[00:00:47] Mark Divine: So it’s hot over there, huh? 

[00:00:48] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, it’s warm, which is very unusual for London. I mean, where’s the rain when you need it, 

[00:00:54] Mark Divine: right? Well, it’s 80 degrees here in Southern California, which is unusually warm for this time of summer.

[00:01:01] Mark Divine: You usually see that around August, but I’m not going to pin it on global warming or just is what it is. 

[00:01:07] Tiffany Gaskell: I was wondering, 

[00:01:09] Mark Divine: I’m sure you were. Well, thanks for doing this. I do a little performance coaching too. So I’m really excited to. Get your take on it and talk about, you know, some of the insights you’ve had, but I love to really get a sense for like why you’re on this kind of path.

[00:01:24] Mark Divine: Like what, what were the formative conditions that led you down this path to be fascinated with coaching and helping people achieve peak performance and cultures, et cetera. 

[00:01:33] Tiffany Gaskell: The long version or the short version? 

[00:01:35] Mark Divine: The medium sized version. 

[00:01:36] Tiffany Gaskell: The medium size, that’s good. Okay, so I think it started really when I was a banker and I feel like that’s a previous life.

[00:01:44] Tiffany Gaskell: It was literally last century. 

[00:01:46] Mark Divine: I had one of those. 

[00:01:47] Tiffany Gaskell: Did you? Yes, I know you did. Yeah, I want to hear about that. I 

[00:01:50] Mark Divine: was a CPA last century for a bit. 

[00:01:53] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, it’s crazy, you know, in comparison to the work we’re doing now, right? And what it was, was that in banking, I loved it. We were a high performance culture. I was part of Credit Suisse First Boston, won’t say much about what happened in the end to Credit Suisse, but when I was there, I’d really fought hard to get to my place on the trading floor.

[00:02:19] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was one of four women and I was on a training floor of 200 guys and it was a really testosterone driven environment. And what happened was we had a merger during my time there and overnight it was like the lights went out, like all of a sudden nothing made sense, you know? And I was sitting there thinking, Oh my goodness, you know, leaders don’t actually know how to lead.

[00:02:46] Mark Divine: It’s a culture clash or what was the root cause. 

[00:02:49] Tiffany Gaskell: You know, I mean, there’s a saying that 80 percent of change initiatives fail, right? This was that We had a group of traders who joined on our floor and they were all perfectly nice guys. It’s just that they were going in, let’s say that direction over there, which was the opposite direction to the one that we were going in, which was why we were complimentary, right?

[00:03:12] Tiffany Gaskell: But the thing was, no one made that bridge. No one said, Hey, we’re going to bring you together. This is going to feel a little bit different. We’re going to make a kind of new feeling out of both of you guys. It was more like a war of the cultures, you know, that happened. 

[00:03:24] Mark Divine: Thanks. 

[00:03:25] Tiffany Gaskell: So that was kind of the impetus behind it.

[00:03:28] Tiffany Gaskell: Plus I was getting pretty stressed out. So I was on the trading floor, testosterone environment, and I had to fight really hard for every dime. And I got to the stage where I had chest pains. I had kind of rashes on my arms and it was a bit of a wake up call for me to realize actually, you know, I needed to.

[00:03:48] Tiffany Gaskell: Step out of this environment. 

[00:03:50] Mark Divine: That’s interesting. It’s, it’s unfortunate, but often, you know, the case that you have to hit, hit a wall, right? Through burnout or you in sickness, which is obviously you were heading in that direction in order to take your own health seriously. And then that often send you off on a new trajectory because you’re like, you know what?

[00:04:05] Mark Divine: Hey, I don’t want to go back into that environment. And so you start asking better questions about what you should be doing or what you really want to be doing. You know, what’s your purpose, those types of questions, right? Sounds like that’s what happened with you. 

[00:04:18] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 

[00:04:20] Mark Divine: Did you go back and study?

[00:04:22] Mark Divine: What was the path like? You know, 

[00:04:23] Tiffany Gaskell: I think that the thing that happens when you do that, when you like press pause is that serendipity starts to be able to come your way, right? 

[00:04:32] Mark Divine: That’s true. Right. You stop all activity. Then it allows for possibility again. 

[00:04:36] Tiffany Gaskell: So I basically, I was on the trading floor still, I was literally going to leave in two weeks and my best friend called me up and he said, have you read this article in the financial times?

[00:04:46] Tiffany Gaskell: It’s about this woman and she had five shoe shops in the States. She couldn’t grow her business and she got a coach. And after five years, she had 57 across the States. And as he told me that I was like, wow, that’s like lid off potential, you know? And, and what if we could do that for the whole organization, 

[00:05:10] Mark Divine: like 

[00:05:11] Tiffany Gaskell: all organizations?

[00:05:12] Tiffany Gaskell: And that’s been my mission ever since. 

[00:05:15] Mark Divine: Where did you get like foundational coaching skills or qualifications? Yeah. 

[00:05:20] Tiffany Gaskell: I was trying to work out. Where to get those from, you know, I’d heard about coaching and I went to do an MBA because, you know, I was on a great career, which 

[00:05:30] Mark Divine: taught you nothing about coaching.

[00:05:31] Mark Divine: I’m sure. 

[00:05:32] Tiffany Gaskell: Nothing, nothing about leadership. 

[00:05:34] Mark Divine: No, same with mine. 

[00:05:35] Tiffany Gaskell: You know, this is about how to manage a business. It’s business administration. Like it’s correlations. It’s, you know, accounting sheets. There isn’t space for other stuff. And this just underlined this thing that actually. You know, leaders don’t get taught how to lead.

[00:05:52] Mark Divine: By the way, on pinning that statement, I’m not sure you can teach leaders. 

[00:05:57] Tiffany Gaskell: Oh, that’s interesting. Because that’s exactly what 

[00:06:00] Mark Divine: Because I’m finishing a PhD in global leadership and change, and there’s really not much about leading that I learned in the entire program. I learned a lot of theory, concepts. I learned how to write, I learned how to put, do research, you know, leading.

