Shane Saunders:
For me, as a leader, it has to start with me. I have to eat my own cooking. I have to believe when I'm preaching, and I have to believe it with every fiber of my being. If I don't, nobody's going to follow me, and the organization is not going to be able to transform. We're going to engage in a bunch of activities that feel like progress but really get us nowhere.
James Robert Lay:
Greetings, and hello. I am James Robert Lay, and welcome to episode 268 of the Banking on Digital Growth podcast. Today's episode is part of the Digital Growth Journey series, and I'm excited to welcome Shane Saunders to the show. Shane is the president and CEO of Mocse Credit Union, and today, we're going to dive into his digital growth journey and the lessons that he's learned along the way to empower you, to guide you, the dear listener, along your own journey of growth at your bank, at your credit union, or at your fintech. Welcome to the show, Shane. It is good to share time with you today, buddy.
Shane Saunders:
It is awesome to be here. Thanks for having me, and a big fan of your podcast. And so now, I'm going to be credit union famous now that I'm here, so this is awesome.
James Robert Lay:
Absolutely. Well, we have a global audience now. It continues to grow. I think it's in 140 countries, top 5% of all podcasts globally in the banking space, number four.
Shane Saunders:
Awesome.
James Robert Lay:
So I'm just so grateful to have an opportunity to facilitate these conversations, to bring this knowledge to people, to inspire them, to educate them, and I think that's a key thing as we're looking out towards the future when it comes to leadership, navigating a world of uncertainty and change at, really, an exponential level. Before we get there, always like to start off on a positive note. What's good? What's been going well for you? What are you feeling positive about right now as we're in 2023?
Shane Saunders:
Well, I'll tell you, what I'm most stoked about, really, is our leadership team and kind of this current trajectory of growth that we're on as a team. We've had a lot of retirements. Really started with my predecessor here at Mocse. I've been here two years. Her name is Tracey Kerr, great lady, was here at the credit union for over four decades. She retired, and then, just the first six months of this year alone, we've had four key strategic retirements take place. We've been really fortunate, because for the most part, we've had some amazing internal talent that has been able to step up, step in, grab the reins, and sort of start their leadership journey.
It's been amazing to watch. The folks that are stepping into these roles are enthusiastic. They're driven. They're smart. They're young. They have a lot of learning and growing to do, but we're kind of doing that as a newly-formed team, doing it together, and all experiencing this as just one cohesive team. It's really exciting.
James Robert Lay:
When you think about leadership, and you mentioned you've had a transformation of leadership within the organization, you use the keyword learning. I think that is a core trait. As I'm writing Banking on Change, I talk about the need in the age of AI to build a culture of exponential learning to keep up with the pace of exponential change. If you think about learning and growth, you've had a tremendous experience, going all the way back to your time in the Navy.
You actually shared something on LinkedIn, and you wrote, "For me, the military took a shy kid with marginal self-esteem, I think that's a key part of leadership right here, marginal self-esteem, taught him that he was far more capable than he could have imagined. It made him reach deep to find grit he didn't realize existed, and it gave him a distinct sense of pride while teaching him that we only truly succeed with the help of others." Think about that. Think about the lessons that you've learned along your own journey of growth as a leader. Go back in your mind to the Navy, and what have been kind of the key lessons that you've taken from them then and then have applied over the course of time to where you're at today?
Shane Saunders:
Oh. Yeah. I think what you just read really hits the nail on the head in terms of none of us does this alone. We're all interconnected, interdependent. We impact people in ways that are far greater, I think, than any one of us can appreciate at any given moment. I mean, we've all heard this in leadership a million times, but it is so true that every interaction you have with everyone is an opportunity to learn, engage, exchange information, and for two humans to grow together. I think that was a key takeaway that I got out of the Navy and then I've tried to carry throughout my whole career. Certainly under no illusion that I've been perfect. I mean, there's been plenty of stumbles and bumbles along the way, but those, even those are very productive. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Mm-hmm.
