Expansive Impact: Resilience, Presence, & Purpose in Leadership with Sarah Young
#8

Expansive Impact: Resilience, Presence, & Purpose in Leadership with Sarah Young

Joshua McNary [00:00:02]:
Hello and welcome to Intentional Change, the podcast for business owners and leaders who want to navigate growth, technology and transformation not by accident, but with intention. I'm your host, Joshua McNary with my co host, Shawn FitzGerald. We explore practical ideas and share insights to help you lead through change with clarity and confidence. Be sure to follow, share and and subscribe so you don't miss the next insight that could change how you think, lead, and grow your business. On today's episode of Intentional Change, we're joined by Sarah Young, author of Expansive Impact and founder of Zing Collaborative. We'll be digging into what it means to lead with compassion, courage and clarity in everyday moments. Sarah's book is a refreshing and practical guide for leaders who want to show up as themselves while creating meaningful change without having to wait for perfect conditions. Sarah and I have known each other for about a decade and I followed her leadership and advisory work with deep respect. I'm excited to share her insights with all of you in the Intentional Change audience. Whether you're leading a team, running a business, or just trying to lead your life with more intention, this conversation is packed with stories, tools and reflections you won't want to miss. Sarah, welcome to Intentional Change. It's great to have you here.

Sarah Young [00:01:25]:
Thanks, Josh. Great to be here and thank you for having me.

Joshua McNary [00:01:28]:
Okay, to kick things off, can you tell us a little bit about your background and what you do?

Sarah Young [00:01:33]:
Absolutely. So I am the CEO and founder of a company called Zing Collaborative and we offer leadership development and executive coaching program primarily within organizations. So we typically work with companies that are growing, evolving, transitioning in some way. And we primarily work with companies that are looking ahead at where do we want to go and where do we want to be and how can we develop our people and leaders as we move toward that place. So we do that through a mix of leadership development and supporting companies to grow and develop their managers and leaders and also executive and leadership coaching. We do offer a bit of one on one coaching as well, which we provide for folks, you know, not. Not as part of an organization, but I would say about 80, 80 to 90% of the work we do is in partnership with growing companies.

Joshua McNary [00:02:32]:
We've known each other for a while, going back when you were, I think, pretty much solo. So like, tell me about who you're working with now and you know, what kind of, maybe a little bit more about that ideal customer for. For your firm.

Sarah Young [00:02:44]:
Yeah, thanks for asking. And yes, very cool to reconnect in this way after, after that period of time. So we work across Industries. So the industries we serve are, it's pretty varied. Everything from construction, manufacturing, VC backed startups, tech, healthcare, health, tech, financial services, insurance, education, some public sector organizations, state or county or even federal. So industry is pretty varied, but the through line is typ companies that have a leader or a group of leaders who are forward looking and really thinking about where are we going and how do we develop our leadership capacity as we go there. So in some cases I've been working with the CEO since they were basically the first employee and they've been growing and scaling a team and company rapidly. And then a lot of times it's companies that are going through some big growth stage. So you know, maybe they're doubling their revenue from 20 million to 40 million, they're doubling their team, whatever it is, they're launching a new product line, whatever it is. So typically there's some catalyst for significant growth or transition and in that time they're really looking at, okay, who are the, who are the people who are going to help lead us through this transition? Who are the people who are going to help lead the company in 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 plus years and how can we make sure we're really supporting those leaders at all levels of the organization?

Joshua McNary [00:04:10]:
So these firms sound like they're being very intentional about what they're trying to do and being strategic about their leadership development and the way they want to grow that team because they have to, they're forced to based on some, some factor that, that's important to the organization.

Sarah Young [00:04:25]:
Exactly, yes. Very aligned with the idea of intentional change. And what I really appreciate about our clients is in, in most cases they are coming to us from a proactive place. So they're not coming to us when you know, the metaphorical house is burning down saying, oh my gosh, we're in a huge amount of trouble. Can you help? It's really like, okay, we're looking ahead, we're thinking ahead intentionally through this time of change. And who do we need to be in order to get to where we want to go?

Joshua McNary [00:04:56]:
Well, in my work around business technology nowadays it's much the same. From the technology side, you're on the leadership side and people side, I'm of course people are important to what I do too because technology is powered by the people using it. But the idea of being intentional and not waiting until the place is burning down, as you implied with regards to technology as well. So yes, I think we're in the right place to talk about intentional change here today for sure. Between the two of us.

Sarah Young [00:05:22]:
Yeah, I love that analogy. And yeah, just the correlation. That's great.

