Scott Mautz With Profound Performance

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Scott Mautz, author of the new book The Mentally Strong Leader. Welcome, Scott.

Speaker3: [00:00:28] Thanks so much for having me here. Lee. I appreciate what you do and looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned with your audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. But before we get into the book, can you tell us a little bit about your backstory?

Speaker3: [00:00:41] Yeah, you bet. I was born and raised in corporate America, spent just about three decades in corporate America, really studying over time what makes great leaders great and what makes really achievers achieve, and have been studying that for quite a long time and decided to leave the corporate world about 8 or 9 years ago to broaden my platform for making a difference with the the written and the spoken word, which is what I do now. You know, I speak from stage, I do workshops, I write business books, you know, one which we’ll be talking about here today.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:13] So what was it like leaving kind of the corporate world and then entering into the world of entrepreneurship and having your own business? Was there a mindset shift you needed in order to be successful in this new venture?

Speaker3: [00:01:26] Yeah, for for sure. I, you know, a big part of it, Lee was, you know, just understanding what really, really made me happy. You know, when I, when I was in the corporate world, I found after some time I was, you know, chasing approval more than I was chasing authenticity, you know, more than chasing who I really was and what I really wanted to be. So, you know, it took a leap of faith. And, you know, the topic of my new book, The Mentally Strong Leaders, it’s all about mental strength. It took a lot of mental strength to really muster up the courage to to be able to do that, to leave behind a really great career with a, you know, a great corporate world company and, and make the leap. But, you know, I find myself constantly saying now as a speaker and an author and a work shopper, it’s the best move I ever made in my life, and I’m so glad I did it.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:15] Now, can you share a little bit about where you were at mentally when you were contemplating making this leap? What was kind of going through your head in, in maybe calculating the trade offs you would be having to, to make in order to do this new thing?

Speaker3: [00:02:33] Yeah. Great question. I, I boil it down to me, Lee, really to, to one question that I just kept asking over and over so that I wouldn’t get overwhelmed. Right. Because that’s a big decision, you know, do I stick around? Do I keep getting promoted in this corporate world and, you know, with all the nice trappings that come with it? Or do I take a leap and, you know, do I go out and be an entrepreneur and a speaker and author and a writer and and you can get overwhelmed by doing the, you know, the list of pros and cons. And so I just kept going back, you know, at the time to one question over and over and over again, where will I have the chance to have a broader impact on the most people? Will it be waiting for the next promotion in corporate life and having, you know, a couple hundred more people under my charge, or, you know, will it be building a platform with a written in the spoken word? And and once I kept coming back to that question, Lee, it became patently obvious that the way I was going to have the best impact was as a keynote speaker, author, writer and workshop. And with that in mind, the decision became very, very clear.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:37] Now, do you think that a younger you could have come to the same conclusion prior to having a corporate career?

Speaker3: [00:03:45] It’s a really good question. And, you know, obviously we’ll I guess we’ll never know. But I would suspect that I may still have been able to do that, only because I became so clear on what really drove me was this desire to learn what makes great leaders great and what makes achievers achieve, you know, in its latest version, for me, you know, when I’m talking about mental strength, I, I think that even as a younger me, I was so drawn to figuring out those things that I think I would have been drawn and compelled to spend my time sharing with the world what I learned about that topic versus just, you know, making a company more money by selling 10% more widgets than I did the prior year. So.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:30] Now, what have you learned? Uh, you know, being out in the world nowadays, uh, are you seeing younger people kind of following that same corporate path? Is that is that as, um, maybe popular as it was when you were younger? Or do you see young folks today? Um, you know, wanting to kind of form their own path?

Speaker3: [00:04:55] Yeah. I think younger generations and this just isn’t my opinion. This is, you know, there’s plenty of data to back it up. I think today’s younger generations are, you see, a lot less of the, you know, the lifers, the ones that go into a company and say, wow, I feel blessed and lucky that I have a steady paying corporate job. I’m going to stay here. I’m going to stay loyal to the company. I feel, you know, lucky to have this position and I’m going to rise up the ranks. And I think, statistically speaking, we see that that’s happening less and less as younger generations are figuring out the key driver of their life. Their professional life needs to be what brings them meaning. How do they find a sense of purpose in their work? How do they maximize the impact they’re making in the meaning that they’re drawing from their jobs, versus just staying beholden to a job for sake of staying beholden to a job?

Lee Kantor: [00:05:44] Do you think that that’s because maybe there’s less trust on both sides. You know, from the corporation side, there’s maybe less trust that the employee is going to stick around for the long haul. And then from the employee side, they’re not trusting that the corporations may be going to keep its word and fulfill the promise that they’ve stated.

