Energy Management Mastery with Adam Barney: Scale Smarter, Not Harder

That's where in my coaching though, it's about meeting people where they are to understand what exactly charges their battery versus just saying, hey, if you can get to a concert every month, that's going to recharge your battery, that's not going to work for half of the world or more necessarily. So I have to meet people with what charges their battery to find exactly how they can reclaim that. It could be anything from getting out and taking a break and getting some fresh air, water hydration, exercise. There's a whole gamut of different things that recharge batteries for each of us individually in the world. And it takes a little work to unravel that, to pull back the layers of the onion. But the impact is real once you start to work towards it.

Step into the world of success with your brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host, Annika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. For those in the listening audience, Adam W. Barney and I met through LinkedIn. I believe that there was a reach out, maybe some commenting on each other's posts and then we just hit it off like gangbusters immediately. And Adam, so excited, thank you for being on your brand Amplified today.

First of all, Anika, thank you. It's genuinely good to be here with you. And I don't mean that in the thanks for having me on the podcast way. I mean it in the finally we got voices and let's say vibes in the same room kind of way.

Oh, 100%, 100%. All the vibes. So you are an author, make your own glass half full. You're a founder with scale smarter. You have this energy OS system which I love that name. But let's start with your journey, right? You've worked across startups, VC backed ventures, global brands with over a hundred million in marketing experience. What was that moment that you realized the traditional approaches that we all think about for growth and leadership were actually draining people instead of fulfilling them?

Well, you know, Annika, you know the short version you mentioned, you know, I spent over 20 years in corporate marketing across those agencies, those sponsors, startups, you know, Microsoft, Akamai Technologies, managing teams, managing budgets and managing expectations, which on paper I think you and I both agree it looks great. But the longer version and the real one is that I kept succeeding inside systems that were quietly draining me, right? And I didn't have language language for that yet. You know, I was rewarded for good work with being available, promoted for being exhausted. You know, I was praised for pushing through things. My body was clearly saying, say, you know, hey man, this isn't sustainable. Which, by the way, it's a terrible incentive structure, I would say. And I don't actually love the word resilience. And I think, you know, you and I, through our conversations, Annika, have come to that understanding. But, and I know that's controversial in the wider world, and I really feel that because resilience implies that you should just take the hit and then bounce back. And what I've learned is that most people aren't burned out because they're weak necessarily. And I was there myself. They're burned out because they're running the wrong operating system for the life they're actually living. And I also love to remind the listeners here, burnout, if you're feeling it, it's not a personal failure, it's a systems problem.

Yeah, it's definitely a matching problem in so many ways. And that's something you and I have discussed, is when this is not the right fit for your energy and what you're supposed to be doing in the world and what you will be absolutely best at, then that's when comes up as health. Right. Whether it's mental health, physical health, both of them. And you and I have both had that experience in the world of work where our bodies are screaming at us. This is not where you're supposed to be. This is not what you're supposed to be doing. You don't need to accept somebody else's standards and boundaries for amazing work.

Right, Right, right. And there's this moment I go back to. I was flying back actually from a nice vacation with my wife from Punta Mi to Mexico. A year and a half into Covid, and literally on the plane back, I realized something that was really uncomfortable. You know, it was, if I keep optimizing for someone else's definition of success, I'm gonna start to lose myself in that process. I left that 20 year corporate career. I. I didn't know what I was going to build. I just knew I couldn't keep living on the borrowed energy or the energy debt that I like to talk about. So, you know, I wrote my resignation letter intentionally leaving that corporate world. On the flight home, my wife was sitting next to me. She still sits next to me, thank goodness. Right. Which is either incredibly brave or, you know, some people might view it as deeply impractical. Right. You know, it depends on who you, who you Ask. But what eventually became energy OS didn't start even as a system. It started as survival. You know, it was about asking better questions. And I love to go back to those even today, you know, asking what actually gives me energy versus what just looks productive. Where am I leaking energy? Trying to be who I used to be, which is a fun thing to go back to, because who you are today isn't exactly who you were in the past. And what would it look like to design my weeks around capacity and not guilt or that, that overbearing weight of the system that I just thought that I worked with it. And I actually think, Annika, you know, most productivity systems, they optimize output, but really with energy os, it optimizes aliveness. And it's that balance that comes into play that's so critical.

