[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all of our loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Our topic today is building habits and my guest today is Mariah. We're Bakus and she just mentioned to me off air the best way to pronounce her last name is Bakus. A cake, which is. I just can't get over that. That was so cool. So welcome to the show, Mariah.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Thank you. So fun to have you on here today, Andrew. I'm really looking forward to this chat about one of my favorite topics.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, listen, what I want to know first off before we get going is how are things with you? What's going on with you in your world? Give us the tea, the deets, give us it all. What's going on in Mariah's world?
[00:00:56] Speaker A: In an exciting, exciting group coaching program, I've hired a coach for myself. I'm working with a coach named Caitlin Lee focusing on email marketing. So I am learning a ton. I've just come up with a great new tool which I'm excited to share with folks as a result of being in that program.
So it's kind of what's on and hopping when it comes to my business world currently.
Personally, I'm just really looking forward to getting out for a hike this weekend and getting lots of fresh air. Yeah.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Yes. Being outside is so good. I was just thinking about that same thing.
I just love to be outside when it's super, super cold. I try to stay away from it, but if it's even just warm enough to be outside, just breathing in the fresh air, even if you're out there for just 10, 15 minutes or 20 minutes, it just does me wonders and I just, I just love it.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Toronto and not far from High park for anyone who's listening out there and familiar with the city. And I always like to refer to High park as a bit of a slice of nature within the city because once you're in there, you really do lose sight of all of the, you know, concrete jungle around you and it really does give you that sense escape. But it's so nice and close. So, yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Wonderful. I love that. Well, listen, I'm so excited to get into this conversation, but before we begin, I always have a Fun, thought provoking question to ask my guest to get things going. Are you ready for yours today?
[00:02:16] Speaker A: I'll ever be. So shoot. Go ahead.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: So your question today, Mariah, is if you were a fruit, which one would you be?
[00:02:24] Speaker A: I would be a banana because it's the staple of a proper breakfast protein smoothie and so high in potassium and an easy snack on the go. I just feel like it checks all the boxes.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: It certainly is. It is dirt cheap and it's an easy snack. It's kind of like something that you can grab and grow. You can grab and go. And when you're going on a hike or going outside for a walk or you have errands to run, it's super cool to just. Or easy to just grab as you're.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Walking out the door to live without. Which is kind of why I picked it.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Well, listen, I love your answer. I love you having fun with us. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Why don't we start off with you telling us a little bit about you and also I'd love to hear about your why.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: So as you mentioned, my name is Mariah Bacus. Like we were talking about Mariah, like Mariah Carey Bacus, like bacon. I am a project manager and an accountability coach and the founder of a company called Vibe High. And there we're helping coaches and consultants ditch the overwhelm so they can get stuff done and bring their big ideas to life. You know, when visionary coaches and consultants really want to move the needle on what matters most, it's hard because they're overwhelmed by all of the possibilities. They're stuck in what's called decision fatigue. As many leaders in your audience I'm sure will be experienced with and just really struggling to follow through. So my role is to help them create clarity, consistency as well as completion in a way where they're not burning out, they're not second guessing themselves, so they're having confidence in their decisions and they don't feel like they have to go at it alone. A little bit about my background. It spans 20 plus years in corporate, nonprofit, and various entrepreneurial spaces including event planning, project management, operations, HR coaching, and more. And my accountability journey, I was trying to trace this back and I'm thinking it actually kind of started officially back when I was in corporate event planning and I won this event for ownership, which kind of. I'll nerd out on that a bit. It was for proactively finding solutions and collaborating and being a master of stakeholder accountability and things like that. So I Kind of think I can trace my love of accountability and ownership back there and my why today? I mean, I think we're here to make a meaningful impact. And the folks that I serve, I truly feel that they fit that bill. They have big ideas that make an impact for a lot of people. And you know, I feel that the structure, systems and habits can really help bring those ideas to life. So I'm here to help those people go from overthinking to taking focused action on what matters most. And my personal story, I'd love to share a bit with you about that. While I'm an accountability and project manager now, my foray into coaching actually started with habits coaching. And I was inspired to do that based on personal experience. So I'll share a couple of personal stories with you just to kind of give you some context. So I was born into and raised in what most people would refer to as a high control religious organization or a cult. So I did manage to escape those circumstances when I was around 20. But it was a really rough go. I lost communication with my family and my friends and I really had to rebuild my life from the ground up. So as you can imagine, super stressful. And I just didn't have the emotional coping skills I needed to get through that difficult time in my life. And part of that was just the conditioning I had from growing up. And as you can imagine, as time went on, I turned to some pretty destructive habits and that was a way to mask emotions that I didn't know how to process or heal from. And I was feeling super hopeless and out of control.
