Paul Leon’s Behavioral Assessment He Has 3% Goodwill

Plug: Paul Leon here. I want to take my hat off for a moment and speak directly to you, the listener or watcher of our show here at the managers Mic thank you so much for being consumer of the show and I want to take our relationship a step further. When you join our newsletter at the managers Mic.com website I'm going to give you a free resource called selling script to sky rocket sales.

Paul Leon: I have a returning guest, Curtis, which I'm very happy about this episode. I'm excited because Curtis and I, just for context, only had minutes going through an assessment that his company sent me. And if I'm being frank, Curtis, there's very few that can call me out on my stuff and I really hold it in high regard and but in the assessment and going through it probably in under 20 minutes felt like Curtis knew for years and for context Curtis and I this is probably only our third conversation so I'm pretty excited to go through some results he'll flash them down the screen we won't be showing it the whole time but Eureka Connect solution is cool and I've had the privilege

Plug: And my promise to you is that resources to help you totally free, evaluate your current script and see where it might need some improvement.

Paul Leon: to be a frontline user of it. And we're gonna talk through my behavior results because I think one of the key things of being a leader is getting fast feedback loops so you can grow as a professional. Would you not agree with that, Curtis?

Plug: Thank you so much for being a listener and watcher of the show. And now back to the episode.

Curtis Sprouse: Yeah, I think, what's nice about this is I always call it behavioral mechanism of action. Why is it that Paul does what he does? And we break it down into, and again, we'll share with the guests your profile, because you've been so gracious in saying just, ⁓ hey, Kurt, put this all out there. But the things your your discipline, your work ethic is one of the things that gets you in trouble, because it causes you to be very transactional at times. And so Having an understanding of the magnitude of that, I mean, I can say that, but when we start to show people the numbers and we see, ⁓ Jesus, this guy's got a 96 for discipline, you know, there's 4 % of the world that's more disciplined than he is, his goodwill's a three. 97 of the world has more goodwill. Okay, why is there such a disconnect there? And it's not because you don't care and you're not a nice guy, it's because you're so driven to deliver that gets in the way of that interpersonal stuff. the social skills, the goodwill that you and I talked about yesterday. we look at things like your communication score's low. You can be a man of few words, why? Because you know, your reflectivity, analyze things very quickly. You're impatient, you're moving, you need to get things done. So you can be a man of few words and then you get very frustrated when people don't get, well, why don't they get me? Isn't it clear what we need to get done here? No, it's not clear because you didn't explain it. It's the curse of knowledge. You have this wonderful picture in your head of the way the world should be, and you get frustrated when the rest of the world doesn't see it with the clarity with which you see it.

Paul Leon: laughing because I have this bad habit, Curtis. lot of people don't know this whenever I get I don't know if uncomfortable is the word but when it's somebody it's like, yeah, that's pretty factually accurate. I chuckle maybe I feel like as a defense mechanism and spot on just to be very clear. I'm not laughing at you or what saying because I don't believe it. I'm laughing because what's making me uncomfortable is the fact that you're accurate. in our dialogue. And I'm like, you're calling me out on my shit. And I'm like, I got to get better. And that's why it's important that I get these fast feedback loops. you're right. And that's why I've really enjoyed our conversation yesterday. I to do this podcast with you. Well, you can keep going just because I think it's important for me to grow and work on these skills. So in this screen, what you're pulling up is the assessment I took with Eureka Connect. That's what we're looking at right now.

Curtis Sprouse: Right, yeah, So right now what we're doing is we're looking at Paul's data and what we see here, we're going to focus on the left-hand column. Energy, he moves at a good pace. And, you know, if we look at his dominance score and we call these genetics, energy dominance, reflectivity, authority and discipline and competing because they're, how are you hardwired? my energy score is 99, right? So I walked out fast, talk fast. everything I do is at the speed of light. ⁓ That's always good because sometimes I'm moving too quickly through life. ⁓ You've a nice balance. You move in the upper quartile of the energy without being too quick. Dominance, same thing. You're not ego driven, Paul. Dominance drives and it's ⁓ the trait that drives one's ego. ⁓ You and are comfortable controlling but don't need to control. Remember I cited a little earlier reflectivity. That's the creative side of the brain versus the pragmatic side of the brain. You think in the abstract, you think in a creative way, your mind processes data quickly. ⁓ Authority, why is that 11? Well, you don't like authority. You don't like the autocratic side of it. You don't like that. Paul, I need you to draft up a report for me and don't ask me why I just get it done. We alluded to discipline, work ethic, and again, there's a perfectionist side of you. There's a side of you that has to get things done, it has to accomplish. And then competing, you're what's called a strategic competitor. So when we look at these things, we look at what we call an effective range. And what the effective range constitutes is where consistency occurs. It's not that it's people can't be world-class if they're not in the range, ⁓ it's... You know, if we look at your authority score, there are times where you're going to have to put structure and process in place and you don't always lead with that. There are times where you're going to have to not overthink something and manage that creative side of your brain. And there are times where Paul's going to have to not worry about perfection, but be realistic about what those around him can achieve. we, talked about this a little bit yesterday, you, don't want your children to go through life thinking they have to be perfect.

