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The Best Ever Podcast with Scott Eblin is your insider’s guide to what it takes to lead at the highest level at work, at home, and in your community. Each week, Scott sits down with remarkable leaders for real, revealing conversations about the mindset shifts, self-management habits, and everyday routines that fuel extraordinary leadership impact. Drawing on his 25 years of experience as a top executive coach, Scott brings a coach’s lens to every episode to help you bridge the gap between intention and action.
Scott - 00:00:10:
Welcome to Best Ever, the show where we explore how effective self-management creates the foundation for positive leadership outcomes. I'm Scott Eblin, and in every episode, I sit down with notable leaders to uncover the routines, mindset shifts, and strategies that have helped them lead at the highest level, and the difference that's made for their organizations, families, and communities. Today on Best Ever, I'm joined by Muriel Wilkins, executive coach, C-suite advisor, and the CEO and founder of Paravis Partners. You may know her as the host of the acclaimed Coaching Real Leaders podcast from Harvard Business Review. Or as the co-author of Own the Room, Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence. Muriel's latest book coming out in October 2025 is Leadership Unblocked: Break Through the Beliefs That Limit Your Potential, a deep dive into the internal barriers that keep high performers from leading with ease. A former executive herself, Muriel, has spent more than two decades coaching senior executives through their most complex leadership challenges. Today, we're going to explore the inner work that makes outer leadership possible and the self-management practices that help Muriel show up at her best. And listeners, be advised, when you get two executive coaches talking with each other, it can get deep in a hurry. Muriel, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me on Best Ever.
Muriel - 00:01:37:
Thank you.
Scott - 00:01:38:
Yeah, so I was four cohorts ahead of you at Georgetown. I was cohort six. And I think the last I saw, they're like on... 85 or 86 or something on cohorts. It's crazy. So, yeah, you and I have both been executive coaches a long time, over 20 years for each of us. And I want to start with your professional origin story prior to the Georgetown Cohort 10. Like, what were you doing before you started coaching all those years ago? And like, what was the spark in your professional life or experience that led you to say, I'm going to be an executive coach because not many people 20 plus years ago were saying that, right? Everybody's saying that now. But you know, back then it was kind of a weird thing to say. I said it, you said it. What made you say that back then?
Muriel - 00:02:28:
Yeah. So, I mean, to be honest, if you had told me, I think I'm at my like 35th, no more than my 35th MBA reunion, I was at HBS, that this is what I would be doing or anything even closely related to leadership development.
Scott - 00:02:44:
HBS for people at home is Harvard Business School.
Muriel - 00:02:48:
That's right. So, in fact, my leadership professor there, his name is Jack Gabaro, wrote one of the best HBR articles ever, I think, around how to manage your boss. I sent him an apology email years later saying, I wish I'd paid more attention in your class. And guess what I'm doing now? So, when I came out of business school, I mean, I followed a pretty classic route. I wanted to, you know, my aspiration had been to be at a C-suite level one day, potentially a chief marketing officer, chief strategy officer. And I was well on my way. I was doing very, very well. Sort of classic story of getting promoted very quickly, accelerated. And then I found myself in a very senior leadership role, reporting to the CEO. And boy, it was challenging. I was successful in terms of business terms. I was getting the business results. But, man, was I suffering through it? And a lot of that frustration led me to look for a coach, quite frankly. Somebody had said, hey, maybe you should get a coach. And I'll be honest with you, at the time, I really couldn't find one that had both the leadership development expertise that I was looking for, as well as the strong business acumen. And so I was frustrated about that. And one of my mentors, who also knew I wanted to start my own business, said, look, why don't you just solve the problem that you seem to have found? Why don't you become an executive coach? You have the business background. You have the strategy consulting acumen. And just go figure out what the coaching part is. And you do it. And I was like, okay. And he said, and if it doesn't work out for you, come back and I will offer you a position at my firm. Right. And that was 20-something years ago, and I never looked back. So it really came from a source of wanting to respond to a need that I had. Yeah. And I've been on the journey ever since. That's my story.
Scott - 00:04:49:
Our stories are so similar. I mean, it's crazy how many parallels there are. Your newest book, your second book, which you are the sole author of, your first book, you were the co-author. It's called Leadership Unblocked out in October of 2025. What does it look like for a leader to be blocked? And how do you know when they are?
Muriel - 00:05:14:
Yeah. You know, I think most people assume being blocked is that you're not a high performer or that you're not successful and that that in no way is what it is. I think, you know, that you're blocked when there's some dissonance between the impact that you're trying to make and actually what you're experiencing. And that can be from a business results standpoint, but it could also be just in terms of how you're feeling. My experience that I shared about my origin story. Sure. I was getting the business results and I was moving things forward. But again, boy, was I feeling challenged and I just felt like there has to be an easier way than this. And oftentimes I still wonder that sometimes I sort of look at my life. And so being blocked is knowing that you are, quite frankly, not operating at your full effectiveness or your full performance or even your full capacity of the impact that you're able to have. So it doesn't necessarily mean that things are bad. It's just that you either know or others know or the situation says you have some more bandwidth or you have some more room where you can grow and develop. And if something is keeping you stuck from moving to that next level.
Scott - 00:06:29:
You've been coaching for 20 plus years. What- At what percentage of the leaders you work with experience some degree of blockage.
Muriel - 00:06:38:
A hundred percent.
Scott - 00:06:40:
A hundred. So you are an expert in this.
Muriel - 00:06:45:
I mean, I just, you know, look, I don't know about you, Scott, but for me, I kind of want to work myself out of a job, right? And that is my goal when I work with folks. And so if they are working with me, it is because something is getting in their way. I think what I have found more and more of, you know, particularly as I've coached more senior leaders and folks who, again, for all intents and purposes, or doing quite well from the outside is that the things that are blocking them are not necessarily external. They are things internal. And that is, you know, that is where we sort of, a lot of people don't come to the table saying that that's what's blocking them. But then we recognize that that is what it is. And then the work becomes much more of as, you know, the cliche says, an inside game.
Scott - 00:07:34:
Yeah, totally. I mean, one of the things we both, you know, are graduates of the coaching program at Georgetown, and I'm sure you remember as I do, that one of the big things you learn there is Tim Gallwey's equation, capital P equals little p minus little i, right? Your performance equals the potential minus the interference. And I talk about that so much in my work. And I always say, you know, interference comes in two flavors, extrinsic and intrinsic. And the extrinsic stuff you usually can't do anything about, right? You know, it's all that external environment stuff that is a trigger for the intrinsic interference, that little wah, wah, wah voice in your head, you know, that I guess in your nomenclature is the voice of blockage. Is that true?
