Harnessing Self-Leadership: The Key to Executive Success, Influence and Resilience with Anatoly Yakorev

Introduction: 0:17

Welcome to Unfazed Under Fire, a podcast that supports executives to deepen their impact in resiliency in an increasingly chaotic and uncertain world. Your mission facilitates the growth of enlightened leaders who build empowering, high-performing cultures that unify great talent and turn profound visions into reality. Now, tuning into your needs, here's your host and moderator, seasoned executive coach and the resilient leadership guy, David Kregatz.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 0:49

Hello and welcome back to Unfazed Under Fire. I'm your host, David Kregatz, the resilient leadership guy, and again, as I've said many times, our stand on this show is that human beings have all the resourcefulness they need within them to rise above and address the biggest challenges we face, and are to do so with grace. Now, the first step to tapping into this inner resourcefulness, which is your birthright, comes from recognizing that leading and living are inside out journeys and experiences. Then, in a sense, the world you see out there is a projection of your consciousness. Now, this is not just me saying this. Neurosciences has already proven this is the case. And when I say that and when neuroscience says that, it's not saying that there aren't people and objects and events out there. Obviously, that's true. What the research has shown is that we don't see the world as it is, but rather we interpret it as it is. That's why leadership is so important, because true leaders realize it is through their vision they are crafting a new reality, not simply trying to control others and events to form to their vision. Thus, leadership is inherently creative and again, when you realize this, things become much more interesting and inspiring.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 2:06

Now on today's show, I welcome back Anatoly Yakorev to the show to discuss the underpinnings of this critical understanding of the inside out journey of leadership development.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 2:17

In short, we want to provide more meat on the bone by zeroing in on defining what we call self-leadership.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 2:24

How do we know when self-leadership is being engaged, the process of developing it, and why its continued development is so essential, no matter how senior or experienced you become in your role as an executive?

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 2:38

Now for those who are just being introduced to Anatoly for the first time, Anatoly brings a very rich background that includes having worked for over 25 years as a cross-cultural consultant at BP Amaco, so we understand firsthand the pressures of what it means to be in the executive suite. Over the next 25 years, following his days at BP Amaco, Anatoly served as an ethics and compliance consultant, and now he and there, asking for ders to show up who can bring us together and who genuinely care to e the quality of life on this anet for everyone rather than st having a few benefits than divide us ju of genuinel us I are working together, and I'm very honored to be working with him to focus on helping enlighten leadership, rapidly expand a world that is yearning for it. The voices are growing louder and louder out there for leaders who want to bring us together rather than divide us . So I want to welcome you back to the show, Antony. It's great to have you back on this important subject today.

Anatoly Yakorev: 3:42

Thanks for having me again, David.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 3:44

Appreciate it. So I'm going to set a little context, as I usually do for this show. In our last show with you, which was my first podcast of 2024, we discussed the power and success of the resilient leader method that you and I have co-developed over the last two years. And as a quick reminder for our listeners, the resilient leader method combines two components the leadership resilience reset process that, in short, resets one's nervous system to close to original factory settings. So imagine having the nervous system you had when you were eight, nine and 10 years old before life had its way with you. So this means that following the reset, the executive is cleared of any accumulated emotional junk from life, including key traumas they may have experienced. Now this reset is followed with a leadership resilience coaching program that supports executives to integrate their new experience post-reset and learn to effectively engage this new version of themselves in their leadership role. So, in short, the resilient leader method process instantly generates what we call military grade resilience for executives and supports them to maximize the benefits of this reset and support of generating greater value in their roles. And if awakening to higher level resilience isn't enough, given the times we find ourselves in, clients are also consistently reporting other benefits from doing the reset, including about a 30-plus percent increase in focus, energy and creativity and a 40 percent or more increase in self-confidence. Further, we're seeing a 50 percent increase in tangible success in various results that these executives must generate in their roles. And finally and I have to give a shameless plug about this, because we have actually seen a 100 percent success rate in that every executive who has been through this process has reported similar results.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 5:49

So today we want to speak about what the resilient leader method is really bringing forward in these clients, which is a rapid blossoming of an entirely new level of self-leadership, and the self-leadership, the igniting of self-leadership, is foundational to any executive who wants to lead teams and organizations at a higher level, and this is what we want to, why I brought Anders totally back to talk to this talk about this. So the development of self-leadership has been a primary focus of my work for 24 years before I met Anatoly, and was very shortly after we started working together. We realized that the reset process that he brings is putting executives on what I would call kind of self-leadership development rocket ship. That happens very, very quickly in their experience. So, anatoly, I just thought we would start today by defining what we mean by self-leadership, and why don't you start sharing what your point of view is on what that is?

