Michael Hunter
Hello!
Welcome to Uncommon Leadership.
I’m Michael Hunter with Uncommon Teams.
Today I’m talking with Adrian Koehler.
Adrian is a leadership engagement expert and senior partner at the executive coaching firm Take New Ground.
And I discovered, as we talked before hitting record, we have a point in common, which is that I’m a pastor’s kid and he has been a pastor.
Adrian Koehler
Watch out, watch out.
Michael
Welcome, Adrian.
Adrian
It’s so good to be here, Michael. Thanks for having me, man. And thanks for taking all the time and energy to putting this out for those that are listening. And, as a guy, I’ve had a podcast for several years. I know the investment it is the, just to try to be of service and help other people. So thank you, man. Thanks for what you’re up to.
Michael
You’re welcome. I appreciate you for joining me here today. I’m excited to see where our conversation goes.
Adrian
Yeah, me too.
Michael
Let’s start with, in your journey to seeing people as people and learning to leverage their unique gifts to best accomplish your goals, what has had the biggest impact on your progress so far?
Adrian
Good question. Good question. You sent over some of these questions to think beforehand and I just appreciate it. One of the things that probably has hit me most is that, actually, I’m going to pause for a second. Hit me with a question one more time. I want to make sure I answer it.
Michael
In your journey to seeing people as people and learning to leverage their unique gifts to best accomplish your goals, what has had the biggest impact on your progress so far?
Adrian
Oh, yeah. Thank you. I was going to answer it a different way.
The biggest impact on my progress to seeing people as people, the biggest impact has been probably, let me connect this with what you just referred to.
In general, human beings tend to be dogmatic.
It’s not like their fault or anything. It’s our wiring from the eons of development as human beings. We tend to think we’re right about stuff. There’s reasons why that’s, because if I’m right, or if I think I’m right, then I’m going to interpret most data to fit this norm that I have.
Then I, our brain, is not taking on information and then making assessments about it. That’s not the way the brain works. The brain makes assertions, then goes out to prove it to be.
I think especially coming out of, you referred to that I was a pastor for a little while, and that’s probably one of the easiest examples of sometimes, wasn’t ever quite, wasn’t ever me in that context, but sometimes especially quote unquote religious people, they tend to think they’re right and that they’ve got some kind of key answer. We can even just see this and even corporate leadership or team culture where the leader sets the bar and he or she is the right one.
Then we all have to decide how connected we want to be to that view.
We can do that, externally or internally, at different levels. We might go along with it and do what I call the corporate nod, but privately we’re having some resistance or we’re talking crap or even behind their back or something like that. We’re always doing this.
What’s given me a huge advantage is realizing that the more open I am to wherever someone else is, the more opportunity there is immediately to feel connected. If you’re not going to take anybody on some journey, if they don’t feel connected to you, unless you’re paying the paycheck or something, you still won’t have them. They might go along, but they’re not with you.
So one of the big advantages is that it’s hard to offend me. It’s really hard to offend me. And it’s really, I was going to say, it’s hard to surprise me. I am surprised, but I’m not like shocked. What comes to mind, it’s a funny example, but whenever we’re watching a TV show or something, and there’s the hero and the villain, I always understand the villain.
I always understand what he’s up to.
I’m never like, “I can’t believe he did that.” What do you mean, you can’t believe he did that?
I have, from a long time, I’ve understood my dark side. and the evil there or the darkness there or the self-intent or the ego or whatever. I’ve joked in the past, all my demons have names and they’re my buddies. I don’t try to shoo them away.
Not that I want to follow their practices or listen to their suggestions.
But I don’t run away from them.
So my own dark side, if you even go Jungian, like the shadow self, all that, I’m very acquainted with all that.
So therefore, because I have quote unquote done that work or whatever you want to call it and accepted myself and don’t live in any shame conversations about that with the mixed bag that I am as a human, it helps me in leadership. Because no matter where, and people can feel this, no matter what’s going on for them, or no matter how foolish of a decision they made or even criminal of a decision they made, I’m okay with starting there. They don’t have to hide it from me.
I’ve got a couple of kids, my son’s ten and my daughter’s nearly eight. And I am in a conversation already with them as much as they can be that they’re going to do stuff that they’re not proud of and they can hold that and hold it privately and then pay the price for that or they can find somebody, hopefully me, over time they’ll see that it’s true, is they can bring me anything. It’s okay.
Now it might not work, it might not be what’s sustainable or there might not be behavior that I agree with moving forward.
But I want them to know that I’m wide open to whatever’s going on with them.
So that mood, that conviction, really, and that commitment on my side that I’m willing to be with people wherever they are, at least start there, that’s the distinction for me.
No matter where they are as a good starting place, we might not end there.
We might need to get off something and move into something else or clean up some behavior or make some better decisions.
