Becoming a Better Leader Starts Within – Ryan Gottfredson on Mindset, Vertical Growth & Purpose

In this eye-opening episode, leadership consultant, author, and mindset researcher Ryan Gottfredson joins David Dahlén D'Cruz to explore what it really takes to grow into the kind of leader today’s world needs.

Forget quick hacks or surface-level strategies - Ryan shares how true transformation begins by elevating our internal operating system through what he calls vertical development.

We dive into:

• Why most leadership programs fail to create lasting change
• The difference between horizontal vs. vertical growth
• The four essential mindset shifts that drive leadership transformation
• Why so many leaders are stuck in Mind 1.0 or 2.0, and how to reach Mind 3.0
• How fear, ego, and self-protection sabotage leadership — and how to break through

This episode is especially powerful for emerging leaders, young professionals, and purpose-driven individuals ready to grow not just in skills - but in self-awareness, vision, and capacity for impact.

Guest: Ryan Gottfredson, author of Becoming Better
Website & free mindset assessment: ryangottfredson.com

Download your free guide: “The Identity to Impact Starter Guide”
https://lifeleadershipconnected.systeme.io/32644969

Transcript

0:05

And so I did my PhD at Indiana University and ultimately I did my dissertation on leadership. And I imagine we'll kind of come back to that here in just a second. But that's what set me in the trajectory. Now I've been at Cal State Fullerton for the last 11 years doing research on leadership, teaching on leadership, and then I take that out into the world in terms of the books that I write and then the consulting that I do for organizations. Most leadership development efforts aren't very effective. There's some statistics out there that say 75 % of organizations say their leadership development programs aren't working. So that was really startling to see. Also, I think one of the things that I also recognize is that most leadership research primarily focuses on answering one question.

