How Leaders Can Learn From Experience w/ Dr. Samuel Jones
I think team members, you know, if they feel like you're in a leadership role, and you don't invest in them, you don't spend time with them, they're gonna assume you don't care about them.
One of the things that I've learned is that when you're working with people and people feel like you don't care about them, then they are not gonna care about the work.
Welcome back to The Speaking and Communicating Podcast. I am your host, Roberta Ndlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning in to.
Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. By the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a reading and a review. Now, let's get communicating.
Now, let's get communicating with Dr. Samuel Jones, chaining us from Mississippi.
He is a keynote speaker, a leadership coach, and author of Momentum Mindset, and is here to help us unlock our potential through resilience, and use our setbacks in order to grow and to be successful.
And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show. Hi, Dr. Jones.
Hi, Roberta.
Glad to be here, and I'm excited to have this very interesting conversation.
It's going to be interesting indeed. Welcome to the show. And what about resilience was so important that you made your life's work around the idea?
I think so many times when we have challenges in life, and we may not have the right perspective.
And so resilience for me, it's all about seeing if we can shift our mindset to see things in a different way. I'm really excited and intrigued by that process because you learn so much about yourself.
The most enlightening part is when you're helping other people learn about themselves. Unfortunately, sometimes we take our experiences and we think, we are our experiences when our experiences are just a moment in time that we can learn from.
And so if we can figure out how to learn from a moment, which different experiences and then transfer that to other moments in our lives, that's where the fun is because you begin to learn things about yourself.
It does sound fun at the end. However, when you're going through it, it's not so much fun.
Yeah, it's not so much fun when you're going through because again, you know, we can have those blind spots and then we sometimes unfortunately compare every experience to the ones that we've had before.
And one of the things when I'm working with clients is to get them to understand that every moment, every experience is very unique.
If we can pause in those moments to really clarify what is different about this experience that's different than maybe what I'm familiar with. And so if we can find those connections, that's where the shift really happens.
Building Momentum
Right.
And you've mentioned the word moment twice, and your book is Momentum Mindset. Is there a correlation?
There is a correlation because it's in those small moments where you build momentum, right?
So unfortunately, you know, we have a very familiar experience and then we, the brain is designed to keep us safe and exhaust the least amount of energy as possible.
And so when we see something very familiar, we've seen this before and so we just relax and we just shift the way we did it before. But if we can shift our mind and say, okay, what is different about this experience, right?
What is different and unique about this person because they remind me of someone, but they're slightly different. It takes energy and effort to do what I just said. And a lot of times we're not ready to do that.
So the lazy moment is, ah, I've seen this before. It's just like some other time before. And so it's these moments to where, like even our conversation today.
You've done these interviews before. I've done these interviews before. But even before we got on, there were some things like, okay, we didn't expect that.
We didn't expect this. But guess what? We say it.
We know what to do. And we just respond in these moments. And so that's where the momentum truly comes from.
And so imagine if you had a thinking process that will help you in these moments to become more aware, to accept what you become aware of, and then to adapt as you need to go forward.
Adapting, we usually, like you said, because the brain wants to keep us safe, so it sort of predicts what's going to happen. If it's a familiar experience, you think, oh, okay, I've seen this movie before. I know how it ends.
Right, right.
Rather than predicting, let's shift our energy to creating. And that's where the magic happens, right? The predicting piece is, I've seen this movie before, we get in our comfort zone, you do this, I'll do that.
There's no fun. But the creativity is, okay, I've seen this before, but something's different, right? Now I'm looking for something different.
And that makes it intriguing and it makes it fun and it makes it exciting. And so if we can shift and do that in those moments, that's where the magic really happens.
Because sometimes our coping mechanisms would be during times when things are not very favorable, you just distract, you do something else that will take the attention away from the experience.
You go and numb yourself with something or you go and just doom scroll so that you don't think about it.
Absolutely. And one of the things that even when you just said that it just reminded me of what the Bible says about without a vision, people perish. Right?
And so that's what we normally do. We numb ourselves with distractions when we don't have that vision of what's truly important, what is the outcome we're truly seeking.
We just kind of shift into these where we just relax and it is what it is, and we start coming with all these excuses. But if we have that vision in mind of, okay, I know these things are not working out the way I think they should right now.
But do I still have the vision for what I'm trying to accomplish? And so let that drive you. Even if you take a few minutes and say, okay, I'm going to scroll on social media.