Anatoly Yakorev: 6:56

Thank you, david.

Anatoly Yakorev: 6:57

I would like to actually start with saying that the whole concept of self-leadership has been out there, especially in my area of business ethics and compliance, because the pressure has been building steadily on leaders to demonstrate the kind of quality as of stewardship and servant leadership that's been bubbling sort of like aside from executive coaching development, but nevertheless there's a lot of expectations have been created for executives and they found that to be quite challenging because one of the key components for self-leadership lies in the ability to lead others from the heart and be connected very deeply with themselves, to be able to become of service to others.

Anatoly Yakorev: 7:47

And yes, it sounds sort of like fluffy and because there's a lot that has been written on the subject. But at the same time, as we go and we'll look at the quality of the self-leadership component, it actually has more value for the person who abides by the principle of self-leadership, not to say talk much about the ripple effect that it creates for the teams, but the fact that self-leadership is deeply rooted and helps bring together other components like creativity, clarity, confidence, centeredness, and then, we're not last but not the least, the qualities that a leader espouses to have and actually is able to project onto others in his leadership style. So that's why we are talking about an approach that covers a lot of ground yet ultimately goes back to how we connect to ourselves within ourselves, in that search to bring out the greatness in us.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 8:53

Yeah, that's so true. I really like what you said about. It is truly this is what we mean by an inside out journey. So the more you understand what you are mastering within yourself to be more effective in life, and when you start digging down into that question of how can I be more effective, what you're pointing to is that there was already a qualities that exist within us that, if we understand how to uncover them like clarity, creativity, confidence, centeredness, presence, persistence, the ability to engage people in a conversation where we are deeply, truly listening, so that we can be creative together those things are available to us. And it's almost like the image I like is the block of granite. The sculpture is in the block of granite.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 9:53

It's not so much about creating the sculptures, about chipping away everything that is not the sculpture, and that's really, I think, a great metaphor for the journey of self-leadership is chipping away at those things that keep us from having that clarity, that natural creativity, that natural confidence that every human being has available within themselves. And yet, because we did not know this, we didn't know that there was this part of ourself. Nobody told us this when we grew up. We kind of allowed other people to direct us and allowed experiences and our interpretation of those experiences and traumas to form to cover up all those natural traits. So, given that definition or that view of leaders, what does it look like when self-leadership is fully actualized in a person, when a person is truly leading from this internal self of theirs and they're dealing with being an executive moving forward in their organizations to try to make things happen? What does that look like behaviorally when it's activated in your mind? You've seen that activated in people.

Anatoly Yakorev: 11:04

Well, it's interesting because when executives understand that there is a certain authority that they step into and they expect it to act, given their responsibilities and their authority, which is it's the outside, that level of external authority that they have to work with, whereas we're talking about with the self-leadership, it's being like reclaiming your personal authority, your self-authority.

Anatoly Yakorev: 11:33

So therefore, that opens up a completely new dimension of how much you can apply yourself and your role and how much you can claim from your ability to connect with yourself and connect with others.

Anatoly Yakorev: 11:46

And I think the enlightened leadership applied methodology can serve as a good foundational basis for that approach, because at the core of the methodology you would look at the ability to produce or generate the executive presence which is the supporting element of the central competency of self-leadership.

Anatoly Yakorev: 12:11

And that's definitely critical to the development of that self-leadership, because it helps project the level of priorities that you have to attend to and be, at the same time, very conscious about what you're doing, when you're doing it and how you can respond to that, as well as give you enough ammunition when you go into situations that lots of executives face on a daily basis, that sometimes the level of unpredictability and nature of those things that executives have to deal with. It definitely exceeds anybody's expectations, and sometimes in the negative sense. So therefore, if you're not present, if you're being disconnected from yourself and you don't have the level of comfort at being in that connection with yourself, then you definitely have a whole raft of other risks to deal with. And if you start engaging in problem solving and decision-making from the place of reactivity, it's gonna bode not so good, not so well. So therefore, having the basics taken care of is a key requirement.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 13:29

Yeah, I mean, that's really well said. I mean, and that's why, in the middle of that, like leadership system applied model that I have, I recognize through the work with my clients that executive presence drives every other competency, every other ability to be clear, to set direction, to engage others, to build alignment, to follow through with sometimes courageous actions in the face of people screaming at you that you're doing the wrong thing and you know it's the right thing. It goes back to that self-authority and trusting yourself, which, really, what are you trusting within yourself to stand on to make those decisions in those situations? And self-authority can be claimed in different ways. There is a way in which you can claim self-authority because you read it, you know, fake it till you make it. Or I've just got to show up and be confident and have the physical expression of confidence when I'm saying something and use the tone of my voice and I'm not saying. None of that is true, but it takes us away from the place for where self-authority is.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 14:45