So as part of my self development and wellness journey over many years, I've used habit breaking and habit building tools to really reinvent my life. And they are so powerful, they've helped provide a framework for a life that's happy and rewarding and has some purpose. So habit building and breaking tools and the systems have helped me reinvent my relationship with food substances, including alcohol, exercise, spiritual practices, and a lot more. And a great example of that would be, you know, I'm someone who used to hate exercising, but in 2021 I was able to do like a full year of yoga. I only missed two days. And why? Because I used habit tools like habit tracking, external accountability and community support. And having that lived experience has taught me that consistency. It's a skill that can be built. If you don't have it up front, you can get it over time. And that's really powerful. And I still lean on those skills today to help me reach My goal, for example, currently sharing my workouts on my personal Instagram to get the benefit of that external account accountability. It's really powerful. So, yeah, that's kind of how I came to be and, and my background with habits, personal, as well as helping others.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: I love your story and I love everything that you said there. What I do love as well is I just love your approach on clarity and consistency and collaborating and creating solutions. So the clarity and consistency is so important, especially when we're talking about leadership, because we need to be clear with our expectations and we need to be consistent on that. And as far as collaborating, creating. Sol, everybody that knows me knows I am a huge proponent on collaborating. It's one of my biggest things and biggest mantras and I talk about it endlessly. So sometimes people might be thinking, oh my God, this guy talks about it so much. But man, it is something that just goes to my heart and I'm so passionate about it. And when I do meet people like yourself who allow me to do these things and collaborate and be creative and come up with great solutions, it is so inspiring.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: I love to hear it. And you know what, collaboration is one of my core values. So no wonder we're aligned in this.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: Absolutely. I, I knew that the first time we spoke.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: And we'll talk about that later. But I knew right away from the get go that we definitely were hand in hand on that one because you can just tell when people are and people, when people value that part in their life or, or feel that it's important part of their life and their being and what makes them who they are. So I just love that. So let's get into this. Mariah, I know you talked about it a little bit in your intro, but I kind of would like us to go a little bit deeper in this here. So why is it so important to build habits? And you mentioned the word powerful before. Why is it so powerful if we're.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Thinking about it from like a leadership and management perspective? So your audience here. For leaders, habits are really the backbone of personal mastery. The business world, the world in general, but the business world is full of chaos, right? And leaders are dependent on to have steadiness, steadiness that builds trust internally as well as externally. So self trust, but as well as the ability for your team to trust in yourself. You know, one of the areas that we can work on as leaders is not reacting in the moment. So essentially cultivating consistency. You talked about consistency, consistent behaviors that align with our values and really set the tone for others.
So we'd want to focus on habits that would help develop us. But in a sense, we're leading by example. So anything we improve in ourselves ripples out. So the things that come to mind, first of all, are habits like daily reflection, emotional regulation, and reading for growth. These are three areas that can really help leaders think more clearly, respond more effectively, and as I mentioned, lead by example. So we can zoom into those three. Daily reflection. Super important, right? Helps leaders zoom out at a high level, and that's where they can see patterns, they can acknowledge wins, they can see any blind spots. And how you might do that daily reflection might be journaling, whether that's five minutes, just bullet journaling. Maybe you leave yourself some voice notes on the go if you're constantly in transport, that sort of thing. Or maybe you follow a set of structured reflection questions. Right. And there's lots of tools and guides out there. That would be the work. The first one is taking the time to have some daily reflection. And then we think about emotional regulation. Well, how can we accomplish that? Well, might not be the obvious answer, but physical movement, some kind of fitness. So this is not just for health, which we obviously all know is important, but for that mental clarity and emotional resilience. And I can speak, you know, firsthand that strength training and tracking my workouts has really helped me not only get stronger and healthier from a physical perspective, but it's helped me create discipline and confidence, and it's been a huge boost for my mental health. There is just something about crunching those muscles and lifting those weights that gets the endorphins flowing. And if I'm feeling low, I just crave it. So physical movement or fitness, not only for physical health, but for emotional resilience. And then the third one we talked about is reading for growth. So I like to tie this into the concept of learning in public, which is something some people are more comfortable with than others. But what's really cool here is opportunities to share what you're reading as a leader. Right. So sharing that with your team, what, what you're currently reading, what you're currently reflecting on, or what you're exploring. And it doesn't have to be perfect, perhaps even better if it's imperfect, because this really sets this tone of having a growth mindset, being curious, and being transparent. So those are kind of the three things I think about when it comes to, like, daily habits. And I wanted to talk a little bit about compounding. We're all familiar with, like, compounding interest and how that starts to work for us over time. It's just the same with habits. These habits, they work for us from like an organizational process sort of perspective, right? Like regular one on one check ins, celebrating wins, prioritizing deep work. Great. Those things are improving performance. But the awesome thing is they're also shaping organizational culture, which is pretty cool, right?