You'll start doing that for a moment, and then you'll be reminded of, now, you know this does not lead to the outcome that you said you want. And so you automatically shift out of that and then move into what you're really supposed to be focusing on.
So, yeah.
Pyramid of Possibilities
So now then, let's have you share with us what those creative, practical steps we can apply in order to start being resilient and creative instead of what we usually resort to as a coping mechanism.
One of the first things that I'm doing when I'm working with my clients is really just helping them to locate themselves because a lot of times we know we need help, we want help, but we don't realize truly where we are.
And so I have a model called the Pyramid of Possibilities, and it just helps my clients to see exactly where they are on this pyramid. And the pyramid shows them four different mindsets. Okay.
And so in my book, Momentum Mindset, I talk about these four mindsets and the four mindsets are at the bottom of the pyramid, there's a mindset called a stagnator mindset.
And this mindset helps us to see that sometimes we just have this myth that things will never change.
And so if we believe and think that things will never change, we're going to invest our energy into this self-fulfilling prophecy that I'm going to make sure things never change.
Isn't that even practical?
It is practical, right? Because we don't want to be wrong.
Okay.
Even if I'm a school teacher, if I say these kids will not learn, unknowingly, unconsciously, I'm going to be making sure I do everything in that classroom to make sure every student doesn't learn.
Oh, no.
Now, the scary thing is these mindsets that I'm talking about, we're not aware, but that's based on a myth, okay? The next level up is a mindset called a stickler mindset.
Now, the difference between the stagnator and the stickler is the stickler has courage. So, the stagnator mindset says things will never change, but the stickler mindset says things will change when we change how we respond.
But, unfortunately, the stickler mindset never changes how they respond. They're normally perfectionists. They're always making up excuses in terms of keeping things the same, even though they want it a little bit better than the stagnator.
But again, it's just this limiting beliefs that sometimes we have. And then, of course, the next level up is a mindset called the strategist mindset. Now, the strategist mindset, they normally get complacent.
They start comparing themselves and saying things like, well, I'm not as bad as they are. But I know I need to be better, but I'm not as bad as they are. They have a vision, they're always making plans, but unfortunately, they procrastinate as well.
The top of the pyramid is where I help my clients get to, and it's something called a synchronizer mindset. Synchronizer mindset is what we've already talked about, right? Every experience is very unique.
I'm learning from your experiences. I'm learning from my experiences. I'm synchronizing everything that I'm learning from you, with what I know.
I'm collaborative. I'm making sure that everything that I do is not just from my perspective. And so a synchronizer mindset takes the mission, the visions, the goals, the lessons from everyone and see if they can integrate into their experience.
And when we can do that, that's where the momentum is truly built. That pyramid, that model helps clients see exactly where they are. And when I first started doing this, Roberta, I've had some people tell me, well, Dr.
Jones, it sounds like those are labels. You're labeling people. I said, unfortunately, no, it's not labeling people, it's actually locating people.
Right? So if I'm lost, if I call you and I'm in your city and I say, Roberta, I need some directions, I'm lost.
Right.
The first question you're going to ask me is, where are you?
Yes.
That's going to be the first question. And so a lot of times whenever we're trying to improve, make things better, we don't really want to accept where we are. But that's the first step.
And so when we identify where we are, now we can get on that pathway to deciding, okay, now where you are, now where do you want to be? Now let's put a game plan together to get you there. But the first piece is just accepting where you are.
Which we also call self-awareness.
Also called self-awareness.
In the book, I talk about nine accelerators that can accelerate your momentum. And the first accelerator is something called mindful awareness, right? It's really just helping you to become more mindful.
What you're thinking, what you're doing, why you're thinking that, where those thoughts are coming from. Because a lot of times, there's thinking patterns that we have. We have no idea where they come from.
And then they're working against us.
That is very true, yes. That's why sometimes when they talk about those exercises for you to be more mindful, they even paint a picture where it's almost like step outside of yourself and watch your thoughts from an independent person.
Absolutely, right? That's right. It's like looking down on yourself to truly become more aware.
That's really the key. I think I've already said it, but awareness is the key to transformation. Acceptance is the next key because when you make me aware of something, I have an option.
I can either accept it or reject it. And if I reject it, I will not change.
Of course.
I will not change. And so once we accept what we become aware of, now the game plan is adapt. Let's adapt based on what you just became aware of.
