Stay Clear And Decisive Under Pressure - Angus Nelson

Pressure is not just a feeling, it’s a force that quietly rewires how we lead. When decisions get heavier, patience gets shorter, and your mind lives in a constant hum, it’s easy to blame strategy, the market, or your team. We wanted a better answer, so we brought on executive coach and author Angus Nelson to talk about leadership stability, the ability to stay clear, calm, and decisive under sustained pressure.

Angus shares the personal failure that shaped his work, then connects it to what he sees in founders and senior leaders everywhere: many “leadership problems” are actually nervous system problems in disguise. We talk practical nervous system regulation and stress recovery, from moving energy through training and sweat to tools like breathwork, visualization, meditation, and tapping. We also dig into the internal operating system, the stories we rehearse, the emotions we carry, and how identity shifts when we intentionally practice a more powerful narrative.

We go deep on the success trap too: why hitting the goal can still feel empty, why every elevation creates an invitation, and how meaning and contribution change the way you build. From celebrating wins on purpose to optimizing for direction over destination in a world disrupted by AI and uncertainty, this conversation is packed with grounded mindset and executive coaching insights you can apply right away.  Check out his book: Neuro Resilient Leader

Listen now, then share it with a leader who’s carrying too much. Subscribe for more conversations like this, leave a review, and tell us: what’s one pressure point you want to handle with more stability?  

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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real people, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealPeopleRealLife 

Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller. 

Transcript

Banter And Why Stability Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:31

This is gonna be a good one, Hugo.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

The Brad Wiseman Show. Real people, real life, and everything in between. So, what do your kids think of this? Oh yeah, so embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I'm not here for the money, but I'll still take it off the Unfiltered Conversations with the people shaping our world. Because you're judging yourself by your intentions, they're judging you by your actions. Exactly right. You know what my wife said to me? You go to work and you give everyone the Mitchell buffet, and you come home and you give me the scraps. And now your host, Brad Wiseman.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

All right. We got a good one. What are you doing, buddy? Doing all right?

SPEAKER_04 1:07

Yes, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Nobody can see it, but you have the brightest shirt in the world that you're actually wearing right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:14

It is to go along with my mind. Is that what it is? The brightness. Is that the brightness? I got it. I got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

So yeah, so we got another great guest. I mean, we have been just knocking it out of the park with the guests we have on here lately. This is another good one. This is just different. It's a different way of looking at leadership, different way of looking at people uh in the challenges of leadership and and what maybe is happening with people that are in leadership. All right. His name is Angus Nelson. And what stuck out is the leadership stability. It says the ability to remain clear, decisive, and grounded under sustained pressure. So we are going to bring him on. Angus Nelson. Angus, how are you doing, man?

SPEAKER_04 1:50

I'm doing great. So far, we're off to a good start after all of our technical problems.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah, it was it was looking a little hairy there for a while. I'll tell you what. Like I was getting nervous. I'm like, is this show gonna actually go on or not? Because we had glitches. We had glitches on our side, glitches on your side. And now I think, you know what? We worked it out before we started recording, and we're good. This is good. This is all good. So how you do it?

SPEAKER_04 2:12

I also think that anything that is a challenge in the beginning, it's almost like an indicator that something's good coming.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

That's that's so true. I agree with that 100%. I agree with that 100%. So, yeah, so found you through Instagram, through, you know, people that were do booking agency and said stuff for you. And you you caught my eye. We get a bunch of people that are trying to get on the show and get on a lot of different shows around you know the area. And yours just hit me. And I think it was just the leadership part and the different ways that you look at leadership and maybe some of the challenges of of leaders. And and you it the book is called Neuros Resilient Leader, and that just stuck to me, right, stuck at me right away. So tell me about it. You wrote the book, let's let's get like an overview of it and then we'll dig in.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Sure. So if you're listening to this, you're an entrepreneur or founder whose company is growing, but you think it's starting to feel noisier than it used to, if decisions seemed like they're getting heavier and harder. Your problem probably isn't a strategy or tactic, it's actually pressure. And I help leaders maintain decision