[00:06:18] Mark Divine: No, I learned all that on the battlefield. And, you know, 

[00:06:21] Tiffany Gaskell: That’s really interesting to hear you say that. And that is the bit that is very difficult to get to. And it’s what you do in coaching, right? Coaching. It actually develops people. It develops mindsets. It develops performance. And so what we do is we take people on that journey, but in a leadership frame.

[00:06:42] Tiffany Gaskell: And develop their leadership skills in that way. You know, there’s that saying, you can only take people as far as you’re prepared to go yourself. You know, that is one of the tenets to, we call it transformational leadership, but this leadership that’s of a completely different paradigm. 

[00:06:58] Mark Divine: Hi, Mark Divine here from Sealfit.

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[00:07:26] Mark Divine: And you can also use it as a pick me up booster during the day or after a workout, it dissolves immediately. And believe it or not, it tastes great. I’ve had many testimonials already saying it’s the best tasting greens. That they have ever tried. So who, yeah, still fit supplements. com, or you can find it on Amazon by searching for SEALFIT ElectroGreens.

[00:07:50] Mark Divine: Let’s do this divine out.

[00:07:57] Mark Divine: That is delicious. Yeah, there’s two ways I could go down and I want to go down on both. One is there are definitely coaches going to be listening to this or people exploring coaching, you know, as well as I do many, many people are looking at coaching and wanting to get off the treadmill and, and they’re looking at that as an option.

[00:08:15] Mark Divine: And then the other is, you know, the actual work that you do and, and how do we, you know, impact leaders first, like what are the skills of a highly effective coach? Let’s talk executive coaching, corporate leadership and team transformation. 

[00:08:31] Tiffany Gaskell: There were all different schools of coaching, right? The coaching that I specialize in is In organizations.

[00:08:38] Tiffany Gaskell: So it’s like, you know, I mean, so John Whitmore, our founder, he coined the term performance coaching. And so performance coaching. That was the first time the word coaching was used to describe something outside of sports. So all forms of coaching outside of sports are actually derived from there. 

[00:08:57] Mark Divine: I didn’t know that.

[00:08:58] Mark Divine: John Whitmore. 

[00:08:59] Tiffany Gaskell: Yes. John Whitmore. The racing driver. 

[00:09:02] Mark Divine: Okay. Was he knighted for his work in coaching or for racing? He 

[00:09:05] Tiffany Gaskell: wasn’t. He came knighted. 

[00:09:07] Mark Divine: He came knighted. Oh my gosh. 

[00:09:09] Tiffany Gaskell: But you know what? The really positive thing about him coming knighted was that he had a lot of money to basically go and explore and, you know, find out about this and forge the path.

[00:09:19] Mark Divine: What’s the name of the organization? 

[00:09:21] Tiffany Gaskell: Performance Consultants. 

[00:09:23] Mark Divine: He has a model, or you guys have a particular model. 

[00:09:26] Tiffany Gaskell: So John created the GROW model. 

[00:09:28] Mark Divine: Goal, reality, options, way forward. 

[00:09:30] Tiffany Gaskell: Grow, reality, options, will, is the one that John created. That one, yeah, it’s the most used coaching model in the world. It’s used by the U.S. Army, Google, Johnson & Johnson, you know, to name a few. The thing is And John used to say this, there is a problem with grow, right? Because it’s just a framework. It’s just a framework. So what about like the underpinning skills? And that’s where the magic happens. I think the ability to hold someone is full of potential as being able to achieve anything that they set their heart on, you know, all of those sorts of things that come in into great coaching and create the magic.

[00:10:13] Mark Divine: How much of. Your job is helping people just remove obstacles. Remove both mental obstacles, even structural obstacles. You know, again, it seems to me in my work, oftentimes it’s not gaining a new skill for the leader or gaining new knowledge. It’s, it’s letting go, letting go of, you know, cherished ideas and behaviors that aren’t serving them and stuff like that.

[00:10:41] Mark Divine: So removing obstacles. 

[00:10:42] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. And what I notice about your work is that you talk a lot about fear, right? And so if you’re in a place of fear, then you probably hold on. 

[00:10:51] Mark Divine: You’re gonna grip. 

[00:10:52] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. Yeah. Grip harder. Whereas if you can step into the place of trust, then you’re letting go. And that’s the place where, yeah, magic happens.

[00:11:03] Mark Divine: I assume you do one on one coaching. Okay. So in those one on one relationships, how do you help? An individual first understand if they’re contracted into fear and then to help them let it go or to move beyond that. 

[00:11:20] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, well, to answer really from my coaching place, because the other thing that we do is like.

[00:11:27] Tiffany Gaskell: enable whole organizations to let go of the fear. And 

[00:11:32] Mark Divine: so the whole culture working at it, that’s an interesting, I want to get back, come back to that. 

[00:11:36] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. 

[00:11:36] Mark Divine: Let’s start out with the individual leader though. 

[00:11:38] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. Individuals. So yeah, from my coaching place, you will feel it, you will feel it. And that person will be able to feel themselves holding on somewhere.

[00:11:47] Tiffany Gaskell: There will be a trigger that’s happening, you know, probably that’s bringing this up. It’s like, Oh no, I can’t do this. I can’t do it because, because, because all these stories, you know, these made up stories. And then it’s like opening the door to what if, and if you did step into that place and actually before you even go there, you know, letting go of all of that stuff, how would it feel if you achieved your goal?

[00:12:11] Tiffany Gaskell: And usually that right there enables them to, you know, step over that interference. 

[00:12:17] Mark Divine: Do you bring any developmental psychology, like stages of consciousness into your work? To help leaders understand where they might be kind of stuck at a certain kind of positionality based upon, you know, conditioning that might come from church, from their family, from, you know, 

[00:12:36] Tiffany Gaskell: human tendencies.

[00:12:37] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, exactly. I’m heading into the organizational culture work because right there, we’ve got a culture maturity model. 

