Leading with Emotional Intelligence featuring Dr. Alan Mueller

This week, I’m joined by Dr. Alan Mueller, author of Leading with Emotional Intelligence, for a powerful discussion on leaving the traditional 9–5 to pursue entrepreneurship with clarity and courage. Together, we unpack the real journey of stepping into your own path and the mindset shifts required to lead your life and business from a place of intention.

We also dive deep into the traits that separate great leaders from ineffective ones, exploring how emotional intelligence transforms the way we guide others—and ourselves. If you’re craving purpose-driven leadership and a work life that feels aligned, you won’t want to miss this conversation.

A sought-after keynote speaker and leadership trainer, Dr. Mueller blends deep expertise with engaging storytelling to spark real change in organizations. As Senior Consultant at Adaptive Challenge Consulting, he draws on decades of experience spanning finance, sales, higher education, and hospitality management to deliver practical, high-impact leadership development.

Dr. Mueller is the author of Leading with Emotional Intelligence and the TEDx speaker behind “Doing the Math: How Do We Measure Privilege.” His work is grounded in intercultural intelligence, helping executives and teams lead boldly across difference. He is also a Myers-Briggs Certified Interpreter, who teaches teams how to unlock

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 2:37

Welcome back to today's episode of Unapologetic Living. I am Elizabeth Elliott. I am your hostess, and I am excited to have Dr. Alan Euler with me today. Welcome, Alan.

SPEAKER_00: 2:48

Hi, how's it going?

SPEAKER_01: 2:49

Good. I know we um just met um through the internet, and now we've had, you know, I don't know, maybe a 15 or 20 minute awesome conversation that should have just been in the recording or the show.

SPEAKER_00: 3:02

Probably, probably it was a good combo, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:05

Um, so I'm excited to have you. And the first thing that I saw that really stood out to me is this book that you have, which I've ordered for my son, who is uh a college and assistant um basketball coach at the D2 level. Emotional, what is it? Leaders leading with emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_02: 3:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:25

Um, and so you're the author of Leading with Emotional Intelligence and the TEDx speaker behind doing the math, how do we measure privilege?

SPEAKER_02: 3:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 3:35

Um but you know, prior right to the book, you were did you say you worked in division, you worked at the college level at student. I worked at student affairs.

SPEAKER_00: 3:49

Student affairs, yeah. And I worked at I worked at four different colleges, and one of them was a division one college in athletics, two of them were division two, and then one was a division three college, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:01

Yeah, so so you spent 20 years there. I know I was I was thinking while we were talking, um, I've I've held a lot of roles and you two and you still do. Um like an Allen of many trades.

SPEAKER_00: 4:15

Very much so. I I gotta keep busy and I gotta, I gotta, I love following distractions.

SPEAKER_01: 4:20

Um, and so okay, and so then I know that you also have an Etsy shop where you're doing, I think, would you call it woodworking?

SPEAKER_00: 4:27

Yeah, yeah. I I make laser-etched products, and this the holiday season is our busy season. Um, and I started it as a hobby, and before you know it, my entire dining room was taken over by industrial lasers, and I have packing assistants and lasering assistants, and it's this whole thing. And um, you know, in the in the cosmic sense, my my Etsy shop allowed me to make a big life transition, and it allowed me to transition from having a regular job to do entrepreneurial work, and so it's it's uh been a fascinating um kind of sequence of events that weren't all weren't necessarily planned, but were always there at the right time, if that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:08

So I I mean, I don't know. Were you wanting, okay, when you decided to make that transition or hopeful of making that transition?

SPEAKER_02: 5:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

Was it what were the specific reasons or driving forces behind that transition?

SPEAKER_00: 5:23

Yeah. So one of the things is everywhere I had worked, and I worked at a lot of small liberal arts colleges, a small Presbyterian college, a small Quaker college, a small Moravian college. I worked at one larger state university. But everywhere I worked, I would start a first-year leadership program. I used to call them freshman leadership programs, but my last college was an all-women's college, so I got in the habit of saying first years. And um, it was actually the oldest women's college in the country, if you can believe it, 1772, right? But everywhere I worked, I started an emerging leader program, a leadership program for first-year students. And in my 20 years working, I had 16 different bosses in 20 years, 16 supervisors in 20 years. And so I'm teaching leadership almost every day to the next generation. And then I'm watching leadership in the forms of my supervisors, sometimes getting it right, sometimes getting it wrong, sometimes most often a combination of sometimes getting it right, sometimes getting it wrong. And then before you know it, chambers of commerce and businesses would see me at a conference or something like that. And they're like, Can you come talk to our team? And the light bulb finally went off that this leadership development that I've been doing for college students for years, and I even wrote a dissertation about how colleges and universities teach leadership. I've I've realized that the post-college working world could use this. I've had a lot of bad bosses, I've had a lot of mediocre bosses. And um, I my wife tells people as long as bad bosses exist in the world, there's a need for leadership training. And so I took a lot of the skills and techniques that I had honed with students for 20 years, and some of that's experiential learning. If any of your listeners have ever done a high ropes course or a low ropes course, that style, and there's a whole science to the learning of high, you know, you you think you go to the low ropes course and they're like, here's a log, you gotta get your 20 people from this stump to this stump with this log. But there's kind of a science to the learning and how the reflection happens and how the right questions to draw out the learning. So all those techniques, and I was like, I'm gonna do this with corporate folks and nonprofit folks, and with folks who lead educational institutions, like faculty and staff. And um, and now I go all over the country. Um, literally in the last month and a half, I've been to California, Virginia, Florida, and then several right here in North Carolina where I am. And uh next uh February, March, Naple, I'm going to Indiana, going to Evansville, Indiana to work with a client.

SPEAKER_01: 7:48

So okay, that's that far from here.

SPEAKER_00: 7:50

No, it's not, it's not. Um, and I have friends in the Louisville, New Albany area. Um, and I'm hoping I can convince them to drive down and have a dinner with me. Um, but yeah, so I go all over and do this leadership training. And um, you know, it's it's amazing because I I think I finally found what I've what I've been what I've what I was meant to have done a long time ago, and that I was doing in a form, but I found the right setting. Right. I was doing the right thing for my soul, for the unit, I was doing the right thing that fit me, but now I'm doing it for just a different audience, and it makes a world of difference in my work life balance, makes a world of difference on my paycheck, uh, because educators don't get paid much. Um, and so those that's been a shift, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:38

Yeah, so then this is uh and and your business is the adaptive challenge consulting, right?

