David Craig Utts: 0:11

Welcome to Unfazed Under Fire, a podcast designed to elevate your leadership and amplify your impact. Each episode offers valuable insights to help you transform your vision into reality, cultivate high-performing cultures that attract top talents, and navigate the complexities of today's uncertain, chaotic world with confidence and clarity. Now tuning into your needs, here's your host and moderator, seasoned executive coach and leadership alchemist, david Craig Utz.

David Craig Utts: 0:45

Imagine a world where strategy doesn't just live in a PowerPoint. It becomes a living rhythm inside your organization, where execution is felt as meaningful progress and innovation as a natural outcome of trust and connection. Welcome back to Unfazed Under Fire. I'm David Craig Utz, and we're really grateful that you're taking the time to join us today. If you're tuning in today, chances are you're a leader navigating a relentless landscape, one that's constantly shifting, throwing you curveballs and asking you more of you than ever before. And you're not alone. Every executive I work with is feeling the pressure in some way right now.

David Craig Utts: 1:19

This episode wraps up our special series where we've been unpacking what it really means to lead in today's chaotic business environment, and over the last few conversations, we've explored how nonstop disruption is impacting essential leadership capacities like executive presence, the ability to stay focused under fire and building alignment and collaboration across your organization. We've also made a bold case the path isn't about hustling harder or relying on outdated playbooks. It's about a shift in your consciousness, and I don't mean that in some lofty, abstract way. This is practical. It's embodied, because most leadership strategies, whether learned from books, training or even coaching, don't stick when they're layered on top of an outdated operating system. That internal operating system is akin to your consciousness, and if it's not evolving, neither are your results. So today we're bringing it all together, grounding the conversation in something very tangible execution and innovation. That's where your leadership really gets tested, and if you're showing up with the best intentions but not getting traction was possible Let me say this clearly it's also not your fault.

David Craig Utts: 2:28

We're going to get honest about what's really going on, why it's happening, what you can actually do about it and, as always, I'm joined by my great co-host, ryan Anatoly. So I want to dive in today and talk about the mountaintop, if you will. Every executive I know wants to move things forward and lead more effectively, so let's start at the bright side. This may be stating the obvious, but it sets important context for what we're going to be talking about. So, gentlemen, at the end of the day, what are executives genuinely are genuinely hoping for when it comes to execution and innovation? What do they most want to generate and how they invest their time in their role? I just want to start there, so we can have that as context.

Ryan McShane: 3:08

Generally speaking. You know, we recognize that all organizations. They have that vision and they have that mission. That is their North Star, their guiding light of what they're trying to do on a regular basis. So typically the executive comes into the boardroom, the executive meetings, articulates those things and says okay, folks, how are we going to make this happen? And the response is sometimes a blank stare. Sometimes there's a myriad ideas oh, we could do this or we could do that or we could do the other thing. But are those things in alignment and do they bring everyone in the organization along in that process? So I think communication is vitally important to have a clear understanding of where we want to go and how we want to get there.

Ryan McShane: 3:52

The how, I think, is equally important. I've heard it said that with any powerful why you can bear any how. But at the same token we have to really put a great deal of focus on that how. Because if our how is embedded in processes that deplete the people who carry that work forward, then we're getting diminishing returns over time. And I think that's what many executives realize is they're starting to get those diminishing returns because they've not attended to the how as much as the why and what they're trying to achieve at the end of the day, and that's where you know, standing back and looking at things from a larger perspective and different picture, if you will, is vitally important, because we attend not only to the why, but the how as well how as well.

David Craig Utts: 4:46

That's really true. And yet what you're saying in there is that there is an aspiration that an executive has to achieve something great when they walk in the door right To make move the cheese, to generate outcomes that they care about, to do it in a way that doesn't take necessarily great effort, even though they're willing to put the effort in do that. But there's a more of a straight line from point A to point B that they could measurably see is impactful. Your thoughts on that Anatoly?

Anatoly Yakorev: 5:11

So I'll just say a few things based on my experience. You guys are using all these lofty descriptions of how things should be done and how executives should be feeling about what they're trying to accomplish, but, honestly, the first idea maybe the last idea that crosses their minds is like how do I get out the door at the right time before this house, of course, collapses on my watch? So that's first what they're thinking about, because, look, in such a volatile environment there's so much happening. I could be, as an executive, putting all that stuff under the rug, sweeping it under the carpet right, hoping for somebody else to discover all that, and then the second thing is how do I invest in my team so they can actually generate some work for me?

David Craig Utts: 5:57

but I don't get burned over by investing in my people.

Anatoly Yakorev: 6:01

So these are two things. I'm sorry to say that, guys, but this is the stuff that these guys are preoccupied. It's all about survival. How do I do enough to impress the board and how do I keep my loyal and productive people still working for me, staying employed, generating results? So this is like one of those fears that they have. So the idea is so this is like one of those fears that they have, so the idea is talking about the pains. Who can help them solve this, keep their team loyal and engaged so they can focus on external or other issues? So I think you know if we're going to start looking at small things, but actually that support the entire mechanism, that would be of value.