And if any of your readers or listeners have read James Clear's Atomic Habits, he talks there about how we rise to the level of our goals, but we fall to the level of our systems. So like we're only really as good as our systems. And for leaders, those systems are the habits. So why, why is this all important? Why is it so powerful? These habits can give leaders the tools to protect their energy, maintain a balanced perspective amid all the chaos we deal with on a daily basis, and really keep evolving and growing. And ultimately that's for the benefit of not only themselves, but for the team and for the organizational mission as a whole, as well as their family and community and so on and so on.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: That is amazing. So there's so much stuff I want to reflect on here, but the one thing that really caught my attention or what comes to mind here is when you talked about the backbone of personal mastery and you mentioned in being imperfect, I talk a lot about leaders and leaders that feel that they're needing perfection or feeling like that they have to be perfect or that they've made it. And my thing is, as far as myself as a leader, I never say that I've made it and I'm always having a personal mastery as I love those words because it's basically me learning on a daily basis, taking in everything that I can daily to better myself and to improve on myself and improve my knowledge. And that's going to continuously be the way that I'm going to be for now to get the eternity for myself. Because the bet the more that we learn, the better we get. And the moment that we say that we've made it, that's when things start to crumble.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. So much continuous improvement. Not just for KPIs, so for ourselves. Oh, I love that so much. Yeah. And sharing imperfectly. We're all here on the same sort of path, the same sort of journey. And I think people ultimately respond better to authenticity than to some sort of fake front. Right to your point about having to show up perfectly and that sort of thing.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we want that vulnerability. People love people that are vulnerable. And I'm noticing that more and more as I get older, people want the real Andrew the real Mariah. They don't want the fake Andrew to fake Mariah or the different Mariah in different circumstances. If I talked to phone, if I have a video chat with her, if I see her in person, if we go for dinner, wherever it is, at a conference, it's the same Mariah. And that's what people want. They don't want to, they don't want to be talking about people like, oh well, they're so Mariah's so different in this situation compared to this situation. We don't want that. We want everybody to talk about everybody in the same vein, no matter what situation that it is. So I love that. So what? So we talked a little bit about it, but I kind of want to dig, dig a little bit deeper. What are some of the best ways to build hab.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Ways to build habits? I always start with this one tip, which is kind of like a very important tip just for general habit work. And that's if we focus on doing our habits in the same location and at the same time, those two anchors of time and place are really, really key for getting a new habit to stick. So if at all possible, we're trying to schedule our habits for the same day and times like that might include.
