#35 Mindset Monday: with Stu Saunders "Epic Mindset"

"As young people try to figure out who and what they are, what they want, what they love, where they fit, where they don't fit, where they should fit, or trying things, or experimenting, they're failing... hopefully failing and learning from those failures. So many kids don't do what they want to do because they're so scared of looking stupid or being laughed at or ridiculed. Same thing with adults. We're no different. Adults don't do the things they want to do because they're so scared of looking ridiculous or failing. And playing the game of comparison. " - Stu Saunders

Watch the Facebook live interview with Stu, Shelley and Yves:
https://www.facebook.com/DovicoSoftware/videos/888193565731864

Links:

• Stu Saunders, Founder and Head Gardener of The EPIC Community and YLCC.
  theepiccommunity.com/
• Hosts: Shelley Butler, CEO & Yves Doucet, Cofounder of Dovico  dovico.com

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Transcript

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Good morning. Good morning. Good morning and welcome to Mindset Monday. I'm Shelley Butler. I'm Yves Doucet. And we have a special guest today. Actually he's no longer a guest. We're not going to talk about Stu being a guest anymore because Stu has frequented our stage if you will more than any other guest. So Stu is a family friend. Stu not only has gotten in front of more people on the stage gymnasiums than any other person I really know and has influenced more people than I No and the reason why I say that is because when I say hey Stu Saunders is going to come on to Mindset Monday people will say to me Stu Saunders I saw him in grade 10 or I saw him and talk to me about what you spoke of are able to actually take away have a takeaway from what you said that has inspired them throughout their lives. Now Stu I'm sure people come to you and actually say I seen you and you helped me go in this direction or that direction. Um you're you talk about your vice principal and how your vice principal did that for you. Um So what a beautiful thing that you were able to give that same thing to so many others. Stu Saunders. Take it away. Hi Stu. Hi hi. Hi Shelly. Thank you for having me back. A friend of the show. You can call me now. Friend of the show. Friend of the show. Um it's it's it is I do have people who come up to me quite often and and say that I was the first speaker they ever saw or did did not this was even a job till they saw me do it. Because when I was doing it back in in the early nineties because I'm that old there wasn't many there was as far as I know there were five people in Canada doing it what I was doing working with youth. There was the corporate world was still you know was out there and still also the corporate speaking world was a fraction of what it is now. But but there was nobody doing it with kids. There's no hanging out with kids talking to them about stuff. And and so my favourite thing now is I say when I go I haven't done a school of presentation in almost six years. I retired at when I hit my twenty anniversary of speaking in schools I retired from that. Um but I when I would meet kids who'd say oh they they say I told my mom you were coming to speak today and she said she saw you in school and I thought I've now done two generations of family have seen me speak. So the parents had seen me speak. The parents' kids had seen me speak. So I thought maybe I was getting a bit too old for this. But but it was a it was a great career. I I spoke in over three and over three or thousand schools and youth conferences. Um and I think we worked out one day well back then we we'd worked out it was probably close to 3 million young people and educators that I had spent the time within 42 states every province the Yukon and Europe. Yeah. If you were to tell me what you speak of like and what do you typically speak of? Um well you know it the the message I I had back in the day which is still the message I would have today and it would be no different and message I would tell any at any age really and I and I and that is you know we don't I my name of course is in a lot of different words. My name isn't the word stupendous and studios and student and also in the word stupid which I realized. And that was always my joke at school. I'd say my word is in you know studious student and then you know I or and someone yell out stupid. It was always the got everyone laughing and and made everyone feel comfortable in the room. And and the point of that was that we don't do students, high school students, it feels teenage years are so so horrible. Um as young people trying to figure out who and what they are, what they want, what they love, where they fit, where they don't fit, where they should fit, or trying things, or experimenting, they're failing, hopefully failing and learning from those failures. Um but so many kids don't do what they really want to do because they're so scared of looking stupid of being laughed at or being ridiculed. Same thing with adults. They're no different. Adults don't do the things they want to do because they're so scared of looking ridiculous or failing. Um and they're Playing the game of comparison. Every human being in 2023 plays the game of comparison on a daily basis. It's constant comparison. We compare ourselves what we see on social media. We compare ourselves what we see on on on traditional television. And and we and we see this and we say I'm if I'm not living