The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Wesley Knight 0:00
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Tanya Flanagan 0:19
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya Flanagan, I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started. You

Tony, good morning, Las Vegas. Thank you for waking up and joining me for another episode of the scoop right here on Kun V 91.5 jazz Zamora with me. Your host. Tanya Flanagan, it is the month of January, and we are zipping along. We are approaching the celebration nationally of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday. So it's a good time to reflect on all that we have been given, all that we have accomplished as a nation, and where we are going, just a sense of culture history and gratitude. So I'm always grateful to have times to take a moment and pause and just say thank you. As always, I try to bring interesting people on the show to talk with me and to share with you. And this morning is unlike any other. It is a time for me to welcome a great woman to the show who I admire greatly and just enjoy talking to because she's fun and she's enlightening and she's engaging. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome my friend and sort of colleague. Michelle Montgomery, good morning.

Speaker 1 1:49
Hey, hey, tiny flan again. Tiny flan again.

Tanya Flanagan 1:54
That's it, right there.

Unknown Speaker 1:57
Yeah, yeah. You know. You know,

Tanya Flanagan 2:01
I know I love

Unknown Speaker 2:02
thank you so much for having me here. I appreciate you people.

Tanya Flanagan 2:04
Michelle Montgomery is a guru and dei Dei. What's that diversity, equity and inclusion? But she also has done life coach work, and just is one of those people that you come across. And yes, I'm kind of introducing you while telling you what I love about you so much, one of those people that you come across and they make you think differently and challenge you to push your boundaries, challenge you to receive what you thought you had made a decision on differently, and that is what I enjoy about the way you teach, the way you share, and the way you influence what other people think about and how they're processing information and processing life experiences. So that is who she is and what she achieves when she pours into you by her career trade, she is an expert in diversity, equity and inclusion, which sounds simple, but it's an umbrella under which so many facets of life as were affected these days, every day, so many things fall So Michelle, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 3:21
Well, thank you so much for having me with you. Tanya Flanagan, I appreciate it. You are my friend, and you know, it's a great time to have a good conversation about a word that you actually introduced, you know, in the beginning of the segment, which is gratitude, right? And I think that's a beautiful topic to hit on as we start this new year. How do we pour into this concept of gratitude? And I like that, you know, you said dei is an umbrella diversity, equity, inclusion is an umbrella, because underneath that, you know, I tap into resilience training and resilience skills. I guess I'll show you emotional intelligence and leadership and management and effective communication. All of these fall in this space of creating a world, a workplace, where people can show up as themselves, know that they are included, and know that they belong. And so, you know, one of the ways to do that is to tap into what's good, what's happening, that's that's that you're grateful for in the world. And I'm the type of person that I like to say I marvel in the deliciousness of life.

Unknown Speaker 4:26
Thank you. Yeah,

Tanya Flanagan 4:28
because it creates not necessarily a blank landscape, but it creates a space where every time you move, you have the privilege of creating what you want to create. Yeah? And that's cool, yeah, you mentioned something emotional intelligence. You mentioned emotional intelligence. And I was introduced to that when I was going through my master's program here at UNLV. I did the Executive MBA program that the university offers, and I finished it in 2006 Yes, and one of the things that they touched upon was emotional, emotional intelligence. Prior to it, I don't think I had really heard the term. I've been exposed to it. But since it's very common you, there are lots of conversations workshops every time someone is dealing with how to become the better you, how to achieve a better workspace, how to better relate to other people, improve your communications. Emotional intelligence as a better manager, as a better friend, as a better spouse. I don't care what you're dealing with, what the space is, who the audience is. Emotional Intelligence is so crucial, I think to be effective.

Speaker 1 5:40
Yeah, yeah, Tonya, I mean, you'll hear it now more than you've heard before. I hear people say, you know, what am I looking for in person? They say, emotional intelligence, emotional intelligence. And I'm like, Oh, do we really know what it means right to be emotionally intelligent. And so I really dive into, you know, took, took a deep dive into the concepts of emotional intelligence, emotional quotient. And really started thinking about learning about what it what it really is all about. And so, you know, we're talking about you, knowing you from four, four kind of aspects, right? Your, your social awareness, your, basically, we start with your your your self awareness, which leads you to your how you manage and handle things. Then it leads you to how you deal with the world, socially. And then it leads into relationship management. And so there's four kind of quadrants of emotional intelligence, but it starts with you, knowing you. And so if you don't know what makes you tick if you don't know what makes you angry, if you don't know what happens when your palms get sweaty, that is where emotional intelligence starts understanding why and how the things in the world that make you upset, make you angry, make you happy, make you joyful, whatever it may be, it's you knowing about you so that you can better manage relationships with others. That is the blanketed concept of EQ. And I don't know if everybody kind of knows that. I

