Why Most Leaders Fail: The Danger of Avoiding Honest Conversations

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Price mar a tremendous episode for you today, a conversation with Adrienne Kaler, co-founder and senior partner at Take New Ground, a leadership consulting firm.

And Adrian talks about leadership in a way that I don't think you're used to. We approach topics from angles that I've never even considered.
And the depth and understanding mixed with empathy and energy that Adrian approaches,

what he does is going to get you leaning forward in your seat. It's going to get you taking notes and thinking differently about the way you lead your teams.
This is a conversation. This conversation, these are the conversations.

This is why I do this podcast is this conversation right here.

I do this podcast to bring you conversations like the one you're about to hear.

Enjoy. the whole reason people do podcasts is for free consulting that's that's why everyone wants to pretend like it's about the audience but it's really about free consulting So, you know, I asked you the question I ask all guests before they come on.
Is there any anything that's like on your brain that's got you kind of thinking or your wheels spinning? Because as much as I always have a direction, as I told you, you know, I I want to talk about the shit that you're fired up about. That's that's what makes this fun.
And you had a conversation with one of your clients,

and I'd love for you to just maybe break down what you described to me before I told you to

yell at you to stop so that we can get it on air. Just break that conversation down,

because I think it's a great place to start. Sure.
So hey, listeners, thanks for being here.

I'm Adrian Kaler. So professionally and just as a passion in life, I have

I search for the most meaningful conversations to get leaders into effective action so but I end up coaching fascinating people from all over the world and all different industries and the one that Ryan's talking about here is conversation I had yesterday with a leader who's the brand leader of the fastest growing cosmetic brand in the country and, I got connected to her because she's ex Nike and I coached a bunch of Nike people and she's elevating and elevating and elevating. And, uh, her boss just said to her yesterday, um, make sure you're not mothering your team, her, her executive team.
And I had asked her, well, did you ask him what he meant by that? And she said, no, they kind of laughed it off. And she just assumed she knew what he meant.
And I assume I knew what he meant too, and had lots of commentary about, can I please talk to this guy? Because that's, anytime somebody speaks in that much metaphor, they're avoiding conversations. So she has some feedback, he has some feedback for, is what I would assert.
But then it got me thinking, got us in a great conversation about what might be missing in her leadership. Because maybe she is overcompensating with the, I don't know, more feminine spirit, which is naturally throughout the ages.
This isn't, and everybody's different, right? So don't be offended. But, you know, the natural maternal spirit, feminine spirit is one that supports and sees and corrals and connects and attracts and, you know, protects in a certain way.
And usually more emotionally that, you know, as a, as a trend, and the male spirit, masculine spirit is more challenge, push, direct, vision, protect with fists or tongue like that.

And we talked to that generated a huge conversation about leadership and what might be missing

for her.

And I coach probably 75% men and 25% badass women.

And but it does connect into where my commitment is for my clients, which is to be what I call fierce advocate for them. And sometimes that's what's missing in leadership, is for men to slow down enough and connect, and usually to share and to even confess and clean up the relational side of the business.
They just think the business strategy and the business plan will win the day. And it's not that people and our commitment at our firm take new ground.
We know that people generate all the issues and people solve all the issues. And most great leaders, their dysfunction isn't strategic and it's not intellectual.
Their dysfunction is relational. So we've got great job

security. Um, and we love that we're all nerds over here.
So we're all very tough alpha dudes.

We get that commentary all the time, but also we'll talk about very touchy, um,

deeply emotional relational context. There's no comfort.
We say in the room,

there's no conversation too dangerous for us to be in. So, um, anyway, that's, you're asking what's

I'm going thinking about how men need to slow down and be more vulnerable in general. Women might need to slow down and say the thing that might, metaphorically speaking, kick the young one out of the nest.
You know, men's dysfunction is get out of here and I don't care if you come back.

That's dysfunction.

Women's dysfunction is stay here forever and I don't care if you grow.

Hmm.

