Michael Leytem: Welcome, welcome everybody. We have a very exciting show for you today. Special guest, myself, Michael Leytem. I am hijacking Alisha’s show. We have been joking for a long time that I wanted to get onto her podcast and just kind of talk to her audience and jam on a few different topics.
We decided this week that I got the green light. I don’t take this responsibility lightly and I am incredibly grateful that Alisha is trusting me to speak to you all and not go off the deep end on anything.
First off I want to start with a moment of gratitude. I want you to think about something in your life right now as you listen to this, that you are truly grateful for. It doesn't have to be big, but just something in this moment that you want to say “thank you.”
For me today, I want to say thank you to you all for your time. Your most valuable asset. I don’t take it lightly and I appreciate you tuning in today, I really do. I know that people have a lot going on in their lives, so I want to try and bring as much value as I can today during this episode.
I also want to say thank you to Alisha and her team for all the effort that goes into this podcast. There’s so much behind the scenes that goes into creating a podcast, and marketing it, and editing it. Her team just does a phenomenal job. She puts a lot of thought into different topics and guests that she brings on this show. I’ve been able to be on the show a couple of times before, but I just want to say thank you to her and her team before we get started here.
Now, today’s episode is going to be a little bit different from some of the other episodes that I’ve been on in the past. I don’t want to regurgitate and tell the same stories, so I will give a little plug right now. If you want to know a little bit about my personal burnout story and how I recovered earlier on in my career, that’s in season one episode 3. There’s some really good stuff in there.
If you’re feeling stressed and just needing new advice or new techniques to kind of get yourself back on track. Another episode that I did with Alisha is in season 2 episode 25. It’s called leading well-being and we both partnered in that episode to lead a webinar. Where we combined both of our businesses.
If you don’t know right now, I will just explain it briefly. Alisha with Alisha Leytem Wellness really focuses on self leadership and taking care of yourself, mind, body, and soul. Obviously things like well-being come to play there. That is such a vital part of leadership that I think is starting to get some more legs under it. It’s so crucial from what I have observed as a leadership consultant over the past couple of years.
My side of the house is more on the organizational side. That’s what my background is. I do a lot more leadership from a team perspective, organizational perspective, executive coaching perspective. We get to pair our strategies and our ideas together for specific clients, which is really cool.
If leadership and well-being is something you’re passionate about and something that your organization is starting to need more of, definitely check out that episode.
Let’s jump into today’s content. Basically I have a free agenda right now so I want to give myself a little liberty to go on any tangent based on what I am feeling passionate about at the moment. I do have a couple of questions submitted ahead of time, so there will be 3 different questions. I will try to answer those specific audience members.
Then I have 6 life lessons. These aren’t necessary career advice or specific wellness tips if you will, but they are just reflections that I have been having over the years with all the transitions that I have had in my own life.
I kind of wish I knew this earlier on and I am going to try and pay those over to you all. I just want to bring as much value as I can to you all today.
Introduction of Michael
Before we jump into those topics, let me just give you a brief background of who I am and what I do, in case this is the first time you’re hearing from me. I’m Michael Leytem, I am the founder and owner of the business called Catching Leadership. It’s also a book I authored called Catching Leadership.
My background is in industrial organizational psychology. If you haven't heard that term before, think of it as business or workforce psychology. How do you get the right people in an organization to follow the culture? How do you treat leaders within an organization?
All of those components of human psychology, but in the workplace is really where I focus a lot of my work. I bring a new angle or a special twist to it and I combine my passion for the outdoors and for fishing. WHich you don’t have to be a huge angler to get a lot of value from mt framework.
It’s really just used to make these concepts sticky. It’s used to encourage people to unplug, go outside, check in with yourself, check in with the environment around you. Do some of that inner work to then cast yourself as a leader and legacy that you want to have.
I won’t go into that model, but if you want to catch out Catching Leadership and the catch and release framework, we will make sure to put a link here in the description and you can definitely do that.
Outside of owning my own business I am a father. Obviously if you listen to this show you know that Alisha and I have a 2 year old daughter. I have explained that I love fishing in my spare time and I am especially getting into fly fishing more, which takes everything to a whole new level. The level of patience you need, being more in tune with the environment.
I am not great by any means, I am learning a lot, but that’s parallel to a lot of things in life. Leaning into things that are uncomfortable, being a novice again and trying to have fun with the journey. It’s not a destination, but everyday you’re getting a little bit better.
