John Mattone - Internationally Renowned Leadership Coach

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:00) Hello, my friends. Today we are talking to John Mattone, an internationally renowned leadership coach who used to coach Steve Jobs. And we discuss the predictive algorithm that leads to a courageous mindset, using the compounding nature of time to play the long game, and how to become vigilant in the pursuit of greatness. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO podcast. Here we go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:24) This is the Modern CTO podcast. That's just it. It's just going to be you and I hanging out talking about leadership. I mean, you're an incredibly brilliant person. I have a feeling that no matter what happens today, it's going to be great.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:47) So.

(John Mattone at 00:00:49) Man, you're putting pressure on me, man.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:51) No way, man. It's amazing. This is the opposite of pressure. So how do you write these books? I've only written one, so I'm a complete amateur. But you go, you talk, and then you kind of take those talks and refine those ideas and turn them into a book?

(John Mattone at 00:01:04) Yeah. Basically, it's been a big evolution for me. So back in like 2010, I knew that when I relaunched my business, Joel, at 55, I had to get my point of view out there. So at the time, I was really more in the world of talent management, talent leadership. And so I got my voice out there. The book did okay. The first book, Talent Leadership, did okay. It wasn't any kind of breakthrough kind of thing. Then I found that once I honed in on who I really needed to be, which was really all around intelligent leadership, I found my voice. You know? It took me a long time to find my voice, basically 58 years. You know? So in 2013, I wrote Intelligent Leadership, and that book became—it was very much more natural for me to write. It came from the heart much more. And I just have continued to grow. You know? And as I grow and I learn and I absorb from other people, my ideas have moved and shifted and so on and so forth, and that led to the book I wrote last year. You know what I'm saying? So it's not like I've had these concepts in my head. They've evolved just from experiences and connecting with others.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:26) Yeah. I'd always see these people who've done these great things, and I'm like, I want to be one of those people. Right? And then I realized that they're all much older than me. And then what I've started to realize after I put intention and effort into things is that it takes an entire lifetime to do something worth, like, a lifetime of recognition.

(John Mattone at 00:02:47) It does. It does. There's no question about it. It's not that you're not doing great things. You're doing great things. But, you know, let's fast forward 10 years from now. As long as you're doing your true purpose, if you reflect back 10 years from now, you'll be at a totally different point in life, you know, and your successes in the business world will be at a totally different level. It's just evolution. It takes time. You know? It does. It definitely takes time. So, you know, for me, I'm a pretty late bloomer, actually, when you think about it. But what's interesting, though, is none of what's happened would have happened if I didn't have my career, you know, up until 55, because I learned a lot in the corporate world. You know what I'm saying? A lot of successes, a lot of failures, and all of that has been a tremendous contributor to, I guess, the successes that we're all enjoying right now, you know, the last nine, ten years.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:53) So I'm curious for me—like, I always have big eyes. Right? Like, I always have big ideas, and I've been humbled by—I've been both humbled and empowered by the compounding nature of time. Right? Because you can't just do something really big all at once with this big burst of energy. You have to find out this routine that you put yourself in and slowly add to it and just push it forward a little by little every day. Yeah. So now I'm always looking—like, if I'm going to adapt something, I'm going to find a space in my calendar that it can repeat because I know it's going to take a long time to achieve this.

(John Mattone at 00:04:32) Absolutely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:33) Big visions require that, and they require a lot of discipline. And I found, especially when going and getting to speak—so background about me, you know, three years ago, just quiet, introverted engineer type person. And now with the podcast and the public speaking, it's been really interesting to go around these different cities and be on different stages and talk to different crowds. And what I've kind of sort of wrapped my mind around after meeting all these people is that discipline is, like, one of the most rare things in this universe—being able to persist and continue. And so, you know, I'm curious your thoughts, like, how you would coach me. Like, I've got big visions, and I'm on this path of discipline, and I'm learning about that. But what other tips do you have? Like, how else could I do better at holding on to that massive vision?

(John Mattone at 00:05:20) Well, first of all, very few people, very few leaders in the world, even understand what a big vision is. So you're in a very, very small percentile, Joel, you know. We, in this VUCA world, the volatile, uncertain world that we're in, will require leaders and future leaders to, no question, think differently about things and think big. We've got a lot of people who sort of get caught in their comfort zone, and ultimately, our success in a disruptive world is really to think pretty disruptively. So I congratulate you from the depths of my heart that you've arrived at a point where very few people even know what thinking differently, thinking big, constitutes. But what I've learned is that you've got to counterbalance that, and I call that ego in many respects. You know, thinking differently, thinking big, is really the depths of your soul in terms of an expression of self. Right? So you've got this vision for yourself and your business. And I think it's really, really important to make sure that you've got the right character elements, you know, being courageous, being humble. I think humility and vulnerability actually is a really important counterbalance to thinking differently, thinking big. It keeps you in check, you know. And if the ego's unbridled and you're always pushing the envelope and you don't counterbalance yourself and connect with others in terms of, you know, getting your ideas shared with others, you know, reflecting, slowing down a little bit. You know what I'm saying? Internalizing, connecting the dots, you know, building time in your calendar just to let ideas sink in. Very, very critical to be able to do that. So discipline is vitally important to anybody achieving ultimately the essence of what they can and will achieve and must achieve.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:29) You know what I found is that setting up these habits—I find that there's sometimes, like, resistance to the schedule that you'll set for yourself. Right? So I'll see that block in the calendar. I'll have put it in there. I'll have maybe executed it on six or seven cycles. And then this resistance builds up where, like, I almost don't want—it's like defiance. It's this weird childlike emotion. Do you know what I'm talking about?

