Welcome to the Decide youe Legacy podcast. This is episode

199. And today we're going to talk about.

Stop avoiding this. Three leadership decisions that

change everything. I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I'm a

coach and a family therapist, and I founded Decide youe Legacy in

2012. I started this specific podcast actually

back in 2020 in the midst of COVID And now we're near.

Well, 200th episode is coming up, and we're near

50,000 downloads. The mission is still the same.

We help people. We help leaders stop avoiding what matters.

We help leadership teams stop avoiding what matters and start taking

meaningful action. So today, today

I work with business owners and leadership teams. We work with them

and often family businesses, where the real

challenge isn't strategy, it's actually alignment.

It's communication. It does apply to strategy. It's communication

on the conversations that they are avoiding. Because

when those conversations happen, everything changes.

Decisions get made faster, trust improves,

execution follows. And so in each episode of the

Decide youe Legacy podcast, Decide youe Legacy podcast, I give you three decisions

that you can make to move forward

with practical tools, simple frameworks and ideas

that you can actually use and apply starting today.

So listen, like you're going to teach this to somebody else,

even one of your kids. So let's go ahead and jump into the content.

Here's the core idea. Today, most leaders, Most leaders

don't struggle because they don't know what to do. They

struggle because they're avoiding the

conversations that they know they need to have. They

stay on the surface, and here's

what that creates. And sometimes they are not aware of this. In fact,

most of the time, they're not actually aware of this. So it creates stress and

anxiety for them. It creates a lack of clarity

within themselves and for their team. It creates frustration,

it creates slow decisions, and it

erodes trust with other people. But on the

other side of that, when you do face things, you grow

in your confidence. Even though you may not be pleased

with your performance, you're honest about it and you're facing it,

and you are gaining confidence in the process. You're learning,

you're gaining clarity, you're improving your relationships because trust is

improving. And you actually have more free time because you're getting

decisions made, you're getting things done. You're not stuck

focusing on these elephants and not making progress. And, you

know, profitability actually increases, which is a huge deal, because

profit is a sign that you're running your business

well. It's a reward for Running your business well, and it

matters. And this topic matters. Little story I

want to share with you, and it's hard for me to share. I had to

face this actually today, so it hit me really hard and in a way

I actually didn't expect. So I've been doing this workout program called

75 Hard. You can look it up if you want to know. There's these specific

things you do every day. It's very rigid, and it's a great process.

It's something I've attempted three times, and I

failed. I failed because I didn't get it

done. And here's the story. I went through this process of 75

hard the third time, and I got to day. I think we got to day

20, and I missed two workouts. And I'm doing this with

my friend named Luke. Business owner, great guy.

I didn't want to tell Luke that I had missed those workouts. Not because of

actually the workouts, but because of what it meant to my

ego, into my image, and how he would view me

wanting to be the guy who follows through, wanting to be perfect.

And I told myself, if I tell Luke, and I

won't lie to you and say I considered not telling him and just

going on, but that was something I couldn't make peace with

if I. I told myself if I tell him, I'll let him down.

I told myself that maybe that will throw him off track on his

progress with 75 hard. I told myself that maybe from

that point on, he's going to see me differently. And that

wasn't the truth. I don't even know what his response is yet because I just

sent him the text telling him that I had missed my two workouts. But the

real truth is that I didn't want to see. I didn't want to be

seen differently. I was protecting my ego. I

was protecting what I felt was like a seat at his table,

and it was my image. That's avoidance.

That's not leadership. And this is what

leaders do. This is exactly what leaders do. They

show up where it matters, honestly,

with integrity. They step into it and they show up and they

have the hard conversation. So when tension rises

within you like it did with me with 75 hard and

Luke, you have. You have three options.

You can react. You can react. You can

withdraw and avoid and procrastinate, or you can lead.

And today I'm going to give you three decisions that will change how

you show up in those moments.

Decision number one, Stay out of the

noise. Stay out of the Ego. Stay away from the tangents, stay

away from the drama. Get to the core. Like

in my case, the core was my image and how Luke would actually view me.

Kelsey, my executive assistant, Our executive assistant actually called me

out on this recently based on one of our

7Up meetings. I can get sidetracked in these meetings.

We meet every Monday at 9:30. I layer issues

instead of getting straight to the core and it looks productive,

but it's actually not. It's actually avoidance. It's actually not wanting to

have the hard conversations. It shows up in these

meetings as me talking about the same issue repeatedly

and making excuses and blaming circumstances and blaming

other people, blaming other vendors, blaming my own

lack of confidence, whatever. It may be going to the emotional

side, but it's not changing behavior.

And that's not problem solving. That's drama. That's

going on a tangent. That's avoidance. That's me

not facing the core issue. And a lot of times it shows up

as perfectionism and procrastination.

It shows up as perfectionism and procrastination.

Drama is often a substitute for real

courage. So in your next

meeting, ask, are we

talking about the real issue right now?

If not, interrupt that cycle.

Pause with them

and pause within yourself. Interrupt it. What's the real

issue that we need to solve here?

So I wrote a breakdown of how to have these courageous conversations

and I'm going to link in the show notes here to a

blog post that I wrote maybe a year or two ago. Go ahead and check

it out and read it. If this is something, if there's something

you're avoiding decision number two.

As a leader, you are somebody who is mining. You're

digging deeper for conflict instead of avoiding it. They're all

looking at you to do this as the leader. And this is where most

teams get stuck. Leaders don't address

each other directly. People are frustrated, but they

don't actually say it. And then they build resentment. And

that's the way you build resentment. That's the way that

you have long standing resentment. Teams talk around issues

based on performance and behaviors instead of talking

through them and getting to the other side.

