Hi everyone. What's going on. I hope your day is off to a fabulous start and welcome to the darn good leadership podcast. The show is all about being a strong and effective leader. One that can make positive impacts on your teams and communities. And the next 20 minutes or less, you're going to get ideas, inspiration and practical advice. You can take action on to be a darn good leader. I'm your host, Emily. Holting. Hello? Folks it is officially October, which means. It's a month of my most favorite holiday. Halloween. And as a nod to the spooky season, that is upon us. I'm doing a three part Halloween series. Now, what does this mean? Well, like any good, scary movie. I want to keep you in a little bit of suspense and have that elements of surprise. But I can tell you, I will be leaning heavily into Halloween themes. It's going to be fun. In today's episode, I'm sharing three lessons. Halloween can teach us about leadership and community. So I thought first we should discuss more about the origins of Halloween and America. In the late 18 hundreds. America began to shift Halloween and to a holiday, more about community and neighborhood get togethers. Then it's original traditions that came from the ancient Celtic festival. And so in. In the 19 hundreds in America. Halloween parties began popping up both for children and adults. And these were centered around costumes games and seasonal food. And then the 1950s. Trick or treating became picking up steam. It was more mainstream. And it was seen as a very low cost way for an entire neighborhood or community to share the Halloween celebration. So with that, the Halloween tradition of trick or treating was officially born and normalized. As I was reading more about Halloween, I came across some interesting facts that I just had to share out with you guys. Cause. They're super fun. So Fun fact, number one, one quarter of all the candy sold annually in the us is purchased for Halloween. That's about. 6 billion annually on Halloween. That's wild. Fun fact, number two. More people are buying costumes for their pets. And in fact, Americans have spent$490 million on cautions for their pets in 2020. and that is more than double what they spent in 2010. And I have to tell you, I have a dog. His name is Mosley. Mostly, I do not buy him a costume every year, but I have bought him one costume when he was about one years old and he's 10 now. So every year we pull it out, it's a taco costume. He is the cutest taco in town by the way. But he puts that he puts the taco costume on. Every Halloween. So whenever I take him out for walks or to go to the bathroom, um, because he can, he can go to the bathroom in it. So don't worry about that. But. It is so funny and it makes people's day. They smile. They waved to him. The kids have a great time. The adults have a great time. I have great time in actually he loves the costumes. So all in all the taco costume is a hit. And I support Americans spending their money on pet costumes because there's nothing funnier than a dog and a costume. You cannot fight me on this. There is nothing funnier than a dog in costume is the best thing ever. And we all need a little bit more joy. In our lives and putting a pet in costume, as long as they don't hate it is a great way to do this. So love it to death. And this last fun fact, number three, I didn't notice. I went down like a rabbit hole reading this stuff guys, but one of the more lesser known Halloween rituals is actually around matchmaking for Halloween. Now this one shocked me, but apparently. If young woman ate a sugary concoction made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed on Halloween night. Apparently she would dream about her future husband. And then at some Halloween parties, the first guest to find a Burr on their Chestnut. We'll be the first to marry now. I don't know who's eating chestnuts anymore, but maybe we need to bring that back. Maybe we all need to be serving chestnuts at our Halloween parties. And then the first successful apple bobber will be the first to walk down the aisle. And here you thought you just had to catch the bouquet at the wedding, but now you just all need to up your apple bobbing skills. If you want to get married, see we're all learning new things. New fun facts. Is a great table conversation starter. If you so choose. Point here is how Halloween has so much rich history. And it's no wonder we can all learn and leverage things. From this amazing holiday. So let's dig into three lessons. Halloween can teach us about leadership and community. Lesson number one, planning is everything. So when I was a kid, I remember drawling out our entire neighborhoods, like sketching out the houses and the streets and the coldest sacks. Figuring out what we were going to do, what our plan was for Halloween. And I knew that we would begin trick or treating at six and we end around nine. So me and my sisters and our neighborhood friends would sit around this plan and we first we'll talk about, what are we going to use to carry our candy in? And you know, those small plastic, pumpkin things, I don't know what the little plastic handle we knew. Those are horrible. Like you don't want those. I think we use them once. Never again. I think any kid knows that. So we all had our pillowcases that we would use. And you had to find pillowcases that weren't too nice. Your mom going to be pissed off you get your pillowcase. And we knew that was a much wiser plan to go out with the pillow cases and not those plastic pumpkins. And there were two houses every year that each of us were like, these are the houses we have to hit because every year they would deliver. One house gave out bowl size, snicker bars, Milky ways. And Kit-Kats, and these were holy grail, candy bars. At least for me, I know there were some people who like, Skittles, not me. I was all about the chocolate as a kid. So this was a holy grill house cause they were king size and they were the good chocolate candy bars that everybody wanted. So we knew we needed to hit that hard and hit that early. The other house that we knew we