Adrian Koehler - Taking New Ground in Leadership - Part 2
I don't think you could have a conversation with Adrian Koehler and not get excited about becoming a stronger leader. You will definitely pick up on it in this two-part episode with him! I had a great time getting to know Adrian and his clear and determined view of how to take leaders to a higher place where leadership will look, feel, and be different.
Links and Resources from the Episode:
Click here to connect with Adrian on LinkedIn
Click here to learn more about The Revenant Process
Click here to listen to The Naked Leadership Podcast
Click here to visit the Take New Ground website
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The Bosshole® Chronicles
“Adrian Koehler - Taking New Ground - Part 2”
Original Publish Date: 12/12/2023.
Host: John Broer
Adrian Koehler: There's all these things that we're scared to death to know about ourselves. But we do know, and we call it hugging the cactus.
John Broer: Hugging the cactus. That's right. Just another gem that you're going to get from Adrian Koehler in part two of my conversation with him. And, by the way, if you didn't hear part one, I want you to stop this episode right now. Go back, listen to part one, because it will give you so much more context of Adrian's incredible insight, the work he does with business owners and leaders entrepreneurs. Again, it was just such an enjoyable conversation that I had with him that we had to put it in two parts. So, now that you've heard part one, buckle up, because we're about to drop some more knowledge on the Bosshole Transformation Nation. Let's get to the episode.
The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode. There's all these things that we're scared to death to know about ourselves, but we do know, and that's we call it hugging the cactus.
AK: I wanted to get to that. Yeah, I wanted to get to hugging the cactus.
JB: You know it's. What do we mean by that?
AK: There are parts of Adrian - thoughts, feelings, behaviors that I'm sure that if you knew you'd run for the hills and we all have that. I could talk about mine with hypercolor, with no problem, just because I'm a big fan of hypercolor, with no problem, just because I've, you know, I'm committed to owning.
JB: You've explored it. Yeah, I talked about it.
AK: I think about it several times a day just because I don't want to just be a zombie and just act like that. Stuff's not true. No, it's true, it's there. I mean, it does not always true, but my worst characteristics are always available to me and if I spend my life trying for that not to be true, I'm going to be doing what Adler said living a life lie, because we all do that, whatever.
Our biggest insecurity is like. One of mine is that I'm stupid, I'm not very smart, or one of them is that, like I'm too intense and that's all those. All I could tell you where that happened in my life and where the blah, blah, blah, but if I don't watch it, I try to prove that I'm smart and I try to chill out because I'm too much for people. That was the bigger narrative when I was a kid. Or it's like okay, I'm not that smart and I hang out with really smart people now and I coach world class thinkers and oh, I'm not a world class thinker. So I got to like do my own thing and try to prove that I'm smarter than I actually think I am. I could spend my time doing that. That's playing not to lose. If I play to win, I can just own that part of me and like maybe I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, that's okay, and maybe I'm too intense. I mean, it's like maybe I'm too intense for 70% of humanity, that's okay, I'll hang out with the 30% they think I'm great, you know the point is that we've all got these things.
That might be moral things. Maybe you're prone to lie, or maybe you're prone to like cheat, or maybe you're prone to, prone to steal, or maybe you're prone to like you know, be a nice guy and you know you're lying. There's lots of nice guys out there. Lots of people work with, with boss holes, are busy being nice guys and they're lying. Oh yeah, that's exactly right. It's a great hiding technique is because then you get to be self-righteous and get to, you know, be the center of gossip and anyway, if you're listening, you know I'm talking about it might be you or you know the guy on your team. That's like that, you know. And if that's a cactus, that's something that if we were to own it it'll hurt us, it'll hurt our view of ourselves, at least the way we relate to it. It'll hurt our view and we say hug the cactus, because if I can befriend the things I'd rather not to be so, then I'm really unstoppable. Right, you know?
