The Secret To Effective Communication With Ken Bogard

Yeah. Happy to share. I think it's a good one. It's a huge piece of my life. I was raised solo by my father. And he is a stoic German Lutheran, retired engineer, ex-military. And that's who raised me. So no mom in the picture, just him and I. And here I am years later coming out with a communication book. They don't tend to add up. That doesn't— that came from that. And it did. And so it's just an interesting story. And I think I love my father and he loves me, still does to this day, loves me in a whole different sort of way than I think people view love from, say, parents that take care of you. And what that's done for me in a mindset that's given to me is I think looking at what he's done with his life, even though he's raised me, I don't want to follow those footsteps. And so I went to my own tune in a different direction. And the mindset that I've had for all these years, somehow, some way, is get comfortable being uncomfortable. When a lot of what I think my father sought out was as much comfort and safety and risk-averseness as possible. And so somehow born out of all this is this opposite figure that he raised up.

It's reminiscent to me of, I read a book called Shoe Dog. It's the founder of Nike. I'm drawing a blank and somebody out in the audience, I wish you could Just call it out for me right now and tell me. It's like I got a producer here that that should be whispering in my ear if I had one of those little earpieces right now. I'm gonna do the thing, right? Because there's no reason why not to. So I want to shout out to the proper person and get it right. So I'm looking it up right now. But it's the Nike founder and it's Phil Knight. Duh. Okay. So Phil Knight, you know, he writes this book about this very amazing company that's been around a long time that wasn't called Nike for the first, I think, almost decade of its existence. Funny enough, it was like Blue Ribbon. Enterprise or something like that. Yeah. And it's a book I highly recommend to people to read. But there's something in there that's reminiscent about his father and his upbringing. Now, he had mother and father growing up, but really very similar to what you just described. I'd like to just get a sense too of this, the comfort, not discomfort thing, because I can understand, and that generationally, maybe his dad, probably even one generation before your dad is my guess, because Phil Knight's in his 70s probably. at this point. Yeah. But that idea that we should be comfortable, in fact, that the American dream in many respects is a dream around comfort. People came from other countries. I know my ancestors did, your ancestors did, and they came out of tremendous discomfort. In so many respects, they came here seeking a better life and that better life equals comfort. So can you say anything around how do you— looking at you and your dad and your philosophy, I'm sure you like comfort. I'm sure you don't wake up and go, I want to have pain today. So, what's the nuanced distinction between his way of living to attain comfort and the way that you approach it either as an entrepreneur or as a leader? What's the difference in the mindset there?

I might wake up wanting pain today. So—

I love it. Thank you.

All right. I think it's a part of me. I don't know what it is. So, he's in his late 70s and he was an engineer. And mechanical mind and not real social and kept to himself. And he wanted his safe home, not too big. He wanted the safe income. He wanted to put away the 5% per year you're supposed to retire, save. And that's what he wanted. And there's a book that comes to mind called Unscripted by DJ DeMarco that I read that book and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm living a totally scripted life. Like, I'm doing exactly the thing my father's doing, but that's not what my heart wants. You know, my heart wants to explore, wants to see different things. It wants to communicate with different people. It wants to see all the challenges, the good, bad, and ugly. And I can't really tell you what in my childhood or early adult life led me to want something else. It's just how I'm designed. So I'm going to accept that design and I'm going to follow what I want. And I think what I want and what I desire is to help people massively and to do it in a way that is this coming from a place of discomfort. Because I think when people seek comfort, the true condition isn't coming out. Every person on this planet, for instance, I'm going somewhere heavy. Let me go macro for a second. We live on a planet full of 8 billion people. Every single one of them has a different perspective than you and I. We're all different, totally different beings. And I think what we try to do, each one of us, is design a world for one. And we just try to create this one world, and 7.999 billion people are wrong. Disagreeing with me is not okay. And so we build these walls and build a wall here and build a wall. here and a level here and some depth to it so we can trap ourselves into the perfect little life that we want. And it's screwing us all up because everybody's trying to do that. And if you are trying to build a world for one, it's impossible, first of all, but it's an extremely lonely place. Why would we do that?

