This week we are taking a big swing at leadership!
Our guest is former golf pro, turned development coach and guide, Thane Ringler. He is an author, speaker, and podcast host who focuses on success through enhanced self-awareness. His Self-Leadership Academy program gives leaders the tools to understand themselves in order to unlock their full potential.
Thane takes us through his golf career, from hitting balls at an early age to traveling tournaments across the globe and, ultimately, dealing with the difference between his potential and performances on tour. Our conversation also covers:
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Journaling, feedback, and other tools for self-awareness
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The 3-fold process for optimizing our actions
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The 4 Ps to become a catalyst for change
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And much, much more
There are plenty of analogies between golf and leadership, whether it is tempo, balance, and focus, or the idea of your team as your club. Thane has done an amazing job of synthesizing the concepts in a way we can all benefit from. Don’t miss out; listen now!
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Thane Ringler: In order to lead yourself well, you have to see yourself well, you have to understand yourself right? And if we’re going to lead others well, we have to really first start with leading yourself well.
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Vibrant Leadership podcast with leadership speaker and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome to the Vibrant Leadership podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and I am the Vibrant Coach and today I have none other than Thane Marcus Ringler with me. He is a former professional golfer who now works as a development coach and leadership guide. And he’s going to tell us how he combines these two things the golf and the development coach leadership thing. He unlocked the potential of people within teams, organizations and individuals. He’s based out of Denver, Colorado and he has a beautiful wife named Evan and I have seen her picture on Facebook with her arms wrapped around him. She’s a cutie.
And in his current work Thane’s mission is to help others live and work better. He is passionate about speaking to the journey from the journey and is striving to empower this generation to take ownership of their lives and never settle for less than they are capable of. Oh my gosh, Nicole Greer calls that living a vibrant life. I love it. Thane is also the host of the Up and Comers Show, a podcast all about the process of becoming and living with intentionality, while sharing stories from others, inspiring up and comers along the way. So this is an amazing guest I have. Welcome to the show, Thane.
Thane: Well, thank you for having me, Nicole. Bios are always a little more flattering than maybe reality. But I appreciate that. Thank you.
Nicole: No, I think that was beautiful. And I’m excited to have you on the show. So we start out every podcast with the same question. And that question is how would Thane Marcus Ringler define leadership?
Thane: It’s a great question. And I think I love that you I love that you ask and lead with this question. Because it really is hard to objectively define leadership. There’s a lot of subjective ideas and perspectives on it. And that helps us all understand it better. So I’ll give my two cents on it here. I think it does come down to living with integrity. What I think that means it means living with wholeness. Wholeness of who we are, and living in alignment with who we feel called to be. And by doing that, we produce health in ourselves and in others.
And I think some of the really foundational pieces of that is what the bio ended with, which is taking ownership and never settling. So I think this idea of taking ownership means we’re able to take responsibility for our actions or our decisions our words our thoughts. And to never settle for less than we’re capable of, to not default to the easier path, but to choose a harder path by living with intentionality. And, and that’s kind of what I I’ve felt I need to do to lead myself well, and I think that we all do well to do that and incorporate those elements into our lives.
Nicole: Yeah, I love what you’re saying. I totally agree. I believe that every person has, like an inborn purpose, right. They’re on a mission, you know, they were popped on the planet, not by mistake. And so like, wake up, look, what is it you were born to do? So I totally love what you’re saying. I totally love it. So you were a professional golfer, right? So I know that the ears of all my listeners who are golfers are like, what?! So tell us your your professional golfing journey, and then how you’ve morphed it into this coaching biz. We want to understand that.
Thane: Yeah, well, like anyone listening the the journey is a windy meandering road. And so the same is true for me. I played golf since I was you know, two or three, my dad got a club my hands at a young age. And just I naturally gravitated toward the sport, I think because as a kid, I was pretty naturally talented. And so I didn’t want to rely on teammates for my success, like in basketball. In golf, I had full control, you know, and I could guarantee success as you think as a little kid. I was hyper competitive, I hated losing. So I think that’s what led me to liking golf more than other sports. But as you get older, you realize that you have to take full ownership, not just for successes, but more often than not for the failures.