Joshua McNary [00:05:26]:
Okay, well, we had planned to talk about the book you've written, Expansive Impact. So kind of building on what you do in your day to day, talk about the book a little bit. And while this isn't necessarily a book interview, we're going to use that as our guidance today. So kind of set us up on why you write this book, you know, what kind of led to it. Are there any kind of stories or things that kind of brought you to bring them to life?

Sarah Young [00:05:51]:
Yeah, so I have said that the book, it's the book I wish I had had back in the day when I was in some really challenging leadership situations myself. So it's sort of like the book that you can use to turn to when navigating tough situations and you know, situations where, like, what do I do in this particular case where no one has really told me how to navigate a situation like this. So that's kind of the spirit of the book and in terms of what led me to finally write it and publish it, a lot of my work is, you know, very relational and long term in partnership with clients. And so I really like to go very, very deep with my clients and I work with a lot of my clients for periods of years and in some cases I've, I've been with my clients for, for over a decade. So I feel super grateful for our long term partnership and relationships. That said, there aren't a lot of, I don't do a lot of public offerings. So I, I have been in situations where I was giving a talk or at a conference or something like that and people would ask like, how can I learn more or where can I go to read more about this? And for many, many years I didn't have anything to, to share with them. Like they could go to my blog and they could read some articles, but there wasn't really a way for people to go deeper on their own unless, you know, they were coaching with us one on one or unless I was partnering with the company that they work at. So the inspiration to write the book was to provide something that would be accessible and you know, it's, it's easy to get, it's you know, $30. And so it's hopefully accessible and available to people if they want to go into this work on their own. And you know, a tool that people can use. So I also use it pretty heavily within my programs where once we're done, if people want to, you know, go back and Revisit things or deepen the learning. They can do that by reading the book or revisiting things that might also, you know, be in the book, that sort of thing. So that was the kind of intention behind. Behind writing it.

Joshua McNary [00:07:56]:
I'm curious about that process of writing. Was this on our script? But you know, from a standpoint of, of. Of what that was like, actually getting those thoughts that you'd been working on in the presentations and your other work over time, bringing it all together, can you just maybe briefly tell us, like, what that was like? Because that definitely took intention to pull together and do in a way that makes sense as a standalone thing.

Sarah Young [00:08:18]:
Yes. So one of my friends jokes that writing a book is like a little bit of a form of self torture. And I would definitely say that's sort of true. So for me, I had. I had all these different documents and tools and resources and all of these things that I had been building and creating and using with clients ever since 2013 when I founded my company. And what would happen would be I would do something with a client and use something with a client and have that tool, we would use it, we would be done, and then it would go in my Google Drive and just sit there forever. And so I had hundreds and hundreds of, you know, ideas and frameworks and tools and worksheets and, you know, analogies and all these things that were just sitting in my Google Drive. And I named those along with a girlfriend of mine. We named them 999Traagedies because all the tragedies were just sitting in the Google Drive with nothing happening to them. So the intention was to be able to take the 999 tragedies, move at least some of them out of the Google Drive and into a resource that people could use. So I had been wanting to do that for a really long time. And it was actually a friend of mine, a friend who has also been a client. And I also kind of think of him as a mentor, informally in Iowa, actually, who I was telling him one day we were catching up, and I was like, I just really want to write a book and I just can't seem to find the time to do it. And he said, sarah, he's like, if, if you really want to do it, you'll find the time, and if you don't find the time, you don't really want to do it as badly as you say you do it. I was like, oh. It was like, kind of like a. I was like a little harsh, but in a loving way. And it was actually a really helpful comment because it was true. I had. I had been saying that I wanted to do this forever, but I hadn't created any time to do that. So that was kind of around the time of 2020. And so having some schedule shifts at that time allowed me to create some more space in my schedul. And basically every morning, I just. My commitment to myself was, every morning, the first thing that I would do would I would write. So every single morning, I would sit at the kitchen counter and I would drink my coffee and I would work on my book, even if it was for 20 minutes. And I did that for many, many, many, many, many days. And then I thought, like, oh, I'm done. Great, Here it is. And then the publishing process actually ended up being way more challenging than the writing process. Tremendous amount of lessons learned from that. So that was kind of its own chapter to follow, but that was a little bit about the process. And I think it took about two years from the point that I, you know, started sitting down, writing to the point that it came out. I think it was April 2022 when it. When it was actually published.

Joshua McNary [00:10:52]:
Finding the time over coffee, whenever you can, sneak it in. I've had times in my career, not with a book, but other important projects that I can relate to that over time. I think a book sounds kind of fun, but. Yeah, a form of torture. I could see where you come from.

