Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 2: 0:45

We live in a time when our executives are expected to be more than human, decisive, under pressure, calm and chaos, always on, never shaken, ensuring that they're creating environments of psychological safety, et cetera. But what if the very state that makes you more effective doing that isn't one you build, rather one you remember? Welcome back to Unfazed Under Fire, the show where we explore what it really means to lead with clarity, courage and heart, especially when the world seems like it's falling apart. Now this is part two of our homecoming series, where we are diving into what it means to return to this most powerful version of ourselves, not one we've constructed, but one we've simply forgotten. In part one, we explored the growing pain executives are facing, the real cost of disconnection, burnout, survival mode, and even for those that are performing at a high level, there's this sense that there's another gear. There's something more that I could be bringing to the show, and this longing that so many of us carry isn't about gaining more strategies or information, but about a return to something deeper, what we're calling homecoming. So today we're going to explore what this homecoming actually looks like, feels like, in our experience.

Speaker 2: 1:56

What is the state we're talking about? How do we know when we're in it? What does it bring alive in this and why is it the most strategic move you can make right now as a leader, and, as always, I'm joined by my two wonderful co-hosts and co-creators of this podcast, anatoly Yakorev and Ryan McShane, and I'm thrilled to have both of you here to deepen this conversation on homecoming. So let's begin with something fundamental, just to frame what this homecoming is. If we're talking about returning home, we need to ask what exactly is the state we're returning to? What does it feel like in our body? How do we recognize it when we're in it? Because by pointing that, I think the audience will see oh, I've been there from time to time, or I remember that, because we tend to all remember this place, because it's a place that we go to in flow, for example. So, gentlemen, I'm going to turn it over to you to get started as the catalyst for this conversation. What exactly are we pointing to when we talk about quote unquote coming home to ourselves?

Speaker 3: 2:56

David, I would characterize it as a full presence in the moment where we experience the paradoxical laser focus, but with a vastly widened or holistic perspective, as you had mentioned. It's a flow state where nothing is forced. We're just flowing like water. We're not thinking about the next thing that has to be done or what happened just a few minutes before. We are fully engaged in that moment, with an energy and a curiosity that's kind of childlike, but yet we also have the wisdom of an experienced adult in that moment.

Speaker 2: 3:34

So we're in this place? We were in when we were kids, when we were fearless, when we were creative. We had all this energy. We were so present to what was going on, and you mentioned that we're in this state of brain frequency, called theta, at that time in our lives, and what you were saying is that this is bringing that forward into and conjoining with the experience we've had, the learning, the development we've had as an adult, the ability to traverse and navigate in this world. Then that's coming together to allow us to have the best of both worlds. What does state feel like in the body? Because in that, where it resides. Talk a little bit about the experience below the neck that occurs when somebody has come home.

Speaker 4: 4:21

Well, okay, let's start with this. Ryan made a good point about the state of flow. However, to get in the state of flow, it requires a lot of deep work prior to that, and then you hit the zone and then you fly for about 25 minutes, 30 minutes, and then you get out of that high. You lose that high, but again, it involves a lot of concentration. It's a move in the right direction. But we're talking about something different, something that, ryan, you experienced yourself from being exposed to our podcasts, but it wasn't really the flow state, because you were very specific when you were describing your state as reconnecting with that pure version of yourself, being a child. You see, that's the difference. In the state of flow, you're just being fluid. Okay, it's almost like you're out of the body experience, you're focused, but you're also fluid when you have a direct point of connecting yourself, like a purified version of yourself. So you really kind of mentally make that connection. That's something different. So we are dealing with a phenomenon here when to go in a set of flow, just like get your run, is how you have to run. To get a set of flow, you have to immerse yourself and work and then, as a result, you kind of like crater out and you get the experience. What I'm talking about here is inducing that state yourself.

Speaker 4: 5:46

That's why my concept of the homecoming is different from all the existing philosophical and neurological and neuroscience-related concepts, because I've been developing this for a long time from a different perspective and I've just recently been running this by various chatbots to see how I would deal on originality. So far I'm getting 9.8 out of 10. I still have 2% of fraction left. But the idea is at the whole point of reconnecting with that inner child. Why is it so different from the existing concepts? Because they all talk about using a certain system to heal yourself, when you kind of go back to your inner child state. So that involves all that fixing, creating various concepts around that so that you start healing. Well, my vision is different. You get healed instantly and then you maintain your innocence by reconnecting with that version of yourself which is not really like being a child, more like a projection of yourself, like your safety refuge, like safe hideout. You go connect and you cherish that state and then you can expand from there. So that's how it's different from all the existing philosophical theories and other methods.

Speaker 3: 7:04

It reminds me of the old saying youth is wasted on the young. I don't know if you've ever heard that before, but there seems to be a reflection of that in what you had just shared. You know, you get all that wonderful energy that you have as a youth, but that collective wisdom that you experience?

Speaker 2: 7:22

throughout your life. Yeah, yeah, but what you're?

Speaker 3: 7:23

saying is it's?

Speaker 2: 7:23

kind of a permanent that collective wisdom that you experience throughout your life. Yeah, yeah, but that? But what you're saying is it's kind of a a permanent. It's not something we're chasing after. If we heal this inner child, then that's going to allow us to be more effective. In certain means. There's actual uh uh shift. It's almost. If it's as you were talking, I'm almost, it was almost thinking like it's like it must have realized once we get an adulthood, the ego is in the front seat driving and we've forgotten about this other part of ourselves. But it's kind of in the backseat and every once in a while it pipes in and says hey, wake up, let's have some fun. And you have some fun, and then the ego goes back in the front seat. But what you're saying is it's kind of like it gets reversed. The ego structure goes in the backseat. It's still useful, but the car is now being driven permanently and for the rest of your life with this true self-driving that's behind you. I don't know if that's a fair metaphor.

Speaker 4: 8:15

Well, yeah, well, there's one kind of side comment on this here.

