The Leadership Vision Podcast

Sustainable Growth and Leadership Practices with Christian Muntean

• Nathan Freeburg • Season 8 • Episode 1

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Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2025 with an insightful conversation featuring Christian Muntean, leadership consultant and author of Train to Lead: The Unstoppable Leader's Plan for Peak Performance. In this episode, Christian shares his unique leadership journey, from his early experiences in international disaster relief to his current work coaching executives and teams for sustainable success.

Joined by my colleagues Brian and Linda Schubring, we discuss:

  • How self-perception influences leadership effectiveness.
  • The concept of “periodization” and how leaders can apply it to focus on sustainable growth.
  • The parallels between athletic training and leadership development.
  • Practical strategies for rest, recovery, and avoiding burnout in leadership.
  • Real-life client success stories that illustrate the power of intentional leadership habits.

As we enter the new year, Christian challenges us to view leadership as an ongoing practice, emphasizing that growth doesn’t require burnout but intentionality. This episode will inspire you to approach 2025 with fresh perspectives on leading yourself and your teams.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Leadership Starts with Self-Perception: How you view yourself impacts how you lead others. Recognizing and addressing imposter syndrome or perfectionism is key to growth.
  2. Periodization in Leadership: Just as athletes focus on different aspects of training during a season, leaders can focus on specific skills or habits for short, manageable periods, creating sustainable growth.
  3. Rest and Recovery are Essential: Effective leadership requires intentional breaks to recharge and reflect—plan for “landing the plane” before a vacation and ramping back up afterward.
  4. Practical Tips for Leaders: Start small. Whether setting one priority per day or practicing better delegation, incremental changes compound into significant results.
  5. Leadership as a Lifestyle: Great leaders don’t stop learning. Adopting a mindset of continuous, manageable improvement leads to long-term impact.

Questions for Reflection:

  • How does your self-perception influence your leadership style?
  • What’s one skill or habit you can focus on for the next month to grow as a leader?
  • How do you currently approach rest and recovery in your leadership journey?

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The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.

Speaker 1:

The way I based the book. I put in training plans in the book like for beginner leaders, intermediate leaders, experienced leaders the idea being let's just pick something and target it for four weeks. Then let it go, get a little bit better, get some change in the system, some change in your perspective, then move on to the next thing, with the understanding that you're going to cycle back through again later. And so if you have problems with prioritization, let's focus on it for a few weeks. Let's work on how to just pick one thing that I need to get done this week. What's the one thing I need to do today if I'm going to get my weekly goal done? Spend a little bit of time on it and then now let's move on to something else, because it becomes too onerous for people to stick with one thing forever people to stick with one thing forever, and they have to know more than one thing to be effective.

Speaker 3:

You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. To learn more about us, you can visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg. Welcome back to the podcast and happy new year.

Speaker 3:

We're kicking off 2025 here with an inspiring conversation featuring Christian Moutin, leadership consultant and author of the relatively new book Trained to Lead, the Unstoppable Leader's Plan for Peak Performance.

Speaker 3:

Now Christian brings a wealth of knowledge to us today, shaped by his global experiences in disaster relief, executive coaching and lots of team development. Together with my wonderful colleagues, brian and Linda Schubering, we're going to be exploring ideas of self-perception and how that shapes leadership, the concept of periodization for sustainable growth and also some practical ways to lead without burning out, something that I think all of us could probably benefit from here this year. Now, as we do start the new year here, this episode invites you, invites all of us, really to reflect on our leadership journey and consider this what practices can you implement this year to grow as a leader while also staying energized and focused. Maybe jot it down on a piece of paper, talk about it with some friends or colleagues and just kind of marinate on that as you listen, all right. So let's jump in and get to know our guest, christian Moutin, author of Train to Lead, and see what we can implement in our own lives this year.

Speaker 1:

The short story of my background in leadership development. I think I've always been interested in leadership and team dynamics. Didn't understand those terms or what it meant, but I was put into leadership position, starting in high school really. But I got involved in ministry and then in international disaster relief early on, and short version is, I began to see that I could be working in pretty secure areas and well-funded projects, and if we had teams that were not led well or didn't work together well, it was very, very hard to have successful projects and definitely they were not fun to be on.

Speaker 1:

On the other hand, you could be in an active conflict zone or active disaster zone in a very poorly funded project and just get an enormous amount of work done and really enjoy your time and your experience. And so I felt like the work we were doing was important and I felt like too many of those experiences had poor leadership and poor team dynamics, and so I became very interested in the idea of how to, instead of starting another nonprofit, funding another program, another initiative, although there's room for that. I thought, well, what if we just help the ones that exist be effective and expand their potential? And so I started as an executive director of a nonprofit that focused on that, and then, over time long story short my career evolved and I now work broadly, but most of my work is probably in the private business sector, although I do still do some work with nonprofits and governments.

