64. Swaying Away from Plastics: Julia Marsh's Seaweed Solutions

[00:00:00] Les McDaniel: Hello and welcome back to the Beard of Wisdom Podcast. I am your host, Les McDaniel and your driving instructor still for the next couple of days, and my wife would totally say, That's not a good idea for me to be your driving instructor. She can't stand the way that I drive.

[00:00:12] Les McDaniel: Oh my goodness, my, my kids pick make fun of me. I'm a really good driver. It's just I'm a very aggressive driver. I like those fourth and fifth gears. You know it even when I'm driving, but I digress. This is the show to inspire the uninspired to unstick what is stuck and to liberate that leader within you.

[00:00:28] Les McDaniel: But before we start that engine, let's go ahead and I wanna remind you a little bit about where you can find this on all of your social channels, where we are driving through the fifth, fourth, third, second, and first gears, as well as the reverse. All along the way, even as we continue. Down this path together on Instagram and Facebook.

[00:00:47] Les McDaniel: You can find me@epicfusion.life at TikTok and YouTube. You can find me at Bearded Wisdom. This is the title of the show and you will find us once again at Bearded Wisdom on those two platforms. Today we are shifting down. Going really slow. We're starting in first gear. You're start in first gear, man.

[00:01:07] Les McDaniel: It's that. It's that one that's so fun to punch it and take off. If you got the right kind of engine underneath you, that is for dang sure. But it's really the place for us to slow down to recharge, that recharge mode that really allows us that extra energy to get started. That's, this is our routine right here.

[00:01:25] Les McDaniel: This is the start of it. We gotta have a good one right here. And we're also gonna start talk about reverse, which is the responsive mode. This is where we must sometimes have to wid must don't. If we don't, Oh my goodness. What a mess we make of our life when we don't do this. When we've messed up in any of the five gears, we have to put this thing in reverse sometimes and go back and make amend. We have to slow things down. We'll get into that, but I just want you to know it's a real thing. We can't just always drive in these upper gears sometimes. I mean, otherwise we get stuck in our parking spot without that whole reverse thing, right?

[00:01:58] Les McDaniel: So today, Second gear, I mean First gear, we already did that. We've been through Fifth Gear, your focus mode. We've been through Fourth Gear, your task mode. we've been through Third Gear, Your Social Mode. We've been through your second gear, which is your connection mode, and. We are now entering into first.

[00:02:15] Les McDaniel: The recharge mode. And I would venture to say that this is the one that many of us today, and especially if you're in the entrepreneurial world or you're a A A C-Suite executive or whatever you might be that is, or you are running a company or a business or an organization, man, it is so easy to get.

[00:02:32] Les McDaniel: Just bombarded with the stress of all the things to do in your day-to-day work, all the incredible demands that are being placed upon you to just, I mean, hunch outta first gear, burn the tires, get through it as quick as possible, and jump directly from first to fourth and fifth gear. And we all know that when you're driving a car, if you skip second, third gears like that, just, it's not good for the.

[00:02:57] Les McDaniel: You're really stressing the engine to try to even keep it, that, that momentum going after first gear when you, when you jump through all the hoops. So being able to slow yourself down is gonna be a really powerful, way to embrace this new thing. I guys, I just gotta know. This first gear is one of the ones that I, I cherish the most when I really am good at it.

[00:03:17] Les McDaniel: When I really set my intentions to have a, a really good first gear and recharge mode, it truly does make everything else much more. much easier, honestly. And the challenge with this though is, is that it's also the easiest one to let go of because it feels like if I just have a really good day and, and I get started with my routine and everything, I go slowly through first, second, and third and hit that, that rhythm of fourth and fifth gear.

[00:03:45] Les McDaniel: When I get in that on one day and it feels so productive, it's easy to re not to forget that that started with that first gear and to think that my productivity really just was all that it was today that made it so great, and then lose sight of the fact that I needed those other three gears to be able to get to the speed of operation and productivity and relational, relational equity with my, with my people.

