🎙️ Grounded Leadership: Avoid Costly Decisions Under Pressure with Dr. Mark Vincent

Emotional intelligence and leadership skills help leaders regulate emotions, heal trauma, and make better decisions under pressure with Dr. Mark Vincent.

When leaders operate from overwhelm, they risk making decisions that damage their business and relationships. In this episode, Dr. Mark Vincent shares how grounding yourself, working through trauma, and regulating emotions are essential to de-escalate conflict, navigate triggering dynamics, and lead with clarity instead of reaction.

Dr. Mark Vincent is a leadership coach and emotional intelligence expert who helps leaders manage high-pressure environments with presence and control. His work focuses on emotional regulation, trauma awareness, and conscious communication to create healthier, more effective leadership.

👉 Connect with Dr. Mark here

Website: maestrolevelleaders.com | teallvincententerprises.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marklvincent

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Discover nervous system mastery through Dr. Campbell's trainings and explore how emotional intelligence transforms your performance:
👉 Visit Dr. Campbell's website: https://drjacquelinecampbell.com/self-mastery-tools

🔗 And stay connected as we build a community of growth minded visionary leaders: https://linktr.ee/drjacquelinecampbell

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

At this stuff, they would invite me to come help and uh work. It would start like this: we're painted in a corner over here. Everything we've tried isn't working. Uh, we're about ready to you know be at our each other's throats. We we want to diminish the anxiousness and find a way forward. Can you help? Well, the methods work.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Uh welcome to the Resilient Minds Podcast. Stories of grid, growth, and success. On this show, we focus on the real stories behind the success. The struggles, the resilience, and the courage it took to keep moving forward even when times got tough. My goal is to provide you with stories of hope and transformation, showing that no matter the challenges, there is a way forward, and you can find it. This is Resilient Minds.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Campbell, and I'm here with Mark Vincent. He is an executive advisor and he's been doing this for a very long time. I feel very blessed to hear his story today, and he's here to share it with us. Thank you so much, uh, Mark, for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Well, I really believe in what you're doing. So I'm honored to be uh a guest here.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Well, thank you. First, tell us what you do as an executive advisor.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Well, you know, I had dinner with uh a person last night who would also describe themself as an executive advisor. So that made for a very interesting conversation. And we were really coming at it from the same place. It's not the title you hear every day. You hear executive coach, you hear personal coach or lifestyle coach, you hear mentor, you hear um, you know, uh organizational development specialist, all those things. And we would say that an executive advisor is sitting kind of over the top of all of those possibilities, not because there's a superior role or anything, but because you're paying attention to the executive as well as to the organization that they lead. There's an intersection between them, you're paying attention because at the end of the day, they have to deliver some kind of value, but they're doing it as a whole person, um, either engaged or not. So you might shift over to some coaching or bring a coach in if that's needed. And you might shift over to mentoring or direct organizational development consulting based upon what's needed. You're advising the direction of that executive. And one big distinctive is you're often helping to shape the framework by which they're thinking. Um, so that if they're if they've got a lens that is not serving them, you're helping them adjust the lens, not just by asking questions because time is of the essence. You may have to occasionally say, let's look at this this way and see what else you can see, because you're not seeing some things. Um, and that's that's really what executive advising is advancing the person and the enterprise.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Well, that's interesting. So you have to see it from a bigger perspective, and then you have to assist them in shifting their thinking, which can be a very hard thing for the average person, right? But it's because they're leading the enterprise, if they don't shift their thinking, they're actually hurting the enterprise. I mean, that that option may not be what's best, but at least the flexibility in thinking differently helps them broaden their mind. How much do you experience with executives' difficulties with thinking differently?

