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💥 Ignite your company culture with the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast!
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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and smarts you need to turn possibility into purpose. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now here's your host, a professional speaker, coach and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:31] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me The Vibrant Coach. And I am here with my new friend that I met at the NSA Influence Convention this year when I got my CSP, my Certified Speaking Professional. I've got on the show today, Jill Schulman. Let me tell you all about her. Pretty amazing. So, Jill Schulman is a US Marine Corps veteran-- she doesn't look like one I can tell you that much-- keynote speaker, an expert in the science of bravery. Hello! And with a master's in Applied Positive Psychology, the Science of Happiness and Wellbeing, she combines evidence-based research with real world experience to help individuals and teams embrace courage, push limits, and achieve greater performance and wellbeing. She's got a new book. Her launch was yesterday, and she's on my podcast today. So her book, _the Bravery Effect_, provides practical tools for developing a courageous mindset, taking bold actions and building brave relationships. Please welcome to the show, Jill! How are you?
[00:01:36] Jill Schulman: Great! Good to see you again. It was so fun meeting you at Influence and to see you again on your podcast. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:41] Nicole Greer: Yeah, it's my delight. My delight. So Jill and I survived 114 degree weather and had won-, and had a wonderful time out in Phoenix, but I bet you she's braved all sorts of things. So first of all, people want to know, what? She was a US Marine. So tell me about that a little bit. Give us your background story. How'd you do that?
[00:02:01] Jill Schulman: Yeah, well I grew up in a little small town in Minnesota and I have a grandfather who was a Marine.
[00:02:08] Nicole Greer: Hmm.
[00:02:10] Jill Schulman: I just decided to pursue it for a couple reasons. Number one is I was looking for a way to get out of little small town Minnesota, and I just wanted a, I wanted a career of meaning. So, you know, earning the title of Marine was just something that was so important to me. So I applied for basically a full scholarship on the Marine Corps and I got it. So I was able to, to go to the University of San Diego. I'm from Minnesota. It seemed pretty amazing for me when I was 18 years old. Good. And then I trained when I was in college and then the day I graduated college, I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps.
[00:02:44] So that was my first job. And I spent five years as a Marine. I was one of the first women ever to be in a combat arm called combat engineering. So really my first job was blowing things up. Like literally my team, my Marines, we were in charge of building things and then doing demolitions as well.
[00:03:03] So that's what I did in my first career. And then I met the love of my life and I just decided to get out of the Marine Corps after five years, just because I was deployed so much, even in that five years, overseas. So then I just went to the business world and for 25 years I've worked in, you know, mainly Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies internally leading. And then I launched my business about 10 years, or 11 years ago now. Breakthrough Leadership Group. So I love, I'm so excited to be on, on your podcast because everything I do is about leadership development and helping build the best cultures to drive performance, but not just drive performance, but also just to make it a place that you want to go. You know, when the alarm goes off on Monday morning, you want to be kind of excited to go to work. So I love culture stuff. And then just the last little end of the story is, after like having my business and loving what I do, I was just, I'm always a lifelong learner. I love learning, and I started learning about positive psychology and how it can apply to the business world.
[00:04:00] So this is literally the science of elevating happiness and wellbeing to help individuals, teams, or organizations thrive. There's, you can get a master's degree in just that thing. So I just was doing so much reading, I'm like, I'm just going to get my master's degree. So I applied to go to Penn, thinking I would never get in. Like, I mean,
[00:04:19] Nicole Greer: I love Martin Seligman.
[00:04:21] Jill Schulman: So Marty Seligman. Exactly. I'm like, I want to go there. And I got in and like, and now Marty's my mentor. I was just at his house last month talking about my second book, and he is helping me. So, I just absolutely had a blast learning. And then out of my master's program, like you've got to do a capstone. I mean, I hadn't been to school in like forever, Nicole. Like, I mean a lot of people like get their masters when they're young. Like I'm 51 years old. I got it like my late forties. But when you finish a master's program, you have to do a master's thesis, or we called it a capstone. So I had to take a deep dive in one area of research. And that was in order for people to live their best life or to have the biggest impact at work, the thing that would prevent people from doing that is fear controls them. And I just became obsessed and so interested. So I did a deep dive and researched what causes the fear, how do you overcome it? And that's why I'm now considered an expert on the science of bravery. So that's my little story. Circle back to the Marine Corps, right? Because I guess you're brave to be a Marine, but kind of coming back to that.
[00:05:21] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Well that's so good. That's so good. Yeah, so I love positive psychology. I've been studying it myself. I got my master's when I was in my forties as well, so I relate. Yeah. And it was in organizational development, which very closely related. Okay. So you define bravery as the bridge between where you are today and the life you truly want. Right? So you need the bravery to get over to the other side.
[00:05:46] Jill Schulman: Mm-hmm. You needed the bravery to get the other side, so as I speak to audiences, we always talk about like, where are you today? Where's A and what is the B or the C that you want to get to, and in order to get there, yeah, it requires some bravery. Now, bravery is defined-- this is the academic definition from Dr. Cynthia, Dr.
[00:06:06] Nicole Greer: Oh give it to us. We like the nerdy stuff on this podcast.