Speaker 4: 8:20

I mean, we're not switching seats with the ego taking over the steering wheel and then this child jumps in and hits the brakes, hits the brakes and then the whole hoopla, you know, ensues. No, no, I'm talking about the fact you maintain the right level of balance, how you balance your ego and how you fall back into the state you want to be, to kind of get this idea about what you want to do next Okay, state you want to be, to kind of get this idea about what you want to do next, okay. So it's almost like you have your own refuge within you that you can call up anytime. You want to get yourself, like, really balanced out and, as a result, this is your kind of backup mechanism, so, and it also like provides you with the level of perspective about your own life you know, gives you the level of inspiration and motivation that's inside of you. So you don't have to rely on other people on television to inspire you anymore, right, so you can do it yourself.

Speaker 2: 9:15

My experience, you know, because I've had this firsthand experience of coming home through our work is there's a buoyancy, an underlying current that's running. Is there's a buoyancy, an underlying current that's running Before. I would activate that through meditation or through inspirational means of, you know, listening to a piece of music or taking a walk outside, because I needed to get a break and I needed to settle down. So there was this efforting that was involved in me getting back to this underlying sense of joy and freedom and creativity and energy. As you say, I can choose my focus when I'm doing things. Now I'm tracking more, not that I'm deprioritizing what's important, but I'm saying let me spend time in that. That's calling me now. There's some intelligence calling me to do this and to do this particular thing. Well. Or my significant other has now come home and rather than completing everything in my work, before I go out and greet her, what's the priority here? I go out and greet her because she's I'm just going to say she's my queen, right, she's my beloved. So and that's what's really most important to me than trying to get through the last editing job on the last podcast, even though I enjoy that.

Speaker 2: 10:30

So there's something that is. It's not driving it like in a conscious way, but it's just happening automatically. There is some flavor that is underneath it. All that I'm standing in and my ego is standing, and that's a better way of saying it. So it is, in a sense, softened. It's shenanigans and its way of reacting is not hooking me. I might still hear the voice in my head, like I did before, but there's no second gear. It goes into where I you know, and when I do, I'm able to see it very quickly and almost step back into something that dissolves it, and then I'm able to be back in the moment. And being out of the moment happens, but it's far, far, far less frequent than before I did the process, so I don't know if that's describing it better.

Speaker 3: 11:46

I, the front seat, backseat thing may not have been perfect, but it's's more. There's something that underlying it's being in the show and enjoying the show and observing the show at the same. All too often we try to say I just need to think harder, I need to, you know, focus a little bit more in terms of how I'm processing this mentally. And, to be honest with you, I think that it's that mental processing that takes you further away from where you want to be and it speaks to the difference between being centered and being performative. As you had talked about, is this recognition of being versus doing, and I think that in this mental state, we're kind of trying that doing, we're bearing down, so to speak, and we're kind of squeezing, and it's the opposite of that, paradoxically, that generates this experience and that's recognition of getting back into our body. And what am I feeling right now?

Speaker 3: 12:32

And paying attention to that and Eckhart Tolle talks about this a lot in his book the Power of Now is. You know, you can't think your way out of most of these issues and most of where you want to go from a standpoint of elevating yourself, from a consciousness perspective, it's paying attention to your body and what's happening within your body and therefore releasing that mental state for a little bit in order to take on a holistic perspective, and that puts you in a state of being that is entirely different from the way that most people operate on a regular and recurring basis, and that puts you in a state of being that is entirely different from the way that most people operate on a regular and recurring basis and that frees you up to have access to a larger extent, your greater consciousness. I don't know if that explanation worked for the listener and for you, gentlemen, but that's how I kind of think about it and how I process it. It's not something I achieve up here. It's something I achieve all over from a body perspective.

Speaker 2: 13:30

It feels more integrative, like we always talk about this being than do. Then it feels like it's like a linear thing. But my own experience is being is flavoring my doing, rather than doing is flavoring my being, because they're both happening at the same time, right? Well, unless I'm meditating or sleeping or sitting on the couch or whatever, just daydreaming, when I'm taking action, there's a flavoring of the centeredness and I think you mentioned this being centered versus being performative. When I'm performative, I'm up here. At that point, others around me feel like pieces on the chessboard. I need to move around to get stuff done. When I'm in the state of being, I'm seeing other beings, I'm being with, I'm connecting to that sense of being in them at a subconscious level and as human beings, one of the deepest things, which is funny. It's not funny, but what we're dealing with now. We're so divisive. I know there's reasons for that, but when we break through that and we connect with somebody that might have a different opinion from us, something else occurs in the conversation that wouldn't occur if we're up here trying to debate, right? That's another example of it. And the question I have is you pointed to it a little bit Anatoly sometimes we are in a good mood, we get up and then somebody says something to us in the grocery store and it ruins our day.

Speaker 2: 14:51

Or we go into work and all of a sudden the expectations have changed and we have to deal with talking to our team about it and figuring that out. And we were on point and now we're moving in another direction. Something happens that ruins it for us that day, because the mood was there, the sun came up, we were feeling great, we were walking lightly on the ground and all of a sudden something happens. So this homecoming state, how can we be trusted in high stakes, highly conflicting, highly volatile moments? Or are we talking about something too soft that just falls off in those moments? What happens when the stakes go up and we're home, anatoly, how's it different than before we returned home?

Speaker 4: 15:34

Okay, so it's a complex picture. So, first off, we are definitely dealing with-.

Speaker 2: 15:38

That's why I asked you the question, okay.

Speaker 4: 15:43

Okay.

Speaker 2: 15:44

Because you love complexity.

Speaker 4: 15:46

Yeah, but I don't think listeners would appreciate too much complexity. They're like okay, you guys you just get carried away with your own stuff.

