[JOE SANOK] This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 789. I’m Joe Sanok, your host, and welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. I am so, so glad that you are here today. We are going to have an awesome show. We’re here four days a week now, helping you start, grow, scale and exit your private practice. As well, learn a bunch of those other skills it takes to just run a business, to get to that next level to try new things. If you missed it, we had some really amazing series this summer. This summer, I did about a 15-part series on how I got through it of people that went through really difficult times and how they got through those difficult times. Then we did a whole series on people leveling up in private practice, so people that went from just getting started, maybe having a group, people that had a group practice, that launched e-courses, a whole series throughout August and September. Make sure you check those out. If that sounds interesting to you. I am so excited to have Angie Morgan with me today. Angie is a New York Times best-selling author whose work includes Bet on You, Spark and Leading From the front. She learned how to lead in the United States Marine Corps. Since her time in active duty, she’s helped others develop their leadership skills and her current book Bet On You focuses on how to help people take risks that are meaningful to them. Angie, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. Really glad you’re here with me today. [ANGIE MORGAN] Joe, it is great to be here. Thank you so much for including me in these conversations. [JOE] Well, Angie, to just read a bio is not enough. I mean, we’ve overlapped in so many different ways. When I was launching Thursday is the New Friday you were the co-host of the whole Thursday is the New Friday podcast and web series. At the very beginning when I said I wanted to write a book, you were the one that told me, here’s how the process works, you got to have a book proposal and an agent, and I knew nothing of that. So I never would’ve done Thursday is the New Friday without your help. It was just amazing to have such help from a friend. So I’m so glad to have you back on the show. [ANGIE] I’m glad to be back and you’re being very generous and I appreciate it but I do believe too, that you would’ve done all those things. Maybe it would’ve taken a little bit more time. I’m happy to share the cheat sheets though. [JOE] Alright, I’ll accept it. Well, I’m so excited to hear about this new book. One thing we were talking about before we got started that really resonated with me was the idea of confidence versus experience. I would love to just start there because as we were talking at the beginning, you were just saying that sometimes people think they need all this experience to be confident. But I would love to just start with, talk about confidence versus experience. [ANGIE] Well, I think when we were writing about Bet On You, the book really is about helping people enact personal risk in their life or professional risk in their life. The holdbacks people often have are either their lack of confidence or, and/or the perceived experience they need to enter into a new opportunity. think about somebody who is contemplating creating a private practice or becoming a 1099 contractor or exploring all these different jobs in different locations because they have more flexibility in their career or even going for a promotion. What often holds us back from doing the things that we want to do is the confidence, our sense of self-efficacy, our ability to think that we can. Sometimes we think that the experiences we have might not just be enough and so we tackle that head on and bet on you because we believe that people have all the talent, capability, ability, that inside of them to do whatever it is that they want. Confidence is an emotion. It can be built and managed and experience, your experiences are never going to be exact to the criteria or qualifications or job description. But that doesn’t mean that our perceived lack of experience should hold us back. We can inquire experiences in so many ways, and I always like to think about secondhand experiences. So if where you sit right now, you don’t think that you have the experience, maybe you’re not being imaginative or creative enough with what it is that you do have and how it does, maybe not exactly, but can tangentially relate or get secondhand experience, talk to people, inform your perspective, get some better judgment because of having conversations. Again, we think about confidence experience, it may hold us back, but that doesn’t mean it has to, it should limit us. We can manage it. [JOE] I know that you and your co-writer Courtney, spent a lot of time researching and talking to people and your consultants. When you see people that want to work on their confidence, they don’t want to be stuck in, oh, I need more experience, what are some stories or some case studies that come to mind to you that people have used to build that confidence to really take risks into new areas? [ANGIE] That’s really been our greatest source of, I would say, material for the book, Bet on You, is we get to talk to amazing, incredible people, executives, and large organizations. Because it’s a coaching practice, and I would say it’s, I always remind people it’s not counseling. That’s the work that you all do in the Practice of the Practice. We’re not traveling back in time. We’re starting with where you are and primarily professionally speaking with where you want to be and the dreams that people have for themselves. They’re not grand. It’s getting a second source of income, getting a short-term rental, moving overseas in their career. It’s trying to think about having kids and having a pretty job. We just remind everybody that the things that you want are achievable. They require skills and we help them think about the skills that they need. I think if you can’t objectively look at goals that way, so take the emotion out of it and having a thought partner to