And again, this is the trick of life. We haven't been told that, that already that seed of authority is within us and it's not something we have to force upon others in an arrogant way. In fact, it's the opposite of that. It tends to soften us in a beautiful way. Not make us soft, but to make us open to being present, to listen to people and see if they might have some ideas that we haven't thought of, for example, and to bring our team together and be creative together as a team and how we're operating. So it's a. It becomes, as Bob Anderson says in his work it becomes a creative endeavor rather than a reactive, controlling endeavor. Right To do that.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 15:30

So what do you? What do you? Do you think most executives understand that leading others effectively and we're touching on this a little bit, you know requires that they know how to lead themselves? Or has this been a central blind spot, do you think, in leadership development programs? I, you know, because we have all the just, you know, I don't know the last time I looked at hundreds of thousands of books on leadership that tell you how to lead your teams and how to lead your organization and how to execute effectively. Have we missed that piece in a certain way in our leadership development programs?

Anatoly Yakorev: 16:03

Well, there's been definitely a bit of a mismatch because I, you know, when you brought up the definition of that being a central blind spot, I think it's pretty much the case, because it's very difficult to assist someone in a sort of like redefinition, you know, journey, redefining their own journey and embracing things that sometimes operate outside of any curriculum offered, you know, to business executives. So that could be definitely the case because, you know, most of executives seek some level of training and maybe induction to support their current views, their spouse already. So therefore, they're not looking to get themselves transformed. So therefore, they're looking to chop around for solutions that would support them in the way they are. And therefore, even if you bring things to them like the ones we are covering right now, it may not resonate with them because they might say like, hey, you know, yeah, being, you know a reactionary or being, you know, sometimes seeking conflict as a way to reassert my authority is the only way, you know. So I can, you know, run rough shot over people who oppose me and all that. That's how I can ascertain my authority inside my organization.

Anatoly Yakorev: 17:24

So what you were saying it's like well, it has to come from within. I have to start like work, some work on myself, so I can reinvent myself. I will. I'll have to transform myself and I usually I bring up that example. Okay, Since, like I'm a karate buff, I'll just use an example here. There are two ways to go about doing that in the martial, in the world of martial arts. One is a judo way, when you use the witnesses of your opponent to win. Another one is a hard way, you know, like a school of hard knocks, a karate. You just really persevere, you're top of toe loud, you just go regardless of all the bruises that you suffer on the way to get there. But if you look at that and you start thinking and accruing for all the pain you have suffered, is it really worth the pain? If you take a step back and you avoid an attack at the right time, you basically retain your physical integrity right. You save your face, so to speak.

Anatoly Yakorev: 18:26

So in a very figurative fashion, you may look at the situation with executive leadership. It's very similar, because we've got some groups of leaders who actually seem to be enjoying this authoritarian style but doesn't actually bring them a lot of joy, does it bring them the level of accomplishment? If you look at that from the longterm perspective. I mean happy for one position to another.

Anatoly Yakorev: 18:54

You know, to avoid various gaps here and there, yeah, it takes some talent, but still it's much easier to invest in building something within so you can take it to the bank, literally speaking, because every day you show up you're being consistent. And consistency these days is a very rare commodity because a lot of people prefer to lead in having a kind of a style that keeps everybody guessing because they're so unpredictable. But you know, it doesn't really sustain a good and healthy environment in companies when the leaders act in a very unpredictable manner just to stay on top of the game. Much better when you have the organizational culture built around a leader who is predictable and who is consistent in anything they do on a daily basis. So I think that's how you know looking at that would help some people understand the value of self-leadership from this perspective.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 19:56

Yeah, I mean, and the way I look at it is you know, you know you can. There's more information being created every six months now than has ever been created in time and memorial right. So you know, if you were, if you imagine that you had, you, you had bought, bought this blue, beautiful new house and Somebody knew about the property and they said you know, I remember, I think somebody buried a treasure under that house and I think it's probably worth about 20 million dollars and nobody's ever gone for it. I don't understand, but you may want to look into that. If you, if you did your reconnaissance and realize that there was a treasure underneath your house, you would take the time to dig for that treasure, right, and I think it, versus go out and figure out where I could find 20 million dollars out there and if you venture cap whatever, I, if I knew it was under my house, I don't want to dig under my house. It's just a lot easier. And that's what we're saying, that the treasures within you.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 20:57