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes. And it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. You just gave me the chills, Ken, and I didn't see this conversation evolving the way it has. I don't know if you feel the same way, but I'm both curious about where this is headed, but also really just grateful. That we got to this little place right here. I want to sit with that. I hope people listening to this, whether they're driving or they're on a treadmill or they're in bed or wherever they are right now, can sit with that idea of how we— the machinations that we go through to build a world for one. It's just kind of shockingly true. And I want to lean into your book in a second here. So before we do that, I'm going to add one more book to the list of all the reading everybody's got to go do now. But if you're not familiar with the book The Untethered Soul, it's been a while since I actually brought this up. But it's one of my favorite books of all time, Michael Singer. And man, does he ever lean into the thing that you're talking about or that you're referencing. But he doesn't say it that way. And I just think what you just said is, again, Socrates or Plato or somebody said, all we're doing is remembering anyway. So it's not like it's— I don't think there's any original thoughts. I think we're just— we forget, we remember. It's—

Yeah.

But I love the way you just phrased that. So I want you to tell us more about your book. Does your book track this idea that you just brought up?

It does. And I do want to put a checkmark next to your Untethered Soul recommendation. The goosebumps you're getting, the goosebumps I'm getting, it's because we understand what Michael Singer's trying to get out to the world with that book. If anybody's got control issues like crazy, please go read that book and it will set you free. And I think every executive should have that book next to their bed and just Get familiar with that because our whole life is designed trying to control, like control. How do I control you and what you're going to say? And I didn't like what you say, so how do I control it more? And we get neurotic about control and it's screwing us up and it's hurting relationships left and right. And it makes us value only ourselves and not everything that's around us. And so it's such a heavy topic, but it's such an important one because this is our life with 7.999 billion people and souls floating around us. And so our book does touch it. If you are familiar with Untethered Soul and you're listening, it's really about extreme openness, totally open, surrendering to everyone. The piece I think we take away from that is certainly the openness. I think openness is really important. We define it this way in the book, and it's the most important piece of the book. We define openness as listening without reservation. Putting your needs and wants on pause for somebody else. That's openness. And the title of the book is No Honesty. So it's by design that it sounds like N-O, and the title has K-N-O-W, To Know Honesty. And the whole premise of the book is that there's 2 sides of communication, and I think we're missing it in a big way, and I can't wait to hear your perspective on it. Open and honest gets thrown around a lot in our country. Be open and honest with me. Be open and honest with me. And I think all we're really hearing is the word honest. Also, my book has honesty on it. No, openness is not the title of my book. And if it were, nobody would buy it. I think we're drawn to it and we're excited for honesty. We're drawn to it. We're excited to share our perspectives, our wants, our desires, which is all very important. But the missing piece of the equation is openness. So how do we become both very open and very honest? If we can do those 2 things, my gosh, we're unstoppable when it comes to communication. But we have totally screwed up this gift of communication. I could tell you exactly how I feel and exactly what I want, but I won't. I could do that to my wife. I could do it for my kids. How many times we are giving off missed, messed up signals to one another. And so, we're really screwing up communication. And I would argue at a much faster pace than ever before. And so, we just got to pull it back. And so, this book to me is so important because what we're trying to do with it is change how the world communicates.

Yeah. I think it's a— that's a massive undertaking, if you don't mind my saying, and glad that you're out there Doing your part in that because I think communication's at a— at probably the lowest effective level. If there was some way to measure efficacy of communication, I would say this is the low point in my lifetime. I'm sure there was 500, 600 years ago, maybe it was better. I don't know, maybe because you couldn't communicate with a lot of people. You could only communicate with the person in your hut or in your village or whatever. And you knew If you didn't communicate well with the people that are in your hut or in your village, you were potentially outside the herd and that was really dangerous. So I would imagine communication was pretty good back then. But I wasn't around, so I don't know. I would just say in my own lifetime, communication— this is the worst level of effective communication that I've seen. And I'm not a communications major or I've written on the topic, etc. Yeah. But read a bunch of things. I remember a book called Dialogue. It's again, another book, gosh. Amazing how many books we've talked about already. And the idea of just how fragmented we are and how much fragment— how much us and them, the concept of us and them is baked into our demeanor, our attitude, our approach to things, the silos that we create in business and outside of business. So, I want to toss it back to you because I want to know if that is true, if what I'm saying has any merit at all, what do we do about it? What are you recommending for People that are working with other people in a business context or outside of that, however it is you want to frame it, what are some things that we can do to create, make a change for the better? Because this, yeah, I feel like we're on the wrong trajectory when it comes to effective communication.