walk through it suddenly seems achievable. We also remind them too, not to get attached to the outcome. I was talking with a woman today. She wanted to write a book with her sister and she was so focused on the nerves around writing a book. I’m like, well, let’s not take, let’s not put pressure on ourselves that you actually have to write a book. What if you just started writing and see where that took you? If you could build the habit of writing, maybe it will lead to a book. Maybe you decide that you don’t like it at all and you never want a book, especially writing one with your sister. So let’s not think about the outcome of it of all, where can we start and what’s the entry point? That was one of the things that we wanted to dispel and bet on you. We think about risk taking as these bold sudden leaps, like, quit your job, change your life. It’s not the way that it works at all. It’s what are these small methodical things that you can do to start and decide from there if that’s a path that you want to be on? [JOE] Yes, I love that. It reminds me of an activity we do in Audience Building Academy where people come in and for six months we work together on their big idea beyond the private practice. So maybe it’s an e-course or they want to write a book or speaking. One of the activities they do is they take the blinders off, so instead of saying, okay, I have to do a podcast, this has to be the topic to just say, okay, imagine that for some reason you couldn’t do your idea at all, whether it’s the market saturated, you can’t do the podcast because you don’t have the technology, whatever the reason is that’s just not an option anymore, but you still want to do something big what could you do? It’s amazing how many new ideas people come up with when we just take off those blinders to think through what are some small steps in the right direction or in different directions that we could explore? Tell me a little bit more about you, you said something, I forgot exactly how you said it, but the people, it’s not often they quit their job and they do this big thing, but it’s usually small steps. Tell us a little bit more about that because I really want to dig into that because I resonate with the small steps in the right direction more than these giant leaps [ANGIE] So we write Bet on You about three misconceptions of risk. We do that right up front for a reason, because we often think of risk as this big, bold stroke, again, quit your job, change your life, 90-day fiancé. Again, I’m going to start running my 10K tomorrow and I never ran a mile before. While those are really, I suppose, really great goals that they’re often not for success because that’s not how you build change in your life. We wanted to write about risk taking first and foremost. Defining risk is that it’s not go to the bank, take out your money, put it on Red 21 at the casino, and in the roll of a dice or fall on a wheel, you’re either going to win big or lose big. Risk is really just a decision followed by action that leads you on the path of your intentions. We often think of risk versus reward. That was on our first misconceptions we write about, risk v reward, that’s how it’s often presented to us. That’s not the case risk. We like to think is the pathway to a reward. Every great thing in your life that has happened to you is because of a risk. It’s like getting married, having children. You may have never done those things before, yet you’re doing them, you’re taking these big huge risks. What’s interesting though is that those are offense, society approved risks. What’s different about the risks that you’re contemplating right now is that not a lot of people are doing them. They’re more unique to your preferences, your experiences and your personalities. Therefore, you’re not getting a lot of societal endorsement around them. So we want people to recognize that it’s going to require risk. The risks that you’re considering are far more likely to succeed because they’re more natural and organic to you. So again, it’s the path to reward. The second misconception that we write about is what we were talking about earlier, that we think about it as a big bold leap versus a series of steps if you want to do risk done right, it’s starting small, building a habit. I mean, I think we all love James Clear’s Atomic Habits and there’s a few other books that have been written about it. But if we want sustainable change, we have to start small in ways that we can build and sustain going forward. The third misconception that we write about risk is that we think we can avoid it. I’m sure you’ve met people too, Joe, that say I’ll never take risks. I’m not a risk taker. But these are often the same people who maybe have all their retirement in one savings plan or haven’t been to the doctor in two years, but have a history of cancer. Like, we take risks all the time. You get in your car and drive, that’s a huge risk. We even wrote about in the book Bet on You. It’s like we fear shark attacks more than we do driving our car. Think about the really just logical, like we’ve got a greater failure rate in our car than we do swimming in the ocean. So we co-exist with risk. Shouldn’t we know a little bit more about it? [JOE SANOK] You are not going to want to miss Killin’It Camp 2022. We are going to be in Cancun, Mexico at The Club Med. It’s going to be amazing. We’re going to have breakout sessions that are poolside and in really cool environments. You’re not going to be stuck in a hotel room where you never see the sunshine. We chose The Club Med because of how much we know that therapists right now just are feeling tired and burned out and they need a break so that if you want to be having conversations around your private practice, you can do that. Or if you want to go do activities that just help your brain bounce back, all of it’s part of our conference and over at this all-inclusive resort for only $200 to $250 a night. You’re going to get all your food, all your drink, all your activities included in that. Right now, we have some