104: Overcoming Self-limiting Beliefs with R. Michael Anderson

Pete Mockaitis
Michael, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome at Your Job Podcast.

R. Michael Anderson
Hey, thanks for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with this conversation. It’s probably long overdue. It’s something I’ve wanted to cover off. But first things first, you have a fascinating sort of origin story or backstory there, and so I imagine we could chat about it for a couple of hours and have fun with it, but maybe you could just give us sort of a quick orientation to your wild life and how it connects to what you’re teaching now.

R. Michael Anderson
Well, I guess it is an interesting backstory. I had a lot of material outside success in my life. I played semi-pro basketball. I founded three international software companies. One of them did really well. Pete, I used to party at the Playboy Mansion.

Pete Mockaitis
Whoo!

R. Michael Anderson
I know. So I guess there’s some interesting, absolutely good stories. And I was successful on the outside, but I didn’t have any internal joy and fulfillment. I was so focused on externally trying to find that happiness. I really didn’t look internally at all. Again, like you said, it’s a longer story for maybe another time and place, but I went through some really down times in my life. Actually, it was funny because I was making a lot of money and having some success. I had a business partner assault me. One of my business partners assaulted me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, geez.

R. Michael Anderson
I was going through a divorce, alcohol, and hard drugs, all hit me at the same time. And I said, “Look, there’s got to be something better out of life.” And so ended up in my mid- to late 30’s, I went back and I said, “I’m going to do whatever it takes to get happy,” and I ended up earning a master’s degree in spiritual psychology, which was totally life-changing for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Fascinating. Okay. Spiritual psychology. Interesting stuff. And so now, you’ve started this organization called the Executive Joy Institute, which is a fun name. So what exactly does Executive Joy mean, and what’s your group all about?

R. Michael Anderson
My mission in life, my purpose, is to raise the consciousness of the world by elevating leaders. And it’s funny because so many of us give so much to other people, but we have such a chaotic inner life. And I went through it. Again, people used to tell me, “Mike, you have such an awesome life,” and I’ll be like, “Oh my god, my life sucks.” I was just embroiled in my own ego and everything else. And I realized that the leaders of this world, it doesn’t matter if you’re…
Even in your teenage or 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s or whatever, if you have those leadership abilities and skills, and you bring a positive, joyous attitude to your leadership, and again, whether you’re a housewife or you run a million-person company, it just brings so much positivity and joy and optimism and everything else to so many people around you. I really live a life of service, helping other people that are competitive and driven and have a lot of influence, have them live better lives with themselves because that helps them live better lives externally.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Thank you. So now, what really intrigued me, as we were trading emails earlier, was some of the work you do around tackling limiting or subconscious beliefs that are holding us back. And so I think that I’ve witnessed this sort of my own life, firsthand, and seen some things and tackled them and had good results on the other side. So I’d love for you to maybe kick off this piece of the conversation by sharing what are some common limiting beliefs you’ve bumped into with clients and folks that you’ve worked with?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, I’m going to give you some of the specific ones because I have five main ones. But if it’s all right, Pete, just to give some context–

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

R. Michael Anderson
Maybe we’ll talk about where they come from because they’re sort of hard to grasp. It’s sort of going to be a rolling thing. So listeners, if you’re listening to this, they’re really, really powerful. I’m going to explain them, and Pete and I are going to be looking at them from a couple of different angles. So hang in there because they’re unconscious. It’s like sometimes it takes us a little while to realize we have them.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

