Ken Coleman | Unlocking and Maximizing Your Career Potential

Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness?

Welcome to the epicenter of transformation.

This is Mick Unplugged.

We'll help you identify your because

so you can create a routine that's not just productive but powerful.

You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a step toward the extraordinary.

So, let's unleash your potential.

Now, here's Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged, and we have a first.

We actually have a second, but a first.

For the first time, I am bringing back a guest because this guest, I told you, he is a leader's leader and a coach's coach, and he's also become a friend.

And some things have happened in my life recently because of Ken Coleman.

And so I know last time we talked about Nashville hot chicken.

We talked a lot about the commonalities of millionaires.

But today I want to talk to Ken about his book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do, because I have several people, aside from myself, that read this book for the first time recently, and it's already started changing their life.

So Ken, first, thank you for graciously coming back on the show.

But more importantly, brother, just thank you for being a friend, man.

Like,

it's rare that you come across people that are who you think they are, but then they take it a step further and literally it's someone that you admire and you could call a friend.

And that is totally you, Ken.

Well, I can say the same thing about you.

I mean, you are such a friendly person and that's what makes it easy to be your friend.

And you're doing such good work and I feel lifted.

You know the kind of people that bring you down when you're around them?

You are not one of those guys and you lift me anytime I talk to you.

So happy to be back and honored.

I appreciate it, man.

And, you know, we were talking offline and I just want to go straight there.

I told you I'm a part of a CEO mastermind and we do this annual book exchange.

Find the work you're wired to do is a book that I gave one of my closest friends.

And, you know, he owns a good mid-sized company, reads the book, and is like, Mick, my company culture sucks, and it's my fault.

I said, What are you talking about?

And he said, This book just made me realize, and it's funny, Ken, because I have my note right here because I didn't want to misread the quote from my friend, but it's almost what you said.

Not only do I not have the right butts in the right seats, I don't know if I have the right seats, and I'm doing my culture a disservice.

And I said, wow, it's amazing.

And that's from a power CEO who most of the time, and I'm going to let you talk about why you wrote the book, but a lot of times we think that power CEOs have it figured out.

Most of the time, we don't, right, Ken?

It's really true.

Because what goes on there is you've got high performers who are either very entrepreneurial or they're very good operationally.

And so they ascend to a level of CEO in kind of a simple way of saying they're a force force of nature.

And so they can get a lot done, but it doesn't mean that everything is done at its best.

And if you look at the typical CEO or leader manager and you compare them to a really, really good football coach, okay, so take somebody like I'll pick Nick Sabin, you know, for an example, who are so process driven and so detail driven.

And you think about 11 players on a football team.

I promise you, and I've had the chance to, the privilege to interview Nick Sabin, he knows exactly the type of player that he wants at cornerback.

He knows exactly what kind of player he wants at defensive tackle.

He knows exactly what kind of player he wants at running back.

And I mean the full player.

He knows what he wants their attitude to be, their mental, the outlook to be, that mindset, if you will.

He wants them to be able to run this fast.

He wants them to be able to lift this much weight.

When you get behind the scenes and you see this, you go, you know, essentially what I'm trying to do with leaders and organizations is help them see every position from receptionist to your position.

You've got to be at a place where you are the right person if you're the CEO.

Meaning, if I'm doing stuff that I'm not very good at and things that I don't enjoy and trying to produce results that don't motivate me, I've put myself in the wrong seat.

And so I've got to remove those things, delegate those things.

So that's for the CEO, but then for everybody else, it's what is required of that position.

Are they good at XXXXX?

Do they enjoy doing XXXXXX?

are they motivated by these xxxx results and so you've got a position of receptionist well you better hire somebody who is good at that stuff enjoys doing that stuff and is motivated to do the stuff that he or she is doing it sounds so simple when i say it that way but we overlook it because what we do is we go we got to fill the position this podcast you're listening to It was once just a dream.

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And so we do an interview and we go, how does the interview feel?

They got some experience doing it, but we don't really check into it.

And then we wonder, I just hired a receptionist.

She's out to lunch all the time mentally.

Well, that's because you hired a person.

That's not a good fit for that role.

But I promise you, there are people out in this world that are hardwired to do the type of work that a receptionist does.

And they'll be the best receptionist you ever had and absolutely walk in every day with a bounce in their step.

