or anything you want to leave with our listeners that we may not have touched on.

546
00:40:56,300 --> 00:41:06,300
Yeah, the final thought I'm really passionate about this right now is you are if you're listening to this, I literally want you to say these words out loud like you are enough.

547
00:41:06,300 --> 00:41:24,300
Right. We're constantly being told messages of word not, you know, we're less than comparison. I'm not achieving enough. I'm not doing enough. I'm not, you know, and I really want everyone to just take a really deep breath and pause and just know and say the words like I am enough.

548
00:41:24,300 --> 00:41:38,300
Everything I need I have and recognize that you are the most powerful creator of your own reality. And you can accomplish anything you want when you get really present, really calm.

549
00:41:38,300 --> 00:41:47,300
Practice healthy self-experience. And I just really want to encourage anyone that's out there that's struggling to reach out to someone for help myself.

550
00:41:47,300 --> 00:41:57,300
You know, anyone that's out there in the world that don't sit there and allow yourself to go into this burnout mode, seek help, make yourself better.

551
00:41:57,300 --> 00:42:03,300
Again, to put bring up all circle, just get 1% better every single day.

552
00:42:03,300 --> 00:42:11,300
I love it now. Where can our listeners find you? What's the best way to connect with you on with heart coaching?

553
00:42:11,300 --> 00:42:23,300
So my website is with heartcoaching.com. So nice and easy. That's a good spot. But I also am very active on Instagram. I post, you know, motivational messages or clips.

554
00:42:23,300 --> 00:42:36,300
I try to put a lot of positivity into my social media. So my Instagram account is at sky Michaels SKY E M I C H I E L S. And that's a really great spot.

555
00:42:36,300 --> 00:42:45,300
I answer all my DMs there. And if you want, you can also email me at sky@withheartcoaching.com.

556
00:42:45,300 --> 00:42:55,300
I love it. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your time with us today. That's the Executive Connect podcast.