Taking Ownership: The Key to Thriving in Any Situation
Download MP3And welcome back to the dead three coaching show. I'm your host George Evian. Happy to do another episode with you today. We're gonna jump right into it. But before we do, I just want to continue to call out that we have built an online community of if you've listened to this podcast, you know that we're into leadership and team building and improvement and strategies and tactics of all those things.
Speaker 1:We're having conversations about those topics over on our community page, community.dead3coaching.com. I encourage you to go over there and join those conversations that we're having. We're posting blogs as well to our website, dead3coaching.com. Please head over there as well for all this content that we are creating to start and continue with 2025. But we're gonna jump right into it today with the theme of 2025 is just really these quotes and these books and these ideas and getting us to think a little deeper, a little better, to take more action, and to have more of an impact.
Speaker 1:The book is called feel good productivity. It's a book by a gentleman named Ali Abdaal, I believe is how you say that. Ali Abdaal. He's really famous and got a huge following on all the social media platforms, but probably is most famous for the work that he does on YouTube. And I don't remember exactly how I came across his book.
Speaker 1:It was my second or third read of 2024, read it in Jan. 0 or And it is a good book. It really centers around this idea of just creating happiness, creating emotion, feeling good about yourself, and how kind of being in that you know, joy state, that zen state, and what that kind of unleashes for you in terms of productivity, impact, focus, vision, progress, all those types of things. And it was a very impactful book for me last year as I read it and and tried to implement some of the strategies. But the quote here is something that also has bubbled up recently in some other social media posts that I've had about from Jocko Willink.
Speaker 1:We've talked about the book, extreme ownership and owning everything that is going on in your life, in your world, in your teams, in your programs, and just taking extreme ownership that you own it all. And that when you own it all, you own solutions, and I'm sure we'll mention that again here shortly. But the quote here is from Ali Abda, like I mentioned. But the quote is when we can't take ownership of the situation, We can still take ownership of the process. So when we can't take ownership of the situation, we can still take ownership of the process.
Speaker 1:So kind of conflicting ideas of extreme ownership saying, hey. You take ownership of everything. Even the things you can't take control over, the situations. But the idea, again, that I keep coming back to you, I believe I just mentioned it, is the more you own, the more you put it on your shoulders, the more that you can own the process, the more that you can own the solutions, and the more you can own the wins that are associated with it, even if you can't really sink your teeth into it. There are probably many things that happen to you in your life that you have no ownership over certain situations.
Speaker 1:But can you really own the situation? Or I'm sorry. If you can't own the situation, can you just kind of control different processes of that situation? And just think about that for a second. But how often do we find ourselves in situations where we can't fully control the outcome?
Speaker 1:And I'm sure it happens for you all the time in leaderships, in teams, in life. We're constantly gonna face circumstances that are outside of our control, constantly. But here's the real challenge that we have to that I need to make, that we need to make. Do we let that just stop us, or do we really take ownership of what we can control? Do you really do a deep dive?
Speaker 1:Do you really sit there with your team and figure out, you know, what would it look like if we took complete ownership of this? What would it look like if we own this outcome, this process, this solution? What would it look like if we took ownership of what we can control and what are those items? Ownership isn't always about just solving problems. It's about creating the mindset and the process and the strategies maybe just to keep things moving forward even when the situation isn't fully in our hands like we've mentioned.
Speaker 1:You're not going to be able to take complete and absolute ownership of everything that is going on, but you've got to create a mindset of moving strategies and processes and progress forward. You gotta keep it moving forward. But if you own the problem, if you own the problem, that means you can also own the solution. One of the important lessons again that we continue to teach with our team is that if we own the problems, if we focus on what we can control, if we come up with strategies around the problem, then we ultimately can own the solution as opposed to being, you know, passive in that and letting somebody else control and dictate what may be happening to us. We're gonna own it fully.
Speaker 1:There is no at all passing this along to other people or passing the buck as they say. Not waiting for somebody else to step in. Even if we don't have full control over the execution of this issue or this problem, we definitely have control over how we approach it and how we attack it. For those of you that have children, can you imagine teaching our children to saying, hey. You can't control this, so you just sit back and let it happen and let this happen to you?
Speaker 1:Or are you gonna be telling your children, We don't wait for somebody else to step in. We're leaders. We attack problems, issues in our lives, and even though we don't have full control over it, we're definitely gonna control our mind set, and we're definitely gonna attack how we attack this problem. You would say that to your kids. We need to do I I know I would say that to my kids.