[00:12:45] Mark Divine: Yeah. Cause whole cultures can get stuck at a stage that isn’t serving them. 

[00:12:49] Tiffany Gaskell: And if we think of an organization as being like an individual, right. Then any organization, big or small, will be in one of four cultures stages.

[00:13:01] Tiffany Gaskell: And that’s really fascinating. 

[00:13:03] Mark Divine: So what are these stages? 

[00:13:05] Tiffany Gaskell: So what they are is, so we’re going from low performance to high performance. Okay. And in the low performance area, there’s a lot of interference. And in the high performance area, there’s a lot of potential being able to come through. So the interference has gone down.

[00:13:19] Tiffany Gaskell: And interference, you know, we talked about fear. It can come in the form of all sorts of things like that. Self sabotaging beliefs. 

[00:13:25] Mark Divine: I’m imagining a grid with potential and interference. 

[00:13:28] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, exactly. Actually, I’m going to draw here because we’ve got a camera. So basically there’s a curve, it’s called the performance curve.

[00:13:36] Tiffany Gaskell: And so this is low performance over here and this is high performance over here. 

[00:13:40] Mark Divine: So low performance is high interference, low potential. 

[00:13:43] Tiffany Gaskell: Yes, exactly. And so we’re, we’re going through these cultures and maturity stages. And so stage number one, lowest performance here, it’s an impulsive culture. So here leaders are reactive.

[00:13:55] Tiffany Gaskell: There’s no plan and no processes. And it’s quite a startup culture one might say, but really one spends one’s day firefighting. The next one is hierarchical. And it’s really interesting because a lot of the world’s organizations have hierarchical culture, right? So that’s the top down command and control culture.

[00:14:16] Tiffany Gaskell: And in this culture, leaders are thinking I’ve got the answer. And the people who are working in that culture are thinking. Okay. So they’ve got the answer. That means I don’t have the answer. So I’m just going to follow the rules and do what I’m told. The next one is an independent culture. And this is me as a banker, you know, as star performer, so as leaders who empower, I had my goals and knew where I was going.

[00:14:38] Tiffany Gaskell: However, the thing that undercuts this is competition, internal competition, and also silos. So, you know, departments not talking to each other. And then the highest. Performing culture is interdependent, and this is where values and vision unite and people believe we’re truly successful together. 

[00:15:00] Mark Divine: That’s terrific.

[00:15:02] Mark Divine: You know, as you’re working through those, I was just mapping him to other developmental psychology kind of stages, right? And they’ve met perfectly. 

[00:15:09] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. 

[00:15:09] Mark Divine: In fact, we have our own stage model. We call it the five plateaus. So the impulsive would be equal to like our lowest, which is we call survivor. Right.

[00:15:16] Mark Divine: So individuals who are kind of triggered in the survivor, I mean, most everybody went there during COVID and you tend to like act out of self preservation and become very impulsive and reactive and leaders can even have a high intellect, but kind of operate emotionally out of these lower classes.

[00:15:32] Mark Divine: Places, right? And that’s how cultures will get stuck because the leader is basically bringing that energy. And you know, this, everything drops the lowest common denominator and it’s often the leader, right? 

[00:15:42] Tiffany Gaskell: Exactly. 

[00:15:43] Mark Divine: Our second, we call the protector and that’s your bureaucratic kind of top down militaries.

[00:15:48] Mark Divine: And there’s a ton, a ton of organizations still that operate in some necessarily. So, and then the third one you described, we call the achiever, which is that expert individualist putting points on the board. And there’s a positive and a shadow side to that. And then your fourth one would be integrator for us.

[00:16:06] Tiffany Gaskell: I think it’s just so helpful to be able to portray that back and to, yeah, give people and organizations a map. 

[00:16:13] Mark Divine: So I’m curious of those four, when you go into work with an organization, where do you usually find the organization? If you’ve been called in, 

[00:16:20] Tiffany Gaskell: this will not surprise you to a mark, but we ask the organization where they think they are.

[00:16:27] Mark Divine: And they probably all say we’re a performance organization. 

[00:16:31] Tiffany Gaskell: Well, it’s interesting. You get different responses. And the thing is that it’s just reminding me of someone that we worked with who’s called John McFarlane and he was chairman of Barclays Bank and on the board of Westpac now. And you know what he used to say is he used to say to the companies, he was You know, leading.

[00:16:50] Tiffany Gaskell: He used to say, listen, we need to measure our culture. Okay. We just need to do it. It might be horrible, but we need to find out where we are because then we can start the journey to where we’re going. 

[00:17:01] Mark Divine: It’s like a cultural 360. Like let’s take an honest assessment. Yeah. Yeah. You know, those are always painful.

[00:17:06] Mark Divine: You’re like, Oh, really? Yeah, 

[00:17:07] Tiffany Gaskell: exactly. 

[00:17:08] Mark Divine: But you got to baseline it. 

[00:17:09] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. And so, you know, as we’re talking, it’s this kind of like, what’s good for the individual is good for the organization. Yeah. You know, it’s a lot of parallels there. 

[00:17:18] Mark Divine: So most people are going to assess higher than they are, I assume. 

[00:17:23] Tiffany Gaskell: Or you get the very critical ones.

[00:17:25] Mark Divine: Okay. Yeah. You know, 

[00:17:27] Tiffany Gaskell: those ones as well. 

[00:17:28] Mark Divine: Let’s say, and I love that you have this cultural maturity index because you can kind of ask them, like, where do you think? And then you give them the, Assessment, and then they’re going to see the reality. You’re going to map them on that performance curve. And we know from change theory, Kotler being the, like the granddaddy of that, right with his eight step model, but that most change initiatives fail.

[00:17:53] Mark Divine: How do you ensure that, you know, knowing that they’re not as high in the performance and they want to move up this performance curve, how do we make a stick? Like, how do we affect the change? 

[00:18:03] Tiffany Gaskell: So leaning again on coaching principles, the way that we approach it is meeting the client where they are. You know, sometimes one might think, Oh, you know, why can’t they want to do this, that, and the other, but that’s not the point.