Shane Saunders:
That's an opportunity to learn and grow, and I think all along the way, one of the key dimensions of that to sort of facilitate that learning is that ability to self-reflect and to see, "Okay. Where can I do better? If I could get in a time machine and do that over again, what would I do differently?" I think that was something that also was imparted in military service. I mean, everything you do in the military, particularly if there's problems, and we had some problems. I mean, we had a crash on a flight deck, and fires, and lots of challenges. All of those, the military really instilled this discipline of examining what happened, taking a step back, learning from it, and then applying that learning going forward. So becoming a lifelong learner, I think, is right at the heart of leadership.
James Robert Lay:
That's actually one of our four elements for exponential growth. Number one is to be the light. Number two is make your bed, and number three is be a lifelong learner. Number four is own it. One of the things when it comes to being a lifelong learner, I say sometimes you're the student, other times you're the teacher. Either way, there's always something to be learned, as progress is greater than perfection, and failure is, in fact, learning. But don't keep repeating the same mistake.
You mentioned the idea of building a skillset to review what you've done, look at it objectively, and then take those lessons and apply them going forward. Thinking about everything that we have experienced to begin this decade, what would you recommend for the dear listener who might be in a leadership role, but they're so busy doing that they don't create space and time to just pause, to review, to reflect, to learn, think about those insights, and apply them to their next iteration of doing? What's your recommendation there, and how do you prevent yourself and others on your team from getting trapped in just a continuous cycle of doing?
Shane Saunders:
I think it's imperative that, as leaders, we find that space for that self-reflection, that self-evaluation. It has to be that sort of quiet space where you can really focus. I'm lucky in that one of the hobbies that my wife and I have is small-scale sustainable farming. We have a whopping 11 head of cattle on like 16 acres in Oakdale, California. It's an awesome hobby to just kind of disconnect from your day-to-day, just kind of be in the moment. I start and end every day on a pasture walking around with cows, and funny enough, I'm thinking a lot about work, but thinking about it in a different way, right, taking that moment to reflect on, whether it was the day before, or that same day, or the week, or the year, or the month, but really to take that time and marinate a little bit on what went well, what mistakes I made, what could I have done better, what blind spots did I uncover through whatever sort of time period I'm reflecting about?
Now, one thing I would not recommend is that everyone goes out and buys a farm. Do not do that. It is the worst hobby ever. I mean, it is a ton of work. Get away from the noise. Get away from the electronics, and just spend some time ruminating on that kind of stuff. I don't think I could do my job without that time. I think the stress would overwhelm me. I think I would make bad decisions. I think I have to have that time to really reflect, analyze, and figure out what course corrections I'm going to make. I'll tell you, there isn't a day that goes by that I'm on that pasture where I don't think of something that I could have done just a little differently, and I think that's so important.
James Robert Lay:
As you're talking through, a couple of key insights for the dear listeners to really tune into, number one, put the phone down. I think, in writing Banking on Change, which will be out in April-ish of 2023, I have an entire chapter dedicated to digital stoicism. You're talking to a recovering digital addict, and that's not hyperbole. There's real addiction here that I think we need to be more mindful and aware of, particularly as leaders. But number one, you put the phone down. Number two, you're creating intentional space and time, but you're disconnecting to reconnect with nature. By reconnecting with nature, you're literally inserting yourself into a different environment, and as a result, you're seeing things differently through your mind's eye.
You also mentioned meditation, and I think about Keith Costello, who's been a guest on this podcast. He's the CEO over at Locality Bank out of Florida, and he talks about his daily meditation practice and the importance of that as a leader, particularly in a digital world to where it's just so easy to fall into this overdrive of doing. And so the other thing, too, and I love the idea of sustainable farming and how that is, it's complimentary. Like you said, don't go out and buy a farm, because it's a lot of work. Absolutely, but I just think it's the intentionality of creating space in different spaces, different environments.
