IT Leaders

00;00;00;10 - 00;00;23;23
Brady Howe
Good morning. This is, This is exciting for me. So Steve and I actually met. I've been here now in the Valley for seven years, and I moved here, and I've moved around quite a bit for sports as well. I just finished my seventh season with the Phoenix Suns. So this is a new title for me, a new venture, a little bit of a leap of faith.

00;00;23;23 - 00;00;42;02
Brady Howe
There's a number of reasons for that. One, Pro sports is definitely not meant to be a life long career. It's it's what you would expect. It's a lot of travel. It's, But at GCU, it gave me a little bit of freedom to stay here in a place that my wife and my ten year a little girl had found home.

00;00;42;05 - 00;01;09;02
Brady Howe
And so I'm excited, but I just wanted to let you know that's kind of how we were connected. I'm also really quickly, I'm excited to speak here because what this opportunity provides me is what leadership kind of is. It's it's a challenge. It's uncomfortable, you know, so to sit here and say that I would ever be speaking to a group of leaders, is not something that I would ever have even been thought I would be labeled as a leader.

00;01;09;05 - 00;01;36;08
Brady Howe
But part of my story. Just so you know, I'm an athletic trainer, you know, so physical therapy. I was an aspiring athlete as as you can look and see, like, I had really no. Right. Playing sports, I'm undersized. You know, I would just label under skilled. But I had a lot of grit. I grew up in the military household, and my parents were a phenomenal, resources for me.

00;01;36;10 - 00;01;58;24
Brady Howe
So me, I was I played college football. And again, that was probably the last sport that I should have played. And I've worked with some of the biggest, most athletic athletes in the world whose parents didn't let them play football. And I joke with them, well, what does that say about my mom? You know, I was tackling guys your size, and I've got a bunch of surgeries and scars to prove it, but, I went the route of athletics.

00;01;58;24 - 00;02;20;11
Brady Howe
My father was a very mechanical guy. He can build houses, fix cars. Some of my uncles and best friends are in the IT world, and I just knew that wasn't my expertise. So. But I am excited. Like Doug said, I get a lot out of these opportunities because it's networking. It's learning something new. But with part of my story, just so you know, is it started in athletic training.

00;02;20;11 - 00;02;40;27
Brady Howe
I wanted to stay in or sports. I wanted to help athletes overcome the challenges I experienced, getting cut from a team, the psychological warfare were getting injured, being isolated, psychological warfare, eventually being the undersized athlete. While I tell that stories because I had to live in the weight room, I had to find out how to find some resolve, how to come back.

00;02;40;29 - 00;02;58;24
Brady Howe
I had to figure out how to build my on my weaknesses, but also lean on my strengths. So for me to be able to tackle a 300 pound dude when I'm 155 pounds, I needed to learn how to find some grit in the weight room. And because of that, I also became a strength and conditioning coach, which is what brought me to Phoenix.

00;02;58;24 - 00;03;20;19
Brady Howe
My first year. I was brought here after a stint with the Utah Jazz, the Atlanta Hawks, and to Phoenix to be the head strength coach after one year. This is where Steve and I met. After one year in that position, my first year at the Suns as a strength coach, we were the youngest NBA team in the league average was 19 to 20 years old.

00;03;20;19 - 00;03;40;28
Brady Howe
So literally just shy of a high school team. We also, ironically won only 19 games that year were absolutely atrocious. After that, we had a big shift and I think there was about only a dozen of us who remained in employment because they were just ready to start something completely fresh and new. At that time, I didn't know was going to completely change my life.

00;03;40;28 - 00;03;59;19
Brady Howe
I went from being literally a lower, lower level, on the ground foot soldier. I would call it just doing the work. That's what I knew. And just so you know, the athletic trainer, the strength coach, we're not supposed to be up here in the spotlight speaking. We're not supposed to be known who we are. We're not supposed to be getting any credit.

00;03;59;19 - 00;04;18;13
Brady Howe
We're supposed to be a behind the lines helping these athletes get all of that credit. It's not about us. So I'll always be the first to say. The strength coaches, the athletic trainers, even the coaches who claim that they had any part in that victory are lying there fueling their own ego. So I say that because this is this is for me.

