The Vision Architect

Leaders at every level feel the crush of constant demands, overflowing calendars, and the pressure to push harder. The problem isn't a lack of ambition—it's a lack of presence. When you're trapped in chronic fight-or-flight mode, judgment erodes, relationships become purely transactional, and the very behaviors that made you successful start to hold you and your team back.

This episode delivers a practical blueprint for breaking that cycle. Executive coach and author Scott Eblin joins Simon to unpack what genuine leadership presence actually requires: not more hours, but the ability to strategically disengage and renew. Eblin introduces his core definition of mindfulness as awareness plus intention, and walks through the Three Types of Engagement (transient, transactional, transformational)—a framework for diagnosing where your attention actually goes during interactions. The conversation also explores the Life GPS, a one-page planning system built on three questions: How are you at your best? What routines support that? What outcomes do you expect to see?

Rather than offering more to-do list items, the episode shows that the most powerful lever for overwhelmed leaders is often the simplest: three deep belly breaths to activate the parasympathetic nervous system before the next meeting. By shifting from being the "go-to person" to the leader who builds a team of go-to people, executives can scale their impact without scaling their stress.

Highlights
  • Reclaim attention by asking two questions before every meeting: What am I trying to do here? and How do I need to show up?
  • Shift from "go-to person" to leader who builds a team of go-to people—letting go multiplies impact, not diminishes it.
  • Use three cycles of deep belly breathing between meetings to activate the parasympathetic response and reset clarity.
  • Diagnose your engagement style using the three types: transient, transactional, and transformational—over-indexing on transactional leaves value on the table.
  • Create a one-page Life GPS with three inputs: your best-self characteristics, supporting routines, and expected outcomes across work, home, and community.

Important Concepts and Frameworks
  • Mindfulness = Awareness + Intention — Awareness of external triggers and internal reactions, paired with the intention to choose what to do (or not do) next.
  • Three Types of Engagement0: Transient (mind elsewhere), Transactional (getting things done), Transformational (connecting to learn and be present). Leaders need to toggle between transactional and transformational.
  • Life GPS (Goals, Practices, Systems) — A one-page planning framework developed by Scott and Diane Eblin, built on three questions: (1) How are you when you're at your best? (2) What routines in physical, mental, relational, and spiritual domains support that? (3) What outcomes do you expect in home, work, and community life?
  • Go-to Person Paradox — The behavior that gets you promoted (being the go-to person) eventually becomes the barrier to scaling your leadership. The shift required is emotional (letting go), not just cognitive (picking up).
  • Dance Floor vs. Balcony — From Heifetz and Linsky's Adaptive Leadership. Leaders must alternate between being in the action (dance floor) and seeing the bigger picture (balcony).
  • Gandhi's Insight on Action — "In regard to every action, one must know the result that is expected to follow." Focus on the expected outcome, not attachment to a specific result.

Tools & Resources Mentioned
  • Life GPS Worksheet — Free one-page self-planning tool to define your best self, supporting routines, and expected outcomes. | https://eblingroup.com
  • "The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success" (3rd Edition) — Scott Eblin's book on behaviors and mindsets to pick up and let go of when moving into bigger roles.
  • "Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative" — Scott Eblin's book on managing overload through mindfulness practices.
  • "The Power of Full Engagement" — Book by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz on managing energy, not time, with corporate athlete principles.
  • "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" — Stephen Covey's classic framework that inspired the Life GPS.
  • "Orbital" — Novel by Samantha Harvey about astronauts orbiting Earth; recommended for contemplative reading.
  • "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" — Classic Zen text by Shunryu Suzuki.
  • "The Complete Book of Running" — Jim Fixx's running guide that shaped Scott's early mindset of pushing through pain.
Calls to Action
  1. Before your next meeting, pause for three cycles of deep belly breathing to reset your nervous system.
  2. Ask yourself two questions before every interaction: What outcome am I trying to create? and How do I need to show up to make that outcome more likely?
  3. Identify one routine you're holding onto that made you successful in the past but now keeps you from scaling your impact—and experiment with letting it go this week.
  4. Schedule a half-day retreat with yourself (or with a partner) to draft your Life GPS: define your best-self characteristics, the routines that support them, and the outcomes you expect in work, home, and community.
  5. For one week, categorize every significant interaction as transient, transactional, or transformational—then look for opportunities to lean into transformational engagement.

Key Quotes
  • "Mindfulness equals two things: awareness plus intention."
  • "There are three ways you can engage: transient, transactional, and transformational."
  • "Letting go is an emotional exercise; the underlying emotion is fear."
  • "If you can manage yourself more effectively, everything else gets easier."
  • "Live better, lead better."

Chapters

00:00 — Why Mindfulness Is the Foundation of Leadership Presence
05:47 — Three Types of Engagement: Transient, Transactional, Transformational
09:54 — The Wake-Up Call That Changed Everything: MS and the Need to Renew
19:04 — Why Ambitious Leaders Can't Breathe (and How to Fix It in 60 Seconds)
27:00 — The Life GPS: A One-Page System for Intentional Living
35:19 — The Three Questions That Define Your Best Self, Routines, and Outcomes
41:07 — The Annual Retreat Ritual That Keeps a Marriage and Business Aligned
43:55 — The Pyramid of Presence: Personal, Team, and Organizational
46:20 — The Go-To Person Trap: Why Letting Go Is Harder Than Picking Up
50:25 — Two Immediate Actions for Every Overwhelmed Leader


This Episode's Guest:

Scott Eblin
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scotteblin/
Website: https://eblingroup.com


About the Host

Simon Vetter
Website: https://simonvetter.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thevisionarchitect/

Creators and Guests

Host
Simon Vetter
Simon Vetter, known as The Vision Architect, is an international executive coach, professional speaker and author of "Leading with Vision". He helps leaders create crystal-clear vision and practical execution, aligning teams and accelerating performance. His work is trusted by organizations including AbbVie, Cisco, Lennar, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Siemens. Born in Switzerland and shaped by 27+ years in San Diego, Simon blends Swiss precision with Californian innovation: pragmatic, energizing and actionable for real-world leadership pressure.

