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Ida del Mundo

Jan 13
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1023: Finding More Purpose and Flow through Breathwork with Francesca Sipma

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Francesca Sipma shares breathwork practices to help access more purpose and flow.

You’ll Learn

  1. How breathwork leads to greater clarity 
  2. The science supporting breathwork 
  3. The most important question to ask yourself 

About Francesca 

Francesca Sipma is the author of Unblock Your Purpose:  Breathwork, Intuition, and Flow State. She is the founder and CEO of Mastry, the creator of HypnoBreathwork®, and an international speaker who offers courses and training programs for C-suite executives, world-renowned producers, celebrities, artists, and athletes. She has led sessions for Deloitte, Snap, Upwork, and Athletic Brewing, and her work has been featured by Bloomberg, Forbes, NBC, and ABC. She lives in San Diego.

Resources Mentioned

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Francesca Sipma Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Francesca, welcome.

Francesca Sipma
Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to chat through your book and your discoveries around Unblock Your Purpose: Breathwork, Intuition, and Flow State. Could you maybe share with us for starters your journey, the short version, with regard to how did you stumble upon this protocol? And what’s it doing for people?

Francesca Sipma
Yes. So, a little bit about my background is I actually come from advertising and marketing in Manhattan, and sort of hit a lot of my goals, and found myself at the peak of the mountaintop, so to say, and just felt quite empty and unfulfilled. And that really took me on a quest to rediscover my values and to sort of pivot my career into something that would bring me more fulfillment.

And that’s when I discovered breathwork and was completely fascinated by this practice. It took me really deep into my subconscious, and was extremely revealing of things that needed to heal in order to tap into my highest clarity and intuition. And the breathwork really helped me discover my life’s purpose, which gave me a lot of meaning and fulfillment. And now it’s my quest to share that with others.

Pete Mockaitis
How does breathing help us get to our purpose?

Francesca Sipma
So, breathwork reveals sort of your subconscious motivations and anything that’s unhealed in past relationships, and also a bit how your identity has been formed. So, in order for you to discover your purpose, which my definition of purpose is really the convergence of your skills, your experiences, obstacles you’ve overcome, and how you turned that outwards to be of service, you have to get to know yourself a bit.

You have to go through the defense mechanisms, the ego, any protective strategies that have been built. And breathwork has this really unique and profound ability to cut through the conscious mind, and it allows us to go deeper into emotions that have been repressed, and the exhale really allows us to clear out any sadness or guilt, subconscious limitations, and it just reveals more truth. It reveals our authenticity.

And when we do that consistently, the dots start to connect between the things that really light us up and how we can contribute to the world.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Francesca, help me out. I’ve been breathing for a long time but I don’t think breathing has ever done that for me. Am I doing it wrong? Or what’s the missing link here?

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, it’s a very specific style that we do. Breathwork has really become an umbrella term, and there’s a lot of different practices and processes, and most of it has really been for calming and for anxiety and stress relief. But the style of breathwork that we work on is called HypnoBreathwork. And so, the breath is really more of an experiential therapy. It’s very intense to inhale one exhale for about 20 minutes, and that really starts to disrupt your conscious mind and those habitual thought loops.

And then we bring in hypnotic suggestions, which are vocal cues that allow you to really focus and concentrate your brain on very specific prompts, and that might reveal what you wanted to be when you were younger, or how your skills can connect into something that you’re passionate about. And then we have visioning, which we really bring at the end of a session so that people can mentally rehearse their goals.

They can see the highest version of themselves. They can get clear action steps on what they want to create in the future. And it’s a hyper-efficient and effective 22-minute process, and each session sort of has a theme or a topic of things that we move and get clarity on. And when you do that daily, you can make a lot of progress in your life.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, that’s really intriguing. Well, so we’ve had Marc Shoen on the show, who is a clinical psychologist who does hypnosis, and that was cool. And then we had Dr. Sam Rader share about some of the, I don’t know if I want to say metaphysical, but she’s in the wellness space, talking about some of this stuff. And so, for those who are skeptical, reluctant, think that sounds a little, I don’t know, out there woo-woo, whatever term du jour, could you share any evidence, or science, or goodness that says, “No, for real, this really does stuff”?

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, I totally get that perspective. I was extremely skeptical as well when I went to Bali and discovered breathwork. I was pretty self-righteous, to be honest. I had been in therapy and read a lot of self-help books, and thought it was going to be some form of meditation or yoga. But through my experience, I found it was much more deeper than that, and it was very cathartic, and it was very healing.

And then I went to study it around the world. I went to India, I went to Peru, I went to Thailand, I went to every workshop and training, and read every breath book that I could find, and I came to understand that what’s happening in our bodies, physiologically, is we are changing the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

And when you do that, your blood becomes more alkaline, and you start to shut down the prefrontal cortex. And that’s the default mode network, that’s the overanalytical mind, that’s doing things from past experience, that’s expectations of how things have been done before, and you start to activate and you start to stimulate different regions and areas of your brain. And it’s a bit like microdosing.

When you start to activate old memories and information and knowledge and infinite intelligence, all of a sudden, you get this expansive worldview. You get more perspective. So, I actually use breathwork for peak performance. I use it to get into flow state for my business to be sharper, clearer, more articulate, problem-solving, decision-making.

And what I find is it allows me to be more creative because it’s connecting more dots. Because everything that you’ve ever studied, or been inspired by, or read, or listened to, it all lives in your subconscious mind, which is the record holder of your experiences and your emotions. And when you can breathe past that default mode network, and you can start to stimulate these different regions, all of a sudden, those different elements will connect in you in creative ways.

So, it’s like, “Oh, that one episode that I listened to on Pete’s podcast, if I did that for this passion project, and I monetize like this, and this is my acquisition strategy, and I sent this email out, and I was inspired by that social media billboard, and maybe those are the colors,” all of a sudden, you get hyper-creative, and it’s a very efficient and very effective process.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Francesca, that sounds awesome. I enjoy when my brain just makes all the connections from a lot of things. It’s a great feeling, like, “Aha,” when insights and things are unlocked, and when goodness flows.

Francesca Sipma
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
And the research on hypnosis says kind of that same thing with regards to hypnosis is just kind of a state of mind in which we are more accepting or open to receiving suggestion. And so, sometimes that’s used in kooky stage hypnosis context, but it can actually be super useful in terms of practical life context for any number of things.

I think I found it best when it’s like there’s a thing that I know to be true, and yet it doesn’t feel true in terms of, like, my insides, how I’m operating, how I’m emotionally reacting naturally to things. And hypnosis can be handy for that with regard to, say, handling criticisms, like, “Oh, I know that someone is not the judge, jury, executioner, end all, be all with regard to their opinion of me or my performance on a thing.”

And yet, sometimes, it feels though like they are, like that is true, but, no, it’s not true. And then hypnosis seems to have a cool way of letting those suggestions really go deeper and hit home. And it sounds like what you’re saying is, with a particular breathing approach stacked on top of that, it’s like we’re getting even more deeper penetration.

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, you’re really hitting the nail on the head. I love hypnotherapy and all of the sessions that I had sort of gone through in my exploration, but what I found was, for a lot of the sessions, it would take 60 minutes to two and a half hours, and I just didn’t think that bringing that back to the States into modern audience, and especially with my New York friends and people in finance, that they would spend that much time on their personal development.

So, I started to experiment with an EEG headband and test my brainwaves. And theta brainwaves are where you want to get to an order for the suggestions to really stick, in order for you to access those deeper states where you’re less defensive, and you are more open to that suggestion.

And with the conscious connected breathing, when you do the two inhales and one exhale, what I found consistently was I could get into theta state within four minutes versus when I would do it in meditation, which it would be about 15 minutes and I was still oscillating between alpha and beta brainwaves, which means you can negate the suggestion.

Which means, if I say, “Get to the root of procrastination. And what would it look like to finish that task? And what would that confidence feel like in your body?” you’re much more likely to be able to go and see that version of yourself, see yourself on stage, feel the emotion like you already have it, and it can actually stick versus feeling like you’re fighting against the current.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you’re using the EEG headband and you’re saying the theta waves roughly corresponds in the app to the calm portion of that. And you’re saying that by doing this breathwork, you’re able to land to that calm zone way faster than just meditating.

Francesca Sipma
Yes, exactly. Precisely.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s cool. And I saw a fun dorky blogpost about meditation tournament, and, the irony of it all, they called it March Mindfulness, and they talked about how it can be very easy to game those if you’re doing the calibration with your eyes open. So, tell us a little bit about that nuance. Is this all eyes closed? I even see in your videos people have eye masks on. Is that right?

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, we like to place a really comfortable eye mask on, make sure that you are laying down, make sure that you’re very comfortable and cozy. A lot of people like to have a blanket with them during a breathwork session, or a box of tissues because it can be a very intense journey. But breathwork is very different than meditation. I want to be really clear in that distinction.

In meditation, you are taking more of a passive state. You’re maybe observing your thoughts, you’re maybe trying to focus on a mantra, you’re may be focusing on your breath and allowing things to pass or de-trigger yourself, where breathwork is extremely active. It is very intense. You will feel physical vibrations sort of moving through your body, especially for your first three sessions.

You might feel like your hands are clamping up. You’ll feel tingling around your face. You might feel emotions and energy moving through your chest or your stomach, and that’s really stress and emotion that’s been buried and have been stagnant that wants to remove and that wants to release. And the way that we position the HypnoBreathwork sessions, it’s really for you to become more self-aware and maybe observe those psychological patterns and expand your mind into a new way.

So, it’s very active, it’s very intense, it’s very physical. And I think that’s why people are so intrigued by the practice, and they can maybe stick with it longer than meditation. I get the same feedback all the time, “It’s so hard for me to meditate. I can’t calm down my mind. I’m constantly running my to-do list,” and people will give up on the meditation.

But with the breath, because it’s so physical, because at least you can tell that something is happening in your body, and at the end of it, you’ll at least, at the very, very minimum, feel so much lighter and so much clearer. It’s a better habit, I think, for people to start on their personal development journey because they’ll stick with it long enough to start to experience some results.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, let’s paint a real clear picture here then. This sounds swell. So, we’re lying down, we’re comfy, we got a blanket or something, we got eye mask, so we got sort of nice visual stimuli all kind of blocked away, and then we’re doing this breathing, two inhale, one exhale. Could you give us a demo on that?

Francesca Sipma
Yes. So, it’s an inhale into your belly, inhale into your chest, and exhale. And your inhales are done through your nose, and your exhales through your mouth. So, it’s looks like inhale belly, inhale heart, exhale, inhale belly, inhale chest, exhale. And another key differentiator in the style of breathwork we teach is music is a really big part of it.