SPEAKER_00: 8:43

Yeah, yes, yes. And the cool thing about that, um, when I started it, it started uh 11 years ago, but for the first six or seven years, adaptive challenge consulting was Alan, and Alan was adaptive challenge consulting. It was just me, right? Um, and then when I made the decision to to leave, which was tricky because I had a mortgage and two kids and a lot of uh you know robust adult commitments, right? And um, I was in these communities, many of whom switched to entrepreneurship, but a lot of them were 28, 29 years old, and nothing against that. That's amazing, but a lot of them had their lives weren't as complicated yet, right? By these these different commitments, and um, and so you know, when I made the transition, um it was it was scary, it was scary at first. Uh, but the thing I did was I found talented people who I had admired and talented people who had done more than one thing. That's the thing I love is everybody had worked in more than one industry, and I connected with some of them, and now I have six amazingly talented affiliates. And so now the company is more than just me. And so uh sometimes a city government or a university or a business will need some training, and I'll come in, but I'll bring in an affiliate with me because they might have some professional expertise that's different. They might most of my affiliates are not white guys like me, right? So I think I have one white guy, and everyone else has something different for me, either gender or race or something. And so they bring in the lived experience that's different, professional competencies that are different, and two, I'm a decent presenter, but if I'm doing a two-day workshop, anybody's gonna get bored with the same speaker for two days, right? So they can come in and break up the monotony, and so I bring in these affiliates to help, you know, get people better trained on how to be leaders. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:30

All right, so I know that you're a father and a husband, and I would have met, right? And so when you make this decision, I guess I'm curious. Um I know it's probably none of my business, but I am curious at what stage in life, how old were you when you made this decision decision to because that's a big decision.

SPEAKER_00: 10:50

It is, it is, and and so I'm in my early 50s, okay, and uh, so I'm a Gen Xer, you know, definitely. And and you know, it it's you know, and I I am I am spiritual in a sense, um, and I am religious in a sense, and I I don't have all the answers about my faith, which is is an interesting place to be because when I was younger, I thought I had all the answers about my faith, and now I have some answers and some questions. But one thing I've come to believe is that, and I have a lot of, if I can just get real for a second, I got a lot of friends down here in North Carolina who are Calvinists, and if your listeners don't know who Calvinists are, it's Calvinism's with within Protestant Christianity, and it's that God has predetermined everything in one's life, right? And that's sort of the the overarching philosophy. And I've always struggled with that because I'm like, well, yeah, but I definitely think I chose what I wanted to have for breakfast this morning, right? So I feel like I have will, but I also sense that at certain moments in my life, the divine shows up right on time, if that makes sense. And and and the way I conceive of it is, and I I say God, and you know, different people might have different words, that God has created this giant river, and I'm going down this giant river, and I have got my own little paddle boat. I can paddle up, down, right, left, I can paddle all over this giant river. But there are there are bends in a mile down, four miles down. There are bends in the river that aren't they've been there for a while, those big bends in the river. And so my transition from working to entrepreneurship, all the roots of it were seemed like they were being prepared well before I was ready for it. Does that does that make sense? Like, like that I was learning these things with zero intention of doing this, but learning these different skills, that when my my heart and my soul or whatever was at some kind of readiness, suddenly all those skills pop. And it was like, dude, you understand that you have everything you need to do this. And I'm like, oh, I do have everything I need to do this. And so I mean, working in student affairs, if I can just share this, I used to at the I worked at the oldest women's college in the country, Salem College, seven founded in 1772. Um, and I ran the campus activities, leadership, and intercultural education. That was my title, the assistant dean of students for activities, leadership, and intercultural education. So I taught students how to make a post, how to make posters for events, how to work with contracts for different performers that we would bring to campus, to create social media campaigns, to motivate uh volunteers towards a goal, to manage a budget, all of those things. If you want to be an entrepreneur, those are some great skills to have have cultivated, right? And so my company website, I don't have to pay anybody to do a company website website because I know how to make a website. Why do I know how to make a website? Because in 2005, I ran a career center at another small college, and they're like, You need you need to build a website from scratch. So I taught myself how to do that because you're at a small college where you have to be the the the Alan of many hats or the jack of many trades, you know, that kind of the Jill of many trades. Yeah. Like you have to do that. And I joined this community, it was like, hey, friends, all those skills you've developed to be an office that does a bazillion things, those skills in the entrepreneurial space can pay off big time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:46

It's funny that you say that. I always found that the divine, I know some people have a hard work, a hard time with the word God. I know I was raised Methodist and um and then I don't, I guess in high school really gravitated towards some of more of the Eastern religions and philosophies, um, was very curious about those. Um but and then you know, I went to school with the intention of I I was super passionate and still um about nutrition and wellness and movement. So my goal was a degree in well, I started in one place, ended up somewhere else, but something in nutrition.

SPEAKER_02: 18:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:34

Um but then I ended up back at the University of Louisville. I was having a really hard time with anatomy and physiology. I said, I'm not gonna see and the only program at University of Louisville's time was like a health promotions.

SPEAKER_00: 18:48

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 18:49

Okay, well I got pregnant at 23. I was in my sixth year and went to the and I'd taken a lot of religion classes just because they interested me.

SPEAKER_02: 19:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:06

I had no idea what I was doing, and I went into the um oh, the advisor's office. I said, Look, you gotta get me out of here. I'm now pregnant. This is year six. What can I? It was October. I said, What do I need by May to graduate? Yeah, and she's like, Well, you can get a degree in humanities with concentrations in religious studies and Spanish. But little did I know that like that would shape so much because then I went into yoga and all these other things, but sometimes why things are taking place.

SPEAKER_00: 19:37

You don't, you don't, yeah, and you don't have to, and you don't have to, no, no, no, and you know, the thing is colleges and society gives us these myths that you have to have it all figured out by 18 or 21 or 25 or whatever. Oh my gosh, friends, I I'm still I'm 50 something, and I'm still figuring it out, right? And so, you know, when I used to work in career centers, I would get very, very kind of concrete about it, and I'd say, look, friends, everybody I'm speaking to statistically is gonna have about five different careers in their lifetime in about eight to ten different settings. And so the pressure of picking a career, well, let's let's let go of that. I now I understand you gotta get you gotta get a paycheck. So, but but I think instead, why don't we talk about what's our first career gonna be? Let's that reduces the pressure. What's our first career gonna be? Because a second one's coming and a third one's coming. So let's talk about the first one, but it gives you the the freedom and the grace to go, oh, this is the first one. I could love it and keep going, I could love it for a season and then change. I could hate it and want to change really quickly. Um, but can I tell you too, your story about the religious studies? I was a music major for four years and got burned out and sat down with an advisor, and I had a religious studies minor. And so, similar to you, I sat down with an advisor and I was like, look, I gotta, I gotta finish. It took me seven years to finish college, actually, seven. Um, and I got married in the middle of college. I was working two jobs, sometimes even three jobs. I was very involved in all the extracurriculars, but not really focused on my studies. And my advisor said, Well, you've got this religious studies minor locked down. If you just took this class, you know, these other seven classes, you could get a philosophy and religion degree. And it's like, cool, cool, great. So it's I love hearing that that story sounds like it parallels a little bit about what you were going through, which is I I gotta finish at this point. Like, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:31

Yeah, and I love your I love that question. What is going to be your first career? So I don't know uh what you've read or listened to uh of any of my shows, but I also drive Uber and Lyft.

SPEAKER_00: 21:42

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_01: 21:43

So I you know, and I've done that for almost 11 years. Oh wow, and wow that departs like in the beginning, it was uh pretty full time. It was my vehicle to make a shift as well.