Yeah, I love it. I think if degrees mattered still as much as they used to, given the work you do and the time spent on what you do, you would have 14 different degrees on communication. So I think you're well educated on the topic, if I'm just giving my humble opinion. If I tie it back to what are we going to do about it, I think we first have to see the problem. So I think the moment you had where you were like, wow, 7.99 billion people trying to design the world for themselves, we have to start seeing that in every social post we do where somebody aggressively disagrees with us and wants to fry us, even though they have not investigated us. Or understood where we're coming from, or how many people in my cabinet or in my team have talked about and researched and studied the topic, yet they'll just want to fry you immediately and then disappear, not to receive any conflict back. This just is one example that we're all familiar with, which wasn't a thing 20 years ago, at least not to the degree it is now. I think what's been peddled on us for the last 15 to 20 years, let me just give you some descriptives of what's been peddled on us. How important it is to be your authentic self. So it's been pushed very hard. Still is vulnerability. You need to be vulnerable. Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown. Brilliant identity. Your identity. Who you are. What you are. So all this has been pushed on us, and I'm not saying those are bad things. I'm just saying that's half of the equation. What is not being peddled on us is how important it is to be open to the perspectives. And differences right around you, how important it is to listen without reservation, how important it is to listen to a disagreement and seek to understand where that person came from, what shoes they walked in, what heartaches they had in life. That's not taught. It's not pushed. It's not sexy. And so, we're constantly serving our ego and it's making us really lonely creatures. There's a reason we're the most lonely generation coming up. Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt is a brilliant book that presses upon this in many ways too. And everything is getting pointed at this. And so what we have to do to combat this is we got to educate people. Educate. So I don't know how you were raised. I don't know your full background when you were raised, but I do this in talks all the time. I say, hey, how many of you were taught the importance now that you know the definitions I give of honesty and openness? How many of you were in grade school and that was taught to you? That was important that you're honest all the time and that you're open all the time. 1 out of 30 people will raise their hand. So 1 out of 30. And then I say, in high school, how many of you were taught that? No hands. How many of you in college? Maybe about 3 out of 30 people because they took a communications class or some sort of class that helped to teach this or a philosophy class. And then I go, how many of you were taught this at your company? How important it is to be honest and open back and forth? No hands unless they've worked with us or somebody else that's teaching something similar. And so, I said, let's take a look at your onboarding, for instance. What do you teach in your onboarding? Here's your process. Here's how you collect your check. Here's the people you need to know. Here's where the company came from. Was anything in your onboarding About teaching you how to communicate effectively? No. My gosh, where is it? It's totally missing from being educated to people. This is the problem we're up against. And so in my humble way, with this huge mission to change how the world communicates, we've put out a book, we put out workshops, way to measure, measure people's openness and honesty. So, we're doing everything we can. We just put up a billboard that's making a bit of a splash in our town. We're doing everything we can to just help people understand how important it is to be honest and open in nearly everything you do.