R. Michael Anderson
But the number one place they come from is what I call intergenerational beliefs. They say 80% of our behavior is based on what came from our parents, our caregivers, etc. Let’s say nature and nurture. It doesn’t really matter. 80% of our behavior comes from that, but that doesn’t mean we’re stuck with that. We can absolutely change these. And if you look at intergenerational patterns, a lot of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents came from communism, came from dictatorships, came from wars, which makes it sound a little bit funny why I bring that up, but a lot of unconscious beliefs hold us back from real success.
We don’t believe we’re worthy of success or making a lot of money, so oftentimes, we’ll self-sabotage ourselves when it comes to a promotion or not going for that promotion or thinking we’re not ready for that promotion. Or even being in an interview and not answering confidently because there’s an unconscious thing that’s pulling at us that’s saying, “I don’t know if we’re ready. I don’t know if we’re right for this. I don’t know if we’re worthy or we’re ready for this type of thing.”
And if you think about our great-grandparents, like mine came from Croatia which was communist. They came over and they worked in the steel mills of Pittsburgh, my grandparents, and then my parents who learned a lot from them, and then they obviously taught me a lot of these things that really maybe we’re not as open to success. And again, I know I’m throwing a lot out there. We’re going to go deeper into this.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. That’s fine.

R. Michael Anderson
When I started learning about these, I’m like, “Oh my gosh. I totally see how that’s playing out in my life.” And it’s just really fun when we can find out where they are because it’s like, “Ah, that’s why I’ve been doing that,” or “That’s what I’ve been getting stuck in.” And so it can be really freeing.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So you’re saying “Where does it come from?” as a bit of backstory. And sometimes, it’s the intergenerational piece, like where you came from, what you’ve been hearing as you grew up and witnessed and observed your parents and others.

R. Michael Anderson
Yes. So it can also come from… I mean, it’s got racial, cultural, and geographic. So based on, like I mentioned from Pittsburgh, we were a blue collar type area, especially when my parents and grandparents were growing up. It was a steel town. In fact, just to tell you about a self-limiting belief that you could almost call it cultural and geographic, was when my grandparents, in the steel mill town they grew up in, they would never trust anybody with a suit on.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow.

R. Michael Anderson
Because everybody worked in the steel mills or they supported the steel mills, and all the people with the suits were the managements. So just imagine. I know this sounds maybe crazy, but think about if your parents had this thing where they never trust the people with a suit, and then all of a sudden, maybe you were a pretty bright kid, they really worked hard to send you to college, then you get this job, and the first day of work, you have to wear a suit. But for the last 20 or 25 years, your parents have subconsciously been sort of transferring this knowledge. And maybe they didn’t even say it, but every time they’re around somebody in a suit, they tense up. And when you’re a kid, you could feel that tension.
So a lot of this stuff is passed on. That’s why it’s called unconscious beliefs or subconscious beliefs. They mean the same thing. And because as kids, we pick up on those things. And even if they don’t know about it, these type of things play off. So maybe your first day of work, you’re super nervous. Maybe it will last five or ten… Maybe it will last your whole life. So until we really uncover these, these type of things can hold you back.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fascinating. So you’re saying folks can have a belief at work, not know it’s there, but they are sort of suffering or experiencing the consequences of it. Like they’re nervous. It’s because they’re wearing a suit. They’re nervous about that because of their parents’ beliefs, and they haven’t even identified that that’s what’s going on here.

R. Michael Anderson
Exactly. So if you are there listening, sort of scan your life. Is there an area of your life where you think you self-sabotage yourself? Is there areas where you get nervous or have anxiety or really don’t feel comfortable? That may be a clue. That is a clue that there is something going on unconsciously, subconsciously. And you really can’t move forward in a healthy way until you clear some of these.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So could you share with us, what are some other common beliefs then that can pop up that a lot of people have going on there? One is being unworthy.

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah. So one is worthiness, and it’s like, “Am I worthy to make this amount of money?” for example, because if you don’t truly believe you’re worthy and then you start making that amount of money, then you are going to screw it up because you have what I call competing intentions. One is you want to make this money, and the second is, subconsciously, you don’t think that you’re worthy enough to make this money. And then what will happen is you’ll either get sick, you will screw up the job, you’ll lose a lot of money some other way. I mean, if you’ve ever seen or had it happen to you where you start spending money when you have a lot of it, for seemingly no reason, unrational reasons, that is that at play.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

R. Michael Anderson
And I’ll tell you a couple of other good signs if you have this worthiness limiting belief. When people give you praise, they say, “Hey, great job,” or whatever it is, if you always deflect it or if you’ve seen people deflect it, if you said, “Hey, Pete, I love your podcast,” and Pete is like, “It’s no big deal,” or “It’s everybody else,” or he sort of deflects it, to me, that is you’re not worthy. You’re not saying, “Hey, I did create something great,” or “I am smart,” or “I am available to make this amount of money.” And people can work on that by when people give you a compliment, just by really looking them in the eyes and saying “Thank you.” And it could be hard, but it’s a really great thing to start moving forward towards that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Okay. So that’s sort of one very practical, actionable step. Thank you for that. And so what are some other beliefs that show up and some signs associated with them and some steps to take if you see them?

