931: How to Overcome Obstacles and Kickstart Change with R. Michael Anderson

Pete Mockaitis
Michael, welcome back.

R. Michael Anderson
Pete, good to be here again. It’s been forever.

Pete Mockaitis
It has. And I was looking at our last conversation, and we moved pretty quickly past your story, which I really want to dig into, into some detail, to hear about your dramatic rise and fall, and rise again, and what was happening on the outside, as well as what was happening on the inside because, I think, when it comes to a Leadership Mindset 2.0, and impostor syndrome, all this stuff, I think there’s gold lessons along your journey if you’re ready to go there.

R. Michael Anderson
I am, Pete. I share it very freely, and it’s nice to be here with you and have some time and I appreciate you asking about the outside and the inside because, as we all know, they’re related but, often when I share this, a lot of people will say that it really resonates. And a lot of times, it’s nice to know that other people go through some of the crazy stuff that we all go through as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, start us, how about you just wrapped your semi pro basketball – that’s a whole another conversation, another story and you’re getting in the business game? Let’s start from that beginning.

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah, I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then I moved out to California. I joined a software company. They moved me around the world. And then I moved back to California in my mid-30s. There was a gap in the marketplace, and I don’t want to say by accident, but a couple of my old clients asked me to come help them.

I come from enterprise software, so Microsoft Dynamics and SAP, and so there were some big, large former clients that just needed help because the company that I used to be with that got bought out wasn’t giving a good service, and so I started servicing these clients. And then, a lot of the other clients found out that had this software, and next thing you know I had a proper business, I had to deal with offices, there’s these $100-million-dollar companies that used our software to run their business, and was being all managed by little me, and I was not emotionally ready to do all this.

And what happened is, all of a sudden, we have a payroll in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, million, per month, and I was a good business person, I understood management, I understood the industry, but I didn’t understand leadership. And I never knew what emotional intelligence was, and I didn’t have a lot of great leaders to look up to. So, you can imagine, Pete, it was really difficult around those years.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, I’m intrigued. Now, your success was driven just because, well, by golly, there was a gap in the market, and you have exactly what these folks need. And word spread, and, bada-bing, bada-boom, a lot of revenue, a lot of responsibility, a lot of clients, a lot of employees real quick, and you were not feeling so great on the inside in the midst of this external success.

R. Michael Anderson
That’s so right. Because the funny thing is, from the outside, everything looked great. We were so successful, I was on the frontpage of the newspaper.

Pete Mockaitis
Congrats.

R. Michael Anderson
To be quite honest, I had some substance abuse issues around in the early part of my life, and the pressure made them get worse. My father was an alcoholic, I had alcohol problems, I was doing hard drugs. And as this pressure mounted, that became more of a crutch, and so that was getting worse, not getting better, by any means.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you zoom actually way in on the alcohol and hard drugs? What were you thinking and feeling? And what did the alcohol and drugs do for you in those moments?

R. Michael Anderson
That’s a great question. I think I did that to not think because I didn’t have any, I’d say, tools. Like, I didn’t know who I was, and all this stuff was happening so fast. And I was working, like, crazy hours. I would bill my own. I was a consultant so I would bill myself out for eight or ten hours, and go home and do the administration or any or all of it. A couple off hours I’d do sales, and then I hired my friends from the industry.

And it’s, like, there was so much going on. And, Pete, I remember back then, my only goal was to get to the end of the day, get to the end of the week. I was so stressed out and burnt out. I wasn’t even burnt out. I could work massive hours. Burnt out is not the right word. It’s like life was just happening around me, and I was doing my best to hold on.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, there’s that sensation of, “Boy, just got to get to the end of the day. It’s tough. Life is happening.” And then what did the drugs and alcohol do for you?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, I think it just gave me a little respite. It’s like stuff was out of control, and my personality really likes to control. And with the substances, it was like I would have a little bit of time that would just numb everything because I couldn’t take everything that was going on, so it was like a little oasis. As bad as that sound, in a way, like I needed it because I didn’t have any other tools.

Pete Mockaitis
No, I totally resonate with that, and I haven’t used illegal drugs much in my life to resonate, but I think there are other times we seek out some kind of oasis, retreat, respite in a way that’s not so helpful, whether it’s overeating, or Netflix bingeing, or whatever. It seems like a break, but then, unfortunately, it doesn’t really satisfy, as my experience, and that of many others.