Because now you recognize where you are located, so then you will adapt so that you can go to the next step.
Sorry, go ahead.
Absolutely. And so my book is about a moment of mindset. It's really just a thinking process.
That's all it is. It's a thinking process to help leaders to align and adapt to where they said they want to go. And they eventually find places that they never even thought they could go.
Leadership Communication
If they haven't come to you and they haven't taken the self-awareness exercise or done any work with you on the mindsets, what do they usually see with the challenges that they had prior to that?
I think a lot of the challenges they have is they're burned out in stress.
They don't realize that they're burned out in stress because we can kind of condition ourselves to feel a certain way and we get used to that. We get frustrated with our colleagues, right? We think we're communicating.
This is one of the biggest things I hear people say all the time. And you've probably had some of your guests say this. They're communicating the message to their team and they're sick and tired of communicating the same message.
Like everybody around them is deaf?
Absolutely.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And my challenge to them is, okay, so if you're communicating the same message to the same people in the same way, either something is wrong with the messenger or something is wrong with the message.
If I'm communicating something to you and if I'm paying close enough attention to your body language, to how you're communicating back to me and you're telling me visually that you're not quite getting that message.
Okay, a ticker or something, a notification needs to go off and say, okay, you need to repeat that, but you need to say it in a different way. Maybe I need to add a story. Maybe I need to write it on a board.
There's something I need to keep tweaking as I'm communicating that message. And so one of the things I'm working with leaders is never get sick and tired of communicating the same message.
Unless, unless you're going to adapt yourself and adapt the message. And so I'm telling leaders to make it a game. You know, as you're communicating with people, read the room.
You can normally sense when people are not getting it. Now, my challenge is, okay, I need to say this again. How am I going to say it now?
Am I going to say it in a story? Am I going to go to the board and write a diagram? I'm going to make it more relatable to the work that they're doing.
That challenge is on me, right? That's my challenge now. And so I need to figure out a way to make this message stick and make sure the audience understands what I'm communicating.
And so one of the things that I do in my sessions is I get a board and I'll draw things on the board. I'll draw the pyramid. I'll show the meaning of what we're talking about, why it's important.
I'll draw an iceberg. I mean, there's so many different things that I draw to communicate the message, is to make sure that people understand what I'm communicating.
So you don't just assume they're deaf. That's why I just have to keep reiterating the same thing over and over and over again.
Right. Right. I never assume that they're deaf.
I just assume that I need to communicate it differently. Right. So I never make assumptions about the audience.
I make assumptions about me and how I'm communicating the message. I can't change them. I need to adapt and change myself.
And so with the moment of mindset, it's always looking at you're making the responsibility, you're taking responsibility for the message. Whatever you're trying to accomplish, I'm responsible. I'm taking ownership.
And that's how people can be empowered and take ownership in the midst of change, uncertainty, when things are out of their control.
Because one of the things I learned is that, so Roberta, a couple years ago, I went through a small bout of depression. And what got me there was I was literally out of control. Because I was trying to control things I couldn't control.
And I was frustrated. And when I realized that I was wanting things for people so much more than they even considered, that's when I needed to see that I was out of control. And so I had to step back, go through coaching, counseling, the whole nine.
And really, that's when this book came. I began to just take ownership and responsibility for the things that I could control.
And that gave me greater peace, and more importantly, gave me a vision to communicate this message that what we're talking about right now. This book has been in me for 15 years, but I couldn't see it. I was chaotic, right?
I was doing this work and helping so many people and excited about the results, but it was really all about me. It really was. And I couldn't see it.
But when I got to that point to where I realized, you're the press, and you're the reason you're the press, because you're out of control trying to control things that I can't.
And more importantly, those things that I was trying to control, they didn't really matter. They didn't matter.
That's a huge realization. You remember the Serenade of Prayer. I've seen a lot of my friends have that.
Yes.
On their walls, the one that says, grant me the wisdom to know.
Yeah, the wisdom to accept the things that I cannot change.
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Yes. The things you cannot control. Yeah.
Because I think a lot of people's frustrations as well. We were talking earlier about the experience and your perspective on it and how to be resilient.
Sometimes just knowing if you were to dissect it and have like 10 different things happening right then, and you think, okay, this part I can control, this is out of my control, this I cannot do anything about, I cannot change this person, all right,
this I can do something about, I'm responsible, let's see what we can do. But I think a lot of people just not even being able to see the difference between things they cannot control.
