SNS 127: Saturday Night Special – Interview with leadership coach Eric Winters

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 127.

[00:00:05] Eric Winters: I'm Eric Winters. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasure it's to live out your calling, having the ability to find your best self is key.

[00:00:22] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.

[00:00:30] and when we can hold that's experience in a kind of balanced awareness now not ignoring outfit is not concerns and not letting them overwhelmness, but instead of holding our fearful minds, changing our relationship as you stay.

[00:00:48] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your [00:01:00] time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that.

[00:01:12] Can impact the work

[00:01:15] and tonight's Saturday night special. I interview Eric Winters about his book swipe. I also ask Eric to share with you the number one regret of most people and how we can actually avoid it. And I ask Eric about the one key skill that we need to learn. If we're going to make an impact on. Now, one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity.

[00:01:43] Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really. I've got a course called productivity for your passion. That's designed to help you do this and then to hold you [00:02:00] accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.

[00:02:09] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personal. Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.

[00:02:27] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that in productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com slash law. Eric is a self-leadership coach, black belt, hand washer, speaker, and Arthur, with deep knowledge in the science of building courageous and emotionally intelligent mindsets.

[00:02:57] His know-how is a result of over 20 [00:03:00] years of international corporate life. Two master's degrees in human behavior change. And over 12 years helping leaders and their teams become their best selves to meet workplace challenges affecting. He spends much of his time developing authentically courageous leadership through keynotes workshops and individual coaching.

[00:03:21] Eric is the Arthur of swipe, right on your best self, simple steps to a bolder life with fewer regrets. Welcome to the show air. Thank

[00:03:32] Eric Winters: you, Scott. A pleasure to be here with you.

[00:03:35] Scott Maderer: So we talked a little bit in the intro. Your book is out and I love the name swipe right on your best self. How in the world did you come up with that as a book title and as a

[00:03:46] Eric Winters: subject?

[00:03:48] Yes, I'm. I have to admit I was it was a flash of inspiration. The moment I came up with that and it made me laugh too, but I've come up with. Of [00:04:00] course, the idea of swiping rights is something that's emerged as this internet dating has taken off and extraordinary things. Scott, I learned a week ago that apparently 30%.

[00:04:10] Of all couples now have met online. They've used some app online and in the most well known app Tinder, you look like you're presented with a number of people that perhaps you might date with. They might be interested in and you just get an image and a bit of text. And if you like the look of that person, if you're interested in spending some time with them, you put your finger on that picture and you swipe it to the right, because you're choosing to spend some time with that person.

[00:04:39] And it occurred to me that we spend an awful lot of time thinking about who we want to live with or what kind of person we'd like to have as a partner. But at the same time, there's someone else that we spend even more time with throughout our lives and it's ourselves. And I think what's overlooked often is that we do [00:05:00] get to choose.

[00:05:01] What kind of people we're going to be, we get to choose what kind of qualities we're going to demonstrate and manifest, what kind of values we're going to live by. These things don't happen to us. We make them happen. So I've called my books swipe, right? Best self to underline this idea that we get to choose in every minute of every day, how we're going to show up.

[00:05:27] And if we're going to show up, why not choose to show up as close as possible to being our best? That's how I came up with the title.

[00:05:38] Scott Maderer: Yeah. It leads itself to an obvious question then, because like you said, it's a choice we can choose to show up at a particular way. Why then do so many people. I feel like it's not a choice that they're showing up the way that they're supposed to, so to speak or half to,

[00:05:55] Eric Winters: well, a lot of us live lives on a kind of [00:06:00] autopilot is becoming increasingly

[00:06:02] Scott Maderer: aware.

[00:06:03] Now

[00:06:03] Eric Winters: we enter these habitual states. And I like to think that actually there were. Human predicaments, Scott, that, that hold us back, that prevents us from really choosing and showing up as ourselves. The first human predicament is that if you're a human being and I'm going to say that most of you on our is off, we live, we have a few dog listers, but mainly okay.

[00:06:30] They might want to zone out for a little bit for the dogs, but the humans listening they'll know, or perhaps they won't know, but. If you're a human being in two worlds, the dogs live in one, they live in the world that they can see, they can smell, they could run off the bowls. They live bang in the real world that you and I, we spend about 50% of our lives in our heads.