What was the process like to test and iterate what was best for your energy? And then how did you decide to systemize that and create a program that everybody else can use as well?

You know, it came back to looking inward. And this is what I love to guide my clients to, because this is such an individual thing. I had to look inward into what drives me, what fills my battery, what charges me back up. And that's where I understood that the way that I've always been driven is not by outside competition. I have this fierce internal self determination, this self efface that I have inside myself. That's what I love to stay true to. That's a piece of probably why I decided to bring this to the world as well. But it's something that that wasn't afforded to me, that that aperture wasn't open to me. From that corporate career, I fell into these organizations. I managed, you know, $100 million, as you mentioned, in paid ad spend across that career, worked with Fortune 50 clients. I huge clients. Bank of America through the 2008 financial crisis. Good year. Working for companies like Akamai technologies that power 40% of global Internet traffic. I was following the rule book that came with each of those organizations. It wasn't about what was actually inside of me, but even back to those days, think about working for a company like bank of America through the 2008 financial crisis. I was in my late 20s and going home at night saying this isn't helping to make the world a better place. And it took work, it took different experiences across that career, across those jobs, those different doors that I entered to show me that it's not about what someone else is telling me I need to be. It's about Who I am deeply inside my realization, maybe it was having two kids, maybe it's having two dogs in the house. It came from all these environmental factors that pushed me in different directions. And I talk about this in my book, make your own glass half full. These two tools of optimism and autonomy that came into play for myself that allowed me to face challenges. What doesn't come in that tagline of my corporate career that we talked about is the fact that I was laid off twice in that journey. Neither time it was based on performance. One time it was due to a team reorganization. Another time was due to a 4% global workforce reduction. And I didn't take those challenges as roadblocks. I actually turned those into fuel. Those are what should charge you from those challenges to keep moving forward and grow. And I. I actually like to go back to something we've talked about, Annika, before. There's this incredible visualization that comes from Tim Urban, who writes Wait, but why? And I know you're a fan, too, and we've both experienced this. Life is in a straight line, right? For anyone in this world, it's a messy, winding scribble. You know, everything before today influences us, but it doesn't dictate again where we go next. And that image alone, which is actually taped up on the wall behind my monitor here right now, has given so many people permission to stop asking, why doesn't my life look like theirs? And start asking, what do I actually want to build from here?

Yes. And when you've changed that conversation, it makes such a big difference. I know. Even over the last few years, I mean, you and I have talked about a lot of things. We've talked a lot into our conversations. And one of those was the fact that I'm. And I've said this on other shows, I'm nine years post divorce, but I just now really feel like I have that autonomy, that I know who I am, what I want, and in this version of me, I will make the most money I've ever made. And it's not by living by other people's rulebooks and playbooks. It's based on being okay with who I am and realizing that being open to the superpowers that exist within. Right. And playing to those strengths and saying, it's okay. I don't have to make myself smaller to make somebody else feel good. I don't have to do things the way that they did them to have success in this world, whether it's with my family, with my work, with my volunteering, or whatever. The case may be. So it's such a beautiful and freeing thing and I imagine that's what you felt when you said, ah, okay, now I have this way forward, this framework. Now, here's what I'm going to call it. Here's how I'm going to help people. Because you do, you work with a lot of clients, but you also volunteer your time a lot to help students and to help people who are business startups who really need these tools.