And that question is: 0:53

What do leaders need to do to be effective? And that's led to some really good answers. And we've got some really good ideas about what leaders need to do. But this didn't sit well with me because I think that leadership is being more than just what somebody does. I think it's more about who they are. And so I kind of made this connection at least mentally. I wonder if one of the reasons why leadership development programs aren't working is because they're focused too much on the Doing of leadership and not enough on the Being of leadership. And so when I took the job at Cal State Fullerton and started up my own research stream, that became my focus. How do we tap into the being side of leadership? And that's what I've been studying for the last 11 years, which led to the books that I've written and the work that I do. For most people automatically interprets that constructive criticism as an attack as a threat. And therefore, because we our body is wired to see it in that way, then it activates a response, which is generally to get defensive, right? And so that's... what we're getting at here is our body's internal wiring. And some people are more wired for self protection and other people are more wired for value creation. And it's possible to retrain our brain and these neuro connections so that we become more wired for value creation. And so in the future, when we receive constructive criticism, we could rewire our bodies such that when we receive that criticism, we don't see it as a bad thing and get defensive, but we see it as an opportunity and we create space for it. Not that we have to agree with it, but when we create space for it, it creates that opportunity to learn and grow. And so in my research on mindsets, coming back to your question, is our mindsets are these neuro connections that shape whether we see the world in more self-protective ways or in more value creating ways? and we create space for it. Not that we have to agree with it, but when we create space for it, it creates that opportunity to learn and grow. And so in my research on mindsets, coming back to your question, is our mindsets are these neuro connections that shape whether we see the world in more self-protective ways or in more value creating ways? Hello and warm welcome to the Life and Leadership Connected podcast. I am David Dahlén D'Cruz and I'm so excited you're here today. In this podcast we dive into what really matters. Finding your life's purpose. Discovering your 'why'. and learning how to connect life and leadership in a healthy and sustainable way. What fuels your energy and passion? How do we grow and stay as leaders who make a real difference? inspiration to live with greater purpose and lead with heart. Want to learn more? Visit lifeleadershipconnected.com. I'm your guide and coach, David Dahlén D'Cruz. Let's get started. Hello and welcome to a new episode of the podcast Life and Leadership Connected Podcast. And today my guest is someone whose work is reshaping the way we understand leadership development from inside out. His name is Ryan Gottfredson and he's a leadership development consultant executive coach. and associate professor at California State University, Fullerton. He's also a three-time author with his latest book,"Becoming Better", that was released earlier this year, in 2025. set Ryan apart is his focus on vertical development, the kind of growth that transforms who we are, not just what we do. Rather than adding another leadership app to your toolkit, Ryan helps leaders upgrade their internal operating system, shifting from external achievement to deep, sustainable personal transformation. He has developed a powerful framework around four key mindset, including Growth, Open, Promotion and Outward that gives leaders a language to understand how they're seeing the world, how they're showing up and how they can elevate the way they lead. Through his coaching, teaching and writing, Ryan is helping individuals and organizations level up the leadership by reviring the mindset, not through surface level fixes, but by doing the deeper identity and perspective work that drives lasting change. is a conversation about becoming better and why that begins with who you are. So welcome to this podcast and welcome Ryan. Such a great introduction. It makes me excited to jump into this. No, happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Perfect, Could you take us back to the beginning? Who were you before all this? first set you on the path of leadership and mindset development? Yeah, so I'm in the United States, I live in Southern California, but I grew up in Utah. And I, when I was attending high school, I took a class that I don't think is offered very often. And the class was sports psychology. And I was so excited to take this class because I was an athlete and I wanted to get better at sports. And my teacher challenged us to read three books and we got to pick these books, but they had to be connected to sports psychology. And so I selected three books by basketball coaches and all three books were on leadership. And so one was written by Pat Riley, another by Mike Shishiefsky, and another by a coach of the University of Utah by the name of Rick Majeris. And I read these books, and I remember as a senior in high school thinking, if I could write books like this as a career, that would be the ideal job. But I had no clue how to do that. That just kind of, I kind of threw that essentially in the back of my mind. Fast forward a couple of years later, I met a Harvard Business School professor and I asked him, what do you teach? And he said, organizational behavior. And I said, what's that? And I don't remember his answer, but I remember the thought in my head was, this sounds like sports psychology, but for business. And that kind of set me on the trajectory of I want to dig into this and I want to study this. And so I did my PhD at Indiana University and ultimately I did my dissertation on leadership. And I imagine we'll kind of come back to that here in just a second. But that's what set me in the trajectory. Now I've been at Cal State Fullerton for the last 11 years doing research on leadership, teaching on leadership, and then I take that out into the world in terms of the books that I write and then the consulting that I do for organizations. Great, perfect, thank you. And I wonder was your life and career like before focus shifted toward this, you you talk about vertical development and a deeper personal transformation. you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, well, let me get dive into my doctoral program because it really kind of illuminated a challenge for me. So I did my dissertation on leadership and that allowed me to review the last 70 years of leadership research. And that was great. And it provided some interesting perspectives. One perspective was, as I'm looking into this research, Most leadership development efforts aren't very effective. There's some statistics out there that say 75 % of organizations say their leadership development programs aren't working. So that was really startling to see. Also, I think one of the things that I also recognize is that most leadership research primarily focuses on answering one question. What do leaders need to do to be effective? And that's led to some really good answers. And we've got some really good ideas about what leaders need to do. But this didn't sit well with me because I think that leadership is being more than just what somebody does. I think it's more about who they are. And so I kind of made this connection at least mentally. I wonder if one of the reasons why leadership development programs aren't working is because they're focused too much on the Doing of leadership and not enough on the Being of leadership. And so when I took the job at Cal State Fullerton and started up my own research stream, that became my focus. How do we tap into the being side of leadership? And that's what I've been studying for the last 11 years, which led to the books that I've written and the work that I do. Wow, thank you. Thank you for story. Looking back, what challenges or pivotal milestones shaped you into the leader and guide that you are today? Yeah, I wish the route to kind of figure this out, the being side of leadership was linear, but it hasn't been linear. So I took, as I mentioned, I took the job at Cal State Fullerton. I was at Cal State Fullerton for two years. And then I was kind of growing. Well, honestly, I was feeling a little stuck. I kind of just was kind of envisioning my future and I was thinking, man, I don't know if I could be happy in a career where I'm teaching the same class for the next 30 years. And I had always wanted to do some consulting work and I hadn't done that up until that point, really. And I got a job offer from a consulting company. And so I decided to take a leave of absence from the university and I worked at this consulting company for about 10 months. At this consulting company, I felt like I kind of signed up to work in a certain role and they put me in a different role. And so I was feeling a little bit frustrated by that. And so during those 10 months, I was growing increasingly frustrated. And one day I'm talking to my manager on the phone and kind of complaining about my role. And she stops me kind of mid complaining and she says, Ryan, I'm going to stop you there. I was like, OK. And she said, this clearly isn't working out. I'm going to have to let you go. And I got fired from this consulting job and immediately this huge wave of shame comes over me. I just never thought I would be somebody that would be fired. And this was an incredibly frustrating experience for me because here's how I felt as I knew that I had the talent, the knowledge and skills to be successful, but I wasn't. And so I kind of... decided to kind of go on a mission to kind of figure out why? Why was it that I have the talent knowledge and skills to be successful that I want and I wasn't and and I started, so I went back to my university and I started up my research again and I started again of course focusing on the being side of leadership and I came across a topic that I wasn't super familiar with but I think it had potential or thought it had potential to be a way to investigate our beeing. And so I opened up the floodgates to studying anything I could get my hands on on mindsets, largely from the academic literature. And what I found is that mindsets have been studied for the last 40 years across psychology, education, management and marketing. And across these different disciplines, there's different types of mindsets that they study. And they largely exist on a continuum, lower quality mindsets, and higher quality mindset. So I thought that was interesting. And of course, as I'm kind of putting these pieces together, I'm starting to introspect about my own mindsets. Right? As I'm looking at these different sets of mindsets, well, what mindsets do I have? And as I start to really dig into it, what I come to realize is that I had rather low quality mindsets. Which answered kind of my question, which is, well, why was it that I had the talent, knowledge, skills to be successful, but I wasn't? It was because I didn't have the right mindsets. And so that set me into kind of diving more deeply into mindsets. And that's what's led to my first book called "Success Mindsets", which dives into a mindset framework that helps people to awaken to and elevate their mindsets. Yeah. Mindset. I mean, everybody heard the word, but maybe not everybody knows exactly what is mindset. I mean, it's about thinking, of course. But,... because I read somewhere that you compare that with attitude and so on. So can you maybe tell us a bit what is exactly mindset? Yeah, it's a great question. Honestly, I think that word is kind of thrown around a little bit too loosely. Not that that's a bad thing, but we don't have a lot of precision about what is mindsets, which leads to your question. And I think a lot of people think about mindsets as being our attitude towards something. And it can be described as that, but our mindsets are actually deeper than that. Our mindsets are mental lenses that shape how we view the world around us. And at a neuroscience level. Our mindsets are specific types of neuro connections in our brain that have three jobs. So the first job of our mindsets is to filter select information into our brain, right? So our senses send way more information to our brain than what we can process. So the first job of our mindsets is to let certain information in. Then the second job of our mindsets is to interpret that information. And that interpretation generally occurs automatically and non-consciously. So for example, David, how would you say most people respond to constructive criticism? Many people, don't like it. They feel threatened by it. Yeah, you'll threaten and they get defensive, right? That's because their brain immediately they sent the mindset send in, we're getting some criticism here. And then the brain, For most people automatically interprets that constructive criticism as an attack as a threat. And therefore, because we our body is wired to see it in that way, then it activates a response, which is generally to get defensive, right? And so that's... what we're getting at here is our body's internal wiring. And some people are more wired for self protection and other people are more wired for value creation. And it's possible to retrain our brain and these neuro connections so that we become more wired for value creation. And so in the future, when we receive constructive criticism, we could rewire our bodies such that when we receive that criticism, we don't see it as a bad thing and get defensive, but we see it as an opportunity and we create space for it. Not that we have to agree with it, but when we create space for it, it creates that opportunity to learn and grow. And so in my research on mindsets, coming back to your question, is our mindsets are these neuro connections that shape whether we see the world in more self-protective ways or in more value creating ways? Wow, thanks. That's good explanation. Thank you. And I wonder, you often draw the distinction between horizontal development doing better and vertical development becoming better. did this realization hit your personality? Like what problem were you seeing in the leadership world that triggered this? Yeah, no great question. So I came up with this mindset framework. I also came up with the mindset assessment. In fact, if you wanna go to my website at ryangotforson.com, you could take my mindset assessment, it's free, and you can awaken to the quality of your mindsets. And so I've written this book, I have this mindset framework, and now I'm going out to organizations and I'm saying, I can help you develop your leaders through a focus on mindsets. And I start doing some work with organizations, and what I begin to realize is this development work that I'm doing focusing on mindsets is very different than what is typical. It's different than than traditional leadership development tactics. And so I knew it was different, but I didn't have a way to describe it. And then I came across an article that was written came out by the Center for Creative Leadership about 12 years ago, 13 years ago, is written by a guy last name is Petri. And and he had in the title of this article "vertical development." I was like I've never heard of this term before I like the Center for Creative Leadership and I start to read the article and he starts to describe vertical development and I

