And so I think integrity is one of these things.

that you sort of bring with you to the grave, right?

Like you're the only person at the end of the day who knows if you were living

in accordance with your values and what your values were in the first place.

authenticity is an assessment from the outside and it's vulnerability.

Interestingly, that is somehow the bridge between these two, right

Um, uh,

How can profound questioning and deep listening transform your leadership

style and your team today on seek, go create the leadership journey.

We're excited to welcome Daniel Ludovic, a transformation coach and

the founder of move leadership with a rich background, spanning psychology.

Daniel has developed a unique approach to leadership that incorporates

lessons from his diverse experiences, including facilitating post genocide

community conversations in Cambodia and managing a hotel in Morocco,

living between Berlin and Barcelona.

I think he said is in Berlin right now.

Daniel also leads the modern leader, a private members only

leadership mastermind community.

His mission is clear to empower professionals to become leaders worth

following by enhancing their integrity, confidence, clarity, and resilience.

Daniel, welcome to Seat Go Create.

Thank you, Tim.

It is great to meet you

Great

to meet you here too.

It's early for me, late for you.

Hopefully somewhere in between we can meet up and have a common

energy and all that works for us.

But, I appreciate you scheduling what's late for you and all, but, Hey,

Daniel, we're, we're, I'm not totally.

Pretending here, but we just meet.

And I say, Hey, what do you do, which I've admitted is a superficial

question, but if I ask you what you do, what would you tell me?

You know, I'm so curious also how you'll answer this question

because I think in our field, this is like the worst question to get.

I was just at a bunch of, social party things here happening

in Berlin this weekend.

people ask me that and I still hate that I can't come up with

an answer that sounds compelling.

So what I say there is I'm a leadership coach who works with CEOs and founders.

and then I see, that totally make their eyes glaze over?

Right.

And if it does, I sometimes even ask, did that make sense to you?

Do you understand what I'm talking about?

And occasionally people will play back and say, so like you're a career coach.

So let's start with that.

So you know what a career coach is.

Okay.

So let me tell you what is different than I do.

Which is mindset and talking about how you develop people and how you support

teams to really function well together and how you recognize that leadership

is self development and that we're all on a journey of really, you know, self

actualizing and you need people to support you doing that and holding up the mirror,

whether you're an individual or a team.

So somewhere within that conversation, if people are interested, they'll start to

figure out what I actually do, but man, do I find it hard wrap that up and summarize

it in three succinct, but somehow still.

I like that initially know your leadership coach for leaders

and founders and organizations.

That's good.

But do you ever get people and are you okay with this that

say, Oh, You're a life coach.

it's funny that you asked that because that came up also this weekend, you

know, when I moved to Berlin from New York, I had actually never heard of

coaching, certainly not life coaching.

You know, I studied psychology, as you mentioned in my bio, you know,

for me, being a psychologist was an obvious way to show up with this work,

but I had never heard of coaching, even though coaching is quite big

in the U S and when I got to Berlin.

Everybody was a life coach, right?

Like everybody and their mother was a life coach.

And at the beginning, I found it very interesting.

Like, Oh, this is, this is amazing.

And then you start realizing that a lot of these people do not have

any sort of consistency between what they preach and what they do.

Personally are a mess are all over the place are a rollercoaster.

And me, that at that time in my life, completely disenchanted me to coaching

and in particular to life coaching.

was about 10 years later that a friend of mine, after years of me facilitating

teams and working in corporates you know, the way you facilitate is so coachy in

a good way that you really should take a life coaching, you should really take a

coaching class, a coaching certification.

Just to become more aware of what it is that you're already doing.

I signed up in 2017 for this coaching certification program.

I ended up, signing up for the, initial fundamentals course, but then

doing the whole two year journey.

And I loved it.

I absolutely was head over heels for it.

I entered it at a completely different place in my life where I started to

recognize what the value of this is and how useful the skills of coaching are.

now, honestly, when people say, Are you a life coach?

It doesn't really faze me because I always say I don't coach the person.

I don't coach the problem.

I coach the person.

It doesn't matter to me whether we start with a corporate topic.

We're very quickly talking about childhood and marriages and relationships.

I do also recognize that there is some stigma to the, You know, the fact that

there's no protection around the name life coach, anyone can call them that.

And so there's no criteria for standards.

Yeah, and I think that does make it tough because there's a low barrier

to calling yourself that and it can water when you were just bringing up

that example of people that will call them they're a hot mess but yet they

want to Talk to other people about how they can solve their messes.

And I don't, I don't listen neither.

I don't think either one of us would claim perfection.

So that's not what we're trying to say, but you, but you do have to have

a little bit of your act together.

It reminded me of, we were in a church for a while and the, the pastor and his

wife went through a pretty ugly divorce.

And then later the wife was starting to do marriage counseling and marriage coaching.

As a twice divorced, whatever.

And I listen, people go through stuff.

I'm not, that's not what I'm saying here.

I think she probably could have coached some people on some stuff.

I'm just not sure that marriage would have been it.

You know what I mean?

Well, she went through the divorce.

I mean, at the same time, while of course it's amazing when you have

a coach or a therapist or a leader that walks to talk and that is

living, what they also are teaching.

At the same time, I also don't think it's a prerequisite for great coaching, right?

Because the skills of coaching or of being a therapist or being maybe with

leadership is a little bit different.

You don't really need to, first of all, self disclose a lot at all, right?

I mean, I have known so many therapists and so many coaches that don't share

a lot about their own life, but they are incredible listeners and they are

incredible sound borders and they know how to hold space for someone to reflect and

they know how to offer input and intuition applying that same skill set to your own

life is a completely different skill set.

I think with leadership, this aspect around authenticity and

integrity and consistency, which I'm sure we'll talk about is.

More important these days than it was in the past because people expect, you

know, that you're consistent in and out, but as a therapist and a coach where

that wall between you and your client or your patient is still relatively normal

and even sometimes helpful to maintain.

I don't know if I would say just because someone's life is personally a mess,

there's nothing that you can gain from working with them professionally.

I'm going to tell you, you kind of gave your response.

And sometimes when people ask me what I do, this would be my go for the jugular.

Response.

Okay.

I

I'm going to say it and I'm gonna let you comment on it, but

I say something to the effect.

And sometimes I work within spiritual circles because I do work with ministry

and the leaders I work with usually have some degree of faith component involved.