So, tell us, back on the outer world, you’ve got a lot of busyness, a lot of revenue, a lot of employees, and a lot of drugs, what happens now?

R. Michael Anderson
That’s it. That’s where it ends now. No, I was joking. Well, of course, like anything else, not like anything else, but it started just everything got worse. And I had a key employee who I gave some equity to, pretty much just out of my insecurity. He was doing a good job, and he was taking on some responsibility, but I felt so lonely, and we worked a lot of extra hours together so I gave him some equity, and he had some substance abuse issues, too.

And we ended up getting into an argument one day. It was Wednesday, it was 10:00 a.m., he came in my office, he asked me a question, and tensions were high because I wanted to keep growing the business, and he wanted to just have a bit of a lifestyle business. There was a couple things that we didn’t agree on, so tensions were high.

And he asked me, just like an everyday customer question, an operational question, I don’t remember what it was. And I gave an answer he wasn’t expecting, and he didn’t really want, and so we started to get into an argument. I’m pretty cool, I was just watching him get angrier and angrier. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen when somebody gets so angry, they get red and start shaking and yelling. That’s what he started to do.

And I said, “Look, it’s Wednesday, 10:00 a.m., there’s employees around. Why don’t you go back to your office. Let’s talk about this after everybody leaves.” And I thought that was the end of it. He went away down the hall back to his office, but then he popped his head back in, and he goes, “I’m going to wipe that smile off your face.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, boy.

R. Michael Anderson
And then I watched him come around my desk, and he cocks back, and, with all his might, he hits me.

Pete Mockaitis
Whoa!

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah. I saw it coming, so I turned away but I felt the blow on my shoulder, and then we just sort of looked at each other, and then he left. And I got up and shut my door. And people asked me, like, “What were you thinking back? What were you feeling?” I’m like, “I think I was a bit in shock.” If you’ve ever had something so crazy happen to you, and you know there’s going to be big repercussions, I think that what was going on.

And I kept asking myself, “Did this really happen?” because I knew if it did, that there was going to have to be some major things going on, obviously, and I didn’t want to go down that path, so I was trying to do a reality check to see if what just happened really happened.

Pete Mockaitis
Totally. You know, Michael, by crazy coincidence, I, too, was, one time, punched completely unexpectedly but it was by a total stranger in Chicago, at the Chipotle in Belmont and Broadway. And I had to say, it was so weird, I, too, had the same response. I was, like, looking at other people, just like, “Did that just happen?” And I’m okay, thank goodness, but it is.

When something that crazy happens, you doubt your own senses. Like, I’m pretty sure that just happened, but I would like some kind of a confirmation from somewhere that that really did occur. So, I hear you, it is wild. It’s out there.

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah, that’s a good phrase you used that I never heard before – doubt your own senses. That’s what I was doing. And then I called up a business owner who I met recently, closest thing that I had to a mentor, and I’m like, “This just happened. What do I do?” because I was, like, “Nothing prepared me for this moment.” He was like, “Dude, if this happened once, this is going to happen again. You got to address this. You can’t blow this off.”

So, I went down to the police station, I go, “I’m here to report an assault.” They’re looking at me, they’re like, “What?” I’m like, “Well, my business partner just assaulted me.” And they said, “Oh, do you want us to arrest him?” I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. No, I don’t think so. What else can I do?” They’re like, “Well, you can’t do much else. You can write…”

And so, I logged it, so I wrote it in a book, the date and time and what happened, just so there’s a record of it. And then the next day, I called my attorney, and then the next day, when he came to the office, I had an armed guard hand him a restraining order, a termination letter because I still owned the majority of the company, and then a copy of the lawsuit.

And then, as each one of my employees came up, I had to sit them down and tell them, “My COO, my business partner, so and so, is no longer here because he hit me.” And most of the people reported to him, and then I had to call all of our customers, and he was the executive project manager on a lot of the big projects, and I said, “Hey, the guy you’ve been working with every day for a year, on your multimillion-dollar project, he’s no longer here, and I can’t tell you why.” So, that was a crappy day.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And so then, shifting into the internal game, like what were you thinking in the midst of having to share this news with your clients and employees?