(John Mattone at 00:07:55) Yeah, it is. Yep. Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:57) How do I address that? Like, what do I do? Do I just push through it and just sit down and just do the work like a professional? Like, what insights are—what is your experience with that resistance over time?

(John Mattone at 00:08:10) So first of all, that's natural. And what that's reflective of is that you've associated your current comfort zone with a certain amount of pleasure. You know? And so when you think about why am I resistant to doing something, whatever it is, you've already associated in your brain a certain amount of pleasure and joy associated with the counter of that. And you've probably got some experiences. Right? Now how do you disrupt that zone? You disrupt that zone by fighting it, you know. And actually, from a mental standpoint, recognize mentally that the end result of disrupting your comfort zone is going to yield, in fact, more pleasure. So you know that by being disciplined, it is, in fact, going to yield to a much higher success, but it's still very, very difficult to get there. My experience is that once you get into, I call it successive approximations, as you move into that zone and you start to experience, boy, this actually—sure, I was resistant to it, but it's yielding a certain amount of pleasure—what's going to end up happening is ultimately, at some point, that new zone's going to take over. One of the interesting things about growth as a human being, Joel, is that that's never going to end, you know. And therein lies why I think we've got a massive leadership gap in the world, why we've got a gap around just people becoming the best that they can be. They've conditioned themselves into recognizing that the zone that they're in, it's okay. You know? I'm comfortable. You know? I really don't need to go to my manager and ask for a raise. You know? It's okay. I don't want to upset the apple cart. You know, that's some of the resistance that we're talking about. Ultimately, there's an algorithm. You know, the algorithm is very interesting. It's predictive. It is that whatever you think in your brain, good, bad, or indifferent, is going to absolutely ignite emotions, good, bad, or indifferent. Those emotions are going to ignite behaviors, good, bad, or indifferent, ultimately generating results, good, bad, or indifferent. The algorithm is critical. So if your mindset is one that's positive, is one where you are courageous to disrupt your current comfort zone, you're willing to take reasonable risks, you're willing to open up for feedback and so on and so forth, all of that's going to be really important. The other thing that you can do is, in our souls, we have reservoirs of experiences. Right? And how important it is to go very, very deep and look for corroborative evidence that you taking a certain step, whatever that step is, you know, whatever that step is, that you've got to look for corroborative evidence that taking that step is, in fact, going to yield positive results. So if you think about it, right, you know, we've all got in our reservoirs pluses and minuses. Right? So the pluses represent corroborative evidence, which is I believe that I can do it. A lot of people walk around and say, I think I can do something, but ultimately, that's not the igniter to action. Right? The ultimate igniter to action is a deep belief, and how you're going to generate that belief is by looking in your soul. So I look at a lot of successful leaders, a lot of successful people. They're very, very in tune with their inside. It's very important to get in tune with your inside. So those are things that you can do, too, you know, to be able to overcome that resistance.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:59) I love it. Reinforcing and building, like, belief structures within yourself.

(John Mattone at 00:12:04) Absolutely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:05) Right? Yeah. You know, I've thought a lot about that, too, and I've—because I consider myself, like, a life scientist. Like, I like to play and experiment and keep an open mind with whatever I can and just figure out what's real for me.

(John Mattone at 00:12:18) Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:18) And one of the things that I found in reflection is that the things I've always gotten are the things that I believe, like, deepest in my soul. And whether, you know, to bring it down a little bit from, like, way up—right? To bring it down to something more tangible, because my background is all engineering, so I'm always, like, let me see it, feel it, touch it, mathematically it. That's not a word, but we'll see.

(John Mattone at 00:12:46) It is now.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:51) But what I found is that after wrapping my logical brain around it, it makes sense because my belief in something creates my actions, and it's self-reinforcing. And then I'll take action on that, and that'll further instill the belief. It'll build the belief on it. And so when I talk to engineers, it's a hard concept to get across because they want to see it be true before they believe it is true. And it's like, that's the inverse of how the system works. The system works—like, you have to believe it's true, take action, and it will slowly become true.