00;04;18;13 - 00;04;48;08
Brady Howe
It's exciting, it's uncomfortable, but it's also good reps for me to meet new people, meet new ventures, and put myself out there a little bit. So the final caveat here, you'll see in psychology. So just just this week I finished a second master's degree in psychology. I decided of all the things that I've done and experienced in 15 years in the NBA, the biggest blind spot I had was the mental game.

00;04;48;11 - 00;05;15;17
Brady Howe
And that doesn't just apply to athletes, but obviously the elite athletes kind of know how to work through that, how to overcome these things, because I'm sure as stressful as all of our jobs may be, the pressures we put on ourselves to improve, to show out for our boss, for our teammates, those unfortunately, I say unfortunately, because in sports your life is on the table for everybody to see your failures, your successes.

00;05;15;19 - 00;05;42;03
Brady Howe
And when you do have an injury, when you do perform poorly, it's for the world to basically critique you, to go at you. So I'm now kind of jumping and taking a leap of faith rather than living more in the physical realm of injuries of strength and conditioning, which I love. And there is a lot that you can and I can bring to the table for each of you and show how that will lead to performance even in your world.

00;05;42;06 - 00;06;07;27
Brady Howe
It is the mind. It is the psychology of how we actually drive those decisions. And so I've found a passion in actually leading athletes, leading coaches, teams, organizations, cultures. That is more strategy in the psychological aspect. And so again, I never thought I would be up here talking to leaders. I'm happy to share a little bit more of my story about how I got thrown in with that.

00;06;07;29 - 00;06;29;15
Brady Howe
But once that first year as a strength coach ended and I got put into a it was a vice president role, I literally became one of the youngest vice presidents in NBA history. So from never really being in a leadership role to doing it at the highest level with responsibilities that I had of a $115 million salary cap of injuries and performance.

00;06;29;17 - 00;06;47;02
Brady Howe
It was a big pill to swallow. And I don't know how many of you have children. I don't know how many of you at budget firms house, but this is one of those opportunities that you're never prepared for. And I'm sure I don't know how many of you can relate to that in a leadership role, but you're never ready for.

00;06;47;04 - 00;07;20;17
Brady Howe
So I say life is a frameworks. You are all performers. So I've seen performers, but you are all performers. And leadership is just a people business. No matter what you do, no matter how many people you interact with for are responsible for supervising leadership is is is a nonstop moving target. And so that's why I like to get into some of these conversations, because it's really engaging for me to see how people overcome some of these challenges, obstacles that you face on that on a daily basis.

00;07;20;19 - 00;07;46;18
Brady Howe
Now, for me, this is an interesting one. From my experience, this diagram might be the most important model for conscious leadership. And some of you are going to look at that and, you know, you are probably used to seeing a lot more detailed diagrams of item, but how simple as that. Now I want to take a poll real quick before I explain what this is.

00;07;46;21 - 00;08;04;07
Brady Howe
But leadership. Your leader is a conscious leader, either operating above the line or below it. So just a quick just poll raise of hands. How many of you believe today, as a leader, your groups are operating above the line?

00;08;04;10 - 00;08;28;12
Brady Howe
Good. Here's here's the good news is at any point in time, you can either be operating above or below the line. Again, when I say it's a moving target, that's really a moving target. But the choices you make day to day operations, you're either you're way above that line or below. Now conscious leaders operate above that.

00;08;28;14 - 00;08;45;13
Brady Howe
The well divider, the unconscious leaders. Now again, you could be 80% of the time a conscious leader, but there's often times how many opportunities, experiences, challenges do you find yourself operating below the line?

00;08;45;15 - 00;09;10;23
Brady Howe
So of course, those of you who answer, yes, I love it. But also I'm sure that you've experienced opportunities where you kind of fell below the line. Okay. And when I get into that a little bit further. But those that operate above the line in any given situation, and hopefully the majority of the time you're open minded, you're hoping to opportunities you're curious, you're explore to are creative.

00;09;10;25 - 00;09;28;16
Brady Howe
You're committed to learning. You're committed to leading your group. Now again, these leadership positions, if I'm sure many of you have been on the the foot soldier as I call on, then that was my experience. Just a do was you just you just do the work. Leave me alone. Let me do my job. I'll go home. Everybody's happy now.