Muriel - 00:08:14:
Yes. Yes. Yes, they are. They're the beliefs that one carries, you know. And when we think about beliefs, right, like, and I call them blockers because they block you, but I also call them hidden blockers because they're often not known to us, right? They're so, like, they're just there and they've been there for so long, we don't even realize they're there. It's like that, you know, the piece of mail that my kids step over for weeks on end on the floor. They don't even recognize it's there. I'm like, it's right there.
Scott - 00:08:45:
That's your extrinsic interference is the mail on the floor. It triggers for you. What's a trigger for you?
Muriel - 00:08:51:
That's right. That's right. And I think, you know, I think a lot of the leaders that I work with, and by the way, I do this work on myself as well, is we tend to be very action biased or skill biased. And so if we see something that isn't working out, we either look at changing the external circumstance, the other through control, or we look at ourselves and say, okay, what can I change in terms of the way that I act or the way I behave, or I need to uplevel my skill? And what I'm suggesting here is if in order for that to be sustainable, you also have to look at your beliefs, which thank goodness are malleable. And as I was describing to my daughter the other day, I said, beliefs are like clouds, right? Like you're the sky and the beliefs can come and go, but also change shape. And we all have the capacity to change the shape of our beliefs.
Scott - 00:09:40:
That's a beautiful metaphor. That's really good. Let's go keep going on the blockers. I had a chance to see an advanced copy of your book, which thank you for that. Like you said, you've got seven hidden blockers. There's a chapter for each of them in the book. I encourage people to go read it because it's great, great, great stuff. My personal favorite out of the seven blockers you listed is I Know I'm Right. That's my favorite. Because we both worked with a lot of clients who are probably the smartest person in the room that they're in. At least they think they are. And, you know, Maybe because of that, they can't get out of their own way. And my favorite question in those situations for the client is, would you rather be effective or would you rather be right? Because they're not necessarily the same thing. What do you do to help leaders who are blocked on the I'm right? How do you help them get past that and get through that?
Muriel - 00:10:36:
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, similarly, it's the question that you asked, right? Would you rather be effective or be right? Because they often don't know the difference. They often believe that being effective, and this is where the belief comes in, right? They believe that being effective and that what makes them worthy or worthwhile or valued in their role, in their organization, in their meeting, whatever context we're talking about, means that they have to provide the answer, that they have the right answer. And what's tricky with these types of clients, and I'd love to hear your experience, is oftentimes, Scott, they are right.
Scott - 00:11:14:
On a technical basis, yes.
Muriel - 00:11:17:
Right? So the argument of like, well, you know, maybe you'll find out something better doesn't actually stick because they typically have this like uncanny ability to see around corners and see things, you know, 5 years, 10 years before they come down the pike. But the fact that they let that belief drive them, then really results in behaviors like they, you know, they're condescending or they kill the conversation or they take up all the space in the room, all the air in the room. So a big part of it, in terms of having them recognize it is there often has to be some external cue that signals to them that something is off. Whether it's feedback from someone else or the fact that they're not getting their result, the results that they want, or they're, they're feeling, you know, very, very frustrated. And so then we have something we can work with, but then the work becomes them accepting that this is actually getting in their way. And that's probably the most difficult of it all.
Scott - 00:12:18:
Yeah, I think it's probably my favorite because it's the one when I was an executive that I probably... That was probably a big blocker for me. You know, it was, I thought I was right. I probably wasn't right a lot of the times that I thought I was, but I was pretty convinced, you know, that I was right. And. I think... I see this a lot with my clients too. You know, you get a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, except when it doesn't work for you to go in a straight line. You know, it's like, what part of this do you not get is not a, not a really connecting kind of question, you know, for your colleagues. And so, you know, we have to. I keep going directly at it. And I'm not getting anywhere by going directly at it and like, come on, you know, this is it. Yeah. Yeah.
Muriel - 00:13:05:
That's right. Or if you are getting somewhere, if you are getting somewhere, you are, you know, in the case of the client that I highlight in the book, they're alienating a bunch of other folks that are critical to the role. So I think a big piece back to your question around how do you get them to reframe it is a big piece of it is reframing what does it mean to be effective in this role?
Scott - 00:13:24:
Yeah.
Muriel - 00:13:25:
Is the, is the largest variable being right again, no shade or there's nothing wrong with wanting to be right, right? It's not that I say these beliefs are bad. It's more if they're driving you right now, are they actually serving you being effective in the role that you're in or in the context that you're in? And if you are a leader where really your responsibility is not only to drive results, but to also build capacity within your organization and to gain alignment and to drive towards a vision, that belief as the driver is not then fulfilling a number of other parts of your mandate. And when they get that and they're like, oh, this is my mandate. Therefore, what do I need to believe to be able to fulfill the full mandate? That is what changes the equation.
Scott - 00:14:13:
Yeah. And you asked in the middle of everything you just said, which all of it was. Very substantive for sure, but you asked a really important question, I think, in there, which is, is this serving you? You know, you talked in the book at some point about single loop learners. And that's another Georgetown thing that we learned, but it didn't originate there, but we teach it there. And you want to do the explanation of single loop and double loop learning since you're the guest?
Muriel - 00:14:44:
Oh, my gosh, you're putting me on the spot.
Scott - 00:14:45:
No, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I mean, you know, come on.
Muriel - 00:14:48:
Yeah, I tend to like really try to elementarize things as much as possible. But right. But single loop learning is you're sort of just looking at one way of learning, which is mainly from external circumstances or double loop learning. You're also looking at what part do I play? And there's a self-reflection piece that comes of it. What do I have to learn from this? What do I learn about myself, myself in terms of how it impacts others or myself? So it's double loop in terms of using the external to then.
Scott - 00:15:16:
Yeah, that's bigger. The double loop is bigger than a single loop, right? It encompasses the single loop. Right. And. Would imagine you're a fan of Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky and adaptive leadership. And we'll get all these little links and coach geek things in the show notes for people. But, you know, they're great line about it as leaders need to be on the dance floor. They can be on the balcony. And it's important to alternate your perspective. And I always equate it to the single loop as that dance floor perspective, you know, where I can only see what's immediately in front of me. On the balcony, that double loop. I can, if I take the time to do it and have the... Awareness, I guess, to do it.
Muriel - 00:15:59:
Awareness, that's right. Yeah. And look, Scott, what I'm always amazed by is much of what we're talking about, you named some of the folks behind it, is not new and is actually widely used outside of the business world and the corporate world. And so I think part of my mission in even writing a book like this is to bring some of this very much universal knowledge and wisdom and skills and talent and learning into more of a corporate conversation because there's no reason why it's not applicable.