So we overlook this stuff.

And I think it's because, Mick, as I was saying before we started recording, a lot of leaders don't have this kind of methodology that we write about in the book, that the assessment, the get clear assessment is the methodology the book find the work you're wired to do is me coaching a person alongside of them with their results so you know the get clear assessment is answering the question who am i and then the book find the work you're wired to do comes alongside and helps answer the question what do i want to do and where can i do it totally agree man and i want to go into the assessment for a moment Because when I read the book for the first time, and I'm on time number three on the book, because I need coaching myself and this book is helping me too.

I looked at it from a CEO perspective, and I know it's very personal-driven, right, to the individual, but I do believe that CEOs, this should be one of the key resources of hiring.

Because, Ken, here's what we do, and I don't know why we still do this in 2024.

I'm interviewing Ken, Ken gives me his resume, and I ask Ken for references.

How many of us are calling those references?

But more importantly, is Ken going to give me an unbiased reference?

No, probably not.

But the get-clear career assessment, I said this should almost replace a resume even because it literally goes into who that person is and the way that you've designed this, Ken, when I'm giving you kudos, but two, it's real.

You can't engineer results on this assessment.

And I applaud you for that.

So I'd love to hear a little bit about the brain theory behind the assessment and all that too.

Yeah.

So we measure three things.

We ask the user questions to get revealing answers about themselves in three key areas.

We use the word wire.

Everybody's got three wires.

So the first wire is what we do best.

In other words, that's talent and skill.

So every person on the planet comes into this world hardwired with talent.

It's things they've always done well.

Maybe their sibling struggled at it.

They didn't struggle.

Things they get complimented for.

I mean, we all understand that.

That's talent.

That's what we do best.

We can turn talent into skill, obviously, through education and experience.

So what we do best.

And so it measures what we do best.

And we want to think of the talents as kind of power tools, right?

And so talent are are the tools, and they give us some clues.

The second thing we measure is the type of work that we enjoy doing.

This is the kind of work that you look forward to, the kind of work that you lose track of time when you're doing it.

And so it's a real joy thing.

You just enjoy this role or this task.

An example could be somebody who just loves problem solving, that you give them a problem, give them a Rubik's Cube and say, solve it, and they are gone.

They are locked in.

Their brain is fully engaged.

You give me a Rubik's Cube and tell me to solve it, and my head's hurt.

I'm not interested.

The third wire that we measure is what we call mission.

This is what motivates us.

So talent is what we do best.

Passion is the work we enjoy doing most.

And then mission is a result that really motivates us.

There's six of them.

We'll unpack those if you want to later, but this is what motivates us.

I did research on motivation and I found that there is two types of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic.

Extrinsic motivation is where my boys clean their room because I threaten them with not being able to go hang out with their buddies if they don't clean the room.

They're only doing it because they have to or to avoid punishment.

And then intrinsic motivation is I do it because I want to.

Nobody's asking me or making me get up at 5 a.m.

if I want to get up and work out.

So as I began to do the research on that, I realized there was a component of motivation to work.

And so those are the three wires.

What I do best, what I enjoy doing most, and then the results that motivate me.

I want to make these results happen in the world.

So, a person who's on purpose, it's a very simple statement.

If I use what I do best to do what I love to produce results that I care about, on purpose, I am living a very meaningful life as it relates to work and I am engaged.

And so, that's what this assessment is.

So, we measure it and then we give you a detailed report on your top talents, your top passions, and your primary missional result.

And we give you that detailed.

You get to read about it, learn about it.

You see the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In other words, we tell you about the talent traps.

You know, we tell you about the passion pitfalls.

We tell you about the mission missteps because there is an underbelly, a negative side to everything that's positive when we aren't healthy.

This has got a lot of practicality in it.

As you know, Mick, you've seen it.

What I believe is fun, we give you a purpose statement with all of that put together.

So you can see, I was created to use my talents of, and we populate your top three to do the work that I love.

And we populate the top three in order to accomplish my mission of, and we give you that primary mission.

And it's a statement that you could literally put on your mirror every day, on your door, look at it on your desk, and it is a reminder of your uniqueness.

And it really is a self-awareness tool.

Because as you know, Mick, I talk a lot about the value of clarity.

Being clear on who you are will allow you to make a decision on what you want to do and where you can do it.

All day.