Sarah Young [00:11:09]:
Yeah. And I think, again, it relates to that idea of intentional change. Right. Because I don't know if you feel like this in your business, but for me, it is always easy for all of the time to be taken up with client work. And. And I love client work, and I love my clients, and I adore working with them. And also, if there is a business priority, like, it has to have intention. I've heard that talked about as, like, thinking of yourself and your own business as your client. Like you. You are one of your clients, and you have to have intention around it like that. So, yeah, it can be challenging, at least for me, to prioritize that in the same way that I do other client work.

Joshua McNary [00:11:44]:
Important but not urgent.

Sarah Young [00:11:46]:
Exactly, exactly. Exactly. Yes.

Joshua McNary [00:11:48]:
I thought that earlier when you were talking about your clients and them being proactive and thinking forward as well. I mean, it's also important, but not necessarily urgent in a business in any given day, so. Well, with that, let's jump into the book a little bit more. Let's start out by this idea that you talked about, the six ways of leading. So I have Them down as love, clarity, curiosity, truth, agility, and from within. Hopefully I got that right. Can you talk about what you are speaking to there?

Sarah Young [00:12:17]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you said them a little differently than I did, but I think you captured the essence. So be compassionate, lead with them. Which is all about leading with presence and connecting with people in everyday moments. Being conscious and leading from within is all about leading in relation. It's. It's leading with the idea of who are we as leaders and how does that serve us, but also how do we get in our own way. Being clear is all about leading in relationship to reality, which is not necessarily the story in our head, but what's actually happening. It's also about setting things up for success up front and being really clear about what everyone's expecting. Being curious, leading by looking for clues, which is all about listening and asking the right questions to get the right kind of information. Bringing a coaching approach to our leadership, being courageous, leading with truth from the heart, which is all about how can we show up and be truthful, but also be kind and compassionate and then being creative and leading with agility. So how do we create from whatever's happening around us and create from change and lead through change, you know, which is of course happening all the time. So those are the pillars. And I think we all sort of have our own journey of like, you know, having challenges with various. Various elements of that. I think the pillar that has maybe been most meaningful for people, for. For a large amount of people has been the being clear, leading in relationship to reality. When we start to unpack the fact that some of the things that externally are triggering us or bothering us largely live within our head. And that is not to say that, you know, whatever it is that's bothering us isn't real or valid, but really starting to think about the amount of work that we can do ourselves to feel better in everyday situations. I would say that's one that we work on a lot, both in coaching and in our leadership programs, that. That allows people to just be more clear and lead more effectively when they've kind of worked through that stuff that they're like, you know, that we're all bringing into the space unintentionally or unknowingly.

Joshua McNary [00:14:28]:
I've been there. Yeah, that's. Yeah, it's true. I mean, I think we all do, right? We all have our preconceived notions. We have exterior factors around us that are affecting us. There's baggage for the past, worries about the future.

Sarah Young [00:14:44]:
Exactly.

Joshua McNary [00:14:45]:
All kinds of things. That we bring to the table. So I definitely could see where that. I think you were talking about the context of clarity, like what's really happening versus what we think is happening is not always the case. And if you could get a little more vision on that, so maybe you could tell us a little bit about, like, how people have worked through that or. I know we're not going to, you know, release anybody's name here, but yeah, just like maybe any kind of stories or successes that you've seen in that realm, maybe from, from your world or from, you know, somebody. Somebody that you've worked with.

Sarah Young [00:15:17]:
Yeah, absolutely. So we do a lot of work around clearing assumptions, which is just really being rigorous with challenging our assumptions and looking at them and asking ourselves if they're true. And a lot of the times the assumptions that feel so ingrained when we, when we look at things factually are just. They're simply not true. We'll pull in a question that comes from Byron, Katie, which is, is it true? And can I be absolutely certain that that's true? That's when that. I feel like we could all ask ourselves, you know, 10, 20, 50 times a day and, and, and find use from that. Like, even, you know, if we start reading the news and then we start catastrophizing about, like, what's going, how it's going to be and all these things, like, it's, it's so easy to kind of get caught in a cycle of like, oh my gosh, this is, this is going to happen, or this is going to be a terrible meeting, or like, this person is mad at me or whatever it is, and just pausing to ask, is it true? And can I be certain that it's true? Am I certain that it's true? And, and often the answer is no, I'm not. I'm not certain. Another one that has helped me and has helped a lot of other leaders I work with is the idea of holding neutral. So I feel like we are often coached to assume positive intent, and that's fine. And it works. I feel like it works like 95 of the time. But what I've also found is that it can kind of give us a cop out where allows us to not actually see facts and it allows us to not lead in relationship to reality. So whatever's happening, we're like, oh, it was just positive intent. It was positive intent is positive intent. And like, factually there might be something else happening, or factually there might be other data that we need to work with. And so I Like the idea of holding neutral, which is just, we're not assuming positive intent, we're not assuming negative intent, we're just holding neutral, and then we are factually working with reality. So, like, okay, here's the facts, here's the data, and then what can I do with that and how can I lead through that? So that's one that I feel like, again, no matter what, whether it's life or, you know, leadership situations or again, like, you know, reading the news or like thinking about societal events, just working from that factual place can provide us more peace, but then also allow us to, you know, show up and lead more effectively with what's actually happening right now.