Tanya Flanagan 7:09
don't think that they did. So you laid out a smarts board of information that and folks where it's January board a Smart View. That's right, that's the word today, and it's January. And when I was thinking about having you come on and spend some time with me, it was centered around the beginning of the year, getting people shored up for an amazing 2025 and what does that look like? What does that require? And a lot of times when we start the year off, we set these, I mentioned the word New Year's resolutions, things like that, and we're either doing well with them or we're failing and we're redefining what does that mean? Right? So I thought, either way it goes, somebody's either set them and they've started or they haven't started. This conversation will be good for you, whether you you're on the pathway, or the years gotten started, and you don't feel like it's going like you wanted to. So you want to get on some pathway. I thought whatever we talk, whatever we can share, is going to be useful, no matter where a person is in the process. So yeah, you have laid out a smorgasbord of self understanding. Yes, that's the word of how, how we individually tick. And I think with age comes maturity, of course. And so these are the kinds of lessons that you do learn with time. Who you are, what triggers you when you're young, you don't necessarily focus or tune in. But if you could slow yourself down enough to tune into yourself, basically, if you could learn at a younger age the things you learn at an older age, what an advantage you would have in the race. No, wouldn't

Speaker 1 8:53
we all Tanya, oh, when we all so I can go back and tell myself some things, you know that

Tanya Flanagan 9:00
part. So I feel like these conversations, I hope young people sometimes are tuning in, or at least being able to able to latch on to a little bit of the information here and there. The show is often full of really good nuggets. There's some great people who've been on, and it's just good stuff that you can use in your everyday life to help you grow in your career to help you better manage personal relationships. But I they the caution is, is powerful. I mean, I don't have it memorized, but I'm gonna have to get some Cliff Notes or some additional notes from I can worry I got you. I want a poster on my wall in my office. I just want this emotional intelligence equation on the wall so I can just be constantly reminded. But recently, went through a training, and they touched on exactly what you're talking about. And again, like I said, it's everywhere. Yeah, yeah. I really like the better managed relationships tip, because people what we have more than anything, and then I'm gonna let you, let you go what we have more than anything. It. We have relationships, right? You have relationships with your your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your spouse. You have work environment, but then you even have relationships with your coworkers sometimes, right? That goes beyond we just work together, but in your personal space family members, there are always relationships and how you're dealing with people is very much tied and how successful you are can be very much tied to emotional intelligence. And at the very first step, what do you understand about yourself? And then what empathy do you have for the situation the other person is bringing to the table before you respond? And that's

Speaker 1 10:39
that's huge. That's huge. China, empathy is a big part of it, if you were to maybe look in the in the center of that, that quadrant that I gave you, kind of gave you, you know, empathy, it takes a big toll, especially when it gets to the social awareness part. So let me, let me, let me say it one more time for you, right? It starts with self awareness, understanding who you are. And then once you know who you are, how do you manage yourself? So for example, if a car cuts me off on the road, and I know that that upsets me and my palms get sweaty, do I, you know, honk the horn and say fancy words and scream out. Or do I know this about me? Sean, do I know that a car cutting me off makes my you know, me upset. And when I'm upset, my hands get sweaty, my voice trembles, you know, my my teeth chat, or whatever the thing is for you. But now, since I know that about me, am I managing that well? So that's self management, self awareness, self management, and that takes you looking inward, right? I know that that upsets me, and this is what happens when I'm upset. I've recognized this in my body and who I am. I learned to manage that so that it doesn't upset me. Thus things like blood pressure doesn't rise, you know, things like, you know, anxiety doesn't get high, and I stay calm, which then leads to me being aware of the social surrounding, having empathy towards the simple situation. Maybe they have somewhere to go. They could have an emergency. And now, thus, I'm managing relationships better. And so that's kind of the thing. And Daniel Goldman, I can't speak this emotional intelligence without giving credit to, you know, the people who've done the research, right? And Daniel Goldman is by far one of the sought out and sought after researchers and presenters and everything on emotional intelligence and but we take that concept and we say it. We say we want a person that's emotional intelligent, but we don't think about how all of those things lie together. And really, in reality, it's a way for you to know you, and then how to really walk in this world in a way that you have good relationships with others through interactions. And this is at work. This is personal. And one of the ways you hit on it, Tanya too, and without even knowing it, one of the ways to practice this skill, because it is a skill, is to learn how to slow your brain down, and we do that through things like mindfulness training. Right? Are you learning how to sit in silence and sit with yourself and slow your brain down and be present in the moment? That's what mindfulness and is all about, and most of us don't know how to do that. You know, with technology and the advancements of technology, we don't know how to sit with ourselves and learn ourselves anymore. We we give our time away to the cell phones and the computers and screens and the this is and that and but in reality, you, you need to start sitting with yourself controlling that mechanism up there, that brain. It's yours. You have it, and it's yours to tell what to do. It doesn't tell you what to do. And so that's a deep one right there, right the reclaiming

