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The purpose of the IT Leaders Council is to bring together IT Directors and Managers for leadership training, educational content from guest speakers, and peer discussions in a vendor-free, collaborative environment. IT Leaders Councils are currently offered in Indianapolis, IN and Columbus, OH, with more cities coming soon!
00;00;00;12 - 00;00;17;22
Ryan Brubaker
All right. Good morning. Thanks for your time this morning. I'm Ryan Brubaker. it's great to be with you. This is gonna be one of the more touchy feely it présentation you've seen. I hope you were prepared. And I hope you enjoy it. This is what I really wanted to talk about. Have you ever been here? And you're in laying in bed?
00;00;17;24 - 00;00;38;11
Ryan Brubaker
It's 2 a.m.. I get back to sleep. Freaked out because of some project the next day, something that's about to happen. some, network outage. Or maybe there's nothing going wrong and you're just worried about what could go wrong. That's what I'm here to talk about this morning, and I've got some exercises for you to try. This is me and Chief operating Officer C spring.
00;00;38;18 - 00;01;01;11
Ryan Brubaker
We're a data and AI consulting company based in Indianapolis. but I'm not here to talk about me. I've been a CIO over 15 years, and Purdue, I you. I'll maybe read that. Anyway. That's me. I'm Ryan, just another human. Just like all the other humans in this room. Unless some of you were I. In which case, please, please don't do that.
00;01;01;14 - 00;01;17;18
Ryan Brubaker
Anyway, back to this. what keeps you up at night? What makes you worried? And how do you deal with it? How do you process the fact that you're late, that at night can't get back to sleep? What do you think about the account sheet? You, I read one study that said. Actually, if you really think really hard about falling back asleep, it actually helps.
00;01;17;18 - 00;01;34;15
Ryan Brubaker
They say. They say to distract yourself. But then this study said, no, actually, you should sit there and just think really hard about falling back asleep. Kind of an interesting study. So what do you do? I've brought three, three ideas. So here's the agenda. First is I'm going to try to establish that there really is a problem, that you're all going to agree with me, but it also be fine to establish it.
00;01;34;15 - 00;01;56;24
Ryan Brubaker
Right. And then I'm going to talk about an exercise called the worst case scenario, another exercise called the overlook. And then the last exercise that I'll cover is called the Superman. Okay I love you guys for those, but we'll jump right in. So the problem, have you ever seen these memes expectation versus reality? I really think they're funny.
00;01;56;26 - 00;02;14;23
Ryan Brubaker
you know, there's the expectation of of motherhood, I guess. And then the reality of being kicked in the face while you're sleeping. travel expectations. I'm going to go see the Great Wall of China. And then it turns out there's, you know, thousands of other people standing there with you. And that takes away from some of it.
00;02;14;26 - 00;02;34;22
Ryan Brubaker
first day of school. Definitely different than expected. my snowman always looked like the one on the right. The I'm never going to make a good snowman growing up. so there's the expectation, the reality. And then, of course, there's your plan. And then there's the reality on how to accomplish your plan. So I thought it'd be fun based on that.
00;02;34;22 - 00;02;59;15
Ryan Brubaker
I thought, you know what? I'm going to make some written job descriptions versus actual job descriptions, kind of a play on the expectations versus reality. So let's start with, written job description for a cashier. Just write grocery as a cashier who will smile and greet customers, scan their items like payment sounds pretty simple, but of course, the actual job description is get yelled at by customers because there aren't enough lanes open.
00;02;59;17 - 00;03;18;12
Ryan Brubaker
They're upset because there are more employees on staff, and customers are upset because you won't process. You want to don't actually apply to an order with a cashier. And this is what she dealt with all day, every day. There's the actual job description, right? This next one is fun. I have a friend who's an optometrist, so I got this from him.
00;03;18;14 - 00;03;41;17
Ryan Brubaker
The, Acme optometrist seeks optometrist who will heal the blind. Helps small children who are failing in school. That's what you sign up for to be an optometrist. In reality, your job is 1 or 2. All day, every day. that's what my friend tells me. That's all he does. All day, every day. After that, he was going to heal the blind and help children who were failing in school.