Anatoly Yakorev: 6:43

Think about this. What you're saying could have been true, let's say, five years ago, but we are living right now in a different world because there's a new layer of this digital unpredictability. So everybody's racing against the clock. You don't know what AI is going to come up with and how it's going to impact my world and my organization. It's a big unknown. If I have some aspirations, okay, let's look at them. Okay, some people may be thinking I want to be thinking about my legacy? What do I leave behind? Will I be remembered? When I leave this, I jump that ship, ship letting all my people behind. Will I be remembered? I think most of the people think, like, do I really care how I will be remembered? Because, you know, I'm so spent after having tried to, like you said, move the cheese, I'm barely hanging there right. So aspirational side of it is great, but I think those executives who've been freed to think about it like I have some extra time to think about it. I would not think there would be too many of them out there.

David Craig Utts: 7:44

So in a certain way, what you're saying is that's been buried by the current environment, that that's no longer viable. If you look at the statistics, 67% of well-formulated strategies fail to meet execution. That's from Harvard Business Review, and they go over. 50% of executives report being completely dissatisfied with the innovation efforts in their organization. Then we have the burnout statistics right. You have 70% of executives seriously thinking about leaving. We've talked about that before. But what you're saying is we buried something because we can't even address it anymore. Is that fair to say? I'll let myself down if I try to go there, or that'll be a waste of time because I've got to move this piece on the board this far today. That'll be a satisfactory day for me. Is that fair to say?

Anatoly Yakorev: 8:30

I can explain it this way because I come from business, ethics and compliance. There's a lot of BS there, but that BS is kind of mandatory. It's almost like speaking about emotional intelligence, empathetic leaders, servant leaders, blah, blah Everybody knows this talk. So in the executive environment there is a layer of noise that needs to be generated because there's nothing else to be said. Right, is it ever applied? Can it be even applied? It's a different story. But there's always this fair amount of BS that everybody agrees that, okay, we have to go with the flow, that's how things are done, right, but then actually all that stuff is gradually gravitating from the reality we're living in, so that creates a cognitive dissonance in the minds of people. We keep hearing this, but this is the environment where we're living and trying to survive and this rift is growing. So who's going to address that?

Ryan McShane: 9:34

And that's the problem, and a part of it is we say the good things, we have the messaging around empathy and emotional intelligence and servant leadership, but at the end of the day, it's that survival component in us that continues to keep us focused on results, results, results and what we do to achieve those results have nothing to do with servant leadership, emotional intelligence or anything, and so we have yet to cohere those concepts and philosophies into our how, and that's what I was mentioning before in terms of the attractive why and the attractive how and having those cohere with one another.

Ryan McShane: 10:11

I think Anatoly put a very fine point on it with how he had said it, and that's my experience, too, in working with organizations. Yeah, ryan, I hear you, I want to be a servant leader, but I got to get this done, you know, and that's the divide, the cognitive dissonance that he describes. It doesn't have to be two different things, and that's what I think that a lot of people struggle with and are struggling to integrate for themselves as well as their entire organization, and that's where the conversation really needs to be pointed towards for executives is how do we make that coherent? And I'm excited because I think the remainder of our conversation really speaks to that.

David Craig Utts: 10:50

We want to address some of these external factors, but, given what you both of you just said, what's the toll this is having on the human being that's in the executive suite? At the end of the day, they're basically surviving day in and day out. What's the toll that is having on their experience leading and also on their personal selves? It's got to be that, putting 10,000 wet blankets on you every day and trying to step forward. Is this why we have 1,800 CEOs leaving their seats last year and 222 that left just in January, and if you can calculate that, that's going to break last year's record. So what's the toll? How would you describe that?

Ryan McShane: 11:30

I always go to the old adage you can't pour from an empty cup, and that's exactly what's happening. We have a lot of executives that are trying to pour out into other people, but there's nothing in the cup to pour for anybody else, and that's the real detriment. It has to start with the executives at the top. They're the model, they're the ones that set the tone for the organization, and so they're ultimately ones that have to hold that high state of being as an appropriate model for everyone else, instead of getting pulled into the mire of what they're dealing with on an operational, day-to-day basis.

David Craig Utts: 12:03

I was just talking to a client of mine today to build off this, who finally got the top seat in the organization, Very passionate about the organization's mission. But I heard this in her description of what she's dealing with on a day-to-day basis when I said that a lot of people are leaving their seats. It's not worth it, she says in the back of my mind I'm wondering if it is too, but I still feel energy to come in, I still want to move this forward. There's so much that's coming at me every day and I even asked her well, what are you doing about this personally? Are you letting that drive your attention, even at the point that it's coming up in her dreams and she's dealing with challenges in her dreams, which is very telling when that begins to happen to how it's impacting the human being. And that was surprising to me, because this is somebody that really believes in what they're doing and what their organization is doing in the world.

