For any high performer, working on improving ourselves or learning something is a near-constant activity. At what point do those activities become something to fill our ego, versus truly allowing us to have an integrated life? Optimization for optimizations sake?  We need to figure out ways to make these activities woven into our everyday lives and habits. We also need to know our objectives as to why we want to improve something. There are real things that are asked of us by our families and teammates, where we want to be our best to those we care about. To prepare for those moments, we need to know which activities make us resilient, healthy, and great at life. 

We're honored to have our friend Steve Shenbaum as a guest on this episode! Steve is the founder of Game On and is an expert on communication, leadership, and character development. He has worked with numerous professional teams and professional athletes, and is a consultant for the NBA Pre-Draft and Rookie Transition Programs.  We tackle the question: How do you go from knowing what it takes to be elite to actually being elite? It starts with not being perfect, sacrificing your pride and your ego. We all have to start as beginners and be willing to work through a long period of not being good at it at all. And realizing that, and keeping at it. It also requires access to others who are elite and a lot of sacrifice to focus on being great at what you want.     

There's a lot in the news right now (and there has been for a while. There are macro and micro trends in the markets. There are people who are very worried about certain trends and are not paying enough attention to their business, customers, competitors, and other key factors.  People want to be informed and get ahead of things, and not get left behind. We're trying to stay in the sweet spot and not be so consumed that we don't pay enough attention to our specific piece of the business, the market, families, and what's truly impactful in our everyday lives. 

As a leader, a new leader especially, it's natural to have ideas that we want to put into motion, changes to make, and things we want to put our fingerprint on. We would do ourselves a favor by making sure we've got time in the seat/position, learning and understanding what's going on first, and offering help to what is already in motion. In this episode, we discuss making decisions as a new leader, considering a myriad of variables, managing resisters to decisions you've made, and being the biggest champion for your boss when they are the ones making tough decisions. 

Being elite comes with high expectations, whatever the team may be or what you want to accomplish. There are standards that need to be adhered to if someone wants to be on the team. The standards have to be high and the support has to be high. Teams need to bring each other up together; the objective is to be successful TOGETHER. 

We've got a special guest this week! Our ALPs colleague Sarah Holzhalb joins us for the first time on the Applied Leadership Podcast. She shares a little bit of her story and we discuss our evolutions as people in our personal and professional lives, choices that have informed our job changes and what keeps others from making big leaps in their lives. We hope you enjoy this listen! 

We discuss our top leadership tools, tactics and strategies that we would gift to anyone in order for them to be an effective leader. 

We hope you enjoy this conversation about AI, with our friend and episode guest, Ben Davis. We discuss what we are seeing and how we are using AI in our personal and professional lives. There's a lot to consider about how to use it for quick learning and answers, and not using it when it comes to true human connection, conversation, and deep work and creation.  Ben served nine years as a Navy SEAL, holding leadership roles across three combat deployments. Following his military career, Ben earned an MBA from the College of William & Mary and has since worked in finance, technology sales, and business consulting.

It's Q1, and people are already moving fast to meet their annual goals. We certainly are at ALPs. And, we're already feeling the strain and tension of our calendars. We talk all the time about managing our energy, time, effort, and business, to keep the bigger picture in mind. . We have to be able to stay in the game and do great work for the long haul, while also getting short term wins. We can't win the year in one quarter. It's going take all four quarters, and we need to have a strategic plan in place.

Whether it's our careers, our personal lives, or hobbies, things aren't going to be exciting all the time. Sometimes a job is just a job, and we need to be okay with that, especially when it puts food on the table and provides for our family. And other times, sticking with something that is ruining our health or family, doesn't make sense. There's a healthy tension between the two that we will always have to balance.