Yeah. I feel like— so, I was thinking it and I put my own wants and needs aside for a second because I really wanted to listen. And I also, and I wanted to learn. And then you also said something that I was thinking and I thought, oh, it's really interesting. If there's, there, I don't know when the bells ring in your head, but the bells ring in my head when I sense that there's a, not synergy, but like when there's this coherence that when the 2 fragments or the seemingly there's you and then there's me and we're separate, but in the moment when I feel like we were one. And that's happened several times since we've gotten on this, this little podcast here. And I hope people aren't going, what? I'm like, but for real, we don't know each other. We never spoke before. This is like new. And you go, how do you communicate with somebody? How do you have a conversation with somebody you don't, you don't know, that you never spoke to before? And yeah, okay, it's the art form and we're experienced at doing it and all that kind of yada stuff. But the truth is, you don't have those moments where you feel one Mm-hmm. Or that oneness when you come from those 2 different things, but, but feel that coherence happen. That is special. And I wanna acknowledge it in this moment and be grateful for it. And I think that's what we can see. There's a way to get there. That doesn't have to be— it's not— it's a miracle, but it doesn't have to be a miracle. It doesn't have to be abnormal or unusual or outside the bell curve, because that's what I'm getting from you is there's a way to, to create this, to be manifesting this in your communications with people, both Your personal ones, of course, but in those ones that are so vitally important in the work you do, in the work you do in the world. So I want to know more about that, of course, and I want to know more from you about this, about the ego, because that was the thing I was thinking when you were saying it, was that this is almost like we've created unwittingly a— in the guise of being empowering our kids, because I grew up and I didn't get a lot of this in my demographic. We didn't hear a lot of that. Be authentic. Nobody ever said that to us. Be like create boundaries, set boundaries. You know these things. I forget what's one or two of the other things you mentioned, but those didn't ring true for me growing up. Certainly people didn't say be open. Yeah, honesty I think is a thing. Like I've heard that be honest, tell the truth kind of thing. But the openness, open-heartedness or that kind of thing. But then as we became parents and we wanted more for our kids and consciousness is rising, and that's the good news across the board, folks. I think if you're ever just got to be so. So half glass is half empty. Just know that consciousness is expanding. We're evolving. That's good for the species. Hopefully good for all of everybody listening to this too. But in that expansion of consciousness, we're trying to give people more freedom and more empowerment. But at some point, ironically, in empowering people, now young people, now people in their teens and 20s and 30s, and I'm Past that. But in empowering them, it feels like there's a lot of ego that was also enabled and almost enhanced. And the ego is really tough to grapple with in all of us. So do you want to tell us a little bit more about— so if you're going to help people to communicate better, on some level you're also helping them to conquer their ego control, get a— become more aware, self-aware of their— of the place where their ego is actually the thing. It's driving the bus off a cliff.

Right. Yeah, it's great. I wish you could just keep going. I've enjoyed listening to you. This is great. And I want you to push back. I'm not the ego expert, so I've not done a bunch of deep work on ego. I understand it. I get the gist. We talk about it a little bit in the book. I'm not trying to turn ego off. You can't turn it off. It's a part of us.

Hold on a second. I'm going to conference in Eckhart Tolle. All right? I'll just bring him into the 3-way here and we'll—

Okay, good. Go ahead.

Get him in there. If we could actually understand what he was saying.

Yeah. Ego's everywhere. I think ego's okay, but it's just half of the equation and the other half is other people. That's it. Let's just make communication that. I think honesty to me, and I'm not sure I defined it earlier, but it's being truly and freely yourself, speaking into what you want and how you feel. If you ask me, that's the ego running rampant, right? Just whatever the ego's thinking, it's saying. And I think it's fine. I really do. And actually, if I'm working with a client, I want that. I want you as naked and raw as you can be. Let your freak flag fly. I don't care what comes out of your mouth. I'm seeking to understand it. I will not judge you. I'm going to hold back reservation. I'm going to seek to understand where you're coming from, what you're saying. So go ahead and have your spot and let your ego run. But when it's my time, when it's my turn, I just ask that you do the same. Let mine run rampant. And just be open to me and listen to me without reservation. And let's have this exchange back and forth and back and forth. And my gosh, how much more understanding we're going to have of one another. We might actually appreciate one another instead of trying to hold our ground, already pre-populating thoughts in our head as the other one is talking. Let's turn that off and just totally be present for the other person. And so I think because of this, I don't really put much emphasis on ego. Let it go. So long as you're willing to agree that we're going to communicate in this style, that you'll be totally open to me when I'm speaking. And then when you're speaking, I'm going to be totally open to you. And if we're back and forth, open and honest, it's great. How much we're going to accomplish is going to be great. How deep our relationship can go right now, it's deepening because I believe you have this gift. You can't be a great podcaster without incredible listening skills. Right? And turning off all that judgment and reservation. And so you already have this. And then coming back, and hopefully you are, and I think you are, which is why your podcast is attractive. I think you're honest right back. And people can totally sense when you're fake. When you're faking it, you're skirting it, and this ego or this truly and freely you is trying to come out, but it won't. People sense it. They're not real comfortable with it. And I think what we love are characters And freaks as they are, mostly. So we need more education on this. We need way more practice on all this so that we can get along with 8 billion egos floating around this world.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, It's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will Increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. That's really interesting to me because you're right, the ego is not going to go away. And at the same time, I'm thinking, so you invited me to push back, and I'm thinking about that too because And I'm going to go back to one of the first things you said, which is just so— want to repeat, is the idea that we're building a world for one. We live with 7.99999 billion people, other people in the world, but we're building a world for one and how often that is the case. And I guess I'm assigning a certain amount of blame or judgment around the ego because I know that for me, when my ego is really getting its way and it's the thing I'm listening to or it's the thing that's in charge, And I'm not even— there's no listening involved. It runs on default. Really is— it's different. And I don't notice it. I don't catch it. Sometimes it's literally like I'm mixing up all these metaphors, but it's like the farm animals, like literally the gate is open, the door is open, the barn door. Yeah. They're just like running wild. And then I catch it. But the good news is that when it comes to your own ego, it's really easy to corral the animals back and get them back in the barn, so to speak, when you become aware. I think that's miraculous. But the ego by itself running rampant is just— it's a me show. It's all about I. And, and I don't think that's what you're saying. So please help me.