As Dr. Benjamin Hardy ... He's an organizational psychologist. He wrote a book called Willpower Doesn't Work, and he talks about the power of environment and how that shapes our behavior, and if we're wanting to transform our behavior as a leader or within our teams, how we can just ... A simple environmental shift can do wonders there. That's where I want to take the conversation, because we've talked a little bit about failure. You mentioned that as a great teacher. Failure can be an amazing classroom. You and a climbing partner a while back, y'all made a run up The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite. It's a 3,000-foot climb, often called the greatest rock climb in the world, and three days into it, you made it to the tower, about little less than halfway. You spent the night. You bailed out.
Shane Saunders:
Yep.
James Robert Lay:
A lot of people could look at this and be like, "That was a complete and utter failure," and be frustrated and downtrodden, but you looked at this from a different lens, which I think is a positive. Not only that. You made some connections along the way, as well. What's this story here to begin with to set some context for the dear listener? What happened with this?
Shane Saunders:
Yeah. This was a great adventure. I've been rock climbing for probably right around three decades now, and I think this climb lives in the consciousness, I think, of every single climber. It is, like you mentioned, it's the greatest rock climb in the world, and we'll put some air quotes around that. So my whole climbing life, I have looked at this route, and it's always been one of those things like, "Yeah. Someday. Someday, I'll sort of get around to it." As luck would have it, when I came to work at Mocse, I am an hour and a half from, really, the base of The Nose, the base of that climb. And so it was kind of like, it was like this inner voice that's like, "I got no choice. I have to at least give it a shot."
James Robert Lay:
It's calling you.
Shane Saunders:
Yeah. I can't live an hour and a half from this thing and not give it a shot. You know? I'll be back for sure, but so I started talking about this with a like-minded friend of mine who, funny enough, is a farmer in Vermont, a lot younger guy, ex-Marine. So we kind of bonded over that military background. I mean, he's probably half my age, and we started talking about it. We started training, kind of following a similar regimen, but across the country. Then, he flew out about a year ago, and we did a training wall. El Cap is 3,000 feet. The wall that we did was 1,100 feet, but just as technical, required the same kind of technical skills.
And so he came out, and we did that together as sort of a training wheels to try to get our processes down and our systems down and see how we worked together. We had a great time. It was hard. It was a real big challenge, and we were, it's funny, we were, I don't know, 900 feet off the ground, and we were talking about how weird the feeling is. It's an emotional rollercoaster to be up there in this environment. I would go, and we both had this shared experience, I would go from just stoked out of my mind, nowhere else I'd rather be than right there, and five minutes later, terrified, just ready to go down, like, "Let's get off of this thing." But we pushed through.
On this particular route, there were eight, including us, a total of eight parties on the route. Only two parties summited. We were one of them, and so a bunch of high fives, and we were really stoked about the outcome. We're like, "Okay. Let's do it. I think we can do The Nose," and like another six months after that. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Yeah.
Shane Saunders:
So we kept training, and then he came out, and we made a go at it. The Nose has a 40% success rate or 60% failure rate. I think one of the big things I've learned is the 40% that are making it up, at one point, were probably in the 60%. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Yeah.
Shane Saunders:
It took sort of going up, experiencing it, and not quite making it. When we hit the ground after bailing, because the situation ... The reason why we bailed was we were targeting five days. We were probably on pace for five and a half to six days, and right at the end of day five, we were checking our phones for the forecast, a pretty significant storm was forecasted to blow in right around day five-ish, end of day five. It's like we were at this point where everything had to go exactly right for us to summit in time to beat the storm, and even then, we'd be sleeping on the top of El Cap in a storm, and being realistic with each other in that, getting to the point we were at, everything wasn't going right. You know?
James Robert Lay:
Sure.
Shane Saunders:
It wasn't going horrible, but it wasn't as smooth as we would've liked it. The thing is is there's this mounting fatigue as you're climbing this route, and as that fatigue starts settling in, you're making more mistakes. You're going slower. And so then, we had that hard conversation, and what was kind of funny, you could probably relate to this, two guys standing on a ledge, neither one of them want to call it. You know?
James Robert Lay:
Yep.