Anatoly Yakorev: 12:58

The signature, when things start going kind of haywire with burnout at the executive level, is a profound feeling of cynicism, Because when people get burned out they get so cynical they don't care anymore. Unfortunately, it trickles down the entire organization and before that and before that executive decides to take some time off to recuperate, the entire organization has been infected with that level of cynicism and that's going to drag it down even further. So this is the problem.

Anatoly Yakorev: 13:32

Can you imagine you have three, four, five executives with varying degree of burnout running around creating a tainted kind of environment for themselves, for their direct reports, for everybody else. Unfortunately, as we know, to recover from that level of burnout you need a lot of time up to half a year sometimes, sometimes people don't come back to work because they realize I've been out of my job for about six, seven months.

Anatoly Yakorev: 13:59

It doesn't make any sense to go back in Because I've missed out on so much. So, david, I would like just to raise this issue a little bit higher, because this what we're talking about today is pivotal, is absolutely critical, because such a huge number of talented and committed professionals have to rotate out of their jobs just because of that stupid burnout. Okay, it's a loss to the economy, it's a loss to organizations. Okay, and this is a profound loss and a very expensive one. So that's why you know what we're trying to accomplish here. I hope helps address this issue.

David Craig Utts: 14:42

Well, it feels like we're facing, you know, what has been building up for years. It feels like we're facing what has been building up for years. And then we got exasperated with the pandemic and all the continued disruption and breakdown and structures that has happened post-pandemic and what executives are dealing with. The wave is beginning to really hit hard. We've been talking about this. The warning signs have been out for years.

David Craig Utts: 15:03

I was talking to another executive who left their role the other day as well and there's a challenge the golden handcuffs of an executive position. It's great to be out, but I got to now start looking for projects inside organizations because what I really want to do is not meeting the grade I was used to when I was in an executive role, with all the pay, the benefits, the ease of getting a car when I wanted to get a car to go someplace or whatever it is all the benefits that come with that. That's kind of like we're hitting that wall. What's going to happen there? Right, is it worth all that money? But then, having all that money, I've got that mansion in the Hamptons I got to pay for and I've got my top class BMW or whatever and I got kids going to the top universities. That's what we're confronting, too right. We're hitting this kind of dilemma right now, so any thoughts on that?

Ryan McShane: 15:57

I hear it from not even executives, but people who are in mid-level management to frontline. I don't know if it's a reflection of what they experienced from their executives or if they're just walking it in their own life. I have a feeling it's the latter that all of us none of us are immune to all the complexities and the challenges that we're dealing with, and especially in the influence of the external environment that that has upon us. You know, we have our daily, our family lives, we have our professional lives, we have our spiritual lives, we have our hobbies and our interests and things of that nature, and we're all trying to walk that tightrope. To do that gracefully.

Ryan McShane: 16:36

And I'll attest to, you know, in my own vulnerability I have not always handled those things with grace and it's a result of that that impacts everything that I just mentioned in my life, all those different facets of my life. So just getting knocked down a little bit and having that affect every facet of my life which it inevitably does, because I'm at the center of that that's something to recognize. How can we avoid it? How can we deal with it when it does happen and recuperate and get everything back into that coherence and alignment that we're talking about. It's easier said than done, and that's where I think the reset is so important to this conversation.

Anatoly Yakorev: 17:17

I have an observation to make which probably nobody has made before, so I want to just float it by you.

David Craig Utts: 17:23

You heard it on Unfeast Under Fire.

Anatoly Yakorev: 17:27

Well, this is, imagine this If all these people in executive roles, right, they're trying to survive the disruption, the rigor and challenges and all that? My question is very simple what does it do to the competition out there? Is it whittling down the numbers of those competing in this rat race? Because that's one thing is when we are talking about people kind of signing off and filing out right because of the pressures, but then let's shine that light on what it does to the competition, so the few of those who remain in the red race do they actually benefit from.

Anatoly Yakorev: 18:16

So many getting discarded by the system, say you'll last another day which means that a thousand others kind of bite the dust. So if I find the strength to get up in the morning and go to work, it will be another thousand, so I just want you to also think about what it does to the competition globally, not just the United States, it's a global phenomenon.

Anatoly Yakorev: 18:39

So are we creating a level of disparity or a difference between the ones who actually make it out there, as opposed to the ones who actually make it out there, as opposed to the ones who are sinking down? Huge numbers of them?

Ryan McShane: 18:51

you know sinking down, so just process that what I hear being said is the competitive advantage of having that higher consciousness, of having that capability of being resilient and how relevant that is. So if you're a competitor, you're interested in having that advantage, and that's what I think is really exciting is we can deliver that competitive advantage for the leaders that are listening.