(John Mattone at 00:13:26) Mhmm. There's a notion of, you know, the igniter to change, the igniter to taking action in our lives, is not thinking. You know? And we have a preponderance of thinking in the world, Joel. You know? And ultimately, you know, if you think about yourself as a person and all that you deserve to achieve in your life, and you think about the organizations in the world, whatever those organizations are, the institutions all over the world, government institutions, you know, ultimately, it's about creating—and in our families as well. I mean, when you think about it, right, our families are also part of the fabric, you know. And so if you look at the igniters to success, it is about belief, you know. I can do it. It's not thinking. It's actual—in the depths of my soul, I actually believe that I can execute what needs to be executed. Right? That's a leading indicator, you know, just like the economy. So I just think of achievement and success for each and every one of us as ignited from certain engines. You know? One of those, you're absolutely correct, is the belief mechanism. I can do it. Or even, how about from a team standpoint or a family standpoint? We can do it. We can do it. Now how do you know that? Well, you rely on references. You rely on support. Right? Because, obviously, we need support from those around us and so on and so forth. The other thing, too, is the belief that we will do it. You know? And when I, you know—and I've coached so many incredibly, incredibly successful people, and I've learned so much from these people. You know? The thing that I see in common are these belief mechanisms that ignite an incredible future, you know. And a lot of times, they don't even know what the future looks like. All they know is that we're moving in a more abundant direction. You know, like Steve Jobs, for example. Good example of somebody who was maniacal, literally maniacal, in his beliefs that I can do it, I will do it, I must do it. Apple, we can, we will, we must. And what ends up happening is, you know, when you've got the strength of those belief mechanisms now igniting action, individual and collective action, it's over. It's over. Because ultimately, everybody gets in that zone, right, where they look around and they say, boy, I tell you what, we've got a strong culture here. We're making a lot of money. Right? Everybody's enjoying themselves. Everybody's engaged, and lo and behold, the operating results prove it. It's an algorithm. That's the thing that I've been able to learn, you know, in a lot of my work, is if we can ignite the positive algorithm in human beings, well, let me tell you what. They can create a really, really compelling future for themselves and their families. You know what I'm saying? The organizations and so on and so forth.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:42) So I've won a lot, and I've been—I've gotten that positive feedback loop and accomplished the goal. And that led me to the maturity that you always have to have, like, the next thing going that you can roll right into so you can flip that momentum into it. But then I've lost it before, and I've gone down. And then my—it's so amazing how ephemeral your mind is with success. Like, you can be on this journey and you're knocking it out and you're rocking and rolling, and then you just have this lag period. And then all of a sudden, you almost, like, forget how it works and forget, like, how it's possible. How do you get the momentum going?

(John Mattone at 00:17:24) You've gotta have a vision for yourself. I can tell you that there are many, many executives that I've worked with, let's say in their fifties, even early sixties, Joel, which actually is pretty amazing, you know, when you think about it, that somebody 61—I'm 63, you know. And every now and then I'll get a call from a CEO. They'll call and they'll say, you know, listen, John, I'd like to work with you, and we start to explore stuff.

(John Mattone at 00:17:50) And I tell them, I say, you know, why do you wanna work with me? You've achieved everything in your life. And they say to me, actually, I've achieved a lot, but I'm not the person and I'm not the leader yet that I can be. So that's really, really powerful, you know, to me. So how do you get everything started?

(John Mattone at 00:18:14) It starts with a massive vision. It really does. And I can tell you that a lot of executives, a lot of people, don't know the answers to really big questions. Like, for example, here's a big question, right? Why are you on the earth? Now that's a big question, right? Very, very few people can answer that question. You know, what is your legacy? How do you wanna leave this world? Right? Those are questions that not only are massive, but they scare people big time. Right? What is your legacy? You know, is a big question. And so why don't people have concrete answers to those big questions? Well, very, very few people have ever had the courage to go really, really deep and explore the terrain. You know what I'm saying? The terrain, the soul.

(John Mattone at 00:19:09) And the soul is everything, because if the soul is really strong, mature, and vibrant, much higher probability you can execute incredible things, right, and bring abundance to the world. Not for yourself, because the thing is that we're on this earth really not for ourselves. And that's a big lesson, I think, in the world of leadership that I think is powerful, is that the journey of being a human being in many respects is not about us. You know, it is about the extent to which we can touch hearts, minds, and souls, the people around us and create enriched lives. Right? That's what leadership is. That's why we have a leadership gap. We got a lot of selfish people running around. So my experience is that once I can help a leader connect with, quote unquote, their core purpose and help them in many respects, Joel, not have them create, but rather partner with them to co-create, co-create the vision of the essence of the person and leader—not so much that they want to become, because there's the selfishness, right? It's bigger than that. And what we're talking about here is not so much what you wanna become, is what you must become. And the notion of "must become" is massive, because what it represents is an acceptance on the part of that leader and acceptance that they have a responsibility to the people around them, their families, their business associates, right, their community, their nation, world. They have a massive responsibility to in fact touch hearts, minds, and souls. So my experience is what ignites true greatness in people is them having a strong understanding and answers to those really massively big questions.

(John Mattone at 00:21:11) Most people have never done this work. And ultimately, you think about a vision like in an organization, right? Every organization's got the big vision, mission, purpose, right? Well, you know, what's interesting is there's not an organization in the world that does not take that vision, mission, purpose and retranslate it into a strategy. Right? Well, the same thing for each and every one of us. How in the world can we execute our strategy around becoming the best that we can be? How in the world can we do that unless we've already done the core purpose work, which is the parallel to the vision, mission, and purpose? Most leaders in the world have never done this work. So it's a great question. How do you ignite it? You ignite it by getting leaders to connect ultimately with answering those big questions. And that is not easy work, but no question is very worthy work to do. I hope that helps.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:07) Yeah. And I've, in my growth, I found that I continually ask those questions. Like, it wasn't just like a static thing. It's almost like in seasons. Like, I'll ask the question, I'll go out and perform some work, and then I'll come full circle because I noticed I've got these patterns, these patterns of self-interest and then these patterns of—I guess I have to be more clear on the self-interest. These, you know, patterns of ego in a, I guess, a more selfish way. Yeah. And by the way, I don't think ego is a negative word by default. It's just people that are so attached to that as negative words.