SPEAKER_02: 21:57

Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 21:58

And just like you starting your Etsy shop really became the vehicle from taking you from your nine to five to an entrepreneur with your own consulting business, and now you're an author. Um but and I don't really know what I was gonna say there. Well, I think young people, because a lot of people, there's people from all walks of life, you know. I'm in with all walks of life, all socioeconomic statuses, all colors, all races, everybody, yeah, regular basis every week. And you know, they can't, they they have so many choose, right? They're looking at this lifetime career, yeah. And I guess the most the saddest part, they're just there, not because that's really necessarily where they want to be, not doing what they want to, what they love.

SPEAKER_00: 22:53

And and I think that um I I read and listen to some esoteric folks. There's a guy named Bashar who's out there who says he's channeling an alien. I have no idea if he's channeling an alien or not. I have no idea. But but what I do know is that the things he says make lots of sense. And hearing you say that you grew up Methodist and then started exploring Eastern religions, I love what's called the Gnostic Gospels. These were these Christian Gospels that were lost to history.

SPEAKER_02: 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:20

But oh my gosh, is it a radical retelling of what Christianity could have been? Oh, and not I'm not knocking on on Christianity now as a whole, but but you know, it there's been some complicated history, right? Colonization and all these things, um, that that have not been great. Uh, but these Gnostic Gospels are like, wait a second, wait a second. Like in one of them, um, you know, in the traditional Christian uh tradition in the in the regular gospels, Jesus turns to Peter and says, Peter, you're gonna run the show from here on out, right? In these non-canonical gospels, Jesus turns to Philip and Mary together, one man and one woman together, and says, Y'all are gonna lead my my movement going forward. Y'all, one man, one, which was radical, radical at the time. And it wasn't just the feminine or just the man, it was this bland. I think I saw one of your episodes talking about these energies, and and that the the the hidden message was spoiler, your soul might not really have a gender. Like gender is an experience of your soul, I think. But at the end of the day, when we're into the next iteration, whatever that is, a lot of these things that we think of are they are energy. They are not they are energy, they are energy, right? And they are, and you know, I I've got enough degrees that can I can tell you gender is a social construct, and that gender, the social construct varies country to country, region to region, nation to nation. Um, a lot of people in my community, if they see someone who was assigned male at birth walk in with a dress, they freak out. And then when they see a Scottish man with a kilt, they don't freak out. And I'm like, well, why is that? What's what's the difference? Well, it's culture. It's culture because in the Scottish culture, that's a norm. That's a norm. That's not a feminine norm, it's anybody's norm. And but in some cultures, the norm might be, hey men, we want you to dress this way. Hey, women, we want you to dress this way. And if you deviate, then people are gonna get uncomfortable, right? And so, you know, people that people don't always understand that what we think of as gender is very connected to the cultures that we grew up in, right? And that's not good or bad, but it is distinctly in the culture we grew up in.

SPEAKER_01: 28:30

Yeah, yeah, and uh the sacred um I I do believe, you know, that sacred union. And I don't know, did you read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill?

SPEAKER_00: 28:40

No, no, oh you haven't? No, Think and Grow Rich?

SPEAKER_01: 28:43

Okay, okay, well, it's I'm gonna have to look it up. It's we're in the process of reading, and I I started it years ago and then read it again, but he really talks about those real innovators, yeah. And those, I mean, the wealthy, you know, the wealthy, the one who who attain riches now. Yeah, um it can those riches can be misused.

SPEAKER_00: 32:09

Sure. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:11

But but he gets to a place where he talks about those two energies. You have to have both.

SPEAKER_00: 32:18

Yes, you have to. And and our work our our workplaces are have been dominated. I literally I tell people that you know, the industrial revolution, when we were in the industrial revolution, men and specifically white men, but men were running everything in the workplace. And then World War II happened, and Rosie the Riveter showed up. And prior to that, society had told women in the US, hey, we've got three great options for you. Do you want to be a nurse, a school teacher, or a stay-at-home mom? Society was telling women that those are their options, and then World War II happened, and they're like, oh, or welding, or engineering, or or management, or or or and that unfortunately, during World War II, also because of the GI Bill, a lot of a lot of black folks and Latino folks who previously couldn't get into college were able to get to college. And so by by the time World War 10 years after World War II, our workplaces were so much more diverse race, gender, the whole thing. But at no point did the men in charge call time out and say, hey, let's reimagine what we mean by professional. Let's rethink our main decision-making modes, let's rethink the voices at the tape. That the men were still in charge, and and to a large part still are. And and that balance in decision making, that balance in setting shared expectations and talking about shared values, that balance between what's on the masculine and in the feminine, and just in the archetypal ways, right is huge. And I literally told a group of business students uh like uh two weeks ago, there's this thing from the Harvard Business Review that talks about leadership presence and it's like stage presence, something else, and physical appearance. And I said to these students, I said, if women had been the managers during the Industrial Revolution, nobody would be talking about physical appearance as part of being professional. That is a man's construct, right there. That is a dude's construct. That that something that we and and I'm not saying don't dress professionally. I used to run a career center for crying out loud. We would teach students how to dress for their job interviews, dress, you know, those kinds of things. But zooming out and going, why are these norms these norms? And what voices weren't at the table when these norms were being set up, right? And which energies were and weren't at the table when this was being set up. And at the time, it was straight up full-on masculine energy, industrial revolution. We're running a factory here. And so my book, Leading with Emotional Intelligence, is full of things that the Industrial Revolution didn't need that we do need now. Because it's about listening, it's about empathy, it's about intercultural competence, it's about the growth mindset, you know, greeting mistakes and failures with uh an understanding that they can be a teacher, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 36:18

Yeah, and so okay, so you so when you think of, because you said you had 16 different bosses.

SPEAKER_00: 36:27

Yes, 16 20 years.

SPEAKER_01: 36:29

Um I mean, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 36:31

It's a lot. It's a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 36:33

What would you say? And I do think from you know, the bad boss experience, you're also learning, right?

SPEAKER_02: 36:40

There's a huge always.

SPEAKER_01: 36:42

Right. There's always an opportunity.

SPEAKER_02: 36:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

Um, and sometimes I think those opportunities are fundamental in in the growth and evolution of another sometimes they're the best teachers when you have a really bad boss because you're taking notes on what not to do when you're the boss, you know. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 37:00

So what kind of qualities or characteristic traits did you find in the um, I guess, yeah, the bosses that you worked with?

SPEAKER_02: 37:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 37:12

I think I guess but and you know, without naming obviously any names, sure, like what happened in the trajectory of uh-huh, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00: 37:28

I get what you're saying. Yep. And and it's it's interesting because you know, um, I'll start with some of my best ones, and some of my best ones, they they listen, they listen deeply. Um, but also separate from that, and this is something that I teach leaders in corporate settings and in education settings and nonprofit settings, is that listening is one skill set, but making people feel heard is a different skill set. And so listening is an internal process where you're finding the words, you're embedding them, you might ask a clarifying question, like counselors might do, reflecting to make sure you're understanding. But the second part of that for leaders is saying, I hear you, you are, I understand you, I hear you, I understand you, I get you, I get it. Externalizing the I've heard you now I'm going to go about the business of making you feel heard. So, my very best leaders listened deeply, but also made me feel heard. Um, another thing is empathy and humility. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 38:28

Can I stop there?

SPEAKER_00: 38:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 38:30

Okay, and this is part personal, just in relationship, right?