[00:06:08] Jill Schulman: Okay. Oh, I love the nerdy stuff. Yes, yes, yes. So, Dr. Cynthia Pury is one of the leading researchers on bravery from Clemson, and so she defines it. So I align with her definition. It's "Voluntary action, despite fear, moving toward or in service of a noble or worthwhile goal." So if we kind of break this down, Nicole, this is, so many people think that bravery is about being fearless. That is not true.
[00:06:35] Nicole Greer: No, it's doing it afraid, right?
[00:06:37] Jill Schulman: No it's it-- Exactly. That fear is in there. In fact, if you're not scared, then you're not being brave. So you're exactly right. It's, it's being scared and doing it anyway because it matters. So, so yeah, if you think about the application of bravery. Now, the other thing too is most people think bravery is just reserved for like, Navy Seals running into battle, or firefighters running into a burning building. They think it's just these moments. And that's not the case either, when you look at the research. I mean, bravery is for all of us. There's physical bravery, right? But most of the bravery that's needed today is the social, it's our fear of failure, our fear of rejection, you know, our fear of admitting mistakes, all those things.
[00:07:15] So that's where I spend most of my time. Like, I do love doing like really thrilling adrenaline things. Like I just jumped out of an airplane yesterday, so I like doing physical things too. But in the workplace, it's all about our fear of stepping out of our comfort zone. Yeah.
[00:07:30] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And you said the fear of failure. You know, the thing I see all the time is just the fear of speaking up in a meeting.
[00:07:37] Jill Schulman: Oh, so true.
[00:07:39] Nicole Greer: It could be jumping out of a plane or speaking up in a meeting. You still need the bravery to push through, right?
[00:07:44] Jill Schulman: You're so right and yeah. I love that you, let's bring it like to tangible examples for your audience here. So yeah, speaking up in a meeting or maybe it's someone has been an individual contributor for a long time. And they really want to become the leader. They're just feeling like, I don't know if I'm ready yet. I'm not ready yet. The timing's not right, or I'm not confident yet. That's another opportunity where they want it, but they're not stepping forward to reach their potential. Also just having difficult conversations. Right? I mean, I work with leaders all the time. Most of my work is with leaders in organizations and a lot of times they have a fear of having the difficult conversation.
[00:08:21] So there's so many instances in the workplace. And then just imagine, Nicole, for a moment, 'cause I like talking about little moments of bravery, everyday bravery, not like the big, bold moments. I, I had this Navy Seal in my book launch last night. I'm like, okay, this is the physical bravery here, but for all of us, it's the everyday bravery.
[00:08:38] But let's imagine this, you take someone in a workplace and let's use the examples that you brought up before. In the moment where they have an idea and they want to speak up. They do and their idea is heard, and then there's an opportunity then for them to lead a project and they're a little bit nervous, but they step forward and they do it. And then they feel like they're ready for the promotion and they step forward and they get it.
[00:08:59] If day in and day out someone takes action even when they're scared toward what they want, right? Imagine their trajectory on their career. The impact they have if they build this bravery muscle, if they're used to stepping forward toward what scares them a little in that good possible way. And then if you think of person B, like think of the person who, in all those exact same cases, want to raise their hand, but they keep it down and they don't volunteer for this, and they keep deciding to stay safe and comfortable. Imagine how much impact they have at work. And what their trajectory is. So bravery has an effect, you know, and that's what I ended up naming the book is _The Bravery Effect_, because it really has a profound impact on your performance at work, but also your career. So a lot of people want, you know, their career to go really well and sometimes blame their boss. But we need to take ownership. And if you build bravery you can create more impact, which makes you feel good, and then you can take ownership for your career.
[00:10:01] Nicole Greer: Yeah, and I couldn't agree more. I think that when you step back and you look at what leaders really want. They want people who are going to step out. You know, a lot of times employees will say, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. And that sounds really helpful. But really what I want is for you to not wait for me to tell you what to do. I want you I want you to look around and go, you know what I think this needs doing and so I'm going to do it. I'm going to take the risk, I'm going to step And that's the thing that'll get you promoted and get you the highest pay raise and do the things like that. So it's this taking initiative and I think initiative, it's like a kissing cousin to bravery. So I think Yeah. And in your book you say here's one of the quotes that I have. It says, "To be successful, you need to grow." so we could also think about being brave with intentionally growing. There's another kind of synonymous thing. And to grow, you need to face the discomfort, and that's the fear, right?
[00:10:53] Jill Schulman: That's exactly right. And it's being brave enough to kind of suck at something new. So, I mean, whenever you start something, you're not going to be great at it. And that's the fear that holds so many people back where they're like, okay, I want to do this thing, but if I'm not going to be great at it the first time, then I don't want to do it.
[00:11:11] So just realizing that whenever you embark on mastering a new skill or elevating the skill, it's going to be a rocky path of learning and each time you make a mistake, that is growing. So it's really how we look at mistakes or failure is stepping stones for growth. So you're, you're absolutely right. You know, getting out of your comfort zone and being brave is necessary for growth.