And there’s way more of that in golf than in other sports because there’s a hundred and so many guys competing for one first place prize every week. So it was a it was a great sport. And the cool thing about golf is that you learn a lot about yourself in the process. It really revolves around your mind. Once you develop the physical abilities and put in the reps in practice to get the body in trained in how it should swing the club. Then it comes down to how can I train my mind to think correctly, regardless of the pressure, the circumstances, all the different things, that are competing for our focus.
And so you really get a deep dive into almost this this mental discipline in the psychology of the mind and human nature by by going deeper into the sport. And as I competed professionally, I turned pro after graduating from college, and played on different developmental tours in the US and then overseas in the one Asia Tour first season. And I had a really rough career, to be honest. It wasn’t, I didn’t have the success that I had hoped or planned on. I wasn’t able to maximize my talent and ability, I had a lot of talent ability, and I often underperformed and so the first half of my career was really the mental struggles.
And the second half was the physical struggles, I had a back strain that repeated five times over year and a half. And during that on off stretch, I was really sitting with that identity piece, that calling piece of who have I been created, equipped and called to be? Am I, am I going to be able to play golf again, pain free? Or do I need to pivot into something else. And during that time, I really felt that I could be more effective outside the world of golf than within it. Just on how I’m wired, my interests and what I was passionate about. And with the body being a question mark, I felt like it was the right time.
And so I pivoted into the work of human development and performance and have been on the entrepreneurial journey ever since. So I started development coaching practice, based on my systems and processes that I had for myself as a professional athlete. Taking that to people in their lives and in their work. And then alongside that, I wrote a book or two, I had a podcast I was doing, some speaking, and started a side business. So the solopreneur life and then more recently, I’ve been shifting primarily to focus on the coaching aspect to create a more sustainable business for our family now and, and really to do more work of liberating others.
Unlocking their potential. And that’s what led to me partnering with giant, an organization that resources coaches and consultants like me to better reach organizations, and scale the work throughout. So I’ve been really excited about that transition. And it’s been a, it’s been a crazy journey. And I’m super grateful for it so far, and still learning every single day.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. So I’m a solopreneur, too, so I got you, I feel you, I understand you. Alright, so I love that you, you’ve used this word, I pick up on words, you know, the coaching thing. So I picked up on this word wired, you keep saying that’s how I’m wired, I’m wired. And I think that’s an essential thing for people to figure out mission and purpose is, how am I wired? Will you kind of expand or expound on this idea of how people are wired? Because I think people let life happen to them, and let it unfold. Versus like going out there and going, okay, what am I good at? What’s the deal? So talk about being wired a way.
Thane: Yeah, you know, there’s this phrase that I think is really helpful in this. In order to lead yourself well, you have to see yourself well. You have to understand yourself, right? And if we’re gonna lead others well, we have to really first start with leading yourself well, because if you’re not leading yourself well, then you leading others will result in catastrophe for everyone involved, not just you. And so we always start with ourselves. And if we’re going to lead ourselves, well, we have to start knowing and understanding who we are and how we’re wired, like you said. So it’s this element of self awareness. That even ties into one of those pillars of taking ownership, right?
If we’re going to take ownership for our thoughts, decisions and actions, we have to be aware of those thoughts, decisions and actions. We have to have a consciousness and an understanding of why we’re doing what we’re doing. And so self awareness, I think, is really integral to understanding who we are, being an elite ourselves well, and also be able to take ownership for our life, like you said, and not just default into accidental living. And I think what’s really helpful is there’s a lot of tools that can help us with that. And some of the simplest tools that I like to say these are like, actually have an online course on self awareness too called take ownership.
But it walks through, what are the tools that we can use the primary tools that we can use to grow and self awareness, and they’re really simple. The three primary tools, in my opinion, are journaling and reflecting. It just takes a pen and paper and sitting down. You get to look back on what happened and why and what you learned from it, and how you operate as a result of it. And you learn so much, I actually did this this morning, believe it or not. So, I mean, this is me practicing what I preach, because I need it just as much as anyone else. The second would be feedback. Feedback from another human, it allows us to better see ourselves, right? And that’s what’s so great about having a partner, my wife, she has grown my awareness so much just by having her feedback on a daily level and being that mirror so I can see myself better.