Like if you said, "Adrian, you're arrogant, I know I can be arrogant at times and Adrian, you're really arrogant and if you say that to me, I could either defend that or I could say, "you're right, man, I could totally be that way. How did you see that today? I mean, what makes you say that now? And I, oh, okay, I get it. My bad, sorry, let's start over. Okay, it's not a problem and I'm free and I can go. I, you know, it's like none of your judgments of me would surprise me, because they mirror most of mine right. So if I've got some level of self-acceptance, which most Bossholes don't, mm-hmm, because they're busy making enemies of other people. We only do that if we don't want people close to us, right, right, if I don't like myself, I spend my time keeping people away, and aggression is a great way to keep people away. Keep, keep people in fear so they don't get too close, because I don't want them to see what I'm scared to death to see of myself. But if I can hug the cactus and all that stuff, that becomes what you said earlier with that example. If I can own all my dark side and speak of it with grace and speak of it with honesty and it becomes an invitation like our scars become, like our mistakes become wonderful invitations for other people to show up to the table.
JB: Absolutely in authenticity, absolutely. I, you know, you've been and you mentioned a couple of times about how, in circumstances, managers, supervisors, Bossholes, whatever people, people in general, you, you talk about trying to show up in a certain way - artificially in authenticity. We would call that impression management. In other words, they go, they are so focused on, on how they show up that is nowhere close to, maybe, who they are and who they're trying to cultivate or create as in terms of this facade. Well, in our world, what that diminishes is what we would call psychological safety, the the kind of, the kind of truth and performance that can come from authentic, vulnerable, trust-based relationships and
I know there are people say out there going, "man, that that doesn't even exist. It absolutely does exist and and, but it's not easy to get to. And you, you have hit on the fact that if you can't hug that cactus, if you can't own that, then everything else is going to be very hard to achieve. But I love, I love, I love metaphors, I love analogies. Adrian, let me ask you this oh, I want to go back to shame. You've mentioned shame and you said before, and I wrote this down Shame is not a feeling, it is a self-protecting tool.
Yes you know I've heard people talk about getting into a shame spiral, yeah. So where does- talk a little bit more about that shame and your perspective on it?
AK: Yeah, so good to probably make a quick distinction shame and guilt. Guilt's a good thing. Guilt is you know, I messed that thing up and it hurt other people and and I did that thing and I had to feel guilty about it. And if you don't, if you don't feel guilty about your mistakes, then you're a psychopath and you got a look in the mirror and you're not gonna get the life you want if you don't feel guilty. You ought to feel guilt about things. It's good. It's good to feel guilty. It's like a sense of consciousness, like I actually do care about my impact on the other, on other people in the world. So when I don't, when I don't hit that mark, I want to feel a cringe inside of myself right now about what I did. This is a distinction. So guilt is a negative feeling associated with an action or an inaction, like what I did or didn't do, or what I said or didn't say, whatever it could be on both sides. Okay, that's good to feel guilty. Now, shame is distinct. Shame is I did that bad thing, so I'm bad. It's an identity based conversation. So I am the bad thing that I did, like I lied to that person, so I'm a liar, so that becomes identity. Now, if we have that view of ourselves and it might be I've been assigned to us from somebody else or whatever. It doesn't matter where it comes from if I start to actually believe that about myself, it's, it's, it's criminal, hmm, it's dangerous. And it's criminal dangerous in the sense that, like, the brain is always out to prove what you tell it to prove. So if I say I'm a liar, I will go be that person. If I have that view, I will naturally go do that or live to make sure that I'm not doing that. Either way, that conversation is controlling my, my experience and my perception and my actions and all that. And if I, if I'm scared that I'm a liar, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be doubling down all the time and trying to prove to people I'm telling them the truth.
Now I say it's not a feeling. I say that it's a, it's a protective strategy. Why is that? Because if I am living in shame, first off, there's lots of payoffs to shame, lots of them. Like, if I'm in a conversation with someone that's really shameful, I'll just say why do you like being so full of shame? And they'll say what? I don't like being so full of shame. What are you talking about? I hate this. I wish I didn't feel this way. I wish you didn't do the same. Blah, blah, blah. I'm like well, let's say, reality tells the truth and we don't.