That's when they get frustrated, that's when things get tough, that's when they think, you know what, I'm losing my mind here, what's going on.
Absolutely. And one of the things that I have to add to this conversation, as we're talking about this, because I want to make sure I don't let people off the hook. Okay.
Because someone tried to challenge me on that and they said, well, well, since you can't control then don't even worry about it. And I said, I can't let you off the hook like that. So we're going to put this in two separate buckets.
Okay. So you need to identify the things that you can't control. Okay.
It's in that bucket. Okay. So everything else, you can't control it, but you can influence it.
And that is a difference. Because sometimes when people take, well, I can't control it. And then they'll say, well, since I can't control it, I'm not going to do anything.
Okay.
No.
No, no. If you can't control it, now let's focus on how can you influence it. Because that's what leadership is all about.
When I'm talking to my leaders and trying to help them understand, you have a responsibility to the people that you're leading. Now, you're not responsible for trying to control them.
No, that's not what leadership is.
Right. Right. God did not say that he gave us dominion, but he did not give us dominion over people.
Right.
Right.
He gave us dominion over the earth, over the fish, over all of that, but not people. People were left out of that equation. But he does want us to influence one another, right?
To encourage one another, to inspire each other, to instruct each other. And that's what leadership is truly, truly all about.
Because, you know, my gifts, your gifts are really here to be the medicine and support for people who may be struggling and don't know their gifts. That's why we all have gifts.
And if this whole world, if everyone in this world knew exactly why they were here and to fulfill the earth with their gifts, sickness, wars, a lot of these things that we're faced with in this world, they would immediately disappear because we're
here to serve our greater purpose. And to be honest with you, that's what I want people to get from my book, Momentum Mindset, to just shift their mindset to, you know what, I've survived some things in life that a lot of people can't even
understand. How did I do that? What was the mindset? How present was I?
How did I depend on other people? There are so many things that we can survive and we have survived, but we don't take time to truly process the lessons and understand the lessons, so that those things can become a strategy in your life.
And if they can become a strategy in my life, when I share it with you, guess what, when you face something, gosh, I remember when he said that. I never even thought about that.
Now you're taking something that I've shared and then it's going to work for you. And guess what, when it works for you, it's going to become a part of you. And then you're going to share that with your audience and on and on and on.
And that's what momentum mindset is all about.
That's the influence for sure, yes.
Influence and Understanding
Absolutely.
When you talk about how, when you communicate the same message, the frustration coming from your leader saying, oh, I keep telling them the same thing and they're not, you know, it doesn't seem to be sinking.
It reminds me, when we first started the podcast, somebody taught us about the platinum rule. You know, the golden rule says, treat Dr. Jones the way he wants to be treated.
Yes. But the platinum rule says the way, communicate with him the way he wants to be communicated to. Not the way you think, because yes, a lot of people may think I'm a great communicator, I'm eloquent in my speech and things like that.
But are the people that you're communicating with experiencing you the same way?
Absolutely. Listen, I love that platinum rule. That is perfect because, you know, the way we perceive ourselves is not the way others perceive us.
True.
Yep.
And so if we can just even take that glance. So one of the things when leaders are struggling with that, I ask them to allow your audience to become your teacher. Switch places.
Okay, so Roberta, if you did not understand me, now I want you to teach me. Okay, what did you understand? Okay, why did you understand that?
What resonated with you from that? See, now I'm allowing you to teach me because you're going to teach me how to better communicate with you.
And if I could process that and lock that in, okay, so now when I'm speaking with Roberta, this is what resonates with her. This is how she likes it. This is how she processes it.
Okay, now I got that. So now when I'm communicating with her, bam, she has just taught me how to communicate with her. And just think about if we start doing that with our team.
Right.
That's what great coaches do.
Great coaches know, I think I heard someone say this, in so many words, he was saying that when you're a talented player on the team, that coach is willing to put up with more with you.
And it makes sense, because the coach understands that you're more valuable than the problems that you're creating.
So if you're the Michael Jordan of the Bulls, they're going to put up with you more.
Absolutely. Perfect example. I'm assuming that you watch the episode they had where they, the last dance.
The documentary, yes.
The last dance, yes. Yes.
There's a couple of episodes on there where they were talking about Dennis Rodman. And of course, you know, a great defensive player, rebounder, the whole nine. But there were several episodes to where they literally had to go to Vegas to get him.