David Craig Utts: 19:16

Well, let's talk a little bit about what's driving this gentleman. You know the environment that executives are leading in and how it's affecting the ability to show up, generate results and inspire creativities. In a certain way, we've talked about this before, but what would you say are the top two to three to four external forces or the ways organizations are actually structured to support high-level execution and innovation? That is actually part of the problem, Because I think it's not just on the executive's shoulders, it's not just them trying to figure out how to traverse all this. It's also understanding that there's external forces that are compressing upon them, including the habit patterns that we have and how we lead and run organizations. Thoughts on that what are the external forces that are driving people out of the jobs and making it hard to keep up?

Ryan McShane: 20:07

Let me count my ways In terms of external forces. There are so many things that I think we've alluded to some already. The COVID crisis we had such a disruption to supply chains that that was a significant concern for many different organizations, typically the manufacturing organizations and those that deliver products all over the world. But you know, it also has a ripple effect on the service organizations as well. So that's something to consider, and I don't know that we've totally recovered from that, to be honest with you. And then there's the political atmosphere, and from that political atmosphere we see that the budgets are being affected. You know, manpower is being affected by those things, and those are not insignificant issues in and of themselves.

Ryan McShane: 20:51

Right there you have two issues that I think predominate the consciousness of most people, and they're constantly thinking, well, when's that next shoe going to fall? And as a result of that, I think that people have a heightened state of reactivity, to put it in a very practical term. But what's that doing is? It gets us back into what we've talked about over and over. Is that survival mode, that reactivity? That isn't that higher state of awareness, it is only survival mode. And if we're operating from that survival mode, as we've expressed before, and I think it's worth even mentioning again, that, biochemically speaking, what is happening within us does not even allow us to think and create and develop relationships that are so vital to moving our organizations forward. So we have an external environment that constantly creates an atmosphere and environment that influences survival mode. How do we rise above that survival mode and get back to that self-actualization, that state of being that affords us the opportunities to think clearly, to create, to innovate, to execute at the end of the day, because ultimately, that's where we want to be?

Ryan McShane: 22:03

But, as we've continued to say during this podcast and in prior is, we're constantly being sucked down into the mire of reactivity and just get the job done at the end of the day. I don't care how you do it, just get it done, because that's our measuring stick at the end of the day. Well, I think we need a new measuring stick. All too often I go into organizations and here we talk about KPIs, key performance indicators, what determines your success in that organization, and I'm astounded at what people ultimately measure to be their success, because it has no alignment whatsoever to their vision and mission of what they state that they want to be. So, once again, we don't have that coherence and that's not lost on me. I think it's very fascinating to look at. So a part of this is defining that measuring stick. Once again, do we need to examine what we're measuring that determines our success, and are those things penny wise pound foolish? All too often I think they are.

Anatoly Yakorev: 23:01

I'd say something like you know, apart from the external pressures and all that, there is this silent enemy, which is the internal element, because the organizational structure in most companies doesn't reflect the mountain changes, because the organizational structure is always five, ten years behind to address what they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis, and that comes at a cost to any organization. Now imagine you're being trapped, like you just described, brian. You get bombarded by all these external challenges.

Anatoly Yakorev: 23:37

There is nothing for you to fall back on because your organization is derelict, defunct. It's not actually built and designed to help you solve those incoming issues. So then you get stuck right the sheer nature of unpredictable events. I have a dumb team to support me, organizational structure from the Stone Age, and I cannot even do much. Of course, I'm just oversimplifying this, but we just have to look at this as the nature of all those challenges.

Ryan McShane: 24:08

And I would add to that as well that I've seen a lot of what prevents organizations from being nimble is oftentimes ego within the organizations, because you have roadblocks or logjams of people. That all of that has to go through me, and I'm going to look at that and consider that All of that has to go through me and I'm going to look at that and consider that. And that person with their designs of ego, trying to control everything, prevents the organization from adapting and changing and being not reactive but responsive to what they need to do in order to fulfill their vision and mission at the end of the day. So we've got to be aware that people are a part of the challenge here. It is the structure as well, it's some of our processes, but ultimately people are a big part of that because they're the ones that drive the structure and the processes. So we have to be very conscious of that.

David Craig Utts: 25:00

What we're all pointing to is the way that we're structuring organizations, the way we're dealing with things in the world that have to change and shift, the way that we measure, what we're measuring and what we're. Success of the KPIs, as you were mentioning, ryan, all it has to be examined and looked at and what's required for that Leadership, true leadership, somebody that's going to get their organization to examine what they're doing and how they're doing it, but not from this reactive place, not from this survival, being overwhelmed and having to be in survival mode. So we're moving into what's the shift we have to make, what helps a leader move out of reactivity into a more grounded, creative, high-impact place from which they take?

