TBC Flashback - Dr. Tasha Eurich - Insight Into Self-Awareness

Introspection feels like the responsible thing to do, but what if it’s quietly making you less self-aware and more stressed? We sit down with organizational psychologist and author Dr. Tasha Eurich to unpack what the science actually says about self-awareness, why so many high-achieving leaders get stuck in rumination, and how a few small shifts can change the way you lead.

• Click HERE to purchase Tasha's book Insight
• Click HERE to take the 5-minute Insight Quiz
• Click HERE to visit the Insight book website
• Click HERE to connect with Tasha on LinkedIn
• Click HERE to watch Tasha's groundbreaking TEDx Talk
• Click HERE to purchase Tasha's book Bankable Leadership

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Transcript

Flashback Setup And Why Now

John Broer 0:06

Welcome to all of our good friends out there in The Bosshole Transformation Nation. This is your host, John Broer, bringing you another installment of a TBC Flashback. You know, we've had a lot of conversation with clients about self-awareness and the critical nature of self-awareness and leadership. And back in April of 2023, we had a great interview with none other than Dr. Tasha Eurich about her new book at that time, Insight, and we wanted to get her first hand account of not only her research but the critical nature of self-awareness. So I thought this is a great time to bring this back out of the archives for a Bosshole Chronicles flashback and learn once again from the amazing work of Tasha Yurik. Let's jump in. The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode. Tasha, it is absolutely great to have you here on the Boss Hole Chronicles. Welcome.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 1:29

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

John Broer 1:31

And we couldn't think of anybody better to have us join in the conversation around self-awareness. And Tasha, for your benefit, our listeners, just with our work around talent optimization and leadership development through all of our diagnostics, self-awareness is always the centerpiece to helping people, managers, supervisors, and staying out of the bosshole zone, helping them understand their themselves better. And that's really been at the core of your work. So can you take us back a little bit? I know, I know there's been a ton of research that you've done, and we will post your your TEDx talk and links to your books before we get to the books. Just take us back to that origin about self-awareness is it. I've got to really dig into this.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 2:16

Sure.

The Research Origin Story

Dr. Tasha Eurich 2:17

Um it's a long time ago now, and it really kind of set the course for my career, which I didn't anticipate would happen at the time. But I've been an organizational psychologist for the last uh 20 plus years. And what I saw in, you know, the early period of my career was this really consistent phenomenon that, you know, I know you guys have a whole podcast about, right? Which is that the executives that I worked with that were willing to uh question the assumptions they had about themselves, to learn different ways they might be perceived, to further clarify who they were and what they stood for were always more successful and not just more successful, but just better off. They had higher well-being, more confidence, more happiness uh than the folks who were not willing to do those things. And this was uh probably around 2014 or so. I remember it was a over the Christmas holiday, and you know, most of my clients uh have, you know, all their vacation and time off during that period. So I had a little bit of free space and time. And I remember that I had read, you know, several articles that week about self-awareness. And, you know, they were being more self-aware, introspect. And I said, yes, I agree. But the one thing that I didn't know, even from my own experience and and from what I was reading, was what did the science actually say? And so I started, you know, sort of naively at first, like just reading empirical journal articles about the topic of self-awareness. And as I started to do that, I discovered that there's actually not as much out there as we would think, given how critical the skill is. And so I sort of took it upon myself as a, you know, PhD in a really quantitative field of psychology to bring together a research team to investigate some of the questions that I wanted the answers to. Um, you know, what is self-awareness? Where does it come from? Why do we need it? And then probably most importantly, how do we get more of it? So our research, you know, has we're still it's still going on. Uh, you know, it's not something that we we would ever just stop because a book came out about it. But it we've looked at, you know, thousands of people all around the world that we've quantitatively surveyed. We've um we've read, you know, a couple thousand empirical journal articles at this point. So you don't have to. We can summarize it. And then probably for for our purposes today, even the most interesting part of our research was we found 50 people, five, zero, um, very different backgrounds all around the world, uh, who didn't start out as self-aware, but who, through some process that we wanted to elucidate, were able to become really like dramatically remarkably more self-aware. And we called these people our our self-awareness unicorns, because at first my team was worried we wouldn't find any. I knew we would because I had been coaching them, right, for my career. But that was actually where we had so many surprises and and really some of I think the biggest contributions to what we know about this important skill.