So, we might play more Shamanic beats if we’re doing a healing session from your past. We might play Adele or Celine Dion if we’re going through relationships and healing heartbreak. We might play more of like a Rufus Du Sol and ethereal, cinematic Braveheart Soundtrack type of tunes if we’re getting into your most powerful state or seeing your 2025 roadmap for your business. So, the music and the topics really shape the vocal cues and the journey. It’s very specific and it’s very customized.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, with that two inhales, one to the belly/diaphragm, one to the chest/heart, and then the exhale, is there a pace we’re aiming for?

Francesca Sipma
It’s a good question. I think that I try to let people go at a pace that they’re really comfortable with to start because I’d rather they stay for the whole journey and experience the benefits than push them too hard on the first one. I definitely work with a lot of athletes and peak performers who are pumping their breath extremely fast, and they’re feeling sort of an out-of-body experience really early on because they’re breathing in such an accelerated fashion.

But honestly, you can take it fairly slow, a place that feels good and feels comfortable, and you’ll still be able to access those deeper brainwaves states for the emotional breakthroughs and insights. So, this pacing is nice, with a medium pace, inhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, inhale, exhale. That’s sort of an ideal middle.

Pete Mockaitis
And as you’re doing it, I imagine there’s probably some group effects in terms of the rhythmic groove, and you talk about these beats. Well, now you reminded me, a buddy of mine mentioned he did, I don’t know if I’m pronouncing these words right, holotropic breathwork and SOM. Is that the same thing as this or is that different than this?

Francesca Sipma
That’s sort of the OG, like that’s the grandfather of breathwork, so definitely huge respect to Leonard Orr and to Stan Grof, sort of the grandfathers of that practice. Stan Grof was a clinical psychologist who studied LSD in the ‘60s and then created holotropic breathwork as a psycho-spiritual way for people to do deep trauma healing and see childhood memories, and become higher versions of themselves, and really access those altered states of consciousness.

So, that’s the first breathwork that I ever experienced, and I did seven sessions in Bali at a private breathwork retreat, which is why I became so in love with the practice. But what we’ve done now is we’ve really modernized it. Holotropic breathwork can also last 60 to 90 music. Typically, the music doesn’t have any lyrics in it, and there’s also no vocal guidance or cues, and there’s sort of a signature effect of drawing a mandala after your experience to really help you integrate and sort of hold onto the internal events that had just taken place.

Pete Mockaitis
What is a mandala?

Francesca Sipma
It’s basically a visual representation. You use different either crayons or markers and a white sheet of paper to just create a visual to sort of cement or integrate the practice for you. When I had my first experience with that, I was writing words and trying to understand the different colors and the different memories that I had seen, and the teacher was like, “No, just draw, like, a visual representation of it.” And I was like, “I’m not an artist. I don’t know what that means. And I’m trying to understand my physical limit, my psychological limitations.”

And so, that’s when I really noticed that I had this ability and this desire to really connect the dots between an experience and truly changing your life, and that’s when hypnosis became also foundational in the practice, as well as visioning, or visualization.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it sounds like this is powerful for you and for many of the folks you’re working with. Do we have any juicy published science on this goodness?

Francesca Sipma
Well, Stanford Research just came out with a study recently through, I believe, at the beginning of 2024 with Andrew Huberman that said that breathwork is now scientifically proven to improve mood and sleep and reduce stress, and it’s more effective than meditation.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, this was the paper with his physiological size relative to the other breathing practices or the mindfulness.

Francesca Sipma
And meditation, it was a comparison to meditation. The New York Times recently covered that a lot of clinicians and psychologists are bringing breathwork into their practices so that it’s not just intellectually and mentally processing, but people are also having a somatic release. And it’s still relatively new, it’s still relatively fresh, so I think we’re going to see more and more articles and sort of that research come out, very similar to what we’re seeing with, like, MDMA and ketamine.

So, stay tuned to this space because I think people are going to see that it’s a very profound and transformative practice. And what I like about it versus plant medicine is that it’s just your natural breath, and it’s so accessible.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And so, if we’re comparing it to plant medicine, I mean, that sounds pretty potent. Is this safe? Like, say, if someone hears this podcast, and says, “That sounds awesome. I’m going to get my blanket, I’m going to get my eyeshade, and I’m going to get my breath on and my music on, and some suggestions on for 22 minutes. Away I go,” are we cool? Are we safe? Any things to watch out for?

Francesca Sipma
Are we safe? So, I believe that breath is your lifeforce and it has medicinal properties, and we’re just now really tapping into how profound that can truly be for your healing. I think when you ask the question, “Are you safe?” for a lot of people, they don’t want to open Pandora’s box, they don’t want to go into some maybe memories or life events that have been painful for them. But I find it to be more unsafe to hold onto that emotion and allow it to shape the decisions that you make in your career, in your relationships, and in your health.

So, for me, while it may be intense, and while it may feel heavy at times, the breath is a natural mechanism for you to explore some of those emotions to heal and release them simultaneously in real time, and to gain that clarity and to gain that more peaceful state.

Now, we’ve developed Mastry, which is a platform that has these 80 different HypnoBreathwork sessions so that anybody can get whatever they need at any given time. And our intention is for you to breathe in this cadence for 20 minutes every single morning, and take your action step as that higher version of yourself.

Now, those sessions are more mild. So, the sessions on the app, because they’re audio-guided sessions and you’re doing them from the luxury of your own home, they are more about getting clarity, making a decision, hearing your intuition, feeling that self-love. When you’re doing the deeper more intense sessions that are maybe about processing grief or healing your inner child, those are sessions that I recommend that you do with a facilitator, and you have somebody there to hold that space for you, and to create that emotionally supportive environment if you’re dealing with heavier emotions.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, it might be handy to have some support in play as a little bit of a safety backstop. But, generally speaking, are you free of fatalities and lawsuits?

Francesca Sipma
I have never had a fatality and I’ve never had a lawsuit to address.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Great. So, you got an app, Mastry. How do we get it?

Francesca Sipma
So, it’s M-A-S-T-R-Y. It’s available on the Apple Store and the Google Play Store. And as soon as you log onto the app, it gives you a demo of the breath technique, and then it allows you to choose from, again, 80 different sessions based on whatever you need on topics of health, love, peak performance, corporate.

And then, afterwards, the very last cue of every single HypnoBreathwork session is, “What is your one next intuitive action step?” So, we really try to take people through this journey where they see their highest selves, they shift their energy, and then they execute. They take action from that place so that it actually starts to move and shift and change their life. We have a digital action tracker that you will type that in after your session, and then you get a badge once you complete it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So, that’s how that works. Let’s zoom in on the flow state. So, you got a book. It sounds like one of the ways to get to flow states is, “Hey, do this stuff.” Any other pro tips on getting more flow states more often and for longer?

Francesca Sipma
So, flow state is optimal consciousness. It’s when things are effortlessly flowing, you’re intrinsically motivated, disciplined, you’d surrender, you lose sense of time. My favorite way of defining it is when productivity meets alignment. That’s truly the sweet spot. And sort of how I shared before, your subconscious is this record holder of all the podcasts you listened to, conversations with mentors, investors, your bosses, your colleagues, the books that you read, all this stuff lives in your subconscious.

And what the breath does, especially if you have a good coach and he gives you a very specific cue in flow state breathwork or HypnoBreathwork, will say, “I want you to see the project. I want you to see the pitch. I want you to see yourself on that stage. I want you to see the campaign,” and then you’ll continue to breathe, you’ll start to stimulate more ideas, more creative connections will start to get made.

And then we might say something like, “How do you want your audience to feel? What are the benefits that you want to convey? See your impact in the world. What’s your next action step towards that?” And it’s a really profound way to create, in a way, that’s original to you, that’s very authentic, that’s innovative. I really believe that this is where more invention and nuance come from, and the breath is just a brilliant way to hack that state in 20 minutes.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s talk about some of these suggestions. Can I hear some of your faves?

Francesca Sipma
Well, I customize them by industry. When I first started my coaching business, it was a really difficult transition from corporate and having that stability, and especially having that secure bi-weekly paycheck, to going off and becoming a breathwork coach. And the way I did it was I treated my bedroom like a war room, and I had physiological benefits, psychological benefits, spiritual benefits, content strategy, pillars, messaging, partnership ideas, and then I would breathe, and I would just say, “What’s the next step to scale my business?”

And, immediately, it would be like, “This topic with this contact, with this video, and then this email funnel,” and these things would connect, and I did that every single day to grow my business and to scale it, and it became quite successful in the first two years. And then I brought it to different industries. So, when I went back to advertising, I said, “I want you to see the strategy. I want you to see the campaign. What are the media channels? How do you want your audience to feel? What’s your next action step as a team? How can you collaborate?”

I would use very customized vocal cues, but if I was speaking to lawyers, “See yourself in the courtroom. What’s the energy you want to convey? What are your mannerisms? What’s the case? See the victory.” If I’m going to sports teams, it’s, “See yourself on the field.” It’s just very specific and very customized. So, I would do, like, a 5- to 10-minute debrief with you, Pete, on what it is you want to create in your business. Maybe it’s podcast growth. Maybe it’s your personal brand, I don’t know. And then I would then flip it into the vocal cues, match up the songs and take you on a journey to expand and grow.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it just sounds swell.

Francesca Sipma
It is.

Pete Mockaitis
I think everybody loves a little bespoke, custom, “just for me” kind of goodness when they’re contracting a service provider, so that sounds like a successful formula for a winning business.

Francesca Sipma
But you know what we found is that in order for me to sort of digitize this and scale the work, there are general cues that can be applicable for everyone. So, even if I say, “What’s your goal? What would it feel like to accomplish that goal? See the goal like you already have the outcome that you want. Step into that.” Now, it works for millions of people even though they’re having a different internal experience.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig that. Well, Francesca, can we hear a couple of those general pieces? I know some outcomes our listeners are after often are confidence and the ability to focus. Any cues that seem to be winning on those dimensions?

Francesca Sipma
So, those are two very different sessions. For focus, I would say, “I want you to see the task at hand.” And once you’ve been breathing for about one to two songs, I would say, “What’s the priority task?” because your intuition is then going to not put the busy work in front but actually put the one that moves the needle the most, because breathwork really organizes thought streams.

So, “What’s the task at hand? What is it that you need to prioritize? What is distracting you?” and then I would have you breathe out the distractions. If you’re known to be a procrastinator, I would say, “What is at the root of the procrastination?” And there, we might be going a bit deeper because there might be a fear of success, there might be a fear of failure, there might be a fear of judgment.

I would have you wrap your breath around that, move it up to your chest, exhale, keep breathing out any discomfort, keep breathing out any resistance or tension. And then I would say, “See the task like it’s done, like it’s complete. How do you feel in your body? What would be the reaction around you? Feel that peace. Feel that freedom.” And then I would say, “What’s your next action step to completing the task?”