SPEAKER_00: 38:33

Already, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 38:34

I think to me, it it can translate. Yes, I can tell someone, I hear you, and I'll get a response like, no, I don't, I don't think you do.

SPEAKER_02: 38:48

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 38:49

So when when you make so when to you know take that a step further, other than that, I hear you. What does that look like? To how did you know you were truly heard?

SPEAKER_00: 39:01

Yeah. So one of the techniques, and I sort of glossed over it, so thanks for for zooming back a little bit, is is what counselors call rephrasing. And I'm married to a counselor, and and one of my grad programs was sort of in and amongst the counselor. I'm not a counselor and I have immense respect for them. But the rephrase, which is um, if I had a supervisee saying, you know, this project is just it's just too much for me. The rephrase is me saying, so it sounds like the project itself might be a little too complicated for you. And then they say they can then say, no, no, no, no, no, it's not too complicated for me. It's just I have too much on my plate and I don't have time for it. And then I'm like, oh, okay, now I get you. You're saying what you're getting at is you don't have enough capacity. And if I took something else off your plate, the the task isn't too complex. It's just too time consuming given what else you've got. So me asking that clarifying question, number one, makes them feel heard. Number two, gets closer to me actually hearing what they're trying to say, and it's just better leadership because I might assume that if they say this is too much for me, that it's about the mechanics of the project and not about all the other duties they've got. And so asking those clarifying questions helps on the listening side and helps on the making someone feel hurt. My my older son, who's in college in New York, who's 21, there are times when he's calling for advice or or this or that, and or telling me a story about his experience in college. And again, I worked in colleges for 20 years, and so I've I've heard many stories. And so sometimes I'll ask him a clarifying question that I I already sort of know the answer to, but I'm I ask him that because I want him to delve more into his storytelling and to feel heard, to feel that I'm really listening, right? And that accomplishes both of those, even if sometimes he's like, Did you know at my college there's like this whole center for career development stuff? And I'm like, Yeah, no, I've been there, been there, got the t-shirt, you know. I and he and he, you know, he knows these things. That's not that's not the perfect example, but but where he'll have a revelation about how college works. And I've got like three graduate degrees in how college works and and worked for 20 years in colleges, and I'm like, yep, yep, I get, but I don't want to I don't want to say, Oh, yeah, yeah, I get that you know, I want to lean into his story so that he can tell me more of the story, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 42:31

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 42:32

So then you okay, so I know I interrupted because I was you know, that to me, um you know, because I I know that I can still rephrase a question, and of course, it's just like right, and but I do think those clarifying questions are are important, they are, they are, and the other thing too though is you know, and so in my book I talk about mindsets and skills, and mindsets and skills are different, and believing that everyone needs to be heard is a mindset, active listening, rephrasing, and making people feel heard is a skill set. And so I'm a highly intuitive person. I think that you know, I do a lot of work with the Myers Briggs, but I also know that that people on their spiritual journeys, that intuition um means different things for different people. For me, for me, it is part spiritual, part psychological, but I've learned to trust it in time. And in for people who are highly intuitive, if you don't believe that everyone needs to be heard, if you don't have that mindset, but you have these skills, they're still gonna sense that something's up, they're still gonna sense that you're not listening as deeply as you could. And so in my book, I talk about mindsets versus skills and mindsets, one of the mindsets is everyone deserves to be listened to. And then the skills are how do you listen? How do you go through the process of that? And so if you don't have that mindset first, your more intuitive followers, your more intuitive staff members, team members, even if they hear you doing these rephrases, oh, what I hear you saying is this, this, this, your body language and all the other things, your energy is gonna give away that you read about this in a book and that you don't have the mindset that each person really, really deserves to be heard. And so these are two different things, right? And so a mindset's important, and and then the skills are important, and so it's two, it's two different things. Um, another thing though, oh, did you want to say something?

SPEAKER_01: 44:31

Or well, no, I know you were moving into empathy.

SPEAKER_00: 44:34

Empathy.

SPEAKER_01: 44:35

That's where you were going, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 44:37

Yeah, yeah, empathy and humility. And um, one supervisor who was not my supervisor, actually, he was um, I worked in in the academic division of this college, and he worked in the student affairs division, and um, and but he had no training in student affairs, he was a lawyer, and you know, it's good sometimes to have a lawyer be your dean of students because you know there's a lot of legal things, but one of the things I loved about him was he knew what he didn't know and was not afraid and was not afraid to say I don't know. And you know, business programs in the 60s, 70s, and 80s would say things like, Don't ever admit that you don't know something. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, friends, that is so antiquated, grounded in sort of you know, misogyny a little bit, and just and you know, the best leaders I know have the humility to say, I don't know, and then the courage to throw the word yet on it. And that is that's one of the most powerful, powerful words out there is to just courageously say, I don't know, yet. And yet means I'm gonna figure it out, we are gonna figure it out. There's an answer that we can get to. And one of the things I gotta be aware of, because you know, I'm a I'm a man and I'm a white dude. Um, and you know, I understand that for all leaders, it takes courage to say, I don't know. But I also recognize that if I were a woman, I think it would take I don't know, 10 times as much courage to say it given the stereotypes women deal with in the workplace. And then on top of that, if I were a black woman or a Latina woman, I think it would grow even more from there. And so the cost, the sort of the the yeah, the cost, the cost of saying I don't know is different for different people. Um, and the amount of courage it takes is different for different people. But I'm I invite leaders to be as courageous as they can, no matter who they are. And um, but I do want to acknowledge that because sometimes I say it and people, people watching like, well, that's easy for a white guy to say because if I say I don't know, people my my colleagues don't walk away. Um, sorry, did I did we just get interrupted?

SPEAKER_01: 46:43

No, you're good.

SPEAKER_00: 46:44

Okay, my colleagues don't walk away.

SPEAKER_01: 46:46

Now you translate it. Oh, there you go. You're back.

SPEAKER_00: 46:48

Um that that men don't deal with the same stereotypes, right? And that if I say I don't know, I don't think people are whispering about, yeah, dudes are incompetent, in the same way that when bosses who are women say I don't know, they have to deal with that second layer of stereotypes where someone's questioning their competency just because they're a woman, right? And so so I I want to be aware of that and still then say to everybody, get that courage, my friends, get that courage to say I don't know, and then follow it up with the word yet and bravely say, We are gonna find it out. We're gonna find out the answer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 47:21

Yeah, you know, it's um so I have never been in that world.

SPEAKER_02: 47:25

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 47:26

Um, in any sort of, I mean, I've never worked in nine to five, and then for a very long time, I uh although I have a master's in elementary education, I decided to keep my kids home, homeschool them for uh well, I I mean, in hindsight, it probably would have been the whole time, but I didn't. I I sent them to school when they were my son was 10, fourth grade, and my daughter was seven. So she was in first grade. Um I waited tables at night, so I could be home during the day. Um, I made some at that time, uh pretty what would be uh uh, you know, non-mainstream decisions. Um I had a home birth uh with my daughter, and we didn't vaccinate. My kids are adult, unvaccinated kids.

SPEAKER_02: 48:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 48:21

Um, you know, we were having ch we were, you know, we had chickens in our backyard. I was milling my own flour. There were a lot of decisions that I made that were kind of, you know, non-traditional, I guess.