What is The Vision Architect?

The Vision Architect is the podcast about crafting bold, aspiring futures that inspires lasting change. It is for leaders facing pivotal moments or crucial challenges - those crucible experiences where big decisions shape the future. Each episode is filled with stories, ideas and tools to intentionally design a meaningful path forward, gain clarity amid uncertainty, and ignite the courage needed for enduring change. It's a powerful conversation about what's next - for your life, career, team, and organization.

[00:00:52] Simon Vetter: Hello and welcome to another show of The Vision Architect. I am very fortunate to have a good friend on the show today, Scott Eblin. I've known him over 20 years and, he is the author of two amazing books. One is called The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success, and the other one is called Overwhelmed and Overworked: The Mindfulness Alternative.

Two amazing books. Scott is a teacher, executive coach, um, and also a very kind, insightful, wonderful human being. So Scott, welcome to the show.

[00:01:03] Scott Eblin: Thank you. I, I hope I live up to all that. I appreciate that, Simon

[00:01:07] Simon Vetter: You do. We, I remember we met the first time, was it in San Diego on the beach about 23 years

[00:01:14] Scott Eblin: Yeah, I would think so. Was that around like 2004? Are you thinking of the, the big, uh, Marshall Goldsmith meeting at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club? Is that the one?

[00:01:25] Simon Vetter: Yes, exactly. And I have seen you evolve and writing

[00:01:28] Scott Eblin: Yeah.

[00:01:29] Simon Vetter: and speaking and, and so I, I wanna talk about a few topics. One around leadership presence. How do we stay present as an

executive? The other one around, um, to aspire to that next level. It's a promotion or advancement or more responsibility. What do we need to have to let go and what do we need to add?

And then the third one around life GPS. How do we create a direction, a vision that is clear and that we stay focused and progressing? And then we'll go into many other topics. And so one of the things currently, I don't know anybody who's not

busy.

[00:02:05] Scott Eblin: Right

[00:02:06] Simon Vetter: E-everybody has more on their list to do what they should do than they have time available.

And, um, so how do we stay connected, calm, centered? So oftentimes this concept of executive presence and leadership presence comes up, and I love your, uh, your phrase, to be pre-- to have a leadership presence, we need to be

[00:02:33] Scott Eblin: Yeah. Yeah

[00:02:35] Simon Vetter: Can you explain a little bit that concept and why is it important and, and, and what makes it so hard to have strong leadership presence?

[00:02:44] Scott Eblin: Well, the the last part of that question is like a how long do, do you have kind of answer, you know, in terms of what makes it hard because, you know, you alluded to it, Simon, there's so much going on in the world. Everybody is oversaturated, so many people are at least oversaturated, overbooked. You know, you mentioned this, one of my books, "Overworked and Overwhelmed," you know, there's a reason that I titled it that.

And, you know, that book was in 2014 was when I wrote that book, and here we talk in 2026, and I think if anything, it's three X, you know, what it was in 2014, right? Um, because there's just so... You know, the, the rapidity of change just continues to accelerate. I'm sure we'll talk about AI, you know, in this conversation and, you know, that's the most obvious example of how quickly the world is changing.

But there's, you know, so many others. And so, you know, the subtitle of the "Overworked and Overwhelmed" book is probably where I would start actually on executive presence, and I'm sure we'll talk about the next level, uh, framework as well. But the subtitle of the "Overworked and Overwhelmed" book you mentioned is "The Mindfulness Alternative."

And so I really like simple definitions, and the definition that I kind of came up with for that book of Working Overwhelmed was mindfulness equals two things. It equals awareness plus intention. And I always think about awareness kind of operating in two domains. There's awareness extrinsically, you know, what's going arou-around me in my environment, um, that quite often honestly triggers me intrinsically.

You know, there's an awareness of my emotional reaction or response, uh, what I'm thinking about, just how does all this stuff in the external world infect-- uh, infect, affect my internal world. So that's the first thing is awareness kind of in, you know, multiple domains. And then the next piece of my little definition is intention.

So mindfulness equals awareness plus intention. And if I have that level of awareness, both externally and internally, ideally, I'm in a position to be intentional about what I'm going to do next and quite often what I'm not going to do next. And the not do next maybe is just as maybe more important than the do next 'cause there's just so many things that we can choose to do.

And, you know, to be present is a choice. And I, you know, I can continue to pay attention to all the incoming on, on my device and all the notifications and just all the things that are competing for my attention, or I can be intentional about putting that aside and being with you, you know, or being with my team, or being with my spouse or my kids or myself, you know?

Uh, that's, that's a good one too. So I guess I would start with mindfulness, you know, as, as, as my answer to your question

[00:05:47] Simon Vetter: Yeah. Attention. Um, we all get so much input, and the question is: Where do we put our attention? And oftentimes we get distracted, we get interrupted, and so how do we stay aware and be mindful about where we put our attention? What tools or w- how, how do you, uh, deal with that, and then how do you help

[00:06:15] Scott Eblin: Yeah. One of the things that I share quite often with my, with my clients is a, a little framework I came up with actually when I was writing The Overworked Book. And I've used it a lot since then in conversations with leaders, either one-on-one or in groups. I did that earlier this week actually in a group setting.

And I frame it as there are basically three ways that you can engage with other people, uh, or listen, listen to other people and be with them. Uh, the first of those three is transient engagement, and none of us need to practice that because transient engagement, I'm... You know, my mind is somewhere else, you know.

And it's, it's, it's all the things that are competing for the attention again. And I'm really just all about, you know, to the degree that I do engage with you, it's really just, "Let me get this over with and so I can get on to what's more important," you know, because I think it's more important even though it's not.

You know, being with you is really the more important thing. So that's one, and we don't need to practice that because it, it comes naturally, unfortunately. Then the next kind of engagement you see a lot, I think, in corporate world is transactional engagement. And so that's the kind of engagement with people where it's in service of getting something done, you know, solving a problem, identifying a next step.

