Building Mental Strength: Leadership Insights with Scott Mautz

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 00:13

Well, we welcome Scott to the podcast. How you doing today, Scott?

Scott Mautz (: 00:17

I am happy to be here. I appreciate what you do, Keith, and I'm glad to be here. I was commenting before, I guess I better bring value or you're gonna use that samurai sword above your head there. I mean, yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So looking forward to being here today.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 00:30

There we go. We don't want to do that. We don't have to break out the sword on you there.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 00:39

I'm looking forward, this should be a great conversation. I love talking about leadership and so that's one of my favorite topics. So I'm looking forward to you adding value to that discussion, a long list of excellent leaders that have been on the podcast. So no pressure. Just. All right. Let me get to know you a little bit better. So tell me the best piece of advice you've ever received.

Scott Mautz (: 00:52

Yeah, no, I'm ready to bring it, man. I'm ready to bring it.

Scott Mautz (: 01:02

yeah, I would have to say it's probably, and I rephrase this now and tell other people this all the time. It's not exactly the way that he said it to me, but a mentor once told me, you know what, stop chasing approval, start chasing authenticity. And that always stuck with me and I tell people all the time, chase approval or chase authenticity, not approval, because we know so many bad things can happen to us.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 01:20

Mmm.

Scott Mautz (: 01:32

when we start to seek approval and don't believe in the strengths and the things that we bring to the table and we start to become farther and farther distance from our authentic self. So I've always followed that and found it to be powerful advice.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 01:45

It is powerful. I love that because, you know, we can fall into the comparison trap and that never goes well. Either we become resentful of the people we're trying to model our lives after, or we don't become, we lose ourself in that desire to be something more than we were created to be. So I love that.

Scott Mautz (: 02:03

Yeah, very well said.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 02:05

I'm curious for people like yourself, I've read your bio, you have a very impressive background, but along the way, who are some people who serve to be mentors for you or role models that you want to kind of tell us what about them made them special and kind of give them a shout out if you want to mention their name.

Scott Mautz (: 02:24

Hey, I like that. This is like an equal opportunity. I like it. Everybody gets a chance to be seen in this. I like it. I love it. Yeah, yeah, I've always drawn a lot of strength from leaders that I grew up with in corporate. And I'm actually not going to give name shout outs because there's so many, I am sure, that someone will get frustrated. I didn't also mention them. But what I will say is I've always been drawn to leaders. And we're going to get into this more.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 02:30

Yeah, that's right.

Scott Mautz (: 02:53

you know, the concept of mental strength. But I've always been drawn to leaders that came across as, you know, mentally strong, especially the ones that were super decisive. They were very focused on the goal. At the same time, they were very invested in me and my success. And I've found, you know, Keith, over the years in the corporate world, you'll find, you know, a handful of managers that always stick out to you for either good or bad reasons.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 03:22

Yeah.

Scott Mautz (: 03:23

And for me, it always came back to this concept of the degrees to which they displayed mental strength or not, which obviously we're going to talk a lot more about here.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 03:32

Yeah, I love that. You're right, because I've thought about leaders in my life who I do not want to emulate. But I also remember some who just came alongside and they were just in a right space for me at the right time. And they poured into my life in a way that makes me want to do the same thing down the road, somebody else who I can see I can help out as a leader myself. So I love that.

Scott Mautz (: 03:56

Sometimes the best leadership lessons come from the worst bosses. But not all the time. Sometimes we could also just take really great leadership lessons from great bosses in our lifetime.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 04:00

Yes.

Scott Mautz (: 04:06

Ha ha ha.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 04:08

You're very true. I'm curious, Scott, what inspired your right, the mentally strong leader, and how do you hope it impacts leaders today?

Scott Mautz (: 04:17

Yeah, great question. You know, let me to answer that question. Let me just very quickly, Keith, decide that's defined mental strength. So we're all on the same page, you know, mental strength is the ability to regulate your emotions, your thoughts and your behaviors productively, even in adversity. And I think you could argue, especially in adversity, as I like to shorthand it, it's how we manage internally, so that we can lead better externally at both work. Yes, of course, and in life as well.