(John Mattone at 00:22:50) Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:52) So I'll have that experience of—I'll have the experience of individualism, and then I'll go through an experience of connectedness, right, where I'll be thinking about myself and my individual, like, my personal and my health goals, and I'll be thinking about, like, consciousness on a global scale and how we're all connected. And I just noticed that these cycles are occurring, and I've actually had significantly more awareness of them after the age of 30. So I noticed, like, from 25, I would say virtually was the first time I ever had self-awareness. And I know that's a funny thing to say, but in my working memory, I can't trace back to a moment of self-awareness before the age of 25. And I, like, remember the day. It was in December, and, like, I wrote it down in my calendar. And I was like, oh my goodness, like, I'm a person, and I have the ability to impact the world around me, and this is crazy. And then basically my foundation sort of matured until 30 of just kind of, like, playing with it, exploring it, and realizing, you know, how systematized it is. It's not like a magic eight ball you can, like, ask for things, you know, because you've got the different, the older theories of, like, like, the secret type stuff, then you got people with the action. And it's just, it was this interesting—I liken it to watching my young kids learn how to walk. It's like just this exploratory process they go through. And so I sort of am going through that, and then I figured out some principles for myself, right, to help make decisions on. And then now I'm just, I'm enjoying it because it feels like it's something that's never going to stop. It feels like I'm only going to get better at it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:35) And I feel motivated to get other people hooked into, like, the self-awareness gap. I don't really know exactly what ignited it for me. I guess it was just really wanting to be somebody. I would see people who are people out there, and, you know, at first it's like money and popularity and stuff, and then, it real, then you—so that's like the lure, right? And then you grab onto it and you realize, oh, the reward is in this ridiculous amount of hard work and pain you have to go through to achieve it. And then it's like, okay, so now I pay attention to walls of fear when I come across them, because usually that's a signal I need to overcome that.

(John Mattone at 00:25:15) Exactly.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:16) I pay attention to things that I'm resistance to or pain. And then I found that the physical, like, your body and your health are the, like, most important thing. 100% the most important thing, because, you know, it affects your discipline. It affects your motivation. It's like trying to convince a computer that its hardware matters.

(John Mattone at 00:25:40) Absolutely. That's a good way to put it. No, I'm with you 100%. So, you know, what am I known for in my work, Joel? And I say this with deep humility. I think what I'm known for is exactly what you're talking about. You know? And I call it, you've already heard it here in the interview, which is the soul. You know? I also call it the inner core. And the inner core is incredibly complicated, very multifaceted, and it's literally impossible to really measure and calibrate it with 100% accuracy. It's not engineering, right? There's a lot of soft elements.

(John Mattone at 00:26:21) But one thing that I've discovered is that if, like you, if we can get people to be more self-aware of their inside, be aware of their self-concept and the degree to which it's balanced, right? Just kinda think of the continuum, Joel, right? The question is, is your self-image balanced, your self-concept? How do you view yourself? Right? And so my experience is that a lot of leaders are imbalanced in their self-image. And when you utilize a variety of assessments, some of those assessments are directly inner core oriented, right? And I built some of these myself. But you supplement with a 360, you know, where you get views from the world, you know, and people pass judgment. They say, here's how I see Joel. All of that in aggregate provides a really good understanding of the interplay between the inner core and the outer core. So you're absolutely correct. You know, if we are going to become the best that we can be, you cannot do it without incredible self-awareness. Your self-awareness has gotta be very accurate. It's like, it's like a doctor, right? Prescription before diagnosis is malpractice in medicine, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:45) Yeah.

(John Mattone at 00:27:45) Well, you've heard that, right? It's the same thing in growth of a human being. You know? So the question is, you know, as you look inside, are you truly aware of where you're strong and weak in those areas like self-concept? Maybe your value system's messed up, you know. Maybe you put too much emphasis on money, which, by the way, a lot of people do. I did. I did many, many years ago, you know, when I went through my career, raised four kids. I started my first business at age 30. 36 years old, my wife and I were out of money. I had written two books. Those books were not successful. My wife said to me, you gotta go get a job. You gotta support the family, right? And it, and so it still took me, like, four years, right, to get it out of my blood. I went back in the business world for fifteen years, you know, until age 55. And I finally grew up. I finally realized that I was doing the selfish pursuit, and I was in it for the money. I was doing my work for this, for the applause. And guess what? The bank account wasn't there, you know. And when I literally at 55, honestly, I grew up. That's how I describe I grew up at 55, Joel.

(John Mattone at 00:29:08) It took me a long time to realize that I was not on the earth for myself. And as soon as I realized that my purpose in life was to be incredibly other-oriented in my work, in my home, in my community, you know what started to happen? The money started to grow, right? So that's an example. A lot of people, their value systems are messed up. Their hierarchy messed up. You know? Thinking patterns can be really messed up. Like, right now, you know, we got a pandemic. Some people look at this thing as permanent. Some people look at that as temporary. Some people allowing the pandemic to destroy their life. Some people aren't. It's interesting, right? It's the same stimuli, same stimuli, but our mindset in terms of how we process it is very, very different and so on and so forth. So listen to me, congratulations on doing that work, and I would predict that as time goes on, as you get older, and as long as you're in tune and you enjoy and you're enriched, right, you're enriched by going deep, will be the extent to which you become even more self-aware, you know, as time goes on. Now what can disrupt that are life events. So I'm with you 100% how important self-awareness is.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:32) When you're coaching these people and you, because you've gotten to do a lot, and as you get that, you get this data and you refine yourself like an algorithm, like a coaching algorithm.

(John Mattone at 00:30:42) It is, isn't it? So you're an engineer. You like this, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:46) I love it. But Mattone said algorithm. Boy, oh boy. Now we're talking. Now we're talking. What is the key difference between the people who come to you and they say, I wanna have success, I want you to coach me? Obviously, some of your clients, like, it doesn't work because it's just, that's math. So, like, what is the difference between the clients that you have that have success and the clients that you have that don't have success?