Yeah, I think I am. I think I'm okay with the me show so long as you're gonna let it be my me show in a moment. So that's okay. I just don't need you—

Does the ego allow that as I'm interrupting?

It can. It can, 100%. So we have this assessment, and so we measure people's honesty and openness. It's called the Pursuit of Honesty Assessment. Take it, it's for free, probably will be for another year or so. And we're just collecting this data on people. And people are across the board more honest than they are open. So that is consistent. And we break down this study into, so you'll get results, you go take it, you'll get results and it'll show you how honest and open you are in your personal life and in your work life, which is so interesting because people have so many different dynamics in their life that change this. So, they may go home, they're way less honest and way more open. And they go to work, they're way more honest than they are open. And so, it's this interesting study that we're doing still, and it's incredible the data that's coming from it. Honesty and openness go hand in hand when it comes to communication. Knowing that we have an imbalance of honesty over openness, we're screwing up our communication. So if you multiply the percentage amount of time you're honest and the percentage of time you're open, you're going to find the gap in between and how much communication is really being exchanged between 2 people, real communication at least. And so for me, I think when people are really leaning into their ego, I think it's great. And then when people learn, and you talked about awareness, when you're aware that your ego is running rampant, I do think In the book, we do give it a title. We call it the wall. So now it's my turn to speak. My me show. We should trademark that me show. Something about that's cool. And so I'm giving you the me show, and you're listening without reservation right now. But as soon as your mind starts drifting, and you're like, I'm not sure I believe this guy. Like, where is he? What's his religion? Where did he come from? That's messed up. All of a sudden, you're putting a wall up. Like, you're starting to create a divide between you and me now. You're no longer in my head. You're no longer interested in the shoes where I come. And so there's going to be more of a divide. And what we're doing now in the time frame we're living in—

And that's where the aperture of openness, that's where you're no longer being open. I just want to put that parenthetical in there for folks. Yeah. Is that right?

Yes. Yes. You're no longer open, right? You're closing off so you can serve self. And you're not there for somebody else. And I will tell you, there's this one story, and I'm not sure it's going to hit, but for whatever reason, it hit for me. This guy works at a manufacturing plant, and he's stamping whatever he's stamping, and that's his job, 40, 50 hours a week. And the CEO comes down, big company, he's got all the people around him that are taking notes and doing the thing, and he walks up to this person who's stamping all that stuff for 40, 50 hours a week. And that worker stops and there's the CEO. And this is a unique moment for both of them. And the CEO walks up and he blocks everything to be totally present with that man, to the person who's working on that line. He's totally present for him. And he says, yeah, how's it going? Guy shares. He says, oh, really? Well, it must be hard for you. Totally present. He's got all these other people trying to vie for his attention, but he's there for that worker. I picture that every time I'm in a conversation. And I think how that worker must have felt. The most important person in the company is that worker in that moment with that CEO. It's such a cool story. And I'm like, if we had that kind of openness when somebody else is speaking, my gosh, your relationships are so deep. Your trust can really excel. That's what we're after.