00;09;28;16 - 00;09;51;09
Brady Howe
It's a little different where you're with. I experience like being the assembly line manager who is responsible for people being the doers. And that's a little uneasy, you know, because there's only so much we can control and so much influence we can impart below the line. I can't have, you know, the unconscious leaders. Leader's a little bit more closed off defensive as I operate would say, you know, committed.

00;09;51;10 - 00;10;24;04
Brady Howe
Not like I miss that, but committed to being right. You're playing out the loop. Does that make sense? So instead of play to win you're a little bit more defensive. Now I will get into some of the things that I see with this that are the somatic responses, the physiological and physical responses. So those below the line, as you can imagine, if you're closed off, you're defensive, you're trying to prove to others, including your boss, that you're right, that you're doing the right thing.

00;10;24;07 - 00;10;32;11
Brady Howe
You kind of start to tiptoe and operate in a way that starts to fuel your ego, rather than fuel your tanks.

00;10;32;13 - 00;11;03;25
Brady Howe
So look at this and kind of ask myself, am any of you guys experienced the above the line? Being below the line? I'm sure you have two examples experiences. If you're resonating, you probably have examples that you can feel your bosses are doing it. So this is the fun part is, you probably have experiences where your boss is doing certain things and they're doing their best given the circumstances they have, but you have a perspective, you have a thought process, you have a critique.

00;11;03;28 - 00;11;33;03
Brady Howe
Again, the social media people were basically speaking on the NBA players. It's very similar to say, or my boss should have done this, he should have done that. She should have done this. One of the biggest lessons I can tell you that I learned is being a leader was just quick story when I got thrown into that. Ironically, that first year where I was here is the youngest vice president in NBA history responsible with all these these big cost associated stressors.

00;11;33;05 - 00;11;59;05
Brady Howe
Here's Covid. So not only have I had never done this before, I'm doing it at the highest level where it's basically traded on wins and losses on television broadcasting with millions of dollars at risk. And here's Covid, something that nobody knows about. Nobody knows how to operate. And I become the grim Reaper because now I have to go around day to day force feeding Covid tests to about 70 people on the travel part.

00;11;59;07 - 00;12;25;12
Brady Howe
Players eventually got pissed off at me, at coaches wanted to cut my head off. How fun is that? I'm a leader, you know. So those though, you're going to find yourself in sticky situations. This thing really got cut off. But we'll make it through here above the line, the parasympathetic. So I just want to give you a little bit of some connections here.

00;12;25;12 - 00;12;49;07
Brady Howe
So you guys are all very intelligent people. I don't know how many of you guys have gone and taken anatomy classes, know about psychology and all the various things that come with it, but I just want to give you guys some practical examples. Everything that I experience in both in the physical realm of helping people work through injuries to now and Terry, I'm passionate about, which is the psychological aspect of how they bridge.

00;12;49;10 - 00;13;10;27
Brady Howe
Okay. So again, I like to use this slide because those are the above it. You think of our ancestors, hunter gatherers. We still know to this day that we are hardwired and our brains have not changed or evolved in much in thousands and thousands of years. So those who used to work and drive, who used to work together to go hunt and gather, it didn't matter.

00;13;10;29 - 00;13;33;27
Brady Howe
Your brain was wired to have an alarm system. That alarm system was to trigger when you heard a sound, when you something was a predator in the background. Those exact same responses or what you guys experience every day. It's just been elevated and heightened thanks to the technology that you guys are all so masterful at understanding these technologies lead to parasympathetic or sympathetic responses.

00;13;34;00 - 00;13;53;20
Brady Howe
So your brains are no different than what our ancestors were when they were hunter gatherers. And the cycle. Today, coffee titan is chasing. But now that same stress response that you may be feeling because there's a deadline, because your boss just yelled at you, you just had a break over here. Kids going through something. This is very similar responses that you have.

00;13;53;20 - 00;14;18;12
Brady Howe
This is a chemical cocktail that gets stirred up almost every day. So for those of you who operate above the line to get are very open minded who are committed to learning this is that rest and digest part of your nervous system. This is what keeps you call this work keeps you organized. Elevated confidence happens. These are the people who will part often, more often.

00;14;18;12 - 00;14;21;10
Brady Howe
Process oriented.