I have a team at Catching Leadership that I currently lead, so I get to practice what I preach. I am not just telling people how to be a leader, I get to show up and be a leader for my team as well.
Business has been good lately. I have been doing a lot of client work, I have an executive coaching practice where I work one on one with leaders. We have an upcoming trip to California where I will be doing a keynote with professionals out there in wine country. Just a lot to be grateful and fortunate on all of those fronts.
Question Time
So now, to you, let’s start with some of these questions here that I received. The first one comes from Lauren. Lauren wants some advice balancing parenthood, leadership, career, well-being, and all the things. You can probably relate to what Lauren is feeling where it just feels like there are not enough hours in the day. I am exhausted, I’m asked to do more at work, I’m being asked to do more for my family, the kids, the responsibilities, whatever it might be before you. It just keeps stacking upon each other.
In the back of your mind you know that you need to be doing more perhaps to take care of yourself. You might be lost. I really appreciate these questions. I don’t have the silver bullet, Lauren, if you find it please let me know. I think we can all relate to some of these pressures to balance it all.
I do have two pieces of advice for you that might help from a psychology or mindset perspective. The first one is really focusing on progress anywhere in your life and not the insufficiencies. If we start from a place of, for example, parenthood. I will use myself as an example. Am I a better parent today as I was a year ago?
Absolutely. Will I be a better parent next year than I am today? I hope so. If I keep listening, trying new things, and keep growing. Same thing with your well-being practice.
Are there things you’re doing today that you’ve improved on? Maybe you’re sleeping better, maybe you’re working out a little more, maybe you’re doing some more meal prep and you’re cooking at home meals. Same thing with your career.
Have you learned new skills this year? As you compare it back to last year. And with leadership. What lessons have you learned this year? Are you stronger? Are you a better presenter? Whatever it might be.
If we start by focusing on the progress and not going immediately to look at the lack. You drown yourself with doubt, negativity, and “I can’t do it all.” You got to give yourself a little bit of credit, first off.
The second thing that I want you to think about is to try to see each of these areas not as independent, but as helping one another. When you think about your parenthood responsibilities. When you’re able to show up and do a good job. When the kids are in a good mood and they have what you need, aren’t you inevitably able to show up at work in a better mood and able to do a better job?
When you’re doing a good job at work, feeling productive, and in a good mood, aren’t you more likely to engage in well-being after afterwork? Or even during work. This is the other piece with this. If you can stack and blend some of these together, that’s even better. If you are parenting and you want to maybe get a little more movement or activity going, take the kids out for a walk and do something outside.
Just being outside is going to lower your cortisol levels and help you out. Now I know that is not always practical with your career, and kids. I understand that this advice is not always easy to apply. I just want you to think about if I do one, but I am missing out on another. Flipping the script to say if I focus on well-ebing right now, I am going to be a better parent, I am going to be better at my job.
I think that mindset will help you, so work on those two things throughout the day. Journal on them, meditate on them, and just start trying some new habits. Again, there is no silver bullet on this, but these small little changes in behaviors will stack up and help you.
Our second question comes from Kim. Kim finds herself in a new leadership role and she is really trying to balance performing for herself, and what the organization is expecting from a results standpoint, but then also trying to help her team.
If anyone has been in this type of leadership position you have your own responsibilities, and you have your team. Trying to motivate them, trying to teach them. You can understand that this is a true sticking point. This is something I wrote about in my book, Catching Leadership. It’s in chapter 3, it’s called tying their knots.
There’s a couple of pieces of advice or questions I have for you Kim as you’re embarking on this journey. The first one is when you think about it, what does your company value more? I know they want both. That’s why you’re in the situation you’re in.
Does your company value more of your individual results, or does it value more of your ability to instill good habits, good coaching and scaling others to go get results? I know that that seems like a fine line, but I think it’s important for you to know what your expectations are from your own manager.
Of course you’re going to have to play in both realms, but if your manager is expecting you to develop your team right now because that's an immediate need within your organization. Then that should be your primary focus first. As you do a good job there and you are doing better with the tasks you are delegating to them. Then you are able to carve more room out for yourself and attract towards your own personal goals.
However, if it’s the other way around and you have this candid conversation with your manager. I wouldn’t necessarily be a leader, always focusing on your own work, but there are probably some rare circumstances where you’re in a crisis situation where you need to carve out time to focus on yourself later down the road. It comes down to being intentional first and foremost.
Not trying to kind of do both, or not do either one effectively. Trying to figure out where I am trying to focus my attention today.
