This week’s episode offers some of the most compelling advice to listeners, how to create a culture of belonging. Guest Paul Haury offers many real-world examples of how people need to belong to thrive and perform at their best no matter their job title. His advice is key for putting together a team that will perform for each other, with the end result being performing at the top of their game within the company.
Paul Haury’s Biography
I help people belong, with themselves, in their own brilliance, and with their company tribes, to really live & perform better than they ever imagined. In service of that, I coach, mentor, choose optimism & do my best to learn what motivates each person I work with. Why? So they can fully live and do better to get into their own promised lands.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn…
- What a belonging coach is and why you need one.
- Why we have an inherent need to belong.
- How to build your “tribe” where you belong.
- How to reframe how you see yourself.
- How being true to your core set of values makes you a winner.
- The highest performing teams perform for each other- they think in terms of the team first.
- What belonging looks like as a company value.
- To get to where you want to be, you need to have people you belong with.
- In what ways fear serves a purpose.
Quotables
- “We’re designed to not fall off cliffs.” —Paul Haury
- “We’re always in fear and we’re always in aspiration.” —Paul Haury
- “You can’t belong with them unless you belong with yourself, to really belong with them. But you can’t belong with yourself without belonging with others.” —Paul Haury
- When we belong, we get unstuck and discover our promised land. Here we live our lives in accountability and in shared purpose, and in doing so we make ourselves in companies happy, healthy, enjoyable, and in a way much more successful.” —Paul Haury
- “We’re motivated by people, we’re motivated by purpose, and we’re motivated by pay.” —Paul Haury
- “Belonging is feeling, owning, and caring for each other. They’ll do it for you, you’ll do it for them, and it’s not about fitting in, It’s about you being who you are in every element: in successes, dreams, and failures.” —Paul Haury
Links & Resources Mentioned…
- Brain Rules by John Medina: https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Rules-Principles-Surviving-Thriving/dp/0979777720
- Paul’s email: paul@heartbasedleading.com
- Paul’s phone number: 206-714-6113
- Paul’s Blog Articles:
- We’re always in fear, belonging, and aspiration – https://www.heartbasedleading.com/blog/life-between-the-carrot-and-stick-and-our-need-for-belonging
- We perform at our optimal in belonging (Team OS) – https://www.heartbasedleading.com/blog/get-navy-seal-or-real-accountability
- We have 6 essential affirmations for a belonging culture that inspires optimal performance – https://www.heartbasedleading.com/blog/onboarding-for-a-belonging-culture
- Paul’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-haury/
- Paul’s Company Website – https://www.heartbasedleading.com/
- Paul’s Twitter Handle – https://twitter.com/PaulHaury
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Episode #49
Mike O'Neill: Welcome back to the Get Unstuck & On Target podcast. I'm Mike O'Neill with Bench Builders and we're business coaches with HR backgrounds who love helping leaders sleep better because they've solved their tough people problems. In this podcast, we're talking with thought leaders to get their insights on ways to help you or your business get unstuck. Joining me today from Seattle is Paul Haury. Paul is the founder of Heart-based Leading. He's a belonging and executive coach. Welcome Paul.
Paul Haury: Hey, Mike, really good to be here with you.