00;14;21;12 - 00;14;41;23
Brady Howe
You see a lot more creativity, collaboration, innovation, all the things that we strive for. The good news is, is that even though you're hard wired here, you do have choices where you can make step by step approaches or pinch your way towards to more often not being above the wire. Now those in the end would naturally feel like, well, I want to be above the line, but I can't help it.

00;14;41;23 - 00;14;58;02
Brady Howe
I'm naturally more so below the line. You may be a brand new leader, or you may be like myself and you wouldn't have had his experiences you're not prepared for, and you don't have time to figure out. You don't have time to be in the group of other leaders to lean on each other, to ask questions or lies.

00;14;58;05 - 00;15;20;06
Brady Howe
We're just in it. So that was my experience, and there were obviously some wins and losses that I can chalk up, but probably more losses. The good news is, is that we can learn more from our failures than we do our successes geographies. This. Those of you that may experience this again to fight, flight or freeze, this is a natural thing.

00;15;20;06 - 00;15;42;09
Brady Howe
There's nothing wrong with you. This is natural. This has been going on again for thousands of years of our ancestors. So those stressors, whether it be essay written, tiger or be a deadline, you're going to have certain autonomic responses. You may be somebody who gets very defensive again below the line. You may be somebody who lashes out again below the line.

00;15;42;12 - 00;16;05;03
Brady Howe
These things are wrong. But we're going to get to understanding this is that you need to create an awareness of what is going so that fight flight, freeze the sympathetic nervous system for those who are below lead. Still a little bit more arrogance, maybe some ignorance. You may want to just completely avoid the tough situation altogether rather than being elevated your confidence.

00;16;05;03 - 00;16;24;01
Brady Howe
Now you got to decide which one you want. Two feet. Okay, it's kind of like the story of two wolves. Okay. Which wolf kind of tends to win or live is the one you feed them more the most. So you have choices here and you operate a little bit more here. That's still okay. You have things that you can do to get up here.

00;16;24;04 - 00;16;48;19
Brady Howe
It's a day to day process. Like I said, it's a it's a it's a constant moving target. But when you are down here you experience hyper aroused. Now how many of you have experienced you let me hyper arousal elevated heart rate, your breath, shortness all these various think I mean to talk. We've all experienced it that you get shakes those sweaty I mean I kind of felt it a little bit before I spoke to you guys.

00;16;48;22 - 00;17;15;15
Brady Howe
This is natural. But that's also why I enjoy doing this. Because these are challenges that I look at with an open mind to overcome and to live through, rather, and then to avoid it, to run, fight fire, to freeze. But another key thing here that leads to is are you focused on outcomes or the process. And this is where I've seen the most elite athletes, coaches and brightest minds in sports navigate through.

00;17;15;18 - 00;17;39;18
Brady Howe
Are you based in principles that are process oriented that will undoubtedly lead to outcomes, or are you focused predominately on the outcome now, whether that's maybe your boss put pressure on you to get something done. And of course, you know you need to get it done. But is there a process? Does all these things feed one another? If you're an outcome or a person, these things kind of get elevate your arrogance or ignorance.

00;17;39;18 - 00;17;59;26
Brady Howe
You get hyper arousal. Whether that could be some of you may have to literally be on medications just because it is hard to navigate these things. You're fueling your ego fear. It's elevate it. Now, this one I was talking about, there's a really good book that I can share. And if you guys want to ask after what instead of phone call, you guys go here.

00;17;59;26 - 00;18;23;06
Brady Howe
If I'm out. Fear of missing out here. You have the fear of other people's opinions. You're leaning on what my boss thinks, but my wife thing. So of course these things matter. I'm not saying they don't matter. But you have to start by being a little. This is where I'm okay. Being selfish, being a little selfish so that you can elevate your confidence rather than fueling your ego and leaning to arrogance.

00;18;23;08 - 00;18;34;25
Brady Howe
So I kind of like to lean on this little, I guess, equation, if you will, which again, I should have an equal sign, but I'm just killing it with my slides that I put together for the last night.

00;18;34;28 - 00;19;05;04
Brady Howe
Starting with self-awareness. Everything should start with self-awareness. Self-awareness should lead to self-regulation. Action steps, approaches that you take. Self-efficacy should be the reward. Okay, so self-awareness, the ability to observe, listen and examine yourself so that you may understand who you are, how you naturally operate, and how to be the best person that you can interact with in your environments, whether or whatever that may be.