Paul Leon: Yeah, now you're right.

Curtis Sprouse: It's the, there's the ⁓ idea that ⁓ we strive for perfection to achieve excellence, It's ⁓ attributed Vincent Lombardi, but it isn't actually what he, wasn't what he said. the concept is there, which is, Yes, we want to great things. But there was a wonderful thing last night, if you watched any of the Olympics, where the young woman that won the gold medal in skating, she had quit for two years and then she just came back two years ago and said, okay, maybe I'll try this again. And the difference between her and the silver and the gold medal, the winning the gold the and the bronze medal was she wasn't mechanical. She was just skating.

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Curtis Sprouse: Like she said, okay, I did all this training, but now it's time for me to perform. And I'm not going to think about the performance. I'm just going to do the performance. And for you, it's not overthinking why it's not perfect. It's getting people to say, let's just get this done. And then we can assess where we can improve later on. And it's a shift in thinking for you. It's not putting the emphasis on the perfection. It's putting the emphasis on have we prepared? We execute.

Paul Leon: Okay.

Curtis Sprouse: then we can go back and assess and improve.

Paul Leon: thought what was funny about our dialogue yesterday was just for context. ⁓ We, ⁓ we had a meeting, we didn't have enough time and I started meeting with Curtis and you can always find the traits of a good professional based on how calm they can be in storming times because I started the meeting I feel kind of guilty admitting this where I go I go all right Curtis I feel like the point of this meeting is this this and this and kind of went down to it I loved about Curtis's reaction is he didn't flinch he still had the same face and he was like who is this guy like because did a podcast and you saw the host cowboy hat and I like to have fun. want to be clear, but when I'm in working mode, I think one of the things I'm guilty of, like if I'm being real with you and in fact, and this is why it's so powerful is getting me like, all right, here's what we're doing, let's just do this. And what called me out on yesterday was just. that because you you it's a choice you. I wonder if you could speak to what you kind what you said to me yesterday, which I thought was really powerful about the fact that what I can do is a choice, but I'm just choosing not to do and how you kind of just called me out on my stuff. I thought that was very powerful because it made me better today and my early morning meetings I had.

Curtis Sprouse: Well, Super here, bring that up for you again. Let me just bring it up again. I'm going to walk the audience through some of this so that sometimes the visuals are very helpful, Because it helps people see things. So if we look now at the profile, what we're looking at is what's called motivational theory. And these are those genetic drivers that I took from that previous. screenshot where you saw the raw scores. And if you look, drive is a function of, how strong is Paul's drive? Well, he's got great energy. He's got great dominance, balanced dominance. We talked about the excessive discipline and competing. He's what's called a strategic competitor. He'll engage with a sense of urgency and a desire to achieve. one of the things that we talked about yesterday was this concept of interpersonal skills. One of the most important dynamics of a high performer or a great leader is what's called social acuity. It's the intersection between social skills and goodwill. And if we look, know, Paul's score for goodwill, gosh, does he not like people?

Paul Leon: It's a three. It's so bad.

Curtis Sprouse: ⁓ yeah, it's three out of a hundred. mean, for, you know, what are we doing here? ⁓ But there, are a faction of people that just don't like other people. Believe me, I find them. I don't believe that's Paul. I mean, the guy wouldn't be doing podcasts if he didn't like people, didn't like learning about them. But when you look at his discipline score of 96, he's so driven to achieve and accomplish and ⁓

Paul Leon: Ha

Curtis Sprouse: to the point he was making earlier, when I got on the phone with him, on the Zoom call with him yesterday, it was like a different person than the one that had interviewed me for the podcast we did previously. He was so business-like and so serious. And so, well, what's the agenda? We have a half an hour, get to the point, Kurt. And I was like, wow, who is this guy? But once we got past that 20 minute, point in our conversation yesterday. You went back to being the guy that I met on the podcast. And so what I'm looking at here is emotionally, social skills and goodwill. Social skills 44 says, you know how to build a relationship. You just choose who you let into the circle. And part of it is it's an equation for you. Is this person someone that's going to help me achieve? we talked about, ⁓ and share this with your your guests, you're pretty stressed out. And it's because you're so worried about not achieving, not accomplishing that, this is going by so fast. And if I don't get all this stuff done, ⁓ how that reflect on how I conducted myself? And, ⁓

Paul Leon: Yeah, right.