Joshua McNary [00:17:29]:
That's interesting because I like to be positive in any engagement, but there are times that there are negative, truly negative actors. Right. So I idea of maybe finding that middle position does make sense. So I. I appreciate that.

Sarah Young [00:17:46]:
Yeah. And I don't know if you have found this, Josh, but I was actually just talking to someone about this today, and I have definitely struggled with this where, like, being so positive and just like blanketing everything in positive intent has. Has led in. In some cases it has led me to ignore or push under the rug really important data or red flags or whatever it was where I was just like, oh, you know, of course it's positive intent. It was. It was an oops or whatever it is. And it's like, sometimes that's the case, but like, sometimes that's actually not the case and you have to deal with it. And so I've also heard leaders talk about the fact that that has, if not kind of channeled correctly, it can actually also lead people to avoid having important conversations. So maybe there's feedback that they need to give to a team member and instead of giving the feedback, they just keep like, blanketing everything in positive intent, intent, which leads to not having those important conversations that helps everybody, you know, be better.

Joshua McNary [00:18:44]:
Great points, Great points. Even if it's 80, 20, even if it's 80 good and 20 bad, there's still 20 bad there or whatever it is that needs to be truly addressed and.

Sarah Young [00:18:55]:
Exactly.

Joshua McNary [00:18:56]:
And I know through leading in various situations, yes. Sometimes you need to have that hard conversation and that isn't going to be positive, probably if it's a hard conversation in the way that we're talking about. So very practical advice there. Are there any other kind of practical, you know, items from these, these six ways of leading that you want to bring out right now?

Sarah Young [00:19:18]:
That's a good question. I mean, we could go really Deep into that, I think a couple that come to mind that would be really digestible and, and hopefully easy to implement. Number one would be to just carve out, even if it's 10 minutes every week, to think about our leadership. So in whatever capacity, whether we are leading our family as kind of the head of the household or leading a team or leading a business, are we carving out specific intentional time to think about that? And you know, it's funny, I kind of, I feel like a little bit of a jerk thinking back to previous podcasts that I did like 10 years ago, because at that time was before I had my daughter. And at that time, you know, I was like, oh, I could take all the time I wanted in the morning and have these luxurious morning routines and like, just think about my leadership and plan and do all these things.

Joshua McNary [00:20:07]:
And.

Sarah Young [00:20:07]:
And now I realize, like, that was really sort of obnoxious advice in a way. And so again, it doesn't have to be three hours, it can be 15 minutes, it could be even five minutes to. But just to kind of step back and zoom up and think about, you know, how am I showing up today or this week. Is there one thing I want to focus on as a leader that will, you know, move the needle? So that would be one thing is just carving out that specific intentional time. Another really practical, tactical thing we could do is practice asking what I call curiosity based questions, which start with what or how. So whether we're at a networking event, whether we're talking, you know, to our kids around the dinner table, our spouse, our team members having a one on one just asking what or how questions often that can open up new possibilities and take us to some interesting places. And then maybe the third little practical nugget I would offer is if we are giving feedback or we are sharing, you know, sharing something as part of maybe a trickier conversation to speak from our own perspective. So here's what I'm noticing, here's what I'm observing, you know, here's been my experience. And then if we're sharing feedback in a coaching context, especially about a behavior that we would like to see shifted to make sure that's specific and observable and actionable. So I don't know if you've seen this, but for me, I know I observe that a lot of our feedback is really interpretive and it can be kind of projecting in nature. So I remember sitting in a lot of meetings over the years where people would be like projecting all these things when they're talking about performance. Like, this person is lazy, or this person is, you know, not a good communicator, or this person lacks confidence or whatever it is. And it's like, that's so squishy. And it's our own interpretation of someone's behavior. So, you know, what is the actual thing we're observing and how can we coach them on that versus this, like, generalized projection or interpretation that sometimes borders on, you know, attacking someone's character? So those would be a couple things.