[00:06:53] Reliving the past, imagining what's going to work. What are we going to do later? Muslim, forget to buy this, [00:07:00] got to write that report. I've got to answer that email. So half of our lives. Is in a kind of virtual reality. It's not real. They were just imagining. And when we're in that virtual reality, it actually has a lot of influence.

[00:07:15] It has an exaggerated influence over what we do. So just by imagining something not going right. And I'm on. It's a way for us today. If I was to ask that organization for help, if I was to ask for what I want in a relationship, if I was to ask for that raise, I'd like we imagine how might that go? And minds are brilliant at conjuring up dreadful, catastrophic consequences.

[00:07:44] It's their job to keep us alive. But those imaginations, we have those feelings. Ooh, I wouldn't want to look stupid. I wouldn't want to be embarrassed if they want to upset anyone. Those imagined scenarios have [00:08:00] amazing influence over, over us and they hold us back. A friend of mine was in a, an electronic store trying all those new virtual reality headsets you can get now.

[00:08:11] And he was on the ground floor, big, competent story whacked on this VR headset. And he's looking around and suddenly when he put the headset on, he was catapulted to the top of a building he's on the roof and he was on the edge of this building. And the sales assistant said, I know you can still hear me just take a few steps forward.

[00:08:34] And he's only hit your building

[00:08:36] under no circumstances. Now it was a virtual reality. Now on the one level, doesn't matter if it feels real,

[00:08:44] Scott Maderer: it

[00:08:45] Eric Winters: felt like a match to. And death that extraordinarily, you would know. We think about perhaps collaborating with someone, asking for help, admitting we've made a mistake going for it, [00:09:00] whatever that might mean work or personal life.

[00:09:03] Often we imagine things going wrong and it's a part of us, a part of us things do not step over that edge. You and it exaggerates terribly. You will die. Now. Of course, we don't hear these words, but there's a sense of foreboding of danger, of threat. And we step back from what seems like a life-threatening edge.

[00:09:27] So this is the first human predicament that you and I share Scott, and all your lists. We've all got fabulous imaginations, which are extremely influential, and they keep us living reactive, defensive and avoidant lives, playing it safe, playing not to lose rather than playing to win.

[00:09:51] Yeah. We are risk avoidance

[00:09:54] Scott Maderer: who likes payments. And like you said, it's actually because your brain is trying to protect you. [00:10:00] It's not a bad instinct. It's a good instinct. Unfortunately, in today's world, there aren't a lot of lions trying to eat us, despite the fact that it still feels like there are

[00:10:10] Eric Winters: no.

[00:10:12] Yeah. The other thing is that even if someone was, let's say, we were asking you for help, perhaps we were trying to write a book, launch a business, ask someone out what, the consequences of this things not going well or not. Life-threatening right. Actually we might feel embarrassed, sheepish awkward for what.

[00:10:34] Too it's tolerable, but the mind says, whoa, under no circumstances, go there. It would be catastrophic and era cover. Big lie. But as you say, the brain is trying to keep us alive and it's worked. You are alive because your ancestors or your parents going back a long time were [00:11:00] afraid.

[00:11:01] And so we should thank the really this fearful legacy we've been given has actually resulted in us being born. This is the first problem we live in two worlds. The second problem that undermines our ability to live courageously is that we live in a world in which we are continually drip fed junk values.

[00:11:23] We're just continually told that actually the way to be the lasting happy. Look at this poster, do you see these happy people? See how popular they are? How good looking they are, how successful they are. They've got the right. It could be the fragrance. They've got the correct fragrance, the drink,

[00:11:42] Scott Maderer: whatever.

[00:11:43] Yeah. The right

[00:11:44] Eric Winters: watch

[00:11:45] Scott Maderer: the right car drive the driver's car.

[00:11:49] Eric Winters: Yeah. A part of us looks and goes rubbish. I don't believe it. But another part of us is always paying attention and it's quietly nodding. Yeah. I get the message.[00:12:00] Yeah. What would advertising does? Of course. And it's the same if you watch social media, all these attractive, happy, successful

[00:12:09] Scott Maderer: Instagram.

[00:12:10] Eric Winters: Yeah. If only we could see that insides as what is the outsides,

[00:12:15] Scott Maderer: but the outsides look great,

[00:12:18] Eric Winters: but we all, if we expose ourselves to this message, Watching social media watching advertising, and it's everywhere. Try avoiding it. It will erode our sense of being enough because the message is, as you are not enough.