Right, Right. Yeah. And a piece of that. It's always having this feeling. Hi, to all my listeners. I'm a white male in the world. I, for decades across my life, have wished I could bottle up the position and confidence that that's given me and hand that to people who don't sound like me, who don't look like me. That's ultimately what drives me. And to weave it back, you mentioned autonomy. That's obviously one big, big piece of the puzzle here, no matter where you come from, what your experience is. But I want to spend a second talking about the other slice of it, which is the optimism, because I think optimism gets misunderstood a lot. You know, it's. I think people think it's not necessarily pretending that things are fine. It's not toxic positivity, and it's definitely not just think happy thoughts. Right. You know, optimism. I view it as believing your actions still matter, even when the results aren't immediate or they don't look like they could even be results that are positive. It's. It's honestly staying in the game without betraying yourself and Annika, you know, you know, losing my mom to ALS changed everything for me. It's a piece of that puzzle of leaving the corporate world at the most basic level, it stripped away the illusion that time is abundant, number one. And it taught me a very quiet truth, saying, you don't honor the people you love by exhausting yourself in their name. You honor them by living fully and helping others do the same. So that's what opened a wild door. And it weaves in, honestly, to where I think our next generations are coming. You and I both love working with minds that are the next generation coming up and are going to impact the world in a positive way. And what really excites me through my work and right now is how that idea of work is actually shifting as well. And you and I both have that nonlinear path that we connected on and I think drives a lot of our energy. But from a broader world, the traditional ladder that we're supposed to climb is gone. Each of us in this world, we're running portfolios now. We're creators, we're operators, we're parents, we're caretakers, we're learners. And burnout happens, I view, when we try to live a portfolio life with that latter mindset. I've sat with students whether they're in high school, college, grad programs. I see it so deeply. Clearly. They don't want to climb something, climb that ladder just because it's there. They want meaning and momentum tied together.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's go to the name, Adam, of your business. Right, so why is it important to think about scaling smarter?

Right?

Because people think about, oh, we got to get to market fast. We have to just get our MVP out there, test it, iterate it, and go, go, go, go, go. And it's a badge of Honor to put 60, 80 hours into your startup every week and just make those sacrifices.

Right.

So we talk about, you know, why do we not have to think about hustle and hyper growth? How do we think about ambitious growth versus unsustainable growth?

Right. Well, I think most leadership content out there is about motivation. Motivation. And I don't view motivation as the key driver here. It's thinking about and caring about capacity. Because truly, Annika, motivation spikes, but capacity is what allows us to sustain, and that's where this energy OS comes into play. You know, if I can help learn leaders reclaim, say, 10, 20 hours a week of real usable energy that changes families, that changes businesses, but it also impacts the broader community. It's, you know, for an executive leader, I would call it executive capacity. It's not spending all your time responding to 9 million emails to Keeping up on Slack channels. It's part of where the world has evolved. You know, if everything is on fire around you, you can't focus on putting that fire out. You're going to drown in that fire and not be able to escape for it. So if you can take that capacity, shift it, that fire will disappear even without using a fire extinguisher. It's just about how you navigate within that a little bit more clearly. And also, I think you know this for the record, I'm a huge believer that some of that fuel comes back in. And if we can't laugh while we're doing this work, we're doing it wrong. Leadership doesn't have to feel like a hostage situation. Right. It's one of those situations where if you can elevate your team and find that executive capacity that you have inside yourself, it allows you to get more done and impact. The ripples around you emanate out from the center of where you come from.

Talk about that 10 to 20 hours that you mentioned. And because you said a lot of really amazing things here, right? Like getting your executive capacity back, giving kudos to your team, making sure other people understand the work. And then what I'm also hearing is you said energy will come back to us. So talk about what is that 10 to 20 hours that you've found in yourself and through others you've taken through your system. What are the things that people were doing? I mean, you did mention like emails and slacks, but what are some of the other places where we're expending energy unnecessarily?

Right. I would actually tease our listeners here. Think about how many times did an answer become clear to you when you're in the shower or you're simply taking a 15 minute walk outside. When you step away from things, the clarity to find the answer becomes more tangible. It becomes easier to unravel. And you know, I have to say nothing that I'm talking about here requires doing more. It's actually about doing less. But strategically doing less that 10 to 20 hours can equate down. It's such an individual thing as well. You know, each of us, we have a battery inside of ourselves. I talk also a lot about energy debt. If we start to focus on all the outward things that are pushing inward on us, we accumulate that energy debt more heavily if we start to play with our own battery pack and recharging it with the uniquely individual things that sit inside of ourselves. Mine is music. I love music. I love going to concerts that charges my battery. When I'm at the lowest part in time, spending time with my family, you know, watching my two crazy dogs do something that recharges my battery. But that is a uniquely personal thing to me. And what elevates that energy and brings, brings me back into the places where my battery gets charged and I can find that real usable energy that emanates back out. That's where in my coaching though, it's about meeting people where they are to understand what exactly charges their battery versus just saying, hey, if you can get to a concert every month, that's going to recharge your battery, that's not going to work for half of the world or more necessarily. So I have to meet people with what charges their battery to find exactly how they can reclaim that. It could be anything from getting out and taking a break and getting some fresh air, water, hydration, exercise. There's A whole gamut of different things that recharge batteries for each of us individually in the world. And it takes a little work to unravel that, to pull back the layers of the onion. But the impact is real once you start to work towards it. And it's not about again, you know, it's not paying $200 a year for an app. It's not about, you know, having to go, you know, buy a peloton bike necessarily simple, simple things getting outside refilling your not not to get into make your own glass half full, but fill your water cup back up before too late, too long in the future or simply just take a step back from the madness. Do Not Disturb is an incredibly powerful tool that we have with these devices that ping us endlessly throughout the day. Do Not Disturb. You know, depending on who the heartbeats you have that rely on you in the world might be can't work all the time, but there's a very simple way on our these smartphones that we have to do a three click and it simply changes the screen from color to black and white. Simple, simple tool once again. But you do that think about how much less interesting something that's in black and white is compared to something that's in color with color, with bubbles, you know, notification bubbles all over it. If you can simply find that and simplify that back down and take, you know, it's not about doing it for 12 hours in the day. It's about that one to two hours in the day when you know your energy is naturally going to be higher, your battery is going to be charged and use that for things that are strategically game changing. Not the busy work, not the noise that's coming at us left and right.