Yeah. The story for me, Just completely changing the context because we both, you and I both, our organizations work with other organizations. So, we're always in the business context. I'll change this one up for a second. I'm lucky enough, my wife and I met in college, married 35 years. This is literally the greatest blessing I could even ever imagine for a lot of reasons. But one of those reasons is we had some children. Those kids have grown up healthy and leading good lives and all that kind of thing, leaving our home and leading good lives. And now they have kids, little ones, very little ones. So we have these 3 little ones, and, and the oldest of those little ones is 3, and then the next is 18 months, and then we're down to 8 months. So this 18-month-old who I get to spend time with, all 3 of them, but this one in particular, she loves to involve me in her games, in the things that she's doing. And, and honestly, when I'm with her, I am As you just described, only present. And anybody that knows this from their own kids, their grandkids, from other people's kids, from whatever, like watching, seeing kids, understand that kids, they don't tolerate you not being present. They'll just move on. They just know immediately. They know if you're not with them, if you're not there actually really with them. Mm-hmm. And, and she involves me in her world and I'm just, I'm there participating in it in a way that I imagine As you just said, that CEO suspended all the things going on in his or her world to just be there in the world of that person that they were in front of. And that's what I get regular practice at doing personally with these little ones that are around. Because again, you know immediately if you divert your eyes, if you look at your phone, if you think you're fooling them by checking the text message while you're also playing tea party, they don't have to call bullshit.

That's right.

All their body language tells you that's bullshit.

Oh, right.

So it's— hello, we have a lot of examples around us of what you're talking about. And so it doesn't— I don't really— I feel like this is so vitally important, yet like so many great paradoxes in life, this is not really difficult, is it?

Oh, 100%. It's simple. Your story gives me chills because I got 2 little ones. I got a 5 and a 7-year-old, and I screw up presence with them all the time. I'm not leaning into my own openness, so to speak. And when I do, it just feels empty and sad. It's like I'm just shunning my own child for— I have a little moment for myself when they're begging for you. They just want you in their life so bad. And so if anything, you're gonna Inspire me to be very present with my kids when I get home. And it's a great example. It's not difficult. The equation is open plus honest equals real communication. We just got to get a little bit better at recognizing awareness, your word, love that, when we're not being truly and freely ourselves. So if we're not being honest, what are we being? We're being fake. Fake. Who in this world raises their hand and says, I want to be fake as much as possible? Nobody. And so what we're talking about here is just lean in and be more truly and freely you. The challenge will be that there are people in your life that won't accept that. There are people that do not subscribe to this equation, and I don't blame them for it. I'm not upset with anybody in my life that doesn't like who I truly and freely am. I just know that they haven't been educated on the subject. Or not enough, or haven't seen how it can really hurt somebody to not allow somebody to have the freedom to be truly and freely who they are in that moment. And so I'm just like, we got to educate people on it. And then openness, the other side of it. When you're not being open, you have a wall up of some sorts. Politics, religion, sex. Think of all the heated topics you can, taboo topics, and just go ahead and test your wall. With somebody else, just test it. And really, instead of trying to win the conversation, just seek to understand the other person's perspective. Listen without reservation and push that wall down and see how much more you enjoy life because you're not trying to control every little element and variable and equation around you. You're just totally present for somebody else, some other soul trying to navigate this journey of life as well. When you do that and you minimize the need for this neurotic control all the time, you're going to be such a happier person, just like I will be when I'm totally present for my two kids tonight.