Super important. I mean, that's how we make progress in the world quite often And I would say if you stop there, then you leave a lot of opportunity and value on the table because you're really not engaging in the third type as much, which is more transformational engagement, which is being with the other person, with the people, w- really with no other purpose than just to connect and to learn and to be with each other.

Um, and I don't say that you should live there because, you know, y- I think you gotta toggle back and forth really between transformational and transactional engagement, especially as a leader. But espec-- again, especially as a leader, I think the transformational engagement has so much leverage because your ripple effect as a leader is so big, and, you know, you, you have impact sometimes that you don't even realize you're having, uh, just because people look up at least to your position, if not to you.

You know, they, you know, kind of put that on a pedestal at some level. Or they under... If they don't do that, then they understand that you have a lot of impact on their life, you know, as the designated leader, uh, especially depending, you know, on different structures and so forth. So I would encourage folks to think about where are you on that spectrum, transient, transactional, and transformational.

And, you know, if you feel like you're maybe more transient than you wanna be or, you know, I wouldn't think you'd wanna be much of that at all really, but, you know, pay attention to that. And if you feel like you're kind of maybe over-indexing on the transactional engagement, then look for the opportunities to take your foot off that gas pedal and kind of lean into the, the more tr- connective kind of transformational opportunities to engage.

[00:09:23] Simon Vetter: The other thing around the attention span is sometimes we need to renew energy to, to, to be attentive And, uh, if the mind, uh, it's like we all have a monkey brain. Uh, everything goes through the mind. And, and so how do we, how do we center ourselves and, and stay present and to be engaged and, and fully there with other people?

Um, how do you practice that in your life?

[00:09:54] Scott Eblin: Yeah. I mean, to slow down and renew. Yeah. I, uh, it's funny you, you mentioned, your kind of mentioned The Next Level book when we started, and that book is really about behaviors and mindsets you either need to pick up or that you need to let go of as you're moving into bigger and bigger roles or, you know, more and more challenging opportunities in your career and really maybe even in your life.

And I've got nine pairs of high-level behavior sets, you know, mindset sets. That's hard to say without, without getting tongue-twisted. Uh, pick ups and let goes. And, and the second of those nine pairs is pick up regular renewal of your energy and perspective and let go of running flat out until you crash.

Because again, it's just easy to get into a do loop where you're just pushing, pushing, pushing yourself until you become ineffective in the short run and, uh, ill in the long run because you've gotten yourself in a chronic state of fight or flight. And so for me personally, my practice with that and my routines really have evolved over the years.

Um, a big pivot point for me on that was in two thousand and nine was when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and I'd been a driver, you know, up until that point in my career... My life really, I say career, life. I'll just be, be honest about it. Since I was a little kid, I was always pushing for the next thing.

I'm not saying that I completely let go of that in two thousand and nine, but the MS really got my attention that year, and I went... I identified myself back then as a runner. Uh, there was a book when I was growing up called The Complete Book of Running by Jim Fixx, and it was kind of the Bible of running in the '70s, I guess, is when it came out.

Tells you how old I am. You know, I was a teenager in the '70s, and I read that book, you know, probably when I was in junior high or high school and started to run a lot. Like, you know, I ran a couple of marathons, a lot of different, you know, road races and stuff. I was never competitive. I just liked it, you know?

And I-- And one of the things I learned from the Jim Fixx book is if you're running, it's gonna hurt at some point, and when it hurts, you don't stop. You keep going. Uh, because, you know- It's

[00:12:26] Simon Vetter: You push through the

[00:12:27] Scott Eblin: You're in the middle of a ten-mile run or fifteen-mile run or a marathon or whatever it is, and your brain may say like, like, "I wanna stop," or your body definitely says, "I wanna stop," he wrote, you know, you have to remind yourself that there was a reason you started that ten-mile run, and even if you can't remember it right now, you better, you better damn well finish it.

And that was my mindset on everything. Like, I am pushing through, and I My, that early in 2009, when I go out for a run, I was like running seven or eight mile runs on the weekends in my, you know, mid-40s, and my legs started to feel like lead. You know, like there was just no spring in them. And I won't bore you with the whole story, but long story short, I, I went to a physician, she ordered MRIs, and I had MS.

I had multiple sclerosis and, you know, lesions in my brain and in my spine, and it was... What that, what MS does is it, um, slows the electrical signals from your brain to other parts of your body down, th- it doesn't transmit as well as it should. And so weird stuff starts to happen. And I got really bad, in a bad way that year, um, into 2010.

And then finally, a friend of my wife's who's a multi-degreed health expert and also teaches yoga, and she had said to Diane that, um, "Scott should do yoga." Right? Said, "I have really good outcomes with, uh, MS patients and Parkinson's patients with, with yoga. You should do that." It's like I could barely walk around the block.

How am I gonna do that? So, but I eventually... She kept pushing me, and I eventually went to yoga class one night. And the teacher, when I whispered to her that I had MS, 'cause we weren't telling anybody back then, uh, she said, "That's okay. We have people like you here all the time. And here's the deal. If you come here more than three days a week, it'll change your body.

If you come here more than three da- Or come here three days a week, it'll change your body. If you come here more than three days a week, it'll change your life." And so I started going more than three days a week. And what- It does, is it activates your parasympathetic response, your rest and digest response.

It gets you out of fight or flight, and it's-- and it-- all the systems in your body that either elevate or de-elevate when you're in fight or flight start going in the other direction when you're in rest and digest. They go in the direction that's healthier, and it just, it helps you manage your stress, which you totally have to do when you have a chronic illness.

And that was the beginning of it. And so since then, I've just layered on with the yoga and other forms of movement, uh, regular, you know, methodical movement, uh, layering meditation pretty much every morning, uh, for somewhere between fifteen to twenty minutes. Um, I read every morning. I try to read things that provoke thought, uh, in different ways.

