Change Work Life

The six toxic leaders in your head - with Rob Kalwarowsky

• Jeremy Cline/Rob Kalwarowsky • Episode 225

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#225: Rob Kalwarowsky is a world class leadership coach and expert in destructive leadership behaviour.  He explains the different types of toxic leaders living in your head, how to identify your own destructive thought patterns, and the practical steps you can take to overcome them.

What you’ll learn

  • [02:13] The six different destructive leadership types. 
  • [5:30] How many bosses display destructive leadership traits.
  • [6:00] Why understanding destructive leadership types can help you.
  • [6:50] Why self-compassion is essential for developing self-awareness.
  • [8:25] How to be aware of what’s influencing your thought patterns. 
  • [9:15] Where negative internal thought patterns originate from. 
  • [10:55] How negative personality traits can serve a positive purpose.
  • [13:04] How chronic stress hijacks our behaviour.
  • [14:39] How your inner world shows up in your professional life.
  • [17:15] How imposter syndrome can affect your performance at work. 
  • [20:55] Why you should identify the different characteristics of your personality. 
  • [22:51] How to identify your negative thought patterns. 
  • [24:56] How to know if you’re as self-aware as you think. 
  • [28:13] How to overcome negative thought patterns and behaviours. 
  • [30:30] Practical steps you can take to improve your stress response. 
  • [32:38] How to measure self improvement success. 
  • [33:39] Breathing techniques to lower stress. 
  • [36:21] How the direct manager influences employee engagement. 
  • [38:10] How to know if it’s the internal or the external that needs changing.


Resources mentioned in this episode
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For the show notes for this episode, including a full transcript and links to all the resources mentioned, visit:

https://changeworklife.com/the-six-toxic-leaders-in-your-head/


Re-assessing your career?  Know you need a change but don't really know where to start?  Check out these two exercises to start the journey of working out what career is right for you!

According to this week's guest, there are six types of destructive leaders or toxic bosses, ranging from the arrogant and violent boss, the abusive narcissist, to the messy boss, and the passive egocentric. Now, what if I told you that you had at least one of these six types of destructive leaders inside you? How might they show up? How do you identify which one it is? And most importantly, how do you take control of them and stop them taking over? That's what we're going to talk about in this week's episode. I'm Jeremy Cline, and this is Change Work Life. Hello and welcome to Change Work Life, the podcast that's all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. I'm a career coach, you can find out more about that at changeworklife.com/coaching, and in each episode, my guests and I bring you tips, strategies, and stories to help you enjoy a more satisfying and fulfilling working life. If you're unlucky enough to have a toxic boss, chances are there's not a huge amount you can do about it. You might be able to offer feedback, but whether or not they do anything to change their behaviour will be up to them. But what about the toxic boss inside your head? What about your internal tyrant who belittles you, sabotages your decisions, or drains your energy? Now there's someone you can do something about. But what? And how? Joining me this week to help us identify and manage our internal toxic boss is Rob Kalwarowsky. Rob is an executive coach, TEDx speaker, and author of the bestselling book, Capitalizing on Chaos. Rob, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Jeremy. Excited to be here with you. So, let's go straight into the topic. You talk about six destructive leaders inside our heads. Why don't you start by giving us an overview of what those six destructive leaders are? Absolutely. So, the six destructive leaders, I didn't create them. There's a research paper that was done in 2021 that identified these six destructive leadership types based on research they did across the Swedish workforce. And these account in total for 65.1% of the workforce experiences what's known as the destructive leader. And when I say destructive leader, what does that mean? It just means that the leader destroys, one is the performance of the people towards the corporate goals, as well as their health and wellbeing. The six types range from what you would call the arrogant and violent boss, which if you imagine Gordon Ramsay on Hell's Kitchen, when someone serves him undercooked chicken, all the way to what's known as the cowardly boss or ghost manager, which is someone who doesn't give instructions, they don't accept responsibility, and they just basically avoid all responsibility and accountability. That's kind of the two ends of the spectrum. Now, as we work ourselves inwards, there's the abusive narcissistic boss. These are folks, a great example of this is the role that Leonardo DiCaprio plays on Wolf of Wall Street, someone who's all about themselves. They make threats, they push people down, they take credit