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Yeah, well, uh that's a great question because um there are a couple of things that show up everywhere. And then there are the individual things that's kind of respective to the person. So one of the big ones that this tends to show up everywhere is is this executive coming to their major issues, opportunities, and problems as a knower or as a student, like a learner. And if they're coming as a knower, I've got to perform, I've got to be the expert, I have to go to the well of what I'm already confident in. There's an enormous block. And if they are like, yes, I know I need to be a student, but I have to really look good being a student and learning, that's also a block because they're they've got all this noise going on in their head instead of the vulnerability. I don't know stuff, we don't know stuff, let's dig in and learn. And in some organizations, the culture also works against that because there's there's such a high performativeness among the senior team that if even an executive leader leads out and says, you know, now that we've got come up with an idea, let's play devil's advocate here, let's look at what could go wrong, let's look at what might break and what we're prepared to do. That I have several stories I've collected of that senior leader being taken to HR because they threatened the competence of some of their senior team members. They didn't want to present something that everybody turns around and says, What could go wrong here? Uh, they wanted to be right. And this is how deep in some places it can run.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Yeah. Do you feel like personal issues? Well, I mean, do they actually outright come out? Like the personal issues, childhood issues, our wounds, and and limiting beliefs like our own confidence in those conversations? Because I could see a lot of very charged emotional activation in those moments when somebody just wants to be right.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah, they're you're right. Um, and especially in one-to-one conversations, if you are a trusted advisor and they feel safe and um you're seen as a peer, not an employee and not someone who's supervising them. If you're right there with them as the peer and you're uh I work hard at this, you know, to have an open-hearted approach, like where they're like embraced in the room. It's it's just safe and they can they can swear, they can tell their story or whatever else. Yes, a lot of that will bubble up. And then there are these moments where uh you decide, okay, if I've been trained in triage, maybe I'll do that. But if I've not been beyond that, I'm not gonna play therapist. Let's figure out where you can talk with someone, you know, to make to get get help. But so often we're not talking about psychosis, we're not talking about something that's gonna require 20 sessions of therapy. It's like there's often because these are folks that are problem-solving all the time. Here, here comes this moment of realization. Oh, I'm assigning these emotions to this circumstance in a way that they don't really apply, or it overdoes it, or it I I like withdraw instead of being present because I'm afraid or whatever. And that aha and that safe conversation, they're often able to make a very quick adaptation and they're often running uh in the direction they need to go.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Right. Well, neurologically, what you're talking about is when there's pressure, think about it like if you and I got into a control battle, if I'm trying to force something in your brain, it's gonna hit your cognitive blockages because those are defensive features. So you, by creating that emotionally safe container for them, it allows for their brain to actually open up to let them integrate that new information, but at the same time, they have to want that, right? Isn't this vulnerable?

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah. Uh I almost jumped too quickly in there because I now want to change my question just a little bit. Isn't this subtle also sometimes? And I'll give an illustration. I I wish I'd known this stuff much younger. But but when I'm when I've I've worked with people where I'm feeling, I'm feeling like I'm collaborating, like I'm coming in beside them, listening to them, and I'm there they've expressed an idea, and then I respond to it. You know, we could add this, we could do this. I'm thinking this is collaboration. They may even have used language of collaboration, but my coming in with whatever my strength of personality is, they suddenly feel like they've been shoved off the stage and I took it over. And so there's like there's not um uh anything that was um mean in it. There was there wasn't anything like uh a competitive thing, it was all collaborative, but the the it just touches something where they feel like this is what my dad always did to me. My old older brother or sister always shoved me out of the way and stood in the middle. That's not what's happening, but it feels just enough like it that they shut down or they get snippy or something along that line. I'm I'm just guessing that it can happen just in that simple way, too.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