[00:04:08] Les McDaniel: I mean, relational equity is such a key component in all of this, but. As we go through this, what I want you to begin to see here is that first gear as a recharge mode. This is where we exercise and we sleep. This is where we, we take time to do the reading, the walking, the journaling, the movies, and the nights out with our, with our, our best friend or our loved one, or our, and my best friend is my wife, so what can I say?

[00:04:33] Les McDaniel: This is what we are here for. It's that deeper connection that truly, truly allows for so much. We all recharge. We all need it, but it often looks very different for different personality types, particularly for extroverts and introverts. We we like to call them solar powered versus battery powered folks.

[00:04:53] Les McDaniel: You see, for introverts, often it looks like reading, devotions, walking, solitary exercise, meditation, yoga, sleeping for extroverts. It could include all of the above, but also has to, has to. Cuz I, I'm, I am an extrovert, so I'm, I'm gonna just claim it has to, but it has to include movies and parties and nights out with friends, team sports and an emphasis is often.

[00:05:18] Les McDaniel: With these shared experiences together. So first gear for extroverts can truly actually look like a little bit of our third gear mode. It really can look like me going on a golf outing. And connecting with new people, or, I did that the other day. I went out and I said, I, I'm gonna go play golf by myself.

[00:05:36] Les McDaniel: And I joined a group and I got to know them and I hung out with them and I talked to this one guy who had a really weird swing. I mean, he had his, he had his, he was a leftie and he had left hand grip and he would swing opposite. I mean, it was just really unique. I don't know. I mean, you guys, come on.

[00:05:49] Les McDaniel: This is, this is real time. We're, we're having a real time chat here, but I'm wondering what does first gear look like for. how does your tendency to recharge too much or too little affect your relationships and or your productivity? Like I said, when I skip this step, man, my, my, my ability to truly be present with those who are around me or show up at the office ready to be connecting in a way that allows us for the maximum productivity or for me to actually be focused enough and have spent the time enough to know that this is the way that my day would best be.

[00:06:23] Les McDaniel: It's gone. It's just gone. So maybe you can experience that. So here are some of the warning signs of First Gear. You know, you have an unhealthy first gear. If you accept escapism for your reality as your norm, you get lost in a book or a new idea. Most of the week, you devote too much time to first gear and not connecting with others.

[00:06:43] Les McDaniel: You focus maybe too much on exercise and diet, so much so that it becomes overbearing for. Let alone for your relationships, it can truly become a barrier. I've, I've actually witnessed relationships die because of the fact that the, the one of the partners was too obsessed with working out. It. It may also look like finding that your personal recharge routines constantly dictate everyone else's schedule.

[00:07:08] Les McDaniel: Oh, I gotta go take that nap before I go do that. No, I can't. I can't do that because I'm just, I, I'm exhausted. I got, you gotta gimme some time here. Or you binge on TV series and use computer gaming to escape. Maybe you rely completely on very small numbers of relationships without connecting to a much broader world.

[00:07:26] Les McDaniel: So I ask you, how healthy is your first gear when you're looking at it? Do you land in the red, which is unhealthy? Yellow, which is somewhere between the two? Kind of a, a happy medium. I don't know if it's happy. Could be sad cause it's in the middle. I don't know. Who knows? Or do you land in green, which is healthy?

[00:07:43] Les McDaniel: Again, you're gonna hear me over and over. Track these tendencies. Re recognize these. This is an assessment that's gonna serve you well in just a minute. In fact, today, today we're gonna dive into this a little bit. And we're gonna discuss a little bit of the process of what it looks like to start to get healthy in each of these categories.

[00:08:02] Les McDaniel: However, we've been through the five gears, we've been moving forward, and now we're, we've been downshifting still moving forward, but now it's time to put the breaks on and put it into reverse because here's what reverse is all about. I wonder, do you know how to apologize? Do you have a historical track record that really is shows that you care so much about, about how your relationships are equitable, that you are willing to slow down in moments where you've done someone wrong or you've made mistepped or you've taken a wrong turn.