With a challenge, I think also is in, you know, other parts of leadership development, and this is no bashing. Anybody. I think everybody's recognized that people that are more spiritually astute, if you will know that that's true in there from their perspective. But then you try to teach that same methodology, meditation or whatever it is, deep esoteric practices. Whatever you reform those into a corporate speak that makes makes me it's still, it's like it's lost in translation. Executives don't necessarily want anything to do with it because it doesn't seem. It seems a little bit out there, and what I like about what we do In what my quest has been for 24 years, is to make that practical, to make it accessible. So so, now that we've defined kind of what self-porship is, let's talk a little bit about what's required to develop it in that practical manner.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 21:56

Now, clearly, if an executive engages the leadership resilience reset, they have a leg up on their development and self leadership. We've seen that self authority you mentioned that earlier is one of the strongest things that come to people after the reset. I just feel more in touch with my confidence. I'm not arrogant, but I'm able to stay present and be with people in a certain way and not be worried about things. So that's happening, yet there are. So we I also want to talk about some key practices and methods outside of that that are most potent for a leader who wants to strengthen self leadership. So any thoughts you have on that, like if you were to say, okay, you know you're not ready for the leadership resilience reset, you're not ready for a quick, easy way to do it, but you want to begin to develop that in yourself what is the keys to developing self leadership or discovering that treasure that you have within yourself?

Anatoly Yakorev: 22:59

Well, you know, the word has it. There are lots of different practices and if you have a look at this from the body-mind Connection, then of course I mean there are some like old school, like of doing yoga, doing meditation, you know. Unfortunately, it's an investment that will bear fruit like years after you invest in this, you know. So, however, it's still better than nothing. But one thing that would like to sing along, which is very easy, quick and dirty, you know thing, is to embrace Such a practice as self-reflection. I Know that people don't have time for that, but self-reflection puts you in touch with how you see yourself, based on your own existing mechanism, before you actually undergo any change, you know. But at the same time, if you start embracing some transformative Practices, it will help you measure what you're going through and see how much progress you're making. Not many think that. You know, actually, let's Call a spade a spade.

Anatoly Yakorev: 24:07

A lot of people think that they just don't have time for self-reflection. Like you know, journaling or, you know, keeping tabs on things they do on a regular basis and then reflecting them. Like you know, that's usually recommended, you know, like five minutes before you go to bed. You kind of quickly run through the you know events you had and then, to make sure that you know, you get a pretty much a good idea of what issues you had and how you could fix it the following day.

Anatoly Yakorev: 24:34

Well, yeah, but of course it's very, very basic and it will not, you know, generate results needed, but the level of self-reflection is definitely Important because it's going to put you on it trajectory to go towards two important things that we're going to be talking about is self-care and Self-efficacy, because these are rarely talked about, because self-care and self-efficacy is more like you know, I know how you can hold yourself accountable before yourself, the stuff you do for yourself and how you do that, how productive you are doing that. So this is, you know, I'm sort of like taking a step away from existing practices of you know Mindfulness and meditation and know what have you. But a lot of people, especially executives, they're like some foundational principles. Why?

Anatoly Yakorev: 25:27

yes am I to do what I'm supposed to do? And if you tell them like, look, if you sweep the idea of self-care under the rug and under the carpet, you don't want to address that because, hey, I'm healthy, I'm running the show, nothing can happen to me. I feel like I'm invincible, right?

Anatoly Yakorev: 25:47

This is this is a recipe for disaster, because things catch up with us what we least expected, because, you know, physiologically so, especially if we're dealing with a lot of stress, we have very little as an idea as to when and how we become impacted by the amount of stress we had to put up with. Right and then, but they are. The concept of self-efficacy is more telling. Am I applying myself to the best of my ability given the circumstances I'm having? Am I doing because, you see, sometimes people tend to think and reflect more in the intellectual sense? I can always figure out something, I can talk my way throughout of any situation. I can always find a way to do something right.

Anatoly Yakorev: 26:31

But, truth to be told, if it all exists in some sort of a mental or intellectual bubble Outside of our physical body, it's, it's a fallacy, you know, because anything we do has On our physical body, you know, and tie in the type of, like psychosomatic, you know, illnesses and various disorders that were developed when we deal with the level of stress we are not prepared for Okay, so so addressing that, you know, from that perspective, is important.

Anatoly Yakorev: 27:06

Why? Because anything you do at that level for yourself will be seen by others, because investing in yourself, it could be supported by others because they will would like that positive Development in you and be more supportive of it, which means that you no longer have to focus inwardly to sustain that process within you. You will be getting help from other people around you, and you know it's talked about a lot about. You know a growth mindset. You know how important that is. Well, let's put it this way if you embark on a learning process about yourself Before you learn anything else, that's gonna bring some dividends that you sometimes may look back and marvel at how come I never really try to do that before?