So, Ken, if I'm a, I don't even want to be a business owner.

If I'm a leader of a business, right?

How can I use this assessment for me as a leader?

Well, I want to start with taking it and looking at my actual day.

So I want to have that purpose statement out or my assessment results out and I want to look at my calendar.

And what I would coach a business leader to do is to look at your daily calendar, your weekly calendar and ask yourself, how much of my day, how much of my week?

am I spending in my purpose statement?

In other words, am I spending half of my day using what I do best to do what I enjoy to produce results I care about?

That's not good.

Am I spending less than half of my day or a week?

And so we're going to start with an inventory based on what we know about you.

And so then after we've inventoried, we're going to make some changes, right?

And so if, and here's my rule of thumb.

I think you ought to be close to 75% or higher.

Your day should exist with 75% of your work.

or higher allowing you to use what you do best to do what you enjoy to produce results you care about.

If not, you aren't operating at your best and the organization is suffering from it.

And I got news for you.

Your team knows.

Your team knows.

In fact, when you do this exercise that I'm walking you through, you will be the last person to discover this.

Your team already knows because they're gone.

They know when their leader is doing something that they're not really talented at.

They know when their leader is doing something that they don't enjoy.

They know when their leader is not motivated by a result that they're engaged in.

So my goodness, it starts at the top.

And so after kind of the inventory, I would go, all right, can I delegate it?

Can I hire for it?

Or should I remove it altogether?

Those are the three.

Yeah, eliminate, delegate, or hire.

And I think those are the three questions as you'd look at.

And so, your goal, and I want to be only pragmatic here, I realize certainly in the small business world, and sometimes even in larger businesses, you may not be able to make these changes like that.

Okay.

And I get that, but that's okay because now armed with the awareness of, okay, now I realize why I've been so frustrated.

And I come home and I kicked my dog three times last week, you know, or was short with my wife or my kids, you know, or why I felt like I needed a drink at the end of the day.

This is real.

Absolutely.

Because if you aren't operating in what I call the sweet spot, right?

Where all three of these come together, let me tell you something, you're dragging that stuff home with you and it's leaking out of you at the office.

So you begin to make the changes that you can make or you begin to plan to make the changes to where you eliminate, delegate, or hire for it.

And then you get to a place where you go, oh, now I'm operating, you know, about three-fourths of my day in that sweet spot, if you will.

And boy, what a game changer.

Now, here's what's going to happen.

You're going to be a more effective leader.

And as a result, your team is going to see those changes, feel those changes, and start to be willing to make the changes themselves.

Leading by example is what I would say.

And that's exactly how I would coach them if I were sitting across from them.

Amazing.

You know, in the book, I highlighted a few things.

And one of them is you talking about overcoming obstacles.

And so you talk about common barriers like fear, doubt, and external pressures.

I'd love for you to go a little deeper into that, if you don't mind.

Like, why do people have such a problem with fear and doubt and external pressures?

Because they validate the voices that we have in our head.

I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg.

You know, it's like we all have some deep-seated stuff inside of our heads from our past and also because of our present.

And so those three enemies of progress is what I call them: fear, doubt, and pride.

What you're saying is external pressures.

I like that.

I call that pride, right?

And so, in other words, I'll define these very quick and then attempt to answer the question.

Fear is: I'm worried that something bad is going to happen if I step forward or keep moving forward.

Doubt is, I don't believe that something good will happen as a result of, you know, moving forward and being a person of progress.

And then, pride or the external pressures is I'm more worried about what everybody else thinks or what they might say than what I actually believe.

So, So these are all realities in the form of thoughts and feelings.

They manifest themselves through a thought and then they become a feeling.

And they are a part of the process, Mick.

If you are moving forward or even thinking about moving forward in life, by the way, this isn't just in business.

This is any area of your life.

This could be physical, spiritual.

mental, relational, like you're not where you want to be and there's a gap between where you are and where you want to be.

I'm going to tell you something in attempting and even thinking or planning to move forward to make change in your life that is positive, I got news for you.

You will encounter fear, doubt, and pride.

I got a good news, bad news situation.

Good news is you can absolutely remove fear, doubt, and pride from your life.

The bad news is you have to literally shut down on living forward and sit on the bleachers of life and watch everybody else live their life.

And you just sit over in your little corner and not participate in life.

