In this illuminating episode, Angie Austin is joined by Dr. Cheryl Lentz to delve deep into the fundamentals of leadership and goal-setting. The discussion weaves through Dr. Lentz’s extensive experience working with young minds, focusing on the importance of setting intentions and the ripple effects of proactive leadership in everyday scenarios. They explore compelling lessons that reveal how minor shifts in behavior can drastically alter the outcomes of both personal and professional exchanges.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 07 :
Angie Austin here with the good news along with Dr. Cheryl Lentz, academic entrepreneur. And we are talking about leadership and goal setting today because you’ve got a lot of students as a professor. And then you’ve had a lot of foreign exchange students come through your doors in the last six months. And so you are working with kids full time. Kids isn’t young people, sorry. And so let’s talk about this whole leadership and goal setting that you’ve been working on them with. Welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good. Hello, everyone. It’s really nice to see you. I think this is a really good example for all of us because all of this really, in my opinion, no matter what someone tells me they’re having issues with, whether it’s relationships, whether it’s stuff at the office, the rest of it all comes down to leadership and goal setting. And most people’s like, well, I set goals of what I want to do. It’s like, great, but do you set intentions for what you want an exchange to look like? It’s the same similar concept of goal setting. When I’m going to have a meeting this afternoon with one of my bosses, I have an intention of here’s how I want the meeting to go. Here’s the intention. Here’s the agenda. Here’s that leadership thing that I’m going to prepare for ahead of time rather than the reactive response, which is a, well, I’m going to react in the moment. And students who look at that and understand that they’re in control of that choice, because remember, we show up differently, the rest of the world shows up differently. But when I can point to them that no matter what issue that they’re having, It comes down to a leadership, whether it’s leadership of self or response to leadership in our our external environment. And you have talked extensively about, you know, the idea of goal setting with your kids and what you want them to do. It’s like, great. Can we now granularize it, put it into a little bit? Let’s have a few seconds before we have that exchange with our professor, before we have that exchange with our boss, before we have that exchange for our kids that we have a what do I want to have happen there? And just take a few moments. The conversation goes so differently, Angie, when you have that. And people are like, yeah, it does. I’m like, imagine that. Surprise.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you have the whole goal setting. I have gone over that with my kids lightly. I don’t know that we’ve really written them down. I think that would be a good thing for us to talk about tonight during our learning moment. I have an alarm that goes off. And some of the things we’ve taught in the learning moment recently have had to do with – We had a situation where a friend, her husband hasn’t worked since 2008, and my husband said to the kids, he was talking about how you want to marry someone who’s financially responsible and, you know, an equally hard worker so that you’re working together as a team for your future because… Financial arguments can cause so many problems in marriages. And he talked about being on the same page and compounding interest was one of our talks. Recently, we talked about these kids on Snapchat. There’s a trend on social media right now of like, The choking game where you choke yourself and get some kind of euphoria, but some kids pass out and then they die. And, you know, my kids all know not to do that. But you have to reiterate these things because it’s a fad. But the other one is this whole fentanyl where they think these kids on Snapchat are able to get a hold of drugs that maybe they couldn’t easily find before. And fentanyl is in so many different goes to China, then goes to Mexico, then comes into our country. And apparently the people making money in the labs in China, they don’t care how many Americans die. And the people making money in Mexico don’t care apparently how many people die. And so these things are loaded with too much fentanyl accidentally because they’re probably mixing it up in a bathtub or something. Who knows? And so many kids are dying. I just read an article to them about four kids dying. In this high school dying over the course of I don’t know how long, but the fourth one dying of a fentanyl overdose. And they have a friend that took what they thought was a pill, you know, some kind of opioid. She thought it was like a Valium, I think, or Xanax. And she is still in a wheelchair about two years later and recovering, like learning how to speak again, et cetera, et cetera. And they did not think she would survive. And so…
SPEAKER 02 :
Think we’re too trusting these kids are willing to take a pill. They don’t know what’s in it, that they’re just too naive because they’ve never seen the consequences that we need to go back to the here’s your brain on drugs and show them all these situations you’re talking about, about what could happen or they just are bulletproof and 10 feet tall.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, well, my kids know all about this, but I brought it up in front of some other high school kids, and they seemed completely oblivious. And I talked about your drink. There was a girl recently that was hit. Okay, she was at a bar. She was three times the legal limit. Did someone put something in her drink? I don’t know. She left with four boys between the age of 17 and, well, the oldest was 28. So 17, 18, 18, and 28. I think she was a teenager still, not old enough to drink. Left the bar with them, and then there was either a sexual assault or consensual sex in the backseat of this car, allegedly. And then, allegedly consensual, according to the boys. And then they dropped her off and she got hit by an Uber in the middle of the street at 3 a.m. They just dumped her out of the car. So I went over that story with my kids and explained about, you know, you drink a bottled water with a lid on it or you never leave your drink in a bar or establishment, you know, as you get older.