Speaker 4: 15:55

We're trying to survive here. So the idea is this Think about this. If we look at this from the level of consciousness perspective, I remember I gave that example when I nearly got run over by the car and I didn't really flinch, it's almost like I didn't care, okay. So it's a bit extreme. It's a bit extreme. But I had a similar experience, like the other day when somebody pointed out to me as I was like doing my stuff and exercises, somebody pointed out to me the snake was like next to me and I didn't even see it. So it was like really, really close. And that guy who pointed he was a jogger. He's like hey, look, look, there's a snake right next to you. I was like okay, so what can I do about that? So I saw the snake and it was kind of like so it's our reaction to whatever happens. Okay, matters our attitude or our reaction.

Speaker 4: 16:43

But there is a problem with that because sometimes we get influenced by the energy of other people. So maybe up here we are fine and we are very balanced, but once we get the jolt of negative energy that trips us and kind of gets us off our balance, right, that has nothing to do with our state. We could be like a Hurtola completely in the moment, and then somebody hurls something at us and suddenly we are off that balance. Okay, but this is happening on the energy level, which means that we have to deal with that. We have to process that negative energy and let it either wash over us or step out of it and just don't get attached to it. But normally our first reaction as humans is to react to any level of verbal or energetic attack and then, before we know it, you get swept up in this mess. So you have to let it dissipate and, like, go away. Yes, ryan.

Speaker 3: 17:40

I like what you said about not attaching to it, because I had a very similar experience just a couple of days ago, ran out of the house to go and pick up some dinner for the family and everything we had. My youngest son just graduated and I had the honor and pleasure of representing the school board and delivering a speech and being able to shake everybody's hands when they got their diploma, and that was just a really special moment for me. Back to the going out to get dinner Ran out and my wife said she would like some smoothies along with the salads that we got, and I said, hey, that sounds great. I haven't had a good fruit smoothie in a while, so let's do that.

Speaker 3: 18:19

And the lady was kind enough to give me some drink holsters, so I put them on the front seat of the floor and as I'm driving home, I notice a car that I like and it was really snazzy. And I'm looking over at this car and I didn't see the light turn red. And the time I saw that the light turned red, I'm about halfway through the intersection and I hit my brakes to try to kind of salvage. You know, what can I do here? Well, of course, the smoothies go flying forward, despite the fact that they were in the carrying case. I had just cleaned my car. It was spotless. Normally this is something-.

Speaker 2: 18:54

It's one of those times.

Speaker 3: 18:55

Yeah yeah, and so I've got the heightened anxiety of this graduation. I'm trying to get back to the house and get the food there and everybody and normally something like this would just have thrown me into tirade. I just would have been fit to be tied really upset. But I noticed I just pulled over at that moment, picked up everything, started napkinning down the seat and the floor and everything like that, just as if it had no impact on me in that moment. And I looked back and I was like this is just a little silly thing. But at the same I I look back and I was like this is just a little silly thing. But at the same time I look back and I said, wow, something's different, something's really different in this moment.

Speaker 3: 19:34

And so I share that with the audience because you just like Anatoly said, you're non, you're not, you're not that reactive and you don't continue to operate from that conditioning of flying into a tirade or a rage or anything like that. When these negative experiences happen, you process it at a deeper level and you just like, ah, here's the problem to solve, let me go ahead and do it, and you don't buy into that negative energy that would have swept you away and ruined the rest of your evening. So I hope that story was helpful.

Speaker 2: 20:06

It's really good. I want to ask you, if you go back to that moment, where was your attention? What was your attention on when the smoothies went off and you realized you made that error going through the red light and the car clean and all that, if you can remember, you did describe it, but what would you say? Your attention was on at a deeper level.

Speaker 3: 20:26

Goodness, first and foremost, I was thinking gosh, is everybody okay? I hope I didn't impact any other driver out there by hitting my brakes and responding the way I did, and am I far enough over on the road that I don't impact the other drivers? So that was a part of my thinking, but it was just a matter of solve the problem. It was like I was removed from the issue. It was not, it didn't have the energy of just. I can't believe this happened. Why did this happen? And my car was just clean minutes ago, and now it's all a mess and now I'm going to have to clean it up. These are my thoughts from the past that I would have really spun out on, and it wasn't any of that. It was just this very calm presence of okay, now the situation calls for this, and that's what I carried forward. Is that execution of what the situation called for, without having that emotional reactivity that again just takes me further away from where I want to be.

Speaker 2: 21:24

I mean you're pointing to the realities of you take that smoothie thing in the car and the distraction and what happened, but then how you came back to it. You're speaking to what probably is the major issues that cause executives problems every day when they go to work. Absolutely Is not the plan or the intention for what I want to get done today, or moving forward or getting ready for that team meeting. It's those moments when we're interrupted by our boss that all of a sudden has this new idea and wants to take us off course, or they're telling us our team isn't moving fast enough, or a stakeholder comes in and says your team sucks, or something like that happens, and we add to that moment the unnecessary, which is the reaction, because somehow this is the kind of belief you know.

Speaker 2: 22:14

You talk to people that have like a strong inner critic, or they worry, or they want people to understand the impact that's had on me before we move on. That's a waste of time. Now I'm not saying you don't set boundaries and have a calm conversation about the impact of that. That's different. But when we go off the handle, that creates this explosion or volcano in our whole nervous system. That not only creates a catalyst for something. Now we have to clean up or come back from or figure out. It takes moments, if not hours, to recover fully back into a centered state and during that time we may be doing stuff and we may be somewhat productive, but we're far less productive than we would have been if we just didn't have that experience and you're speaking to the experience of what it can be like when you're home right, that, okay, the snake's there. I had this experience. Let me just deal with what happened.

Speaker 3: 23:13

And that's being in the moment.

Speaker 2: 23:14

That's a really good description of being in the moment.