Speaker3: [00:06:05] Yeah. I think the overlay of just as a culture where we are right, that, you know, we have a hard time even agreeing on what the facts are anymore. Right? And, you know, I’m not getting into politics at all. I’m just saying, you know, it’s a it’s a truth that there’s that we, that we’re becoming in many ways more divisive in some places as a society and a culture. And I do think that bleeds over into the corporate world where, you know, there is more opportunities to breed mistrust than ever before. And, you know, I do hope that the listeners out there look at it instead as a message of hope that in your own world, in your own situation, you know, if you can lean forward and trust the other party to come to a better outcome than you’re currently at, that can only be a good thing moving forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:51] Now, in your book, The Mentally Strong Leader, is it a how to book on how to become mentally strong? Or is this a book based on research of what you found? Successful people had certain traits or is it both?

Speaker3: [00:07:05] It’s really both. And just by way of quick definition, mental strength is the ability to regulate your emotions, your thoughts, and your behaviors productively, even at adversity, as I like to say. In other words, it’s it’s how you manage internally. So you could lead externally. And I think, Lee, most of us know that we need to do that, you know, inherently to to succeed, we have to be able to some extent to regulate our emotions, thoughts and behaviors productively. But guess what? It’s really, really hard to do that. And you know, what I’ve been learning in my research is the effort is worth it, though, when you can build the habits to increase your mental strength. It’s like training your brain for achievement. One piece of research I did across, you know, the decades I’ve been studying mental strength, we asked 3000 executives thinking of the highest achieving organizations you’ve ever been a part of that overcame the most obstacles. What were the attributes of the key leader in that organization? And we found a whopping 91% of the respondents described, even though they didn’t know they were describing this at the time. They described mental strength in some form, specifically the leaders flexing one of six core mental muscles fortitude, confidence, boldness. Decision making goal focus, the ability to stay focused on your goals, and even messaging. Your ability as a leader to message positively to the troops. To keep a positive aura about your communications and a quality to your presence and to your intent. So yes, we it is a how you know the mentally strong leader is a how to you know, how to book and how to build those mental muscles to become mentally stronger. But it’s also based on just a ton of deep research to show that really, it’s the leadership superpower of our time mental strength. It’s how you train your brain for achievement. When you’re able to build those mental muscles and regulate your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors productively.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:08] Now, are those traits, um, kind of are you born with them, or are these that you think you can take anybody and teach them these traits?

Speaker3: [00:09:17] You can teach anybody? You know, it’s an important thing, the opposite of mentally strong. Lee is not mentally weak. We all have a baseline of mental strength to draw from. You just have to know how to do that. And you do that. You know, by building the habits. And in the mentally strong leader, it’s there’s habit building science baked into the book. So in other words, you know, in several ways, habit building science teaches us that if you want to create a habit of anything, including strengthening mental muscles and building your mental strength, it takes repetitions, systems, and frameworks that allow you to repeat behaviors and activities. And the over 50 plus proven tools in the mentally strong leader they contain. Those tools are built on systems and frameworks, as well as insight on the very first small step that you should take, which is key for habit building and what to do in moments of weakness. And here’s the good news, Lee. You can. In the mentally strong leader, you could start by taking a mental strength self-assessment to determine what your overall mental strength score is, and how you score across each of the six mental muscle developments that that equal mental strength the fortitude, confidence, boldness, messaging, decision making and goal focus. And you can find out, okay, which muscles do I need to build so that you can create your own custom mental strength training program, which is. A good thing, right? Because when you go to the gym, you don’t go to exercise all muscles all the time. You know, Wednesday might be leg day, Thursday might be back in arm day. So you can create your own custom mental strength training program based on the mental strength self assessment and the over 50 plus habit building tools in the book The Mentally Strong Leader.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:03] Now can you share like say I want to work on my confidence muscle. What are what are some things, some actionable things I can do today to become more confident tomorrow?

Speaker3: [00:11:13] Yeah, in the mentally strong leader I have a there’s a ton of habits that you can build based on building your confidence. Just, you know, one example is to, you know, take a self-compassion break. That’s what I call it in the mentally strong leader of the book. And it’s to help you stop the negative inner chatter. You know, where first you have to, first of all, catch yourself when you’re beating yourself up with negative inner chatter. We all do it. And then, you know, step one is to stop beating yourself up for beating yourself up. Just accept that you’re doing it and go right to step two, which is in that moment you catch yourself beating yourself up. It’s important that you talk to yourself like a friend in need. If a friend was asking you, you know, clearly signaling to you that they wanted to tell you a story where they were looking for compassion and empathy, I don’t think you would interrupt them after five minutes and say, okay, I’ve heard your story and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re a complete loser. You know, you would listen to them and you know, you would talk to them kindly. And so why would you, you know, beat yourself up in that way? You should, you know, do the same. And then you go to the third step in the self-compassion break, which is remembering the 9010 rule. 9010 rule is a rule for how you should value yourself, which is to say it should be based 90% on self-worth Self-appreciation self-love, 10% on assigned worth what others think of you. And the problem arises when you know that 10% of how others should think of you becomes 70, 80, 90. When? When 100% of how you think of yourself is based on what others think and not what on you think, the problem arises when you begin to chase approval instead of authenticity. The problem arises when you begin to focus on winning love rather than giving love and the self-compassion breakage. Just one of the many confidence building tools you can build to create a habit of confidence in the mentally strong leader.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:59] Now, if I’m a leader right now, is there maybe some symptoms of my people that I should be paying attention to where there might be room for improvement when it comes to their mental strength? Are there some symptoms of people that are lacking mental strength that that I can then hand them this book?