that then I must be a failure. And I think that's really that's that is a that is a human human trait that we've had for eons. Constant comparison but but before you compare you compare people in your in your community who were in your your direct contact but now you compare people billions of people on this on your phone and and that's the I can get it for an hour about how we're how we're screwing up kids beyond comprehension like beyond comprehension. I had this conversation with with my our our mutual friend Doctor James Rouse last week. We were chatting about about how we're how we're art of comparison is or the not the art of comparison but the the constant comparisons is is hurting us. Really and and I don't know how we're going to stop it. That's I would tell kids not to look stupid and get involved. That was the long winded answer for that. Yeah well we're we're working hard on failure resistance. Um so in in our work world so many people adults are afraid to look stupid or afraid to tell their story or afraid to live their joy for fear of failure and what so what we Find is they trudge through. We call it the drift. They trudge through life and just live that same day over and over again being miserable. Because they think that's all there is right? So I'm not seeing kind of like yourself even though we're comparing and we're saying whoa like look at that person. It doesn't appear that we have enough resiliency within us to actually go and grab that if they love doing that or they love Seeing that. It's so we work through it here at at Dovico. That's a big thing for us. Sarah McFannell wrote oh should remember the name of the book before I. So Sarah what's that? Resilience. It's all about resiliency. And and she's an absolutely amazing speaker. And one thing for her to build resiliency was about recognizing one another as peers. So it's not always that top down approach right? It's not always the CEO or the owner recognizing the good work. It's about promoting that recognition through the through one another so they can see that they actually are valued on that particular project. That's what we do project tracking and and billing costing and billing and and you know it's a it's a data suck right? It just this is how long it took me to do this project. And without the team actually talking to one another and recognizing each other or doing a job well done. Um that doesn't seem to be the thing anymore. And she Was on stage one day I was watching her and she kind of reached out. So she works with the healthcare industry and she reached out and she said when the last time you told somebody that they were doing a great job. You know I'm going to ask you to pick up your phones and everybody just kind of reach out. And the amount of bings. The amount of notifications that went off in that room just for people being recognized. See we don't actually I don't think we understand how important that is. So Stu I want to recognize You here right now today because you went through all those 3 million students you know and you inspired them and you you told them your truth so they could see themselves in you. You know if they were feeling stupid. I know it's not a good word nowadays but you told them how they could feel stupendous. Reach down. And now you've built something called the epic community. It's a community that both Eve and I belong to. And it is something that we can be together and recognizing one another and holding each other accountable. When I was a bit down the dumps this time last year. Remember laying in the bath crying and reaching out to Stu. So Stu not only did you build a community for students but now you're building a community for adults or you have now for quite some time. Let's talk about the epic community a little bit. Can I can I go back for a second? That's something you said about resilience. Okay. I've been, I've been working a lot, I'm writing a book, and I think we've talked about this before, but I'm writing this book, and it's human nature, To be risk adverse right? Like it's human nature to avoid to avoid danger. Um and back in the day it was being chased by a tiger right? Or whatever. And and now it's not that. So so we are risk averse to to being attacked by other people. And so rather than us do things that we want to do. Um the lizard brain in us tells us that we should avoid that which then we say is not being resilient. So we turn that risk adversity which is human nature to be risk adverse into not being resilient. And and I think there needs to be that conversation is that it's human nature to not to not put yourself at risk. Whether that's physically emotionally to not do that. And so that is why we tend not to do things we really want to do because we're that fear of being attacked by the metaphorical lion that is going to take us down. Yeah. And so that's really I've been really leaning into that and and trying to figure out why that is because resilience is the number one conversation right now in the world. Amongst corporate America, corporate Canada, whatever you want to call it. We're talking about resiliency, building resiliency in our teams, building resiliency in our organizations, building resiliency and we have we've had wonderful speakers at Epic which I can transition in Epic like Doctor Robin, Hanley DeFoe. You know she wrote a book about resiliency. Um she's writing a new book called Stress Wisely. Um which is incredible. Um and so one of the things that we talk about I read just