Speaker 3: 23:16

And let's hit the fast forward button because, as I mentioned, I had an opportunity while I was giving a speech later on that evening at the graduation, before 2000 people, and so imagine if I would have been emotionally hijacked in that moment. I would have been drained, I would have really probably tensed up, I probably would have stumbled all over my speech because of the condition that I created in my being in that moment and as a result of staying calm, staying focused, staying solution oriented, I didn't experience that. So, therefore, the execution of my doing, my performance later on was not affected. In fact, it was actually supported by the fact that I was so calm in that moment.

Speaker 2: 23:58

Because what you did is yeah, when you ignite that survival mechanism using my metaphor earlier it comes into the front seat and starts driving. And now it's like, how do I get calmed down? My God, that speech, if I don't get calmed down, that speech is going to really I'm going to miss things. And then we go into this because we're in that heightened state of there's a saber-toothed tiger that walked in the room and I got to get the heck out of here somehow and that is coloring everything we're doing for some period of time. Then we're reaching for our mindfulness practices, which could be helpful, but they tend to like shave off a little bit of the top right and there's still this kind of gremlin that comes up and says, yeah, but you're not quite ready yet, and it starts getting its teeth in you.

Speaker 2: 24:38

Again. It's going back to what Anatoly says, that we're not talking about getting you to some temporary state. The homecoming is a permanent place, it's an integrative place, and I'm thinking about Daniel Siegel, who is a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine, and he's the executive director of a company called Mindsight, and he says coherence in the nervous system supports integration, which is foundational to peak performance and well-being, and there was something in that experience you had and you shared earlier about the car situation and the snake. There's something that is integrated in this home state, that is solid. But I want to speak a little bit to that. What's happening when this state locks in and solidifies, and it totally when we're talking about being integrated, if you can relate to what Daniel Siegel said, what is that about? What is happening?

Speaker 4: 25:36

Well, let's put it this way yeah, there is always like too much happening, but one of the key things, which is easy to explain, that will resonate with a lot of people. You would be surprised to know that a resonate with a lot of people. You will be surprised to know that a dopamine rush solves many of our problems and keeps things for us focused, creative and stuff like that, because what's happening usually it's a huge cocktail of things Neurotransmitters, teratinin, oxytocin and all this stuff is like a different measures. They get like enmeshed and provide us with the reaction that we normally have. And but I just want to go back for a second Like when you're in that sort of a state, when it doesn't it doesn't really rattle you much Adopt the following approach to things Look around.

Speaker 4: 26:26

If you have toxic people or a situation, think here okay, I've got this work with me. It's almost like the world around you it's your own team. Somebody is klutzy, somebody is messy, right, it's almost like it's not that you have done this yourself or you were subjected to it, right? Think about like you're performing on stage before a large audience and you have your team, a team of your actors, next to you. Somebody forgot the line, somebody tripped up on something and fell face down. I don't know. Something happens on stage, but these are all your team members, right?

Speaker 4: 27:04

So it's almost like when you're in a situation like that, always kind of tell yourself okay, that's what we have, work with me, what can we do, how we can salvage the situation. So this is the best psychological trick what's happening normally. And again, let's not talk about the neuroscience mumbo-jumbo here what we are talking about, that heightened state that's always there, that you cannot call up easily if you just use the power of suggestion or a mental effort for people. It has to be part of your normal state, everyday state, so that it's always there for you. It's not like you make a mental effort. And that's why the second point I want to make when you brought up those executives, when they deal with those challenges and situations, usually they try to control their anger until it becomes like pent-up anger, bottled up, and they suppress it more and more until by the end of the day, they have a stroke and they take it to a hospital okay, because or they kick the dog, or they kick the to a hospital.

Speaker 2: 28:07

okay, because they kick the dog.

Speaker 4: 28:08

They kick the dog, yeah, but the dog is ready by the time they get home. The dog is ready, like you know, teeth bared. My master is coming home in a very foul mood. I better be ready.

Speaker 4: 28:19

But the idea is that look at the cost of staying in that reactive state, because it never goes away, the stress you've had, it lingers on and it has a certain neural trace. So you can't just easily offload. Even if you bring down yourself and you calm yourself, your brain doesn't know that you calmed yourself. It's still in that survival mode, relieving the situation, thinking about oh, I should have said that or I should have acted like that, right? So the emotional toll of situations like that is huge. We can only see a tip of an iceberg, but the rest of it is just this level of cortisol in the body. It's all other things that are unleashed in our nervous system. So the damage has been done and people don't sometimes understand. Okay, what's the value of that? Okay, if I stay calm, well, look what kind of a nervous wreck you would have been. Because you don't even know, like Ryan you said, if you were to give a speech before a large group of people, right, and then at the back of your mind. You would still be reliving the situation and thinking like, oh, what a mess. Because as a normal, like neurotypical person, you would be doing that. And this is the monkey wrench. I promised I'm throwing it in right now. Okay, so this is something I've discovered over the past month.

Speaker 4: 29:45

A lot of people I mean countries and people in various roles alike out there. I begin to see this tendency. Most of them are neurodivergent. I mean, like they come across, they have nice, polished social skills, but deep inside they're not neurotypical. They score at a level of being something totally different. I'm not talking about narcissists, even though I've worked with them before and I've seen them actually taking on roles in the social environment and being very forthcoming and present, but I see more and more of them.

Speaker 4: 30:21

I think neurotypicals is a dying breed because of all the challenges we've been having. So I think we can kind of slightly touch on that. But think about the world which is being run by people on the spectrum. Is it going to be good or is it going to be always toxic? And the level of toxicity would permeate our entire existence.

Speaker 4: 30:43

Because what he discovered, those guys, no matter how Polish they are, they still give off that toxicity in a very, very sophisticated manner and sometimes I would feel like I feel off, there's something going on. I can't put my finger on it, because this person never said anything, he never acted like that, but I felt like my heckles were up, like okay, something was going on. So this is something I would like to share with you, because what would it be like? Right now, we have lots of people in different roles in business okay, well, I'm not talking about Elon Musk, but if you imagine, you really have this projection People who are on the spectrum and anything they say and how they act will impact a lot of people. Now, it doesn't leave much room for survival for neurotypicals.