And so my comment, if you say, Tim, what do you do?

I reached down inside.

Leaders and organizations and pull out the greatness that God put

there at the beginning of time

mean, damn, obviously.

It's a genius description,

is it, I don't know,

is, it's, it is.

I mean, to me, this speaks to the idea also of purpose statements, right?

So like my purpose statement that is behind my work is I transform

dark into lightness with care.

I transformed dark into lightness with care and kindness.

I transform darkness into light with clarity and kindness.

That's what my two things are, right?

Because for me, those two aspects, right?

Care or kindness or compassion or empathy or whatever you want to call it.

really nicely With clarity and with understanding and with comprehension

and with things making sense.

And I just noticed that I have a gift in these things and that the ultimate

thing it's serving is this shift from confusion and darkness and ambiguity

and things feeling messy to a place of

Lightness and a sense of accessibility and a sense of understanding.

And that is not something I would say, you know, at an opening introduction,

but it is at the core of what I'm doing.

And I think your introduction is on that same frequency, right?

Which is it's like the essence of what you're doing is to reach down and help

people get back in touch with that long lost potential that was there all along.

in the right circle, I think starting with that and opening

with that can be incredible, right?

Because people will totally get what you mean.

in the wrong circle, people look at you like you're totally

or they start stoning me or throwing stuff at me or whatever.

you bring up kindness and truthfully within church circles, kindness is not

a factor in a lot of those environments.

I I posted something the other day that I had more.

F us thrown at me than I've had in a long time from people

that should be more Christlike.

I don't want to go down there.

Let's let, I want to, I don't want to go down that path.

I want to go down to another path that you brought up something earlier, Daniel

and I, and I think it's going to allow us to have some great conversation sort of

really related to what my mission, I just kind of said I was, and that is, it sounds

as if you didn't call yourself a coach for a Quite a period of time in your career.

But then when you did it sort of clicked.

See with me, I always knew I was wired to coach.

In fact, I wanted to be a teacher and a coach found out both my parents were

educators, found out they didn't make much money, tried to go another path.

But every time I came back to coaching, when you.

Clicked with coaching.

Did you feel as if it was something that you have probably had that was innate,

that was with you from the beginning, or was it something that you developed?

Yeah, it's a very interesting question.

It links to a bigger topic that I'm exploring in the last couple of years

around integrity and coherence, which I can also talk about separately.

something about noticing how we jump in life to different identities that

sometimes allow us to expand our ability and expand what we offer

and expand how the market sees us.

and I have tried to do that in different ways.

Some which were successful and some which totally belly flopped.

And at other times noticing that actually the more I can kind of bring

things in line and simplify and try to really come down to like the core

basics, the more in tune and in line and in my own integrity I actually feel.

And coaching one of those things Where when I discovered it and

when I really started studying it, made me feel totally coherent.

Like it was an encapsulator of things that I had been doing for years.

I was the 13 year old in middle school who was asked to be part

of a peer counseling group for other, you know, middle schoolers.

By the principal or whatever, because I was so interested in this topic.

You know, I've been asking my parents since I was 10 that the only

thing I want for my birthday is a subscription to Psychology Today, right?

Like this was innate in my being.

I've said I've wanted to be a psychologist since I was a kid, but

when I actually studied psychology and understood this distance that is

expected between you and your patient, it was tremendously disappointing.

Like I really didn't find myself attracted to that.

Coaching, and in particular, the kind of coaching that I was exposed

to, which is this coaching school called Coactive Coaching, CTI, it's

very much about two people in a conversation and an exploration together.

My intuition that I drop into the conversation, my thoughts,

my pictures in my head.

Are as valuable as yours, even if you are the client, because it

stimulates the conversation to continue growing and moving and developing.

And while everything that I offer is in service of you and I'm

not attached to it, and you can completely disregard it as irrelevant.

It still enables me to be fully present, not just with you.

But also with what is happening in me.

And I loved that it gave me a permission and a language and a set of tools for

how to bring more of myself into not just coaching one on one, but all of the group

work with that I was doing before that.

And then, what I have found is that I'm able to stand up in front of groups and

work with groups, whether it's intact teams that I work with for years or,

you know, one off session that is just a training and I can bring more of myself.

I feel.

Not just the permission, but the benefit of sharing what is happening in me

in this moment of so many stories of situations where I've shared, this is

what's happening inside me right now.

And it has opened up people to start speaking and sharing in a different way.

As a result, I don't think I would have done that before.

to me, it felt like a summary of the kind of facilitator that

I was already starting to be.

and gave me a framework for how to do that in a.

Reliable way.

I think what's really cool about all that you just said, I was thinking

back on some of the things in my career when I started corporate, they

had this class called facilitation training, learn how to be a facilitator.

And what I recognized is that this should be foundational

leadership, you know, one on one.

This was a long time ago, Daniel.

And I think it was when maybe culture was starting to transition from more

of an authentic leadership type, this is my way or the highway type world

to maybe a little more collaborative that we see, I think, more of today.

There's still remnants of, maybe an authoritative way out there.

We can talk about leadership later, but I really felt as if facilitation

was then kind of the gateway into the collaborative that I believe.

And it sounds like what you just said is, is what coaching is.

Yeah.

It's questioning.

It's asking questions.

It's I don't, I don't know everything.

I'm not a consultant, even though I know some things about some

industries and I can give some advice.

If you say, Tim, what are your thoughts on this in real estate?

We've had real estate companies.

I can talk about that.

I really do think that the answers lie within you.

Or the team.

And it sounds as if that's your approach, right?

I, one of the principles of the coaching, education that I went

through is that people are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole.

not broken.

I really hold that as truth, both with individuals and teams, like whether

it's an individual or team, they have all of the resources to do that.

To move through that and move beyond it.

And part of my role is to just help them see things in a different way

or shift their perspective or get access to things in a different way

that allows them to get unstuck.

And that's these amazing questions and intuitions that you're

suggesting as well that we can offer.

The other piece of that is what I've more recently been exploring that has

a lot to do with also trauma work and understanding childhood patterns and how

they show up in today's, personalities.

it's really honoring that.

All of the places where we get stuck in our life and the patterns that

show up in the behaviors that show up that seem so unhelpful and so and so

potentially self sabotaging came from a time where those behaviors once were

super helpful where they were protective and where they were functioning.