finished reading the book that she she put out and one of the things she talks about is like we have to understand that that that not resiliency isn't something that comes naturally to to humans. Our our our human naturally is to is to it is to hide from danger. And our dangers are different in 20 twenty-three than they were in I don't know four hundred BC. They're just different. Um and so I just want to just want to mention that. You know like resiliency is is is important and I think there's reasons why our resiliency is lowered. Um in in society and I think it has to do with a lot of different things but I can go into that too for now probably but I think we also have to recognize it's human nature to avoid things which looks sometimes like we're not resilient. We're just trying to protect ourselves. It seemed like it's interesting that you say that I met this I'm going to say young man when he was 40 so young young for me. So and he was saying I was just asking him and we're having this very animated conversation. I always see him like I could see him like go from one seat to the next seat. He was like moving away. So I had a chat with And so I you know I asked him how he was and all that stuff. And we came up with this like this behaviour that he was doing. I was asking him questions and he called it unconscious indifference. Right? So we become and I I think it's true for a lot of people. Um that we become either unconsciously indifference to avoid the the triggers. I'm going to call it that way. The confrontations right? Because we don't have any tools. We don't have any ways to deal with them. Right? But more and more scientists coming up and it's telling us that if we don't deal with these conversations these like attacks in a manner that we in a man that we can actually resolve them while we'll be constantly indifferent or worse sick. That's what this is what's happening to society and it's and and in corporate America like you know and it is in in corporate Canada in our teenagers. I see it in our teenagers as well. And it's getting worse and worse right? Oh yeah. So when you look at a company like us we like we live on creativity. Well if you're unconsciously indifferent there's not a lot of innovation coming out of that. Right? Perhaps Absolutely. Yeah. I love the fact that you said that Doctor Hanley DePoe is writing a book called Stress Wisely. Cuz the thing is is that's what we're hearing right? Whenever we want people to be more creative. We want people to be more talkative. We want people to say their truths they are hiding and what the excuses they're using is I'm stressed. Mhm. Right? I'm stressed. So and of course because of mental health the way it is today we're like we don't want to cause any more stress. Well we've given that up at Dovico. We understand you're stressed. And we are going we we're going to love on you more than you ever ever been loved on before kind of thing. You're not going to be in trouble. You're not going to get fired. You're not going to nothing's going to happen. But we need the truth. So for instance like I told you we're project tracking right? So it's all about costing and billing. Getting the project done. Getting it done successfully and on time. But if you are in your head or you are in a situation where you're depressed, you're stressed, and you don't raise your hand to say, I can't do the job, I can't do the thing because I'm in this mental state, then the project's not going to get done on time and on budget and that's exactly what's happening across the world today. We've lived 120 years in this industrial era. It no longer is working for us. We have to change it. We have to remove these hiergies. We have to find a way to recognize one another because the thing is is if I tell you Stu like without without you there last year for me I'm not sure how I would have gone gotten through that. See the thing is is you held me up. That that having that ability for you to say all those wonderful things back to me. Gave me the power to be resilient in front of my team. Gave me that ability. So the recognition piece allows us I think to to truly see one another. To truly be vulnerable. You know you didn't share with me. Oh Shelly you can do it. You know you can what you shared with me. Shelly I was there. And this is how my heart felt when I was there. And this is I can you know I can relate to you kind of thing. So it allowed me to get up. To to get up and go you know what? I can I can do this. We want to know as humans that our contribution matters and that we're valued. And all it's not always coming from the top down. It has to be I Think it has to be our peers as well. Well it you raise a good point. Like I what I've seen you Jay and I like Stu talked about this in his in his talk about how what he talks about. It's like being able to be like to risk being stupid to be stupidness. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what you've done. It like people like talk to you because that's what you're doing. Not on like I'm saying in the office. That's what's happening. Yeah. I think vulnerability is key to all of this. Yeah. Yeah. It is. And it's being it's being confident or comfortable enough to to allow yourself to be vulnerable. Yeah. So would that explain Epic as a community? Because that's the way I feel. I feel I can be myself when I go to Epic. It's like well even more so. Even we can be super vulnerable. Oh my God. Yeah. Like we're crying. I cry. It it's if anyone is listening to this please know we don't just cry at Epic. It's I'm just kidding. It is it is absolutely yeah. It's absolutely so deep though. These are hilarious. You've gotta be prepared to you know I was we've been doing a lot of I guess we'll pivot back to that question about the Epic community now. Um but I've been doing a lot of these these we're calling them discovery conversations with people who want to be at Epic because you just can't sign up for it. So you just can't go online and sign up for the that's what I'm saying. You have to A know somebody within the community. So someone has to recommend you. And then you have to I have to meet you. And so usually myself and Cara or myself and Kelsey will meet the person whom we are talking to about being into Epic and then we have a conversation because the reason why it's so important to me to know people who are coming into the community And I've had this conversation with people who have said well you could probably open this up and fill it right up. And maybe I could. Maybe I could. But I also don't want that. What I want is a community of people. Not who are not all the same but who are willing to put aside ego. Which is incredibly hard for human beings to do. Oh my god yeah. And and come into a room and not say you know like hey here's my card. Here's my six step program you can sign up for. Wanna sign up. Um I you know or here's my bank account balance or here's my here's my you know name dropping. What I want is people who come into that room. I think you said it really well Shelly once. Um we you're doing one of our little testimonials and and you had said people aren't waiving their accomplishments around. They're just copy conversations with each other. Yeah I have absolutely no idea at this at this event at this within this community who makes what who you know I mean of course I know know who does what because we have a lot of time for conversation. So it's not just an event that you go to or community that you go to and you walk away. This is something that we stay around for four days living in the lap of luxury by the way. Um it's like my favourite place. And eating. Is that the Ritz Carlton by the way in case you're wondering. The Ritz Carlton. Yeah just to throw that around a little bit. It is it's it's phenomenal. It's interesting at like how we We see events. We used to see events as like go and rub elbows with the right kind of people. Yeah this is not that. It's not that. This is having deep conversations about how to change human beings right? Yeah. How to become better. How to become stupendous. How to like become like more than you are today. And that's the feeling I get every time I get there. Yeah. You know I go ahead. I went to my my my biggest challenge. I I spoke I spoken at many many many many events. Um And the one thing we do you know in these adult events space the adult corporate event space or this betterment space or this self-help space or this entrepreneurship space that has run events is we had this really great job of separating people. Um where it's like you have the you have the gold bracelets. You get to go here. You have the silver bracelet. You go over here. You have the the the white bracelet. So you're at the top of the room with zero contact with anybody. Maybe 1 day if you try hard enough you know it's the old Jerry Seinfeld thing. But the old Jerry Seinfeld joke where he was talking about being in first class and the little curtain that separates first class from the rest of the plane and he opens the curtain up and says to everybody back maybe if you try a little bit harder. And and I I always wanted Epic to be everyone to be a VIP. Everyone is this everyone's not everyone's the same because everyone's unique. But yeah. Everyone comes into the room without thinking oh I won't have a chance to talk to Doctor Greg. Or I won't have a chance to meet you know Ron Tight. I won't have a chance to to meet Robin or Tamsin. I won't have that opportunity because I'm not I don't have the right bracelet colour. I didn't pay the extra $thousand dollarsto have the coffee with the whatever the hell it is. I wanted this to be again free from ego. When you put teared tears of people up in an event you just push ego. You push ego. And so Greg and I went to an event in Vegas years ago and we were in the the the sparkly purple zone. Um we had we had like two things. We had three lanyards. We had four name tags. We had all these different things they gave us to separate us for everybody else. We were in the third row from the front. And we went with our friend Ian. Uh Ian I never Ian Lepoten. Yeah. Um and he invited us down as a guest. And so we went down and we were just I I speaking for myself. Was in awe of this separation of humans. And how just this like you are not good enough to be with the sparkly purples. You are not good enough. And I just hated that. Right? And that goes back to comparison. That goes back to everything. It goes it's what we do right? We want to prove to the world we're better somehow. Yeah. And look me look at me look at me whether it's whatever it is and I think that's where I wanted Epic to be this tight-knit community that wasn't going to be more than 100 people that we all were VIPs and everyone had equal access to every person in the room and with the faculty to ask them to stay for the event. Yeah. Um at least two thirds I I would say at least two thirds of the event you have to be there for. And there's exceptions because we have for instance