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 27:58

Yeah, that's absolutely true. I think you know a lot of what you're pointing to, and in the self reflection piece and even in self care, is to me the what are we, what are these practices intending to develop? So we all know that and and that the core thing and why executive presence is in the center of my model, is because self awareness and the ability to strengthen and expand one's self awareness has leads to an ability to direct and focus one's attention. Now to me, how I'm, as an executive, directing my attention has everything and I'm saying everything, capital letters to do with my impact. If my, if my attention is all over the place or I'm being pulled in multiple different directions by other people's strong opinions about things, I'm toast in my role. So I'm talking about my role in my role. I'm talking about my other people's strong opinions about things, I'm toast in my role. So, at the level of self leadership, our attention, you know, must be squarely on you know why I'm showing up every day to work, what my purpose is, what my brand of leadership is, that I want to express and what I care about most. And when we don't. And if those things don't roll off our tongues, and I don't mean just like you're memorizing them. You know we have a. There's a risk that our attention is going to be taken by events and others and getting get us off our game. So and I think the you know.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 29:35

The other area to me is how we interact with others. So to where you can do to improve your ability to build, to have high value conversations with others. Because, as I talked to the Executist, I said what are you ultimately paid for when you get to a VP level or above? I mean, director is a mix, you're still kind of doing stuff, but when you get to VP and above, you're paid to have conversations, fundamentally and forward. Those conversations are meant to create commitments to forward execution. So if you are sloppy and, oh, I'll just be like you said, I'll just be for vest it, I'll just be myself, I'll figure out how to charm my way through again. That's lazy and it's not going to produce the results you want, you know. So you know it's, it's, it's.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 30:27

And there is something about the growth mindset, but it is about you know you could do growth mindset in one or two ways. You could do growth mindset because, oh, I got to get better and every day I lift my weights and it's like I gotta get to the Gym, I got to do my stuff, but which tends to not last very long. It's kind of like the New Year's resolution growth mindset it goes away over time. But when you genuinely Look at what, it goes back to self-reflection. When you genuinely get connected to what you care about and Then you just set the intention to see if you can manifest, that there come becomes a joy in the learning process and the self-reflective process. You want to step back and look how did I do today with my intention, not because some coach gave me the exercise to do, but because I'm curious how I can be more effective in bringing myself forward to lead and to see where Maybe an aspect of myself came in and was reactive in that conversation with Sue.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 31:30

And now I can see the look on her face that I didn't see earlier today and I need to go back and apologize. You know there's simple things like that. Or I may have had an eye. There was an idea at a meeting that came up that I didn't listen to, but when I reflect back, joe brought something up. I need to follow back up with him.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 31:47

So there's things that we can't do in the moment. Sometimes itself reflection and stepping back and enables us to do so. You know. You know this is another interesting area. That kind of is a Feels like a bit of a diversion, but it really isn't, because it has to do with what we're helping people Deal with and their roles through the reset and the coaching that follows. We assume that Everybody in the executive suite shares a similar desire to move things forward for the greater good right. But this is not the case, at least for 20% of the executive population. For example, there there are some, there's a decent percentage of neuro atypical Executives in the workforce who are narcissistic, psychopathic and sociopathic. I know this is interesting, it's just to be interesting. You know it's such, it's such entities of yours have no interest in consciously developing their self leadership.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 32:49

They don't give. They don't give a. I won't say, you know, and you know how prevalent is this in organizations. So I looked at, did some research. Simon chrome, a professor research who does supply chain management program at University of San Diego school of business, wrote in fortune in 2021 that he and his college found that 12 of the corporate senior leaders display some range of psychopathic traits. That's leaving out narcissism and sociopath, right. So leaving out another portion of that means that psychopathic is up to 12 times more common in the senior management population than the general population. And oh, by the way, in prisons it's 15% of the population. So, and it totally. What do you have to say to that? And what you know and what mentally healthy Executives can do to deal with and compete with that? Because this is I'm bringing this up because it has to do with self leadership. If you are not Doing your work to develop as a self leadership and you run into some of these characters, you don't really stand a chance to you. So Any thoughts on that?

Anatoly Yakorev: 34:04

Well, let's start with this. Yes, it's true that you know, the closer you get to that executive level, the higher is the probability that you will run into those Neurodiversity, those Neurodiversion individuals and but you know, let's put it this way Uh, sometimes for the business, it's good when you have a psychopath who can steer your ship Through stormy waters of unpredictable events. Why?