[00:11:34] Nicole Greer: Yeah, absolutely. And I love how you talk about in the book, and again, it's _The Bravery Effect_ by Jill Schulman and in there, you talk about the habit of being brave. Now, in my coaching work, when I work with an individual one-on-one, or I'm working with a team, I will talk to them about what habits do you have in place? Because I, really firmly believe that the quality of your current life is the quality of the habits you have.
[00:11:58] Jill Schulman: Hmm.
[00:11:59] Nicole Greer: Up your habit work, you're going to up the quality of your life. You know, get some things in place that are neurologically connected here that are going to make you do great things. And you talk about the habit of being brave. Yeah. So talk about how do I, the habit of being brave. That's so awesome.
[00:12:16] Jill Schulman: Well, let's say we have set a goal of the hard thing that we want to do, we want to accomplish, and I'll just call that the mountaintop. What is your mountaintop, you know, to move from your A, which is the bottom of the mountain, to whatever you want to achieve, which is the top of the mountain. And exactly what you say is you have to decide, what are the things that I need to do each day that are going to require bravery to get to the mountaintop? You know, sometimes I think we, we spend too much time focusing on the mountaintop or the goal, the goal, the goal. But what we need to focus on are the behaviors that will lead to goal completion, right?
[00:12:51] And you know, there's three different parts of what I teach. My research draws from cognitive psychology, which is working on mindset and then behavioral psychology, which we're talking about now, and then also social psychology. But if we talk about behavioral psychology, the things that I share with my clients is, number one, do not wait until you feel ready or confident to take action. That's one of the mistakes people make. Like, I want to do this thing and I'm just waiting for the right time to feel confident. That is another way of you saying that you're not willing to be brave because bravery requires you, again, to take a step forward even if you don't feel ready.
[00:13:27] So we just need to be biased toward action. Take those little steps and then that's how you feel confident. And you already gave me permission to nerd out a little bit. Like if you think about Albert Bandura's self-efficacy theory, right? You know Bandura, being someone who studied OD, Organizational Development. So what Bandura discovered is you don't become confident by just doing the mind work; you develop your self-efficacy or confidence by taking steps and doing it. So his famous study that everyone quotes is, he was working with people who had this fear of snakes. And how do you help people overcome that?
[00:13:59] So what he found in this study was he didn't give them pep talks and just tell them that snakes are great. He gave them steps. Little steps. And every day they had to take a step. So they had to look at a picture of a snake. Ooh, uncomfortable. They didn't like it. Then they had to watch a video of a snake. Even worse, uncomfortable, but they survived it. And then he brought a snake in the room on the opposite side of the room in the aquarium, and then he brought it closer and then he brought it out and handled it. Eventually they held the snake. So what we can learn from this, from Bandura's work, is when you take like steps toward the goal, they're going to be uncomfortable, they're going to be a little bit scary, and that's bravery.
[00:14:36] And when you take those steps, then you create evidence or proof to yourself that I did that. I did that, and that's how it's done. You can't wait until the fear goes away. You've got to do it brave. So I, I talk about Ben Doer's work all the time when I'm on the stage. And, and the other thing that relates as well in terms of habits is, motivation is completely overrated. Like people think well, I'm not motivated. I don't feel like doing it. Well you have to do the uncomfortable things that you don't want to do in order to get to the mountaintop. So I sometimes help people think about how does your future self feel about you making a decision right now not to do it? So sometimes if you choose the uncomfortable thing that you have to do, the habit that you need to do now. Maybe it's not something you love doing right now, but you're going to be very happy when you're done doing it. So don't think about just the positive emotion in the moment. Think about the positive motion when you've completed it.
[00:15:32] And we know from Baumeister's research, Roy Baumeister, you know, he says we have limited cognitive resources. So think of our brain and our motivation almost like being a battery. We have a full battery in the morning and then it just goes down, down, down over time. And most people approach their day this way. I used to make this mistake. You wake up in the morning and you just kinda like ease into your day. Yawn, get some coffee and then you look at your to-do list and usually you start off with the easy things and you put off the hard things, the uncomfortable things 'cause you don't feel like doing them. And then the end of the day happens. And, Nicole, you know what happens? You don't get it done. You're like, tomorrow. And the same thing happens again and again. So what Roy Baumeister teaches is you have to do the hard thing first when you have the best chance of getting them done. So reverse the order, the most unpleasant, hardest thing you need to do in order to achieve your goal. Do that thing. Immediately in the morning when you have the best chance, when you have a full battery. Don't wait until the end of the day when your brain is like tired on low battery and you're asking it to do the hardest thing, it just doesn't make any sense.
[00:16:32] And the Marine in me, I call it from the stage, I call it, you have to "attack the day." Like, I want you every single day to attack the day, do the hardest thing first. And it's amazing how you just get this, this hit of dopamine and then you, you get momentum and just your productivity too.