I'm speaking in hyperbole, obviously, but there's lots of room in between that, especially if we mold those together as leaders, which is like, hey, I'm going to connect with you deeply no matter what, even if you don't work for me, I'm here for you. And if you're going to work for me, you better have it up to the right trajectory personally.
Like you need to develop yourself and continue to get better and be ruthlessly connected to current reality, which is always quite frightening for everybody to like put your arms around results. Like results are the mirror for what I actually intended, not my story about what I intended.
Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense. I was actually talking to one of my counterparts.
I'm the executive chief marketing officer for a AI company. And I was talking to one of the executives about, um, in particular, um, Oh my gosh, I just lost my question.
Uh, well, I'm going to ask you a different question. The audience knows that I do that.
Sometimes I'll come back to it. I want to dig into before it went before I, before I come back to where I was going there, you said something that just absolutely captured me.
When someone speaks a metaphor, they're avoiding. Can you dive into that while I try to re-rack my brain for the other question that I wanted to ask you? No problem.
Well, language always has intention, always, 100%. We never say anything or don't say anything on accident.
So I'll try not to get lost here in some philosophical, but it's good to put a framework up here. So in my world, I'm always paying attention to a handful of things.
One is this formula. I'm guessing your audience loves formulas.
So here's a formula for you guys. P plus E plus O over C equals transformation.
So P is patterns. E is emphasis.
O is omission over context. Context is vision goals, whatever, like what we're actually up to.
Patterns, emphasis, omission over context equals transformation. So when someone speaks in generalities, they're avoiding something.
So when they speak in generalities, what they're doing is trying to, there's so many ideas here, mesmerize the person with an unknown statement that means whatever they want it to mean. And it's a gesture towards what they're meaning.
And so let's just say we both like the bills. And it's not specific what I mean by that, but we, you know, you're from that part of the country and it's like, yeah, we both like the bills.
Okay, cool. But we might actually have very different opinions about what's good and what's bad about them and where they're going in the future and what I hate about the bills and blah, blah, blah.
We might have tons of differences, but I don't want to get close to it because I'm going to romance you with my gesture towards what you like. and so it's anytime I hide in generalities, another way of saying it, that's safer up here.
It's politics is an easy way to look at this. You know, this is not a political state, but we make America great again.
Wonderful. Who doesn't think that's great? Of course, that's awesome.
Now chunk that down and people start to fall off the wagon at some point in the funnel, if you will. So there is danger in specificity.
There's safety in generality. That's my point.
And I could think of a hundred, a hundred reasons why that's true. yeah I love that you know um on the show I refer to what you just described as glazing right we like to just put a little glaze on what we're trying to say to make it seem shiny and nice

but we never want to dig in. I figured out what I wanted to ask you or at least get your take on.
We were talking internally about this particular thing with our sales team and how the story, I saw this stat online, I think maybe Simon Sinek had shared it, that we feel 90% of the win in announcing the thing that we're going, in announcing the goal without ever hitting the goal. So by announcing the goal, we're actually capturing all the dopamine and all the positive emotion that comes with hitting the goal, and we haven't even done the work yet.
And what we were in, in the conversation we were having internally was around, it's okay to have these goals, but I don't want to hear about what you're going to do. I want to see what you did to get there and, you know, re reframing the conversation in that way.
So that we're actually looking at real activity, not this activity that we're going to do someday, which will get us to this goal that we think sounds really good so that we all feel great about ourselves. And I guess my question for you that I wanted to actually ask was, how do you go about coaching someone through this? Because I've seen this to be pervasive through entire organizations from CEOs of large companies all the way down to entry level individuals.
They'll tell you all the things they want to do. And then they struggle with the motivation to do the activities to hit the goal because they already feel great about the fact that they set this goal that makes them feel awesome.
Yeah. Well, we call that the despair of possibility.
so yes, it's a dopamine hit to say the future is going to be better, right? That's just what a lot of people would call hope. Um, and you can get elected on hope, um, to presidency that's happened before.
And it works because everybody wants to say, Hey, today sucks. Tomorrow's going to be better.
Follow me. And that's what we do when you stand up and say, yeah, this quarter's tough, this economy's tough, but just follow me into the future.
And we need that as humans. We need that.
There's an old, I forget where this is in the Torah, but without vision that people perish, this kind of concept. Yet we do know that if a declaration in the future without commitment is empty and it's despair because we know it's a trick.
We know it's a, here's a shiny object. Let's let us trick the masses into saying the future is going to be better.
We know it at an intrinsic level, like our bodies know it even before our brains do, right? Cause we're used to finding tricksters. We've been trained to do this over the eons.
So, um, your question was, how do I work with folks? Well, that's a big distinction. So first, you must be willing to declare something into the future, like make a promise.
That's what transforms reality is make a promise. Like, here's what I'm here.
This is what's going to happen. And every great leader does that, stands up and says, that's the hill we're going for.
But there's a distinction between promise and commitment. So promise is to go forth from an etymological, and I'm a nerd,

so let me nerd out for a second.

Etymologically promise me is to go forth, which is important.

I'm going to go to that hill.

Commitment is to go with.

So prometere, cometere, to go with.

I am with my word, which is the distinction you're talking about.