[00:08:42] Les McDaniel: Let's stick with the metaphor last. Come on man. Do you tend to be responsive in moments where you need forgiveness or resistant? Somebody comes in and, and you've crossed a, a boundary with them, or you've, you've made the wrong turn as we've already. And you just, they, they push back on you. Are you responsive and you make sure that they that they find themselves in a, in a safe place?

[00:09:07] Les McDaniel: Or are you resistant and you're like, Just get outta here. I, I don't, I'm not gonna mess with you. I'm the boss. Where do you land in your leadership? You know, some other examples of this can come from things like with relationship with your maybe a fathers son relationship. I know that when my son comes to me and he says, I'm sorry I messed up.

[00:09:24] Les McDaniel: I have been known at certain points to say I don't wanna hear an apology when I'm so angry that I'm, I, I can't even begin to fathom it because of something so silly. And more than likely, just an inconvenience to my own life and my own schedule and my own. And, and I, and I have this resistance to that, and that puts me in a reverse later on because I have to go back a little bit and I have to spend some time, you know, reconnecting with him and letting him know I'm sorry for my response to him.

[00:09:54] Les McDaniel: I'm sorry for not accepting your apology is really what it boils down to. we can also look at a sports metaphor. I mean, think about it. There are millions of people who watch sporting events all the time. It's football season right now, and the nfl, we know that when that, The big show hits the stage and we're there at the Super Bowl. There are so many people watching that big show and we, can all see that person who made the, the wrong move or missed the, missed the catch or threw the interception or fumbled the ball and they step up and they tap their chest. They go, That's on me.

[00:10:27] Les McDaniel: That's on me. And we'd love that the first time. We think that's an amazing gift that they are able to put the, put things in reverse. Take ownership of what their mistake was, but a couple of times of. Multiple times with that. And before too long we're, we're not really happy with this guy and we want that guy out.

[00:10:47] Les McDaniel: It's amazing how we can be incredibly responsive for one minute with the, and then a couple of you know, bad plays later, be very resistant to this guy and want this guy gone. We need a new quarterback because he threw three interceptions in the Super Bowl. Nevertheless, he made it to the Super Bowl.

[00:11:02] Les McDaniel: We don't, we don't care about that so much. Or maybe you're the, not me, it's the other person. You deflect, you blame you void. You move on and act like nothing ever happened. In order to show the weaknesses of the other person, it is a fear of being seen as weak. And I'm wondering, are you secure and confident and humble enough to actually begin to be more responsive to people who are putting things in reverse?

[00:11:28] Les McDaniel: Or can you do it yourself? Can you put yourself in reverse? Go back and make amends where you may have made those wrong turns. Or are you insecure, arrogant, and prideful? You see, this is the real challenge with reverse. I think we live in a day and age where the politicians have made it this, this thing where all they do is defend their mistakes.

[00:11:50] Les McDaniel: They, they defend them by making even further mistakes. They try to cover their mistakes over and over and over again. Or they could simply just refuse to actually acknowledge that there was any mistake to begin with. They will literally do something and then in the next breath say, I did not do that.

[00:12:07] Les McDaniel: This is the state of the world that we are living in. Our culture is constantly concerned about showing weakness, and yet great wisdom says. We are made perfect in our weakness that, that the strength of the thing that created us, this creator that has literally put all things in motion is the one that is there driving this, car.

[00:12:30] Les McDaniel: We're gonna have to go with car cuz we're in the five gears. But the, the creator of all things is driving this vehicle of our. And we have to be willing to recognize that we're imperfect. And the more that we can be truly authentic about that and vulnerable about our weaknesses, the more that people can begin to actually be, see us as approachable.

[00:12:49] Les McDaniel: We become people that, that, that others want to follow, not that they have to follow. We have this, this mindset in our world that we have to somehow keep up appearances as those who run businesses and, and do things that are at the upper eschelon of decision making when the truth is we have so many resources at our disposal in our world and, and in our companies and in our families.

[00:13:14] Les McDaniel: I'm always amazed at how we, we look at our kids and we don't actually see the potential that they have at an early age to begin caring for themselves in ways that allow for them to learn behaviors that will teach them things that will help them succeed in, in, in their lives long down the road after we're gone.