[00:18:17] Tiffany Gaskell: The point is to, you know, just as a great performance coach does is to accompany the client on the journey and open the door to what’s possible. And basically the client is in charge of their journey. Very much that. And, you know, sometimes we meet resistance and we plan for that. So it’s always wise to plan for resistance and to have the communications.

[00:18:41] Tiffany Gaskell: You know, this is going to feel different. I’m just thinking of one time we were working with MasterCard. We were in St. Louis and I was actually there with the team. And so what happened was it was the pilot game, the pilot. There was this guy called Mike who hated. Anything like this. I mean, literally hated it, right?

[00:19:00] Mark Divine: It’s always that first. Yeah. 

[00:19:02] Tiffany Gaskell: And so we were like, Oh my God. You know, at the end of the pilot, everyone was like, Mike, you know, what does Mike think? Anyway? Mike’s like, it’s terrific. So they made a t shirt and it said, even Mike liked it. 

[00:19:17] Mark Divine: Oh, that’s awesome. I love that. Yeah. Cause you got to get buy in from everybody.

[00:19:22] Mark Divine: Right. Cause like I said, one, that one bad apple will spoil the bunch who’s, you know, kind of like nodding his head, but inside he’s saying this will never work. 

[00:19:30] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:19:31] Mark Divine: I’ve been through 10 of these before. No change. Yeah. 

[00:19:35] Tiffany Gaskell: I bet that was Mike’s track. It was probably his internal 

[00:19:37] Mark Divine: dialogue, right? Yeah.

[00:19:40] Mark Divine: You make a comment that top down hierarchical organizations, you know, are always going to have a, Culture that is suboptimal in performance, right? Yeah, I know those aren’t your words, those are mine, but why is that? Why is the hierarchical kind of top down approach, whether it’s the culture or the structure or the leader, it’s, you know, who, who kind of embodies that?

[00:20:02] Tiffany Gaskell: I think it’s fascinating because it’s kind of counterintuitive and actually it’s a bit of a kind of hangover from in human evolution, like our family structures have been quite top down, haven’t they? I mean, I grew up in quite a sort of hierarchy structured family. 

[00:20:17] Mark Divine: Very British thing, by the way, little less so in America, we got away from that.

[00:20:23] Mark Divine: We 

[00:20:23] Tiffany Gaskell: we’ve got that over here. And so the thing about hierarchy, so that whole idea of command and control is, you know, as I was saying before, the leader has the answers. I’ve got an example of that. So in the nineties, again, I was working for a Japanese bank. And this bank was renowned for having a hierarchical culture.

[00:20:45] Tiffany Gaskell: And there was one guy in this bank who signed off every decision that was, I mean, he literally just sat there, you know, so the message to the rest of the organization. Is, you know, okay, so he’s got the answer. You certainly don’t have the answer. Right? So again, you know, why show up and kind of like bring all your goodies.

[00:21:07] Tiffany Gaskell: There’s 

[00:21:07] Mark Divine: no need for innovation. Cause he’s got the answer. 

[00:21:09] Tiffany Gaskell: Right, right. No need for innovation. And then the other thing is there’s an underlying fear, right? Because if you haven’t got it signed off by this guy, then things could happen where you’re not allowed to. do such and such. So literally you’re sort of in a straitjacket.

[00:21:25] Tiffany Gaskell: And so right there you have disempowered 2000 people. We talk about entrepreneurialism. You talked about mentioned innovation. You’re not getting all that stuff coming through. So hierarchical cultures, they are shown to be, and you know, on that maturity model, I was talking about one of the lowest performing cultures.

[00:21:48] Mark Divine: That need for certainty, I think drives that, right? And obviously we’re in the age of VUCA volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. So how do we, let’s say you’re working with an organization that is, or a leader that is kind of prone to this top down authoritarian approach. A lot of them kind of must seize up when they’re faced with VUCA.

[00:22:10] Mark Divine: So how do we help them deal with uncertainty and be more comfortable in uncertainty? 

[00:22:15] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. I mean, the thing I’m thinking about is what you mentioned before, which is the greatest test to leaders to date was COVID, right? We saw leaders doing all sorts of things. In my experience in that situation, so I very much felt, okay, so I saw that I had the signpost up ahead.

[00:22:36] Tiffany Gaskell: Okay. The road was forking. I could either go running down this road that was labeled fear. Or I could step into the trust and walk down that path. The reason that I was being sent into this fear place was, you know, because COVID was potentially devastating to our organization because we’re an in person organization all over the world and we’re on client sites.

[00:23:01] Tiffany Gaskell: So I was like, Oh my goodness. You know, the repercussions of this is just extraordinary. So I. Had a word with myself, stepped into that Trust CERN, and I’m not saying that I’m perfect because I know that fear zone, you know, I, I, that’s a well trodden path. It’s just that this time I did actually, you know, see it.

[00:23:21] Tiffany Gaskell: I saw the crossroads and stepped into the Trust CERN and yeah, we did a number of things in our organization. One of them, you know, coming together and sharing the intention with the whole organization, and that’s what we did. that we wanted to get through it together. And that was our intention. And everybody did their part.

[00:23:40] Tiffany Gaskell: You know, some people went down to three days a week to look after kids who are out of school. Some people they did furlough, which was the UK government scheme. And then other people like myself, you know, we worked, but we took 20 percent pay cut, you know, on the understanding we’d be paid back afterwards when we got through kind of thing.

[00:23:59] Tiffany Gaskell: And yeah, it was a really amazing time. 

[00:24:02] Mark Divine: Well, that’s neat. What a great success story. And, you know, you have to model what you coach slash teach. Obviously you have to be flexible and, you know, kind of decentralized enough to be able to have that kind of teamwork to come together and collaborate to solve.

[00:24:18] Mark Divine: So this idea of becoming a collaborative culture, openness, broad perspective, compassionate. You know, heartfelt communication, it takes a lot of growth development, right? And this is, you know, my, my mind near and dear to my work is helping kind of unlock that we call vertical growth, right? That vertical development.

