Lead In 30 Podcast

Embracing Uncertainty: Three Truths for Your Next Chapter

• Russ Hill

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It's graduation time. Russ has three people in his expanded family getting college degrees this month. The advice Lone Rock Leadership co-founder Russ Hill would give them is no different than what he says he would share with so many of you who are trying to lead teams and companies. 


• Contrary to popular belief, your college major rarely determines your career success
• Research shows intolerance of uncertainty correlates directly with higher anxiety and lower happiness
• Studies reveal each additional two hours of daily sitting increases depression risk by 27%
• Financial stability gives you freedom to make career decisions without fear
• James Dyson built 5,126 failed prototypes before creating his successful vacuum

Focus on what you can control, embrace uncertainty, and keep moving forward - physically and professionally. These principles apply whether you're graduating college or leading an executive team.


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The Lead In 30 Podcast with Russ Hill is for leaders of teams who want to grow and accelerate their results. In each episode, Russ Hill shares what he's learned consulting executives. Subscribe to get two new episodes every week. To connect with Russ message him on LinkedIn!



Speaker 1:

We've got three yes, count them up three members of our family that this week are graduating from college. What advice should I give them? I'll tell you what I plan to say in this episode.

Speaker 2:

This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill. You cannot be serious.

Speaker 1:

I guess that's not exactly true what I said at the beginning. This isn't advice I plan to give them. This is advice I have been giving them, thoughts that I've been sharing with them over time. So let me explain. You're like three kids kids rushed, even like triplets that are all graduated college. No, so, um, when I say three minutes, by the time you listen to this episode, they will have already walked the stage. And so, um, I'm I'm avoiding the emotion of that experience, um, and by recording this before they walk.

Speaker 1:

Here's who's walking our oldest son. And so he's graduating, um, from the Marriott school of business at BYU and um and beginning his career, which I'm so excited for him. It's just a remarkable accomplishment. Your first kid graduates college. A lot of you have been through before Others of you. You're like man, I can't even imagine a kid getting out of diapers, much less graduating college. And so you're like I'd never have a kid ever, and that's fine for you.

Speaker 1:

So our oldest is graduating, and then his wife, who he married a year ago, which is awesome and exciting she's graduating and then beginning law school. As a matter of fact, we're super excited for her. She got accepted into a really hard to get into a law school and that's exciting for them. And so she's walking, husband and wife walking together, which is so fun. And then our future son-in-law, my daughter, our daughter is engaged to be married at the time I'm recording this in the next, uh, less than two months, which we're really excited. So we'll have two kids who've gotten married in less than less than a year, um, which is, which is so fun. We're in that stage of life and we're so excited. Who she's marrying? He's a longtime family friend, actually our son's best friend, which is a whole nother episode, a whole nother fun topics. We've known him for a long time and and then, uh, ultimately his uh, uh, my daughter and him started dating and he's graduating. So that's where the three family members so one kind of one, one blood relative, if you will, and then two, uh in will and then two in-laws or soon-to-be in-laws graduating, and so that phase of life is on my mind, and I know you aren't graduating, most likely right now if you're listening to this episode, or maybe you are, but most of you aren't and you probably don't have any kids. Maybe you have kids that are graduating or did recently or upcoming.

Speaker 1:

This episode really isn't about college. That's not really my desire here. What I want to talk about is a couple of human desires and how they can get in the way and how we can be successful managing them. As people, as listeners of this podcast, we have a desire to be successful, to lead others and to, to, to grow, um, in our careers and personally, professionally, intellectually, spiritually, physically all those areas, right. So I'm going to talk about that in this episode. Welcome into the lead in 30 podcast, in less than 30 minutes. In every episode, I give you something to think about, an example, a framework, uh, um, a best practice, a story, something that I want you to. I think there'd be value in sharing with you.