thought: 18:27

That's it! Right? When we do this mindset work, what we're doing is "vertical development", and that's different than what's traditional, which is what he called "horizontal development". And so let me define these terms as I bring those up. So in the field of developmental psychology, we've come to identify horizontal development as improving our talent, our knowledge, and our skills. Right, this is most of our development efforts. You think about our education system, right? If I go to college and I take an accounting class, it's for me to learn accounting things and gain accounting skills so I could do accounting things. And that's most of our development. But there's a different form of development. And that's like, and I will say, you mentioned this earlier, horizontal development is like adding apps onto our iPad. It's great because it broadens our functionality, but it doesn't improve our capabilities of navigating more complex dynamics. And so if we want that, we need a different form of development and that's where vertical development comes in. So vertical development isn't about adding apps onto our iPad, it's about upgrading our internal operating systems. And Mindsets is one of the best ways of engaging in vertical development. Because what we're literally doing when we work on Mindsets is we're working on our body's internal operating system. How we're programmed to interpret information and then respond to that information and so hopefully that brings some clarity. I don't know any follow-up questions there David? Well, yeah, a little bit there. I wonder what are some of the blind spots you find that even high performing leaders struggle with when it comes to self-awareness and mindset? Well, this is interesting, right? Because as we're talking about mindsets, one of the sets of mindsets that I focus on, and it's probably the most well studied mindset and well known set of mindsets. And that's this continuum between a Fixed mindset and a Growth mindset. Have you heard of these mindsets, David? Yeah. book, but you can explain so other and understand it here. No, so yeah, so this is great. So a fixed mindset is when we see ourselves as being unable to change our talents, abilities and intelligence. And when we aren't when we don't believe that we could change who we are, we always want to put ourselves in a position where we will look good and look competent. uh When people have a growth mindset, they do believe they could change their talents, abilities, and intelligence, and they're more willing to step into learning zone challenges and more willing to essentially fail in the pursuit of learning, growth, and development. So people with a fixed mindset tend to avoid failure. People with a fixed mindset, they avoid failure. People with a growth mindset, they approach learning zone challenges. So... This is one of the mindset continuums that I focus on. I guess let me get your opinion, David. If we were to go to a room full of 100 leaders and ask them, do any of you have a fixed mindset? Do you think anybody would raise their hand? No, I don't think so. don't want to think that we are bad thinkers. We want to feel good that we know ourselves. Yes, so you're spot on, right? Everybody thinks that they have a growth mindset. Because we all learn and grow, but we're not necessarily familiar with the inner workings of our internal operating system. And here's what I found, working with hundreds of different organizations and teams, is that on average, 60 % of leaders have a fixed mindset as opposed to a growth mindset. And what that means for leaders is these leaders have a tendency to hold on to what's worked in the past and they have a reluctance to embrace what might work better in the future. And leaders with a fixed mindset generally struggle with agility. And that's a huge problem for business leaders. And so this is one of the biggest problems is most people, and this was me when I first learned about mindsets, most people think that their mindsets are good and of high quality. But what I found, I've had 50,000 people take my mindset assessment, only 2.5 % are in the top core tile for the four sets of mindsets assessed. So most people and myself included have some self protective wiring that ultimately is holding us back from being the leaders and the people that we can be. We're just not aware of it. And so when we talk about mindsets, we get at self awareness at a deeper level than most people ever go, which is a powerful place to play. And it makes it a place for transformation. Interesting, I wonder, you've built such a powerful framework around these four core mindset continuum. And can you first tell us a little bit about this framework? and start with that to define your framework. And then for someone new to the idea, how can they begin diagnose what their own mindset is? Yeah, so the overarching guide on this is that what we're connecting into is our body's wiring. And as I mentioned, there's this continuum between being wired for self-protection versus wired for value creation. So I brought up fixed and growth mindsets earlier. When we have a fixed mindset, that means that we want to avoid failure in a pursuit of looking good and looking competent. Right? So, so we're wired to avoid failure. That is a self protective strategy. It helps us deal with the uncomfortable emotions in the moment, but it's also something that holds us back from learning, growing and developing and creating value in the long term. And so what's been interesting is I've identified these four different sets of mindsets. They all range on this continuum. So let me, if it's okay, let me just briefly go through the other three sets of mindset. So the second set of mindsets is the difference between a Closed mindset and an Open mindset. When people have a closed mindset, their body is wired to not want to be wrong. Right? They have a hard time admitting they're wrong. They generally identify with being an expert. And when someone challenges them, they generally get defensive. Right? That's a self protective strategy. It protects kind of their ego in the moment. But when somebody has an open mindset, they're not concerned about being right. They're concerned about finding truth and thinking optimally. So they're willing to admit that they're wrong at times in the pursuit of learning growth and development. So that's the difference between closed and open. Does that make sense there, David? All right. The third set is the difference between a Prevention mindset and a Promotion mindset. When we have a prevention mindset, want where our body is wired to avoid problems. and avoid bad things from happening, right? Why? Because that protects us from feeling uncomfortable or feeling like we're outside of our comfort zone in the moment. But when we have a promotion mindset, we're less concerned about feeling comfortable and we're more concerned about fulfilling a purpose or reaching a goal. And we're willing to do uncomfortable things to achieve that purpose or reach that goal. Does that one make sense? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you're good at explaining. Great. And then the last one is the difference between an Inward mindset and Outward mindset. When we have an inward mindset, we see ourselves as more important than others. And when we see ourselves as more important than others, we have a tendency to see them as objects, either an obstacle in my way or an instrument to help me get where I want to go. But when we have an outward mindset, we see others as being just as important as ourselves, which allows us to see them as somebody of value and to treat them as such. And so each of these, again, represents this continuum being more wired for self-protection versus more wired for value creation. And maybe to put a cap on this, David, let me ask you a question. Can I put you on the spot? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I'm gonna give you four different desires. You tell me whether or not society says these are good or bad desires. Is that okay? Okay, it's the desire to look good, be right, avoid problems, and get ahead. They think they're good. Right? Because who likes to look bad, be wrong, have problems, and get passed up? Nobody, right? But when we have these desires of looking good, being right, avoiding problems, and getting ahead, where's our focus? On the exterior, It's on ourselves, right? I want to look good. I want to be right. I want to avoid problems. I want to get ahead, right? And when I first started learning about these mindsets, this was the epiphany that I had. As I started, I learned that these are the desires connected to the self-protective mindsets. And I realized these desires really resonate with me. I was somebody that wanted to look good, be right, avoid problems and get ahead. And so part of the story that I tell myself is I just didn't know that there's better desires to have, desires that are more connected to the value creating mindsets. And these desires are to Learn and Grow, to Find Truth, to Reach Goals, and to Lift Others. And these are the ones that are driven by the value creating mindsets, the Growth, Open Promotion, and Outward. And this is easier said than done, right? Because if I wanna learn and grow at times, I've got to be okay failing at times. If I want to find truth and think optimally, I've got to admit that I'm wrong at times. If I want to reach goals or fulfill a purpose, I've got to wade through problems at times. And if I want to lift others, I'm going to have to put myself on the back burner at times. And I don't know about you, David, but I just know for me, when we're in those at times moments, when there's tension between pulling towards self protection or moving towards value creation, that's a tricky position to navigate. And it's really our body's mindsets that dictates whether we're gonna lean towards self protection or lean towards value creation.

