EEC 370: What it Means to be Mindfully Successful, with Margo Boster

Summary

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Excellent Executive Coaching Podcast, Episode 370

What it Means to be Mindfully Successful, with Margo Boster

Host: Dr. Katrina Burrus, PhD, MCC
Guest: Margo Boster, executive coach and author of “Mindfully Successful”
Air Date: February 25, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the concept of being "mindfully successful" in leadership—leveraging self-awareness and intentional action to define and achieve authentic success, rather than being driven by external expectations or ingrained patterns. Through practical coaching insights and real client stories, Margo Boster shares her approach to helping leaders uncover the motivations behind their goals, reframe internal narratives, and create sustainable, meaningful professional growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Defining Mindful Success (00:36–01:46)

• Mindful success means acting with awareness about your actions and their impacts—on yourself, others, and your organization—without being overly reactive or overwhelmed.

• Rather than striving for constant perfection or calm (not “walking around like the Dalai Lama”), it’s about honest reflection and learning from each day without judgment.

  “Mindfully successful is about acting with awareness of what you are and are not doing and noticing the impact... while you're not being overly reactive and overwhelmed.”
  — Margo Boster (00:44)

• Key aspects:

  • Self-awareness of behavior and its organizational impact
  • Understanding the true motivations behind one’s goals
  • Rejecting the myth that ‘mindful’ means detached zen or “woo woo” (01:46)

Uncovering Underlying Motivations (02:04–03:46)

• Many leaders pursue goals shaped by family expectations, societal pressures, or internalized narratives (e.g., success equaling money, status, or pleasing others).

• The importance of distinguishing between genuine personal goals and inherited or externally-imposed definitions of success.

  “A lot of the times when you can peel back why are they chasing what they're chasing, they can really shift the stories that they tell themselves...”
  — Margo Boster (02:14)

Coaching Process: Awareness and Trend Identification (03:46–06:04)

• Initial step: Notice recurring behaviors or emotional reactions—without judgment or immediate correction. Example prompt: Observe when you feel like a failure over the course of a week.

• Next: Look for patterns (e.g., reactions occurring in meetings with superiors).

• Childhood stories are used not therapeutically but as data points, illuminating the roots of current triggers.

  “The first step is really noticing when you're having these reactions inside of you.”
  — Margo Boster (04:25)

• The goal: Slow down, bring awareness to internal ‘noise,’ and give clients permission to explore these narratives.

Deep-Seated Patterns & The Process of Change (06:04–09:30)

• Changing ingrained beliefs is a gradual journey—“these messages did not get embedded in your brain overnight.”

• Key techniques:

  • Effect labeling (naming): Label the emotion you’re experiencing (activating the thinking brain to reduce the emotional reaction).
  • “Scratch the record”: Use tactile reminders (like a Yoda figurine) to disrupt automatic reactions, similar to making a scratch on a vinyl record so the habit loop isn’t perfect and uninterrupted.

  “When that event, that stimuli occurs, then I literally kind of, with my little Yoda scratch, I would notice it in the moment and make a physical stimuli.... Over time, thanks to the beautiful power of Neuroplasticity, your brain starts taking a different path...”
  — Margo Boster (07:28)

Real-World Example: Coaching "Henry" (09:49–13:14)

• Client story: “Henry” was a high-level leader, successful outwardly but burdened by perfectionism due to family upbringing (“being the golden child”).

• After a public criticism by the chairman, even years later, Henry experienced anxiety anytime the chairman’s name arose.

• Through the "naming" technique—simply labeling the emotion as “embarrassed” when triggered—Henry was gradually able to neutralize this reaction.

• Outcome: Henry eventually encountered the chairman unexpectedly and realized he’d been unaffected.

  “Every time this person would have that, this name or this person showing up, they would say one word, one word. Embarrassed. Embarrassed.... And so this is an example of something that... really was changed that individual's life by being able to reduce the emotional impact...”
  — Margo Boster (12:02)

The Lasting Impact of Childhood Conditioning (13:49–17:40)

• Many leaders’ self-worth becomes entwined with achievement due to parental or societal expectations—rewarding outcome over intrinsic worth.

• Even well-intentioned parenting can inadvertently reinforce perfectionism and external validation.

• The societal emphasis on achievement defines “greatness” too narrowly, reinforcing the problem.