R. Michael Anderson
Sure. So another one is… I call it work equals success. And what that means is you have this belief that in order to become successful, you need to work hard. Let me explain this because, oftentimes, work ethic is good, and it’s good to work hard, but there is this belief that says, “In order to be successful, I have to work hard.” Now, I don’t know about you, Pete, but I want to be massively successful without that much hard work or without that much work.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Yeah. Sounds great.

R. Michael Anderson
But this is sort of like a guilt thing, like if I’m starting to be successful when I’m not working hard, then I’ll all of a sudden have this guilt. And let me give you an example from my own life. So I founded a couple of software companies. The main one that I was running, I actually had in a good position. I had a good middle management level. Good middle managers were making good cash flow, and I only had to work about 10 to 20 hours a week. So I call that the holy trinity of entrepreneurship. I can make money, and I don’t have to be tied to the business.
Well, I was so guilty that everybody else was working these 40-, 50-, 60-hour workweeks, and everybody else was busting their butt, that I actually made up projects to do and I just made up BS reasons to be in the office because I always felt so guilty that they were working so hard. We were making money. I actually didn’t step away from the business because of that guilt.
So a lot of us have this martyrdom, I call it. And that almost leads us to the next self-limiting belief where “Hey, if I’m going to be successful, it’s going to be through pain.” I call it “What is your sacrifice to be successful?” A lot us have this thing where “If I am successful, then I can’t have a happy home life,” or “I can’t be healthy,” or “If I’m successful, I can’t be a good person.”
I was talking to my sister. Her and her husband, they purchased a pharmacy a couple of years ago. And she called me up and she was talking about how her business life is doing well, but her kids were having problems. And it sort of mirrored what happened to us as kids with our dad. And for some reason, it just caught me. And it’s funny because I said, “Amy, you realize that you can actually be happy and successful at work, and happy and successful at home as well?” And it was funny because there was like this long silence, and she said “Wow. I never even really realized that that was possible.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Wow.

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah. And so these show up in so many different ways. In fact, I did a speaking engagement about this before, and there was a Romanian lady. She was an immigrant in the U.S. She saw my presentation and she said, “I really didn’t get this work equals sacrifice or success equals sacrifice.” But she really looked at her family, and every time people in her family were very successful, they became very sick. And not sick like got a cold. Sick like leukemia and cancer way.
Because subconsciously or unconsciously, when we have these things that aren’t with our beliefs, if we do something so outside of what we believe is to be okay, then if we can’t change that, our body reacts, and oftentimes, we do things like get sick. They’ve studied this with people that don’t forgive people and other things like that. So if you are somebody that, for example, has a lot of this guilt, if you do feel resentful around other wealthy people… I mean, think about it. If you’re resentful, when you see somebody on the news that maybe wins the lottery or makes a lot of money and you’re resentful for them, how are you ever going to be happy and successful?

Pete Mockaitis
That makes a lot of great sense. Yes. And now, I guess I’m curious to hear. I think that there are many limiting beliefs that maybe are a bit more narrow but highly applicable to the day in and day out work life, such as “I’m not creative,” or “I’m not a good public speaker,” or “I’m not good with Excel spreadsheets, and elaborate data analysis kind of freaks me out. It’s overwhelming, those huge models.” And so I further believe that those too can really hold people back in terms of the risks they’re willing to take and what they’re willing to tackle and go after.
So if you find yourself having discovered a belief like this, whether it’s macro or micro, you mentioned a couple of steps associated with being able to say “Thank you,” if it’s a worthiness matter. But what is the general approach or step-by-step to climbing out of these limiting, suboptimal beliefs?