Scott - 00:16:34:
Well, and you have a real gift. Demonstrated through this conversation, but also through your writing, you have a real gift for making it simple and making it practical for people and not theoretical. You know, take the theory and turn it into something you can use, and you're very gifted with that. I want to ask one more question about the new book.
Muriel - 00:16:56:
Sure.
Scott - 00:16:58:
My favorite blocker was I Know I'm Right. Do you have a favorite blocker of the other six?
Muriel - 00:17:03:
Oh, goodness. So I'm going to be really honest here, right? Because I set out writing this book and I was like, oh, I know I need to be involved as my main one and other people have attested to it. And then as I was writing it, it was writing this book and, you know, there's these seven chapters and each of the beliefs come from I looked over, you know, 300 of my clients to kind of find a pattern. And these were the seven that bubbled up. So they're not the only ones, but they're the ones who that bubbled up. And I was writing the book and this book got written primarily between four and 7 a.m. in the morning, which is when I had to fit it in. It's such a cathartic experience, Scott, because every time I would be like, oh, my God, I've done this. This belief lives within me as well. And so then it was like, yeah, which one is my favorite? I would say the one that was most surprising, I'll reframe it a little bit. The one that was most surprising was the, if I can do it, so can you.
Scott - 00:18:00:
Oh, yeah.
Muriel - 00:18:01:
Because so often that, you know, we hear that said so many times and it is said as an inspiration, a motivation, right? You think you're motivating people by believing that like, if I can do this, so can you. And in a way, yes, it can be motivating at times, but it can also be so limiting. Because you are doing the result, the behavior that results out of that is expecting others to behave exactly as you behave in order to get the results that you got, which goes completely against, right? Management 101, when you're trying to develop people and build capacity or even managing change, right? You just look at that change curve. You got to meet people where they are. And so that belief of, if I can do it, so can you, immediately takes you away from meeting people where they are and instead puts you in your posture and says, you've got to meet me here and do as I say. And that's how we're going to define your success.
Scott - 00:19:03:
Yeah, totally. I mean, and you use the word behavior, you know, like you've got to behave the way I'm behaving. I would add to that. You've got to think the way I'm thinking, right? You've got to have the same perspective that I have, even though what informs your perspective is completely different than what informs my perspective. I mean, you know, there's...
Muriel - 00:19:20:
That's right.
Scott - 00:19:21:
You know, it's just like... Again, it's probably a close cousin of I'm right, because I think what both of those have in common, I think, is I'd love to have you push back on this if you don't agree. Add to it or whatever, but... I'm right, and if I can do it, so can you kind of stem from my information set.
Muriel - 00:19:44:
That's right. Absolutely. Just from a different framing. I mean, if I can do it, so can you. I'm reminded of someone that I heard speak years ago, and he said something that really stuck with me. He said, if you want my glory, which he was talking about his results, he said, if you want my glory, you've got to take the whole story. Meaning you've got to go through everything that I went through in order to be able to then get these results because it's my story. And I think that actually what he was saying is don't assume, don't believe that if I can do this this way, so can you. You've got to figure out your way of getting there. And so, you know, when we think about managers and we say, hey, when you delegate work, think about the what, not the how. Tell them the what, not the how. It's the same thing. Yeah. But if you're saying, hey, the way that I do it is the way, then you're going to say that's the way you should do it. And it goes against that.
Scott - 00:20:44:
Yeah. So kind of wrapping up the unblocked part of our conversation, what's your one small step or one best piece of advice for a... Listener who's oh my gosh, I'm blocked on something. And what's the baby step they can start with to get unblocked?
Muriel - 00:21:04:
Yeah, I think the baby step, quite frankly, is if you find yourself in any situation where, again, you're either feeling frustrated or blocked or stuck or whatever word you want to use, is to just ask yourself. What am I thinking right now that's contributing to how I feel and how I'm acting in this situation? We tend to focus on how I feel and how I'm acting, but we don't say, what am I thinking right now? What's going through my head? What am I believing about myself, about the other, or about the situation? So identify it. And then back to what we were talking about earlier, is that helping me right now?
Scott - 00:21:45:
Mm-hmm. Is it serving you? Yeah. Yeah.
Muriel - 00:21:47:
Exactly.
Scott - 00:21:48:
Yeah. Yeah, very good. So the premise of this show, Best Ever, is that better self-management leads to better leadership outcomes.
Muriel - 00:21:59:
Um.
Scott - 00:22:00:
You've coached in a lot of different venues, corporate, nonprofit, government. Do you see any, common self-management challenges that cut across all those different sectors that leaders typically face.
Muriel - 00:22:14:
Yes.
Scott - 00:22:14:
Self-management?
Muriel - 00:22:15:
I mean, that cut across all those different sectors, all types of different leaders, can I say even beyond leadership, right? Across people. I think the basic piece that ends up missing is just the sometimes lack of ability and then resistance to being able to be honest with oneself. And the honest with oneself is around just... How you are, how you behave, how you think, or even about your circumstance or even about the level of, in certain situations, it's the level of power and control that you actually have. And so not being able to see reality for what it is. And as a result, then you really can't act effectively unless you see things clearly. And when we can't see things clearly, it gets in the way. And so I often find as a coach, probably the biggest thing that I'm doing is helping my clients see the situation or themselves or the other. More clearly than they did previously. Right. And, and a lot of times, Scott, what they're seeing more clearly are the choices and the options that they have in front of them, rather than just seeing it as there's just one way. And that to me is self-management, right? Self-management is recognizing, I see things clearly, I have options in front of me. And now, because I see things clearly, I can make an informed choice, loosely held choice about how I move forward, whether it be with a vision, a strategy, or how I coach somebody on my team, or how I have that conversation, or how I present this idea, or whether I speak up in a meeting or not.
Scott - 00:24:12:
How do you know if you're seeing things clearly? You might, you know, I think I am, but Turns out I was wrong or I thought I was, but now I realize I wasn't. How do you know in the moment? Whether you're thinking and seeing things clearly.
Muriel - 00:24:25:
I think a telltale sign is they sort of live on the polar opposites of each other. Right? I think if you are so convinced that what you're seeing is it, right, it is said internally or externally with such assertion and conviction that there is no other way. You likely aren't seeing it clearly because it probably means you didn't kick the tire against it enough. And then there's the other side, the polar side of Oxit side of it, which is like you're waffling and you can't quite see. And there's, you know, one day you're this, the next second you're that, or I don't know. There's a lot of I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Then even there, it's fuzzy. So if it's crystal clear, you're probably not seeing it clearly. And if it's really fuzzy, you're not seeing it clearly. And here's why. Every situation has different angles to be able to look at. So to me, seeing something clearly is actually being able to see all different sides of it, not being able just to see one or not being able to see any.