So I will do no matter what. Whatever it takes to get there, that's what I'm going to do.
So I'm going to make a plan and I'll prove to you my promise by making a plan and then watch me walk my plan. And by the way, if it's not, if it's not working, I will know because I am my word.
It's not like I'm going to say, I'm going to do this. And then if it didn't work out, I'll come up with 10 reasons, which is what most people do.
It was the economy. It was the stupid team.
It was the competition. It was my family member that died, whatever.
Fill in the blank about what external circumstance generated my failure, which is what the human mind is apt to do is be a victim to circumstance. But if you're heroic, then you say, oh, I form my circumstances around my commitment.
That's what heroes do, right? Yes, most people won't do that. They can, but they won't.
Heroes decide to do it anyway. So when I'm working with people, what usually is missing is if they are deeply connected to the future, like we're talking about.
Like I'm clear about where I'm going and where we're going. That's necessary.
But most, that's kind of easy and it's very satiating. It's like eating Skittles.
It's great, you know, for short term. Skittles are wonderful.
Ask my kids. They love it.
But what they don't do is get equally connected and committed to current reality. Like a knowledge of, a deep understanding of what's happening now.
Because if they don't do the math on what generated these results, that aren't as good as the one we say we're going to, but if I'm unwilling to put my arms around how I created the crap we're in now, then I, no matter what, will create crap in the future because I am a pattern. And if I'm not quite, if I don't question myself as a pattern, I will naturally do what my pattern does.
Right? So I might have a great vision, have a great plan, but burn people out. That's what got me here.
That's what will happen in the future because I am that pattern pattern so people aren't willing because it's more vulnerable and it takes more humility to own current reality and furthermore own how each person around the table co-created what we have we tend to like to peg it on somebody and it was the CEO or the CFO or the CSO or the CMO like you or whatever and it was that person person instead of, oh, no, no. Every meeting I was in, I created the outcome, even if it wasn't my meeting.
So if a team is willing to take that level of ruthless, rigorous responsibility, then Hello, it is Ryan. And we could all use an extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we? Just to make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes, counting your steps, you know, all the mundane stuff.
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We've got a whole ballgame, then nothing can stop them. If I'm listening to this and I look out over my team and the table that we sit at and talk, and I don't see that, right? I see the finger pointing.
I see, well, this was Steve's job or Tammy's job or Sally Sue's or whoever. And they're the reason why this project didn't get completed.
I have that finger pointing going on. Yeah.
How do I start to break down that culture to get to where, to get to what you're describing? You call me. I mean, that's what, don't have to call me, call somebody, um, because you're in the culture.
So it's first off, it is hard to do surgery on yourself and most people won't. And to be honest, most of us can't, including the guy talking right now, because I am so entrenched in my thinking and not a lot of our thinking is novel most of it's wired into us and so it's really hard you know there's an old there's an old transformational saying that you know you got to get outside the box but the instructions to get outside the box are on the outside of the box so you need to get some feedback and that and that's there's uh that's horrific for us as human beings because we're very, without even thinking about it, we wake up into the world egomaniacs.
That I am a certain way. This is who I am.
And this is who you are. And yeah, it is Tammy.
And even that thinking of like judgment and contempt and superiority and victimization, that's just built into the human brain. We don't get a vote on that.
That's just gravity for us. So we call it survival needs, looking good, feeling good, being right, being in control.
That's gravity. Now, you can get past that.
You can get beyond that or maybe even stand on that, the metaphor we'd really use, because that's not going anywhere. We can look out from that view and then see something.
So to more succinctly answer your question, you start with yourself and say, okay, what's here? And get real about what's here. What are the dynamics? And can I get language around them? You must put language around dynamics.
That's the first thing. Language gives us handles for reality.
and we all have a sense of what's happening and but we all have different language for what's happening so if i'm running the show if i'm the ceo if i'm answering the question like that then i gotta work to get language around the current dynamics we've got tons of frameworks for this by the way but um this will just give the bullet points get language for it now think about if nothing changes what'll happen next and and and walk all that all the way out we call that the parade of horribles so if this doesn't shift what's going to happen you got to walk it all the way to death essentially of the company maybe even people everybody gets fired including you and public ridicule and you know kids, kids run away and they're blah, blah, blah. You're like, let it get dirty.
Because the human brain moves five times faster to escape hell than to pursue heaven. We know that.
So you got to let it get bad. Because it is true.
Something like that is true. That if I don't transform this, which might be shut the company down.
It might be fire everybody. But anyway, there's lots of layers in between.
But if I don't transform this hell's coming and I, you have to motivate myself to shift because nothing has worked up until now. That's what we know that we let it get here on purpose, not on accident.
There are payoffs for it being dysfunctional. These are types of thinking that people don't do because people say it's dysfunctional and I hate it, but they don't mean it.
Like they mean it to themselves, but it's not true is what I really mean by that. It's dysfunctional and I love it.
How do I know that? Because it's dysfunctional. And if I say, how long has it been this way? They'll say, oh shit, three years.
And I'll say, great, this is what you like. And they'll say, no, it's not.
And I'll say, prove it to me. And they don't have an answer because they've tolerated it up until now.
So there are payoffs to the dysfunction. Have I lost you? Are we good? No, no, you haven't lost me the opposite.
These are my favorite episodes. I have like 4,000 different directions that I want to go.
So let me finish. I was just making sure.
Sometimes I get too philosophical or too way out there and I lose people. So anyway, this is the type of rigorous honesty that someone must take on to transform.
Transform is very distinct from making something better, if that makes sense. We don't want incremental change.
We want to transform the thing. So to transform it, the only thing that generates transformation is someone's willingness to take rigorous responsibility for current reality and to be willing to own that and still be hopeful and still be clear about what they're committed to, like the phoenix from the ashes type idea.
Like, okay, it's that bad and I can still choose tomorrow who I am right now. I choose for tomorrow.
It will get better because I will transform. And if a leader that stands up and does that can shift a whole room, there's a reason why they don't.
And the reason why I don't at times, because I take guts and I have to be willing to die like figuratively and you know, whatever, maybe financially, maybe I get fired, maybe blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, there's a lot of risk in there, but if you're willing to die, then you can, you know, it's like that bet.
My dad's watching band of brothers here. I'm home for Thanksgiving.
Um, and, uh, there's a famous scene from band of brothers where the sergeant over there or the Lieutenant, the good looking guy is, and he's in the foxhole with a new guy. And he's, and he, the new guy's like literally pissing his pants.
You remember the scene? And he says, Oh, I've, uh, you, the problem is you haven't died yet or something like that. Like the guy already was ready to die.
Therefore, he could go win the battle, that type of idea. So if you take personal rigorous honesty and do a real clear accounting and then open that up as a leader, like, hey, guys, this is horrible.
I know it's horrible. I know you guys hate each other.
I just did this in a meeting with a client like this. This clearly this rigorously.
I said to them, I said, hey, if I'm involved, we're going to transform this culture. And some of you don't want the health you say you want.
And you need to go back home and think about it because you're used to dysfunction and health is going to require a lot more from you than the dysfunction has. And then they were like, you know, arguing with me for a while, but they got it at a deep level and they were all nodding by the end like, oh yeah, okay, I'm gonna have to be honest now.
I used to be able to hide and gossip. Now I have to be honest.
So as a leader, if you're willing to do that, take rigorous honesty, have all the conversations you've been avoiding, set the standard moving forward for yourself first and then other people. And then you don't avoid anything moving forward.
Like results are a manifestation of conversation always. So it all comes back to the conversational level.
And most leaders would rather not talk about the issues just because we're humans and a lot because we're dudes. At least the guys struggle with this more than the women.