00;19;05;08 - 00;19;29;21
Brady Howe
Maybe sports on the court. Everybody's watching. Maybe in a day, that area just like this. Now, self-regulation is the ability to correct attention, modulate emotions, think before reacting. You can of course. Lead to self-regulation decisions, things that you can do without being aware, but you're blindly doing so. So some of us operate that. But that is kind of below the line.

00;19;29;21 - 00;19;50;13
Brady Howe
You're just sleepwalking when you're naturally a hyper arousal state, and doing some of these things that just lead to just being a zombie. It all should start with self-awareness. Now, this is the, I think, the most important thing that any of you guys can do truly is just understand where you're at and be truthful to yourself. Am I arousing state every day?

00;19;50;13 - 00;20;14;01
Brady Howe
Do I am am I on medications because I can't control my heart rate, my blood pressure? And thankfully, because I've worked with those who were in the physical realm? You know, they acknowledge how important it is to take care of themselves physically. But I was always focused on the physical aspect, and I kind of had a blind spot of thinking about how our mind leads one versus the other.

00;20;14;02 - 00;20;36;11
Brady Howe
Now, I'm never going to be able to tell you that the mind shoots the body, and the body is using me because they coexist. And there's so many different overlapping contextual environments that help understand these things. But I will say, if you start with self-awareness and truly being honest and transparent with yourself, with where you're living, either above or below that line, even right now, you go into your work two jobs today you have choices.

00;20;36;11 - 00;20;57;01
Brady Howe
Am I going to operate in this situation above or below? What are going to be open or closed? I going to be defensive. I may be sort of things where you have to ask yourself or tell yourself, where am I right? Am I operating above or below the line? At the end of the day, you want to get to self-efficacy, which is the your own belief system.

00;20;57;01 - 00;21;28;07
Brady Howe
This is the confidence that you get fueling. This is an individual's belief in their capacity to act in a way necessary to reach specific goals. We all have goals. We all have deadlines. We all have ambitions. But self-awareness plus self-regulation is going to lead to self-efficacy. Now, few more slides here because I wanted to keep this very simple because I can just riff and go, action steps.

00;21;28;09 - 00;21;56;24
Brady Howe
Again, I've kind of touched a little bit on the power of choice. That's the self-awareness piece. Just stop and ask yourself, where am I right now? If you have a heart rate, it's pounding. If you're short of breath, if you're shaking, if you're nervous, let's say you're a leader and one of your coworkers comes up and just completely rips you a new one because you're being a terrible boss, understand and accept that one of the hardest things that I still do with this today is if you're overseeing a group, A task, and it's a lot of pressure, a lot of stress, you can't please everybody.

00;21;56;26 - 00;22;20;14
Brady Howe
You never will. You're not going to be the picture perfect boss for ten out of ten employees. I either get best in my position with the Sans or even GQ. At ten, I might be moderately good for six of them, but I'm self-aware that I'm trying to work on what can I do to support the other four. I'm not going to be perfect, but I want to get the best out of them.

00;22;20;20 - 00;22;39;15
Brady Howe
So as leaders now, the hard part is, is shifting and putting on a different hat to where now you're not just on the ground floor. Being the doer, you have to help others do. And I think you know that. But the power of choice you have is just being able to look at yourself and look at your circumstances of where you're at and have that self-awareness.

00;22;39;18 - 00;23;01;25
Brady Howe
Now, the self-regulation piece, the action steps that you can take that can help. Okay. Doug talked about gratitude. Some of the biggest things that I've seen from empirical research and evidence is just waking up with gratitude, literally being happy with what you have, your positions, your team, your opportunities that you have now. If you're not a journaling person, that's fine.

00;23;01;25 - 00;23;20;26
Brady Howe
I completely now have gone through this route where I would have laughed at this a few years ago, but realizing what I know now, there is power in it. It's getting it out of you. This is another reason why I like to come and speak to groups like this, because it's coming out of me an hour ago, I probably will, you know, laugh that I can actually see some of these things naturally come out of me.

00;23;20;26 - 00;23;42;03
Brady Howe
But through journaling, because it's writing, it's coming out of you. There's power in realizing if it's done through gratitude, that it can lead you to making those choices that operate above the line. The next thing, because I know many of you may operate right, you're not on the basketball court, you're not on the football field. You're not out in the sun.