Scott - 00:25:29:
Okay, so I'd love to talk about how to help either ourselves, you know, if I'm doing some self-coaching here. Or if I'm lucky enough to have a great external coach like you, and I want to get better and better and better over time at... Seeing things clearly. I... Another premise that I kind of operate from both in this show and just in life in general is... First thing is I want to be able to show up at something that looks like my best case performance as much as I can. You know, like I want to operate kind of at my peak when, you know, when it's helpful to do that. And if I'm doing that, my outcomes that I'm influencing are probably going to be better because I'm showing up better. And in between those two things are routines, right? Routines that help me be better and because they help me be... Show up more at my best more often than the outcomes in turn are better. So mental routines, self, self observation routines that can help people. Increasingly good. That self-recognition and seeing it clearly? What do you recommend? What's worked?
Muriel - 00:26:42:
Absolutely. As a practice or as a routine. So I think that let's sort of start with the intent first, how you walk in or how you view, right? Because being, I'm looking at a painting in front of me as we're talking, right? How I view that painting really depends on what my posture is as I'm looking at it. And it's the same when you're a leader. And I think that the posture of curiosity is what lends itself to then being able to see things more clearly because you're questioning, you're asking. And so what does that look like in real terms? If I'm with a client or what I encourage my clients to do is when they have a situation, let's say there's something with one of their team members going on and the performance isn't up to par, ask yourself, here's what I think. What else might be going on here? That's just a curiosity question. What else might be going on? What else might be true here? All right. What else might be contributing to this? And all it's doing is sort of testing the operating hypothesis. That's the other thing is assume everything that you hold is a hypothesis rather than the conclusion. Start with the hypothesis in mind rather than a conclusion. And that little practice of just asking yourself those questions can be very helpful in just opening up the aperture, if you will. Now, the ability to do that, I think, requires a certain level of discipline, which there are underlying routines that you can go through outside of those situations or rituals, if you will, that then help build your ability to do that in the moment.
Scott - 00:28:20:
Yeah.
Muriel - 00:28:21:
Such as? Meditation.
Scott - 00:28:23:
Right, sure, sure, just slow it down enough so you're not so reactive. Yeah, the big takeaway for me and what you just said is what else? You know, like what else could it be? What else could be happening here? What else? What else? What else? And-
Muriel - 00:28:40:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:28:41:
I like to focus. I'm sure you do too. I like to help clients focus on things that I always describe as relatively easy to do and likely to make a difference. It's relatively easy, I think, to train yourself to ask what else, right? It's a two-word question. Two-word question. What else could it be? What else?
Muriel - 00:29:01:
Yep. Absolutely.
Scott - 00:29:03:
So over time, maybe it does make a difference, right? It slows me down enough to I'm not so damn certain that. There's only one way of looking at it. You know, I'm right or.
Muriel - 00:29:13:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:29:14:
You need to do it the way I would do it or whatever the blocker is.
Muriel - 00:29:17:
Yeah. Yeah. And what's fascinating to me, Scott, is that, you know, so as you said, it's such a simple question and yet I sometimes feel resistance myself to asking what else. And when I've asked myself and I see it in my clients, it's we're so concerned we're going to lose control of our agenda by just exploring hypothetically that there might be something else going on that we don't. Right. I was sharing this with a client the other day as we were working through this. And and I said, look, if you went to the doctor and you went into the doctor and you said, oh, my God, doctor, I have a pain. Would you want the doctor to just say, this is it? This is this is the issue. And that's what we're going to treat. Or would you want the doctor to be like, hmm, what else might be going on? Right. Let me let me look at that. Let me question that. Let's sort of. Test out what other things might be going on that's contributing. He was like, I want the latter. I said, okay. So what if you approached your situation in that way? What do you have to lose?
Scott - 00:30:20:
Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, do you want a doctor who looks at the body as a system and things are interrelated and connected? Or do you want a doctor who, I'm a specialist in arms, so I'm going to look at your arm, you know, or whatever it might be.
Muriel - 00:30:37:
Yeah. And if leaders are called to do anything, quite frankly, it's to look at things from a system standpoint.
Scott - 00:30:43:
Yeah. And it kind of relates to another point that you make in your work. And I think we both learned it at Georgetown. He was definitely a mentor to me. I don't know if he was a mentor to you, Frank Ball, who was one of the founding faculty members at Georgetown.
Muriel - 00:30:57:
Very much so.
Scott - 00:30:58:
One of Frank's favorite teaching points was, okay, we can coach the problem or we can coach the person. We're going to make more progress if we coach the person, make more of an impact. And in your work, you describe it as working from the inside out. You've been talking about looking at things systemically, a lot of different things. What's your go-to move as a coach and working with your clients on? Shifting from that external problem focus to what's my contribution. Either to the existing problem or to fixing this problem.
Muriel - 00:31:33:
Yeah, because, you know, let me caveat this by saying, like, if you asked any of my friends or people who work closely with me, like, I'm a bias for action type of girl. I'm all about the action. And so even though we might do a little bit of the muckety muck on the inside out, right, on the inside game, we are going to get to some actions at some point. But to answer your question, I don't necessarily have a technique to move them to the inside because I think that the client will move to the inside when they are ready to move to the inside and it will happen. So one of the things that is really important to me as a coach, and this is my approach to coaching, I'm not here to say this is the way to coach at all, is about meeting the client where they are. And not everyone is, you know, you just look at adult development theory, right? Not everyone's ready to do that. A lot of a lot of people are just still on the, you know, like the skills-base that I got to build some skills and I have to focus on the external. So it is for those clients who developmentally are ready. And oftentimes I find that they will go there. Just not because I'm trying to move them there, just by a certain question that I might ask. And that's what comes up. And that to me is way more powerful than any type of move or strategy or tactic that I can use. So I just try to facilitate their own questioning, their answers, their choices. At the end of the day, I just want them to see that they have choices in front of them. One of the choices is to stay focused on the external. The other choice is to go on the internal. And then there's the hybrid choice or there's a choice of doing nothing. Which one do you want? Where are we going? And they lead the way.
