An entrepreneur since the age of 34, I have led workshops for thousands of people, and I’ve worked with some of the most recognizable brands on the planet. During that time, I have coached upwards of 3000 people. At the heart of it all, I am a servant of anyone seeking personal growth and transformation. Both my undergrad and graduate degrees were fueled by my passion for the mind and heart of the learner. My passion is deeply rooted in personal transformation and the belief that the only thing that prevents us from achieving greatness, is the belief in ourselves.
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbikahler/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/bobbi.kahler.9/
Website: www.unyielded.net
Podcast: UnYielded: Thriving No Matter What
Books:
• Travels of the Heart: Developing Your Inner Leader by Bobbi Kahler (published by 6 Seconds Press)
• Masters of Success by Entrepreneur Press (various authors)
An entrepreneur since the age of 34, I have led workshops for thousands of people, and I’ve worked with some of the most recognizable brands on the planet. During that time, I have coached upwards of 3000 people. At the heart of it all, I am a servant of anyone seeking personal growth and transformation. Both my undergrad and graduate degrees were fueled by my passion for the mind and heart of the learner. My passion is deeply rooted in personal transformation and the belief that the only thing that prevents us from achieving greatness, is the belief in ourselves.
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbikahler/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/bobbi.kahler.9/
Website: www.unyielded.net
Podcast: UnYielded: Thriving No Matter What
Books:
• Travels of the Heart: Developing Your Inner Leader by Bobbi Kahler (published by 6 Seconds Press)
• Masters of Success by Entrepreneur Press (various authors)
Josh: What is up everybody, Josh Tapp here again and welcome back to the Lucky Titan podcast and today we're here with Bobbi Kahler and this lady has done some amazing things in her career and I am excited to share her with you here today, I mean, she's coached over 3000 people in corporate environments, you know, solo environments, working with people, helping them to really get unstuck, to really help them change where they're at, implement real change in their businesses and in their lives so I'm excited to have you here Bobbi say, what's up to everybody and then we'll hop in,
Bobbi: Hey, how are you?
Josh: I am stoked, everybody is going to be excited to hear this one. So the first thing I want to let everybody know too is Bobbi also has a podcast called an yielded not an yielding, un yielded, I made that mistake a few times. So make sure you go check that out and throughout this interview, I'd like you to kind of see how she coaches and just the amazing way that she's been helping people to implement change so Bobbi, can I have you first talk about this, this proven technique for actually implementing change that really intrigued me?
Bobbi: Sure. So it was something back when I was in grad school, getting my master's degree. It was at Case Western, there's a researcher, his name is Richard Bayatas and back in 1969, he started performing studies, you know, why do some people change and why do some people struggle with change and and he studied, I don't know, hundreds of 1000s of people over the years, because for 50 years, I've been doing the research now and he found a five step process that leads to desired change, meaning we want this change to happen, and sustaining the change because you've probably you've probably known people, or maybe it's happened yourself, you know, you make a change for a while, and it's like, whoa, whoa and then pretty soon, we go back to what we were doing before and so there are the five elements that he found that are really, really important and that's what I that's what I studied, and I was sharing with you before I had to study the neuroscience behind it, you know, why it works? And then also, as well as how do you coach using that so that's what I've been doing for the last decade plus is using that that methodology.
Josh: See, and I love that because, you know, as somebody who doesn't really have the science brain, we were talking about this before, I'm very math, math, logical brain and then science is really difficult for me always has been, because of the memorization, everything, I think, is partially why but having that and so when somebody comes to me and says, Hey, I, you know, I've got this proven method, quote, unquote, I'm like, well might be proven with five people but is it actually a proven scientific method that works and that's what you're saying is this, this is truly the science behind implementing change so can we put this into context for our audience you know, people who are, maybe they're at 500,000, or a million dollars a year, and they're just stuck, they haven't been able to break that barrier, what would you recommend as an implementation for change?
Bobbi: Okay, so it starts with, the very first thing is, it's called the ideal self or a personal vision and one of the biggest traps that people fall into there is it becomes the should’s you know, what other people tell us we should be doing or what, maybe it's our own internal voice saying, This is what we should be doing and a lot of times by just taking that apart and looking at what do I really, really want because maybe like he said, if someone has a block of the 500,000, right maybe there's a counterpoint where it's like, but what is my personal life gonna look like, what will my relationships look like and if there's that tension behind the scenes, it's going to be really tough for us to make progress so the very first step is the ideal self, identifying what that is, and it should be positive and then you have to go through all the five steps real quick.