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah. That’s a great question. And the first thing is you want to get very clear what the belief is. And I love what you brought up, Pete, because it’s like I’m talking about it from the macro way, but in a way, in your everyday life, they show up, whether it could be like “I have a fear around speaking,” or “I feel really uncomfortable in sales presentations,” or “Whenever I have to go for a raise, I really get tense.” Those are all different manifestations of self-limiting beliefs.
And so first of all, it’s actually a great exercise to really define what your belief is because you may have never really thought about it, but when you start reflecting on your life, like “You know what? In my life, every time I managed or brought up compensation, I really freeze up. I really get tense and tight.” And so even by giving it a name, psychologically, that makes it more tangible so that you could work on it.
And again, I want to encourage everybody. Don’t get down on yourself when you think of these beliefs. I have so many self-limiting beliefs. And when I speak or in my books, I talk about all of mine, so I’m not above all these things. I just choose to work on them. So I want everybody to have some compassion with themselves and just work on uncovering these. But you want to get clear about what the belief is. So your belief might be “I get anxiety about asking for more money.” But then, what you want to do is you want to create what’s called an affirmation. Pete, do you have any experience with affirmations?

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny. I had a belief at one point. I don’t even know how to say it. It’s like I was smart and I got good grades and stuff, but little things like navigating back in the day with a map, I get very lost, or just organizing basic stuff. I would kind of get behind and have some embarrassing moments. So I remember I proactively sort of made the affirmation, “I am a very capable person who can…” I don’t remember the exact sentence anymore, but I wrote it in a notebook. I think I had the word “factotum” in there, which means one who could do anything.
I thought of janitors and stuff that I admired, like “That guy is just on top of everything, all at once, and all these little detail things I’m not good at.” It was like, “I could be like that guy.” It was basically the affirmation. And then I wrote down all these experiences, examples, and compliments that I had to kind of reinforce them. And it helped a lot. I got less anxious. It was like, “Okay, I’m going to navigate where we’re going. I’m going to organize this cluster of stuff that I find intimidating.” And so that’s a long answer to… A little bit. I guess I had one big affirmation that helped a lot at a sensitive time of life.

R. Michael Anderson
Well, actually, Pete, this is why you’re such an awesome trainer. You’re just so good at this because you brought up so many great things in that little example. So first thing is to create what’s called an affirmation. And for listeners that aren’t familiar with this, an affirmation is a positive statement stated in the affirmative in the present. So if Pete’s was like “I had anxiety about navigation” (I’m taking a really quick one off of what he said), then he might have an affirmation that “I am a great navigator.”
And because all of these unconscious beliefs, in a way, are just bad habits, I’m not oversimplifying, but what affirmations do is they start retraining our brain. But what Pete also did is he said he started small. So he can find out maybe where he navigated a little bit okay, and then he can maybe write a little bit about that and build off of that.
So when it comes to changing these… I’m 46, and so some of my self-limiting beliefs have been around for 46 years. It doesn’t mean it takes 46 years to reverse them, but it doesn’t take one day, one podcast, one book. It takes me doing a practice in the affirmations, starting small, making little changes, and even journaling about it to give myself that confidence are all positive ways we can move through that, Pete. So you actually brought up a great example, so thanks for doing my work for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Thank you. But I’d love to hear. You maybe have some pro tips or best practices for doing that well. So one is you make that affirmation in the positive, affirmative, present tense, like “I am a great navigator. I am a capable public speaker.” Whatever.

R. Michael Anderson
Yes. And you’re right because it starts with “I am,” and it’s the desired future state. So even if you’re like, “Oh, I’m not really a great navigator,” that’s okay. You say, “I am a great navigator” because your mind will start moving in that direction.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Thank you. And so then you’re saying not only are you writing down evidence and incidences of it, but you’re also trying to get some bite-size, kind of small wins under your belt to start with.