The Introspection Paradox

John Broer 5:17

Well, and if I may, one of the interesting outcomes, and I I I don't know as a researcher that you would consider this a happy accident, just to sort of reference Bob Ross, you know, the painter, that you you expected the expectation was that well, self-aware people are gonna be happier, content. And actually it was the opposite, right? You started to realize higher degrees of self-awareness actually evoked or created perhaps um more negative responses to a degree.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 5:48

So uh there's a nuance there that I think is important. It wasn't that we found that self-aware people had those outcomes. It quite the contrary, I can give you a litany of positive outcomes that self-aware people experience. But what what I think you're talking about is uh people who spent time introspecting. So this idea that, you know, it goes all the way back to Sigmund Freud, that all we had to do is sort of lay on a couch and talk about our mother, you know, think about why do we do the things we do and it really that psychological excavation activity, that was what we discovered was um not just negatively associated with self-awareness, but it was negatively associated with well-being. And I was floored. I mean, as a as a lifelong introspector myself and really trying to do my best to understand who I am and how I'm showing up, I was very perplexed. Um, but as we started to look at some of the research behind this, there were other studies that had shown similar things. And interestingly, it turns out that self, it's not that introspection in and of itself is bad or wrong. It's just that the way most people do it leads us down a path that A makes us less self-aware and then B actually makes us more stressed, anxious, depressed, etc. So there's a little bit of a paradox on the face of it between, you know, people who are self-aware are very self-accepting, they're confident, they're happy, um, but they but they've figured out sort of a different way to go about that process than, you know, including me, what most of us think is what we're supposed to be doing when we're introspecting.

Sara Best 7:27

Is this a good place to also uh identify so introspection versus monitoring your inner dialogue, which is something you talk about?

Dr. Tasha Eurich 7:37

Yes. And we were talking about that a little bit before the show. Um, you had a really excellent question and it it made me ponder a little bit, which was, you know, what does self-awareness for our thoughts look like?

Monitor Your Inner Monologue

John Broer 7:51

Yes.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 7:51

And um, you know, there there are aspects of this, and I am sure we'll get into it with where introspection is less helpful, like why did I say what I said in that meeting? Or, you know, why am I feeling the way that I'm feeling that are much less helpful scientifically, empirically. But what is really helpful, uh, the research has shown is is to monitor our inner monologue. And, you know, that includes everything from just what are the thoughts that you're thinking today? You know, what are those conscious, accessible things like, um, you know, I woke up this morning, oh, I'm so burnt out, I'm so tired. That's interesting. Um, okay, so I'm aware of that thought. I'm gonna keep an eye on that and see if I'm still feeling that way tomorrow or next week or two weeks from now. Um, it could also include our inner monologue response to the world around us, right? What are the stories that we're telling about the people that we encounter or the things that happen to us? Though that's an area where, you know, again, as long as we don't overanalyze it, which is, by the way, not self-awareness. As long as we don't overanalyze it, those can give us really valuable clues just about how we can live the best life possible and how we can be the most empathetic, compassionate leaders as as we possibly can.

Sara Best 9:11

Well, I'm I'm grateful that you differentiated monologue from dialogue, because it's it's really not a dialogue. It is a monologue. And uh the the attention to that monologue then creates insight and potentially new action. That's probably a whole nother conversation, isn't it? How do how do we how do we bring that to our conscious awareness and how do we translate that into new behaviors or new approaches?