Oh gosh, there's so many tangents I want to go down just thinking about what you're saying and the importance and the value of people around us. And my daughter, as you know, is graduating from high school this year and this is finals week and she can drive to school, but it's really foggy out and she has, you know, four AP finals, so she's been really stressed. I made a decision to do less meetings, less interviews, move things to the new year if I have to so that I can have that time with her. Because every day I've also heard her say, well, if you have time, I know you're busy. And like that's the wrong message. She is the most important person in my life. I don't want her to feel second best just because she knows I need to work and make a living and that I really love what I do.

Right, Right.

So that's one thing that was going through my head as you're speaking. Another one is I get a lot of enjoyment out of doing interviews, meeting people, teaching, podcasting. And that really does fill me up. Right. But when I think about some of those other things, there are productivity hacks I use, like I use an AI program to go through my email and create drafts for me. I have, of course, a couple hundred drafts because you and I both have overflowing email boxes. But the thought is there and it now is train. It knows my voice and language. And so there, you know, sometimes I have to make some tweaks, but. But that is eminently helpful just to help me process those faster and not have to be stressed out and just keep ignoring it even more. So I'd love to hear, and I do like you mentioning the book because I did want to talk about setbacks as well. So I guess there's a couple tangents that I'm going down. Right.

Yep.

One is, what are some of the productivity hacks that people can use? And are those things that you teach also in that? Getting energy back and getting time back. And then. So that's one. And then completely separately. And I can ask this again because I tend to ask five questions at once sometimes. And then the other one is about deciding to write the book. What made you decide to write it? And then in the book, make youe Own Glass Half Full, you do talk about turning setbacks into fuel. And I've heard you mention some things, so I want to hear a framework around that and the impetus for writing.

Sure. Let me go with the second one first, because I think it's a good starting point to get back to the first one, actually.

Yeah.