Angus Nelson’s Leadership Framework

SPEAKER_04 3:17

quality when that pressure starts distorting judgment. And that's what we were talking about right before we got on this call is that pressure changes decisions. And the book, Neuro Resilient Leader, is a product of my past and a couple of companies that I ran, some not so well, one I ran into the ground. And the difficulties I went through coming out of losing everything, divorce, the business, massive debt, my sense of self. And I was underneath my Christmas tree in 20, excuse me, yeah, 23. So 2003. And it was December 25th, and I was contemplating how to take my life, and I heard this voice that said, We're not done here yet. And that began this process of me getting into counseling and learning about human behavior and psychology. And then flash forward, I'm working with a buddy of mine. We built this company called Crow Companies. It was an innovation association for Fortune 500 brands. Suddenly I'm working with all these massive, massive senior executive, you know, like stable of people, everything from Samsung to BMW, Coca-Cola, Adobe, Disney, et cetera. And I started noticing all these same kinds of like patterns. Yeah. And those patterns started to speak to me to a point where one of them once said, Angus, you'd make a great coach. And that's how it began in 2015. I started coaching. So it's been over a decade, and over a thousand executives have been able to see this experience of helping leaders get out of their own way.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah. Well, let's go back to the hurt a little bit, the pain that you, the pain, you know, with pain is when you learn. And you said you're obviously in a in a situation where you were really in a lot of pain. What what were you doing back then? What what were the businesses? What what who were you at that moment? And and why did you get to that point?

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Well, I talk about this in the book. I tell a story, and the nutshell version is I, you know, we don't know what we don't know. And yet the things that we experience are the tuition we pay for the graduation we get to step into. That's a good way to put it. And for me, it was not knowing how to ask for help, not delegating, putting everything

Losing Everything And Rebuilding Self

SPEAKER_04 5:26

on my own back, feeling like I was helping everyone else around me by me carrying the load. And I was running a nonprofit organization. It was a youth center that was fronted as a coffee shop. And the theme was that we're doing arts-driven education for young adults. And we did concerts, over 500 concerts. We, you know, had poetry nights and jazz nights and these incredible things for a small town in central Wisconsin. This was kind of innovative. And we were a cyber cafe. We had computers back in 1999 where people could come on and play games and we do land parties and Commodore 64. I mean, what was it?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

No, no, that was even further back.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

It was, it was, do you remember when the IMAX came out with the colors?

SPEAKER_01 6:07

They had like strawberry and yeah, it was it was the whole TV and what in a whole it's it was everything in one kind of thing. Yes, I do remember.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

We had those in in our establishment and we did some music festivals. And the first music festival we did, we had over 25 bands. The headliner was a band called Train, which obviously has gone to do things. Yeah, amazing bands. And we had some thunder showers come in right before main stage. I needed 4,000 people to show up, and only 1,400 did.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 6:36

Lost $72,000 in one weekend. And for our small organization, that was a lot. So I did what most entrepreneurs do, and that's just work harder. 60, 70, 80, 90 hour work weeks. My wife was despising me. I was gonna prove to her, prove to the board, prove to the community I could turn things around. And in short order, I started drinking, I started sleeping around, I started making terrible choices, trying to just, you know, deal with the pain.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 7:03