Josh: Yes, please do.
Bobbi: Okay. So the second step is what's called the real self and it's kind of an assessment of where am I relative to that ideal self and here's the biggest trap people fall into there, the biggest trap they do is they focus almost exclusively on their gaps and that's a mistake for a number of reasons, number one, it's a mistake, because we're not looking at what are what are our strengths and our core identities that will help us move in that directionand that's what we can build from, the second reason it's a mistake and this is neuroscience is it activates a part of the brain that kind of shuts down creativity and it shuts down learning and it shuts down motivation. So it's, it's not that we ignore the gap pieces, it's that we focus first on our basis, you know, what makes us strong so that's the first two steps and then the final three, they get easier the third one is to think about Okay, so what what do I need to learn, but you know, to move me from where I am now, to where I want to go, and we call that the learning agenda and sometimes, I mean, sometimes it's obvious and sometimes it's like, you know what, I need to listen to podcasts, right like podcasts like this one or other podcasts or I need to read or I need to interview yielded power, thank you, cuz I forgot to do that but you know, it's it's creating that learning agenda, what do I need to learn, and here's the thing about the learning agenda, we should be excited about it, because it should be moving us in a direction that we want to go so if it feels like, Oh, I should do this, we might want to revisit is this really our goal that we're working towards so those are the first three steps the fourth step is, and this is the fun one, practice and experimentation, we put it into play and we see what happens and this is where the experimentation piece is really important to think of it as an experiment, right, you know, don't don't don't take an action and think, oh, my goodness, what happens if it's not the right action? It doesn't matter, because the goal here is learning and so to me, there are three portions of this, there's the act, so take an action, then there's assess how did it go, well, you know, it worked. Like I thought it was, I ended up in the no weeds, and that's okay, too and then finally, in a lot of times, what happens is it works fairly well but we have to tweak, right, we have to adapt. So So the third one is adapt so that's what we do there and then the fifth, the fifth discovery is what it's called, is what's called resonant relationships and that can be a resonant relationship that you have, you know that that real connection that you have with a coach, you know, someone that you trust, it could be, it could be a spouse, it could be a business partner, could be a lot of different things, the thing I would say there is make sure that the person you're talking to, doesn't have their own agenda because sometimes that happens, right, where they want us to go in a certain way and that can get in the way of really showing up in that space so those are the five those are the five components the other thing I want to say about that, too, is it's not like you go through it once and you're done, this is a it's a continual progress process and what happens is, as we move closer to our ideal self, often we see we take a step back, and we're like, oh, well, now that I can do that. What else can I do? You know what I mean? Like I think about I love cross country ski and that's one of the reasons I live here in Colorado where I do because I'm two minutes from a Nordic center and
Josh: every time we snow, and this is being recorded,
Bobbi: so yes, we had snow this morning, Josh. Oh, my goodness, we're in the thick of mud season. It's like I can't even ski right now. It's just mud. Oh, my goodness, I'm ready, I'm ready for the mud to go away but every time I conquer something new, like, you know, a new hill or something like that, immediately, I think, what else can I do? And that's that's kind of how humans are wired. So I've said a lot there. But those are the five. Those are the five components.
Josh: Are you kidding, we could just end the episode, right so I really love this process and I want to kind of unpack it a little bit because if you're looking at, you know, I think money is really one of the easiest measures. So for a lot of people that Gosh, I'm just stuck financially at this and what happens is, they look at their gaps, like you're saying, and and I'm saying this from personal experience, right? We look at our gaps, and we say, Ah, I just need to fill those gaps but the reality is, maybe maybe the fundamentals are wrong, you know, maybe you're selling the wrong product, or maybe have the wrong audience of people and you're not going to figure that out without being able to, to get to that learning. So I do want to ask you this as part of kind of the unpacking process is when, when you're trying to determine what to learn, is it? Is it also important, like who to learn from? Now you mentioned, that's an important, but you kind of touch on that piece for us.
Bobbi: Yeah, you can learn from a lot of different people right and and I think it is important to think about who do I want to learn from, you know, and that could be experts, it could be people who have walked the path before you, it could be mentors, it could be a lot of different people but really thinking about who's going to be the most beneficial and I think also from the standpoint of, again, I like to make sure there's no hidden agenda because sometimes that directs our learning in a way that's not the most beneficial for us right and it leads us to that art self and I think that we know, we know when there's that internal conflict, and it's really important to pay attention to that.