And it might be delegation, set the meeting, have the conversation, just check it off the list. There’s a different action step for everybody. So, that’s what I would do on focus, and we do have that on Mastry app where you can breathe for 20 minutes and you’ll get those cues in a more eloquent way with the music.

And then for confidence, confidence is an interesting one. Typically, if I’m guiding someone towards confidence, I would actually have them see the last time they felt confident so we can start to generate that emotion in their body. And then I would have them apply it to their present moment where they’re needing to feel a bit more empowered, a bit more liberated.

So, I might say, “See the word confidence. What does it bring up for you? Breathe our any insecurities. Now, visualize the last time you felt confident. And now bring that emotion to your present-day visualization, and see if they can anchor those two things.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Francesca, this is fun. As you described these states, you’re bringing me back to, wow, 2009, Walking on Hot Coals with Tony Robbins, not just me, there were thousands of people there. But he hit a nice little recipe for whipping up a state of mind-body emotion in terms of adjusting your physiology, like how you’re holding your body, your visualization, and what you were saying to yourself.

And there’s a lot of power moves, a lot of “Yes. Yes. Yes,” going on. How do you think about your approach to entering into states in comparing and contrasting with this kind of advice?

Francesca Sipma
I love Tony Robbins. I really do. He’s probably my greatest expander. I also really love Dr. Joe Dispenza, and I think that they both have incredible techniques that have changed millions of lives. For me, personally, I have to remove the subconscious block in order for me to really believe that power pose. I can’t just jump up and down to a song and feel like I’m energized and I feel clear. That doesn’t work for me. Maybe I have too much trauma. I’m not really sure.

But, like, when I’m on this entrepreneurial path, or if you’re an executive, a manager, employee, it doesn’t really matter, what your position is, but if someone is like, “Feel better. Don’t be anxious,” that doesn’t work for me, per se. I have to actually see where the root of that is coming from, “Why am I having impostor syndrome right now? Where is this self-doubt percolating from? Where is it living in my body? Does it have a color?”

And a lot of times, my conscious mind is very loud and my ego can be very loud, and I’ll think I know the answer but my subconscious is a lot deeper. It’ll take me to, like, age 7 or age 14, this event happened in high school. And I’ll need to breathe out those limitations and those sources of where the identity or the pattern formed.

So, that’s my experience and that’s my experience with a lot of my clients who have maybe been through more life events that have made them really create that self-doubt, and so that’s why we like the breath. We like going into the subconscious. We like taking it several layers deeper to really get to the root, and dissipate it from the source.

And then see the stage, see the scalability, see the exit, see your most powerful self. So, it’s just a little bit of a deeper psychological process that is more effective for me personally.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Beautiful. Well, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention to folks looking to be awesome at their jobs before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Francesca Sipma
I have two things. First, Pete, I want to know what your biggest 2025 goal is.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d say one would be getting one of my businesses into a good spot with regard to regular growing client acquisition. It seems like it’s sort of like, “Oh, yeah, we get some referrals and we get some people come in,” but it’s like, I really like a repeatable predictable process by which we’re able to kind of turn on the “get customers” engine, whereas it’s been a little bit, “Hey, good months and bad months,” you know.

Francesca Sipma
Yeah, consistency. Consistent growth. Is it product? Service?

Pete Mockaitis
Service.

Francesca Sipma
Okay. So, what we would do in a session like that is we would do a creative brainstorm for 10 minutes, and we would talk marketing, we would talk funnels, “Is it content? Is it a different platform? Is it TikTok? Is it LinkedIn? Is it influencers?” We would do a little brainstorm, testimonials, video ideas, “Is it a webinar?” We would basically brainstorm a couple of things together.

And then I would take you into the breath, and I would say, “See your business. Where are the gaps? Where are the opportunities?” And you’re deeper now, you’re in theta, things are percolating, you’re starting to get ideas, you’re starting to get insights. You might see a blind spot, say, and then I’d say, “What is your biggest opportunity for growth?”

A couple ideas might come up in your subconscious. Then I would say, “Now, visualize your business having consistent growth. And how does that feel in your body?” And it might feel like ease. It might feel like freedom. It might feel like abundance. It might feel like joy. And then I would say, “Now, from that vibration, from that state, what’s your next action step to grow your business?”

And then the answer might be, “Hire a team, hire a social media manager, up your digital ad spend,” here’s all of these things that will come from all the information knowledge you have on that business but it’s just taking you on a little bit of a deeper journey that is a bit similar to microdosing, I would say.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, okay.

Francesca Sipma
So, I just want to throw that out there so that you could really understand what a customized flow state might look like for you. And then the last thing I would want to say to your listeners is that intuition is a superpower in your work. I think that we lean too heavy on strategy and systems and knowledge and information, and we don’t lean enough on our own inner intelligence, in our own inner wisdom.

And when you learn to trust yourself and you learn to trust this knowledge that you uniquely hold within, then your life can start to have a more original path. It can start to have more joy. You can start to attract more synchronicities and opportunities, and it can take unpredictable turns that your logical and linear mind wouldn’t have seen. So, I would invite everyone to listen more to your intuition and to fiercely execute on it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Francesca Sipma
“Act on your intuition.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Francesca Sipma
My favorite book is Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Francesca Sipma
That every single person has a unique purpose in this life. And when we heal bits of the past, that will start to become clear, and your life will have more color and more joy and more peace.

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

Francesca Sipma
You can grab my book Unblock Your Purpose on Amazon, or find me on Instagram @francescasipma, or my website, FrancescaSipma.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Francesca Sipma
I think if you want to be awesome at your job, one article or two articles that I recently come by is this new sort of wave called “The Great Stay,” which is basically like we were in The Great Resignation, and now we’re in The Great Stay where people feel stuck at their jobs, and they feel immense burnout and resentment, and breathwork will rejuvenate this position for you. Breathwork will help you find the gratitude again. It’ll help you find your creativity again, and you might actually discover your purpose within your organization.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Francesca, this has been fun. Thank you. I wish you all the best.

Francesca Sipma
Thanks for having me.

Jan 09
0

1022: How–and Why–to Stop Overapologizing with Shira Miller

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Shira Miller reveals the harmful effects of overapologizing—and shares powerful advice for owning your greatness.

You’ll Learn

  1. How overapologizing hurts you personally and professionally 
  2. Five steps to stop unnecessary apologies
  3. How to tame your inner saboteur

About Shira 

Shira Miller is an award-winning keynote speaker, Certified Executive Coach, author of Free and Clear: Get Unstuck and Live the Life You Want and works as the Chief Communications Officer of National DCP, the $3 billion supply chain company serving Dunkin’ franchisees. The two-time TEDx speaker, who delivered a talk called Stop the Apology Speak, has helped thousands of leaders instill optimism and purpose at work, stop making unnecessary apologies, eliminate self-sabotage and own their greatness. 

Resources Mentioned

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Shira Miller Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Shira, welcome.

Shira Miller
Hi, Pete. Glad to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m glad to be chatting with you. We’re talking apologies, and I’m excited to dig deep into this notion of apology speak. Could you kick us off by sharing your own apology story?

Shira Miller
Oh, boy, do I have one. I spent the first 40 years of my life in a constant state of apology. I’m talking about apologizing when I won speaking trophies, and for when I would win awards at work, and the men in my life maybe weren’t so excited about that. And the most significant apology story I have to share took place back in 2009.

I used to have a public relations firm, and from the outside it looked like we were doing so well. We were in a fancy office tower, I had big-name clients, we’ve won a lot of awards. And then, I remember, in May 2009, we had about four pieces of business out for bid, and none of them came back, and that was highly unusual.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Great Recession was coming through the country and that it was about to demolish my business along with 200,000 others across the country. So, I was caught unawares, I had $100,000 worth of business debt, I had to let go of wonderful employees, and I spent my time constantly apologizing.

I honestly knocked myself out for the next four years to take care of all the work, to get rid of the debt. I did it all by myself. I ran my health into the ground. And then, at the end, when I should’ve been celebrating because I survived, what did I do, Pete? I apologized. That’s what I did.

Pete Mockaitis
To whom?

Shira Miller
To the world. I kept telling people, “Gosh, I feel stupid. I can’t believe that I got myself in this situation.” Instead of standing proud to think, “I got through one of the biggest challenges of my life,” I put myself down, self-deprecating language, constantly said I was sorry to anyone that would listen.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us, Shira, what’s the harm or problem in saying we’re sorry often? Isn’t that kind of a polite, friendly thing to do?

Shira Miller
You know, you would think that it is on the surface, and sometimes that is people’s intention with it, but when you apologize for no reason, you are telling the rest of the world, subconsciously, that you don’t matter. You are trying to maybe diffuse a tense situation, perhaps you don’t want to shine brightly and you dim your own light to make other people feel better about themselves, but it’s saying to the world and yourself that you are coming in second, and that your opinion and your ideas don’t matter.

And when it comes to work, if there are two people up for the same promotion, who do you think is going to get it? The woman who stands in front of a room and says, “I’m sorry” as the first words out of her mouth, or the person, the woman who stands there confidently, owning her accomplishments?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, maybe we can disentangle or distinguish a little bit what’s up. Because I imagine, from your perspective, and you tell me if that’s the case, it would be appropriate to apologize when we have genuinely injured another, made a mistake, failed to deliver on a promise or an expectation. These seem like fine times to apologize.

Shira Miller
Absolutely. The whole premise here is that when you’ve done something wrong, all of the examples you gave, if you’re thinking about the workplace, if you missed a deadline, you took credit for someone else’s ideas, you cast a shade on somebody else, you need to own that. That is worthy of an apology, and issue one.

But in those circumstances, when you’re using apology speak, which is my name for starting a sentence with “I’m sorry,” when you’ve done nothing wrong, or self-deprecating phrases, like, “In my humble opinion,” when you start out by saying that, or, “I’m not an expert but…” you’re literally telling the room, “Okay, I don’t know as much,” or, “My great ideas, they don’t matter.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, could you share with us perhaps any data, evidence, research, science studies that speak to, really, the big stakes impact, consequentiality, if that’s a word, of this stuff?

Shira Miller
So, if you dig into the why of why we’re doing it, I know your audience is primarily female so I’m going to go with that example, the University of Waterloo did a study, and they found that women apologize more than men. And to that I say, “Duh!” I mean, we all know this but Mila Jovanovic, who is a sociologist in Canada, she digs deeper into the theory of why we’re doing it.

And her theory is that women are socialized into being people-pleasers from a young age, and the apology speak is part of it, when we’re taught to say “I’m sorry” to go along or get along, or diffuse a tense situation. But if you dig deeper into the research, a lot of it stems from impostor syndrome. KPMG came out with a study a couple of years ago that found that 75% of female executives felt impostor syndrome.

