"When clients come to you, what is the biggest gap they have that is keeping them from being successful as leaders? >> Most leaders, especially technical leaders, assume they have to have all the answe..."

">> We operate in tech like we're supposed to give all of ourselves, all of our time, all of our energy to this endeavor and it's purely logical. That's not at all true. It's completely emotional. Prof..."

">> When people are in their gifts and their strengths, they have more energy. We all have more energy when we're operating from the things we naturally are good at. It's no one else's job to help you ..."

">> Honey, let's try it. So, I want you to tell me a challenge, something that you're struggling with. >> The main thing I struggle with these days is just Today, my guest is Rachel Lockett, an executi..."

"subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It helps tremendously. And if you become an annual subscriber of my newsletter, you get a year free of a ton of incredible products ..."

"It's a small number but in the right context it's a powerful one. Stripe processed just over $1.4 trillion last year. That figure works out to be about 1.3% of global GDP. It's a lot, but it's also ju..."

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"Rachel, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast. >> Thank you so much for having me, Lenny. I am honored to be here. I'm honored to have you here. Uh I was going to start with a a ..."

"they work with. They want to empower those around them. But sometimes the busyiness of our world gets in the way and the urgency of the litany of things to do distracts you from the people in front of..."

"started working with him when he was a frontline engineering manager at Coinbase and we talked about who he is, what his strengths are, and his bigger picture why. and he talked about this dream of cr..."

"they're saying goes a long way to motivating your team and helping them understand what's actually happening under the surface in this situation. >> And there's I think there's just so much power in j..."

"of coaching is active listening. >> Yes. So, that's listening. >> Second skill, powerful questions. >> So, asking powerful questions means I'm curious about what's really going on and there's not one ..."

">> Okay. So, just to reflect back what you're saying. So, this is someone comes to you with a monkey on their back. Here's a problem I'm trying to solve. Uh, this problem this person on my team is hav..."

"premise of coaching. You wouldn't coach if someone needs your guidance and comes to you and says, "Hey, I'm trying to take my company public. You took your company public. Can you tell me exactly the ..."

"You're helping equip them with the right questions to ask and the right skepticism to have. And so it's always useful to be in conversation when someone who reports to you has a different worldview th..."

"and soon he realized that he was the blocker on every decision, every business decision, every product decision and he was resenting it. He wanted his team to take more ownership. But with some coachi..."

"plan for 2026 and spend his time in his gifts which are product vision and strategy. So that's more of a global example of what it what results from you from leaders shifting from the mode of solving ..."

"it just grows. I couldn't help but make it more awesome and and bigger and have this podcast now and other stuff I got going on. So it's always this. So I'm in a world now where it's just this. The wa..."

"boulder is coming for you. Oh, man. >> That's a fight orflight instinct. We all have. >> That's true. That's true. Okay. So, thank you for being vulnerable enough to share that with your listeners and..."

"just, you know, sit around and pontificate from a cloud. I need to really understand how things work, what's what's working, what's not, what's real, what's not. >> So, being on the ground as much as ..."

"free time? It's just like agreeing to more things. Just like, oh, look, I'm kind of free right now. Oh, okay. Let's do this uh let's do this talk here. >> Let's agree to this thing here. It's so it's ..."

">> Yeah, I love that insight. If you um what I'm hearing is do less in certain areas and think about your team and really expanding the capacity of your team and be rigorous about the things you can h..."

">> and your buckets full with care. I feel that. I feel that. >> Yeah. So, what's one thing you could do in the next two weeks that would help you get closer to the kind of spaciousness you want to cr..."

">> The more resonant you are with the end state and what's possible for you, the easier it is to be disciplined in the near term. >> I love just that element of here's what you will get out of this. I..."

">> Uh I love that I got great advice in this conversation already. How what a great ROI for me at least. >> What did it feel like to be coached on your own podcast? >> It was it was it was uh unusual...."

">> Okay. So, I'm going to go back to asking you questions, >> right? This is a good segue to something I wanted to spend a little time on, which is burnout. >> Yeah, >> we, you know, what I'm talking ..."

"time. So, I've also witnessed people who are still inspired and continually energetic and seem to have some secret well of, you know, some diesel battery or I guess I should say a Tesla battery that h..."

"than the one that played to their strengths. So, one tool I like to give is for people to actually take two weeks and every night reflect on what's the five what are the five things today that gave me..."

"tuning in to where your spark is and protecting that spark, feeding it. >> I love that insight. That just blew my mind. So, very tactically, the way you would do this is for two weeks every night is t..."

">> Is there any advice for actually doing this? Say someone's just like, "Yeah, I've got to do this." But you know, most people don't actually do this. Is there like a buddy you can nominate just help..."

"really there you can get creative once you really understand, oh these things give me a ton of energy and these things are exhausting, but I still need to fill this need for the business. What are all..."

">> What's like a good percentage of your work life that should be in gifts and things that energize you versus okay, I actually got >> So, my fitness test is 80%. That's the goal. That's the aspiratio..."

"about this topic because it actually is how I ended up as an executive coach. So uh 10 years ago I was working at a small company called Remind and I was running the UX research team and the CEO asked..."