SPEAKER_00: 48:33

Um or or if you go back enough in history, very traditional. So it depends.

SPEAKER_01: 48:39

That's right.

SPEAKER_00: 48:39

I I'm just saying home births were a thing for centuries.

SPEAKER_01: 48:43

Yeah, they were. I mean, that that was the only way to have them.

SPEAKER_00: 48:46

That was the only way, yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 48:48

Um, so for me, and I remember uh just thinking in high school, like this is just I I don't know, there was something about high school I felt just that I was already trying to, you know, get a square peg and a round hole. You know, I just got questioned a lot. Um which also, you know, probably led me down the path that I'm on. Um but you know, one of the reasons that I named my podcast Unapologetic Living is because I do believe that we need to be completely authentic. And part of that means being able to admit we don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 49:31

We don't know, yeah. And it's okay. It's okay, it's okay to be in be in the mystery. And um, my my sister who lives on the West Coast, she's out in Seattle. Um, my but my dad and brother are very, very traditional, capital T traditional, right? Very traditional. In other words, you could pick them up and drop them in a 1950s sitcom, and it was and they would fit perfectly in a 19, leave it to beaver or whatever. And my sister said to me once, she goes, I bet it drives them nuts that you are living an alternative life. And I'm like, I'm like, yeah, yeah. And and like and and home births, by the way, very courageous. We had uh we had a doula and we used them, we did a midwife assisted birth, and my wife actually went and did doula training.

SPEAKER_02: 50:15

Um I did too, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:16

Yeah, yeah. She didn't get certified because you she would have needed to do a certain amount of births to get certified. And when you're a school counselor, you can't be on call. Labor happens when labor's gonna happen. Labor doesn't wait for the school day to end, right? Yeah. Um, and so she did assist in my with my sister's birth. Um uh one of my dear friends, she doulit for both of her kids. Um, but uh, but the thing you're talking about, I mean, this this sort of system of high school, and you know, I just saw this TikTok, you know, these British dudes who go all over the US and they try US cuisine and they look at they look at like landscapes and they're learning about the United States and they're going, oh my gosh, and they're comparing it to the UK. And one of the things that they questioned recently is that school starts at 7 a.m. for people here. That's left over from when children had to work in the fields. That that's that's left over from the agricultural era, where even the fact that kids are off for summer, why summer? Why is it summer? Because before labor laws, kids were out there working in the fields for their families, and it was a necessity. And then that necessity got replaced by increased um uh technology to run farms, etc. And and some of it good and some of it not good, right? When it comes to the like the what the chemicals that we put on things, and you know, but but some of it helped increase, you know, some of it was just better plows. And I'm like, yeah, good good for you, better plows, right?

SPEAKER_02: 51:41

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:41

And and it reduced the need for kids to do that. And yet our school system didn't go, oh, um, hey, now that all the kids aren't going for harvest season, should we think differently about when school starts and ends? Should we think about what time of year it is? Should we think differently about what if instead of building education systems around you are going to get a job and you should and maybe you need to be working in the fields, what if we zoomed out and was like, uh what do people want to learn? What do we need people to learn to be a good society? And then when is when does learning happen the best and in what ways? And then uh build the education system that way. When you look at Norway, Sweden, Finland, oh my gosh, their education system is brilliant. Because it's the the kids go to school like on average, eight hours a week less than our students in the US, and have better outcomes and less stress and whatever because because they've uh they've kept up with the times, right? And so um, and I'm a big fan of Montessori um at teaching, and I'm a big fan of experiential learning. And but also I I think there's a place for tradit conventional high school, conventional college, there's a place for that too. I I'm not one of those, you know, I I'm a I'm a creative, intuitive type who was like raised by a German immigrant, right? So so it, you know, and so there's this, there's this like right brain, left brain thing always going on with me. And to me, balance is is the key. It's like I saw a holistic doctor and uh who was a holistic doctor and an MD. I wanted both of those in my corner. I wanted someone who had the traditional understandings and the non-Western traditional understandings, the ones that weren't complicated by the insurance industry and by corporate greed and all that stuff. And she fit and sadly she retired, which I'm so bummed that she retired.

SPEAKER_01: 53:33

Well, I mean, when I had that home birth at that time, I you know, I was 27. I wasn't, I had read a lot, um, but there was still this like underlying like this is you know, not what the paradigm suggests, sure uh is safe, and so I did see uh a an MD congruent with my moon wifery care.

SPEAKER_02: 53:55

Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 53:56

Now in hindsight, I wouldn't do it again.

SPEAKER_02: 53:58

Okay, okay, fine.

SPEAKER_01: 54:00

Yeah, but um he was the only one willing to see me knowing I had a planned home birth.

SPEAKER_00: 54:07

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 54:09

The other lady told me, look, and she was a midwife who worked in the hospital who was the attendant at my my son's birth, but she said, Look, if you have a home birth, we will ban you from our practice.

SPEAKER_02: 54:21

Yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01: 54:22

And so I was like, Well, I know this guy will. Um, and it was right around the holiday, unfortunately. Uh, he decided to strip my membranes without permission. And that really, I was like, not going back. I just, you know, I've learned even more than I do, and I trust in my body so much more and the capability, the capability, and the capacity of the body that I wouldn't, but at that time, you know, I appreciated and I also learned to advocate for myself and and turn down things, and he was okay with it that the others absolutely would not have been. So I hear you having both, you know, I've I've I have utilized both. I found a wonderful guy here. He was a DO uh out in New York, but he moved here and you know, he could prescribe medication. Yep, but then he all and he was if you're familiar with Waldorf education, because my daughter went to the Waldorf school here.

SPEAKER_02: 55:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 55:20

Um and uh he was an anthroposophical medical. He he practiced anthroposophical medicine as well, so he was really looking at the whole human, which I really appreciated.

SPEAKER_02: 55:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 55:36

But you know, but I don't I know that we only have so much time. I know we were talking about humility, but I wanted to make sure we touch on a few character traits of those. I know you're talking about the best, but like what would be some character traits that really stood out? Obviously, like if we're looking at the opposite, they're not they're not listening.

SPEAKER_02: 55:58

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 55:59

They are know-it-alls, unopen, right, close-minded.

