It's funny because I started out really focusing on imposter syndrome with clients, and yet I was still struggling with it myself.

Drive, desire, direction, slash purpose, it's all the same thing.

It's mattering, and that's really what self actualization is.

But it's even beyond that.

It's almost transcendence.

It's looking beyond yourself.

It's saying, what am I contributing to humanity?

What am I contributing to this world that is not just about me gaining fame, gaining notoriety, gaining violence, financial success, whatever it is, what's something above that?

And that's purpose.

It's understanding how the stressors or those inputs in our life are impacting mental capacity.

So how is it impacting our thoughts and our feelings, which then filter down into the choices we're making?

I don't think coaching is one of those things that should just be for executives, because we're all dealing with the same garbage in our heads.

We're all processing the same stressors.

It may look different from day to day for each of us.

We're all struggling with it.

Nonprofits pop up for a reason, and they offer their services for a reason.

And that's because there's a gap in our communities and society where something is not being met.

All right, welcome to the evolving potential.

Welcome to the podcast.

This is episode number 21.

Today I've got on the show Mike Krause.

Mike is a mental performance coach with a focus on nonprofit leadership and culture strategy.

He's also the chief coaching and consulting officer at Global Bound, LLC.

Mike has a degree in psychology and a certification in secondary teaching and education.

He's also the host of his own podcast called a Coach.

A nutritionist and expert walk into a podcast where he talks with his co host about personal development, spirituality, flow state, holistic health, resilience, and more.

Mike delivers workshops and trainings to help leaders understand their strengths, motivation, and communication styles while overcoming imposter syndrome, self doubt, perfectionism, and self sabotage.

He has over 25 years experience in executive roles within nonprofits and believes that leaders can benefit from the same training that elite athletes get when it comes to mental performance or mental fitness training.

Thank you for being on the show, Mike.

Thanks for having me.

It was a great opportunity.

So I'm curious, why nonprofits?

What got you into nonprofits and wanting to help nonprofit leaders ultimately?

Yeah, I think it's always funny because sometimes we don't intend to go down a certain path, maybe professionally.

You know, I think even with our relationships, sometimes we stumble into relationships.

And then ten years 20 years later, you're still married, or whatever it is.

And, you know, nonprofit work was not the goal that I had set out for when I first finished college, and.

But it's where I found a lot of purpose and passion.

And so by the time I decided to start my own business and do coaching and consulting, it made sense that the previous 25 years of professional experience should be sort of the impetus, I guess, of who I wanted to focus working with.

I think it's also a little more, maybe in depth than that, too, in that the nonprofit sector is so unique in how it addresses professional development and capacity building for its talent.

And some of that is really tied into the development or fundraising or financial support structure of nonprofits across the board, and meaning that there's a lot of limitations on what nonprofits and their leadership will engage with in terms of professional development based off of what funding they have available, if they've got a line item in their budget for professional development, or if it's something that they have not been able to justify previously.

So all that came together of, hey, this is an area I understand.

It's an area that needs a lot of support but doesn't really receive it, either because there are financial constraints or honestly, what I find with the leadership in general of nonprofits is they are constantly carrying a heavy load.

And sometimes professional development is a luxury that they can't afford either for themselves or for their talent.

And so I wanted to sort of navigate that a little bit and find ways that I could help them, obviously, in the mental performance sphere, but also just helping them navigate how to build up coaching and professional development as a preventative maintenance tool.

So it's kind of like, you know, with your car, you know, maybe it's going and just getting your tires rotated every few months, and maybe it's, you know, it can be $20 or $50 to do that instead of waiting until, okay, now I've got to have all the fluids changed, and there's a crack in the windshield, and there's this.

And also, now you've got a $250 to $500 project on your hands.

If we can.

If I can help nonprofits and their leadership plan out in a preventative way, and put.

Just put $100 in this year for professional development for your team, and don't even bother like, what that looks like yet.

Just.

And then the next year, double that.

And then double that and just start building up those resources and planning out.

So that one, you're creating that culture of professional development, but now you actually have the resources and it's kind of just one of those things.

Um, just like we talk about in, for individuals, it's, it's just put $10 away from every paycheck into a savings account and don't even touch it, don't think about it.

And next thing you know, you've got maybe several thousand dollars in there that you can put towards buying a new car or working towards a down payment of a house or whatever that is.

And, um, it's so a lot of it was really wanting to support that sector and find ways to, to do that in incremental steps, because it's not something you can just go in overnight and say, okay, boom, we're going to put in all this professional development for every nonprofit in this state or nationwide, and everything's fixed.

You know, it's not this big panacea.

So is wanting to look at the gradual steps necessary to help?

And so would you find yourself directing your services towards nonprofits who have this kind of funding, or do you find yourself doing a lot of trying to sell nonprofits on the fact that this coaching is so valuable that it ultimately end up, you know, kind of feeding back into itself?

Yeah, I joke with a lot of friends and colleagues about this, that I am, I'm really not a good business owner in the sense that I'm really bad at sales and marketing myself, for one point, is maybe going in and working with nonprofits was not the smartest financial decision because they don't tend to have a track record.