All right, I want some time for daily reading. I'm going to choose a reading chair. This is the chair I always read in. This is the always read at that sort of thing. So same time and place. The next thing I'll suggest is what's commonly called habit stacking or anchoring our new habits onto existing routines that we already have in place. Leaders, managers, all very busy. So this is a really great tool to take advantage of what that might look like. We used the example of journaling before. You always have your morning coffee, we're always getting caffeinated. So pair your journaling with your morning coffee. It's better than sitting there worrying about your day ahead. Get it out on paper, right? Or let's say you feel like you're not always prepared for meetings as you'd like and you feel like you're rushing from one thing to the next at the end of the day before maybe where you're doing your wrap up, closing things out, take a new take, put a new habit into place of taking a moment to review your calendar for the next day and getting prepared the night before. That way, if anything looks off, you have a bit of time to adjust and prepare for it. So stacking those habits. And I'll give you an example of a client I Worked with Julia, a customs manager at Nike. She was working on breaking habits like stopping the scroll. And she was using tools like things like digital detoxes, leaving her phone in the other room. However, at the same time, she was working on anchoring new habits into existing routines. She had. So she had this existing yoga routine. She gradually added meditation and layered that meditation on top, which makes a lot of sense. Right. And then later on, she had a new musical instrument that she really wanted to start practicing. And part of her working with this musical instrument, it was actually part of her spiritual practice. She wanted it part of her morning routine that was really important for her in order to feel balanced in her day as a busy leader. So those are some examples of, you know, how irl this is something you can put into place. Next is starting small. I am guilty of this, like wanting to do everything all at once or like go all in. And that's not the goal here. We're not trying to overhaul our life, our ways of being overnight. We're really just focusing on consistency. And that's a word like we'll just come back to and come back to and come back to in this conversation. So starting small, just take five minutes of reflection. You don't need to like, block 30 minutes, 30 minutes of meditation for the first go. Right. So even five minutes of reflection or a weekly learning moment is the type of small habit that's sustainable. It's easy to do. You can keep doing it. Next, tracking and reviewing progress. You've probably all heard you can't measure what you don't track. And mindfulness by tracking is a huge step in habits change. That I think is highly underrated. And the other thing I'll say is leaders really thrive on feedback loops. So it's like building in simple ways to reflect and acknowledge and celebrate those wins. So let's say you come out of a really tough meeting. The new habit might be. Let me sit down and take a moment to rate my emotional regulation on a scale of 1 to 10. So you're just kind of bringing some awareness to it, which kind of really helps slowly make improvements over time. Or you might use a visual habit tracker and give yourself that nice dopamine kick of checking off on that chart that's on your wall every sort of day. So tracking and reviewing progress. And we talked about mastery a bit here. And so we want to protect time for that.
So mastery, I don't think is something that will come to unintentionally. Right. We need to have some intention around that. And what does that look like? For me, that's blocking time on the calendar for what's really important. And from a leadership perspective, we need time for deep work. We're constantly being pulled into meetings. We have responsibilities with our team members, for one, on ones, that sort of thing. But we also need time for deep work and strategic thinking. If it's not scheduled, it's not sustained. You might throw it on the calendar one week, but the idea is to really create a recurring task. So you just always have that appointment with yourself. Great ROI on that investment in time. And then leading by example, we talked about habits rippling outward. When leaders are showing up and celebrating wins and setting healthy boundaries and having that growth mindset, it's really helping others to have permission to do the same. So then when we do that, it starts to become the culture in our organization, which is the norm, which in turn helps us keep the habit. So it's kind of like, I'm going to get this started, everyone else is going to pick up on it. Then it's going to be easier for me to continue because now it's the norm where I am. And then the last tip I'll probably give in this area is around our environment. Our environment is so important and the team around us, and we can actually leverage our environment for accountability. So one of the biggest ways to create a new habit is to use a visual cue. So an example is this reading habit. I'm going to put a book on my desk. When I see that book, it's going to remind me, yes, it's time to read my book. I got to read my book today. Or maybe there are some cultural norms we put into place, like Friday reflections or feedback rituals. Those are reinforcing positive behaviors. So it's like, I. I'm a manager. I have this book on my desk, I'm reading. But I'm also showing my team members when they come in the office that I have this reading habit, and I'm encouraging them to do it too. And now they know I have this reading habit, so they might ask me about it. So I better have something to tell them. Like, what if they keep seeing that book on my desk for the next three months? Right? So that's another kind of trick with that accountability that I really like to use.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: First off, I love the fact that a book reading, because that totally makes sense to me. Because if someone asks you, what do you do for relaxing? Oh, I'm reading this book. So I might say to you a week later, hey, Mariah, how's that book you're reading? So if you don't have anything to say, if you haven't read it, then you won't have any feedback on that book.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: You won't be able to tell, you won't be able to tell me what you, what you thought of it. So I, I do love that. And you mentioned focusing on habits. I know myself, I started to, I don't do it every day, but I have started certain days. If I'm really, really tired, I'll take my phone and if it needs to be charged, I will take it upstairs to the bedroom and I will charge it up there. And then, you know, if I'm watching TV or whatever, but it's not beside me, it's in the bedroom. So I'm not picking it up every two seconds to look at it. And sometimes it's nice to do that because you're not looking at it, you're not thinking, hey, forget about it, you know, think, okay, well you're focusing on the show, you forget about it sometimes that you're, it's beside you. So I don't do it every day, but the days I do, I do enjoy it on those days that I do.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Such a great habit to have, Andrew and I know digital detoxes, having our phone off, having it in another room is probably panic inducing for some people, especially if we have our work email on our phone. We have two phones, one for work, one for personal. So some ideas around experimenting with this, it might be shutting your phone off for an hour and just putting it in the drawer next to you, that sort of thing. It might be turning the phone off for a couple of hours in the evening. I like to start with weekend digital detoxes. So giving a couple of hours and then adding more time as time goes on. I've worked up to the point that sometimes I've had my phone off for like a full 24 hours. Now obviously you might need connectivity for family emergencies or things like that. So like you could turn your phone on and check for messages and then turn it back off, that sort of thing. But again, start small, practice, experiment and build up. It's probably going to go be hard to go from constant connectivity to a 24 hour digital detox. So start with half an hour or an hour and build from there.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: So I know we talked a little bit about habits and starting them. Why do you think people find it difficult to change their habits?