The second question I want you to think about, Kim, is what’s going to benefit you all in the long run? Within your own leadership skill, what’s going to help you in your career? Is it taking the time to be a great leader and helping them and figuring out when I coach them a specific way, when I delegate in a specific way, when I show up in a specific way, the team gets so much more done.
They are more positive, and I really notice the benefits there. That’s only going to help me as I continue to take on future leadership roles. Also when you think about it from an organizational standpoint, what’s going to have the greatest impact long term for them?
My guess is that it’s scaling those new team members to be the future leaders of the company. I just want you to really ask about the short term vs. long term benefits. Knowing you’re always going to have responsibilities in both, but trying to keep your eyes on the prize of where you’re ultimately going as a leader.
The last piece of advice for you, Kim, is I want you to encourage you to become an outstanding observer of behavior. What do I mean by that? I want you to be able to really hone in and pick up on the specific behaviors that your team is displaying on a given day and be able to reflect on what it is and what is not working within an environment.
The ideal setting as a leader is to put your team members in a state of flow as much as you possibly can. What do I mean by flow? Well flow is a concept coined from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He basically talks about the psychological state of being in the zone. When you’re in a flow state time just seems to kind of fly.
The reason why you’re able to “get in it” is because it's the perfect match between your skill set and the challenge at hand. As a leader you have to always be thinking about your team members. Where are they currently at? This comes from observation. Being real with it.
Where is their skill set at? I need to know that. Then based on the task of challenge at hand, how challenging is it for them? If it’s too easy they will complete that task in 5 minutes and then they are onto the next thing because they are bored. If it’s too hard they are going to become frustrated. When they become frustrated they may become resentful because they don’t have the skill set to do it.
They are going to start doubting themselves and maybe they start to come apathetic. They just start not caring, they check out, etc. If you become a great observer, you are going to be able to match those two components, skill and the challenge of the activity. Hopefully those stretch assignments will not only benefit them in their long term development growth, but also benefit you because you are able to delegate harder and more challenging tasks over time.
Plus also help the organization. When people are in a flow state, they are more engaged, they’re going to be more likely to like their work, they’re going to be more likely to stay within the company. I hope a couple of those points help you out Kim.
I do have a third question, but I am going to wait to bring it up here at the end of the episode. What I want to do next is I want to talk about 6 life lessons that I wish I knew earlier. Life is not like a race and getting all the wisdom as quickly as you possibly can. Maybe I need to even rephrase that. I want you all to receive these lessons at the right time and in your own way. I want to share them with you today.
I think I have been blessed to experience what I have, at the time and in the order that I have been able to experience it, so I always have to check myself. Things are on time, you’re learning the things you need to, at the right time. Not this game at catching up. Anyway, there I digress, there’s my first one Alisha sorry about it.
6 Life Lessons
Let’s get into these 6 life lessons. The first one: If you care what others think, you will be a prisoner to their thoughts your whole life. Let that sit in. If you truly care and you’re trying to impress every single person. Whether this is the image you’re trying to put out on social media, or trying to do something for an upcoming holiday because your mother in law or uncle or so and so really wants it, but you absolutely despise it.
That’s going to be lingering in the back of your mind all the time. You’re going to spend your life trying to impress other people. Instead of being true to who you are. I know inevitability as a person who studied social psychology for a long time. I understand the pressures to conform. I understand the biases, groupthink, pluralistic ignorance, a bunch of these concepts that have been in psychology textbooks for a long time.
I am not saying that you’re going to be able to live your life and not care what others think completely. We are social creatures. We are tribal, we want to fit in. We want to feel like we belong and are accepted, but do not live on autopilot in trying to seek the approval of others.
I will tell you first hand, when I started writing Catching Leadership, inevitably you start thinking how is this going to be perceived by the audience? What are my professors going to say, what are my coworkers going to say, what is my family going to say?
None of it really matters. What really matters is me speaking my truth, telling my stories in a way that is unique to me, and trying my best to stay laser focused on the message that I am trying to convey. Without this need for recognition or validation or what have you.
Be very mindful of how other people’s opinions start to influence your own emotions and your own behaviors. Try to eliminate a lot of that noise, perception, and image management as much as you can.
Number two. Honesty and authentic alignment are key to success in everything. Even more so than hard work I would say. This idea of honesty has really been hitting me lately. I think maybe it’s because I am a parent now, with children and telling the truth. It goes beyond just your words. It also means living your truth and being honest with yourself.
