Episode 71: The Unconquerable Leader with Nathan Tanner

This is Season 6, Episode of FocusED, and it features our guest, Nathan Tanner; we discuss what it means to be an unconquerable leader…and so much more.Nathan Tanner Brings a Tons of Experience to FocusED ListenersNathan Tanner is an executive coach who helps CEOs, founders, and high impact leaders scale themselves and their companies. He has coached leaders at high growth startups and bellwether companies including DoorDash, Google, Autodesk, Electronic Arts, LinkedIn, Procter & Gamble, and Lyft.Prior to becoming a full-time coach, Nathan was the vice president of people at Neighbor. Prior to Neighbor, Nathan spent half a decade at DoorDash where he was hired as the head of HR and scaled the company from 250 to more than 5,000 employees. There he built the company’s first leadership development program and coached more than half of the executive team. Prior to DoorDash, Nathan held several roles on the HR team at LinkedIn. He started his career on Wall Street at Lehman Brothers where he had a front-row seat to the largest bankruptcy in history.Nathan is the author of two books, Not Your Parents' Workplace and his new book, The Unconquerable Leader. Nathan has been an advisor at Y Combinator and has written for Forbes, Inc., Fast Company and other publications. He's an IRONMAN triathlete, holds an MBA from BYU, and was trained as an executive coach at the Co-Active Training Institute. Nathan lives with his wife and their four children in southern Utah.FocusED Show Notes with Guest Nathan TannerRun an experiment; it may not work, but you’ll learn something from it. ~ Nathan TannerNathan starts by telling us that too much of our leadership training is focused on the “external” work, such as technical skills for hiring, training, and supporting others, versus the “internal” work, including mental and emotional resilience.Nathan tells us a story about being stretched thin at work and how he responded. Too often, we don’t even check ourselves when the warning signs are clear.Nathan says that the leadership burnout can happen to anyone, especially people with the best of intentions.Nathan dives into the strategies for managing our emotions. He mentions four. The first is the “unsent angry letter.”He tells us about the “power of walking,” including the science behind it.Nathan does an exercise of deep breathing with all of his clients. This slows our heart rate and helps with a number of physiological benefits.You’ll want to hear what he says about practicing gratitude. Character creation: 1. Identify 2-3 characters who you play in your life (husband, father, leader, brother, etc.), 2. Define how you need to show up in each of these characters, 3. Pick the times that you need to be any of these characters.One major challenge to the character creation strategy is shifting between them. We have to pause and intentionally make the change.Joe asks Nathan about how new leaders can avoid mistakes. Nathan responds by saying that consistency is the most important strategy.He told the story of the 49ers and how staying the course is critical, especially when you have clear principles.Nathan tells us about how he continues to learn and grow, including his reading strategy, which is 30 books a year for the last 10 years.He has a “daily practice,” and he knows that when he does these practices consistently, he shows up at his best.In life the challenge is not to figure how best to play the game but rather to figure out what game you’re playing. ~ Nathan Tanner