Ryan McShane: 25:43

action. I might even state that first, prior to that, we have to recognize that the very act of examining the environment is a threat to some people. We've got to be able to remove that element of threat to some people so that they can be participative in that process and not be an impedance to that process. I'll tell you a very quick story related to that. I went into an organization of 220 employees as the director of human resources and I asked the executive director for a copy of my job description. He said you don't have one. I said you just told the HR guy you don't have job descriptions here. How do you even manage performance around here? He said well, funny, you should ask that question. And he pulled out a single sheet of paper that was the same on the front side that it was on the backside. The only difference is the front side said employee copy and the backside said supervisor copy. And it was seven different characteristics that you rated from unsuccessful to exceeds expectations. So I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Ryan McShane: 26:45

So one of the big, first major projects that I took on was to create functional job descriptions across the organization and I was just shocked at the level of resistance that I was receiving, it was not from the frontline employees, it was from the executives who said hey, ryan, knowledge is power and if I tell you what I do and how I do it, I'm easily replaceable. So, once again, while I was making every effort to make their lives easier by creating functional job descriptions that give them the details of how they hold their employees accountable and manage their performance this should all be in their best interest they said whoa, you didn't consider that once I document what I do, this should all be in their best interest. They said well, whoa, you didn't consider that once I document what I do, then you all know what I do and therefore I become easily replaceable. So we had the fear factor that we needed to address. We had to put that elephant on the table and talk about it.

David Craig Utts: 27:42

Yeah, yeah Well, that doesn't come from the most inspiring place to lead either. I'm the Wizard of Oz behind the black curtain. I'm doing everything. I'm staying busy, I'm keeping my people busy. That's all that matters, or?

David Craig Utts: 27:53

yes, these are not the droids you're looking for it wasn't quite a Jedi move, but I think we painted the dilemma pretty well. I want to talk about this shift that you intimated, and Antony and Ryan, a little while ago. What helps a leader move out of this reactive place? And this brings us back to the ground of consciousness. So I want to talk a little bit more about okay, you guys are talking about this big word consciousness. Given everything you talked about, how am I going to adapt and take in that right now? Yet, it's an important thing to talk about, I think, because it means everything to who we are, because we swim in it every day and it drives our perception, it drives how we engage others, drives our energy, all these things that are fundamental. And pointing back to something you said, until organizational structures are 10 years behind, maybe 30 years, given what's happened since 2020. And we are also behind ourselves.

David Craig Utts: 28:49

And I go back to my profession, which is repackaged pretty much what it did prior to 2020 and repackaged it into okay, we're going to do resilience training. It used to be leadership development training, we now call it resilience training. We do the same thing. There hasn't really been an evolution in my profession to attend to this either. We're in the same boat. What do we have to really attend to? This thing called consciousness? What is it? Why is it important? I want to revisit.

Ryan McShane: 29:17

David. It makes me reflect on some work that I've done around dialogue in David Boehm's work, specifically speaking to a concept of fragmentation, and fragmentation is where we divide up the world, categorize everything, take one little sliver and think that we have the whole picture. And that's kind of what I think about in terms of consciousness. Another way to state that is you walk into a dark room and you light a candle just to see what you can see. Well, that candle's only going to have so many lumens in order to provide enough brightness. But let's say, instead of lighting a candle, I bring a floodlight in and now I can see everything in that room.

Ryan McShane: 29:53

I think that's a good depiction of what we're dealing with in terms of the current reality and what can be delivered through the resilient leadership method, as we're delivering a floodlight to executives to see the whole picture, instead of operating from these little slivers, this fragmentation, and thinking that we have the whole picture. That's really what we're dealing with.

Anatoly Yakorev: 30:15

I'll use probably like a simple metaphor from my perspective. Imagine you're, like you know, like a boy taking your kite out and you want to like really have some fun time, but your kite in your hand is actually your mind's eye. So you can hold your kite in your hand, you don't get much fun out of it, right? But if you see and you see your kite soar in the sky high- you'll get high?

Anatoly Yakorev: 30:40

right, because you get the experience. Imagine that kite is your mind's eye and the rope, that thread that connects the kite to you is your consciousness. The higher up it goes, the more you get to see, the more you get to discover about where your treasures are. You know what kind of a terrain you have around you and that's why I'm going to use a lot of analogy I can think of, because in the business environment everybody wants to see as much as possible so that they can make an educated decision, a choice, and they say the length of that rope or string that they have their kite on is that level of consciousness they have. If it's not too high, you don't get to see much and you don't get to know much and you're not prepared for something that can hit you hard. So you're right, david, you made a good point, because executives don't really care about cautiousness. It's a tough word. You can't really apply it to anything. It doesn't bite you in the butt if you don't attend to it.

Anatoly Yakorev: 31:42

You know lots of things, but if you put in the context that this is your competitive advantage, that's your survival mechanism, combined, that's an assurance. This is the investment in your own career. That's like with doctors, right, they pay a lot of money to get educated, but burnout can easily take them out of that competition. Just because of the burnout, right, you cannot use your willpower to to go to work every day because it happens on the biological level. There's nothing you can do. Your body just shuts down and that's it. So, therefore, the consciousness is a level of assurance that any gains that you make, be that you know self-development, meditation, mindfulness, I don't know, yoga, whatever I know it may sound kind of like really not very inspiring, because these could be incremental steps, baby steps.