R. Michael Anderson
I don’t even know how I got through it. I do remember I joined a peer group of entrepreneurs around that time, and when they found out this happened, because I think it happened, I had the weekend to, like, prepare all that stuff. But one guy called me every morning, he’s like, “How are you feeling?” I’m like, “Well, I feel like crap.” He’s like, “Get out of bed,” because I’m basically in depression at that point, that everything just came crashing down.

And, luckily, I had some people that really helped me think through things because I think, often, that happened during a crisis where the most important things you need to do, or within the first 24, 48 hours, and, luckily, Pete, I had a couple people around me that really, really helped me and supported me in that time.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. Okay. Well, so then what happens next?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, you talked about the internal, so that evening after I got through that day, I’m sitting on my couch, and I was about to go in my normal methodology of escape, and smoke some weed, do some coke, and drink some whiskey. But I just paused, and I started reflecting on my life, and I’m like, “What’s going on? I’ve always wanted to own a business. And I own a business, and I hate it. It sucks. It’s not fun at all.”

And it’s not becoming more fun as it gets larger, and I’m like, “Maybe I should just go back to being a programmer. I’m good at that. And it’s easy. I made good money, etc.” And I’m like, “No, no way. I did the hard part. I got a successful company. I got to figure out what’s missing.” And I realized I was a good doer.” When I saw other people successful and happy, and I’m like, “Am I broken? Is something wrong with me?” I think I got angry at God and I didn’t even know if I believed in God. It was a really weird self-reflection but really deep and really powerful.

And then I’m like, “Look, I’m a good doer. Why don’t I change my goals? My goals must be wrong. Why don’t I set my sight on becoming happy and becoming a successful business owner?” And I made two life changing decisions that day. Instead of self-medicating, I went for a jog so I went away from my escape, and I met things head on, and I did something healthy for myself, and I made a commitment to myself that I’m going to figure this life thing and this business thing out. That was a turning point in my life.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Okay. So, you went for a jog, then you just made the firm decision. All right. So, often, in such moments, things are easier thought or said than done. Tell us, what did you have to go do to get in a healthy groove with your responsibilities?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, right around that time, I briefly mentioned earlier that I joined a group of entrepreneurs, and two of the entrepreneurs had just a real peace and calmness about them. And until that part of my life, I’ve achieved a lot but I’d never achieved any peace or calmness. And I got to know them, and both of them went through a really unique program, and I found out about it and I signed up for it, basically, because I know I needed to do something or I was going end up dead.

It was a Master’s in Spiritual Psychology. And when I say spiritual psychology, it had nothing to do with religion. We learned six different psychoanalysis techniques from a place of pure compassion, and that’s the “spiritual” part of it. And we take the assumption that we’re all loving beings, and if we have behaviors that aren’t loving, like we get jealous or angry or sad, which we all do, that’s part of the human experience, we don’t judge it, but we say, “There’s an opportunity for healing.” And we use psychology to go in and heal that part of us so that we are more in line in with our true selves, or our soul, if we choose to believe we have a soul.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so could you share with us, perhaps, some of the most effective practices, interventions, approaches that came forth from that?

R. Michael Anderson
One thing we had to do was, we call it history of loving, so we start with a genogram, which is a family tree, but then we do the family tree, but then we mark down all the alcoholism, the substance abuse, divorces, enmeshments, re-marriages, etc. So, it’s like a whole map of your family.

R. Michael Anderson
And so, once we did that, and there’s a way based on a book called Family Secrets by John Bradshaw. There are ways to follow it up. And, for me, I go after my father’s unresolved issue. He goes after his own father’s unresolved issues. So, my grandfather, his dad, was a failed entrepreneur, multiple marriages, alcoholic. My dad was a failed entrepreneur, multiple marriages, alcoholic. I was getting divorced, alcoholic, and owning a business, so my story wasn’t written yet.

But, Pete, just to see the patterns so obvious in my past, in a way, I knew that, but once I wrote them down and saw how specific these patterns were, it really stopped me in my tracks.