Well, it absolutely can. I mean, it happens all the time. We're usually playing false stories and we have mental filters. It's actually on our thalamus in our brain where it filters our reality. And if we have things that are unresolved when we get triggered, and and a lot of times because we're usually in high stress, anyways, it's always there, right? Like your constant filter of I'm not good enough, or I have to be the best, or whatever it is that's usually causing the stress in our life. It's a filter that really just needs to be healed. But if you're triggered, multiple filters come on, which are more defense mechanisms, more activation in the body. And unfortunately, it's targeted towards somebody who the person who's triggering it. So you might have been triggering his inability or their uh inability to be vulnerable. And as a result, because you you were being collaborative. And so they might have felt challenged, which puts those filters on. It's not fair to you, but knowing that helps, what got you into this work?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Uh well, you know, I had this deep training a long time ago as it was becoming a new thing and group process, group discernment, dealing with difficult constituencies. There were some significant, I won't go into all the academic history behind this, but there was some significant social science done in the 1980s that took stuff that had kind of resided in some communities, like the Cloyster Jesuits had used this kind of methodology for a long time. The Quaker tradition had used this kind of discernment work. There are many others I could name, but the idea of saying, does it really work? Can we prove that it works to actually go around the circle and hear from everybody? And uh yes, it does work. And so the language of mind mapping and of win-win scenarios and uh a more robust definition of what forming a consensus can be in a way that doesn't just dilute the whole thing, those kinds of methods found a life and some footing. I was working on a master's thesis at the time on that subject. Here comes the social science. A few people who knew me heard I was working at this stuff. They would invite me to come help and uh work. It would start like this: we're painted in a corner over here. Everything we've tried isn't working. Uh, we're about ready to you know be at our each other's throats. We we want to diminish the anxiousness and find a way forward. Can you help? Well, the methods work. Um, and so I probably use them with some competence and certainly increasing competence, but the methods actually work. Like you can be very mechanistic and follow the checklist fairly robustly, and you're gonna find that the methods work. And so they do. And then I just got better and better and maybe more artful over time and developed a bit of a reputation. And uh, before too many years had passed, I had to decide is this my career? Like um, I had enough opportunity, I wasn't seeking it, just seemed to be right place in time. Uh, so we developed a company in 2000 after I've been doing this a while called Design Group International. I built that up, uh, was at CEO, then I functioned as the uh chair of the partnership for a few years before I sold my stake in the company. And one of the reasons I did that is that my own practice just got tighter and tighter and deeper around business continuity and succession planning. Uh, that there's so many moving parts in those methods, I mean, in those moments, and the methods work. So, you know, being able to track where everybody's coming from, create a line of sight, help people move forward, uh, reduce the trauma that they're experiencing in those moments, all of that just became something that I really find to be a precious piece of work, feel a calling to it. And so as selling my stake, I can just go into a full-time practice where I'm not thinking about the organization I'm running anymore in between the meetings. I can just come and be beside my clients. But that just developed kind of without a lot of intention, but that's that's how I got here.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

How old were you when you were introduced to that?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

I was in my um middle twenties. That's when I was working. Uh, so it's it's embarrassing almost. Uh, it's also satisfying to say I've been doing it a long time, but it's we're not quite at 40 years yet, but getting there. And um, so again, I'm a young gun. I had hair on my head, I didn't have any gray or white hair. I was um, you know, I don't know if my voice had changed yet in some ways, but here I am helping to lead these things and I'm following the checklist. Like, hey, you all said you want to do this. Here's what we might do first, here's what we might do second, you know, and and it they just work. I think I've said that already, but they do.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Yeah, well, I mean, if something works, something works, especially when you're working to transform a human, right? It can be very um complex because we're complex, but then you're applying that to the business and how it affects them, right? But what I'm wondering too is how that training affected you. Do you see, I mean, I I apply everything that I learned techniques, um, information um in terms of uh relationship dynamics and psychology. I have applied it all in myself. So my learning throughout my career has helped me grow as a person, but I'm thinking about how yours has affected you. How were you in your 20s?