Speaker 1:

I work in a leadership lab. Lone Rock Leadership is the name of our company. I'm Russ Hill, if you're new to the episode. I make my living coaching, consulting senior executive teams of some of the world's biggest companies. I've got some colleagues, some of my co-founders of our company, and then we've got a team that works for us and we have both the consulting business that works with executive teams and then we we have a, a leadership development company that trains mid-level managers and up and coming managers across organizations. You can find out more about what we do, watch videos, look at stuff all that kind of stuff at LoneRockio. So LoneRock is in LoneRock leadership LoneRockio. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So let me I'm going to talk break this down into three different areas and and and this is on my mind as they're walking the stage because there is this desire and see if you can remember this when you graduated from college or when you began your career, whatever your life story is, we have this desire to be able to see around the corner and we want visibility far into the future. So we're neurologically wired to hate fog. So we're neurologically wired to hate fog. We don't like it. We don't like a lack of visibility. We want to be able to see into the future. And so you're graduating from college and you want your career laid out and you want this job, and then you're going to go to that one. You're going to be at this company for that long.

Speaker 1:

And you feel this pressure in college because you got to pick a major and you don't want to screw that up. Because what if I pick the wrong major? Is that going to be? I'm going to pick something, I'm going to invest all this money in it and and and I'm going to go get this education at age 20 or 22 or whatever it is. If I make the wrong decision at age 21, it could screw me at age 45. Wrong Like that. Let's just put that to bed. Your college degree does not affect your career in any substantive way. Period. Now, some of you are like whoa Russ. I totally disagree. If you major in art, like you, think that's going to help you, or behavioral, whatever, or the what you know, how's that going to help somebody? It do.

Speaker 1:

You know what I, you all I make a living coaching executives of some of the world's biggest companies. Name them johnson and johnson, amazon, walmart, lockheed Martin, hormel, cigna, general Motors. I mean, you can go through the list, not flexing. I'm just trying to make the point here that I'm in the room. Our firm is in the room over these last 15 plus years, so I'm walking in these executives.

Speaker 1:

We don't do what we do for free. We charge a lot to our clients. We are worth it. If there wasn't ROI, they wouldn't keep renewing, they wouldn't keep us with them for years and years and years. So we bring value. We work our butts off to bring value to the room. How many times? How many times has a senior executive at Amazon, walmart, general Motors, hormel, lockheed Martin, ford, name the hospital company, name the healthcare company, name the company?

Speaker 1:

How many times have they asked me what I majored in in college? Zero, zero. How many times have they asked me about my mba? Never guess what I'd have to tell them if they did. I don't have one, I didn't need one, so college. Now some of you can debate. You can say well, we're us, but in this specific career, you have to have this license and this, whatever. Okay, yes, medical credentialed, like where you have to go get this certification and that and whatever that might matter. Okay, and this isn't an episode about college, like I got to get off this topic because some of you disagree with me passionately and I totally validate the way you're thinking and there are examples you could cite that are super important and if you want to preach that to your kids or message it to the world, I just applaud you, go for it, do it. What you know is right or you think is right, go do it.

Speaker 1:

For me, it's about grit, it's about working hard, it's about a growth curve, it's about committed to learning and development, it's about figuring it out. It's about an education on the street every day. It's about a changing market. It's about the fact that my needs, my, the things I value, what I'm interested in at 30 was way different than 20. At 40 was way different than 30. At 50 was way different. Whatever at 80. It's so different now Okay, I'm not really 80, but I'm imagining it will be okay. So, yeah that I. I graduated from college with a degree in communications. I was going to go conquer the media world. 15, 16, 17 years, in, whatever it was, I lost track into the media business, where I thought I'd retire, where I thought I'd spend my entire life. I went yeah, I'm done, done, I'm. Yeah, I'm good. Thanks everybody, it was an amazing ride. I'm out Wait what.

Speaker 1:

You can't leave this career. This is everything you've studied your whole life. Yeah, I'm bored. I like the growth curve is flattened. I want to do something else, so move over here. Then I do that for three years, okay.