And I think most of us intuitively understand the need, Keith, to self -regulate, to be successful. But, you know, the truth is, it is really hard to do this sometimes. It is really hard to self -regulate your emotions, your thoughts and your behaviors. And we need help doing that. So, first thing that inspired me to do that was understanding how difficult it can be to be mentally strong. And what if I could be the person that put mental strength in a national spotlight?

and provided the tools for people to become mentally stronger. That inspired me to write the book, point number one. Second point that inspired me to write it, and I'm only going to talk about two points. I really knew I was on to something, Keith. You know, I've been researching mental strength for a very long time, almost three decades now. But one set of studies I conducted in particular, when I got the results, I was like, I need to tell the world about what I found. And I've done this several times, but I asked executives 3 ,000 at a time.

e. And every time I run this,: 3000

a mentally strong leader and I'm going to get into what that is, you know, more specifically in a moment. But it's so I found like, so, you know, wow, you're describing this person is mentally strong. And would you use that term mentally strong, and I would even put the word mental strength in a pick list for them to describe. So, okay, you've described them now in one sentence or one phrase, how would you describe the ones that were most effective to help you get through the most obstacles?

Scott Mautz (: 06:36

is like 95 % of the time out of a pick list of words, they would circle the term mentally strong. It was when I knew that maybe Keith, you know, and again, I'm going to talk more about what defines mental strength here momentarily. But it's when I really started to become excited about, I think we've found the term that has been missing to describe the best leaders in our life, especially in today's distracted work world with more and more opportunity to doubt yourself and more and more distractions flying around.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 06:43

Mmm.

Scott Mautz (: 07:06

I think we found the concept that really describes the leaders that discern and separate themselves from the pack. It's why I think mental strength may be the leadership superpower of our time. So that's those two things in combination of what inspired me to write the book, The Mentally Strong Leader.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 07:23

I love that. I just got done my dissertation and part of my dissertation was on organizational change in churches. And I knew I could not study it because I was using Cotter as kind of the underlining blueprint. But I was trying to figure out were there certain types of leaders that manage change better than others. I assumed, came an assumption that it was going to be servant leaders that excelled in church settings versus any other kind.

Scott Mautz (: 07:30

Keith Haney, Host Of Becoming Bridge Builders (07:52.096)

and discovered that it was transformation leaders who actually did better. I'm curious as you do your study on mentally strong leaders, is there a leadership type that you run across that seems to do better with the mentally strong leadership versus another?

Scott Mautz (: 07:54

Yes. Yes.

Scott Mautz (: 08:07

You know, it's incredible. In folks listeners, Keith and I did not compare notes ahead of time to create this. But it would probably be the term that I call, you know, transformational leadership, because they're willing to transform the organization and themselves. And sometimes that's what it takes to become mentally stronger. You have to be willing to transform a lot of things about yourself. And so, you know, while it's

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 08:13

Yeah.

Scott Mautz (: 08:36

It helps all leadership types. And I'll explain how I've even addressed that within the book, The Mentally Strong Leader. To answer your question directly, the ones that are willing to be transformative about themselves, that attack their job with a growth mindset, that understand that becoming mentally stronger isn't necessarily easy, but that we all have a baseline to work from. Those are the leaders that tend to do the best with us.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 09:00

It's funny, I've just destroyed my entire whole idea of servant leaders being the pinnacle of leadership because they just did not, I mean, they had some strengths, don't get me wrong, but what they kind of failed on the scale of leadership was because they were really about the people around them and making sure people around them feel comfortable and valued and listened to, they lacked sometimes their courage maybe or their conviction to

Scott Mautz (: 09:06

Ha ha ha ha.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 09:30

go where it needs to transform the organization because the people came before necessarily the organization. So that was kind of my aha moment of, we push, push, push everybody to be a servant leader, but those aren't necessarily the best ones to transform the organization.

Scott Mautz (: 09:46

You know, that's interesting, Keith, that you mentioned that in the book that came out that I wrote prior to this, a book called The Leading from the Middle. I talk about this a lot. And, you know, for your dissertation, you might want to you might want to check it out because I talk about exactly what you just mentioned, that servant leadership is great. I prefer the term others oriented leadership because it addresses what you're talking about that sometimes in my research, I have found servant leaders can get caught up in they can lose themselves in wanting to put their organization first.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 10:06

Right.