So, then the question is, “I know what the pattern is. How do I heal it?” So, in this case, what I did, and, again, this was over a little bit of a period of time with some great guidance. My father was, when I went through this, about 10, 12 years ago, he’d already been passed away for over a decade. So, what I did was I wrote a letter from my younger self to him, and then I wrote a letter from him back to me on his behalf.

R. Michael Anderson
And just to give you some context, my dad, he had a corporate job, and then he started his business when he was married to my mom and had me and my sister, and the business didn’t go well. And as the business didn’t go well, he started to drink more and more, and disconnect from my family, and just not be available. And then they got divorced, he left, and he really wasn’t in my family much after that at all.

And I know, intellectually, he didn’t leave because of me but I realized it deep down, like, there was unfinished business. And so, I got into this really, I guess, meditative place, and I wrote a letter to him. And the letter said, “Dad, can you help me understand? I really am confused because we had the family with my mom and, Amy, my sister, and it seemed like we’re doing okay, but then, all of a sudden, you left.”

“You never told me you love me. You never told me you’re proud of me. And I don’t understand, is there something that I did wrong? Is there something I could’ve done? Is there something? What happened there? Why weren’t you affectionate? Why didn’t you give me love the way I was looking for? It was really difficult growing up without you and having no relationship. I just wanted to understand more about it.” And it was very, very emotional getting that out.

And then, again, me writing the letter from my dad to me was amazing because he wrote, he said, “Hey, Mike, you don’t understand. I love you so much. I’m so proud of you. And I love your sister. I even love your mom so much. But the fact is, I’m the male, I’m supposed to be the breadwinner. I’m supposed to provide for my family, and I failed in that.”

“And as the business went bankrupt, and I got into tax problems, etc., I just was so disappointed in myself whenever I was around you and the whole family that I figured you all were better off without me, and so that’s why I left because I knew you all were better off without me. And I’m so sorry, and I love you so much, and I’m so proud of you. And I see what you’re doing now, and you’re really amazing.”

And, after that process, I quit alcohol and drugs, Pete, because I had a belief that, deep down, I had this belief that my dad didn’t love me. And I realized in this process, which I know is the truth, in my heart, that he did love us so much that he actually made, I think, a pretty stupid…it wouldn’t be what I ask for, but he made a sacrifice, and he thought he was doing what he thought was best for the family. It wouldn’t be what I chose but he did love us, and he loved us a lot. So, I had a belief that I wasn’t lovable, and then I realized that I was lovable, and my dad did love me.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. And so then, I’m curious, thinking about how that could be applied in their domains, I suppose it might be we zero in on a wound, a challenge, a difficulty from an earlier time, and then write the letters both ways. Have you seen this manifest in other ways? Is it usually the parents or could it also be to, I don’t know, former lovers, or siblings, or business partners? What else have you seen in application here?

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah, that’s a great thing to bring up like that. And what comes to me is that this a lot about unfinished business. And when we have unfinished business, it’s because, internally, we’ve made different agreements, or we made assumptions, or we made decisions. And part of all of us know what that decision is but it’s subconscious so we have to get to it.

So, this two-way writing can get to it, and you can do this two-way writing with your ego, with a part of you that feels scared, and maybe you do two-way writing with the part of you that feels scared. And maybe you do two-way writing with the part of you that feels scared and then Superman, or somebody who has great empathy or compassion or strength, so there’s some creativity that can go into this. but what you really want to do is make sure you’re in, like, I want to say meditative, like a very present state, maybe you go to somewhere special to do this because your mindset, your presence is going to really affect whether this is successful or not.

And then really find out, and the big question is who you have to talk to, or what needs to be healed or released, and then that can be a really, really therapeutic process.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome. Thank you. Okay, Michael, so you did that exercise and it was super powerful. What happened next?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, that’s what people do. Some people ask me, like, “How would you describe your…?” and this is how we’ll bring it back to people in their careers and their leadership, for example. If people ask me, “How would you describe the changes that happened during that?” because I went for the Master’s and then went another two years over this, four years.

And I say that, “I really got to know who I am, know, like, and trust myself,” because I realized back then I was so insecure and I really wanted to be liked, and I wanted to be respected, I wanted to be looked up to that I was spending all my time being the person I thought people would like and trust and respect, and all those things, which wasn’t authentic, and it was taking a lot of my energy to be that person.