What’s been a big advantage for me is that people feel safe around me. I was told early, I remember a compliment and it was in college and it was my roommate’s girlfriend and she said, “You’re really disarming.” And I think that’s helped.
Michael
Do you know what it is that you do that disarms people, that helps people feel comfortable around you?
Adrian
Part of my worldview is I’m very intuitive, so I can pick up patterns rather quickly.
I’m very empathetic. I want to understand where someone’s coming from and I’m always wondering about where they’re coming from. So that helps.
It’s not like trying to get someone else to do something.
I want to know, if they make a foolish decision, that it made sense to them.
That’s a conviction in our work. We always say people are always making the best decision they see possible. We can prove that neuroscience-wise. So instead of judging the behavior or even judging the character that generated that behavior, I want to get curious about what that character feels like, what that thinking feels like, that would generate that line of action.
That’s going on in the background for me.
What do I do? One of the ways is that I have all that stuff going on in the background for me and I’m one of the people in their lives that will state the obvious.
Even In a silly way. This happens quite often with me, I’m in the line at Starbucks or I’m at the restaurant and I’m talking to a stranger. The waiter or the waitress or the person behind the cashier, they’re just being snotty. They’re being a jerk. And I’ll just say, “It seems like you’re having a hard day,” out of nowhere. And they’ll be taken aback by that because, “Who are you, stranger person? What are you talking about?” And cause I’m like, “You seem to be mad at me, and I haven’t done anything wrong. So I’m wondering how you, how are you doing?”
Owning the obvious is just seeing current reality, seeing symptoms, things out in life that are happening, that you can point to, or physical evidence, and then wondering about what generates that.
I tend to go right to the point, or at least the point that it seems like to me, and that’s comforting for people.
It’s scary because it generates vulnerability.
It requires vulnerability to answer the question.
But it’s also comforting because nobody; we have all these rules in our minds about what, that you don’t talk to strangers about deep things.
I’m the opposite. I’m always like, “Oh, this is a stranger. I might never see this person again. I probably won’t. Might as well have fun and run a social experiment.”
So, the fact that I’m willing to get past the superficial BS and get to the real core matter.
At a deep level, my conviction is that every single human wants to be seen, accepted, known, that we all have that. That’s a soul craving for us.
And I like that. I want that for myself too.
So it’s a part of what I give to others that I always want for myself.
I want someone to see me, know me, accept me.
That’s sparse in this world.
If I can give that to other people, they, people, they want to talk. They want to be seen and known.
So that’s part of the answer. The question was, what do I do? I get to the point. I claim current reality. And I’m wide open to them and I’m usually smiling and friendly. That helps.
Michael
It sounds like you’ve learned how to engage your curiosity without all the filters that we tend to put in our interactions with each other.
Adrian
Yeah.
Michael
How do you maintain that?
Adrian
How do I maintain the curiosity?
Michael
The filter-free curiosity, especially.
Adrian
That’s an interesting question.
First off, it doesn’t feel like it needs to be maintained. I don’t know if it’s a choice or not. I assume it’s both.
I think most of what we have in our lives, especially, I’m in my early forties, forty-three, and I could probably make the argument that whatever we have in our lives was a choice and then a practice.
I’ve said numerous times, even in the last week, that I don’t get bored. A part of it is because I’m trying to train my kids how to be in reality.
And my seven-year-old in particular, is about to be eight. She loves to say, “I’m bored,” which is code for, “Please entertain me or give me something to entertain me,” which is also code for “I’m not comfortable being myself in this environment, in this moment. I don’t know what to do with myself, so somebody save me.”
That’s a pretty dangerous type of thinking and we know what happens.
At least I know what happens when I want something else to satisfy me. That’s a pretty dependent and victimy stance in the world.
So I’m coming at that a lot, but I’ll say that to them as “I’m never bored.” I’ve said it to two other friends this week too.
I’m never bored. It just happened to come up. Why is that? Because I could talk. I’m fascinated. I think partially it’s born that way. Definitely a practice. I am fascinated or I can be fascinated by anything. Like I could talk to you for two hours about all the items in your background of your Zoom room here.
I’ve got lots of questions because I’ve noticed all these things. I’m like, “Wow, what type of dude is into that? That’s fascinating, and where’d you get that? And did you make that thing? And why those animals and this thing in the back?”
I prefer wonder.
If someone were to try on a filter, like a set of glasses, wonder, then life becomes hyper color. Life becomes interesting. People become puzzles.
I want to learn anything.
And not that I’ll stick with it because there’s certain things like, I’m not a guy that’s going to YouTube how to change, I remember when my buddy changed out the speakers and the stereo in his own car, I would never ever do that. I’m not the guy to do that. You might be the guy because you’re like engineer-type guy. I’m not that guy, but I’d love for somebody to come over and do it. And I’d be over his shoulder asking so many questions because I love learning about stuff.
