LIVE from MicroConf – Mind of a Champion

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Starting the conversation…

How do we choose actions to face knowns and unknowns with more confidence?

Host: Jess Dewell
Guest: Chris Natzke

What You Will Hear:

Emotion has a place in expanding your mindset.

Your vision matters, and sometimes it can hold you back.

Your heart knows before your brain does.

Check in with your ability to connect.

Recognize and be open to limiting beliefs (most thoughts in a day are negative or protective).

It’s easy to say to facing fears, yet it is hard to lean into them.

The brain doesn’t know the difference between excitement and anxiety.

Elements of excellence.

Constant never-ending improvement.

Self-delusion – when it’s healthy, when it’s not.

Do a good job in the basics.

Vulnerability creates strength.

Live Audience Question: Can integrity be learned or taught?

Belief in us from others empowers.

Scott Question: How much control do we have over our own destiny? And What are the Variables?

Scott Question: What’s the best advice you ever got? What’s the worst advice?

Responding versus reacting – break down how to respond.

When we make our best decisions.

Live Audience Question: How can we develop the mind of a champion in a team, especially if the team has been together for a while?

The extremes set the norms.

It is BOLD to develop and hone the mind of a champion.

Bonus question: What’s your advice for a #solopreneur / #freelancer in deciding if a slightly difficult client is still worth working with? 

Notable and Quotable:

Chris Natzke 2:54
I could literally teach someone how to break a board in five minutes from a physical standpoint. But what I wanted that experience to do is have them really take a deep look at what is their vision, because many times, we’re so busy, that gets cloudy for us. But importantly, what are the things that are holding you back from achieving that vision, because oftentimes, we don’t even want to look at that. So the idea in the board breaking experience was to have them get really clear about their vision, but then identify what has been holding them back up until now, and use the board break as a metaphor for moving through that once and for all.

Jess Dewell 3:35
It’s the emotional thing that we’re starting to realize, is more important than we have been giving it credit to in our work. And when we want to do good work, emotion is a part of that.

Chris Natzke 4:09
I just really have come to believe over the last decade, how important being a leader from a heart centered place really is because we make our decisions, and we make our breakthroughs when we have that connection, and we really listen to our hearts. And it’s not to say that the mind or the brain or whatever is bad. I think it’s a coherence that you have between the head and the heart.

Chris Natzke 4:36
The heart actually knows things that are going to occur long before they happen in the head. We sense this.

Chris Natzke 4:43
If you notice some of the best leaders out there are the ones that have a tremendous ability to connect. Whether it’s one on one, or in a group of 500 to 1000 people, they know how to connect with people. They know how to tell their stories of vulnerability. They know how to inspire people to break through those as well.

Chris Natzke 5:00
When we get just totally into our minds, what happens we cut ourselves off from a huge resource that we have to really impact our world.

Chris Natzke 6:03
We have 10s of thousands of thoughts per day that go through our minds. And the vast majority of those are proving to be negative thoughts. So that’s something that’s really hardwired in us. And it can help us. But when it begins to drive our decisions and our way of being, that’s where it gets us in trouble. And when you think about how we evolved as human beings, we survived as a result of having and recognizing negative things. We’re out in the wild, and if we couldn’t recognize danger, we wouldn’t survive.

Chris Natzke 6:35
The real leaders, the real people that are having success and happiness in life, we’re careful. We’re understanding what the dangers are, but we live life as if it’s supporting us.

Chris Natzke 6:47
They say in Egypt, “You have to trust in God, but you still type your camel,” but you have to be cautious, but not let the fear drive you.

Jess Dewell 7:03
Don’t let fear drive you., It’s easy to say. It’s easy to believe. It’s really hard to do.

Chris Natzke 7:26
We have a tendency to avoid fear. We ignore the fear. We’re embarrassed by the fear. And really that fear is energy that is inside of us to keep us sharp, to drive us forward. And the way to really dissolve fear is to lean into it 100%. As scary as uncomfortable as that might be, it’s about leaning into i. Because there’s always a nugget there to discover.