  “Society, I think, really does reward and say, you've got to be the best... Stop comparing yourself to everybody else. Compare yourself to your self... This book is about from the inside out. Who are you?”
  — Margo Boster (16:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On what mindfulness is not (01:46):

  “Mindfully successful is not walking around like the Dalai Lama, always in a state of Zen, you know, in the life that we have, that's not possible.”
  — Margo Boster

• On parental influence and society (14:47):

  “As well intentioned as I was, as mindful as I tried to be raising them, I can see, oh, this is having this effect.... Society says, oh, we reward greatness. Well, greatness can be defined in so many different ways.”
  — Margo Boster

• On breaking the comparison trap (16:37):

  “Stop comparing yourself to everybody else. Compare yourself to yourself.”
  — Margo Boster

• On iterative self-change (09:40):

  “Yeah. It takes time. I'm glad it. And you're really... It's little by you chip at it little by little.”
  — Dr. Katrina Burrus

• On moving from ‘successfully exhausted’ to ‘mindfully successful’ (18:24):

  “I send out periodic... tips, techniques, and some reassurance on how they can be mindfully successful instead of successfully exhausted.”
  — Margo Boster

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment Topic | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:36 | Definition of mindful success | | 02:14 | The difficulty of uncovering true motivations | | 03:46 | Coaching steps: noticing, trend-spotting, and narrative work | | 06:32 | The gradual process of shifting deep-seated beliefs | | 07:24 | “Scratch the record” technique explained | | 09:49 | Client story: “Henry” and the naming technique | | 14:47 | Influence of parental and societal expectations | | 16:37 | Societal definition of success vs. internal definitions | | 18:24 | Where to find more resources from Margo Boster |

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Conclusion & Resources

Key Takeaway:
Mindful success is an intentional, lifelong practice that requires self-awareness, questioning inherited narratives, and persistent, gentle course correction—not chasing ideals set by others.

Further Resources:

• Margo Boster’s website: margoboster.com
• LinkedIn: Follow Margo for regular insights and tips
• Book: Mindfully Successful by Margo Boster

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Host’s Final Thoughts:
Dr. Katrina Burrus recommends Margo’s book for deeper stories and techniques, emphasizing the importance and applicability of these concepts for leaders and coaches alike.

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Successful. Let's ask Margot Brewster what it means, how you can become more aware and even have the first steps of getting over trauma. So let's listen to her. Welcome to the excellent executive coaching podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Katrina Birus, and. And today we have Margo Boster. Margo, welcome.

[A]

Well, welcome. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

[B]

So you've written a book that's called Mindfully Successful. Tell us a little bit what you meant by being mindfully successful.

[A]

Well, I'll start out with what mindfully successful is and I'll tell you a little bit about what it isn't. So mindfully successful is about acting with awareness of what you are and are not doing and noticing the impact that it has on yourself, others and your organization while you're not being overly reactive and overwhelmed by what's going on around you. So at the end of the day, when you get home, when you're mindfully successful, you can reflect on the day objectively, see what you can learn from it, but you don't beat yourself up or have those stories that we tell. But the second piece of being mindfully successful is really about understanding why you are pursuing the quest you're on. In other words, why are you chasing what you're chasing? Mindfully successful is not walking around like the Dalai Lama, always in a state of Zen, you know, in the life that we have, that's not possible.

[B]

Very good. So it isn't about woo woo. Basically it is really being more self aware, aware of others, aware of company, what are your impact on the company and understanding why you're chasing an objective. Did I understand that correctly?

[A]

Yes, basically, that's it. Yes.

[B]

Okay, so I want to ask you, understanding the underlying motivation of your goal is not that easy. Do you agree?

[A]

That is absolutely true. And one of the things that I've learned as an executive coach working with senior leaders is the stories we tell ourselves. Why are you chasing. Why do you think that being successful means a lot of money? Or why do you think it means a title? Also, why does. You know, sometimes people will think, oh, in order to be successful, I have to please everybody. I have to have power. And a lot of the times when you can peel back, why are they chasing what they're chasing? They can really shift the stories that they tell themselves and recognize that maybe what they're doing is not in line with their values, who they are, or who they want to be.

[B]

Okay, so I'm going to give you an example of a Coaching client I have, for example, she wanted to be very successful and make money and be respected. Now, when you look at her background, her parents put huge social pressure on their kids to perform. The oldest son, who had all the pressure, quit at one point and decided to do an alternative lifestyle. And the daughter rose to the son to get some of that attention, for that person to understand their underlying goal, which wasn't really hers, but her parents. So what's your process?