[00:16:46] Nicole Greer: I had a gal on the podcast and the name of her book was _Make Your Bed._ She was like, if you want to have a great day, make your bed. And, and her whole theory was that you've already got something marked off your to-do list. You're already if you make your bed. So, yeah. So I love that. Absolutely love that. And you know, one thing you said about confidence, I just want to add to it. So, it's not, you know, just the mental work of it, you've got to actually step towards snake. So I have a mentor and she shared this with me one time, Jill. She said, let, Let me break down the word confidence for you. And I was like, okay. And she's like, the beginning is a prefix con- and it means "with". And then -fidence comes from fidelity, which means loyalty. And so, a kissing cousin to bravery is loyalty. Why are you Cause I got to be loyal, you know, to my cause, to my country, to my whatever. And she's like, when you're confident, you're just loyal to yourself. Like you're just doing the best thing you can do for yourself right now. So why don't you just go ahead and do the best thing for yourself. Be loyal to yourself, to to your desires, your wants, to your goals. Just be a loyal person. If you don't want to be brave, you can be loyal.
[00:17:57] Jill Schulman: A better reframe. I love that.
[00:17:59] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So I love her definition.
[00:18:01] Jill Schulman: Don't you hear out in the news or on social media, oh, be easy on yourself and self-care and all these things. And this is one of my hot buttons, kind of pet peeves. Like I love self-care, but I define it in a different way. And it's what you're saying. Keep your promises to yourself. That is self-care. But if you wake up in the morning, you don't feel like doing something and you just decide to have a lazy day and watch Netflix all day and stay in pajamas and you call that, oh, I'm taking care of myself. I would challenge you there.
[00:18:28] The best way to take care of ourselves is keep those promises to ourselves. 'Cause you're going to feel so much better. Like we're, you know, talking about the psychology here, right? You are going to be someone who looks in the mirror with confidence. So when it comes to deciding what you're going to do, we should be actually, if we're going to attack our day in the morning, we should be planning for it the night before. What are all the things that we need to do in order to be able to attack our day and have the best day tomorrow? Well, I need to probably eat healthy, hydrate. Get a great night's sleep, so I'm ready to hop out of bed in the morning in order to have a great day.
[00:19:02] And part of the reason why I did my research and I wrote my book is 'cause I wrote it for my teenage girls. Right? I hope they, Nicole, you think I'll ever read it? so,
[00:19:12] Nicole Greer: I do.
[00:19:13] Jill Schulman: I hope so.
[00:19:14] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. Here's the other thing about getting out of bed in the morning. It sets a good example, and there's this old thing, lead by example, and you know, I don't, I, I don't How old are your girls?
[00:19:24] Jill Schulman: They're 18 and 20 now.
[00:19:25] Nicole Greer: Okay, I've got a 33-year-old and a 26-year-old. And you know, used to be that I was not very smart and they would roll their eyes sometimes when
[00:19:35] Jill Schulman: Oh.
[00:19:35] Nicole Greer: to them, you know? There was that stage and just anticipate it's going to come, it's okay. It passes. But like now my kids, like, if I hear them talking to their friends or something, they're like, my mom is so amazing. She's got a whole business, and a podcast. You know what I mean? So they, they come around and they're like, you know, that's good. So setting an example, also very brave, right?
[00:19:59] Jill Schulman: Yeah. So that even, even though they may not be telling me like, oh yeah, mom, that's great. Like, tell me more. It's sinking in and eventually hear it come back out. So there's hope. There's hope.
[00:20:09] Nicole Greer: Oh yeah. they're like, I think on your LinkedIn it says that you're a a speaker and an author and you're a badass. I mean, they know that.
[00:20:19] Jill Schulman: I think sometimes they'd be like, my mom's a little too hard on me, but, you know, we got to balance, like
[00:20:24] Nicole Greer: Well, she's a Marine. She likes discipline. It's a thing.
[00:20:27] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within! Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:20:57] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Okay. So, some folks, I have found with bravery is, you know, there are certain personalities, right? I'm sure you've done lots of personality work. That's probably part of the research or the work that you did when you were at Penn State, getting your degree. But I have all these assessments for personality and there's all sorts of different flavors, and there's a certain group of people that are just not necessarily wired for bravery terms of, you know, stepping out and taking risk. But you have this great line in the book. You say "And let's be clear, bravery is not bravado. This isn't about being reckless or doing hard things just to prove a point. This is about finding the edge of your discomfort and the zone where growth lives." I think that's so good because I think sometimes people hear brave and they're like, you know,
[00:21:49] Jill Schulman: I'm just not brave.
[00:21:50] Nicole Greer: I don't want to be that. And it's like, no, no, you do. You absolutely do.
[00:21:54] Jill Schulman: Yeah. And I really want to help everyone understand really what bravery is. And I try to convince everyone that bravery is for all of us. It's so important for all of us 'cause every person has fear. Even the people that you think are the bravest people ever. Usually their fear is fear of being vulnerable. Everyone has fears to overcome. So bravery is for all of us. And when it comes to people who feel like maybe I'm not brave, I mean that those are my people that I want to help the most because I want to let everyone know that anyone can build the bravery muscle. It's like going into the gym. You don't just go into the gym and, and try to like lift 200 pounds and be like, oh, it didn't work. See, I'm just not strong. No, I mean, how do you build a muscle? You're going to go in and you're going to lift what you can and if you're doing it right, it should hurt. It should be, be really uncomfortable and you're going to be sore the next day, and then you need to give your body a little rest. That's where the self-care comes in. I need to rest so I can come back stronger. Right. And you do it again and again, and you build your strength and your muscle. Bravery is the exact same way. We actually see when it comes to the neurology, when they do functional MRIs, they do traditional MRIs and functional MRIs. You can actually see the brain change when you step into your discomfort, so, you know, I always say you can build your bravery muscle.