And the reality is, is what we're finding in the leadership world: 29:20

Leaders are more wired for Self-Protection than Value Creation and that's why we see that 65 % of employees would rather have a new boss compared to more pay. So hopefully, just kind of laying out this mindset framework, it helps our listeners to start the process of introspecting about their mindsets. And as I mentioned earlier, if you're listening to this and you wanna take this deeper, go to my website at ryangodfordson.com and you could take the mindset assessments that's there. Yeah, great. you. protection you talk about, I mean, I read somewhere that the base for that is that, I mean, why do you self-project? Because there's some kind of fear. So what fears of internal patterns often hold people back from shifting these mindsets? And how can we move them? Yeah, you're spot on. When we are operating in self protection, there's always a fear that's going on there, right? And the self-protective mindsets are designed to protect us from that fear. And people have different fears, right? I kind of brought them up earlier a little bit, right? They generally either have a fear of looking bad, a fear of being wrong, a fear of having problems, or a fear of getting passed up. So those are the most common fears that hold people back. And ultimately if we want to become a better version of ourselves a better leader a better person we've got to figure out a way to rise above these fears and I think mindsets is one of the best ways for us to do that. Now what's been really interesting to me is I've lately I've been asking the question What causes people to develop these fears in the first place? And what I've kind of come up with and figured out, and there's research to back this up, is that there's really two broad buckets of factors that drive our self-protective mindsets. The broad buckets are our Life's Experience and our current Culture. Let me start with current culture first. So if I work at a place where I do not feel psychologically safe, maybe there's a lot of competition in that environment. I have an abusive manager, right when we are in those positions, naturally, our body will want to self-protect as a way to keep us safe. If that culture is more psychologically safe, more empowering, it allows people's body's nervous system to lean more towards value creation as opposed to self protection. So our current culture in which we operate will impact the quality of our mindsets. Does that make sense before I go to the next step? Okay. The other factor that shapes our mindsets, as I mentioned, is our life's experience. Now, there's a variety of things that go on throughout our lives that surely shape our mindsets. But one of the things that we've found from a neuroscience perspective is that Psychological Trauma is a primary factor in shaping our mindsets. Now, what trauma is, is when we experience stress that exceeds our body's capacity to deal with that stress. And when that happens, our body's nervous system has to go through some drastic measures to protect us from the pain of that stressful experience and to help ensure that we don't experience that pain again in the future. And so what ends up happening when we experience these really stressful situations is our body's nervous system becomes more wired for self-protection. It's our nervous system's default mechanism or response to experiencing trauma because it's designed to protect us in the future. And to me, this has been really insightful to learn about because what I've actually come to learn and I've seen this in the coaching that I've engaged in with leaders is when leaders have self-protective fears that are driving them to behave in ineffective ways, generally at the root of all of that is some past trauma. Yeah. was working with a CEO and I asked him, I was just getting to know him, and I asked him the question, why did you start your business?