all for themselves, and they push blame away on everybody else. On the other end, we have the messy boss, which is just somebody, in general, they're just disorganised. And so, they don't give good, clear instructions. They don't set good goals or good vision for their team. Maybe they flip-flop on decisions. And it just creates that chaos within their teams and within their organisation. The two in the middle are the split types. And so, they're both actively and passively destructive. And so, one is passive-aggressive, which I don't have to explain that. And the other one is passive egocentric, which is like, I take credit and deflect blame, but I do it behind your back. All in all, 65.1% of the workforce experiences a type of leader that fits into one of those categories. Now, exactly what you mentioned at the beginning is, all of us have all six of those inside our own heads. Now, typically, one to three of those are most dominant for each person. And so, you'll notice that, in specific moments, for me, when I drive, I have an abusive narcissist, and then also when I have things like I have to file my taxes, I have a ghost manager, that I don't want to engage and do it. Right? And so, we have those inside our own heads, and it's exactly the internal which allows us to show up as a non-destructive leader in our lives, both at work and at home. So, you mentioned that figure of 65.1% of the Swedish workforce. Does that mean that the other 35% have just been very lucky and have never experienced any toxic boss of any description? They don't experience it at the time of the survey. So, roughly one-third of bosses are non-destructive. So, that means they're good. They don't say good, but not bad. You've already alluded to this, but why does it help us to be aware of this? What does knowing this help us with? Self-awareness is the first thing. And it is one of the most important leadership skills out there. And I say it's a skill because it can be developed. And it allows us to more effectively lead ourselves, our teams, our families, and our companies. And so, once we are aware of these six different types, we can also start to be aware of what's going on in our own minds and when we start falling into those types. And that's when we can give ourselves the internal compassion that those parts of us need, so then we don't actually destroy other people or ourselves. So, talk a bit more about that internal compassion and how it relates to this self-awareness. Yes. So, these parts of us are not inherently active at all times. They were created in order to protect us or play defence from times that we were hurt. And so, when we're in these moments of chaos, or when we feel like we're being attacked, these parts of us are the ones that play, that go out to protect us from pain. And so, really, effectively, it's the fight or flight response that triggers these parts of us to go out and take over our behaviour. And so, if we learn the inner compassion and the acceptance, that's when we can get ourselves out of that fight or flight response, and then we can open up our brain. And so, this is neuroscience, but when we get into the stress response, our executive functioning of our brain literally shuts down. So, we don't have the capacity to make logical decisions, to emotionally regulate, to have a clear perspective, to innovate, to get perspective, and so we are very limited on how we can show up and make decisions. And so, really, this is just the best way to not only lead, but also to navigate anything that's going on. Okay, so it's about recognising when the behaviour is being influenced by that toxic boss and that's coming to the fore and being aware that that's happening, rather than just being unaware and letting it take over. Yeah, and the awareness starts with starting to tune into what's going on inside your mind. Because you'll experience these, one, as feelings, but you also experience voices sometimes, or you'll see figures if you close your eyes. It depends on the person, but you experience them, and that's when you can start dialoguing them and understanding what do they actually want, how are they trying to help you, and then that's part of the work to ultimately allow them to step aside where you become the person who governs yourself. You mentioned them as defence mechanisms. Where do they actually come from? Are these childhood influences? Are these reactions to having one's own toxic boss? The answer is trauma. Now, trauma is not necessarily, a lot of folks think trauma, and I used to believe this, but a lot of people think that trauma is like, I had to go to war, or I saved someone from a burning building. Yes, those are traumatic experiences, of course. But trauma is also, and Dr Peter Levine, this is his quote, but he says that trauma is something that is painful that happens with a lack of an empathetic witness. And so, this can be things in our life like, I don't know, we failed a math test when we were five years old, and our parents were like, "Well, that wasn't good." Or you were in your room, and you broke something, and you felt shame about it. It doesn't necessarily mean it has to be this big event. Every one of us has gone through traumatic experience. And so, in those moments, we learn, these parts of us are created to protect us from feeling that shame or that pain. And then, they show up later on in our lives with this perspective that we had when we were either a kid, or sometimes it's even generationally handed down. So, it's not even our trauma. It's like our grandparents' or even further back. Whenever a guest talks about childhood, it makes me think, what traumas am I saving up for my own daughter as a parent myself? Yeah, there's no way to untraumatise your child, I guess. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? These parts of us, they're helpful until they're not. And so, for me, I have a part of me that is an abusive narcissist, right? Just like all of us. And it led me to excelling academically. It led me to excelling in sport. And it was helpful until I got into an environment where I couldn't excel. And then, it became destructive to me. And that led to depression, a suicide attempt, and years of recovery. Right? But this helped me achieve, in a lot of people's eyes, some high levels of success. And so, it's not that they're bad, and they're inherently, these parts are trying to help us. And then, once we do the work, we can actually flip that part, and it will become helpful again. And so, that's really the journey. It's not necessarily, there's no people in the world who don't have these, or who have like completely transcended, maybe there's three guys on a mountaintop who are floating, right, who've transcended. But like everybody else, you're going to have moments where you feel bad. You're going to have these moments. It's totally normal. And it's just like learning to work with yourself through them. It sounds like a lot of personality traits which can be useful until they're not. So, I know for myself, I've got quite a fine attention to detail and will often research things to the n-th degree, which I know stands me in good stead to a point, but then it goes beyond that point, and I end up spending another hour when I've really already made the decision, or I'm just second-guessing myself and becoming a perfectionist. 100%. Yes. All parts are naturally helpful until they over-index. And they over-index because of stress. And that's either the internal beliefs that were created from that traumatic experience when we were likely a child, or that's our external environment. And so, what a lot of folks are feeling, today especially, because of the geopolitical arena, because of the technological arena, because of the economy, a lot of people are feeling stress in ways, because our systems have been changing more quickly and in more chaotic ways that we haven't seen before. That's why we're feeling stress, and that's why it's natural for us to feel and to react differently than we did maybe 10 years ago. So, is part of this about trying to gain some element of control where you feel like a situation is running away from you? It's not control necessarily in terms of the situation. It's finding inner peace and trust that you as an adult and as a human being can figure it out. And that breeds safety inside, which means that you don't actually get into that space of needing to protect. That's really ultimately the solution. Maybe you can walk us through a real-world example, to the extent that you're able to, of how one of these internal leaders might hijack someone's behaviour at work. Yeah, so March of 2024, I was approached by a client of mine who was an entrepreneur. His business was doing three million dollars in annual revenue a year. They were employing 30 people. They're a small manufacturing company in the United States. And he was like, 'Rob, I want to grow my business to 10 million dollars.' And so, we started digging in, trying to understand what's going on in his business, what's going on here. And what was happening was, he was working literally all the time. He was doing 12 to 14 hours a day. He was doing weekends. When he would go on vacation, he would have his phone, and he'd be working all the time. And he was burning out. And we started digging in, and it was the same abusive narcissistic part punishing him for not being successful at growing his business. Not being perfect, not being successful, not being, not being, not being. And that led him to not only needing to be involved in everything and micromanaging his people, but also was burning him out. And once you're doing that much work, you're not actually effective anymore. And it took us around four sessions. And then, he had this moment of realisation where he said to me, 'Rob, I'm the one holding my business back.' And through that, we were able to get that part to release. And then, he didn't need to micromanage anymore. He didn't need to overwork anymore. And then, we worked on what are the behaviours that now we can implement where we start empowering people to make decisions at work, to do their own work, to take control. And of course, that culture was building. But over six months, what happened was his business actually grew from three million to 11 million, and he actually works less now than he did before. And so, the internal impacts the external, which allows you to either show up well or not. I'm interested to know if you've got an example that comes from the