Way, way cool, brother. Way cool. And look, it's—I think we need to give ourselves grace as well, forgiveness too. I'm falling off that perches. That's easy to say. How what it looks like to be on a higher plane of consciousness or awareness, and yet. Falling off is, I think it's part of it. I'm not, I'm trying not to judge myself too harshly for falling off. Where I'm working personally is how to get back into that state more quickly and not have it be so long, the length of time between those moments where I feel like, okay, I am showing up the way I want to show up. And when you're working, look, when you're creating a life, so I'll just go back to that point when I was a lawyer and I, my wife and I, we were at a college and jobs, we each had 2, 3 jobs and she was a teacher and had another second, third She had her job and I was a teacher too at a point and then went back to school. We're just trying to make a life for ourselves. Having the time, the perception of time to be present, I think is a challenge. I know people are listening to this going, this all sounds great except that I also have a boss breathing down my neck for KPIs to be met. Letting my freak flag fly and allowing another person to have their freak flag moment and all that, I don't know where the time is for that to happen. And I applaud people for thinking that, like bringing that right to the surface because if you don't— like it's Sales 101. You better handle the objections. Like better you handle the objections than the person who's having them is going to have those objections because you're not going to make a sale. I think we need to handle the objections and raise them, including the one that centers around time. And I don't know that we need to do that now. If you have some thoughts on it, I'm open for us to do that too. But I do think it's something that's worth It's worth wrapping your brain around because the way you're working and your wife is, and it's understandable if you didn't have the time the way I have, let's say, when my kids are raised and out of the house. I'm in a different— I'm literally in a different phase of life than you are. That's okay to recognize that that's a thing. And yet, what's our view of time and how do we manage time more effectively to potentially give ourselves more of those moments? That's, I think, something we could lean into because that's also possible.

Sure. There's a tool called the agreement or a practice we call the agreement. So I'll share that with you and it's going to sound very familiar. And so it's one that you can apply everywhere in your life, everywhere, all the time, as much as you want to, and watch what it does for you. I'll use the sales one's good, or an employee that isn't meeting KPIs or whatever. So I think about my own employees when that's happening. And what I want for them to do is I want them, if they are not meeting their KPIs, to be truly and freely themselves. I want them to be really clear on what's up. Don't like it? You don't like that I'm giving you pressure? Does that upset you? Why does that upset you? What's not working with your KPIs? I mean, let it rip, and I'm totally going to hear you out. I promise you, I'm going to be open to you. But here's the deal. I'm going to be honest back at you. And I ask that you be totally open to me. And I think because of this kind of dialogue, we are going to navigate this particular issue very quickly. Work and personal life are very different. To me, they're modes. You know, I'm in performance mode at work. That's just the mode I turn on like an athlete. LeBron James isn't out there like somebody who sits on the couch eating popcorn and chumming it up with his friends. And that guy's out there to perform. To achieve, to produce. So, work and personal life are a little bit different. So, at work, I'm just simply trying to get my employees and myself in the right mode. And so, why aren't we producing? Why aren't we achieving? And they can say whatever they want to. I don't even care. They can cuss me out if they want to. I'd rather understand that than them having a thought in the back of their head that they're already thinking that isn't on the table for me to work with at all. And almost radical transparency, if you will, or radical honesty, radical openness, all of it. Yeah. And then the richness of the solve is so much better when they're honest about whatever it is and I'm honest back at them and they're totally open to it, which is hard to do. But here, this is what we do. This is what we train on all the time. And so, if you could see us navigate issues, I'd like to think we're modeling it pretty well. And we screw up all the time.

I was just going to ask you whether if we surveyed your employees, would they say that you guys are 8 out of 10, 9 out of 10, 10 out of 10 in terms of eating your own cooking? It's way up there.

It's way up there.

I'll tell you, it's

way up

there.

I know that. Go ahead and survey them.

We'll have to do a part 2 of this podcast then. And I'll also say to our listeners right now too that in terms of just getting links to the assessment that Ken mentioned earlier, as well as more information about the book and the organization and its work in the world, we have show notes for that. But knowhonesty.com is the website, and there's a lot of really great Valuable resources. I've been on that site. I've seen it. Very cool stuff. And it'll be in the show notes as well, Ken, because I think everybody should take that assessment. We use assessment tools as well and they're really effective and I just have a sense without knowing it for sure because I haven't used your assessment. I just have a sense that it's a similar sort of philosophy around that whole assessment thing. There's a lot of assessments that are being used that I think just don't really— they don't really get the job done. They're too broad. They show the cards. They're too— what is it? Predictable. Yeah. And the responses are often really predictable as well versus shorter things that are more pinpointed at getting people to be transparent, to use that word you said just a moment ago. So in any event, I just have so loved this conversation and I would love to have a part 2 of it. Yeah. But I want to give you also, I would love to find out if there are any loose ends or hanging chads or open loops that you want to close as we close out the conversation, at least I'm

blessed to know you. I think our connection, all this is just too improbable to be a coincidence. And so, I'm blessed to know you. I'll leave you at that. There's so much more we could talk about and lean into. Let's do it in the next one. But this has been great for me. So, I appreciate you.