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Well, a lot of reasons. Reasons, a lot of reasons. Habit change can be one of the most difficult things. So first, all or nothing. Thinking. I'll start with this. I've been guilty of this in the past. People think if I can't do this perfectly, it's not worth doing at all. So maybe some of that perfectionism thinking. And so I encourage clients to reframe consistency as always returning, not never missing. And also okay, if you miss a day, just don't skip a second day because now you've got put a new habit in place of not doing the habit. So how did I get to 363 days of yoga by just showing up? I'll tell you, Andrew, this was pandemic times. There was some rough days from an emotional perspective. But even on those really hard days, I had a commitment to myself. So I showed up and I sat on that mat even though it might have meant gentle stretching. That was my yoga for the day. Because it was more important to show, show up and develop that consistency than to have it be a perfect yoga flow. Like yoga with Adriene. Right. Like it just doesn't make sense. And so it's in the showing up that creates the consistency and the habit building. It's not in that habit being perfect every single time you do it. And so that's probably the first thing. So avoiding all or nothing thinking and being okay with it looking different depending on the day. The next thing is lack of clarity. And I'm sure you will laugh at this one because leaders all know that goals need to be smart. Smart goals, right. So why would we make vague goals like I'm going to get healthy or I'm going to be more productive. Like that's not specific enough. So it's too hard to act on. So habits need to be specific and actionable. I talked about establishing the time and the place. One of the tools I like to suggest my clients use is creating an implementation intention. So I will do X habit X time and X location and writing that out, then putting it into the calendar and then doing the thing when it comes up. So that's specific and actionable. For me, it's actionable when it's in the calendar. If it's not, it's just loosey goosey floating around. Once it's in the calendar, that to me signifies and now it's actionable. We talked about environment before. Environment is huge. Great example. This isn't so common now, but back in the day when a lot of smokers were around, you might have a couple. One in the couple wants to quit smoking, the other isn't quite ready. How hard is it for that one person to quit when they're living with a smoker? Right. So again, if environment is not aligned, the people you're surrounding yourself with, your space, physical space, your schedule again, your social circle, it is literally like swimming upstream. So we might talk about this a bit more, but you know, establishing a reference group and slowly starting to bring people into your world or create environments for yourself that support the habit. The more you do of that, the more you'll be moving in that sort of direction. Close to all or nothing. Thinking is also like too much too soon. So again, trying to overhaul everything at once and that just leads to burnout. So I'll share with you that really sustainable change in my experience comes from layering in one change at a time. And that's true in my case as well. So I left a 10 year drug addiction behind. That was the first major change I made. And then I moved on to building an exercise and getting consistent with that. And then I quit nicotine, left that in my rear view and then I dropped the booze. Now can you imagine one day if I decided to do all four of those things all at once, it would have been very disheartening and disappointing. Right. And obviously this takes time. But again, I think back to the person who wants to lose weight. If we gain weight, we don't gain that weight overnight. So why would we think that we could just drop it overnight? It takes time to undo these things as well. Right. So one thing at a time really helps build that foundation of self trust. I talked about, you know, really lacking emotional coping skills. And once I started getting those wins, all of the sudden the self confidence and the self trust started building up and I was more excited and optimistic about making future changes. So, you know, small changes, leverage for bigger changes and that really helps us avoid burnout. So that's a lot. But I think I'll maybe mention one more and that's having a support system. Right. So without accountability or community, it can be easy to give up when life gets busy or progress feels slow. Again with that thing like expecting everything to change overnight. You know, if we're looking in the mirror, looking for change and we're