I'm-- I started reading novels in the morning. I just finished a, a novel called Orbital, which is, uh, about four astronauts in a space station orbiting the Earth. Over the course of a day, there's sixteen orbits around the Earth, and it's just a beautiful, beautiful book. Um, very contemplative, meditative kind of book as they look at the Earth and all the things that are happening on Earth, and they think about their own lives.

And I find that, that kind of reading plus, like I-- this morning I was reading, uh, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which is a classic. You know, I, I was reading a book on writing, so I'm, I'm really kind of varied. And then I'll, you know, I read first, then I meditate, and then I journal. And so I'll journal, you know, for...

So all that takes, depending on how much time I have in the morning, somewhere between, you know, forty-five minutes probably.

[00:16:14] Simon Vetter: what did this incident when you got diagnosed 2008, what did that teach you about life?

[00:16:24] Scott Eblin: One, quit pushing so hard. I mean, you know, that-- and the other is stress management is really key. And the other one, this is probably the biggest one really, everything in life is temporary. Uh, you know, there are-- other than death, I think there are really no permanent conditions. And the reason I learned that from MS is there would be mornings in, in those first couple of years when I was really trying to figure out how to, how to grapple with it.

I, I wanna acknowledge too, you know, I'm-- if most people who meet me, if they've learned that I have MS, they're really surprised by that because I don't really show a lot of the symptoms, you know, that a lot of folks with MS would show. So I am very fortunate. You know, MS presents lots of different ways, and I wanna acknowledge that.

But there are-- I think there are things you can do in your self-management to, you know, mitigate the impact of it, and that's, I've been very fortunate in that way. Um, but what I mean by everything is temporary is there would be mornings when I would wake up or, you know, just in the middle of the day suddenly I would start to feel like crap.

You know, I just, I just felt like... Sometimes I would describe it as being like the toothpaste being squeezed out of the tube. You know, I just felt everything was compressed, and I was just getting squeezed and tight, you know? And, um, or I'd have brain fog or this or that. I mean, and then I-- you know, you get into it, you can easily get into a mindset of, "This is gonna be for the rest of my life."

And I would, you know, I would definitely have that. I would have that for weeks at a time initially. And I was like, "And the more you think that way, the worse it gets." And then I would sometimes-- I noticed that if I started focusing on something else, I would start feeling better. And I'm not saying it's-- I, there's a line in the book, in the Overworked and Underwhelmed book about we're all psychosomatic.

You know, like that, that sometimes we say to somebody, "Oh, you're just psychosomatic." Well, I would argue that we're all psychosomatic because what we think determines so much about how we feel. You know, the, the psy- the psychology of it and the somatic of it, the body of it, uh, is really a thing, you know?

And so I just-- the, the meta lesson was every condition is temporary. It can change in a moment's notice. And if you don't like the current situation, check your thought process and start thinking about something else. Start thinking about how you can change it, whatever it is, right? So that's a big one.

[00:19:01] Simon Vetter: And I think that's also our biggest power

[00:19:04] Scott Eblin: Hello.

[00:19:04] Simon Vetter: because we can ch- change the thought process every time if we're really going back, if we are intentional and pay our attention to where we want to put our thoughts. And, uh, going back to your, your approach to being pushing, I mean, we work both with a lot of leaders in their 30s, 40s, and they're pushing hard, and oftentimes that is one of the reasons why they're successful

[00:19:35] Scott Eblin: Yeah

[00:19:36] Simon Vetter: And so how do you advise someone who has that innate ability to push hard?

And it's like, I think we can learn a lot from athletes. They push very hard, and if they, they push too hard, they get injured

[00:19:52] Scott Eblin: Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a classic book, you know, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, the, the, uh, Powerful Engagement. They wrote a classic HBR years ago called The Making of the Corporate Athlete. Jim Loehr I read just passed away a few weeks ago, uh, in his 80s. Uh, but

[00:20:09] Simon Vetter: I love his books and I, I use it a lot

[00:20:11] Scott Eblin: Yeah, he did a lot of good.

And, and so Jim Loehr, I-- if I remember correctly, started out as a sports psychologist, and he worked with a lot of...

[00:20:20] Simon Vetter: Tennis coach too, and he, he was looking at tennis games and,

[00:20:24] Scott Eblin: He, he worked with a lot of elite athletes, and he made the point that it's, it's exertion plus recovery, you know, and that all athletes have routines of recovery, in both their training and in their competition.

Like you, you mentioned to tennis, you know, uh, Carlos Alcaraz, I guess, you know, is the, is the latest and greatest guy from Spain. It seems like they're all from Spain. You have Rafael Nadal and all those guys. But anyway, um, you know, you watch those guys between points, between sets, they'll have little micro routines of recovery, you know, between, between the points, between the games, uh, between the sets, you know, and, you know, depending how much time they have.

And I think we can do the same, same thing, you know, as non-professional athletes or non-Olympians or whatever it might be. Um, you know, one that I teach my, uh, leaders all the time, either through executive education or coaching, um, is breathing. Um, I always joke when I lived in Los Angeles, I-- we, we lived out there for about eight and a half years, and my joke is if you live in LA for more than a, a year, there's a municipal ordinance that you're required to take yoga teacher training, um, and 'cause that's what they do in LA, especially West LA.

And, uh, so I did. I did yoga teacher training for about fourteen weeks in two thousand and thirteen. And in the second weekend, I realized, oh my gosh, there's so much in this program that I could apply to my work as a coach, you know? And, um, so I took... asked the teacher, Brigitta Kristen, who was a thirty-year yoga teacher at that point, she was amazing.

I said, "Could-- can I take you to lunch? I-- Here's what I do. I wanna get the download from you on what you think I should focus on." So we went to lunch, and said, "So Brigitta, what should I be working on with my clients?" And she immediately said, "Breathing. Ambitious people don't know how to breathe." I said, "Well, everybody knows how to breathe."

She said, "Yeah, they do, but they don't breathe the right way." And her point was they breathe kind of up here in their chest, really shallow. Sometimes people even stop breathing, you know, momentarily. Not a great long-term strategy, but they do that momentarily. And, um, if you're breathing what Brigitta would say is the right way, on the inhale, your belly should expand.