Curtis Sprouse: I don't want anyone to live in that space. I mean, why are you working so hard if you can't enjoy it? And what I think really resonated with you yesterday was when I said, is this really what you want for your children? For Noah and Eva, is this really what you want from them? And you stopped. And when you thought about that, you're like, no, that's not what I want. And I didn't share this with you yesterday, but if you're not teaching them how to do it, who is? Who's gonna teach them how to balance this stuff and how to find joy in working hard, but also playing hard? hard doesn't mean that you can't have fun. or that you can't help others have fun. And so on the transactional side, communication score's low, you're a man of few words. Get to the point. so you don't always share what's between your two ears. High reflectivity, you think in the abstract, you think quickly, discipline, you're highly organized with regard to what you wanna accomplish, how you wanna do it, and you don't always paint that picture in a way that others have clarity as to what you're thinking and why. and that hence the lower communication. Low collaboration is a function of, a lot of times you say, it's just easier for me to do it than to teach Kurt how to do it because he's gonna get it wrong anyway. So I'll just go do it myself.

Paul Leon: you're not And want to be clear, Kurt, if there was a project we were on, I would, I would give you space. Like I want to be clear, but I do struggle with a of control. I would agree with that statement. And that were sometimes I'm like, I should have just done this myself. And that delegation is a skill letting go. ⁓ is a skill, which is why of the things I do want to take my hat off to you like a hundred percent ⁓ being able to give feedback effectively to somebody who ⁓ could not have handled as well as you did is a ⁓ skill. In fact, I'll share with you something that we talked about. I have no, I'm open book is when I told you my is that I'm going to die. I'm gonna leave my family with nothing. I'm just being totally frank. And I was like, that's a real fear of mine. God calls me home. My wife and kids are destitute or whatever. And this was like, is like a belief I had. And you broke my belief. And you're like, well, did you have life insurance? And I was like, well, ⁓ And then you ⁓

Curtis Sprouse: Go buy more.

Paul Leon: then like right there you called me out. was like, damn it. ⁓ I was damn it. He's right.

Curtis Sprouse: It's, and that's that high reflectivity where you get yourself in this sort of, you get yourself in this spiral that, know, I need to work harder. I need to get faster. I need to make the business bigger. And those are all good things. I'm not saying you shouldn't. do the same thing in my life, but I think that, you know, if you've got insurance in place, we joked for years and years. My wife always used to say, is the premium paid? Because if something happens to you, you know, I just want know that I don't have to worry about anything. And. I always used to say, that's why you're loving me to death. Because I'm worth more dead than I am alive right now. so, so think that a lot times for guys like you, because of that need to be perfectionist, you have to look at what are the things I can do right now that are, that I can that I can grasp, that I can, that I can implement at peace with the that you don't have to accomplish it all today. This is a marathon. It's not sprint

Paul Leon: And that's true.

Curtis Sprouse: If we go back to sharing, And if I bring up, yeah.

Paul Leon: Yeah, sure. Whatever your call. So we'll share it. I want to be clear. don't share anything without Curtis's permission in this podcast, because I want everyone to understand that if you want to leverage this solution, out to Eureka Connect ⁓ so can move forward with this solution and know how you can leverage this for your own skills. Cause this is an important, very important solution. And I have to say, I did not expect this level of detail. A lot of people come to me with assessments like this, and this one, I have to admit, is pretty well easy to grasp, and it's very thorough. So I'm very impressed. But go on, good. Thank you.