[00:24:40] Mark Divine: So the people change not what they think, but, but how they think, how their mind works, right? The whole mind thinking, you know, right back to Aristotle’s theory. So you also make this comment that in very rigid cultures and hierarchical kind of authoritarian leaders are not prone or they have difficulty with that personal growth.

[00:25:00] Mark Divine: Why is that? And how can we help someone who like understands it maybe intellectually now and they’re like, okay, yeah, I can’t keep doing the same, same things and expect different results because I’m not getting up and AI is going to just crush us. How do I. Evolve to become more. Okay. We’re going to take a short break here from the Mark Divine show to hear a short message from one of our partners.

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[00:26:02] Mark Divine: The capability of the 110 is legendary. Whether you’re tackling treacherous off road trails or harsh weather conditions, The vehicle’s got your back, designed to take you further, to do more, and give you the confidence to push those boundaries. The 110 is packed with innovations that’ll make your adventures more thrilling.

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[00:26:40] Mark Divine: There’s the nimble two door Defender 90 for a quick getaway, that versatile 110 for your adventure, or the spacious Defender 130 that can seat up to eight. So whether you’re a weekend warrior or a full time explorer, there’s a Defender that’s perfect for you. It’s more than just a vehicle, it’s your ticket to new horizons, your partner in adventure, your home away from home.

[00:27:01] Mark Divine: So, if you’re ready to re-engage your spirit of exploration, Check out the Defender. Head over to LandRoverUSA. com slash Defender. LandRoverUSA. com slash Defender. Discover what makes this vehicle the ultimate choice for modern explorers. 

[00:27:25] Mark Divine: Hey there. If you’re a snack enthusiast, like I am, let me tell you about a game changer I just discovered. Magic Spoon Treats, sponsoring this show. Of course, I’ve been around the block, probably like you when it comes to protein bars. Most of them are either like chewing on a rubber tire, Or they crumble faster than my New Year’s resolutions. But, Magic Spoon Treats? They’re in a league of their own. You might know Magic Spoon from their wildly popular high protein cereal.

[00:27:45] Mark Divine: It’s racked up a staggering 75, 000 5 star reviews. Well, hold on to your spoons because they’ve just launched something else more exciting, and that’s these treats. Imagine biting into a crispy light bar that takes you straight back to those carefree childhood days of crunchy cereal treats. That’s exactly what Magic Spoon has created.

[00:28:05] Mark Divine: These Treats have become my go to snack whether I’m hitting the gym or need a quick energy boost. Each treat packs a whopping 11 grams of protein with just 1 gram of sugar and 4 net carbs. It’s like they cracked the code on guilt free indulgence. And what about texture? Forget about those weird chewy protein bars that stick to your teeth.

[00:28:25] Mark Divine: Magic Spoon Treats are delightfully crispy and airy. Like biting into a cloud of nostalgia. They’ve got six mouthwatering options, including marshmallow, chocolatey, peanut butter, blueberry, double chocolate, birthday cake, and strawberry milkshake. I’ve been stashing these treats everywhere. They’re my pre workout fuel, my hiking companion, and Even a late night snack is that good.

[00:28:48] Mark Divine: So, if you’ve been a fan of Magic Spoon Cereal, which I was, you’re gonna flip for these treats. They’ve managed to capture all the magic of their cereal in a convenient on the go bar. I’ve been a big fan of Magic Spoon Cereal for years, and that’s why I’m so excited to partner with them for the launch of treats.

[00:29:03] Mark Divine: Scoop up these new crispy, crunchy, protein packed treats in your nearest grocery store. Magic Spoon. Hold on to the dream. Excited to have Wild Health as a sponsor of the Mark Divine Show. Let me share a personal story. For years, probably like you, I felt like a number in the health care system. You know the drill.

[00:29:20] Mark Divine: I’ve been rushed to appointments to get generic advice. I’ve always had a nagging feeling that there was a better way, and it was coming, and technology was going to provide it. And, that time is here. I’m thrilled to tell you that it’s called WildHealth. WildHealth is founded by two brilliant ER docs.

[00:29:38] Mark Divine: It’s revolutionizing health care with a precision medicine approach. They’re not treating symptoms. They’re diving deep into your genetics, biometrics, and lifestyle to create a health plan that’s as unique as you are. 67 percent of Wild Health patients with high LDLP, a key indicator of cardiovascular disease, disease risk.

[00:29:57] Mark Divine: have shown significant improvement. That’s the game changing results that WildHealth can help you with. What I love about WildHealth is how they transformed my approach to health. They helped me understand which foods truly nourish my body, how to optimize my sleep, and even which exercises are best suited for my genetic makeup.

[00:30:14] Mark Divine: It’s like having a team of health detectives working for me. So whether you’re aiming to lose weight, boost your energy, or simply live longer and healthier, WildHealth has got your back. They pair you with a board certified precision medicine physician and a health coach, and they’re available at your fingertips through their app.

[00:30:30] Mark Divine: It’s all virtual. You can access the incredible care from anywhere in the United States. So if you’re ready to take control of your health, they have an exclusive offer for the Mark Divine Show listeners. 20 percent off WildHealth membership if you use the code UNBEATABLE when you go to their website.

[00:30:46] Mark Divine: So head over to WildHealth. com, W I L D H E A L T H dot com slash UNBEATABLE and enter that code at checkout. Don’t wait to invest in your health. Go to WildHealth. com slash UNBEATABLE today. Start your journey to a healthier, happier, Alright folks, listen up. Summer is about to get a major upgrade courtesy of Bespoke Post.

[00:31:11] Mark Divine: And they’re incredible box of awesome. This is a subscription service, which is a game changer. Imagine getting a curated box of pure awesomeness right in your doorstep every month. Top-notch gear for every area of your life. They’ve got you covered. If you’re looking to upgrade your style and travel, they’ve got your back and for adventure, they’ve got cool gadgets and gear to fuel your explorations.