[00:23:08] It's not an actual muscle. It's actually like the prefrontal cortex and the ACC and then all the wiring in between it. But you know, the first time you take that step and it's really scary, it's going to be hard, but the more you keep taking the step, your brain is going to be more able to allow you to take those steps forward. It's not like the step gets any easier, but you're going to become stronger and more ready to take those on.
[00:23:33] So anyone can build bravery and I get most excited working with people that feel like that. And then they start doing the things on mindset, right? Cognitive and then behavioral and social. And when they do all three of them, it's. This is the most beautiful thing ever, Nicole. 'cause then their confidence just starts emerging and I see their shoulders kind of going back and then they feel, ah, it's, it's the best thing ever. So that's who I love working with, is the people who think they don't have it. It doesn't matter your personality.
[00:24:00] Nicole Greer: It's actually a character trait, you know? It's something you build up, like you're saying. Yeah. And, and I think, too, sometimes you're around people who are super cautious, and you might even have the thought, I'm going to do this, you know, in, in your case, jump out of a plane yesterday or speak up in a meeting, whatever it is. But you may have people around you that are like, what are you doing? Are you crazy? Or don't get yourself in trouble or don't make yourself look stupid. So, you know, you might have your own self together. But your third part of your kind of keys to building bravery muscle is curating courageous connections. Build relationships that support and challenge you. 'Cause if you have somebody who's poo-pooing all over your bravery, it's hard to move forward. So talk a little bit about surrounding yourself with the right people. This is a huge part of it.
[00:24:53] Jill Schulman: Yeah. So I feel like the mindset and the behavioral side, we have to do internally. And when we focus now on who we surround ourself with, the environment, that is going to make it easier for us to be brave. So here's the good news, right? I know it's hard to believe you can do hard things and take the tough step, but when you surround yourself with the right people, that will help you take those brave steps. So let me just use an example. When I decided to go on this journey to write my book I had fear. Like, how do I.
[00:25:25] Nicole Greer: Do I have anything to say? Yeah.
[00:25:26] Jill Schulman: Do I have anything to say? Is it going to, is it going to be a complete failure? Like, so I had to work on my self-limiting beliefs and believe that it was possible, and then I had to start just writing every day. But really what helped me be successful is I purposefully curated my brave tribe that were focused on helping me achieve the goal. So for whatever goal that you have, right? You've got to think about not the people that you surround yourself with, 'cause no one I hung out with wrote like bestselling books, so they don't have the best advice for me, right? They'd be like, why? In fact, they'd be like, why are you trying to like write a book? Like you've got this leadership development training company that's doing really well. Why would you do that?
[00:26:07] Nicole Greer: That's right, and you're married and your kids, why don't travel Why you relax?
[00:26:11] Jill Schulman: Well, exactly, exactly. So if I want to do the brave thing, I need to surround myself with the people who will encourage me. Encourage means to put courage in. So I want to be around, people who are going to challenge me and help me do the hard thing that I'm seeking to do. And I remember at one point when I was writing the book I was kinda having a pity party. 'Cause it just was not coming out. I had the time set every morning to write, but I would just. I guess you'd call it just the writer's block. It just wasn't like flowing. And so one of my mentors who wrote the forward in my book, Ken Blanchard, he's written a lot of parables. I am
[00:26:45] Nicole Greer: Oh and if you don't know who Ken Blanchard is, please Google. He's the _One Minute Manager_ guy. He's from my neck of the woods. He's from North Carolina.
[00:26:53] Jill Schulman: Originally from North Carolina. Now he lives in Southern California near me. But yeah.
[00:26:57] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:26:58] Jill Schulman: So, yeah, and Ken, the reason why I wanted him to be a mentor is like, I love the _One Minute Manager_. Like there's so many organizations. I always joke with Ken, I'm like, you know how many books I've sold for you? 'Cause new leaders. I'm like, everyone has to read One Minute Manager before you come to my first program because it's such a powerful book and it's a parable. So he's someone I got to know because I was doing a lot of situational leadership. With the Ken Blanchard company and so I got to know him personally. And when I was now writing my parable, 'cause my book is written as a parable, and we were doing a little check-in. I was like, to Ken, I'm struggling. Like it's just not coming out. And you know what Ken said to me? He said, yeah, same thing happened to me. I go, you're Ken Blanchard, who's got like, what, 48 New York Times Best-Selling books?
[00:27:39] Nicole Greer: Yeah, he grunted those babies out. Don't you know?
[00:27:42] Jill Schulman: Yeah. He goes, he said, he goes...
[00:27:45] Nicole Greer: He doesn't have a little angel with a light bulb from heaven on him? Nobody has that.
[00:27:51] Jill Schulman: But here's what happens when you surround yourself with people who have done the hard thing that you want to do. As you have struggles, they're going to make you feel like, oh, this is normal. Like Ken said, I had the same challenge. You're just normal. You just need to keep going. Right? So that encouragement from him, and then he actually gave me this amazing tip. He said, Jill, when you talk about what your expertise is and your passion, he goes, it just flows out and you know what you want to say. He goes, so maybe try dictation. He goes, I dictate. He goes, I always do it that way. I dictate first and then I get it out on paper and then I shape it from there. Like that little hint.