Wonder.
The short answer is a practice of wonder and a belief in wonder.
That’s where it’s going to be again, that there’s innumerable amount of things that I don’t know in the world and that they’re worth finding, they’re worth pursuing, even if it just makes you a more interesting person.
For me as an early conviction, I wanted to be able to be friends with people that most people rejected. Even in high school, I went to a small school in a very small town, seven thousand people, and I was quarterback of the football team and student council, kissed the hot girl, all that stuff on the surface level.
But yet I would notice, this girl named Linda comes to mind. She didn’t have any friends and she was from the other part of the town and seemed to not get to shower very often and it wasn’t well put together and she’s really overweight.
I just decided I was going to be her friend. Which is like several degrees of separation, the social hierarchy. Like I was at the peak of the social hierarchy and yet I was choosing to be her friend and she was at the lower.
Why did I do that?
First off, because she was lonely and I could feel that. I was always a feeler.
Secondly, because you know what, if I do that, then maybe other people in my circle would also decide to give a crap about who I am. People outside themselves.
I thought the world would become a better place, which it was.
We’d walk down the halls together and be friends and be talking and get glares and weird looks from people because I was doing what wasn’t expected or even accepted. What are you doing?
But I knew I was making this, I hope this doesn’t sound egotistical; I knew I was making her day when we were talking. I knew that.
Part of being responsible for whatever gifts you have is leveraging them for the sake of others that might not have those gifts or just might not have those gifts yet.
That willingness to cross the border, cross the lines, connect with other people, even now in the political realm, like I can talk to anybody. I’ve got some pretty strong views. But I can, I want to get to know why people make the decisions they make. That ends up being a very big invitation for folks to share no matter what their view is.
And they can feel that. It’s authentic for me. I’m really curious about them.
I might not agree with them. It’s all good. I want to get to know how that makes sense to you.
Michael
If I, as a leader, want to show up bringing more of my gifts, and I don’t believe that those gifts are so clearly valuable in a work environment, how can I start bringing that in a way that is more likely to be valuable? Or is every gift just automatically valuable?
Adrian
I would say not every gift is automatically valuable. Only because it’s the presence of the gift that makes it valuable.
A couple of things come to mind.
One is wondering if other people are going to accept my gifts is not the right first place to start. Not the most resourceful. I don’t mean right. Most resourceful, most useful, most helpful. Because it does take that word. It takes the presencing of a gift for it to actually show up.
Let’s say I’m diligent about details. I’m good at that. But if that’s just to myself, I just keep it between my two ears and it’s not a gift to anybody else, it’s actually usually the detriment. It’s the opposite, if that’s the right word, because I’m going to be skeptical.
I’m going to look, I’m going to naturally find the problems in the plan and I’m not going to say it out loud. Instead, out of fear of insecurity or not being accepted or whatever’s going on for the person, I’m going to keep that to myself, but they’re going to feel the mood. They’re going to feel my disengagement. They’re going to feel my skepticism. They’re going to feel my judgment, probably.
It’s actually going to be a negative effect on them.
So the first thing is, if I wanted to bring my gifts to you, what’s required is courage, the willingness to stick your neck out, the willingness to put your gift out in the world.
And that takes courage.
I’m weird. I have a handful of very unpopular viewpoints. Here’s one of them: is that I’m always creating my own experience. My environment does not create my experience.
Part of what I believe is my chosen relationship to the environment.
It could be, let’s just call it, there’s a toxic work environment and it’s dog-eat-dog and it’s really superficial or whatever, pick a scenario. First off, I chose to be here. So if I’m going to still choose to be here, then I ought to, if I’m going to get the most amount of value, decide to, if it’s a negative environment, to go be a part of, align myself with, people that want to change this environment and make it a certain way.
But that’s going to take guts to first off, believe that my voice matters.
That takes guts.
And be willing to run a series of experiments to go see if I can change the variables so the outcome changes.
So that’s the first thing, is it’s going to take some courage to stick your neck out and to say something, to speak.
Number one…let’s see, there was a number two in my mind.
If I’m going to, if I want to bring my gifts to the table, that could be some kind of self-exploration. Which wouldn’t be bad.
But if someone wanted to bring, your question was if they wanted to bring their gifts to the table and shift something or make a change, then what’s required is to get connected to the bigger picture in the environment.
Align my personal interests with the corporate interests.
What are we doing here? What does the leadership really want for this? And am I clear about that?
And if I’m not clear about that, no problem. My job then is to go get clear about it because if everybody’s running to the right and then I, my gifts are aiming me to the left, I’m not a gift.
The best thing is to understand where leadership wants to be, what the mission of the company is, what the mission of the organization is, and then throw my gifts at the propelling forward of us towards those things.