amazing deals on Killin’It Camp. Head on over to killinitcamp.com, that’s spelled without the g, so K-I-L-L-I-N-I-Tcamp.com and learn more over there. [JOE SANOK] Now have you found that post 2020 pandemic, I don’t want to say post-pandemic because it seems like things are cycling through, but post 2022 or 2020 pandemic, are you seeing people want to take different types of risks than maybe they would’ve before that pandemic? [ANGIE] I think that the pandemic, even for the busiest professional, gave them a lot of time to pause and reflect on their life, the things that weren’t going well, the things that were going well, and maybe even their values and how they wanted to live them more authentically. Now I agree we may not be able to say that we’re at the end of the pandemic, but I think right now is the time that people are starting to awake and realize that it’s the time to start enacting those risks and what possibly is holding them back or a couple things, we talked about them earlier; their confidence in themselves to make it happen, their perceived sense of experience and then the two greatest dream killers I’ve ever met, which are fear and their failure. Fear and failure, or fear of failure. So we have now this time in this moment, which I think is really powerful. People are making their moves. They are making their shifts but it’s interesting in my work that I do with Lead Star. So I do consulting and key-noting and executive coaching. I’m meeting a lot of people and they’re just realizing that this post-pandemic era, they’re not as hardy as they once were, that it really shook their confidence, this pandemic experience. So even though they have these big, bold, beautiful dreams, now is the time and they just don’t feel like they have, and this is a very scientific term, they don’t feel like they have their mojo right now. So, they’re trying to find their mojo. [JOE] Very scientific. [ANGIE] Yes. [JOE] Well, and how are people figuring out their mojo through building their confidence on taking risks on pushing back on fear and failure? [ANGIE] Starting to recognize their wins, like taking time to reflect a bit on the things that actually did really, they did really well during the pandemic. Like if you are here and you are functioning and you’re feeling like it’s about time and you’re being held back by confidence or fears and things like that, you’re actually doing really well. I can think of many people who had really difficult experiences that aren’t there yet contemplating choices. So this sounds like you, that you’re contemplating choices, pat yourself on the back. You’re probably ready to start taking action against your dreams. One of the things that we’ve been advocating a lot of people is to recognize, and we write about this too, in Bet on You, is recognize that you’re already winning. I think we often think in our society of these winning moments, if you can remember Joe, those motivational posters of the 90’s, the successories where like, the sun was shining on a lion’s face and it would say like victory or a boat captain battling a storm. It would say confidence or something like that. Like I think we think of winning in those epic moments, but people to build their confidence, they need to recognize that winning sometimes can mean getting up when your alarm goes off, having a cup of coffee in silence, doing something small that you really intended to do and only you need to know about it, like you need to know about it. So patting yourself on the back and just trying to find these everyday wins that we can build off of to get that flywheel going. [JOE] What do you think happens when people value those everyday wins? How does that change people’s mindset or their behavior or what they go after? [ANGIE] I feel like it gives them confidence. I think it turns their attention from all the negative in their life to the positive. They get to rewrite their story and sort of change the narrator of the tale that they’re telling. We’re all supposed to be heroes in our own story, on this hero journey that we are. It helps put them more into that driver’s seat and thinking about the scientific effects of gratitude are really powerful. It’s funny, when I talk to my coaching clients about happiness and gratitude and life outside of work, they’re always a little cautious, like, is this what we’re supposed to be talking about in a coaching program? I just remind them when you’re inspired in your life, you bring that inspiration to work and when you bring that inspiration to work, it fuels your life. So let’s talk about the positivity cycle that we can get on so you can feel more alive, awake in your life inspired. Now we all realize too that there is a blurry line between our work and our life and so we might as well think about better strategies, not just for our personal happiness, but also our professional happiness too. [JOE] I know in Thursday is the New Friday when I looked at a lot of the neuroscience around how we slow down as a way to prep for when we’re sprinting in business versus having our slow down time, our weekends being reaction to the previous week, that really, the more we slow down the better things work out for us in regards to our creativity. What are you finding when people actually start to enact that? I’m thinking about your executive coaching clients or some of the businesses that are implementing the strategies of saying, “Hey, let’s talk a little bit about life outside of here and make sure that we’re showing up to work.” What are you seeing happen when people start to enact the stuff that you’re teaching? [ANGIE] I see the change in their demeanor and their mindset and their perspective of their opportunities. Case in point, I’m working with a very senior marketer who was really struggling with confidence last year and nobody knew that perhaps but me. But by working with her, she suddenly grew confident in her ability to present in specific meetings, specifically board meetings. She’s no longer even worried about that. Now she’s trying to think