Chris Natzke 7:52
We as human beings, we don’t necessarily like to be uncomfortable, and fear brings us discomfort. But when you really want to be at it, there’s always a nugget in there to utilize.

Chris Natzke 8:08
The brain can’t differentiate between anxiety and excitement. Scientists have done the brain scan side by side. They light up the same way. It’s our interpretation, and it’s our perception of it.

Jess Dewell 8:44
When we feel fear, say something with a word that has an excited connotation instead. And it allows you to lean in, which means it allows you to take that next step when otherwise you might be paralyzed or want to run the other direction.

Chris Natzke 9:03
What we resist, persists.

Chris Natzke 9:15
The more you push them down. It’s like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. And pretty soon it’s going to come up in ways that you probably not too happy with. So you might as well face it.

Chris Natzke 9:43
The more I avoided, the bigger it gets. And it’s almost always worse in my mind than what it actually ends up being.

Chris Natzke 10:48
What I talked about in my work, and in my book, is I have what I call seven qualities of black belt leadership, or seven qualities of black belt excellence. First starts with your vision. You need to have a great vision, one that excites you and expands you. The next I called being the change you wish to see, because we live in a world where we are very much awarded for are doingness., if you will. And there’s nothing wrong with doing. We have to get things done. But most people look at life from our perspective of “have to be.” When I have enough money, then I’ll do what I want to do, and I’ll be happy. When I have the growth in my company, I’ll do the expansion, I’ll be successful. But what I found is champions understand you need to flip those words around. You need to look at life from perspective of “be do have.” So if you want to have a quality that you want to be feeling and experiencing, you start being courageous, patient, trustworthy, whatever. Do the things that support that, and then you’d have what you want. Because it always starts from with the inside.

Mike Taber 12:11
It’s very difficult to reach your ideal of excellence on the first iteration. It’s probably just not going to happen. You’re always gonna have this vision in your head, that is so much substantially farther than you have the capabilities, or resources at a time to be able to. And it’s really just an iterative process.

Chris Natzke 13:11
To shoot for excellence on your first attempt, you’re almost setting yourself up for failure.

Chris Natzke 13:48
The concept of Cani, which is constant and never ending improvement.

Chris Natzke 14:10
I’ve had about 1000 students I’ve been able to promote the Black Belt over my career. And I can think of only two of them that came to me that I thought had everything that it took to be a black belt. But that other 998, they didn’t, but they just kept showing up.

Mike Taber 14:32
A Black Belt is a White Belt, they never quit.

Mike Taber 14:42
If you quit, you never get there.

Chris Natzke 15:17
Personal integrity, and not just from a standpoint of being honest with others which is incredibly important, but it’s also about being honest with ourselves.

Chris Natzke 15:33
What I think holds us back is not the huge integrity breaches, or the energy leaks. It’s the small ones that we don’t notice.

Chris Natzke 15:52
If he took off from Los Angeles to go to Honolulu, Hawaii and a flight and the pilot was one degree South off, he would not enter up in Maui, he would end up in New Zealand.

Jess Dewell 16:35
And so, when people use the word integrity, and then they say something, I listen to what they say after, so I can figure out how do I show up in this communication? How do I show up in this moment, to not to get it out of my head, and get it into action, whatever that is.

Chris Natzke 18:51
Because it takes courage to look at the numbers of whether the numbers are good or bad. It takes some courage.

Chris Natzke 19:10
I’m going to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I’m do this, and that’s all fantastic and it’s necessary. And, sometimes being vulnerable, and asking for help is more courageous than anything.

Chris Natzke 19:25
100% strength comes from 100% vulnerability. So there are times where it’s necessary to ask for help. And entrepreneurs aren’t always good at doing that.

Chris Natzke 21:33
Resilience is a daily practice. It’s not a decision that you make, and then put it into a desk drawer. It’s something you actually practice daily. And putting together daily activities, daily practices that you can do on a very frequent basis, starts to build that resilience muscle. When you start to develop really powerful habits, pretty soon that activity begins to take you through that. And you’re not only resilient on the inside, you’re doing it through your actions, so they combine to support each other.