So I think I had the idea make your own glass half full in the back of my brain for at least the last 20 years. I honestly that I worked with a publisher on writing it. I came with that idea and I knew the 12 chapter framework within 45 minutes of saying I wanted to do this. And here's what I want to focus on. That's not to, you know, pat myself on the back at any point in time, but I had that clarity that was sitting below the surface of me probably going back to those first days being a manager in my corporate career of this idea that setbacks are actually the fuel that move us forward. But, you know, I talked about being laid off twice in that corporate career. I didn't Just lay down and not get up again. From those experiences, I flex my muscle. You know, if you, if you fall down or you trip and you don't get back up, you start to atrophy. If you pull yourself back up, keep walking forward, that flexes those muscles and that charges you to continue to move, move ahead. But it's not about my own journey. You know, again, I lost my mom 11 years ago to ALS. I like to use that an example even more prominently than my corporate career because that led me to some really fascinating things that I unlocked through that incredibly difficult experience. One being getting deeply involved with the ALS Therapy Development Institute here outside of Boston, who are responsible for, for the ice bucket challenge that everyone remembers from 10 years ago to getting involved with the University of Miami and in the world's preeminent ALS researcher, Dr. Michael Benatar at the neurology department at the University of Miami about a familial ALS research program. Had I just lost my mom and, you know, I wallowed enough, but fallen into that wallow, then I would not have found these incredible things that led me to those doors that have opened even other deep doors in a broader neurological realm of understanding and connection. I talk about this philosophy in the book, though. Imagine you're in a pitch dark room, like the power goes out, you're in your bed, and you need to figure out how to pick, find the flashlight or plug something back in. That's what optimism and autonomy. That's the make your own glass half full mindset. It allows, through this framework of using optimism and autonomy, you in the pitch black, to have someone take your hand, move it to the plug, find the outlet, and help you push the plug back in. In that dark situation, that allure of darkness is incredible. From a natural human neurology standpoint or the way brain waves work, that negative pulls us in so much harder than the positive. And that is one of the biggest pieces of the make your own glass half full perspective is the fact that those challenges shouldn't just lead us on that downward cycle. If we actually say, okay, I can make it through this, and I'm just either moving to the next chapter or flipping the next page, walking forward on a path that can allow us to elevate back up and say, hey, I'm still alive and I'm still here, I haven't disappeared and I can continue to do this. That's one philosophy. But I look at optimism and autonomy as a two layered toolbox. You need to build that optimism. And again, it's not toxic optimism, because that exists. It's optimism balanced with realism. And it weaves into positive psychology that stems from Martin Seligman, but also thousands of years of other people across human history who faced incredible challenges and used optimism and autonomy to scale back up and change the world. That's a toolbox that's so important. You build that layer of optimism and then you put autonomy on top of it. So think upward and then work independently. That's how you make your own glass half full. And the idea, the idea of it. It's one of the most ubiquitous ways people are described in the world as either having a glass half full or a glass half empty mindset. I really feel no matter where you come from, naturally, if you take the glass in one hand and take a pitcher of water or your favorite beverage in the other, you can make your own glass half full through those tools of optimism and autonomy. But it's, it's, again, it's not super complicated. And there are ways you can build those, Whether it's through gratitude, it's through journaling, it's through. There's a laundry list of different tools, tools that sit inside those two layers of the toolbox to build those. And I would love anyone listening to pick up a copy or grab the audiobook to dive into some of those deeper ideas and frameworks for how you can make your own glass half full.

Gosh, I'm sorry, I'm pausing, but I really appreciate you sharing the story about your mom and how that propelled. That's a huge setback. Anybody who's lost a parent knows that.

Or just lost a loved one. Anyone you care about.

Right, True. I was going to say that, but I also think parents hit differently, so. But the fact that that propelled you into so much other work, research, meeting with the right people so that you can help be somebody who solves this, right? Who's working towards the good solutions and care for other people and family units. Dealing with als, I mean, it's huge. And it might not sound profound, but it really is just that shift. And that is such a great example of training setbacks to fuel and bringing optimism and metonomy to it. So thank you for that. I know I'd also asked about productivity tools, but I actually want to get to something else because I do want to talk about your podcast as well. And we, right before we jumped on, we're talking about a slight rebrand in it, so. But Adam, right. You know, obviously you have a podcast. Is anything real in paid advertising? We know things are Shifting all the time. This is based on so much of the work that you've done in the past. So talk about the podcast and the evolution, because I think most of us who are in the podcasting world start with one thought in mind. Our podcast is gonna be this way. This is the questions we're asked. These are types of people. And then we find that there's an evolution during our journeys. For some people that means just making a name shift, stopping their podcast, starting a whole new one. So yeah, tell us about that journey for you.