00;03;41;20 - 00;04;06;13
Ryan Brubaker
Okay, student Purdue University is seeking students who want to learn amazing things, party all night, and then receive daily Venmo payments from their parents. You have a great life cycle. Yeah, that's what they say on the tour. On the campus tour before the check is written. And then once the check is written, you show up as a student and you have some of three classes hangovers, back to back classes on the other side of campus finals week.
00;04;06;17 - 00;04;21;23
Ryan Brubaker
Your parents aren't giving you any money. You can give him one of your classes. And then, of course, there's the nightmares. I don't know if you all still have this nightmare that I have, that you show up to finals week and you realize that you hadn't attended the entire class the whole semester. we all have those kinds of, like, school nightmares, I think.
00;04;21;26 - 00;04;47;05
Ryan Brubaker
And that's the actual job description for students. So let's get into the written job description for I.T leader. You know where I'm going with this. So feel free to laugh as hard as you would like. ABC company is seeking a strategic thinker that will act with full autonomy to lead the company into a new digital age. Right? They're looking for an ideal leader that will sit at the executive table and drive revenue by utilizing the cutting edge of technology.
00;04;47;07 - 00;05;08;14
Ryan Brubaker
That sounds like the written job description does not. How about a team player who will be supported by all their colleagues and trusted to protect the company from unnecessary operational costs and cybersecurity threats? That definitely feels like the advertised IT leader. Job description, doesn't it? Let's talk about the actual job description of an IP leader. How about this one?
00;05;08;21 - 00;05;24;10
Ryan Brubaker
We're going to implement agile only to be told that the only reason you're implementing agile is because it doesn't want to give out any dates. They don't want to commit to anything. They don't want to have any milestones anymore. And what is this combine business. So you just make a list and then you just work in order and you don't commit to anything.
00;05;24;12 - 00;05;46;14
Ryan Brubaker
Or what do you need to be done that's stressful. Or how about this. We want a five year roadmap and you work for months to build a five year roadmap. Do you buy in from everybody? And then 15 minutes after the roadmap gets approved, you're told we're changing direction. We have a new rallying cry. We need you to change everything about what you're going to deliver for the rest of this year.
00;05;46;16 - 00;06;08;10
Ryan Brubaker
And then of course, a year later, when you go through all the list of all the stuff you delivered, somebody stands up and holds the roadmap and dusted off and says, why are we right here? Where you said a year ago we would be and you had to defend yourself, right? Even though you documented all the change requests and you put it all in writing and, and you invited people to stakeholder meetings, and everybody was bought in on the fact that you were going to change everything.
00;06;08;12 - 00;06;25;21
Ryan Brubaker
But of course, now it's a year has gone by and everybody has selective memory, and they just pull out the old the old roadmap that you produced a year ago. I want to know why you're not where you said you'd be. How about tabletop exercises where you're sitting there and taking made up scenarios, walking through everything you are going to do?
00;06;25;21 - 00;06;43;07
Ryan Brubaker
And of course this is really good and healthy. And I hope your organization does tabletop exercises and I hear my nose bleed. Or you're thinking, is this even the scenario we are we're going to face? And if this is the scenario we're going to face, is this even going to any of this, even going to work? We were just sitting here talking, of course, in theory we could say we would do this.
00;06;43;07 - 00;06;58;22
Ryan Brubaker
We would find a report and then we call this vendor and then we would do that. That's great to think about. But, you know, you're laying in bed at night thinking about that darkness as we did today was not even of any value. Is that going to be anything like that? How about the Do Not Disturb settings on your phone?
00;06;58;25 - 00;07;10;25
Ryan Brubaker
You go in and you put your phone on, you have to start, and then you immediately set everybody you know to break through. Do not disturb. Because what if your team needs you know, Holly, what if your boss needs to get Ahold of you? What if your colleague needs to get to all of you? What if one of your vendors these, you know, all of you.