Curtis Sprouse: So, sense of humor, I'm bringing this up as I think your audience will say, why is it, does he have no sense of humor? That green line too is a line that we've established based on assessing thousands and thousands of people. We identified those people that are, we call high performers in that they're consistent with how they execute their life personally and professionally. And I can get into the details of that. I won't do it today, but ⁓ for you, lighten up, goodwill. Show the care and compassion. Let people see that the guy does care and he is a, I can just tell the way you talk about your kids that you care. You just, you just suppress it and the competing score, that's your, your, your strategic competitor. You're not aggressive. So you're not going to be a big risk taker from a standpoint of putting yourself out there and making yourself self-deprecating. You're not going to lead with that. And I pledge you today for being so open. ⁓ I want to show this slide. because we look at stability and said you're pretty stressed, but ⁓ the good is you're actually overconfident. You know you're good at what you do, I mean, to an excess. ⁓ Your avoidance, not an avoider, but you're also not a kind of guy that goes and picks a fight, 22 for avoidance. ⁓ And you're you're open-minded at the onset, but then you'll make a decision and ⁓ What you do right now, which is this sort of self-awareness, you try to accommodate because you realize that you can be difficult, so you're over accommodating. And ⁓ what not doing is you're not engaging with the balance that would benefit you in ⁓ the you engage in. now, one of the things that's interesting about your goodwill and accommodation scores, if your goodwill is three, and your accommodations well, then we say, he's sort of stubborn and once he digs in, he doesn't care. And the goodwill probably amplifies the fact that he doesn't really care about the person. But you know, social skills, you do know how to build connections. Your 44 for social skills tells us that. And your accommodations course says, this is you taking the foot off the gas, realizing that at times you can be difficult and challenging. So you're accommodating too much. Making sense?

Paul Leon: Yeah, it does make sense and it's funny because when you're showing sense of humor, don't, did I tell you that I did standup comedy for five years before I had to put on hold for the MBA or did I not tell you that when we first met? don't remember. Yeah, I did a lot and no, I did it a lot in Orlando and if you see like,

Curtis Sprouse: Now, I don't know if you talked about that, but go ahead.

Paul Leon: certain big-time comics out of her land others this guy eric myer who unfortunately passed away uh... had opportunities to rub shoulders with some of the best of the best and open for some pretty fun people but what's funny about that humor score is like I was looking at I was laughing because of the things when I was in the thick of it and those who don't know anything about the stand-up world it's hard of all the speaking styles in my personal opinion making people intentionally is hard but when when I did it for the first 18 months I drove my wife insane who was pregnant with our first child And but I said to myself, if I go out night, I'll just get better. So I never did. And this is the scariest thing. I never looked at stand up as always trying to make people laugh. It was a project and a skill that I just wanted to develop. i don't know if that frame makes sense and why those scores reflect some pretty interesting accuracy into how i approached even something like humor it wasn't that it wasn't fun it but it was a project if that makes sense and you're welcome to comment on anything there now that i've shared that with you yeah

Curtis Sprouse: I love the way you describe it. Yeah, I just love the way you describe it because you talk about out every night, discipline, and not worrying about whether they laugh, but getting through my material and work on the technique, discipline. ⁓ ⁓ opposed to, many comedians are out there like, I just need to get the laugh. I need to get that laugh. And they talk about how disheartened they are if they don't get to laugh, ⁓ But that didn't discourage You were more like process. I got to work my process,

Paul Leon: Yeah. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. ⁓ I saw that a lot.

Curtis Sprouse: So it is, it's very telling. wanna show something else here too, because there's something that you, I think is important for you to share. And I think it's very telling on the kind of person you are. let me just get to this slide, independence. ⁓ I don't like it when people define themselves as introvert or extrovert.

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Curtis Sprouse: But I think it's more important to look at independence. And if we look at your reflectivity and expertise, that's independence of thinking. Expertise, Paul has a lot of confidence in himself and how he does things, which gives you the confidence to stand up on the stage and be in a comedy night and know that you're not funny at times and not let it bother you. That's that I'm gonna execute this and I'm just gonna get through it. And that's that. that extreme confidence in the reflectivity, the ability to intellectually do that in your own head without needing others to affirm whether you're good or bad or indifferent. ⁓ Then there's the independence of how you operate. Authority, you don't like the autocratic side of it. Dominance, you don't need to be on the stage, but you're very comfortable doing it if you have to. And then discipline, you do like setting goals for yourself and others. So from an operational perspective, your dominance and your discipline do bring a connectiveness to the world around you. But look at what happens when we get to the interpersonal side. From a transactional side, collaboration, low. And from a social skills, moderately low. Meaning you can do it when you have to and when you believe it's necessary. And what I would say is, Paul, the opportunity for you is to elevate the collaboration social skills piece. Transactionally, more interaction and social skills bring people closer. You are more effective when people see that later side of you because you're never going to get rid of that high discipline side. That need to achieve at the high level and accomplish things, it's not going to go away. The question is how do you leverage it more consistently across the broader spectrum of people?