Tanya Flanagan 13:43
of the power that we really wish and blame, blame external circumstances for, yeah, actions that we take without realizing we really have the choice to take, to make the action or to not have made that move. That is major accountability. And I'm not saying that I'm not accountable, because I believe I'm fairly accountable person. But when someone makes it so plain that you did that, what? Yeah, did I are you pointing your finger at yours I did and you own the responsibility that, okay, I did that, but and the mindfulness factor in this busy world, I was, you know, coming whenever I'm out driving around the city, I just look at how much traffic, how many people are coming and going. And there's so many people here now, 2.5 probably really crouching toward 2.7 million people. Just in Southern Nevada, we see upwards of 44 to 45 million visitors in our city area, right? Yeah, for conventions, for just fun on the strip, whatever. Yeah. People are so busy that busy, busy being slowing down with all the things pulling on you. Yeah? My. Mindfulness. I know some people you know, do yoga, or they take a minute to go to the gym. Take a walk. I encourage all of these things. If you have a dog, especially, take a walk. Take a time when you take the walk. Don't don't answer the phone, don't look at text messages. Just enjoy the outdoors. Take in the fresh air. Take a moment to reflect, and you begin to understand how to do the self examination and the evaluation of what's going on in your life. What do you want? How do things make you feel, but learning to slow down to say, how does this make me feel? And what can I do to control something that doesn't make me feel good? At there's work in mindfulness. It sounds simple, but there's work in mindfulness.

Speaker 1 15:45
No, no, it's definitely work. Tanya, and so, you know, I like to talk about mindfulness from, from, we'll say two to three different lenses. You know, you have the the practice of informal mindfulness, right? That's in that's the one where, like, you know, if you leave your house and you have to ask yourself, if you close the garage door, if you leave your house and you're driving to work, and you ask yourself, did I stop at that stop sign? Many of us do this right? Because what's really happening is our brain is thinking about something else, and we're operating on something called autopilot. Now this is science and research. This is not me, Sean, this is all science and research, but ultimately, we operate in this space of autopilot. I do the thing consistently. I wake up, I take a shower, I brush my teeth, and the whole time I'm doing those things, I'm thinking about the rest of the day. Everything else that's going on informal mindfulness is being present in the moment, on purpose, with your full intention, right? So really, the idea here is, if you're brushing your teeth, that is the thing that you're doing. You are brushing your teeth. You're thinking about the way the toothpaste taste. You're thinking about the way that the the bristles go back and forth, you know, across your teeth when you drive out of your your garage, or, you know, you pull out of your parking space, or you know, you you're locking the door, and you're, remember, I am locking the door right now, like you are in the moment at the moment that's informal, whereas formal mindfulness is the things that you just spoke about, that intentional effort to be still, yoga, visualization, prayer, right? Exercise, walking mindfully. These are intentional practices, right? That you can do to help train your mind to slow down, rather than letting your mind kind of control you. And then, and then lastly, you know, is mindfulness in the moment. And this is kind of like an opportunity to when life is life thing, when life is doing the thing that it does. You remember, I don't know if you ever played any sports Tanya, but they used to coach, if you want a basketball team, football team, whatever the coach would say, Go, Go stand over there and take a deep breath. Go, take a knee. You remember like this is what they would tell kids. Go calm down for a minute. Or go take a moment. That's mindfulness. In the moment something's going on, I feel myself. Let's talk about emotional intelligence. I feel my palms getting sweaty. I feel myself doing something. And I'm going to pause, I'm going to take three deep breaths, I'm going to think about what I'm feeling. I'm not going to judge myself. I'm going to ground and then I'm going to ask what's important right now? And I'm going to take some action, but I'm going to make sure that the action is purposeful. That is this so informal, formal and mindfulness in the moment, those three skills. If I could kick start the year and let everybody know these are tools that you have in your own personal toolbox to be successful. And this thing and beautiful journey called life, there is my gift to you right then, and there you got it,