Dr. Tasha Eurich 9:34

Let me give you one simple tool that might just, you know, this is to your point, just scratching the surface, but um, I call it the best friend test. And this this tool is especially helpful for anyone, uh, just hypothetically, I'm definitely not like this, that, you know, sort of overanalyzes or over-ruminates where we're kind of beating ourselves up for things that weren't perfect, etc. Um, and it's to ask yourself, you know, the next time that you feel kind of down on yourself, you're you're questioning, you know, what what was that that interaction I had with my spouse, or, you know, gosh, I really just wasn't my best self today. Is to ask yourself, would I say to someone that I love and respect what I just said to myself?

John Broer 10:18

Well, that's good. That is that is a powerful question.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 10:21

And I think it, you know, even just the question on earths what can be less than positive thought patterns in, you know, in that inner monologue. And, you know, if we if we're if we're paying attention to it, I think that's a that's more than what most of us do on a daily basis, you know, let alone say, what do I want to do about this? As the next question.

Sara Best 10:43

Oh my gosh. And you know what just kind of clicked in my mind? We often say that no one was born to be a bosshole. Like people don't come to work going, huh, you know, I'd like to make everyone's life miserable today and micromanage and be difficult and say no. Yeah, they don't do that. But how many people, and certainly I know you talk to leaders like we do, they they are um lacking self-regard. They are uh feeling that uh absence of uh self-respect and self-regard, or or they may not be conscious of it, but this is this is where that all happens. What you just described is what can pull uh a leader's presence and behavior and attitude and response to things uh away from the good because they're stuck in a loop uh of um, you know, beating oneself up. I think that was a really great question and a great tool that probably a lot of people uh don't know they need to try out.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 11:33

Does that make sense? Yep, it does. It does. So, you know, what I would say to anyone listening is give it a whirl. You know, see you might say, oh, well, I'm not, I'm not that self-critical. But then you might find yourself uh, you know, in a situation where you are getting down on yourself in a way that's not productive for you, for the people around you. I I see that a lot actually in the executives I coach and I work in usually the top one or two levels of mid-sized to large companies, where the the person, you know, is is going to work and trying to do the best they can every day, but they're getting in their own way. And there are lots of ways we can get in our own way, which is why your podcast exists, right? Um but I think that we we minimize the attention to the internal things that we can really be sort of holding ourselves back without even really realizing it.

Sara Best 12:25

Well, I want to build on this idea of the inner monologue and and you had touched upon empathy and this sort of external focus. Sometimes I think when we talk about lack of self-awareness when we're describing a boss hole or we have this bosshole experience, we're talking about somebody who doesn't even know how they show up. So they're not aware of the tone of their voice or the look on their face or, you know, the way in which they deliver news, that kind of stuff. How can they move to better be aware of what's happening outside of them?

John Broer 12:53

And and is this related to the thinking versus knowing that you frame out, Natasha?

Dr. Tasha Eurich 12:58

I well, I think the thinking versus knowing is more about that introspection. Okay.

John Broer 13:02

Okay.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 13:02

But but I think I can let me make a distinction that might be helpful here.

Two Camera Angles Of Self-Awareness

Dr. Tasha Eurich 13:06

Sure. So we discovered in our research that there are really sort of two, I would call them camera angles of self-awareness. One is the way we see ourselves, and then self-awareness being understanding ourselves, and two being how other people see us and then understanding how other people see us.

Sara Best 13:27

Yes.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 13:28

What was really interesting, at least to me, was that A, you need both types of self-awareness to be self-aware. And B, there was almost no relationship between those two types of self-knowledge. There was actually, for any math nerds or stats nerds listening to this, there was a 0.0 correlation between what we called our internal and external self-awareness. And what that means really practically for any leader is we have to focus on both. So we have to work on, you know, for example, internal self-awareness, monitoring our our our thoughts and feelings and behaviors, on knowing our values, understanding our patterns, knowing what our reactions are to things, just as much as we have to understand what's the impact that we're having on other people and how how is it that other people are experiencing our behavior and our presence and so on. And and I think, you know, one way to look at that, if if you're wanting to focus on your self-awareness, is which of these two aspects of of my own, you know, self-knowledge am I doing better at and which might I be neglecting? And and this isn't always the case. We have, you know, because they're independent, you can be high on both, low on both, high on one, low on the other. But for most people, they kind of have a default that they go to. Like for me, as an example, I tend to default towards thinking about how other people perceive me more than, you know, what do I actually want? Like I'll give you this is a silly example, but um, you know, a couple of years ago, I my car lease was up and I had to pick a new color for my new car. And instead of sitting down and looking at the nine options that I was given by the dealer, I texted like five of my closest friends and I asked them what color they thought I should buy for my own.

