The Calmest Person Wins: How Emotional Control Boosts Executive Presence | The Fluent Edge Ep. 3

Sean: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Fluent Edge Podcast, the show where globally minded professionals learn to speak with clarity, lead with confidence, and thrive across cultures. I'm your host, Sean Watson, business English coach and lifelong learner. If you missed last week's episode, I was the one in the guest seat and Howie interviewed me about my journey from opera to.

English coaching and what it really means to teach communication across cultures. So if you haven't heard that one yet, definitely check it out. It sets the stage for what we're driving into or diving into, driving into diving into today. So today I'm in conversation with my co-host, Dr. Howie Jacobson, and this is a candid exploration of what it really takes to change as a leader.

As a communicator and as a human being. Of course, Howie is a mindset and leadership coach with decades of experience helping executives, entrepreneurs, and creatives unlock their potential. And today we're digging in. Instead of diving in, we're digging in

So with no further ado, hello, Howie.

Howie: Hello, Sean. Happy to be here.

Sean: Great. I think we should just dive right in or drive right in or drive right through. So, so let's, let's do this. What is a belief about leadership or behavior change that you think is totally overrated or maybe even outdated or just plain wrong?

Howie: I was thinking about this and it's a wonderful question 'cause it's a great opportunity for me to show that I'm a different kind of thinker. And honestly what I came up with was, I think most of them are right. I think pretty much we understand what leadership is. We understand how change happens, and I think the problem is. We don't trust those things enough. So, you know, if leadership is really about clear communication, inspiring people with a vision, being, humble and being willing to learn from other people, being open, there's nothing new there. If I just wrote an article about that , on LinkedIn. People might not even read it because it's boring and

Sean: Okay.

Howie: Right.

And if I said, you know, the change is about, first of all, making a commitment, creating a plan, taking small actions, being open to feedback, being accountable. Again, there's nothing exciting or interesting about any of that. And because it's not exciting and interesting, people like me have to try to make it more exciting and interesting.

And I think by getting away from the fundamentals, we end up confusing people and , we end up creating programs and writing books that are unnecessarily, I. Complicated so businesses are always looking for what's the new thing in right? Well, that thing didn't work or , we wanted to change all these people to, to shift to a new system or to a new app or to a new way of communicating or to a new organizational structure and they didn't do it.

So we need a new. System a new way. Instead of saying, let's just make sure that the basics, the fundamentals that we know work are in place.

Sean: Okay. So you've worked with everyone, I guess, from executives to athletes what's the first thing you look for when someone says, I want to grow as a leader or as a person? , where do you go with that?

Howie: Yeah, the first thing I wanna know is why, , what impact do you wanna have that you're not having? Now, you know, we live in a culture in which individual achievement and, status and success and wealth creation. So I've worked with lots of entrepreneurs and of course the game of entrepreneurship is you create something of great value and then you harvest some of that value for yourself.

I've never successfully worked with someone for whom that was the goal. Right. Where the, where this, okay. I wanna, I want to create impact on the world. I want to make the world a better place. I want to grow myself, grow my consciousness, grow my capacity, understand myself better. And in order to do that, I have to play a game.

And the game might be entrepreneurship, it might be climbing the corporate ladder, it might be creating a nonprofit, it might be being an advisor. But we're looking for where. Is there a thing that I can't quite do yet that I have to grow in order to be able to do? And those are the people that I really enjoy working with.

Sean: Fantastic. Okay. Can you take us back to a moment when maybe you hit a personal wall professionally, and had to apply your own coaching tools to move forward?

Howie: Yeah, I mean, every day,

Sean: Okay.

Howie: life is, life is not easy, right? So two years ago, my family and I moved from the US to Spain, and here I am trying to figure out how to navigate a new culture. I am trying to figure out how to grow a business in a new. Country in a new business environment. And the second half of your question is applying my own coaching techniques to myself.

second. I co-wrote a book in: 2021

What a jerk. Right. the book is essentially how to help other people be their best, how to bring out the best in other people. And it's a really good book if I say so myself, and it's got all these techniques. And so one of the things I thought was, well, I can use this on myself. And one of the things I realized is it's really hard.