And, as you know, that is a behavioral phenomenon where you might have tremendous accomplishments but you don’t feel good enough. You feel like you don’t deserve that seat at the table even if you spent the past 5, 10, 15 years working for it. And that can really undermine your confidence.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, over-apologizing, in some way, sounds as though it’s a bit of an indicator or a symptom of some underlying stuff, which might be low self-esteem, or a tendency to people-please, or put others’ thoughts, opinions, priorities, needs above your own habitually. And so, that’s kind of what I’m hearing. But, in addition to the indicator, it sounds like you’re saying that the actual act of over-apologizing does us harm.

Shira Miller
It is a form of self-sabotage. It hurts your career. It hurts your credibility. It hurts you at home as well. It’s hard to have really rich conversations about difficult topics with the people you’ve got relationships with if you’re feeling overwhelmed and you just start saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” to shut down a hard topic. You’re not really digging into what’s going on, and that hurts you professionally and personally.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, could you dig into that example a little bit more? There’s a conversation going on, and you say, “I’m sorry,” and bow out.

Shira Miller
Yes. Let’s say that you’re having an argument with your significant other. Maybe it’s about finances, about latest credit card spending, and when you are asked the question, “Why did you spend all of that money?” instead of thinking, “Okay, let’s talk. What’s going on? Is it a budget issue that I need to talk about with my significant other? Is there a problem? I’m earning my own money,” instead you just raise your hands in the air and you deflect it, and go, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

But you’re not actually dealing into, “Are you dealing with a control freak? Are you dealing with a spending problem you’ve got? Is it a lack of communication about your budget parameters?” You’re not going into the real stuff that helps us have good relationships at home as well as at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that’s one form of apologizing. It’s almost like we’ve got a taxonomy of apologies here…

Shira Miller
We do.

Pete Mockaitis
…is the avoidance apology, “I’m sorry.” Can you share with us some other flavors or categories and how they’re harmful?

Shira Miller
When you start apologizing for things that are out of your control. For example, “I’m sorry it’s raining,” “I’m sorry traffic is bad.” Unless you’re Mother Nature, you’re not controlling those factors. And when that’s the first thing out of your mouth, rather than acknowledging the person or what the subject is that you’re going to be meeting about, it takes away the focus of your interaction or the time.

Another work example is when you say, “I’m sorry to bother you,” because when you’re using that language, you are immediately setting up your conversation as an imposition. You’re saying that their time matters more than yours, whereas, you can shift the language to, instead, say, “Do you have a moment to talk about an important issue?” or, “Can I get your perspective on this project?” Those are words of ownership, and you deserve to have their time because it’s going to make everybody work smarter and better.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. So, in a raining environment, I’m imagining of an event coordinator. We’re having a lovely picnic in the park event, and it’s raining, and that’s genuinely disappointing for all of us who imagined a different kind of a scenario.

So, it’s intriguing because in that context, if you’re the event planner of this, you are disappointed that things have not gone the way you had hoped, and you recognize that they, too, in the crowd, are disappointed. It has not gone your way.

But to apologize for the rain, you’re right, it’s sort of nonsense, as you’ve said, in terms of, like, you did not make it rain. And yet, here we are experiencing some disappointment due to rain. So, what would be a superior linguistic substitution?

Shira Miller
What you can start out with is acknowledging your audience, the people in the group, “Thank you for your patience. We’re dealing with a rain situation but you guys are so resilient that we’re easily going to be able to take everything, move inside, and get on with our meeting, and have the best time yet.”

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s funny, as we’re talking about when it’s appropriate to apologize and not apologize, I’m sort of imagining the response following the “I’m sorry.” It’s as if the response “I forgive you” is nonsense, then maybe it’s probably not right to apologize in that moment, like, “I’m sorry it’s raining.” “Hey, I forgive you, Shira, for making it rain.” It’s like, “Oh, okay. Point taken. It doesn’t really make sense here.”

And that’s a whole other conversation but in terms of “I forgive you.” It’s funny, with my wife, I like to hear that. She does not like to hear that because it feels like, if I say, “I forgive you,” I’m acknowledging, “Yes, in fact, you have wronged me,” and she would prefer a “No big deal,” or, “That’s okay.” But I like “I forgive you” because I know I screwed up, and to hear that I’ve been released of any debt or burden or obligation or ill will associated with that error feels nice to me.

Shira Miller
And it sounds like you are very clear on your linguistic choices and hers in feeling acknowledged in a conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Well, it’s funny, now that we’re talking about romance, I recall, one time, I was driving home to visit my mom and dad, and I had my girlfriend at the time in the car. And so, I was driving, and she wanted to text them to let them know how the timing was unfolding. And it was really interesting in the moment because she’s texting on my phone because I’m not texting and driving, and so she’s writing on behalf of me.

And so, she said, “Okay, I’ll text them right now. I’m saying, ‘Oh, sorry, it looks like we’re going to get there in about 4:30.’” And I remember saying, “Hmm, can we delete the sorry?” And she’s like, “What? Why?” And we had a whole conversation. This is, like, the only time I’ve talked in depth about the apology language prior to now.

And I thought, “Well, I don’t think that we’ve actually done anything wrong in terms of we have not communicated a specific timing expectation. We didn’t make any unwise choices and it just feels out of place.” I wasn’t even thinking about harm. It just felt off to me intuitively.

Shira Miller
You’ve got a great intuitive meter because, yeah, when you start with a sorry and you’ve done nothing wrong, there was no established arrival time, then it might set it up for another apology when you show up, where you were bringing your girlfriend home. Your family was probably delighted to meet her, and it was a time for family togetherness and joy. There was no need for an apology.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. Well, tell us, if we do need to interrupt somebody, that’s one time I think of sorrys happening. It seems kind of appropriate to me to apologize for interrupting, even though the thing needs to be communicated immediately. What’s your hot take there?

Shira Miller
I think you can do that in a couple different ways and a lot of it depends on your tone. If someone is starting to go in detail then you know it needs to be corrected or added on. It can be, “Emily, I love your point. And can I please add one more thing to your message?” When you kind of pop in and you make it fun, acknowledging the person who’s speaking, that’s a way to do it.

Or, you could say, “Hey, pardon my interruption for just a second. I got to add something to your message right now,” or, “Here’s my clarifying point.” When you start it that way, as long as you don’t take away from the messages that are being communicated by the person who’s got the floor.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. I’m also thinking that if you’re apologizing frequently, that sends a message, maybe like in a negotiation context, and many contexts are really negotiation contexts under the surface, “I want something. You want something. And so, here we are in conversation.” Kwame Christian is a friend of mine. He hosts the podcast Negotiate Anything, and he’s wonderful. He’s a former guest.

And he said, “A negotiation is conversation which somebody wants something.” And so, I think in that definition, a person who apologizes frequently, I get the impression as a counterparty to that negotiation, and I try not to abuse this. I get the impression that if I’m a little bit more assertive, I’m likely to gain concessions because of their discomfort, because I know I’m a people-pleaser, too.

It’s like, “Oh, this person is kind of like me. So, if I let them know that I have an expectation or I’m a little bit unhappy with the thing,” which I am, honestly, I’m not, like, faking it to game the negotiation, “then I have a higher probability of receiving consideration from them,” as oppose to a stone-cold negotiator, like, “I don’t care if you don’t like it. This is what I can do.”

Shira Miller
Well, what you’re doing is recognizing an opportunity, because when someone starts with an apology speak, they don’t feel solid in their position. There’s some sort of weakness. They don’t feel confident. That’s what it’s saying. Even if they are the most brilliant person in the room, because of their language, they’re not coming across that way. So, when you’re talking about the example of a negotiation, you’re just being a smart negotiator spotting an opportunity that you will leverage to have a better deal.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And it’s funny, I was just in a negotiating conversation yesterday, I almost said I’m sorry. She asked, “What’s the price?” I said, “$12,000.00” She said, “Can you do 10?” And I said, “I respect and appreciate you asking but I cannot.”

Shira Miller
Beautiful. You had no sorry in it, right? You just said no.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it was almost there, though. It was close. Cool. Well, so tell us, you’ve got a system, five ways to break the cycle of unnecessary apologies. Lay them on us.

Shira Miller
Well, you are so brilliant. You already started going into this. So, the first step, Pete, is to determine if an apology is necessary, and sometimes it is. If you have actually done something wrong, we went through several examples earlier, issue a genuine apology. And I’m going to give you a non-work example here but it’s just a really public one that we all know of.

If you think about the Academy Awards, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, he needed to issue an apology, and he didn’t issue one right away to Chris Rock. He apologized to his family and the world but it took him a while. Now, Chris Rock didn’t accept the apology. That was his prerogative, he didn’t have to. But Smith absolutely had to apologize. He did something wrong.

But when you don’t, when you’ve done nothing wrong, reserve your apologies for when they actually matter. Because if you’re the constantly-saying-you’re-sorry person in your language, it diffuses it when you actually have done something wrong and need to make an apology. So, that is step one.

Step two is to pay attention, and this is a really quick homework assignment for anybody who’s listening that wants to immediately change a situation. Start writing down, it could be a hash mark, it could be the details. Every time you find yourself over the next three or four days making an unnecessary apology.

Like, let’s say that you’re at the grocery store, you’re minding your own business pushing your cart, someone else is playing on their phone, they’re not paying attention, they run into you and your cart, and you look at them, and go, “Oh, hey, I’m sorry.” You didn’t do anything wrong. So, just note all of that and look at the end, three or four days, if you’re trying to be real A student, do it for a week to really find out, and then start tallying it up.

If you’ve done it a couple times, that’s one thing. Maybe it’s in the dozens, this is a real problem. So, start to find the connection points. Is there a common denominator? Is there a director at work who’s really difficult and he prompts that situation whenever you’re in a meeting? Or maybe it’s your mother-in-law. I’m not even trying to go to vaudeville jokes here, but it might be a frenemy.

It could be somebody like that. You find yourself constantly apologizing when you’re with that person, they’re the trigger. And when you understand it by paying attention, you can plan ahead not to apologize and choose other words instead.

Shira Miller
The third step is to reframe your words. So, think about what you’re actually trying to communicate with an apology. Often, the intention is to connect with another person. Maybe you’re trying to express sympathy or empathy. Make the sentiment the focus of your words. So, let’s say you’re running late for a meeting.

Instead of running in the room, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I was late,” and constantly talking about it and why and the parking garage was a mess, just focus on “Thank you for your patience. I’m so excited to dig into this presentation today,” and then get into the meeting. You’ve acknowledged the people for their graciousness, and then you move on. So, it’s a point of connection, and reframing your words to actually fit the sentiment.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Shira, if I can pause there for a moment.

Shira Miller
Sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, in that context, it seems like it may very well be appropriate that as a person who is late, you have, indeed, I don’t want to be dramatic, but you have harmed people. You have harmed people by your tardiness, and I mean, it’s not life or death, but, yeah, it is an inconvenience, a distraction of time has unfolded as a result of your tardiness.