Mike O'Neill: I'm looking forward to this, just for those who don't know this, this is our second attempt at this. We started to record the podcast and, it just, it crashed and burned. Not because of Paul, not because of Mike because the internet was not cooperating. So a moment ago, I just introduced you with a title that probably most of our listeners have never heard before. Yes, they've heard executive coach, but I just introduce you as a belonging and executive coach. Tell us what that means. Please
Paul Haury: Context first, we have a work world that has two primary focuses. The, the carrot and stick a simple, Hey, do this, you get this great, wonderful thing. A great pat on the back, raise, money, power, you name it. Oh, you're doing it wrong. Demerit, demerit beating, you know, that, that old saying, you know, the, the, the beatings will continue until the morale improves. That's saying that happens all the time. This is like a two-prong, focus. It primarily handles most business and making it a transactional space. And those two areas are actually embedded in our, in our brains as things we do, we are always in a state of fear to avoid the, the stick, the beating, the biting bugs, or the saber tooth tiger. We're designed, I use this even in our, in our group. We kind of hang out and every once in a while, we're designed not to fall off cliffs. I mean, we really are good at not falling off cliffs. Well, some of us are, I I'm a rock climber, so sometimes I'm climbing, but it's a controlled fall in a way. That's actually quite fun that yes, it does scare the crap out of you. The other side though, is the aspirational side, a wonderful book brain rules by John Medina talks about both these two kind of areas. The aspirin we are explorers. I mean, I think about us as infants. We were these tiny little beings that saw that ball across the carpet and got pissed off because, I can't reach it. And so there's this ambling moving kind of amoeba, like try. And then they learn gradually and do the muscle pull and develop, and then it's amble over and then it's crawled over and then it's a walk over and then it's run over. Notice there's a progression that happens. And we have that in our lives. That's why when we're at work and we're bored out of our mind and we're sitting there going to do to do well. I finished all my work. I'm going to get paid for the next three hours. They're dreaming about being in The Bahamas because actually. They're exploring to a better place that they aspire for. So I use the term, we're always in fear and we're always in aspiration. And they are incredible motivators for us to do things. There's another element though, that we always have, and, and then it's height, or when it's at our most trauma is usually a middle school or junior high, if you're my age. Cause I went to what was called the junior high, slight different grading. That's about belonging and that's a neuro biological constant where we really, really brain-wise need to belong. It's like if we were sitting here and I was giving you stone face, or you were giving me no reaction face, because maybe I'm going way too nerdy. And you're like, geez, Paul, get back on point here. In that space, my brain would be recalculating all the time that oh, We were not connecting. We're not blind and I'm not making connection as a transaction. I'm taking it as a place of really being with each other. And in that space, that's where we always go. It's like, think about the last time you went to, west, since this might be a while ago because of COVID. But the last time you went to a big social event, to, you know, conference, a workshop, you, you walk in the door and the very first thing you do is you scan the room. You're not scanning the room test because you're in fear.
You are scanning the room to see. Is there somebody I know here, if you don't see somebody in know, then you're scanning the room for friendly face, body structure and language that says, oh, that person's not attacking. I think I'll go talk to him. And this is the space of belonging and we all have it. The crazy part is we forgot that in our transactional space of the work world, the kicker about coaching, somebody in belonging is there's a two fold space. One is they've got to belong with themselves. And this is hard because neurobiologically part of how we define ourselves as from the facial expressions that we get from the people we belong with, or the facial expressions we get from the people we don't belong with. One provides comfort and growth. One provides fear that we have to work with because we're not going to get rid of fear, but in that belonging space, the other half is the people you belong with. You can't belong with them unless you belong with yourself too, to really belong with them, but you can't belong with yourself without belonging with others. It doesn't work. You get caught and just your own mind. Like we were talking in the gratitude thing where, Kevin Monroe brought up, the, the boy, the Fox, wait, the boy, the mole, the Fox and the horse book, all the hard work or everything that's happened, happens inside, but everything we see is on the outside. And so this is always a continual tension and there's people say, you know, do this, do that. But our brains are programmed flat out to look at Mike's face and go. I like that guy. I want to like that guy. I want to know that right. And if I talk to him, I want to know that he, he actually knows I'm here.
Mike O'Neill: Yes.
Paul Haury: So that's the belonging, which is getting people into that space where they're comfortable with themselves. And then they build an actually build a tribe around them that they actually belong where they're not having to fit in.
Mike O'Neill: So in terms of what you and I are going to spend our time talking about, I would like to take what you just shared. And that was a great way to kind of set up our conversation. We've entitled this episode Belong & Win: Building a Belonging Culture that Inspires High Performance. Before we get into that, let me quote you. This is taken straight from your LinkedIn profile, but I think this will kind of reinforce what you just said. You wrote when we belong. We get unstuck and discover our promised land. Here we live our lives in accountability and in shared purpose and in doing so, we make ourselves and companies happy, healthy, enjoyable, and a way, way, much more successful. And our audience is comprised of leaders, leaders leading teams, leading organizations. And I kind of want to get to this. And that is if we are accepting this transactional notion of, the carrot and the stick you referred to it, as aspiration as in fear, those are the two things that we most often think about. You're introducing belonging as something as vitally important. You as we've kind of agreed on what the title's going to be is that if there's a sense of belonging and a belonging culture. It starts, you said with the individual, they have to belong with themselves. And so when you're working with, with your, your coach, when you're working one-on-one how do you, how do you unpack that? How do you get to the point that people begin starting to really understand this notion of first belonging to yourself?