And I blew up the marriage, blew up the business. And from that, what I recognize is the pride and the ego is one facet, but the other facet is this inability to trust myself. Oh wow. Meaning, when you trust yourself, you can trust others. And where most people struggle to delegate is because they say they don't trust the people around them, but ultimately they don't trust themselves. And the last six years has proven a relentless pursuit of change, uncertainty, economics, political structures, corporate structures, where people no longer trust these different exterior elements. But if you follow the lines of the continuum, what is happening is an erosion of trust for self. And so connecting the dots from what I went through to what now I'm experiencing and watching right before my eyes is what neurosilient leader is all about. And real quick, the neuro part of it is the stories we tell ourselves. It's the emotions that we feel, it's the identity that we carry. This is this neurological piece that's internal. It's our operating system. Resilience is not like what most people think, where you just like, you know, white knuckle it, we're gonna, you know, grip and we're gonna make it through. It's instead, it's more like the shock absorbers on your vehicle, where they work in tandem in a system, they read data off the road and they become the suspension system and it makes the ride smoother. That's true resilience. And the last piece, leadership, is actually not just having people follow you or people you're responsible for, it's actually learning to lead yourself in such a way that others want to follow. And that's been my story.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, that's cool. Really good. It's amazing. I mean, you you've been through a lot. That's that's amazing. But you obviously what's amazing about that though is all the pain and all the all the the challenges and stuff has brought you to this point where now you can you you can share the the information that you've gathered and things like that. And that's I think it's great. So let's go on to I like this first one. I said most leadership problems today are actually nervous system problems in disguise.

Nervous System Problems In Disguise

SPEAKER_01 9:26

I mean, you know, I've never ever heard of that term used that way or that the way you you explain that. So go go into that a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

So, you know, as I started in the beginning here, you know, with these founders, executives, entrepreneurs, when you are, especially something that's growing or growing fast or has gotten to a certain point, and you start noticing that those decisions, you know, are taking you know longer and they're heavier, et cetera. When you start noticing yourself becoming more reactive, your patience is getting shorter, when your mind feels, you know, like it's in a fog, or you just can't turn it off. These are all symptoms of a nervous system that is dysregulated. And what we don't realize is that our body is processing energy. And the law of thermodynamics says that energy can neither be destroyed nor can it be created. It can only be moved. And we've gotten to a point where we're not moving the energy that we're experiencing, and we just hold it in our body. So now people have symptoms of you know massive muscle strain or dietary, you know, digestive issues. The American Dental Association record reported there's 300% growth in chipped or or broken molars because people are grinding their teeth, whether they're you know clenching during their day or while they sleep, right? So all of these are symptoms where we're carrying this load and we're listening to this bombardment of information, whether it be news or you know, the things we watch, the things we listen to, and it's creating more and more static. And under that static is the load that we carry that nobody's talking about. And this is the nervous system. Yeah, and we know this cognitively, you know, logically. We we we we can put the dots together, but rarely do we take a look at our lives and realize some of the pain I'm feeling, or maybe the things I'm trying to numb are a product of something that's internal, but I'm blaming things external. And that's the shift.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah. And then what's so with that? I mean, there's a lot of things there. How do we cope? How do we how do we not do that? You know, or how do we what's the prescription for that? You know, what's the what's the how do you get rid of what that that feeling?

SPEAKER_04 11:56

So number one, realize it is a thing, right? Yeah, whatever crisis you're painting a picture on is a thing. Yeah, and just acknowledging that is number one. Number two is like, how do we move the energy? And there's all sorts of different modal modalities. So for some, it's getting in the gym, getting your sweat on, you know, it's it's it's moving that energy through a physical expression. Yeah, then there's the other side where it

The Hidden Physical Cost Of Stress

SPEAKER_04 12:21

might be meditation, visualization, tapping, breath work, like those are all things that for so long it's felt like, well, that's just woo. That's super spiritual. That's you know, we give it these different labels. But the truth is all those different things, those different modalities move energy and it puts us back to a place of peace. Secondarily, I shared with you that neuroside is based on stories and emotions. Those different pieces are things we have absolute control over. You have these thoughts that come in that remind you of a certain season of your life. For so long, that season I shared with you before was a weight for me. It was shame, it was pain, it was trauma. But what I realized was those things made me, they shaped me, they formed me, they gave me more empathy, more patience, more compassion, they helped me be more present, and in that I became more powerful. And what we rehearse over and over again is what we will recreate again and again. And so if we rehearse the bad, the pain, the regrets, we listen to the words coming out of your mouth, I'm such an idiot. Oh, it never works for me. Oh, I'm never gonna get a break. Oh, nobody's ever got opening opera art. Those are all messages of your internal operating system playing the same messages over and over again. And so we got to change the data. And you can do that through different exercises. And in my work, I I have a thing called the 10-minute motivator. In the middle of the book, I talk about the 10-minute leaders, which is a 10-minute practice of rehearsing a powerful self. And again, not from some weird spiritual woo thing, as much as it is just remind you who the fuck you are. Yeah, I'm powerful, I'm not a victim. I have the capacity, I make choices fast and swiftly. Money comes easy, money is around me all the time. Like all those different things that you struggle with have a counterbalance to them that are something powerful and something meaningful.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:42