John Broer 15:22

Oh my goodness. Okay.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 15:23

Right. Instead of saying, like, yeah, what what would make me really, really happy here? What's what's the ideal color of my car? Um Did you get five different answers? Just curious. No, you know what? I I I I think it was like split down the middle, and then I I ended up saying, yeah, well, I I agree with the majority conveniently, right? Good. Yeah. That's a riot.

John Broer 15:41

Okay. Well, don't leave us in suspense. What was the final color?

Dr. Tasha Eurich 15:45

It was a nice metallic white.

John Broer 15:47

Very okay, perfect. Perfect.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 15:49

Safe bet. Good bet.

John Broer 15:50

But back to the example though. Okay. So the external was really your default in that case.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 15:55

Exactly. And and and that's not to say that 100% of the time my default is to external self-awareness. Right. But this is another thing your listeners can really just start to, you know, start to pay attention to. What am I, what am I analyzing in my day-to-day experience? You know, and there's a lot of people that fall on the other side of the spectrum. I call them introspectors, where, you know, they're they might journal or they might really love like self-improvement reading or um even you know going to therapy. It feels really, really rewarding to them because they're they're excavating and, you know, kind of understanding those inner parts of themselves. And what I would say to introspectors is great, like that's an excellent start. And, you know, just like I need to pay attention to my own inner experience, they can probably do well by adding in that other angle of, you know, how do I know how other people see me? Am I really asking for feedback that much? Am I really listening to feedback when I get it? Um, you know, that's that's what allows us to all, you know, eventually, hopefully, approach that unicorn status of, you know, really dramatic improvements in our self-awareness.

Sara Best 17:05

All right, we'll be right back.

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Sara Best 18:19

Okay, let's

The Self-Awareness Quiz And Feedback

Sara Best 18:20

get back to the program. Well, this is a great uh segue or an opportunity to plug. Uh, you actually have developed a validated 70-item self-awareness assessment, but if listeners go to your insightbook.com site, uh, they can actually take the quiz and it requires input from someone else. So it's an opportunity to really look at both channels.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 18:44

Exactly. Yeah, we um so we it actually took us almost five years to develop this really lengthy self-awareness assessment. It was a multi-rater assessment. Yes, it uh measured, you know, seven different types of self-knowledge. And um, as part of the release for my book about all this insight, you know, several years ago, we said, hey, why don't we take like a you know five-minute version of that? We'll take a couple items from every scale, and then we'll create um kind of a computer program where you can fill it out. It takes five minutes for you, and then you actually can send it to someone via email who knows you well. And then they answer those, you know, I think it's 14 questions about how they see you. And um, it's really cool. It spits out this report that gives you kind of a high-level picture of your internal and external self-awareness. And then based on your results, uh, usually two or three specific things that you can do to, you know, make some improvement if that's what you decide to do. Um, and and we initially thought it would just be this like gimmicky marketing thing, to be honest. But so hundreds of thousands of people have taken it. And I get messages all the time from people just saying, you know, I always tell people, please don't make any major life decisions based on this, because this is literally a five-minute like like party trick version of the assessment, but it can just be a data point, right? And people say, Oh my gosh, it was so helpful. Or there's some people like frequent flyers who will um take it, but every time they take it, they have a different friend rate them. Right.

John Broer 20:13

They're waiting for that correct external input. That's right.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 20:16

Exactly, exactly. They will keep searching until they find it. But it's totally free. Um, and we we continue to keep it out there and supporting it just to help hopefully give resources to make the world a little bit more self-aware.