Paul Haury: So the, the first part of that is understanding our own internal voices and how we talk to ourselves. And we don't just talk to talk to ourselves from our personal voice. We actually, kind of grab multiple voices. And so we're writing our own story at that point. And this is why it's so important to have editors outside of you to help you comprise that story, because remember we're, we're programmed not to fall off cliffs. So we're going to write a story that we don't do that. And some people that sensitivity to falling off cliffs is I don't even want to stub my toe. We're, we're all very, very unique, but that's where I'll talk about going into our story and how we write that and how we see ourselves, the story we, you know, the story we tell ourselves is the story we live. And so now it's to get editors who actually contribute to your life and have them be the ones that you bounce off and get the feedback from. As, as a coach, what I do is somebody will tell me, tell me a story. Actually, let me do a quick into it. Working with a guy, very successful guy, very cool. Had a situation where he had to make a choice to do something and it put him in his company in a less than desirable economic space, but he got the ax because of it. And he carried that for years. I've I failed, I sucked and what he was doing, because what he was, what he was asked to do when against a core value. So in writing. So I can just tell me the story. And I sat and I listened and what I heard and what I felt, what, what we discovered as we talked was he told a story of failure. And I heard a story of a person who wrestled and was stuck because he was being asked to violate a core value and a core value that was embedded in a story of great empathy he had for mentally ill people. In that process, he left himself compromised and he got fired and all this stuff, but he was just saying, I just did a bad job. I didn't negotiate. I didn't get the, do the right thing. I ended this. And the truth is he actually did all the right things from his own core. Now, did it get the right outcome that he would have enjoyed? No, but after I told the story back to him with, this is what I heard and he was like, oh my God, I'd never framed it that way. And that's, this is where I say, it's from a coaching standpoint, this is what I do. I help people see themselves a new and from their, in their potential and in their values, in their uniqueness and their strategic abilities on this earth.
Mike O'Neill: So when you're working one-on-one with leaders, you start with that very base and you ask them to tell the story and you and others might, would be editors of that story. And the example you just cited. What I heard is throughout that he was being true to his core sense of values. And I don't know, but my assumption is, is when one is true to core values, that's not a failure.
Paul Haury: No, no zero. And so let me go a little bit farther because this is where the editing and rewriting the story happens. Now, if we're in touch with this story, when we talk to ourselves, because in the voices we get like there from my dad and from my mom, brother, actually sometimes they're from Mike. And because this is part of my world, a story of people that contributed. So now he looks at the, how things went in the next time around. He's like, oh, now that I'm I'm aware of this. And now that I understand my power in being in this place and getting my values, he's like, if this ever never happens again, I would approach it this way from my value, as opposed to having my value be the danger point. And now he gets to use all of his abilities to work with and create grand coalitions to create a space that would have been cohesive to one has value in two a story that mattered so much to him because he didn't have that space of reflection there. And I'm saying, this is a space of belonging. Like with my clients, I, I choose a client because I can fall in love with them and they can fall in love with me. Because I'm all in for the people I work with. And so in that space, now it's belonging. And, and there's a key thing that happens here. When we belong we fear less fear is not going to go away. But we fear less and we aspire more. If we're with somebody that we really get, like in some of the conversations, we've had dreams creep back in because we're together and that's belonging, that's our brains and our bodies going I'm okay. I'm enough. You can get the challenge from the person you're with. You can get the support from the person you're with, and that belonging is key in any, any, any, any high-performing duo, team, whatever, because, this is going to sound like a tangent, but my brain thinks in like 3d, I'm sorry. We're motivated by people. We're motivated by purpose and we're motivated by pay, which is the highest, you know, it's in so many religious ancient things. The greatest love of all is for a person to give their life for another. I mean, we do this daily on a slow level. We could go work out. We could go to this, but instead someone we love, we go do something for them. We do it all the time. That is probably one of the highest motivating powers and for the highest performing teams, like I'll use a Navy seals. I know a couple of those and, and also a couple of deltas and so on it's team first. And in that team first space, it's that brotherhood sisterhood. Or they hood we'll throw the hole in the air for HR people. In that space, they will learn the skills at their highest. Why? Because they won't let each other down. They have the mission. The