Speaker3: [00:13:20] Yes. Just as if you would go to the doctor’s office or physician’s office to figure out. Or, let’s put it a different way, a physical trainer to figure out where, you know, where do I need to build and get better. It kind of goes back again to lead to the six core mental muscles that equate to mental strength. You can look for signs of resilience and fortitude breaking down in employees. You can look for signs of lack of self confidence, like they’re beating themselves up. They’re always seeking approval. They suffer from imposter syndrome. They can’t stop comparing to other people. You can look for signs of a lack of boldness. They’re not taking enough risks. They’re not thinking big enough. You can look for signs of, you know, the other three core mental muscles decision making that they’re indecisive, goal focused, that they can’t stay focused on what they’re doing or even messaging, that they tend to get drawn into negativity rather than positivity at work and spread an aura of, you know, kind of a osmosis of negativity rather than just a positive culture. So, yeah, based on the mental muscles that equate to mental strength, you absolutely can look for signs and symptoms that your employees are not as mentally strong as they need to be, along with also, by the way, giving them the mental strength self-assessment that’s in the book, the mentally strong leader to help numerically determine where do they fall in their mental strength rankings.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:36] Now we’re talking about this primarily. Obviously, in terms of business, it seems to me that there would be, um, kind of a place for it in the home with a maybe a teenager or young person, uh, to kind of protect them, uh, from maybe some of the fragileness that you’re seeing today or the lack of resilience or even the fear, uh, that a lot of young people are going through anxiety. Is this something that can also work for a younger person, that maybe not in the business world, but it sounds like these kind of traits and these muscles are useful for any age.

Speaker3: [00:15:16] 100%. And that was the intent when I wrote the book and why I worked so hard on the mentally strong, literally the the title, you know, the mentally strong leader. When I say leader, what I’m really talking about is self leadership. It’s just as valuable personally as it is professionally. And I’ve done studies and data to prove that, you know, the tools in the book can help you just as much as it can personally as it can professionally. You know, if I were to walk into Barnes and Noble, you know, when the book launches, which is on May 7th, 2024, if I were to hope for, you know, what section do I hope to find this book in? I hope to find it in the self-help section, the Self Leadership section, because it’s not just a business book. Although there’s tremendous value and potential for all kinds of professionals with the book, it’s also a book for self leadership that you can find personally incredibly valuable.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:08] So when you’re doing your work in, uh, for corporations and businesses, is it are you doing kind of coaching, uh, at the leadership level, or is this something that an organization could hire you to come in and work with their team?

Speaker3: [00:16:22] Yeah, yeah, they could come. You know, I do a lot of keynotes so I can come in and do a keynote on the topic of mental strength and arm the audience with tools to help them build their mental strength, including the mental strength self-assessment. I also do detailed workshops, the, you know, ranging anywhere from, you know, 90 minutes all the way to several days where we really deep dive on each muscle that equates to mental strength and and help people build the habits that will make them mentally stronger. And I do the workshops and the keynotes, both in person, of course, as well as virtually as well, which is, you know, obviously essential these days.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:58] So if somebody wants to get a hold of the book or have a more substantive conversation with you, what is the coordinates website? Uh, the best way to connect?

Speaker3: [00:17:08] Yeah, you got it. Go to Scott Mortis.com Scott m a uts.com and you can find you can connect with me there to hire me for a keynote or for a workshop. And you could check out the book The Mentally Strong Leader. And I’ve also put together a free gift for your listeners. Lee. If they go to Scott Comm slash mentally strong gift, they can download a free 60 page PDF that will give them in advance the mental strength self-assessment so they could start seeing, you know, what they’re going to need to work on from a mental strength standpoint. And it also, the 60 page free PDF also has prompts in there questions to help you get the most out of the book. The mentally strong leader so they can go to Scott comm slash mentally strong gift.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:51] Well Scott, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Speaker3: [00:17:56] I appreciate you too and all that you do. Thanks for having me on, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:59] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.