John Broer 20:27

And and just as a quick, I'm sorry, and just as a quick reminder to all our listeners, go to the show notes, you will see the links to Tasha's books to insight.com because we absolutely just based on what it can do and what it offers, go there. You'll want to get that. Uh go ahead, sir. I'm sorry to I interrupted you.

Sara Best 20:45

No, no, I was just gonna say uh for anybody who's you know cautious or concerned or intimidated about this idea of self-awareness, and maybe they know they need to grow that capability. This is a way to dip your toe in the water uh with a safe person. I love that.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 21:00

That's uh yeah, because you can pick, right? You get to decide who is that other other rating.

Sara Best 21:05

That's right.

Insight And The Unicorn Hacks

John Broer 21:07

So, Tasha, Insight was actually your second book. Correct. Bankable Leadership was number one. Can you just give our lead, I mean, we'll put but links to both, but tell us a little bit more about Insight, in addition to what people can get in terms of a practical tool, just a little bit more of the origin of its writing and and what that motivation was for putting it together.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 21:30

Oh, I love that question. It really takes me back. It was interesting. What when I started this research program, I sort of had it in the back of my mind that it could be a book, but I wasn't really sure. You know, as a scientist, I thought, well, it depends on what I find. If I find a bunch of like really boring stuff, nobody's gonna want to read it. But if I find some really interesting, sexy stuff, then maybe it is a book. And what was fun about that process was, you know, as I've sort of explained already, there were a lot of twists and turns and a lot of Surprises, a lot of things that really sort of fundamentally challenged the foundation of how most people see self-awareness, including me at the time. And so I it became clear, you know, maybe a year or so in that, you know, gosh, it I would be doing people a disservice if I didn't write a book about this. Because, you know, again, it really practically changes if you know what these insights are, it practically changes what your self-awareness journey can look like. And the the positive thing I think that, you know, we kept finding was this is not like an extremely time-consuming thing. Most of our self-awareness unicorns weren't devoting hours and hours and hours a week to the practice of self-awareness. They had figured out how to hack it. And so, you know, in the most sort of simple terms, I think one way to look at the book is to learn those self-awareness hacks. What do our self-awareness unicorns do differently from the rest of us? What have they figured out? And usually in a more efficient way, because of course they're magical self-awareness unicorns.

John Broer 23:00

Right.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 23:01

And, you know, a lot of people say I've actually decreased the amount of time I spend on my self-awareness, but I'm getting more insight. So it's kind of it's it's how to be how to be smart about your self-awareness journey.

The Seven Types Of Self-Knowledge

Sara Best 23:14

I have a question about insight. I know, and you referred to this a little bit earlier. The seven types of self-knowledge that separate the aware from the unaware. Of those seven, are there any that that would surprise people? Like we haven't heard of them or we haven't thought of them in our regular living.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 23:30

So it they a couple of them surprised us, to be honest, because we we started with what the what the current empirical research kind of showed as the dimensions of self-awareness. So things that we would normally think of, things like what are our values, right? What are the principles that we want to live our lives by? Um, what are our aspirations? What are the things we want to experience and achieve in our lives? What's the impact that we're having on other people? But as we started to develop the assessment, um, we we had a couple of sort of new things come out. Um, you know, obviously we were measuring people's knowledge of their weaknesses and their strengths and their kind of in-the-moment awareness. But there were two um actually one really that came out that was so obvious I couldn't believe we didn't put it in. And that was understanding our passions. So, what are those things that make us want to leap out of bed in the morning? And how can we kind of design our lives so that we're maximizing the amount of time and energy we spend on those things? And, you know, there's obviously it's important to be self-aware and to know all these important things. But if you don't know what lights you up, how can you possibly get all the benefits from self-awareness? Right. How, you know, if if if you're in a job that you're not passionate about, you can sort of get to a self-awareness ceiling in a sense, because you're not you have the knowledge to be fully actualized, but you're not acting on it yet. And so to me, I think that was almost the missing piece of the puzzle in some ways is um self-awareness is pointless on its own. But once you have it, you can you can make empowered and important decisions.