Speaker 2: 31:32

Would you talk about neurotypical? There's, of course, narcissism you mentioned. There's sociopath, there's psychopath, there is people on autistic spectrum, but is there a particular grouping that you would say where people in, maybe the coaching and consulting profession, that there's a high percentage of them in this place? I'd like to ask that and I had some comments on that, but I'm just curious where you would place the people that you're noticing.

Speaker 3: 32:18

Okay, ryan, go that there is not that flexibility that is so necessary when you're relating and collaborating with other people. You know we're constantly negotiating and compromising and looking at things in a different way that formulate with other people and entire teams and as leaders, we have to have that notion about us and if occupying that space of being a little bit neurodivergent, I think that comes along with it, the package of that obsessiveness, that compulsiveness, and that it has to be this way, and I think that's where that toxicity comes through. You know, david, you described before with Daniel Siegel this idea of this being this relaxed alertness, and in that state, relaxed alertness and in that state we sense that all is as it's meant to be for us, not against us, and I think that's a critical thing for people to recognize is I could have said railed against. Oh, why did I spill these smoothies? But what did I experience in that moment that could have been a benefit to me? Well, maybe had I not done that, someone else would have had an accident.

Speaker 3: 33:26

I don't know what the bigger picture of that moment is, and maybe the bigger picture of that moment is for me to have recognized that moment and how I'm growing and how I'm not as reactive as I was before, and that in and of itself is a gift for me. So when we sense, when we recognize the opportunity we have to grasp what's available for us in that present moment, we see the opportunity not as a conflict, but we see the multiple perspectives and, considering each, we end up choosing what's in our highest good, related to our intentions. And so I think that there's opportunity in every moment to recognize that when these things arise, they're not against us, they're not thwarting us, but they're for us. And if we have that notion and intention that it's for us, then we see the opportunity, not the conflict.

Speaker 2: 34:19

Yeah, I agree, and my personal experience and experience of people that have been through the realm process, the resilient leader method process, is they're more seeing the opportunities and situations rather than the glass half full. And this goes back to what we say all the time A lot of the traditional methods, all things we've taught, have been the right things. Be more optimistic. How could this situation help you develop and grow? We are preached all the time in organizations let your team fail, but then there's a slap on the back of our head when they fail too much. Right, we try to live by these principles and we've tried to have people come to us that can reinforce that, and that's what I do with my clients spending time and slowing down as part of the coaching process, for example. However, I want to point back to if you do have somebody that is super smart and can understand these principles and then they become kind of like a law for how you should be leading, let me help the leaders out there lead better, and it becomes a thing and you may be neurotypical. You know you're using AI to get ready for a coaching session what could I? You know, what could I do, and how can I articulate this well. It's kind of like that I know what I know and I want them to drink the right Kool-Aid. I'm not disconnected from my client and where they're at, I'm not serving them. I'm serving some almost religion type way of operating that you ought to be as a leader and I think when you mix that with the potential you brought this up, you see you're sensing this in a lot of people. We don't know what the percentages are, but when I went through coaching school, we went through a transformational process before we started coaching and I think that's essential.

Speaker 2: 36:03

Now. Coaching is kind of like being a doctor in a certain way. I'm not saying for everybody, I'm not talking to all coaches out there. I know coaches that go deep with their clients, but I do believe we've created an intellectual set of knowledge. Like if you're a CEO now I'll be a coach. You can be maybe a mentor. I don't think you could just step into being a coach.

Speaker 2: 36:23

Do you know what it is to be a coach? Have you gone through your transformational process to understand what it is to be human and how you help human beings come to a sense of their deeper selves and their purpose from a real way, including the things that come up during that process and say, no, I don't think I'm up for that, I'm not worthy of that or whatever it is. So I think it's important to just put an exclamation point on what you said, and it relates back to what Ryan has. I know he's done his own deep work and continues to, and had his experience.

Speaker 2: 36:54

You've taken a deep dive into yourself in many ways, many painful ways, and you've looked at yourself and I'm not just trying to put you up on a pedestal. You've done the work. I know that. That's why I like hanging out with you, and so what we're saying is this homecoming that we're talking about is a way out of all that and coming into this deeper place of being and integration. And so any comments on what I just said or what's been talked about over the last few minutes.

Speaker 4: 37:20

I just wanted to make a point because the reason I brought up that theme. There was a reason behind it. The reason is because it's almost like AI has become an integral part of our life and invisibly drove a lot of people out of jobs. But the same thing, the presence of neuro-atypical people in our life as leaders, bosses, and all that is going to have this impact on the rest of us, because the competition and multiple challenges that people keep dealing with neurotypicals don't stand a chance against somebody who doesn't really get it close to heart right, just because there's no emotional layer.

Speaker 4: 37:59

And this is why I don't want to single out the old school definition that you, ryan, used about narcissists that are easy to spot. So these days you have a varying pedigree of people who basically share only one aspect. They have this one aspect in common they are completely unable to empathize with anybody because they just don't have the limbic system you know grown as we would always have. So there is this kind of a robotic feature to it. And the reason I brought this up is because this is a message I have for those neurotypical business leaders that they are in competition now with a far more predatory breed. Let's put it this way, because if you don't do something about your emotional regulation while dealing with stress and challenges, you will lose in that game with people who just don't have a problem by putting their foot on your neck if you happen to stand in the way. So that's the only point I brought this up. If I could just build on that.