And once you start exploring that, you start reshaping and reframing all the stories in your life. Now the emotions change. So do the beliefs, and then the identity. And that's the big shift. Like once you get to identity, massive transformation can happen in your life in terms of opportunities, in terms of leadership, in terms of finances, in terms of walking into a room, and people want to be a part of whatever you're doing because that identity has risen to a higher caliber, a different frequency, a different energy. And that's where the real power is.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Yeah. That's cool. And so it's that whole thing of uh leaders don't lead, they attract. I mean, it's I mean, it's that's the way that's pretty. I got you know, because you can put the the uh a label of a leader of a president or CEO or whatever you want to call it, but the reality is that might not be the people that they're attracted to. That might not be the person that the people are attracted to and actually listen to.

SPEAKER_04 15:54

100%.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Yeah, it's it's it's interesting. So you know you the label does not make you at all. It's it's been and sometimes people get put into positions and they shouldn't be. Yeah, so you had said here the world's moving fast, leaders who win won't be the smartest, they'll be the most stable, which we talked about. That's the resiliency, the stabless in there. Let's go, let's go into some of the other stuff, like the six the success trap that was on here. Let's dig into that a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

So this is one of my favorite topics because someone who hasn't experienced a level of excess of success at first blush will be like, What?

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:33

Because success trap is when you get to this point where you've made some kind of whether it's financial, whether it's you know, that corner office, the title, the the house on the hill, like whatever that thing is that you thought, hey man, when I get this, then then then I will have arrived.

Move The Energy To Regain Peace

SPEAKER_04 16:51

And yet you get to that place and it's like, why isn't this fulfilling? Why isn't this satisfying? And it's because every elevation creates an invitation. Oh, I like that. Every elevation creates an invitation, right? And we think it is a destination that we're after. But a destination will always fail you because A, especially right here, right now in 2026, the destination is a moving target. Yep. Because nobody knows how this thing's gonna unfold. And number two is that destination you've set for yourself is actually in many ways a limitation. Because your talents, your gifts, your skills, you know, whatever your genius likely has the ability to surpass whatever limitation you've just told yourself. Secondarily, that that that destination you establish is probably based on something someone said, someone told, or someone restricted you from. And so you walk around with a chip on your shoulder and saying, I'm gonna prove someone wrong because I'm gonna get that very thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

And it might not be something you want anymore. Right.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

And so when you get to that next level, there suddenly becomes this ultimate frustration. And that becomes the success trap. So I've talked to multiple, multiple millionaires who have million plus in the bank hard cold cash, not assets, hard cold cash. And they're like, shouldn't I feel different right now? And this is what creates this success trap. So that's number one is the it's not fulfilling, it's not satisfying, I'm not having a meaning. And so they they work harder or they they invent a new thing or they do a new thing, and it's like cool, cool, cool, but now you're chasing something again versus making this shift in your mind where understanding that your purpose on life is about bringing meaning and contribution and value. And now what you do should be an expression of that incredible power. So now you move from trying to get something to feel something to being something to bring something. Most of us think what we're chasing is going to give us whatever it is that we want internally. But once you establish the internal, the external is a byproduct. So in the Neural Resilient Leader, I talk about three different pieces that make these shifts. There's clarity, knowing who you are, what you're all about. This is that cognitive piece, right? This is that mental state. Some would call it mindset, but it's it's deeper than that. The second piece is capacity. Once you know what you're doing, where you're going, what you're creating, you know, the direction you're headed, then you have the ability to hold the weight of whatever is put in front of you. And from that capacity, now you have the composure. Some would call it executive presence, some would say it's magnetism, some would say it's it's psychological safety. And people want to be around that. And this becomes the shift. So now all of a sudden, like you're making faster decisions, you're less reactive, you're making stronger delegation moves, your trust is restored both in you and your team. Your team is coming to alignment because you're giving them ownership and possibility and opportunity. You have confidence in every room you walk into, not because you're confident of where you're going, but simply because you're confident in who you are and what you've been able to accomplish so far. Less second guessing, more capacity under any kind of load. And that kind of reality is a growth catalyst and it compounds. So the more work you do on this, this internal state, that operating system I was we were talking about, this nervous system, the better life becomes for you and everyone around you.