SPEAKER 02 :
to do this with dating 101 with my age and dating with the same things of being able to be cautious and almost paranoid because of not yes and not having the person meet you at your house you meet at a coffee shop or something exactly and it’s always a struggling I have a Vegas phone number and now I keep it because it’s very convenient in the dating world that they couldn’t find me because it’s a Vegas number and I’m in Chicago right it’s sad that’s why I’m looking at the fact that so many people are Either not aware of the consequences, which is how I do the leadership aspect, is we want to be able to look at spinning out the scenario of the what-ifs so they can look at the possibilities and how to protect yourself. Because in the event that you don’t put yourself in that situation, you wouldn’t have to be reacting to it. Meaning if you’re not that drunk in a bar, you wouldn’t have had that situation. Not that the girl is ever responsible for what happens to her. That’s not my point. But we can increase our odds of good things continuing to happen to us if we can find a way of preventing putting ourselves in that situation to begin with.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and our learning moment is, in fact, I included you and some of your foreign exchange students, because our learning moment is just common sense stuff that maybe parents don’t teach their kids about manners and about, you know, They’ve learned how to do laundry. They have every night a chore list. And it’s not big. It takes them 15 minutes. One person does the dishes, one the counters and putting the food away and packaging it. The other takes care of the pets and it rotates. But they have to do those things before they go to bed, even if they’ve had sports. It’s all got to be done.
SPEAKER 02 :
Do they understand why, Angie? Because I know this is something I’ve had an incredible epiphany with teaching is and we’ve known this since Knowles in 1953, is the adult learner, and I think even the adolescent learner, they just want to know why. Well, you’re not making me do the pet and take out the garbage because you have to teach the garbage. No, I’m teaching you self-sufficiency so that when you are in your own apartment, you know how to keep yourself clean. You know how to keep yourself away from disease. You know how to be able to do your own laundry so that you don’t have to hire somebody. I was just amazed when I went to college how many of the kids weren’t prepared to do all those life skills, and you need that, whether you’re 12 or 55, you know?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I love it. 12 or 55. You know, so this learning moment with the goal setting, that’s what I’m going to do tonight. Oh, but by the way, I did use your foreign exchange students saying that one group of your students did not know how to load a dishwasher. take care of cell phone problems, take care of computer problems, that they were more like an American 12 year old. I won’t say which students or where they were from, but that, you know, wiping the counter, being courteous, you know, because they are so wealthy in their own country that maybe they’re entitled here and they really don’t know how to do the basics of laundry, et cetera, driving, et cetera. And if they’re used to having, you know, the chauffeur, the chef, the maid, and that’s not the American experience. And so,
SPEAKER 02 :
But there are some who do have that American experience when it’s the same principle. And I don’t think that it matters. Myles Law would say it doesn’t matter whether you’re from India, Japan or from Australia. The self-sufficiency skills in order to perpetuate an independent, self-sufficient adult is what we’re looking at. And for some that come from. maybe a wealthier condition, whether it’s in, you know, the upstate New York, or if it’s in, you know, upstate England, for that matter, the same skills apply a 20 year old here is a 20 year old everywhere. And we need to prepare our students. And I see so much that my job in the classroom is supposed to prepare them for teaching leadership, for example, but they don’t see necessarily of all the other life skills, that’s part of self leadership and self sufficiency. And possibly why some of these kids are set up to fail when they’re out on their own or they’re afraid to be out on their own because their parents may do too much for them. And that may be the hardest part of all is doing for them out of love may be actually the wrong thing to do is to let them do for themselves so they can do for themselves.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s a good point. So when I discuss goal setting with the kids tonight and leadership, what are some of the things you’re teaching your students?