Josh: Yeah, I like that because you're saying they're helping me because they want to help me when not because they have they want to upsell me on the next thing right?
Bobbi: upsell me, or sometimes it's I don't want to say it could be a spouse but it could be a family member it could be a friend who this is the thing about success in I'm sure I don't know maybe you've experienced this but sometimes when we I don't want to say outgrow but when we start growing, those around us can feel uncomfortable and it's not that we're trying to outgrow but they can feel uncomfortable, and then their instinct is, we should all stay here together, you know what I mean?
Johsh: 100% and I was just listening to a podcast by Dean Graziosi, if you're familiar with his stuff, and he, he was talking about protecting your confidence, and you need to train yourself to be confident, and he says, the people around you are the number one killer of confidence and I know for myself in with the learning, a lot of people are like, Josh, you're so smart. People tell me that all the time and I'm like that, no, give me the test and prove me. I just know that if I, I have an acid test that I've been using for our business recently, where it's, if I feel like I have to go look it up on YouTube, I need to be outsourcing it, I can't do it myself because the biggest mistake that we make, especially as digital entrepreneurs, is we say, Oh, I just need to tweak this little thing on my website so you go look it up, and you'll put eight hours into this stupid project. You can pay somebody $20 to fix it for you. Yeah, I have many stories like that and so I know for me, like when I'm trying to seek learning, if it's something that I'm like, is this going to strategically move our company forward, because I get really sucked into the graphic design and video thinks because I enjoy it but I'm not that good at it and so I could be spending all this time learning everything, but it's a skill, I can outsource for cheap but I know that one of the strategic skills that I need to master My company is delegating sales. If I can learn to master that, that's really kind of our next big thing, that's gonna move the company forward strategically. So I love your process. It's like resonating with me completely.
Bobbi: Perfect and I love what you said to there about the if you have to look it up on YouTube. That's a good indicator and I'm blanking on the guy who said this. He's a former Secretary of State and he said, I only do what only I can do, you know, because so many times we try to put on way too many hats and really what, you know, I suffered a I mean, I almost died back in 2003. Yeah. And oh, yeah, it was. Doctors told me I had a 3% chance of a full recovery. Yeah.
Josh: Was it an injuring accident?
Bobbi: No, no, it was stupidity was like, like many entrepreneurs, I started a business in 2000 and 2001 we moved out to Portland, and then September 11 happened and so I didn't take care of myself and I pushed really hard and my adrenals completely collapse, like I've had doctors say, you probably shouldn't be alive but the one of the things I learned and I use this process, by the way, this is intuitively before I even knew it existed but one of the things I started was, if I can only do one thing today, what should it be because I couldn't I didn't have the luxury of a to do list back then, I mean, I spent, it took 10 years to recover, you know, so it was I had to reserve my energy for getting well, and I didn't want the business to completely crumble. So it was like one thing if I can only do one thing, what is that and man, did that focus my attention in powerful ways?
Josh: Yeah, that is brilliant and I want to ask you this, because I love the experimental stage, you know, act, assess, adapt what what's always the hard part about making change is making it stick and so can you dive a little bit deeper into you know, the resonant relationships, because it's like, what's, what else but how are you making it so it really doesn't disappear?
Bobbi: It sticks Okay so a couple things there, first of all, a lot of times, okay, so now my mind is going to like five directions, Josh, alright, so two big things. Let's start there one of the one of the most common mistakes I see people make is they do something to the point where they've learned it, and they can do it that's the problem and there's a great quote, I don't know who said it, but the amateur practices until they get it right, the master practices until they cannot get it wrong so sticking with something until we get to that point, because the other piece of it is what we know from neuroscience is we cannot focus on too many things at once, if we're going to change something, and it's has any kind of significance, really focusing on one thing at a time is critical and then getting to that point where and when I say Master, I'm not talking about 100%. Right, not even Michael Jordan made 100% of his free throws as great as he was but if you're if you master it to the point of like 80% 85%, the rest is going to take care of itself. That's what that's what I've seen in coaching people so that's one, the second piece of it, this is why the ideal self is so critical, because it creates this positive image of of where we want to go and who we want to be and when we nail that it activates the part of the brain that intrinsically motivates us and that keeps it's called a PEA which is a positive emotional attractor and it has a tendency to pull Less in the direction of our dreams and our desires so those two things in conjunction that really keeps us that's what's really keeps us motivated and on track.