So if I'm living in shame often and having this experience or having this quote-unquote feeling often, I'm, I'm prone to wonder, I wonder, why I like it. That's a counterintuitive question that most people won't ask themselves. Because it's shame is quote-unquote bad. And if it's bad, why would I like it? Blah, blah. But if it's a pattern, for me it's, it's. It's helpful to wonder about why I like the pattern, even if I'm busy complaining about it. Right, because in any kind of racket I would say, because anytime I have something around that I say I don't like, for a long period of time, like it's a chronic complaint, there's all.
There's always three things with it. One is there's a system of behavior that keeps the complaint alive. So you can watch your life and say how do I keep putting myself in this situation number one, and keep those feelings alive, even because sometimes if, like you, feel bad about something and someone says it's okay, man, don't worry about it, you'll be like oh no, but I'm still. I can't believe I did that and you got a big drama, long story, but I keep the thing alive. So that's number one. Number two is there are always payoffs to the racket. There's always payoffs. There's reasons why and it's an under the table negotiation. So there's things. There's like reasons why I like it. Like you know, we're just real quick for the sake of time.
Why do I like shame? I get sympathy. I get to. I get to not be 100% responsible. I usually get to blame somebody else. I get to lower the bar about my own participation. I get to you know, to myself and then other people. I say you know, so I'm not so good at this thing and blah, blah.
It's like I'm at whatever store we've got that we're shameful about, and I get to be a victim. I get there's lots of payoffs to it and I get people's attention all the time, all the people that are like always woes me. They love the attention of that. They love the attention. Otherwise they, you know they wouldn't do it All right. So there's payoffs and there's also always prices to it as well. So like I actually don't have dignity and I can't actually generate a future that I want because I don't trust myself and I'm not that trustworthy to myself and I'm not that trustworthy for other people, because as soon as I feel bad about something, I pull myself out of the game and I can't be trusted. When the when the clock is ticking you know there's lots of we go through a long list of prices. So shame is a big deal and shame especially my experience with top performers.
They almost all deal with it at a deep level and it's almost like that's why they end up being so closed off and arrogant, because they don't want people to think poorly of them and as poorly as they think about themselves. Most people aren't actually into being successful. Most people are actually into not being unsuccessful, which is a very different game. Like you know, they're like striving, always striving, always want to make it work, always needing to get their name in the paper, and blah, blah, blah. Why? Because they're scared to death. They don't matter, they're scared to death. They're gonna be a failure, just like their brother, just like their dad, just like the other people that look like me and from my background. So I'm running from loss, running from death, instead of pursuing life and pursuing victory. Yeah, so everybody deals with it and there's not a real space to deal with it. That's why we do the revenue process.
JB: And we will be right back.
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JB: Okay, let's get back to the program.
AK: Which is? It got four-day deep dive personal leadership exercise. So it's four days, it's like 12-hour days. We don't mess around, it's highly participatory. So it's not like me with a, you know, in front of a whiteboard just teaching stuff, because human beings, adults, especially high-functioning adults, don't shift, don't transform with information. We find it interesting but it expires pretty quickly. So you got, actually you're not there as a student, you're there as a participant.
People come into the room because they're only allowed in the room if they know why they're there. Like what in your life do you want to make a big shift in? And we help people get prepped for that. And they utilize we call it a gym, we utilize the gym, we utilize the space in order to exercise, being what they want right now.
And so you know, we know that, like we are, there's so much of what's happening for us as individuals and it's all happening in the belief world, right, like we know this from neuroscience now we've known it for a long time from all the philosophers and psychologists, and now we know that everything we do I say like this all results come out of actions we take or don't take, all action comes out of decisions we make or don't make, and all decisions come out of thinking and every thought we've ever had comes out of belief system period. Not going to get around that, that's just the filter by which we live. And if I don't question, most of us don't question our beliefs, we try to make the best of a shitty belief system instead of being one to take a look at what are the beliefs that are governing my life, because I guarantee any place in your life where there's breakdown, there's something off and what you think about and how you approach the thing. I mean the vitality in life comes out of our relationship to life itself and relationship to other people and relationship to ourselves. It's always our relatedness and that's a belief conversation, right?