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Um well, you know, at that point I was learning a lot about myself. So we might call turn one of a career. You're learning how to lead yourself, you're learning what your capacities are, you're learning your skills, you're learning to know whether people trust you, whether you can actually lead a project through to fruition and all of that. And and uh that's how I was applying it. But one of the key ways at that time in my life is I was learning how to do multi-scenario planning and to be a non-anxious person. So the minute you do multi-scenario planning, you're saying, if A, then B, and if not B, then C. And we, you know, you have different ways to approach what how how you will get to where you want to go, but based upon what's happening in your context, things you can't predict, how will you be ready to respond? Well, to get your head up and to have that point of view instead of head down, here's what we do next, here's what we do next, here's what we do, here's where we're going. Which anytime something that you weren't expecting happens, it throws you and you don't have a plan, you're sitting here saying, Well, let's see, what have we learned? How do we iterate this from here? And to do that from a place of calm so that you remain on your surfboard or that your golf swing is you know consistent, or any of these other things we do in family life and leisure, you're now applying that in your vocation. I was learning, not perfectly, but I was learning to do that, and that served me and continues to serve me very well.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

Yeah, I bet. What do you feel like the hardest thing for you to reprogram it within yourself has been?

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Well, well, what an important question. Um, the the most important one actually has been in the more recent 10 years, and it followed the death of my wife. And so now, if I answer the question, you know, what's the most important thing? It's learning to deal in a post-traumatic way to something I didn't know was happening in me. So I'm in my 20s, I'm in my 30s, I haven't had a major traumatic event. I get into my late 30s, my wife's diagnosed with cancer, she never had remission, then she lived for 16 years and she had 19 occurrences. So you're in this constant pressure every three months. Yeah, are we in remission? No. Is there a new tumor? More often than not, yes. Here's what we're going to do. So that multi-scenario planning I learned in my 20s served me really well during all of this time. Well, if this happens, then we'll do this. This is how we'll raise our family, this is where we'll go, this is where we'll get help. And you're you're managing all of these details, but it was so sustained and for so long, about a year after she passed, I found myself with extreme fatigue, uh, some immunity problems, asthma, a whole mess of stress stuff and inflammation just starts to erupt all throughout my body. And I had a kind of a split in how my head and my body would respond to a stressful circumstance. So, Jacqueline, if you came to me and said, Mark, I did not like that email you wrote to me. I mentally would stay with you, we'd talk about it, I'd I'd apologize if it was needed, whatever else. But in the meantime, my body is screaming. Major surgery, nine months of chemo, maybe death. What are you going to do for your kids? How are you going to avoid medical bankruptcy? All of that kind of stress just would erupt. We'd get off this that kind of a conversation. I'd actually have to go take a nap, or I might be wrecked for the rest of the day because I would have, I could feel it. My whole body would just shut down and I would be in the uh I'm about to die. Um, there's nothing I can do, uh, just a whole physical somatic shutdown that required sleep in order to be able to function again. And I went through a couple of years before that, of that, before I could name it and begin to find help. So that was a major one to work through.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

I bet. What do you think the let's say the three most valuable things that there you're using them at whether they be resources or tools or practices that helped you through that?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