To use that on myself. So one of the things that I, I do is I reach out to other people for support, for coaching there's something about the interbeing, about people being in it together that is much more powerful than me just being such a great coach or such a great productivity guy, or such a great personal development guy that I can do it myself.

Sean: Wow. Is that a little bit like the co-creator idea that people sometimes talk about in therapy where you're sort of co-creating with somebody on their journey? is it that kind of idea or is that the wrong nomenclature for, for

Howie: I, I think it's very similar. I mean, when I talk about co-creation, one of the things I learned, I have a, career in science and health, and when I started learning about the microbiome, right? All these like bacteria that live everywhere in our bodies, and there's way more of them than there is of us, right?

Just in terms the number of cells, like we're mostly not even ourselves. Right. in every single one of our cells is a little organelle called a mitochondrion that has its own DNA and it's basically the powerhouse of the cell. It turns out scientists think that those are bacteria that a long time ago our ancestors evolved to sort of, we swallowed.

Like we made a deal with them. Like, come live in us and be a, a power station for us and we'll give you everything you need and we'll move you around and we'll mate and make more of you. And the mitochondria said, sounds good. So in, in that sense, I think about everything we do as a co-creation, that there's no such thing as an individual who is not embedded.

In an ecosystem, in a community, and I think one of the challenges that I think people face in business is that many cultures are very individualistic. And I know we're talking to people from, from different cultures, and I imagine that's something that you encounter.

A great deal in terms of certain cultures, you know, the squeaky, wheel gets the grease in some cultures, and I just talking to someone from Australia who's talking about the tall poppy syndrome, which is the tall poppy, gets cut down, right? So you don't wanna stand out.

Howie: So I think that, you know, one, one of the challenges to figure out the balance between me as a individual. And the web of relationships in which I am embedded.

Sean: So let's talk a little bit more about habits and behavioral change. So how do you help someone who knows what they should be doing, but just can't seem to get themselves to do it?

Howie: Yeah, I have changed a lot in the 25 years that I've been doing this work. at first I took a very, I would say, structured approach, almost a very macho approach. Basically, the philosophy was. Just go do it. You know, like Nike, just do

Sean: Yep.

Howie: And, and it's like, don't make excuses. If it's hard, you know, oh, you can't lift that weight, well then you better start, you know, lifting weights so the challenge will help you lift the weight and that works a lot.

To say to someone, okay, this is a hard thing and you're gonna do it. Or if I'm trying to help someone, let's say, who has been told they have a bad habit, maybe they interrupt in meetings and it's very hard not to interrupt in the meeting to just stop doing that. Right. Like a dead person can do that better than you can, right?

So simply like remind yourself, set a calendar reminder, okay, I'm not gonna interrupt what I've come to. So, and that, and that, you know, that can, that can work, right? Because let, listen, the person who's, who's interrupting in the meeting is doing it because something's going on that they don't like, or they're not, they, they, they're not, you know, someone else is taking it off track or they're not.

getting enough attention or whatever's going on. So one of the things that we teach people is your preferences are not demands. Right? you cannot like something and not have to change it,

Sean: Okay.

Howie: So think about like, it's raining out. I, I hate the rain. Okay, well there's nothing you can do. So just Learn that your preferences don't have to turn into demands,

Sean: Right. It's a bit like stoicism or where they talk about, you know, you can't change what happens around you, but you can change how you react to what happens around you, basically.

Howie: right, right. So that's the way I started out and there's a lot of value. In that, in the last five or six years, I've added an entirely different element, which, um, the, the business world talks about it in terms of competing commitments. So it's just to say if someone wants to do something that they're not doing, there's some part of them, there's some.

Energy in them. There's some prediction, there's some other commitment that's getting in the way. And instead of just try, you know, so one thing we could do, what I used to do is let's just steamroll that. Let's manage it, let's overcome it. if this is the old habit, we're gonna create a new habit that's gonna compete with the old habit.

And the more we do the new habit, the, better it will compete and the more it will win. the trouble is. When we're under stress, the oldest habit tends to reemerge, it tends to become the default. so what I do now is I work with people to discover what is that competing commitment, what is, because it always makes sense.

Someone who interrupts in meetings, we can get into what are they afraid would happen if they didn't? It could be something like this is going to be out of my control. The meeting's gonna go in this other direction, and I'm gonna end up getting blamed for it. so the interruption doesn't help.