In order to look out for ourselves in whatever way was necessary at that time.

And the more I lean into that and understand that when a client, especially,

you know, an organization shows up dysfunctionally or a way that I would

label as dysfunctionally, you know, puts a lot of pressure on me is rapid in

terms of, asking for immediate turnover of proposals or pitches, or when we jump

into, planning a session is micromanaging and is trying to over engineer everything.

I always have two ways that I can respond to that, just like I would have

two ways to respond to an individual.

I can be really pissed off by it, and I can assume that they're messed up, and

they're broken, Or, I can get really curious about how this part of them that

is showing up is perfectly designed to protect them and enable them to survive in

the current circumstances that they're in.

And that is a huge perspective shift because the second option here Enables

me to really honor that people are creative, naturally resourceful and whole.

And the way that they're showing up is beautiful, even if it's completely

dysfunctional in the present time.

And that means that people don't need to be fixed.

It means that I don't need to heal someone.

It means that they're not broken.

It just means that they need to recognize that whatever.

Behaviors are currently at play, serve to function once are not serving that

same function anymore and need to be reoriented to serve something else.

So that triggered something that I wasn't, yeah, I'm going to go here a little bit.

And that is, I was just talking in the meeting I had earlier.

I've at times have a Jekyll and Hyde inside me.

I could be extremely optimistic, look at people and say, Daniel is

the greatest thing ever, and there's greatness all over him, et cetera.

And then I could also do like what you just mentioned.

I can also say, you know, but Daniel's been living in this

world for X number of years.

There's a good chance he's had to deal with some stuff that may have caused

some trauma that may have caused some issues that may have taken a chunk out

of his soul or, you know, whatever.

and I kind of do this back and forth.

In fact, I was, like I said, working with an organization earlier and

I'm realizing that COVID has caused some trauma to the leader and the

leadership team of this organization.

And I'm not sure they're aware of it.

I mean, we're discussing it, but it's just, they went into a mode.

When COVID hit, did they survive?

They did well, but I think they're suffering for some

trauma coming out of it.

so I'll I'll pose this sort of as a question, especially with someone who's

got a background as in psychology is do you find yourself being, yes, optimistic.

Everyone's great.

I got greatness.

I'm with you on that, but then when you kind of go, but there's probably also some

issues here that need to be addressed.

Yeah, it does make sense, do I experience these two polarities, right?

That

A dichotomy, a dichotomy at times.

Yeah.

right?

And maybe the twist on that is that I don't see them as a dichotomy

or as two ends of a spectrum.

I see them as one in the same, right?

It's for me.

It's not an or it's an and people are great because of the

things that they've experienced.

And some of the things that we experienced show up in behaviors.

That are socially acceptable and even socially applauded and others don't.

So many of the leaders in the organizations that I work with, who

are senior leaders, who are partners, who are CEOs, the behaviors that

they exhibit that enabled them to get to that level came as a result of

the traumas that they went through.

Needing to, for example, block their emotions and just get stuff done

as fast as possible so that their identity and sense of self worth and

validation was attached to external results instead of internal well being

because they weren't able to offer internal well being and they weren't

able to guarantee internal well being.

Their system created a pattern in which they were able to

identify with external results.

And we live in a world.

Where people are rewarded for being really good at creating external results.

behavior pushes them forward successfully in leadership.

There are other behaviors that we're not in a place right now where the world

accepts that as a great thing, right?

Having people who are really in tune with their emotions to the point where they

can sense the emotions of an entire room before you even start speaking, right?

These are behaviors that in mainstream society are not

what we reward people with.

I mean, there's a couple of people here and there who are, you know,

predictors of futures or, you know, ministers or in special positions.

But if the majority of people were to demonstrate those

behaviors in a business meeting.

they would get slapped on the wrist for it.

There's no place for that.

But those behaviors also came out of pattern or a need for adaptation from

whatever we went through in childhood where they actually tapped into more

of their emotions and tapped into more of their feelings or tapped

into more of their sensitivities as a way of being able to sense the

environment around them and always know when they're safe and not safe.

So I think it's quite whether we actually think that a particular set

of behaviors are good or not, all behaviors, all personality is a result

of the personality that needed to form in order to survive childhood.

the choice that we get to make as adults is whether that personality is

still valid for us, is still helpful for us, we still want to abide by it.

whether we decide, you know what, this has actually been great when I was

younger, but I don't need this anymore.

And it's time for me to heal, understand it, and move forward with something else.

Right.

And I, what's so good about that is that that's where things like

self awareness, having a coach, different, you know, counseling,

all those things come into play.

I think you gave me an opening that I'm going to step through this door that I

wanted to do because you've got a couple things on your bio that are intriguing.

Like running a hotel in Morocco and psychology background and, the

work you did in Cambodia, but I'm going to pose the question this way.

You just mentioned that experiences go into who people are currently.

And so I think I'm going to lob you.

I hope it's a softball.

I hope it's not a curve ball, a softball that I'm going to ask,

what are a few Situations, events, experiences in your life that have been

most impactful to who you are today.

success, failure, and, and what we actually, one of our taglines here

as we redefine success is because of, I'm really annoyed at times with how

culture and society define success.

And so I've been trying to kind of beat on it.

I don't know that I've done a good job, but that's my way of saying

we're not looking at the high points.

We're not looking at the low points.

We're looking at the impact points is what I'm looking for here.

What are some things that are, that happened along the way or you

experienced or you lived or whatever that made Daniel who he is today?

How old are you now?

40.

I'm 40 now.

Gosh, how's that working out for you?

You excited about it?

I

turned 60 recently.

So we're, we're, uh, I'm, I'm 20 ahead of you and I'll, I'll let you know.

It's awesome.

that.

I mean, I, in terms of the age thing, just hear more and more

often and believe it myself that it just gets better and better.

I meet so many people who say they're just starting their peak at 40 rather

than it, being 10 years behind them.

I've always been interested in relationships and friendships with people

who are wiser than me and who I can somehow absorb their experiences and their

wisdom to enhance how I'm living my life.

40 for me feels like an awesome start to a new decade and nothing

that I was really afraid of.

To answer your question, which I think is a beautiful question, there's so

many experiences that come to mind.

So I grew up.

In New York with a Russian Polish immigrant family.

my brother and I are first generation American father is

from Russia, mother's from Poland.