For years, people said I should launch a podcast. Had we first met maybe even a year earlier, I would have been launching a podcast called Founders Failures. That never happened. You know, that's something that maybe is in the back. Luckily I was, I had enough foresight with this first podcast to build it in a podcast network format so I can use that plugged in media network to grow it. But as anything real and paid advertising comes back to that corporate career I had where I managed $100 million in paid ad spend, it was the most obvious thing that I found, but I could count on two hands in my personal journey. I clicked on paid ads in my own life. Maybe it's knowing how the sausage is made too. Well, you know, maybe it's, you know, realizing that, wow, this thing paid my, paid my salary for 20 years. But it's not something I've ever put my own personal investment into that led me to say, is anything real in paid advertising? So much of it has shifted in the last couple years. And fast forward to earlier this year. I talk a lot about. I had a trusted partner I brought on to help me grow my coaching practice who recommended I record a VSL a video sales letter, launch it through highly targeted meta ads. And I didn't end up with one marketing qualified lead. Let one sales qualified lead through doing that. Wow, incredibly frustrating experience, but leads me to go what is real in this world anymore? And there's such an evolution. You and I have talked, Annika, a lot about the evolution of AI. You know, even in workflow, when you talk going back to productivity. AI is a huge game changer for micro businesses here in the US and these aren't the 500 person small businesses. These are the 1 to 15 employee businesses. Tools like AI tools can help you run your business more efficiently and effectively and regain that executive capacity. In that sense, you know, virtual assistants around the world, you can help change the trajectory of life for someone halfway around the world by not hiring them full time, paying them 710 $12 an hour US to get some of these operational pieces off of your shoulders. Instead of working in a business all the time, working ab the business. We're in an incredible place in the world where those tools are easily available to us. But that's part of this is anything real in paid advertising. And I think where, where I'm going here, the format is not going to shift of what it is, but the name of it needs to evolve. As we were having this conversation, I actually just had an episode go live. It was a special release episode that is around leading with humanity and caregiving, clarity and real growth with an incredible guest whose name is Yasmin de Aranda, who's in Montreal and has a husband who's 95% bedridden from long Covid symptoms that goes into this evolution of work. Right? This, this, we have these, I like to call them heartbeats. Luckily, I can thank my wife Paula for that. That word as well. But the heartbeats that we need to take care of pull us in different directions. And you know, it's really interesting to talk with a lot of younger high school college students. They realize, going back to that not traditional ladder also that they're a full human. And there are things, even if you don't have kids or pets in the house or a house you need to take care of, you have these different things in your life that pull you away from what you do from a work standpoint. And that's important to recognize. So over six months of this podcast being live, the guests have evolved and the conversations have evolved. And I think in the coming weeks, we're going to simplify it down to just is anything real? Because that's where the conversations are leading. And that's something that took it When I left the corporate world actually on that plane flying back from Mexico, I used a tool called the Regret Minimization framework. And regret minimization is about it's, it's kind of, maybe it's a pro and con list that had. That was given steroids. Right. Regret minimization is about if I have a tough couple decisions I need to make, what's the decision that I can make that's going to have less regret in the long term? And it gets back to where we started this conversation. Because if you use that tool to pick the door that you open that allows you to make a change. And that's where it's like, I know this thing has evolved as I've had these conversations. There's a lot of equity. There's a lot of weight in the conversations that I've had. But the name doesn't match the theme of what. Where the conversations have evolved. So that's a long, long, roundabout way to say my specific situation. I don't think it's about necessarily changing anything I do or even, maybe even needing to tell the people. I have a deep bench of episodes recorded that are just sitting there gathering dust right now. I think that those can continue to sit there and be useful even with a name change, because the conversations have always woven in, not just necessarily what's about paid advertising, what's about being an entrepreneur, what's building a business, or even where is the future of work or the nature of complex lives moving?

I love it. Yes, you have to do this. And I'm really excited about this because I think this also really goes hand in hand with the energy OS system. We're thinking about autonomy and optimism. With all of the other things that you are now, it's reflecting the you of the present. Right. Versus the you of the past. So I think that's really beautiful. And I love that we can have this conversation on a podcast. It's a little bit meta. Right. We're talking about the brand of a podcast that's changing while we're podcasting about your brand.

But that's. That's truly what we do as humans. We. We just evolve over time. And it's. Again, it's about where you are today versus using what you've learned in the past to push you towards the future.

Absolutely. It's a freeing feeling, I guess is the way I put it.

It's permission, actually. It's not even freedom because freedom can be misinterpreted. It's about that permission. Right. It's not about performance. Permission is even more prominent. Self permission is so critical there.

So where do you see yourself going next? You've created all these great things. You're putting good out into the world. You're working with young people who. Side note, on the way to school today, my daughter and I were talking about how she and her friends are all. They don't believe in the traditional corporate job structure. They're already thinking that way, which is. You just said so. Yeah, 100% it's real. But I. I think it. It's funny because I think as adults, we all have that inflection point where we go, I mean, to like, is anything real when we're thinking about our corporate world. Right. And our corporate work. And like, I can only be successful if I make this amount of money and work for the. And have this title and whatever the case may be. So there, there's so much like science and truth and philosophy woven into everything you're bringing to the table and all the questions we need to ask ourselves.