SPEAKER_00: 56:03

Yep, yep. One of the things that makes that differentiates the great bosses, the mediocre bosses, and the bad bosses is one of the things I talk about in my book is the three egos. And and these are all natural parts of the human experience, but the personal ego, which is each of us is building a career, each of us wants to have pride in our accomplishments, each of us likes to be celebrated in some way or another. That's the the individual ego. The group ego is my team, right? My team. And so it's it's the my division in my company, or it's my department in my office, or it's the sports team I love, or it's the faith tradition I'm part of, or it's it's the tribalism thing. It's my it's my fandom, right? Let's get the Star Wars fans and the Star Trek fans together in a room and duke it out, right? But group ego of how can my group move forward, it individual or personal ego is how can I move forward? But the rarest form of leadership is what I call mission ego. And mission ego is one of those things that is rare. A lot of times, people who do this, people call them servant readers because they're so committed to the mission of their organization or like a life's calling kind of mission, that they will sacrifice themselves. They'll sacrifice their individual ego, they will sacrifice their group ego to get to the mission. The reality is that each one of these things in the right proportions can be healthy in the right proportions. But haha, but what happens is the proportions get out of whack. And individual ego is one of the worst. When individual ego is way overrepresented with a boss, they're a bad boss because they're just in it for them. Group ego, when group ego is overrepresented, over overrepresented, and it's our department versus the other departments. It's us against the world. We're the HR department and they're purchasing and we don't like them or you know, whatever, right? Um, and then mission ego is that sort of that sort of servant leader mentality. And the best, the best leaders I know understand that they are building their own resume, they are supporting a team, and they are supporting a mission, and they will seek balance in those three things. That they will, and they'll be they'll be authentic about it. And I used to do this when I when I was uh an assistant dean, I would, we would have decisions in front of us, and I would say, hey, I think that decision A is better for the team and the mission, decision B is better for each of our resumes and maybe the team, and you know, where we map it out, where we map it, where we're honest and transparent about it. Instead of pretending that we're all not building a resume, when I think about coaches in uh in college, coaches are in a weird position because their success is has to do with wins and losses on the court or on the field, whereas their students' success has to do with are they getting the grades to graduate college? Because a very, very, very tiny fraction of college athletes go on to become professional athletes. And so most coaches at the college level have a built-in conflict of interest when it comes to the three egos. It's a built-in conflict of interest that the system is handing them. The system is saying wins and losses is how you are going to get promoted, how you're gonna get the next job, individual, individual, individual ego. Team ego is your team has to be the best team. But a lot of times what that turns into is you're the football team and you've got zero respect for the volleyball team because the volleyball team is not a money sport, right? Or you're the basket, you're the basketball team, and basketball's a money sport, and soccer's not a money sport, and you think, well, we need this facility, the soccer team shouldn't get it. So the group ego thing can tear folks apart. And then the mission ego should be uh we're coaching sports so that we can teach these young people to be great leaders and and uh and members of society that understand character and hard work and sacrifice and all of these things, or we're building people that should that should be the mission ego, but it gets it gets diluted by those other egos. And the thing is, we need to keep them all in balance. Every coach should be seeking a winning record, every team should be seeking a winning record, and part of winning records should be how many students are you graduating? How many students are walking across that stage with that diploma, whether or not they were a good three-point shooter or not, right? Um, and yeah, and so so these the three egos when they are out of balance and when we are not honest about them. That's the thing. Is if people can just be honest, this is like, hey, this this decision would probably be better for my career, this one would be better for the group, and this would be better for the mission. And let's just name it, let's just talk about it out loud, instead of pretending it's good for the mission when secretly I'm trying to build my resume and I don't care about the other folks. You get what I'm saying there though?

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:48

Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:49

That when people when people are trying to hide personal ego, that's that can be dangerous. That can be dangerous, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:56

So I know that you have written a book, you've authored, I think, two books, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:00

Uh my second one just came out like two weeks ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:03

Okay, and that so the first one was leading with emotional intelligence?

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:07

Leading with emotional intelligence was first, and the one that just came out is improv comedy and the art of leadership. Um, I was an improv comedian for 10 years at a comedy club.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:17

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:18

Oh, you'll just you'll have to have me back in the future. That's what will happen to you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:20

I will, because I I mean I want to talk and dig into the Gnostic Gospels a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:25

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:26

You know, um, I've got I could go like so many places there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:30

Um fascinating, fascinating stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:32

Yeah, yeah. And I'd be curious, you know, if you've read them all or which ones that you have read. I mean, I did read um, I think it's the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, is the only one that I've read now, but um uh a client of mine mentioned the beloved companion.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:46

Beloved companion. I have not read the Pista Sophia. Now the Pista Sophia is so dense that um I don't really understand it. Okay. Sophia is wisdom and it's the feminine form, and the pista Sophia is about an angelic revelation, but there's also the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Thomas, right? Mary Magdalene, obviously.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:05

Yeah, um, but there's there was um another one too. I thought that um Greg Braden was talking about in an interview with Joe Rogan the other day, which was really I forget which one he mentioned, but there's the thunder the thunder one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:19

There's uh but there's a great if you're curious, there's a great book you can get on on Amazon uh or you know, some used bookstores. It's it's edited by somebody named Funk, which is great because like funk music, and it's like a compendium of a lot of the gospels that didn't make the cuts. Um so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:37

Um all right, so that's the second, your newest book is which one?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:42

Improv comedy and the art of leadership. Okay, where I take the lessons I learned to become an improv comedian, and when I when I was learning to be an improv comedian, I was shocked at how many skills were involved and how much those skills paralleled good leadership. I mean, uh, listening is fundamental to both. Um, supporting your team is fundamental to both. Um, there are all of these different things that about embodying and being authentic that you have to start learning to do improv well, that translate that translates so well to leadership. And then two, the corporate folks in leadership, they're always worried about executive presence or stage presence. And trust me, after you've done your 30th scene about Nicki Minaj and Beyonce arguing about who left the ice cream out while they're on vacation in Chattanooga, Tennessee, or whatever we've come up with, right? Getting up on a stage in front of your colleagues and talking about the work at hand or even doing a keynote speech seems a lot easier. So, so when I do keynote speeches, sometimes people there are nervous, like, oh, do you have the right microphone? The people, the host, do you have the right microphone or this or this? Or what if the slides don't work or this? I'm like, look, look, I I was an improv comic for 10 years. You could throw me five different curveballs. You could say you lost my slideshow, you could say there's no microphone. I'm still gonna make it happen because this is not trickier than pretending I'm a French cheerleader who's angry because my kid brother ate the last pudding pop. Like, whatever, whatever crazy stuff we had to come up with makes regular communication a lot easier. And so that executive presence or leadership presence um is one of those things that corporate folks like the most. And it's not my most favorite application, but it's still a cool, a cool thing because how do you get up on stage and not worry? You know, it's public speaking is stressful for people until it's not, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:36

Yeah, I yeah, it is. I know that one of the things I always struggle with uh public speaking, and I remember one of the reasons I went to uh my yoga teacher training was to, you know, learn how to get in front of people and speak in front of various groups. And now you throw me on another stage with a different topic, I might, you know, walk up there a little bit more nervous, but just having all of this, you know, all of these hours here uh makes it a lot easier. And you know, I forget words, I get left and right mixed up. Like you just make it happen and it all I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:14

But there's there's there is an intuitive, and and it's hard for like my my wife, I tell my wife this, and I tell my friends this, but there is an intuitive and almost spiritual thing that happens, at least with me, where when I get up on a stage, the energy of all the people there becomes part of what we're doing. And and if I need to break it down for the kind of the left-brained scientific folks, it's the body language, it's the laughter, or not, or it's they laughed at this and they didn't laugh at this, or this got them to look at their neighbor and make, yeah, that that resonates with me. But but the way I experience it is is much deeper than that. It's an energy thing where I can feel it. And so then the word having the right words, I don't have to have the right words anymore. The words come to me. And I don't know if you've heard about like the Akashic Records and people who tap into, and I have no idea. I I I guess what I would say is that I feel like I'm able to tap into those things when my when I'm in the zone, in the flow, my vibration, whatever it is. I don't understand how to talk about it, but I know it's happening because I feel it. And it and it just when you feel it, and when you realize that any I once I realized anytime I got on stage, I could feel that anytime I got on stage, if I came with the right heart, so to speak, or if I came with the right uh uh mindset or the right flow, that I didn't have to be scared of losing a word here or there because the words would be there. And I know this sounds really weird.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:54