(John Mattone at 00:31:13) Well, let me say this. So I would say that the clients who contact me, they already know my philosophy, you know, around executive coaching. And what I tell them, Joel, right from the outset is, listen, you're gonna learn some things from me. We hope so, right? But ultimately, Joel, you're gonna learn more from yourself. And, you know, they'll look at me and say, well, what are you talking about? You know? And I explained to them high level, listen, you and I, if we do get the chance to work together, and it would be a privilege to work with you, that we need to create this very, very special space. And that special space is gonna be co-created by you and me. And that special space is gonna invite you to go pretty, pretty deep inside. Not too deep, because, you know, if you go too deep, then it becomes Mattone's a psychologist, right? And, again, I'm a psychologist, right? My background's IO psycho, industrial psychology. But one thing I know from executive coaches in executive coaching, when you work with executives, they want results. You know? They're paying you good money, and you gotta be able to move the needle. One thing that I know though is we're not gonna move the needle in the outer core in terms of them being more strategic, better team leaders, right, unless we ignite their inside.

(John Mattone at 00:32:39) So I would say this, that, you know, by and large, I guess I've reached a point in my career where people who reach out to me, they sort of understand how they're gonna work with me, and they know it's gonna be hard work, but it's also gonna be very fun work, very enriching work. You know? And then ultimately, here's the other thing too. You gotta be open to your stakeholders. You gotta be, I mean, people around us can make or break us, right? So if you're not willing to, for example, share your individual leadership development plan with your team, with your manager, it's gonna be very, very difficult for you to unleash yourself, become the best that you can be. I would say this, that, you know, if you're not willing to do the hard work it takes to create a new comfort zone and then disrupt that comfort zone again and again and again, it's not gonna yield ultimately a really good result for you. I'm not gonna end up working with you either. So that's sort of how I work. I hope that makes sense.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:45) It does. So I'm obviously new to leadership. This whole, you know, the podcast happened, and then we started taking information from great leaders and then licensing it to L&D people. But so I was new, and I wanted to understand it. So I started reading all the books, right?

(John Mattone at 00:34:01) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:01) Sure. And learning and understanding. And then one weekend, I went out to Colorado to, like, meet with a client, and I was like, well, look at these mountains. And so let's take the day after the meeting and go walk up this mountain. And I start going up it with my wife, and I noticed it was, like, really difficult, and she wanted to quit. And I was like, let's keep going, and, like, I just kept going because I wanted to reach the top of the mountain. The short of it is that I learned more from walking up a giant rock leadership that I had from reading, like, 20 books.

(John Mattone at 00:34:41) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:41) And I'm curious. I read your book, and you mentioned a story similar with, I think it was Tony backpacking in Utah. Can you give me the quick, like, short version of that story?

(John Mattone at 00:34:54) So this was in college, and my good friend and I, we did backpacking in Utah for five days. And listen, we thought we had everything nailed. We thought we had everything nailed. You know, we were prepared, and so on and so forth. And you know what we forgot? You know what we forgot? The map.

(John Mattone at 00:35:06) I mean, Joel, we had everything. We had everything. And then it dawned on us, you know, because we were walking along the river in a canyon, and we had to figure out, and this is like five days into this thing, you know, where's the car? Where did we actually park?

(John Mattone at 00:35:37) And we actually, because we didn't have the map, we had no idea. And so that, you know, that was certainly a leadership lesson. Obviously, I wouldn't have put it in the book. And you know what it points out to me is that we all need this map, all of us. And to me, the map must reflect a big time understanding of the gifts and strengths, back to self-awareness.

(John Mattone at 00:36:06) Right? The strengths and gifts that each and every one of us possess. Everybody in this world is entitled to know the gifts and strengths that they bring to the world. We would not be on the earth if we were not given gifts and strengths. And you know from your own experience, right?

(John Mattone at 00:36:29) Actually, most people go through life, and they have no idea what their gifts and strengths are. They might know a few of them, but they may never discover their core purpose. And that's sad to me. You know, sad. So I think a lot of leadership development is about, you know, being courageous in many respects and being very diligent in discovering, back to self-awareness, what are my differentiators?

(John Mattone at 00:37:02) Why am I on this earth? You know, when I do something and people react to it and the reaction's positive, you gotta write that down. And when if you do something and people don't react favorably to it, that may not be a gift. Gifts tend to be very natural. You know what I'm saying?

(John Mattone at 00:37:22) They flow. It's almost like an athlete. You know, you can tell very, very often early on if you watch children, for example, playing sports, you can kind of predict those who might have a future, you know, in terms of playing high school and college and maybe even professional. So gifts tend to be very, very natural.

(John Mattone at 00:37:43) And we've gotta be proud of our gifts and strengths. And we've gotta embrace them. And we've gotta look inside and say, you know, these gifts and strengths are serving me well. And Joel, here's the other thing too: never rest on our laurels. There's a lot of people who just, you know, they get into a zone, they say, "Hey, I'm successful."

(John Mattone at 00:38:03) A lot of executives I work with, they say, "Mattone, I don't want to talk about my—I know what my strengths are. I hired you to work on my development needs." You know, and as soon as I see that, I see that's a weakness. That's a weakness in you because you're not embracing your gifts and strengths. The best leaders and the best people in the world never take their gifts and strengths for granted.

(John Mattone at 00:38:24) You know what they do? They polish them. They polish them. They make them better and better and better. That's part of the map. You know what I'm saying? And it's the same thing with development needs. So I think a leadership development—I think of people development as really a strategy, a plan around knowing your gifts, knowing your development needs, and executing a plan every single day that makes your gifts and strengths even stronger. You blow those things out, right?