Anatoly Yakorev: 34:31

Because they will never lose their cool, okay, but even in case you're ready to put up with their Worky behavior, so to speak, to you know so that's one positive, small positive element Somehow in certain professions is actually it's not that bad, because you'd rather be operated on by a surgeon who's got some psychopathic tendencies, because he will be more precise, undeterred and most likely to deal with unlikely situations that you know are to occur. In case they occur, you know will deal with that coldly, in the most efficient manner. However, we're talking about also a level of narcissism which is of Rather a level of category, you know, creating toxic environments and Disengaging people. So you know, my recommendation would not, would not be like well, try to find a way to work with them because you may find something. Why?

Anatoly Yakorev: 35:30

because normally Not to work prefer people to get broken first. If you don't get broken, you don't fit. Therefore, I mean, like, imagine, like, okay, would you rather allow yourself to be Broken and molded in a way that you don't really want to enjoy, you know so, yeah, so that's not the case. I haven't worked, by the way. Interestingly enough, I worked and I was supported, supported by Three narcissists before, but I was supported for a different reason, because they said well, in a tolle, you know, we can't find an angle on you, we can't break you down, we can't do anything to you, but we enjoy being around you, and the fact that we don't enjoy being around anybody Kind of intrigued. Why is that? That we are okay with you, but I would not recommend that because it's just a quirky, you know situation right for the most part.

Anatoly Yakorev: 36:33

When you deal with people that come from that dark realm, it bodes not well, you know, for people to be working with them. The best path is to retract and, you know, find a different way of applying your talent. Because, as the you know, as you could ask any shrink who would say you know what, up to date, we have not come up with anything to help reform a narcissist, so there is nothing out there, there are no tricks up anyone's sleeve to actually introduce any way of alleviating that condition, just because it comes as it comes, and that's unfortunately something that people have to decipher themselves what to do with it. I have tried to work with narcissists before. It was to a very varying degree, so I cannot really say that I, you know I can do something to Change. You know to an extent that it would be something to report to. So therefore it still stands where it stands, stands, remaining that challenging State, you know, and so far nothing has been Provided as an antidote.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 37:54

Right, well, I mean, I think of all three. I mean you, you pointed to this psychopath. Sociopaths may be, in certain situations, very effective people, but we haven't figured out what narcissists were. Narcissists add value and I've had two executives who had to deal with a boss and a co-owner who are highly narcissistic and it took the whole team to realize that and build a strategy to get them the heck out of dodge, because and how to do that and it was very there had to be a lot of strategy and caution and you know, you know we don't want to create a legal issue. It's very challenging when you have and I think they're the more challenging to deal with.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 38:31

But one thing I I do notice that and this is not necessarily what is part of the reset that there's a certain thing that happens when you do in the reset. You see, and certainly I think, when you get connected to self leadership, that you are able to Weather those storms more effectively and maybe not over a react to the person, because overreacting sometimes the worst thing you can do, right, but figure out a way around those things. And I just thought I'd bring that up because it's an interesting topic and you see organizations have, because you know, all three of those types are very charming. And interviews, they can be very, they can be very. You know, boards sometimes love them when they interview them because we're going to come in, I'm going to take care of business, you know we're going to get, we're going to handle everything, and they believe them.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 39:18

So Just just was an interesting thought I had. So you know we talked about most executives don't have a time to develop self-leash leadership, you know, and and it's not prioritized for them, and I think that's a really good point, I think that's a really good point. I'm not prioritized for them and I don't know what you do other than try to inspire or ignite that in them some way. But do you think there, you know, is there anything that can be said to somebody that's not budging on that? And maybe we pointed to it with the treasure in that and maybe that's a good metaphor. For is there anything else you would like to say about what you know you can do to say this is something to value, to valuable, to focus on, or Is that wasted air? I don't know.

Anatoly Yakorev: 40:08

Well, you can't talk about the fact that, though that everybody's got to know enough treasures you know, like you know, scattered around the place, you just have to dig at the right spot. Yeah Well, yeah, I mean people. But people normally take it like look, I don't know where to look. I don't know how much time I need to invest now. I don't know if maybe I will find one gold coin. It will not be worth much, it will not be worth, right, I'm an athlete, right? So. But I'd focus on something different here.

Anatoly Yakorev: 40:37

Sometimes you say, start saying look. Okay, you don't have to look, you can remain, keep your old self. But look at the level of challenges that have been mounted on you. Every day, the adversity and the level of unpredictability Grows exponentially. So if you have your old self, with old wounds, unaddressed issues Unprocessed, not transformed, you will find yourself pretty soon under so much pressure that those cracks will begin to appear. Then, just because of the sheer onslaught of those challenges, you will be forced to look within and start looking for ways to upgrade yourself to be able to deal with those challenges.