Speaker 1:

Then people call and they're like, hey, you gotta come and interview with our consultant. I'm not a consultant. What the crap are you talking about Consultant's like a dirty word? Those are those losers that don't do anything and charge a lot. Okay, and they travel a ton and whatever. I don't want to do that.

Speaker 1:

And then I joined a consulting firm. And then, you know, I go in these rooms and these executives are like, well, we expect value and you better bring it. I'm like, holy crap, I can't measure up to that. I figured it out. So what I care more about than your college degree, your diploma, the school you go to, and, holy crap, if you're going deep in debt to get your education, change it. My kids, all three and I'm not saying this because it's not because we make a buttload of money or whatever, it's not about that at all None of my kids will graduate with debt. Not a dollar, not a dollar of debt. They've got nothing to pay back. Is that because mom and dad gave them a gravy tray. No, they've worked their butts off for that. We've contributed to it too, but I'm not paying $30,000 or something.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, this is just a soapbox here. And so you're going why? I want my kid to go to this college, and it's $35,000. That's fine, for per semester, that's all right, and my kid's a hundred thousand dollars. Okay, well, that's what you chose and that's what they chose, and that works for you, and that's all right.

Speaker 1:

I'm not, I'm not criticizing any of that. I'm just suggesting. Maybe it's not necessary, and I'm suggesting that there are alternatives great educations at a fraction of the cost. And what matters most is not the sheet. I don't know hardly any sheet of paper worth $150,000. I haven't seen it. But I can tell you what's worth millions of dollars hard work, ingenuity, agility, humility, curiosity, grit, social skills, networking. Give me that sheet of paper, that sucker, I'll stamp it with $2 million. It's worth. But this, hey, I know. I know everything that the professors, that the academics, said was required of me. I know it all. Well, great, you're, you're, you're well.

Speaker 1:

I go to college to network, to meet people, to form connections to date, to get out from my parents' house, to learn how to live, to survive, to hit reset on life. I don't get everything handed to me. I got to work hard. I got to figure out how to balance life. I got to figure out what I prioritize, what's important. That's why I go to college obviously had some passion.

Speaker 1:

None of that is in my notes, on the screen I'm looking at, but so you could disagree. I'm just offering you something to think about. That's what I do. I'm not telling you I'm right. I'm not telling you to change the way you view it. Not telling you that you need to. Not none of that. I'm not preaching to you that this is the best way. I'm telling you it's what I think and it could be absolutely wrong for you. You could adamantly disagree and I my argument, hopefully, has made your position even stronger. So I validate your perspective. I validate looking at it differently. I validate exceptions and differences and all of that. Okay. So we graduate.

Speaker 1:

Now let me get to the freaking podcast episode outline that I've got in front of me. So we graduate from college and we're in college choosing a major. And what do we want? We want to see the future. We can't. It's not possible. You can't see around corners. There's no visibility beyond a mile or two max. I can't tell you what the market's going to do. I can't tell you what you're going to value doing 10 years from now. So here's what now.

Speaker 1:

Now let me just give you some scientific and psychological data around this intolerance of uncertainty. And and this is I, I I, we did a bunch of research for different aspects of this podcast. There are studies out there that find that the more intolerance you have of uncertainty, the lower your happiness and the higher your anxiety. The lower your tolerance of uncertainty, the higher your level of unhappiness and anxiety. So what's the punchline, what's the takeaway? You've got to tolerate uncertainty. You can't see around corners.

Speaker 1:

Now there's another condition need for cognitive closure. They call this NFC and you want quick, definitive answers. It shows that anyway, there's all this research around. I don't have time for it, I don't care about it. Here's the main point there is no closure. Okay, you can't put like you can't know the answer.