Scott - 00:33:21:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. And what's the likely impact of... Any choice you might make. Right? I mean-
Muriel - 00:33:30:
Yeah. I mean Scott, I'll tell you, I remember, I remember when I first, when I first landed in coaching. Right. Um, and I told you, I sort of fell into this, I didn't know what coaching was about, and I went to before Georgetown. I went to another, uh, coaching school, class, which will remain unnamed, and that first weekend or course, um, they were very much going for like, right away, for the inside. Right. Like, they wanted you to come to me, and I, I wasn't there like, that's not where I was. And I just had this, you know, just visceral reaction to what was happening. And what they did is they misread my readiness to be in that type of situation for coaching. It was not the level at which I was going to coach at. The way I coach now is not how I coached 20 years ago because I did not have the capacity for it.
Scott - 00:34:26:
Yeah.
Muriel - 00:34:27:
I left that program and went to Georgetown, which had a lot more skill base, etc., which is what I needed at that moment. And so I think the same holds true when we coach others. We have to be really, really careful of, you know, getting excited about trying to get these inside breakthrough moments when that might not be where the client is, right, or the leader. And the same if you're a manager coaching an individual. It kind of goes back to that belief, like, if I can do it, so can you. No, that's not true. Like, meet them where they are in terms of readiness and work with that.
Scott - 00:34:59:
Mm-hmm. You, uh... Just brought up something about your coaching style has changed. I want to segue off of that to your podcast, Coaching Real Leaders.
Muriel - 00:35:10:
Yes.
Scott - 00:35:12:
And I've got a question for you. After I make a request, I've got a question for you about what shifted for you in the four and a half years you've been doing the podcast. Before I ask you that, for real, for folks who haven't heard... Coaching real leaders, tell them what the premise of the show is and how it works.
Muriel - 00:35:33:
Yeah. So the show is I have real people that I coach in a one time session, which is very different than my regular go to coaching, which happens over the span of time. And they're real individuals. And I do a coaching session with them and we record it. And then we let the people hear the coaching session. I thought, you know, maybe we can do this for coaching. Maybe we can, you know, pull the curtain back a bit and let people in. And if they can relate to the story, if one person can relate to the story and it helps them in some way, then the job is done. And that was, you know, 10 seasons ago.
Scott - 00:36:15:
Yeah. Yeah. What's the, do you have a moment or a couple of moments that have stuck with you the most from folks you've talked with on the show?
Muriel - 00:36:25:
There's two that sort of thematically run through the whole course. I think first is I had to grapple with my own vulnerability to put my coaching out on blast like that. I was very, very concerned early on that I would get, you know, judged by the coaching community and people would say that's bad coaching. And this- I had all these this this internal dialogue that I had to work through. And some people do say that you just, you know, look at the Apple reviews. There are some people who say, oh, my God, what's happening here? And what I had to, again, to the point of beliefs, I had to sort of say, okay, the belief that drives me here is that this is going to help someone. And if it helps one person, then my mission is done. And that is what drives me. So just doing the own work around what was blocking me from really doing something that's a passion project versus anything else has been hugely moving for me. I think the second is, even though I don't have the luxury of coaching these people over a span of time, recognizing that even in a one hour, hour and a half, two hour conversation, there is some shift that happens. But we've had there have been some conversations where I've shifted to. I learn as much from my clients as they believe they learn from me. And I remind them of that all the time. Like it is a kind of the best job in the world because it's so reciprocal. And when you do it in that level of intensity where you got to kind of put everything out the window, like the show is not scripted. I don't know anything going in cold. I go in cold and I literally we say, okay, just make believe that the microphone is not here. Other than that, it's a real coaching session where the change that's able to happen has helped me understand that I have the capacity to shift. But not only that, anyone has the capacity to shift if they can also just not only get coach coaching externally, but also learn how to coach themselves.
Scott - 00:38:22:
I love that. You're just anticipating all the things I wanted to ask you. I mean, so let's go deeper on one of them. How do you think it's changed the way you coach?
Muriel - 00:38:35:
Think it's allowed me to be a little bit freer in my coaching right like I get so much feedback that I typically would not get because again, when I coach my regular clients, it's just me and them. I don't get anyone saying, oh my gosh, here's what you did. Here's what you did. But now I get it on blast. And I have a community of folks who really are into the show and we do live debriefs of the episodes and they give me feedback. They ask me questions. They say, oh, what did you do here? It gives me, and then for the coaching episodes to be recorded and I listen to them.
Scott - 00:39:11:
Yeah.
Muriel - 00:39:11:
And there are times when I'll say, oh my gosh, I can't believe I said that. But then there are other times, to be honest, where I'm like, oh! Like, that was some pretty damn good coaching.
Scott - 00:39:25:
Yeah.
Muriel - 00:39:27:
That moment, but I never take it seriously. You know, I don't, I don't overly identify with anything. I'm not overly attached to the show. I'm not overly attached to results, but what it has allowed me to be free because so many times freer, because so many times we don't end up where we thought we would end up or where the client thought we would end up, but it's still. Manifested itself in something positive. And so having that belief that like, you don't have to always have a well sought out plan for things to end up okay, is probably have has been my lifelong struggle. And so seeing it manifest in this show has been truly helpful for me.
Scott - 00:40:04:
Well, you just alluded to the next question I wanted to ask, which when you said lifelong struggle, I was going to say, I asked you how it changed you as a coach. And how about as a human? How do you think, you know, all these different conversations that are public conversations, people are listening to them, and you're on kind of on the griddle there. How has that changed you as a person?
Muriel - 00:40:24:
I don't know if it's changed me so much, Scott. I think it's, I think it's expanded me in some ways. I think it's allowed me to bring out parts of me that I've probably sort of shoot off to the side for a long time for a number of different reasons, right? And. I'm still very discerning around how to do it. You know, I always say like my comfort zone is being, it's no wonder I became an executive coach, right? Like my comfort zone is, is being the behind the scenes person. And it, it, it just so happens that I'm expressing that as being an executive coach. But I always said, if I wasn't an executive coach, I'd probably either be a chief of staff or a phenomenal executive assistant. But I think what it has allowed me to do or the way that it has expanded me is to give myself permission and motivate me to be out in the world a bit more. But what drives me there is not because I want to be out there. It's because I know it's helping others. And so I found that I find a lot more motivation to come out front when it's serving others rather than when it's just serving myself. Right. That's not a good or bad. That's just the belief I need to hold right now in order to be able to do work. And and and that I find that the show has given me a lot more courage and confidence to do that.
Scott - 00:41:54:
Yeah, you're just leading the witness here, leading the questioner, I would say. Your other book that you wrote several years ago with Amy Jen Su is Own the Room. Give us the... Two-sentence synopsis of what Own the Room is all about. I could say it, but I'd rather hear you say it.