other end of the spectrum. So, how that shows up internally, and then what behaviours result from that. Yes. So a great example for this is actually imposter syndrome. I had a client come to me, and he had just gotten his dream job. He was applying for jobs, and he got a job. He was the CIO of a globally, one of the most famous design companies in the world. And they brought him in to do a digital transformation. And he's an expert. He had worked 20 years in technology, and he had gone from individual contributor to senior vice president. He was expert. And the problem was, here he kept going, 'The other people at these board meetings, at these executive meetings, they're more qualified than me. They know more than me. They went to a better university than I did. They've had a more successful career than I did.' And so, what happened was that internal turned him into a ghost manager. He didn't step up and actually lead the digital transformation. He let people who didn't have the technical expertise be the ones who were leading the project. And it took us a few months, but eventually, once we got through that ghost manager part, it was like a light switch where he was like, 'No, no, no, I'm the expert. And my fusion of the technology plus the people is really what's going to help drive this through.' And then, he actually eventually was able to successfully lead the digital transformation. And then, that led to him becoming the youngest partner in the firm's history and all this other stuff. But the internal was preventing him from actually showing up at his best and doing the work he needed to do. Okay, so unpacking that a little bit, it was a sense of not having the expertise to lead, feeling that he didn't have that expertise to lead, and so he ended up effectively delegating that to other people because he didn't feel like he had a right to do it, and responsibility should be with other people, something like that. It's a version of imposter syndrome, right? And the statistics say that 70% of people experience imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome kind of goes two ways. One is, you either over-index, so you become a micromanager. I'm going to show you I'm good because I'm going to control everything. Or you become the ghost manager, which is like, I don't actually deserve anything, or I don't deserve to be here, so I'm just going to not be here. Yeah, no, it makes me think of the times that I'm particularly uncertain about things. And whereas, yeah, when I had the job, I would be checking things with superiors and sometimes thinking, am I checking too much? And now letting AI do that. So, you know, draft an email and say, I think this is okay, but what do you think? And this computer with servers sitting goodness knows where is saying, 'No, no, it's fine', or, 'Well, here's a couple of suggestions you might try and incorporate.' You're a ChatGPT overlord. Pretty much, yeah. So, you mentioned that people typically have one to three of these toxic leaders which are dominant in their head. How important is it to identify which is the most dominant? I don't actually think it's that important to identify which one is which. The most important thing is... Or even to classify them, because you can call them different things. You could call it the ghost manager, you could call it imposter syndrome, you could call it, I don't even care. I have one, I call it the knight. Like suit and armour knight. And what it does is, it basically defends me, right? Doesn't matter what you call it, right? Ultimately, it's fostering trust with that part of you, so it knows that it's safe. It doesn't matter. And once it's safe, it doesn't have to swoop in and take control. That's ultimately all that really matters, is that I and you, as self, get to control and not this part of us. And so, that's when, you know, you get that email from your biggest client, they're going, 'Hey, we're cancelling our service.' And you have that moment where you're either going to yell at your computer, or you're going to just like, 'I got to go home because I'm just a terrible business owner', or whatever that is. It's having that moment of just like, 'No, it's all good. I will figure it out.' It's not great, but I'll figure it out. And that avoids the destructive path of whatever your reaction would have been. Okay, so with the six categorisations, is it helpful at all for someone to look at those, use that as a frame of reference, or is it sufficient that you're aware that there is some kind of a reaction to things which you notice comes up, which you don't want, and which you want to change, and starting to address that without necessarily naming it or labelling it or something like that? For me, the categorisation helps people go from 0 to 60 really quickly, and then the internal journey helps you go from 60 to, I mean, you never get to 100, but let's say 80 or 85. Yeah. So, where do you start? If you're starting at naught, and you want to start with getting to 60, where do you start? You start with what are the behaviours that you exhibit when you're under stress, and what is going on up here when you execute those behaviours. So, if I get an email from my client, or let's say, one of my people on my team sends an