The women are just better at it, trained.

It's more socially acceptable to talk about relational stuff and emotional stuff for women. So there's some bigger climb for guys, but that's why I like working with alpha guys because there's a lot of unlocks that are pretty quick and very rapid, and there's a lot of freedom for them.
How much do you think the fluid nature of language in our current environment impacts this? And I, and I know I've even felt this myself where I tend to be okay, unintentionally offending someone if I'm being honest with them. And I don't mean that to be hurtful, just trying to say like it is, but, but I struggle with it as well, where so much of what we say today may not mean the same thing.
Words have different meanings. Words are taken out of context.
And I have friends that I talked to in leadership positions and they'll share that they're not even sure. They may want want to say, they may honestly, all the things you said, they may be willing to die, they may want to change, and they're willing to do the work.
They literally don't know how to put the words together to communicate the message, not because they don't know what words they want to say, but they're worried that the words they say are going to mean different things or be taken in a way that they don't mean. And now all of a sudden they're going to find themselves in a situation that is, that is not even, you know, not in trouble for addressing the problem, but in trouble for addressing the problem in a way that didn't match a HR requirement or, you know, how do we, how do we work past some of like, you know, some of the woke nature that are so many organizations have found themselves in? Wow.
Well, this is a whole day long conversation because there's a lot here. You have 29 minutes.
That's how I'm joking. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's why I'm taking my time with where to begin so uh you noticed even as you described it a lot of it was fear and that's okay and it's uh you know how because the question isn't how do i say what's true for me the the the question is for the person naturally is how do i say it so they get what I mean? Yes. Right? And that's impossible.
So the meaning of any conversation is in the listener, not in the speaker. We know that neurologically.
The meaning of every communication is in the ears of the listener. So people do use this framework, though, to avoid conversations.
Like, I don't know how to say this so that Susie hears it this way. And they use that to keep avoiding.
And therefore, they are having the conversation with her. The conversation, though, is it's not worth the fight.
That's the conversation they're having. You're so sensitive.
This is the other conversation they're having. You're so sensitive.
I can't say what I want. So it's condescension.
You are so immature. We can't talk about it.
That's what that's also saying. Now, I'm being a little bombastic maybe or dramatic, but it's pretty close to what's true.
Just to make the point. But that's also, so, you know, nature abhors a void, says Peterson, right? So if you don't say something, the conversation is still happening.
It's just the one you say you want isn't happening. It's not the one you actually want because you actually do exactly what you really want so not having it avoiding it with all your 55 reasons why I can't that's the conversation that's there so so I come out from that premise um so you but you can't manage someone else's thoughts but you can obviously influence them I know that's your background as a sales guy marketing guy is you do want to influence but the best thing to do is to say Here's what I would advise and here's what I'd tell myself is There's some things I need to talk about I want to talk about I think we need to talk about I don't know how to say them and it's real slippery and there's landmines all over it in the culture so can we tap dance for a while and give ourselves some grace? Because I want to kind of describe for you what I'm experiencing.
And I hope we have enough grace to really hear each other. So we're going to go real slowly, not because we're idiots, but because these are touchy subjects and try to make sure we understand each other and really understand where each other is coming from in which is always the conversation people are having as well like we're listening to someone like i'm listening to you ryan i'm going to be in uh also several other conversations at the same time do i like ryan do i trust ryan do i believe in does he is he here is he an enemy or a friend? Does he have my best interest at heart? Does he understand me? What's he think about me? And all my insecurities are going to fly up.
Like all that's going to be happening at the same time, just because we have so much RAM available in our brains, right? So we need to put language on that context and clarify where I'm coming from in the point of the conversation, because we're going to get lost in the content and we're going to lose the context. Does that make sense? So there's lots of ways to have it, but you've got to be willing to have it poorly in order to have it well.
I love that you used the term grace. Yes.
I feel like it's a core component to having a conversation with anyone and we've lost so much of that we all want that's what we all need you know I it's funny I'm working on this is out of context but I'm working on an arm sleeve cool I have my shoulder to my elbow done and I'm It's not fully in context of the biblical quote, but I just was working with my tattoo artist. I'm going to have grace upon grace put right on my forearm where I can see it as a reminder to myself, right? Because so much of communicating is actually hearing the feedback that you get post what you say, right? We say something to someone and then, you know, we want to be heard so badly and we, we barf our thing onto them and then we don't do for them what we wanted them to do for us.
And, and it's like, we want grace from them, but we then don't give them the grace to have the response. You know, like you said, right, they're going to hear it however they hear it, regardless of what you say.
And we have to be just as willing as leaders and as communicators to take that feedback and give them grace for their response. It be it poor or angry or depressed or disappointed or, or excited, feedback is.
And do you have a method, and I just want to stay on grace for a second, a method of or philosophy format, formula for cultivating more grace in ourselves? Is it a daily reminder? Is it maybe meeting prep? I know one of the things I did, I had a very poor meeting, poorest meeting, one of the poorest meetings I've ever had. It was a very important meeting.
I knew it was coming. And before that meeting, I think it was at like 10, I had three negative client interactions, three problems that as a CEO of the company,