[00:12:34] You are not successful enough, attractive enough, qualified enough, popular enough, some version of that. And when we experienced not being enough it literally dis courages us. Our capacity to be bold in life is undermined. It actually changes our blood chemistry. We become dis courage at a chemical [00:13:00] sense as well as a feeling.

[00:13:01] So that's the second problem. This is world of junk values, undermining our ability to choose to do the hard thing. The third human predicament. And this is it seems to be just humans. Again, that suffer from this is from a very young age.

[00:13:18] Scott Maderer: It's it is, it's quite a painful being a

[00:13:20] Eric Winters: human being from quite a young age.

[00:13:24] And no one really told us, but from quite a young age, we become. Of our own mortality. We notice our pets dying, perhaps a grandparent dies and part of our mind extrapolates that to others. First of all, gosh, what if my parents die? And that would be awful, but at some point, not that far later, we're thinking hang on a moment.

[00:13:47] Does this apply to me? Hang on. Surely not. And it's such an uncomfortable thought. Our own mortality. Our personal extinction on earth is [00:14:00] not a comfortable thought. Our biology is very committed to keeping us alive. And another part of our mind says you cannot stay alive. So we've got this incompatible.

[00:14:15] There's conflict. I must stay alive. And your, all of your biology is woven deep into you. You must stay alive. And this is reality. I cannot stay alive. So what do we do about it? Most of us will push away the inconvenient truth that we are. We have a limited amount of time on earth. We don't want to think about it, but when we do that, we Rob ourselves.

[00:14:42] Of the urgency to live well now, while we can, instead we procrastinate. We can procrastinate our lives away, always deferring doing what's challenging until tomorrow. So those are the [00:15:00] three human predicaments, which keep all of us. And it's not like this. Doesn't apply to some people, all of us at times.

[00:15:08] We'll hold ourselves back. We play it safe. Oh. Better not. And we forget just how precious our time alive is on this earth. And I was so heartened to listen to a lot of your podcasts got and hear that message again and again, that we have this extraordinary gift being alive. And when we push out of. Mind our mortality.

[00:15:41] We devalue our minutes alive on earth. We devalue the most precious thing we have, and that will come at a terrible price if we devalue it. So where you're in a pickle, if you're a human being we've got these three predicaments, but [00:16:00] there are, luckily, there are things we can do. We can handle these things.

[00:16:05] And it's most people just try to use willpower, right? To be more courageous. I I've gotta make this phone

[00:16:10] Scott Maderer: call. I don't want to make this phone. I've got it through. I've got it.

[00:16:12] Eric Winters: I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it now. I'm going to do it now. I'm picking up the phone. I'm making the call. We used this brute strength.

[00:16:20] Now we don't pallet has its place.

[00:16:22] Scott Maderer: It's important.

[00:16:23] Eric Winters: We need to use it sometimes, but this is not an emotionally intelligent. The strategy for the long haul, right? We need skills and there are combinations of well researched skills that we can all learn. Every one of us can learn to get better at choosing to do what's personally important.

[00:16:48] But challenging. We can all get better at doing that at valuing our time on this planet and taking action, meaningful action while we can. And that's [00:17:00] what my book is about. What can we do?

[00:17:01] Scott Maderer: So as part of that let's talk about let's go to the other end. You just talked about recognizing our own mortality.

[00:17:09] And I know you, you reference a book that I love too about the five regrets of dying. And so what is the number one regret that all end up having. What do we do about that as well?

[00:17:23] Eric Winters: Yes. Yeah. And it's this message from the dying, or they take a step back as, as you're aware that this book written by Bronnie ware, the top five regrets of the dying, she was a palliative care nurse spending time with people in their last days or weeks of life.

[00:17:40] And the number one regret that she heard more often than anything else from. Who were leaving this leading their lives was this, I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life that others expected of me wish [00:18:00] I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself. Not the life that others expected of me, that you and I are swamped with messaging about how a male of your age with your background ought to show up the kind of clothes which society would approve of this, a job you ought to have.

[00:18:24] If we're going to respect you Approved ways

[00:18:28] Scott Maderer: of being we're back of the car you drive. Oh yes, exactly. Exactly.