Shane Saunders:
And so it was a little bit of a negotiation there, but we called it. When we got back to the ground, we both agreed that, one, right decision, two, we weren't embarrassed or humiliated at all. We felt like, "Man. We're armed with this whole new toolkit so that the next time we throw ourselves at it, I feel like we're going to get it." It was the most rewarding failure I think I've ever had in my life. It was awesome.
James Robert Lay:
As you're talking through that, I'm going to take a couple of points and dive deeper into them and then apply them back into financial brand leadership, particularly through the lens of digital growth and digital transformation. You mentioned the longer that you went on, the more tired that you became, the more fatigued, the likelihood of mistakes, which could have obviously be very costly. I think about the marathons that I have run over the years, and there's always that ... Between mile 18 and mile 22, it's the proverbial wall. At that point, you kind of make a decision of like, "I got to really commit to this," and it's more mental than it is physical.
I see a lot of that when it comes to organizations, particularly at a leadership level, who begin down a path to maximize and level up their digital growth, that when we set out to this, we got to realize that, yeah, there's a technical component to this, but there's also this mental thing, as well, this mindset. What I took from your narrative here is, depending upon how you look at things, it's the 40% success rate or the 60% failure rate. When we think about digital transformation, quote-unquote, at a macro level, and you can go read McKinsey, and BCG, and Accenture, and all the big consulting firms, and they're all saying the same exact thing. 60 to 85% of digital transformation initiatives either fail or fail to deliver on expectation.
Shane Saunders:
Yep.
James Robert Lay:
But what you said, I think, is the key takeaway for the dear listener. Those who are in the 40% of success were most likely, at one point, in the 60% of failure. They just were committed to do it again, and to do it again, and to do it again. Like you said, you now have the experience, and the skillset, and the tools to then apply this to the next iteration going forward. So as you think about this as a leader and just some of the experiences that we have experienced now to start this decade, where might there be a practical application to look at digital growth, digital transformation, transformation of, really, any kind for that matter, whether it be cultural or brand?
Because you're coming from a marketing lens from your background. Change is hard. Change is painful. Change is going to be wrought with failure. How do we push beyond the pain of change, beyond the pain of failure, to give it a next go around? What does it take to make that a reality? Because I think so many of us try, and we might not even try. We might just dabble, because you did go through a training run. You did actually attempt to scale, but how do we push beyond the pain of change?
Shane Saunders:
I think there's tons of sort of overlapping analogies with the experience that we had on El Cap, and change management, digital transformation, organizational transformation, it does come back to mindset. Right? Do you take a step back and say, "We failed," or do you say, "Man, we learned so much. It's just going to make us so much better when we take another run at this thing," right, not carrying around that failure like baggage or getting emotionally attached to it, but almost being curious about it. Right? With my partner in climbing, this was a team decision, and the team would succeed together. It would fail together. We each brought strengths and weaknesses.
He is young and strong, and I'm older and more experienced. And so when technical challenges would arise, I had the experience to kind of tackle some of those. When something just required a young and strong person to push through something, then he could do that. But in the end, neither one of us, I mean we talked about it, neither one of us was even as strong as we wanted to be in our respective areas to meet with success. But when we talked it through, I mean, we went to the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite after the route, and sat there, and had a beer with a notepad. We were writing down, "Okay. What's the next steps?" Right?
James Robert Lay:
Yeah.
Shane Saunders:
And so I think applying it right back to what you're talking about, organizational and digital transformation, not getting hung up on, "Hey. We didn't summit," but sitting down and going, "Okay. What did we learn? What are the next steps? How do we make this successful?" Because I think you're absolutely right, and I love the way you applied that ratio to the McKinsey studies and all that kind of stuff, where, yeah, it makes total sense. It's not like the 40% that were successful were just, they came out of the gate, they didn't have a problem, and then they just, they summited first time. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Yeah.
Shane Saunders:
They probably had to make a bunch of runs at it, a bunch of mistakes, learn a lot, and grow and develop along the way. I think it's a perfect analogy in so many ways.