As the chest cavity fills up, the diaphragm pushes down, the belly expands, and then on the exhale, the belly should contract, right? And, you know, you can do that even as you're listening to us right now, listeners You know, you could do that with your hand on your belly and just notice it going in and out if you are breathing deeply enough.

And so three cycles of that even, I did, I did it this week in an executive ed program I was leading for 50 or 70 people. You know, three cycles of deep breathing, how do you feel? Calm, uh, centered, clear, you know, and it's, it's that quick. Relax, you know, because you're activating the parasympathetic response, and if you're in fight or flight and your brain is spun up and the stress hormones are spiked and all that, and you're not thinking clearly or you're irritable or whatever it might be, pay attention to that.

That's an ex- that's some internal awareness, and that should be your cue to take your foot off the gas, put it on the braking system, the, the rest and digest response, and breathe, right? That's a big thing that people can do to recover, you know, throughout the day

[00:23:55] Simon Vetter: I often, um, do, especially with, with very busy leaders, I start with a one-minute shared silence.

[00:24:04] Scott Eblin: What's the impact of that?

[00:24:05] Simon Vetter: And,

[00:24:05] Scott Eblin: what do you see from that?

[00:24:08] Simon Vetter: It's really get them to, as you said, to calm down their whole system and do a little bit, um, uh, and then going back to, uh, Jim Loehr's book, "The Powerful Engagement," it's a strategic disengagement, which is taking a pause and allowing your system to calm down.

And it also clears the, the brain activities. Uh, and I think I had this, this one guy, it was a 4:00 coaching call, and we got into discussions, and I felt like he was not with me. He's, he starts jumping around all over. And I said, "Hey, let's do an exercise." So I invited him to do a one-minute breathing exercise.

And then after a minute I was said, "What was your experience?" And he said, "Well, I had a two-hour meeting about budgeting, and it got very heated. I stopped the meeting and came straight into the coaching session." So he took the energy from that two-hour intense meeting right into it, so his brain was still in that state.

And to your point, he learned to, within a minute, rest and restore, activate the parasympathetic nervous system. And his thinking, his clarity of judgment became much more productive. And again, I think that, that concept of strategically disengage, take a break between meetings, take a walk five minutes around the

[00:25:41] Scott Eblin: Yeah

[00:25:42] Simon Vetter: step up, eat something, change your focus for a

[00:25:46] Scott Eblin: Yeah, totally. I mean, I know, you know, you're the vision guy, right? Uh, as, as it says in, you know, your website and everywhere else. Um, I think there's opportunities to get clear throughout the day about your vision. You know, like lots-- most, most of the people we work with probably sign in or some-somewhere between five and eight, maybe even 10 meetings a day, you know, where they're just going from one thing to the next really quickly with very little time between to, to reset.

But the really interesting thing, you know, with the breathing a minute with your, in your example, three rounds of breathing in my example, probably close to a minute. And once, once we do that together or once they, you know, adopt that routine for themselves, my next suggestion is, okay, once you get clear, ask yourself two questions about the next conversation or the next meeting you're about to go into.

Question number one is, what am I trying to do here? What outcome am I trying to create? What do people know, think, do, feel, believe at the end of this? Second big question is, how do I need to be? How do I need to show up to make that outcome more likely? And visualize the energy that you're bringing into that conversation.

Uh, you know, not just what you're gonna say, but how people are going to experience you, you know, in that conversation and how that-- what's your vision of how that's gonna affect or impact the way people respond, hopefully, rather than react, so that you get to the outcome you're trying to create together, right?

And

[00:27:27] Simon Vetter: Yeah

[00:27:28] Scott Eblin: folks are... Everybody's busy. Almost everybody's got a minute, you know, between, between an event or a meeting. And I think that's one thing I-- that's really cool that we get to do as coaches, you know, is, is suggest that kind of routine to folks and makes an enormous impact, you know, when, when they do that

[00:27:45] Simon Vetter: Yeah. Yeah. I love this whole simple application. You can do this for every meeting. What are we trying to accomplish? You can even set your agenda and the intention. What do we, what do we wanna walk away with? Is it a

[00:27:58] Scott Eblin: Yeah, totally

[00:27:59] Simon Vetter: it delegation? Is it, um, discussion of what and, and to make it happen, how do we show up as a team and how do I show up?

If it's my meeting, I can drive it, but then also bring people together and we can apply this visioning to small increments throughout the day

[00:28:22] Scott Eblin: Yeah, completely. Because our, you know, our day is really just made up of a series of interactions you know? And our week is made up of a series of days and our, you know, and weeks, months out of weeks. I mean, you know, so it-- the building blocks of our year are each of those little interactions that we have, right?

You know, you could... I, I guess you, you certainly can ask yourself, this is kinda get to the life GPS part of the conversation maybe, but you can ask yourself, "What am I trying to accomplish this year in different arenas of life?" And then, you know, you can start reverse engineering back from that to say, "Okay, well, how would I need to be, you know, on a consistent basis to help l- create the environment or the conditions, you know, for those sorts of outcomes to occur," right?

[00:29:12] Simon Vetter: Let's go talk about the GPS. And a GPS requires a good

map. You need to know where you are. You need to understand the landscape. Uh, if you wanna travel from San Diego to New York, it's a clear destination. And, and so it's like if I use a GPS, it's like, how do I get there? And, and so applying that to life is we have an abundance of opportunities and choices.

How do we help people understand the map and use the GPS to help them create a path that is fulfilling, rewarding, enjoyable, satisfying, a- and rich in learning? Give me a little bit of a sense of this system that you came up with, and then we can dive into some of the elements of the

[00:30:04] Scott Eblin: Okay, cool. Um, so my wife Diane and I mentioned earlier, she and I developed the Life GPS framework for ourselves, like probably 35 years ago now. That's how old I am. That's how long we've been married, um, when our kids were little, and this was the period when "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" had sort of just come out or been out a few years, and I love that book, still love that book.