Paul Leon: Yeah. I like the way you explain that. had a project that I was on and I can always tell when I you hit the nail on the head when you said that you have to man to being able to collaborate. I don't think he uses exact words, but there was a project I was on and it was a lot of work and I got a message. It was hey, and it's somebody who without saying names, it's who we don't he They don't, I don't know if you ever met somebody like this, Curtis, where they don't play well in their sandbox with you, I guess is the phrase. And I got this message. And I was like, okay. Like I knew, like I knew in my heart and in my stomach,

Curtis Sprouse: Yeah, a lot of people.

Paul Leon: This is going to be one of those situations where I need to like shut up and I had to be quiet the whole time and just kind of take it everything I did wrong. And if I'm being completely frank with you, I was I don't want to do this. ⁓ I'll give you example. My son was doing martial arts ⁓ I go into the arts studio and the instructor of this martial arts studio. the wife goes, hey, coach wants to talk to you after class and I hate situations like that so much because I don't know if you're like me but like my mind goes to like worst case always oh my son did and if I'm being more frank with you I was pretty defensive the whole time sitting there waiting for this martial arts class to end because I was like I don't want to have this talk I was just like in my head I was I'm gonna cancel this membership I don't need this garbage like like I was like if I have to hear one thing on this Saturday

Curtis Sprouse: you

Paul Leon: morning about it, canceled. I was in that mood. So ⁓ you're the nail on the head and I'm giving you some personal examples to reinforce your feedback solid as well too.

Curtis Sprouse: It's so helpful and I appreciate you sharing that. you sit back in that chair, put yourself back in the chair in ⁓ the if you will, and as you're sitting there, your son's to learn. He's there to learn how to physically use his body and intellectually know when and how to use it. a wonderful thing. know, I did a lot of wrestling in high school and martial arts is an opportunity to develop yourself physically and intellectually. The only thing good that can come of this when that instructor wants to talk to you is that you gain insight into what they're seeing. And it's an opportunity for you and for your son to learn from that. ⁓ so hopefully what you took from it. That not the, he's going to say something bad about my kid.

Paul Leon: Yeah. No, you're right.

Curtis Sprouse: No, he's probably going to, whether it's a, your son's doing really well or ⁓ Hey, your son isn't this well. And here's some things that we're seeing either way is an opportunity for you to interact them with your son in a way that's positive and helps him to grow. I think you got to look at all of that, that, one of things I like to say And we'll talk a little bit about the concept of listening. Listening profile is a precursor to comprehension. what distracts you from listening is your high expertise over confidence, your high reflectivity, your intellectual impatience, and your low communication score. so what happens is I start talking to you about something and you're like, know, I know this cold. I don't know this if what Kurt's saying. is necessary or I don't know if he understands it the way I understand it, And ⁓ your mind will wander, So you've gone to judgment and what we need you to do is move away from judgment and move into curiosity. ⁓ Why Kurtz doing this? Move away from judgment. Whenever you're judging something, you you walk into the room and your wife is like, Paul, did you do this?

Paul Leon: Hmm. I like that move away from judgment. Okay

Curtis Sprouse: Well, does she not understand how hard I work and that I've been busy all day and night and night and and night and and night and night and night and and night night and and night and night and and and night night and night and night and night night and night night and night and night night and night

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: You can see how that can escalate, I used to use the.

Paul Leon: ⁓ yeah. See, I've lived it. nothing. ⁓

Curtis Sprouse: I ⁓ to use the one with my three children, I'd go down in the kitchen and, I'd yell up stairs and I'd say, Hey, Max, get down here. This kitchen's a mess. Clean the damn kitchen up. And, and he'd be yelling down the steps, I wasn't even in the kitchen. It was Luke and Maya. I didn't have anything to do with it. As opposed to thinking about, reframing that, Hey, Max, what are you doing? You got a minute? Come down here. I'm in the kitchen.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: And he comes down and I say, mom's going to be home around 3 30 from work. She was going to make a really nice dinner. I get to run upstairs. Do you think you can help clean up the kitchen? I don't know if you made the mess or not, but I could really use some help cleaning it up for mom. do I want? Do I want the kitchen clean or do I want to yell at Max? yeah, it good to yell at Max, but if I, if I engage him and ask for help, the response, he might still say, I'm busy all the time, which a teenager might do, but more often than not, they'll say, yeah, sure. I got to help. So I always think about what is it do you want out of the interaction? And it also starts with, appreciating the person as a precursor to engaging in the the Right? And that's what I want you to think about. That's what your data is suggesting that we could get, Paul could get a lot more out of the world around him if he took a minute to just, you know, we talked about yesterday. I think I told you I was a little frustrated somebody wasn't getting back to me. And then I found out his wife went in for open heart surgery. He's been dealing with that for two weeks, There's a reason why he didn't get back to me.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: I was not his priority, rightfully so. I think, the and what shared with your audience today is a lot around this, interpersonal model, tremendous opportunity for you to elevate that, from a of, ⁓ of, the transactional part, and collaboration, frequency of interaction, increase it, amount of information. ⁓