Right? We give permission to ask ourselves. Right?

Yeah, yeah, we give ourselves permission. We're not asking other people. So where do you see yourself going next?

Rebranding the podcast, growing the coaching practice? That's a piece of it in a balanced mindset kind of a way. You know, if anyone is looking for a way to install an energy iOS system, you know, if anyone who's listening is, you know, thinking, I'm tired, but I still care, you know, those are the kind of people that I want to help in the world and that I, that I love to coach. You know, people who, they're not broken, they just need that better operating system to work within, increasing the impact in the world. I've got some really incredible speaking engagements coming up in 2026. I actually, Anica, I think you probably, probably know this about me. I don't like using the flip of the calendar year as inspiration to make change because it's not a sustainable way to do it. And that's the way that I coach. Also, it's not about the long, it's not about the short wins, the easy wins. You know, I'm not going to tell you, pick up your smartphone, spend 10 minutes a day on this app. That's going to solve all your problems. That's not the sustainable way to do it. You have to look inside yourself and realize that this is what I need to do and I need to be thoughtful and do it in the right way. And sharing more of that with the world is where I hope to go in the future. I'd also love we should do something in person, hopefully next year. I think that that's going to come together in some way and it's just getting out to the world in bigger stages and having fun with it. Also, again, the levity piece of it shouldn't get lost in the mix. It should be fun and I should enjoy this as I go through that journey and, you know, maybe I'll go. I have about five other book ideas sitting in the back of my brain. Maybe early next year I'll actually get the time back where I can spend some thought equity and get the words on the page. And, you know, that's a lot of what I talk with people about. It's not about. It's not about making Big changes. It's those small wins. It's getting those small wins because small wins ladder up over time when you start, continue to march forward on that path.

You know that I want to ask a million more questions and just have such a deep conversation for hours with you. So it pains me to have to end our conversation.

I'd be happy to come back at some point to continue this or go down a different angle. Annika, as well.

Yes. Well. And to everybody who's listening, we will be doing some, some in person events next year and probably some webinars for you as well. Really, really excited about the way that the next. And again, I don't like to use the new year, the calendar new year. From my, my background, our new year is in April. So, you know, In Thai, we're 500 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar. Yeah. So I, I like to look forward to what's happening in the next few months, in the next amount of time, not necessarily just in 2026, because I know that what we're going to be doing will have implications way beyond that. Adam. So looking forward to what we're going to put out into the world. Looking forward to coming and talking to you more on our different platforms and to everybody who's listening. Think about your own energy level. Think about your optimism, your autonomy. And it's taken me a long time to realize what I need to do when, how many meetings can I handle a day? What time can I start meetings to be the best me and show up for people? You know what, making those changes actually makes it better for everybody, just making even small changes. Think about the small things you can do to get back that 10 to 20 hours of productivity. Right. Start with one thing and then keep on building and scaling and you know how to scale smarter. With Adam. We'll have links, of course, Adam, to your website, podcast and book in the show notes. So thank you for bringing your energy and just your spirit to the show today.

Thank you, Annika. It's been a, it's been a pleasure. And, you know, I, I think the real work of leadership right now is this. You know, can you build something meaningful without losing yourself in the process? And that's the question that I'm continually obsessed with. And I love that you're creating space for conversations that actually go there. So thank you for that, truly, Annika.

Of course, of course. It's my absolute pleasure. And of course, last question. Do you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, poem, family motto?

Ooh, that's a tough one. Because I want to go and quote a song. It's always 72 and sunny in my head. Like, that's exactly where I come from. That's where I'm feeling. On an incredibly gale force wind, rainy, late December day here in Boston on a Friday. It's 72 and sunny. And that comes from Ryan Montblue, who's an incredible singer, songwriter.

Fantastic. And with that, wishing everybody a beautiful day until we meet again. Think about how you can make your life a little bit better. Whether it's through this episode, something you see in your life, other episodes, and your own internal wisdom and what what your body and your mind are trying to tell you. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of youf Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out@yourbrandamplified.com.