The Relentless Few

We're taking an existential off-ramp that promises to stir up some profound insights. We're exploring the concept of existentialism—a philosophical theory that sees each individual as a free agent crafting their destiny through acts of will. This episode isn't about despair; it's about empowerment. If life is inherently meaningless, then we possess the liberating opportunity to inject it with our...

Perry Maughmer presents the E3 Framework—a thought-provoking navigational tool for potential leaders that comprises three stages: Explore, Experiment, and Evolve. This E3 Framework encourages potential leaders to approach challenges and opportunities with a blend of exploration, experimentation, and evolution, focusing on the journey of development over arriving at a fixed destination. Top Takeawa...

Perry re-introduces the E3 Framework – Explore, Experiment, Evolve – and highlights the importance of word choice, emphasizing "evolve" over "change" and "transformation." Throughout the episode, Perry discusses the concept of evolving as a personal choice, driven by internal considerations rather than external stimuli. The Power of Conversation: "Our belief systems do not align, but we have great...

Drawing from personal experiences and insights gained from recent self-reflection, Perry candidly shares his journey of realizing that he had falsely assumed he possessed a growth mindset. Using anecdotes and references from books and speakers, Perry discusses how his prior belief in having a growth mindset was challenged by his behaviors and thought patterns. What is the distinction between knowi...

Eric Pennington is the founder of Epic Living , an entity he established in 2006 to help others navigate through life and develop strong leadership skills. While it initially served as a tool for his own entrepreneurial journey, Eric realized the importance of well-being and recognized the gaps in his leadership approach. Fast forward a few years, he met Jim and Lynette Vaive, the founders of Spir...

Hilary Blair is the founder and CEO of ARTiculate Real and Clear , where Hilary and her team work with high-achieving, self-aware, individuals and teams, that want to make a shift and are ready to receive real feedback on their communication and presence. Throughout the episode, Hilary explores the concept of fear and fatigue as barriers to leadership growth. Drawing from her experience in helping...

Let's take a closer look at psychological flexibility, unraveling its significance and impact on our lives. We'll uncover the key steps to identify our personal values and learn the art of welcoming all emotions. But that's not all; we'll also delve into the power of beliefs, their influence on our reality, and the relationship between control and acceptance. Lastly, we'll delve into the importanc...

In this episode of the Potential Leader Lab podcast, Perry Maughmer discusses the importance of choosing one's boulders wisely. The acceleration of achieving our goals depends on the force applied and the mass of the goal itself. We should focus on a few significant boulders rather than spreading our efforts across multiple ones. Reflect on what truly matters to you and ask yourself what you want...

If we want things to change, we need to make different decisions and choices - which invariably require discomfort and risk. But as we become more successful, our propensity to take the risks required to evolve as both people and leaders becomes harder. Without a granular understanding of how you want your life to be different, it’s difficult to do the heavy lifting required to make evolution a re...

Nobody expects burnout to happen to them. But as our current professional environments demand more and more of our time, there is less energy and focus put on refilling the tank. In this episode, Mitch Harrison of Refill Coaching joins me to explore burnout, the need for rest, replenishment, and recuperation, and how the 5R framework is providing high-performance teams with the tools and resources...

According to French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, despite not creating ourselves and being put here without consent, we do have the ability, I believe it is a responsibility, to make choices and act freely in every situation.  Looking around at our society today, I think sometimes we’ve lost that mindset and instead believe things happen to us (and not for us). To me the fact that we can a...

As humans, the number one thing that drives our behavior is acting in a way that is going to relieve discomfort. But if we want our future to be different, we need to start acting differently in the present, which can be a deeply uncomfortable proposition. Growth is uncomfortable. I believe the most important battle we fight in moving towards our goals and aspirations is the one within ourselves a...

Management is what creates value, not leadership. And yet we’ve become enamored by leadership; the vision, the strategy, and the charisma. In the process, we’ve created an ecosystem that supports just one level of an organization to think creatively, come up with unique or interesting ideas, or build the vision of the organization, leaving it to others to implement those ideas. 80% of the importan...

Most of the time, we aspire to chase big, hairy, audacious goals. We want to move far beyond what we’ve done in the past. And yet we don’t allow our future selves to define what those goals are - we think about where we’ve been and set about going in the opposite direction. Evolving on purpose suggests two things; doing something with intention and moving towards a specific end state. To evolve is...

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare” - Japanese proverb. The #1 responsibility of a leader is to teach people how to think (not what to think), and the easiest way to do that is to create a set of guidelines or guardrails with the vision, mission, and values of the organization on one side and the financials on the other. Your leadership philosophy should flo...

Within your organization, there is a great chasm between what you know and what you accomplish. You create lists of initiatives and tasks so long that they become overwhelming and somehow distract us from the actions that have actual importance. In this episode, I’m exploring the mechanisms that stop us from doing despite knowing. The cognitive biases around our underestimation of time, cost, and...

So often we create boxes or cages for ourselves that stop us from being open to new ideas or ways of being simply because we’ve constructed a story that says it must be a certain way. In this episode of the Potential Leader Lab, I’m exploring how we create self-imposed boundaries and what happens when we get out of our own heads and have the humility to listen to the universe when it’s presenting...

Prior to the late 1800’s the concept of retirement didn’t exist. And it wasn’t until the mid-1900’s that older people were financially compensated for leaving employment - at an age where they had usually outlived the average life expectancy of the time.  This antiquated concept of retirement no longer makes fiscal or social sense.  In this episode I’m taking a look at the historical and...

As humans, we seek purpose and meaning from our work. In his book ‘Drive’, Daniel Pink states that workers are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose in their work. And, that money is only a motivator if people have autonomy over the entire work process. In any other situation, money is a performance demotivator. So why, as leaders, do so many of us insist our teams work to arbitrary revenue...

The average manager spends two full days per week consumed in meetings. And if that wasn’t bad enough, 71% of senior managers felt like meetings were unproductive and inefficient.  Meetings that suck aren’t just a waste of time…they also cost companies billions of dollars in lost productivity. In this episode, we’re exploring how you can redefine meetings in your organization. From getting cl...

As leaders, we need to move quickly, but we can’t be fast all the time. And yet our default setting is to move fast, to categorize everything as important and urgent, requiring speed and efficiency.  Leadership actually requires a focus on people, which requires proactivity, decision-making, exploring new opportunities, and reflecting on experiences. These actions demand time and effectivenes...

To evolve means to unroll or change, with a speed limit. If we always see things through the same frames, then we’re always processing the information in the same way. Because our brain wants to do things as efficiently and quickly as possible, we need to be looking for different ways to challenge ourselves, our thoughts, and our way of being. In this episode, I explore the ideas of, among other t...

The traditional mindset around leadership is that good leaders know how to act. Whilst that’s true to a point - leaders do need to take action - I believe more importantly, leaders need to think in order to create strategies or things of value that don’t exist but will improve the value of their organization.  Leadership means doing the cognitive heavy lifting, understanding what action needs...

In the US alone, $31b is spent annually on leadership training and development. And yet the consensus is that, despite strong leadership being integral to their very survival, it is still perceived as a weakness for most organizations.  In this episode, we take a look at the wicked learning environment set up by traditional organizations and explore the mismatch between organizational needs,...

Freedom is fundamentally who we are as Americans. But despite speaking of freedom a lot, we rarely explore or want to accept the other side of that equation; accountability and responsibility.  Jean-Paul Sartre says, “Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.” Existentialists believe we act ourselves into being and are free to change who we are and become the thing we want to become.&nbs...