Scott Mautz (: 10:16

Sometimes your boss and your boss's boss, they want to know that you know. They want to know what your plans are. They want you to command and control. They don't want you to always worry about what's best for the troops. Sometimes you have to do what's best for the organization. Quite often those are in sync, sometimes they're not. And so, yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I found the same in my research.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 10:37

Yeah, cool. I could spend all day on servant versus transformation, but we, I want to, there'll be podcast number two. We'll talk about that. but I am curious as I look at your book, you explained six areas of mental strength that you identified that were crucial to affect the mission. What were those six, areas?

Scott Mautz (: 10:39

yeah, yeah. We can nerd out about it later, Keith. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Scott Mautz (: 10:59

Yes. Now, this is what I was talking about with the next layer of detail. There are six core mental muscles that equate to mental strength, Keith. Fortitude, or being able to be resilient, even in the face of adversity, right? Boldness, confidence, decision making, which includes both decisiveness and the ability to make great decisions. Goal focus.

The ability to stay focused on your goals. Notice I'm not talking about goal setting here. I'm talking about goal focus, staying focused on your goals. And what I call the messaging muscle. The ability to, as a leader, stay positive minded and exude a positive vibe even in the face of negativity. To stay engaged even when you feel overwhelmed and it's hard for you to listen. The message you send to the rest of the organization is part of mental strength. So fortitude, boldness, confidence, decision making, goal focus, and messaging.

all equate to mental strength and it makes sense when you think about it Keith because these are also skills that require tremendous self -regulation. And when I was talking to you about that study that I regularly conduct amongst 3 ,000 executives at a time, when they would describe the leader that helped them achieve the most and get through the most obstacles, those are the six things that they would describe. The fortitude the leader has.

the confidence they show to themselves and in the organization, their boldness, their risk taking, you know, desire, their goal focus, their ability to stay positive minded, their decisiveness. So then when I said, okay, they exhibit all these six things is mental strength and mentally strong, the right term to summarize that that's when we were running into, you know, 95 96 % of the respondents would circle that and say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. That's the words I would put to it mentally strong.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 12:49

Yeah.

Scott Mautz (: 12:52

So yeah, those are the six core mental muscles. And of course, in the new book that we're talking about here, The Mentally Strong Leader, I give you over 50 plus tools on how to build each one of those mental muscles as you see fit.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 13:07

Now we've heard the term in culture, in business culture for the last maybe 10 years, I think it is, emotional intelligence. Now, for those who are listening to you talk about emotional regulation, that's different than emotional intelligence. Cause it's some kind of help us differentiate between those two terms. So we don't kind of get one thing in our head when you're talking about something totally different.

Scott Mautz (: 13:16

Yes.

Scott Mautz (: 13:20

Yes.

Scott Mautz (: 13:24

Yeah.

Scott Mautz (: 13:31

Yes. And here's the way to think about it, Keith. The broad umbrella is mental strength. Underneath that is emotional intelligence or EQ. And here's the helpful way to think about that. EQ or emotional intelligence is the ability to get your emotions working for you versus against you, primarily in the moment. Mental strength is part of that. That's part of it, but it's much broader than that.

It's how you regulate not only your emotions, but also your specific thoughts that you have, the specific behaviors you show and the actions that you take. It's mental strength. It's far more than just self -regulating your emotions productively. So it's why I'm so excited that, you know, as much, you know, notice that EQ has gotten over the last 10 years. It has become, you know, the thing for the last... You could Google 9 ,000 articles on emotional intelligence.

I believe the next forefront, the next level above that is mental strength. And people are going to start elevating up saying, yes, EQ is great, but that's just a part of a broader skill set I need to build called mental strength.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 14:43

Thanks for that because I know people may be hearing this going, well, isn't this just a different word for emotional indulgence?

Scott Mautz (: 14:49

Yeah, it definitely is not.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 14:52

So can you give us a tool or a habit from your book that helps people, especially leaders, manage their emotions?