[00:18:35] Eric Winters: And if we buy in all of that messaging, I've got to have the right car, the right watch, the right fragrance, the right job, marry the kind of person that my parents would like me to have the kind of career that my society says.

[00:18:49] I apply. Apparently I ought to have to do we run the risk of

[00:18:55] Scott Maderer: joining.

[00:18:56] Eric Winters: The UN sharing the top five, the top [00:19:00] regret of the dying. So that message from the dying is a gift to the living. They're saying define for yourself. What would a life that was true to you? Look work that out. What are your strengths?

[00:19:14] What matters to you? What is your temperament? What gifts do you have? And then once you've done that, develop the courage to choose to do that more often, just two things there. One we have to craft lives that are authentic. We have to author our own lives, not take something off the shelf. Yeah, that's been given to us by our prevailing culture, but to what would, what did tailors do?

[00:19:49] They handmade clothes, really good titers. They bespoke tailoring. They call it don't. They, we need to do a kind of bespoke tiring job [00:20:00] on our lives. And sometimes not always, but sometimes that is going to be in conflict. Maybe you'd all love to be. A landscape Gardner, your parents said they wanted a doctor for his son, but you said not.

[00:20:14] No. Or it might be, I know. Be an artist I want to create, I want to get my hands covered in clay paint, or I want to be as a scientist, or I just want to speak to people and help them in their lives. So there will be times in life. When what we choose for ourselves is going to be in conflict. We're going to upset.

[00:20:38] We're going to upset people. It's a scale, be able to do that tactfully effectively but being true to yourself that requires courage. And I put it, she's got all of the best things in our life. If we look back, if you wrote a look back now, Scott, at the times in your life, when you've been most proud of [00:21:00] how you showed up I'm to.

[00:21:02] I imagine that many of those times it include a good dose of courage.

[00:21:09] Scott Maderer: All of

[00:21:10] Eric Winters: them. Yeah. So if it's that important, if courage is required to craft more and more times that we can be truly proud of. Then it behooves us to work out. Yeah. How can we build our courage? Not use the willpower route. Always, but sometimes use more skillful approaches to acting with courage and what I call courageous authenticity showing up as yourself.

[00:21:42] Scott Maderer: And the interesting thing because. To be clear. And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I've always emphasized that courage is not being afraid. It courage does not mean the absence because earlier you were talking about fear being one of those states. It doesn't mean [00:22:00] that goes away.

[00:22:00] It changes your relationship with it, but it doesn't go away. Can you talk a little bit about what courage really is?

[00:22:07] Eric Winters: Oh, yeah. A hundred percent Scott. Yeah. Bang on the money. There, there are, that is tragic. There are so many folks that say I'll do this when I feel confident I'll, as soon as I feel sure that I'm going to get a good results that's when I'll act and courage, unfortunately is taking action in the presence of uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.

[00:22:30] It's been described by a psychologist at Harvard called Susan David, who wrote a book on the topic as fear walking. So when we courageous fear is walking with us, it's coming along. We can't get rid of it, but there are things we can do, as you said, to change our relationship. So it's, so that we'll know it's still there.

[00:22:55] It's influence and control over what we do can [00:23:00] be diminished. That's the best we can do. We can reduce the influence of fear and there's going to be fair. Anything you do that's really matters. And your professional life and your personal life is going to be challenging. So I truly believe that the quality of our lives depends to a significant extent on our ability to take courageous actions, the quality of our lives.

[00:23:35] It depends on a lot, but our ability to take courageous actions to do what's matters, what's important, but he's also personally challenging.

[00:23:44] Scott Maderer: So you've mentioned several times not just using the willpower, that there's other skills that you can develop. Let's just take one because I know there's 200 and we don't have time for all of them, but let's take one example.

[00:23:56] What is one skill that you think is really important for people to [00:24:00] use or understand or learn to help them begin, maybe taking some

[00:24:03] Eric Winters: steps in that direction. Yeah there are, I'd love to try and pack in this time if we can three mindsets,

[00:24:12] Scott Maderer: but

[00:24:13] Eric Winters: yeah. Great. But the foundation. We need to cultivate a defiant gratitude for our time alive defined why defined because the world is telling you're not enough, but we can choose to appreciate and value what we do have.