looking every day, we're not going to see that change every day, we're going to see it over time. So sometimes it's hard to keep up with it. So a workaround might be finding an accountability buddy. Is there someone else in your world who's pursuing the same or similar goals? Can you create like Kind of an informal partnership. So I was focused on establishing a daily meditation habit, and I was really struggling with that. It didn't come easily for me. So I set up an accountability partnership with a friend. She was trying to do the same. All that looked like was each day we sent each other a quick text to say, I've completed my meditation. There was no judgment, just gentle encouragement and support. So that's a really, like, low tech, you know, low barrier to entry sort of partnership that really not only benefits you, but the person you're partnering with as well.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: So the thing that really caught my attention was when you talk about lack of clarity, that is so important to me. If you're my leader and you give me instructions on something, but you're not clear on the expectations or what you're looking for in that task that you're giving to me, and then I come back and I don't give it to you the way that you wanted or you were looking for it to be done, then there is a little bit of uneasiness because you're like, okay, well, I know you did this, but I was looking forward to do it that way. And the impression was, okay, that's great. But I didn't get that. I didn't understand that that was what you were trying to get me to accomplish. So that is super important to me. So when you say the need to be specific when we're talking about our habits, it's very important to do it. Because if we're not spec, then how do we expect others to do exactly what we're expecting or what we're looking for?
[00:29:03] Speaker A: And it made me think of that question, that if we're in a position where we're being tasked with something and we are not sure we want to ask the question, what does success look like? And like, so often, that's just never discussed. And it results in exactly that kind of circumstance you're talking about. So we can use that question in a professional circumstance, but we can also use it in a personal circumstance for ourselves. Right. When we're looking at our habits, what does success look like? And that will help you create a habit and a goal that's specific remembering that we are all unique individuals. And just because so and so Guru says you need to walk 10,000 steps, guess what? That might not be the right fit for you. So what does success look like for you? Your unique life, lifestyle and values, not what other people think you should be doing?
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's whatever. Whatever you think is right. If you have Something specific that you want to do or a habit you want to get into, whether it's personally or professionally, then yes, it's got to be something that you want to do. But yes, you gotta, you gotta own it and you gotta understand, okay, this is what I want to do. And you're the only one that understands what that looks like or what that would mean to you if it comes out the way that you want it to, for sure. So how does culture affect habits?
[00:30:21] Speaker A: This is a really great question. And there's, there's two different avenues that come to mind. And so it's how culture affects habits, but then also how do habits affect culture? So I'd love to explore both of those routes. Yeah, most of our conversation today has been centered around building or getting consistent with new slash good habits. Right. But the other side of the coin is bad or unhealthy habits. So like, let's start there. Culture. So culture shapes our habits from day one. So our upbringing, family dynamics and early experiences. And I would be remiss, not to mention that unfortunately for many of us, that includes childhood trauma. So the way that we cope, communicate, and even our work styles are often modeled for us before we're even conscious of it. So that's the first thing, and I think something we're all familiar with now, but always helps to have a reminder is that many of these so called bad habits are actually learned coping mechanisms.
So as I mentioned, I picked up destructive habits as a way to mask my emotions. I didn't know how to process them. So some examples and how we might see them showing up for ourselves now as leaders. Procrastination might come from a deep seated fear of judgment. Right. This is something I've experienced. Perfectionism might come from a need to feel in control again, something I have personally experienced and then overworking. So a way to earn validation or feel worthy.