It doesn't make that better. it actually makes it worse because now people. Don't respect you because you're interrupting or they're angry at you. you have lost influence because of your behavior when what your behavior was trying to do was. Gain influence for a positive thing for the good of the group.

So once, people can understand, oh, I'm doing this for that reason, or I'm, eating this food that I don't want to eat because it helps me achieve a mood, right? Who, who wants to feel sad and lonely. I come home at night and there's a pint of ice cream and I don't feel sad and lonely when I'm eating the ice cream.

Right?

Sean: Right.

Howie: So really, really, uh

Sean: I can relate to that.

Howie: hmm. Me too.

Sean: Yeah.

Howie: so to really help people understand and appreciate the competing motivations. so in the case of the person who interrupts once their brain realizes. Oh, this thing that I'm doing doesn't work When it's made conscious and when they own it, when they say, okay, I'm doing this on purpose to achieve something, once they can see clearly that it, it doesn't work, it often just disappears.

many of our listeners are navigating global workplaces, different cultures, languages, expectations. So how can someone lead with authenticity when they feel like an outsider?

Howie: It is such a beautiful question, and what came to me was you can only lead with authenticity by being an outsider if you're an

Sean: Hmm

Howie: Right? So that's, that's the truth. So there's, there's disadvantages to being an outsider. Right. And everybody knows what they are. There's awkwardness.

You don't know the rules. you know, you're walking along and all of a sudden there's an invisible wall of culture and you break your nose and you didn't realize, oh, I shouldn't have done that or said that. And it's not just someone from another country or another culture. It can happen when someone from JP Morgan Chase moves to American Express, right?

Two, two companies a few blocks away in the same industry. So when you are an outsider though, there's advantages, but they, there are advantages when you embrace it. So when you say, Hey, I'm new here. I don't know how everything works, I'm really gonna rely on you, my team to help me. I'm really gonna rely on you, my team, to communicate well.

So that. I can begin to understand what you need. When you're the outsider, you get much more curious. You become much more sensitive, and, and everybody feels like an outsider, right?

Sean: And I guess there's a certain resourcefulness too, that comes from being an outsider, you're better at, you know, finding alternatives or finding solutions to things because you're literally outside of the box in many ways,

Howie: Yeah. And right. Yeah. And if you come in as the outsider saying, okay, I'm gonna change everything that's going on here, you'll lose everyone. If you come in as the outsider saying, I don't know what's going on, let's figure it out together, then you can say, you know, I have some experience from a completely different place that I think might be interesting here.

And, you bring it in not like a virus that the body has to defend itself against. With antibodies, you bring it right, like any culture, if you come in and you try to change it too much too rapidly, too intensively, its immune system will kick you out.

so to be a smart outsider, Means to come in with authenticity as an outsider and to evoke that same feeling of like, everyone feels like an outsider. I couldn't believe when I went to my, , 35th high school reunion, the cool kids were all telling stories about how they didn't feel like they fit in and what they had to do to be popular.

And so being an outsider is actually a really common experience that almost all humans have. And if someone leads with that vulnerability and opens up, then everybody else gets to relax and connections can be formed.

Sean: Wow. This is awesome. Thanks so much. I had other questions as well, which I can ask in upcoming episodes. There's no reason to cover

Howie: Yeah.

Sean: the whole universe of this topic, in just a few minutes. But, if people want to purchase the book that you mentioned earlier, is it available on Amazon or where can people find

Howie: Yeah. I believe it's, uh, available everywhere. Fine books are sold. Uh, I, I'll even, uh, I'll throw it up here.

you can change other people. and in terms of, I don't believe I have received any royalties for foreign language editions, so I don't, I don't think it's been translated into anything other than English.

so viewers of this podcast, have no excuse but to read it in English.

Sean: Excellent, So, that's it for today's episode of the Fluent Edge Podcast. a huge thanks again to Howie for sharing his story, his strategies, and his very real take on leadership and change. And please like and subscribe.

To our YouTube channel, or leave us a review on your favorite podcast app and share it with a smart friend. And if you'd like to work with Howie or myself, you can find our booking links in the description below. So thanks for Tuning in. I'll try that again. Thanks for thanks, Fortuna. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next week with more insights to help you lead and communicate at the next level.