Speaker 1:

And then the last thing I talk about as far as scientific data around this is this illusion of control all kinds of study, all kinds of research around this that when you think you have control or you have to have control. You have all of these triggers, all this unhappiness, all of these problems. So what do we need to realize? We have to tolerate uncertainty. We have to realize there's not a lot of closure, there's a lot of open-ended things, and we only have so much control. Focus on what we control. That's the mindset. So, graduating from college, going out into the world and even 20 years later, that's really important for us to understand. We have to tolerate uncertainty. We have to realize there's not closure. This chapter is not going to end all nice and neat before we go on to that one. And control is an illusion. We only have so much. We need to focus on what we can control.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about motion. If you listen to this podcast on a regular basis, you know that this is one of my favorite words motion. I think it's a difference maker. I think it is a differentiator between those that are successful and those that are not. I think it's the difference between those are happy and those that are not. I think it's the difference between those that are learning and growing, those that are not.

Speaker 1:

Motion and when I use motion that way, obviously it's a broad definition, but I want to give you a few examples and some data to back this up. Here's the first one. This is fascinating. There's actually some brand new research it came out in the last couple of months that looked at accelerometer data. So those are the little watches devices that you wear, many of us, you know, in our Apple watches or our Garmin or whatever that we wear. It's tracking, it's an accelerometer, right. So where it tracks how many steps we're taking, elevation change, you know you're going up or down flights of stairs, how fast is your heart beating, all that sort of thing. So they tracked more than 80,000 adults for almost a decade. This research is fascinating and and yes, we're getting into some of the physical aspects of it and I'm going to take it back to kind of a mental or work ethic standpoint in a moment, but there's connection between the two.

Speaker 1:

So what the data showed is that there is a 27% higher risk of depressive symptoms. I'm reading this in case you can't tell tell 27% higher risk of depressive symptoms for each additional two hours of sitting time a day. Okay, so let me say that slower for those of you on the treadmill Okay, that aren't thinking and you're having trouble getting oxygen to your brain, but your accelerometer is like is like off the charts right now. You're not our problem. Well, physically, but I don't know about career wise, and spiritually and emotional all that. So let's talk about that a minute. But what so? The basic takeaway? So let me say it again, I'll give you the kind of the punchline, the data, and then I'll explain what the headline is. So more than 80,000 adults, 10 years, nearly 10 years, accelerometer data. What did they notice? That a 27% higher risk of depressive symptoms for every additional two hours a day you sit down. So if I sit down for two hours a day, I have a 27% higher rate of depression, basically depressive feelings.

Speaker 1:

We're not talking about clinical depression and all that. That's a different episode, that's a different podcast. We're talking about feeling down. We're talking about feeling in a funk. We're talking about losing hope. We're talking about not being motivated. We're talking about feeling down. We're talking about feeling in a funk. We're talking about losing hope. We're talking about not being motivated. We're talking about surrendering. We're talking about the fog that exists in our minds.

Speaker 1:

If I am active physically for two hours a day, I have a 27% lower chance, I guess you would say, than somebody who doesn't move of depression. Then it goes up another two hours. It's 27% higher chance it goes up another two hours. Another 27% higher is. So the punchline is the more you sit around, the higher the odds are of you having feelings of being in a funk, feeling um, feeling bad um and pessimist uh attitude, not clinical depression, but like depressive feelings.

Speaker 1:

And I could give you way more about that study. It is fascinating. It's not the only one, it's just the latest research and it's just and so in that case, that's why I go to the gym. It's one of the reasons. Usually six days a week, from traveling or things or whatever, not as much. But I, I, I'm okay with that because I'm active. I'm walking across those enormous airports, I'm walking out to the rental car, I'm walking to the hotel, I'm walking into the client meeting, I'm on my feet for four hours in front of this executive team, my heart's racing because I got to nail this thing and do that, and that executive is challenging this and the CEO is doing that and they've got this. So I'm very active on those days. So I don't need the gym as much because I'm physically active.

Speaker 1:

I think motion matters a ton. Motion matters a ton. I think the older you get to, at 20, it's not as important. Well, at 30, it's more important than 20. At 40, it's more important than 30. At 50, it's way more important. You get the idea. We got to keep our brains engaged. We got to stay out of the funk.