So if you want to not deal with fear, doubt, and pride, that's your option.

But that's a really sucky life.

And I think it was Thoreau who called those people who lived a life of quiet desperation.

And I think that our world's full of people that are living this quiet desperation.

And it was Theodore Roosevelt who in his while daring greatly speech called those people cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

I mean,

if that's what you want, that's what you will have to do to exchange for not having to deal with fear, doubt, and pride.

So your question, why do they exist?

Because it's the nature of our humanness.

When we face failure, when we face the unknown, when we face rejection, when we face criticism, we're afraid of how that's going to sting.

Just like we're afraid of a wasp.

Mick, you want to see me dance?

This white boy cannot dance, but you want to see me dance?

Let a wasp start flying over my shoulder right now.

Why?

Because as soon as I see that wasp, I am afraid of what that sting could feel like.

And so that's the fear.

And so the same thing with doubt, right?

We just look at something and how difficult it is.

We look at something and we see how expensive it is.

We look at something and see how complex it is.

I could go on and on and on.

Then again, the sting of doubt, like the whole, I'm going to waste my time.

I'm going to put all this time and effort in this when it's, that's doubt.

And then the pride thing is all about our desire to belong.

So pride is about the human desire of belonging and so if what were they going to say what are they going to think it's that kind of stuff so it's our humanness is ultimately it's just part of the deal we aren't robots we have thoughts and we got feelings and if you got thoughts and you got feelings they're not always going to be so positive you know my third takeaway from the book and this is why i'm reading it for the third time because this is what i'm working on this is how you're coaching me right now through your book you talk a lot about daily habits and establishing routines that that align with your personal and professional goals.

And you know what my daily habit had been, Ken?

I'm just going to get stuff done.

Whatever's on my plate, whatever's on my calendar, whatever's in front of me, I'm just going to get it done.

But what I realized is that's not a habit.

That's not a routine.

I'm failing myself somewhere.

And I didn't know if it was a mindset or a lack of planning or both of those things.

But I now, because of this book, and this is why I want everyone, if you get the book for nothing else other than the assessment and establishing habits, I promise you it is what we all struggle with.

I would challenge everybody that's listening or watching right now.

Do you really create habits and routines or do you just plow through the day?

Because what I had to admit, Ken, and this, it sucks to admit it, but I'm man enough to admit it.

I was running myself into exhaustion.

Your book is helping me realize that.

So thank you.

Well, you know, I want to point something out there because I've talked about this on my show.

I'm not a fan of routines.

I am a fan of rhythms.

And I think they're very, very different.

I think you were in a routine of, I got to check stuff off the list.

I'm a process guy.

Here's all the stuff I got to get done.

And

it may not be super organized.

So when I say routine, I just mean, because the root word of routine is route.

And this is the route I take every day.

This is how I operate.

That's a routine.

And some people find a lot of safety, a lot of emotional safety in a routine.

I'm not a routine guy.

I'm a rhythm guy.

And again, this is my way of describing this.

So I hope this isn't confusing.

I'll give an example of a difference between the routine, which I described and a rhythm.

To me, I think of a rhythm of a song.

Throughout that song, the rhythm changes.

And so you've got times where it's a little bit slower.

Sometimes it's a little bit more staccato, picks up, you know, in a song, a rhythm and rhythms change, you know, there's, and so I want to be in healthy rhythms.

but I'm not going to be beholden to routines.

You're not going to be robotic.

I want to be able to step back and kind of look out and then look down.

So I'm stepping back.

I'm looking at my schedule.

I'm going to look out and go, what's the most important thing over the next 30, 60, 90, 120 days, whatever it is.

And that's going to determine my rhythm for that day.

So now I look back down and I go, all right, this became way more important than what this was on my schedule.

And so I'm going to make some changes.

I'm not going to just go, well, I have that mean.

I got to do that.

I'll just fit in this other thing.

No, I want a rhythm.

And I do the same thing in my personal life, too.

I work out really regularly now.

It's been a really fun new thing for me, and I've gotten really, really disciplined with it.

But to give an example, last night I had an opportunity to go to a real, you know, real studs house, a mover and shaker.

A guy that invited me to come hang with some other mover shakers.

It was not on my calendar three days before, and it was not going to allow me to do my normal workout.

Okay.

And so I got to sit there and go, well, do I say no to that?