Sara Best 25:10

I can't get over the idea that um knowing your passions isn't something many of us ever spent time on or even had conversations or overheard adults talking about when we were growing up. I don't know if that's a generational thing, um, but but it just kind of like, wow, it is your why, of course, but it's more than your why. It's it's your zing, you know, it's it's it is what um motivates you to move. But I just don't think as a society we we make a lot of room for that.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 25:40

I agree with you. And it's uh it's an interesting research question, actually, whether there are, you know, generational or kind of age differences. But I do think we've made a little bit of headway in the last few years, just collectively, you know, based only on hearing news headlines and, you know, of phenomenon, phenomena um, where, you know, for example, the great resignation. In some sense, that was a bunch of people saying, hey, I'm not passionate about what I'm doing, and I want to be passionate about what I'm doing. Now, granted, there's also the headlines coming out now about all the people that regretted their great resignation.

John Broer 26:14

Right. Right.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 26:15

Um, so I think it's it's a little more complicated than that. But I think, you know, in in a simp in its simplest sense, that is maybe an indication that we're changing the conversation at least a little bit.

John Broer 26:26

Well, and and as we say, I mean, our mission at Real Good Ventures is to help people find meaning and fulfillment in their work. And it's completely achievable as long as you have the right objective data. You know, that people we talk about the head, heart, and briefcase. That's a whole nother podcast. But I mean, when when people can attain that, it it can be done, but a lot of that has to do with at least understanding themselves and understanding what really drives them. Um, and realizing that that pursuit is is noble and honorable and it's something that you can do. I mean, I think Tasha, you're living proof that I mean, what you are doing right now, the work you do with your clients, your speaking engagements, uh, how you are, you know, putting this into writing is an example of a a passion fulfilled. And unless I'm wrong, I mean it just that it just pours out of you. Just go watch Tasha speak. I mean, it it you you it just riveting emanates from you. That's right.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 27:24

That is the most wonderful compliment because it's acknowledging um when we find our passions and when we're able to design our lives to uh allow us to focus on them. Amazing things happen ideally, you know, not just with ourselves, but in the contribution we make to the world. And so that's that's like the nicest compliment I could ever hear, I think.

John Broer 27:49

Well, it it's so evident in what you do. But I I do have a very practical question, and it's a client-based question. I'm not gonna use any names really quick.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 27:56

No first and last names or absolutely.

John Broer 27:58

No first and last names. Yeah, yeah. But we we nobody, as Sarah said, nobody is born a bosshole. And but we have clients, obviously, senior executives, managers. They drift into the bosshole zone and our work with them around self-awareness through their behavioral data, EQ, uh, psychological safety. I mean, they they know. I mean, there's a there's an understanding of their wiring and what is driving sort of their their needs, their behaviors, how they're showing up. And the whole point of our work is to help them adapt. We're not gonna change them. You humans don't change. We we say

Passions Meaning And Work Fulfillment

John Broer 28:35

circumstances change. Humans, through self-awareness, know how to adapt. And they learn that. But what about what about the a few of our potential bossholes that are listening out there that have all this awareness, but they're not adapting? I mean, it's like you want to go to shake them by the shoulders and say, you we've already talked about this. You already know that you keep showing up this way, yet you understand that it's not getting the kind of results you want. I'm not even sure that question makes sense, but they're just they're not able to make that step.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 29:08

Yeah. Is it is the question kind of what what would and I'm gonna advise to share.

John Broer 29:14

No, that's not the question. No, no, no. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 29:16

The question is what is what to do, right? Yeah, I'm yeah.

John Broer 29:19

What advice would you give that leader who just has that what? Go ahead.

Sara Best 29:25

Well, this is this is a chapter in your book, or it's a reference in your book, how to deal with the delusional people in your life.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 29:30

Right.