[00:24:33] And this is ancient wisdom. The Stoics new this epic teacher said, oh, you'd like it to be happy. Learn towards what you already have.

[00:24:43] Scott Maderer: It

[00:24:44] Eric Winters: is a lot of folks. I hang on just a moment, Eric. If I start enjoying what I've already got, go over to God. Isn't that going to sack my drive to achieve more,

[00:24:55] Scott Maderer: but not the opposite of driving.

[00:24:57] Eric Winters: No. You can still [00:25:00] reach for more, to have a greater impact. Somebody's more good things happen. Even while you're enjoying what you already have and add in fact more than that, it, the very

[00:25:11] Scott Maderer: act

[00:25:11] Eric Winters: of gratitude, appreciation, emboldens us.

[00:25:16] We are emboldened. So it actually makes it easier. To be courageous. So the first thing we need to do is to cultivate this defined gratitude. So I said, it's defined for two reasons. One, because the world is saying you are not enough, but the other thing we need to be grateful for in a defined manner is our minutes alive.

[00:25:37] We've got to stop pushing us away and say, you know what? Yeah, I know it's not going on forever. My time. Breathing on this planet. I know that we've got going on forever, but I'm still going to be grateful for it. I still am going to appreciate each and every day. So we need to turn towards our circumstance [00:26:00] and really relish and value when we value our time, then we're much more likely to spend it well to spend it.

[00:26:08] That's the first thing defined gratitude. The second one. Which helps in boldness is cultivating an attitude of fierce self-compassion you, you did not ask to have this fearful human brain. You are not isolated. Everyone. You see you, you can't tell from the outside, but everyone you see also is hoping that everyone likes them, hoping that there was upsetting anyone worried about that bills, worried about their work, their relationship.

[00:26:41] We're in this self this we're in different boats, but we're all in boats,

[00:26:46] Scott Maderer: but we're all on the same ocean. Yes. Yes. That's right.

[00:26:52] Eric Winters: So self-compassion can sound a bit wishy-washy but simply being kind to yourself, [00:27:00] it's a kind of honesty. Really? You're just being honest. So actually, you know what? It is tough, actually.

[00:27:06] This is difficult. Sometimes this is hard. And where we can hold that experience in a kind of balanced awareness. They're not ignoring our fears and our concerns and not letting them overwhelmed, but instead holding our fearful minds, changing our relationship. As you said to them, then. It allows us not to be swept away by them.

[00:27:36] And instead it soothes us at a level and helps us to be more courageous. So self-compassion is not indulgence. It's just being friendly to yourself. Simply being friendly. And the third step third mindset to cultivate is what I call courageous. Authenticity is being willing to author our own lives, [00:28:00] taking ownership of our precious time of life.

[00:28:04] And deciding what matters to us and what doesn't is deciding what we'll accept for ourselves and the people we live and work with. It's the lining our actions with what's personally important, choosing our own direction and choosing how will show up along the way, even while it's difficult. So it includes a willingness.

[00:28:32] To pay the price of living an authentic life. There is a price. Your listeners are honest people. I'm sure when you go to the shop you look at something on the shelf. Actually you're the safe market. You need some eggs, then you make a judgment. Okay. They're asking for so many dollars for those eggs.

[00:28:54] Am I willing to pay it? No, you can say no. No, actually I'm leaving them. [00:29:00] Sometimes we do. Otherwise we'll say, yeah. You know what? That's a fair exchange. An authentic life is a bit like that.

[00:29:08] Scott Maderer: If

[00:29:08] Eric Winters: you'd like to show up and be the kind of partner you'd like to be. Half the difficult discussions sometimes ask for what you want in a relationship.

[00:29:19] Ask the people out that you'd like to spend time with it. There is a price to

[00:29:26] Scott Maderer: pay. Yeah. And look, choose,

[00:29:30] Eric Winters: make a choice. Once you've chosen, spend it willingly. No one goes to the supermarket grumbling. Oh, I shouldn't have to. I should not have to pay this money for these eggs. I shouldn't have to do it

[00:29:42] Scott Maderer: anyway. The point is that your point is

[00:29:47] Eric Winters: we need to be willing to pay the price that. Another stoic 2000 years ago, he said the wise man does nothing. Nothing. And you were talking in a [00:30:00] recent podcast about, I think it was bonded servants, bonded sevens, and they were bond servants really interesting.