So the one thing I want to get across when I talk about these things, which I think is really powerful is these are not personal or moral failings. So sometimes we are internalizing these things. Right. They're just emotional adaptations. We just reached out and grabbed the first thing, the first response that seemed to solve the problem in the moment. So for leaders, these ingrained habits can show up as reactivity in decision making. I'm sure we've all seen that. Right. Or difficulty delegating. Right. Or maybe there's people pleasing tendencies or struggling to trust their own instincts. I've been there. And unfortunately these are things that can often hold us back from advancing in our career and making the kind of impact we want with our teams. It can lead to things like burnout and miscommunication or environments. Again, if you talk about the ripple effect where your team is now feeling like they need to be performing and they need to be perfect rather than just showing up as the, you know, honest, imperfect human beings that they are, the good news is that the habits can be fixed over time and again. It's creating mindfulness around it. Once you recognize, okay, I have this habit, this way of being, I think this is where it came from. Now I have a choice. Is this way of being serving the leader I am trying to become, serving the type of leader I am trying to become. And the answer is probably going to be no. But again, not trying to overhaul everything overnight, starting small. So what might that look like? Learning to pause before reacting. We don't need to respond right away. We can pause in that moment or we can even, you know, pause the conversation and come back to at a later time. We can create those rules for ourselves. Maybe it's really building in reflection time so that we can become more self aware of how we're showing up. We're practicing putting boundaries into place like one boundary at a time. So again, these won't just be personal wins. Know that when you are doing this, you are modeling really great behavior for your team and everyone else around you. Right? You're changing the culture within to change the culture without. So those are some ways that culture can affect habits. But again, kind of coming back to how habits can affect culture, I love to reference James Clear. So we tend to adopt habits that are praised and accepted by our culture. It's that like wanting to fit in with the tribe. The oldest story in time, right? If our work environment is like hustle culture, we're all about overwork. Even if you know you have to prioritize rest, you're going to find it really hard.
Culture shapes what we see as normal and accepted behavior. One of the ways most effective ways to change a habit is to join a community. I mentioned reference groups before. So a community that already has your desired habits in place. So a great example is someone who wants to like get into running or be more consistent. They might go to their local running room and they might join like the Saturday running group. Because now I've committed to this thing and I'm going to show up with this group of runners who are all like into running and like I'm going to be a runner too. And it's just really encouraging. To have that kind of community support. And I've seen how effective this can be in coaching communities like peer support and aligned values. It just makes it a lot easier to change habits and make it more meaningful. It's kind of why I created the co working club I have. There is some science behind it which I won't get into, but it's really an environment that encourages integrity and gentle follow through. And it's because we're all in this group together focused on productive work. You can't help but just want to do what everyone else in the group is doing as well.
So again, coming back to the environment, finding groups of people, spending more of your time with people who are the types of people you'd like to become versus the types of people you used to be or are coming from. If that makes any sense.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: A hundred percent sense to me. All this, all the stuff that you said, if we're going to put it all in one ball or one circle, the thing that jumps out at me is the word assumptions. So you mentioned procrastination. You mentioned destructive disruptive behavior. You mentioned the stuff that you went through at the beginning, the stories of the things that you went through. There's many people that have went through that stuff. When we have assumptions or when we're assuming something about somebody, it doesn't help the situation.
We shouldn't assume of something on somebody without getting to know them or knowing what they're all about. Once we do, we still can't assume or we shouldn't assume, but we should have a better understanding of why they think that way or why they do the things that you do. So you mentioned procrastination. I've been in work situations where people have been talking about the boss and saying, I gave this to him or asked him to do this thing for me two weeks ago and I still haven't heard back from him. And I asked him last week and he said he's gonna get to it. So he's procrastinating. He can't get me to stuff that I need quicker than than I need it. But we don't know what's going on with that guy or that woman. We have no idea what's happening with them. So we're assuming that he just is procrastinating and he can't get it done. He doesn't want to get it done or it's not important to him. We have no idea. We just have to understand and be sympathetic to what could be happening. And as long as you're like checking in or having check ins with them and saying, hey, did you have a chance to look at that stuff? Whatever, then that's the most important thing. And I know it's really, really hard, Mariah. And I know it's hard for people to do it and I struggle with it sometimes too. While I will admit it, I'll, I'll put my hand up and I'll admit it that sometimes it's hard for me, but can't assume that somebody doesn't want to do something when it could be a whole rounded circle of a situation.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: I love where you're going with this and there's two things I want to say. I think the only thing we should be focusing on assuming is positive intent. Okay. And like, again, this is something that has been a hard lesson learned for me. It's very easy to assume negative. They hate me, they're displeased with my work performance, they're out to get me or whatever, whatever, whatever. Or they clearly don't care about my boss, doesn't care about me because they're not replying to my email.