(John Mattone at 00:38:50) You gotta blow them out. Just make them stronger and stronger and stronger. And your development needs, you constantly work on them. Not a hundred of these things, right? We all have a lot of development needs, but what are the one or two that I need to get my arms around? I think that's important. That's a map. You know?

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:07) Dude, I was getting goosebumps, man. Come on now. Preach. I love it. You are so right. And let's talk about the human part. The messy part is, you know, I've noticed that with the strengths, first off, it's almost hard because it's like we're hardwired to fix things that are broken. Right? So if we have a strength, it doesn't necessarily—

(John Mattone at 00:39:34) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:35) It's not instantly obvious to us that we need to improve that and grow that and double down on that. A lot of—we're always, you know, focused on like what's broken or what's not working or, you know, what am I weakest at and let's make that a little bit better. But I've found that focusing on your strengths is a weird thing because you have to admit to yourself it is a strength, and for some people, that's an awkward thing to do for the first time. Right? It feels like a little bit weird.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:00) It's like, hey, I'm actually really good at this, and I need to intentionally improve at it. The other thing is I'm incredibly grateful, and I don't know what the underlying indicator is for me or activator is. But I go into my restful moments, and I noticed they will last less than a quarter of a year. So that's like, that's the point where I'll accomplish something, and then I'll start to get this like guilt.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:29) People will say, "Oh, you know, I read that book," and I'm like, "I published that two years ago." You know? Like, what am I doing? Why isn't there another one out? Why isn't the second one out?

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:38) Or they'll hear the podcast, and I'll say, you know, how much did I improve as an interviewer? You know? And so I started—I found these different ways to put pressure on myself—

(John Mattone at 00:40:47) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:48) Sort of like this mini system, I guess, I designed internally—

(John Mattone at 00:40:51) Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:51) So that my lower resting doesn't last too long, but I also get to enjoy some breaks in between the pattern of achieving things.

(John Mattone at 00:41:01) Absolutely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:02) Yeah. It's tough. And then that fear, though, of like not ending up with somebody. You know what it is? And I keep saying a great person, but that's just like analogous for achieving my own potential.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:12) Like, the fear of not becoming the best version of myself before I die is one of the things that drives me the hardest. It's a—

(John Mattone at 00:41:21) Massive motivator for you, and it is for me too. You know, the ingredients that we're talking about, Joel, are in many respects engines, and we've gotta optimize these engines like every day. Now we're human beings, right? You're gonna take time off because we are human beings.

(John Mattone at 00:41:46) We're not machines. Okay? What I've discovered is the pause, you know, the pause to take time to reflect. How about this? To read books, you know.

(John Mattone at 00:42:02) We talk about what can incite being innovative, right? And what organization is not looking for innovation from its leaders and the entire world? How do you become innovative? Well, it's very interesting, right? That innovation is an engine, and that engine is best ignited by taking time to reflect, to internalize, to connect the dots.

(John Mattone at 00:42:22) Some of my best thinking in my own work, in my own business have come as a result of long airplane trips, to be quite honest with you. I have actually created a lot of things on long flights, for example, to the Middle East, you know, flying from New York to the Middle East and flying back, where everybody's watching TV, right, and listening to radio and looking at cell phones and so on and so forth. You know what I do?

(John Mattone at 00:43:02) I think. That's all I do, I think. You know? And Bill Gates, you know, Bill Gates is known for every single week just taking himself and his books, right, into a very quiet shack. He's got a shack behind his house.

(John Mattone at 00:43:19) That's where he goes. He actually leaves his house, right, which is a beautiful house, and he goes to a shack that's very small, and he wants to contain himself. And he grabs the books, and he reads for a day. Why does he do that?

(John Mattone at 00:43:36) Well, he's doing it to slow down, to internalize, to reflect. A lot of innovation, a lot of the best thinking comes as a result of slowing down. So don't feel guilty, Joel. Don't feel guilty. It's a beautiful thing as long as you get out of that zone as well. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:56) Yeah. It's like, and speaking of that, I've been—because I put pressure on myself, I am always feeling like I'm lagging behind. Right?

(John Mattone at 00:44:08) Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:08) And then one of the things that I picked up this past year is I was feeling really down about, you know, the business and it not being a billion-dollar empire yet and all of those things.

(John Mattone at 00:44:19) It's coming. It's coming.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:20) I'm a hundred percent sure it is. And then I—so what I did was I said, okay, let me go back and see where I was when I had my kid two years ago or three years ago, whenever it was. And I listed out like objective metrics, like how much income streams I had, how many people that I got to work with on a daily basis that were part of the organization.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:44) And I saw it, and I said, my goodness, by anyone's like glance at the spreadsheet, they would say that's an incredible, massively investable business that you're doing great. For me, like in it on the day to day, it's like I've got that hunger and that drive, and it's just the time is passing, and I'm learning about patience, John. I'm learning about patience.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:11) And it goes with—because like, discipline isn't patience. It's like they're similar, but they're not exactly the same. So you have to have that discipline. You have to be putting in the work. You have to be thinking positively, but you also have the patience to like let time compound and do its thing.

(John Mattone at 00:45:28) No, no. There's no—it's going to take time. There's no rush. You've gotta be maniacal, you know, Joel, and I know you're maniacal.