Sara Best 29:31

Okay, good. Let's go there.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 29:32

So there's yeah, there's a couple ways to look at this. And I I love the lens you both kind of gave is, you know, one is how can I stop getting in my own way? And then another way to look at it is how do I help other people stop getting in their own way? So maybe those are two little rabbit holes that we can get into. Wowza. Um, you know, but I think, John, to your question, the there is a space between awareness and action that if we, you know, if we're not fully committed, if we don't have the full support, if we don't have the right tools, we can miss opportunities. And that's really the way I look at that is when when you know, but you're not sort of deciding what you want to do about it, then you're missing that opportunity for being more effective, for being more confident, for for being more successful.

John Broer 30:23

Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 30:23

And so the question then becomes I think, how do you, how do you give yourself a better shot? What I see quite often, um, and this is usually isn't in my clients because I simply don't let them do this. But what I see is people trying to take on too many things at the same time. So if if I, you know, let's say I take the insight quiz on Tasha's website and I learn that, you know, my my internal self-awareness is lacking. So I say, okay, what I'm gonna start doing is I'm gonna start journaling, I'm gonna find a therapist, um, I'm gonna go on long nature walks, and I'm gonna go to a meditation retreat. And then, surprise, what happens? So maybe I do those things, maybe I do them for a week or two weeks or three weeks, but then life gets in the way and those things fall off my priority list. Oftentimes when when people take on too much, the the boomerang effect can be more demotivating than as if they had never even done those things, right?

John Broer 31:24

Interesting. Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 31:25

And so what I think I would say to anybody who's listening and and wants to to feel more feel like they're making more progress on that journey is make it easier for yourself. This is, I know that everyone listening to this is motivated and successful and focused. And, you know, sometimes those things can work against us in in a situation like this. So it's not a crime to make things easier for yourself. It's in fact, you know, if you do what I do with my executive coaching clients, you're focusing on one thing, one thing at a time. And it hopefully it's one thing that's gonna make a big difference, but it's also one thing. So maybe it's, you know, and and and make it an easy goal. If if I pick journaling because I want to be more in tune with kind of my inner world and experience, don't write every day. For goodness sake. Say, I'm gonna write, you know, every time something happens that I want to better understand. So then you're not locking yourself into something. Um, obviously you want to check in and say, well, it's been three months since I've written in my journal. That's not good. Right. Um, but but to sort of take away the um, I don't know, like the the pressure or the weight that you might feel from doing it to making it something that's actually valuable and doable.

Sara Best 32:41

You know, if our listeners can just tune in to the very practical insight, powerful insight you just shared, that's how you write. Like how you speak about this in plain English and like it's so digestible. Like, yes, I could see myself doing that. I want our listeners to know that's how you speak, that's how you write. They need to grab on to these ideas. They need to get your book, they need to listen and tune in because it's not that hard. I mean, it it really is doable. You make it so possible.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 33:09

Yeah, I have a friend who jokes about my job all the time, and he says, it is really not rocket science what you do. Oh man. Wow.

Turning Awareness Into Action

Dr. Tasha Eurich 33:18

It it belies the 20 years of experience and the PhD, of course. But in a sense, he's right. I think our jobs are to help simplify this process for people. And and there's something really powerful about that is to say, oh man, like this doesn't have to feel so terrible for me to work on my self-awareness. This is actually engaging or fun, you know, that that's always the goal, I think.

John Broer 33:40

Tash, and really quick, because I know we're gonna we're gonna wrap up here in a second, but when I think about your focus on self-awareness and so many of the the episodes we've had yet in the last couple of months around emotional engagement, uh noble purpose, vulnerability-based trust, uh belonging, belonging, peace building, compassionate leadership. This is not this is not your leadership or management development of the last century. This is a different, this has to be the the way we evolve our leaders and our managers. And it's always it's been there. And the good ones, the unicorns, have always understood that secret. We just have to make it more, we have to make it more broadly known and get people, fold them into this wonderful world of developing people that doesn't have to be abusive or full of boss holes.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 34:33