And so, “I’m sorry” doesn’t seem out of place to me. Now going on about the parking garage, of course, burns more time, which is so that’s worse than make it snappy. But what’s your take on that one?

Shira Miller
I think that’s a great question, Pete. If you are really late, if you’re 15, 20 minutes late, yeah, you need to apologize. I’m talking if you’re a couple of minutes late – the elevator was slow, the parking garage was a problem. If you’re one or two minutes late, okay. If you do know, though, this is knowing your audience, let’s say that you’re talking to some prospective clients, and time management is really big on their list of priorities, yeah, you do go into that and say, “I’m sorry I was a couple of minutes late. I appreciate your flexibility and your patience. Let’s get right into this.” That’s knowing your audience.

But it’s the dramatic, “Oh, my gosh, I was late, and here’s why. And my kid was sick this morning and traffic was horrible.” People don’t want that verbal vomit with the sorry.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Next step?

Shira Miller
Next step is something I call claiming your accomplishments. And so, think about one thing that you were great at. So, before you start your day each morning, take a minute to think about your one good thing, and how that quality or skill makes you feel.

Does it make you feel happy? Proud? I want you to say it out loud and express your gratitude. Because when you start your day by thinking about your best quality or skill, that helps you unlock your full potential. It helps with the feelings of impostor syndrome, the feeling you’re not good enough, and it strengthens your confidence muscles so that you’re not delving into the state of over-apologizing.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Shira Miller
Final step there is to set boundaries, and start from a place of confidence. Think about the good work that you do and the value that you offer. You don’t need to over-prove yourself all of the time. Say no when it’s a project that you simply don’t have time to handle. It’s all in the delivery. If it’s an opportunity that you’re not interested in, when you say no to others, you can say yes to yourself more often. So, setting boundaries will also help you stop over-apologizing.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Beautiful. And can we dig into a little bit of, I suppose, the underlying foundational psychological thing in terms of if we really do view ourselves as less than, inferior, dumb, not worthy of whatever, we’re impostors, do you have any…you mentioned claiming your accomplishments, which is phenomenal. Can we expand upon approaches by which we develop this inner strength and confidence?

Shira Miller
I’ve got two things for you here. So, the first is a lot of the self-doubt comes from your inner saboteur, and that is the internal voice in your head that is talking trash about you to yourself, so it’s negative self-talk. And it might’ve started years ago when you were trying to protect yourself, “Oh, don’t get on that slide. You might get hurt,” when you were a kid, or, “Don’t raise your hand in class. You might sound stupid.” So, it might’ve started young. But when you’re doing it as a conscious adult, it’s holding you back.

So, when you start to hear that critical voice in your head, and part of you knows that it’s completely off base but it’s just an old habit, that’s what a negative self-talk is, just like apology speak, you can actually talk back to the self-talk. You can say, whether it’s an out-loud conversation, as long as there aren’t a lot of people around thinking that you’re going off into a crazy spiral, but you could say, “Thank you but I’m done now. I don’t need that protection. What you’re saying, I’ve outgrown it. It’s actually incorrect.”

You could write yourself a letter. You could journal about it. That is a tool to try to deal with negative self-talk. Another tool that I’ve created is something called a reverse bucket list. And you know the concept of a bucket list, things you want to do, aspirations, before you die, before you kick the bucket. In this case, I ask people to take 10 minutes and write down a list of everything you’ve accomplished, and I want as many things as you can think of.

Did you put yourself through college? Did you end a cycle of family addiction? Did you get promoted in your first job after two years? Are you the first female director in your organization? Everything. List it. And then once you take the time to write that down in 10 minutes, go back and read it because what you’ve done is created evidence, proof of your capabilities, of your resilience, and you can take that list out, that reverse bucket list anytime you’re not feeling confident. It’s an instant trick that will help build your confidence.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, Shira, I did, in fact, create a list like this in college. I was being rejected for a lot of things, and I was sad. And it was very helpful because self-doubt really did creep in, I was like, “Oh, maybe I’m really not that smart or capable, in general. Geez, everyone keeps rejecting me for these cool opportunities and things I’m applying for.”

And so, I made a big old list, and I referred to it, and it was quite handy. I went to it often. But now I’m thinking back to a conversation we had with Victor Cheng in episode 500 about developing unshakeable self-confidence. I’m curious about our underlying foundation, and we’re getting real philosophical here, Shira.

Shira Miller
Love it.

Pete Mockaitis
In terms of it’s not ideal to pin our sense of value and worth to accomplishments, although it can be handy in a particular context if you think, “I’m no good at this,” like, “Hey, here’s the evidence. You’re pretty good at this.” But even at a deeper level in terms of, like, your general sense of goodness, worthiness, capability, do you have any thoughts on that?

Shira Miller
Yes, and I think that’s a very powerful message. The tool I just talked about is great if you’re not feeling confident in a work situation, or, honestly, a personal situation. You can just change the attitude, the mood, the mentality but you really do need to go deeper. The most important relationship that you have in this world is with yourself. And you need to have an innate self of your worth. You need to be able to trust yourself, and it’s deeper.

And so, I’ve done a lot of work on that over the years through journaling, therapy. Some people work with a professional coach such as yourself. Those are some wonderful ways in which you can build stronger, deeper, unshakeable confidence that will bolster you no matter what you face in your life. It is a deeper journey on the long term.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, this is a lot of cool stuff, Shira. Could you tell us a fun story of someone who stopped their over-apologizing ways and what kind of impact that made for them?

Shira Miller
So, the first person coming to my mind is a friend who was a partner in a $500 million consulting company. Very successful. She was raised in a hard situation, grew up in a double-wide trailer in Alabama, her parents constantly put her down, so she felt like she always had something to over-prove, and didn’t feel like she deserved a seat at the table, ended up putting herself through to good schools, worked for some of the biggest companies in the country, but she always found herself apologizing.

And even as recently as about a year ago, and, again, she’s a partner, she’s a board member at this $500 million company, when the CEO was talking to her one day about a co-worker who wasn’t performing, what did she say? “I’m sorry.” She kept apologizing because a co-worker wasn’t performing. She did nothing wrong. The CEO was consulting with her to try to get a solution, and that was her first indication, “Oh, I really have a problem.”

And so, when she realized this, we started talking about it. She knew that I could offer her some tips, and she started the exercise I said about actually writing it down when you’re doing it. Her name is Cindy. I know she’s not going to care if I use her name. Cindy wrote it down and realized that the list was pretty high, especially for somebody who has such tremendous accomplishments.

So, for her, it was gaining the awareness. And whenever she found herself in conversations that would normally trigger it or with people, she came in there armed and ready to stand more in her power than apologizing for somebody else not delivering work or a situation she had no control over.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then what happened?

Shira Miller
Oh, gosh, I’ll tell you what. It did great for her well-being. She finds herself just really, and this is a woman who is in her 50s, so you can change this at any time in your career. I just want to be really clear about that. It decreased her stress at work.

She realized, “The whole problems of this company and the world are not on my own shoulders. I don’t need to take that on. I don’t need to say ‘I’m sorry for that.’ I can listen. I can be empathetic to it, but, really, people want me to talk more about positive solutions, and I’ll take ownership of a problem that’s not mine.” So, it’s greater well-being and less stress.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. Well, Shira, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Shira Miller
I just want you to know that you can stop over-apologizing at any time. I did. When I was about 46 years old, there were a whole bunch of circumstances that happened that just made me realize, “I’m done with this BS. I’m not going to sit there and apologize for things when I did nothing wrong anymore.” And it was such a sense of empowerment and ownership, and you can start immediately.

You can practice. Go into one situation that you know, that normally triggers over-apologizing, and don’t do it, and see what happens. See what happens in the room with everybody else, and see how you feel about yourself. It’s going to be a big confidence boost and I bet that it’s going to help you own your greatness even more at work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Shira Miller
So, this is from Albert Einstein, and he said, “Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.”

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

Shira Miller
Gallup does some wonderful research on workplace wellbeing. And what I love is that they have shown that when employees prioritize their physical and their psychological wellness, your overall well-being, and whether that’s through exercise, having good conversations, engaging in things that align with your values, you’re going to have better job satisfaction, your wellness is going to be better, your actual health, you think smarter. So, I love that people realize, and studies like this that well-being at work is really critical to your performance and the overall success of the company.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Shira Miller
It’s called Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success. This book came out like eight or nine years ago, but I constantly go back to it because it has so many helpful tips.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, Brad Stulberg was on the show talking about that, and it is fantastic. And a favorite tool?

Shira Miller
I have become obsessed with ChatGPT. I do a lot of writing, I have to do a lot of research at work, and it can’t create original content well, but whenever I’m trying to dig into a topic and get more insights, it’s a wonderful tool to just go deeper and give me different perspectives, insights, research. It has saved me so much time. I love it.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you give us an example or prompt that has made all the difference for you?

Shira Miller
Yes. So, recently, I’ve been developing a new keynote that is about activating the remarkable and it’s harnessing the power of optimism in the workplace. So, I wanted to go in and I wanted to get examples of companies that had really inspiring value-based purpose statements because that’s one of the ways in which you activate the remarkable. You help people reignite the why, find their purpose.

And so, I went in, it gave me a bunch of examples. And then I said, “Drill down even further and I want you to have companies that did well in 2024,” because I wanted profitable companies. And so, it came back and, for example, Airbnb is high on the list, Netflix, Moderna. And so, I was able to go ahead and get those examples rather than spend hours and hours of research just by using ChatGPT, the paid version.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. So, you said, “Hey, give me an example of someone at Moderna who did this thing.”

Shira Miller
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
That is a great use case there in terms of I think you said it just right. I don’t trust its words to be good but I do trust it to surface swell things faster than Google and with more specificity. I like Perplexity for this as well. So, right on. And favorite habit as well, could we hear that?

Shira Miller
I am one of those early morning exercisers. I did not start that way. I was not a morning person 30 years ago, but that is how I get my magic and how I start the day doing something completely for myself. So, I work out almost every day before I get the day started. And it just gives me energy and optimism and makes everything go smoother.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Shira Miller
No matter where you find yourself in life, I don’t care how old you are, what your circumstances are, you can get unstuck. You can start today. You can start now.

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

Shira Miller
I would say follow me on LinkedIn. It’s Shira Miller. I’d love to have you there. I always post new content. I’ve got a newsletter. I’ve got videos and a lot of helpful content that I’d love to share.

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

Shira Miller
If you want to be awesome at your jobs, I want you to own your greatness, and you can start immediately by stop apologizing when you’ve done nothing wrong. We’ve given you the tools today. Pick one step. Start to do it, and you’re going to be amazed at how your confidence soars.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Shira, thank you.