Speaker 2: 39:08

If you are neurotypical, you don't have a complete, integrated access to who you are, or you really are super focused on the intellectual realm and you're not feeling things in the same way, you're not reacting to the world in the same way. We've honed the head. We've really gotten really good at honing. How do you see things? What steps do you take? How do you make sure that your team moves forward, in a way, all intellectual, which is powerful stuff. But when you're operating in a field with somebody else that, in a sense, is operating at a higher level and you haven't connected to your full self, where your real power is and really where the real power of the human being is, the full integrated human being. Let me put it as another way. If you're fully integrated as an executive and you walk in and you're dealing with somebody that's neurotypical and they don't have access to the resources you do, how does that compare if you're looking at it as a sport or as a situation in which you can manage what's happening?

Speaker 4: 40:11

Let's trade now the terminology, because it's easier to fumble with words Neurotypical versus neuroatypical. Let's just call neurodivergent people on the spectrum and neurotypical the rest of us normal people Okay, because otherwise people get confused who you're talking about right Now. Imagine this In certain professions to have neurodivergent people is okay, like doctors, surgeons, pilots because they never lose their cool in a situation when people freak out normally. So I'm not saying they're all bad, I'm just saying that on a certain level, because they're unable to empathize and really have this emotional connection with other people, they invariably become toxic and by creating the level of toxicity inside the environment or inside the team, they're going to be driving that team I mean members out and then, okay, you may have a high performer and then you'll end up having with a lot of psychophants to support that performer, but ultimately your team's going to fail because you can't have that imbalance inside your team. So that's the only point.

Speaker 3: 41:20

And, to your point, anatoly, being a leader is all about people, and so you have to be able to connect with people, you have to be able to relate with people, you have to be able to influence and motivate people, and the neurodivergent are much more technically focused. So it's the prospect of technology versus humanity, and I think I've shared it before versus humanity, and I think I've shared it before, said before in prior episodes, that where technology exceeds our capacity for humanity, those societies are doomed to fail. And the same is true from the leadership condition. If you're solely focused on your intellect and you don't integrate the heart, the empathy, then you're going to come off as a sociopath with no caring, no concern about the people and consequently that becomes very toxic, very quick. So it goes back to that understanding of what I expressed in the articulation of being versus doing. The being is the integration and the coherence between that intellect and that heart to impact how we carry out and how we relate to and collaborate with other people.

Speaker 2: 42:27

I want to hold your feet to the fire a little bit. But come back to building up what Ryan just said and coming back to you, anatoly, to talk about when you're home. How do you deal with the neurodivergent more effectively than not? How are you able to discern, manage or just say you're not working in this role, you're too toxic, move you out. How do you deal with the challenges when you're fully integrated versus when you're not?

Speaker 4: 42:52

Well, the idea here is this when, ryan, you were talking, you left out one key component toxicity. Because that's look, I have no problem with sociopaths, psychopaths, whatever I have no problem with them but they leave in their wake that level of toxicity that you feel like I don't know that, I feel something's wrong. I feel something's wrong. So everybody feels out of balance, okay, because these people they just give it off without and they're not even being aware of it. Now, how you deal with that, your natural reaction would be to completely limit your exchange with these people Because ultimately, you know you're human, you're going to crumble, because once the level of toxicity becomes like really, really high, then you will be swimming in that toxic tide and then you'll be dealing just with the energy of that, not here, not there, but you'll just be dealing with that level of energy that your body would be repelling, okay, so I think, David, you kind of threw in the monkey wrench here. Imagine you have a team member who is like that. You have to find a way to make it work.

Speaker 4: 43:58

Unfortunately, there is no solution. There is no solution and probably it's best you put as much mileage as you can between yourself and that person. You know why? Because, technically, there's a lot, plenty of research on the subject saying that these people can never correct themselves just because on a neurobiological level, there are certain changes that you have to address. That it's not like. Okay, I promise I will stop being toxic. It just doesn't work that way. So throughout their lives they get developed like that and they die like that. Nobody has ever managed to correct themselves. I mean like, hey, we finally arrived at a point where transgender operations are still pretty much in fashion. How about not direct it towards people who may actually need a bit of a modicum of compassion injected in them, other than just that? Well, if we think about this from that perspective, wouldn't it be much nicer for the society to have more people who can relate to others?

Speaker 3: 45:01

Yeah, and to your point Anatoly, you ultimately come to the understanding that not every team member is a viable team member and we make the best decisions we can in the moment, but at some point in time you have to recognize that they're truly a detriment to the team and we have to sever the relationship In HR and in leadership.

Speaker 3: 45:20

I've had to do this multiple times throughout the career and you see that you know to continue with the relationship with that toxic person is going to be a fundamental detriment to everybody else on the team. It's not just me personally that they're affecting, but everybody and what we're trying to accomplish here together. So I think that that's once again opportunity, depending on how you look at it, that we need to remove this member of the team in order to potentially bring in a more viable member of the team. And when you're in the home state that we've been describing, we clearly see that others are not necessarily an impedance but a vehicle for getting to where we want to go. When we have this perspective, collaboration is going to come more naturally, or at least insight as to what we need to do in that moment is going to come more naturally, and we recognize what we don't what we know and what we don't know, and we also appreciate that others' perspectives may be just what we need to solve the problem or achieve the goal that we intend.

Speaker 2: 46:25

I was doing a little bit of research on the side here. I just asked. I was curious of how many neurodivergent people are in the C-suite and in business, and I get more research needs to be done. This is just hot off the press. We need to do more investigation. According to Cypher Learning, 45% of C-suite executives and 55% of business owners identify as neurodivergent. Now Forbes has another study Senior leadership is at 1% neurodivergent, which I don't concur with. There's got to be a higher percentage of that. I think it's closer to Cypher Learning.

Speaker 2: 47:02

And then I ask is there a rise in this? And there's not enough research to show that, but we've seen a rise in autism, for example. You know there's a whole lot of stuff around that right now about why this happened and we won't go in there. That's a powder keg we don't want to get into. Today there has been a rise in autism, for example, and some people say it's because we haven't identified it. I believe there's other reasons, but so we're having more of an influx and a recognition that neurodivergence exists in humanity.