email that has a mistake on it, and it goes to my biggest client, do I get mad, or do I run away from it? What am I doing? Right? And then, starting to understand what are my behaviours, and then what are the thoughts in my head. Because sometimes we think things, but we would never say them to somebody else. Right? And so, it's really like what's going on in my mind that is helping me understand, and then digging into that curiously. It's like, okay, so what is this part trying to help me do? What's it protecting me from? And it'll actually talk back to you if you actually dig in. It will actually tell you these things. And so, the object, or at least part of the object, sounds like it's looking for patterns. So, being frame of mind over the course of, I don't know, a week, where you start to notice similar thought patterns in response to certain external stimuli. Yeah, and in a week, you'll identify for sure your one to three. And you mentioned a response to stress. I don't know if this is a silly question, but do people ever have difficulty recognising that it is something that they are doing in response to stress, rather than, I don't know, explaining it as a perfectly rational response to whatever it is that's come up? The answer is yes. So, self-awareness, Dr Tasha Eurich says that 95% of people believe they're self-aware, when only 12% to 15% of people actually are. And so, a lot of people say, 'No, this is just who I am.' And it's things like what you mentioned, right? I'll reread an email over and over again. I do that too. It takes me 30 minutes to shoot an email. Right? And it's like, 'that's just who I am' is not exactly just who you are. Right? And those people are people who think that their personality is fixed. Right? And in reality, why are you spending that time with the email? You want to get it perfect, but why do you want to get it perfect? Why is that such a thing in your mind? Is it because you felt like if you didn't get it perfect, the other person would think you're not good, they would reject you? That's where the work actually comes in, is following that down the trail. Okay, that's interesting. And I can see how you can come up with the justifications as well. So, I'm thinking, I've been doing a lot of cold outreach over the past few months and working on email headings to hopefully get them opened. And I can see that I'm working on this because I want the email to get opened, so that someone gets past that first base and actually reads the content. And then, there's the actual content and what I would like them to do with that. So, to me, that comes across as a very rational response to what I'm doing. But I guess, A, there's got to be a point where I've just got to hit send, and B, it's only half the story, because you don't actually know what the reaction of the person who receives it is going to be anyway. The question

is:

how do you feel? Because if you look at the email headings as I'm curiously experimenting on what will work, I'm going to send 50 that are this, I'm going to send 50 that are that, I'm going to send 50 that are that, and I'm just testing, and whatever comes back, we'll just move, and I don't feel attached to it in any way, then it's just you, as self, running experiments. If you feel like, oh, I sent 50 of those emails, and only 1% got opened, and I feel really bad about myself, that's when you need to dig into what is going on underneath it. So, if someone has identified that they have this particular flavour of toxic boss or combination of toxic bosses in their head, and they want to work on changing their response when that toxic boss comes to the fore in whatever stress situation it is that's sparked it, where does someone start to make that behaviour change in response to that? Yes, this is when you start basically building a relationship with that part of you. And so, this does not look really much differently than if you got a new job at a new company, and you were managing a team, and you're like, 'Hey, I'm meeting Jeremy for the first time.' And so, you're just starting to dialogue with these parts of you and build trust. And it's really just, basically, that. You can either, when the part comes in because you're stressed, or even you can, what I do a lot with clients is like, think back to yesterday when you were stressed about this thing, that part will come in, and then now you start talking to it and understanding it and giving it empathy, and just building relationship and letting it know that it's safe. That's really what it is. Honestly, it's called, Internal Family Systems is the process, and actually, the way it was developed was Dr Richard Schwartz, he was a family systems therapist, which is interdynamic, different people, and what he realised when he was doing work with individuals was that there would be different voices inside their minds that would say things, and he applied the external framework to an internal problem. And so, it's literally the same as you leading a team at work, it's just now you're leading a team inside your own head. And aside from working with a professional, be there a coach or a therapist, what can that look like? Say that I know I've got a toxic boss, what am I in practise doing in order to open