Joshua McNary [00:22:18]:
And. And what is, like, what is the outcome you're looking for in that situation? It's one thing to complain about exactly a symptom you're feeling, but, like, what's okay, where could we go with that? That's the proactive nature of it. And a lot of times, I mean, we all do it, so we're not. We're part of the club. But it's easy to just start complaining about something, whether it's a person or a business process or technology or whatever. And if you aren't thinking about, well, what are we actually trying to fix with this? Or, like, how can we fix this? Then you're missing. Missing the whole point. And that's. What is it really? The rubber meets the road.

Sarah Young [00:22:48]:
Absolutely. Yeah. That's so true. And, you know, for managers, too, it's like, if we are fielding those complaints, that's something we can ask people as well. Like, would you like me to do something with this complaint? Or would you just like to vent and then you'd like to move on? Because I think sometimes people bring us a lot of those. I talk about, you know, bring. They bring us their monkeys, which comes from the book, the One Minute Manager Meets the Monkeys. So we get all these monkeys all day, all these complaints, and it's like, what would you like me to do with these?

Joshua McNary [00:23:14]:
Absolutely. Well, my next question had to do with leading in those uncomfortable situations. You were kind of just speaking to that already with regards to how to maybe present information in a way that is more consumable, but can you maybe talk a little bit more about that? And we're going to have people unhappy with our decisions, whether it's clients, employees, partners, get back to family, and the other aspects where we lead in our lives. So how do you help people with the tough pills to swallow? Maybe going on that topic a little deeper.

Sarah Young [00:23:52]:
Yeah. So what I have observed is all the tools and tactics and frameworks in the world are not going to help us lead effectively through discomfort if we haven't already done our own work. And so what I observe over and over again is that. And this is not easy, right? In those tough situations, what often gets in the way is our own ego. It's our own lack of emotional regulation. It's our own lack of, you know, emotional resilience. That's the stuff that gets in the way. So what I've observed is like, we could be sitting around a room as a leadership team and dealing with something really hard, and we might have a really good framework to tackle it. But if there are people in that room who have not done their own work and are leading from a place of ego or leading from a place of fear or being triggered or hooked or, you know, have scarcity mindset or whatever it is, the productivity of that conversation is not going to move forward in the way that it could. And so I feel like it's kind of a. It's kind of a complex answer because that stuff is not easy. Right. But the first thing I would say is, have we all done our inner work to try to increase our overall, you know, emotional resiliency and be able to stay, like, grounded and steady in ourselves in the face of uncertainty or discomfort? That is the most important thing. And that's why, you know, the, the flow of the book, really, and, and the framework that we use with teams, it leads up through that. So all of the whole first part is all about our own stuff. You know, who are we? You know, how do we get in our own way? Where do our strengths over function? Where do we have too much of a good thing that's no longer a good thing? Like, what is our own stuff and baggage that we're carrying with us into these conversations? And how can we really try our best to work through that? And then, and only then, hopefully we're going into these conversations so that we can be really steady and present. So that's the first thing is like doing our own inner work before we start doing that outer work is the first thing I would say.

Joshua McNary [00:25:54]:
Now what happens then? Okay, so now you're actually in the meeting or in the situation where you're talking to people and maybe they haven't done the work or, you know, like with. With family. We're talking about our. You mentioned your. Your child earlier. I've got teenage boys now, so, you know, by the way. Yeah, it's pretty wild, right?

Sarah Young [00:26:10]:
So much time has passed.

Joshua McNary [00:26:11]:
It has. But. But with that, you know, they're. They're. I mean, they're growing up, they're becoming adults, and, you know, they're obviously not as mature yet in that. And they'll get there as we all do in time, to some degree at least. Right. That's why we're talking today, because we want to continue to improve these things. But, but to my point is, is how do we then move forward with the people that maybe aren't quite at that same level or that haven't done the work at that point? That's part of maybe some of the apprehension that I can sense.