When you need to make changes in your life, when you need to make changes in your career. I know it's a cliche saying to say “honesty is the best policy”, but in a lot of ways it really, really is. You still have to be tactical. You don’t want to go around and not be conscious of your ideas, thoughts and what you say to people.
What I am saying is at the end of the day. There are a lot of times within my own business, or my own personal life where I have to pause in a discussion to make a decision. I ask myself what do I really want and what is truthful to me, what is in alignment in what I am trying to do?
I will be the first one to say even in my own business, on paper from an outside perspective there are probably a bunch of consultants that are out there saying why are you doing this? They would have all these different rationales for what I should and shouldn’t do.
At the end of the day you all are going to tell if I am not in authentic alignment with myself. And being honest with myself in all the unique ways I can show up in the world. Truly being honest when you’re feeling a certain way, when you need to be heard, when you are trying to do something new and unique, does it feel good? Is my mind, body, soul connected to this? If it’s not then it’s only going to come back later on to haunt you and it will manifest in other problems.
Number 3. Your people are out there. They are. I have to remind myself of this one frequently. I post a lot on LinkedIn, it’s my go to social media site. There are a lot of professionals all over the world. They aren’t all my people. I want them to be my people, but at the end of the day it’s an unrealistic expectation.
Sometimes when I am working on a concept or idea or something I want to market with in my business, I have to remember that whether I see it or not, people are rooting for me. They want me to succeed. I have to get out of my head that there are all these judgemental people looking down at me. Your people are out there.
I might not voice it as much as you need them to, but just know that there are people rooting for you, always. Never feel alone in the decisions that you need to make in your life. Know that not everyone, but the select few and you know who they are, are pulling for you.
This next one, number four. This one comes from my father. He told it to me one day when we were out fishing on lake Galena here in Illinois. I don’t even know how we got on this topic, but it’s one of those things where you are out fishing and you let your guard down. Maybe the fish aren’t biting and you’re having these beautiful conversations.
He said he heard it maybe from a priest at a sermon one time. The saying is “your worst day could be someone’s best day.” Your worst day when all the things are going wrong in your life, maybe the kids are acting up, work is really bogging you down, you didn’t get your workout in, etc.
Think about the individuals who would die to be in the position you’re in. To have a family, to have children, to have a job. These are all blessings. I think about this sometimes when I get into my own little victimization loop. I just think about some people who don’t have half or a quarter of the things that I have in my life. I try to snap out of it quickly. Your worst day could be someone else’s best day, remember that.
Number five. This one is a little more business related. I think it applies to other things in life too. A person's budget doesn’t determine your value. I come across this all the time whether it’s an organization, or a coaching engagement. I am not saying this to be arrogant or over the top, but I have studied what I studied and everything in my life has built up to this point where I am at right now and what I can offer individuals and organizations. When it comes to the consulting projects, the coaching, hosting fly fishing retreats in the outdoors, having to learn my craft in my own unique way, writing a book.
My value I feel is fairly high in what I can bring to people. Their budget may be low. They may be under budget cuts, under personal finances, maybe not having the adequate level of cash to go render my service to the full capacity.
It’s very easy in my mind to say “I am not worth it” because of their budget. My value isn’t good enough because of their budget. That’s the wrong way to think about it. The right way to think about it is I am continuing to get better, my value will increase. I am confident in what I bring to the table today. I will be rewarded for all the hard work, experiences, and things that I have stacked over the years.
Also, in order to do my highest level of work, I need to be taken care of. I can’t grind myself into the ground with a bunch of contracts that are just breaking even. That’s not going to be good. You’re going to get a resentful Michael. I would rather have fewer contracts that are the right contracts where I feel like I can show up and be at my best and know that I am being rewarded for everything that I am putting into this program and all my experiences in the past. Just remember when it comes to budget constraints that is not a reflection of your value. That’s a reflection on their bank account.
Last one, Number six. Embrace the paradox of unlearning. Our life is a series of learning concepts, acquiring knowledge and then losing a lot of that knowledge. Pruning it, keeping some of the nuggets, and relearning stuff. I think sometimes we can fall victim to beating ourselves up when we don’t remember every little thing that is taught to us earlier in life.
Let me give you an example. In graduate school I had to take some pretty advanced statistics classes. I remember in that season in my life it was important for me to learn those concepts, complete those assignments, pass those exams, and work on group projects. Soon thereafter, I had to start unlearning that to create new space to learn what I needed to in my next season of life.