SPEAKER 02 :
I would ask them why. It’s like, tell me what the important is. Let’s spin this out that I’m not just harping on this. It’s not just Dr. C being on her soapbox. I want them to come to determine why am I teaching you this? Because especially with my doctoral students, the biggest argument I have is you can’t blame me when you’re in your oral defense and you’re defending your final study. It says, oh, well, Doc C made me do it. No, that will never come up or they’ll fail. I want to know why did Doc C ask you to do that? Why did Dr. Smith on the committee ask you to do this? Why did any of your teachers, undergrad, master’s, associate’s degree, it doesn’t matter. The question is, I want the student to know, well, the reason you’re asking me this is because you want to be able to prepare me to be self-sufficient so that I can become the independent thinker. Absolutely. Now, why is that a point? So I go through this whole litany of why, why, why, and they’re like, All right, I’ve got to be able to do this and I have to be able to do this. And when this goes wrong, I have to see it. So I’m training them to help so that they can do instead of me doing for them. And a few of my students, I annoy them because I will say, I’m not going to give you the answer. Of course, I know the answer. I’ve been teaching 23 years. I’m going to teach you how to find the answer because you need to be able to do that. And the helping hand is the one at the end of your wrist. Not mine.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, my gosh. You and my husband would love each other. I mean, he is the king. He’ll obviously see millennials coming to work, and it’s a startup. I mean, they’re 10 years in, but it’s not like they have an IT department or an HR department. And so let’s say there’s 12 of them. They’ll be like, oh, my computer came in. Who’s going to set it up? And my husband said, you’re a millennial. You know how to set up a computer. So he said so many people come to him with problems that he used to fix them all, you know. And now I feel like he’s tough on our kids sometimes because he’ll be like, you know, I need to get the oil changed and go get everything you need to do an oil change because I’m going to teach you how to change the oil. And I’m like, well, could we tell him like what kind of oil to buy or could we, you know, put it in the cart at First Sam’s Club? So, you know, like the, you know, online app cart thing. So, um, you know, he can just go pick it up. So, you know, or, you know, like the pan, do we, you know, do we, do we get that? Does he get that? And my husband made him get everything. I mean, I ended up buying the oil with my husband because we bought it in bulk because we had like four cars. So, um, they were in the garage with the heat on changing all the oil and learning all that. And he’s going to teach the girls and my son how to change a tire. That’s the next thing.
SPEAKER 02 :
I love it. Well, here’s what I would recommend is We do something called lecture wrappers. We’re going to teach them the process, but not the final answer. So I’m going to teach them. So if we were talking about cars, my response to your husband would be something like this. All right, today, kids, here’s what we’re going to do is I’m going to be able to show you here’s the end result. We’re going to be able to teach you how to change your own oil. We’re going to be able to teach you how to be able to buy all the products. We’re going to teach you how to be able to get everything. So by the time we finish today, you’re going to have all the skills you need to have done all of this yourself. So now they get the game. Now you’re going to have to back up the truck and you as the parents to find out what level of detail are they ready for at their age to know to just say, hey, figure it out. Here’s your car. Here’s the website. Here are the things, you know, and you teach them parameters. You give them the boundaries, you give them the tools, and then you say, here’s the end result. Go find it. Or you do it with them. Or you’re able to be able to show them. And again, it depends on the student maturity. But if you tell them the goal is and you give them the end result, they said, oh, so the reason we’re doing this is so when dad’s not here, I can do the oil myself. I’m like, you got it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes. And, you know, when we’re at the airport, we’re almost out of time. But when we’re at the airport, I remember once my husband said, well, here’s the keys. Go find the car and bring it around to, you know, passenger pickup. And I said, do you mind going with him? Because it’s a huge airport because I didn’t want to be stuck there waiting for two hours. I said, you don’t have to say anything to him. You just follow him and see if he can figure out, you know, how to do it and to get the car in the right place. And he only made one wrong turn getting to the passenger pickup or whatever, but he located the car and did it all. But I wanted my husband to escort him. Dr. Cheryl Lentz dot com. Always a joy to have you on the program. Thank you so much for talking next week.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. Thanks so much. Take care.
SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Fort Lupton, you’re tuned to Colorado’s mighty 670 KLTT.
SPEAKER 07 :
Angie Austin here with Jim Stovall. Every week we talk about his Winner’s Wisdom column. He is an author, a speaker, a movie maker, and we’re getting up, is it over 60 books now? I know we both lose track.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it’s over 50. I don’t know how close it is to 60, but it’s getting there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Will you let me know when we hit 60?
SPEAKER 05 :
I will or you’ll probably let me know first.
SPEAKER 07 :
That is like, who would have ever thought when you were losing your eyesight, they’re like, you’re going blind, that you would write so many books that you wouldn’t even be able to keep track of how many you’ve written. Come on, that’s crazy.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah. My life is I write books I can’t read that are turned into movies I can’t watch. And somehow that has gotten to the place that seems normal in my world. But I appreciate you thinking about it.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, so this column this week is givers and takers. What are you going to teach us this week?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, you know, there are many ways we can separate each other. There are tall people. There are short people. There are energetic people. There are lazy people. You know, there are straightforward people. There are people who are not. There are all kinds of different ways. But I think one of the most significant ways we can separate people in our lives is givers and takers.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
And not only who are we going to have in our life, but who are we going to be? And, you know, Angie, there are people, when they call you or they show up, you know, you just feel energized. You have, you know, just it’s an amazing experience. And they make deposits into your emotional bank account. And then there are people that just hearing from them drags you down. You’re tired. They, you know, they… They really just suck the life out of everything. I’m reminded of that character that she created in the Harry Potter novels, the Dementors. They would go into a room and the lights would go down. They just pull the light out of the room. There are people that we all know that do that to us. It doesn’t mean you have to cut them out of your life forever. But you definitely need to control when they do and don’t come into your space. You know, right now I’m in the process of writing two books at the same time. It should never be done, but because of the way the research is coming in, I’m doing two books together. And, you know, there are people… I had one of those guys. I went to college with him. We share a lot of memories together, but every time it’s just a destination downer whenever he calls, you know, because he’s just going to tell me everything bad in his life and everything bad in everybody else’s life. And, you know, I’m just a positive, optimistic guy, and I just don’t want to… So when I’m in my creative mode, I just say, hey, I’m really tied up on some deadlines right now writing some stuff. How about I call you in a couple weeks and, you know, let me get past this and when I can get prepared for the onslaught. And because these things do affect our attitude and we need to be aware of that.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, as I was reading, you know, through this article, it’s a tough pull when, you know, these people are people you love. And, you know, there’s some people, I don’t know about you, but you just can’t really write them off per se. You know what I mean? I mean, like acquaintances, friends, people at work that you can avoid. We used to have this one guy we called the cancer at work, you know, where… I mean, it’s terrible to say, but we just, the minute you saw her with a crowd around her, you knew what was going on, that she was saying horrible things about your colleagues, you know?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