Shira Miller
Thank you. This has been wonderful.

Jan 02
0

1020: The Three Keys to Being Inspirational with Adam Galinsky

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Adam Galinsky reveals the core skills anyone can master for more inspiring leadership.

You’ll Learn

  1. The easiest way to uplift the people around you 
  2. The 15-minute exercise that makes you visionary 
  3. The quick trick to feeling more confident and powerful 

About Adam 

Adam Galinsky is a celebrated social psychologist at Columbia Business School known for his research on leadership, decision-making, teams and ethics. His scientific research—consisting of over 1000 studies published in over 200 scientific articles—has been cited more than 64,000 times. In Galinsky’s latest book, Inspire, he weaves together his decades of research and global consulting experience to reveal the science of how to become more inspiring. His TED Talk, “How to Speak Up For Yourself,” has been viewed more than 7.5 million times and his book Friend and Foe, was an audible and eBook bestseller. 

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Adam Galinsky Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Adam, welcome.

Adam Galinsky
Thanks so much for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to dig into your wisdom about your book, Inspire, to get inspired, to become more inspiring. So, no pressure, Adam, but we’re expecting lots of inspiration to be flowing from you here today.

Adam Galinsky
I hope I can deliver.

Pete Mockaitis
Me too. Well, so tell us, you study this stuff. I’d like to hear, in your own lived experience, who’s the most inspiring person you’ve encountered and what is it about them that inspired you?

Adam Galinsky
Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve been inspired by a number of people in my life. One person that inspired me really deeply is my dad and even my mom too. So, both my parents and their different ways. One of the things I talk about in the book is I really compare and contrast two types of leaders that tend to be in our orbit, the inspiring leaders, but also the infuriating leaders.

And I think one of the things, when I think about both my parents, I immediately think about their inspiring characteristics, but also their infuriating flaws that they had. And so, I think one of the things in studying this topic is, probably maybe the single biggest insight that I’ve discovered is I’ve actually answered an age-old question that’s bedeviled people for centuries, which is, “Are inspiring leaders born or are they made?”

And what I’ve discovered is, I think, pretty definitively, that inspiring leaders are truly made. And the reason why I know this is because there is, and the thing that I’ve established in my research, is that there is a universal set of characteristics that make up the inspiring person. And these characteristics exist in every single country, on every continent in the world. There’s not a single inspiring characteristic that doesn’t exist in every other country, that exists in one country. It exists in every country.

And because there is this universal set of characteristics, those can be learned, they can be practiced, they can be nurtured, and so that we can become more inspiring over time. And if we go back to thinking a little about my parents, and I said they’re inspiring and they’re infuriating, the thing that really, what my research shows, is that it’s not who we are, it’s really what we do. It’s our behavior, our current behavior, whatever we’re doing today can either inspire or infuriate.

And that means that even if we were amazing yesterday, we may be a total infuriating dad today but the good news is we could be even more inspiring tomorrow.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, it’s good news that inspirational leaders are made and not born, otherwise you’d have a pretty short book and podcast, I imagine, Adam.

Adam Galinsky
That’s right, yes. Well, it could be a whole discussion of how to select those people, right? So wouldn’t be necessarily that short, but it would be a different conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
It would be. Well, and not as much fun because, I mean, I am inspired by the notion of being inspirational, to get meta with you. And I do definitely want to dig into this set of characteristics, what are they, and how do we learn them. But first I’d like to hear, generally speaking, as you’ve dug into all this literature and done the research, any big surprising or counterintuitive discoveries that made you go, “Huh, how about that”?

Adam Galinsky
I think that one of the things I discovered over the course of doing 25 years of scientific research is the power of not just thinking about ourselves, but thinking about others. And so, one of the first things that I ended up studying in my dissertation was a notion of perspective-taking. And when we take the perspective of other people, it opens up a lot of different avenues and possibilities that we might not know were available to us.

And so, it helps us be better negotiators. It helps us be better leaders. It helps us be more inclusive, give better feedback. Like, you could do a whole list of the things that perspective-taking provides to you. But this is one example, I have a paper that’s coming out in the top psychology, social psychology journal in the world, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in January, a paper I’ve worked on for a number of years.

And the title of the paper is called “The Vicious Cycle of Status and Security.” And so, one of the mistakes that the people who are insecure about where they stand in the world make is they think they have to tout their accomplishments. They have to show what they have done. And what my research shows is that, when we’re feeling insecure, we feel reluctant to credit other people for their contributions to us, thinking it’ll undermine our own standing.

But what my research shows really definitively, even in some of the most competitive contexts, that when we are generous in spirit towards other people, when we acknowledge their contributions to our own success, we not only elevate them, but we also elevate ourselves. We actually gain in status through generosity.

And I think that’s one of the things that people might instinctively kind of think that might be true, but when they get anxious, when they get insecure, that goes out the window and we focus on the self and, “What I’ve done.” And so, I think maybe the surprising thing is just the power in, “It’s not all about you.” If you focus on others, you’re going to benefit but it’s through this sort of other route, if you will.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I absolutely buy that, and I’ve seen it on both sides of the table in terms of when I’m at my best doing those things, as well as when I see it from others, and I am wowed by, I suppose, anytime someone just is generous in terms of, I guess I think about in sales conversations in which someone says, “Hey, we’d love to take your money, but actually I don’t think we’re the best fit for you. You should go with it over in this direction instead.”

I end up liking them more and giving them more referrals. It’s like, “You got to talk to these guys. They’re so honest. They’re so great. They’ll help you out or tell you who could help you better.” And it’s a world I want to live in, you know? So, I think that’s beautiful.

Adam Galinsky
Yeah, I think that’s right.When we do something that doesn’t look like in our best interest, it seems more authentic and genuine, because “Why would they be doing it if they didn’t really believe it?” And I think that becomes really powerful for that. And it also just highlights how important our reputation is to us, like, how people think about us, how they talk about us, what they share about us.

And so, that’s another, I think, I use this phrase that I really like about, “spreading the seeds of inspiration.” And I’ll come back to this later, but I have an acronym that I use called REAP. And it’s a Hananim from the Bible and, “Reap what you sow.” But the idea is that what you put out in the world comes back to you. So, if you’re inspiring to others, they’re going to be inspiring to you. But if you’re infuriating to others, you’re going to get infuriation back. And I think that’s something so important.

One of the foundations, and we’ll talk about the characteristics, as you said, and sort of how we can utilize those characteristics, but one of the foundations is really, like, living your values, and how you can live your values. And my number one value, I have a values card that’s in my pocket with my top five values and in a hierarchy. My number one value is generosity. And it’s that idea that if we’re generous to other people, not just in substance, but even in spirit, we’re going to produce a better world, not only for others, but also for ourselves.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, let’s dig into some of these characteristics. Lay them on us.

Adam Galinsky
Sure. Well, so just to give your listeners a little background. So, what I’ve done over the last 20 years is I’ve asked people all over the world to tell me about a leader that inspired them. And I’ve asked people, “Well, what does it mean to be inspired?” And people use words like energy or warmth or light.

And the way that I describe it is a wellspring of hope and possibility. It changes you inside. It gives you this feeling. And I say to people, “What was it about that person that inspired you? I want you to tell me the exact characteristic. Be a scientist. Pinpoint what it is that really changed you inside.” And then over the course of time, I started asking another question, I said, “Okay, I want to talk about a different leader that changed you inside. But instead of creating that wellspring of hope and possibility, they created this seething cauldron of rage and resentment. And what was it about that leader that made your blood boil, that infuriated you?” And so, by collecting thousands, and probably even tens of thousands of these examples across the globe, I’ve been able to sort of analyze and study them and use sort of scientific techniques to reduce them to some core factors.

And these three universal factors, I’ll tell you sort of the first thing, my first insight is that the inspiring leader and the infuriating leader are really mirror images of each other, and they exist on this continuum, this enduring continuum that’s made up of “How are you behaving today?” And so, just as a couple quick examples, an inspiring leader is generous. We already used the word generosity, right? Infuriating leader is selfish.

Inspiring leader is courageous. Infuriating leader is cowardly. Inspiring leader sees the big picture. Infuriating leader is small-minded, lost in the weeds. So, one of the things we can start to see is that these are mirror images of each other. And the second thing is that continuum is made up of these three enduring factors. There’s being visionary, which is how we see the world. There is being an exemplar of desired behavior, how we are in the world. And then being a mentor, how we interact with others in the world.

And one of things that I’ve discovered is there’s a reason why these are the three universal factors. And the reason why these are the three universal factors is because they each satisfy a fundamental human need. We’re inspiring people because we’re satisfying a need. So, to be visionary satisfies a human need for meaning and understanding. We crave meaning.

To be exemplar satisfies the fundamental human need to feel protected and safe, but also to feel propelled by people’s passion and energy. And then mentor is one of the universal factors because it fulfills the fundamental human needs for a sense of belonging and inclusion on the one hand, but feeling like that you have status and are respected on the other hand.

And so, these are these three universal factors. I actually have a term that I use, a mnemonic device to help people remember it. I call it the VEM diagram of inspiring leadership. So, it’s like a Venn diagram, you have visionary, you have exemplary, you have mentor, and inspiring in the middle of those concentric circles but that really sort of captures those three elements.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, you brought the goods and some social psychology chops in action, our deep human needs. And on the mentor side, I’m thinking about, we got the belonging and the inclusion and also at the sense of learning growth mastery that occurs when we’re getting good tidbits from a mentor. Like, “Oh, wow, that’s brilliant. And now my skills have been upgraded and I feel great as a result of that as well.” So, we’re ticking all kinds of deep human boxes here.

Now, I’ll tell you, Adam, when you said that these inspiring leaders are made and not born, it feels like a tall mountain to climb to just develop these characteristics within us. If we’re not so visionary and exemplary and mentor-y, how do we get more of that goodness going for us?

Adam Galinsky
Yeah, absolutely. So, for each of these, I can go into a little bit more detail, but also say, like, “How do we get into a visionary state of mind that makes us and propels us to be more visionary? How do we get into an exemplar state of mind? How do we do those things?” And so, let me just start with, I think, visionary is such a straightforward one and really helpful. So, what does it mean to be visionary?

Well, visionary has three characteristics. It’s kind of like what we say, is one of it, how we say it and when we say it. And the what basically is big picture, optimistic vision of the future. So, there’s, we see the big picture, but we also see a positive version of what the world can look like. Now, how do we say it? Well, my research shows and other people’s research shows is you want to do two things. You want to simplify it to its essence, but you also want to visualize it, make it come to life.

So, one of the examples I love to give is, you can have the mission, “Our mission is to have satisfied customers.” That’s a good mission, right? You want to have your customers be satisfied. But now let’s just tweak it a little bit and see how it changes, “Our mission is to make our customers smile.” Now that word smile is something we can visually see.