I was CEO of this particular company, this company I founded and exited from. But I had three client situations I had to deal with, that I had to be involved in and come down and deal with.
And my head is swirling. I have some frustration for things that weren't done or things that were said that shouldn't have been said, et cetera.
And I roll into this meeting full steam with zero prep and I just blew it. I mean, I just went about as poorly as it could have gone and it was all me.
And, um, and what I then just did from that point on and forever was build a 10 minute or five minute. If I don't have the time period to kind of reset myself and say, okay, I'm coming into this meeting.
Here's the point. Right.
And one of those things that I say, especially when I know it's going to be maybe just like something beyond a tactical conversation is I literally will say to myself, grace upon grace. It's why I'm tattooing.
I'm at grace upon grace. Give yourself grace, give them grace, whatever.
But it's not it's a very it's a it's a simple concept but a very tough concept i find sometimes to internalize how how do you recommend leaders work on that aspect of themselves yeah man i love your or do you maybe and sure uh yeah um there's like a couple of main things that come to mind. Personally, and then kind of scientifically.
So and I'm a great guy, just background for people listening. I, I was a pastor for several years.
I'm a nerd ball. I have a master's in theology.
I, I, I was just in this conversation in my kitchen with my son, my 10-year-old son, because I also have a very storied past.

You know, I could rip the paint off these walls with my scandals and my, you know, over drinking and my first marriage and my womanizing and very unfaithful to my first wife and just a mess.