needed to hit was a house that gave out full soda cans of root beer and orange And I don't know what was so special about this as a kid. Cause it's like, you could just say, Hey mom, dad, can you get me some root beer, orange soda, but it wasn't something that we would commonly have in our house. So having that can of root beer was just. Everything. And all the kids wanted the root beer one. So we wanted to go early. So we want to get stuck with the orange, but orange was good too, but we'd map out our route. We'd highlight the houses that we could stop at if we needed a bathroom break. And we discuss our goal for the night, which is to fill the entire pillowcase full of candy. And each year, we get some curve balls, like any kid does, you'd find out, oh man, my shoes are uncomfortable or it would start to rain or be colder than you think. So you'd start out in one outfit and you have to run home and get your big winter coat because. If you live in the Midwest, you know what I'm talking about here? But the plan, the original plan that we had mapped out, it's still allowed us to make solid progress against our ultimate goal of getting that pillowcase full of candy. Now let's take this to the workplace. How does the saying go guys? Right. Plans are nothing but planning is everything. This skill was practiced at a young age during Halloween. But it's still one of the most critical skills I practice today and I practice it almost on a daily basis. Planning is such a huge part of being set up for success. Creating a plan discussing the plan with your team, talking about your collective goals, talking about the risks talking about how you're going to handle certain blocks that may come your way. The conversations are so critical around your plans. Of course, there's going to be things that come up that you can't. Even fathom to plan for. But having a plan to start with is everything. So thank you Halloween for that very critical Lesson number two, your personal brand matters. Being an adult at Halloween is much different than being a kid. And we all know that, but you go from being the tricker treater to greeting the trick-or-treaters. And with that, you now get to determine what kind of house you want to be known for. Are you going to be the house that is dark? And leaves all your lights off and is desperately trying to tell the kids. There's no candy here. Move on. We're not home. You know, like you walk around in the dark at night, even though you clearly are there. Do you want to be known as that house? That just leaves a bull at the door with a sign that reads, please take just one and maybe that's you. Maybe that's what you want to do. Are you the house that tries to give out things like raisins? And toothbrushes, what kid wants a box of raisins? And as a kid, you're like, come on, know your audience, we don't want this. Right. Are you going to be the house that gives out the crappy off-brand candy from like the 99 cent store. Are you going to be known as a house? It's a reliable, solid candy selection house, or perhaps, perhaps you're going to be that house that kids. Throughout the entire neighborhood have burned in their Every year of the ones that can't be missed. This is like the ones that we had that gave out the root beer and the king size candy bars. Now, let's take this back to the workplace. When you first start working, you're kind of like that trick or treater. But instead of making mental notes about the houses and their candy selection, you are now observing various leaders around you. Some good, some bad, some absent, some reliable. And as you grow into your own role and your own career, you now get to determine what kind of brand you will begin to So what kind of house do you want to be known for? I talk about this. Almost weekly with my team. And in one-on-ones with the people who are on my team. And ensuring that behaviors and actions are actually aligned to your brand because you might want to be known as that king size candy bar house. Right. But then you're doing things that are like the house that has all the lights off and you're nowhere to be found. And. When the time comes, actually pay the price to go purchase those candy bars. You're not interested. So you got to make sure your actions and behaviors are aligned towards the brand that you want to craft for yourself. Lesson number three. Tradition creates strong communities. Halloween has some of the most fun traditions. Punk and patches carving the pumpkins. Decorating your house with black and orange and cobwebs and bats and skeletons and scarecrows in witches and goblins and ghouls are. Whatever kind of things you're into gorging on candy for no reason at all scary movies, going to haunted houses or Mieses. Wearing all sorts of uncautious rooms and finally trick or treating. In today's rapidly evolving environment. Things have a way of feeling more fast, paced, more uncertain, more than stable. So traditions help ground and balance us by offering. Consistency. A sense of familiarity. Uh, sense of predictability and all those things, bring us comfort and more order to things. Traditions, provide a feeling of belonging and connection. And it gives us something to get excited about. I mean, we all know, every year there are so things that you're like, oh man, this is so cool. I can't wait for this to happen. And it's the anticipation of the entire month building up to Halloween. And typically traditions are associated with positive emotions and feelings. If you have kids trick or treating is a great way to get to know your neighbors. And even if you don't have kids putting up a Punkin, a witch, a goblin. Google, whatever floats your boat to decorate. Or just having a bowl of candy ready to go. So when someone rings the doorbell, you are helping create and foster community and connection in your area. Maybe you don't, even realize this, but you are. Social connection makes you happier, kinder, and healthier. And these are just known facts and these benefits can help spread from person to person. So as people see it, you're influencing them to provide that