And then through this process, I really got to understand, know who I am, and like who that person is, and have the trust to show that. And when we talk about leadership, and this is why I work with leaders, and the last thing I’ll say, Pete, is once I started applying what I learned there, and knowing who I am, and bringing them to my businesses, because one time I owned three, two in California, one in Singapore, then we really started to thrive.

We’re on the Inc. 5000 list a couple years in a row, we won the Number One Best Place to Work, and I won Social Entrepreneur of the Year. That was externally but internally I was finally having fun as a leader because I was bringing my full self to that leadership position. I was showing people who I am and what my values are, and then people would get energized by that.

And then I was creating great relationships with them. We’re creating great value to our clients. And we were giving back to the community, which I think we all want to do but sometimes we get off track. And that switch, Pete, was so instrumental to my life that, if I had to summarize it, that’s really what I help leaders do now in the workplace and in their personal life.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. So, the core there is you have a deep, clear, profound conviction of who you are and you’re able to just sort of step in that, and own it, and feel it, and love it, and believe it. Is that accurate?

R. Michael Anderson
Yes. Yes. And I’m actually okay when I make mistakes or if people don’t like me because it’s like, “Look, here I am. You may like me. You may not like me. You may like part of me. You may not like part of me.” And sometimes there’s parts of myself that may not be ideal but I have this massive compassion for myself, and this acceptance, that sort of trumps everything else.

Pete Mockaitis
Massive compassion and acceptance. Okay. Well, so now you got the Master’s Degree, you did some exercises with the letter-writing. Can you illuminate for us, are there any other particularly powerful interventions or things you did that got you to that place?

R. Michael Anderson
There’s tons. I’ll give you a quick bite-sized one. So, I learned what a judgment is, because a lot of people don’t. They heard the word judgment but they don’t really know what that is. And the way it was defined to me is a judgment is assigning a positive or a negative thing to something, so I judge something is good or I judge something is bad.

Now, the Buddhist, they say there’s only one truth in this world, that something is, it is. There’s no good or bad. That’s something that humans assign. And the example I give is, say, I’m dating a girl and she breaks up with me. And the only truth is she broke up with me. I could judge it as bad, like, “Oh, I’m a loser. Nobody likes me. I’m never going to get married,” or I can judge it as positive, “Oh, great. She wasn’t the right person for me anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah.” But those are both human-created, the plus or the negative. The only truth there is that it happened.

And I come from a bit of a judgmental family, to be honest, so once I realized what a judgment is, and let’s say it’s just healthier not to judge, I realized that, through the work day, my life was just one big judgment to the next, like, I’d have a good call with a prospect, and be, “Oh, my gosh, we’re going to get this deal.” And then somebody would come in, and they’d say, “Hey, I’m going to take next week off,” and I’ll be like, “Oh, my gosh, how are we going to survive without them?” It would just be a real rollercoaster of emotions the whole day, and so by the end of the day, I’d be exhausted.

So, for about two months, I really, really worked on just looking at things as they are, just like data, like not this plus or minus, and it was amazing, Pete, because, the end of the day, I would have so much more energy because I wouldn’t go on this rollercoaster, but my decision-making skyrocketed because I wasn’t making emotional-based decisions. I was just looking at what happened and taking it in a very calm, collected, rational way. Because, I don’t know about you, but all my bad decisions were made when I was in a real emotional state.

And by just keeping that level head, and just realizing any time I’d say, “Oh, this is bad,” or, “This is good,” that that’s a judgment. Look, we’re humans, we’re actually, in a way, naturally make judgments here or there. But the more that we can be aware of that, and just take things as information, that can help our mental health, that can help our leadership abilities, that can help our decision-making, and that can help how people will see us as a calm, cool, collected person.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, Michael, tell me, anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah, for everybody, if I can give one message for everybody, it’s just to give yourself a break. I know, Pete, we talked before. I know there’s a lot of high-achievers and people that are really driven listening to this who want to get ahead in their career and everything, and chances are, you’re like me, listener, that you’re your own hardest critic, and just give yourself a break. You do so many amazing things. Just focus on them. And when you mess up here or there, because you probably will because you’re a risk-taker, just give yourself some slack.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

R. Michael Anderson
Yes. So, a guy named Viktor Frankl, you’re familiar with him, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, Man’s Search for Meaning.