00;07;10;25 - 00;07;27;10
Ryan Brubaker
So now you're setting all these breakthroughs, so you probably have no point turning on Do Not Disturb. Not to mention that you get Pagerduty and all your alerting apps and all that stuff turned off so that it can wake you up in the middle of life, right? That's the life of an I.T leader. Oh, how many of you have done this?
00;07;27;10 - 00;07;46;01
Ryan Brubaker
I've done this many times in my career where you have two zoom calls going at once. You're in the middle of an incident, you've got one zoom call with the more remote you've got the other zoom call, which is the executive briefing, and you get the executive executives asking you, hey, is this resolved yet? And then you get on the team with your work on with your war room, and you're saying, is this resolved yet?
00;07;46;01 - 00;08;01;01
Ryan Brubaker
And they're saying, we don't even have records yet. Like, what do we do? Is this resolved yet? So you go back to the executive, you mute unmute, you write to the executive briefing. Well, can we at least get a workaround in place? So you knew that if you go back to the work and we look for the word around the place and they're like us, we don't even have the record yet.
00;08;01;03 - 00;08;20;19
Ryan Brubaker
How could we have a workaround in place? I've been on a few of those in the middle of the night, where I have two zoom calls going at once. Very fun playing back and forth. Then, of course, if you do have some kind of an incident or a breach, well, the board wants accountability and unfortunately, most people view accountability or define accountability as inspiring someone.
00;08;20;24 - 00;08;37;22
Ryan Brubaker
Right? So maybe that's you. Maybe you're the person at the top, you're the person in charge of that, and you're the one you selected to be the person who is held accountable so that the more you do a press release and start doing damage control.
00;08;37;24 - 00;09;00;13
Ryan Brubaker
There's an excellent buffet of orphan CEOs clothing that really kind of changed how I thought about a lot of things, and it's, I've fashioned myself as a servant leader, not lofty, and I don't believe that you should necessarily follow Machiavellian principles and how you lead a group, but it's a great book to just really challenge your thinking and make you consider and pause.
00;09;00;16 - 00;09;25;22
Ryan Brubaker
And Tina tells a story in this book about how I think leaders are typically data people. They like lots of numbers, they like lots of data. They're data driven, they think in data. And so a critical mistake that many I.T leaders make is they assume that everybody would like the data and they're overly transparent. And I actually have suffered from this for a lot of my career and changed some of my philosophy and strategy based on this book.
00;09;25;25 - 00;09;48;01
Ryan Brubaker
But she tells a great story and she talks about all of all the CIOs that she's interviewed and work, and she's a Gartner, a Gartner leader. And of all the CIOs that she's worked with and talked with, not one of them has ever shared a whole bunch of data and had it go well. And I'll give you an example, I did that CFO of mine was asking you about velocity and sprint planning and how we were doing everything.
00;09;48;01 - 00;10;00;27
Ryan Brubaker
So I said, great, why don't you come to a retro? Why don't you come to a sprint planning session you can come to today with stand up. I'll share my DevOps with you. You can see my combine board. You can see everything you are you got. I guess this was a scrum team. So you can see my scrum planning.
00;10;01;05 - 00;10;26;00
Ryan Brubaker
You can see my sprint planning and just open it all up because I thought that's great, right? That's what you should do as a transparent leader. You just share all the data. And of course, the person didn't come back and say, oh, I totally understand now you're running a fantastic organization. I totally trust you. I'll never question you again, Ryan, though of course they said, hey, I went back through the data last night and I found, you know, seven sprints ago, you didn't nearly hit the velocity that you had been hitting.
00;10;26;00 - 00;10;48;09
Ryan Brubaker
And I don't remember you like sharing that with the executive team. And so it was you know, it's it's classic. And she shares this in the book. She says nobody ever comes back and says that really went well. And the transparency was appreciated. So just a really, really interesting read. So I guess my point is I think this is the IT leader job description I picture is one of 1000 words, right?
00;10;48;09 - 00;11;00;14
Ryan Brubaker
This is your job description is to just sit there and work to wonder what's going to happen tomorrow. To wonder what event is going to transpire is that a tabletop exercise is going to even work.