It would be very easy for me right now to sit here and beat myself up and say “why didn’t you keep your skills sharp with statistical analysis?” I look at it as life will give you all these lessons, you’ll have to learn and go through all of these things. Once you learn or complete something, almost immediately you need to embrace unlearning some of that content and concepts.
It seems so strange. I want you to think of your own academic career or professional career. There are so many things that get bestowed upon you, concepts, ideas, and a lot of them don’t serve you anymore. Embrace this idea that I am going to continue to learn throughout my life and I am going to proactively unlearn.
At the end of this journey I am going to have this beautiful collection, pruned networks, of getting to the right information when I need to and all these experiences in this enticing learning journey. Not trying to preserve every little thing you’ve learned since elementary school to where you are at now.
You have to unlearn as well. That skill, unlearning, you might think sounds easy. It’s actually really difficult to do properly and to let things go and release them.
Those are 6 life lessons that I hope add some value to you today. I do want to circle back to this last question that we had from Jake.
When I was on instagram and facebook trying to collect questions for this episode there was one that came up about fly fishing, so bear with me here.
Jake wanted some advice about fly fishing. I promise it will just be for a little bit here. What I am learning right now is actually something I learned last night. It is a new method to me even though it is a very old method in fly fishing. It’s called winging a wet fly. For those of you who don’t know anything about fly fishing, think of a bug as going through different stages in its life.
As you progress through the life cycle of an insect it will reach the surface of the water. Its wings will be fully grown, and then it;is able to take off and fly. It’s able to do its thing and then it comes back to the water and lays its legs and starts the whole process over again.
Wet flies in particular are this older method where the fly itself just sits right below the surface of the water. It’s a bug that’s almost ready to come up and fly away. I have some wet flies in my tackle box and I have never actually tried this method. Jake, I am going to try this method this year. If the fish are looking up at the surface, but aren’t exactly swimming to the surface this might be a really effective method.
The tip for you is you don’t just cast the wet fly out there and let it sit below the surface, you actually add a little bit of split shot. 18 inches of the leader, a little tiny split shot. That will help keep it within a few inches of the surface.
The method they were using in these streams is to cast it at a 45 degree angle, let it drift all the way down, and then recast it back out and that’s kind of the method they use. I am going to use it on the lake even though there’s not a current.
There’s always so much to learn and that’s what makes leadership and fishing, or anything in life so cool. When you immerse yourself, you become a novice again, if you’re willing to put yourself out there and try new things. You can become enamored and passionate about whatever it is that drives your motor.
Last thing, wrapping up here. Thank you for giving my time again. I wanted to give a plug for two things that are coming up from a Catching Leadership side. The first one is a masterclass. My team worked really hard in putting together this cool, interactive master class and you can find this at catching leadership.com. It’s a 6 week online, self-guided, module that you can go at your own pace. It really brings the book to life.
If you’re not a reader, this is a way to kind of expedite that process. You’ll also get a certificate of completion. We are running an early bird special on that right now for $247. Maybe it’s something you want to ask your employer to see if they would sponsor your enrollment in that course.
The second thing is we have an upcoming retreat. A catching leadership fly fishing retreat in the driftless area. It’s part of this beautiful place here in Northeast Iowa, Southwest Minnesota, Southeast Wisconsin, and Northwest Illinois. This retreat is going to be on June 15th-17th.
The cool element about this retreat is you’re able to bring the youngins along. You could have a son or daughter that is even 20 if you want to bring them along. The whole idea is this parent/child bonding experience where you both can learn some leadership concepts. You can instill in the younger generation some of these lessons you’ve learned, and make some memories. How cool is it to be able to look back on this memory?
We are hosting that in La Farge, Wisconsin. It is Thursday-Saturday right before Father’s Day. You can still get back and celebrate Father’s Day. It’s all inclusive, each person will have their own cabin. All the meals will be provided, all the fly fishing gear will be provided, you just basically have to show up and you will be taken care of.
Like I said you will get a coaching call beforehand, and coaching onsite. It’s going to be a great event, so check that out on the website. There is an early bird special going on right now that ends on March 15th. We are always doing cool leadership retreats at Catching Leadership. We are trying to use nature and the outdoors to create this connection.
That’s all I got for you today. I hope you enjoyed this episode, thanks again Alisha for bringing me on. Hopefully I did a good job for you. Keep trying out there, that’s the last thing I’ll say. You’re doing a good job, probably better than what you’re giving yourself for. Keep trying to progress in your life and keep stacking these little wins in your wellness and leadership journey. All right, tight lines everyone, see ya!