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah. I’ll go back to the example where if you, for example, get anxiety about talking about compensation with your manager, which a lot of people do, with an affirmation, you’re not all of a sudden going to go from having anxiety to not having anxiety. So you want to just go for that small win. So maybe you want to just bring it up one time to your manager. And once you bring it up one time, you might still get some anxiety, but you can go back and you said, “You know what? I did better than I did last time, so I made some ground,” or “At least I made that first step.” And so every time, you just wanted to do 2% or 5% better. After 20 or 30 times, because again, this is re-changing behaviors, you will come a long way. You’ll come 80% or 90%. So it’s really focusing on those small steps one at a time to really get you there.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Thank you. And so I’m also wondering, if your belief is not on the micro scale of a particular skill or being nervous about something, but it’s maybe on the bigger scale of “In order to be successful, I must sacrifice,” is there a different formula or plan of attack to tackle that kind of a belief?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, you still want the affirmations. And it’s funny because the example I was using about having anxiety about your compensation is actually a manifestation of “I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy of this amount of money. I’m not worthy of getting more money. What if they say no?” It’s a scarcity type thing. “What if they say no and they fire me?” Because I don’t know about you, Pete, but I have some crazy thoughts sometimes.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

R. Michael Anderson
And it’s like, “What if this happens? What if I’m fired? What if I’m homeless?” It’s like in three minutes, I freak myself out. And sometimes, I do have these crazy thoughts that are totally unrealistic, but it’s just telling myself, “Look, I’m not my thoughts. Sometimes, I have crazy thoughts. It doesn’t mean I’m crazy.” So it just gives a little bit of sanity back in my life. But it’s the same process. It’s just working on these a little bit at a time. For example, I really like written journals. So if you spend a couple of minutes on this every night or every time you catch it happening, to me, even five minutes a night really starts creating those new habits in people’s lives.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. Thank you. Well, I do want to make sure we get to have a bit of a chat. So you got this one book already out and another coming up here. It might be actually hot off the presses when this episode releases. So the first book is called “The Experiment: Discover a Revolutionary Way to Manage Stress and Achieve Work-Life Balance.” So it hit some nice rankings, which is cool. I’d love to hear any of your sort of favorite, most powerful, stress-busting solutions that are in that book.

R. Michael Anderson
There’s a bunch of them. Well, talk about an affirmation. One of my spiritual teachers told me this one. It’s called “And this too shall pass.” So no matter what’s going on, it’s temporary. So if you’re under a lot of crap, let’s just say, just remember, “And this too shall pass.” No matter what you’re going through, it won’t last forever. And if you’re under a lot of stress, I mean, if you’re doing a big project and these things are really piling up, what I do is don’t be afraid to sort of close yourself off to everything else and focus. What I mean by that is I’ll catch some people, and sometimes even myself.
I’m going through this book launch right now. I have a lot of stuff. Or I’ll catch other people that are like, “Oh my god, I’m under so much stress.” So I’ll just spend five minutes with them and I’ll be like, “All right, what’s on your to-do list? What are you doing the next three days?” And for example, they’ll bring up, “Oh, I’ve got lunch with my friend tomorrow.” I’m like, “What do you mean your friend?” “Well, my high school friend I haven’t seen. We get together every few months.” I’m like, “Look, if you’re under that much stress right now that it’s affecting your mood and everything, this is not the time to do networking lunches or friend lunches.”
So when we realize we’re at this crunch time, what we want to do is take everything we can off of our plate. If we have any of these phone calls, conference calls, education type things, networking events, when it comes to crunch time in our lives, we really should focus, and reschedule or cancel anything that could be rescheduled. That will give you the focus you need to get whatever is heavy right now, whether it’s a work thing or a personal thing, really focused to do.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. If I could just chime in and have a little back and forth here, I’m thinking about Shawn Achor here, “The Happiness Advantage,” and how he brought up the point that when Harvard students were going nuts with their stress and their obligations, they would often cut themselves off from their friends, family, and loved ones, support networks, in order to hunker down. So I just want to maybe distinguish a little bit there. You were kind of referencing a high school buddy friend catch-up lunch as kind of an expendable, “nice to have, no need to go there” piece. But is there anything you would insert there associated with friends, family, support networks in the midst of stressful times?