Scott Mautz (: 14:59

Sure, sure. In the chapter about positive messaging, how to stay positive minded to the troops, I talk a lot about how do you manage your negative emotions in the moment. We all have them. We're not robots. Mental strength is not being a robot. It's having emotions. It's about not minimizing emotions. It's about managing those emotions. And I have a tool in the book that's really, really powerful in the Mentally Strong Leader. It's called the redirect rhythm.

And here's how it works, Keith, and I can promise you this works. And I'll even tell you how it ties to classic cognitive behavioral therapy. Here's how it works. It's a couple of simple steps so that when you feel your emotions rising in unproductive ways in the moment, when you can really feel it building inside, you just take a few quick short steps that will become habit over time if you practice it. First thing is you have to take a breath. And I know that sounds obvious.

I don't want your listeners thinking like, really, that's the insight this guy's bringing is when you're angry or, you know, take a breath. Hold on. Let me explain what happens when you do and why it's so important. What you're really doing, you start, you trigger this whole process by stop, pause, breathe in slowly, hold it, breathe out slowly. That begins this tool that I'm going to teach you here. The first thing that happens when you do that is it creates space.

It allows you to get distance from the intensity of your emotion. It breaks the gravitational pull of that emotion that is leading you somewhere you don't want to go. So cognitively, it gives you a break from a place you don't want to go. And physically, it lowers your heart rate. It lowers your stress rate so that you can think more clearly, which takes you to the next step. So we all know, we've all heard, take a breath. That's why it starts there.

Here's what happens when you take a breath, and this can become habit over time. The next instant thought while you're breathing slowly through your nose should be, I'm going to name the emotion I'm feeling. So let's say it's frustration, Keith. Let's say you and I are talking and I'm getting a... I can't imagine this being possible. You're a great listener. Let's say I think you're not listening, right? And I'm starting to get really frustrated and I can feel that. I take a breath before I bark out at you, Keith, and I say, Okay, I am feeling...

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 17:10

Right.

Scott Mautz (: 17:20

frustrated right now. I'm saying this to myself, right? And what happens is when you name the emotion you're feeling, when you literally name it, you distance yourself from it, it becomes an entity floating outside of who you are. It's not who you are. It's not how you have to show up. It's a thing that's happening called frustration. You begin it begins to lose its power over you, it begins to lose its hold over you. And then and only then you can move right to that third step very quickly, which is where you reassess and you redirect. You say, okay,

What's really happening here? And what's next? What am I going to do about it? What's really happening is, now that I can think calmly for just a second, is I'm getting frustrated. I know it's frustration. I don't need to show up as frustrated. I could see that's what's happening. It's taking over the way I'm showing up. I'm showing up tense. My words are starting to get more clipped. That's what's happening. It's not helpful. Here's what I'm going to do next. I'm going to re -engage Keith in a different way with my frustration level lower down. It's three simple steps. Create space by taking a breath.

Name the emotion, reassess and redirect. It lines up with classic cognitive behavioral therapy, and there are three C's, which is catch it, check it, change it. And it sounds simple, Keith, but I can promise you, I started practicing this years ago, and man, it really, really works for that negative emotions circulating in the moment.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 18:42

So Scott, as you think about, I've been in a situation where I think the leader has not had emotional control. And I can think of one time in particular where the organization was in a crisis. And we didn't know about the crisis, those who were kind of a part of the, you know, on the outskirts of an organization. And he got up in front of the crowd and said,

Scott Mautz (: 18:50

Yeah.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 19:12

we're in deep financial trouble and I don't know what we're gonna do. So, and just kind of left us there, you know? And you could tell he was scared. And I'm like, well, you're in a room full of pastors. And if you don't have an answer, the first thing I would think as a pastor is, you know, one thing we do have, we have the confidence that God's in charge of this. Let us all just kind of take a step and could you just...

pray for me as a leader and pray for organization that God will give us the answers and leave it at that. We don't ask you, we didn't ask you to solve it. We didn't know there was a problem. But he kind of left us there with this sense of panic and we don't know what to do. You don't know what to do. I didn't feel particularly confident that you were the right person to lead this. So in a situation like that, can you kind of share with us what's the danger to the organization when the mental

Scott Mautz (: 20:01

Yeah.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 20:08

The leader of the organization mentally is not able to handle a crisis.