we had Bruce Sullivan this year who was incredible talking about Mulala. Yeah he's the CEO of Credit Canada so he actually has a real day job. You gotta go back to his real day job. Yeah. But I mean to have four days with Greg and four days with Tamsin and four days with Robin and four days with you know it's just it's such a you know Phil Phil Jones. It's such a blessing to have have these these opportunities. Yeah. Um and just feel like they're your friends and you turn your look look at the table and there's Phil sitting beside you at your table. Taking notes when he's learning from Ron. Yeah. You know and that's such a great thing. That's why I love that's why I love Epic. It it's an inspiring place. So don't get Stu wrong here. When he's saying you know I'm going to meet you. You know you're going to come to Epic and I'm going to meet you first. It's not about betting you to see what's in your bank account. It's what it is. It's it's about betting you to make sure that you are going to be understanding what this community is all about and understanding first and foremost so you're not walking in cold to to this Loving community. It is a very loving space. You can feel as soon as you walk in everybody is hugging. We are very close to one another and we stay connected to one another. Uh we work out in the mornings together you know so I in in no way shape or form you know when Stu talks about you have to be you know I I'm going to chat with you before you're allowed to come. It's not about what you don't have. It's not a community for everybody. Oh definitely not. No. Right? And and and when I meet I I just want to meet you to make sure that I just want to make sure I I actually have said no to somebody once. I did say no to somebody who who applied and had a conversation. I had no because they were asking about how they could up their membership. To get better access and have and get bonuses. Is there any bonuses? Was there any options to improve and I was like I just that's not what I want. That's not I mean that's great for them to be a go-getter but that's not what I want. It's because we've built a community somewhat like that like epic here at Dovico and what I know you have. Yeah and and it's based out of what we've learned. We we're taking it back. Absolutely. Bring it here. Yeah. Yeah. And we bring you so. I was there in person in that in that building. And then the first thing we had to well I had to do. I had to do a verse is to let go my title. Lego my ego. And then then once I got that like in my body I just and what that means and then then I can show other people okay well the importance of it. And that's what we have at Dovico. And the interesting thing that I found is I it's not for everybody. People leave here. Yeah. Like we we we had to ask them maybe to choose another path. They don't leave voluntarily. They want to stay. But we had to ask them to choose another path because it wasn't for them. And it's it's just timing. Yeah. It's just timing. Maybe they have to go on another path to discover that their ego needs to be you know something else. You need to look at. You need to look at that a little bit. Yeah. Flat organization is not for everybody. Making your own Kind of making your own roads you know building your own path you know running your own journey is just not for everybody. Which I which I had to actually lessen my ego for because I believe in this vision. I believe that that even though we work in a corporate office even though we we run assassin software we sell to 80 different countries. All of those good things. We don't have policies or procedures. As a matter of fact Felicia's actually here. So she's taken over for COO and and we she's gone as far as hey Shell now she writes the letters of offer for people. So she says Michelle do do we need probation. What's this probation period? So looking into it a little bit and I said it's so true right? What a great start. Hi Stu. Welcome aboard. Welcome into Dovico. I'll be your probation officer for the next 90 days. You know but come to find out that that is my job is trying my job trying to make to get you fired. I'm trying to find reasons to fire you right? That's the probation. I mean what a way to send people up. Let's give you a badge and put you put you on the purple face. Yeah yeah Yeah. Should watch you fail. Um but it's it's so important that we so we sometimes realize that things are put in place for whatever reason back in the day. But in actuality probation that probation period is not there for anything. Including healthcare. You know so in my mind I believed you know I always wrote the letters as though they were you know. Um but it's time for us to look at the ways we do things and maybe change it up a little bit. Because it doesn't necessarily fit the human species today. I know I know we have Three or 4 minutes left here. I know you you stick to your half hour timeline pretty pretty. We do. We try. Um and simply started at eight thirty-five. We're going to go to nine oh five. Okay. Um and one thing I want want to mention to you is a great concept we use. I think every organization should use. We use it within ours. It's called the horizontal ladder. And the horizontal ladder means we are on the same level as a as an organization. There are there is a need to understand who does what. So you know the I don't like you don't in your company to be assessed but not everybody is going to do everything right? They they're they are good at things and