[00:30:08] And they were being told, look, do what you do. Wholeheartedly. It doesn't matter if it's hard and you don't want to do it. If you're a field, you feel like doing it or you don't feel like doing it, do it all willingly, wholeheartedly. This is great wisdom. And it applies to all of us in life. We should be either, either.

[00:30:34] Willingly, but

[00:30:35] Scott Maderer: Don't

[00:30:37] Eric Winters: drag your heels, like a dog that you've seen those new dogs, small dogs that don't want to go for a walk and they pushed,

[00:30:44] Scott Maderer: oh, I don't want to go. I don't want to go for this walk. And they push that a little pause into the earth

[00:30:49] Eric Winters: that makes for very uncomfortable life,

[00:30:53] Scott Maderer: my dog for a drag.

[00:30:54] Yeah.

[00:30:55] Eric Winters: We don't want to be taking ourselves for a drag, choose to do it. [00:31:00] But do it winningly and a middle authentic life, a courageous life. If there's a price and we should be choosing to pay it or not, but shoes don't fall back onto autopilot. Don't fall back into being swept away by what culture and your society tells you, you ought to be doing.

[00:31:24] Scott Maderer: There's a quote by Scott Adams. And I'm probably going to butcher the exact words, but it's basically along the lines. A wise man will figure out what the price of see the success they want is and pay it willingly, yeah. I, again, I'd probably mess up the exact wordage, but that's what it boils down to.

[00:31:43] It's one of those. Yeah. So let's pivot a little bit. One of the questions I like to ask, all of my guests is this, my, my brand is about stewardship. I run my life through that lens. And so I began asking all of my. About what is [00:32:00] stewardship to them and what is its impact on their life?

[00:32:03] Because I've discovered I get totally different answers from different people. So I want to explore those. So for you, when you hear the word stewardship, what does that mean to you and what does that impact, but on your life?

[00:32:15] Eric Winters: Yeah. So stewardship to me I wouldn't align this with this concept of courageous authenticity.

[00:32:22] So stewardship is taking care of something, taking care of it, valuing it. It's what we've been given. We've all been given our these lives. We do not know how long they're going to last, but we do know that we're here now. And if we're truly going to take care of. Of our time on this planet, truly take care of the minutes.

[00:32:50] Then the way that I like to do that is by first of all, valuing the time being appreciative of it, recognizing just how [00:33:00] extraordinarily precious and it's a non-renewable resource Scott. Yep. We don't get, if the data gets to the I don't get to replay can we just. Can I just do

[00:33:10] Scott Maderer: that?

[00:33:11] Yeah. Yeah,

[00:33:13] Eric Winters: no, this is it. This is it. And they are finite. There's a website called count.life, which I would encourage people to go to count.life. You go there and it asks you how many years. You live. I like to give myself a hundred. Is it, when were you born? You type that in, and then it presents you with these bricks.

[00:33:37] Every, a graphic on a single page. Every brick is two sets of colors. The first set of the weeks of your life that you've already lived, the other color are the ones you've still got ahead of you. Assuming you get all that.

[00:33:54] Scott Maderer: It's quite powerful. Eh, I

[00:33:57] Eric Winters: a very [00:34:00] different experience seeing my time alive represented visually rather than.

[00:34:07] Rather than just talking. Oh, another 50 years. No. When you see it, you're whoa. Okay. This is quite a lot, but this, it stops. There's a lost brick. There's a lost brick. There's a final week. And I actually go back to that website every week when there's one. Brick, and it just keeps it front of mind for me that my time is precious.

[00:34:32] So stewardship is living our, not just our weeks, but our minutes. Choosing again and again, throughout. What matters is now right now, right here. How do I choose to show up what kind of self reliance wipe right on that the difference is made is I live everyday now with a [00:35:00] great, much more expanded sense of appreciation.

[00:35:03] And wellbeing, and it's a catalyst to taking action. It's much more powerful than the coffee. I take coffee as well, but this idea that we've only got a certain amount of time, you get up and you get on it and you do things. So it's a kind of.

[00:35:20] Scott Maderer: It does make you enjoy the coffee a little more while you're having and,

[00:35:26] Eric Winters: and you'll enjoy the coffee very briefly.