Right. I was doing what a person that's a mess does to deal with the mess internally, right? So I needed grace.
So I'm not like a got it together guy. I'm not a got it together coach and let me tell you the five things because I figured it out.
Yes, I do have some pretty cool ideas, helpful ideas that have been helpful to me. You're in good company, my friend.
You're in good company, don't worry. Anyway, so all that to say, I don't have any shame about that i feel like i feel the potential whatever those even saying all that but it's also i've forgiven myself right so um but you know as i'm talking my kids i walk with walk this you know walk through this with them because i want them to understand why mom and dad are together anymore and it's not just all me either of course um but i also i'm never going to throw their mom under the bus uh ever uh as a commitment and so anyway just in the kitchen with my son i was just saying hey man we're all we all tell the truth and we all lie we do and if you meet someone that says they always tell the truth run from them because they're lying that's a lie a lie.
Everybody lies. Not like we should lie, but our nature is to protect oneself.
And so we will lie or at least not tell the whole truth to do that. And we ought not, we will pay the price.
Consequences are always coming for every lie. And I've got those stories.
So we're always this so we're always this mixed bag of telling the truth and not telling the truth. And, and as soon as you're honest about your deception, you're now an honest person.
It's weird. Like, you know, so all that to say with the grace concept, um, you know, I am what I'm committed to.
I'm not what I've been. And that's tough because, you know, Freudian psychology is the opposite of that.
Freud said, and everybody bit it hook, line and sinker that I am etiological, he called it, right? I am the effect. My history is the cause.
And that's just not true. Unless you want it to be true.
If you want it to be true, it's 100% true. And I'm dysfunctional because my dad and my mom and where I grew up and the color of my skin and my sos, blah, blah, blah.
That can all be true for you if you want. But it's not true.
It's just real for you. So grace is, even though all that is so, like that happened.
I made those decisions. I'm not that person.
For me, that's what grace is. I am forgiven.
I forgive myself. I'm a God guy.
And then whoever wanted to forgave me. If they didn't want to, God bless them.
But I've forgiven myself. I don't need anybody else's forgiveness to forgive myself.
That's what grace is. And I'll move forward and see those mistakes that I made, choices I made as fuel for the future that I'm committed to.
And I don't run from any of it's all real so now this is a I'll start with uh I'll start with how we do with clients because that was a question there is a contextual part of this like the view of self and I won't I could do five hours on this but I'll do one minute we actually use this leadership assessment tool that only 150 of us in the States have access to called the Harrison assessment. I won't nerd out on it now, but there's reasons why we choose it.
It talks about the self. It generates these paradoxes.
So this is the self is a paradox. So we're all in a conversation about self-improvement and who I can be.
We're all in that conversation, even if it's I can be no one, that is the conversation. And then we're also in a conversation about self-acceptance.
I'm okay where I am. We're in that.
And those are a paradox. I'm okay where I am and I'm not going to stay here.
I'm going to improve. That is always happening at the same time, a paradox.
And if I'm really okay where I am and don't have any view of self-acceptance, you know, I'm ignorant and arrogant, right? Because I'm good and that's a dangerous person. If I'm like, probably like you, like me, like most high striving people, really committed to self-improvement and lower on self-acceptance, I'm self-critical and when the stress comes up, like your story about your meeting, if I'm self-critical to naturally deal with the criticism of, I'm the CEO and I had these three negative client interactions and why am I a piece of crap and why are my people this and why is this, da da da da da, but you have a, I can tell integrity matters to you.
And definitely how you, as a person, how you look matters to you and your impact on others matters to you you're going to naturally be self-critical now to deal with that we've become defensive now hello it is ryan and i was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on chumbacasino.com i looked over the person sitting next to me and you know what they were doing they were also playing chumba casino Casino. Everybody's loving having fun with it.
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That's what you did, I'm guessing, in the meeting. Yes.
Yeah, basically, it was one of those conversations, to give you context to how bad it was, it was one of those conversations where I basically pulled the ultimate no-no for a leader, which was just fucking do what I say. Like,'t listen to the excuses I can't listen to your reasons like we have to get this hill taken and everything you're saying to me is is nonsense to take in the hill like just fucking do it and that that statement and I know like literally as it was coming out of my mouth dude i like the other part of me is going what are you saying but the the the bad version the the the devil side of me is just had full control in that moment right on and you know it was like you're like it's like watching a car it was like watching a car wreck in slow motion and as soon as I hit end end on the Zoom meeting, I was like – I knew every mistake I had made.
I knew it was not – I'm like that's not who you are, blah, blah, blah. I literally – I don't coach or have clients like you do, but I have done some coaching.
This is like 101 leadership. Never tell them.
Just do their fucking job like never say that term ever

yeah oh my god yeah it was so bad it was so bad yeah it was so bad but also man just so human right i mean you were being honest that's what you really wanted but you know you knew it wouldn't work and you knew you were just your primal self or your shadow self whatever young would call it that it was not going to work and maybe do some irreparable damage.

So,

but we all go to the, your shadow self, whatever Young would call it, that it was not going to work and maybe do some irreparable damage.

So, but we all go to defense and usually defense looks like being blunt, usually goes to, you

know, strong arming, goes to, you know, these are all these flips on this.

I'm going through the graphs in my head, but we go all, we all go there just to defend

ourselves.

So now, so that's a cool assessment. I can send you the assessment.
We could talk through. It's really great.
Um, now, but on a personal front, I know if I'm, if I have, I mean, for a whole era, like after I left that first marriage, um, I got sober and did all this stuff and turn my life around. Um, but what I used to do to ground myself, which is what I, my language for what you're talking about, how do I ground myself? Well, I've got to get clear on what matters to me no matter what.
And how do I get myself out of the mood that I find myself in, whether it's elation or whether it's deprivation, whatever it is, and find the most healthy mood that's the most, I would call it generative, right?

So I can be really clear, be really straight with someone and be really loving simultaneously

back to the first part of the conversation, both masculine and feminine.

How do I do that?

For me, I used to literally write on my thumb, GHG on my thumb every morning for about two

years.

Why did I do that?