And his answer was: 33:48

"To prove others wrong." Right? That just screams something has happened in his past, right? That has been traumatic. And how he operate, when I came to find out how he operated as a leader, was a hard charging micromanager. He was burning out his people, he was micromanaging them, and there was a lot of turmoil going on on his executive team. And so while the organization was seeing financial success, culturally, the organization was crumbling. So it was a pretty dire situation, but ultimately it was rooted in this leader's past trauma, which led to some self-protective fears and these self protective mindsets. uh But what's been cool is as a consultant to be able to see leaders who awaken to this and actually start to do the work of transforming themselves, literally rewiring and upgrading their internal operating system so that they could be greater value creators. Wow, perfect. little bit later I will ask you about some about this transformation. But first, I wonder what gives you life energy, Ryan, in the work you do today? And how do you sustain that energy day by day? Yeah, good question. What I've come to learn is that as I have awakened to myself, the deeper I have gone inward, I feel like I've become a better version of myself. In fact, and I believe that the research backs this up. The deeper we go inward, the higher we could go in terms of our vertical development altitude. And and it has been I a very life-changing and transforming experience for me to do this vertical development work over the last about eight nine years I would say and I think my wife would even tell you I'm a very different person now than what I was eight years ago. And I just feel like I am in a much better place, I am a much better person, and I'm seeing greater success in my life because of it and and so what gives me

life: 36:01

I would say the transformation process has given me life. But now I'm not done transforming, I still got a lot of work to do. But I,... what now gives me a lot of life is helping others to transform themselves to help them kind of come to a deeper sense of self awareness, so that they could do the deep transformative work of doing this vertical development journey. And that's, that's what lights me up. That's why I'm here on this podcast today is to help people to start to do some of this deeper level self-awareness and vertical development work. Perfect, thank you, thank you. We are going to take a short break here, maybe 20, 30 seconds and we'll come back very soon. Hi there, just taking a quick pause. If something in this conversation is resonating with you. Maybe you are in a season of transition, or you starting to ask deeper questions about purpose and direction. I want you to know you are not alone. If you would like to explore what coaching could look like, or just take the next step toward clarity and impact, you're warmly invited to visit lifeleadshipconnected.com. And while you're there, grab your free copy of my brand new ebook, the "Identity to Impact Starter a Guide". It's full of practical reflections to help you reconnect with who you are and where you are going. of this is waiting for you at lifeleadshipconnected.com Now back to the episode. Hello and welcome back to the Life and Leadership Connected podcast. And today I interview, have a conversation with Ryan And now the next question, Ryan, Let's talk about vertical development. You break it into three mind levels, "Mind 1.0", 2.0" and 3.0". Could you maybe walk us through them and in a way that young professionals, maybe specially, might relate to? Yeah, so great question. So we've talked already about horizontal development, that's improving along our doing side, our talent, knowledge, skills and abilities. And then we've talked about vertical development, which is about upgrading our internal operating system. And there's a variety of different frameworks that are out there to evaluate our altitude, our vertical development altitude. The mindset framework that we talked about is one framework that we could use to evaluate our vertical development altitude and some of the nuances associated with that. But the term, as I had mentioned earlier, the term vertical development comes from the field of developmental psychology. And what's been interesting, if I could just take us on a brief history trip, is developmental psychology has been a field of study since the 1880s. And from the 1880s up until now, the vast majority of research has focused on child development. And what we've learned through this research is that children, as they go from infants to adults, they go through a number of different childhood development stages. Roughly, depending upon the model, it's five or six stages, and they go through these stages in about 20 years. And their development almost feels automatic, almost like a function of age. Well, in the 1960s, a select few developmental psychologists started to ask the question,"Can adults develop?" Because largely these developmental psychologists just assumed that we stopped developing in adulthood. And so we've got these young, new developmental psychologists that are asking, can adults develop? And if so, are there different adult development stages? Mm-hmm. And what they found through their research is that yes, adults can develop, and actually there's three primary adult development stages. And these three stages, when we understand them, are another framework for us to think about our vertical development altitude. Hmm. what's super interesting about the research that came out from these researchers is they found that while adults can develop in adulthood, and there's these three adult development stages, most adults never develop in adulthood. In fact, here's the percentages. If we think about these three levels, I call them "Mind 1.0", "Mind 2.0", and "Mind 3.0". What research has found that 64 % of adults operate in Mind 1.0 at the lowest level. 35 % operate at Mind 2.0, and only 1 % operates at Mind 3.0. And so what we've learned is that development as an adult is no longer a function of age, it's now much more of a function of effort, and doing this vertical development work. So that hopefully that kind of lays a foundation about where these three stages come from. And then, so is it okay, David, if we jump into your question about what are these three stages and how do we bring them to life? Okay. So what we need to understand is that at each of these different levels, our body's internal operating system is programmed to fulfill different needs. That's why I call it mind 1.0, mind 2.0 and mind 3.0 is because as we go from one level to the other, there's an upgrade of our internal operating system and our body becomes programmed to fulfill different needs. So let me walk through the different needs associated with each of these different levels. When we operate in mind 1.0, our body is wired for safety, comfort, and belonging. We want to join groups, and when we join groups, we don't want to step forward and take charge. In fact, what we say when we join these groups is, want you to tell me what to do, provided you keep me safe, comfortable, and feeling like I belong. Right, so we join these groups to fulfill these needs of safety, comfort, and belonging, and any fears that we have about being, of not belonging, being unsafe or being uncomfortable. And so this is where, as I mentioned, 64 % of adults operate in this mode of safety, comfort, and belonging. Does that make sense? Okay. And when we operate there, we largely operate as dependent thinkers, right? We allow other people, the group leaders to tell us what to do, and then we will do that in exchange for safety, comfort, and belonging. Mm-hmm. that's mind 1.0. At mind 2.0, what we're gonna see is a dramatic shift in our needs. This is when we see this shift in somebody's needs, that's a sense that they've now leveled up in terms of their vertical development altitude. And so the needs that are associated with mind 2.0 are the needs to stand out, advance, and get ahead. So when we're here, we are actually now willing to be unsafe, uncomfortable, and not belong in order to stand out, advance, and get ahead. And so these people generally in Mind 2.0 are rather driven people. They are actually, they're also now independent thinkers as opposed to dependent thinkers. And when we become these independent thinkers, we're willing to push back against our group's beliefs or norms, and we develop our own beliefs and norms. And when we're here, we largely want to be leaders because it's our, we wanna put our good ideas to the test. Because if I can put my good ideas to the test, then I'll better be able to stand out, advance and get ahead. And so these Mind 2.0 people, again, are wired to stand out, advance and get ahead, and they're more independent thinkers. So those are the first two levels. The third level, again, we're gonna see a dramatic shift in our needs. So we're not in Mind 1.0, we don't wanna stand in. At Mind 2.0, we wanna stand out. Well, that's not where we're at in Mind 3.0. So in Mind 3.0, we don't wanna stand in, we don't wanna stand out. What we're wired to do is to contribute, add value, and lift others. So here's a big distinction. When we are in mind 1.0 and mind 2.0, we kind of operate in a manner that's focused on us, right? How do I stand in? How do I stand out? When we are in mind 3.0, we now operate in a manner in which it's about creating value for the world around us. Ah. when we operate in this space, we're no longer a dependent thinker and we're not an independent thinker. We are an interdependent thinker who could sit in and more effectively navigate complexity. Also something that I've learned is that mind 1.0 people and mind 2.0 people are rather short term focused, right? They want to stand in right now, or they want to stand out right now or in the near future. Mind 3.0 people are much more long term and purposeful focused. And so they're willing to sacrifice the short term standing in or standing out to create that value in the long term. And and we,...