Sarah Young [00:26:43]:
Absolutely. It's such a good question. So with teams, I really like to anchor it in a set of shared expectations. And these could be a set of shared values. They could be values and actions. So what does it mean to, to actually live out our values as part of this team with a lot of groups I work with, we define operating agreements. So it's basically like, if we are going to be on this team here, here are the agreements that we all have. I do this too. Even when leading a program, we have our set of agreements at the beginning and then we can hold each other to those. So in some way defining, you know, what do we expect from each other? And this, by opting into this team or this project or whatever it is, this is what we are agreeing to, then that means we can solve for those. So it's not personal. It's just, here's what we agree to and this is what we say we're going to do. And if we're not doing these things, then we can hold each other to that and come back to this greater thing. You know, we can do that in our family too. So, you know, in our family, here's what we're agreeing to and, you know, here are values. I feel like, you know, you guys have done a great job of this kind of thing over the years of like, you know, defining how, you know, what you stand for as a family unit and are we upholding these things so that I, I find, you know, coming back to something greater that's not just personal can help us with that. On a team or in a company, we can also think about this from a company first standpoint. So if we are navigating challenge or discomfort, you know, it's not about you, it's not about me. It's what is in the highest good of the company of our clients, the people we serve, whatever it is, we can think about this again. When you're talking about, you know, teenage boys and family, like, what is in the highest good for all, like within our family. So you guys, as teenage boys and also, you know, us as parents and our community or our, you know, friends or volunteer committee or church or whatever it might be.

Joshua McNary [00:28:33]:
I liked use the we word multiple times there. I mean, and thinking more in context to, from the business perspective, a higher calling within business, a higher calling or a shared mutual goals, and they're truly mutual. You know, it's not just, it's not just somebody, me or whoever inside the organization saying it should be this way. We actually all agree on these mutual outcomes from a kind of real world perspective there. Can you share maybe a little bit of like what those might look like? I mean, what are we actually talking about? It's not just a mission statement, right. And it's not just a big punch list of things to do, is it? I mean, it's got a. Can you just talk about what that looks like in your, with your clients and what you actually mean by that when you're talking about these agreements?

Sarah Young [00:29:19]:
Yeah, absolutely. So with a lot of my clients, so they have, you know, they have a mission, they have a vision, they have values and they actually use those in the everyday context of the business. So with one of my clients, for example, they have drilled those down to what they call core competencies. And that is something that they believe, you know, each team member within the organization needs to uphold. It's printed out, it's on a piece of paper. Every single person in the organization has it. And it's very specific in terms of what this means. We're working with another client right now, just an amazing organization. They have a, they have a set of values and they have a stated mission. And the organization has grown a good amount since they first drafted those things. And so what we're working with them on is basically bringing in every single voice of the organization to update their mission statement, update their values and define a vision. And, you know, part of that process is allowing every single person to weigh in to say, like, what do we stand for and what does it mean to work here and what do we want to uphold? And then on the back end of that work, we're going to be drilling that down to, okay, if this is our stated value, what does that actually mean for, you know, performance management or for hiring or for how we make decisions or how we have meetings or so with the groups that I see doing that really effectively, they've taken those, you know, broader ideas, the values, the vision, whatever it is, and then drill those down into, you know, whether it's operating agreements or, you know, values and actions where we can specifically say this is what that means I always like, you know, kind of the definition of culture being. It's a set of group behaviors, basically. It's like what we do. And so are we being really intentional about that? And then how can we make sure that in those everyday situations, we are doing those things and upholding those things and holding each other to those standards?

Joshua McNary [00:31:18]:
It reminds me with my team, I had a bigger team, a smaller team. Right now it's on the smaller side. But we still use this idea of values and anti values.

Sarah Young [00:31:29]:
Yes, yes.

Joshua McNary [00:31:30]:
So this idea of. It's kind of in the mid level of what you were talking about there. But the idea of having the values. Okay, we all know what values are. That's usually part of that mission statement process somewhere. But then what's the anti value? What's the opposite? That's very helpful to interpret what you're talking about. It's like, are we doing the right things that are part of what our goals are or not similarly to what you're talking about?

Sarah Young [00:31:52]:
I love that. Well, you. I kind of geek out about those kinds of things. Is it. Will you share one of your anti values?

Joshua McNary [00:31:58]:
Yeah. One of the examples I can give you is extreme ownership. Yeah, that was. That's one of them. Okay, so the anti value of extreme ownership is passing the book.

Sarah Young [00:32:09]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Joshua McNary [00:32:10]:
Right. So I mean, that's. That's a. That's a very easy one to see. Another one would be prioritizing people. So this would be, of course, internally or to the outside world, to our clients and other people. The opposite anti value is using people.

Sarah Young [00:32:26]:
Oh, yeah.

Joshua McNary [00:32:27]:
Who would want to use people? I mean, it sounds terrible, right. But it helps us to just really see very clearly the black and white, what's good, what's bad in the context of these values.