Because it's going to mess up my workout routine this week.

I'm going to have to adjust.

And I got my life kind of scheduled.

And so I'm going to have to choose to go to this guy's house and hang with him and some other real studs, or I'm going to say no to that opportunity so that I can say, I got my workout in.

What do you think I did, Mick?

I think you went to the house.

I went to the guy's house.

Absolutely.

I can work out.

The weights are still going to be there.

Right.

That collection of guys will never be together.

And these are eagles, man.

You never know what's going to happen over a cigar at this dude's house, right?

So all that to say, I adjust to that and I go, my rhythm's changing.

There's no routine here.

I'm going rhythm.

And I do think that's important.

And I'll finish this thought with this.

I think the rhythms over routine is the right approach because I think it forces us to stay engaged with our heart.

I think leaders get stuck in a hamster wheel of responsibility.

They lose track of how their heart is feeling about things and they do things based on routine and responsibility.

And that's all they look at is, I got to do this, this, this, this, this.

They end up like what you were describing, as opposed to going, what's the right thing?

What do I feel like I should do here?

And then what adjustments should I make?

You know, and so that's, that's my approach on that.

That's not for everybody, but I that's how I choose to go at it.

It's hitting home with me, man.

Like I said, it's one of those things that I am now incorporating into my life, and I'm building better rhythms.

And I'm going to borrow that term.

Just like last time, I could do this all day.

I could do this all day.

I swear we've only been talking for five minutes.

Then I look up and it's like way past five minutes.

That's good.

That's a good sign.

Absolutely.

So, the book, obviously, everyone has your website.

We've got everything there.

What can we do to help support the book?

Well, I mean, the answer to that is obviously you buy the book, but I don't want people to buy the book to support me.

I want them to buy the book to support themselves, to grab a hold of this methodology, to say, there is a methodology here by which I can, as a professional, because you all are pros, all right?

You're pros.

If you get a paycheck to do something in the business world, you by definition are a professional.

And so, do you want to be an all-star professional?

Do you want to be the best professional that you can be?

And if the answer is yes, then you need to get this book, not because you think you're going to change careers, because this is not a book that is for somebody who's just trying to pivot.

This is a book that is for somebody who feels the need to get some absolute awareness of self so they can become confident.

This is a book about clarity and confidence.

And I'm going to tell you something.

If you want to win as a professional, it will be predicated on how confident you are in your abilities.

And I think at a baseline, that's why everybody listening and watching should get this book because if nothing else, it validates you and you're going to stand a little taller and walk with a little more balance because of that confidence.

Totally agree.

And so I'm going to do something here.

And Ken doesn't even know what I'm about to say, but I'm going to do something.

I'm going to purchase 10 books for my top 10 executive coaching clients that i work with oh that's so cool but but here's what i'm doing i am going to make an introduction to ken for my top 10 after you read the book and my top 10 they know who they are because there's nothing wrong with having multiple coaches i can promise you that right if you're working with me you should be working with ken also and so that's my pledge and my commitment and then i'm going to challenge listeners if you're a ceo if you're a leader in a business i'm also going to challenge you to do this for your business as well, right?

Like, this is something that I promise you, not just at the individual level, but more importantly, at the business level, is needed.

This assessment, I promise you, you won't care about resumes.

You won't validate resumes anymore because it's the results of the assessment that really tell you who that person is.

I promise you that.

And Ken, I know you had no idea I was going to say that, but that's

very clear.

That's my pledge.

And that's what I want to do.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd love to work with any of these folks that are listening.

If you want to take this methodology and work it into your organization so that you got the right people in the right seat of the bus, that's great.

But more importantly, to you that are leaders, you need to make sure that you've got your seat completely customized to you.

That will be the greatest ROI to the organization is to make sure that you're operating right where you need to be.

And this is a wonderful tool to do so.

Right.

And what Ken just said is it doesn't matter if you have the right seats on the bus if the bus can't go anywhere.

Yeah.

Isn't that true?

If the driver can't take it anywhere, that's true.

So true ken as always i love you brother love you thank you for spending a little bit of time with me today

thank you for being the man that you are and the leader that you are i appreciate you thank you bro you got it and for all the listeners remember your because is your superpower go unleash it thanks for listening to mick unplugged we hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution in your life.

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Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired, and stay unplugged.