Like you're talking to someone who definitely uh understands and can embrace that. I mean, uh there's a book called The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishnu Lakiani.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:04

I've heard of that one, I've never read it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:07

And you know, and I think about it when I think of the force, right? When you think of Star Wars, I mean you become a conduit. Like it's all coming from the same place, but we become the conduit. And when we are in that flow energy, right? Or God energy, whatever you want to call it, right? We're tuned in. And for whatever it is that we need to tackle, I mean whether it's something that we have to say or the right idea, or we bump into the correct person, but I do think it's all like right, the divine shows up, like with just like weird, you know. Um I like I definitely, like I said, have had those moments along the way, like uh avoiding, you know, this or that, because literally an hour before I bump into somebody who says blah blah blah, right? And I make it I'm like, whoa, why did this just happen right before I'm supposed to go do this thing? And they're saying, kind of giving me almost a warning, don't do it, or actually, yeah, you definitely need to do it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:09

Or lean into it. Yeah. When I when I did my TEDx talk, they they got us a like a speaking coach and and this and that. And it was and it was weird because it was all based on the idea that everybody had a typed out speech and that you were going to deliver that speech. And literally, there's about a two-minute section of my TEDx talk that was nowhere in any of my notes. It is something that other stories I had told leading up to got certain responses, and then my brain, the divine, whatever, winked at me and was like, Hey, throw in this anecdote. It's going to fit for what we're talking about. Totally unscripted, totally not planned. Um, and and yet it was an important, an important thing to say, right? And so the thing you said, I mean, like literally, sometimes I'm doing a keynote speech, and I will, on the way to the keynote speech, stop at a coffee shop and get a coffee and just talk to the barista, and and we'll talk about a song we like or a ride at Disney we like or um a sports team or who knows what. And a little story will emerge that is applicable to that keynote that I'm about to give. And so even though I do have an outline, like I have an outline, not a prepared speech, but an outline. I'm like, I'll just throw one little thing in the outline, and I'll be like, yeah, no, this conversation with that barista this morning is prop probably needs to be in this room right now, you know. And so um there's a yeah, but once you sort of, and it's scary at first, I think, but once you learn to trust the flow, then there's then there's no fear anymore. There's no more fear, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:45

Right, right. And so and see, so okay, so really quick, and then we'll I know we'll conclude. I know you have online course, which I was like probably uh hope. I'm gonna hope my son decides to, you know, but I'll just start with the book. I don't want to like make him think, right? You don't want to do that, he needs to come to his own. Um, but I know you have an online course and a lot of for great information on your website. Um, but right, so that when you say go with the flow, right? Faith, surrender, right? That is a feminine energy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:20

Yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:22

And so again, it's everybody, masculine, whether you're male or female, whatever, right? That trust and faith and surrender is feminine. Right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:33

The other one, the written-down speech control, dominance, yep, yeah, and and the three egos I mentioned. Oh, spoiler alert, the individual ego, you know who's the worst at that? Dudes. I mean, really, let's let's be real about it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:48

The group ego, and there's there's evidence of this in psychology, too. There's an amazing book called Women's Ways of Knowing by Balenky and Goldberg and Tirole. But they looked at how women build their identity through late adolescence into adulthood, like 18 to 30. And there's similar studies about men and men's identity development into adulthood. And the thing that's so fascinating is that men overwhelmingly trick ourselves into believing that 98% of who we are is our career. Women, as they are building their identity, overwhelmingly, and this is this is just it's a study that looks at lots of different women, but it's not, it's it's not, this is not everybody, same with it's not everybody for men. Right. But that overwhelmingly, women are building their identity in a in a giant mosaic or like a quilt, and career is part of it, and family might be part of it, and friends might be part of it, and art might be part of it, and community might be part of it, and spirituality, there's there's this tapestry. And so, as a career counselor, I used to know that when men and women would lose their jobs, it was serious for both groups, but that but the men group they would take it way worse. And I was trying to encourage them. I was like, hey, y'all know that women are a lot more evolved than we are, right? You understand that that that's a that's the next level of your evolution, is that you could be thinking about this, you know. Um, and and I I've had to unpack some of this, and I'm looking at at feminine energy, and I'm looking at feminine archetypes as teachers to me, right? Of how I can unprogram myself from some of this misogynistic stuff that's the the worst part of the masculine energy. Now, there are there are benefits to masculine energy too, like the balance, but left by themselves, not so much, right? Left by themselves, us dudes tend to cause a lot of problems.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:44

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a I don't know, I'm gonna just and then you gotta go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:50

Well, I have I just I just uh messaged my next person. Okay, and and they said they said that they're fine. So I got like I got like 10 extra minutes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:57

Okay, so there's a book, um, I think uh King, Magician, Warrior, Lover. Have you read it?

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:02

I've not read that one, no.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:04

Okay, well, he talks, you know, and talks about that masculine energy, and instead of you know, because we have this word toxic masculinity out there, yep, yep, but but he he kind of reframes that is as immature masculinity, like areas in which, right? All men should strive to find balance among these. But what does it look like when um it's immature masculinity as a king, or what does it look like when it's immature masculinity as a magician or warrior, and the print, I forget what I say, lover, right? Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I mean we can pretty much assume or guess, you know, what that would look like as a lover, but some of the other right, it's like can control or in the king, control, manipulation, right? And how it or too aggressive, right, with the warrior, right? But I like the the reframe of that because I also see on the other side of that coin is some toxic femininity where we or immature femininity where we want to demonize men altogether. And I do think that we have a real problem. Like all masculine energies are bad, but on the same token, do I mean, you know, like if you see too much um I hate to use the word aggression, but you know, I think it's a fair it's a fair word for my people.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:25

Yeah, yeah, it's a fair word for for yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:27

But I do think, you know, there is a level. Level of healthy aggression.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:31

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:32

I believe that. But you know, it's when the it's it's coming down to the individual who can discern do is this a time?

unknown: 1:14:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:40

Right on on the road with road race, it's not like when do I need to well, maybe when someone's coming into your home to attack your family at gunpoint, right? There has to be some level of right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:56

I I think the thing where I come down on it is just that I think you're right. And I think what we need is balance. But I think it's I think it's fair to say though that for the that definitely kind of through the world wars and the industrial revolution, society has not has not embraced that balance. Society has skewed to the mac to the masculine. And so so that's why when I hear women saying criticisms of masculine energy, I'm like, no, yeah, I get that. Because when unchecked, it gets unhealthy. When unchecked, when out of balance, it becomes unhealthy. And it's been out of balance for a while. There's a great um comedian named Gary Gulman, um, and he does this shtick. He talks about his own depression, which is a really interesting, he's very vulnerable about it. He's also talks about his experience as a six foot-four Jewish kid who was always like the ringer on the basketball team for a synagogue. But one of the things he talks about is that growing up in the 70s and 80s, as a sensitive man, he didn't have a lot of archetypes to look at. He only had, he said, as in the 70s and 80s, if you were a boy, the only archetypes you had for masculinity were Clint Eastwood, right? Do you feel lucky, punk, and Richard's Richard Simmons, who was very effeminate, right? Right. And he said, My generation didn't have a Paul Rudd or a Mark Ruffalo or a Keanu Reeves who showed a middle path of masculinity.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:23

And and when he said that, I was like, oh, he is onto something deep here. It's very deep. Um, and can I tell you one more little anecdote about this?