Rehearse A Powerful Self Daily

SPEAKER_01 21:01

And also for your relationships.

SPEAKER_04 21:03

100%.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah. I mean, it's funny how all this stuff that we that we get into and we have guests that a lot of the things are like the tapping thing. We've heard what now how many times? Probably four times in the last three or four guests or ten guests, I've heard tapping. The tapping thing comes up with the which and I've seen people do that. It's like it has to do with like you tap different areas of your body and it releases, I guess, energy or whatever. I mean, that's kind of what I've gotten out of it. But it's interesting how there's a lot of a lot of higher thinkers or thought leaders are starting to align together with some of the same theories of what what it what it's gonna be or what it's gonna take to to become more peaceful in your life, regardless of how much money you make or what you do or who you are. It's interesting to see that.

SPEAKER_04 21:47

And you know, don't get it twisted too. For high performers, it gets more peaceful, it gets more like I want to say nicer. It's it's more of happiness, yeah, but it's not less pressure and it's not less work. No, and the reason why I say that is because high performers require some sort of pressure because that's what helps them tap into their magic. Right. And the moment you say, hey, why don't you just you know, retire and go play golf every day and watch Judge Judy?

SPEAKER_03 22:28

That's just aged us, Judge Judy, you know, whatever the hell you want to watch, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Watching the Flintstones.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

I mean that sounds like misery to a high performer. They wouldn't know what to do themselves.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

So, like a lot of the clients I work with, it's like, okay, where's that opportunity of meaning contribution? I was just talking with a creator. Of a game. A game that if I told you, you would know immediately. Something from I'm saying 25 years ago. If I told you the name of this game, you're like, oh my gosh. We used to play that all the time. Right. And he created it when he was just out of college, you know, ran it for years and years, made his millions, and then he sold it to one of these big gaming companies. I won't say that, and I won't give it away. I want to protect this individual. And we're sitting over dinner and he says, I don't know what to do with myself. And I was like, Tell me more. And I'm not coaching him right now. We're just having dinner.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:22

And he's telling me how you know frustrated. I said, Well, what if you did something that brought you meaning and contribution? It sounds to me like you have resources. Now you just need a purpose. And what if you went to Africa? What if you dug wells? What if you started schools? What if you started mentoring people? What if you started a new program or business that helped new entrepreneurs? I just started throwing stuff into his head. Six months later, I ran into him. I was like, Hey, you want to go grab coffee? He's like, I can't right now. I'm flying out tomorrow. I was like, oh man, sorry, where are you headed? And he's always, you know, jet setting somewhere. And he goes, I'm going to Africa.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

That way.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

Now I live in Lisbon, Portugal. So that's not a big deal to go to Africa from here. That's pretty easy. And I was like, why are you going to Africa? He says, I'm digging wells. I was like, shut up. He's like, yeah, I'm on my third one.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

And then he goes, and not only am I digging wells, but I'm creating infrastructure to support the wells so no one ever has to worry about them breaking.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Oh, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Come on, brother. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