R. Michael Anderson
Yes. And for listeners out there, he was a psychiatrist during World War II, a Jewish one in the concentration camps. And he learned, he says that the only thing that people can’t take away from you is the ability to choose. So, we all have the ability to choose, and nobody can take that away, and that’s the most powerful thing we have. So, him just reminding me that we have the power to choose is something that I find very inspiring.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, what they’re finding now is our DNA can be changed. So, what that means is when we live, for example, a more conscious life, that changes our actual DNA. So, there’s this whole thing about how we’re wired. Nothing is that hardwired, so we can change anything we want in our personalities and our life.

Pete Mockaitis
So, are we talking about epigenetics here?

R. Michael Anderson
Yes. Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Which I think is one of the coolest things ever. So, can you expand on that just a smidge in terms of, like, what’s a thing we might do that would change how a gene is expressed in a means that is helpful for us?

R. Michael Anderson
Whoa.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, the name of the gene, the letters, and the numbers.

R. Michael Anderson
I’d just say something like pessimism. I think a lot of us can be brought up in a very pessimistic environments and households and things, and we can be very critical to ourselves and others. And with work, we can be rationally optimistic. So, I don’t mean painting a blue sky when things are difficult. Also, finding the good in things and focusing on everything that we have.

Our grandparents came out of a lot of world wars and things, and brought up in depressions, and that went to our parents, so I see just a lot of criticalness and negativity. And I really believe that, with some mindfulness, we can really change ourselves to really live a much more peaceful positive life.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

R. Michael Anderson
Favorite book. I like Mindset by Carol Dweck is one. That might be one you get a lot.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think Mindset is excellent. And maybe, since you talk a lot about this kind of thing, I want to give you a follow-up on Mindset. Okay. So, I think listeners may have heard it before. Hey, you’ve got a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. And the fixed mindset is you believe that your strength, your skills, your abilities are locked in, like, “I’m smart,” or, “I’m not smart,” “I’m good at this. I’m creative,” “I’m not good at this. I’m not creative.”

Versus growth mindset, “Hey, I’m always capable of learning, growing, developing.” And all sorts of good things happen when you have a growth mindset in terms of the effort you exert and all that. So, I’ve heard that a few times, and I’m all about it. What I find interesting, though – help me out with this, Michael – is sometimes, even though I know that’s true, and I want to have a growth mindset, I have fixed mindset stuff creeps in a little bit, like, “Ugh, I just suck at this.”

And so, my alarm bells go off, like, “Oh, no, that’s wrong, Pete. That’s not the most productive helpful thought,” but, nonetheless, it pops up. What do you do in those moments?

R. Michael Anderson
It’s interesting because I was trying to think, because I caught myself. The funny thing about this is we can learn and understand, and learn it really well, but then there’s parts of our life where it hides, and then later you’d be like, “Oh, I’m doing it there.” I was trying to think if I found a couple lately. And the big thing is awareness.

Pete, I think once you have awareness, you’re halfway there because it’s where these things hide, and we don’t know they’re there, and that’s why it’s so hard. We’ve got to keep looking at ourselves. But, again, we want to learn at ourselves compassionately, not, “We’ve got to fix ourselves. We’ve got to fix ourselves,” because that’s just gets us right back to the non-compassionate view of ourselves, and back in that downward spiral.

I’ll give you an answer, Pete. You want to laugh at yourself. That is it. You want to chuckle, and be like, “Ah, there I go again. It’s going to happen again because you’re never going to be fixed to that.” But if you can take it with a little bit of humor, and instead of, like, “Gosh, darn it. There it is again,” you can just be like, “Huh, there it is again,” and bring a lightness to it. That’s, by far, the best thing you can do.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now can you share with us a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

R. Michael Anderson
My favorite tool is going to be simplistic, but just listening and listen to your intuition. As a leader, I work almost exclusively with leaders that have teams, and I’m telling them, if they’re talking more than a third in a meeting, even if it’s a one-on-one meeting, they’re talking too much. And, over the years, I feel that I’ve become very wise, and the wise is my intuition, and I access my intuition by listening and really tuning into people.