Scott Mautz (: 20:14

Yeah, it's, you know, as you would suspect, it's going to have a ripple effect. You know, let me just follow through on the example that you were giving, you know, kind of a core tenet of mental strength is to be able to provide reality and hope. Right. And think about the impact on the organization when you do one but not the other. Right. In your case, right, the pastor was doing a great job of providing reality so that you knew, okay, at least this person's in touch with what's going on. But he was not in touch with what you guys were feeling, what you must have been thinking, because there was no hope in it.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 20:25

You're right.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 20:30

Mm -hmm.

Scott Mautz (: 20:42

Flip it around for a second. Imagine if that pastor was all hope and not even grounded in reality. Then that wouldn't allow you to tackle the reality of what was happening. I've worked for leaders like that before, Keith. They had their head in the clouds. Everything's fine. They don't want to admit that anything is wrong. And so they were all hope -based. So there's a perfect example. You're not mentally strong and find that balance between hope and reality. And I talk about this a lot in the Mentally Strong Leader.

You can have a ripple effect on the organization where your words will resonate beyond the moment and they'll sit in the minds of your organization and they will create unhelpful doubt, unhelpful uncertainty and you know in some cases it can go so far as to you know real angst and lowered performance because people can't perform at their best. That's just one example I gave you where a leader chose not to show the hope part just the reality.

You can imagine all the different machinations that can happen when a leader doesn't start from a base of mental strength and the ripple down effect that can have on the audience and their organization.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 21:49

Right. So I gave us a really bad example of that. Can you give us an example of a leader who exemplifies mental strength and what can we learn from them?

Scott Mautz (: 21:59

Yeah, I think one that I've always been very admiring of, and I'm going to stay out of politics. I'm going to go down the military route. I've always been a big fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've always been a big fan of, yeah, there's no good could happen from that, Keith. I've always been a big fan of Colin Powell. He is kind of seen as a leadership icon. And I have looked at him as a beacon of mental strength before. And I'm going to talk about the mental strength self -assessment you can take in a moment.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 22:07

That's probably a good idea.

Scott Mautz (: 22:28

with a mentally strong leader, but I bet he'd score off the charts on it. Because in his communications, the way he conducted himself, I always saw an incredible balance across the six mental muscles. Incredible resilience. He would tell stories of his time in the Army and the resilience he had to show. Incredible confidence mixed with a huge dose of humility. A bold general in his thinking. Very decisive. Made great decisions. He was always very focused on the goals that he established. And, you know,

He was the kind of person that in a university, that's who he wandered around. He messaged in a way that created people wanting to follow him, not like the pastor wanting to run because there was no hope. And so I always saw him as a leader that really embodied the six different mental muscles and mental strikes pretty well.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 23:18

love that. You talk about self -assessment. What does the role of self -assessment play in developing mental strength and how can leaders effectively evaluate themselves? Because you know part of it is knowing ourself but how can we successfully and honestly evaluate ourselves?

Scott Mautz (: 23:34

Here's the thing, Keith, I'm really proud of this part of the, especially, of the book, The Mentally Strong Leader. It took me a long time to develop this, but you find right in there, in chapter two, right up towards the front of the book, there's a mental strength self -assessment in the book, The Mentally Strong Leader, that you can take. And here's what it does. It's 50 questions that takes you about 15 minutes to do. And I can promise you this, if you're honest with yourself, if you set aside some quiet time and you're reflective,

Absolute, yep.

Scott Mautz (: 24:04

and you're honest and introspective, it will produce a statistically validated, I mean, backed by, I had a data scientist help me with the design of this, it will produce a self a questionnaire that gives you an overall mental strength score to help you see what tier of mental strength do you fall in. There's four tiers. No, no one tier is any better than the other. It just helps you identify where you are in your journey, all the way from the top of being a true beacon of mental strength to

down to you know being a novice and still learning about what mental strength is and knowing that you have a lot to work on. In addition, this assessment gives you a score by mental muscle. So you get a score on your fortitude, on your confidence, boldness, decision making, goal focus and your ability to message positively even in the face of negativity. And what happens is, Keith, if you know if people are really willing to do this, it actually produces the ability for you to create your own tailored mental strength training.

program. So you can push and pull the levers that you want when you want, right? It's important to understand that the opposite of mentally strong is not mentally weak. We all have a baseline of mental strength to build from, right? Keith said it's just about knowing what muscles do you have to work out on what days? You know, when you go to the gym, you don't work on every muscle all of the time. That would be ridiculous, right? You'd be 19 hour workouts in the gym.