(John Mattone at 00:45:38) Why do I use that word, by the way? I hear that word a lot from really successful CEOs. I hear that word more than any other word, and I'll ask them. I'll say, you know, what accounts for your success? And you hear things like, "Well, I've always been, you know, maniacal about achievement," or, "You know, we're maniacal about dominating the marketplace."

(John Mattone at 00:45:59) Right? I hear that word a lot. I love that word because these are people—remember what we said a little earlier? You know, it's not about what you want. And this is true for your company or any company, right? It's not what you want to achieve. It's actually bigger than that. It's what you must achieve. It's non-negotiable.

(John Mattone at 00:46:21) We must—it's a maniacal pursuit. Now, obviously, there's massive sacrifices, right? Massive sacrifices on that journey. And, you know, a lot of these executives, they, you know, they've gone through divorces or whatever and so on and so forth.

(John Mattone at 00:46:38) I think the balanced perspective that we've been talking about here is so important. You know, it's okay to be maniacal, but it's even more okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to be passionate, but you've gotta make a conscious decision to also slow down and be patient and let things take time. Things need to percolate.

(John Mattone at 00:47:03) Things need to grow, and you can't rush anything. You know, a lot of executive coaches that I work with, and I mentor these people—are always in a rush to get an executive through a coaching journey. And what I try to teach them is that some of the greatest learning happens when you're not even around. It's almost like you gotta conduct—think of yourself as a conductor of an orchestra. If you created the right process and the right tools and you enable that person to slow down a little bit, you know, put their head on the pillow at night, reflect, you know.

(John Mattone at 00:47:39) Did I bring abundance to the world today? You know, did I touch hearts, minds, and souls? And get them into that calibration mentality. Let me tell you what, that is so vitally important because not only does it incite positive action for tomorrow, it also enables them to say, you know something? As I take a step back, you know, I actually am really proud of myself, you know, and you need to do that too.

(John Mattone at 00:48:03) It's very important. You gotta pat yourself on the back, you know, because I know you've established a really strong business. And in those times where you take that step back, you say, you know something? We are doing really, really good things. Right?

(John Mattone at 00:48:17) So you give yourself a little bit of praise, but tomorrow you wake up and you go at it again. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:23) That's right.

(John Mattone at 00:48:23) Because you're maniacal. You gotta be maniacal, Joel.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:26) Because I'm only happy when I'm achieving greatness. I'm only happy when I'm doing really difficult things. Like, and it drives—it drives average people crazy. It's one of the most difficult things in my personal relationship is my drive to want to become somebody, and then mostly because I met my wife prior to me being that person.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:49) You know? So that's like the thing about long relationships, right? You meet somebody, you're in a relationship with them, and then you both change and grow, but you can both change and grow in different ways. And I guess for me, it really kicked on when I lost my mom because it was out of nowhere.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:03) Like, just one week, she's like, "I have a stomachache." The next week, she has stomach cancer, but she's got two or three years to live. The next week, she's dead. And it was just a really interesting experience, I would say, between, you know, I have a sibling that's three years older and a sibling that's three years younger, a brother and a sister. And going through that experience was very, very interesting.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:25) And the thing that I took away from it was this understanding on a new level of the finite nature of life.

(John Mattone at 00:49:35) Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:35) And I don't think that—in no disrespect to my siblings, like, they're amazing people and they're doing great things in life. One's a doctor and one's a science teacher. But I got this—I took something else away from the experience. I took something different away from the experience than they did, and it was just this fire inside of me to do really big, really great things, and that there's a countdown timer. There is a timer.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:01) There is a time that we have on this planet, and it is not increasing. I wish it was, but like, it's not. It's decreasing. And I want to find that—you know what it is? It's—I found it. And the one of the big problems that I noticed or one of the things that tends to cause resistance in my relationships is that my mix, the ratio of achievement that's right for me happens to be in the top one percent of the world.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:33) It's not because I'm like a great person. It's just my—the level of achievement that satisfies me, the level of difficulty I must go through to feel a sense of "I put in a good day's work," that level—just that's a personal level for me. There could be no one else on the planet, and that's just my personal level. But add seven billion people and you—and I find that I'm fairly lonely at the top of the world, and it's just a—it's an interesting thing.

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:07) It doesn't—it's—John, it's not that hard. It really isn't. Like, I look at my old self and I look at myself now and I'm just like, it's not—there's not that much of a difference between the work it takes to achieve greatness and the work it takes to be average. It's like just a thousand percent more.

(John Mattone at 00:51:27) Yeah. Listen. I love what you're saying here. And, ultimately, I think the key for you and all of us, because I'm very achievement-oriented too—I'm with you, you know, the upper percentiles. Definitely maniacal pursuit. Definitely. Right? One of the keys is that that's an engine. That's one engine.

(John Mattone at 00:51:52) There are many other engines in your soul that need cultivating. Right? Because ultimately, for you to—you could achieve great things in your life, right? But, you know, nobody wants to be around you.

(John Mattone at 00:52:07) You got an issue, right? So there's certain engines. Like, for example, the value of altruism is an important one, right? So can you actually achieve in a maniacal way and also be altruistic to others?

(John Mattone at 00:52:21) The answer is absolutely you can. Being courteous, being compassionate, being altruistic, recognizing that those values incite happiness in those around you—ultimately, that's the answer to your own happiness in many respects. Isn't that interesting?

(John Mattone at 00:52:37) Right? How many people run around the world and they search for happiness? You know, how do I get to be happy? And they delude themselves into thinking it's cars and houses and boats, and it's none of that stuff.