they are they excel at things so they're on the horizontal ladder which means we understand what our jobs are but it doesn't mean that this job looks down upon this job. And so a great visualization of that concept is using the idea of a horizontal ladder. And so there's still our positions 100percent. Um but we we all work together. We're going the same direction. Uh and you're not stepping over top of me or I'm not looking down upon you. We're on that same level. Um I change my title from president CEO to head gardener. Oh love it. Yeah we love that. Yeah and so I actually my if you look at my signature on my email it just says head gardener. Yeah. And the amount of conversations that have been started by that signature. What does that mean? You're a head gardener. Which is a great thing. Well my job is attend the garden. The garden is my organization. I gotta make sure everything's growing well. That's it. I have to water the flowers. I gotta weed the weeds. I need to turn the soil. And that's all tons of tons of of metaphors and analogies for everything that we do in the organization but Head Gardner I think is is and that was brought to you by my staff who said to me we got these sweatshirts made and we get put in the back of the sweatshirt and they had head gardener put on mine. And the reason I love that. You know I mentioned Felicia's our COO and she calls herself a chief optimistic officer and Deanne's the CFO and she calls herself chief friendship officer. I love it. I mean that's have fun with it right? There there is a there is a there is a role in having there isn't a need in having structure. There is especially outside of your organization. I side. Yes. So when you have someone looking at you they're like what is what do you mean everyone's the same? I don't want to work with you. There's going to be somebody in charge over there and Shelly's like no it's anybody it's a dog this week. Whatever we don't we're all the same. They don't want to work with you. They want they want to have something they wonder who they're talking to right? But so quickly the reason why I was head gardener was because we were so short staffed in 2021 coming back to the pandemic at our camp. We had this huge property we had and I ended up being the guy cut the grass. And I would cut the grass every day. That's how I got to meet everybody. It was like being in the work you know being down on the on the on the floor of the factory. You got to meet everybody. You got to interact. So I just drove around my little tractor around the camp and and I and the kids would say who's that? They didn't know me and the council's a joke. I'll ask just our head gardener. It was a big joke right? And I I'd cut the hedges and I would weed the flowers. Like it literally was the gardener because that was nobody else to do it. I didn't want and I think what your place looks like is the first impression for everybody. I didn't want our camp to look like it wasn't clean and kept. Um and so that was so then if parents also complained I'm like I'm just a head gardener and I could walk away. Um which didn't really happen one time. But one time a parent was like really angry about something ridiculous and I was like I'm I'm just a head gardener. And then they immediately went oh well you're not important and they walked away from me and I was like oh actually I'm pretty important. Um and then the staff said to you know we were head gardener. I was like oh it's funny because I cut the grass. She was no because you were our gardener. We were we were the we were the flowers in your garden and you made sure we grew. So great. And that was from the wisdom of a 19 year old. Yeah. Wow. Um yeah. And so I had sweatshirt that says head gardener in the back and now all of my signatures say head gardener. I love it. I love that. I ask that's a beautiful story Stu and and you know at Dovico we're the same. We're we're co-workers here and you know we want you to to build your own path if you will. Be your own gardener and build that path beautifully. You've got a world-class organization over there and and I think that it comes directly from you Shelly and and your vision that you Have and and Eve the support you give Shelly to to to build that organization. You are exceptional and I am you know so blessed to have you in my community and to be able to spend time with you and learn from you both. Cos you're brilliant both of you. Thank you. And you've got a great new book. Thank you Stu. Friend of the show. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Sharing in your wisdom. We're going to have you back on next and we're going to talk about Tom. So I want I just want everybody just to leave everybody with just a little bit. It's time for us to talk about Tom. One of our what's that? One of our members of the Epic Community had me go is having me come and speak to all of these financial planners about Tom. Alright. Oh nice. Brilliant. Because he said I've been trying to explain Tom and they don't get it. You need to come tell them. So I'm going to go tell forty financial guys about what Tom is. So Tom do. So important. What would Tom do? And that's going to be how we're going to leave it because a teaser. Yeah a little teaser for next time. So I'm Shelley Butler. I mean just that. And Thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you. I'm glad. Love you. Have an amazing day and have an amazing week and hey, we'll see you next week. Right here. Right here. Love ya. Get your workout in.