[00:28:26] So on that journey to get to the mountaintop, there are going to be struggles up and down. On the good days, you're going to be just fine. But on the days that you have the down and you're struggling, that's when you need your brave tribe around you, because they're the ones to encourage you to keep going when you want to tap out and just say no. All the people that are in your comfort zone that you normally hang out where they're going to be the ones going, like, you don't need to be doing that. You don't need to write a book.
[00:28:50] Nicole Greer: Just let's go to lunch, let's drink wine. Yeah.
[00:28:51] Jill Schulman: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Totally. So you know your mother was right. She says you are who you hang out with. So think about like what is the future self that you want to be like, what you know, or just what's your next goal? And then start hanging out with people or, or reaching out to people who have accomplished, you look up to, that have done that.
[00:29:13] And then the hesitancy though, here's take some more bravery, Nicole. I think I had a little bit of this too. Sometimes you think about the people that are really successful and you're like, ah, but they're too busy. They wouldn't want to help me. They're up on this pedestal. They're like, so important. And I'm just little Jill down here. Would they want to help me. So we need to get over that. And that's where bravery comes in. Like go up and initiate conversations with people who have done that and see what happens. You'll be surprised because when we actually. Let's flip it for a second. Like when I think about when people approach me and want me to mentor them or give them some advice, I love it. I enjoy it. And all the research on pro-social behavior tells us that when you help somebody else, you get as much, if not more, of a benefit, positive emotions than the person that you're helping. So we need to keep that in mind every time we hesitate to go and tell someone like, Hey, I admire your work. I'm trying to work on something too. I've got a couple questions. Can I pick your brain? Every time you hesitate to do that, you rob that person of the opportunity. So be brave and go and approach those people. Even Marty Seligman who's at Penn, right? He started, he's the guy who kind of is the father of positive psychology and
[00:30:21] Nicole Greer: Right, started whole thing.
[00:30:23] Jill Schulman: And when I had my manuscript of the book done, I wanted to send it out to all these beta readers. So , I mean, there's so many parts of writing a book that I was learning, but I'm like, okay, when the manuscript is done done. You, or when you think it's done done, then you send it out to a bunch of beta readers. And it's another hint I got from Ken Blanchard. He goes, I always send it to about 50 people that I know and trust, and he asks them for feedback. So I did that. I was sending it out to all these different people. And I thought of oh God, I would love to send it to Marty Seligman. But he wouldn't. I mean, he's so important and I'm just a little peon, like he would never read it. But I just, I'm like, no, this book's about bravery. I have got to send it. So I just sent a little note to Marty and I clicked send on a Friday night when I send it out to everyone, it went down there. Because I did that, Nicole, Saturday morning, I wake up, look at my phone, there's an email back from Marty Seligman. Jill, I read the intro. I'm already hooked. And I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm starting to read it right now. And then I had six more emailed exchanges throughout the day. He had the entire thing read by Sunday morning. He was the first one to read my whole manuscript and told me, this is fantastic. How can I help? This is going to be a, a bestseller. He actually said let me introduce you to my agent and my publisher. But I already had a publisher. So if I would've not been brave in that moment. Marty and I now have this connection and he's helping me. He's passionate about the subject of bravery. He's all about agency. That's his new book's coming out is on agency. And you have to be brave, you know? So think if I would've been too much of a coward to just email him.
[00:31:51] So, I know I've gone off on 18 different tangents, Nicole. 'cause this is just kind of what I do. But it's all around the, the brave tribe though. Think about who you surround yourself with and make sure the people that you're surrounding yourself with, they kind of intimidate you a little bit because they're so darn successful. Because they will pull you up, they'll challenge you.
[00:32:07] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's fantastic advice. That's really great. Yeah. I want to get on the, the list to get my PhD at Penn State. We'll see what happens. That's on my lifetime goals list. Yeah. So, if you've never heard of positive psychology before, I want to double dog dare you. I love Marty's work, but there, there's a little book that, that I got called, _Positive__ Psychology in a Nutshell_. And it's my favorite positive psychology book because it's like digestible, short, simple, and it's so fantastic. And she also went State, the author. So, I think it's fantastic.
[00:32:40] All right, so we've talked about the three keys to building your bravery muscle, and I'm going to call that equal sign habit work. Right? So we've got to develop the brave mindset. We've got to take bold action and curate courageous connections. So if somebody said, okay, all right, all right, Jill, I've got it. I need to be braver. You know, how do I start, how do I start? What, what are my first steps? How can I start living more vibrantly? And then also like, how can I be the example for my organization so that I can have a bunch brave people here?
[00:33:17] Jill Schulman: I'd say first of all, we need to work on the cognitive side. So if I'm working with an individual in an organization, like, okay, so what is the impact that you want to have? What are the dreams? What are the goals? What do you want? We need to understand what people want
[00:33:29] Nicole Greer: Yeah, the vision.