That's great. Yeah, that's cool. And it was just to come from an idea, a suggestion, and he's doing it. That's incredible. Yeah, let's. So you're in Portugal? I mean, what time of the day? What time is it there? Uh it's 10 o'clock. 10 o'clock at night. Mm-hmm. Okay, so it's only five hours ahead of us or whatever. Yeah. I'm not good with geography. Never was, and I'm not going to ever say that I will be good at geography. Uh, but no, but that's cool. Yeah. So obviously you're you're about to go to bed then after this. But let's get into some of this other stuff too. The I love the direction over destination. And actually, let's go back a little bit about it's interesting you were talking about the the destination or the goals and things like that that we always pick out.

unknown 25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

I have to say, my partner and I, we we own a me and two partners, we own a Kellow Williams franchise here in the area. And we we talk about this all the time as entrepreneurs. We we tend to never celebrate the things that we think we are going to celebrate when we get there. We we just basically, right before we get to that place that we say we're gonna celebrate, we're gonna go out and we're gonna have dinner and drink some wine, whatever it'd be, you know, just to celebrate an accomplishment or a big goal that we had. We never do. And it's just funny because I and I was talking to some other entrepreneurs we're on a podcast, you know. I think sometimes as entrepreneurs, we just get right to that spot and then we're like, oh, what's the next goal? And then you forget about the celebration, you forget about actually sitting and like just being in that moment for a little bit, maybe even just sitting and being in peace for a second. We don't do that. We tend to just go, what's the next one? Where's the next thing? And and it it's do you find that to be in with you being around a lot of entrepreneurs and leaders and things like that? Do you see that?

SPEAKER_04 26:00

I require all of my clients. We we do what we call a slingshot year. And a slingshot year is planning a year based on who what we believe we're creating and bringing into you know our businesses, our relationships, our lives. And then we reverse engineer it and we say, you know, what does that look like in terms of my family? What does that look like for me? How does that make me feel? What lives have I impacted? What choices have I changed? What perspectives am I shifting? And we go really deep into this, and then part of it is we break down into quarters and we have different segments of that plan broken into those quarters. And part of the requirement is once these KPIs, you know, key performance indicators are met, what are you gonna do to congratulate yourself? Wow, it's good. And I make them plan a trip,

The Success Trap After Achievement

SPEAKER_04 26:51

buy a new set of clubs, you know, get that thing that they've said they've always wanted. And and it can be as simple as I could be a new watch, it could be anything. Anything. Yeah, you know, I I have one that bought a Lamborghini Urus. I have another one who bought ear airpods. Yeah, it's simple. It doesn't have to be big or little, it can be whatever it needs to be, but it has to be meaningful so that every time you start that car, every time you put those headphones in, every time you see that on the shelf, it reminds you of what you've done because we forget to celebrate how far we've come. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yeah, and it's not an ego thing either. And that's some people are like sometimes when I say that, it's not it, it's not a matter of feeding the ego. It's feeding, it's feeding the reason you're doing things. I don't even know how to explain what it is, but it just we need to celebrate. There's nothing wrong with celebrating when you get to a certain level, and it's something I need to work on as an entrepreneur. And and my partner and I have talked about this. We need to work on when we say we get to a certain level, we're gonna go out for dinner, the wives and and just just have a good time together. Yeah, you know, we don't do it. We we have to force ourselves to do it because I think it's important. I really do. Fellowship, you know, whatever you want to call it.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

All of it. And and you know, sometimes it's just getting together with the people that are meaningful to you. Yeah, you know, planning a trip and shared memories. Yeah, and you looked at those pictures and like, remember what we were doing? Remember why we were doing it? Yeah, you know, and and and I would say related to this is that most leaders spend their lives trying to become somebody.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

And in this process, they they, you know, having these little measurements you can trace back to the Hebrews who used to stack stones for for memory's sake. And this is where we were. This is how this come. This recognize this thing because we want to put ourselves in remembrance because we forget so easily how far we've come and what we've gone through. And what I've learned about leadership is that it's far less about becoming whether it's again that destination or it's becoming that person who has that stuff. Yeah, and it's more about removing everything that's preventing you from being fully who you really are.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:58