Josh: That's awesome. I love that because I mean, that's the number one problem everybody has is is not maintaining the goal was cool by what you're saying there too is it's almost in the attempt of mastery, you're going to get so good at it that it's going to be natural to take the next step and that tendency pulls you to the next logical step and that way, it all kind of builds together into a chain of masteries really, you are successful the way you want to be successful.
Bobbi: Right? Dan Pink talked about it in drive the surprising truth about what motivates us. And he talked about how progress towards mastery is one of the things that drives intrinsic motivation because when we can see we're getting better, we want to keep working on it. You know, it's it's human nature so that's why those are those, that's why those are so important.
Josh: Yeah, and I love that I want to ever play devil's advocate here for a minute I love this. So I was just having a conversation with one of my neighbors about this last night, I thought was hilarious so it's kind of funny to look back on the people who are very good athletes in high school and you look at how the rest of their lives, they have done nothing else, they've never become successful at anything else are still working, like, I've been out of high school for well over a decade now and some of these kids are still working at restaurants, you know, and I'm sitting here going, Wow, they have not moved in that long so we were kind of joking about that and I'm kind of curious about this because they gained mastery, then, or I guess, I guess what you'd say is like proficiency in in the in one thing so how do you help make them make those pivots so that they can then translate those skills over to a new industry or topic or something else?
Bobbi: Yeah. Luckily, I haven't worked with that many people like that most of the people that I work with tend to be motivated but I think I think a couple things, number one, is that we have to identify what do we carry forward with us because if we were good, and I don't know, baseball, whatever, and we want to go to a new sport, it can be like, Oh, my goodness, I'm starting again at zero no, you're not, you actually have a base to draw upon and I think helping people identify that base is really important, and then say, Okay, so in the direction that you want to go again, going back to your ideal self in the direction that you want to go, here's what you're carrying with you, how do we build on that so I think a lot of times if we can help people see that they're not starting at zero, but they have a good start, that can be motivating and there could be other reasons why people, you know, stay stuck, like I can't believe like, they're still working at restaurants but I mean, that happens, I guess but I think that's a big piece of it, right helping them understand what am i carrying forward with me like we had, I don't know if you heard but we had the big fire the East troublesome fire come through here last October, and we were evacuated we had like 10 minutes to get out and we were minutes ahead of the fire. It was it was but we went to sleep that night thinking our house is probably gone in 28 of our neighbors lost their house and I remember that night I was trying to go to sleep. It's two o'clock in the morning, and I'm thinking, Oh, my goodness, you know, what are we going to do? What are we gonna do? And I thought, is this really going to be the challenge that I can't overcome no, I've overcome really big things in my life. This is not this is just a challenge to work my way through it and what I thought of is, okay, so what have you learned in the past that's going to help you now, I've never had to go through a fire like that before, I mean, 100,000 acres, it burnt in 14 hours, that's 90 football fields a minute. I've never faced anything like that but I faced other things that I carry forward so that's that would be my, I guess that's my biggest key thought that comes to mind there.
Josh: Yeah, well, I love that because it's drawing upon those and then leveraging that because you know, us kind of apples and oranges, where it's like baseball, or football or whatever but yeah, but I mean, all of the fundamentals to a sport translate really well to business and all the fundamentals of any becoming successful, anything at all, and all translates well so I love that. Well and we are coming up standard interview here. So I want to just ask a few final questions. And the first one, obviously, Bobbi is where can people go see your content we have already kind of teased it but let us know.
Bobbi: They can, they can check out the website which is bobbikahler.com and my contents there I write quite a bit and then also the podcast we can you can find it there as well.
Josh: Awesome, so make sure you go check that out and her last, so it's Bobbi BOBBI and then Kahler is KAHLER, I will also link that in the description here. So everybody has that but I want to make sure that you go check out especially the podcast, go check out our site. This is the world One lady, I can tell you right now, if you want proof that she has, she's a good coach. She's coached over 3000 people so make sure you go check out her website and then go higher, if you're really feeling stuck, she's a great person to go to for that. So once again, the podcast is on yielded, and that is everywhere I checked. Whoo. Make sure you go check that out and then Bobbi, just to kind of wrap this up with one beautiful bow. Could you leave one final parting piece of guidance for our audience?
Bobbi: Yeah. I think the the parting guidance would be no matter where you are, the future can be changed and what's exciting about that is you can change your own future you know, no matter how successful we are, or where we're starting what we want in life, we can we can author that, you know, and we can make that make that happen.