So let's flip the script and have this reframe of assuming positive intent. And if we think about it internally, we know all of the stuff we're dealing with. It might be work issues, family issues, financial constraints and that sort of thing. So the second thing is compassion. Have compassion for that person because guess what, we are all going through it in some shape or form. And yes, the severity of the experience is subjective to the individual. But if you're ever in a moment where you're feeling like victim mentality, they're, they're not doing the right thing or assuming positive, negative things, just remember, guess what, we're all going through it. So putting that compassionate hat back on and having empathy as you mentioned, is a really good practice.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: And I'll just mention this and we'll continue on here. I'm not talking about when someone is treating somebody poorly or making an environment unsafe. I'm not talking about that. That's a totally different story. Listeners, don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that we should accept someone who's treating somebody poorly. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is just have a little bit of understanding and let's say, okay, maybe this is the way that they're acting. It's not acceptable. However, maybe this is the situation. So we kind of like a, a twofold of this is what's going on. This what it could be, but the truth is always in the middle is kind of the way I'm looking at it.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: And we won't get into this, but it could potentially be a whole other conversation. If we do get to that point where we're being mistreated or we do actually feel that way, it's a really great, great opportunity to request a clearing conversation. And that's when we get everything out in the open. And that's an opportunity to mend those relationships. And in my experience, I have found it's often not what we've assumed.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: So. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. So in closing, Mariah, what is one takeaway that you want our audience to get from this episode?
[00:39:37] Speaker A: I say two takeaways because I think there's two. The one that we've talked about throughout is consistency. So, like, that's the given. Right. And I let's think about it like putting in the wraps even on the days you don't feel like it. So I don't feel like reflecting. Just reflect for 30 seconds. Okay. You don't have to go all out. Just show up in a way that's sustainable. But then the second thing I will add is all of this is for not if we overlook our mindset. So. Right. Mindset is the foundation of all successful habit change. Unless we shift our mindset, I am becoming the type of person who exercises regularly. I'm becoming the type of leader who pauses before I react. I am becoming the type of leader that prepares the night before for the day ahead. Until we change our mindset, our old identity will kind of keep. Keep pulling us back in. So again, just focus on casting votes towards the person you want to be. As long as there are more votes or more reps of that habit than less, we will be moving in the direction we want to be moving in.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: I totally agree with you 100%.
Listen, I think that this was such an amazing conversation. My call to action would be anybody that's listening like Share Follow this episode I want to take the time to thank you for coming on here today, Mariah.
The one memory that I have of you is the first ever conversation that we had over the phone. And I'm not sure if you remember that day, but it was an amazing conversation. And what stuck out to me was the fact that a, you were super excited to have that conversation with me. Like, we've never, we had never met before. The second thing that came out to me was that you were super, like excited and willing to help out or help me out in any way. That you could. And when I hung up the phone, I thought, wow, this person doesn't know me from Adam. But yet she was sticking her neck out to say if I needed something, give her a call or send her a message and she would listen. So those are those two things that stuck out at me. So you were a huge reason why when I talk about building rapport, that conversation was a prime example of why I do what I do. You are a tremendous individual and I am inspired by you and the work that you do on a regular basis.
[00:41:48] Speaker A: Thank you. That really means a lot to me. I definitely like to provide value, whether that's in, you know, conversations like this or calls I have with clients and things of that nature. If any of your audience wants to go deeper, I set up a special URL for
[email protected] Mariahbacus Brainstorm if you'd like, we can explore what's on your mind, talk about some habits you like to build and break, what you might need to get there. At the least you'd have some clarity and some next steps. Nothing for sale. I just again love to connect with folks who are doing meaningful work and I also talked about helping provide some clarity. I have a brand new free guide called the Visionaries Prioritization Playbook. It's a two part guide, PDF and video to help you cut through the overwhelm and really focus on what actually moves the needle. So if that's of interest to anyone, it's a free tool. Just reach out to me on LinkedIn or by email at Mariah vibehigh here.com and Andrew, that includes you because I would love to have your feedback on it as well.
[00:43:00] Speaker B: Oh I definitely will look at those for sure.
On behalf of myself and my guest Mariah, I'd like to thank you all for listening today and until next time, be safe. And remember everyone that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything you.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Have been listening to let's Be Diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content, hit Subscribe.