Sarah Young [00:32:38]:
Yeah, I love that. That's awesome. And yeah, I think you're right in that sometimes it can be easier to make it really visceral to go to that anti value. We find that in coaching a lot too, where it's like, what's the thing that you absolutely don't want or can't be with? So I love that you have both the values and the anti values and love that you have a little jocko presence in the extreme ownership category.

Joshua McNary [00:33:06]:
Okay. I want to talk about one other topic from the book, which is discovering your leadership sweet spot. So this idea of the intersection of your strengths, your passions, a Venn diagram, let's say, of how you bring your best aptitudes to your leadership. You know, we have our technical skills the things that we're experts in or niches in from a leadership perspective, specifically, could you talk about how we bring together our strengths and passions in a way that we are really able to lead from our strengths?

Sarah Young [00:33:37]:
Absolutely. So I'll offer three possible reflection points to see if there's maybe one that resonates. So one overall question that I really like to think about is what is my highest and best use? I work with this a lot with the leaders that I coach, especially leaders that are maybe in a CEO role or in a. A larger team leadership role where there are a lot of people asking for a lot of different things and a lot of demands on their time. So one thing we often work on is what is your highest and best use? So like, how can you have the greatest possible impact for the organization, for your clients, for the mission and the work that you're trying to do? And then who are the other people that we can empower to, you know, do some of those other things that might be pulling at your time but might not be in that highest and best use category? So. So first could be that highest and best use reflection. Another reflection we could look at comes from Tim Ferriss and the Four Hour Workweek. If anyone has read that book, I loved his two questions in there. If we look at, if we have only two hours per day to work, what would we do? And then if we have only two hours per week to work, what would we do? And I think that reflection is super powerful. If we had to get rid of everything else, what would we keep? And then the third reflection I'll offer is a visual one so we can do that Venn diagram and just map that out so, you know, grab a sheet of paper and make those three circles. Strengths. So what are we really good at? Passions. What are the things that light us up? And then the third circle, which is really important if we're working as part of a business or a company, is what does the organization most need? So what are we good at? What are we passionate about? And then what does the organization most need? And then where do those things intersect? That can be a great exercise to do on our own. It can also be really helpful to do and then talk about with our managers or leaders to make sure we're aligned. And then if we want to take that one step further, looking at, you know, what are our energy boosters and energy depleters. So a lot of times, not always, but a lot of times the things that are in our sweet spot give our, give us energy Whereas the things that are outside of our sweet spot might drain our energy. So doing some reflection on that so that we can be working from that place of our highest and best use.

Joshua McNary [00:35:50]:
That one about the greatest need in organization. That one's tricky because sometimes that changes, right? Sometimes it may kind of shift a little bit out of the, you know, the, The. The sweet spot. In a way, it kind of pulls you a little bit, perhaps. So briefly, you want to speak on that.

Sarah Young [00:36:07]:
It's such a good point, and I completely agree with you and would suggest that it's. It's important to have this conversation regularly, especially right now. Right. Like, everything is changing so rapidly. I mean, you were talking about the work that you're technology and your whole podcast, you know, around intentional change, where there might be changes that we need to navigate, and we need to be able to pivot quickly and have agility for what the organization most needs. And so I think underlining that is really important and, you know, kind of not being precious about it. Right. So it's like we know what we're good at, we know what we're passionate about, we know what the organization needs, and also we have the agility and flexibility and adaptability to be able to, you know, to lead in service of what is most impactful right now at this moment in time.

Joshua McNary [00:36:52]:
That's great. Thank you for that. Well, I think we're down to the closing questions. We're running out of time, so let's go ahead and. Let's go ahead and do it. What's one piece of advice that you could give business owners who are navigating uncertainty and trying to grow?