[00:33:30] Jill Schulman: bravery. Yeah, it's got to be the vision because bravery is needed to reach the goal. So we need to have an idea of what the vision is first, and then we have to work on the cognitive side and make sure you believe it's possible. So usually what I do is I just start off with two very, very simple things and I'm sure you know about these and you teach these, but the first one is just believing that it's possible for you to develop the skill. Drawing from Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset.
[00:33:56] Nicole Greer: Everybody write that down. That was what my capstone was on.
[00:33:59] Jill Schulman: Oh yeah. So yeah, growth mindset. So I love it. I love it. Love it. Oh my gosh. Then you're going to love Dr. David Yeager from University of Texas, Austin. He's one of my favorites, you know? Oh my gosh. We're just nerding out here. This is just what we do.
[00:34:12] Nicole Greer: That's right. Leaders read. Can I just say that for the umpteenth thousandth time on this podcast.
[00:34:17] Jill Schulman: Yeah. Yeah. And, and we do, we have to work on our craft. As leaders, we need to be working on, on always mastering our craft, which is leading human beings, leading people. And that requires us to do a lot of reading to get better and better at it.
[00:34:31] So, yeah. Back to growth mindset. So Carol Dweck, you know, is the, is the leading researcher. She's the one who really kind of brought this or proved this in academia from Stanford, where some people have a fixed mindset and just think, I'm like, I'm just not good at that. And it's just not possible. If people believe it's not possible and they have a fixed mindset, then that leads to inaction, they won't even try. Whereas if you have a growth mindset, believing that it's not going to be easy, I'm going to have to do a lot of work and it's going to take a lot of effort. But if I put in that effort, it's possible for me to develop that skill, then that creates the action.
[00:35:07] So I just want to link something. Mindset creates action. Everything I do is about, I want you to take the step forward. 'cause it's all about bravery, but we have to do some cognitive work first so that you can take the step. If you believe it's possible, then you open the door, right? Like if someone says I'm just, I'm not ready, or I couldn't be a leader. Then I would just say, now, add that word "yet," right? I'm not ready to be a leader... yet. So just adding that little word, it's so powerful. It just opens the door of possibility and go, well, that means it's possible. Right? And then we can go from there. And then the other thing that I love is, I love Alia Crum's research and Kelly McGonigal who wrote the book on, make stress your friend, or what is it called?
[00:35:49] But I talk about the mindset on stress and try to shift that. A lot of people think that stress and challenges are horrible and bad and they want to eliminate all stress and challenges because the key to a happy
[00:36:01] Nicole Greer: You wouldn't get anything done. You might not get the mortgage paid, you know? Woo. Yeah. Got to have there, it's a bell curve, right? Stress bell curve. It's mm-hmm.
[00:36:13] Jill Schulman: Yeah. But our beliefs on stress and challenges, again, impact our psychological response, even our physiological response. So there's that famous, famous study that Alia Crum, Shawn Achor and others did, where they, they went into a very stressful work environment. It was actually UBS, a finance company, and the only intervention that they did was they had a three minute video. Both the control and the placebo arm both watch the three minute video. For the active arm, in the study, they watch a three minute video that said, stress is what causes you to grow and develop. Stress is your body preparing you to perform at your best. So it's three minutes talking about --all backed by research-- on why stress is good, challenges are good. The other one had the opposite, which is what we hear all over the news and all over social media. Stress is bad. Stress will kill you. And it had research to back it up because there is research to back that up too. The only intervention this study is everyone watched a three minute video. That's all they did to affect their beliefs on stress and then they followed them.
[00:37:16] Nicole Greer: And don't miss three minutes. She's said it four times, but three minutes y'all.
[00:37:21] Jill Schulman: That's all, three minutes and then. Now they watched the video, I think multiple times, like three times a week for a couple of weeks. But when you, when you follow these people, the arm that had the stress enhancing mindset video had better performance that was statistically significant. They had higher levels of job satisfaction. They liked their stressful job more, they were more resilient, and they actually looked at their physiological response. The people over here in the stress is enhancing mindset actually had higher levels of DHEA, a hormone related to resilience. So if we can change our mindset on stress and challenges, then we're going to, we're going to respond more positively.
[00:38:04] And I'm still wearing from last night, it was a little late last night with the, the launch party, but one of the ones I gave out here. Can you read the top one?
[00:38:10] Nicole Greer: "Embrace the..." I can't see it.
[00:38:14] Jill Schulman: Suck. Embrace the suck. It's about realizing that sometimes things are hard and challenging and uncomfortable or stressful, and we have to embrace it and think of like, these are the moments that my character is being built. I'm differentiating, I'm growing.
[00:38:32] So when you just think of that, then you're like, what is an embrace? You put your arms around it, you bring it in, you hug it close. So in those moments where it's hard and it's challenging, that's the moments of growth. So we need to change our mindset on stress and challenges, and that changes our response to stress. We become better at stress. 'cause here's a little good news and bad news. Here's the bad news. Stress is not going away.
[00:39:00] Nicole Greer: Never.
[00:39:00] Jill Schulman: Challenges are not going away.
[00:39:01] Nicole Greer: Not this side of heaven. Nope.