I gave you percentages earlier: 45:07

64 % of people in mind 1.0, 35 % in mind 2.0, 1 % in mind 3.0, but when we look at leaders and executives, it's interesting only 7 % of executives operate in mind 1.0, 85 % operate in mind 2.0. So that's where we find most leaders and then only 8 % operate in mind 3.0. Wow, This system is about change. If you want to change, if somebody, let's say in the 20s, 30s, they want to grow, they want to move from between the stages, what practical steps can they take to elevate from, for example, Mind 1.0 to Mind 3.0? Yeah, so this is, there's a couple of pieces. So one thing to, I think, kind of hold close, one idea to hold close is the idea that when we do this vertical development work, the development work actually has to do with impacting and refining our body's nervous system. And that's why this, that's why vertical development work is so different than horizontal development work. Horizontal development work doesn't really impact our body's nervous system. We're just gaining new knowledge and new skills. When we do vertical development work, we need to become more regulated in our whole body. So there's different tactics that we can take to do this. And I generally think about it as three different levels of vertical development work. Generally, it makes sense to start at, I'm going to call it "the surface level", then go to"deeper level" and then go to "deepest level." And so there's different tactics that are associated with each of these levels. I'll just kind of walk us through this. So to start at the surface level, these surface level tactics are almost daily habits that people can engage in to better regulate their body's nervous system. So these are things like Meditation, Gratitude Journaling, Yoga, 'Cold Plunges, You could do Self Affirmations or even here. So these are pretty I would say standard vertical development practices and they're becoming increasingly popular because people are understanding the benefits of them are about upgrading our operating system. They're really not about learning any new knowledge or skills. It's all about upgrading our body's nervous system. And that's generally the place to start was with those types of tactics. So that's the surface level. The next level down, the deeper level, this is when we start doing work to awaken to the programming of our internal operating systems. And this is where I think that mindset work resides, because when we start to awaken to our mindsets, we start to awaken to our programming. But here's also another way to kind of investigate this that might be helpful, is we can explore, one way to explore our programming is to investigate some "If-then" - programming such as we've all got this if in programming but everybody is unique so we might be able to say: "If I get cut off in the freeway when I'm driving, then how does my body want to respond?" Or we kind of talked about this earlier."If I receive constructive criticism, then how is my body wired to respond?" If we can investigate our if-then programming, it might illuminate some places where we need to upgrade our programming. So that type of work, mindset work, investigating our if-then statements, and there's a variety of other kind of tools and frameworks that are out there to do that. That's the deeper level work there. Before I continue, can I add something here? Because all these things are unconscious. Well, are, this is the, well, yes. So we are reshaping, right? So here's a statistic. 95 % of our thinking, feeling, judging and acting is driven by our non-conscious automatic processing. So to your point. So, and what generally is in charge of that non-conscious processing is our mindsets. And that's why it's so powerful to focus on our mindsets because, to your point our mindsets for most of us reside below the level of our consciousness. But that's the cool thing about putting labels on Mindsets is we could start to bring these to the level of our consciousness so that we could then do something about them. Yeah, that's what I was getting at; by labeling it you get tools, you get to see them, so you can do something about it. Yeah, please continue. Yeah, so that's where we could really have some transformational changes go on at that deeper level. But at the deepest level, as I kind of alluded to before, is part of where our mindsets come from is from trauma in our past. And so what we're learning is some of these deepest level strategies are about healing our body's nervous system from past trauma, or maybe even some neurodivergences. So generally, this involves some form of therapy like trauma therapy, neurofeedback therapy, and there's even mounting research related to psychedelic assisted therapy and its role in upgrading our body's nervous system. But these are the three kind of levels of tactics that we can engage in to upgrade our body's nervous system and then therefore elevate along our vertical development axis. Thank you, thank you, thank you, You mentioned another concept in your book. You speak about something you call "Center of Gravity." Can you define that and what role does coaching or intentional reflection play in shifting our center of gravity on that vertical scale? Maybe it's bit complicated question, but start just defining center of gravity because I know that's important. Yeah, so you're bringing up a nuance that we kind of missed when we talked about the three different mind levels, right? We talked about mind 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. And I love that framework because it gets us to ask and answer a question most people never ask, which is, what is my vertical development altitude? And that framework allows us to introspect about that. And so we walked through that framework, talked about how our body can be wired for different needs, right? Safety, comfort and belonging, standing out, advancing and getting ahead and contributing, adding value and lifting others. But that's a rather cut and dry framework. And I think that there's more nuance to that, right?