James Robert Lay:
One word that you mentioned in your reflection, curiosity, and that idea of, essentially, being a curious kindergartner, going back to the days when we're young, what happens to go from being a curious kindergartner to getting trapped in the cave of complacency that prevents or prevents us from moving forward and creates a bit of a pseudo-safety? Because it's a very dangerous place to be trapped, because we can't grow in the cave. We actually probably die a slow death there. How can we transform that complacency into continuous curiosity going forward into the next decade?
Shane Saunders:
Curiosity is one of the key dimensions on the Mocse leadership team that we're constantly trying to foster, and I think that is another mindset. Right? It can be so easy to kind of rest on our expert knowledge, sort of get comfortable in the place that we're at. In a lot of ways, I've seen other organizations where folks are maybe a little fearful to step outside their comfort zone. I think fear can be a big inhibitor to that curiosity, as well, too. Right? In our discussions on, kind of I mentioned this, emerging new leadership team we have here, a lot of what we've had to do on the team is to ... It's sort of like leadership class, not like I'm teaching it, but together, as a team, we're learning, "What are the qualities of an exceptional leader? What are the qualities of a high-performing team?"
I think curiosity has become one of those just core tenets of what we have to be, because without that curiosity, we're not going to continue to learn, to grow, and to push ourselves. It's a great question in terms of, how do you continue to foster that curiosity and not fall into, I love the cave of complacency, because it's so easy to do. I hate to say it. In the credit union industry, and you see quite a bit of that. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Yeah.
Shane Saunders:
Where man, it was good enough in 1990, so it's good enough now. Right? The simple fact is is it's not. We better grow, and evolve, and change, and that pace at which we learn is going ever faster. We better keep on that curve. Otherwise, we're not going to be around. When I first got into credit unions, there were 14,000 credit unions in the country. Now, there's less than 5,000. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Yeah. Yeah. You know-
Shane Saunders:
It's complacency.
James Robert Lay:
In a world full of exponential change driven by exponential technologies, I think we lack the perspective. Like you said, when you got into this, and I've been in the financial services vertical now for 20-plus years myself, and how much is transformed? I use 1994 as a horizon line, because that's when the internet reached the mass consciousness of humanity. Now, we're in this age of AI. It's very hard to perceive what is happening and how fast it's going to happen if we leap ahead to 2030 and look back to this point in time. That's where it's like I think transformation must begin within. It must begin within the self, then the team, and then the organization.
If you look at the struggle of transformation, it's because we've tried to transform at an organizational level and then push that down into teams, and then from teams into individuals. But then, there's the conflict within the individual that they lack the perspective or why we're even doing this to begin with in the first place. So I want to get your take on this, because when you think about leadership in a period of economic uncertainty, where people feel maybe confusion, and conflict, and chaos, both internally, within the organization, but also externally with account holders and with members, number one, what are the threats that we need to be aware of here going forward into the future? Because I feel like we're just in, we're going to be in this period of uncertainty for a couple of years, so we might as well get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Shane Saunders:
I love the way you just laid that out, the fact that transformation begins within first, then to the team, then to the organization. That is so key, because to lead an organization in uncertain times and through really big structural transformational changes, everyone has to believe that you're on this journey with them. Right? This isn't a, "I sit at the top of the pedestal and point and bark directions at people on what they should be doing." It's, "I'm ..." Going back to the Navy analogy, I'm on the ship with everybody. I mean, we're all on the same boat together, and I might have a role to play. But in reality, my role is, honestly, no more important than anyone else's role. My role is to, obviously, help set the vision and guide people with some clarity, let them know what's ahead and where we're heading, but it's no more important, in my mind, than the teller who is having that conversation with the member across that 12-inch space of counter. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Right.
Shane Saunders:
Having that humility, really starting that transformation within, cultivating some of those dimensions we talked about, like curiosity, certainly humility, and then sort of living it, breathing it, demonstrating it, bringing it to the team, and then the team helps guide the organizational transformation, is definitely the way to go. Otherwise, if people see that you're not in it with them, none of us are that good at acting or faking. It just comes through.
James Robert Lay:
Right.