And then we can think about, “Well, what is it that we can do to bring that smile onto our customers’ face?” And that actually simple change from satisfied customers to make our customers smile, engages people more and motivates them more. It produces better outcomes, better products, if you will.

And then the final thing is that if you want your vision to stick, you got to share it and repeat it again and again and again and again. And one of the things I think we fail a lot of times is we fail to recognize that for something to stick, we need to hear it a lot of times. I mean, here’s a good example. What does almost every song in the world have?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, a refrain, a chorus.

Adam Galinsky
Yeah, a chorus, a refrain, right? That tells us, if almost every song in the world has the same exact feature, a repeated line, a repeated chorus, a repeated frame, that probably tells us the human mind needs some central idea to be repeated again and again. And so, that’s another thing that I find that people are really good at. So, now we can be both practical, very specific, but we can also be sort of a little bit broader. So, here’s a practical thing.

Look at how you’re communicating and ask, “Can I simplify this? Can I be more economical in my words? But can I, in doing that, also make it more visual and vivid and metaphorical and come to life?” So, that’s like a very practical thing you could do. But what I’ve also shown is “How do we get into a general visionary state of mind where we can really see the big picture?” And that is a technique that comes back to what I said earlier about values.

And so, one of the things that two decades of research has shown, my own research has shown this, I’ve done multiple studies, that if you get people to reflect on their values, and I call this your values hierarchy. My colleague, Paul Ingram, has done amazing research on this. So, this is what we tell people, “Think about your values, what really matters to you. Now pick four or five values and put them into a hierarchy where the top value sort of animates the rest of your values. Now that’s your value hierarchy. Now what I want you to do is I want you to think about why those values matter to you. Also, when have you demonstrated those values in your daily life?”

And here’s one study we did. One of the worst things that can happen to anyone in their life is to be unemployed, to be laid off, to be fired, to lose your job. It increases anxiety, depression, even suicide. So, we worked with a Swiss employment agency, a government employment agency, every citizen in Switzerland, if they want to get unemployment benefits, has to go into one of these agencies and register. And we did a little experiment.

Fifteen-minute intervention for half of these people. We did exactly what I just told you. Reflect on your values, why they matter, how you’ve demonstrated them. Two months later, they were twice as likely to have found a job. In fact, the effect was so strong, we stopped the experiment and gave everybody the values intervention.

And so, when we reflect on our values, it has two things that I think are incredibly important. One is it helps us see the big picture, what really matters. But two is I think it has this element of optimism. It gives us that energy to go forward. Because what do you need to do to get a job? You got to apply, you got to suffer the slings and arrows of rejections, right? And you got to keep going, right? And you got to keep applying to other jobs. And so, reflecting on our values both helps you see what really matters and gives you that optimistic positive energy to go forward.

So, we can become more visionary both with very fine-tuned practicality, “How do I simplify my messages?” or, “How do I make sure that people see the big picture?” But we can also do it more sort of organically by reflecting on our values.

Pete Mockaitis
Adam, what we love to hear so much here is a little bit of an effort produces just an extraordinary result. Like a 15-minute value intervention is phenomenal, which reminds me of a conversation we had with Dan Cable about, I think, similarly, a short, it might’ve been a one-hour intervention, in terms of introducing yourself to your colleagues about who you are at your best, reduce the attrition by over 30%.

And so, I think that is just astounding in terms of zooming in on this stuff, it’s just amazing in that our human spirit, I don’t know how to say it, Adam, but it seems like it’s so easy for us to lose sight of our values, our North Star, that which makes us come alive and be all we can be. And, apparently, we can get there with just a pretty quick refresher.

Adam Galinsky
Yeah, I think this is a great transition to the second universal factor of being exemplar, because I think Dan’s intervention is, it’s a little bit about values, but it’s also something a little bit broader. So, what does it mean to be an exemplar of desired behavior? So, what it means is being a calm and courageous protector, who’s authentically passionate, who’s super, but also human. They’re not perfect. They have their own vulnerabilities.

And so, I’ve shown in a lot of different ways why that matters. So, how do we get people into an exemplar state of mind? Well, in 2003, I introduced something, and Dan’s research kind of builds all of this, an intervention that has been used in hundreds of experiments across the world, hundreds of experiments across the world. And we basically did analysis of all those experiments and showed that it’s got deep scientific validity.

But we simply asked people to kind of do what Dan did, but we said, “Think about a time when you were powerful, in control, and your best self.” And we targeted at a more micro level. So, imagine you’re going into a negotiation, “Think about when you’re powerful and in control and your best self at the negotiating table.” Or you’re going in for an interview, “Think about when you’re powerful and in control your best self in an interview.” Or think about giving a speech in front of people, “Think about the time when you felt powerful, really in control on that stage.”

And so, what that does, the reason why that’s so powerful, that reflection, is because you’re building off your own lived experience, authentically building off your own lived experience. You’re not recalling what someone else did. You can feel yourself.

You’re like, “Yeah, I negotiated.” You might’ve negotiated one time out of ten well, but you can still recall that one time you did it well, right? And that’s a real powerful way to leverage that. And we’ve shown in our research that when you do that, people do better in interviews. We actually have the people are more likely to get a job. We’ve shown they give better speeches. Other people in Europe have used my intervention, measured people’s physiological reactivity before a very stressful event, and they were physiologically calmer after engaging in that.

And so, one of the things that the way they like to describe it is if you want to be super, you got to be able to remember when you were super. And that’s sort of one way of being able to tap. And then you go out and act super when you can do that. And so, I think that’s one thing that’s just so powerful and so important for people is to remember that we have those experience when we did something really, really well and we can recall and really sort of build off those experiences.

Now, I hope you don’t mind, but I want to introduce another topic really quickly that I think is really important.

So, I know you have three kids, and so you’re a parent, you’re a dad, and so your kids look up to you because as that parent, it could be just because you admire someone. It could be because someone’s really important to you. And so, anytime someone gives you their attention, you, your behavior, your words, the way you stand, the way you interact are going to have a big impact on people.

And so, I’ve coined a phrase. I call it the leadership amplification effect or the leader amplification effect. And the leader amplification effect basically says that when we’re in a position of leadership or where people are looking up to us or we really matter to them, they’re paying attention to us, their eyes are on us. And one of the foundational, fundamental scientific truths that govern all of mental life is that the things that we pay attention to get amplified. Whatever stimulus we’re looking at, that stimulus will have a bigger impact on us. We’ll get intensified reactions.

And so, it’s just sort of one example would be, I still remember 30 years ago, my first doctoral seminar when I was a PhD student with a guy who’d win the Nobel Prize in Economics, and I raised my hand one day, first day of class, have 11 fellow students, I want to demonstrate that I belong, I’m at Princeton University, this Ivy League thing, but feeling a little insecure, and I think I have a really nice point to make. And I still remember what Danny did 40 years later, he crossed his arms, shook his head, scrunched up his face and said, “That’s not right at all.”

And then he smiled and he moved on and the rest of class moved on. But, like, I was frozen. I felt humiliated. It was crushing to me. And so, Danny doesn’t remember this. Like, it was nothing to him, but to me, it just felt like humiliating criticism. But, like, six weeks later, I’m walking in the hallway and Danny, without stopping, he doesn’t even stop walking, he just says over his shoulder, “Hey, Adam, I love reading your reflection papers. You’re a great writer.” And then he turned the corner but that comment, like, has nurtured me for 30 years.

And so, one of things is that when we’re in a position of leadership, the reason why our words matter so much, the way we are in the world, how we interact with others matters so much is people are paying attention to us. And some of it is because we have power and authority, but sometimes it’s just because they look up to us and they care about what we think. And our whispers are going to be shouts, our comments are going to get amplified, and the reactions we produce are going to be intensified.

And so, one of the things we have to learn as parents, but as leaders, is that nothing we say is offhand. Everything has an impact. And so, that’s one of the things we have to be aware of to be inspiring is to recognize the powerful impact that our words, behaviors, and interactions have.

Pete Mockaitis
That is huge. And I’ve heard a number of leaders say, and I’ve lived this myself that, “It’s the weirdest thing. When I became a leader, my suggestions became commands.” And so, that’s one form of the amplification, but it’s great to flag the other ways that your stuff is being amplified and the impact and consequences of that there.

Adam Galinsky
Here’s one of my favorite stories about this. Barry Salzberg became CEO of Global Deloitte, which, you know, has tens of thousands of employees. And about six months into being CEO, he noticed that there were bananas at every sort of executive meeting. And he’s like, “God, I’ve been at Deloitte for 30 years. Is it a symbol of Deloitte I didn’t know about? Or does someone really important love bananas?”

So, he asked his assistant, he said, “Hey, why do we have bananas at every meeting?” She said, “Because you love bananas.” He’s like, “Wait, what?” So, the first time he walked into a meeting where she was present, she was paying incredible close attention to everything he did because she wanted to please him.

And she noticed he picked up a banana with a little bit of enthusiasm. And so, she coded in her mind, “Barry Salzberg loves bananas. We must have bananas at every meeting.” And that’s not even a suggestion. That’s just like, he’s like, “Ooh, banana,” he just might want to have a little potassium that day but then it became a law.

And so, that’s sort of a great example of the leadership amplification effect. He didn’t even say anything to anyone. It wasn’t even a suggestion. It was just a dollop of enthusiasm.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, that is telling. Well, I’d love to get your perspective, Adam, before we hear about some of your favorite things. Given what you’ve learned about the impact of the things we do or don’t do, and then the relative prevalence of these behaviors, if you can lay on us just a couple of your top do’s and don’ts that you think can make a world of difference for us, what would they be?

Adam Galinsky
I’ll go through a few do’s. So, the first one is always think about the big picture. Like, what is really going on here? Like, try to put things into context to understand people’s behaviors. I’ll just give two examples that relate to being a parent because I think they’re really, really powerful. I had two kids, very close in age, just like you. And so, I had a kindergartener and a first grader. And the kindergartner’s classroom was on the second floor and the first grader’s class was on the third floor, and I take them to school every day.

So, naturally, I dropped the kindergartner first because he’s, as we walk up the stairs, my first grader is very type A, very impatient, “I want to get to school.” My kindergartner, like most second borns, likes to relax a little bit, take his time, likes to a big ritual with me saying goodbye, and Asher would be like, “Hurry up, Aidan. Hurry up Aidan,” and I would get very frustrated at Asher. I’d be like, “Just be patient. Why can’t you be patient?” And then Asher would march upstairs and run in the classroom without saying goodbye to me.

And about a month into this, we were walking with Aidan, I had an epiphany. And I was like, “What if I drop Asher off first?” So, I said to my kids, I said, “Hey, why don’t we all walk up to the third floor and drop Asher off first, then walk down to the second floor?” And it was transformational. So, Asher got to go at the time he wanted to, he’d give me a hug, I’d get to go downstairs, Aidan could take his time, no one was rushing him.