And so we would avoid her. We’d be like, oh, the cancer’s in the newsroom again. And I know that sounds really mean, but my husband and I worked together, and that’s what we nicknamed her because we wanted to avoid her.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, in sports, there are athletes that are actually called a cancer in the clubhouse or in the locker room. And they are people that, I mean, they are known for this. They create dissension. They create conflict. They create turmoil. And, you know, teams will trade people just because, you know, and their explanation is, you know, he’s cancer in the clubhouse. We don’t need that in Ireland. You know, and then there are players that are so dominant physically, okay, we’re going to work our way around it and make this happen. But… You know, I remember I interviewed the great baseball manager, Tommy Lasorda, a few years ago. And I said, what do you do when a guy can’t keep the rules or he’s got a bad attitude? What do you do with a player like that? And he said, what’s his batting average? I said, what does that matter, Tommy? He said… Well, if he’s batting .250, he’s starting tomorrow in Toledo. He ain’t playing for the Dodgers anymore. If he’s batting .250, if he’s batting .300, I will work with him on it. If he’s batting .350, I will go out with him when he breaks curfew and make sure he gets home safely. It makes a big difference how good you are. But even at that, he said there are some guys… that are just so toxic, you don’t want them around on the team. You just can’t have them. And that’s a real thing in sports. That’s why sports is a great microcosm of life, because we see it all unfold right in front of us on a field or a court, and we know what’s happening right there, and you see a winner and a loser. In our lives, all the principles are in play, but it’s a little more subtle. And I think… you know, we need to be aware that there are these people. And as you said, Angie, so wisely, we don’t want to cut them out of our life. They’re family, they’re friends, they’re whatever. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to let them just run amok during a completely fragile point in your life or your creativity or whatever you’re doing. Or if you’ve been sick, if you’ve been… I mean, there’s people you… I just don’t want to, you know… You know, I got to be in a good mood and a great place to have them around, you know. And… And then we need to be mindful of, are we making deposits into everyone else’s accounts? We need to make sure we are. Because it’s real easy to criticize them, and then if we’re not careful, we become one of them. And that just is, you know, I just, nothing better can be said of you than Angie made everyone’s life better. I mean, I just had a better life because I spent time with Angie Austin. And that’s a reality in my life with you, but that we should all strive together. you know, really to be that in other people around us.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, you want when, you know, you arrive at heaven to hear the well done, my good and faithful servant. And with my kids, you know, my son tends to put his head down if he’s like pulled in baseball or makes a mistake. And my mother-in-law told him no faces, no faces in baseball. And what she means is that like sad, disgusted or angry face. And one of my kids is just like Tigger on the volleyball court. Like when you pull her she’s still like oh whoever’s going in like you do this fight for it you know oh hey this is great because everybody gets pulled right so she won an award for being like leader of the pack and the coach said every we know everybody gets pulled but when you pull her there’s no face there’s no angry there’s no tears she just comes and high-fives everybody and then stands there and encourages the team well i watched my youngest kid get pulled in basketball um, last weekend and, um, you know, everybody gets pulled, you know? So, I mean, just about. And so we, we talked to her afterwards on the way home. It’s like, did the coach say something to you? Were you having a bad attitude? I didn’t have my glasses on. So I couldn’t see if she was making faces or, you know, being crabby. And she said, no, no, I wasn’t. I didn’t do anything. He just told me I need to hustle more or something like that. But we expressed to her how important that is. That’s as important to us as how they play is how they behave. And, um, I was thinking every day we were discussing, um, a player who’s actually pretty decent. And it’s kind of what you said about Lasorda with his team, but it didn’t have to do with the player and the attitude. It had to do with the mother and the things that she says around the team in the stands, the things she says about other players. And the things that recently she said to other parents in pretty salty language. And so I said to my husband, I feel so sorry for that kid because she’s not a bad player. But anyone of equal strength or talent is going to get picked over her if they don’t have a mom that’s causing problems in the crowd.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and parents, particularly around sports, need to realize that I know guys that have coached Little League for literally 40 years. And they’ve told me they may have one player out of 40 years that actually ever makes a living playing baseball.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good point.