And when you give yourself some segment of reward, it's to remind you of who you really are. I'm the kind of person who, I'm the kind of leader who, I'm the kind of husband who, I'm the kind of father who does these kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah, it's good, really good. So let's let's get in. We were starting to talk about direction over destination, which I think is kind of in line with that. It and you had down leaders should optimize for direction, which I love rather than destination, because direction can be adjusted. A destination, if you say that's where I want to be, let's think about it on a map. This is where I'm going. And it doesn't matter if I change my mind along the way, whether I want to go there or not, I'm going. I'm going to the zoo tomorrow, whether I want to go or whether it rains or not, I'm going to the zoo. And I think direction is more important than the destination because you can change your direction, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

Yeah. And think about it this way. You know, like I'm talking with a company right now, they're an importer of high-end vehicles, all the Volkswagen, the Bentleys, the Lamborghinis, et cetera. And they're sitting down with their senior executives and they're creating a five-year plan. So by 2031, this is where we're going to be as a company. And I told their one of the senior executives I was talking to, I was like, why?

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yeah, it's a limiting belief. It's a limiting, it's a limiting thing, actually. It limits you.

SPEAKER_04 30:23

Yeah. And I said, the markers you're having for the KPIs in five years are not related to reality 2026. The game has changed with AI, and most people are not recognizing the speed at which this stuff is changing. And where a five-year plan for the last, you know, thousand years has been a really great play. But now it's there's there's too many hidden variables. And therefore, how do we create efficiency? How do we keep our employees happy? Yeah, how do we maintain what we've built? So if we have this much inventory or if we have this much square footage, is that going to be relevant in five years? Those are far more powerful conversations in light of where we're at in this time in history.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:22

And so therefore, it's now it's about what's the direction we're headed. Are we going to create multiple vehicles of multiple fuel cells? You can have the car that's run by hybrid

Clarity Capacity Composure For Leaders

SPEAKER_04 31:36

or the all-electric, or you're still going to stay with gas, or maybe we're going to look into hydrogen. Maybe we're going to look into water, maybe we're going to look into solar. I don't know. I'm just making stuff up. But like if you're following like where the direction is, you have far more creativity and you can innovate and pivot, be more agile along the way, versus having that you know direction going to a destination. The destination now becomes gridlock.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:07

Because people get more beholden to the finished product. They're attached to the outcome, and every choice is under that outcome's pressure. Every decision is faced to where we're going to be measured by our bonuses, by our all sorts of lists of other things I won't go into that have nothing to do with the actual company and our future success. And the same thing with our relationships. Oh wow. And we're in the middle of COVID. My wife looks at me and says, We're getting out of here.

unknown 33:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 33:22

And we're like, where are we going? We don't know. We just we love the Dalmatian coast. We wanted to go to like Greece or Montenegro, Albania, Croatia. We were looking at all of that area. And then it's like, well, what were our kids do with those languages? So then we looked at Spain, but at the time Spain didn't have you know a visa for nomads. And so then we just kept hearing about Portugal. We'd never been to Portugal. And so we moved here sight unseen in 2022.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Wow. And it was funny, I was gonna ask you at one point, how did you get to Portugal? And somehow you wove you got it into the story, which is cool. Let's before we before we wrap this up, let's what do you what did you want to bring today? Today, like is there something that we didn't cover? Is there something that maybe you know, since stuff was on, you know, in your book, or anything that you've you've kind of discovered more that's like really getting you like amped up now?