Tanya Flanagan 18:33
I would have to say thank you for the gift, because as you were talking, I was thinking about all the workshops, conferences, things I've been to, conversations that have been had, and realizing how I respond to life now that I'm older, and realizing it's come from having great moments to be in a room with someone like yourself talking to me about these tools, but I'm not gonna lie, when you're in your 20s, you don't necessarily process that you need these. So I would say to someone young are people who are mature, but you we all have young people who look up to us, who we care about, nieces, nephews, children, what have you, younger co workers that you see yourself in, that you want pour into, mentor them, cultivate them, grow them up. These are really good tools to give to them, to help them prepare now to be even more successful later, as opposed to marching through life and getting the lessons at the different intervals that we get them and getting to the mature age where we are and going, oh, so the light bulb kicks on, and you have your aha moment, aha moment sooner. But as you were talking, I thought about all of those conferences, be it Urban League, be it journalism conferences, whatever it may have been the self developed. And spaces that I've sat in where things of this nature have been poured in, and I think hearing enough of it over time, coupled with prayer and faith have allowed me to put it to practice and arrive at a better place as a person. I hope I'm arriving at a better place as a person, and getting even better as each day moves forward

Unknown Speaker 20:23
Absolutely

Speaker 1 20:24
and that's I think the thing about it saying some something that you're saying right now is, you know, I've been in multiple places where this has been said, and so I think I'll take two or two things here. One is that you go out to places where this information is being given to you, so it's an intentional effort to learn about you right, to learn how to be a good person or a better person. It's an intentional effort. And so where people say, Oh, I heard that before, Yeah, you heard it before, but you could hear it over and over and over again, because these are practices. Just like doctors practice medicine and lawyers practice law, you have to practice and train your brain to reset and reframe it from the natural, natural task that it thinks it's supposed to do. So the brain is designed to protect you, and so when it when it does the thing, the fight or flights and the and the moments that it takes to come into gear, you have to tell your brain through training, hey, guess what? We don't have to lock up and run, or we don't have to lock up and fight in this moment. We can take a moment and assess the situation, if right, that is what it's about, and make a good, purposeful decision, an action that won't harm anyone, won't harm myself and will maintain relationships that I have and manage the relationship. That is what we're talking about. But our brains are like, Oops, here's the thing, and I'm going to protect me Sean, because that's my job. And here comes

Tanya Flanagan 21:54
my shutdown. And I want to say, well, you're saying that where a person can apply this very thing you're giving them if you think it doesn't apply to you, even if you're at work and you find yourself in a I won't call it confrontational, but maybe it is a serious, let's just call it serious conversation with even a supervisor or superior or co worker That makes you uncomfortable doing these exercises, looking at yourself when you find yourself in that uncomfortable space and conversation at work that requires you to be strategic, these exercises will help make you a more strategic person, absolutely,

Speaker 1 22:33
absolutely, because, because, because. Tanya, here's the thing, once you get you'll know what uncomfortable feels like to you, right? So you know, the the managers, you know, well, I didn't mean to say that. Well, yeah, okay, let me, let's pause you here, manager, sir, manager, Ma'am, did the reality is, you may not have meant to say something and but you only got so many of those in your in your in your in your arsenal. Before, you know you've ruined the relationship. If I'm in that conversation, and I know for a fact I can feel myself right. I can feel myself getting upset, and most people don't know themselves enough to pause and go. What is my What? What do I do here? Do I walk away? Do I say, hey, I need a moment. Do I what do I do in this moment before I ruin the relationship that exists. And for managers, and this is what I you

Tanya Flanagan 23:26
play the card that you needed, yeah, or you play the card that you really didn't want to play. I mean, there's the moment when, if you don't know yourself and you haven't calculated who you are and what happens to you, you may very well. I've seen people play the card that they didn't shouldn't play prematurely, which then gives, puts them in a major disadvantage, and it gives the other person. And I'm not saying life is about but it is. It gives the other person this advantage over them. And it just it takes your power, because I think the most one of the most important things, and I hope everybody that there's these nuggets that you're grabbing. You control your power. The you control your peace. You control your destiny. You are the most crucial person to the management of your success at work, at family, in relationships, regardless of who the relationship is with, this is your power, and you don't have to allow circumstances or people to overwhelm you in a way that they take that power from you, because you haven't learned how to know when power is leaving you.