David Craig Utts: 32:38

We need to make these changes in the way we structure this organization in order to be nimble, in order to be more effective, in order to achieve what we're here to achieve. How does a rise in consciousness help with those challenges?

Anatoly Yakorev: 32:52

Let's put it this way Think about this Technically when we are focused on handling our tasks and we use up a lot of mental power, a lot of calories get burned.

Anatoly Yakorev: 33:02

We don't even know, we're not actually sure about the outcome. Now, what the higher level of consciousness does on a level that has to do more with neuroscience, does on a level that has to do more with neuroscience, it's almost like redistribution of those resources internally happens without our mind having to be involved in that reallocation. So your body tells you where to stop before you succumb, to burnout. Your body tells you what to do, you know how to act or maybe remove reactivity, and suddenly you have that clarity. So you have all those shiny toys available to you, with your mind being freed up to attend to other tasks. So when that cop who told me that, oh, I feel invincible, it's the entire rejigging of the resources that gives you that feeling that you can do anything. So your mind doesn't stand in the way, because your consciousness has been upgraded and therefore the entire system has been reset to serve you better, without your conscious mind having to bark any commands.

David Craig Utts: 34:09

Like, oh, I need to be this, I need to be that.

Anatoly Yakorev: 34:10

Wait a minute. You've got everything already lined up for you to serve you. Now you can relax and take educated decisions. And this is what the beauty is right, Because if you know, you learn to trust your own nervous system, right your own brain to take care of you while you're busy doing something else. Isn't it worth something?

David Craig Utts: 34:35

Absolutely Well. What I hear you saying is, as the kite string lengthens and the kite goes up, the consciousness expands. Something else opens up other resources that you open up. My belief is we've kind of worshipped the intellect or the left hemisphere of the brain as a means to get out of all the messes that we're in, and all we're seeing now is that's having major diminishing returns, and that's an important element. Obviously, what you're saying is, as our consciousness expands, there's something in us that we kind of relax into, that knows how to deal with everything. That isn't necessarily at a super conscious level, it's just operating and giving us signs, and we are also more attuned to those signs of what to do, when to do it, how to do it. So we're tapping into something far more deeper. And then it also frees up that power source that we've been over leveraging at the cost of these other resources, to be clear and more effective in its operation that the mind and the intellectual mind is sharper, in a way, and used in the best way possible, while other resources come online that we were not aware of and automatically begin to do this, and this happens not as something we have to go to school and learn how to do, go through trainings, go through 12 months of coaching to learn. As consciousness raises, we naturally get connected to these other resources and, in a sense, our full system comes online. This amazing technology called the body and the heart and the gut brain that they talk about All those begin to operate automatically, and we don't have to necessarily get a PhD. So we've set the stage for what that gives us, and now we're back to the dilemma how do we cultivate this? And this comes back to how do you raise consciousness quickly, sustain it so that it becomes a default mode of it, of leadership and operating at a higher level?

David Craig Utts: 36:25

I haven't seen anything like the resilient leader method out there that could do this for executives as quickly as this can, and this is just not another leadership method. It's not a coaching program. It's a transformational process that rewires how you operate from the inside out. It helps leaders access the state of where execution, innovation, become natural expressions of their presence. We're not managing checklists, we're not trying to figure out what to do. We just know what to do because we're more present in the moment and we're operating at a higher level. This is different from other traditional methods of developing leadership. I'll let you take this one Anatoly what's the difference between the resilient leader method that you and I've developed and traditional leadership development methods?

Anatoly Yakorev: 37:11

Well, think about this like all the traditional methods of training and sort of like putting people in a situation when they absorb more knowledge or learn some hacks, shortcuts and stuff like that.

Anatoly Yakorev: 37:23

Right it all happens on the mental level, before you process some of that, before you deploy it right, it's going to take some time and internalization Until then you still don't know what's going to work for you and what won't right. So therefore, the difference between the traditional approach, I suggest we look at something that's already happening out there and it has become a de facto standard in a way in the area of sound entrainment, and look at the Monroe Institute programs. They've been dealing with sound frequencies to elevate human consciousness for decades. They're available, people go there for retreats, right, and they get the results that are amazing. So we can use that as a benchmark. They always want to get extra measurements and extra research until there's a consensus around that difference is that sound frequencies that have been designed and honed scientifically, as opposed to me, as a kind of a biological human delivery vehicle.

Anatoly Yakorev: 38:41

That's the difference. You know, like I'm alive, versus recorded and mastered or maybe digitally, you know remastered sound programs. So we can just say, like, what's the difference? Well, technically speaking, if we look at something that's rather neutral, like binaural beats, when you put on the headphones and kind of synchronize your left and the right hemisphere or you put yourself in a slightly altered state. Does it elevate your consciousness? Well, not necessarily, because people may go into this altered state, but you can't take it to the bank, you can't take it home.