GHG stood for three things, grateful, honest, and generous. And it was an icon for me to know, oh, that's home for me.
I'm grateful, meaning I'm not going to be at all, I'm not at all interested in self-pity. Whatever's here is beautiful.
Not like fantasy land. First's first off, I can start with wherever we are.
If someone is blowing it, I can start there and I will start there. It's the only place to start anyway, is to start there.
And I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for this opportunity.
I'm the leader. I employ this person.
I feed their family, help them feed their family, however you want to say it. And they're struggling, obviously, based on results.
They're struggling. And I'm called to this moment in time.
This is cool. I'm the guy, the right guy for the job.
Why? I'm the guy in the job. So I'm grateful for it.
Honest, which has been more of, especially at that time, was more of a struggle for me. I mean, I had, you know, been lied to lots of people, but I also most importantly lied to myself.
Like I was unwilling to have thousands of conversations, which is why I got in such a bad spot in my own life. So honest really means full self-expression.
I'm going to say what's there for me. I might not know what's there for me, but I'm going to explore what's there for me with them.
And I'm going to take a shot. I'm not going to hide, not going to be a doormat, not going to be a strong arm.
be a strong arm. I'm going to be real with what's there for me.
Even the confusion. I'll just put language to the confusion because it's probably similar to what they're feeling.
If I'm the leader and I'm confused, you better believe they're confused. Probably worse.
They're probably really resentful because I'm paid to be clear. And then generous.
Maybe the most important. I don't know.
But I'm here to make a difference for them. I'm here to make an impact for them, period.
And it doesn't matter who they are with me. They could be angry and full of shit and whatever.
That's cool. I'll start there, man.
You're struggling. I think you're, I said this to a client last week.
I think you're lying to me and that's okay. I've lied before.
Can we talk about it? You know, so being generous, uh, and obviously I mean, as a way of, not just like giving money and that kind of stuff, but to be a generous being. So that's one of the ways I do it, have done it in the past, still do it, you know, or might even be shorter than that.
I remember in key moments in my life, I would just have little mantras to myself, like I'm a gift, I'm a gift, I'm a gift, I'm a gift. You know, so it is great to have that space and make sense.
You created some space for yourself to kind of reground yourself. I tell my clients that all the time because we have got, you know, sessions that are set up throughout the month.
But I said, you just call me. Bet to walk into a big meeting.
Call me. I'll be your, you know, I'll be, I'm your corner man.
That's the metaphor I always use is let's get yourself straight. So you don't mess that up because not all moments are the same, right? are worth millions of dollars some are just worth nothing cost you a million dollars so but the ones that you need to be there for you better get your head straight and don't don't don't and don't last thing i'll say is don't give your future to your whims give your future to your commitments you know one of the things i think is interesting is we often don't know the value of a particular meeting.
We may walk into a meeting, right, and think that it's an everyday run-of-the-mill tactical meeting. And if we're not thinking clearly, as you said, if we're not honest, if we're not present, if we're not direct and clear in what we're trying to say, you don't know that something someone hears in that meeting could put them on a path.
It could create resentment for them and they start to disassociate. There's so many things that can happen if we don't approach each one of these situations as if, right? It doesn't, it may not be for the million dollar sale, as you said, like on paper, but it could be for the million dollar sale six months from now in terms of how you approach it.
And there's this, you know, going back to some of what you said, there's this example is going to sound trite, but it's been it was meaningful to me in so much as the example is maybe a little ludicrous. But in the most recent Deadpool Wolverine movie, there's one scene that I find to be very deep.
The movie, for the most part, is exactly what you would expect from a Deadpool Wolverine movie if you haven't seen it. But which is fine.
Gratuitous action and comedy. But there is one like fairly deep moment that I think actually I've internalized a little bit.
And it's a moment where kind of the hero, in this case Wolverine, is pulling back. In this scenario, this version of multiverse version of Wolverine is like the worst Wolverine of all the Wolverines, right? That's kind of the scenario.
And the young girl that in a previous movie he had protected and died for in order to allow her to save. And this is a Wolverine from another multiverse.
Hopefully this makes sense to everyone listening. If they haven't seen these movies, it gets a little screwy.
But he says to her, I'm not the guy. And as she's walking away, she stops and turns back at him and looks and says, you were never right guy and what that said to me was if you're in the seat regardless of what you feel about yourself right you are the person for that thing like you don't have to believe but everybody else believes because you're in the seat right and if And if there's nothing else, that can give you power.
It can give you confidence. It can give you clarity on what you're supposed to do.
You can, you know, none of us are the right guy or gal, right? There is no right guy or gal, which is really the point. There's no right person.
There's no, it's, can you be the thing that you need to be in that moment to achieve the goal that needs to get done. And sometimes that's, you know, being more masculine.
Sometimes that's being more feminine. And most of the time, it's having some ability to intermingle the two in whatever appropriate mix makes sense to execute the mission.
And my question out of this diatribe is many of us stay surface, right? We find ourselves in these places because you said something that I wrote down that I've been waiting to come back to. Specificity is dangerous.
And I think the reason we stay shallow and we stay high level is because if we crack the surface and try to become more, what if more of me still isn't good enough? And when you approach people and with all your background in theology, and I'm obviously a believer too, my tattoo is the American flag with an insect cross. I'm just, I firmly believe in, in, in have a very strong relationship with God, but how do we work through that mindset as leaders? Because to me, to get to all this depth that you've discussed, right?