Speaker 4:

Okay, so here's my question for you, and it's a question that we often open with some of our engagements, and it's this Christian, can you name a person or place that has shaped who you are and then tell us a little bit about it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Well, there's a lot of them, but yeah, which one are you thinking about now? Yeah, I had to kind of flip through a bunch of names and places so I think one place was I in 2001. I was sent to work in kosovo after the war there as part of the reconstruction effort.

Speaker 1:

So I was there for about a year and that whole team had gone through just a very, I would say, series of traumatic processes. The working environment there was very difficult. It was a difficult place to be for various reasons, but the area that we worked worked in 80 to 90 percent of the country had been, or of the homes had been, damaged or destroyed in the war. So there was just massive rebuilding that we were doing and um, but the our team dynamics were really rough. We went through a new country director probably every eight to nine months, just burning people out. People were getting fried and not able to make it, and so the team was kind of you got this warm body hiring process where you just happened to be there. So you got the job for whatever the job was.

Speaker 1:

And I showed up at the end of the project for the last year of the project and I think experiencing those dynamics, believing the work we were doing was important and deserved better than what we knew how to give it in terms of leadership and team dynamics, and we had a consultant come at the very end of the project, come at the very end of the project, we were all completely spent, I think, emotionally, energy-wise, we had nothing left, and she came right at the end of the project and just helped us map out an exit strategy, because we had to wind up the project and exit and end things well, we oversaw the reconstruction of about 15 communities.

Speaker 1:

We had started a number of schools, we started the local university well, actually, the nation's first dental program and so we had done a number of different things there that were not easy to wrap up, and she gave us a plan for it and it seems so simple. Once she did it, I just became fascinated with the process that she used and with her ability to kind of walk into our chaos and bring water, and so she became an archetype for me, or an image of something.

Speaker 4:

I wanted. What's her first name?

Speaker 2:

What was her first name I don't read, I have to look at.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I like that 23 years ago yeah, yeah it was a long time ago um, I could look it up, but I don't remember off the top of my head, unfortunately. I want to say and okay but I could christian was hers?

Speaker 2:

was her style something that less left the lasting impact, or was it the fact that she had, or helped you create the strategy like was it? My question is was it, was it something personally you connected to with her stylistic approach, or was it more tactical? What made the? It was memorable it?

Speaker 1:

was both.

Speaker 1:

She was actually an hr consultant, so she does something different than you know where I'm at.

Speaker 1:

But, um, I think on a personal level, I my own personal experience there was very, very difficult, and I think it was the first time I felt seen and understood, like someone actually took time to listen to what I had been through, and she made a comment to me about how my skill sets would require a lot of years of maturity before I would really be able to step into my own, which I thought was an interesting observation.

Speaker 1:

So I was 27 then and I think she saw that I was trying to think systemically and strategically and in terms of leadership and as a 27 year old, not receiving a whole lot of respect, mostly being made up out of rough edges and not knowing what I was doing. But I just felt seen, I think and understood, like she saw something that I didn't see. And then the fact that she had tools where she could walk in. She sat down with us and really in the space of about 90 minutes she lined us out on something that we didn't even know was line-outable and I just thought this is like magic. I need to learn this magic.

Speaker 4:

Wow, thank you.

Speaker 3:

I want to dive into that a little bit. More. About seeing you said she saw something in you that you didn't see in your book you talk about. You know how a leader sees themselves is kind of the whole thing. You, you had a story I think it was chapter three about, uh, because you have a fitness background about the peacock muscles and as someone who's firmly in middle age now I was like okay, I'm not going to get the Avenger-looking body.

Speaker 3:

I got to work on my core and my back to prevent all these injuries, all the muscles you can't see. So I was wondering if you can talk a little bit more about how that idea of how a leader sees themselves, how they view themselves, how they, you know, maybe even imposter syndrome, is in there. How does all of that kind of self-perception, how does that impact their ability to lead a team and create positive team culture?

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, just as for the listeners, I was a strength and conditioning instructor for 12 years, kind of on the side. It was just something I loved doing, and I was teaching a class that focused on what's called functional fitness, so it was basically something that helps you live life. A lot of what you would call tactical athletes, firefighters, infantry ways came, anyways. One guy showed up, had the big peacock muscles.

Speaker 1:

You can tell he spent a lot of time on the bench press and a lot of what we were working on was a lot of small stabilizer muscles. So it was difficult exercises and the end result of doing them would never make you look good but they would make you, you know, sustain Minnesota winter. If you slipped on the ice and fell, you help from breaking everything.

Speaker 3:

It would help you do things, not throwing your back out, getting out of the shower or something. Yeah, exactly All that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1:

And he came in. He was in the back of the class and he was trying to do the exercises for about 10, 15 minutes and he just quit. I don't know what he was thinking, but he went back to the back of the gym, got on the bench press and started cranking out reps on the bench press, which you could already do. So he wasn't really gaining anything from that and he was missing out on an opportunity. In my interpretation interpretation who knows what he was actually thinking, but my interpretation was is he was used to being seen as the big guy on the bench that was probably putting up 300 pounds or whatever on the bench and when he was doing exercises that he wasn't successful at, I think that conflicted with how he saw himself or wanted to be seen.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my leadership. I'm going to struggle with accountability. I'm going to struggle with transparency and openness. If I see myself as someone that needs to be perfect, I'm either going to become a micromanager in some way or I'm going to become a pleaser in some way, or maybe not so much a pleaser, but I'll tend towards becoming a micromanager. I'll tend towards high stress. I'll tend towards difficulties and delegation. There's a lot of things that manifest in people in different ways based off of their self-perception, as opposed to if I see myself as a person of value, someone who can bring value, someone who's working on getting better every day. I'm comparing myself to yesterday, not to somebody else. Those kinds of shifts of perspective are huge in terms of my ability to actually work with people well and grow.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Christian, I'm going to.