mission had involves helping the customer, for the seals it's the United States of America and possibly an adjacent country that they're trying to help out. But that, that for each other is the binding force, that makes things at the highest performance levels. If you think in performance and this is the thing challenge comes in and you go, I got a lot to learn. You're all excited about it. And maybe you have a history and a background. It's something parallel just like it. And you go, oh, I got this. This can be easy. And people talk about serotonin as the calm chemical, the balanced chemical. It's also the, the confident chemical. It's the, oh, I did this, this and this. That's going to be a breeze. And then people, you never done that before. I said, yeah, but it's like this, I get it. That confidence that comes from being with people and doing, you have to do the practice, get the skills in the work. Yes. But what it really happens is when you do it for each other, and that space is a whole different world in performance, this is why. So this is why Simone Biles in how she got hit with her aunt's death. Because I think it was her aunt and she backed out of the competition. She knew she was not going to perform well for the team. Oh, she was afraid of failing. I heard it's like, you know what? No, she knew she wasn't in top game and it was team first. She, she got recovery yeah, okay I'm ready to come back in. In, in, on the extreme example, for the seals and the, Bin Ladin raid one of the helicopters crashed the President of United States and then top maybe seal command and say, you're going to do this no matter what, that is not what happened. It was asked to them boots on the ground. High-performance by the way, this is how I perform this business. Follows also was, are you guys still a go, do you believe you still can successfully do this, their answer as they thought about it, went over, it checked out the recon was, yes, we're good. We're a go. It was them team first. And in that comes oxytocin, which is the brotherly sisterly love. I mean, this is, I mean, this is that thing where, oh, no, you're not going to you're not going to hurt my family. You're not going to get to get in the way this is, this is the love. And then the championing kind of chemical that comes into play. And when we get that and we get that feeling, you know, like, like I've actually picked up a massively huge dog that was going to attack my yellow lab, who was being perfectly cool and calm and I threw it 15 feet and it was a very big, large attacking dog. And somebody said, what were you doing? I go, uh, you know, commonly called the mama bear syndrome. Don't hurt my you're not going after my kid. So that's, this is the core where real performance happens, this skills yes will come, but it's in the context of who you're doing it for. And that's, that's the high thing. And that's, that's belonging, that's all belonging. And when people get that things change fast.
Mike O'Neill: So I don't want to oversimplify what you've just shared, but let me say it back to you. What I've heard thus far, and that is, we've discussed that in most organizations, it stops at the carrot and the stick. And what you're saying is what really differentiates, what really does inspire high performance is a sense of belonging.
Paul Haury: Can we can, I want to check one thing I'm going to, I'm going to ask for a different, it's just plain flat belonging. It's an a, I'm very picky on this and I apologize for stopping it like that. That was rude.
Mike O'Neill: I love you, nonetheless.
Paul Haury: Belonging is a two way street. If you, if it's just a sense, that's just this perimeter kind of feeling you're not in it. Belonging is. Mike asked me to, would there be interest to show belonging is yes. I would love to be on the show and I'm going to be the best I can be for Mike on the show. It's a two way street. It's it's it's I use this access specific definitions. It's feeling, owning and caring for each other. They'll do it for you. You'll do it for them. And it's not about fitting in it's about you being who you are in every element in successes, dreams, and failures, when that happens, there's a power there that you just can't, you can't get in the way of, and, and that's so that I differentiate the sense of belonging is as almost a transactional model. And so I have, I technically avoid that language. Because it's not, if I belong, no, no, I've got your back. It's not, I feel all wonderful. When I come into this place, that's kind of a dopamine rush. And this is a good dopamine rush. Don't get me wrong. And it can be very highly motivating. But when, someone says, no, I'm staying here with you. I mean, I, I, we had, when I worked at Fulcrum, a networking issue, that was just so hard to find. And we had the techs working on it and they were there. I stayed there because, and I wasn't going to help it cause they're smarter than me at that. The CTO stayed on it. We all stayed together because we were a team on this, are people doing the work. And we had, like I said, a second set of eyes to help things out. But it was that, that togetherness the, in the belonging. That made, okay, we're going to get this where it is. We're going to stick it out all the way through. And we went from optimal space of just regular work to now we all have to step up into our highest performance to solve this problem together. And then afterwards we're going to be terribly tired and have a wonderfully painful next day, but we did it together. And so that's where.