And for us, I think what that meant is that there was a lot of focus on

establishing roots on being successful on making money on trying to live

the American dream that were very much about action and about the

future and about making sure that.

You are, you know, you have your foundation in place and so that developed

a lot of my drive for getting things done and it developed a lot of my drive

for thinking things through, it did not harness a lot of my drive for emotions,

nor did it harness my drive for creativity or, you know, open ended thinking.

So I noticed for myself, for example, that.

You know, I grew up in a, in an environment where both my parents

were also classical, musicians.

So my brother and I were playing a lot of classical piano when we grew up.

And I remember really clearly at the age of 10, I had started when I was

seven piano because I just, because my parents said, if you don't practice,

we're not paying for lessons anymore.

Right.

And I quit for two months.

And after those two months, I came back on my own terms and

said, okay, I really do miss this.

And I want to practice on my own.

And I did, I found my own rhythm with practicing, but that practicing I

noticed was always focused on concerts.

It was focused on performing in front of other people.

It was focused on competition.

I mean, it was something I was doing at quite a high level, but it was

extremely And when I think about all of the literature that's out there

on fixed versus growth mindset, I was completely brought up in a fixed

mindset environment in which I was rewarded for doing well, for having my

shit together, for being disciplined, for practicing before my lessons, for

performing well, for getting good grades, And not necessarily for effort, right?

And not necessarily just because it was fun and not necessarily just

for like that, because that's not the environment that my parents

grew up in themselves, right?

And that's a hard thing to teach if that's not something innate to you.

I think that today when I look at, for example, My drive for getting stuff

done, my insane OCD, my organization in my apartment, the way that I prepare

for workshops, there's a lot of success that comes from it, but there's also

a lot of burden and hardship and stress and pressure that it puts on me

and other people to really focus on.

Perfection and to really focus on achievement and to really care about

what other people think of something that I've delivered or done it is a

multi year, you know, nonstop process for me to start figuring out how I can.

Disentangle myself and my sense of identity and my sense of self worth for

example, what other people think of me.

And instead notice that my identity is solid and is

constant regardless of whether my performance is good or not, right?

Regardless of whether I achieve something or not.

So I think, you know, that pinnacle event, for example, then coming

out, you know, somewhere between the age of 13 and 17 is gay.

Obviously has a huge impact on anyone who does right.

Finding that way of identifying within a community that isn't necessarily mine.

I came out multiple times.

And when I really came out around age 16, to my school, I dove into

Establishing a gay straight Alliance.

I've put all of my energy into creating a community that helped

other people come out and other people change the rules of the school.

I did very little focus on myself there.

It was when I got to college and even when later, when I moved to New York,

and then again, when I came to Berlin, that I felt like I had to keep coming

out over and over again to deeper layers of what that really meant, because I

actually was very afraid of not belonging and very afraid of standing out and very

afraid of being rejected and very afraid of not feeling safe for being different.

And that is both.

Allowed me to be very aware of topics around safety and inclusion and being very

hypersensitive to when people discriminate or reject or create boundaries that,

you know, leave other people out.

But it also means that I expend a huge amount of energy paying

attention to those things for myself.

And so these are just a few examples.

I'm happy to share as many as you want, but where I find that, you know, it's

like the personality that forms a version that people see of us today, we often

can look at it when it's successful and say, Oh, well, that's just how they are.

And fantastic.

But behavior comes with a shadow side and every behavior came from a.

situation where that behavior was needed to protect and now is

potentially, you know, benefiting.

And if we don't get curious about like you're asking,

where did that actually come

Hmm.

We end up seeing a super one sided version of people without understanding the real

depth of what's behind that behavior.

so that was good answer because it was sort of process and I think

that's going to layer some cool things with the conversation we're

about to have about vulnerability and integrity and things like that because

that identity is very important.

But I mean, one of the things, and I don't know that this is going from a

deep level to now going to something more superficial, but I was really.

Asking, and I was really intrigued by things like running a hotel in

Morocco or doing some other thing.

It was that part of the process of finding that identity and coming to terms with it.

Or I'll ask it this way.

Were you running to something or were there times you were

running away from something?

I think it's a great question.

the language that I often hear it described as is, are

you being dragged or driven?

perfect?

And it's that kind of thing, driven is, motivated, it's inspiring,

it's resourceful, it's sustainable and dragged is, you know, either

pulling behind something or hiding from something or running away from

something, you know, So Cambodia was when I was in my early twenties.

Morocco wasn't when I was in my late twenties, that whole period of life.

Is think for many of us being dragged away from things, we've grown up in

a certain environment and I think our whole 20s are just starting to expand the

boundaries of what we thought was possible and start to have new experiences,

which might lead to things that we then want to actually move towards.

But in the initial of that, it feels more.

Like just trying to stretch wings that have never actually properly

had the chance to expand, right?

Like Cambodia thing was.

was thrown on my lap, right?

It was a internship that I saw a flyer for on my university campus.

I jumped on the opportunity.

It was looking at how, you know, genocide histories can inform collaboration

and peace and reconciliation.

And I just applied for it and it ended up being this massively important experience

for me because it was intercultural and it showed me the part, the power of arts.

The Morocco thing was also serendipitous.

I met.

A yoga teacher who was teaching in Morocco, who I started dating, I went

to visit him instead of staying for a week, stayed for a year and a half.

And we ended up opening this hotel that we had stayed at.

and when we returned to it was abandoned because the owner

couldn't pay for their rent.

And we ended up opening up this yoga, vegan dance retreat center there

and having this crazy adventure.

of those things were me running towards something like to me, the running towards

something requires a certain level of consciousness and intentionality.

About what I want in life and what purpose I have and what I'm trying to

serve or what values I want to live or what kind of coherency I want to have.

I was completely unaware of all of that in my twenties.

If anything, what I was aware of is I want to have adventure.

I want to be open.

I want to try to live a different kind of life than the New York corporate, you

know, hierarchy ladder that I was very familiar with and wanting to kind of shake

up and perhaps in the moment, those things felt like running towards something,

but when I look at it now, it was more.

Running away from security, running away from stability, running away from

predictability, running them away from, you know, a sense of monotony, right?

These were the things that I really just wanted to create a profile and a

life that felt interesting, that didn't feel average, that felt, Different

that felt like I'm doing something cool and not just, you know, this

like normal thing that everybody, you know, around me was doing.