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah. So I think that’s a great thing to differentiate. And I’m not talking about every day, but every so often, some of us get under deadline or a disaster happens. It’s like it’s game time. So what I tell people is “Look at your next couple of days.” Anything that you don’t need to do work-wise, get it out of there. It’s still really important you eat healthy. This is not the time to go out drinking or eat a bunch of fast food, because sometimes we want to. Sometimes, that’s our escape. You definitely want to work out. You definitely want to spend some quiet time with your partner, your good friends. And so you’re absolutely right that that can be that.

Pete Mockaitis
So now, I’d love to hear, are there any particular gems from your upcoming book, “Soul-Centered Leadership,” that folks who want to be more awesome at their jobs should know about?

R. Michael Anderson
I’ll tell you, I’m really excited about this book. I mean, I’ve really put my heart and soul into this. And the leaders out there… Leadership is scary. By definition, leadership, it’s like when we’re going through life, we have one set of responsibilities and then a certain amount of tasks that we do, a certain number of tasks that we do. And then we either start our own business, we buck for that promotion, or whatever. And then all of a sudden, we have a whole bunch of more responsibility and different tasks, which we normally not get training or support for, and then everybody is looking at us through a microscope. So I don’t know about you, Pete, but to me, leadership is scary, man. It’s scary going through that.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you.

R. Michael Anderson
And then we get insecure, and that’s where bad leadership comes from. And then it’s just a downward spiral. And so what “Soul-Centered Leadership” is is really connecting with what I call the greatest leader within you. And this has nothing to do with religion, but if you do believe we have a soul, you believe we’re all connected, that means there’s a higher power.
And I teach it. It’s about a third of emotional intelligence, a third of psychology, and a third of general type of love and compassion and spirituality, because when we can really commit to that love and compassion relationship with our self, that gives us true confidence. And that really helps us to come from a place of service. And that really, to me, brings our best us to the world. And then we really connect with our true nature as a creator. And that, to me, is where great things are created from.

Pete Mockaitis
That is powerful. And it seems like if you need other people’s validation… This was a tip from one of our fans, our listeners here just before Thanksgiving, a compilation episode. She said it so well. She said, “If you need other people’s validation, then you are really holding yourself back,” which is being awesome at your job, because it’s like you’re not self-sufficient and, I guess, worthy enough, loved, adequate. And so you’re off chasing stuff and approval, and you’re going to be doing all sorts of suboptimal things along the way trying to get that.

R. Michael Anderson
Absolutely. She’s very wise because that’s ego-based behavior. And I get caught into it sometimes, too, even now, so it’s human. But anytime we’re looking externally for validation or happiness, there’s going to be letdown sooner or later.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. So now, you tell me, is there anything else you really want to make sure that we cover before we talk about some of your favorite things?

R. Michael Anderson
No. I think we’ve talked about some good stuff. I always got more stuff. Don’t worry. I always got more stuff, but I think you’re going to ask me some really good questions here coming up.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, first, could you share a favorite quote?

R. Michael Anderson
Oh, man. There’s so many favorite quotes out there. There’s a Marianne Williamson quote. I’m sorry I don’t have it up here, but she talks about how our playing small doesn’t serve the world. When we shy away from being our greatness because we don’t want to make other people feel uncomfortable, that doesn’t serve the world. And again, that comes back to the external validation. Sometimes, we do hold back because we’re afraid we won’t get accepted or we’ll make people feel uncomfortable. But we just have so much power within us, and it takes some worthiness and it takes being in a really secure relationship with yourself before you can really shine. I just think it’s so beautiful when we do.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And how about a favorite study or experiment or piece of research?

R. Michael Anderson
I briefly mentioned it before about how things like keeping things in, they did actually a study on forgiveness and self-forgiveness, which is something I work a lot on. I work a lot with compassion, with the relationship with ourselves. And they found that people that are more forgiving to themselves, they experience less heart attacks. So when people are tough on themselves and don’t give themselves a break, they have more heart attacks.