00;23;42;05 - 00;24;01;20
Brady Howe
You're probably in buildings like this where, let's be honest, you guys aren't getting a lot of vitamin C, you're not out and about. You're not being physically active or paid to play. When you find yourself maybe in a situation or just throughout the day where you're below the line, you're you're just stuck in something. I like the standing desks.

00;24;01;22 - 00;24;27;29
Brady Howe
I like to make sure that everybody knows that they can just go and take a ten minute walk. But even if you're so dialed in or you're at a meeting or you're about to give a presentation, you know, stop and just breathe. How many of you guys have heard of box breathing? Anybody? So there are so many different forms going back to kind of Buddhists and monks and things that are, you know, the things are box breathing.

00;24;28;01 - 00;24;44;03
Brady Howe
So this is the simplest one I can give you. But if you ever feel like you are in a hyper arousal state, the one thing that we can anchor ourselves to is our breathwork. And that is one of the most uncomfortable things that people when they hear of the word meditation, mindfulness. It really all starts with your breath work.

00;24;44;03 - 00;25;02;12
Brady Howe
So you can just call it breathing because you can't live without breathing. But also many of you and many of us, our bodies have morphed and shaped. I mean, when we look at some of the quote unquote, like the caveman statues with bigger noses, bigger jawlines, our bodies have evolved for hundreds of thousands of years because of how we're breathing.

00;25;02;12 - 00;25;23;05
Brady Howe
And a lot of it is because of the modern day society of technology and the things that we stress ourselves out about. I also laugh, and some people are going and getting plastic surgery to make themselves look a certain way, because they're also just altering their breath. Their breath work. But a box breathing technique if you're in a hyper arousal state stressful situation.

00;25;23;07 - 00;25;31;12
Brady Howe
We'll do this. Simple as this. Let's have you put one hand on your chest and do this together. One on your belly.

00;25;31;15 - 00;25;55;13
Brady Howe
And honestly, just just give yourself a moment. Just breathe normally and try to recognize are you breathing more through your chest, or are you breathing more through your abdomen? Your lower belly? Okay. And there's not a wrong way to do this. But there there are responses that happen, whether you're naturally a belly breather or you're, a chest breather.

00;25;55;16 - 00;26;12;00
Brady Howe
A lot of people don't know how to breathe naturally through their nose, out their mouth. A lot of us wake up and our throats are dry. Our mouths are just open because we're mouth breathers. Okay? This is why we've had a lot of companies now come up with, like, tape so that you're taping your mouth shut when you when you sleep.

00;26;12;02 - 00;26;31;03
Brady Howe
Box breathing is as simple as this. It's just 4x4 by 4x4. So let's actually start here. I just give you a practical exercise. And again, if you find yourself in a situation that's stressful, you're at work. Nobody even needs to know. You don't have to do this. But this is just helpful to see how you're breathing. Take some time to breathe, okay?

00;26;31;10 - 00;27;01;05
Brady Howe
So what you're going to do is you're going to inhale for for a four second count through your nose. Ready. Here we go. Through our nose 1234. Now hold that breath. 1234. Now exhale through your mouth. Blow it out for 3 to 1. And then hold again for 432, one. It's as simple as that. You're inhaling through the nose as much as you can.

00;27;01;08 - 00;27;22;16
Brady Howe
Now, I also would just tell you because you know, you can do this later, but the chest or the abdomen, I like that. I like to alternate for four seconds. I'm breathing intentionally through my chest. I'm making my hand on my chest elevate. Then I get it out the next round, I do it through my belly. You're going to realize there are so many various ways that you can breathe that's going to benefit you.

00;27;22;18 - 00;27;44;07
Brady Howe
The response from this literally is paramount. If you're stressed out. And if you just did a workout, you wouldn't go on a peloton or a treadmill. And your heart is pounding, pounding, pounding, and you stopped even after you're sweating and you're just breathing and you literally tried to do that box breathing, you're going to feel your heart rate just instantly drop.

00;27;44;09 - 00;28;05;02
Brady Howe
It's actually it's incredible that most people are integrating this on a daily basis. So I like to tell people, even my athletes, when you start your day, you start your day with gratitude and you start your day off with five minutes of breathing. Instantly your power of choice is going to start above that line. So everybody understand that.