Speaker 1:

What's another example that all of you can relate to? Covid, that freaking pandemic. When we all went into the dumb lockout lockdown nobody could go anywhere, like insane. Now we look back at that and the history of it. I'm not going to get into the politics and you, everyone, can believe whatever they want to believe, but, um, I think the the basic sign I don't think I know the science now says and the thinking in the rearview mirror is that was a total mistake locking down everything, kicking our kids out of school, not letting them walk across the graduation stage.

Speaker 1:

I saw my son Camden, who's out serving a church mission right now. I mean ADHD, right, he's got these attention issues and he's creative off the charts and he's got a memory like you can't believe but needs stimulation and he's sitting at the kitchen table for day after day after day in an online class. Almost killed him. I mean emotionally, psychologically, mentally, just the funk, insane. So the whole freaking globe went through that. No wonder we were all ticked at each other and bitter and angry and yelling and whatever else. We're still dealing with it. It's still fading for some of us. Some of you are just stuck in that forever now.

Speaker 1:

But so the science shows, the science shows, the data shows physically active. So how does that relate to the college graduate? Like, what do you mean Be in motion? Do I mean physical? Absolutely. Do not sit at the desk at home every day. Don't have a job, get up, look for one. Don't like be active physically. But it's not just physically, is a big part of it. Like period, end of story. That's everything I just said is all the science shows it.

Speaker 1:

I promise you, the more isolated your teenager is sitting in his or her bedroom playing video games, scrolling social media, the more challenged they will be. I see it, you see it, we all see it. And so we got to get them in motion. That means you got to have a job. That means you got to go to school. That means you've got to go do this work. That means you got to go to the gym. That means you got to do these things, not because we care about all that other crap, but just, we need you in motion, and for those of us who are thirties, forties, fifties, we've got to get up, we got to get moving. Okay, super important. But now let me go to how that applies to a career.

Speaker 1:

Motion for me means when, when, um, that, what was it? I can't even keep track of all the episodes, you guys, but I think it was this episode I mentioned. Maybe it was the last one that I mentioned, um, that when we launched lead in 30, when we launched our, the initial part of our leadership training company, we were no longer just going to be in the executive consulting space, but now we were going to put products on the shelf for leadership development and mid-level managers and organizations. We did a webinar. A thousand people showed up. Incredible, like so many people, nobody bought, nobody bought, humiliated, embarrassed, all the stuff right.

Speaker 1:

I've told that story a lot of times. It's pivotal for me, it's a signature experience for me and it would have been very easy to get in the fetal position to sit and stew, to think and think, and think and plan, and plan and plan and to contemplate and to design and sit at a computer and just think and whatever. No, we needed to be in motion, back out in the market. Go, go, go, try again, try again, try again. In motion, putting forth effort. What that does is it lifts your mood. There's all the. I got all this research in front of me and and I'm not, I don't have time to get into it, you don't care about it anyway. You know, it's just common sense that when you're in motion so college I go back to the scene that I started the episode with got kids graduating college.

Speaker 1:

Number one you can't see around corners, there's no way, and you're wired to want to be able to predict the future. You're wired to want closure. You're wired to feel like you're in control and tolerate the uncertainty. Embrace it. It's going to be the rest of your life. Embrace the lack of control. So many things out of your control. You can't control mask mandates. You can't control lockdowns. You can't control tariffs. You can't control the market. You can't control up or down or customers or any. You can't control whether you, your boss, thinks this or that, or that person gets promoted to that, or what the policy is. You can't control any of that. Embrace it. Focus on what you control, and I'm going to go even a degree further than I had in my notes. Here you build a stable financial situation so that nobody has too much control over you. So when someone says the term to you, we're going to cut this division, we're going to fire you because we don't like the way you're doing this, or we have a different thought or whatever. It doesn't matter. It's one person's opinion. It's a strategic change in direction, has nothing to do with your value.