00;11;00;17 - 00;11;22;00
Ryan Brubaker
Stress is physical, mental or emotional strain or tension. Worry over his job and his wife's health put him under great stress. Well that that mentions worry less if I worry to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts, to fret, to torment with cares, anxieties, etc..
00;11;22;02 - 00;11;52;22
Ryan Brubaker
Anxieties, distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear or danger or fear of danger or misfortune. She felt anxiety about the possible loss of her job. So that's a theme in all of these examples that the dictionary gives. How about fear, a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc. whether the threat is real or imagined, the feeling or condition of being afraid and isn't that interesting, whether real or imagined, whether the things that you're worried about a real or imagined, you're still laying there in bed at night, aren't you?
00;11;52;26 - 00;12;09;28
Ryan Brubaker
You're still looking at the clock saying it's too am I got go back to sleep. Got that big thing due to today. A quick word about grief and depression. I'm not covering grief or depression. I'm not a licensed therapist or psychiatrist. That's not my point. This morning is not to cover those things. If you suffer from those things, those are very real.
00;12;10;00 - 00;12;29;18
Ryan Brubaker
If you've had a loss, if you've, if you've experienced depression, you should absolutely seek, professional assistance. but I'm here to just kind of encourage you with some of the daily stresses of life is my goal. So here's a rhetorical question. Are people more or less anxious than they were ten years ago, 20 years ago, 40 years ago?
00;12;29;20 - 00;12;58;07
Ryan Brubaker
I mean, everybody knows all the studies people are are so much more stressed and anxious than they used to be. So there you have it. Have I convinced you there's a problem? Everybody on board. Okay, let's talk about three exercises that might be able to help. The first one's called the worst case scenario. Before I jump into this, I want to ask you a question related to this exercise.
00;12;58;10 - 00;13;06;20
Ryan Brubaker
What's your identity? If I ask you that question, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
00;13;06;22 - 00;13;26;12
Ryan Brubaker
Think about it. What is your identity at your very core? Who are you? I didn't think we were going to get so existential this morning. This is fun. Okay. What's your identity? Well, is it is it this is this. My identity isn't just a bunch of stuff. Oh, yeah. Executive leader CIO got these degrees. Is that. Is that.
00;13;26;13 - 00;13;46;17
Ryan Brubaker
I mean, some people view that as their identity. How about this one? You're late in profile. Is your LinkedIn profile your identity? I think we all struggle at times with with wrapping up our identity in just our work or what we bring to the table every day, knowing. How about at your inner core? What are your personal core values?
00;13;46;17 - 00;14;07;04
Ryan Brubaker
These are mine. I don't know if you've ever sat down and thought about what your personal core values are, because that's really who you are. That's really your identity is your personal core values. I would highly encourage you to sit down sometime and write out your personal core values, because that will help you with this worst case scenario exercise.
00;14;07;06 - 00;14;37;25
Ryan Brubaker
But let's keep going. So if I ask you what your identity really at the core gets to, when I mentioned core values, core values is what makes you valuable. Are you valuable? So let's define that valuable is having considerable monetary worth costing or bringing a high price, having qualities worthy of respect, admiration, or esteem, and of considerable or of considerable use, service or importance.
00;14;37;27 - 00;14;59;04
Ryan Brubaker
I would argue this morning that every single person sitting here is extremely valuable. You are worth so much. You have qualities of respect that are worthy of respect, admiration and esteem, and you are of considerable use, service or importance. You know you are at your core. You know you are valuable even when your inner critic accuses you that you're not.
00;14;59;06 - 00;15;25;01
Ryan Brubaker
We'll talk about that in a minute. So what gets in the way? I think there's two things imposter syndrome and anxious thinking. What's imposter syndrome? Feeling that you're on the verge of being exposed as a fraud. Isn't that interesting? It's extremely common and high achieving individuals, and it affects both men and women equally. It's been studied in quite a bit over the last 20 years.
00;15;25;01 - 00;15;29;25
Ryan Brubaker
This concept of imposter syndrome.