(John Mattone at 00:52:48) You know, it's ultimately, are you moving people in the world around you? Are you making them happy? You know, it's very interesting.

(John Mattone at 00:52:55) So that engine's an important one. I think the engine of—you know, there's many. We could spend hours on this. But, you know, ultimately the key to you becoming the best that you can be and me becoming the best that I can be, or any human being, is ultimately optimizing, if you will, the good sides of all these engines. And there's bad sides to the engines too. I call it the bad cholesterol side.

(John Mattone at 00:53:22) You know, there's bad cholesterol. Because if you're driven, right, and you're maniacal, you run the risk of what?

(John Mattone at 00:53:30) Being overly aggressive, overly direct, too pushy, too arrogant. It doesn't help, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:53:38) I call it spectrum sliding.

(John Mattone at 00:53:39) I like that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:53:40) Yeah. I'll notice that I'm like over here, and I need to get over there, and I have to slide across the spectrum. But I have to be aware of where I'm at because you can get way too far.

(John Mattone at 00:53:50) Sounds like the title of a new book there, Joel. Right there. You just came up with the title of the new book: Spectrum Sliding. Bestseller. I can tell.

(John Mattone at 00:54:00) Bestseller.

(Joel Beasley at 00:54:01) That or a new dance move. So are we dancing around this concept of glow or X factor? Because I read that in your book, and I want you to just describe the glow or the X factor. And am I correct in connecting that to a mindset of duty, or are they all completely separate?

(John Mattone at 00:54:22) No, they're not all separate. I mean, basically, the seven secrets of achieving greatness as a leader and leaving your legacy—you know, there's seven secrets, but they're not all independent. As you were reading, I'm sure you saw some overlap, right? And so on and so forth. They're not perfectly independent. The glow—you know, the X factor in a human being—is not an outer core thing. You know, it's not behaviors and skills, although you see spill. Right? I use the word "spill" because all the stuff on the inside, all the stuff that we've been talking about—because we have been dancing around this stuff—self-concept, thinking patterns, emotional makeup, right? All that stuff goes somewhere. Right? It goes somewhere. It doesn't stay inside. It all moves to the outside in your behaviors.

(John Mattone at 00:54:59) And then people look at you and they say, "Hey, that person's got glow," or they don't have glow, right? So, you know, what's glow? Glow is the interaction, in many respects, of the positive, good cholesterol side of all those traits, you know, that we've been talking about.

(John Mattone at 00:55:23) And that's the key. A lot of my work is around helping leaders who have never really looked inside. You know, they got all these beautiful homes and all this stuff, right? But they've never really explored their inside. Then they find out, even at 60 years old, "My goodness, you know, I've got this incredible gift on the inside, and I wasn't even aware of it. I'm 60. How could that be?" You know, well, every human being has—even self-aware people, Joel—have stuff hiding on the inside, good and bad. And so we can increase that glow, you know, by helping them understand what's working, what's not. The X factor is not a theoretical concept. It's real. It's absolutely real. And that X factor is also the function of creating beautiful families. You know, if the X factor is there and it's polished, it creates a beautiful family. So if you're a parent, you know, you've got to—it's non-negotiable. It's a must. Every parent in the world must develop their glow factor, right? Because we have a responsibility to our children.

(John Mattone at 00:56:32) It's all connected, you know. And the same thing for a business, and the same thing for a church, hospital, for a nation, for a world, you know. We all gotta find the glow, and we all gotta polish that glow. We have that responsibility if we're gonna close the leadership gap. Make sense?

(Joel Beasley at 00:56:53) Let's do it. It does. I love this. Dude, John, we killed it today, man. We knocked it out of the park.

(John Mattone at 00:56:59) Did you like that?

(Joel Beasley at 00:57:00) Yeah, it was amazing. We got so much good material. It's unbelievable. I'm so grateful. This is—yes, it's amazing.

(John Mattone at 00:57:10) Joel, you're good, man. You're really good. I love—you got a really natural conversational—it's good. It's really good. It's not an interview. It's a talk. Yeah, like you said, we're at the bar. We're talking.

(Joel Beasley at 00:57:23) Yeah. Well, that's the best conversation. You know, one of the reasons why I think the podcast was successful was I'd never listened to a podcast before. And I just wanted to talk to people about things I cared about. And what I found is that, like, you make the interview questions, right, because they all need the interview questions because the PR have to check it off and have to approve it and all this.

(John Mattone at 00:57:44) Oh, yeah. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:57:45) And they have to feel comfort and they gotta get coached around it. And then the only way to have a good conversation is to, you know, have a couple ideas and then just follow it. Just like, why would I not dive deeper into something that's interesting and instead move on to another preplanned question? That's not natural. That's not how normal conversations happen.

(John Mattone at 00:58:03) Joel, you're good, and you're a very bright guy. I wanted to share that with you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:58:08) Thank you.

(John Mattone at 00:58:08) You've got a high IQ. Really high. I can see it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:58:13) Working on it.

(John Mattone at 00:58:13) Smart guy. Alright, man. So what's the next step? What do we do now?

(Joel Beasley at 00:58:18) That's it. We say we have a great day. We do our workouts, eat lunch, or whatever we have coming up next, and that's it. It's pretty simple.

(John Mattone at 00:58:26) Thanks, Joel. Amazing. Thank you so much.

(Joel Beasley at 00:58:28) Have a fantastic day.

(John Mattone at 00:58:29) Have a great one.

(Joel Beasley at 00:58:32) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email: [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.