Mike O'Neill: And I appreciate your clarification on that. As people are listening and they're saying, okay, I hear Paul. And that is, I have to have this sense of belonging. It starts with me, but as a leader, I want to instill that sense of belonging within my team and within my organization. There's there are practical things that you might would suggest. What might be the kinds of things that when, when you're working one-on-one with a leader who realizes that he or she wants that to happen on their team and their organizations, what are the things that you suggest that they give consideration?
Paul Haury: Oh my gosh. I have a very quick story on that. The CEO is, we were talking and we just talked about, when you walk into a room, what do you do? You're looking for somebody you know because it's a strange place and we just explored and now that's fine. This is what happens when somebody walks into your room. Okay. And in his office. And he goes, well, I'm sitting there and I'm working away and I'm answering their questions. And he says, when we're talking away. And so I turned away from him, as he was talking to me and he goes, Hey, I thought we were in this conversation together. I went, yeah. And he had mentioned earlier that belonging didn't matter. I said, yeah. So we're supposed to be in this conversation together. And I go, I thought belonging didn't matter. And he goes, oh. And what it was was whenever somebody would come into his office, he'd just sit at his computer. He would just plow his thing, answer the question, transactional. Okay. Go away. What changes it is to show up and be present with somebody. And when people talk about communication, do this make eye contact and so on I'm talking about just actually showing up, which means put the other away.
Going into that space changes the whole game. Establishing that as a core value, the value of each other and some kind of core value of belonging, togetherness. And like I said, I use the word belonging on purpose because it's hard to define. Because it's different for everybody else. That's the thing the CEO needs to understand, because it's very easy to be stuck in that, abstraction layer of the numbers. We've got this and this percentage and that percentage is on. Percentages they will give you a way to big picture something that isn't the way that actually solves everything. And it's not the way human beings relate. It's not how they belong. They belong when they have each other's back. They belong in that space when they're supported so that the CEO needs to change and add value into there. Like Amazon just did this and we all know the, if you read any kind of report from whatever's going on with Amazon, yeah. It's not a, it wasn't the nicest to human beings. They actually added a value in there to change that. Now, if they'll actually go to that value and make it a lived no compromise value. And this is the other thing that happens. I asked, this one CEO, what are your thoughts? I was learning. Initiative and results. Those were three, three core values. So I said, okay, in the battle of values, which one wins if, if results, if it's results, but you're taking time to create your initiative and your innovation with it. When does, when does results when blank, blank, blank, and then it got. I said, so if you're learning and that's the highest one, but it's slowing down results, which ones then I got the sense from him. And I said, so can somebody basically sacrifice another employee for the sake of a result? And he went, absolutely not. It was instantaneous. I says, I says, what about if they're sacrificing somebody for learning? Oh, absolutely. I mean, there was this, he hit a hard just boom. And what that meant was the core value that he lived by, which wasn't explicit or written in, in the site, in the company. But he was, he had that component, but he was living by the ones in the company. There was a disconnect which led to a conflict on a regular basis in him. Has he had a belonging core value, but it wasn't in the space. So he would go around and doing this and then he'd run into, well, this sucks instead of going like the Navy seal team, is it a go or no-go okay. Scale, but still the scale of the mission back so that we can get more accomplished in the company vision without killing ourselves or going into a suicide mission. Because I will say this burnout and what we've been experiencing and are now, what's it called the great resignation.
Mike O'Neill: Yes.