SPEAKER_04 34:17

I if I were gonna say that, you know, I said this right in the beginning when you and I were just talking, and I said that decisions well I'll put it this way pressure changes decision makers. And for us to make the right choices for our companies, for our our families, we have to learn how to deal with pressure. And that's why this is so important. The neuroresilient leader is kind of a Trojan horse. I

Direction Over Destination In The AI Era

SPEAKER_04 34:51

go through in the way that's written, if you take a look at the book, it has all these different parts and pieces that are takeaways. You don't have to read it cover to cover. It has things that you can go back to, it has exercises that you can, you know, experience. And all of that was for one reason. What I want you to connect to is not necessarily the principles as a whole, as much as one particular piece, and that is sovereignty, agency, personal power. Because if I were gonna say if there's anything missing in this world, is that we've forgotten that we can make decisions to create a life that we want to create. We're the only species on the face of the planet that can create something in our cognitive realm, an imagination of creativity, and then speak it into the world and make it a thing. Yeah. No other species on the face of the planet can do that. That's true. And then we live our lives always depending on someone else to pick us. It started in school and grade school, like you had to raise your hand and you got picked, and then you got and the kickball team and you got picked, and then you got in the other sports, and you had to get picked, and then you wanted to apply for a college, and you you put out all of the school applications, hoping one of them would pick you, and then you get into a job, you're waiting for someone to sign the dotted line for someone to pick you. And the whole element was preparing us for this world of employment, and employment is going away. We're going back to the world of entrepreneurship where people have to create meaning and contribution in such a way that people will exchange some fee for the exchange of your good or service. And instead of watching all these people getting laid off and going into panic, it's like, no, no, I don't need someone else to actually determine my destiny. I'm gonna determine my destiny. And I can build something, I can create something. And whether that's you know, doing leather goods or if that's hosting trips somewhere or or making dinners for people, like I don't know, whatever your talent or skill is, maybe there's something out there that you can bring to the world that nobody else is doing, or at least nobody's doing it the way that you can do it. And to me, whether you're leading a company or whether you've created a company or whether you're trying to be a good human, you've got to be able to be settled in yourself first. And once you do that work and that nervous system is settled, suddenly you bring light and love to the world in a way that victim mentality never will. You'll bring generosity and overflow, source and supply in a way that scarcity, fear, and uncertainty never will. Like if that's what you want, it's available.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Yeah, it's good. Really good, man. That's awesome. Good stuff. Well, I I appreciate you being on the show. I you you are one of the better that we've had on the show. That was a really good, that was really good. Very passionate, too. Now, I love the passion that you have in what you're in your message, and it's awesome. So the book is Neuroresilient Leader. Where can we find you? Where can we get you on Instagram or Facebook or websites or things like that so that uh our audience can find you and get more of what you have out there?

SPEAKER_04 38:08

Well, because I'm an old schooler, Angus Nelson will pretty much get you everywhere from angus nelson.com to all the channels of Angus Nelson. Awesome.

Sovereignty And The Free Book Offer

SPEAKER_04 38:16

Um, and that's you know the best place. Also, I am so committed to this book that if you're still listening at this point in time, I want to give it to you.

unknown 38:28

Cool.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

And if you go to freebook.vip because you're a very important person, you can download this book for free. Awesome. And then I'm gonna give you 10 days of experience of what we're talking about, retraining your nervous system. And I want to make this shit contagious.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 38:45

Most leaders are spending their lives trying to become someone, and leadership isn't about becoming someone, it's about removing all the stuff so that you can be fully already who you are. And the greatest competitive advantage for what's coming in our future isn't intelligence, it isn't systems, isn't processes, isn't great ideas. It isn't all those things. It's someone who can remain clear, calm, and decisive in a world where everyone else is feeling overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Awesome. That's can't say it better than that. That's amazing. Thanks so much, man. I really appreciate it. Uh, that was just a great show, and we wish you the best with the book and everything that you're doing, coaching and all that. I'm hoping we'll have you back again sometime. All right, take care. Would love to. Thanks, Brad. All right, oh my gosh, Angus Nelson, that was awesome. That was really good. That was an amazing show. So, uh, leadership stability, you'll want to pick up a book. It's Neuroresilient Leader. Uh, you can find that. I did see it on Amazon. I saw it different places. Just go to his website, everything is on there. Plus, he just told you you can get a free copy of his book if you go to the place. He told you we'll have it on the social so you can check it out there. All right, thanks for being here every Thursday at 7 p.m. We'll see you next week. All right, bye bye.