You go on Wednesday as back day, Thursday as leg day, Friday as arm day, I don't know. You can do the same thing with mental strength. When you know what you need to work on first, you can prioritize that. And then you can level up the mental muscles as you see fit to ultimately become mentally stronger. You just have to be willing to put the time in, you know, the 15 minutes and be honest and vulnerable with yourself to take the self -assessment honestly.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 25:54

So we talked about at the beginning of this podcast about transformational leaders and how they make those around them stronger. How can leaders foster a culture of mental strength within their teams and what are some of the benefits of doing that?

Scott Mautz (: 26:08

Yeah, great question. I think first and foremost, it's as a leader, all those listeners out there, please understand what I'm telling this. I just the response to the book is telling me already that we're really onto something here. Step one is to understand the concept of mental strength, what it is, what it isn't, and how it I literally believe it is going to be the leadership superpower of our times. It is the next thing above emotional intelligence to focus on to make your organization achieve more.

believe that concept, understand mental strength, first and foremost. Second, if you want to create a culture of that, you have to be vulnerable. You have to share a self assessment, and maybe even share with an organization, you know, encourage them, take the self assessment, let's start the journey from where you're at, including, you know, sharing, hey, these are the things I want to work on with my mental strength as a leader, I took the assessment, I just want to be honest with you, these are some things I have to work on, right? Because culture is a lot is about a shared experience. And you could start by sharing.

your experience. And then it's, you know, from that point, engaging in all the tools in the book, the mentally strong leader to actually build the habits that will make you mentally stronger over time. And before you know it, right, culture is what the habits of that organization are. And the book is built on habit building science. So every one of the more than 50 plus tools in the mentally strong leader is built on habit building science to give you the repetitions, the systems and the frameworks.

to actually create the improvements in mental strength on the muscles that you want to. That's how you build a culture of mental strength.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 27:43

That's great. For the new leader walking into a corporation for the first time, walking into Procter & Gamble as an emerging leader, how can they build mental strength at the beginning of their leadership journey?

Scott Mautz (: 27:57

I think one of the most important things, it's a great question, Keith, I get it a lot. I always encourage people to start with a confidence muscle. And, you know, if you look statistically at all the data we have, and I get the question all the time, is any one mental muscle more important than the other? The answer, of course, is no, because it depends on your self -assessment, which the muscle that could be most important is the one that you see, either you have the most interest in maintaining your strength in, or that you have the most interest in improving. That said,

I do know that statistically, most, you know, if there's one muscle disproportionately people need to work on over the others. In general, it would be confidence muscle. And you know, there's a lot of tools in the book, you know, it start from a place of understanding that confidence is not the absence of doubt. It's your ability to manage your relationship with doubt. Because I guarantee you, as a new manager and all the way throughout your career, but especially as a new manager, you will have a relationship with doubt.

It's about your ability to manage that relationship productively. And there's multiple tools in the Mentally Strong Leader book to help you build that confidence muscle, key for when you're starting out in your position.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 29:09

That's great. So we kind of touched on a little bit, but looking forward, what trends do you see in leadership development, particularly as it relates to mental strength for the next level or next tier of leadership?

Scott Mautz (: 29:22

I think I get an awful lot of questions still about, you know, how do I show up as a great leader in a world where more and more it's going to be the norm that we're split time, you know, at home, in the office, not necessarily, you know, all of one or the other. And, you know, look, there's all kinds of data and arguments about, hey, someday are we all going to go back to being in the office all the time? Are we always going to be split two days at home, three days in the office? You know, who knows, Keith, I suspect there's always going to be a mixture.

because once you've opened that can, you can't reopen, you can't re -close that can. Remote work can work. So I think a big trend that's coming is people continuing to build their skill sets in a split world, a hybrid world, where sometimes you have to lead remotely. by the way, you could be 100 % in the office, but then you still have a global team. They're going to be at a distance, so you have to figure out how to lead virtually that and remotely that way. So I think that you're going to see that more and more. And to me, that means mental strength becomes

even more important. Because first and foremost, whether you lead through a camera to somebody remotely, or whether you lead in person, leadership is still leadership. A lot of the core strengths and things that make and discern a great leader from an average leader are still very, very true. That said, disproportionately focusing on becoming mentally strong is going to help you because people are their confidence is going to be lagging more than ever because they have less face to face time with their boss.