about shaping this new position for her in her organization, which allows her to have more influence at even a broader stage than that. So it starts small and I’ve been working with her for quite some time, and I’m sure your audience has seen it too. It’s like those small things that we think are so insignificant are really, really big because if done on a routine, so again, practicing gratitude, experiencing your success, it feeds into how you feel about yourself, which feeds into how you present yourself, which feeds into the opportunities that you’re going to get access to. You’ve probably been to many courses where you hear like 50 great ideas that you want to implement right away. My guidance with my coaching clients is like, you might hear 50 things that you want to do, but just pick one. Try it. See where you go from there. If experience, success for you experiencing your wins is simply writing in a gratitude journal every night before you go to bed, great. Start there. Do something, do that one thing. Or if getting your kids off to school in the morning with everybody in a positive note, like pat yourself on the back for that. You helped influence that. Be proud of that. Having those moments that we can archive in our mind gives us confidence. [JOE] Yes, I think that so often we think that it needs to be these grandiose things, but to just say, I can do a one-minute plank every day, I’m just going to do that and I’m going to feel like I at least worked out a little bit. It’s amazing how those small steps in your personal life or in your business life help you continue to step into things. I would love to know, for you personally in either your personal life or in your business world, what are some small steps or some habits or ways that you bet on yourself on a regular basis? [ANGIE] So I have, I’m a big believer in just rituals and disciplines. When people talk about leadership development and coaching, discipline is like the least sexy word in this world because we value so much vision and innovation and all these other things. But to me, at the core of everything is just a steady set of habits that help me feel alive. I run every morning or I work out or do something physical every morning, running is my go-to thing. It just clears my mind, like let’s the garbage out essentially, is how I put it mildly. Then at night I do write in my gratitude journal and I also think about intentions like what I hope for my life and just having that steady presence in my life. So those are some of the ways that I would say on the baseline fuel the risk taking in my life. I really do, I think part of what I’ve been hearing a lot from folks is trying to listen to my own dreams and my own visions. Like I think the world has plenty of ideas and suggestions for how we should be living our life, and that’s great. People will always give you unsolicited advice about what you should or shouldn’t be doing but when it comes to taking risks, it’s trying to listen to your own authentic voice on where you should direct your time, your initiative, your attention. That’s something that I try to do more so myself and encourage other people to do. Because if we’re talking about betting on ourselves, we want those bets to be on the things that we want to do that are a reflection of our unique preferences versus the wishes of other people. [JOE] The last question I always ask Angie, is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know? I’d love to hear your thoughts on that [ANGIE] With Bet on You, one of the key messages that we write about is you have it within yourself to achieve whatever is on your heart, whatever is in your mind. If you look around other people are doing the things that you aspire to achieve, and ask yourself what makes them different than you? I can guarantee you it’s their ability to take a risk. If they can do it, why can’t you? So if not you, then who? If not when, then when are you going to do it? Or I should say that better, let me re-say that, of not you, then who and if not now, then when? I can’t think of a better time right now than taking those risks on ourselves. [JOE] It’s so awesome. So the books bet on you Angie, where can people find it? How can they connect with you? How can they follow your work more? [ANGIE] I publish a lot on LinkedIn, but I’m also leadstar.us, and you can buy Bet on You wherever books are sold. [JOE] Well Angie, thank you so much for being back on the Practice of the Practice podcast. [ANGIE] I so appreciate the conversation, Joe. Thank you for having me. [JOE] If not now, when, when are you going to do it? It’s so interesting to think about all the folks that I got to interview for the Level Up Series and over and over and over. I heard imperfect progress in one way or another. Just taking those steps, growing in the way that you are going to grow and not waiting until you have it perfect or the situation or time is exactly right. So go take those imperfect steps forward and you’re going to learn so much in that process. Also, we don’t have a sponsor today because we’re the sponsor. Killin’It Camp tickets are now on sale. If you want to come to Killin’It Camp 2022, you are going to want to grab your ticket. It’s such a great event. It’s in-person this year. We are doing it in Cancun, Mexico in late October. We’re really taking a philosophy of, yes, we want to have breakout speakers, we want to have teachers, but we also know that some of the very best conversations and movements forward in your business are in those informal conversations. So we’re going to be doing things to help facilitate that, to have some poolside conversations to make sure that you are connecting with people that are going to help you move up in your career. Make sure you grab your ticket to Killin’It Camp as soon as possible. They’re going fast. You can go to killinitcamp.com. Usually, you can drop the G of killing or, we actually bought both domains and they both go to the same spot, so again, killinitcamp.com. Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.