00;28;05;02 - 00;28;27;07
Brady Howe
Any questions? The last thing is this movement again in this situation just go for a walk if you're able to if your boss supports it, if you can't just breathe sitting there working on the project, if you're able to get outside, I mean, hopefully some of you or many of you are here in Arizona where you can just go outside and you got some sun, that would be an amazing thing.

00;28;27;07 - 00;28;50;09
Brady Howe
But go for a walk, because movement is medicine. I've dealt with people in the physical therapy clinic. I've been in surgical centers. I've been on the court. Movement is medicine. You got to keep moving. Okay. Now I'll finish it up here pretty quickly. For those of you who are leaders, principles are the concrete we stake our claim in.

00;28;50;09 - 00;29;07;00
Brady Howe
So you have to realize what you value. Okay? If some of you are fresh to being a leader, just like I was and at the worst possible time, it's hard to figure out what do I stand for? Because you're trying to scramble. You're trying to figure it out. You've been thrown into the pool. You don't know how to swim.

00;29;07;03 - 00;29;39;11
Brady Howe
You feel like you're drowning. Okay. My suggestion. Well, I've learned firsthand, is lean on process instead of outcomes. The outcomes will come. Okay. Obviously we love goals. Be diligent as you can with goal setting and reverse engineer. Okay? Do the best with what you got, but lean on process instead of outcomes. The next is quality over quantity. It's crazy to believe that doing less, better, more consistently leads to more.

00;29;39;14 - 00;29;58;19
Brady Howe
The basics are the new advantage. These are your competitive edge. Again, simplify. Now that may be easy to just say and some of the fields that you work in, it's probably not easy to simplify, but sometimes we make things a little more complicated than we need to make them. Okay, all of these is why I love kind of.

00;29;58;24 - 00;30;27;03
Brady Howe
These are the exact principles also, ironically fit within the physical world that I operate, and strength and conditioning. We can only produce what we absorb. Meaning, let's be flexible. Let's be adaptable. You know, bend, don't break. Okay. It's kind of interesting to say concrete, and I'm asking you to also be able to absorb. But as leaders realize that moving target, that complex puzzle that you're trying to solve every day, just be open, okay?

00;30;27;03 - 00;30;47;11
Brady Howe
Be above the line and realize that you're going to have some stuff that your teammates come to you, and you've got to be willing to absorb it and help them work through it. Functional integration versus segregation. Okay. And here for me, this was always here is the strength and conditioning group. Here is the physical therapist. Here's the sport coach.

00;30;47;14 - 00;31;10;17
Brady Howe
You would think that they're all on the same team solving the same problems working towards the same goals, wanting the same outcomes. We want to win the championship. You would be amazed to know that there's not a single team that I believe, including the New England Patriots, the Boston Celtics. None of them are all on the same page because now it's grown so big and it's such a big business that nobody is communicating effectively.

00;31;10;17 - 00;31;29;28
Brady Howe
Nobody's on the same page, and everybody's at war with each other. It's truly amazing. Like there's not a single team that I'm willing to stake my life savings, that they're on the same page. Of course, there's going to be one winner, but a lot of times that comes down to a whole lot of luck than it does actually building a cohesive team, a culture.

00;31;30;01 - 00;31;48;20
Brady Howe
So I say that because do what you can to make sure that you are integrated as a group, okay? Because I know depending on the departments you work in, everybody's operating in their little bubble thinks that they're doing well. They're doing it right. My boss is wrong. My teammates are annoying me. All the various things that you tell yourself, right?

00;31;48;23 - 00;32;07;15
Brady Howe
But you as a leader have to figure out how do we make this integral, how do we integrate everything together? Because this is easy, but that's what kills. That's a that's a culture killer right there. And then this is probably the biggest thing I wish I could speak on this exclusively, but communication I mean we're working in the people business no matter what you do.

00;32;07;17 - 00;32;29;14
Brady Howe
This is a human condition. We're working with humans. Humans experience a lot. But you as a human being, you have to start with yourself. What's your self-awareness? What can you do today to operate above the line? And if you do that, you're probably going to be able to communicate a little bit more effectively, openly. And that's going to bleed out and it's going to be very infectious to your teammates.