Anatoly Yakorev: 41:28

I think when we're talking about this, we don't have to talk about anything specifically or anything special here. It's just the sheer nature in life of every executive these days is that amount of growing pressure on them both externally and internally will create the level of pressure on them. But they will have to look deep inside and see if I can dig out anything that will help me weather another day. I think that's what probably is pushing a lot of people to start embracing some meditative practices and start looking for ways how they can shore up themselves, because they know they're growing under those pressures. They know that there is nothing they can do because they are out of time. They just don't have anything else that they can do to prop themselves up. It's almost like they're supposed to throw in a towel and say okay, let's go back to that story. You told me that I've got some treasures in me. I think I'm ready, because if I don't find anything, I'm ready to keel over and the show is over.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 42:53

Right, that's true. I do believe that. I think why we didn't know what was going to happen post-coach with coaching. Coaching has gone through another boom in a certain way because executives are looking for at least they can spend an hour a week with somebody stepping back from the fray. Of course, I don't let them only spend an hour. I hold their feet to the fire to do more. But then you have somebody you're accountable due to do some of the work, the meditative practices and the reflections and the considerations you have about your team that you haven't had time to look at. But the coach is forcing you to look at those things, which ends up serving you. That's another way that that can happen.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 43:35

But because executives are so pressed for time, they're always looking for shortcuts and silver bullet solutions. After all, if an executive can save months or years to get the highest level of result, they're all ears. How does the resilient leader method align with those expectations? We're recapping maybe some of what we talked about on the show at the beginning of the year, but how does that rely on those expectations of an executive looking for something like that?

Anatoly Yakorev: 44:08

Well, let's first look at the nature of those claims. Because, technically speaking, because people really have been mined to the core in terms of their attention, their emotions, their intellectual capacity, everybody is stretched, taught, unable to focus beyond the capacity they have. So therefore, the situation when they say look, I've got an attention span of a golden fish. If you want to break something and give something to me to process, it has to be done under one minute so I can see all the benefits. And it should be for free and it should be done without me investing in a minute of my time. I know you may say like it doesn't make any sense to have those ludicrous claims, but unfortunately, because of it's in our character, since we have to deal with so much that we, over time, grow that state of entitlement, we're entitled to get a bit of a shortcut here. Why? Because it's too much we have to deal with. So cut me some slack, give me a silver bullet. There's got to be a shortcut, there's got to be a way. So people look for that as a way of getting that instant gratification, because they think I deserve to be cut some slack. So and then when we start talking about that, we say okay, the resilient leadership method basically aligns with that level of expectations in a way.

Anatoly Yakorev: 45:52

Why? Because, technically speaking, the format in which the reset is delivered is just storytelling. You don't have to do anything. All the work will be done with you, david, right after to integrate all the things they would get, but it still takes a leap of faith. It's a small thing though. Yes, it's still a small thing, but do you have courage to sit through one hour of storytelling? Yeah, I'm going to say.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 46:28

I've been going back and interviewing our clients about the value. And I said well, what? Because I was asking a lot of you to assume that the two one hour conversations could have done what I was promising. And he said well, listen, what alleviated my concerns is that you weren't doing anything. You weren't changing anything about me that I didn't want to change. This was going to do no harm. Right, the investment. At the worst case of error, I would have gotten no ROI, but I would have had no harm done to me. That's a low bar, right, but yet and then that's true and the other statistics say, the promise of it was compelling. And now, because we have a track record with close to 20 people doing this, we have people that are reinforcing that for people that now want to go through the process. So it is a leap of faith. But given the times we are in and given the stakes that we're under and given the credibility that you have developed in your career and I've developed in my career, it makes it easier for people to make that leap of faith. And so I appreciate you saying all that and I want to speak to the people that are a lot of people that have done the reset now listen to these podcasts on a regular basis, so I thought it would be an opportunity to.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 48:04

I know that you said that continued self-development is critically important, even for those who have been through the resilient reset process, and that's part of the reason why we recognize that coaching had to be added, and at first blush, that could surprise people. Well, you told me a reset. I'm all changed. I don't have to worry about that. You know. I increases my energy, my focus, my creativity, my confidence, my resilience, and it doesn't just continue on. So I say that it opens a door for much more within you if you do something with it. Right. What do you say about why you believe you know, because we've just said it's hard to find the time and the space and you know all that stuff. But what makes continued self-development so important, even after the results, even after the reset?