00;15;29;27 - 00;15;48;18
Ryan Brubaker
It's actually the CEO's biggest fear. If you if you survey CEOs above death. I mean, death was actually on the list and it was lower than imposter syndrome being found out that they're going to walk into work one day and be told by the board of directors, we figured you out. You're a total fraud. You have no idea what you're doing.
00;15;48;18 - 00;16;09;22
Ryan Brubaker
Pack up your stuff. That's CEOs biggest fear when serving is it is this imposter syndrome that they're going to be found out. Okay. Now you couple that with anxious thinking. What are some of the things that you're afraid of? I can lose my job. My job isn't prestigious enough. I don't make enough money. I'm failing myself, I, my family, I don't volunteer or help others enough.
00;16;09;25 - 00;16;46;16
Ryan Brubaker
Those are the aggravating that creeps in, that are keeping you up at night. And which ones resonate with you the most? Okay, so with that is our foundation. Here's the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario probably everybody knows what I'm talking about on this one is the idea of just sitting down and thinking through if those fears come true, and whatever that thing is that I'm freaked out about, if it really does come true, what really happens because our brains tend to go to a much greater worst case scenario than is reality for me, one of the things that I really worried about all the time was losing my job.
00;16;46;19 - 00;17;06;22
Ryan Brubaker
I was convinced subconsciously, I was convinced that if I lost my job within a few days, this would be me. I would be out, I would have nothing. And I read a book where a guy even talked about he did Couch County and what he would do is he would count the number of couches of friends that would let him sleep on their couch if the worst happened.
00;17;06;22 - 00;17;24;23
Ryan Brubaker
He lost his home and he said I would count couches. All my friends from work, school, church, whatever, and I would just literally count the couches and I would say, yeah, I got 20 couches or 18 couches that I could sleep on, and that would help him feel better. He would think through that. So the worst case scenario was I'm one of those 18 options, right?
00;17;24;25 - 00;17;44;08
Ryan Brubaker
I guess if you ever can't count to one couch, then you're in trouble. You don't have anybody that you can sleep on their couch, but the reality is you work through this worst case scenario, and what ultimately comes out is you're probably not going to end up on the street begging for food. It's pretty unlikely. So that's the worst case scenario, is just think through, thinking through that and actually playing out.
00;17;44;08 - 00;18;05;10
Ryan Brubaker
What is that fear? Is it a fear of a job loss? Is it a fear of a relationship that gets harmed, a personal relationship or something like that? And so the worst case scenario takeaways with this, where do you struggle with imposter syndrome or anxious thinking? And then take time today with someone you trust to honestly work out the worst case scenario.
00;18;05;10 - 00;18;12;26
Ryan Brubaker
If that fear really came true.
00;18;12;29 - 00;18;40;01
Ryan Brubaker
With me? Yeah, I think I might make you feel better. Maybe more than right. Okay, that's exercise one. The second exercise we're gonna talk about is that over luck. Have you ever had one of these experiences where you're out hiking or you're maybe like the, a national monument or something like that, and you just walk up to an overlook and it just gives you such a grandiose view that you realize it just puts life in perspective.
00;18;40;02 - 00;19;02;23
Ryan Brubaker
It's like it's like you have this out-of-body experience where you just realize there's so much more to life, and it gives you a really a good perspective. So that's that's what the goal of the overlook is. And the best way, I think, to get that perspective is to talk about what your regrets might be in your final moments.
00;19;02;25 - 00;19;22;09
Ryan Brubaker
So a study was done of what people what people's biggest regrets are in their final moments. And they compiled them and they came up with the 15 basically 15 themes categories. Of course, they got hundreds of answers, but they still didn't end up, you know, what did they really boil down to was these 15. So I'm going to walk you through these 15 quickly.
00;19;22;11 - 00;19;36;27
Ryan Brubaker
I have them all written down. And so you don't don't feel like you need to take pictures of every one of these slides or write them down if you don't want, because I have a handout for you to take with you today if you want, and it has all these on it. So let's start with number one. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
00;19;36;29 - 00;19;51;26
Ryan Brubaker
Very unsurprising. Does anybody on their deathbed say, I wish I had just worked harder and spent a lot of time with my family? Nobody says that. So that's that's a pretty straightforward one. And as I go through each of these, I want you to think about like, how likely is this one for me? Because some of them won't resonate.