[00:35:29] There's a beautiful exercise I learned about only a few months ago to dial up appreciation and it's to do anything you're doing in your life. Just a couple of times a day as though. And it was for the last time. So we're not saying you've got to die, but we're saying, let's say you're having a coffee.

[00:35:48] Just maybe the coffee crops got to fail. There's not gonna be any more coffee. This just happens. You're going to have a long happy life. Imagine what if that the cup in front of you. Was the [00:36:00] very last one. How much attention would you give it? How would you savor it? What would you notice that you smelled the aroma?

[00:36:09] What would the text to be like when we experienced something as. It was for the last time. It massively accelerates and deepens our sense of gratitude and appreciation, not just for that coffee, but for the next one in the afternoon or tomorrow when you have another one, you'll be, ah, oh, I'm glad it's not the last one.

[00:36:33] And you enjoy it again and again, oh, just a couple of times a day when you're walking down the road and you see a tree, imagine. It was the last tree. Just what if for some bizarre circumstance, it was the last one and experience it, the color, the leaves, the texture. And we can do this for even going into a supermarket.

[00:36:58] I really [00:37:00] ordinary experience. Imagine if

[00:37:04] you I might try that. I might try that too. Yeah, it's a wonderful

[00:37:10] Scott Maderer: accelerator

[00:37:12] Eric Winters: of all gratitudes and present moment living. So I've got to

[00:37:18] Scott Maderer: Ask you one of the questions that everyone, all my guests tell me is the easy question he says, jokingly.

[00:37:24] If I could invent a machine and grab you from your seat today and pick you up and take you into the far future, maybe a hundred to 150 years. And you were able to magically look back on your whole life, but even more see the ripples and the impact that you left behind. What impact do you hope you've left on the world?

[00:37:45] Eric Winters: And I like that word ripples. I think all of us underestimate the impact we have on others as we go through our daily lives, whether it's intentional or unintentional, because we cannot help, but [00:38:00] influence people when they're in our vicinity, we're doing all the time. Every time you make eye contact and smile, you lift someone up a little.

[00:38:10] If you glance away from someone, when you walk past them, they feel a little diminished, a little bit. At the end. I hope that I will have endeavored. I will not have done it perfectly, but I will have endeavored to lift up and empower as many people as I could have done with an appetite. For living with courageous authenticity for taking stewardship of that precious time on earth and avoiding the number one regret of the dying so that they will have developed the courage to live lives true to themselves and not the lives that others expected off them.

[00:38:56] That's my mission. [00:39:00]

[00:39:00] Scott Maderer: So what's coming next for you as you continue on this journey, Eric, what's on your what's on your roadmap.

[00:39:07] Eric Winters: Oh, God, you just mentioned. I've had quite a good week. I've appeared in a, it's an Australian wellbeing magazine. And I'm actually got a two page spread about me and my book.

[00:39:21] Yeah,

[00:39:21] Scott Maderer: it's a.

[00:39:22] Eric Winters: That's fabulous. I'm getting quite a lot of calls about speaking, running workshops, but what is coming up in the immediate future is I have partnered with another very talented leadership coach, Simone van cannon. And she and I have started a new business called leaders for life. And we are going out into regional new south Wales, helping people who don't normally get access to leadership development workshops, or we're going to teach them.

[00:39:51] Scales of developing that inner strengths, their communication skills and developing workplace cultures, where more people can be [00:40:00] their best.

[00:40:01] Scott Maderer: You can find out more about Eric over at his website. It's at www.ericwinters.com dot a U. Eric is also active on Facebook and LinkedIn as Eric Winters. Calm a U C O M a. You and Eric also has an awesome YouTube channel that he's got out. Of course, I'll have links to all of those over in the show notes, so you can find and go see Eric and hear more about, and hear more about what he does and hear more of his accent for those of you, the in American audience, like his accent, Eric, is there anything else that you'd like to share with us?

[00:40:37] Eric Winters: Oh, perhaps I could just mention that if people do visit my website, just.com.edu, you can download the first chapter of my book for free do that.

[00:40:48] Scott Maderer: And you don't even need to

[00:40:49] Eric Winters: read the first chapter if you like the first paragraph, you'll love the book.

[00:40:54] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a [00:41:00] subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listened, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:41:22] All one. ITunes rate, it'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.