Speaker 3:

Brian's taking notes, by the way. Yeah, which is what he's doing.

Speaker 1:

It's what I do.

Speaker 3:

My Google Doc keeps shifting because there's so many notes being taken.

Speaker 1:

I'm that nervous about getting tested here on neuropsychology is what I just said. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Oh no, this is practical. I've been teaching. I'm a fitness professional as well. I've been teaching classes of all varieties for 37 years. Again, it's my side hustle. I've been doing it since I was 20. And this will not make the podcast, hopefully.

Speaker 3:

Yes, it will, yes, it will.

Speaker 2:

Keep going. So I'm at the gym. I teach at Lifetime Fitness, if you're familiar. So I'm at the gym a lot. And, christian, you know these guys. I'm in the men's locker room and in the locker bay next to me there are two, let's say, 20-somethings talking to each other and they're holding the five-gallon jug of water each. And one guy says to the other who's finishing his workout. He's like oh, that's what you're here for. He's like oh, I don't know. Friend says I'm here for legs and back. What did you do today? And and finally, the guy who's finishing just said oh, I was just here peacocking today. So every time we're honest, it's like dude, that's what I thought too. I thought you own that like. You just own. You know what. You're here just walking around looking good chest out looking good in the mirror.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, good for him bumping his muscles?

Speaker 2:

yeah, but that yeah, and and your idea of, like the holistic, functional. You know people in that self-image thing. You know I teach classroom, I do class instruction and so in that class I feel that, yes, it's someone's self-acceptance of how they show up and the abilities that they have when they come into the room. I also think it's really important that they have goals, like what is your goal? Everybody has a dream of losing weight or being more fit, and my idea with that is you know you're welcome here to participate, no matter what your skill level is. And then I often say to them on the side like, well, pick one, you know. Pick, you know getting your body moving. Or pick, you know, maybe eating differently. Don't try to take it all out at once.

Speaker 2:

And that methodology of you know inviting people into fitness is a strategy that I also play with leaders, like, let's not look at the, let's keep the holistic dream there, but let's break it down and into some things that we can accomplish short term based on your skill level, your capacities. Like you're saying, we know you can bench press, but let's try working on some of these smaller things. And Nathan's done some great work with your book in summarizing some of your perspectives and I just like how you go about considering healthy habits conditioning. I'm not sure what you mean by strength yet, but what is it that you have that you can work with, that you can leverage into who you are as a leader? How much of the fitness paradigm do you rely on, or is it simply something anecdotal that really is as you use as an example?

Speaker 1:

I mean, I'm happy to talk to you and nerd out about this, but I'm using a real periodization is actually what I based the whole book around, if you're familiar with that, so the whole thing is based around periodization You're probably the first interviewer to know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1:

And this is where I have to be careful with most interviewers and not mention you know jargon like this, but the idea was I wanted to do well, what I wanted to do is I drove away from the gym one day and I thought why is it that I can train an athlete to peak out the day of their event Predictable? But with leaders, we just say here's a whole bunch of information, don't screw up, good luck. Good luck, don't screw up good luck, good luck yep, yeah, and the success rates are not high.

Speaker 1:

When you look at statistics around a leadership succession for example, like executive succession and so on, we, we don't have great success rates. Um, but I thought we ought to be able to do better leadership. You know, in the social sciences, uh, workplace dynamics are some of the oldest social science oldest studied dynamics in the social science field. You know, there's 100 plus years of research around it and we still relate to it like hey, here's a fire hose, here's 110 great ideas, and it's up to you to figure out which one applies and how they fit together and which one's dependent on the other. And I thought there's got to be a better way. And so I was. And it just kind of occurred to me I wonder if a periodization type approach, if there's anything to that model of starting out with basic nutrition and environment, of starting out with basic nutrition and environment, looking at conditioning, looking at strength as a foundation for movement, looking at power as being able to access strength quickly, the ability to endure over the long haul mobility, you know, rest and restoration and all of those kind of cycle, and then cycling through that as opposed to learning it all at once. And so that's how I structured the book, and I built it around, like you were talking, this idea of setting a small, single goal, the way I based the book.