And we’re all back-to-back meetings, and we’re all running around, but when I can take some time out, and if I have a big meeting, I’ll go for a half an hour walk before it, for example. So, when the meeting starts, I can be tuned in. And I like to be the person in a meeting that doesn’t say anything through an hour meeting, except for 10 minutes left. I say the one question, or the one statement, that brings everything together. I want to be that person that brings the powerful question or statement out, but potentially says the least.

And we do that by really listening and tuning in. And so, that’s my tool, is really tuning and just listening to everybody, seeing what’s not being said, maybe having the courage to say what’s not being said, but to do that in service to really getting the team forward.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

R. Michael Anderson
Again, it’s going to be common, but meditation. That’s probably changed my life. It’s the single thing that’s changed my life more than anything because it helps everything slow down. And when I don’t meditate, I realize how grouchy I can get and easily upset.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you say meditation, what specifically are you doing?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, I’m a big silent meditator so I go on silent Buddhist meditation retreats, more normally twice a year. But every morning, for 22 minutes, I kneel down on a meditation cushion and do silent meditation. Guided meditation is good but nothing beats silent meditation. And people say, “Oh, I can’t meditate.” I’m like, “I don’t understand.” And they’re like, “Well, my mind wanders.” I’m like, “Well, that’s like saying ‘I’m trying to jog but I get tired.’” It’s like that’s going to happen. That’s a byproduct of trying to quiet your mind.

And the goal of meditation is not to have a quiet mind. It’s to have the awareness. I meditated this morning, and probably 30, 40 times I caught my mind wandering. I just brought it back to center but that’s the muscle you need to strengthen, it’s that one that has the awareness and brings it back to being present. So, I think there’s a lot of confusion about that, and guided meditation is good but I don’t think it’s a replacement for silent meditation.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a key nugget you share that really connects and resonates with folks; they quote it back to you often?

R. Michael Anderson
So, once they hear it two or three times, they get it, but your relationship with yourself, your leadership mirrors relationship with yourself. So, your leadership mirrors the relationship with yourself. And what that means is all I really help leaders do is work on that relationship with themselves, make them really understand who they are, make them know, like, and trust that person, make them have compassion with that person.

And leadership is a lot about putting yourself out there, and it’s really about trusting yourself. You have to have this inner confidence. Confidence isn’t that you know things are going to work out, whether you know it all. The confidence is, no matter what’s going to happen, that you and the team are going to be okay, and you’ll solve it, but that means being okay with the unknown. And the only way you have that is to really trust yourself.

So, what I do is I work with leaders to develop that relationship with yourself, because, if you talk about impostor syndrome, that’s not having faith in yourself. And, look, when I say we all, pretty much everybody runs through impostor syndrome. I even get it every couple of weeks, but the thing is I have the tools now that I know what to do with it. So, it’s about coming back to yourself. And if you don’t have trust in yourself, it’s about building that trust up with the relationship. So, your leadership is a reflection of your relationship with yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

R. Michael Anderson
So, my name is RMichaelAnderson.com. And my new book, Leadership Mindset 2.0 is at LeadershipMindsetTheBook.com.

Or if people find me on LinkedIn, drop me. Tell you what, if anybody finds me on LinkedIn, R. Michael Anderson, and says, “I’m connecting with you from Pete’s podcast,” I’m going to send you a free gift. So, there you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, intriguing. Cool. All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah, I tell you what. Everybody listening, think about how you were five years ago, like, as a leader. Look at where you are now, and compare yourself five years ago. Chances are you’re calmer, you make better decisions, you trust yourself more, you have better confidence, etc. Now, that just goes to show you that leadership can be learned. It’s a learned skill.

And so, if you want to progress in some of those areas, whatever it is, you got to work on them, and that’s really what I like teaching. So, it’s that confidence, it’s that presence, it’s having difficult conversations earlier and better. It’s all those helping people overcome their impostor syndrome and step into their true powerful selves. All that stuff is learnable.

So, just like we talked about, epigenetics or whatever, set your sight, if you want to move ahead in your career, and that’s what’s stopping you, go out and learn those tools.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Michael, thank you. This is a lot of fun. I wish you much luck.

R. Michael Anderson
Pete, you got have me back in another six years.

Pete Mockaitis
You got it.