[00:31:33] Mark Divine: So head over to boxofawesome.com and take their quiz. Then they become like a personal shopper who gets you, and based on your answers, they’ll handpick. Perfect box of awesomes to tailor to your interests and send it to you every month. One of my favorites is the gadget box Packed with innovative tools and tech that makes me feel like James Bond on a casual Friday.

[00:31:54] Mark Divine: Joining is absolutely free. They drop new items every single month across a ton of different categories and as a member you score serious discounts on their products. Average savings of 30 percent or more on some really cool stuff. This is a game changer. These are high quality goods. 90 percent of everything in the box of awesome comes from small up and coming brands.

[00:32:14] Mark Divine: So you’re not just treating yourself. You’re supporting other small businesses. That’s win win and zero commitment. You can skip a month or cancel anytime. So head over to boxofawesome.com right now to sign up again, boxofawesome.com use the code divine D I V I N E at checkout.

[00:32:36] Mark Divine: You’ll get a free mystery gift with your first shipment. Again, boxofawesome.com, use that code divine for a free gift. Don’t miss out on this chance to level up your summer. And now back to the show.

[00:32:53] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, it’s making me think of an example where we worked with a company called Linda. And this company is an industrial gas company 

[00:33:04] Mark Divine: named Linda. That’s almost like a trick. You know, the environmentalists won’t come after us. We call ourselves after name ourselves after a girl. And that’s awesome. 

[00:33:14] Tiffany Gaskell: Now the thing is, you know, people won’t have heard this company, but it is, yeah, industrial gas.

[00:33:20] Tiffany Gaskell: And they’re the people that put the fizz in Coca Cola and Pepsi. 

[00:33:24] Mark Divine: Oh, interesting. Really? So Coca Cola, they don’t, they don’t do their own fizz. 

[00:33:29] Tiffany Gaskell: So they have to get the, the gas from somewhere. Oh, the 

[00:33:32] Mark Divine: gas. 

[00:33:33] Tiffany Gaskell: Carbon dioxide. 

[00:33:34] Mark Divine: Right. Oh, wow. That sounds like a big business. 

[00:33:37] Tiffany Gaskell: And that’s a very combustious substance. So what happens is that, yeah, in Linda, they wanted to, so their performance criteria was to improve safety.

[00:33:50] Tiffany Gaskell: So that’s the incidents and accidents that were happening. So we worked with them. Now we were working with them and there was this guy called Bruce in Texas, and I’m not going to do the accent, but it was absolutely fabulous. He was like, this is never going to work. Basically, when he heard, you know what we were talking about, I mean, he was just shaking his head all sorts.

[00:34:11] Tiffany Gaskell: So after, and he was, you know, trying out some of these concepts, he actually had a complete change of heart and he became a great champion of the work. A little different to Mike, because this is in the safety environment. And you know, the thing that they couldn’t believe was that the leaders had this revelation.

[00:34:30] Tiffany Gaskell: They were like, why have we been telling these people how to do safety the whole time? Like they know everything about safety and the people who are working for them. We’re thinking, and we’re saying, Oh my goodness, finally, you’re asking us to use our brains. 

[00:34:45] Mark Divine: Right. 

[00:34:46] Tiffany Gaskell: So that’s the thing that needs to happen, you know, in organizations, like enabling, tapping into all that potential.

[00:34:52] Tiffany Gaskell: And 

[00:34:53] Mark Divine: it’s trust, isn’t it? Right. So trusting that, you know, people actually have good ideas. And we’ll do their job. And so you create a trust culture, then you don’t need a lot of rules and regulations, like in a top 

[00:35:04] Tiffany Gaskell: value space, 

[00:35:06] Mark Divine: you have a value set of values or an ethos, like the SEAL team, and we had a very powerful ethos.

[00:35:12] Mark Divine: So everyone knew kind of what the boundaries were and then they had a lot of autonomy. 

[00:35:18] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. That’s it. That is totally. I was really interested actually to hear about the seals because I imagined that that was top down. And so you saying that 

[00:35:28] Mark Divine: the military is top down and other services are top down, but the seals are very, very decentralized and Tom, we work in very small teams sometimes alone or, you know, two people all the way up to maybe 12 or 14.

[00:35:40] Mark Divine: Sometimes A little bit larger, but we don’t necessarily like it, you know, like a big, you know, counterterrorist kind of operations will come together. But um, we’ve learned that for maximum effectiveness, you got to bring up full potential of every team player. And that means you got to have a high trust, high reliability organization because it’s high risk.

[00:36:02] Mark Divine: And I think that’s a key point. Like if everyone, if organizations and leaders today could understand that the risk they face is as high as we did in the SEALs, it just may not be life. Or your life at a body level, but it’s certainly the life of your organization that is at extreme risk from, you know, the current transitions we’re going through in our culture and in order to navigate extreme risks, you got to have a high reliability, high trust organization because everybody needs to row hard in the same direction.

[00:36:35] Tiffany Gaskell: Love that. 

[00:36:35] Mark Divine: What do you think are the. Most important leadership skills for the coming years. 

[00:36:42] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. Ever since I left the bank, I’ve been thinking about that, right? So John Whitmore, when he started this work, he saw a lever in organizations. So organizations is lever for positive change, because if we can have Leaders who are involved leading these huge organizations that, you know, have hundreds of thousands of employees within them, then we’re going to have a different impact on those people on, you know, stakeholders on shareholders, on future generations and on the planet.

[00:37:16] Tiffany Gaskell: So ethics is right at the heart of it. Also authenticity, because this is about rehumanizing the workplace. You know, and I think that, you know, COVID has been extraordinary in so many ways, and one of the really positive things that’s come out of a complete nightmare is that organizations now understand about the importance of culture, about the importance of, you know, the role that work has to play in people’s lives.

[00:37:45] Tiffany Gaskell: You know, organizations have the potential to become the platform through which people fulfill their potential 

[00:37:52] Mark Divine: and experience tremendous growth. 