So there's not a lot of space to go do that. You can go read a book, maybe. You can go sit with a therapist, maybe, but there's not a lot of space to go work that out in real time and get feedback, because we're all you know Zander, maybe the philosopher that said the perspective of human beings fluctuates between flattery and pure fantasy. So we can't. We don't see ourselves very well, right? So we need to get in a space in which there's lots of love and lots of commitment for you to get what you want, and that's what the room is for us and it's fantastic. We've got, you know we've got, I think, six of them next year. There's been so much demand we're going to do a whole bunch of them.
The next one's going to be in Boise, Idaho, in February and then we're going to do one in LA and it's with my business partner. He's been doing these for 40 years. He's the best in the world at this. He says there's one other guy better than him. I don't think so. He's the best. If you, if you're into leadership, I just, if you don't do anything else, come and watch Dan Tachini work a room this, if you're like me, like you, just in awe of human beings that can presence a room. There's nobody better than Dan. That's why I'm partners with him. That's why I hired him originally when I ran a foundation, I hired him to come in and we did.
We did these types of trainings with murderers in prison and then we trained the murderers how to do the trainings and the recidivism rate. If you go through our three day training called Ready for Life, it goes from 87% most 87 out of 100 guys and they leave prison. They'll come back. If you go through our program, that goes down to 12%. Oh my gosh. Why? Oh my gosh? Because the whole conversation is about how to get out of a victim mindset and get into a responsible mindset. If you do that, you're unstoppable. Yeah, so anyway, Revenant changed my life. I went through it, you know, 15 years ago, and now I get to co-train it with Dan. I'm gonna do it solo and in LA. So if you want to watch me look like a fool in front of the group of people, come on.
JB: Well, and if I may, I may just remind our listeners get into the show notes. The links to the Revenant process will be in there. So you know, take up, Adrian. And, by the way, just just a circle back to something that you said. Yeah you said that you know. This is why I partnered with Dan. See that's how smart you are. Yeah, see what I mean.
AK: Well, as soon as I met Dan I- you know I love mentorship, I love being an apprentice, right, I'm a stud, I can do whatever as well. I'm not like myself.
I'm an expert in my field, right, and that's great. But yet, man, I- it's a thrilling ride to like, never be done developing, yes, that's what else. What else can I? You know how good could it get? That's the, that's the game that never ends and that's thrilling to me.
So I want to be around people that Dan are very different people and we've got very different views on so many things, right, which is all great and distinct, and that's great. So there's aspects of Dan that I want to ever be like, but there's this domain that he's the best, yeah, and I don't know. I mean, he believes in me and he'll, he'll say nice things about me in public, but I don't, I don't need to be like him, but I want to absorb everything I got, just because I'm committed to his legacy and I'm committed to my own, and so it's just such a thrill to go. You know, and I'm, it is when people come to the room. It's very vulnerable for them. It's, yeah. We took a survey recently of 2,000 people, I think it was. 97% of the people said it was the top three experience in their life. Oh, my gosh.
So great, that's a lot and it is that way for me too, like when I'm up in the front of the room training, I'm in a training myself. I'm not just their teaching stuff, which is part of what makes it distinct. It's not like expert student, no, no, no, we're in this thing together called life. We're all full of shit and we're all full of potential. So here we are now let's have all the real conversations and be transformed.
JB: Yeah, set the pretense aside and let's get to work. Okay, listen in the time, Adrian, in the time we have left, and this has been great and I, and I I knew that the, our listeners were in for a treat with this episode. Tell me what's around the corner. You've got some exciting things going on. What's the thing that's going to shift things?
AK: Yeah, for you.
JB: Moving forward.