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: my wife clearly understand what I'm thinking, not just words? Does my son understand ⁓ what I'm thinking and the thought process that went into this thinking? That's important, especially as you're teaching people things. know, the teach, helping them the why you've taken the approach you have.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Meh. Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: One of the other things I was looking at in your profile, we talk about this thing called influence. You influence by discipline and reward. reward ⁓ measures relative to performance. And one of the other things we haven't talked about is your decision-making score's slow. You hate making mistakes. You hate making mistakes. And reward is you like confirmation. Your reward score's an 86. You like confirmation from others that you're getting it right. hey, that was a good job. I really liked that podcast. And so looking for that affirmation. My wife has very high reward score. She needs hear it, ⁓

Paul Leon: I do. Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: She knows she's good at what she does, but she likes to hear that. I have a lower reward score. I don't need it as much. I like it, but I don't need it. I don't not make a decision because I'm worried about whether you think I'm doing the right thing or not. That's another thing you to just watch out for that. Now, if we look all influences based on connection, so it's made up of social skills, goodwill, expertise and communication. You do the expertise thing well.

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Curtis Sprouse: Overconfidence, you've got down, but low communication, low goodwill, low social skills, moderately low. So by elevating your communication, how you're exchanging information, by elevating your care and compassion that people see you care, and by elevating that and strengthening the connection, you're gonna be much better at executing on the discipline side and the reward side. So always put the person first. You can't influence somebody until they know you care about them. until they respect you, until they trust you. And that's all a function of that connection, that personal connection.

Paul Leon: can I you an honest to God feeling of something that you said? I felt jealous of something you and I'm going to be very transparent with you. When you said that you don't need as much, you affirmation, but you don't need it because the score is lower, mine higher. As much as I hate to admit it, that fact that you're right, you're right. But what makes me extremely jealous is that Because one of the things I do struggle with is an unhealthy need of approval. me personally, that was something that I do struggle with ⁓ I'm jealous of that. And I know if you have any thoughts on why you feel someone's jealous ever when they hear that. Do you think it's just an insecurity thing? Do you think it's just ⁓ a not who you are thing? I'm just curious why you think, and I'm just giving you your opinion. You can say none of your business and tell me, I don't want to answer it. I was just curious. I was just feeling comfortable enough to share that with you.

Curtis Sprouse: No, I think there's some really great things there you've brought up that I'd love to comment on. First foremost, I think ⁓ you in your own head have to give yourself credit for being good at what you do and the effort you've put in. doing a little journal at night, I've got a lot of...

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: people that I've worked with over the year, say, just go buy a cheap little journal, put it next to your bed, and a gratitude journal. Write down at night the things you're so appreciative of. I've got two healthy children, I've got a wife that puts up with me no matter what I do. I get to do things I really enjoy doing in my personal life and my professional life, because you end every day on the things you need to do tomorrow. High discipline. You're laying in bed thinking, I gotta do this, I gotta do that, I gotta get up early, I gotta that. podcast, got, put it to rest. Just end your day on the things that and I think the other part of that for me personally, I, I'm Catholic. I, you know, I bring that really, really understanding, I, prayer every day. I've just gotten the habit, my oldest son and I have gotten in the habit of doing the rosary every day. ⁓

Paul Leon: Yeah, same. I'm Catholic too. Yeah, same here. Yeah, interesting. I don't journal, but yeah, I do the rosary every night. Yeah. Well, I try to at least four times, three to four times a week with my wife and two kids, but go on. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: That's so awesome. No, I'm glad you shared that with me. And what I would say is you yourself every day as if everything depends on you, but it doesn't. It doesn't. It all depends on God or whoever your higher being is. But what I have found in life is I think one of the reasons I'm very comfortable with it is I really intend to do my best. I forth my best every day. ⁓ That isn't always consistently what I'm capable of, but it's what I'm able to do that day. And I to improve upon the things I know that I could have done better or where I may have made a mistake or not seen things clearly. And knowing that is enough for me. Knowing that's meaning I'm not gonna myself up at night because I could have maybe said something better. I'm just going to try not to do it again, make that same mistake again. not going to beat myself up on if I didn't know something that maybe I should have known, or maybe it was there, I just didn't have the time to find it, or I didn't take the time to read it. Because the intent is always to do my best and to accountable when I don't. And I think if you can feel comfortable with yourself every day that you've put forth your best that day. ⁓