Speaker 2: 47:29

But it's also the people that and this is not saying they're bad or wrong, but the people that are resistant most to the resilient leader method are those that are neurodivergent. Why is that? Because the resilient leader method is an integrative method that brings you home into, I would say, an integration with your whole self. I would say that the heart leads, the head follows. After the process, there's an ability to be present under fire. All that happens because it's an integrative process that happens like that. And yet neurodivergence why doesn't it work? It's not because they're not bad people. It's because they need the pipes in their body connected, the way a normal person does in being neurotypical, to be able to experience the process. So I just wanted to say that, just to add some data that, neil, still needs to be researched a little bit.

Speaker 4: 48:23

I just want to add one more thing here. Why the homecoming as a concept? I mean even like you, david, did IFS, which actually deals with the idea of a homecoming in a way. Yes, it does.

Speaker 2: 48:35

Okay.

Speaker 4: 48:35

So here's the difference, the big difference that we have in our approach here. The homecoming we're talking about, it's only about you, your original self, because if you look at other concepts it's almost like imagine you're home, your guru sleeps in your bed and you sleep on the couch, or whoever you have in your system who is designed to be a homecoming, but you're not in the center. There's always somebody that kind of like co-helps with you during the process and they call it like it's my homecoming and you happen to be around in this place. So there's a dramatic difference. Two things First, there's nobody in your own home, but you. Number two, you're there and nothing is being done to you to patch you up, to fix you, to heal you or whatever promise outside. None of that. So that thing alone makes our approach unique.

Speaker 4: 49:32

There's no other system out there. There's always strings attached. You imagine this ideal home where you get healed. You do this and you go with the process. You talk to the facilitator or a practitioner. There's a lot of that, you know. You have always those parties in your house. There's never a dull moment. Okay, there's all that stuff that you have to do. Our concept is different Once your system is fixed. This is your place. This is your humble abode in your mind's eye. You go there, it's yours and that's eye. You go there, it's yours and that's it. There's nobody else there.

Speaker 2: 50:04

And I mentioned this metaphor in our Resilient Leader Method, and I think Ryan will appreciate this one too, because he gets dazzled by beautiful cars. Imagine if you're in the middle of Wisconsin and you're talking to this guy that has a farm and yeah, I got a 1983 Mustang in my barn.

Speaker 2: 50:22

It's been there for 20 years, just in the way Got a tarp over it. It's dirty. You can have it for 300 bucks because I just get rid of it. You're going yes, baby, because you know if you take that baby home, you got to clean off the engine, rebuild the engine. You made me buy some parts.

Speaker 2: 50:38

Once you get that thing candy red with the stripe down the front and it's tuned up, it will accelerate, it'll be fun to drive and actually the resilient leader method is a lot simpler than that.

Speaker 2: 50:50

Your engine is rebuilt automatically within two-hour sessions, so you don't even have to go through the pain of going to the parts store and taking the engine apart and putting it back together. It's done for you, but we're not doing anything for you. All we're doing is realigning the engine and making sure that it is back to home state as we talk about. When that happens, you're in control. We've not taken anything out of you, we've not put anything in you, and that's one of the hardest things to get through to people. Because of the way that we focused on development, because we didn't have anything like this before, we've had to try to tinker and figure out how to make the engine work a little bit better, or put some duct tape around it, or try to add more information on top the information we already know, to somehow hopefully get through all that other crappy information to help us behave better.

Speaker 2: 51:41

This takes all that away. It just pops your home and then you have to acclimate. And I want to point back to yes, we have these challenges with all these different people in the world toxic people, neurodivergent people that you know they have the right place and they can find their way in various ways that are effective and good for them and good for us. At the end of the day, we have to stay centered in that place, which you Anatoly says is ours. We have to be with us, with me, with the core self, and when I'm there. That's the answer. There's no other answer that you can come up with that would resolve what we're dealing with and what we want to create effectively. It's coming back home to yourself. Your relationships are better, you're able to deal with toxic people, being kind of bulletproof.

Speaker 2: 52:33

We shared a story with Dan who was dealing with a narcissist and that was his experience. He's kind of funny, he's so easy to get around, because what I was pointing to earlier is when you're centered in yourself, it's not that you discount them, you just realize. Here's what I'm dealing with. We got to get stuff done. So how do I not work around, work through this and deal with this in a way that is most effective. It's like the snake on the grass being next to you. It's like the experience you had when you were with the smoothies drinking. Okay, this is what I'm dealing with. That's what happens. This is the thing we've been looking for and a lot of people. As Antoine said, ifs has actually discovered the general path back to this. Not the same thing, not exactly what you're talking about, but what we're finding is the most effective means out there that people are finding that are fairly effective to moderately effective at helping resolve issues are kind of pointing in this direction. It may not be exactly what you're talking about. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 4: 53:36

well, everything's pointing in the right direction. The question is like how long is it going to take to get there and whether you will have the tenacity to carry on until you actually get it resolved.

Speaker 3: 53:47

First let me say I appreciate any car analogy, so thank you for sharing that. And there's also a computer analogy or a PC analogy. You know, what keeps coming up for me when you're talking is returning you to factory settings.

Speaker 3: 54:02

And when you get a new laptop, a new computer, you bring it home. It's as fast and as quick as you ever imagined it could be, and because it doesn't have all that virus toxicity build up in the system like your last PC did. So we're returning folks to that factory setting, but we've got all the software and the bells and whistles and the turbo boosters and all those kinds of things in that computer already, so it's operating from an optimal level and standpoint.

Speaker 2: 54:31

Yeah, absolutely. I just appreciate these conversations so much and thank you for the monkey wrench Anatoly. I think it is one that we could actually unpack a little bit more on a future show. I was even thinking the other day about how are we interacting with AI, as an example, and do we become overly invested in the relationship, where sometimes people get lost in thinking they're having a relationship that is causing problems, but it also informs.