[00:37:55] Tiffany Gaskell: Yes. 

[00:37:56] Mark Divine: So instead of thinking of personal development is something that happens over there or back at home, right? It happens through the organization. You know, our model overlays Robert Keegan’s Deliberately Developmental Organization, and I think that everybody, you know, every organizational leader needs to get on board with, you know, creating an organization that has a growth culture where you come in, not just do work, but you come in to work on yourself as well.

[00:38:19] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. 

[00:38:20] Mark Divine: You talked about authenticity and some other qualities. One of the pitfalls or maybe challenges is that oftentimes a leader will look at that and say, Oh yeah, I can use that as a tactic. 

[00:38:34] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, tactics. 

[00:38:36] Mark Divine: How do I act authentic? Yeah, tell me how to act and I’ll act, I’ll put that mask on and I’ll act authentic.

[00:38:40] Mark Divine: Yeah, 

[00:38:40] Tiffany Gaskell: yeah. 

[00:38:41] Mark Divine: And of course, this is not what you mean, right? We have to embody these. 

[00:38:45] Tiffany Gaskell: It’s like, you know, you just saying that you’ve been on that leadership course. The bits that matters is what happens to the bit between our ears, right? Is this what we bring? That’s what we’re working on. It’s the mindset and behavior shift.

[00:38:59] Mark Divine: You use the term mindset a few times. I mean, I can, you know. See that just in the broad sense of kind of like your attitude and you know, how you use your mind and your perspectives and your beliefs. But then there’s also Carol Dweck’s growth mindset. And there’s this idea of exponential mindset and adaptive mindset.

[00:39:15] Mark Divine: Do you have a particular mindset kind of model that you work with or definition? 

[00:39:19] Tiffany Gaskell: Okay. So here’s the thing, right? This is a great exercise. This is from our transformational leader program. And what it is, is that, so now Mark, you’re looking at me, right? So if you look at me with the lens of this person is a problem, what do you feel when you think of that?

[00:39:39] Mark Divine: My mind immediately rejects that notion that I could think that, but if I were to think that I would feel limited or contracted, I think, or like this relationship isn’t going to go anywhere because of this perspective. 

[00:39:53] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. So we’re already creating what’s going to happen, you know, in that expectation.

[00:39:58] Tiffany Gaskell: So the next one. Next mindset is this person has a problem. 

[00:40:03] Mark Divine: This person has a problem. Yeah. Then, then I have a problem because projecting it on her. 

[00:40:08] Tiffany Gaskell: So this one, you know, people might feel like taking care of me kind of thing, you know, if she’s got a problem, poor thing kind of thing, she’s certainly not capable.

[00:40:17] Tiffany Gaskell: So that’s the second mindset. So the third one, and this is the transformational leader mindset, spoiler alert, is that this person is on a learning journey and is perfectly capable, resourceful and whole. 

[00:40:31] Mark Divine: I like that. 

[00:40:33] Tiffany Gaskell: So, as you look at me and think that, how does that make you feel? 

[00:40:38] Mark Divine: Yeah, it makes me feel good for you.

[00:40:40] Tiffany Gaskell: Mmm. And you, right? Which makes me 

[00:40:41] Mark Divine: feel good for me, too, of course. Yeah. 

[00:40:43] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, 

[00:40:44] Mark Divine: absolutely. Because I want to be that as well. 

[00:40:46] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, and what you said there is what leaders say because once they have adopted that mindset and chosen they have to choose, right? This is a conscious choice to step into a different way of doing things.

[00:40:58] Tiffany Gaskell: Once they choose that Then they feel like a weight’s lifted from their shoulders Cause no longer all these people walking around them being problems with problems, you know, the rest of it. 

[00:41:10] Mark Divine: It takes quite a lot of work. If someone’s stuck in one of those other mindsets though, because that’s the conditioning of those mindsets happens from very young age.

[00:41:19] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah, 

[00:41:20] Mark Divine: and sometimes it’s difficult for people to see it because you’re inside the bottle and you can’t read the label You know in my program I use the term boo background of obviousness And what I mean by that is it’s in your background so you can’t see it But it’s obvious to everyone else because you kind of wear it on your sleeve.

[00:41:37] Mark Divine: I 

[00:41:37] Tiffany Gaskell: love that 

[00:41:38] Mark Divine: So good, and it shows up like that, boo, 

[00:41:41] Tiffany Gaskell: that is just fantastic. Well, I’m going to be quoting you on that one. Mark does this, it is just like that. So here’s the thing about leadership. It is a position of responsibility. We had to be responsible to ourselves and to others. Like, you know, I meditate every morning and if I don’t meditate, so I’ve got a co CEO and it’s my husband.

[00:42:09] Mark Divine: Oh, wow. Great. So your other CEO knows if you’re didn’t meditate, you’re not going to have the best day. 

[00:42:16] Tiffany Gaskell: He doesn’t know if I’ve meditated or not. He just knows because of the way I’m being, which is so annoying. But that’s it, you know, I’m off kilter, I’ve got to, you know, eat well, I’ve got to exercise. I’ve got to keep myself balanced because in that position of leadership, otherwise, you know, when the challenges come along, I’m all off kilter and I might charge off down the route of fear.

[00:42:39] Mark Divine: That’s right. I’m so glad you brought that up because I was going to ask you about, you know, your practices for maintaining that balance, right? As a CEO. Because I’m, I’m right there with you and this is kind of a core part of our teaching as well. It’s like you, you know, that morning ritual and the evening ritual as well are very important to take the time to, you know, to ground, to reflect, to, you know, open up to gratitude and, and to get your mind straight and you do that through meditation.

[00:43:07] Mark Divine: I’ve been fortunate enough to be meditating since I was 21 

[00:43:09] Tiffany Gaskell: and I’m just, it’s such an 

[00:43:11] Mark Divine: important thing. I 

[00:43:12] Tiffany Gaskell: was like, you were way ahead of, you know, I was in banking when you were 21. 