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Curtis Sprouse: And that tomorrow's another day to try to do that. But you have to, you have to practice that in your head. And I think that's why the journal helps because it forces you to write it down and put it in black and white that yeah, I do have these two incredible kids. They're healthy. I know families who have children that are afflicted with cancer or they're autistic and they're on the spectrum. And those are things that, or unfortunately we we have some really good friends that just lost a son, died in a tragic accident. Right.

Paul Leon: Hmm. I'm sorry to hear that.

Curtis Sprouse: Yeah, you just never recover from that. are things that will always be with you on some degree. And the only thing you can do is try to make them less of a emotional drain on you. But the idea that they're always, they're gonna go away, that's never gonna happen. And the fact that you and I are blessed that those are not things that we have to deal with or contend with or haven't had to overcome. Geez, you should be grateful for that.

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Curtis Sprouse: and make that part of your daily process. over time, I think you can get to the point where you realize, I don't need this reward to function at a high level. I can make decisions faster. I don't have to be perfect.

Paul Leon: I will admit, I think the way I've prayed for the last couple of years could have been better. I don't know if this will make sense. Yeah, no. And if I'm being honest, I did. So like, I'll give you a little context as to. I started praying the rosary with my wife.

Curtis Sprouse: That's it, discipline you. I've got it done better. ⁓

Paul Leon: I think when our first kid was born, I was working in car rental and I was a manager in car rental and it was in a pretty bad area. I'll give you an example, probably ⁓ once or every other we would get, you know, you can rent like one of those big white vans. ⁓ like if you're going to take like 12 people.

Curtis Sprouse: Mm-hmm.

Paul Leon: Well, like every other day or so we would get a white van with like bullet holes in it. this is the kind of area like to and I remember I would have to like there was this one guy where I was checking in the car. And I was like, hey, did you know these white bullet holes were in here? Because like we take pictures of everything and he's like, no, man, those were there before I left. I was like, no, there's like eight of these bullet holes in this white van. And then he just dropped the keys and ran this was the ⁓ and hated this job. Now, I to be very clear, like I don't hate the car rental industry. I just it just wasn't for me, real talk. I was at a point in my career where I was just I prayed out of fear, like told like real talk.

Curtis Sprouse: you

Paul Leon: pure fear, pure want to be better for my family. And my wife and I made a decision where we're just not in a good living situation as well, where we just prayed every night. And 18 months later, we just got incredible opportunities to get out of this situation career wise. So part of me, if I'm being real with you, I pray for the discipline because I feel it was an anchor at to getting those results. Not like I think it was heavily influential and then eventually somehow I created this bad thought process or something that was like, because I prayed this happens versus I get to pray and be more grateful. And I think what I've learned from you is you pray with gratitude more than me. That's my interpretation. I probably pray with more conditional thinking. That's something I personally don't work on. I'm, if I'm being frank with you, Curtis, since you shared that you're Catholic as well. I don't know if you have any comments or thoughts there or anything you're comfortable sharing to make me better as well.

Curtis Sprouse: Well, I think I really love that of your thought process and sharing that. I that's it's wonderful. Look, I your faith is a personal journey that we're all on and that journey is different for all of us. I ⁓ do tremendous for my life and what I've been able to do and what I'm able to do and ⁓ the people I to work with. A lot of my prayers are now focused more on people other than me. I think when I was younger, like you, did pray a lot for, help me God with this or help me with that. And I think a lot of that now is ⁓ more you know, one of my big prayers for my mother and my mother-in-law and my aunt who are in their eighties and ⁓ have a, of health issues that dealing with as they've gotten older is that each of them finds joy in their day.

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Curtis Sprouse: God, please give them joy in this day. Let them find joy in the pain of getting up or the pain of dealing with, the different health issues that they have that they find joy in that there's there's meaning to that day for them. And I start most of my days thinking about people that have been afflicted with, loss of a child another family of ours. have a friend. They were good friends for years and years and years. And she's 63, passed away of cancer.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: ago. she's a wonderful human being and it just why her and why now and but ⁓ think yeah I think we should look I always say when you're solving someone else's problems your seem so much smaller.