Speaker 2: 54:59

This whole idea of neurodivergence versus neurotypical is also an interesting conversation to have, because we are dealing with it in the world in a very real way, and people that are neurodivergent people don't have discrimination. They're coming from their own conditioning and their own way of looking at another human being, and that doesn't make sense. That he does that or that really irritates me, but they don't know why. So having some discrimination there would be would be an interesting thing. So any final words, uh, for you, gentlemen, before we wrap up the show today, as far as, uh, what you've taken away for today's conversation and what you want to leave people with, well, I think some of our biggest barriers that we've spoken to and also recognize within ourselves is our conditioning.

Speaker 3: 55:42

It's how we've been brought up to process the world and left unexamined. They continue to guide us, and our ego is a big part of that as well. So recognizing that conditioning and ego are two of our greatest barriers, but they're also, if you look at it right, a gift to us. To recognize that this is uncomfortable, this is not working for me, and why is that? And so it brings us to the question that is so vitally important in becoming more awake, aware and recognizing your own conditioning and your own operation of your ego. That is a part of that rise in higher consciousness, and then we are equipped to do something about it and focus not just on the what but the how in terms of how we approach our life, because the how is so critically important in impacting the end result that we're trying to achieve.

Speaker 2: 56:34

Well, and I always say that, we rarely argue when we get aligned. We rarely argue which is the vision, the kind of company we want to build, the kind of impact we want to have in the world, or the what, which is measurably how we're going to do that. Know that that's occurring. Most conflict happens around the how, All conflict, really, if you look at where people will get at arguments.

Speaker 2: 56:54

Yet if you're connected to your home self, the how is flavored by a deeper sense of resonance and even conflicts that show up around differences in opinions of how are dealt with differently, more humanly. They're seeing the smoothies falling all over the floor is a messy team meeting, but in that messy team meeting, if you're present, you're realizing there's opportunities Like how can we operate better when it gets messy? Or I'm now seeing a dynamic on the team that's not really working well but is fixable if I get these two aligned and getting these two in a deeper relationship with each other. Or there's an opportunity in this divergence but I can facilitate this better in a conscious way, with everybody knowing that's what I'm doing, so that we can come together, Because it's those moments in teams that makes a team go deeper if it's done well. So that's an example of that. Yeah, yeah, Appreciate that.

Speaker 3: 57:53

Well said.

Speaker 4: 57:55

One small point, small point. I think it's a great case study that we have, with Ryan being on our call, not having gone through the reset but having been exposed long enough to feel the difference, feel the difference and then relating that experience now from a totally different perspective. I think it's invaluable that this could be done this way. And then you know you, ryan, you really have been observant enough to actually process from a new angle, like everyday situations, and then share with us here. So I think that's pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 58:32

Yeah, and we have only a little bit of time left with that, so we're taking full advantage of it.

Speaker 3: 58:36

That's right.

Speaker 2: 58:39

So, okay, great, well, good, well, I appreciate it. Gentlemen, and how do I summarize today's show? Well, I'll give it a college try here. We really looked at closely at what this homecoming is. We did spend some time on that. How it reshapes our perception, changes our relationships. We touched on that, brings our leadership to life and it's really something that, when it happens, it colors everything. Think about when you're home and it's like a December day and the fire is roaring and it's Saturday, like there's a rest that comes, there's a relaxation that comes. It's really not a metaphor. This is a place that you live from, here. You don't longer go out and chase it and find it. You live from here.

Speaker 2: 59:24

Now, we also talked a little bit about the challenges we face in the reality of living in a world where there's more and more neurodivergence being recognized and the impact that has. That's just another piece of our reality that we're dealing with. It's kind of like AI has come onto the version or we have a disruption in the marketplace. That's just part of what you have to fold into as you're a leader. You have to recognize this, as Ryan pointed, to determine how we can make people fit well on the team. If we can't, how can we support them in getting someplace else? Or maybe they're just not a fit. But when you're home and what I was trying to point out you could deal with any level of crisis, circumstances, challenges, in a way that is the most effective way a human being can do.

Speaker 2: 1:00:02

And, quite frankly, the way I look at homecoming is it brings the heart back in. It brings the humanity back in which, if you're neurotypical, that's what you crave. You crave coherence, you crave that. We want that, and I know that at certain points in the show, listeners must be saying is that possible? It is possible.

Speaker 2: 1:00:21

So in part three, we're going to continue the conversation how to sustain and embody this new way of being so. And I told you you got to be thinking about that no more monkey ridges okay, just kidding. We're going to be talking about how we live from the deeper state of consistency, especially in the middle of complexity, conflict and pressure, and we're going to come back to a realm and dive more deeply, and we touched on it again today. How does this? What does this ultimately do? It's bringing us home right. That's what it does. So if you're curious about what we talked about today, this idea of homecoming and how it relates to leadership. Please reach out, have a conversation with me.

Speaker 2: 1:01:00

This isn't about efforting your way back to a better self. I need to repeat that. This isn't about working harder and smarter. It's a reset. Once the reset's done, the engine is rebuilt. You're ready to accelerate? Okay. It's about removing what's in the way, and if you're interested in more information about this, you can go to resilientleadermethodcom and you'll find a link there to a discovery call and let's talk about what's possible for you.

Speaker 2: 1:01:27

Also, note, to those who will gain value from watching this on YouTube, I'm gonna sound like every other YouTuber. You guess what I'm gonna say. We'd greatly appreciate it if you subscribe and like the videos, because that helps get this information out to more viewers, and that's what we really deeply care about. So thank you for supporting us that way. So, finally, I want to leave with remember. So remember. How do you remember something? You're not broken. You've just been busy surviving. Part of you that's whole, wise and powerful has never left. Some other part of you has been on a journey and it's time to come home and remember. This is David Kragot signing off. Be bold, be whole, be home. Have a great rest of your day.