[00:43:19] Mark Divine: Well, it was 1985 and I just was freaking lucky. And I was one of those synchronicity things. I, I was getting into a martial art and the founder of the style of karate was also a Zen master.

[00:43:31] Tiffany Gaskell: That opened a whole other door that’s, Oh, it changed everything for me. 

[00:43:34] Mark Divine: I was heading down the path, you know, after my CPA and I got my MBA at NYU, I was going to go into trading and make a lot of money. And it was the time in the meditation bench that completely transformed my mind and my self concept in the moments where I was able to drop off into, you know, wherever, you know, not here, but not anywhere.

[00:43:55] Mark Divine: I came back with, with knowingness and the knowingness told me I was meant to be a warrior, not a CPA, not a finance person. So I left it all behind. 

[00:44:05] Tiffany Gaskell: You were led, internally led, which I think is the other third thing, which is that, you know, cause we’ve all got this GPS and we need to listen to it. It’s an internal GPS.

[00:44:15] Tiffany Gaskell: You know, I was hearing it when I was on the trading floor and I literally was. You know, I mentioned before that I had chest pains and rashes and everything. And I had an image in my mind and it was of a candle and that candle was me. And if it went out, that meant that I died. And that was what was going to happen if I stayed on the trading floor, 

[00:44:39] Mark Divine: it was burning down too fast.

[00:44:41] Mark Divine: But I think that kind of the key point here is even in all the developmental work you do through your coaching. And your own personal practices that ultimately authenticity and these qualities that are necessary for this age of VUCA exponential technology are the qualities of the heart. Now the stillness, the ability to be present, the ability to open your heart, be, you know, in a compassionate relationship with others instead of judging them, instead of like always having the answer, taking the mass off.

[00:45:13] Mark Divine: You know, and I think, you know, AI can never take that away from us. That’s our human natural state. Right. So 

[00:45:21] Tiffany Gaskell: yeah, 

[00:45:22] Mark Divine: coming back to ourselves really is kind of the most important leadership skill. 

[00:45:26] Tiffany Gaskell: I totally agree. And you know, the thing that I had to do was find myself. You know, I had to go back and find myself and take off all these pieces of armor that I put on because, you know, if I met anyone, I was like, I’m in derivative sales and they’d be like, okay, you know, they wouldn’t go any further than that.

[00:45:42] Tiffany Gaskell: I didn’t mean anything to them, but, you know, I was in a kind of like, I put myself in the box of untouchable or whatever it was. I had to take all that off. Yeah, that was really, really hard becoming vulnerable and being seen by myself, let alone everyone else. 

[00:45:56] Mark Divine: But on the other side of that, you can’t imagine not having done it.

[00:46:00] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. If I hadn’t done it, I mean, you know, it was the candle going out. 

[00:46:05] Mark Divine: Yeah. Who knows the candle would be something fascinating. What a great conversation. I really appreciate you for your work and for joining me today. 

[00:46:12] Tiffany Gaskell: Well, back at you. I mean, I’m fascinated by what you’re up to. Yeah. And it’s lovely to meet like minded people who are doing this work.

[00:46:22] Mark Divine: It’s important, right? There’s, there’s a lot of confusion and kind of chaos and negativity in the world. So it’s important to have these conversations that, 

[00:46:28] Tiffany Gaskell: you know, 

[00:46:28] Mark Divine: just kind of. Yeah. 

[00:46:34] Tiffany Gaskell: Amen. Pause, 

[00:46:35] Mark Divine: breathe, slow down. As Punjabu said, stillness is the most important thing. Don’t waste time not doing it. Right?

[00:46:44] Mark Divine: Even in the middle of a busy day, you can take a moment to just breathe, you know, center yourself. We had a saying in the seals, pause, breathe, think, and then act. It’s not easy to do though. 

[00:46:55] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. Well, that, that disengages the amygdala kind of response, doesn’t it? So crucial, however, not easy to do, but crucial.

[00:47:04] Mark Divine: You should write a book. Have you written a book yet? 

[00:47:06] Tiffany Gaskell: I’ve written a book. Sixth edition is coming out in September and it’s called Coaching for Performance. The original text was written by Sir John Whitmore, but we’ve completely revised it. I’m on there as co author and I’ve got another book that I’m thinking about, which is kind of around the conversation that we’ve talked about today.

[00:47:24] Tiffany Gaskell: Transformational leadership. You know, it’s like that. How do you do it? 

[00:47:29] Mark Divine: Oh, cool. Well, let me know if I can help at all with that. 

[00:47:32] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. 

[00:47:32] Mark Divine: And where can people find you, connect with you if they’re interested in working with you and that type of stuff? 

[00:47:38] Tiffany Gaskell: Yeah. So website performance consultants. com and they can connect with me on LinkedIn.

[00:47:45] Tiffany Gaskell: Tiffany Gaskell. I’m actually the only Tiffany Gaskell practically out there cause it’s such an unusual name. So that’s handy. And yeah, that book is for pre order on Amazon and there’s a bonus goodie there for the pre orders. 

[00:48:01] Mark Divine: Terrific. Hey everyone. This is Mark Divine, founder of SealFit and Unbeatable Mind.

[00:48:06] Mark Divine: And I’m super stoked to announce that my new book, Uncommon, is due out from St. Martin’s press this summer, July 16th. And we’ve launched a pre order campaign. You can learn more about that at readuncommon. com to try to get early awareness for the book, which I hope will help a lot of people, where I go and do a deep dive on the five mountains of the world.

[00:48:29] Mark Divine: Of personal mastery physical mental emotional intuitional and spiritual uncommon simple principles for an extraordinary life Check it out at read uncommon. com And thank you for your support and being part of the change you want to see in this world. Hooyah divine out Well, Tiffany, thank you so much again.

[00:48:48] Mark Divine: I appreciate you and appreciate your time and best of luck with everything. And let me know if I can help out with anything. 

[00:48:54] Tiffany Gaskell: Pleasure. It’s wonderful to have met you, Mark. And I love that your last name is Divine.