Especially if someone’s been stifled, or they’ve stifled themselves, I would say, and held themselves back, the first step isn’t just expression. The first step is aiming and then aligning and then expressing.
You might start by talking with other people around where we’re going, how it’s going, where we are in relationship to how we’re going, and start talking about your gifts and wondering with them.
I’d ask them, literally just ask them the question like, “Hey, what I stay up at night thinking about is,” let’s just keep on the diligent conversation around details.
I’m not detailed, by the way.
I don’t prefer to be the, “I’ve been up thinking about the details of this project. Would you like to hear them? Do you think that it would help if I shared these with, the leader?”
So, get some feedback about it.
There’s some humility in that.
Go be humble and go see and inquire into.
And if you’re full-on self-expression isn’t welcomed, it isn’t wanted now, that’s an invitation to go somewhere where it is wanted, and it is needed.
Some companies, some organizations, they just treat their employees like tools.? You pay me X amount of money for me to do X, Y, and Z. It’s that very hyper-transactional instead of like human to human relationship where we’re all working together and I’m here to be fully expressed and I’m actually here to help you be fully expressed.
There’s some camaraderie in that. In that we’re going to fail and we’re going to get back up and we’re going to show each other grace and we’re going to cover each other.
That’s a unique, that’s a distinct, I would say, distinct type of teaming environment. I always want to be in that type of environment. I work for, fight for, with my clients to generate that type of alignment and possibility.
It’s always express yourself.
Not just for yourself.
Express yourself for the sake of what the mission is.
Michael
Frame who you are and what you feel is important to bring up to ensure it is noticed in a situation in terms of what the other people involved are demonstrating they care about.
Adrian
Yes, that’s a good way to say it.
Michael
If this feels like too big a step, if I don’t quite have the courage to do that yet, what’s a smaller step that I can take to start demonstrating that courage to myself?
Adrian
So if I don’t have the courage to step out yet, what’s a small step?
Step traditions. Like recovery, they get a lot of things. Obviously, you must, in order to sustain, like they have in our culture.
One of the things they do is they take a lot of inventories, a self-reflective exercise.
So if I didn’t have the courage to express it yet, it probably means that I might, it could mean that I don’t know what’s really there. I have a hunch, maybe, I have a hunch about what my gifts are and it’s not clear for me yet, or I have not yet connected the dots between my gift and outcomes that would be welcomed.
So, I would start with you, with anyone that’s listening, and I do this all the time, sit down with a piece of paper and get myself clear.
Let’s just say I’ve got, let’s just say one, I’ve got a gift that can make a big difference here, make a difference for the organization, and make a difference for my own fulfillment and meaning.
What is that?
What do I think the gift is?
If I were to fully employ it, what would that look like?
What difference could it make, in my own mind, anyway?
I’m convicted that if I knew what that was and was really clear about it and I could draw a line between if the company’s doing XYZ and if I got really involved, they would turn it positively this way, that maybe the evidence or the narrative there that is generated by that evidence would really compel me to get over myself and give myself.
I’m a pretty introverted guy. I talk and listen for a living now. But I know that if I’m being shy, I’m just self-involved. I’m not saying that for everybody.
I could make the argument, this gets back to a spiritual principle. We’re crafted not for ourselves. We’re crafted for the sake of other people.
The way that I’m wired is not unintentional. It’s intentional. Either from some kind of higher power or some, even if the higher power is our parents or whatever it is. But we ought to, that’s a moralized statement, I see, but we ought to give ourselves for the sake of other people.
Why should we do that? Number one, it’s a great strategy for living because if you make a difference with others, you’re of more—literally of more—value to them and better things will happen. That’s the karmic rule. If I’m giving, I will receive. That’s just how the universe works.
But also, meaning will come back to me because I get to see my impact on other people.
That’s legacy.
Most people don’t think about that or talk about that on a daily basis.
I do because I’m weird.
I know that when, tonight I’m going to be coaching my son’s ten-year-old baseball team. And as soon as I get there, I’m going to huddle everybody up. And I’ve got these ten sets of eyeballs looking at me. For an hour and a half, I’ve got them, they’re mine. I get to say whatever I want to say and influence their lives.
If anything sticks with them, that’s going to feel great. I know that.
I’m not just there to run drills.
I’m actually there to build young men.
That’s what I said to them at the first practice last week.
Even the most squirrely kid, the most, honestly, the most annoying kid that doesn’t listen much, he does whatever he wants, I had to send him running laps. I said to him after practice last week, his nickname is Greeny. I said, “Greeny, listen, you’re a spiritual leader on this team.” And he’s “What?” I said, “You’re a spiritual leader on this team. When you speak, people listen to you. And that’s a big deal, man. There’s other people on this team that are more talented than you, but don’t have as much influence as you do. I want you to start taking that seriously. I don’t want you to behave so that I’m less frustrated. I want you to behave because your life matters, young man. And I want you to start experimenting on how much of a difference you can make.” So, I’m going to love that, when I’m sure some conversation like that will happen tonight with these kids and I’ll feel good at the end.