Speaker 1:But why do I consistently stay stay on my heels, pass the buck, let other people step in when I should be taking complete ownership? We have to control the mindset that we bring to the table when it comes to these things. This is what, in my notes here, separates high performing teams from just average ones. So, you know, software, sales, consulting, whatever it might be. But when problems arise, the best teams just don't point out the problems.
Speaker 1:They come to the table with solutions, with questions, and with action and execution and accountability and delivery. They do ask these questions. What part of this can we influence? What part can we control? How can we create a process to make things better?
Speaker 1:What strategies can we implement to prevent this from happening again? You know, the great organizations sit there and say, hey. We're not blaming anybody for this. We're just capable of more and better. And we gotta do a root cause analysis, and we gotta figure out exactly how and why we fell short on this initiative, this objective, this delivery, this project.
Speaker 1:Because the reality exists, and it is true that problems are always gonna be there. Problems are always gonna exist. The difference between the good and great teams is just how they respond to those problems. But also, again, a lot of phrases are bubbling up into my year and one is definitely just these are kind of the bubble phrases or words that have bubbled up in 2025 for me are humility, focus, and mindset. They just seem to keep bubbling up in my daily notes, the daily content I consume in my gratitude journaling that I'm doing more of, mindset and humbleness and focus.
Speaker 1:But, you know, many people are just quick to recognize that something just isn't working. People are so quick to point out what's wrong, what you're doing wrong, and what the team is doing wrong, and what a management is doing wrong. But very few take ownership in fixing it. Very few. And wouldn't we want to circle back to our children?
Speaker 1:Wouldn't we want our children to own that as they navigate and as they, you know, navigate their careers? This is why that leaders need to instill that ownership mindset in our teams, the extreme ownership that Jocko Willink talks about. And what a culture of absolute ownership of everything that's going on of delivery, of sales, of execution, of progress, of delivery, but a culture of ownership means that teams just don't report on problems. They come to the table with solutions and strategies and ideas, and it is a safe place to throw everything on the whiteboard. That individuals may not may not, they don't.
Speaker 1:Individuals just don't wait for direction. But they're gonna take the initiative to get things done and get things moving and get out of the mud and to start making progress. And you have to have a team and an organization and people that everyone sees themselves as a problem solver and not just an observer. As I said earlier, waiting for somebody to step in, waiting for someone to come bail them out. The question I have, I guess, for myself and the question I have for you, but are you leading your group with an ownership mindset?
Speaker 1:How often do you say that word to your team? How often does are you empowering your team to take ownership? Does your team have an ownership mindset? Does your organization have an ownership mindset? As we do in all these new podcasts that we're putting out, there are three actions with every podcast episode we put out.
Speaker 1:But we've gotta identify a challenge that your team is facing. Action number one, identify a challenge that your team is facing, and work with them to take responsibility for finding that solution. Get together and whiteboard it. Get together and get the other bubble word for me this year is engagement. Get your team to be engaged, collaborative, communicating, ideas, innovation, failure, taking risks.
Speaker 1:Like do all of that and get them going and have their voices heard. People want to feel they're contributing, they're valued, and that they're doing meaningful work. The second action item is we need to shift our mindsets. Instead of focusing on what we can't control, let's focus more on what we can influence and what we can impact and what we can attack. So shift your mindset, identify challenges.
Speaker 1:And then always encourage your team to bring solutions and not just problems. Tell them that we are going to be a team that has an ownership mindset, And that when we own everything, we own it collectively as a team, we get full buy in as a team, and that we're not just here to talk and gossip about problems and wait to be bailed out and wait for somebody to come save us. But we're gonna discuss these problems and we're gonna make ownership the standard in which we function, complete and absolute and extreme ownership. But at the end of the day, listen, at the end of the day, the ownership that you have and that you create and that you communicate is a choice. And you just can't wait for circumstances to change for you to respond.
Speaker 1:You've got to go out and be the change. You've got to go out and take the action. You need to have a group, an organization, and people in your company that attack it. You can hope that somebody's gonna come along and fix the problem, or you can just take the first step in building a process and building a mindset that leads to solutions. So Ali Abdaal in this book, feel good productivity.
Speaker 1:Again, the quote is when we can't take ownership of the situation, we can still take ownership of the process. And again, just identify these challenges, shift your mindset, encourage your team to bring solutions. Three actions, write them down. I write these down every day in the blog posts that we're creating, that we're posting online, in the podcast that we're putting out. I put them in our community.
Speaker 1:Go to our community. We talk about these actions every day with with a group of people that in the community that we're building. Be active participants in finding solutions. Head over to our community, community.dead3coaching.com and join the discussions that we're having over there and hopefully you've taken something from this podcast that you can implement into your teams so you can start crushing it and so you can start taking ownership. Have a good rest of your week.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