And that can be through a coach. It can be through a partner. It can be through teammates, a lot of different means for that. And then the third tool that’s a primary tool in this process is meditation. Meditation is simply removing the distractions and the clutter and quieting the mind to be fully present in here. And that allows us to tune in and understand ourselves, and what affects us at a deeper level because we’re not distracted by all the noise. And it is a practice. So those three primary tools can be practiced by anyone. And really, I think that the three fold process that goes alongside that is this idea of discovering, understanding and optimizing.
So it’s, it’s simple steps to saying, okay, the first step of self awareness is discovering. It’s understanding why we did what we did. It’s looking back at the past, and what happened, and what led to it and how we operate in light of that right. Understanding is much more looking at the present, starting to be aware in this moment, okay, I’m talking to Nicole, I’m getting excited, my voice is elevating, I’m not breathing as much because I’m really into it. Right? So that’s understanding that moment and what’s going on and why. And that’s a consciousness that that goes with self awareness. And then optimizing discovering, understanding, optimizing, optimizing, the third one is future oriented, saying, okay. This morning, right, I have this podcast interview with Nicole, I want to make sure that I’m ready to have a great conversation.
So I’m going to look at the questions that she’s sent, I’m going to make sure my podcast equipment is set up and the room’s quiet. So I’m primed and prepared to do as good of a job as I possibly can. Right. So it’s understanding ourselves in those past, present future, and being able to work through that process to keep growing in awareness. And the fun part about it is it’s a practice, it never ends, right. It’s not like we arrive at the destination of I’m aware, you know. You can never stop learning about yourself because we’re infinitely complex as human beings. So I think this is really framing as a practice, it’s something that we can constantly practice and grow in, allows us to just embrace that process better.
Nicole: Hmm, I love it. Okay, so y’all just got some major download. And so what I like to do Thane, is I like to tell people what they just heard. Yeah. So back in their brain one more time. So first of all, he said he had a whole program on this, so you need to go over to his website and maybe do the take ownership program. Right. Did I get that right, Thane?
Thane: Yep. It’s called Self Leadership Academy. And yeah, there’s two different courses. One’s on developing discipline, one’s on growing self awareness. So the growing self awareness is all about taking ownership.
Nicole: All right. And where did they go to find that?
Thane: Thanemarcus.com. Yep, you will have everything on there.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. So there’s your assignment for the weekend. I’m just saying, Okay. And then he said, there are three things that we need to do journaling, get feedback from others, and then sit still and be quiet, right and do meditation. And so we need to get three perspectives straight. We got to look at the past, discover what it is like to experienced us. You know, Thane, that’s my favorite coaching question I asked people. I say it all the time on this podcast, you’re welcome, everybody. But here’s the best question you can ask somebody and ask yourself is, what is it like to experience me right now.
So that’s something we really need to get our heads wrapped around. And then we go from discovery to understanding what’s going on with us, and then taking some steps to optimize our performance. So wow, that was a lot in a little bit. So I appreciate that so much. So will you connect the game of golf to leadership? I know that’s what you do when you work with people, in fact, don’t you like, take them golfing, and work in the leadership while you’re doing it? I’m thinking a lot of people want to sign up for that program. But tell us a little bit about golf and leadership. How do they go together?
Thane: Yeah, well, it’s been really fun to kind of merge these two backgrounds, for me and for others. And so I’ve done a couple events. I’ve got some packages that I have here locally, as well as a broader brand. That’s that’s forming called the leadership majors. And I’ll touch on that in a little bit. But the beautiful thing about golf is that, again, it’s an individual sport. And so really, there’s no one else to blame, we can’t make excuses, we have to take full ownership, and we can’t take any shots off. You know, if you take a couple shots off, you’re not going to perform, you’re going to lose because there’s so many good golfers out there at the top level that you can’t afford to take any shot off. And so the beautiful thing about golf is that it’s always humbling us too. We we will never have it fully figured out.
And that’s true in life too. So there’s a lot of ways that every single day when we’re when we’re competing or when we’re on the golf course, there’s things that we can connect from what we learned with that individual game, and what we’re facing in the boardroom or among our team members, or within the organization that we’re part of. For example, there’s some great tools we have at Giant that we use and one’s called tempo, balance, focus. And it’s this idea that in life if we’re going to lead ourselves well, we have to have a sustainable tempo, a rhythm to our day, that carries us through in a way that we can maintain it right? Balance, we have to make sure that our key relationships are in sync.