00;19;51;26 - 00;20;08;18
Ryan Brubaker
Lore, you're going to say, I'm not going to worry about that. All that's like me regret of mine at all. Some of them might hit really home. How about number two? I wish I had laugh things off more often. That's something I struggle with. I take certain things personally and I need to just say, oh well, we're all humans.
00;20;08;18 - 00;20;28;04
Ryan Brubaker
We all make mistakes. We all say things that are nice or whatever and just move on. But that's actually the number two regret. I wish I had left things off more often. How about number three? I wish I had enjoyed more of the foods I loved. That's a funny one. Is that's kind of interesting, but it kind of makes sense.
00;20;28;06 - 00;20;50;23
Ryan Brubaker
My dad has told me, son, I've worked all my life on my way. I've watched what I've eaten. I've done everything I can to keep my weight down and and eating healthy. And so he literally told me, the day I go into hospice, someday I want you to only feed me my. So I know he's kind of have it in my I get it like, I don't know I'll I want his donuts one time in hospice.
00;20;50;23 - 00;21;11;24
Ryan Brubaker
Like let me enjoy it on my way out. So yeah that's a that's a big regret. Number three I wish I enjoy more of the foods I love. How about number four? I wish I hadn't wasted time trying so hard for people that didn't matter. Wow. That's like an arrow straight through my heart. I mean, there are people that I was trying to impress 20 years ago that I haven't seen in 20 years, and they probably don't even remember me.
00;21;11;27 - 00;21;41;14
Ryan Brubaker
And yet I spent my effort trying to impress them or make them happy or pleased that, wow, I'm not surprised that that's a common one that hits home for me. How about this? I wish I had not been so attached to my phone. There's some great books on this one. Now At Your Best is a great book. There's another great book I read a couple years ago called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, a phenomenal book on how hurried our lives are and how much we need to slow down.
00;21;41;14 - 00;22;03;06
Ryan Brubaker
And that includes setting down our phone. I wish I had taken more risks with a little more on the edge. Maybe you wish you'd been that entrepreneur, or just made, or maybe jumped out of an airplane, right? And then done some skydiving, whatever it might be. This is a common one. I wish I had stood up to the bullies, the meanies, the baddies, and the gossips.
00;22;03;09 - 00;22;24;27
Ryan Brubaker
This really surprised me that this made it into their research that people actually regretted that they hadn't stood up to the people who were gossiping, who were bullying. Like, we've all seen it happen, and we just kind of walk away and maybe in the moment that is the right thing to do. But there are also times where the right thing to do is to stand up.
00;22;25;00 - 00;22;45;23
Ryan Brubaker
In a way, this isn't how humans should be treating each other. So this is a big one. I wish I had made a difference, kind of unexpected there. Everybody probably has regrets about that. They could have volunteered more or done something more for a greater impact. Number nine I wish I hadn't spent so much time worrying about things I couldn't control.
00;22;45;25 - 00;23;03;04
Ryan Brubaker
While the things you write back to the alarm clock picture right, you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. And yet there you are, pre pre worried about it. Pre-processing. How many times have you spent hours worrying about something and that thing never even came true. Sometimes it does. But why not only worry about it when it does come true?
00;23;03;05 - 00;23;18;11
Ryan Brubaker
Why do you? Why do we worry about it when it's not going to come true? I have entire conversations with myself. My wife walks into my office and says, you talk to yourself. And it's not literally talking to the person about the conversation I think I'm going to have tomorrow with them. Why am I doing that? Why am I pre-planning how I think that conversation is going to go out?
00;23;18;13 - 00;23;36;04
Ryan Brubaker
We spend a lot of time on that and it's a regret for people in their final moments. Wish I had traveled more. Kind of unexpected to see that on the list. Maybe that's you. Maybe that's going to be you. I wish I had pursued the career I really wanted. Doesn't this give you some perspective? I mean, life's too short.