And I think that's more of a running away.

I think that's a trying to, you know, break apart that is so

important in your 20s to do as you start to discover yourself 30s.

There's so much about building up and discovering, what you actually want.

And I think it's only now, and I would be super curious to hear from

your perspective, 20 years ahead of me on this journey, whether

that's what you felt too, right?

To me, I just feel in the last couple of years, like I'm more aware conscious

and slowing down and through that space, starting to recognize what is it

I actually want in my life now and in the future, how do I say no to a whole

bunch of things that are not consistent with that so that I can really give,

an emphatic yes to the things that are.

Yeah, I could address that.

But there's a question that came to me here that

I come from.

a Christian culture that, in my opinion, doesn't operate in a Christ

like way a good bit of the time.

And you brought up a topic about, the gender identity and things like

that, that I think I want to have something a little bit more mature here.

And I think you and I can have this.

We, as a culture, and I think this is going to lead to things like

vulnerability, authenticity and integrity.

I think we, my culture, let's just say the people that I might hang out with that are

Christians, are extremely judging people.

I think in many ways, our culture's judging, but let's

just look at that subculture.

and when I heard you talking about Cambodia and your 20s and things

like that, and maybe this is a lot of people in that age bracket,

were you trying to get away from people like me that might've been judging

you for, A lifestyle or something.

is that a fair thing to ask?

Because I would get it.

I would, I want to get away from some of it too.

I told you before we started that I'm an open book and so I love the

okay.

first of all, I think the question is a very beautiful humbling from

your side of wondering what your

Maybe.

Yeah.

right?

think the question is very beautiful and wondering about your role and the impact

that you have on the people around you.

Now you are in, South Dakota, right?

I was in New York.

So, New York is a bubble, right?

And at the end I was living in, New York City, like, there is no

part of me that felt unaccepted or, judged or rejected for my sexual

orientation generally in New York.

However, what I did feel in New York is that I completely did

not fit into the gay scene there.

And that is not for reasons of judgment or reasons of, discrimination, but

rather because I felt that the gay scene I was experiencing there was one

sided, very superficial, very into a certain kind of exterior look, very

into money and status and connections.

None of which I, Felt I could play into and a currency, which I didn't feel I had.

And so I felt like a total outsider in that scene.

I never dated successfully in New York.

I never really had close, gay friends except for one or two.

I never felt like I was part of their broader circles.

So I think it's not, I wouldn't say interestingly that it would be judgment

or exclusion from people completely different than me that I felt like,

you know, but if anything, the judgment and the exclusion that I felt more

from people within my own community.

And that is fascinating, right?

Because that is human nature.

That people who are discriminated against and who have gone through trauma and who

have gone through real crisis, when they then come into power very often, instead

of learning from their experiences and offering a generous hand to those who

need it most, the opposite, direction.

and use their power now to fuel and fill the void that they

felt when they were younger.

That's what I felt at the time was part of the reason I was leaving.

I mean, part of it was also the career stuff that I mentioned, just the

opportunity, And it was shocking to me when I came to Germany to see a completely

different way of gay men living their life, a completely different way of

identifying with sexuality, a completely different way of showing up that felt

so much more organic and natural.

And that's probably part of the reason why I've never even thought about going

back because every time I go back to New York, even though I know there's

multiple communities that live there and so many different types of people

on the whole, I don't see that, right?

I don't feel that I don't experience it in the same way

that I experienced it in Europe.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Daniel, you brought up earlier the fixed and growth mindset.

And one of the things that I've kind of meditated on, thought about, pondered,

I don't think we can divide people like the world attempts to divide people up,

you know, tall, skinny, fat, short, white, black, male, female, straight,

gay, whatever, all of those divisions.

I think that the only way that we can really.

Divide people is fixed or growth.

And what I heard kind of a layer underneath you talking about was

that, that even within some of these.

Communities and cultures.

It is, there is a fixed mindset, even though some might consider them more

progressive or different or whatever.

And I want to be around people that are growth.

I want to be, I want to talk to you instead of going into maybe even a

church world where they are so fixed in the way they think they look at things.

They even.

Address spiritual things.

I would much rather hang out with people that are more growth minded.

And I think we could get that fixed everywhere.

Yes, no thoughts.

And what, what would be the, what would be the difference for you?

So if you did hang out more with people who are growth minded, what, what

would change for you or how would it

I think the way it feels to me is that they're open to conversation.

They don't believe that how they were created, lived, grew up, whatever, to

the age of 20 is the way they're going to be for the rest of their lives.

They are learning new things.

They're open to looking around and changing their mind about something.

Yeah, it does.

it's interesting as we explore this conversation, this thread

around, dichotomies versus yes.

And that that has come up, you know, for me, it's somehow a yes.

And in this situation, too, I think on the one hand, what you just shared about

having people who are willing and able.

To allow their sense of self and their identity to flex and evolve

in the moment as they grow and to be present to whatever the stimulus

is around them is amazing, right?

To see people who are that present, who are that flexible, who are that

open to just being changed, being influenced, being convinced, being,

you know, whatever, in the moment of a conversation or, you know,

whatever is going on around them.

is awesome.

At the same time, identity is a real thing, right?

And where people come from, what experiences they've had, what culture

they're part of, what has influenced them, what has shaped them, what

they've gone through is also real.

And to Ignore that or to, potentially disregard it or to just, deprioritize

it over something else would be to also miss potentially the roots of where

people are coming from and to understand why they're showing up the way they do.

And for people to understand.

Themselves, why they are showing up the way they do, we've seen this

happen over the last few years.

Also, in terms of identity shifts that people experience when, you know, before

there was a lot of, you know, when I think about, for example, black lives

matter right before black lives matters.

There was so much conversation around.

Not at different skin colors as something you see, right?

I don't see skin color was a normal thing to say and considered

a positive thing to say, right?

And then what black lives matter really brought up is if

you don't see my skin color.

Then you're also not seeing me, right?

And if you choose to say you're not seeing my skin color, then you're actually

ignoring a big part of me and just pretending that we come from the same

background and that we come from the same opportunities and that we come from the

same privilege when we clearly don't.

I guess that's for me, the yes hand, right?

Which is on the one hand, I would love that we are able to acknowledge our

history, acknowledge what shaped and formed us and developed us and created

the personalities that survives childhood.