And that we’re feeling balanced in our role in our responsibilities at work. And focus, we have to make sure that the priority is on the main things, we’re keeping the main things, main things, and the other things that aren’t quite as much of an important priority can be cast aside or even put in the right light, right. And so that idea of tempo, balance, focus is so important to our day as leaders. But on the golf course, those are the three most integral parts of a successful swing. If you think about it, tempo is rhythm. And if you’re going to hit a golf ball, well, if you’re going to make sure that you’re consistently hitting the shots you want, you have to make sure that the club is acting as an extension of your body.
And so that requires you to have a rhythm of flow, almost dancing with the club as you would with a partner on the dance floor. You have to add, you have to feel like you’re not two people, but one connected together in that dance. And the same is true with a golf club. If you’re going to make consistent contact. Then you go to balance, if you don’t have good balance, again, consistency goes out the window, there’s so many variables going on on a golf swing, that if you start shifting your weight getting on your toes or heels, or you get off balance, contact’s not going to be good.
Finally, focus, there’s so many things competing for your attention when you’re trying to hit a golf ball. Most of the times, it’s what you don’t want to have happen, right? There’s water on the left. And if I’m thinking, okay, don’t hit this in the water, I’m going to hit it in the water. That’s because my focus is on the water, whether it’s positive or negative, that’s still an affirmation, and the body listens to what you’re focusing on. And so what you focus on is crucial to the result on the golf course. And by focusing on what you want to accomplish versus what you don’t want to accomplish, you’ll bring that reality into the present in a much, much more consistent way. So that’s just one example of how these tools can apply. And these experiences can apply so well, both in golf and in leadership in life.
And the cool thing about it is we learn so well through lateral thinking right? Through silo free thinking, meaning, if we have this silo of like, okay, I am this person in my role at work, okay, I am this person in my role at home, okay, I’m this person on the golf course, right? That’s not an integrated or whole life. And so, as we pursue integral, integrity in the full integration as humans, combining this lateral form of thinking, meaning we learn from multiple fields in this similar way, creating silo free learning allows us to be much more integrated and whole as humans and leaders.
Nicole: I love it. Okay, so let’s repeat what he said. Because I don’t want y’all to miss it. Because this is huge. So when we’re practicing our golf swing, which is like practicing leadership, we have to have tempo, balance, and focus. Did I get it right? Okay, fantastic. And the other thing that I thought that was so good that you said is you said that the golf club becomes an extension of you. And so I got this whole like thing in my head about my bag of clubs. Right? So those are all my team players, right? And so one of the things are, you probably see this a lot in your work, Thane, is I’ll have leaders say to me, why don’t why don’t my people think the way I think?
And I’m like, well, probably because you haven’t told them what you’re thinking, you’re thinking that ESP is gonna work or something like that. And so, really, that idea of the club or the teammate being the extension of you, you know, if I hold it, right, if I got the right grip in place, I love that. I think all of that is beautiful. And then I love what you said about focus. Now we just, you know, I think COVID is over. Last time, we’re gonna say this listeners, so I’m over it. I’m totally over it. But not everybody else is choosing to be over it yet. So when we think about focus, you said, If I think about the disasters that are out there, like the sand traps and the water, and all that, that’s, that’s where the ball’s gonna go. So having that positive focus, I think is huge.
So I loved everything you said about that. Really great. Okay. So, um, you talked a little bit earlier about one of the programs you had was self awareness and taking ownership. The other one was about discipline. So I’m curious, you know, discipline sometimes is like an, you know, a four letter word to people. They’re like, oh, that sounds hard. But you have to be so disciplined to be an athlete and then extraordinarily disciplined to practice your craft, right in terms of hitting the ball the right way, and also in leadership. So will you share with us kind of your thoughts on discipline because I think it’s something leaders need to think about.
Thane: Yeah, it is a four letter word a lot of times, right. I think you’re you hit the nail on the head there. And it’s funny because I think if we’re honest, and we try to discover why that’s true, right? We look back at our past and see, okay, why is this kind of off putting to me or to most of us in culture and society. And I think a lot of it stems from our earliest memories of discipline is in a negative connotation. So as kids, when we’re disciplined, that means we’re being punished for doing something wrong. And so we instinctually have this association with that, and what discipline as an adult is, right?