I've probably read it six or seven times over the years. and I think a lot of it, especially when I first read it, I was like, "Okay, this is great, but how do you implement this stuff? Like, how do you make it actionable?" Because there's just so much in there, I couldn't really figure it out. So we came up with the Life GPS as a one-pager kind of self-planning tool.

We called it Stephen Covey for Dummies, you know. It's this... And it really turns on three questions. Um, first question is how are you when you're at your best? How do you know yourself to be when you're in your sweet spot or in the zone or in a state of flow? And that could be, you know, you can reflect on those moments, those situations at work.

You can reflect on those situations with your family at home. You can reflect on it maybe in your church group or your civic group that you're involved in or the sports group that you're involved in, whatever it is. wherever you feel that way the most, those are good, uh, reference points.

And so reflect on that. How are you at your best? Come up with a short list of words that are... On the GPS system, they use really precise latitudes and longitudes to guide you along the way. Right? Those satellites are calibrating against that with your device. And I think of the words that describe you at your best as like latitude and longitude.

So like in my own case, the words that I've used for the last number of years are calm, clear. When I'm at my best, I'm calm, clear, connected, creative, loving, and fun. And I can ask myself throughout the day, "Am I showing up that way?" Or at the beginning of the day, I can think about what's coming up today where I really need to lean into one or more of these characteristics.

You know, like do I-- what does connection look like for me today? What does loving look like for me today when I know I'm gonna have a challenging conversation with somebody or I'm anticipating that? What does fun look like? That's, that's the one I wanna pay maybe the most attention to 'cause it's not my n- you know, it's, it's not my natural state, but I've recognized over the years when I'm at my best, I'm having fun and I'm helping others have fun.

And so that's the first big question. Um, the second big question is what are the routines in four domains, physical, mental, relational, and spiritual, that if I was practicing them on a regular basis would enable me to be more at my best more often, right? And there's some... a lot of really good research that would tell you what the core routines probably need to be in each of those four domains, especially physical and probably mental as well.

Uh, also relational. And I, I think about killer apps in each of those domains. I mean, physical, you move, eat, and sleep for sure are all important. Uh, if you're only gonna do one, I think the most accessible one for most people to get started with is some form of movement, and that's got a lot of lift and leverage to it.

Uh, mental routines, um breathing and slowing down for routines that help you just like we were talking about earlier, just help you clear. Uh, relational routines, I think transformational listening is kind of the foundation of a lot of good relational routines and a spiritual non-denominational, non, you know, traditional way to think about it is reflection.

Some kind of routine of reflection that helps you connect with your sense of purpose about why you're even here on this earth, you know, and what your, what your purpose is here in this life. Um, so anyway, that's-- those are the routines. And then if I show up at my best and the routines are helping me do that, the third big question is what outcomes would I hope or expect to see in the three big arenas of life, my life at home, my life at work, and my community life and whatever communities I'm involved in.

And it's not like a dead solid goal that if I don't hit it, I failed. It's just notionally what would I hope or expect? What intentions do I have back to intentionality? What intentions do I have in these arenas? And checking in on that, you know, am I tracking towards those over the course of a week or a month or a year?

And if I'm not, maybe, you know, maybe it-- my vision wasn't completely true to itself, you know, it wasn't completely authentic or maybe I feel like it's-- that is really what I'm hoping to see and create. But there's some things where I'm falling off the mark, you know, in terms of how I'm showing up, how I'm engaging.

And so it's just, you know, it's just kind of all integrated on a page and you can just... I pull mine out once or twice a week and just look at it, you know, how am I doing? Where, where do I need to double down? What's working well? You know, things like that.

[00:35:19] Simon Vetter: Let's recap this. I think this is so powerful and so important. So the three areas is first, understand when we're in a flow, when we are at our best, and define a few keywords

[00:35:31] Scott Eblin: reference

[00:35:31] Simon Vetter: that really helps us re-refer to and then say, "Well, how do I show up, uh, on a daily basis?" The second one then is understand, to have clear routines and practices in the four areas of energy management: physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual.

And how do we establish those practices that helps us to stay fully present, fully engaged? And then the third one is being very intentional. What is the desired outcome? And I love Stephen Covey's, uh, uh, habit, start

[00:36:06] Scott Eblin: mind. Yeah, totally. Right

[00:36:09] Simon Vetter: Be in-- be really intentional. What, what are we trying to accomplish?

What's the outcome? What's the end result we wanna aspire? And do that home life, re-relations at home, at work professionally, and then also in our community, friends, and

family. Now, once you set this up, um, how do you-- how often you check in? How do you adjust? Give me a little bit of sense of implementation of this GPS system throughout the day,

throughout the

[00:36:40] Scott Eblin: so you can create one, you know, on your own, I would say in an hour. I've, I've got a digital course that I produced this past year called Best Life Ever that people could look at on my website, um, that I'm walking you through, you know, in a series of videos how to create your own Life GPS.

Um, but you don't need me to do that. I mean, I'm available via my, via video if you want me to do that, but you can do it on your own. Uh, I would say if you want a worksheet, people can go to my website, eblingroup.com and, and download one for free, uh, a Life GPS worksheet. But the... Yeah, it's just being reflective on, on that.

So that's the basic version. For me personally, what Diane and I have done for the past thirty years or so is every fall, usually around October, November, uh, we take a few days away together, usually over a weekend, and sometimes it's really simple, and sometimes it's a little bit more over the top in terms of where we go and what we do.

But we spend a good portion of that weekend, you know, three or four hours a day over the course of a three or four-day weekend or two or three-day weekend talking about our Life GPS, and we, we work on each-- we each work on it individually, usually for the first half of the weekend, and then the second half of the weekend, we share with each other, you know, what we're thinking about and coming up with.

And, you know, we know each other really well. We've been married for thir- thirty-eight years, I think. Uh, we're going on thirty-nine. It'll be thirty-nine in June. Thank you. Um, so we know each other really well and just, does this feel right? You know, the, you know, am I kidding myself? What do you think? And so that's been enormously helpful to us over the, over the years, and I think it's...