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:32

Um, when I was a kid, I I really enjoyed Star Wars. And I and you know, Han Solo is that hyper masculine archetype. He's tough, grall, you know, Harrison Ford. Luke Skywalker most certainly wasn't effeminate, but he wasn't super hyper masculine. He was maybe that person. He was who I always identified with. And so if you watch the original three movies in the 70s and 80s, it's his journey from kind of whiny farm kid to badass Jedi, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:01

But but I remember in third or fourth grade or whatever that is, watching that last movie, Return of the Jedi. And at the very end of the movie, he's like, I'm a Jedi. And two minutes later, the credits are rolling and the movie's over. And I was waiting. I was like, I was like, but but but now you're this warrior guy, now you've evolved. Now I want to see what this what happens next. Well, I maybe three years ago, there was a show called The Mandalorian, and this is gonna spoil it. So any of your listeners who haven't seen The Mandalorian yet, pause or skip, skip, skip 45 30 seconds. In The Mandalorian, through the beauty of CGI or whatever, they brought Luke Skywalker back right when he was still right after I guess he had become a Jedi, and and told part of that story. And we get to see him the the protagonists of the story, 10 of them have been fighting one robot and they can't beat that robot. And he and Luke walks into a room of 20 of that robot and just wipes him off the screen, like just kill, like I guess you can't kill a robot, but he has that moment that that 11-year-old Alan had been waiting for for 25 years, where his evolution of his masculinity finally showed up, and he, without him having to be the rough and tumble Han Solo, the Clint Eastwood that's ready to draw his gun at any moment, he had been on this journey of inner peace and wisdom and the force, right? And then comes out on the other side as this balanced warrior. And I had been waiting for that my whole life. And I watched these videos online of people watching that grown men in their 40s and 50s crying watching Luke have that moment. And this is what that yeah, that's what the comedian did.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:39

They love that movie, and I wonder if they too are waiting for this the same thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:45

I I'm sure that a lot of guys that grew up probably either saw Han Solo and was like, Yep, that's me, or saw Luke and was like, That's me.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:53

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:54

And you know, I was bullied as a kid, and the Han Solo types weren't bullied as a kid. It was the Luke types who were bullied as a kid, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:01

And so going back to that guy, Gary Gulman, you know, men also are fragile about our sexuality, which is just a thing. And because of that, um, you know, more effeminate gender expression makes men nervous. Right now, of course, the reality is most straight men I know are more nervous around gay men because straight men know how we treat women and we don't want to be treated like that as sexual objects. And so it's a fascinating thing because subconsciously, heterosexual men in the aggregate, not all of us, but in the aggregate, know how we have treated women historically, and we don't want to be treated that way, right? And this is part of where the discomfort with with um, especially homophobia among men. But it's so so trying to maintain that masculinity gets complicated because of sexuality, right? Right, yeah, and it and it shouldn't be, but it but it is because people don't understand that gender and sexuality are way different things because we kind of we pair them up a lot, but they're they're different. And so, but that guy Gary Gulman, he was right. He's like, Men need men need a Keanu Reeves, who sure he's an action star, but you hear him in interviews, and he's the most gentle, you know, balanced, like he's just a that one of those balanced souls, you know, that we need in this world for men to look at and go, oh, oh, it doesn't have to be one of those extremes. I can I can seek that balance. So anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:28

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. And you know, some of that does go back to um, you know, upbringing, right? And just not have like these uh these men, these fathers who prior to also did not have necessarily the role model.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All they knew was hypermasculinity or effeminate guy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:54

That's that's that's yeah, it was one or the other. It was one or the other, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:58

And and I'm very thankful that I am seeing in the next generation, seeing in Gen Z and Gen Alpha, I'm seeing a wider range of masculinity, masculinities that that include more balanced ones, which I love. I love that. And so when I'm I mean, my company, we also, in addition to doing leadership training, we do harassment training. And I literally was just doing harassment training with a factory, right? And trust me, when I say guys on the factory floor, especially the the older millennials and the Gen Xers, they still push back a lot on harassment training, right? They're they have questions where people I think shouldn't have questions. Uh, but then the younger ones in their office spaces and in their in their factories, the younger ones speak up and we're like, they're like, yeah, no, we understand what consent means. We we grew up understanding consent. Yeah, that's this makes sense, right? And the older the older guys are like, what you mean? I can't even give a woman a compliment. I'm like, slow your roll, my friend. Uh you got you gotta get into the context, you gotta get in the nuance here. Yeah, right. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:57

Well, I am so glad to have spent this time with you. Um just remind us adaptive challenge consulting.com.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:05

Adaptivechallenge consulting.com. I'm most active on LinkedIn. If you want to find me, Alan Mueller on LinkedIn or Adaptive Challenge Consulting on LinkedIn. We're also on on Instagram and Facebook. Some um, yeah, and so uh, you know, find me anyway, and uh, you know, uh go to my website, get get a copy of the book. Uh or now I have two books. I I gotta I gotta remember that. I've now I've got two.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:27

Yeah, and you can get a copy. You have the online course too.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:30

I have an online course, and so if you're ever curious about extroversion and introversion and Myers Briggs and personality type, uh, I do this workshop all over the country, and it helps managers a lot, but it also helps couples and it also helps friends and also any any human who interacts with other humans could benefit from this course. Um, but I've been doing it across the country for so long that I finally did like an online version of it um that people can take um and and get deep. The the Myers Briggs, a lot of people they'll take an online quiz, they'll read a description and they'll think they're done. But oh my gosh, y'all, if you can roll your sleeves up and get a little deeper in this, it can help you with stress management, it can help you with leadership, it can help you with listening, it can help you with sales and persuasion. There's all kinds of ways that understanding the Myers Briggs can help you in so many aspects of life. So the course is out there as well.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:18

Yeah. Awesome. And then, of course, your Etsy shop. And I don't think we ever mentioned that you do uh what do you Disney travel agents?

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:26

I I do some Disney travel agent stuff on the side um because that's more of a passion project for me. Yeah. Um, but uh speaking of which, my next meeting is with someone who I'm gonna help book a Disney trip with.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:38

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I love meeting uh entrepreneurs and individuals who um are well really living their unapologetic life. I think that's for me the mission with my conversations is to help give or just give people permission to say, hey, I don't have to do it the way my community or my team like I get to if I I'm a sovereign being and I get to make these decisions for myself.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:05

Um and and that's just uh, you know, one of the goals I have in in having these conversations.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:12

Yes, definitely, definitely. Thank you so much for having me on. This was great.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:15

All right, thank you, Alan.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:16

All right, take care.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:17

Uh huh, you too.