And, as adults, to embrace the possibility that I don't have to be

defined for the rest of my life the history that brought me to today.

And somehow there's a balance, right?

Because if we completely let go of the history and just try to be a different

person every day, ungrounded, we're uncentered, we're unconnected to, the

things that really give us our gravitas.

And if we completely get fixed on the identity, then

we have no chance at evolving.

think you brought up a word earlier called integrity.

You used the word integrity.

And to me, sort of how you just described that.

Is when someone is aware of that they acknowledge it.

They receive it.

All of that is when they can operate in a level of integrity because A lot of people

that are pretending to do something else.

They're operating out of what they think.

People pleasing, you know, perfect, whatever.

We could throw a lot of words around here.

I think social media throws a lot of gas on that fire to that.

people think that they should act this way.

But the reason I like you brought up integrity is because I, I.

One of the things that bothers me about words like authenticity and vulnerability

is I see people using it as a tactic.

It's not a character trait.

And so I don't have a question around any of that, but take anything I just said and

run with it in whatever way you want to.

Integrity, authenticity, vulnerability.

And, and, but the big thing is, is that I really.

Sometimes my generation, I'm one of the generation that we didn't use words

like authenticity and vulnerability.

In fact, we don't like them at times.

I'll go ahead and say that, and I think one of the things I don't

like is I perceive that there are people, and I know that there are

people that are using it as a tactic.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I like that you I'll comment on the word integrity in a moment.

I like this observation that vulnerability in particular, which really has its

name on the map, back in, you know, the 2012, 2015 is from Brené Brown.

It definitely has become a tactic that some people feel

they can use to build trust.

are tools and skill sets within the range of literature that exists on

vulnerability that like a tactic you can use to build trust, but is exactly

the opposite of what, the intention is.

interestingly, that's where integrity comes up, because when you start

noticing that you're using vulnerability, in other words, you're using it.

You're disclosing something about your family or you're sharing something

difficult, or you're talking about something that's emotional for the purpose

of building connection or for the purpose of getting loyalty or for the purpose

of getting buy in, know yourself that you're not actually being vulnerable,

You know yourself that you're using this to manipulate people's emotions.

You know yourself that this is not what is actually meant for this.

And integrity is the part of you that senses that you are acting out

of alignment with your own values.

And what I think is interesting about integrity versus authenticity, just

thinking off the cuff of my sleeve now, as you mentioned it, is that integrity is

something you can only sense for yourself.

Authenticity is only something that others can sense about you, right?

You cannot say to people, I'm an authentic person, right?

That's not for you to decide, right?

It's other P I mean, you may say that, right?

You can say that, but that sounds totally baloney.

In fact, anyone who says they're an authentic person, most likely.

is not authentic person, right?

But when other people describe you as an authentic person, then

it's very believable because it's their experience of you.

They've seen you in different situations.

They see you when you're under stress, they see you, you know,

between what you say and what you do.

And then you get the, you know, badge of approval that we all, you know,

hope to get, which is that other people say, yes, this is an authentic person.

This person walks their talk.

This person does what they preach.

This person shows up consistently in different environments.

Integrity is not something that is easy for other people

to assess about you, right?

It's very hard for them to say, are you, you know, someone who is.

Are you actually someone who is an integrous person?

You know that, but no one else can, because only, you know, if

you're really acting in alignment with your values or not, right?

Even when you say one thing, but you know, deep inside that you actually mean

something else, nobody else might know that what you're saying is a lie or is,

you know, manipulative or misleading, but you know that for yourself.

And so I think integrity is one of these things.

that you sort of bring with you to the grave, right?

Like you're the only person at the end of the day who knows if you were living

in accordance with your values and what your values were in the first place.

authenticity is an assessment from the outside and it's vulnerability.

Interestingly, that is somehow the bridge between these two, right?

the more you share about yourself in a truly vulnerable way, The more that you

expose yourself, the more that you show up in risky situations, the more that you,

share what's making you feel uncertain.

The more you're able to reveal what is actually part of you inside.

In other words, the actual integrity within you.

And when you do that consistently and over time and in a way that feels real,

then people perceive you as authentic.

And in that way, vulnerability is somehow the connection between the journey from

kind of inside authenticity that only you know about, which is integrity.

To the experience that people actually have a view externally

of being authentic, which is then only for them to be able to judge.

Yeah, and I've had a lot of conversations about this topic with people that

are, you know, operating in Silicon Valley and a lot of actually people

in ministry and church circles too.

And I've got a few words that I use.

There's a word called hypocrite that I use quite a bit, especially in church world.

And it basically is someone who says one thing, but does something different.

I think it's not exactly what integrity is, but I think there may be

siblings, they might be related, But Daniel, the thing that is intriguing

to me is you, you've got a program.

We're going to talk about it here in just a minute on modern leader.

And it appears as if these topics, authenticity, vulnerability, and

let's, I would hope integrity has always been a part of leadership, but.

Maybe, maybe not.

All of those things fit into what we would call the modern leader.

Whereas if I go back to when I started coming on to the leadership scene,

mid 80s, when I had my first company and different things like that.

I don't know Well, listen, like you said, authenticity and vulnerability.

We didn't, I didn't hear about it till the, you know, 2000 teens ish.

So what else defines the modern leader or if it's more of those things,

because I think we've got some conflicts starting to arise between maybe old

school, my generation of the tail end of that boomer generation and what you

would be calling the modern leader.

And I'd love for us to flush some of those out here in the last few

minutes that we have so that We can understand some of the issues we

might be facing within organizations because it could be baked in.

So did that question make sense?

It does.

All of your questions

Oh, wow.

Wow.

Awesome.

of your questions make sense.

I think that it's an important distinction that you're making that authenticity,

which we've spent a good amount of our time talking about today, is not the only

quality that makes a modern leader, right?

There are a few qualities that in my book and from, the years that I've

been working in leadership development are what make someone worth following.

And for me, that's the metric, right?

Is what is it that you're doing?

That makes it worth people's time to follow you instead of someone else.

And undeniable authenticity is one of the three pillars

that that for me is based on.

And we've spent a lot of time talking about that today.

There's two others that I think are just as important in what

makes people worth following.

One of them is that they have an inspiring vision.

And the other is that they know how to strongly influence.