Pete Mockaitis
Ouch. Okay. Thank you. Duly noted. How about a favorite book?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, there’s so many of these, too. From a spiritual standpoint, I like Caroline Myss, and she’s got some great books like “Sacred Contracts.” Martin Seligman, who was sort of Shawn Achor’s, I think, mentor-ish, started positive psychology, and he has a book called “Authentic Happiness,” which to me, the first half of that is all you really need to know about being happy. And it’s like so boom to the point, and it’s great. So “Authentic Happiness” by Martin Seligman is a great one, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Thank you. And how about a favorite product or tool or something kind of nifty that you use often and find handy?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, I believe everybody should have a practice. Like for example, people say, “Oh, yeah, I’m really into self-improvement,” or something. “So what’s your practice?” They go, “Oh, I read books,” or “I watch YouTube videos.” And I say, “Well, that’s not a practice. That’s viewing or reading.” To me, it’s interactive. And so I really think to really evolve, you need to do something repeatable.
And it doesn’t have to be a lot, but like I mentioned, to do a journal for 5 or 10 minutes every day. I spend 10 or 15 minutes on something that I’m working on for a month or two months because that’s creating new habits. That’s creating new whatever. So whatever people want to change in their lives, you’re not going to get it out of a book, no matter how good the book is. No matter how good the book is. You’ve got to do something every day. It doesn’t have to be a long time. But until you start doing something every day, you’re really not going to change.

Pete Mockaitis
That is powerful. And so can you share with us a practice or two that’s worked for you?

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah. I believe in the universe. And so what I do every day is I scan my life and I see where I’m having resistance, and I see what the spiritual lesson is because I believe if I’m having resistance, there’s a lesson there. The reason it’s there is for me to learn something on the spiritual level. And then I also believe that the universe opens up great things for me, but I have to really be mindful and look and listen and identify them. So for example, I might say, “Did I meet somebody new? Did Pete just send me an invitation for a podcast that I should accept?” I really connect to my intuition to see where I should go in my life. That’s my daily practice.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And I’d also love to hear, when it comes to your speaking, writing, and such, is there any sort of key articulation of your message or wisdom that gets people really nodding their heads and resonating?

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah. There’s a phenomenon in psychology called a projection, and that means the relationship with myself mirrors every other relationship in our lives. And so when I come into a better relationship with myself, then I come into a better relationship with my friends and my work, my peers, my coworkers, my colleagues, my health, my career. And so, if anything, I just really encourage all of us just to give ourselves a break, just to have some compassion, give ourselves some grace because we’re so hard on ourselves.
You told me that your listeners are the achievers out there, the hard-driven ones. And look, I want you to be hard-driven. I want you to take risks. But when you do experience failure, don’t take it so seriously. Just give yourself a break. Think of all the awesome stuff you do. You’re not going to lose your edge. You’re not going to be less competitive. But you can give yourself a little bit of a break and just live a bit of a happier life.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And what would you say is the best way to get in touch with you, if folks want to learn more?

R. Michael Anderson
Well, the new book, it’s coming out in early January. It’s “Soul-Centered Leadership.” And it’s soul-centered-leadership.com. Or you just Google “Soul-Centered Leadership.” I’m not even sure if this will pop up. And I just believe so much in this material, and I’m just happy to get the word out. I have a lot of gratitude to you, Pete, for having me on, letting me share a little bit of all the crazy stuff I learned. Hopefully, it will help one or two people out there.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, certainly. Thank you. And is there a final parting challenge or call to action you’d issue to those seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

R. Michael Anderson
Yeah. I want you to go out there and take a risk, and don’t be perfect at it. I want you to laugh and say, “You know what? I’m human and I’m a risk-taker. That’s okay, so I’m going to go take another one.”

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Thank you. Well, Michael, this has been so much fun. I wish you lots of luck and enlightenment and good things here in the New Year.

R. Michael Anderson
Well, thanks, Pete. Keep spreading the good word yourself.