[00:13:33] Les McDaniel: And it's amazing to me that we cater so often to our, our children in this. And then there's the other side of that, which is I, I know so many parents who have no idea how to even talk to their kids. They've made so many wrong turns that they don't even know how to broach the concept of forgiveness and asking for forgiveness and asking for a redo or asking them to just, Let's talk about this.

[00:13:56] Les McDaniel: I have worked in youth groups where I have been the resource for many a kid and many a parent discussing, you know, individually how they are struggling to have this communication. And what we're doing here is we're trying to create ways for us to begin to open the doors to those. And the gears, I believe, are one of those ways to begin to allow us to have the language to acknowledge the things that are maybe not going exactly as we had.

[00:14:23] Les McDaniel: So what do we do from here? Well, this is where we wanna talk about your gear order. We wanna go ahead and we wanna rate these things with your five gears. This is using your previous rankings, place the five gears in order from one to five or for both current reality and for what you would prefer. So your reality, what's your number one area of what, what is your number one area currently that you are succeeding?

[00:14:49] Les McDaniel: You're, you're green. You are healthy in list that all the way down through five so that the five would be the most unhealthy of the of them at all. It'd be your red, it'd be your double red. I don't know what it would be, but you can make, you can make some choices here. You know, if you've got three red, well rank those three red based upon this and then flip it over here to your preferred.

[00:15:11] Les McDaniel: Where would you like to begin to focus and grow in your health when it comes to the your gear order? , you know, how, how maybe there's just in, in fact, what you can put next to that is what is one thing that you can do differently that might allow for you to be able to put that gear in reverse and do some work that would bring that gear back into the focus and be where you can truly begin to focus in on what it is that is most beneficial for your, your relationships.

[00:15:40] Les McDaniel: And your productivity as you create stronger connections in a world that truly is limiting us on the amount of time and energy that we can spend because of the grind that it demands of us. And guys, there are ways out of this grind, and I think that we have the option with this particular tool to actually begin to do that.

[00:16:00] Les McDaniel: I think this tool really starts to create priorities for us in our lives, and this is that opportunity by realigning yourself and, and putting the preferred Motus operandi. So that being said, guys, we've made it through the five years plus reverse.

[00:16:16] Les McDaniel: There are a few things here that I really, really want you to begin to recognize. The gears make great sign language. Now, what in the world do I mean by this? I wanna encourage you to start this within your family. I want you to, I want you to start just using your five fingers and, and then maybe you're thumbed for the reverse.

[00:16:37] Les McDaniel: I think it's a really great practice to be able to hold up fingers and talk to your kids, as I've mentioned already about what gear they're in and what, what gear we should be in based upon the, the current social context. This will be both a great exercise for you and being able to ask your kids, what gear are we in?

[00:16:57] Les McDaniel: And they can all say, We're in gear five, we're in focus mode. We're we're raking leaves and we're really focused on cleaning up the yard. Boom, what a great opportunity that they've learned that when they are focused in on something. They're in Gear five. The fifth gear, I dunno why I call it Gear Five, fifth Gear, whatever.

[00:17:14] Les McDaniel: Same thing. Same thing. First gear guys, where are we? We're moving into, we, we are going to bed, We're brushing our teeth, we're winding down, man. We are in gear one, It's time to recharge our batteries so that we can rev those engines tomorrow and be ready to go. I mean, imagine the language that would happen in that.

[00:17:34] Les McDaniel: Do the same thing in your office. I mean, literally, let's do the same thing in your workplace, in the team that you run, beginning to have the language and the ability to, to mark certain spaces as first gear, fourth gear, third gear, second gear, first gear. I mean, we, we talk about it all the time. That that the, where we have the conversations where the coffee room is, and we go into the coffee room.

[00:17:56] Les McDaniel: When you have all these breakouts, well, what if that was the place where we talked about healthy ways to connect? And we utilize that to, to break down spaces that usually are used for tearing others down or gossip or whatever. And we began to put certain things in place that were healthy, healthy traits for what it looks like to be in third gear.