Because, and here's one of the reasons why I say that: 51:57

and I don't know about you, David, but for me, I could see all three mind levels in myself. At certain times, it seems like I'm in more mind 1.0, and other times I could see myself in mind 3.0. And so I think another perspective that adds some nuance to this is to consider this notion of what is my center of gravity. What I've learned is that we do have these three levels. We don't spend 100 % of our time in any one of these levels. There is some variation about where we spend our time depending upon kind of our circumstances and other factors that are going on. But we generally do have a default level that we operate at. And that's what I think our center of gravity is. And so when I say that 85 % of leaders operate in mind 2.0., well 85 % of leaders have mind 2.0 as a center of gravity. That doesn't mean that they don't spend any time in mind 1.0 and they don't get up into mind 3.0. They do but most leaders kind of park and camp out the majority of the time in mind 2.0. So when I do consulting work with organizations, I generally see it as my challenge is to help largely mind 2.0 leaders upgrade to that 3.0 level. And how do we do this? Well, right, we could think about how do we elevate, but when we look at it through the lens of center of gravity, the question really becomes how do I spend a greater percentage of my time in mind 3.0? And that's where these tactics like meditation, gratitude journaling, yoga, cold plunge, those types of tactics, I think are tactics that leaders need to be doing on a regular basis if they want to get in and stay in Mind 3.0. um And so those should be something that every leader, some type of practice like that, every leader's gonna be different, but leaders need to even be engaging in a practice almost every day to help them intentionally get in and stay in Mind 3.0. uh When I work with leaders and executives, I generally will ask them, do you spend any time doing these types of things? And they all tell me, no, I don't have time to do those things. But then what we're also dealing with is they also tell me simultaneously that they're burned out, right? Because you can't pull from an empty tank. And these types of activities help leaders to fill their tank so that they could better give of themselves in the pursuit of the purpose or the organization that they're serving. Thank you. Thank you. Now I wonder, what gives you purpose and meaning in life? What's your deeper why behind all this work you do? Well, I hope in a way it has come out in this conversation. Right? I just feel like it's my why, my purpose to help others to become the best versions of themselves and to transform themselves. And I just know for myself and then hundreds of people that I've worked with that if we can help people do this vertical development work, it's gonna be transformational. Because as I mentioned before, there's nothing wrong with horizontal development, gaining new knowledge and skills. But what I found is that it's only incrementally helpful at best. If we really want transformational change in our lives to become a better person and have a more positive impact on the world around us, we've got to focus on vertical development. So I just consider it an honor to be in a position to kind of share these ideas with your listeners. So thank you, David. yeah, great. If a person don't want to change, what happens if we don't want to do this in the work? And maybe especially emerging leaders, just what happens then? Well, it's tricky, right? Because not everybody wants to do it. Because inevitably, vertical development work is uncomfortable. And I've seen it, right? I've seen the spectrum of responses to invitations for doing vertical development work. I see some people that jump right into it and they think, oh yes, this is gonna solve all my problems, which it can eventually. But then I also see leaders who are intensely resistant to do any of this type of stuff. And honestly, I've just observed a pattern and it probably won't surprise you.

But the pattern is: 56:38

The more resistant somebody is to doing this work, the more trauma they have in their past. And it is a self protective strategy to avoid doing this work. And so ultimately, uh I... Of course, I feel like when somebody doesn't jump into this work, I do believe that they're missing an opportunity. And I do believe that ultimately, they're going to pay the consequences of that later on, just in terms of being limited in some way. But I also have a huge amount of compassion, for the people who reject if you weigh or resist doing this vertical development work, because it's a sign that says that they've come from a place that is very difficult. Now, don't, rarely do I know what that is, but it's, it's, You know, when I see that resistance, I don't get mad. If anything, I wanna give him a big hug if it were appropriate. And I've just known for myself, I've had my own resistance that I've had to work through. And here's what I've learned. If you're somebody that has some of that resistance that pops up, I know that I've had that resistance pop up for myself because I felt like it would be really painful to dredge up the past or to dig into this. And I'm not going to say that it wasn't painful. But what I will definitely say is that it wasn't as painful as I anticipated. In fact, it was incrementally painful compared to what I anticipated. And in fact, I'll throw out a book recommendation for anybody who's resistant to doing this work. The book is called "The Choice". It's written by a woman, name is Edith Eager, and she's a Holocaust survivor. So as you can imagine, went through a lot of trauma in her upbringing. And throughout her almost her whole adult life, she resisted doing this work. And her whole book is called, her book is "The Choice", is about her choice to do this work later in life and her experience in doing so. And it is one of the most remarkable books that I've read. Yeah, wow. And follow up question of the