Anatoly Yakorev: 39:14

It may not contribute to your development. Otherwise, can you imagine that you don't have?

David Craig Utts: 39:19

to meditate.

Anatoly Yakorev: 39:20

Just put on the headphones overnight. You wake up in the morning and you're a guru. You go to work and everybody gets blown off. So, unfortunately, devices, the brain devices and the wearables they're not there yet Sometimes people look weird with like headbands.

David Craig Utts: 39:35

Headbands.

Anatoly Yakorev: 39:37

You know I've got this and that. Well, it's almost like we talked about I kind of joked about that, I did not you guys About people who show up at work and they microdose and they think nobody sees that and they're supposed to say hey, you're high.

Anatoly Yakorev: 39:50

Hey, I'm not high. I'm not high, I'm microdosing. It's good, good for my job. Ha, that sounds weird, right, but technology is not there yet, so not to put us at the top functional state. However, being exposed to say like just me, talking as a way of producing sound waves, triggers something in our bodies to respond and start patching up things we have in us. It could be emotional blockages, levels of trauma, it could be all sorts of things, right? So the idea is that we all humans, we are responsive to any sounds.

Anatoly Yakorev: 40:28

Could be those singing bowls chiming and suddenly our body resonates with that right, right, so exactly, yeah, so we're looking at like something that's already available, except people are not ready to actually recognize that. Well, there could be a human doing that and that actually could lead. Well, this is a leap of faith that we have to address yeah, absolutely the podcast.

David Craig Utts: 40:51

Previous to this, I interviewed linda leblanc, who's a longtime residential trainer for Monroe Institute. One of the things she said in there is that sound has been used for thousands of years as a healing mechanism. Secondly, she said we're still in the infancy of understanding the brain and how it operates, but what we're starting to see is that it responds to the sound technology in a very profound way and that your voice sets the stage for the self-healing that gets ignited through the realm through the leadership resilience reset, which is one of the components of the resilient leader method and you know it's. Also. She said something interesting that there's a sense of the brain is craving getting back to its original state, that there's some memory of the brain that knew before we had all these traumas and paper cuts and challenges and dealing with all the things we talked about earlier in the show about coming to work and I just want to get through the day, get home, it could crave something different and it's actually natural for us to be in this higher state of awareness. That's what it ultimately is wanting. The resilient leader method takes care of this, also in two one-hour conversations with you. How is that possible? So we're confronting people that understandably have skepticism. That's healthy and that's why we put in some things in place to reduce the risk, including a 30-day money-back guarantee on this, to make sure that people have all the barriers removed that can allow them to do the process.

David Craig Utts: 42:19

I just want to share just another story that puts this all together. I had the privilege of working with Julie, and Julie was this incredibly sharp IT director at a high-growth tech company, and she's the kind of leader who gets things done. She's very strategic, thoughtful and very driven and she cares deeply about her team at the same time. They're her tribe that helps her get stuff done, and when we first started working together, she didn't necessarily have her sights on becoming a CIO, but if she did, it would have been because she wanted to empower people and bring out the best in her team. And the truth is she was carrying a lot of other things personally. She was navigating high stakes projects, she had a full plate at work and she was being a mom at home and she cared about that. On paper, she looked solid.

David Craig Utts: 43:05

You couldn't tell that anything was bothering her, and yet she was beginning to get overwhelmed. Her anxiety crept up quietly and started speaking louder and louder. She started feeling more tension in meetings, started second guessing herself, feeling like she was losing her calm under pressure. All the things we talked about earlier was happening to her. Her team still trusted her and she still delivered. But she didn't feel good about it anymore, right, and she told me I don't want to lose what makes me effective. That was her biggest fear. I don't want to do something that's going to make me be effective. I just don't know how to keep up with all this stuff, but it's costing me so much. So I suggested she go through the resilient leader method, promising that if she engaged the method, she would not lose her edge. She had to know that that doing it would take her to a higher level and that things could be done without the anxiety. So and I'll tell you, something really beautiful happened for her, not all at once, but steadily and deeply.

David Craig Utts: 43:59

After she did the reset, she started reconnecting to her presence, and a lot of people that do the reset talk about this. I just feel in the moment. I just feel present. Her clarity came back. She started noticing her own patterns before before they took over. She stopped.

David Craig Utts: 44:15

She said the anxiety that was at a constant low hum just quieted out. In fact it went away. Her meetings felt different, her communication became clearer. She became more grounded, more collaborative. Her team noticed, her family noticed, and one day she was actually sharing a story that really hit home for her.

David Craig Utts: 44:32

Her son walked into her office during a busy day while she was finishing up work. In the past she would ask him to wait a minute, but that day she paused, closed her laptop and was with him. She turned to him and that moment for her marked something big. She was just leaning from a deeper place and she was attending to what really mattered in the moment. And so that goes back to all the things we talked about that executives are dealing with. Something happens through that rising consciousness. It happens through the reset.