Speaker 1:

I put in training plans in the book, like for beginner leaders, intermediate leaders, experienced leaders, the idea being let's just pick something and target it for four weeks. Then let it go, get a little bit better, get some change in the system, some change in your perspective, then move on to the next thing, with the understanding that you're going to cycle back through again later. And so, if you have problems with prioritization, let's focus on it for a few weeks. Let's work on how to just pick one thing that I need to get done this week. What's the one thing I need to do today if I'm going to get my weekly goal done? Spend a little bit of time on it, and then now let's move on to something else, because it becomes too onerous for people to stick with one thing forever, and they have to know more than one thing to be effective, and so I wanted to create a pathway that felt manageable, and so the way it's structured is, in these 90-day cycles, kind of like a periodization process where you focus on a number of different topics as you move through those 90 days really great results with folks that I've worked with who've gone through these cycles, because it makes growth tangible.

Speaker 1:

I think it takes the mystery out of being a leader and makes it practical so that you like somebody coming to the gym for the first time, overwhelmed with the machinery and the lights and the yoga leggings and all the kind of stuff, and they didn't feel intimidated and they don't feel like that's going to be me and I've got this image. I got to get to and instead meeting a trainer who can break it down and say actually, do we want to work on changing your diet or do we want to work on walking a mile a day? Let's make it simple. You know it's going to progress, they just need to get started. Or you work with an experienced athlete that's rehabbing or whatever, and you can help them find those weak spots or stick with it when they're feeling discouraged or whatever the thing is.

Speaker 4:

So what have been some of those successes Like tell us you can change the name If you remember them? You can forget the name a long time ago. I know, I know.

Speaker 1:

I'm giving you. I know I'm going to feel bad about that, cause she did have a big don't feel bad.

Speaker 4:

Don't feel bad. Give us, give us some examples so that even our listeners can um, so their, their imagination can be expanded, because a lot, a lot of times we we experienced leaders who almost have a new year's resolution approach. They're going to do all the things all the time.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 4:

Um and then they fail within the first. I get that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I, that's my approach to you, that's my gut level approach is I want to get good at everything all at once and uh, um, you know. So I'm constantly having to resist that. Actually, I have a coach, who I mean because I believe in coaching, so I always have a coach and my coach's whole job is mostly to tell me no to all the things I want to do and to just focus on the thing that I decided was important. So I connect with him once or twice a week and mostly he just says no. I pay him a lot to say that, but it's just good for you, remind me of my goals and my goals.

Speaker 1:

So the story that I was going to tell was a client that I'm working with now who was suggested to be the successor for a company. There was a lot of. They had lost money for a lot of years. They brought in a president that was able to do a turnaround on it and he was able to get it to function well again. And it was at that point I came in. It was about a $20 million company and they felt good and that president felt like it probably can't get bigger. That's probably where we're at.

Speaker 1:

I stepped in to help with some of the succession dynamic and then specifically to coach this potential successor who struggled with doing everything all at once and so he would routinely do everything all at once and go on kind of a manic episode of working for an 18 hour, 20 some hour block of time and then crash for three days and he'd be, you couldn't access him, you couldn't find him anywhere. And then crashed for three days and he'd be. You couldn't access him, you couldn't find him anywhere. And so they were concerned. Uh, the holding company that owned this company and the outgoing president was concerned like can this guy actually do it? He's got the intelligence. Uh, he knows the business, but does he have the personal self-management to actually handle pressure? And so I worked with him on some of these very basic self-management tools that I discussed in the book regarding really around what I would call conditioning, which is really self-management practices and some of his perspective practices, because he was really hard on himself in terms of what he thought he needed to accomplish.

Speaker 1:

His dad was I believe he was ex-special forces a Green Beret, and so he just kind of grew up in a home that I think there was, not in a negative way, but just there was an understanding of excellence that's different than your average cat. What I thought was fascinating, working with him for about a year and a half or two years, he was able to step into that company, really transform it in a lot of ways. It's now doing 40 plus million within the last two to three years, more than doubled in size. He got married in that period of time. He's just had his second kid and he has more time at home. He's leading a company that's twice as large and he has more time to spend at home with his family that he now has. His life's dramatically more complex than it ever was. He no longer crashes and burns, he's no longer unreachable for days. Lot of it just came from putting some basic self-management practices in place that allowed him to carry these big loads, the big stresses, without collapsing underneath it or injuring himself.

Speaker 2:

Christian. How much of his transition was around the physical well-being side, like was there something critical in how he takes care of himself physically? Was there a connection there or no?

Speaker 1:

There was a little bit there and there often is. That wasn't dramatic for him, but it was part of it. He had, like, a lot of hard drivers. I think a lot of people do have some kind of athletic interest or background. There's not always, but that's not uncommon. And he loved, loves, mountain climbing. He used to do jujitsu, which I practice.

Speaker 1:

He used to be involved in powerlifting, and so my encouragement to him was to start setting some regular times to go either hike or climb, because I think mentally he needed that.