Paul Leon: good ex- Yeah, you're right.

Curtis Sprouse: And I always laugh when I go down to Steph, I'll say, ⁓ yeah, today was a tough day. But when I reflect on my day, most of the problems I'm asked to solve are not my problem. It's someone else's problem. I'm just asked to advise on this or advise on that. I guess that comes with where I'm at in my career right now and the type of work that I do. the fact that I can help people resolve them, I feel pretty fortunate that I can be in that position. When you add it all up, think a lot of times it's about one of these days you I will breathe our last breath. If that was for me, if that was today was that day, I'd be good with, I did everything I could do up until today. Be okay with it, That's not what I want. I'd love to get, be great to get another 40 years out of this body and, get to watch grandchildren and all of that, but. I don't have any regrets. Are there things that I do differently? Yes. The idea that I live this perfect life is by no means the case. There are a lot of things I wish I could rethink and redo, but I don't regret having done them. Meaning they did shape me and they allowed me to be here with you today and be able to talk about these things in the way I'm able to talk about them. And I think a lot of that has to do with the experiences I've had, the people I've got to work with. I've been very fortunate to work with on projects that were technically amazing, leading edge, smartest people in the world. And how I got into the discussion and became part of it, it was just by the grace of God. wasn't by anything by design. think sort a long answer to your question, which is for you, think looking at your data and reflecting back on that for a moment. I love the overconfidence. love the discipline. I love your drive and need to succeed and achieve, but, give yourself a break, lighten up, show the goodwill, collect relationships, accomplishments. you're so worried about collecting accomplishments. You know, you're to accomplish a lot in your life. You're built to do it, but work on elevating the people around you as you do it. And I think you'll find a lot more.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Curtis Sprouse: gratitude, and lot more enjoyment.

Paul Leon: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. That's for sure. Do you want to give like a plug for those who may not know what Eureka Connect is?

Curtis Sprouse: I've literally worked with hundreds of executives, thousands of people. It's very rarely that anybody ever says, wish I hadn't gone through this. Very rare, I mean, we're talking signal digits. I never had a CEO, an executive of company they weren't glad that they went through. I've never had one say they weren't.

Paul Leon: Okay.

Curtis Sprouse: They didn't think they needed it. Now had that feel like they'll say to me, I knew all of that, but I've never had that say that it didn't help them. And that's hundreds and hundreds of people that are at the top of their organization. So what I would say for the average person is, and I've worked with high school kids. I've worked with college kids all the way up to executives of billion, multi-billion dollar companies.

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Curtis Sprouse: We use validated instruments to help people understand themselves better. And we help put objectivity around that understanding such that people can focus their personal development, your development, not mine, what you believe you want to be better at, not what I believe. The data helps to reveal that to you, put some emphasis on things that you could work on that would be important to you and relevant to you. And then...

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Curtis Sprouse: we've discussed, giving people mechanisms to actually do it, to help to affect the change that's going to benefit them. And I will tell you, I've yet to find a program that does it better. If someone in your audience has one, let me know. Send me an email. You reach out to me. You contact me through my assistant,

Paul Leon: Hmm.

Curtis Sprouse: Shawna can definitely put you in touch with me. She can get you my contact information. I'm happy to chat with anyone. But if someone wants to. reach out to us if they have a child that wants to go through this process. you're getting to go off to college and you want to better understand yourself as you're embarking on this journey to educate yourself and decide what your path in life should be. ⁓ We can help. Or you're a company, a multi-billion dollar company and got a team and you want to just see, how do I get them to the next level? The last thing I'll share with that I think we're really good at, we're really good at helping leaders create leaders. And I think that's something that differentiates us is that if you look at the leaders I've worked with on multiple teams and you look at the people that we've trained under them, many of those people have gone on to become leaders of companies, CEOs or president of companies. And really proud of that. That the leaders that I've worked with have been able to develop their skills, that they're not just developing themselves as a leader, but then have learned how to develop others as leaders.

Paul Leon: ⁓ really?

Curtis Sprouse: And I think our data and our process facilitates that. But this is sort of how feedback goes. you I did where you sort get to a point where we start having a conversation. The data isn't meant to tell you, ⁓ what the think it's made to get you to think. That's it. I shared that with you when we started. ⁓ job isn't to tell you what you have to walk away with. It's just get you thinking about stuff and then you'll own the things you need to own.