"within a month this team was working well together they were you know reviewing each other's code base they were really disagreeing in a healthy way in our team meetings they felt more connected to us..."

"behind your ideas and that's impressive. You're a people person. And at first I was offended. What? You think I don't have the ability to be a great product leader? And yet I I sat with what he said a..."

"you're in your gifts. And you have more inspiration and capacity to offer the world. So, I just want to share that story because it's helpful to be honest with the people you care about when they seem..."

"know that there are ways to do that. Talk to your manager. Hey, uh, here's something I like may not be possible today, but here's where I want to be going. Here's what I want to be spending time on. I..."

"your strength seriously and actively manage around your weaknesses. >> Is there any maybe last piece of advice on this topic of helping people get to a place where they're feeling much less depleted a..."

"co-founders build better relationships. And in my experience, this is one of the most challenging parts of starting a company is the co-founder relationship. You A lot of people don't realize what the..."

"out. So, it's fascinating to watch people try to do something incredibly hard in the context of someone else's vision, someone else's strengths and weaknesses, and navigate that together. So, there's ..."

"And I think the the core at its core, what you need in a healthy relationship is one self-awareness. What do I bring into this dynamic? And how am I being experienced by the other person? What does th..."

"pattern over and over again. The CEO is the person who had to sell the vision. They're a person who loves big picture vision strategy. They often are great at influencing others. They love to sell ahe..."

">> On that second piece, the vows idea is such a good idea. Is that something you actually recommend? Like here's what I vow to do. >> Yeah, here's what I commit to do. So, I have um recently I actual..."

">> Awesome. We're going to link to that post. The first step uh anagram sounds like that's what you recommend and this is basically a personality profile that uh a lot of people love. I really like th..."

"going. So that's all really great. What if you're just already in it and just like this is really annoying and I don't like this person that much or so much tension constantly. What what are a couple ..."

"really well. They were both able to share. We we did use a 360. So they got feedback from their teams and then shared it with one another, but they were able to be open and vulnerable in what was work..."

"recommitted. They made some changes on their leadership team to fill their gaps. They also started, I think, meeting once a week virtually and they started a cadence of getting together in person quar..."

"great. I think it's definitely possible. >> Outside of the co-founder relationship, do you have any just tactical tips for people to improve their interpersonal interpersonal skills with just team mem..."

"But it's not for me to prove to him how little he's doing in the house because he might have a totally different story about what's happening. So I'm going to give you a framework that I like that man..."

"understanding you. So in this case, I might make a request, I'd like to ask you next time you have a sprint planning meeting to include me as optional or to send me the road map afterwards that you al..."

"you can be incredibly bold and brave if you stay on your side of the net. So, this model helps you do that because it's really about sharing your emotions and your needs and making a request without b..."

">> Let me uh remind folks of the framework. I'm going to try using this. I wish it was a handy acronym offer. >> Offner. >> So the framework is share what you've observed, just the facts of what is ha..."

"And I think we covered actually much of this in what we just talked about, but I'm curious if there's any other advice you have for helping people have difficult conversations. Let me read a quote fro..."

"um think of them as a growth opportunity. Second, there is always something that we're doing to contribute to the conflict. even if it feels like the other person's insane and is driving us crazy and ..."

"just going to do it. Instead, take responsibility for your part. What is my piece in making this dynamic happen? And how can I address it? That makes me think about uh Jerry Colona was on the podcast ..."

"interact with someone around something that's not working for you. Like I think typically a difficult conversation arises because some feelings are coming up for you and you have a need that's not bei..."

">> Awesome. Just remind folks of the NVC framework because this is the thing that's hard in the moment like oh what should I be saying? Uh observe feelings needs request. >> Yeah. Exactly. And there's..."

"is not going to work. So then you have to take action. And even engaging in the hard conversation and seeing what happens can lead you to the clarity that you need to take action on talent that's not ..."

"thrive. such a a simple concept that I think people overlook is just everything you do is going to be the people that you have around you and the environment you create for them to operate. I think yo..."

">> Yeah. And I want to I want to make a distinction between that and what we talked about earlier which was lean into your strengths because I don't believe people should suffer through the day grindi..."

"Talk about this onepage plan, how you recommend companies operate uh with this. >> Yeah, thanks for asking that question. I think typically companies have complicated the process of aligning their vis..."

"big picture vision that we're all committed to. So, I actually got this idea of the onepage plan from Alpine Investors. They do a one-page they they have something called the people first operating rh..."

"want to name that it's not just about having a plan, it's about how you create it, how you reflect on it and how you come together around it to celebrate wins. So in my opinion, a very underattended t..."

"That's the power of combining a simple plan, whether it's one page or not, that aligns you from the top to the bottom, your vision all the way down to your quarterly goals, and a time where you stop, ..."

"I guess life from a coaching perspective. >> Yeah, it's a great question. So as a coach I use AI in a couple key ways that I'm grateful for. One, I use granola which I saw you give away to your listen..."

"helpful role in between on the tactics. >> That is super cool. So that's something you already do where they have access to this kind of >> It's something I'm building right now. My clients don't have..."