Speaker 1:

Physically you kind of process, but you know you go on a long hike or climb, you just start clearing out mental clutter, kind of soul clutter or whatever you want to call it like stuff gets processed. But then also my encouragement to him was, on a regular basis, to get back in, giving him permission to go back to the gym, helping him understand that the hour he'll spend in the gym is going to actually reap returns in terms of when he comes back. And you know the studies around it, in terms of improved energy, improvements, the improvements kind of across the board. There's a value in taking time away from the office and then coming back. And so he started putting those practices back in into place. As I understand it. For him I would say the physical goals were not like central to our work, but giving him permission to take care of himself physically, because you've probably all worked with executives who push super hard and then in some way of trying to do self-medication they're doing something that's not particularly healthy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the reason why I ask is it's obviously part of who I am.

Speaker 2:

I've been an athlete my entire life. There's also a magazine that I read every month and there's a section in there that always is focusing on any CEO, whoever it is that month, and the idea is they're bringing in a holistic approach to who this CEO is, which often involves some type of mindfulness slash, spiritual practice as well as physical movements, which is part of what they're trying to convey. Apart from the magazine, in my personal experience with the people that we are consulting with and coaching, I often find the people that we're working with have some type of athletic or incredibly physically disciplined background which at some point in their life late teens, early 20s gave them the structure, the motivation, the neurological reactivity, what it means to move your body through space in there, and they've kept that up somehow. That's why, um, I really align with the idea you have around conditioning and endurance, because people that we find who become successful they understand what it means to endure and to sustain and the importance of taking breaks and paying attention to the physical side of who they are.

Speaker 1:

And FYI, you're talking to the audience. They don't always practice that, but they're open to the current.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they're open to it. Yeah, I mean they can be right.

Speaker 1:

So you, probably see this. I don't know which industries you work with, but half of my clients are in construction, a lot of them are in medical, and so those fields have just really deep cultures of just grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, and they really have a hard time believing the idea that it's possible to work less and produce more.

Speaker 3:

The one I don't want to say issue, but the whole performance and athletics and training and all that. Where I'm always like how does this translate? Is the idea of you know, with the Olympics or like Brian and I just ran a marathon, you're like working towards a goal to a date and so a lot of people can hunker down, get super disciplined about all these things for you know, 6, 12, whatever number of weeks they taper, they do their event and then they're done. What is the equivalent of that in the real world in leadership? I love this idea of periodization around. You know, work on these different things for a set period of time and move on. But that grind, grind, grind mentality for leaders there is no. My event date is done, maybe there's a big meeting or something, but I think some people get burnt out because they're like there is no end in sight, like so it's got to be manageable, they got to pace themselves.

Speaker 1:

How do you talk to that a little bit? I'm not sure exactly what the question is in there. Other than how do you sustain this? Well, let's try to make sure I understand your question. So when I talk about grinding, I meant it in the sense of somebody who comes to work and is talking about their 12 or 16 hour days, that they're working 15 days a week. That's different than working on your leadership skills Right.

Speaker 3:

Those are not the same thing at all. No, yeah.

Speaker 4:

And I guess that's what I'm.

Speaker 1:

Yeah so what I'm talking about is actually looking at leadership as a practice and that if you practice leading and you practice these components of leadership, these specific aspects of it, you will become a more effective, more efficient leader. So I practice Brazilian jujitsu. So for people that aren't familiar, it's you know, if you ever watch UFC or MMA or anything like that, it's after they get done punching each other and they roll around on the ground hugging each other. That's the part that that I do. Okay. So it's funny, achieve a black belt.

Speaker 1:

Once you get to that level, the effortlessness with which somebody in that sport can control someone who's much larger and stronger is just kind of amazing. I remember the first time I made our head instructor sweat a little bit. He was killing me, but I counted it a victory. I was like all right, we're making them work a little bit. The point in this is in translating that there's a skill that you can learn, where you can be vastly more effective in your role, but not putting in a lot of effort or weight and body mechanics and so on, but in leadership understanding how people work, understanding how you work, understanding how to utilize those times. Well, you know basic things that a lot of my clients find fascinating that you only have you know one or two really productive periods in a day for most people. So how do you identify when those periods are? They probably only last 60 minutes or so. How do you identify when they are and how do you make sure that they're not being consumed by emails or kind of silly meetings?

Speaker 3:

Right yeah.

Speaker 1:

But instead you're doing your really most important work, then Things like that can dramatically, exponentially impact someone's productivity and reduce the amount of effort that they need to put into things.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and my answer to your question Maybe this yeah, well, yeah, you kind of are, and I think maybe it's even helping me just even re-articulate the question, and I think it's too often, I think, going back to what we kind of how we started, this idea of you know for athletes and there's all these very specific patterns to follow, but there's not necessarily for leaders, and this idea of periodization, rather than thinking you know as a leader who's got a million things going on, who just always feels you know underwater, it's like, well, this period, this month or whatever, I'm going to focus on this one aspect and really try to get better at this, to improve with this one piece, whatever that thing is, versus having the weight of the entire world on their shoulders.

Speaker 3:

And maybe that's part of the way how you can say, okay, so for these three weeks, you know, like when you're training for a race or an athlete who is gearing up towards a specific competition, it's like, for this period of time, I'm going to focus on this and then move on to the next, versus I'm just training indefinitely for the rest of my life for everything, which. That, I think, is what feels really overwhelming.