SPEAKER 05 :
In 40 years. So most of these kids are never going to see a baseball field beyond junior high school or high school.
SPEAKER 06 :
You’re right.
SPEAKER 05 :
But every one of them is going to grow up to be an adult and live in our society. And it’s the lessons they’re learning there that’s going to make all the difference.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, you’ve taught me a lot of things that your late great friend, John Wooden, who is one of the most winningest coaches in the history of basketball, if not the college basketball, just the things that he taught. And it was so simple, you know, don’t be late, don’t curse, and don’t trash talk your teammates were some of his big rules. It’s like, how easy is that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah, and just absolute – just the simple things of life you want to have. He would always tell his players, when we’re on the road, we leave the locker room as neat as it was when we got here or better. well players never think about i don’t have to do this they got people clean this up i don’t need to do this now you know it’s a habit anything you do is important because the way you do anything is the way you do everything and if you get in the habit of just being a mess and letting other people clean up after you you’re going to go through life having a lot of people resent you i always got to clean up after this guy and uh you know it’s just nice to realize that um And he told me about a time when he and his players were on the road, and there was a worker that worked in that arena, and he was in the back shower room while they were having a meeting, and he was using some really foul language. And he said, I stepped over there and said, sir, could you watch your language? And he said, I’m sorry, coach, are there ladies present? He said, no, but we’re working on having some gentlemen here. And I thought, that is a powerful statement. I mean, you know, why? Why would you do that? Why would you do that when you don’t need to? And, you know, everything matters. And, you know, and it goes back to his statement, what would I do right now if I were amazing? And you would be a giver, not a taker. In every situation, we have an opportunity to be a giver or a taker.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and I think about that when you told me a couple of times, you’ve talked about your family reunion and there’s someone that you bump into that is this very unpleasant person. And I had this discussion with my mom recently. Mom, how come in a situation I can say, oh, these three really great things happened today and it was so wonderful. And she’ll go, yeah, but you know what happened at the restaurant when the waiter came by and, you know, oh, and your daughter, you know what she did this morning when she wrote. I said, how come in every situation I can find like the bright side and And how come on every situation your mind can find that one sliver of negativity? And she literally said to me, because she’s not a bad person. She said, I don’t know. I feel like it’s just how my brain works. And I’m like, well, let’s figure out a way for your brain not to work that way. Could you also tell me like two or three positive things as well? Because you’re not like a bad person, but you’re very unpleasant to be around when all I hear from you is complaints.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah. When I was doing my research for the book I wrote about President Truman, he had written in his diary, referring to a negative person like that, he wrote, it takes a good man to build a barn and any jackass can kick it down.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s pretty good, Jim. I like that. All right. So the family reunion, you put up with it with my mom. I mean, she’s my mom. She’s 81. But I do have to say, Jim, she’s with my brother for a couple of months. And it’s been a little bit of a breath of fresh air. So we’ll try again soon when it starts to get too hot for her in Arizona. We’ll have her come back and see if we can get her on the right track as much as we can. As far as people getting your books, I just got a wonderful box of your books. Thank you so much. What’s coming out next?
SPEAKER 05 :
Next, what just came out was Words That Shaped Our World, the 100 greatest quotes of all time and who said them and what. We’re writing the second version of that right now. And then I’m writing a book right now called The Ultimate Gift Comes Alive about Young Men’s Service League and how thousands of these young men across the country who have read The Ultimate Gift or watched my movie have taken it upon themselves to do that. The community projects each year they’re in high school, and there are actually 11,000 boys in it right now this year, and totally grassroots. I had nothing to do with it, and I am so proud of these young men, and I’m writing a book about their experiences. Not what did I teach them, what have they taught me, and it’s a fascinating experience.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, my gosh. That sounds amazing. All right. Jim Stovall dot com. Always a pleasure, friend. I could talk another 10 minutes, but I know we’re out of time. Thank you. Thank you. Talk to you next week.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to the good news with Angie Austin on AM 670 KLTT.