Shane Saunders:
This is my philosophy, anyway. For me, as a leader, it has to start with me. I have to eat my own cooking. I have to believe when I'm preaching, and I have to believe it with every fiber of my being. If I don't, nobody's going to follow me, and the organization is not going to be able to transform. We're going to engage in a bunch of activities that feel like progress but really get us nowhere.
James Robert Lay:
Yeah, and that's almost like when you're climbing up a mountain, you feel like you're making progress. You feel like you're moving up, but then you realize, when you look back down at where you come from, you're kind of still at the same point. It's a bit of inertia, and that can be very demoralizing. That can be very frustrating. I think you mentioned clarity, and this brings us almost back full circle to how we started this conversation around learning and being a lifelong learner. You mentioned the learning and the training that you did to prepare for your climb. You just didn't go out and climb. You prepared for it. Then, you made the attempt, and then you reviewed, you reflected. You're learning through the experience to then ... Ultimately, you're going to go back, and you're going to do it again. You're going to learn something else.
Going through this cycle with intention of learning, thinking, doing, and reviewing is probably the best way to experience continuous growth in this period of uncertainty, because the antithesis of clarity is confusion. I think as leaders, the more that we can provide that clarity to those around us, the more that they will feel better, because they won't necessarily feel confused. When you're stuck in that state of confusion repeatedly, well, that's going to lead to chaos, and that's going to lead to conflict. So continuously providing that clarity, clarity then helps to increase the courage for people to commit, to continue to move forward together as a team with confidence.
On that note, I think a lot of this boils down to communicating help and hope. I've spoken frequently about those two subjects, both internally as well as externally. In periods of uncertainty, people are looking for help. People are looking for hope, and hope often has to come before someone is able to receive help, hope that there's something better than today. As we begin to wrap up this conversation, looking out towards the future, even though it might feel a little bit murky, what are you feeling most hopeful and optimistic about going forward?
Shane Saunders:
Talk about bringing it full circle, the leadership that we have in the organization, I mean, I'm approaching the beginning of late-stage career. Right? And so I'm already thinking about ... I'm looking at the team, the leadership team that we have, and what I see is this is the future of the organization. I'm going to be getting a gold watch, and shuffling across a stage, and eating a piece of cake. These are the folks that are going to lead us into the future and build the Mocse of the future. Man, when I look at them, they are smart, and driven, and adaptable. They got the right mindset, the right attitude. They're learning. I think that applies to the leadership team here at Mocse, but I also think it applies more generally to younger people as a whole. Right?
I felt like, I don't know, I felt like about 10 years ago, I went through this phase where I was kind of grumpy and grousing about younger people. I don't know why. It was just this weird phase. But now, everywhere I look, I just, I see this generation of change-makers and just really aspirational, smart, driven people who I think are going to make Mocse better, I think are going to make our society better. I think there's great, great things ahead. Then, maybe a little more closer to home, in the credit union, and maybe a little more strategic or almost tactical, the way technology is changing, I feel like we've gotten over a little bit of a hump.
Technology was this great expense that you had to incur, and it was really hard for a smaller organization to kind of get on that wave. But now, man, you think about just the explosion in the movement to cloud-based technology. You think about the explosion of APIs and integration in the technological environment. Now, a small organization, smaller, like a Mocse, with 80 people and a handful of branches, we can afford to have the same technology that Bank of America has, and to me ... and AI and machine learning. That talent is out there. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Yes.
Shane Saunders:
We can have access to that talent. We can rent that talent. It almost feels like if you're a smaller organization, and you have survived sort of the great consolidation up to this point, there's like this open field of opportunity. That's what I'm most excited about, is, in some ways, even being smaller, we can be more nimble. You know?
James Robert Lay:
Absolutely.
Shane Saunders:
We can make this decision in an afternoon to implement a technology and do it the next day. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Yes.
Shane Saunders:
That, I'd say those are probably the two biggest things I'm most excited about, this sort of evolution in technology coupled with this new generation of leadership that's coming up. I think it's going to be Katy, bar the door, and when that time comes for me to get the gold watch, I'm going to sit on my rocking chair at the farm with my glass of ice tea and just watch the show. I think it's going to be amazing.