And so I think that we have to just reframe and say, okay, that’s not helpful. We know that as adults, discipline is helpful and good and needed and necessary in life. And it’s not out of punishment, it’s out of pursuit of something better, right? It’s not the negative, it’s a positive. In when we think about even something like the law of entropy, it helps us understand that without effort without motion, everything decays. And that’s true for us, too. And so this goes back to again, are we going to just default into accidental living, and go downstream with everyone else? Or are we going to choose to go up the path of most resistance and live intentionally by rowing, right?
So I think discipline is simply put effort plus intention. It’s saying, I’m not going to just float downstream with everyone else, I’m going to choose to go upstream. So that’s a choice having an intention, and then you have to back that up with the effort of rowing. Because it’s not going to happen without effort. So discipline always requires intention and effort. And really, it’s, it’s not settling for the status quo. It’s not settling for just being a part of the rest of the majority or society. It’s saying, I feel called to living a life of personal leadership, and then hopefully leadership of others in that. So it’s just integral to a life well lived, everything will take discipline to some measure. And so I think it starts by reframing it in a positive light.
And then it’s, it turns into how can I practice this and instill it in my life. And then ultimately, while we take those baby steps, it becomes fully integrated into our lives. So instead of just we usually start with like one or two things we want to become more disciplined in. And the more that we do that, and the more that we take those steps forward, slowly, but surely, we become a disciplined person. It’s integrated into all aspects of our life. And rest, just so you know is just as important discipline as taking action. And oftentimes, it’s the most overlooked discipline in America in a hyper achievement culture that we’re in. So it’s more complicated than just doing more things. But it’s having intention and effort in all that we do.
Nicole: Yeah. And so you kind of came back right around to tempo, balance and focus. If you heard that in there. I heard that in there. So that was great. Yeah, you know, I, I was in a faith based situation. And the person said to me, you need to practice your disciplines. And I was like, okay, and he had the word discipline just simply means you’re a disciple, or a follower of that kind of thinking. Right? So so when I heard that, I was like, oh, that’s cool. Because it kind of helped me see that. Like, if I get up every day, and I work out, that just means that I am a disciple, a believer in the fact that working out makes life better, right? And eventually sell yourself out to it. Right?
So getting out there and hitting your bucket of balls to get your drive down pat, you know, that’s the discipline. I’m a believer that practice produces performance, right? So just it’s all about your thinking. And I think sometimes what happens Thane is like, it’s your thinking, and then it’s like, you get sold out. So now you you believe it, right? And then you get down in your belly or your soul and you’re like, this is the truth. Right? And then you have a discipline in place. So it’s really it has to move through your, through your body and your heart and your soul and all that to get it in place. I love that.
Okay, so leaders are facing all sorts of new crazy things. We live in this, you know, this army term is rolling around out there saying, the VUCA world we live in volatile, you know, and uncertain, etc. So what do you think leaders need to do as they move into the rest of 2021? We’re already halfway done. What do we need to be preparing for. What do leaders really need to do to get prepared to really make the last half of the year go well? What do you think?
Thane: Yeah, it this is obviously a generalization. Because every every person situation is different. And I think really, it’s leadership is needed in times of uncertainty more than ever. And so being able to A start with leading ourselves well, I think a lot of times when society is hit with something as holistically as we have been in the last couple years, everyone feels a lack. Everyone feels underwater, you could say, and that includes leaders. But in reality, when you come out of that, the leaders have been probably fighting harder to bring their people out of it alongside themselves. They feel probably still just as drained as they did before, even though there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
So we still have, I think the first focus is just to say that we need to keep leading ourselves well. We need to keep dedicated and disciplined to the things that are going to produce our health so we can produce health in others. I think it’s really important not to try and become a superhero and superhuman. In times like this, when we are resurfacing, I think we all tend to try to get back on the track and start sprinting the next couple of miles. And that’s impossible. And so understanding what the right again, rhythm and tempo is for what can produce health for us and for others, and those that we lead is really important, especially for leaders. And I think the other thing is to really come to terms with the changes that have happened in our world, right.
