EP 71 | The Windshield Effect: Transforming Leadership in the Present

In this episode of Being in the Arena, hosted by Zach Arend, he introduces an upcoming live event, "Leading in the Arena," on January 10th, emphasizing its relevance for entrepreneurial leaders, executives, and business owners. Zach shares a transformative story from a past event attendee who experienced increased self-awareness in real-time, highlighting the importance of focusing on the present moment rather than dwelling on the past, metaphorically represented by the rear-view mirror and the windshield. He explores the impact of a negativity bias when evaluating oneself and encourages leaders to shift their perspective, spending more time looking through the windshield to embrace creativity, solutions, and opportunities. The episode provides a glimpse into the workshop's focus on enhancing leadership by staying present and leveraging one's instincts. To learn more about the event, visit www.zacharend.com/workshop.

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TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Zach Arend: That's where all the magic is in leadership. If you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to create results, you never create results in the rear-view mirror Welcome to the arena. I'm your host, Zach Arend. And before I get into today's episode, I want to share that on January 10th, I will be hosting a live event, both in person and virtual. So it doesn't matter where you are, you're going to want to be at this event. It's a two hour event. It's free. It's something that I want to do for you to really start off the new year strong.

We're calling it Leading in the Arena. It's January 10th. You can go to www.zacharend.com/workshop to learn more. But if you're an entrepreneurial leader, if you're an executive, a business owner, then you're going to want to be there on the 10th because we're going to really talk about who you're being in your day to day and how you show up for your team and how you can amplify your impact and your influence and ultimately the results that you see in your business and your life. That's what the evening is going to be about. If you're joining us virtually, that's what we're going to be doing.

All the details can be found on my website: zacharend.com/workshop. So I want to go right into today's episode sharing a story of somebody who attended the last event. I did this event back in October and we sold out. It's a small venue. We had 11 people in attendance. I did not offer it virtually.

This time we're going to do a virtual session as well. We sold out and one of the attendees came up to me after and a week or so goes by and we caught up and he said that after that night, he started noticing himself becoming way more aware in the moment, real time "where I've always kind of been aware, I've always kind of... that afternoon I might be evaluating how I maybe didn't show up the way I wanted to show up for that meeting or that conversation. But something was different after that event because I was starting to notice who I was being in the moment of the conversation and I was able to become aware of what was going on so that I can make choices in the moment to be and show up in a way that is much more effective, real time, present moment."

Self awareness. That is the source of powerful leadership, and when he was sharing the story with me, I'm like, "oh, I've thought about this before." And there's a distinction that came to mind the rear-view mirror and the windshield. Far too many of us go through our lives looking through the rear-view mirror, looking at, I don't know if you can look through a rear-view mirror, but you're looking at the rear-view mirror instead of through the windshield right?

We're looking at the past 80 percent of the time. You know, when I grew up as a young sales guy, I was taught, you know, we called it the slow burn. Always evaluate like how could you have done better? You know, and we all do this. " Oh yeah, I'm always interested in getting better. Let's evaluate. Let's do a postmortem," right? We call these things postmortems, which is a terrible name, by the way. But we are looking in the rear-view mirror and evaluating. "How did I do there? How was my day? How did I do today?" I remember one time I had spent a whole day making sales calls out in the field, and I was traveling, and I was on the flight that night, and I asked myself, "how did I do today?"

And you know what? Every time I asked that question, I didn't like the answer. I'm looking through the rear-view mirror, looking at the past, how did I do today? Well, here's the truth. The truth is, we all have what's called a negativity bias. In psychology, we call it a negativity bias. And so what that means is we tend to focus on the negative.

We're biased towards the negative. So if we ask ourselves, "how did we do?" Our mind and our attention is going to immediately go to where we didn't do great. And soon after that, as we're evaluating and kind of judging ourselves, good, bad, right, wrong, we start to feel guilty and then we start to beat ourselves up.

Well, I did, anyway. On the plane ride home, I started feeling guilty. " I don't know. I could have handled that conversation better. Oh, I don't know. I..." and really it was, I didn't get the result I wanted, therefore, I must have done something wrong and guilt, heaviness, exhaustion. And by the time I got home, I'm like, "I hate this job." You know?

"I don't want to do this anymore." But well, you know what? I was creating a lot of that by just looking in the rear-view mirror and fixating myself on the rear-view mirror instead of looking through the windshield, I could have enjoyed that flight reading a book, right. Or something.

And this has huge implications, rear-view mirror, windshield. What would it be? What would be the opportunity for you to spend more time looking through the windshield of your life and less time in the rear-view mirror? If you're a leader,

I already know most of us are in the rear-view mirror. We're constantly self evaluating.