that dialogue? I mean, am I play-acting two different roles? Or yeah, give us some ideas to what that looks like. So, the first thing I always coach folks to do, when you feel that moment of stress, or you feel that response, is to just take a deep breath and just acknowledge to yourself that I'm human. And you can say it out loud, you can just close your eyes and go, 'I'm human.' You don't even have to say it out loud, right? But that's the start. And if you want to go deeper, then it's not play-acting, it's just like dropping into your system, and your subconscious mind will actually bring these parts forward. And so, it's just tuning into those. And you're going to mention a resource, here it is now, there's a book called No Bad Parts. It was written by Dr Schwartz. But if you get the audiobook, at the end of each chapter, he has visualisations or meditations that you can try, and they will help you connect with these parts. Many of them are on YouTube too, but they'll help you walk through this process, connect with your parts, and open the dialogue with them. Another book I read years ago is Taming Your Gremlin. I don't know if that's one that you've come across. Yeah. What's your measure of success that you are coming to terms with this inner person and being less influenced by them in the ways that you are trying not to be or trying to change? The biggest success is you feel better. The actual, what the output happens is people sleep better, they overthink less, they lead better and get better results at their companies. Sometimes they will change jobs or change careers, but the external success always follows the 'I feel better.' And that's not like, I mean, it's natural, happy people are more innovative, they're more productive. I mean, there's stats to back that up. And also, happy leaders create happy teams which are more productive, more engaged, and that leads to all the external results as well. So, it starts with you feeling better, but then that ripples out into your teams, into your families, into the world. And if you are in a high-pressure environment or a chaotic environment, and things just start to get a bit overwhelming, do you have any tips for just releasing that pressure at that point? Yes, breathing is a great tip. If you go to my YouTube channel, I have a two-minute, I call it stress buster breathing track, but it's free. But basically, you can Google, YouTube, you can do boxed breathing. The one that I do, you inhale, and then you flex all your muscles The reason I like it is because when I'm flexing all my muscles, my brain can't think of other things. And so, I can't be worried about something else happening, because I'm trying to focus on flexing. So, breathing is really great for that. And it's also quick, right? So, you don't need to spend 30 minutes to do some visualisation exercise. The two-minute breathing thing is really quick. It's two minutes. Those things are great. One thing to just also mention here, Jeremy, is that the internal work only goes so far. This makes sense, right? So, if I'm going, 'Hey, I need my parts to feel safe', but then I'm going to walk into a war zone, and bullets are flying by me, my body is not going to, there's a point where you're never going to feel safe. And so, some people, your work environment is going to be so toxic where you cannot feel safe. This can also be a family environment as well. And so, there's a limit to this work, and that limit eventually can be your environment, and you need to choose what environment suits you. And so, if you come into work, and your boss is yelling at you and calling you names and belittling you, there is a point where you can't just out-therapy that. Eventually, you'll have to make a choice like, hey, this isn't serving me, and I've got to leave, or I've got to find a new job internally, I just need a new manager, right? And that's totally normal. It's totally cool. It's part of life. You say that, but it's an important point. And I think it helps to remind people, and possibly to remind bosses, that they can't necessarily put it all on the individual. And it's colleagues, it's management, it's leadership that creates the culture, creates that environment. And if it is a not great environment, there's only so much you can do with it yourself. There's only so many wellness workshops that the company can send you on and that kind of thing. Yes. And that's the other thing, right? And Gallup reports this, 70% of employee engagement is tied to the direct manager. So, it's not the CEO of the company, it's not the executive board, it's not whatever, it's literally your boss, or if you're the boss, your team, right? And so, it's on you. Now, if your boss is being an arrogant and violent boss, you cannot change them. And so, there are points where you're just going to have to be like, 'I'm out.' Right? And this is a big problem, and there's a Stanford study that says that the ways that companies manage people account for 120,000 deaths per year in the United States alone, making bad management the fifth leading cause of death. So, that is a problem that nobody talks about, and it's reflected in everything from stress to anxiety, to mental health problems, to physical health problems like cardiovascular