Speaker 1:

I had a CEO the previous firm I worked for, the. This is no joke. I've told the story before, but I'll remind you about it here because I just remembered it. I had one CEO who wanted to fire me. His executive team was totally uncomfortable with disruption. They were totally in the wrong seats. They were misleading the organization. We weren't scaling at all. We were bought by private equity and there was no plan for us to grow the firm at all.

Speaker 1:

I happened to be one of the voices. Yes, was I a little too aggressive in saying that? No question, I leaned into second leader. For those of you that have been through lead in 30, the 30 day leadership cohort experience, you know exactly what I'm talking about. That's my default position. I lean too much into it. I was too direct, but so be it. And and and, yeah, I would do that differently.

Speaker 1:

But it rubbed people the wrong way and I just felt no one was listening. No one was listening and I cared deeply about the firm. I cared deeply about my future. I believed in what we were doing and so I spoke up and I had a CEO that thought I was saying the right things. That's what he told me behind closed doors, when nobody else was in the room. He said it over and over again. And and then when his executive team a few members who were defenders of the status quo when their sharp claws came out and they wanted to off with my head, he, he, he. He knew in his heart that no, and in his head, no, I shouldn't do this. But yet these executives are saying that Russ is one of the problems. Anyway, before he could fire me, he got fired, but he was leading into it Like he thought off with his head right.

Speaker 1:

The very next CEO this is no joke. The next CEO, like probably a couple of months later, he comes in, he assesses the situation. Does he come over to me and fire me? No, you know what he does. He offers me chief strategy role in the, in the firm. He says to me on the phone hey Russ, we think that you, you understand the future, you can lead us in the right way.

Speaker 1:

The very same company, two more than two like polar opposite perspectives and two more than two like polar opposite perspectives. So like is my ego way inflated because, well, we think you should be. I actually turned down the position, like for a day and a half it inflated my ego. I felt like redeemed. I felt like finally somebody gets it. My value was restored. And then I realized, oh, this isn't about that. And is that what you want? No, and and and and. Because I would.

Speaker 1:

It was less than a year later that we were launching our own firm, anyway, um, so we don't. We don't over inflate our value or under inflate our value based on the perspective of others. They're one data point. And so we have stability in our own, our own finances and in our own world, so that we're not so dependent. Now, that takes a little while to build up, but it comes through consistent spending less than you make, period. So we're teaching this principle to our kids. We're trying to model it ourselves right so that we have financial stability, so we're not defined by our job, by our position, by the parking space, by the office, by any of that. If that defines who you are, that's messed up. It's totally messed up. It can be part of who you are, but but you're bigger than the company, you're bigger than the title, and if not, then you, you, you aren't growing fast enough, you aren't.

Speaker 1:

So anyway, my last point, cause I got to finish up and get this under 30 minutes, but I got to cut these episodes shorter. I'm sorry these last few have gone so long. I went a while where I wasn't recording podcast episodes as frequently, and so I got a lot to say, and so I want to share one last example. Let's do this in the last 60 seconds James Dyson.

Speaker 1:

James Dyson, in the 1970s, wanted to make a bagless vacuum, and so he lived in rural England in the 1970s and his, his vacuum keeps clogging, it's losing suction, so he decides to start building um a design. Do you know how many prototypes of the vacuum a bagless vacuum that he built before he actually sold something in the market and took off? This is look it up chat, gpt, it, search, grok with it. James Dyson built 5,126 prototypes that failed and it was in prototype 5,127 that he actually found a buyer and it went off the shelves in Japan. You can, you can dig into it and it sold. Amazing. It won design awards and then it went on. To let me find the data, I just want to get this line to you really fast. It went on in Britain. 18 months later, his first British model, the DC zero one, grabbed half of the British market and vacuum bags started to vanish.

Speaker 1:

You can't see around the corner, you don't control a lot and you got to stay in motion. That are the lessons. Those are the lessons of life that I just would want a college graduate to understand. You can't all those things. All those things I just said. That's what's on my mind in this episode of the Lead in 30 podcast said.

Speaker 2:

That's what's on my mind in this episode of the Lead in 30 podcast.