James Robert Lay:
Well, it is, and I think you're on to two key points. Really, this idea of technology through decentralization, through the fact that what is now available to connect different platforms with API, and then you got the whole AI automation, machine learning, that's a huge capability upgrade. You mentioned being able to rent talent. That's a whole mental episode that I have around a book called Who Not How with Dan Sullivan, because it's ... I think a lot of times, as leaders, we trap ourselves, and we prevent our own future growth, thinking, "Well, how are we going to do that? That's a great idea, but how?"
If we can begin to think who before how, it's, there's this whole who ... Who could be another person. Who could be technology, as well. These are small mental hacks that, if we just create a greater sense of awareness, the future really is bright, particularly for, we'll call them community financial brands, because the capability has leveled the playing field. It all comes down to how we perceive the world around us, and that requires us to continuously be learning like a curious kindergartner.
Shane, on that note, as we wrap up here, I always like to send the dear listener away with something practical that they can do next to guide them forward on their own journey of growth, as all growth begins with a small simple step, a commitment today. What is one thing that they can do to continuously be a curious kindergartner to see the world through different lenses than maybe how they perceived them before?
Shane Saunders:
I think what we talked about, I think, earlier in the podcast is so key, like really, intentionally, just finding that space to reflect, and it has to be daily. It has to be quiet. It has to be technology-free. I think that's where you start to cultivate that curiosity, right, when you sort of quiet the noise and really start to reflect, and I think having some reflection questions. A key one for me is always, "If I could do anything different today, what would it have been?" Right? And then going back, and then thinking about that and unpacking that a little bit. It sounds simple, but for me, it's just a part of how I lead. It's a very profound exercise.
James Robert Lay:
I'm in 100% agreement with you to have questions that guide the thinking, because I think, particularly for individuals and leaders and teams that have never created the space and time to objectively review and reflect their progress, just saying, "Sit down and think about it," it's very intimidating. It's very overwhelming, which is why, if ... With your permission, can I add on to this thought here to give a little bit more of a framework?
Shane Saunders:
Please do. Yeah. Yeah.
James Robert Lay:
This is something that I'm sharing in Banking on Change, and it's one simple question that I have taught now thousands of times. But the question is this. At the end of every day, ask yourself, "What went well?"
Shane Saunders:
Yes.
James Robert Lay:
This is an acronym, because acronyms run around like crazy in digital growthtopia, because it's the only way this ADD mind can remember something. Well is an acronym. Winning. What were your three wins for the day, or what was your biggest win for the day? So that's the past. Excited and energized. It's like right now, in the present moment, with everything going on around you, what are you feeling most excited and energized about? What's giving you energy? I think just paying homage to that, at least drawing some intentionality to it. So that's the present.
So we've gone past. We've gone present. We're going to stay in the present. Lessons learned. "Thinking about everything I did today, what's one thing that I've learned?" Then, also, future-focused, looking, looking forward to tomorrow. "What am I looking forward to most accomplishing tomorrow?" In that essence, essentially, we're beginning to live our next day before we even have experienced that. From all of the research that I've done, if we can get that general sense of a framework to live that next day, to gain some clarity into what I'm looking forward to most, accomplishing most tomorrow, that's always given me some hope. That's always given me some optimism going forward into the future.
Shane Saunders:
You have changed my pasture walks forever.
James Robert Lay:
Well, I'm so happy that I've been able to do that. I'm also happy that you've been able to share your knowledge, your perspective, your experience that you've had on your own journey of growth, Shane. As we wrap up, what is the best way for someone to connect with you if they just want to say hello and continue the discussion we've started here?
Shane Saunders:
I'm on LinkedIn. That's always a good way to go. Email address is first initial, so S, last name, Saunders, @mocse.org.
James Robert Lay:
Connect with Shane. Learn with Shane. Grow with Shane. Shane, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Banking on Digital Growth. This has been a lot of fun today.
Shane Saunders:
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
James Robert Lay:
As always, and until next time, be well, do good, and make your bed.