Why? Cause I’m the hero to my boy, and he’s one of the great ballplayers on the team, and he’ll be proud of me.
There’s probably nothing else that matters more to me than my children respecting me and wanting to be my friend and thinking I’m great.
Not for my own ego, but just wow, what an investment in my kids. They liked their dad. Their dad was cool to their teammates.
So legacy matters is the long answer to that bumper sticker.
Legacy matters.
We only think it doesn’t matter if we’ve not yet thrown ourselves into it.
Michael
Absolutely. One of my fundamental beliefs is whoever we are, the world is clamoring to have us in their lives.
Adrian
Say that again.
Michael
Whoever we are, the world is clamoring to have us in their lives.
Adrian
That’s cool.
Michael
And a follow-on to that.
Adrian
How did, I’m going to keep asking you some questions now. We’re going to flip the script. How did you come to that belief? It’s a very fascinating mantra.
Michael
That has come from struggling to explain how I help the people I work with shift.
The work that I do is not; some consultants or coaches are, “I help you find the perfect partner,” or “I help you earn ten extra sales in thirty days or less,” those kinds of things. The shifts that I help people make are these very personal changes where they can stop working and start playing, bring everything that they are into everything that they do, and do that in a way that works for them and for everyone else.
Adrian
That’s cool.
Michael
Trying to understand, what am I really trying to achieve here? How do I describe this succinctly? And then mapping that against everything I’ve done throughout my life, is how I got to that statement.
Adrian
That’s cool.
Michael
And then a corollary to that is if I am not brave enough to offer who I am to the people who want it, then I’m actually harming them.
Adrian
How so?
Michael
Here’s a very extreme metaphor. If one of my gifts is to generate oxygen and I keep all that oxygen to myself, the rest of us need oxygen to breathe. So I’m preventing you from crucially having what you need to survive.
All of these other gifts of whatever our gift is, whether that’s excellence in design, or playing an instrument with beauty and verve, or being a fantastic leader of companies that employ bazillions of people, if I don’t have the courage to live that myself, and then also have the courage to offer that to everyone else who wants that, I’m holding them back from being everything that they want to be, because I’m not letting them be a part of that company, listen to that performance, pay me or in whatever form of payment, doesn’t have to be money, it might be just gratitude, or the piece of art or design that they’d like me to create and integrate into their life.
Adrian
Yeah, that’s cool. I agree. And I was just thinking about, I have some contrarian views, but the whole if I’m not bringing who I am to other people, I think that was the preface of what you were saying part of, if I’m not bringing who I am either, I would just say I’m either self-focused or just protectivistic or just in survival.
That’s also who I am.
Not as a life sentence, but that’s who I am in that moment.
Even if somebody is listening and thinking, ‘Wow, it’d be a lot, Adrian, what are you talking about? Mr. Gregarious guy, I don’t feel comfortable doing this,” and it’s okay. But even bringing your insecurities to the conversation are a gift to the conversation.
It’s actually one of the best gifts, which is to bring the thing that you’re scared to death to talk about, to talk about that or the insecurity of that.
Leadership that works down the road, that we’ve been trending this way for a while, leadership that works down the road is actually the most—people say the word authentic, but the most vulnerable leadership. The one that’s willing to share their concerns and their fears and their insecurities and all those things.
I know that’s true for me.
If I’m sitting with someone and they’re real with me and honest with me, my trust goes way up with them.
That’s a universal.
Some people want their leaders to be perfect and have it all together and be iconic and just relate to them as a hero instead of relate to them as a person.
They’ll be perpetually disappointed the rest of their lives and keep blaming the person, that they weren’t X, Y, Z, so therefore they couldn’t.
That’s quite a victim stance.
You said, “Bring who you are.” We’re all a mixed bag. So even if you bring the stuff that you’re sure isn’t worthy of someone’s affection or affirmation, you’ll be pleasantly surprised if you take that leap and share those things with them. Cause you’re going to get their attention in a world full of zombies where people aren’t telling the truth and they’re just having an average Wednesday. If you go have a real conversation with someone, it’s very rare. It’s going to quicken people and “Oh, wow. Michael, he’s a real deal. I think, X, Y, Z might not be working out, but I really trust him. I really like him.”
Michael
100%.
What else should I ask you today, Adrian?
Adrian
What else should you ask me? What comes to mind? I’m a coach. And sometimes I get the question of, “How do I know if I should work with a coach?” Or, “What makes coaching worth it?”