And so understanding the role of technology, understanding the new norms that are being settled. And and I want to say that maintaining an openness to change is going to be so helpful for a lot of leaders. I think that we can really benefit from the last couple of years by taking what it’s forced us to do, and having more flexibility and adaptability, and trying to carry that forward by saying, okay, I think Nassim Taleb’s book, Antifragile is such a helpful framework for this idea of saying, how do we not just like become resilient? But how do we become anti fragile, we benefit from chaos, we grow, we improve when things are kind of out of control. And as leaders, I think that’s really important.
And you see that, I mean if you go back to the war example, the best leaders are the ones that when they bullets are flying, they start charging, right? They they’re able to take control in the most chaotic situations, and lead exceptionally and heroically well in those moments, and they almost benefit from them. And so even as in a non combat situation, how do we as leaders benefit more from changing environments? How do we hold an open hand to the way that the things that we’re going to have to change to keep growing and innovating as a business or as a team?
And how do we then also, humanize it more? Understand the value of human beings alongside us, especially in this time, when we’ve been more separated than ever before? How do we come together well, and and dignify each other, as a part of the whole moving forward. So those are a couple things that I’ve been thinking about, I think, are helpful reminders, and maybe things to just contemplate further for leaders right now.
Nicole: Yeah, I agree, I think, stop worrying about change, except the fact that it’s going to come and then get change ready. And then for you listeners, I tell you, I have a change readiness assessment, which I’d be glad to send out to you. So you can simply go to vibrantculture.com and tap either or send me an email at Nicole@vibrantcoaching. But I think you’re absolutely right, saying it’s like understanding that earlier, you talked about, you know, getting in integrity, and wholeness and that kind of thing.
And I think character development is also incredibly huge. And on this change readiness assessment it talks about like seven character traits of people who are change ready, you know, like they are adventurous, right? They have tolerance for ambiguity, you know, things like that. So, so I think that that would be a real asset. And tell us about this book, Antifragile, a little bit. I haven’t heard that one. That’s amazing. I haven’t heard that one.
Thane: Yes. Well, it’s not for the faint of heart because it is quite lengthy. And Nassim Taleb is a is a great writer, he’s got a great voice, a very witty, incredibly brilliant, also very outspoken, so he can be kind of the the bulldog and the pin that everyone tries to pick on. And he picks back at so it’s kind of a fun personality. That premise is that, you know, he basically gives the illustration of when something’s in a box, right? If it’s fragile means if you shake the box, it breaks. So that’s what fragile is. And we often think that the opposite of fragility is resilient, right? We think that if the opposite of that is if you shake the box, it stays the same, it doesn’t break. But that’s actually the middle ground.
And he’s saying that the opposite of it is that if you shake the box, that thing in the box gets better. It doesn’t break it actually grows stronger. And so his point is saying that we’re so focused on building endurance and resilience so that we can withstand the shaking of the box that we’re focused on the wrong thing. If we instead work on developing people and inner strength that grows when the box shakes that gets stronger in times of chaos. We’ll be better off in life and especially as leaders, because we are horrible at predicting the future. And our confidence in our ability to predict the future actually hurts us even more. And he’s a, I believe he’s not a statistician, but he’s worked in in finance, he’s worked in a lot of different fields of prediction and probability.
And because of that, he’s very outspoken in saying that we’re awful at predicting the future. We’ve always been awful at it. And our fake confidence in being able to predict the future actually hurts us. And so this, that’s the premise of the book. And I think it’s a great just framework for us to have is like, man, how can I develop anti fragility within myself as a leader, especially? And I think that’s just a great picture for us to take forward?
Nicole: Yeah, I do, too. I do too. And I kind of heard this really cool concept in there of, if I, if I think about how he talks about anti fragile and anti fragile. And then I go back to what you said earlier about journaling, and looking at like, how was the day, such a good day? So instead of just trying to stay whole, it’s like, okay, how could I have missed a better? Where did I mess up? Where did I have an opportunity to fix myself, or help the people around me to make it a better day. So it’s really like adding on those skills and having the self awareness you talked about to intentionally that was another word you used earlier to grow? In spite of what just happened? Right. So I love all that. Well, you mentioned also earlier that you had written a book or two. Will you share with us the books that you’ve written? What they’re about how we can find them?