Muriel - 00:42:11:
Yeah, no, absolutely. So Own the Room was really a book around leadership presence and how you build it, right? And it came out of the fact that so many of our clients that we've been working with... Would receive feedback that they needed to improve or enhance their leadership presence. But then when you would ask people like, oh, well, what does that mean? Nobody had any clue. And so Amy and I set out back then to sort of define what leadership presence is, which we saw as the intersection of not only being able to have a voice for yourself, but also being able to have a voice for others, that credibility and relatability aspect. And we created a framework for how one can develop the aptitude to consistently have that type of leadership presence through three levels of conditioning, which one of them was mental conditioning. And so it's no surprise. I actually feel like the current book, Leadership Unblocked, is a deep dive on one of the levers that you can pull in order to be able to have effective leadership presence. And the other two was the physical conditioning and the skill conditioning, the external pieces.
Scott - 00:43:21:
You wrote that book how long ago?
Muriel - 00:43:24:
It came out in 2013.
Scott - 00:43:25:
Okay. Yeah.
Muriel - 00:43:27:
I swore I would never write another book.
Scott - 00:43:28:
Yeah, I know what you mean by that. I saw your LinkedIn post about that and could completely relate.
Muriel - 00:43:32:
Oh, my God.
Scott - 00:43:34:
As you're... You know, with all the experience you've had since then in different ways, podcast and the work you're doing and the writing and thinking you're doing. Living life as you on leadership presence changed since 2013?
Muriel - 00:43:49:
It has.
Scott - 00:43:49:
Yeah, like what's changed?
Muriel - 00:43:51:
There's been, yeah, I mean, there've been many times when I've wanted to go back and I'm not going to do it, but like rewrites for an ethics, you know. I think I was not as much of a, I'm still not a systems person. Like I'm very clear. I'm not somebody who's going to come in and try to change the system and your organization and culture. However, I feel like I have a lot more system awareness than I had back then. And I wish that I could go back and point out more how the system might actually impact your leadership presence, not to give it power over it, right, but to actually acknowledge that the way that leadership presence has been defined in some areas is driven more by, you know, kind of cultural conditioning and systemic conditioning, a very westernized conditioning, rather than what it truly is. So we sort of winked at it, but we weren't as direct about it. And the 2025 version of Muriel would be way more direct about it.
Scott - 00:44:54:
What would you say?
Muriel - 00:44:55:
Than it was back then.
Scott - 00:44:56:
How would you summarize it?
Muriel - 00:44:57:
Yeah, I would say that, look, you know, for the most part, the culture that we see in a lot of corporate, and I will say primarily America, right, but Western society is based on a particular model, which tends to be the white male patriarchal model. And that is not constructed for those who do not look or who don't operate that way. It isn't necessarily constructed for us to succeed. So I would have acknowledged that. And then says, but that said, right, let's talk about what part you can. Own, what is in within your control around how you navigate that, knowing that it's a choice that you have to make. Okay. That it is a choice. You do not have to do it, but here, here's the reality of it. So I would have been, as I mentioned before, I think seeing things clearly and stating them clearly is fundamentally very important in order to be able to have agency and have a choice.
Scott - 00:45:58:
Yeah.
Muriel - 00:45:58:
And so acknowledging it, you know, to me, there's a difference between acknowledging something and agreeing with it. I may not agree with the system, but I have to at least acknowledge it. So I would have spoken about it from that standpoint. And then the other standpoint I would have spoken about it from is, you know, if you are somebody who, where your style, your approach actually meshes well with that, you know, with that culture or that way of doing things. Is it something that you want to perpetuate or do you want to be open to other ways that people can show up? Exactly. Expand, that still will make you feel like somebody is credible and relatable, which at the end of the day is all that we define. When we feel like we are in the presence of a leader, right, that is what we feel. They are credible and relatable. And so really it's can I change my own formula about what that actually means and what it looks like?
Scott - 00:46:56:
I think there's a great LinkedIn course for you to do and what you just said.
Muriel - 00:47:01:
Goodness.
Scott - 00:47:02:
It's the LinkedIn course sequel to Own the Room. Because if you think about it, you know, what you covered in the book with Amy, what you covered... Are basic building blocks that people need, right? No matter what system you're operating in, there's some basics. One of the guests we've had on the show is a guy named Dane Blanton. And Dane is the... He's an Olympic gold medalist in beach volleyball, and he's the coach of the women's beach volleyball team at USC, Southern Cal, and they've won four national championships in a row so far. And he's really an amazing guy. And we were talking about... How much of it is mindset and how much of it is technical skill. And he said, well, you got to have the technical skill. And so we just practice that and practice that and practice that until it's automatic.
Muriel - 00:47:50:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:47:51:
Right. And then we can get into the mindset of it.
Muriel - 00:47:55:
That's right.
Scott - 00:47:56:
And I kind of analogize that to... What we're just talking about with leadership presence, you know, that. Own the room skill set is Dane's version of, you know, hitting the volleyball with your forearms, right? You got to know how to do that, right? And then we can talk about how to- Take it to another level, expand it, create opportunities, influence the opportunity set, the system that you're in. All of that. I- One last question on presence. Speaking of systems, and I don't want to embarrass you by saying this, but one of the systems you're operating in these days is you've become something of a public figure, right? I mean, you talked about, I love the way your eyes went right there. And, you know, you've got people who are followers of you on the Coaching Real Leaders podcast and the community of people and this and that. How do you think your presence has evolved or changed since you've become more and more publicly visible and known?
Muriel - 00:48:57:
Yeah. Probably not much, Scott, because I like I said, I don't know, you know. A mentor of, not mentor, somebody, a teacher of mine once told me, you know, Muriel, there's a thin line between optimism and denial.
Scott - 00:49:17:
That's a great line. So, say more about that.