I see this all the time. And when you ask

people when you recognize this, if you're the leader, what are you afraid of?

What are you afraid of? You can open up a door to having honest

discussions if you ask yourself that question. What are you afraid of?

Why are you not having this conversation? Are you afraid of losing your seat at

the table? Are you afraid of being excluded? Are you afraid of being judged what

are you afraid will happen if you address the core issue? Will you lose business

at such a high level that you feel your life's going to fall apart and

your business is going to fall apart if you address the core issue? Those

are things to lean into. And when you tap into that emotion and you add

truth to it and perspective to it through your team and other people's

perspectives, it's going to change everything. People

don't avoid conflict because they don't see it. They

avoid it because it's uncomfortable, because it might require

them to look at themselves and change. So when

you need to address something and you know

you need to address things, you know, if you're honest with yourself because you've been

avoiding it, say what you've been letting slide in that

interaction, in that email, hopefully face to face as

much as you possibly can. But it is appropriate at times to use other means.

Be specific. Share the impact.

Don't let the expectation not be set in

that interaction. Ask for their take, ask for their opinion and listen.

Listen. So I had a leader recently that had brought up to me a situation

that they had avoided a number of different times. We walked through those

five different points. Be specific. What is the issue that he was

avoiding facing? Well, he wanted to face it with one of his leaders, but what

is the issue that he wants the behavior he sees in one of his leaders

that he's not addressing? Share the impact that has on the team on

their communication, on the progress of the business. Share the

expectation that you want to see changed. Ask for their take on it

and then listen. And then listen. And that may be the

majority of the conversation because you're getting them and you're going to have to pause

and be okay with those silent moments

where the other person thinks and in some cases is called on the

carpet towards accountability, which is a way to help people.

Accountability equals support. Accountability

does not equal being mean. Most people

avoid conflict because they. Not because they don't

care. They avoid it because they don't know how.

So when you feel that tension rising up inside of you, what

am I not saying right now? Go ahead and say it.

Say it clearly. Be direct

and then don't over explain. Which is another pattern I see a lot of leaders

falling into. They're trying to convince by over explaining.

Don't do that. Let it sit with them. Ask for what you want.

Express what the behavior is and ask them the question, how

does that sit with you? What's your perspective on that? The third

decision as a leader, to make is to

lead instead of reacting, lead instead of

withdrawing. When the tension rises inside of you, you really have

three different decisions that you can make in that moment and you're

responsible for for what you do. You can react

by getting defensive, by arguing your point, by being

overly emotional, by throwing your hands up in the air, by

getting sucked into the drama. You can withdraw by avoiding,

by making excuses why you can't meet, why you can't have that conversation,

just shutting down internally or being in the conversation and not actually engaging,

not bringing in any hope. Or you can lead.

You can retain your power by leading, by being clear, by being

calm, and then by being direct. Leadership is

not convincing someone that you are right. Leadership is

being clear about how you're going to show up in that interaction.

Walking on eggshells isn't a personality trait that you have

or someone else has where they just make you walk on

eggshells. Walking on eggshells is your decision

to get sucked into the drama, to go down that tangent.

It's your decision to bring the truth out,

to address the fear, to be clear, to be

direct and to engage. So when you're reacting

or withdrawing, you're protecting yourself. That's

your ego showing up, that's your self protection showing up.

Leadership is stepping out of that and recognizing that that

is protection. That is my ego, that is my image.

And choosing to lead anyway.

Choosing to lead anyway. In those

moments ask am I reacting, am I

withdrawing or am I leading? And then choose, say what you

actually want, stay steady, don't try to

convince and over explain. I see that with leaders. Sometimes they're

afraid of actually even having these types of interactions because they feel

they're going to get so emotional because they feel that they're going to over

explain and get into to a debate. But that is still their

choice. That is them choosing to walk on eggshells in those

interactions. But they have a different choice they can make. They can choose to

be steady, to be clear, to be calm. They can choose to follow

up when they don't get a response. Here are those

three decisions again. So number one, stay out of the noise, stay out

of the drama and get at the core. Number two, mind for

conflict, be the leader who people know is going to get at the core issue.

Don't avoid it. And number three is choose to lead, not

to react, which is a choice as well. And not to withdraw. Choose to step

into it and lead calmly and clearly. So here's the

question for you, the listener. What's one conversation

that you know you need to have right now. You all. You already

know it. You already know it because you're

probably potentially complaining to other people about it but not actually addressing

it directly. You already know it because you're creating triangulation.

You already know it because it's causing you tremendous anxiety. Low

grade under the surface anxiety. You already know it.

But the question is, will you lead through through it?

Let me challenge you before you go. If nothing

changes after this episode, it wasn't

this content. It was your willingness to

act on this content. So what are you

avoiding right now? The conversation.

You're avoiding the decision. You're avoiding the step you

already know clearly that you need to take.

Don't overthink it. Don't wait for perfection.

Don't wait for perfect clarity. Don't wait for the perfect strategy.

You decide because

there's no positive change until you do. And your

legacy actually depends on it. And it's being

shaped by what you're choosing or what you are

avoiding today. Decide,

act and repeat. Live

the life today that you want to be remembered for.

You decide your legacy. Nobody else. You can't blame

it on other people. I will see you next episode and in

the process, we're going to have episode for you. Number 200.

And if you found this content helpful, give it a rating and review on Apple

or Spotify. Share it with your friends. Share it with. Share it with somebody that

you work with that helps it grow organically. Super excited to launch.

Number 200. We got something very special for you. I will see you

then.