Speaker 1:

I think that. I mean I personally don't think most leaders work on becoming better leaders regularly.

Speaker 4:

But I think speaking on.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I think they go ahead, they go to work and they do their work, but they're not really paying attention to how they do their work or how they show up as much or they're kind of aware of it. They listen to podcasts, they read a book, they get inspired by it, but they aren't really quite sure. Right, we all listen to podcasts or read books, but then you forget about it, you don't. How do I apply all the whatever James Clear's ideas or how do I do all of this stuff? Yeah, it's simple, but then you don't do it, you know and the um. So, using marathon runners as an example, especially for people that don't run marathons a lot, you probably see people that train, train, train, train for three months, six months for a marathon. They run their marathon. They're done working out, that's it, not only do they not run?

Speaker 1:

another marathon. They don't go back to the gym, they fall out of being in shape. And I think a lot of leaders think I'm about to get a promotion, I'm about to become a CEO or a VP or a manager or a very frontline supervisor. Let me get a book, let me work on this, let me try to figure out what I can do. There's a lot of effort put into it. Then you get into it and then you feel like, well, I'm here, now I've done my thing, and now I'm done trying, but the effort's still there. Now I'm done trying, but the effort's still there.

Speaker 1:

And so what I want to encourage you know, this is probably from a fitness trainer perspective in a good fitness instructor will encourage a lifestyle of fitness, like, how do you make this something that you can do throughout your life? I mean not something that requires two hours at the gym every day, you know, and some unmanageable meal plan and all this kind of other stuff. So I think, for leaders, how do we make it possible for leaders to continually, progressively get better without having to put just ridiculous amounts of effort and work into it? But what they're working on is producing results for them, because the big thing is anyone that hires me for a coach and I'm sure you guys see the same thing in your business A lot of people are worried. If I hire you as a coach, am I just going to have more work that I need to do on top of what I'm already doing? So one of the very first things I have to do is figure out how do we reduce the labor intensity of their life without reducing their productivity.

Speaker 4:

Well, some of our clients will say, like what's my homework? Of our clients will say, like what's my homework, like what am I supposed to do? And sometimes it's simply just paying attention, like right, you know, pay attention, notice when you're acting this way or that way, or saying this or thinking that, and sometimes that's like but but I want to do something really meaningful and we'll say like that is very, like that's one of the big projects, something that well you know.

Speaker 1:

That's the same thing in fitness, right? So actual fitness, when you actually get into the science of what makes your body stronger and healthier. I mean, I love the high intensity interval training, I think it's fun, I think all that stuff is fun, but the actual science says only do that maybe once a week, don't make that your workout every single day, like that is not the best way to hit optimal health and performance. And so I think there's this driver that people feel like it must hurt I have to be at the edge of puking and fitness for it to be a real workout. I think a lot of leaders do the same thing, where if I'm not putting in everything I've got, then I'm not trying. Everything I've got, then I'm not trying. And the reality is is you shouldn't but you definitely don't have to to get the results you want, or even better results.

Speaker 2:

Christian along this lines. A while back, I was training for one of my Ironmans and I was in a bike accident and I went to go see a sports medicine doctor and part of my rehab was this doctor, who I still see to this day. He didn't make any judgment call on me because I'm a triathlete, but what he did was he said this as part of getting back into shape again and recovering from this injury. I just want you to pay attention to how much processed sugar you take in in the next 30 days. He didn't tell me how to eat. He didn't tell me to eat more protein. He didn't tell me how to eat. He didn't tell me to eat more protein. He didn't tell me to do any exercises. He just said pay attention. And I said well, why? And he goes well. Do you want to be more fit? And I said, yes, he goes well. Just pay attention to that and watch how your body changes in 30 days. So I asked what kind of workouts should I be doing? He said nothing. No, just pay attention to your sugar intake. You know the end of the story, christian. My body transformed in 30 days just by paying attention to how much sugar I was taking in without really knowing about it.

Speaker 2:

So that story is in alignment with what you're saying and part of our approach is let us help leaders pay attention to who they are as people and how that individual your unique individuality shows up as a leader. Pay attention to who they are as people and how that individual your unique individuality shows up as a leader. Pay attention to that. Pay attention to how your being, who you just are, influences other people, and also pay attention to how you face the challenges. Like you're saying, that level of intensity no one can sustain that and it isn't a mark of pride to be wearing yourself out. There is no set point that can help you sustain that over a period of time. That paying attention. Reality, like you said, as you and I know the science backs it up. You don't need to have the intense workouts, unless you're like Nathan. You can definitely work out faster, run faster, just run faster, nathan.

Speaker 4:

They're both going to run the Boston Marathon this next year. They're not like slouches.

Speaker 1:

I wouldn't even try to get hold of them. I like short distances.

Speaker 3:

I do too. That's way better.

Speaker 1:

I'd rather fight a guy for six or seven minutes. Maybe he'll choke me out. At least I'm done. Roll around, I just love your approach to that.