And by day three of this, his teacher, I never even talked about this with his teacher, Aidan’s teacher, the kindergartner’s teacher said, “Wow, dropping Asher off first has been a big success.” Like, she noticed, she could see Asher getting frustrated and angry. And, like, I could yell at Asher, I could tell him to be patient, I could try to give him some type of gummy to make him calmer, but he was saying, “I need to get the class on time.”

And so, then if we start thinking, “How can I allow Asher to meet his needs, but also have Aidan meet his needs?” We just reversed the drop-off order. And so, when I talk about seeing the big picture, it’s like really sort of understanding all the people that are in sort of an orbit and how they interact. And so, I think these are very, very, powerful things. What is it that people need? I mentioned these fundamental human needs. What does this person need right now?

I’ll give you just one other quick example, it’s very top of mind. My mother-in-law has lived with us for eight years and my older son is very attached to her and she’s moving now to Las Vegas. And about, she’s moving literally next week, and about two weeks ago, my son started being just really salty towards his mom, my wife, just being really rude to her and angry at her. And she was getting a little, like, upset by this, and it’s hard not to take it personally.

But the big picture is he’s mad that his grandmother is leaving, and he’s furious, but he can’t express it to her. In fact, they’ve actually never had a fight. Like, he’s her safe person. And so, he’s taking out on the person that’s closest, the mom. And so, once you see the big picture, you can start to recognize what’s going on. But then we can be visionary. We can start to help him have context for his feelings, “Hey, Asher, I know you’re really, you know, it’s probably, it’s really hard with Lola leaving.”

And the other day he whispered to me, he didn’t want his brother to hear this, he said, “I’m really sad that Lola is leaving.” And so, that’s what I mean by sort of being visionary. How do we see the big picture and really recognize what really, really needs to happen? Seeing the big picture allows people to handle the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Like, think about people going into war, soldiers potentially giving up their life, but for a bigger idea. So, the first do is be the big picture.

The second do is to remember that when we are in these positions of leadership, our emotions are infectious. And so, when we’re calm, we calm other people down. But if we’re anxious, we’re going to make other people even more anxious. So, we really have a duty and a responsibility to regulate our own emotions in those experiences, even as parents to not get angry.

My old dean, he would have these faculty meetings where people were speaking viciously to him, and he was always so calm. And I was just so amazed that he could just handle that. Like, he never reacted, he never blew off the handle. Apparently, he did so sometimes in private, but like never in public when it really mattered. And so, I think that’s the other do.

And then the final do that I’ll give is elevate others. When you see someone do something good, let them know. And when they did something that really helped you, express gratitude. And I’ll tell you a story about that. Every time I teach, I give people the leader amplification effect call to action. And I say, “I want you to pick three people that are less powerful than you, and I want you to send them some message that says, ‘Hey, you really knocked that presentation out of the park,’ or, ‘Thank you so much for helping me on that report. I couldn’t have done it without you.’ And I want you to be specific.”

Because if you come across as inauthentic, that’s infuriating, right? And so, this was 10:15, I was in front of a group of 50 CEOs and presidents. And at 10:29, one of them raised his hand and said, “I already sent my three emails, already got three responses, and they were gushing with excitement. One of them said, ‘I’m finally going to take my spouse to that new restaurant they always wanted to go to.’”

And I really liked this example because, first of all, it proved something I found in my research, which is people in powerful roles are very impulsive. This guy couldn’t even wait to 10:30 in the break. He had to like send it off right away. But it also shows it didn’t take him any time at all to do it. Like, it cost him a couple of minutes and it transformed people’s lives.

Pete Mockaitis
And what’s the content of the email? You just say, hey, what you think is great about them or…?

Adam Galinsky
Yeah, or just anyone, just think about three people who, in your orbit, who have less power than you, that deserve some expression of gratitude or praise and be specific about what they did. So, it could be anything, you know. And I was telling this story, and a president of a bank, 1,400 employees that are under his charge. He said, actually, “Actually, I do that every day.” And I said, “Do what?” He said, “I actually send out an email to every single employee on their birthday.”

And he showed me an example. He said, “Here’s the one I sent this morning. It said like, ‘Hey, Trisha, I hope you have a great birthday. How was bowling and track this weekend?’” That’s all he wrote. And then he showed me her response. It was like a novel, like described everything about bowling and track. He’s like, “You know, I actually never even read her email because it’s so long.” But like she was so excited to get this.

And one of the things that this president said, which really struck me, is he said, “I know my message puts a skip in their step but it actually puts a skip in my step. Like, I get their message back and I feel so good.”

And so, one of the things that I’ve come to the conclusion of, here’s a do and a don’t. Now we always say, “Do something in person, communicate with someone in person, face-to-face is better.” But if I were to praise you, Pete, and say, “Oh, my God, you are the best podcaster I ever saw.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, shucks Adam. Thank you.

Adam Galinsky
Yeah, it makes you a little bit uncomfortable, right, because, like, “How do I respond to that?” It feels good. But now imagine I wrote that to you later and you can read it, you can reread it.

Pete Mockaitis
Save it and read it when I need to read it months later.

Adam Galinsky
You can save it. You can savor it. You can send it to your spouse. You can show it to your eight-year-old, and say, “Look what this person said about me.” So, actually, by writing it, and then it’s much easier for people. Like, if I say to you, you’re like, you did that, you did, you’re kind of like a little bit embarrassed, a little bit, “Oh, thanks,” you’re trying to push it away.

But if I were to send them by email, you’d be like, “Oh, thanks so much. This is what I work towards,” you’d be more expressive over writing. And when I praised my dean yesterday, I mentioned I praised my dean, there was a long awkward silence. He didn’t really know how to deal with it. And then he sort of commented about how much he’d learned from the management division and stuff like that.

So, here’s an example where putting something in writing is better than saying it in person because you let them savor it, you let them share it, and you let them respond in a gushing way that lets them express their appreciation but puts a skip in your step.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautifully said. Thank you. Now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Adam Galinsky
One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Confucius, and it says, “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may understand. But only when you involve me will I truly remember.”

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

Adam Galinsky
Here’s a study that I love more than any other study, and I’ve been using it in my teaching for 25 years. It’s one of my dissertation advisers, Marcia Johnson. She did this in 1973 or ’74, and it’s such a simple study but it’s so profound. She just basically gave people a description of something.

It goes something like this, it says like, “First you take the things and separate them into different piles. Then you have to decide if you have to go somewhere else. If you have to go somewhere else, then you do that. But you also don’t want to do too much at the same time. And after you’re done, then you put things back into their appropriate places.”

And I’ve given this to thousands of people across the globe when I’m presenting and I ask people, “Does anyone know what’s going on in this scenario?” And, like, less than five people present and can solve it. So that’s one of her conditions. Here’s her other condition. She gave them a title and then she read the description to them.

And the title in this case was, drum roll, “Doing the laundry.” And then you realize, “Ah, doing the laundry, separating things, whites and darks. Okay, do you have a washing machine here or do you have to go somewhere else? Oh, yeah, you don’t want to overstuff that because you might break the machine or ruin things. And then you put them back in their places.”

Now, the reason why this experiment is so powerful is because it’s not just that it was easier to read when you got the title, it’s what happened later. When she asked people to recall what they read, the people who got the title couldn’t remember it word for word, but they remember the gist. And the people who didn’t get the title, some of them couldn’t even remember reading anything, it was like they couldn’t even process it.

And so, this is really about being visionary. Being visionary, giving people a vision gives them that title. If you have the title, every word makes sense. Every sentence connects with the other sentences. Other people reading it are, you’re synchronizing with them. And so, to me, it’s like such a small, profound study that really captures that.

I’ll just mention one other study also from the 1970s. But they took two people, let’s say you and I, and we say, “Hey, Pete, you’re going to teach Adam about Indonesia. So, we’re going to give you some material, you’re going to spend 25 minutes learning about this information so that you can teach Adam about it.” And then you’re going to, they give me the same information and say, “Hey, Pete’s going to teach you about Indonesia, but I want you to read this material and study it so you’re prepared.” So, it’s like, just randomly assigned you to be the teacher and me to be the student.

And then later, they give us a test, before we interact, a test on Indonesia, and we had the same amount of time, we had the same material, you would learn it better than I did. And so, just being in that teaching mode makes you process information differently. I think part of it again is being visionary. You’re thinking about the big picture. You’re thinking about how things connect to other. You’re thinking how you’re going to communicate it.

And because you’re doing all of those things, you’re processing, you’re making connections, processing information deeper and really understanding not just the individual facts, but also how they come together. And so, that’s really another story about empowerment that we just talked about, is that like putting people into that teacher frame of mind is more powerful than a student frame of mind.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Adam Galinsky
I mean, I do think my favorite tool is what thing that I kind of came up with in 2003, which is like using our own lived experience to reflect on them at the right moment in time so that we can be whatever we need to be in that moment.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Adam Galinsky
I think the favorite habit that I would say is trying to do that leader amplification effect, that gesture of generosity, ideally. That would be my favorite habit. I haven’t instituted it yet. But I think, “How can we build in habits of generosity?” I think is probably the most important thing. It’s my number one value and I think it really is the key to spreading the seeds of inspiration.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Adam Galinsky
I think one thing that people really find powerful is that leader amplification effect, recognizing that “What I do and the way that I am in the world is really impacting people,” and it’s very eye-opening for people. I’ll tell you one funny story which I really love is I’ve been doing the laundry study for two decades now. And about 10 years ago a woman told me that she wrote, “Do the laundry,” and she put it on her, like, a Post-it next to her screen. And it was on there for like two or three weeks.

And, finally, one of her subordinates walked by and was like, “Are you ever going to do your laundry?” And she’s like, “Oh, it’s actually, it’s like to remind me to always remember, like, the vision and remember the big picture.” And then they started using that as a catchphrase when they felt like they weren’t seeing the big picture. They’re like, say, “Do the laundry,” and then that would get them. So, that’s like an example of a nugget that someone took from one of my lectures and really then implemented it and utilized it and hopefully made their organization better.

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

Adam Galinsky
AdamGalinsky.com, and the book is Inspire.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Adam Galinsky
Once a month, ask yourself these two questions, “When was I inspiring in the last month and when was I infuriating?” So, that’s sort of one set of reflections and sort of think about what it was.

But also think about “Who was inspiring in your orbit in the last month? What was it about they did that changed you inside? And how could you emulate that behavior?” And so, I want you to take those, your own personal reflections, those emulations, and then I would just want you to form a single intention about one thing that you’re going to do differently in the next month.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Adam, thank you. This is fantastic, inspiring. I wish you much inspiration.

Adam Galinsky
Thank you so much.