My answer to that is typically, no one needs to work with a coach.
Not that people aren’t in need of coaching.
But coaching really only works if someone’s eager for something new.
If you’re eager for something new, you really want to see all the stuff that you’re not seeing.
If you’re eager for something new, then you really are desperate for the insight that might tip the scale for you or the kind of shortcut or the breakthrough epiphany.
If people haven’t ever worked with a coach before, you all should hire Michael, cause he’s obviously very intuitive and takes his work seriously and really cares.
I remember a long time ago reading a book, I think it was called The Prosperous Coach. This guy named Rich Litvin wrote this book. I don’t even think it’s in print anymore. I remember in there, there was, I think he called it the Light Post Principle. And it was simply this: that if every night you went out and talked to the light post and told the light post your hopes and your dreams and your fears and your concerns, if you did that every night, your life would get better.
That’s true.
Now, if you’re going to go hire a coach, you need to get clear on what the experience is that you want, cause everybody, Michael and I have different approaches and obviously different moods and different personalities and different experiences. You need to pick somebody that’s in your ideal state, just a couple moves down the road. They can naturally, by being with you, really provoke the type of state in you that will generate new action, that can get you those results that you’re looking for.
It’s always going to come back to a belief system in a state.
That’s where, i.e. mindset or whatever people mean when they say mindset, it’s really a perceptive and attitudinal state of what I’m making up about the world around me and then how I relate to that, i.e. my attitude.
I invite everybody to go at least get, at least find someone in your life that you’re honest with. Your life is going to get better.
It’s maybe principally this: that the truth is like the light switch in the room. If you own the truth and that’s up for grabs, but if you get honest and get real, and willing to take a risk with someone else, which is always an indicator that you’ve finally done it, done the work with yourself.
If you’re in a few levels of self-betrayal, there’s no chance that something new is going to happen that’s going to be real and impactful. It won’t be sustainable. Maybe you’ll get lucky, but it won’t be sustainable if you’re not in an honest conversation with yourself.
In my experience as a human being and with all my quirks and all my failures as I’ve betrayed myself innumerable amounts of times, really hurt people that are close to me, I’ve made lots of mistakes. I need help.
The old anecdote is you can’t really do surgery on yourself.
You need to go someone else to help you see like an animated mirror.
So if you haven’t ever actually delved into the conversation about what could happen in your life, if you decided to spend some time with a coach, I would strongly suggest to pick the right coach, pick Michael, he’s got his stuff together, have a conversation with him. And if he’s not the right fit, he’ll probably tell you, or you might feel it and that’s cool too.
There are are some good coaches out there.
I don’t like a lot of them, but there’s some people that are the real deal and are going to have, bold engagement is usually where the value is.
It doesn’t mean bombastic and loud.
Bold can just be very; your style, which is beautiful, is really subtle and sincere. You’re not pushy at all. You’re very invitational. I’m the other side, I’m bombastic and loud at times. But that’s the sport that I like. And that’s why I coach a lot of Type A crazy people. Cause I can speak their language and smack them around a little bit.
But they get that it comes from a place of love and advocacy. That’s why they trust me.
So, long answer to a few questions that you didn’t ask, but something, I mean, everybody, what is it? 2024. We’re all getting a year older. You might as well make it count and you’re going to need help to do that. Finding a good, sincere coach like Michael is a great place to start.
Michael
Thank you. Both for the kudos and for a very descriptive answer of why someone might want to work for a coach and how a coach can help. Because I find the same as you were saying, that it’s not clear to people. And the inner work coaching for you and I do, isn’t the clear, it’s often more challenging to understand what those shifts are, than, “Work with me and eight weeks from now, you’re going to be, get twice the shots into the soccer goal”-type of coaching.
Adrian
Yeah.
My view is that, there’s some coaches quote unquote, that are just content deliverers.
They’re just teachers.
Which is fine.
But that’s not what helps generate a huge pop for somebody, like a massive dynamic, exponential shift. Information won’t ever do that.
Information enhances things and it might tweak things. Which is cool.
But the reality is if you wanted those answers, you would have already found them because there’s no questions that haven’t already been answered.
If you wanted to learn how to do X, Y, Z in your business, there’s a book about it. There’s a YouTube video about it. There’s an Instagram reel about it already.
So, the fact that you don’t have that insight now, I would just propose, that you up until now haven’t wanted to have the insight.
So then we’re back to the deeper conversation that you’re in and that I’m in, which is what generates how I’m seeing the world. And that’s a deeper question. It’s much more vulnerable to answer that question than to, “Here’s my problem. Can you give me a solution?” That’s a Cartesian inquiry instead of a deeper inquiry that we’re into, which is not about solutions. It’s about inquiry itself. It’s about exploration. So that’s why I prescribe to this type of coaching, because it’s about discovery. It’s not about answers.