Speaker 2:

Christian, I'll never look at MMA the same after you said basically it's two guys punching each other and then rolling around and hugging each other, I never looked at it that way. I mean it's really relational.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is very relational it's very close. Very intimate.

Speaker 2:

Okay, christian, I'm just going to talk to you for a second. I'm going to ignore these. There are jokers.

Speaker 4:

You're married to this one.

Speaker 2:

I know I've spent a lot of time in my career trying to get over the fact that I'm an elite athlete and not trying to like force that on people. However, people dream about being physically fit or they dream about being in the Olympics, they dream about running a fight, they dream in these athletic dreams and I think that there's something to connect to or something that is and I'm saying this to me, krishna, as much as with you I think that people aspire into that physically active framework more than they realize, so that the understanding is quicker than we think. The periodization also comes at things from dieting. Periodization comes at things from mindfulness practices. Periodization is someone's building a house, it's a remodeling, it's in cycles. So I think, as humans, our brain understands that. However, I think for for you and I christian to put out the athletic imagery, I think people will lock onto that quicker than we realize.

Speaker 2:

I had a one-to-one conversation with someone I happen to be coaching her now and she really taught me a lesson on just that kind of mindset that people are inspired to think that way, because she was a championship basketball player and she had to wrestle with this mentality of give me the ball, which she felt was selfish, but it was something in her. That's just who I am. Well, when I shared that back to the team that she was on, everyone resonated with that. My point is that athletic metaphor people seem to get it more than we realize and if it's the essence of your book, lean in. I mean, I'm not telling you what to do, but just I think I'm receiving what you're saying.

Speaker 1:

I'm very open.

Speaker 2:

Christian, I'm asking you to take the risk as comfortable as you want, risk putting that out there more and watch how your, how your interviewers, are responding to that. Because, yeah, like I tell my classes, just move for 30 days and your body's going to change. Um, just consistency there. And I think same thing with your messaging. Um, because your book just came on in what? June, July, something like that.

Speaker 2:

So it's still relatively new and you said the information's out there already, all the information's out there already, how you're messaging it. That makes it genius and that's what I want to encourage you on is all the pieces are here and when I, when I look at our chapter summary healthy habits people know what that means Conditioning you define that. They know what that means Strength people already come with a preconceived intellectual knowledge of what strength is. People think they know what power is and people know what endurance is People are. How many people are in unhealthy marriages? They understand endurance. So yeah, or raising kids, anyways.

Speaker 3:

Christian.

Speaker 2:

I'm encouraging you, in part because I hear your voice as an athlete and I believe that this message has a stronger adhesion than maybe you or I both realize.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate that I'm receiving what you're saying. It's good to hear that. Thank you, I think it's helpful because I can kind of get lost in my nerd world. And you know, you don't always know how far you could push into that before you lose folks, and so I appreciate what you're saying.

Speaker 3:

So, christian, I think one of the most. Well, let me back up. So. I've been a runner my entire life, since I was 14 years old. I'm 45, almost 46 now and he's really fast.

Speaker 3:

Christian, I've done, I think nine or ten marathons too many half marathons to count and I am realizing at this age that it takes a lot longer for me to recover. I'm doing a lot more strength training than I've ever done. None of the peacock muscles I've given up on that, as we mentioned all of the little core muscles and just all kinds of stuff. And so you close the book with a chapter on self, what's it called Self-maintenance and recovery and how that's the key to doing. You know leadership long-term, so I'm wondering if you could perhaps leave leaders, leave our listeners, with some advice or guidance or tips or whatever you want to say. How do you do that as a leader? What does rest look like? What does it mean to take a vacation where you unplug so that you can come back energized? What does that look like? What do you tell your clients about how to get away?

Speaker 1:

Well, let's talk specifically about vacations because, that's actually an assignment I give. Many of my clients is to go away, so I use that both for just leadership, but then also I do a lot of work with leaders that are owners, that are exiting companies, and so I try to get them to go away so the company can get used to working without them.

Speaker 1:

So here I mean the real simple thing that I recommend, for that is most people have a habit of, you know, they're getting ready to go, take a couple of weeks off to hawaii or wherever they're gone, and they ramp things up to 150 percent to try to get it all done before they leave and have so there's not a bunch of work waiting for them when they get back.

Speaker 1:

And then they leave and they spend like three, four days just trying to de-stress. And let's just pretend they're actually good and they're not on their phone checking emails and checking texts and stuff like that, but they're spending a big chunk of time just trying to figure out how do I gear down from this, and maybe they're not even aware that they need to and they're just feeling this tension. And then, as they get towards the end of the vacation, they're feeling that ramp up again and there's that anxiety of going back to work because they know they're going to go back to work. And there's this project, there's this proposal, there's this thing. There's going to be a bunch of stuff waiting for them.

Speaker 1:

There's going to be 1,500 emails in their mailbox, all this kind of stuff that stresses them out. So what I encourage that they do is I mean real practical is that in their calendar, own your calendar and then, for the three days before your vacation or the week, just start landing the plane so that not you're not coming in at a million miles an hour, but when you're on vacation you've already put the car into neutral, you've already parked the work car and you're done. Then you've already done a lot of your transition. You can go to work and then, when you come back, plan for a few days to a week of slowly ramping up the work.