AK: We know. I know that, like, when I got a hold of this type of work, this, this philosophy they're just based on phenomenology. So I'm good, hey, hi, gold and high digger, there's certain, there's certain philosophies that really make a huge difference for people. When I got a hold of this work and got to see it in person and then got to now start to practice it, it's not enough. I want to scale it. I want, I want everybody to get a chance to do that shift from I am at effect of reality or I'm creating reality. Okay, that's, there's a big difference. So, but the only shift is to take ownership, and so we want to scale the conversation. We want to serve as many people as we can, and I don't want to work 25 hours a day. So one of the ways we've done this is we've partnered with Danny Techini, who's a world renowned coder and is top shelf when it comes to AI, and what we've done is we've taken our type of inquiry and baked it in to this program called Maven and we're about to launch this. We'll launch it in the next two months and essentially, it is a coach in your pocket. Like, imagine that when you have any kind of challenge any kind of complaint you can. We're doing it via text instead of app, because who needs another app? It's like you're texting your best friend. You can say hey, I'm on this conversation with John and he is such a stuck up jerk I don't know what to do about him. He won't change his mind, he won't do this and won't do that. What should I do?
And it leads you through a series of inquiry in order, first off, to get clear about the real problem, because most people can't get a solution because they don't know the real problem. So you get down to it and really clearly define what the real problem is. And then you move from clarity into ownership. Okay, good, how have I contributed to this? How is it the way it is? So how have I been participating? Are there other alternatives, the ways to look at it versus the way I'm looking at it, cause we're all dogmatic and create our own hell that way. And how do I need to look about this thing so I can really own it, so I can be willing to do something about it? And then, what do I do about it? And what are the courageous actions I can go take today in order to shift that thing to get the way I wanted to get.
So who do you do you got? Maybe you hire you- you hire somebody like me that does that, or it's in your pocket and you can just send them a text message. Now we've got it. Actually, I can just speak into it and it'll speak right back to me, which is really cool. So we know this is gonna change the game for people that are striving to make the world better, make the workplace better, make a difference with other people. It's called Maven, it's gonna come out soon and I can follow up with you whenever we're ready to launch the thing. Oh, please do please do so people can play with it.
Or I can you, know, after this, John, I'll send it to you and you can play with it, because we're gonna. We want as many people to get this as possible. We have a very generous financial structure that people that you know can do it on an enterprise level. Anyway, it's gonna be great for everybody. But mostly people get free. They get- they could see more possibilities and not just be stuck with the options in life. Immediate yeah, right there right now and there that's huge.
JB: The immediacy of that is great. Oh my gosh, Adrian, I'm excited for you. Well, and I'm excited that, listen. Yes, please keep us up to date on how that's rolling out, how things are going. A reminder to everybody go to the show notes, check out Adrian's links and more about the Revenant process and, by the way, there's another program called the Intrepid Leadership Process. Go check that out. But, Adrian, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this. I just wanna thank you for sharing your story, your work with the Bosshole Transformation Nation, and how about if you come back sometime? We'd love to have you back.
AK: I would love it. Man, you're a class act man. I just- a natural camaraderie and I get what you're up to in life, man, and we don't know each other very well, but sometimes you're just around people. You're like I, like this guy, like Salt of the Earth, like this guy's he's really about what he's talking about, and so I just feel your presence. So thank you, man, for your commitment to this community that you've built and your commitment to the future. That's worth having and it's awesome.
So I'd love to come back at any point and just for anybody listening, life's short and you're important and you I'm getting emotional now. I just think you know I dare you. I dare you to get after it, and a lot of times, if you're a hard-charging person, which you probably are if you're listening to this, it might take a step back and listening more and dealing with some more of these inner conversations, and I know John and his team. They're a big resource for you. Of course, we are taking new ground too. So we're just here, committed to having the most vital experience we can have. So thanks for listening and if we can be of any assistance to you down the road, we're here for you, hey man brother, that was it.
JB: That was it. This is great, Adrian. Thanks again.
AK: John, you're the best. Thanks, buddy, I'd love to come back whenever it's appropriate. Awesome rock and roll anytime, all right.
JB: Sounds great and we will see you next time on the Bosshole Chronicles.
We'd like to thank our guests today on the Bosshole Chronicles and if you have a Bosshole Chronicles story of your own, please email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles.com. Once again, mystory@thebossholechronicles.com. We'll see you again soon.