risk, cancer risk, diabetes, stroke. All those things are related to these environments where you are not being led at your best. And so, yes, some of them are part of the job. And some of that is fine. You're never going to have a job that's like laying on the beach unstressed, right? But if you're in an environment where it's not supportive to you, and it's starting to really hurt you, you need to feel empowered that you can choose to leave and put yourself in a better environment. So, I guess a framework can be, you do the work that we've been talking about, you get to that place where you feel like you're being less influenced by your own internal toxic boss, and if things are still bad, that's probably a good indicator that it's time to change your environment. Yes, because all along that journey of healing yourself from your own bosses, you will start to choose naturally. This is part of the healing process, but you will choose things that are more aligned to you. And that doesn't necessarily just have to be work. Like for me, I chose to move from Canada to Costa Rica. Or I chose to buy a dog. Or I chose to get married. Things like that will happen because you start choosing things in alignment with what makes you feel good. And so, those things will lead you to, okay, is it that I want to stay at my company, do I want to get promoted, do I want to switch careers, what do I want? And once that becomes clear, then you'll make those decisions, and that ultimately makes you happier and more successful in the long run. Is there anything we haven't covered that we should cover in our exploration of this topic? The biggest thing I want to impart with everybody is that it starts with you choosing to go on the journey. And there's nothing that I can say, or Jeremy can say, that'll make you do this. You have to want to do this. And actually, you listening to this show in the first place is a pretty good indicator that you care about your career. Right? And so, now it's looking at what do you want to achieve, how do you want to achieve it, and then also, what are you experiencing in your day-to-day that's pain or suffering, that's causing you from not feeling at your best. And once you start thinking about those things, you can write them down, and that'll actually help you start to overcome the natural status quo bias of like, I just do what I have always done. And that'll get you moving on your journey. Rob, this has been a fascinating conversation. These sorts of things always go in slightly different directions to where I'm expecting, but I've really enjoyed it. Where should people go to get hold of you? Yeah, you can find me, Rob Kalwarowsky, either on LinkedIn or my website, robkalwarowsky.com. Obviously, Jeremy will pop that in the notes there, because I don't expect you to spell it correctly. But if you want the tool to overcome the status quo bias, if you just go to robkalwarowsky.com/reason, it's there for free, and you can fill it out, and it'll help you get rolling. Awesome. As you say, I'll put links in the show notes. Rob, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me, Jeremy. Okay. Hope you enjoyed that interview with Rob Kalwarowsky. It's a little bit scary to think that each of us has between one and three of these toxic bosses dominant inside our own personalities. The main takeaway I took from this interview is that this is as much about self-awareness as anything. We naturally find ourselves reacting in a particular way to whatever stimulus it is. You might immediately find yourself getting angry, or getting scared. The power lies in pausing and noticing what's going on. You can kind of turn the spotlight on yourself and realise, 'Oh, hang on a minute, this is making me angry. Hmm, what's going on here?' And then, you can start to choose the reaction which best serves you. Not many of us are Zen monks who have complete mastery of our thoughts, but trying to pause and notice, raise that awareness, is certainly a great first step. I also love the fact that Rob acknowledged that sometimes the internal work can only take you so far. If you are in a toxic environment or one which doesn't align with you, then no amount of this awareness of what's going on inside is necessarily going to make things perfectly better for you. Sometimes you need to take yourself out of the situation. Show notes for this episode are on the website as usual. And if you were listening to the end of last week's episode, you will know that I announced that I am going to be stopping the podcast. I don't yet know whether this is going to be a permanent or a temporary pause, but having done a lot of reflection at the beginning of this year, I've realised that it's something which just at the moment isn't serving me and my goals. So, there will be probably one more interview in two weeks' time, and then after that, I might do a bit of a deeper dive into how I've come to this decision. In the meantime, that episode in two weeks' time is rather relevant, as it's all about giving yourself permission either to do something or to stop doing something. It's a really good conversation, so as always, make sure you're subscribed to the show so you don't miss that one, and I will see you in two weeks' time. Cheers. Bye.