Thank you, Ken. I want to ask you one more personal question, if I might. You got a couple more minutes for me?

Yeah. Let's go. Let's squeeze it out.

All right. Love it. So our focus is often on, on how we create resiliency and ultimately what either depletes a person's reserves of resilience or actually adds to it. Because some of what you're talking about, there's no question that we've got a beautiful Venn diagram because when communication is good, like the kind of communication I think that you and I have been having, especially not knowing each other, to me what that's— it adds to my— I feel on an emotional level, on a physical level, on a mental level, spiritual level, every— in those zones of resiliency, I feel like I've been elevated. This— your presence today has been an elevating experience for me. And yet we also know that in communications with people, often it's the opposite. I feel less. Something's been taken away. I feel like my energy has been sucked out. And there's those experiences. I want to just get your take on how you develop resiliency. Or if you're thinking about that at all, if there are rituals or things that you do that add to the tank, that fill you with energy. And clearly, good communication must be one of them.

It is. It is openness, listening without reservation, putting your needs and wants on pause for somebody else. That's the definition. To me, it's also an ability to absorb reality as it is. I think we have lost our ability to absorb reality. And what we might choose to do is just shut it off, turn it off, walk away, avoid it, therefore not building any resiliency at all. And so, I think we need to lean into it. And to tie it all the way back to the beginning is get comfortable being uncomfortable more, and you will build deep roots In the tree that is you, if you do that,

I just literally love that answer. And with that, I will invite our community to comment. Leave a comment. You go to adamarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment there. And I'll just express again gratitude for those of you that have taken the time because it does take time to go to the platform where you consume this podcast and give it a rating: three star, four star, five star. Look, the stars matter. It helps the algorithm to help us. It helps us to grow our community. And I would be really remiss if I didn't say thank you. for doing that and also to implore you to do that for us if you wouldn't mind. And of course, if you've got a friend, a family member, somebody, a colleague that would benefit from this conversation, please feel free to share the link to it and let somebody else enjoy just the wisdom that Ken shared with us today. Ken, you have been a blast, buddy, and I'm really glad to know you. And I am looking forward to doing this again with you sometime really soon. So thank you.

All right, back at you.

Well, you tell me through your comments and responses just what you thought of this episode, whether it meets the standard, the bar that I We set at the very outset in the introduction this standard of heightened awareness, heightened enlightenment, even the opportunity to seek enlightenment through the words and insights that Ken shared with us today. I know that I feel elevated. I really do. I said that to Ken in the episode toward the end, that just my energy and my presence, my tension in the moment of being with him, listening to his perspective, and then vibing, you know, having that conversation, not just listening but being in dialogue with him, was just such a— Yeah. A welcome and wonderful experience. Really, really positive. And I hope you feel that or felt that as well, and that you're willing to think about where it is that you could be in presence and communicate at a level of presence with another human being today. Where can you be fully open and honest in your communication with someone today and really enjoy their presence and being in their company? Where at work is that possible? Among your colleagues? Where at home or in your personal life is that possible in and among the people you see all the time or that are part of your family or your network of friends? Where is that possible outside of TikTok or Instagram or any of the other social platforms that we communicate on so frequently? That's a question. No answer here other than just a recommendation that you seek that out. And I truly believe that when you seek, you find. I think that there— these are truly reciprocal, the relationship between them. So, but we have to seek in order to find. There's that aspect of it as well. So I hope that you will take this as a call to action to do that. I have so enjoyed this time being in the seat today for the Change Proof Podcast. I hope you've loved it as well. And again, we'd love to hear from you. For now anyway, I will just say thank you and ciao. Thank you. Thanks

for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com. Thanks for listening.