We have to be willing to take that first step, which is being okay with trying harder and having and still being okay if we fail. Yeah.
Wow. You're right in my wheelhouse.
This is what I care about. This is why I do this work, because it's primal.
Like everybody. There's this quote that a client of mine told me.
I think it's a Don Miller quote, if you know Don. I think it's Don.
Maybe he was quoting somebody else. But he said, we all, something like, we all yearn to be fully known and to be loved anyway.
obviously alluding the fact there's shit in all of us that we don't want to be public and we're scared to death of and we're irredeemed still and all those things and the devils we fight in our private lives and things we're unwilling to face. And we all have that, all of us.
Every single human, I would assert, has that. And that's what we're dying to say and dying to have heard and then someone look us in the eye and say hey I'm with you you're okay love you anyway because for me that's the voice of God that's the most beautiful thing about the whole redemption story is that oh yeah you are you are it's worse than you think and you're loved more than you can imagine that it just gives me goosebumps because we're all dying for that i know i am um it's become popular this imposter syndrome uh framework become popular because this is it right this is the what if they what if they think of me like I actually privately think of myself?

And then people say they suffer from imposter syndrome. They don't.
We just have language for it now that helps me know what I'm still avoiding and helps me know the risk I'm still unwilling to take. So you can tell all my language is always hyper responsible, so it comes off maybe kind of harsh.
I don't mean it that way, but honest truth is always like, you know, harsh. It's tough.
It cuts us. And that's the point of it is it's here for us to mold us.
So to answer your question, if someone is in this context, I'm not going to reconfigure the question. There are parts of us that, well, a handful of things.
First off, whatever confession you end up making, whatever you say to your group, I always say like the leader's confession is he's the last one to the party. Everybody knows whatever you like are going to say to your group or say to your team that seems so vulnerable to you.
They talk about it already. Trust me.
They know it. They, you know, so you're the last one at the party, whatever you're going to decide to finally own in public, they've known it for a long time.
So that's relieving kind of, it's kind of not relieving. Um, but I would say that, that like your impact speaks more than your intentions.
Um, so, but you'll be more free. And this is how, this is, I think the leadership into the next generation, the more honest the leader is, the more magnetic they will be, which is different than the more impressive the leader is, the more magnetic they will be.
That was that's previous generations. This, the future generations are just dying for an honest conversation because the world is weirder and weirder and tougher and tougher for them.
And that's a whole day long seminar about why I say that's true. But so the more honest you can be, will be, because it's always never an ability.
It's always a willingness. Because can you be sure? Are you willing to be is the only question that matters.
And that is, am I willing to to take the gamble that if I'm honest, they won't run. If I'm honest, will they get closer? Like if we have the conflict, will there be more trust or less? That's up for grabs, but it is a hundred percent connected to who you are and how you are in the conflict.
So it's hard for me to put this in a thimble here, but we all wrestle with this. And the more that you're willing even to describe the wrestling, the more people are going to open up with you.
And if you want to build a thriving culture, this is all connected to results. There's money and then there are hills.
Because the more honest someone can be with what their real experience is, both of themselves and what they make about others and what they make about clients in the market, if you can get to that core conversation, not everybody's paid to be a coach or a psychologist, don't go be that. But you need to have language for how to engage with people at their root level.
That's how you shift people. You get beyond the symptoms and into the real causal issues.
And it's easier than you think. It's just more dangerous.
And you know it's dangerous. That's why you've not been doing it.
But most of us aren't trained in how to do it. And that's why people love to have us around or people like us around because we give them the shortcuts to it.
So it's always necessary. And this is why leaders suffer in silence, that whole thing, or it's lonely at the top.
That's because of this. Because we get to a place where we feel like we've been selling our persona for so long, we've lost who we are as a person.
So anyway, I think it's a brilliant question, and I don't know if I answered it very well. But there's a lot in there.
Adrian Kaler, my friends, this has been phenomenal. I could do three more hours with you and keep going.
Appreciate the hell out of you. Real quick, if people are interested, if they do want to work with you, they do want to learn more about your world, or just be around your content and what you do, how do they get in touch with you? Where should they go? The company is Take New Ground, takenewground.com.
You can follow me, message me on Instagram, Adrian dot K on Instagram. Those are two easiest ways and love to talk with anybody, anybody in your world.
Love your vibe, man. Love where you're coming from.
Love your heart. We're, we could be best friends.
Um, so anybody in your world, I'm interested in giving some time to just explore and help support people. So if you're wondering if it's worth it, it is.
So reach out.

I appreciate the hell out of you.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks, man. I'm Ryan Seacrest here.
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Through HERS, you can get dermatologist-trusted, clinically-proven prescriptions with ingredients that go beyond what over-the-counter products offer. Whether you prefer oral or topical treatments, HERS has you covered.
Getting started is simple. Just fill out an intake form online, and a licensed provider will recommend a customized plan just for you.
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