Muriel - 00:49:21:
And so, I think what you're experiencing here is I am, you know, I see things in this realm around this public thing. I'm kind of like in denial. Right. And so I just. I'm like, well, I don't know if I really see it. It's clearly something I'm not seeing clearly. And maybe others are seeing it differently than I do. I think there's a part of me. A huge part of me that sees the risk of becoming too attached to this notion of being a public figure. That it would probably feed a part of me that I don't really want to feed, that I know is there. It's the same reason why, you know, when my partner and I were deciding where to live when we were in our early twenties, the choice was between living where we live now, we're living in a much more intense place. And I consciously, I kind of made the decision back then that I didn't want to live there because I knew it would bring out what was in me, which was hyper competitive, you know, type quadruple A, being part of the rat race. And I'm like, I can do that naturally. I don't need to be in the context to do that. Right. So why put myself in the fire? And that's what I feel now. I kind of know that if I attach myself to that, it might- It may, unless I develop some other skills and some other levels of awareness, which clearly I'm not ready for. It may bring something out. So I sort of resist it. So I don't think it's necessarily changed anything in me. Right. I sort of just keep focused on as long as I am treating people, you know, hopefully with kindness and treating them in a way that I can still be authentic. And I still feel good about what I'm doing. I don't feel like I'm being performative, then that I'm good. I think the minute I start feeling like I'm being performative and this doesn't align with what. I feel where I can make an impact or the purpose of what I'm doing, then I'm out. I don't want to do it anymore because I think that's a slippery slope that I don't want to be a part of.
Scott - 00:51:23:
Yeah. That's a very grounded way to think about it, I would say. That's my assessment, as we would say at Georgetown.
Muriel - 00:51:32:
Thank you, Scott. That goes a long way. I love that assessment.
Scott - 00:51:36:
Thank you, yeah. I know we have taken up too much of your time already. I want to just wrap up with a couple of questions. I appreciate you sharing some of your personal reflections. It's hard for coaches to do, to talk about themselves.
Muriel - 00:51:50:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:51:51:
I appreciate you doing that. So I talked earlier about, you know, routines that help you show up at your best. What are your go-to routines for you personally, physical, mental, relational, spiritual, that kind of help you stay as grounded as you just expressed?
Muriel - 00:52:09:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:52:09:
But just help you, you know, show up how you want to show up.
Muriel - 00:52:13:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:52:13:
What's helping?
Muriel - 00:52:14:
I think there are a couple. First of all, I do, I work out. I mean, I have a pretty, I work out probably at minimum five times a week. It's a ritual of mine. I just have to have it. I walk with my weighted vest on uphill on my treadmill. I do a little run walk every now and then. I have a Peloton bike. And then I just started back up a hot yoga practice that I had stopped during the pandemic. And so I'm doing back to doing that. A couple times a week. And again, talk about change, like how I was doing it, you know, eight, nine years ago versus how I'm doing it now is completely different. And I think it's because of the way I'm, my mindset towards it.
Scott - 00:52:57:
On the yoga?
Muriel - 00:52:59:
On the yoga, yeah.
Scott - 00:53:00:
Yeah. Say more about that. What, what's, how do you describe the difference?
Muriel - 00:53:05:
I had this moment that I keep coming back to. I remember the first time I went. It was the first time that I experienced in hot yoga where. Couldn't do it. Like I remember because up until that point, I was all about like getting the postures, getting the postures, making it through. And there was this moment where about 10 minutes into the class, I just couldn't do it. And I remember the teacher had said, the one thing you can't do is leave. You stay. And I just lay down in Shavasana for the next 80 minutes of the class, literally. Now for me, type A high achiever, watching everybody do the moves and me just laying on the ground was like, oh, But I remember I had this moment about 60 minutes in where it was like this voice that just said. This is the purpose. You just stay in it. No matter what's happening. And that's how I approach it now. Right. It's I'm going to meet myself wherever I am when I walk into the studio and I try to pay attention to the aversions because there are a lot of them. I do not like hot, sweaty people close to me. But there I am.
Scott - 00:54:13:
Sweating on each other.
Muriel - 00:54:15:
Exactly. And I just sort of every time that happens, I'm just like, Muriel, this is it just is. It's not good or bad. It just is. And so it is such a mental practice for me that then gets manifested in the body. And I'm not attached to any of the outcomes. I'm just there. So that is something I've been incorporating this year with a lot more discipline. I do have a meditation practice. And I have to say I fought meditation for many, many, many years. I just. Couldn't stand even people saying that they meditate. Um, and, uh, I started practicing what's known as Vipassana meditation, um, about eight years ago because I was following somebody who I hugely admire and she said, that's what she did. And I was like, oh, well, if that's what she does, maybe it's what I should do.
Scott - 00:55:05:
Explain the essence of Vipassana, please.
Muriel - 00:55:08:
So Vipassana meditation, I'm drawn to, it's also called insight meditation in the Western world. It literally is just focusing on the breath. There's no guiding. There's no music. There's no nothing. There's no special way of breathing. You just focus on your breath. And what I love about that is that when we think about it, your breath is actually the only thing that tethers you to life.
Scott - 00:55:35:
Mm-hmm.
Muriel - 00:55:35:
Right? It's the only thing that's actually present in this moment. There is three parts. It's simple. There's the inhalation, the exhalation, and then the little pause in between. And what I find is that the practice is not so much in the meditation, but being able to spend that time doing that and being curious, not so much about staying focused on the breath, but being curious and actually celebrating every time I realize that I have left the breath, which happens most of the time. And my ability to come back to the breath is where for me, I'm like, ah, okay, there's always room to course correct. There's always room to come back to home. There's always room to come back to baseline. It is a practice now. I mean, it's the first thing I do when I come downstairs every morning, even if, you know, I try to do, even if I, all I can fit in is five minutes. But then I try to practice it through the day just as I'm, if I'm in conversation and I feel myself just coming back to me because recognizing that this is home, this is where I'm safe.
Scott - 00:56:40:
What's been in your ears lately? In other words, like what are you listening to that's inspiring you or shaping your thinking or just as fun?
Muriel - 00:56:48:
So I'm going to be very honest here. So there is, and I can't recall her name. I wish I could because I would give her credit. There is a, I guess she's a meditation teacher or guide on the Insight Meditation app.
Scott - 00:57:01:
That's what I use.
Muriel - 00:57:02:
Who has a, okay, who has a 20 minute, I'll send it to you afterwards. A 20 minute affirmation called I am here. And I listen to it often, often. Sometimes when I'm driving in my car, if I'm going out on a walk, I just listen to it because even though I have probably listened to it 100 times at this point, I hear something different every single time. And it says exactly what I need to hear at that time.
Scott - 00:57:31:
That's awesome.
Muriel - 00:57:31:
Yeah.
Scott - 00:57:32:
Please send me the link. We'll put that in the show notes too.
Muriel - 00:57:34:
I will. I will certainly-
Scott - 00:57:36:
That must be amazing.
Muriel - 00:57:37:
That's what I would name right now. Yeah.
Scott - 00:57:38:
Mm-hmm. And here's the... Other than my little administrative question at the end. You're the only guest that I've asked this question of. Because it's such a coachy question to ask. What have I not asked you that I should have asked or that you wished I'd asked, Muriel?