I learned to ask myself an integrating question that um I anytime I start to feel the stress coming, actually helps me get right through it and with practice a lot more quickly and without all the exhaustion. And that is I and for me, given how I think I'm wired, I ask them in this order what do I want here? What am I feeling here? What emotions can I name? And now with that information, what do I think? If I start with what do I think, I'm immediately out of touch with emotion and body, like desire or what's what's going on in me. And I'll just stay in my head and I'll not be integrated and I won't be using that information. If I start with those first two, I I kind of lead with my brain. So I, you know, this is what I think about stuff. But I'm setting that aside just for a moment to say, oh, what do I want? So I don't lose that, and then it erupts three days later. Now I'm really angry because I didn't say what I wanted. Or uh, and what are my emotions here? Do and out of that I can get back to my purest intention or desire that I want your best as opposed to I want to protect myself, that that kind of thing. I want your best, I want this to be a positive outcome. I'm feeling threatened, I'm feeling unsafe, I'm feeling joy, whatever. Now, based on that, what do I what do I think? Now I'm coming to it as a whole person. I have perspective instead of just getting lost in my own head. That's one, just to be able to make sure those answers are congruent, like they work together. If they're not, I'm not ready to respond and I need more time. So that buys me another time. Another one is I'm learning. This is still hard for me. I am really learning the benefits of deep breathing. And to make sure I take a deep breath before I plunge into almost anything. And then the harder part is remember to keep breathing when I'm in the in the middle of it. But that that deep breath to reset and start uh has been been very helpful. And then uh one that has been a long practice for me, it served me throughout, has been a principle that I would say I would call name the dynamic. And you can name the dynamic in safe ways, such as, you know, in this moment, I I'm not saying that you are being harsh, but I'm feeling like uh I am some reason gotta prove that I'm I have dignity or that I am being truthful when I when I I know I'm telling the truth, but I I just feel like I'm starting underneath that. That's not assigning it to you, it's just that that's how I'm feeling. So, can I just name that so that we can get past it and you know move into that question? And or in this dynamic, let's recognize that all of us have had an experience where we've been financially stressed. And so, naming that, we can not have that become a big effect underneath the waterline for how we're treating each other in this conversation. Let's just name it. disempowers those invisible suitcases that we tend to bring into the room. So those three I think of right away.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Well what I hear you saying in a couple of those is you're calling them out, which immediately gives us validation because you're recognizing them. And when we feel seen, our nervous system naturally calms down because the defenses are trying to hide, which is causing separation. When we feel seen, we want connection right and you're just seeing yourself by acknowledging your emotions and by calling out the dynamic. When it comes to the people that you have around you though, one thing that I've noticed is if you regularly do that, then it intimidates other people who can't do that or who are uncomfortable doing that because it involves dropping the defenses. So if one person drops theirs, the other nervous systems in the room because 90% of our communication is nonverbal, right? So your nervous system's communicating whether we want to or not and everybody else in the room is like oh that's nice if they're used to being or they want to be vulnerable and drop their defenses but the other person if they don't want to be vulnerable and they want to be upset or defensive they'll actually get more triggered. So your your coping is is amazing and the majority of you know business owners and really everybody needs skills like that but we don't realize that it can actually trigger somebody too just by you decompressing.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

I well we could keep going with stories where that happens then the question is then and I'm curious how you would respond to this then what do you do? Like do you not um do it or do you also name that dynamic and say you know I'm going to be honest that some of you might you know not want to be that's okay. I mean what what do you recommend in those moments?

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Well it depends on the the situation. If it's somebody that you know we think about control dynamics in the hierarchies. If you have more authority then just by holding space for them and validating them and their feelings it usually assists them in decompressing because it's their own unresolved issues and their own defenders working against them and they don't even know what's going on. So as long as you know what's going on you can actually help them by seeing them a little bit more. But let's say they're a narcissistic person, they they refuse to drop those defenses they're actually going to have to walk away. So you can continue being in your relaxed state in your vulnerable state, seeing them, acknowledging them and usually what this would look like because it's not very common it's more common for people to just want you to hold space for them as they're struggling to lessen um to drop those defense mechanisms that there's always going to be that one person. You never know where they're going to be but when you do this intentionally it highlights who they are those are actually the ones you don't want in your in your organization.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah I'm really glad you brought this up because it reminds me of um sort of like a point three B here. So if we're saying name the dynamic as you know a third tool that can be useful I I what you've said has helped me understand how I've refined that a little bit um because the 3b is I don't always do it in the room. I maybe just be doing it before I go into the room depending on who's in that mix. So if I've named the dynamic now I it's losing its power over me. Yeah and I can come in and then I can get in touch with my talking points like there's a couple things that just have to happen in this meeting or in this conversation and being able to be comfortable with them then I can really be a non-anxious presence and that would be another phrase that I really want to work hard at if I feel any anxiousness I want to name that dynamic. I want to disempower myself whether it's done verbally with others or not but the the goal here is to be able to be in the room to be in the moment not time traveling to the past or the future be in the moment with the people I'm with to the do the work that we're there to do and not waste anybody's time or any organization's money.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Have you ever heard of um heart focused breathing yes I have but I would not be very good at explaining it I've I've actually seen it demonstrated and and so forth but please say more.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