Michael
Love that description: discovery, not answers.
Adrian
The better way of saying that is it’s about becoming a discoverer, not even about discovery itself.
We’re, always in search of being. And then becoming.
That’s why, in my work, where we’re rooted in the philosophical branch called phenomenology, which is the study of becoming famous people like Kierkegaard and Heigl and Heidegger and Carl Young, even, and Adler, we’re into this journey, which obviously doesn’t have an end. It’s a constant, always inquiry.
That’s part of why I’ll never get bored is that, even just between my ears, there’s a lot of terrain in there. And by the way, it shifts all the time. I wake up on one morning, I feel like this; one morning, I feel like that; one morning, there’s five or six Adrians in here and I’ve got to dance with this guy and then hopefully do my work, do my journaling and meditating and all this stuff I do to get me into a state that can actually engage reality in a way that’s going to be productive for myself and other people.
That’s a fun journey. I’m hooked on that search.
To be a seeker is my point, not to go find.
I want to be a constant seeker.
That’s a better answer than what I said, but here we are.
Michael
We’re engaging rather than acquiring.
Adrian
Right on. Yep. That’s a great way of saying it.
Michael
You have a great ebook for our audience to help them engage with themselves and everyone else. Tell us more.
Adrian
Yeah. If you go to our website, takenewground.com, you can sign up and give us your email address. For that, we’ll give you something. It’s this ebook called The Change Imperative. It’s actually written by my business partner, a guy named Dan Tocchini.
Dan has been around the Human Potential movement since the seventies when it began in Northern California.
He started a coaching company early enough that his coaching company was literally called The Coaching Company. That’s what it was called.
So back whenever, and it’s funny, we’ve put a cool, we’ve rewritten it. And we’ve put a cool, imagery behind it and renamed it and all that.
It actually came out of the trenches.
Dan was hired, this is back in the nineties, he was hired to come in and work with ESPN and Disney because Disney had acquired ESPN and they had lots of conflict because, if I remember the story, ESPN was a work—I forget the exact language. Anyway, one was unionized. I think it was Disney. The other one was a right-to-work house.
They had tons of conflict about it.
He came in and did this work with them in order to get the interests on the table, which they weren’t, get the interest aligned, which they hadn’t dared do that, and to find a way through these naturally opposing forces, philosophically opposing forces, about rights and who gets to do what and all that.
After he did this work, he worked with them for several years and the leadership at ESPN because of the massive transformation that had occurred, they said, “Can you please tell us what you did? Cause we love the results and we don’t know how you did it.” Which makes sense that they didn’t know.
So, he sat down and really summarized both his philosophy and how he walked into it and how he really listened and understood the room and the questions he asked to understand and then tactically how to see where, how to see people and where they’re at and what they want and their natural notions and then how to size up a group, there’s all these early adopters and there’s these fence setters and these people that are nostalgics. It’s very tactical and, it’s both strategic and tactical on how to generate the most amount of possibility in a time of change.
It’s called The Change Imperative, which you know, as they say, the only thing we can predict in life is change or something like that.
How do you be in these moments or produce these moments when there becomes a “must, we need to make this shift,” and then, being able to look out and see who’s there on your team and see where they naturally sit. And how do you speak to each of these different groups of people? There’s distinct ways to speak to and incorporate and enroll people into the change that at least you as a leader see as necessary.
It’s a very simple read, very easy read, but it’ll give you language for the terrain of uncertainty.
We all need that if you’re going to be successful at properly negotiating change.
That’s The Change Imperative. Would love, anybody that wants that, obviously just go to takenewground.com and it’s yours.
Michael
Great. Thank you. And I’ll have that link in the show notes.
Adrian
Awesome.
Michael
What is the best way for people to connect with you, if they’d like to learn more about engaging with themselves, engaging with others, engaging with a coach?
Adrian
If you want to get ahold of me, you can find me on Instagram, like everybody else, adrian.k is my handle on Instagram. You can shoot me a DM and I’ll say, Hey, and we’ll chat. Especially just say you were on the Uncommon Teams podcast. I’d love to spend some time with anybody that connected with me through Michael and this great work.
Or you can see us, I’ve got a handful of websites, but takenewground.com is the name of my firm. You’ll see what we’re about. And if you’re interested, love to have a conversation. We work mostly in house with founders of companies and their teams. You might be the perfect person for that. If you’re not, and if you’re like in middle management somewhere, or just starting out somewhere and you want a kick in the pants that also is very supportive, we have these public trainings. Anybody can come to it. And you apply to come and we have a conversation with you to see, to make sure it’s going to be a good fit and you’re going to get what you came to get. That process is called The Revenant Process. It’s a four-day deep dive leadership training. We’ve got several coming up, one in April in LA. I think this is going to post after that one’s already happened. We’ve got one in June in Hawaii. Get your mai tais ready and you can come to that.