And those three things together, if I look at people who have vision, People

who know how to shape their environment through influencing and people know how

to show up authentically through that, those are the people that I keep seeing

other people want to gravitate towards, want to spend time with, want to follow

Cause I think those are not easy things to work on is part of what we work on in

this program called the modern leader, which is then how do you actually develop

the skills of having massive impact.

How do you develop the skills of having real growth and

consistent growth in your life?

And how do you have the skills to develop freedom and freedom in particular

from a mindset perspective, right?

So that you're not held back by of limiting beliefs or, you know,

constricting stories, but you're actually present in the way that you

were sharing, that you would like to people to be present when you

were talking about growth mindset.

So those are, for me, how I think about it.

It's really all about vision influence.

And authenticity and the way that you get there is by working on things

like impact growth and freedom.

All of those are good.

And all of those have, as I mentioned earlier, they have the positive with

people that operate with integrity.

But if there's someone who doesn't, I mean, you wrote, I wrote down the

word influence and I'm going, I see a lot of manipulation in leadership

today, which is, The dark side of an influence and part of it goes back to

what's the integrity of the leader.

I hate it too, Daniel, that I see a lot of it in churches and spiritual environments.

That's one thing that's really bothersome to me, but I also

see it in our political circles.

I also see it in some companies, not as much,

I just want to say one thing about just with this last piece that you're

saying, because people very often ask me once we get really deep into

talking about emotions or authenticity or influence or communication, aren't

these skills manipulating others?

And my response is always every psychological skill

can be used for good or bad.

Right?

The moment you understand how human nature works and what makes people emotional

and what makes people interested in you and what makes people loyal and

why they would get, you know, charged to do something, you can use it for

good and you can also use it for bad.

And I don't think that's a reason not to learn it.

It just means that when you pair it together, exactly as you were saying, you

need to find the right balance between what you are doing, how you are doing it.

And the why behind it, right?

And if the why is not in service of something good, that's a problem, And

we need other people to be able to spot that so that that can actually be

well.

And I also think that we need to go back to what I consider some Type

things, which is character, integrity, some of those things, because

I, I'll give you a good example.

I consider myself fairly grounded, but I noticed when it was kind of like my first

real vulnerability experience in life.

Uh, 08, homeless, bankrupt, all that kind of stuff.

When I decided to start podcasting, In 2019, the first episode Daniel

was titled on this episode on this podcast, by the way, you can go back

to the beginning of 275 episodes ago.

The first episode was titled homeless and bankrupt.

it was me finally sharing the story of what all we had been through.

And what I have found is that times I can repeat that story with a little bit

more glibness and less sincerity because it's the story that people want to hear.

When I'm interviewed on podcasts and things like that and I've noticed with

myself at times I repeat them without the honor and reverence That I should of

someone that that really had the impact.

Does that make any sense at all?

Unpack that in 30 seconds

Yeah, I think the biggest skill in leadership that we can

develop is self awareness, right?

And what you're demonstrating is ability to have a part of ourselves.

That is always observing ourselves as if from the outside, as if

it was observing another person.

And these little tiny moments where, for example, you're sharing a story that was

actually a super huge part of your life, you notice with that part of you that

is you're observing calm, steady self.

Actually, right now, I'm kind of telling you the story you want to hear.

I'm telling you the story.

I think you'll be impressed to hear.

I'm telling the story that feels safe to share.

I'm telling the story that I think is going to fit most in whole part.

That's the part that gives you the source and the inspiration to then switch that

story in the moment and say something like, which we all have been in moments

where this happens and it's so powerful when it does, where someone says something

like, you know what, I'm actually not being honest with you right now,

It's not the full story.

Let me tell you the full story.

And that observing self that can be in the moment and recognize, you are

operating at full speed, doing all the things you're doing, telling your

story, running meetings, leading other people, but it still is able to see you

as if you were running, you know, as if you were looking at someone else.

is one of the most powerful skills to develop in leadership, because when you

have that, then you are able to actually view yourself not through the lens of

what you're reactive to in the moment, but actually through the part of you

that does want to speak to your highest values, or the part of you that does

want to live your highest potential, or the part of you that wants to actually

be, filled with integrity to what you actually believe in, and the kind

of person you want to be versus what you think the situation needs you to

Yeah.

And the truth of it really is that that experience has forced, so much humility

on me that it has literally caused me to be a different person in so many ways.

Anyway, great response there.

I appreciate it.

Daniel, when I've got someone like you on that thinks in a deeper

level, you have great perspectives, many of them different than mine.

I want to ask this question, especially from a leadership standpoint.

when you look out over the horizon and we're recording this, I'm going

to timestamp it summer ish of 2024, late summer, released probably in

the fallish or something like that when you consider Leadership and

you look out on all these things.

Are you encouraged?

And if so, what are some things that encourages you

with that you see or are you?

Discouraged and if so, what are some things you see that discourages

you or a little bit of both Just this is sort of my final question.

We got one more thing We're going to wrap up with but yeah, yeah, I

mean You Encouraged or discouraged when you consider leadership

in in the age that we're in

I would say cautiously encouraged,

cautiously optimistic?

Yeah There's a little bit of a hedge.

I strongly believe that humans have this amazing ability to

flex and to adapt and to evolve.

When danger is on their doorstep, and we saw this during covid and lockdown,

right, that suddenly in a super short amount of time when danger was on

your doorstep, people were able to resource and connect and to shift.

And we came into this global sense of community, and we were

able to, really adapt fast.

And that, I think, is encouraging because.

It shows that humans have the ability to shift really quickly

and to change really quickly.

Unfortunately, I think history has also shown that we don't

learn well from history.

tend to wait until danger is on our doorstep before we act.

And we're not very good at predicting that something is likely to happen

based on, you know, looking at what's happening in the past.

I'm cautiously optimistic because I think the pendulum swing moves in

such a way that we need things to get worse often before they get better.

We need things to get so bad that we actually are affected

by things personally, right?

I mean, I live in Germany, you know, I'm Jewish.

I'm super aware of the history here, right?

I talked to lots of people about it all the time.

It was.

Nobody's intention to let the history that happened here happen.

When you talk to people, they really weren't paying attention at

all to what was going on until it was literally on their doorstep.

And then they recognized, okay, this is really a serious problem now.

Right.

I don't think that particular element of human nature has changed at all.

And I don't think we've learned from the moments where people reacted

too late to say that things are not going to happen again in the future.