[00:18:17] Les McDaniel: What a great opportunity that would be to begin to establish new ways of doing things. So here's an exercise that I have for you today that we will move forward in, and that exercise is, is that I want you to I want you to spend some time. And I want you to reach out to, to your spouse. Maybe it's your business partner, maybe it's even one of your kids, and I want you to tell them which gear you find the most difficult.

[00:18:41] Les McDaniel: And why is it so hard for you to do? We really want you to focus in on the gear that you ranked number five here if possible, because I think it's gonna be key. And maybe what you do is you recognize that where, where you are failing in the gears based upon your relationships and maybe you're talking to your wife about how you, you get stuck in fourth gear, in fifth gear when you know that you should be in third gear and second gear at home.

[00:19:04] Les McDaniel: It's part second gear and first gear. Now we're getting confused, right? We're all, the gears are, are starting to flow together. Forgive me, but I think you're understanding it because I think there are, we with each person in our life, with each of the connections that we have, we may be struggling and failing to actually understand what gear we should be in with them.

[00:19:25] Les McDaniel: I remember a story recently where it was actually regarding the support challenge matrix where a, the tool, another one of our tools that we'll eventually learn here. The boss was actually talking about his how he was in the office and his leadership style, how his, how he supported, and how he challenged those that he worked.

[00:19:42] Les McDaniel: And what was interesting about it is, is that he was completely clueless about his, how he was engaging with everyone else in the office and what their needs were. He didn't understand their gears. He didn't understand how their gears shifted, in fact, And one of those instances was that he said he showed up and, and he said, Well, what do I need to do differently?

[00:19:59] Les McDaniel: And the guy says, I just need you to give me, An hour before you come barging in my office when you, as soon as we hit the floor, running in the office and hitting that fourth and fifth gear where we are, go, go, go. I need to take some time to kind of collect myself. I need to spend some time working through my gears to get to the place where I can go.

[00:20:19] Les McDaniel: Fourth and fifth gear mean. That boss needed to learn also how to downshift a little bit and to spend a little bit more time in his third gear as he is getting to know those in his office, because he didn't even know the names of some of the, of his team members', family, and they had been in the office and brought cookies and cupcakes and all sorts of things.

[00:20:40] Les McDaniel: Like this is the story that you can, that we all hear play out throughout our cultures today, and the office is that place that we really, truly should. To flourish with one another as we understand where we are, the context we're in, and what time it is, and how we should show up in those different gears.

[00:21:00] Les McDaniel: Now, one of the ahas of today is that that is really important for us in strengths based leadership. We know that you focus on your strengths and outsource your weakness. However, this is not really the case when it comes to gears because when you ignore your weakest gears, you will actually undermine your influence.

[00:21:22] Les McDaniel: It's a little bit of a different concept that if you were weak in a gear, it does not mean that you outsource your family dinner like, or your sleep. We, we obviously can't do that. Ignoring those weakest gears, if those are your weakest. They will truly begin to creep into your ability to move forward in all the other gears.

[00:21:41] Les McDaniel: And so it's important that we make sure that we don't skip gears along the way, and that we understand there are times where we need to slam on the breaks and we need to put that thing in reverse and make sure that we are taking care of those connections that we have in this life. So moving forward, we're gonna go dive a little bit deeper tomorrow into what it looks like to create a healthy version of all of these gears and how we can begin to, well, what, what do we do with stress?

[00:22:10] Les McDaniel: Like, is there such a thing as healthy stress, moderate, extreme? What? What's the right amount of stress in any of these? And how does that actually drive us? So until then, keep driving down the highway of life together. Make sure you keep an eye out for oncoming traffic and the those who are passing by don't, don't pull out in front of anyone.

[00:22:29] Les McDaniel: We don't wanna, we don't wanna tick anyone off and, you know, get the finger or something like that. But, but if you do, it's okay. We can move forward and you can be at peace. Because literally, we know this, our peace is not affected by external realities unless we allow them to, because we have a foundation that is peace.

[00:22:48] Les McDaniel: And that internal reality for us is one that we are tapping into with each and every gear that we begin to navigate through and understand. And I look forward to seeing you guys on the flip side for now. Peace to you and I'll see it.