Sarah Young [00:37:12]:
One thing I would say you actually mentioned in a different context, but is. Is so to build on this idea of the 8020 rule. So the first thing I would say is to look at your equation of. Of the Pareto principle or the 8020 rule. So, you know, what is. What is the 20 effort that gets 80% results? And then in reverse, where are you spending 80% of your effort and time getting only 20 of your results? And do a little audit of that? Because you probably see this all the time. I feel like, especially in times of change, it's so easy to get swept up in the hottest, latest, greatest thing. Like, we should do this and we should do that, and there's this new initiative. And, you know, you and I both saw that. You and I both had our businesses a really long time, right. So we saw this during COVID too, where it's like, oh, now we're going to do, you know, we're going to do this, and now we're going to do this virtually, and now, you know, now AI, we're going to do this and like, you know, we can be spraying the fire hose in a thousand different directions without any idea of what is the 20% that's actually really having 80% of the impact. So that's the first thing I would say. Just get really clear on what is that 20% and kind of double down on that. And I don't know what. What you feel about this, Josh, but I find that even in change in uncertainty, oftentimes that 20 stays relatively stable. So, yes, we might tweak things and we might adjust and adapt, but like, the core 20 often is. Is fairly enduring. So that's, I guess, the first thing I would say and then the second I would offer, is just to focus on what we can influence and impact and change. So again, there's so much happening in the business climate right now, in the world, in society, in the news, all these things. And again, I feel like it can be easy to get pulled in all these directions. But really coming back to, okay, what can I personally impact, influence change in some positive way, and how can I focus on that? Those would be the two things I would offer.

Joshua McNary [00:39:07]:
Well, the first one, the. The fear of missing out the FOMO is real, right. So there's a tendency to try to. Whether technology, as you alluded to, we see it all the time. You know, we gotta do this thing. Of course, artificial intelligence is on everyone's lips nowadays, but there's been other things before that. It used to be mobile devices. It used to be whatever was the thing. And so there's the fear of missing out component of that. And then on the second comment there, I just had a newsletter I wrote recently at the time of this recording, that was talking about uncertainty and how we have to find our own sphere of influence outside of that uncertainty. So, I mean, it's exactly the same. I think so, yeah. I totally agree with all those comments you're making. You did cheat, though. There was. I was asking for one, you gave me two.

Sarah Young [00:39:49]:
I'm sorry. That's okay.

Joshua McNary [00:39:52]:
All right, so here's the final, final question. Okay. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received that stuck with you?

Sarah Young [00:40:03]:
My dad doesn't remember saying this exactly to me, but he said something along the lines of, you know what people are going to remember about you is your character. Again, he. He isn't sure. He said that to me. I'm sure he said it to me. But basically this idea that at the end of the day, you know, that's really what matters, is your character. And it sounds really cheesy, but I feel like that's something I try to uphold is just at the end of the day, you know, am I in the best, you know, as best as I can. Am I acting with integrity and trying to, you know, act with character? And so that's something I try to integrate into my just everyday life and everyday actions. And I try to trust that if we do that and really focus on that, like a lot of the other things will take care of them themselves. So I think I'll go with that one.

Joshua McNary [00:40:56]:
That's a good one. I don't think it's cheesy. I think it's a worthwhile, especially in today's society, you know, with. With lots of question marks around us and from all kinds of angles, business and in the world, you know, the person next door or whatever. I think it's okay to. To try to have integrity. I like that. Thank you, Sarah, this has been a great conversation, so I'd like to have you have the opportunity to share where people could find out more about you and more about the book.

Sarah Young [00:41:23]:
Thanks, Josh, and thank you again for having me on. Very, very fun to talk with you. I feel like we could talk for quite a quite a while longer about some of these shared topics of interest. So thank you for the conversation. The best place to go would probably be my website, which is Zing Z I n g zingcollaborative.com there people can find, you know, our offerings and what we do. As you know, I also send out a weekly newsletter on Friday mornings, which is called Friday Favorites. People can sign up for that directly via the homepage or there's a link if they just go to zingcollaborative.com Friday favorites, that's totally free, comes out every Friday morning. And on the website people can also find more about the book. So as we were talking about before we started recording, there's the hard copy, which I prefer just because it's pretty and it has nice formatting, which was part of my publishing journey of lessons learned. But it's also on ebook format and then there's also an audiobook as well if people would prefer that format. So that's kind of the central hub.

Joshua McNary [00:42:23]:
Sarah, thanks so much for joining us.

Sarah Young [00:42:26]:
Thank you, Josh.

Joshua McNary [00:42:29]:
Thanks for listening to Intentional Change. If today's conversation sparks something within you, I hope you will apply it with purpose in your own business. I'd love to hear how our Intentional Change podcast is helping you make a difference in your business. To drop me a Note, please visit mcnarymarketing.com and click on the contact button in the top right. To contact Shawn FitzGerald, my co host, visit readytolevelup.com and one last thing, don't forget to subscribe and share this show with others in your network. Network help us bring intentional change to every growing business. Until next time, I'm Joshua McNary. Bye now.

Creators and Guests

Joshua McNary
Host
Joshua McNary
Business Technologist & Founder, McNary Marketing & Design
Sarah Young
Guest
Sarah Young
CEO of Zing Collaborative & Author of Expansive Impact