David Craig Utts: 45:00

She didn't just change who she was, she came home to herself. That's the way she described it. I feel centered in me. I feel more in control of, not the circumstances they still go crazy, but I'm at the center of the storm. I'm the eye of the hurricane, if you will. And so it was really beautiful, and that's why I care about this work so much, because it is so much fun to coach people after the leadership, resilience reset. I'm not trying to get them to deal with taking off the wet blankets or dealing with political stuff, or I can't believe what you said to me and I've got to process this. No, let's go, I have this to do. Tell me how to deepen this, you know, be a sounding board for me around my vision. It's a lot more fun and just really powerful. So I just wanted to share that story again because this was also a personal.

Ryan McShane: 45:51

Her personal life was impacted, her relationship with her son and her husband just took on a whole nother trajectory.

Ryan McShane: 46:00

It was really beautiful. Yeah, David, what you're describing for me is what I've termed that longing, and I think that there's a longing that exists in so many of us for coming back home, as you had stated. Coming back home, as you had stated, becoming fully ourselves, and I know I'm very aware of that. Some people are unconscious of that longing and just feel it as an agitation in the back of their neck or something like that that they just can't reach, but they know something's missing For me. I just use that term longing because I think it really describes that heart-wrenching desire for this greater level and it's an answer to that collective longing that I think so many of us are experiencing. And that's one of the reasons I'm so excited about this, because I've recognized that for probably 15 to 20 years now in my own life and call it that longing 15 to 20 years now in my own life, and call it that longing. And when I discovered and talked with you guys about this resilient leadership method, I recognized immediately that this was an answer to that longing.

David Craig Utts: 47:03

And the goodness, all this stuff that we've gotten layered on top of us is not as powerful as who we are. The longing comes from a place of knowing I'm something that I've gotten away from myself, and then if I get to that home base or if I tag you're, it get to safe base. It's kind of like there's a place within me that can handle anything, and you see this in remarkable stories of home and connection, as Julie found herself and other people found themselves through the reset. The reset isn't the home, but it's an avenue for you to get back home. It's the most direct route that I've ever seen and I've meditated for 40 plus years.

David Craig Utts: 47:49

I've been doing leadership development for 25 years and I'm very grateful I met Anatoly because I knew there was some way out there that could expedite this for people. That's why I speak about it so much, because I'm passionate about it, not because I'm just trying to sell some widget. This actually is the fix we need and if somebody out there has something similar, please start getting out there, because the world needs it. But we have it right now and I'm really proud to be aligned with it. So let's kind of wrap up a little bit here. Any final words from you, anatoly or Ryan, as we close out the show today and bring it back together.

Anatoly Yakorev: 48:24

Well, I would like to say that, basically, it's thanks to you guys that we can have this discussion, because, can you imagine like I'm probably the least visible to anyone being where I am right now? It's only thanks to you that we have gotten some traction, right? Because?

Anatoly Yakorev: 48:41

it's not just understanding the value of a transformation in a human. It's also the ability to package it correctly, talk about it intelligently. Engaging other people on the level to understand what we're talking about here is important. Well, I certainly can't do it from the place where I am. I'm just a pixel on the screen. But you guys, you can talk about it from various angles. So that's why your roles are far more important than mine. I'm just a tool in the shed.

David Craig Utts: 49:16

Yeah, well, I think of you more of that. But, as I said, this is I don't want to kind of be repeating myself, but I have to. If you're out there and you're somebody that resonated with Ryan's conversation about that longing and I know we've been jaded and certainly we're in an environment right now where our perception has been played with and abused, quite frankly, and so it's understandable that this might come across as misinformation, if you will, but I want to tell you it's true, and we're setting this up for everybody who wants to do this in a way that reduces the risk for you. So what do you have to lose, right? If this resonated for you, I really encourage you to reach out and talk to us, and I really want to speak to listeners directly right now.

David Craig Utts: 50:00

If you're listening, it means that something is resonating, and maybe you're tired of caring too much. Maybe you're looking for a way to show up differently, with more ease and more impact and more alignment with who you truly are, and that's possible. Trust doesn't come from control. Innovation doesn't come from pressure. Execution doesn't come from force. It all starts with you, with your presence, your awareness and your consciousness, to use a big word, and the resilient leader method gives you a way to reset your internal compass, lead from your highest self, naturally, and the good news is it doesn't require years of training or complexity, just a willingness to trust and take a little bit of a risk, which a number of our testimonialists say. I was skeptical, but I'm so glad I did it.

David Craig Utts: 50:41

So if something stirred in you about all this. Reach out. We'd love to hear what you're wrestling with and explore how this could possibly help you overcome that. Thanks for being part of the journey with us. Until next time, lead with courage, create intention and stay unfazed under fire. This is David K Gutz Leadership Alchemist signing off. Take good care of yourself, keep going and know you're not alone.