earlier questions: 58:53

What becomes possible if we do this change, if we do embrace this inner work? Man, well, sky's the limit. It is really what it is. The interesting thing is, when I do this work with leaders, I'm doing this in an organizational context. And I'll do this work for a period of time. And hopefully, after we do the work, we make an investment, we set them up for them to do continual work. And then oftentimes, I like to go back to these groups and kind of just say, what is the impact that this has had on you? And their answer, I've come to expect, to certain answer but at first it surprised me I was not expecting this answer but the answer that I almost always get from people after doing this work is they say I you know I'll ask them how has this impacted you almost always they will answer by talking about the impact that it's had on their family, which I think is amazing. I mean, if there's any, if we're going to have any impact in this world, I think on our family should be the primary impact. and, so I hear stories like there's one executive who said, um, he kind of told me a little bit of his background. said, a few years ago, I got married to now it's my second wife. and I had been divorced previously and I married this woman and she has two college age children. So I have two stepdaughters. They're living with me and they're going to school. And he said honestly over the last two three years since I've been in this relationship with this woman I just have rarely talked to these two stepdaughters They just we kind of just coexisted and I was like, oh that doesn't sound very good But then he said since doing this work, I have talked to my stepdaughters every day and I love our relationship. It has changed my life. um And so this was an executive. I had no expectation that he would tell me such a personal story. But that was the impact. And here's what I've come to learn is that when business leaders do this work, vertical development work, I think they generally feel it safest to do it in relationship to their family. Try to try out these principles and try to operate differently with their family because it's a safer environment generally than in the workplace context. And so I think that's why many leaders first talk about their families. But if they can get beyond that and make some of the changes at work, then we start to talk about transformational change in organizations. And in fact, I would say here's another book recommendation. If you really want to study a great mind 3.0 leader that has done this vertical development work himself and then has created transformation in his organization, I recommend reading the book "Hit Refresh", which is written by Sachin Adela, the CEO at Microsoft. Wow, thank you. Let's continue on the track, Powerful Mindset Shifts. In your book, mentioned that you did some workshops and you mentioned a story of, I think the name was Max, somebody that you had some preconceived thinking about him, but he had a powerful change. I think that could... maybe explain a bit of this, yeah, of your work and so on. Can you maybe share that story? Yes, for sure. So I was doing some work with an executive team and the first I was doing a program and we were doing four sessions and the first three were virtual and then the last one was in person and and so I, I really didn't know the group prior to the virtual sessions but as we got on the virtual sessions I got to know most everybody on this executive team except for Max. But Max was kind of this enigma because Max was I could see him like shoulder up on the screen and Max had, I could tell was a big guy. And he had this big beard, which wasn't common really for that industry. And so it was a little like, just interesting. And I didn't know what to expect from Max. he, during the first three virtual sessions, he didn't make a comment. So I wasn't really able to get to know him. So I had no clue going into that in-person session whether or not he would... he was accepting of these ideas or would he be somebody who kind of you know resisted these ideas and sometimes when somebody does that verbally in front of a group it could just create a setting that isn't the best in terms of diving into these ideas. So going into this day of this in-person session, I was kind of thinking, I wonder how Max is gonna turn up today, right? Is Max gonna be accepting of these things or is he gonna derail the conversation? And I was feeling honestly a little bit anxious about this. And so I pulled up to their headquarters and we got set up and it was time to get going and Max wasn't there. Mm-hmm. honestly, I was feeling a little bit relieved, like, oh, okay, I don't have to deal, I don't have to worry about Max, we'll get into it. Well, I'm getting into this about 10 or 15 minutes in, and I see all of everybody's eyes in the room go towards the doorway that's kind of behind me towards my left. And so I look over to the door, and there's Max. And Max is gigantic. He is filling the door, right? He's like six foot seven, six foot eight, big guy. And he's not like big like fat. He's like big like strong man competition, big. And I'm thinking, oh my goodness, and he's got this big beard, really intimidating presence, right? And so he realizes he had kind of disrupted things and he kind of like tries to, as quietly as he could, go and take a seat. And we just kind of continued on with the workshop. But now I'm like, okay, I've got to check in on Max. So we take a break and I check in on Max.

Max, and I ask him: 1:04:57

How is this stuff sitting with you?" Because I wanted to feel him out. And he said, honestly, this stuff has changed my life. And I was not expecting that answer. And so I was like, OK, tell me more. And he said, what your work has helped me realize is that your mindset assessment, I came to realize that I have a closed mindset. And for the longest time, I thought that was a good thing, even like a strength of mine. But what I've come to realize is it's actually been a detriment to me. And he said, so over the last several months, I've been working on developing more of an open mindset. And he said, and this is another example, he said, you could even ask my wife and she will tell you that I'm a changed person. ah I am now much more open to her ideas, also to my children's ideas, and I feel like my family is in a better place than it's been in a long time. So that's, you know, just stories like that are, you know, in a way I think are stories that any of us would live for, but surely light me up and gives me that motivation to keep doing this work. Yeah, great. you. Thank you for sharing the story. I mean, you work a lot, I imagine. How do you balance leadership and life? What have you learned about staying healthy mentally, emotionally, and maybe also spiritually? Yeah, I mean life can get busy I I've learned as I kind of mentioned earlier is in order for me to have the energy that I need I need to invest in myself. I need to fill my tank and so I'm not saying there's one right way to do this. But I've developed some morning routines that help me bring the best version of myself every day. So generally in my morning routine the first thing that I do is I meditate. Great. And then after I'm done meditating I will I've got a journal that I journal and it's called "The five-minute journal" and every day I write down three things I'm grateful for, three things that would make today great, and then I fill in some self-affirmations. And then from there, I've got a weekly planner. I do the planner weekly, but then it's a daily thing that I look at. I'll look at my planner. I'll see what's coming up in the day and I set intentions for the different meetings that I have. What value do I want to create in these different meetings? And doing that at the beginning of my day, I think sets me on the right tone for being the best version of myself. Now I'm not perfect for sure. But that is what's worked for me. Yeah, great, thank Ryan, if you could speak directly to younger aspiring leaders who feel stuck or unclear of who they are, and I believe there are many, what would you say to them? Yeah, I would say if you're feeling stuck, it probably has to do not with the lack of horizontal development, but maybe some limitations in terms of your vertical development. And and so my invitation is to start to awaken to your vertical development altitude and I and if you want to do that I hope that my website: ryangottfredson.com will be a great source I mentioned I've got my mindset assessment there. There's actually two other assessments that you'll find there that can help you, so one is a vertical development assessment which looks at those three different mind levels and I actually just released a new assessment that might be particularly helpful for those of you who stuck and it's an individual stagnation assessment that's designed to get clear clarity on what type of stagnation that you're experiencing at deep levels and then what mindset is driving that stagnation. Once we can get clear there then we're going to have clarity on how to clear the roadblocks ahead of us. Great. Thank you. And if people want to get hold of you, you mentioned a website. Is there some other place where they can reach you and find what you're doing? Yeah, any social media platform, I'm particularly most active on LinkedIn, so would love to connect with anybody there. In fact, I'll throw this out there to your listeners, David. If you go and take one of my assessments, and if you want to walk me to walk you through your results, then reach out to me through either my website or one of these social media channels, and we'll jump on a call and I'll walk you through your results. Wow, this is a great offer, great offer. Thank you for being on the podcast, Ryan. It's been a really pleasure to have you here and hear about your framework and this vertical development. I think and I hope many of our listeners and viewers experienced that too. So, we have learned is that leadership elevation isn't just about doing more, it's about becoming more. I invite, and now I speak to your listeners and viewers, if you raise resonate with this, if you feel that this is something that something stirs inside you reach out to Ryan maybe take the assessment, or if you need coaching he can coach, and I do some coaching too, so don't just sit with it do something about it take you for today listeners maybe you're watching on YouTube. Maybe you're listening on Spotify or elsewhere. Subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss when the next one comes out and are released so thank you for being here today and until next time bye bye.