00;32;29;16 - 00;32;48;11
Brady Howe
And the last thing is just optimistic adaptability. This is something that I've leaned on the last year. Changing the plan should be a part of the plan. We are constantly changing. If I were to say that I'm the human being right now and five years ago right now, if I was to say that I'm I'm going to be this same person for the rest of my life, I've reached all my benchmarks.

00;32;48;14 - 00;33;18;17
Brady Howe
I literally have accomplished all of my professional goals and more being in that role. And then I realized that it was it meant everything to me until it didn't. There's always something we're changing, evolving, growing into. There's always stressors. So realize being optimistic through gratitude through some of these, these actionable steps of mindfulness meditation, movement, breath work. It leads to being optimistic more often than not, which leads to being adaptable.

00;33;18;19 - 00;33;38;01
Brady Howe
Okay, bend and break. All these various things. I'll kind of in just a number of slides, threw a lot at you, but I kind of just want to open it up to the group because I want to just I want to give you so much. Did I have learned and experienced, but it's hard to do that in one presentation.

00;33;38;03 - 00;34;00;10
Brady Howe
So I kind of leave it there. And I also just want to open up the floor. What kind of questions do we have? Thoughts do we have? Because I love to learn from others and what you guys experience as much as I've learned firsthand from my own. So I'll open it up to the group for any questions.

00;34;00;12 - 00;34;28;15
Brady Howe
I saw this question is so curious. Members, the challenges I'll give you first is that as their ventures that we know the circumstance that are in it because of confidentiality, obviously we don't share it or that the people own. And then the best thing, one of the biggest threats to offer is probably tell that to other people. We have some action in Peter standing without divulging, obviously, why but build that type of a communication.

00;34;28;15 - 00;34;55;15
Brady Howe
This has been one of the more beneficial ones. Liberal moving. Also very challenging because we've kind of studied the leak spot and these and yeah, and that's that's the interesting thing of not knowing this space that well because as far as HIPAA confidentiality and the few realms that I've operated in as well, it is it is hard to be able to say just enough but not leave people out to dry.

00;34;55;22 - 00;35;17;03
Brady Howe
Right. So oftentimes what your coworkers are going to look for is it is acceptance. At the end of the day, everybody wants to be accepted. They want to be loved. And that's not just in their personal lives, at home with their parents and significant others. It's actually in this setting. So if you're a leader or you're just a teammate that's that's responsible for integrating other teammates, sometimes it's just a one off.

00;35;17;08 - 00;35;39;14
Brady Howe
Like just having conversations with them goes a long way. I've found that as a leader who's overseeing, you know, let's say a dozen people at a time, and there's only seven days a week. I mean, my goal was to try to sit down with one of them every day, even if there was nothing to talk about, because that goes a long way when they realize that you're actually interested in me, you're investing in me.

00;35;39;16 - 00;36;00;03
Brady Howe
And so figuring out what your communication style is definitely a skill set that you learn along the way. And so but, you know, I acknowledge you for that because that's that's a tough one. That's a tough one. And every day you're going to run into new things. Right? So when you realize I didn't put it on here, but I kind of have a, diagram that I like.

00;36;00;03 - 00;36;31;29
Brady Howe
That's more it's more within basketball, professional basketball, but it kind of looks like a clock, like all the dials that kind of connect perfectly to make a watch work and basketball. It's it's the same thing, whether it's the physical therapy department, strength coach, the sports psychologist, the dietitians, coaches, general managers, everything. And I put the player at the center and I realized that there are so many moving pieces and so many people pulling at them that when a player walks in, I mean, they're stressed out in themselves just to be able to perform in practice because everybody's doing that now.

00;36;31;29 - 00;36;49;24
Brady Howe
We experience that too. If you're the leader in this situation, like you come in, you have ten teammates that are operating underneath your leadership. They're probably all jockeying for your attention, your approval, your blessings. So I would my biggest suggestions, just trying to find out how can you spend a little bit of time with each of them throughout the week?

00;36;49;27 - 00;37;06;05
Brady Howe
And then when you have your staff meetings or whatever you guys set up, how can you make sure everybody feels like they have some stake and ownership and equity in it? So do they feel involved? Some of those situations I like to do too, or I'll just put people on the spot and say, hey, you're king for a day, what would you do?

00;37;06;07 - 00;37;13;07
Brady Howe
And give people? Just just having a voice sometimes goes a long way. We could break data, of course.