Honestly, I think it's been a huge factor And being married for 39 years, you know, and for 25 of those 39...

[00:38:38] Simon Vetter: To keep it together

[00:38:39] Scott Eblin: of those 39 years, we built a business together and, you know, people always ask me like, "How do you guys do that?" You know, like be married and not kill each other when you're in the business.

And of course, that's a whole other conversation. But, you know, I think just having that kind of grounding in the GPS process has been huge for us. And then, like I said earlier, on an ongoing basis, I just, I look-- I encourage my clients to do this too. I use this a lot with my clients. Um, look at it, uh, regularly.

You know, I, I look at it weekly. You can look at it monthly. I kind of feel like weekly is a good cadence for me at least. And like I said, the biggest question I've asked myself is, "How am I doing?" You know, and, uh, am I... Is it going the way I thought it would go? There's a great quote from Ga-Gandhi. I wanna share this one quote real quick.

This great quote from Gandhi that I came across when I was writing the Overworked book. Uh, it's his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, the, you know, sacred Hindu text. And the quote is, "In regard to every action, one must know the result that is expected to follow." And I really like that because I think it sums up what that whole process is about really.

You know,

[00:39:47] Simon Vetter: Say it

[00:39:47] Scott Eblin: regard to, in, in regard to every action, one must know the result that is expected to follow. And so the result that is expected to follow are the outcomes, right? And in regard to every action, that's you at your best. And the routines are the bridge between the actions you take when you're at your best and the outcomes.

The routines, you know, kinda, I think, join the outcomes and, and the behaviors together. They align it, if you will. And the other thing that's really, I think, key about that quote is he doesn't say the outcomes that will follow. He says the outcomes that are expected to follow. Because it's not like I'm getting so attached to a particular outcome that I feel like I've failed if it doesn't turn out exactly the way I envisioned.

But I am moving in the direction of what I consider to be important, you know, or what I consider to be beneficial to others or to myself, or whatever it is, right? And so you give yourself some grace, you know, with that kind of process, and you're open to course correction, you're open to other possibilities.

Maybe what... The way it turns out is even better than you thought it would be. So it's a good thing you weren't attached to the way it was, 'cause you would've missed a better outcome even, right? So it's, you know, it's all good.

[00:41:07] Simon Vetter: Yeah. I love the, the three, four-day retreat, or a friend of mine called it advanced, that you do to really strategically plan your life. Like companies have

[00:41:18] Scott Eblin: Yeah

[00:41:19] Simon Vetter: leadership sessions to, to... And you do it for your life and, and with your partner. I, I do it every early January. I take a white piece of paper and I, on top I say, "At the end of the year, this year has been successful, rewarding, and satisfying because..."

And I list all the desired outcomes. It's like to your point, what are the outcomes we aspire? So I do that, and I'm really good in establishing good routines, uh, workout routines, eating routines, sleeping routines, relational routines, follow up with friends, uh, work routines. So I'm really good establishing those.

The one thing I'm gonna add is that first piece. When am I at my very best? How do I add more sequences, more units during out the day where I am on my best and be leveraging that? Because that's where we add most value, we are most connected, we are most productive. So I'm gonna add this to, to my, um, personal planning GPS.

[00:42:24] Scott Eblin: Awesome. Yeah, I think it's-- it, it compounds, right? I mean, you know, it, it, it... routines compound, whether they're, whether they're good or bad, they compound. And, um, I think it's the same thing with being thoughtful and mindful about the behaviors and characteristics that represent you at your best, right?

I've found over the years that the more I think about them and the more I use them as a visualization tool, uh, or a reference point during visualization, I hope them-- I'm showing up that way more, you know? And I, I get feedback that I am, but it's incremental. You know, it's not like, "Oh my gosh, I got it a hundred percent perfect."

I'm, I'm still not, probably never will be. But, uh, is it better than it was a few years ago? I think it is. Yeah

[00:43:20] Simon Vetter: Love it. Um, quickly going back to your, um, next level. You have those three areas, your personal presence, your team presence, your organizational presence. I love the way you laid it out, and you have three areas for each of those where you need to stop doing things and add new things. Where do you see people struggle mo- leaders struggle the most?

Which of those three levels and, and w-where do you see some of the, the areas to get to that next level are most

[00:43:55] Scott Eblin: that's really good. The way I think about it these days, I, the edition that you were kind enough to show when you, we started is the second edition. This orange one right here is the third edition. And just after I sent in the manuscript for the third edition to the publisher, it, well, like a month later, after it was already locked and loaded at the publisher and couldn't be changed, I, uh, I'm like, "Gosh, this stuff is a pyramid."

And what I, what I mean by that is like personal presence is really a bunch of behaviors around how you manage yourself, right? And I think that's the foundation of the pyramid. Team presence is a lot of behaviors and mindsets around how you leverage your team and how you work through and with your team to get bigger things done.

And then organizational presence is about how you engage your colleagues, and that's the top of the pyramid. And so to answer the question, where do they struggle? I think almost everybody I've... Well, I would say, put it this way, 90 to 95% of the people that I've coached or that I meet through executive education programs struggle with, uh, being in chronic fight or flight and, and, and pushing mindlessly as op- as opposed, as opposed to mindfully.

And so I think that's the first thing is to give yourself Uh, some routine. There's a, a, a metaphor that I learned from two really big mentors for me in graduate school, and I had the pleasure of speaking with one of them on Zoom yesterday. Uh, uh, Marty Linsky is the one that I got to speak to yesterday, and, you know, that's, that's amazing to me that I'm, I'm still connected with him forty years later after grad school.

He's, he's an amazing person. Uh, Ron Heifetz is-- was Marty's partner at Harvard in, in teaching, and they together came up with a school of leadership called Adaptive Leadership. And, one of... They've got a lot of really interesting, powerful metaphorical phrases, and one of those is that as a leader, you can either be on the dance floor or you can be on the balcony, and it's important, you know, that you alternate your perspective between the two.