Muriel - 00:57:56:
Oh, goodness.
Scott - 00:57:56:
Any other questions that we need to get out there?
Muriel - 00:57:58:
Oh, um, what am I looking forward to?
Scott - 00:58:02:
Yeah, what are you looking forward to? Let's hear that.
Muriel - 00:58:06:
See, I wanted you to ask me that because I'm probably asking myself that. So, um. I am looking forward to, so I have two kids going off to college this fall. And so I've been, you know, it's that bittersweet moment where your life is about to have a lot less structure than it used to. So I'm looking forward to what that looks like. In terms of just being able to have more spaciousness, et cetera. And I'm also looking forward to, I was reflecting with on, you know, people keep asking you, are you going to miss them? Are you going to miss them? And I realized, I was like, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm going to miss them. I like, love my kids. I like my kids. But the thing that I realized I'm going to miss the most is that they have created moments of joy. You know, they laugh all the time. They have, they fill the house with laughter. They make me laugh even when I don't want to. And I am looking, I mean, they really do. I am looking forward to teaching myself. To create those moments of laughter for myself rather than relying on. Them or anyone else to do so.
Scott - 00:59:14:
You are your own laugh source.
Muriel - 00:59:16:
Yeah. That's right.
Scott - 00:59:19:
I look forward to hearing how that goes. I hope you'll share that somewhere. Give us all the coordinates for your work, for your book, for your podcast, every coordinate that you want people to be aware of.
Muriel - 00:59:32:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you can find all the things at murielwilkins.com. I post on LinkedIn quite a bit. So you can find me at Muriel Wilkins at LinkedIn. And then on Instagram @coachmurielwilkins.
Scott - 00:59:49:
Thank you so much for doing this and for geeking out with me and going deep and having fun and laughings, so you're doing your job already. You, your own source of laughter.
Muriel - 01:00:00:
Oh my goodness, I'm practicing.
Scott - 01:00:00:
Thank you so much.
Muriel - 01:00:01:
Thank you Scott.
Scott - 01:00:01:
It's been a real pleasure and a joy to talk with you, Muriel. Thanks so much.
Muriel - 01:00:05:
Likewise, likewise. So grateful for our time together.
Scott - 01:00:15:
You know, if I think about the coachable moments that I'm taking away from Uriel, I would sum up maybe three points under the rubric, or not really a rubric, under the word curiosity. Because I think that's kind of a... Theme in Muriel's work, and I'm not really sure that she actually used that word, but so much of Muriel's approach to coaching and the work that she does with her clients on her show, Coaching Real Leaders, in her books, the new book, Leadership Unblocked, the latest example, is about staying curious and asking the questions that help you be more effective. You know, this, this show best ever is about the connection between self-management and positive leadership outcomes, you know, connecting those two things that if you're managing yourself more effectively, it's more likely that the leadership outcomes you're going to get are going to be better. And. I think... Managing yourself so that, you have a level of curiosity about what's going on. In your environment. And in your world and your place and your role in all of that. Is a big, big aspect of self-management. And Three takeaways for me on how to do that, how to stay curious and grow through curiosity, develop yourself. And you raise your level of effectiveness in self-management. Three things I'm taking away from Muriel. One is get in the habit, get in the routine of asking yourself, what else? Muriel brought that up. It's one of my favorite questions as well. What else could this be? What else could be going on here? What else have I missed? Just what else by itself is a great question to ask yourself and to ask others to get you out of your preconceived notions, to get you out of your confirmation bias, to get you out of your presumptions. And so number one, get in the habit of asking variations of the question, what else? My second big takeaway, coachable moment takeaway from the conversation with Muriel, among so many that I could list, but the second one. For this purpose is Remember that we're operating, that you're operating, I'm operating. We're all operating in a system, a system of other people. And that system could be your workplace and your colleagues there. That system could be your community. That system could be your family. There's a whole school of therapy called family systems therapy. There's a reason that the word systems is in that term, family systems therapy. You are part of a system and systems theory and systems practice really tells us that when you change one part of the system, you change the entire system. And so. Observe yourself in that system. Observe the impact that you're having. That kind of leads to the third point. How do you, you know, first understand that you're in a system. That's my, the second takeaway from Muriel. And third. Work on observing your impact, staying curious about your impact within that system. She talked a good bit when people get blocked as leaders and get blocked as people. It's because they kind of get into such a deep groove or such a... Rut, really, that they can't see. Anything else as an alternative? Really interesting point that she made is probably my words, not hers, but I think this is the point she was making. There's data all around us. You know, if you're on a path and it's not working, you're getting a lot of resistance. That's data. If you're feeling... Uncertain, maybe you're not locked in on a path, you just don't know what to do next, and you're kind of unsettled, that's data. Pay attention to that. If everybody's agreeing with you all the time and we have unanimous consent, That's data. Probably a warning signal, but it's data. And Muriel talked about there's polls where everybody agrees with everybody on the one end and you're just completely uncertain about what to do next on the other end. We're trying to bring it back towards. Middle of the spectrum. That's probably where the truth is, for one thing. That's probably where effectiveness lies for another is somewhere in the middle. And not getting locked into one end of the spectrum or the other. And so... Observe yourself within the spectrum. Observe yourself within the system. Pay attention to the data. Like I said, this is pretty heady stuff compared to a lot of the conversations we've had on Best Ever. It's not like, here are three simple things you can do. What I'm asking you to think about is... Being curious and asking what else, thinking about your role in the system and then observing the impact of you in the system. So some pretty chewy, nutritious mental routines that you can work on for yourself from Muriel Wilkins. So if you were learning a lot from the conversation, if it made you think a lot, if you're taking some things away and you want to... Learn more and do more. With Muriel's work. Her one-stop shop is murielwilkins.com. Her book again coming out in fall of... 2025 is Leadership Unblocked. It's a great book. If you enjoyed the conversation, you'll enjoy the book. If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to follow Best Ever on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review and a comment on this episode. I want to know what's landing with you and your engagement really helps others discover the show. And if you're looking for more on how self-management fuels lasting leadership impact, connect with me through eblingroup.com. I've learned it takes a village to make a podcast. Thanks to executive producer Cee Cee Huffman and editor Mark Meyer, both of Wavestream Media. And thanks to my other team members, Lindsey Russell, Mary Motz, Sophia Shum, and Diane Eblin. Best ever is a production of the Eblin Group. Thanks for listening to Best Ever. And until next time, keep taking those small steps that lead to your best ever outcomes.