more. If you're that house that has the lights out and you see all the other households around, you are putting things up in they've got candy out. It's going to kind of influence you. Um, maybe next year we gotta do something crap. Even if you don't want to, it slowly spreads and it helps bring that community and connection and makes even stronger. Stronger. So little story on this. For five years, I lived in a street in San Diego's university Heights neighborhood. And it's known for its Halloween extravaganza. And the story goes, something like this, that there was a couple in the neighborhood. Andy and Paula Cameron. And they both worked in theater set design, and Andy was missing his previous work in animatronics. So Paula, his wife bought him a large dragon mask and told him to animate And Andy used what was laying around his garage with plumbing, parts, bicycle cables, an old smoke machine and wallah, a 10 foot long dragon was built. And this dragon can tilt and move its body. They name this animatronic dragon Norbit, and now it was like, well, what in the world are we going to do with this dragon? And they had this wild idea of what, if we create a set design for Halloween around this. And wouldn't that be fun for the community and for the children? And so they did. It was an absolute hit. it was just the most incredible thing anyone had seen. Slowly those benefits of community and connection began to spread. Person to person, house to house. So over the years, more and more decided Hey, we want to join in the fun. Can you help us create a set design in our front yard? And so they did. Now when you go down the street, what used to be just one house with this big. Animatronic dragon is now. 25 houses that all have different themes and interesting fun concepts and set designs. It's just become, like I Entire Halloween extravaganza and delight for anyone who walks down the street on Halloween, there was a house that has dancing skeletons that seeing, and it's a riot. There's a house as designed like a mad scientist lab and they have experiments going and the guy's got crazy hair and people, the kids walk up and they see this whole little show. There's another house that stresses the Bates motel from the movie psycho. And again, this tradition has not been going for over 25 years. It started as just this crazy hairball thing that Paula and Andy did. And it's now become a labor of love that takes over 200 hours just to set up. I'm not talking about the takedown 200 hours of set up and volunteers. In the neighborhood and outside of the neighborhood, come to help create this magical experience for the entire community. And it gets thousands, thousands of visitors every year. I will put a link to something like the videos. Cause I, you just have to look at what I'm talking about. If you're not from San Diego and you haven't heard of this magical street, and so living near that, the energy that you would feel the whole month of October. You can't even describe it. You knew it was coming the excitement began to build. And it was really a celebration of the entire community and a promotion of community at its finest. If you think about this, And you move this into the workplace. If and where you can find ways to craft and build your own traditions with your teams and communities at work. Imagine the power that can build. When I think about the past companies I've worked for, we've had traditions of sorts and any of those have been really wonderful. If you do anything at your own company and your own place, work that you're really proud of. And then everyone looks forward to, I would love to hear about We do something at my current company called connect. And I've been a part of this now for three years. My entire company looks forward to it. It's something that myself and one of my coworkers gets to host. We NC it, we get dressed up very much like Halloween, which is why I like it, but we get dressed up and we get to put on these little skits and it has nothing to do with my day-to-day job, but it is so much fun.. Our number one reason for doing this event called connect is to bring our entire company together. We are a global virtual company and the power it has in creating a sense of community is really, really important. Everyone gets to compete and put together little video clips around accomplishments of the last year. And images of the things that they want to create in the upcoming fiscal It's a lot of fun We'll get to be creative and silly there's anticipation that builds before the event and then it builds momentum the entire rest of the year. The more, you can think about ways to build anticipation towards an event that everyone looks forward And you start to craft your own traditions and your own rituals at your company. Those things are intangible, but they are huge differentiators in work environments and the places people want to be in. And that's what can really set yourself apart As traditions can create incredibly strong communities. And workplaces So let's recap. The three lessons Halloween can teach us about leadership and community. Number Planning is everything. Number two, your personal brand matters. And number three tradition creates strong communities. So, whether you're a scary movie fanatic, a punk and latte lover, or you hate the season altogether, Halloween is here and I advise you to watch it this year with a different lens. Whether you're training a trick or treater. Or preparing for trick-or-treaters to come. I want you to observe the joy that it can bring so many and the traditions that you're seeing around you for yourself and your communities, and think about how can we cultivate something similar like that in our own work environments. That's what I have for you today. I so appreciate you tuning in. And I certainly hope you'll come back next week for part two of the Halloween series and see what I have in store for you. If you like what you heard, please leave a rating and review. And with that. Be bold, be bright, be a darn good leader who gives out king-size candy bars and root beer cans. Cheers.