00;23;36;04 - 00;23;52;03
Ryan Brubaker
Imagine being in a career that you didn't like or at a job that was terrible for five, ten, 15, 20 years and you needed to just take a risk and go out and get another job, but you didn't do it. That's going to be a regret someday, isn't it? I wish I had taken better care of my health.
00;23;52;05 - 00;24;13;10
Ryan Brubaker
Now you might be thinking, hey, that's in contrast to I wish I had eaten all the more of the foods I loved those, but actually in the research they explained this isn't about eating better. This is about people who very commonly refused to go to the doctor. They don't get that annual checkup. You don't get on the heart medicine enough or whatever it is their doctor's telling them to do.
00;24;13;12 - 00;24;28;15
Ryan Brubaker
They have that pain. That's a nagging them, but they're afraid of what it could be. So they refuse to go to the doctor and find out what that pain is. That's what this is about. Health is I wish I had just done the things that I should have done for my health. And this is number 12. Number 13.
00;24;28;17 - 00;24;51;01
Ryan Brubaker
I wish I had been more present. That's one of the things I talk to you about with all new employees about is being present, including in meetings close to a laptop. Unless you're taking notes to make sure you're taking notes, don't play on your phone. If you're if you're there, be there for a reason and be present. Number 14 I wish I had seen my own worth.
00;24;51;04 - 00;25;02;00
Ryan Brubaker
Wow, that's really deep and I sure let that sit for a second.
00;25;02;03 - 00;25;25;01
Ryan Brubaker
Is that going to be you? And then last, I wish I had realized how much I already had this to contentment. Doesn't. We have a lot of stuff. We have a lot to be thankful for. We are. We are very blessed. And sometimes it takes a minute to just think about that. So which one stood out to you?
00;25;25;03 - 00;25;42;18
Ryan Brubaker
I have a survey here. It's a sheet with all 15, and I've got a one through ten underneath each one. And so you can take one of these with you and you can rate. How likely is it that I'm going to feel this way in my final moments? Some of them will be ten. Some of them might be ones.
00;25;42;21 - 00;26;06;15
Ryan Brubaker
And then on the far right, there's an opportunity where you can just stack, rank them. And I would encourage you to do that. that's the overlook. Hopefully that gives you some perspective and so takeaways for this exercise. What's one real world issue causing you anxiety right now. And take at least five minutes today or alone or out loud with someone you trust and apply the overlook to this issue.
00;26;06;18 - 00;26;26;20
Ryan Brubaker
So take that issue that you're freaked out about, that thing that's been keeping you awake at night the last few nights, and then go through those 15 and say, is, am I really have have the right perspective? Should I really be up at night worrying about this, or should I have more of the perspective of those 15 final moments and then take the 15 final moments survey?
00;26;26;20 - 00;26;53;10
Ryan Brubaker
Like I said, I've got it at my table, so just come grab one on your way out. I've got plenty of them. And what are you going to change immediately because of your highest scoring items? Last time I did this, I have I had people email me and say by doing this scorecard, it put things in perspective for me of things changes that I needed to make immediately because of the things that I was, that I'm going to end up regretting.
00;26;53;10 - 00;27;18;24
Ryan Brubaker
So happy. So in order to avoid that, I'm going to go make changes immediately. So I highly encourage you to look at that. Okay, I got one more. I'm almost done. This is the Superman. Okay. We talked about imposter syndrome. This is kind of the other side of the imposter syndrome point that this is the inner critic. This is that person that thing, that nagging voice in your head that tells you nothing is good enough.
00;27;18;24 - 00;27;35;24
Ryan Brubaker
But it's not just like imposter syndrome where you're afraid to be found out. It's all the way down to the way you just signed your name wasn't good enough. The conversation you just have with your friend. Oh no, I said something I shouldn't have said. This is the inner critic that accuses you of every single thing in your life.
00;27;35;24 - 00;28;06;13
Ryan Brubaker
That you're. Nothing is ever good enough. That's the inner critic. What's the opposite of the inner critic? One of the inner critic attacking you for self-regard, regard or considers consideration for oneself? Self respect. So let's look up self-respect, proper esteem, or regard for the dignity of one's character. You recognize that that you are a human being and that you have dignity, you have inherent self-worth, and so you should have proper regard for that has self-respect.