And I, I guess the reason I bring that up in terms of what people struggle with, and this is part of managing yourself and it's part of being in chronic fight or flight and too much gas pedal, not enough brakes, is a lot of leaders, as they're coming up, they over-index on the dance floor and they under-index on the balcony.

You know, and they're just pushing and pushing and pushing as hard as they can, dancing as fast as they can without taking time to take a breath or three breaths and say, "Okay, what the hell's going on here? Uh, is it working? Uh, let me look at the bigger picture," and all that. So that's, that's thing one, and that's related to challenge number two, which is I, I was with a group of sixty or seventy leaders this earlier this week, and the question I always like to ask a group of high potential leaders in a program like I was speaking to, raise your hand if you have ever thought of yourself or have been referred to as a go-to person.

In a room full of seventy people, every hand goes up, right? Because that's how they got to the high potential status. That's, that's why they got promoted to be a director in their company or whatever it is, right? And so my joke is that's always a great... and there's truth behind every joke. That's a great thing to be until it's no longer a great thing to be a go-to person.

And everybody laughs, and I say, "So when is it no longer a great thing to be?" They said, "Well, because I can't do it all, or because I'm holding onto stuff that I shouldn't be holding onto, or I'm holding my team back or whatever." Exactly. And so that's hard to let go of that because it made you successful.

And the picking up and letting go, if you ask again a room of a hund- hundred leaders, which is harder, picking up or letting go? And just tell them to shout it out. You're gonna hear the entire room say at once, "Letting go." Exactly. Why is that? Uh, and we talk about that. Picking up is a cognitive exercise.

You know, it's learning to do something new. involving your brain. Letting go is an emotional exercise, uh, and the underlying emotion that makes it hard for people to let go of being the go-to person in this example is fear. I am afraid. I'm afraid it's not gonna go well. I'm afraid it's not gonna turn out the way it would if I did it.

I'm afraid if I don't do what I've been doing, my identity is gonna be lost. I'm afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid, right? Exactly. And so we've gotta get you past that and mitigate that and help you identify the opportunity. And the opportunity is to make the shift from being the go-to person to the leader who builds and creates a team of go-to people.

Now we have multiplied your impact. Now we've scaled your leadership, you know, if, if you can make that shift, and it's the only way you even get the opportunity really to get to the top of the pyramid, which is to engage your colleagues. Because if you, if you don't let go of being the go-to person, you're not gonna have the bandwidth or really the perspective that you need to effectively engage your colleagues to work at the enterprise level to get the one plus one equals three kind of outcomes that only come from cross-functional diagonal collaboration, right?

so that third one, you know, the engaging your colleagues, I think once people get past the management, the self-management challenges and the, the leveraging the team challenges, quite often the engaging your colleagues isn't as hard. You know, there, there's some rules of the road and some unspoken, you know, uh, customs, you know, that they have to learn.

But I find that they learn those relic- usually learn to master those relatively quicker and easier than they did the first two ,

[00:49:59] Simon Vetter: Yeah. This is a powerful concept. Very, very cool. Um, as we kind of wrap up our discussions, what piece of advice do you have for this, for this person who is in the midst of, of climbing the ladder, overwhelmed, stretched, but also pushing hard? What are things you recommend a person can start implementing next week?

[00:50:25] Scott Eblin: Uh, right now you can implement breathe. You know, if you're feeling like you're pushing too hard and you're overwhelmed, breathe, because it's gonna-- it's the most immediate thing you can do to get yourself out of the state of fight or flight that you're in. the second thing to do after that is go for a walk, like you said, Simon.

You know, it's like, go for a walk. Uh, get your, get your autonomic nervous system reset so you're in a place where you can think more clearly, look at the bigger picture, get up on the balcony, off the dance floor, and reset. Because almost everything else flows from that. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna see the opportunities much more clearly.

You're gonna make decisions about, you know, the intention, what's the highest and best use of your time and attention if you are in a more relaxed, reflective kind of place than continuing to just put the gas pedal through the floor of the car, you know? And that's honestly where I would start with almost anybody.

[00:51:38] Simon Vetter: Yeah. And it goes back to what we started with, that leadership presence.

[00:51:43] Scott Eblin: Yeah, you're exactly right.

[00:51:44] Simon Vetter: that presence, it start being present, and breathing is a way to connect to the

[00:51:49] Scott Eblin: Yeah, I, I think that's totally true. And it, it almost sounds too simple to be true, but I, I've-- You know, you and I both been coaching a long time, I... 25 years or whatever. It's-- I've seen it play out more times than I can count, you know, at this point. If people can manage themselves more effectively, uh, everything else gets easier, you know?

So that's, that's where I'd start.

[00:52:17] Simon Vetter: They show more. They show up more

effectively. Yep

[00:52:21] Scott Eblin: Yeah. The, the, the, the i- the kind of the summary, you know, the idea I'm into these days, uh, is live better, lead better. When you live better, you lead better. And you know what I mean by live better is all the stuff we've talked about for the last hour. You know, it's just the physical, mental, relational, spiritual, being clear about what peak performance looks like for you.

Uh, having intention around the outcomes, not just at work, but in the rest of your life. You know, about what makes life frankly worth living. And if you're in a leadership role, uh, your impact is just gonna be so much more positive and so much deeper, you know, flowing from the choices you're making about the way you live

[00:53:09] Simon Vetter: Absolutely. Scott, this has been amazing, very

[00:53:12] Scott Eblin: Yeah, sounds great to talk with

[00:53:13] Simon Vetter: you for all your great insights and knowledge and tools and exercises. Where can we find

[00:53:19] Scott Eblin: Oh, eblingroup.com. Uh, follow me on LinkedIn. I'm fairly active there. Sign up for my newsletter on my website. Look at the videos, read the blog. I mean, there's, there's lots of options. Just Google me. You can find

[00:53:35] Simon Vetter: Yeah. Awesome. I have learned a lot from you,

[00:53:38] Scott Eblin: Likewise, right back at you

[00:53:40] Simon Vetter: a great im- impact. Thank you very much, and I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you very much. Be well, and to

[00:53:49] Scott Eblin: Yeah, we'll see you sometime