He was partying in Vegas, doing the playoffs, and I'm like, that makes sense because he was still valuable to the team.
Right.
The point is, when you can better understand your team members and know exactly what they need, and you can communicate with them in a way, because if I communicate, you're on the team.
Well, I have to talk to you this way, but this other team member, I need to talk to them this way. Right. And so now you're about your understanding people.
And that's really what this thing is all about. So as we're communicating with audiences, you know, I need to get a feel for the audience, what they're dealing with, the challenges and struggles that they're dealing with.
So when organizations call me in for a keynote, you know, that's a pre-event call that we sit down and have. And I want to learn about the audience. I want to know what kind of challenges and struggles that they're dealing with.
I want to know about their successes. What are the concerns they have about their business, their organization right now? I need to understand all of that.
So when I come and give my message, it's not just my message, it's our message, because I want to make sure that they understand that I understand where they are, what they're dealing with, and how to help them to move forward.
Care and Mastering Moments
So any last words of wisdom for your leadership clients when it comes to how they can, just like the Dennis Rodman example, extract the most value out of each of their team members, how they can get to know the value that each team member can
I think the biggest thing is investing time with them to get to know them, to understand them, to be relatable to them.
I think team members, you know, if they feel like you're in a leadership role and you don't invest in them, you don't spend time with them, they're going to assume you don't care about them. Right.
One of the things that I've learned is that when you're working with people and people feel like you don't care about them, then they are not going to care about the work. And so those things are connected.
That's the biggest thing that I encourage my leaders on, is make sure that you're communicating that you care about people. Care about the people doing the work and if you do, the people doing the work will care about the work.
That's very true. And where can we find your book Momentum Mindset? And please share your website details as well.
Absolutely.
You can find the book on Amazon and all the other book outlets. And then of course, if you want to know more information about me or connect with me, I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram as Dr. Samuel Jones.
And of course, you can find me on my website at transformnowinc.com.
Words of wisdom from Dr. Samuel Jones, the keynote speaker, leadership coach, and author of Momentum Mindset. Thank you very much for sharing your expertise with us.
This has been really, really helpful, especially for those of our listeners who are leaders. Thank you, Dr. Jones.
You're welcome, and thank you for the work that you're doing as well.
Appreciate that.
So what is it that you said about experience, Dr. Jones?
So one of the biggest misconceptions or lies or falsehoods that we've been told and that we believe, right? We believe that experience is our best teacher. Now, on the surface, that sounds correct.
It feels correct because we've heard it our whole lives. But this is what I've learned. Experience is not your best teacher.
It's a good teacher, but it's not your best teacher. Your best teacher is the current moment that you're in. Because the current moment that you're in requires something that you've never done before.
Even though the experience is repeat, because you don't experience something once and you never experience it again.
So the current moment is the best teacher.
The current moment.
Not the actual experience.
Absolutely. Absolutely. For example, Okay.
You and I have experience doing what we're doing right now.
Okay.
Yes. We have a lot of experience at that. However, what we're talking about now, we're both experiencing this moment and learning and getting insights that we've never had before.
That is the teacher, not the experience.
That is the teacher.
That is the teacher. I've said that quote a thousand times, but I've never said it to you. That's why moments create that momentum.
Momentum mindset.
Thank you, Dr. Jones.
Yes, there it is.
There it is.
And listen, so when I'm doing this iceberg, there's an iceberg that I do to get people to show the surface of transactions and results and things and default settings.
At the bottom of the iceberg, my promise to my clients is to guide them in mastering moments.
Okay.
On the surface, we're missing moments because we get in this default setting and you do this, I'm used to you doing that, so I respond this way and that's the transaction. Okay. And a lot of times that's where we're operating from.
When I was depressed and frustrated with people trying to out of control, I was in my default setting because everything was about a transaction.
Okay.
What I realized is I needed to go deeper in order to design a transformation for my clients. So I had this shift from focusing on what can I get from you, shifting to what can I do for you. That's a major shift.
And so I show my clients how to do that, how to make that transition. But the deepest part is helping clients. So you go from missing moments to meeting moments, to measuring moments, to mastering moments.
Yeah, mastering moments, master the moment.
Thank you, Dr. Jones. Don't forget to subscribe, liberating and a review on Apple and Spotify.
Stay tuned for more episodes to come.