Paul Haury: It's really just nothing more than living a slow death. It's a slow suicide mission in the name of a company purpose. A belonging value from a senior executive as putting that in a core says, no, we're doing this so that we are because, and everybody says, you know, all we, you know, if you raise the waters, all the boats come up and whatever else living that means going to a tough place, right. The thing I will say. I wish that I had hired a coach when I was head of people and culture. I did hire like an HR mentor, but I do wish I had hired a coach where I could have battled these really hard people decisions and made sure I was in check with myself so that I could go forth and express it. And then, because I'm there fully present in that, that lends to the conviction of somebody going, okay, I'm uncomfortable with this too. He's uncomfortable with this, but he is there in full conviction. So that could be a she in the business too. So let me clarify that really. And now you can go through it and make the tough decisions where there isn't a good win, just sucks. And so that's, and that's part of the belonging space also.
Mike O'Neill: You know, Paul, I knew that when we went down this path, that one of the constraints we have is just the length of our podcast. Doesn't give us a chance to get as deep as I would like. And, what I would say to you is in preparing for this podcast, I read a number of your incredibly well-written blogs. Whereas you, you kind of expand on this in a way that that really was very helpful to me to understand what I wanted to do in this podcast is one, introduce our listeners and viewers, to Paul. You made reference to this a couple of three times Paul and I are in a community together that, I don't know how long I've been part I guess well over a year.
Paul Haury: Over a year, yeah.
Mike O'Neill: And this community is literally worldwide and it's, breadth, but I've gotten to know Paul through this process. And I got to have an understanding of and appreciation for the depth of Paul and particularly how he works one-on-one with his clients and how he works with his client companies. And I, I know this is almost like a teaser for what you could do for individuals and for organizations. As we kind of start to wrap up our time together, I want to do two things. If you don't mind one, I like to ask, can you think of an example by which, and maybe you've already cited that and we can come back to it an example by which either you or the organization that you were in got stuck. And what is it that got you unstuck?
Paul Haury: Gosh, there are a lot of examples. I'm going to shift to myself so that I don't reveal somebody, whoever. And because I'm very conscious about revealing the work I do with my people. I will I'll, I will use, I'm gonna use my back when, with my former company, we were trying to set up international HR operations in India, and there's cultural barriers. There's all sorts of stuff. There's just, it's a hundred and it's, you know, it's, it's half day off. So it, it, it takes you out of your good awake time to do work with people and their good awake time. And we had tried to do things, working with some partners. Yeah. I had wanted to just hire a dear person in the global HR group here in Seattle Carol Olbe. She'd set up multiple companies, subsidiaries in India and, and so on. And I was getting nowhere with the partner quote, unquote support that was supposed to be coming. And at least, and I will say at least three weeks of trying to get things going by making these calls. I finally got to the point because I was stuck, there was nothing was going to go forward. We needed to go forward. The company needed all the hiring that had to happen. The client had signed everything. It was Airtel India. I mean, it was big. And, I, I went in and I actually, because we either get to the point where we break and we're done and we walk away or we really decided to kind of punch back. And I went in and said, look, we need this to work then I need this to go forward. And I hired Carol and she became my international HR coach mentor. That stuck part. Yeah. Was I didn't have the people, the belonging I needed to get into this way, higher aspiration than I had in my head. I mean, I had it. I had like big aspiration going in my brain. We had just made, we didn't make it, but we were close. We were recommended as a top company in Seattle by, getting to that point by E I E Y we were doing this stuff in India and I just wanted, I wanted the best of US Fulcrum with the best of India Fulcrum and to have a culture that just made people love wanting to work there. And I was getting nowhere close. And that's where you have to go. No, I need people I belong with in this to get to this place. It's, it's an aspiration that's bigger than me alone. And that means getting people like that, which is not for example, trying to get this partner to provide me with the right technical elements to actually have legal India, HR. I mean, people say, well, just go out and ask this and just kind of, it's like, no, it's, you're the saying, nobody cares what you know, until they know how much you care. Yeah. Teddy Roosevelt. It was that same thing for me to go in there full on I needed to know that I had a technical ops person. I'm speaking sort of pseudo military issue, with Carol so that I could go boom, and get this done that done that done, and still have the cultural space in there. And so belonging, I, I literally had to figure out I'm much more crafted and aware of it now, but that's what I went through. But it was getting to that person that I knew I could do this giant aspiration. Otherwise that giant aspiration is a bag of fear. I mean, that's it?