"How did we do?" "What are they thinking about us?" " Did they think that I did a good job? Do I think I did a good job?" And we're in the past. We are in the past. And you can't be in the past and also be in the present moment. It doesn't work that way. And you're giving away all your power. We've got to get you present with the windshield, what's in front of you,

what's coming at you, and learning to trust your instincts and your intuition to show up fully for whatever that is. What would be different about your life if the rear-view mirror didn't have to be there and you only had the windshield? I don't know about you, but it just feels like, oh, that would be really nice.

And what we explore January 10th, when we're together in this Leading in the Arena workshop, we talk about this very subject almost the whole time because it's critical, because if you can't train yourself and get yourself to see through the windshield, you can't see what is, and you close off all the creativity and all the solutions and all the opportunities around you.

That's where all the magic is in leadership. If you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to create results, you never create results in the rear-view mirror,

only in the windshield, present with who's in front of you. And that's what we get to, is, we help you make a shift from rear-view mirror to windshield.

Because what changes when we're looking through the windshield? Windshield over the rear-view mirror, right? We're free from the guilt and the self judgment. We stop focusing on the past. That negativity bias loses its grip on us. And now we're looking through the windshield, and we're asking ourselves, what's the opportunity here?

Ain't bad, just is. Okay. Here we go. Oh, this person's upset. So I'm going to be present. I'm going to stay. I'm not going to start being like, "what did I do to upset him?" And go to the rear-view mirror. No. I'm just like, "oh, appears you're upset. Let's talk about it. What can we do it?" And we're just in it.

We're in it and we're with people and we're fully engaged. What do you think that might lead towards if you could do more of that in your day to day, especially as a leader ? All of the exhaustion that you're experiencing actually isn't what you think it is. It's your relationship with it.

And it's all in the past. It's already happened. Yet you're still carrying it around because you're looking at the rear-view mirror. When you start to look through the windshield, all of a sudden, all of that stuff loses its power, and we can be present. Things get a lot lighter, and we can show up and be who we want to be. And this is the ultimate question.

When you leave that night or the virtual event, whichever one you choose on January 10th, you're going to see clearly that the question "how did I do" is just not a useful question. It's just not. Now, sure, maybe there's a moment. Yeah, there's times to evaluate and watch the tape. Yeah, I get that. But not all the time.

Good God, most of us live our lives from the place of "how did I do?" And most of the time, the answer is "not as good as I wanted to do." And so I'm just going to say, "how did I do" is not a useful question. Instead, what if, looking through the windshield now of your life, it's "who am I being?"

"In this very moment, who am I being? Is that who I want to be?" "Who am I being? And is that who I want to be?" Real time, in the moment. Because when you can have that level of self awareness, you can self-correct on a dime. You can see yourself. "Oh, I'm about ready to step into that pothole. Not going to do it. I'm not. I know where this road leads. I'm not going there. I'm taking a different path."

That's what it means to be completely aware of who you're being and clearly seeing "is it aligned with who I desire to be or not?" And being 100 percent a choice in the moment to choose a different way of being to where you can show up more powerfully with more influence and more impact.

We're going to get into exactly how you can do that. I have a, it's a framework that brings what's very complex and makes it simple and clear for you. And it's a tool you can bring into your leadership. And what's really cool about that, is when you become more self-aware and you start to learn to look through the windshield of your life, you start to see those that you're leading and interacting with when they're in the windshield. Or when they're looking at the rear-view mirror and you can get them looking forward again. And you can help them navigate through the same very question. "Who are you being? And is that who you want to be?"

That's a powerful question. And when you can get yourself to dial into that real-time, you are leading. You have no other choice but to lead yourself and therefore lead everybody around you. That's what I want for you. And that's my promise. That's my promise. By the end of the event on the 10th, you're going to know how to do that.

You're going to know how to do that. What would that be worth to you? So, join me on the 10th. You can sign up www.zacharend.com/workshop. That's Zach Arend, Z A C H A R E N D dot com forward slash workshop. And whether you join me or not, I hope you are taking something from this episode, because just the simple question of, "are you focused on the rear-view mirror?" Are you focused on your past in evaluating "how well did I do or how well am I doing?" Or you are you staying in the windshield of your own life, like being present with what is and learning to trust yourself real-time? Because there's a huge shift in your energy and in your ability to create the results you desire in your life. You can't do it in the rear-view mirror.

You have to be in the windshield. So where are you? Where's your focus? So thanks for listening. And, you know, I hope to see you on the 10th. But if not, that's cool. Let's keep playing full out in these episodes and I'm going to do my best to bring you some great content this coming year.

And I think you'll be listening to this right before the new year. So happy new year and we'll see you in the new year. Thank you.