Amen. I I feel so strongly about what you just said that uh about two and a half years ago, I started a global pay it forward project that I call the Tasha 10. And it's now it's like 16 or 17 people, but these incredible practitioners and thought leaders in in the area of human-centered leadership, which I think is just a you know a wonderful summary of of all the concepts that you just mentioned. There's so much to it. Um, but they're doing great work all around the world in in every industry you can think of. And, you know, my job is to kind of teach them everything I know for free and and bring them together and give them support because it it has to be a movement to your point, right? Like it's not natural for us to focus on these things, you know. Certainly we haven't been taught them particularly well. Um, and then it's also a lot of it goes against, you know, our our sort of natural way of being, which is crazy to think about. But humans are busy and they're goal focused and they, you know, sometimes they see they have tunnel vision. But that's yeah, that's the only way I think we're gonna be able to get there is for there to be, you know, lots of movements like what you guys have, like our Tasha 10 community to show people just the value, the importance. It's not nice to have, it's not, oh, let's try to be more empathetic if we have the time and the energy. It's um, you know, this is central not just to our our roles and our as in our jobs, but as human beings on the earth.

Sara Best 36:02

Well, and would you agree, Tasha? It's it's the responsibility, it's the added responsibility. If you're it responsible for developing other people, if you're a leader, uh you you own the the the need to develop this self-awareness and be effective and develop and grow your effectiveness.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 36:22

Agree. Absolutely. It's it's a responsibility. It's a great responsibility to be a leader. And that's that's one example for sure.

Sara Best 36:29

I love uh it's something you said about your book, Insight, but I think it speaks to just the work you do in general. And I think it's an encouragement that our listeners should hear. Three simple facts uh uh that self-awareness is the exquisite foundation to a life well lived. I mean, oh, you just kind of want to settle into that. That it is possible to make the journey. It is possible. You make it very possible, and I I think we have great tools we can use, and that the courage and effort it takes to get there are well worth it. Not just because we have to or we should, but because we can and we benefit and the people we care about benefit.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 37:07

Oh, I love what you just said. That's so so well stated. Well, you said actually. I just said no, but what you added

Human-Centered Leadership And What’s Next

Dr. Tasha Eurich 37:14

on at the ends because we can. Because we can.

Sara Best 37:17

Yeah.

John Broer 37:18

So, Tasha, what is well, first of all, thank you so much uh on behalf of all of our listeners out there in the Boss Hole Transformation Nation. Thank you for being with us and and let us know what's on the horizon for you. What's what's next?

Dr. Tasha Eurich 37:31

So I've been working on a new book for uh almost three years now, and we finally sold it at the end of last year. Um, and so it's also based on some really surprising research around the area of resilience and how can we build a beautiful life in a world of constant change and chaos. Because that's the way the world is for sure. Exactly. It's not changing anytime soon. And and I finally had to accept that.

John Broer 38:01

Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 38:01

Um, but a lot of really new, very interesting things, not not unlike the insight research process, actually. So stay tuned. Oh, that'd be great.

John Broer 38:10

And if you are so inclined when it publishes, we'd love to have you back. Oh man, let's do it. Tasha, this has been great. So good having you here. And um we hope you're gonna be.

Sara Best 38:20

I don't want to hang up yet. I like I like talking to you. I know that was a few more time flew by.

John Broer 38:24

And uh just all the best to you. Absolutely.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 38:27

Thank you both. Really nice to meet you. Such a great discussion. Thank you.

Sara Best 38:30

Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Eurich 38:30

All right.

Sara Best 38:31

Good luck. See you. Take care. Bye. Bye.

John Broer 38:33

And we'll see you next time on the Boss Hole Chronicles. Thanks very much for checking out this episode of the Bosshole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here. And if you have your own Bosshole story that you want to share with the Bosshole Transformation Nation, just reach out. You can email us at mystory at the Bosshole Chronicles.com. Again, my story at the Bosshole Chronicles.com. We'll see you next time.