Mike O'Neill: You know and it's funny how we come full circle. That's how we started our podcast and that is you're laying out, that the power of a fear, be it, the stick, the contrast and the aspiration and what you're really trying to stress that this notion of belonging transcends everything
Paul Haury: You know there's a noodle there too, so fear we'll always have, and it's always moving us. It flat out, will, you know, hold your breath. You're going to let us start breathing. Cause I'm going to pass out. That's how it works. So there's a good side of fear and a bad side of fear. The bad side of the fear is when it just goes pure self preservation, unless a bear is attacking you, then it's probably the best thing you can have happen. Unless you're fighting them off. Cause you don't want your kids eating. But the fear puts us into the space of there's a good fear, which is I'm not, I don't want to let my team down. Therefore you take action. Not to let your team down. There's the fear of, I don't want to make a mistake and be a, be able to be a wash. That's a, that's a reasonable fear. Belonging though makes it easier. I used the haunted house example. Nobody wants to go to the haunted house alone, but they'll go with their friends and they're still scared about it, but they're going to go with their friends and they're going to laugh when they come out and they're going to say they hated it. But they loved every minute of it with their friends and they were in fear. So there's a good side of fear that we get to with belonging, same thing with aspirations. My aspiration to have this amazing startup company in India that could have say a 90% retention rate in the first year, which was just what we had. I feel pretty smug about that. But I got that because I had that aspiration and where I was going without the support, it was just a giant source of fear. The moment I was said, got the permission to hire Carol I said, look, this is what I need. And he's like, all right, this is better work. Cause we're, we're in a really rough spot. And I'm like going, it's going to work if I have her, I will tell you that now because I will not let it down. Because I knew I had somebody to have me then that aspiration instead of being on the dangerous side of my aspirations. Oh, I was on that I'm going in all in to the wall aspiration. So this is a good side. So there's a good side of it. And there's a bad side of fear and aspiration belonging keeps you in the good space.
Mike O'Neill: The good space. This is probably the best good space I can think of as we kind of wrap up our time together. This has hopefully serve as a bit of a kind of appetizer for those who want to learn more from you and about you. Paul, what is the best way for folks to reach out to you and connect with you online?
Paul Haury: My website is easy. It's, heartbasedleading.com there is a contact form if you want it that way. My email is paul@heartbasedleading.com. Phone number (206) 714-6113 United States. Let's see, I'm Paul Haury, on LinkedIn. So yeah.
Mike O'Neill: We'll grab all of those and we'll include that to the best of our ability in the show notes. So if they want to reach out to Paul, we'll make it easy and multiple ways to do so. Paul I was looking forward to our time together. It took two attempts to do so, but I appreciate you prevailing with me. We've had no technical glitches to speak of whatsoever, but, thank you so much.
Paul Haury: This has been wonderful. And if I, if we really captured this, we held in belonging to meet the aspiration of making this happen while having the fear that technology would thwart us again.
Mike O'Neill: Oh, I love that's a perfect way of summarizing. Perfect. Thank you so much my fall. I just wanna thank our listeners for joining us for this episode of Get Unstuck & On Target. You know, every Thursday we upload the latest episode to all the major platforms. So if you haven't already please subscribe. You know, life really is too short to let business problems keep you up at night. So you've been listening to my conversation with Paul and your realizing something is keeping your business stuck let's talk. You can go to our website, benched-builders.com. To schedule a quick call. So I want to thank you for joining us, and I hope you have picked up on some tips that'll help you Get Unstuck & On Target. Until next time.
Wow!! Just listened again-this was an amazing chat – so much good information about belonging – our inner critic – chatter – finding mentors & coaches – mostly about learning how to first belong with ourselves – how to infuse the ‘team’ – how to stay in my own brilliance and belong in my own story – with the right editors – all of it – so grateful to be in ‘This Extraordinary Life’ space with you two’ – and understand the ‘why’ behind the fact that I’m already a ‘Chief Joy Officer’ –