Chris Natzke 24:43
I teach the martial art of Taekwondo, and we have what are called the Taekwondo Tenants. And their courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self control and indomitable spirit. So integrity is the second of that whole listing.

Chris Natzke 26:09
Your company is a reflection of what you’re demonstrating on the top.

Chris Natzke 29:36
Small actions done consistently over time, compound in huge results.

Chris Natzke 31:02
We may not have 100% control over what occurs in our life, but we always have 100% control on how we respond to it.

Chris Natzke 31:12
A reaction is something that occurs from an emotional, guttural level, if you will. And it’s basically out of our control. But a response is something that we actually are mindful about.

Chris Natzke 31:28
Whether it’s in a confrontation we might have, or it’s a stressful situation, or it’s something that it’s really challenging us, we may not be able to change the outcome, but we always have the ability to respond to it in a productive way.

Chris Natzke 32:42
Having a plan for when things come up, helps us be able to get out of that emotional state, and be able to take good action if we have something planned in advance.

Chris Natzke 33:02
The adrenal response when someone is attacked was actually put into ourselves as a means of protecting us. It was there to help us, which is where  fight or flight comes from. But what’s happened over Millennium, is we’ve developed a third response, which is freeze. And that’s what many of us do, and we’re dealing with struggle, and we’re dealing with stressful situations. So, one of the first things that I do in that case, encourage people to be calm and breathe. One of the first things you can do.

Chris Natzke 33:45
W hen you’re in that stressful situation in the business world, take some time to be calm and breathe, and then look at it as best you can, objectively without the story. Because so many times it’s easy to get into the story. This is what he said, This is what she did, versus pulling back and going, what’s really occurring here. And when you can look at what’s really occurring now, you can start making some empowered choices.

Chris Natzke 34:58
More times than not, when we are looking at things from an emotional and subjective point of view within the story, as I would call it, we don’t tend to make our best decisions, either from a professional standpoint or personal standpoint, a leadership standpoint. Doesn’t mean that emotion is bad by any means. We want to have emotions. What we want is to let them flow freely. But we just want to make sure that we’re being objective in terms of when we’re looking at challenges, so we can deal with them in the best way possible.

Unknown 37:47
When you get people emotionally enrolled in something, the chances of them being able to adjust that behavior and change their practices moves up exponentially, than just a great mandate. You don’t think that’s true, try teaching five year olds martial arts sometime.

Jess Dewell 46:02
It is not other people’s responsibility to tell you what’s going on. It is your responsibility to know what is going on.

Chris Natzke 46:30
And not just responsibility, but 100% responsibility. And the distinction there is, is it’s oftentimes, “Yeah, I’ll take responsibility for this and this, but this is their fault.” And I think as a leader, we need to take 100% responsibility.

Chris Natzke 46:53
We may not have been the one that enacted those actions, but at the very end, we are 100% responsible. And we can’t grow, expand or make improvements unless we look at it from that perspective. Because if there’s even that tinge of blame, it’s going to get us off center. But if you look at things from that perspective, it can be a game changer.

Chris Natzke 47:55
You know, anyone who’s ever succeeded in martial arts, and anyone who’s ever succeeded in business, and anyone who’s ever succeeded in relationship has had to put their ego aside and realize that there’s a time to learn.

Chris Natzke 48:12
It’s not about just knowing all the good stuff. You actually have to enact it in your life.

Chris Natzke 48:23
Things that are done consistently over time, that’s where you get the major shifts in the major breakthroughs.

Resources:

Startups for the Rest of Us /  Mike Taber

Tags:

learning, vulnerable, excellence, communication, resilience, mindset, integrity

Take your success further by developing the mind of a champion.

Surrounded by chaos every day, our mindset matters – specifically to keep our priorities front and center. Whether charged with developing our company’s growth strategy or part of a team that implements for results, the actions we choose and the way we face knowns and unknowns every day will determine business outcomes. Jess Dewell talks with Chris Natzke, Black Belt Leadership Speaker & Coach, about developing the mind of a champion

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