I think humans need to go through a crisis like COVID, except A crisis

around climate change, a crisis around inclusivity, a crisis around,

resource sharing is so extreme.

That then they act in an instant and unfortunately, it

doesn't happen sooner than that.

it happens better than not at all.

Eventually we will go through that.

So yeah that's good.

I would have expected maybe a quick Cautious answer like that.

but anyway, Daniel, tell, tell me all you want to tell me about the modern leader,

about what it is, what you're trying to accomplish there, anything else you've

got as far as resources or something that people would want to check out.

And this would be a good time to give, you know, links, websites, anything like

that, that someone can connect with you.

Sure.

So, you know, the reason I created the modern leader, by the way, is because

it's difficult for people to work with me unless they come through a corporate.

you know, the.

Context in which I work with a corporate is something that's

not available to a lot of people.

I also found that leadership development, especially in the training

space or in the coaching space is often missing the full scope of what

people need to actually develop.

So in the training space, these large flagship programs, two,

three, four days, teach people a huge amount, and then there's no

accountability support or follow up.

And they forget most of what they learned in the coaching space.

People evolve and they learn and they reflect.

But it's not really an appropriate place to bring in a training

program and say, this is the, you know, what you need to learn.

what I created is a program that anybody can join.

First of all, it's a super potent distillation of 15 years of leadership

work in a members based program that is kind of like joining a gym, right?

You get a trainer who accompanies you for years as you develop as a leader.

There's training that you get based on your own needs and where you're

at in your own leadership journey.

There's also the support that you get from me.

There's the accountability that you get from me.

So you don't actually fall through the cracks with what you're learning.

And then there's a community of like minded peers who are along

their own journey, but supporting each other, motivating each

other, keeping each other going.

And for me, this has been an incredible view onto what it is.

Might really until now have been missing, I think, in a lot of leadership

development, which is how you make it sustainable and how you make it something

that actually integrates into people's lives and is not just these one off

things that are in separate places.

So that's why I started it.

There's an amazing group of people who are part of it from CEOs to companies,

to others who don't have any leadership skills in a corporate sense, but are

leaders in their individual lives.

And I'm very happy to create the space for all of them to join.

There's a separate founders group that we're joining for people who

are founders of either scale ups or have exited, founding companies.

And, you know, in terms of like following it or finding out about

it, you know, everywhere where you look on social media, you'll find me.

So if you go to Instagram, Daniel dot Ludovic is there.

If you go on LinkedIn, it's under the same name.

my website, which is move leadership dot com, which is my

main brand name, you'll find a small blurb about the modern leader.

So I don't really talk a lot about how people can access me in terms of

coaching and facilitation and training because you really kind of need to come

through a corporate lens to do that.

But for anyone who's listening, who's not part of a company and just

wants to actually take leadership development in their own hands and

find out what it takes to become someone worth following, the modern

leader is a perfect place to do that.

And I would love to have a

Very good.

We'll include a link.

I love what you said because I said this years ago when people say that they always

sound like old dudes, but I was doing corporate training and things like that.

And I loved it.

I love getting up in front and training and all that.

But Daniel, I realized that two weeks later I would bump into

people that had been in the training and they would go, who are you?

And I'm going, we spent two days together.

And I realized that what we're talking about, like you said, has to integrate.

It's got to be a process.

It's why our subtitle is The Leadership Journey, not The Leadership Event

or The Leadership Destination.

This is a life journey and I, it sounds as if that's what you're incorporating

in that organization, correct?

that's spot on.

the literature shows people remember 10 percent of what they learn.

If there's no accountability and no structure and no follow up,

how in the world, when you go back to your environment, you supposed

to retain what you've learned?

Not to mention that your environment hasn't changed and you have.

And it's a tragedy of leadership development because so much money

is spent on these massive programs.

the impact in terms of connection is great.

Networking is great.

Developing, a collective field of colleagues is great, but actual leadership

development, it just isn't surprising to me why we see so few leaders.

In corporates that actually are worth following because they haven't

really had the leadership development and leadership training that would

Is the language of leadership the same all over the world?

You know, that's an interesting

Sorry, I thought we were wrapping up, but I thought of that.

I said, you know, you're obviously worldwide

That's a very interesting question.

You know, I've run programs of leadership truly around the world in every continent,

Certainly not seen a difference in terms of the ambition of leadership,

but I do see that there are major differences in terms of how you get there.

So if the ambition of leadership is, for example, to help people actualize their

potential to help people be able to be the best at what they're doing to help

people feel that they're part of a cause to be able to shift attention from where

it currently is to where it should be.

Be whether that's for an individual or group, right?

All of these are aspects of what I think are so important about leadership.

The need for that is universal, but the way you get there and what

is possible and what is effective is both cultural and individual.

Does that

fine.

Yeah.

Whole nother episode there, Daniel.

I, uh,

I appreciate this.

We're seek, go create those three words.

Last question.

Which word resonates more with you right now?

Don't overthink it.

Seek, go or create and why?

I'm definitely in the create part and to link it to what we spoke about before.

I think teens and especially your twenties are seek.

I think my thirties were very much around go, go, go, go, go.

I mean, I really went crazy in terms of what I've done in my thirties.

But interestingly, I feel like my forties are about creation, like really

creating the life that I actually want.

And that is based off of so much of what I've searched for and

so much of what I've Try it out.

So for now, it's great.

And maybe that's for the rest of my life, or maybe it repeats again.

you tell

Well, be

careful because I'm circling back to seek.

I'm spending more time seeking being quiet still and listening.

And anyway, it's all good.

Daniel, I appreciate so much this conversation.

I appreciate what you're doing.

I appreciate the modern leader.

I appreciate you educating me and my generation on vulnerability.

And authenticity and giving me great things to think about.

I appreciate you sharing at a deeper level, some things that we could have

avoided because it was helpful for me.

And I'm glad we were able to have the conversation because I think many

people in my circles won't have it.

I'm hopeful they're still listening that they need to

listen to these conversations.

And so I appreciate that greatly.

We are SeekGoCreate.

We have new episodes every Monday and we're on YouTube

and all the podcast channels.

And I'm going to ask for y'all to continue support us.

If you're listening in, you can go to SeekGoCreate.

com forward slash support, and you can provide support, financial support.

Until next time, continue being all that you were created to be.