[A]

A lot of the times when I'm coaching my clients, and I'm thinking of a few in particular while I'm reflecting on yours, it really is as we're walking through, one of the things that I do is I listen for trends, and I will ask them often to notice behaviors or reaction. For example, if they're saying, I'm just not successful enough or, oh, my, somebody criticized me, that must mean that I failed. What I'll do is just ask them. Notice for a week. When did you have that feeling that you failed? Don't do anything about it. Don't change anything. Just notice it. So the first step is really noticing when you're having these reactions inside of you. After they have some time and we go back and we look at the trends, and they say, it tends to happen when I'm in a meeting with my superiors, or it tends to happen when I feel that my team's not listening to me. They will determine trends. I will often ask them, Tell me a story from when you were a kid. Now you understand and I understand. I'm an executive coach. I'm not a therapist. I'm not looking back to try to help them heal, but I am looking, getting data so we can move forward to help them grow. And sometimes they can have this realization that, oh, I feel like I have to impress my father or I feel like I'm letting my mother down, well, then we can start taking that awareness and move forward to really set them on the process of noticing again, what is it they want to do? If they were in that meeting with the chairman of the board, and the chairman's going on, and they're kind of feeling like, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough. If they started stopping to say, what is it about this that you today, the Katrina of today, what do you want? And it really is about slowing them down a little bit, bringing awareness to their internal noise messages and giving them permission to explore it.

[B]

Okay, so they explore it. Let's say in this case, the person doesn't feel like they're Worth it. They're trying to satisfy the father's desire of them to succeed. Now that's a deep seated need. How do you shift it so that they can start focusing on themselves? Now you gave me a process, but it's like when it's so deep seated, it takes a while to shift.

[A]

It does take a while to shift. And I think that's an important point too, because this is not a, oh, we're going to have two coaching sessions where I'm going to suddenly learn, I'm going to read your book, and suddenly getting rosy. For me, it is a process. These messages did not get embedded in your brain overnight. Sometimes they did. In cases of trauma, they may have. Once they recognize this shift that they want to make a shift, this is where the power of neuroplasticity comes in. And so in my book, a couple of techniques I talk about is one of them is called effect labeling, or I shorten it to naming. Another is, you know, scratch the record. And so it's scratch the record.

[B]

Explain that, please.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

We are listeners here.

[A]

Well, and also the record. You know, when I, when I say this, I'm talking about a vinyl record. So these days I often have to say, do you know what a vinyl record is? And so with the vinyl record, you have the grooves embedded in the record. And so when the record starts playing, the needle is following the set grooves. Those grooves were set in your mind, in your brain, from either years of conditioning or traumatic events, and sometimes both. Okay, you had the years of conditioning that says you must be perfect. And then you had a traumatic event, you might have gotten fired or publicly criticized, which now it's further grooved in. So scratching the record, what we work on is, I often say, have a, a tactile reminder for you, something that you. Because we want to engage all of our senses. For me, it was the little Yoda figure because Yoda represents strength and wisdom. And, and I wanted that. So whenever I would notice. So after I've noticed it, I've identified that is not the record that I want to keep playing. When that event, that stimuli occurs, then I literally kind of, with my little Yoda scratch, I would notice it in the moment and make a physical stimuli. Now what happens is it's like putting a little scratch on that vinyl record. Next time it comes up, it's still going to keep going down that path, but it might pick up a little bit. So you continue. Every time it happens, you just do a little bit. And over time, thanks to the beautiful power of Neuroplasticity, your brain starts taking a different path so that you are not automatically thinking, I must meet someone else's definition of success.

[B]

So thank you. That was very well expressed in the different steps. Yeah. It takes time. I'm glad it. And you're really. It's little by you chip at it little by little.

[A]

Absolutely right.

[B]

And tell us some of a journey that you've had with one of your clients. From where to what?

[A]