[00:39:03] Jill Schulman: Yeah. So we need to get better at it, you know? So those are a couple things I do on the cognitive side. So, so that would be the way I'd get started. You said what would I do with someone? say you got to believe it's possible. And it's going to be hard, and there's going to be times that it sucks. But when you get through those moments where it's really hard, that's where you're going to grow the most. So savor those moments.
[00:39:25] So we start there just so they know that's going to happen. Then we get into like, okay, then we get into the cognitive or the, the behavioral side. All right. Then we talk about how you break down your goal. We have to make sure that it's specific. We got all the different steps. I also draw on Gabriele Oettingen's work, who wrote a book called _Rethinking Positive Thinking_. Oh, love her book. But what she did in her research is she's actually married to Gollwitzer. Gollwitzer is the one who came up with implementation intentions, which is like, how do you do all the little steps in order to get to your goal. But then she added to it where she said a key in her research to being able to get to the mountaintop is to anticipate when you're planning.
[00:40:04] So now we're on the behavioral side. When you're planning to achieve your goal, think about everything that could get in your way. So she is someone who is in the field of positive psychology. She actually did her research, her PhD under Marty Seligman. But what her thesis was, if you imagine everything that could go wrong, that will get in your way, and you identify it, and then you come up with your contingency plan on how you're going to overcome it. That actually became a factor that helped people get through and get to the other side.
[00:40:36] Nicole Greer: Yeah, the obstacle is the way. That's right.
[00:40:39] Jill Schulman: Yeah, the obstacle is the way, but when you anticipate it, here's what happens. Then when something bad happens, you're like, I knew there was going to be obstacles and then you're ready to take action. 'Cause when people don't, in someone who studied positive psychology, I'm like, we are not a bunch of Pollyanna people. Like I am a United States Marine, I wear a bracelet says embrace the suck. And yes, I'm an expert in positive psychology. Right? But it's not about just Pollyanna. It's not like a skipping like rainbows and butterflies and everything's going to be okay. 'Cause that's not reality. We set that goal, we come up with all of our steps to get there and then we take time to think about what's everything that could get in the way. And then, and then Gabriele Oettingen says, first of all, look internally. That's usually what holds people back.
[00:41:23] Nicole Greer: Oh, isn't that the truth? And that's that we're right back where we started with fear.
[00:41:27] Jill Schulman: Exactly. Yep.
[00:41:28] Nicole Greer: Right. That's so good. Well, we are already at the top of our hour and I tell you what, we could talk for hours about this.
[00:41:35] Jill Schulman: Oh gosh. I'm having so much. Is it already the end of the hour? Like, oh my gosh. I feel like
[00:41:39] Nicole Greer: How did that happen? Yeah, and so everybody, you got to go out, you got to get the book, _The Bravery Effect_ by Jill Schulman. All right. She just released it yesterday and she's, you know, hot off the presses. She's right here at the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. And so I know all of my listeners are like, wait, hold on. I want one more nugget. So do you have one more little nugget? Like, what would you leave us with? You'd be like, here's the nugget.
[00:42:03] here's the nugget.
[00:42:04] Jill Schulman: Okay. I'll give you the nugget. When you feel the fear, don't run away from it. Run toward it. That's the nugget.
[00:42:13] Nicole Greer: Okay that's awesome.
[00:42:14] Jill Schulman: It's not a sign to run away. Usually the fear that we are experiencing, it's the fear that's holding us back from becoming our best selves. So when you feel the fear, you naturally are going to want to run away because we're human beings and that's the way we're wired.
[00:42:30] But I want you to start recognizing that fear of like, it's something important and I should move toward it or run toward it instead of run away. If you can just take that nugget and live your life by it, you will have a more successful career. You will have more impact in the world, and you will live a more fulfilling life. And I have all the science to back it up in the book.
[00:42:51] Nicole Greer: All right, friends, that is the nugget. All right, so this has been another delightful, fun, informative, major content filled Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. And so what I'd like you to do right now is when you go down, it takes a hot second. Click like, put a little comment in there and say we love Jill. We're going to be brave. Something like that. Put it in the comments. And then Jill, if people want to work with you, they want to get ahold you, want to hear more from you. How do they get up with you?
[00:43:19] Jill Schulman: Just go to my website. It's just my first and last name, Jill Schulman. J-I-L-L-S-C-H-U-L-M-A-N.com. You go to my website, you can contact me, you can sign up for my newsletter. I just give every single month one tip that's evidence-based, you know, for my audience. I'm also on LinkedIn and oh, my marketing team has me doing all kinds of things that make me uncomfortable, so I'm having to be brave.
[00:43:42] Nicole Greer: Yay. Well, you got to what you preach. That's what they say.
[00:43:45] Jill Schulman: That's exactly, I got to practice what, what I preach. You know, and of course the book just came out yesterday, so you can buy that anywhere books can be purchased, but it's called _The Bravery Effect_. But yeah, let me know if I can help. I mean, I'm so passionate about, you know, individuals, teams, and organizations. I talk about culture. We need to build some bravery in our culture. People are going to be happier, we're going to achieve more together. So, yeah, I'd love to hear from anyone.
[00:44:07] Nicole Greer: All right. Very good everybody. It's been another amazing episode. I'll see you back here next week. Thank you so much, Jill.
[00:44:13] Jill Schulman: Thanks for having me. Bye Nicole.
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