We also have a Coaches Academy. If you’re into coaching, if you want to be a coach, if you want to be a leader that knows how to leverage the skillset and the mindset of being a coach, we’ve got a, we call it Intrepid, which is the Academy for Effective Leadership, but it really looks at leadership through the lens of coaching and using certain frameworks that we come from in order to generate potent action on your teams and shift culture. That’s called Intrepid. It’s going to start in August of this year. And you can DM me and I’ll send you the link for that. I think it’s takenewground.com slash leadership, something like that. But if you search “intrepid” and “take new ground,” you’ll also find it.
We’ve got an outing, a three-day leadership training in Italy this November called Icon. We did it last year too. It’s breathtaking because there’s people from all over the world that come together and talk about leadership for three days. It’s at a really fancy spa and it’s awesome. Right next to the Alps in Northern Italy on Lake Garda, next to Lake Como. So just come engage.
If you have any questions or want even books to read or stuff like that, just hit me up. I’m happy to serve and help.
I’ve needed a lot of help in my life. You might know what those things are. If you’re sitting there today and thinking about what your challenges are in life, you might have at hand, what your challenges are, if you’re a talented person, like I know you are, Michael, like I am, talented. I might know what I want, but I don’t know what I need, because I’m busy being myself. And so it’s good to get an extra set of eyes. Reading books and stuff has always been helpful.
We have a podcast as well called The Naked Leadership Podcast. We talk about issues like this around what’s going on behind the scenes. When we’re doing the everyday business type stuff, there’s lots of steps people miss because they don’t understand the context. We talk about the contextual issues, i.e. more relational and spiritual issues, what’s going on in the behind the scenes and what do we need to be thinking about and not thinking about that’ll open up the most amount of possibilities. You can go listen to Naked Leadership Podcast as well. That’s a free resource.
Michael
Great, thank you so much for all of that.
Adrian
Of course, man.
Michael
What would you like to leave our audience with today?
Adrian
What would I leave with you all, if anybody’s still here listening, if I haven’t bored you to death.
Why don’t you just take a breath for a second, if you’re listening to this, just take a breath for a second, and maybe just say these words: everything matters.
Everything matters.
I don’t think I mean that in totality, because everything doesn’t matter.
But whatever I’m into, whatever I’m called to do, whatever gifts I’ve got in me, that matters.
It matters to me.
It matters to the person holding those things.
It can matter a whole lot to people around you.
It’s very typical for people to become cynical or to become, be skeptical and become guarded and withheld and blame the world for that.
If that’s you, step out from behind your cowardice and go ahead and decide whatever you’re doing matters.
There’s a line from a poem that comes to mind, I think my favorite poem, by a guy named David Whyte, W H Y T E, he’s an Irish guy, and there’s a line from this, the poem is called, Everything is Waiting for You. And here’s the line goes, “Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.”
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.
Whatever you’re going through, it’s important.
Whatever struggle you’re up against, I believe if you decide to fully engage, you can overcome it.
You matter.
Your time, energy, talents, they matter.
Otherwise you wouldn’t have those talents.
So long, long way, really long answer to everything matters, your life matters.
Especially, might as well say this as well; if you’re struggling, a lot of times, I’m guessing there’s a lot of male listenership to this. A lot of times men in particular, we struggle in silence and I’ve done that in different times in my life and had a lot of addictions came out of that and poor decisions came out of that. And the despair, Kierkegaard’s got this old quote that says, “Men find a level of despair that’s tolerable and call that happiness.”
If you’re listening and you connect with that thought, my invite to you is trust yourself, trust the universe, trust God, trust somebody, enough to shoot a flare in the air and ask for some help.
For me, I always need a lot more help than I want.
But if I ask for help, my life gets better immediately.
So don’t struggle alone. Reach out to somebody you can trust.
If you don’t have anybody like that, that’s rough and you should reach out to Michael or reach out to me and we’ll be your friend.
Michael
Absolutely.
Thank you so much, Adrian, for a wonderful conversation today.
Adrian
Yeah, man. Love you. Love your presence, man. Love your commitment and service here. It really matters, man. So thank you for what you’re up to.
Michael
You’re welcome.
Thank you, audience, for joining Adrian and me today. And please let us know, what are you engaging with? What are you maybe not so whippy with engaging with? We’d love to help.
Thanks, and have a great day.
Adrian
Bye, everybody.
Michael
Thanks for joining us on Uncommon Leadership today.
If you found these stories interesting, inspiring, and illuminating, sign up for my newsletter.
Use the form at the top of this page.
You’ll be the first to know about every new episode of Uncommon Leadership.
You’ll also discover how you can build uncommon teams.
Thanks so much!