Well it might be something that you add to your wheelhouse but the HeartMath Institute they created um their technique which is heart focused breathing but they they coined the term um heart lock-in technique which is doing heart focused breathing and then focusing on gratitude and spreading that to other people. But what it does is it increases heart rate variability and then mind heart coherence which means they're working it together but instead of being logical and in your mind how most of us are, it puts you in your heart and electromagnetically it expands I mean our heart's um electromagnetic frequency is a hundred times stronger than the brain. So you can actually influence the calm and openness in an environment by doing heart focused breathing for a few minutes before you walk into the room. You know so you can do this with your teams or you can do it with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

I I've learned to do it in exercise and doing any kind of cardio because of having some of the inflammation stuff I developed you know an adult onset asthma. And so you know you start out hard running or you know getting on the treadmill or whatever and all of a sudden my heart's pounding and I can't breathe. So to stop and just get that back into sync calm focusing on good things just taking my time relaxing not having to be all that fierce about the exercise to start then I just get in a stride and I can keep going and and have a great great workout. And I hear you saying you can apply that in preparation for an important conversation.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

That makes a lot of sense well I appreciate you mentioning it about working out because I never thought about using it while I'm working out because it increases performance and intuition too like it helps you get into um but yeah I I appreciate that. So before we hop off today it one it's been a pleasure hearing about your story and about what you're doing in the world what would you say to the listeners the majority are either entrepreneurs or business owners but what's your last bit of um helpful guidance well it's I'll just share something I find myself often talking to brandly brand newly minted executive leaders they're now taking on responsibility for a major project or an organization.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

And it ties what I was mentioning before you don't want to time travel um you to to find a way to come at it where your whole body your mind your heart your emotions are can um and your desires are connected together and you're that non-anxious person you're in a spot where you can be in the room doing the work. If you're time traveling let's say it's near the end of the meeting and you're going home after this your keys are in your hand already before you've or you've closed your computer before it's done or you're thinking about the errands you're not you're no longer mentally in that room. Or if you're carrying your previous meeting into this one you still got unresolved stuff didn't get your heart and you're breathing correct you know in line again or whatever else and you're still kind of rehearsing the conversation replaying the conversation uh starting to write your protest email in your head while you're going pretending to listen to somebody else you're creating the next thing that you're gonna have to be playing catch up for you get into a great big time debt to yourself and a task debt to yourself because you're not present where you are in your work. And so everything is half listened to add social media add your computer going ding ding ding you've got a message any of those things it takes you away from the task at hand and it takes a lot more than it used to mental rigor to bring that kind of focus to your work but the beauty of it is when you do that you can close your computer at the end of the day you can go home and have a wonderful dinner with a loved one you can read to a child you can go for that walk in the park with a clearer head because you've kept it uncluttered. But man does that take discipline and the leaders who build that into their life and into their practice will lead well and they will have a 40 year career instead of a four year career 10 times.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Yeah no that is huge guidance and I actually needed to hear that today too because it's a good reminder that's something that I always struggle with because I'm a visionary so I have this huge plan right and there's it's so many components and I know that it's possible but it's not possible if I'm in the future it is only possible if I'm consistently in the present. So multiple times a day I have to close my eyes do deep breathing and I consciously bring all my energy back to the present so that I can just be and I I think that like you had emphasized the you know you can have a long 40 year career or you cannot be focused and have cycles of four years right which nobody really wants that.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

And as a visionary I would just say to you um go ahead and dream about the future but look at your present from that point of view as opposed to losing track of being in the present. So you know you bring it you bring it to you um and but you you don't abandon that beautiful dream and may you fulfill all of your vision.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Thank you. I appreciate you and thank you so much for your time today.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

My pleasure