It's going to be harder to encourage your organizations to be bold because you might have less face to face meetings. And it's going to be harder for them to show fortitude and resilience because they're not together as often to draw and lean on each other and so forth. So, you know, I think the continuation of hybrid work is going to feed and fuel the need for continued growth and mental strength.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 31:15

That's very helpful. I'm curious, what are you excited about in this season of your life?

Scott Mautz (: 31:21

You know, honestly, Keith, I think it's, you know, I've written three books before The Mentally Strong Leader, and the reaction I'm getting to Mentally Strong Leader is even stronger than my first three books. I feel like at this season in my life, I truly do feel like I have tapped into what will be the superpower of leadership moving forward. So I'm very excited to kind of usher in the new era of one step above EQ is mental strength.

And I'm excited to be tied to that, related to that, named to that, because I think it's going to broaden my platform for making a difference in this world.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 32:00

And you kind of attached on my next question, my favorite question on my guests, what do you want your legacy to be?

Scott Mautz (: 32:03

you

Yeah, I want to be remembered as a dude who really made a difference in helping people become the best version of themselves and helping organizations, whatever that might be, personally professional organizations, you know, become the best version of themselves as well. It's why I left Corporate Keys to expand my platform for being able to do that.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 32:29

As you wrap up our conversation, what key takeaways do you want our listeners to remember from our discussion today?

Scott Mautz (: 32:35

Yeah, I just, you know, Keith, I want them to remember that, you know, I think I hopefully have stayed in my case powerfully for how important mental strength is that is that it is the next EQ one level above emotional intelligence. I want people to remember that. I really do believe that they're going to be hearing more and more and more about this for the next decade. It's not be intimidated by it. When you think about the idea of becoming mentally stronger, it can feel like, man, I hear you. It sounds really hard. It doesn't have to be.

If you start with an assessment of where you're at, if you lean on habit building science, which I have infused into the book, The Mentally Strong Leader, you will have the systems and the frameworks to help you along the way, to help you know what's the first small step to become more confident. What to do in moments of weakness, when you can feel, for example, your confidence breaking down. Using the habit building science to help you, you don't have to be intimidated by it. You can create your own customized

mental strength training program and you can do it starting today.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 33:38

That's awesome, Scott. Where can my audience connect with you and get a copy of the mentally strong leader?

Scott Mautz (: 33:43

Yeah, sure. You can find me at scottmautz .com. You can learn about the keynotes I give, the training, the workshops. You can find your copy of the Mentally Strong Leader there. And I've also put together a gift for your listeners. Keith, who doesn't like gifts, right? God love gifts. I have a 60 -page PDF ready for them to download for free and print out that includes the Mental Strength Self -Assessment that I've been talking about, plus prompts.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 33:59

I love gifts.

Scott Mautz (: 34:12

and questions for how to get the most out of the book, The Mentally Strong Leader. All you have to do is go to scottmounts .com slash mentally strong gift and you can download that free 60 page PDF that's scottmounts .com slash mentally strong gift.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 34:30

Scott, thanks for the gift. The audience will take a look at that, especially if you're a leader. And all of us are leaders in some way, honestly. So this really kind of goes to all the audience. You are either leading at home or in the workplace or in your school. You are guiding and influencing someone around you. So whether you are a parent or a professional or a mom on the street, you are impacting people's lives. So it's best for all of us to work on.

Scott Mautz (: 34:42

Absolutely.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 34:57

increasing our mental strength and our mental capabilities.

Scott Mautz (: 35:01

very well said Keith I couldn't have said that better myself.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 35:04

Well, Scott, thanks so much for being a guest on the podcast and blessings on your book. May you have that impact you're looking for and taking us to the next level beyond EQ to mental strength.

Of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 35:19

Thank you, Scott.