Thane: Yeah, so I’ve written two books. The first one was called From Here to There, a quarter life perspective on the path to mastery. And the second one is called Catalysts for Hope, unlocking energy, optimism and your full potential. Both are available on Amazon, if you go to my website, you can find them there as well, and links to Amazon. But the first one is really a deep dive into how to pursue excellence in any field based on my experiences playing golf. And it was meant it was actually originally meant to be a thank you to the investors and sponsors that backed me when I was competing.
And it kind of turned into something more that I was really I’m still really proud of to this day. And kind of diving into this idea that mastery in a simple definition is simplicity on the far side of complexity. And it’s this idea that the process of gaining mastery in any field follows kind of a simple path of simplicity, complexity, simplicity. And we go through those phases to try and reach mastery. And if you and I think the easiest illustration of this is Steve Jobs, and Apple. They take something that’s incredibly simple, originally, right? This idea that I want technology to be accessible, and practical and beautiful.
And then they wade through the complexity of all the nuance and craziness that goes into developing technology that can do that, to get that refined, beautiful simplicity of a mastery mastery form product in the Apple iPhone, or all these products. You know, that’s a great example of kind of what that process looks like. And I dive into that a little bit more in the book. So that was a really fun one. Then, in my my second book about hope Catalyst for Hope is all it was more of a theme based on the the timing of last year, you know, it was a time when we really were at a place where it felt like hope was gone. It was lost. We were hopeless without it. And I wanted to give some perspectives or catalysts that can help us reframe that and understand that hope can be found anytime and in any place in life. So that was a really fun one as well.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. What would you give us the four P’s that are in your book about hope? I would love to hear those.
Thane: Yes. So they’re, they’re based off an alliteration, all four P’s. The first one is in process, the fact that you’re not finished yet that there’s still ground to be gained, there’s still growth to be had. The second was all about progress. That really progress is made in baby steps. It’s why the little things are the big things. That that progress doesn’t have to be some giant leap, it can just be saying, hey, I’m going to take the next step today. The third one is possibility leaning into the potential of what could be, versus just what is probable or the likely outcome. And the final one is all about purpose.
So it’s living attached and aligned to your purpose. Allows you to have hope and energy and optimism, despite all the odds. When we know that we’re fighting for something greater than ourselves and something that’s beyond ourselves. And so that’s kind of the four simple shifts. And then at the end, I also share a couple chapters on trying to quell the doubts of those who were kind of haters or those that don’t buy into it, right away, so.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. So we got to take care of them. Okay. So, four ways to have more hope is understand your process. Understand that it’s about simple steps in progress, that just look at what is possible, don’t get stuck in the in the small frame of probability. And then finally, figure out your purpose. So okay, so everybody, go to the website and check those out. Well, I have one final question for you. I am imagining there is somebody listening to this going, gosh, I wish I could talk to Than personally. Well, you can because you can go to his website, look him up, call him up. Go on LinkedIn. I was on LinkedIn with him earlier today. So what what little piece of advice would you leave everybody with? Like, here’s the one thing. What would you say?
Thane: I think, understand that you’re not alone. So we’re all human. And understand that you don’t, you don’t realize the impact that you can have on just a single human right? I think a lot of times we get so caught up in, I want to be I want to make such a big impact. I want to I want to change the world, I want to do all these things that are, you know, social media worthy or headline worthy. And the reality is, we need to have our focus on who is the one person that I can have an impact on today.
And really the way that we make the most impact on others, the way that we’re most impacted, is I think the three core needs we have as humans is being seen, being heard, and being understood or connected to something bigger than ourselves. And that’s something that you and I and everyone listening can do every single day. And it’s accessible with anybody that you live around. So I think that’s a greatest way we can change the world. One person at a time. And that’s a great way to lead ourselves so that we can lead others well.
Nicole: I love that last piece of advice and so we’ve just got a few minutes left share again where we can find you and we can get up as we say in Concord, North Carolina with you.
Thane: That’d be awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me on again, Nicole. The best place to connect thanemarcus.com. I’ve got books, online courses there and then a bunch of resources for teams and organizations that may want to work together on unlocking human potential. We’d love to have you connect or reach out there.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. Thank you so much Thane Ringler for being on the show today. Everybody, go check out Thane and have a vibrant day.
Voiceover: Ready to up your leadership game? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her unique SHINE method to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Email speaking@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com/TEDTalk.