00;28;06;15 - 00;28;17;13
Ryan Brubaker
It's not arrogance, it's not a lack of humility. It's just self-regard. You're just regarding yourself properly as having the dignity inherent within you.
00;28;17;15 - 00;28;42;00
Ryan Brubaker
Remember, number 14, I wish I had seen my own worth. That's a speed at speaking to that inner critic that I wish I had not listened to my inner critic so much throughout my life. Did you know that they have done scientific studies on human body language? And when people are down on themselves, when they're critical of themselves, they close off their body.
00;28;42;00 - 00;29;07;29
Ryan Brubaker
See how this person is putting their hands on their head, they fold themselves in and they make themselves small. And this is true. It's been studied across all, all geographies, all countries, all cultures. Everybody. Everybody that's human is exactly this way. This is what they do when they're down on themselves. What do they do when they're happy with themselves?
00;29;08;01 - 00;29;33;24
Ryan Brubaker
They make themselves big. They cheer. Arms go up, body goes out, legs go spread. I mean, it's like they make themselves very again across all cultures, across all geographies. That's what they do. They celebrate. Arms go in the air, fists, arms. And so studies have been done and found that like with a lot of things in our brain, we can train our brain by mimicking these motions.
00;29;33;26 - 00;30;03;26
Ryan Brubaker
And, theater trainers and public speaking trainers have been using this technique for years. Because what happens is, if you make yourself do this, it will actually change your brain chemistry. It will actually make you feel more emboldened. It will actually increase your self-regard. So it sounds it looks cheesy, but it's really true. In fact. Yeah, like I said, public speaking trainers and acting coaches, have people do this before they go out on stage.
00;30;03;26 - 00;30;19;25
Ryan Brubaker
I actually forgot to do this before I came out. Probably would have been even better if I hadn't done this. but yeah, I bet, people will actually say, go in the bathroom and, like, stand there and do this for like, 30s before you walk out to give a presentation. It's amazing how much it changes you. And it does.
00;30;19;25 - 00;30;37;05
Ryan Brubaker
It changes your brain chemistry. I promise you, you'll agree with me. It really does work. If you're feeling down, you're feeling like you're in the dumps and you're just letting everybody down or you've just failed. Just go in and say, and stand like this for a minute and think about it. It will change. It will change your perspective.
00;30;37;05 - 00;31;09;06
Ryan Brubaker
It really well. It will change your demeanor and your posture. Okay. So some takeaways. What's one area of your life where you struggle with self-regard? Pick one person to tell about the struggle and write their name down. And then what are you going to change? Do or think differently now that you've identified this? And go in a private room and practice the Superman for 30s while thinking about that struggle.
00;31;09;08 - 00;31;28;04
Ryan Brubaker
Okay, so we covered the problem. We covered the worst case scenario. We talked about the overlook, and then we talked about the Superman. I have one final takeaway, and that is if I seem really touchy feely and super and all this stuff, I actually am, there are some of us out there. And so I really care about you.
00;31;28;04 - 00;31;47;19
Ryan Brubaker
I really care about each person in this room. I think you are full of dignity and self-worth, and you deserve to not have those 15 regrets at the end of your life. You deserve to go to go to work every day filled with joy and fun and usually asm you and you deserve to have those things. And so I would love to hear your story.
00;31;47;21 - 00;32;04;12
Ryan Brubaker
So I'm based in Indianapolis, but I would be happy to meet you somewhere for coffee. I'd be happy to do a video call. My contact information is on here and I will send out these slides, but I would love to just hear your story and talk to you. I'm not going to try to sell you anything, just I would love to spend 15 minutes or half an hour just hearing a little bit about you.
00;32;04;14 - 00;32;17;28
Ryan Brubaker
or longer, but. So that's just, just an offer from me. here's all my footnotes. This is all the stuff that I like and reference, and then here's my contact information. Really appreciate your time. Thank you very much.