Speaker 1:

Benefit to this is, if you do it, for my clients who do it, which is most of them, it forces them to get out of, I'll just say, stupid habits of trying to grind and brute force everything. It forces them to delegate. It forces them to communicate. It forces them to look at their calendar in advance. It forces them to delegate. It forces them to communicate. It forces them to look at their calendar in advance. It forces them to take unuseful activities out of their calendar.

Speaker 1:

It forces them to actually think and lead differently if they start practicing that kind of a habit, it starts to force them to confront self-identity issues, because many leaders feel like if I'm not the one that's in charge of all the fires that are going on or all of the issues, then who am I and what value am I? And many leaders really deeply wrestle with that, even if they're not cognizant of it. And so I find that just the simple practice of landing the plane before you go and then coming back knowing that there's no big pile, you're going to slowly start things back up, forces to do that well, forces so many other things to have to be addressed that you overall take the vacation and not only rest on the vacation, which on its own is needed, but it forces you to lead more efficiently and effectively overall. Does that help, kind of give a picture.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. It's the taper and the reverse taper for runners for vacation, right, brian? Yeah, you guys relate to that.

Speaker 2:

I'm just laughing because I'm thinking of how many executives I work with that would never consider doing that.

Speaker 1:

None of them, none of them would consider it, you have to make them do it, and they're burnt out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

And if they've paid you enough.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes they listen to what you say, but the but I mean it's it is a challenging thing to do. The thing is is, in my experience my clients routinely and you guys probably experienced something similar they routinely see their businesses take off and not have to put as much effort into it, and they're not feeling burned out, they're not losing their marriages, they're able to hang out with their kids or their spouse, they're able to spend time with friends, they're able to do that. They have time to do triathlons or to do, you know, those kinds of things, whatever the sport is that they able to do.

Speaker 1:

They have time to do triathlons or to do you know those kinds of things. Whatever the sport is that they want to do you know rolling around and hugging whatever the thing is that they want to do they've got space in their life for it. I don't know why you guys run.

Speaker 4:

I mean, you're running from something obviously I'm running to the answers yeah, that's, that's another, that's another podcast christian I I just want to thank you for sharing your expertise, as well as some very tangible examples that like let's as leaders, let's train like athletes um, you know that you would hurt yourself if you just roll up and try to do something really complicated.

Speaker 4:

And I just appreciate, I appreciate your perspective and, uh, I'm sure that the the people that you work with are are better for it. The companies that they're transitioning and the companies that they're leading are better for it. So it's a it's a privilege to be with you, like this.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, christian. Very enjoyable interview. Have you read any of Rich Horwath's books? No, do you know that guy?

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Christian, I would recommend you look at Rich's latest book. It's a New York Times bestseller called Strategy. He's been on our podcast, he's helped us with a bunch of things, and I say that because he works with athletes and he takes that periodization and performance approach, um, and he has a massive online coaching platform which takes this same idea along the way, but you may just take a peek at what he's doing Rich Horwath.

Speaker 1:

H-O-R-W-A-T-H. I'll definitely look that up, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's good stuff On YouTube too.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Christian, thank you so much. This was really fun. The other idea I liked about the book was just the idea of accountability in leadership, and there's so many examples of people that get serious about whatever and they have a little group that they're doing it with and they see a lot more results. Just, I guess, an encouragement for leaders to do the same thing, like get a mastermind group or some other connection with people who can kind of help you on that journey. So, Christian, thank you so much again. We appreciate it. The book is Trained to Lead. I think you can buy it wherever you get books Wherever good books are sold.

Speaker 3:

Wherever good books are sold. That's what I was looking for All right Christian thanks so much. Thank you, it was very good.

Speaker 1:

It was a great conversation, thank you.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Christian Moutin reminded us here today of the importance of sustainable growth, self-perception and intentional practices and leadership. I really love the connection that he made between training in like the athletic or competitive sense and leadership and the ideas of rest and recovery for optimal performance in honestly all areas, all things in life. It's something I am definitely going to be focusing on a whole lot more this year and I would encourage you, as you know, as you're stepping into this new year, I just challenge you to choose one idea from today's episode you know we talked about that earlier where Brian was sharing the example of people he was coaching.

Speaker 3:

What's one thing whether it's embracing periodization, whether it's delegating more effectively, building habits for better self-management just commit to practicing one thing this year, for maybe, let's just say this month, january or whatever month you're listening to this in Just one month. Be very intentional and at the end of that month, or a couple of weeks or whatever, just see how you're doing. Are you growing? Are you progressing? Are you making any inroads into whatever it is? That thing is that you want to grow in. So think about that thing, practice that one area and then let us know how you're doing. You can send us an email, nathanleadershipvisionconsultingcom, or you can find us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom or all the social channels, and we are excited for a year of growth in leadership with you this year. I'm Nathan Freeberg and, on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.