Speaker 2 24:36
Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Now. Michelle, yeah, I want to know.

Tanya Flanagan 24:42
I want to know because you just, you have so much information. When you go start doing workshops like that, people can come to and have these dei emotional intelligence equation quotient. I mean, I could give them smorgasbord, smorgasbord of information. Or conversations with you somewhere that people can actually tap into. You know, your talents, like your when are you going to start doing that for the community? How do people find you and find out? What's the social media? There's got to be some space where people can, yeah, get the mashawn D Montgomery, thought for the day.

Speaker 1 25:21
You know what, I probably need to I so right now I work with, you know, businesses and companies, and so I have a website, Michelle montgomery.com, super simple. And I'm on Facebook. You know, Michelle Montgomery, that's all there. But I think Tanya, you just kind of gave me something for 2025

Tanya Flanagan 25:38
maybe because it was given to me in this conversation. And I would be remiss if I don't give it to you and it was just given to me.

Speaker 1 25:44
Appreciate you following your spirit. So maybe that's something I need to do, is just strike out on my own and start doing and offering workshops and seeing you know all I need is with the church books you say all you need is 112,

Unknown Speaker 25:59
come together, right to work

Speaker 1 26:02
together. So all I need is one and maybe so. So I tell you what Tonya, we're going to link back up in the summer, and by then is I'm putting this on the air right now, I'm going to offer up some workshops. I'll start working on that now, and by the summer, we'll be offering up something where people can come and we'll put it out on like Eventbrite and social media. So Michelle montgomery.com and of course, I'll put it on the web page. You can follow me, and by the summer, we'll have something you can sign up, and I'll just go and see what happens, see who shows up and comes to hang out and get some of the good

Tanya Flanagan 26:34
stuff. I like it. I really do. I mean, it just kind of hit me, and I thought she really should share this more, like she should do this. You should do I'm gonna

Unknown Speaker 26:46
do it. I'm

Tanya Flanagan 26:48
gonna do it. I mean, you know, and I'm a little nerdy, so I'm a little nerdy, so maybe I'm just fascinated with emotional intelligence, how people tick, why I tick the way I do. Sometimes I think it takes a lot. And people say, I often talk about people hear me say the prayer closet, because it takes a lot to pause yourself to go into what I call the prayer closet, and that's where it's just you, and for me, it's just me and God. And there's a conversation, and there's a conversation that happens where the most frightening thing that I might not want to say, I have to speak it into the universe in order to deal with it, and the only person I'm talking to is God. But it can be really hard to hear yourself say the very thing that makes you uncomfortable or frightens you and makes you scared and afraid and but I think it's important we are getting to toward the end of our time. Think we have

Speaker 1 27:38
I want to offer. I want to offer one thing, if I can that that I think, and you're hitting the nail in the head. So I'm going to give you something, and give your listeners something here that I hope that they can utilize, starting today, or the you know, the moment they hear this, to help themselves. And so it's called savers. How l rod wrote a book called the Miracle Morning, and it's what I practice every morning. Saver stands for taking a moment to sit with yourself, as you're saying, and this can be done in six minutes, right? No more than seven. So saver stands for sitting in silence. Take time to sit in silence, whether it's meditation, whether that's prayer, while you're in that silence, you're going to be telling yourself affirmation. So that's the A, the S is for silence. The A is for affirmations. You know you can read affirmations out loud. You can say, I'm in your mind, whatever that

Speaker 3 28:34
is, give it to them, because we read that. Visualize the day, visualization.

Speaker 1 28:38
Visualize the day you hope to have. E is for exercise, so even if you turn over and do two push ups or something like that, and then R is for reading. So you're going to read the affirmations. And S is for scribing or journaling. You're going to write down what you hope to see for the day. So savor silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, scribing. Wake up every morning. Put that into your world, the miracle morning and kick start your day with joy and happiness and goodness. Michelle

Tanya Flanagan 29:06
Montgomery, thank you for joining me here on the scoop today. Thank you everyone for tuning in. I hope you have heard something that's valuable and useful. I appreciate your time and that you spent this morning with me. I wish you a great week. Continue to listen to 91.5k U, N, V jazz and more. Take care and stay safe until next time, I want to thank you for tuning in to the scoop with me. Tonya Flanagan and I want to invite you to get social with me. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle, T, a n, y a F, l, a n, a G, A N. You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan, and if you have a thought, an opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tanya.flanagan@unlv.edu Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week. You.