Anatoly Yakorev: 48:54

Well, let's start with this. You know we have to deal with the fact that our minds usually, once anything of transformative nature, start budding inside our minds actually, and the level of psychological resistance to that flies through the roof. Why? Because our belief systems, you know it just really strives to maintain that level of status score and actually prevent any personality, you know, personal identity crisis from occurring. Why? Because as you start transforming from inside out, then your personality changes to allow more room for new boosts of creativity, energy, focus, resilience and what have you. So therefore it's going to affect your personal projection of what your personality is. Now you cannot integrate those changes on your own because you're dealing with the mental resistance, you're dealing with the identity crisis.

Anatoly Yakorev: 50:02

You're not equipped to be in your own shrink. So, therefore, you're working with you as a coach to generate tremendous value, to point you in the right direction, to address things that occur. You know, and also you know this is the best part to integrate all those beneficial changes in a way that would be that would be the most supportive for you in your current role. Okay, that's why you know yeah well, you and I know we had some instances of people who've gone to reset and kind of like sprain off and being kind of heard from again.

Anatoly Yakorev: 50:49

You know, we kind of like realized that the person would be slightly unhinged because, you know, sometimes you don't know, you suddenly wake up and you have too much energy, you have too much of everything. You know how to integrate it all, right. So people start like, really, you know, shopping around, like okay, how do I stay on top of all of this? But since you don't have the internal mechanism for that, you definitely need the support that can only come under the guys of executive coaching practice that has been established specifically to support those rapid gains, right, right, and that's why I think it's so key.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 51:32

Yeah, I mean going back to the metaphor of the treasure underneath your house. It's like we open the first level of the million dollars and we also show you the doorway to the rest of the money. So you know, and yet you have to put effort in. And this is what I realized after my reset. You know, there were things that I was letting certain sleeping dogs lie within myself, and there is this thing about the magic and the power of the reset, but there's also you taking personal responsibility for making sure you get everything out of that investment that you got, because you are a lucky one.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 52:17

There's not many people in the world that have all of a sudden access to this depth in themselves without doing years of meditation, without doing mindfulness activity after mindful activity. You're going on retreats or whatever they do. You've had something open up into you, you know, gratis in a certain way, and freely, and so it's kind of like getting a taste of something and not eating the whole meal, thank you, like you know, getting one little piece of steak or sushi and that's it. We're not. You know, that's that's all you get. But no, you can have the whole meal. So I think that's it's really important for us to say that it really opens a doorway to greater possibilities. So I appreciate that. Anything else, as we kind of close out the show today, any other final words you want to say about what we've talked about or to tie a bow on this for you today.

Anatoly Yakorev: 53:14

Yeah, I wanted to touch also on another aspect which is, like you know, just a primitive thing from the realm of psychology, so to speak. I think part of the problem comes from the fact that when people say like, oh, all I have to do is to sit through some storytelling makes them feel like, oh, I can like throw it away right, because, okay, I got it in that easy manner. I didn't have to sweat blood making this thing become part of me. So people tend to unfortunately treat you know. But by the way, here's the conundrum People cry out for a silver bullet solution. They get something really easy and because it's so easy, they don't want to respect it, even if it brings them to the work.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 54:08

Yeah, yeah.

Anatoly Yakorev: 54:10

I would like to caution and kind of dwell on that, because saying that it's interesting. So people feel like they're entitled to a very simple yet powerful solution. But if it's very simple, they really tend not to respect that. But however, the idea is, getting the right level of coaching around those challenging items is absolutely key. But you know, like I want to like really kind of wrap it up here from this perspective. Okay, so the reset comes as a storytelling which is essentially self-healing, the instant neuroplasticity to help you address what you already have inside.

Introduction: 54:50

Okay, so that's, one thing.

Anatoly Yakorev: 54:52

And the second format which is very well established is the executive coaching that you can trust that it will support you in the best fashion going forward. So I think if you look at those two elements being presented not in a very exotic format but in a rather very straightforward and familiar format, that could make it a bit more appealing for people who contemplate that.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 55:17

Yeah, and another metaphor I think is like cashing in your stock before it's fully vetted. It's kind of like you're cashing in your stock before it's fully vetted. You haven't vetted the stock. So thank you. Thank you, and it's only for taking the time today. It's always a delight for us to get together and talk and, to all our listeners out there, thank you for joining today. Again, if you find these podcasts insightful and inspiring, please share them with those in your network who want to be more effective and resilient leaders. Also, if you have any feedback for me or suggestions for future topics or guests, feel free to email me at david at davidcraguttscom, and share your suggestions with me. So thanks again, anatoly, for joining today. It was really great to have you.

Anatoly Yakorev: 56:02

Thank you, david, it's been a pleasure.

David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy: 56:04

And to everybody else out there, have a great rest of your day. This is David Kragutts, the Resilient Leadership Guy, signing off. Until next time, have a great day.