I have had the good fortune of coaching some amazing leaders. Amazing. One story I think about is a leader who was a very senior leader in an organization. And if you saw them on the outside, they were to be idolized. You were like, oh my God, this is so impressive. Some of the people I coach, when I first start coaching them, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I could be intimidated by this person. They're so successful. But then when you talk with them, they had the same challenges. This one particular person I'll call Henry. Henry was the head of a company and was supposed to present strategies, some strategic options to the chairman of the board and the whole board. Okay. So he and his team went in and developed these plans, worked hard on them, and when they went in and presented them, the chairman, at the end of it, the chairman said that was neither strategic nor gave me options in front of his team. The whole everybody that really impacted this leader. And when I started coaching them, it was four years after the event, even though they were successful, but I will say successfully exhausted. Anytime that person's name came up, even though the leader was successful, continued having accolades, that person's name would come up and it would cause incredible anxiety if they saw this name in an email, if they had to be around them. So what we started doing is obviously first start the noticing. This was pretty obvious that they noticed it pretty heavily. And I used the technique called the naming technique. And with this technique, when you have an emotional reaction to some stimuli, in this case it was that chairman's name. When you have that reaction, you give it a one word emotion word to it. You label it. So what's happening now is that emotional reaction is happening in the emotional brain, the limbic system. By assigning a word, you're activating the thinking brain. And over time, it actually reduces the emotional impact. So every time this person would have that, this name or this person showing up, they would say one word, one word. Embarrassed. Embarrassed. Towards the end of our engagement, we had a session and Henry came in and said, you will not believe it. I was speaking at this Huge event. And I didn't even realize it, but person was sitting there in the front row. It never occurred to me, even after the meeting, I was like, oh, he was there. And so this is an example of something that you may not have seen. The leaders, the others around. This person never knew the struggle that this individual was having, but that it really was changed that individual's life by being able to reduce the emotional impact of this individual.

[B]

Well, almost a trauma. He was really.

[A]

It was a trauma. And further, I will go one step further as you talk about the person who always thought they had to be, you know, perfect. Henry had grown up being the golden child. So his backstory was, I must be perfect in order to be successful. And he had worked very hard at it. So to have this event of being perceived as not perfect was truly a trauma to them.

[B]

So I'm gonna ask you a question off script.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Like in this case, he grew up thinking he had to be perfect. So what is the impact, you think, on the education later on on these people as leaders?

[A]

When you say the impact on their.

[B]

Education, I mean the growing up, they're growing up with parents, like for example, this one. That he had to be perfect.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So when you counteract that haftingly person by this trauma that he had to this fellow, it sort of devastates them.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But I'm curious because I believe, you know, if parents educate children and love them only for what the outcome is.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And not for being just what they are. You put a little trauma on top of that, it really affects them throughout their lifestyle.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Their life. I would say, not lifestyle.

[A]

Absolutely. It does. And the thing is, as I'm a parent of two adult children. Okay. And so I have seen that, as well intentioned as I was, as mindful as I tried to be raising them, I can see, oh, this is having this effect. One is part. You take their personality too. Some people are just going to try to be the pleaser. But what we can do as parents, and I say this hesitantly because, you know, I don't want to imply that I, I am the perfect parent. I'm not. I'm well intentioned and aware. But what we can do is to really make certain that we are not trying to project ourselves onto that kid. Their successes are not ours. They made 99 percentile in the scores. Excellent, excellent. But that's not what we reward them for. We reward them, yes, we reward that behavior, but we also let them be them. But I am going to tell a personal story. My daughter May, may get really mad at me. My daughter always had a tendency to want to do the right thing. It was her nature. And I, even as a child, I would say to her, honey, it's okay. You know, a B is okay. It's fine. As an adult now she's really struggling or she's, she has overcome it. I would say, to recognize you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be perfect. So it's not just the parent that it comes from. I think it comes from society says, oh, we reward greatness. Well, greatness can be defined in so many different ways. And that goes back to really what is mindfully successful. How are you defining success is success at school, the straight A student, you know, is success. Compassion and kindness is success, you know, taking care of other people. But we have society, not just parents. Society, I think, really does reward and say, you've got to be the best. And I am going to say that. That for myself and for those I coach. It's almost said it's like a merry go round, you know, when you're on a merry go round with the horses, you're looking ahead and you're behind and if you look behind, you're ahead. And so it's just a matter of how are you looking. Stop comparing yourself to everybody else. Compare yourself to your self. And that's really a lot of what I try to put in. This book is about from the inside out. Who are you? I could keep going, but I'll stop.

[B]

No, I suggest that the listeners read your books mind successful. Okay. To get more stories and everything. Unfortunately, we're coming to the end of our podcast. Tell us where we can reach you and what's your website?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah, they'll be in the show. Notes.

[A]

Yes, my website is margo bosser.com and I'm fairly active on posting on LinkedIn. So I encourage you to follow me, subscribe to my newsletter off of my website. I send out periodic. I try not to inundate people with tips, techniques, and some reassurance on how they can be mindfully successful instead of successfully exhausted.

[B]

Yes, I love that. Thank you so very much, Margo.

[A]

Oh, thank you.

[C]

Thank you for listening to the Excellent Executive Coaching podcast. You can subscribe to all future podcasts at Excellent Executive Coach. Join us each Wednesday to learn more about the latest trends in leadership techniques and bring your coaching to the next level. To learn more about Dr. Burris CEO mastermind, use the contact [e-mail].