And now I also have to clarify that nonprofits are like everything else.

They're very diverse in their budgets and their capacity and their history and heritage.

There's definitely some nonprofits that have been around for several decades that have a very strong board of directors, a strong culture, a strong fundraising platform.

They have talented teams that have been there for longer than the norm in certain positions.

And so, yeah, those would be easier to possibly target and say, look, here's very financially stable organizations that do have a track record of budgeting for this kind of thing that I do, and that would be an easier target.

And yet, I tend to really focus on the grassroots organizations, the ones that need a lot of support on the ground, maybe don't have.

Well, they definitely don't have huge budgets.

They don't have that long legacy or history.

Maybe they've had a lot of turnover for various reasons, either for mismanagement and, or they're just struggling to keep talent.

And so, yeah, I.

I could and probably should target some of the more well established nonprofits.

But I think what's happening is, and here's maybe the gist of it, is nonprofits pop up for a reason, and they offer their services for a reason.

And that's because there is a gap in our communities and society where something is not being met.

And it can be on the healthcare side, it can be on the animal rescue side, it can be with food security side, you name it.

And so a lot of these nonprofits that exist, and I'm speaking for, I live in the state of Idaho, where we have one of the largest nonprofits per capita across the nation, and there's a reason they exist.

Now, whether they should exist, that's a whole different discussion.

But I think there's a lot of these small grassroots organizations that do exist for a reason.

They're trying to do their best to serve a purpose in their community, to help people.

And I'm kind of gravitate towards that.

So that's, I guess, getting back to your question, is I do target a lot of nonprofits that and have been in the last couple of years of my business, almost as planting seeds.

I'm planting seeds of awareness that there's resources out there for them in this area and that those resources don't have to break the bank and to just get them to.

Okay, so you're six months away from submitting your next budget for the next fiscal year.

Okay, so let's talk about what is some very basic level investments you can put in the professional development line item for your team, whether that's for you as the leader or whatever.

And some of this is conversations being had with the board of directors.

It's maybe going in pre strategy planning with a board.

Maybe they're looking at their next three to five year strategy plan.

And so they're working with a consultant, whether me or someone else.

And let's, let's throw that in there and say, okay, so maybe this year you can't plan on it, but what about two years from now in this strategy plan, can you map out where you're going to start ramping up support for your talent in lots of different ways and resources?

And it may be with coaching, but it may be in some other webinars or other trainings or courses or you name it.

Those things sometimes just get left out because it's not an immediate need.

So I do tend to focus on some of these organizations that don't have a track record of support, and I'm helping to sort of cultivate that by talking about some of the early steps they can take.

But that's by no means all the organizations I tackle.

I mean, I do work with some that are more well established, that have better financial funding to work with me.

But funding and nonprofits is also not static.

Whether you're working with various funding like grants from whether the state or federal level, or it can be a private foundation, it may be a grant that is for one project or one program, and it may be for a length of time.

And so it may be a grant that lasts for one or two years, and then you have to reapply, or maybe that grant doesn't exist after that.

So you're always, this stuff is always very fluid.

And that is also why it's tough for, I think, nonprofits to plan around some of this professional development stuff, is you're asking me to map out something where I don't even know, six months from now or a year from now, if this grant's going to be available or if were going to lose some funding because theres going to be some cutback or whatever it is, and thats just if theres grants out there and that kind of thing.

But there are a lot of organizations are also operating off of individual donations, and that stuff is very fluid.

So yeah, its all that to say.

Im not sure if my path was the smartest economically or financially for business, but I also know that, um, the, the backbone of so much of our communities and how they thrive or are in a survival mode exists because of what nonprofits are in those communities, supporting them or not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, maybe not the smartest business decision, but a huge impact, I'm sure.

So that's, it's worth something for sure.

Definitely rewarding.

Definitely.

Yeah.

It's um, and it's an industry I know, and I love the people who are in it and they're in it.

That's a lot of caring, compassionate people that gravitate towards it.

And in fact, during COVID we saw with the quote unquote great resignation, a lot of people from corporate America, from the tech industry that were making a lot more money, had really great benefits, but were so burned out, so overwhelmed, and trying to figure out what their purpose was in life, and started gravitating towards taking on leadership roles in the nonprofit sector, willing to work for maybe 50,000 a year as an income and leaving $150,000 to 200,000 on the table.

There's something to be said about having purpose in life, and money can't replace that.

Yeah.

And it shouldn't.

So, even though you had described as not being necessarily the best at sales and marketing, when you're reaching out to these people, what either problem are you offering to solve?

What are some of the things that you say that you work on?

Or what's your unique selling point, if you will?

I had just had this conversation with a colleague the other day, and I can't remember really how we started the conversation, but it basically came down to that.

I said, I help people figure their shit out, you know, in a very broad stroke.

And that's like the large umbrella.

And then really what?

That when you start going down to a different level or layer of it, it's helping people.

I focus a lot, obviously, you introduced me as a mental performance coach.

So really what that means is the people, the things that people struggle with.

Yeah, it's all a lot of this other stuff that they can't control, these external things, whether it's timelines and lines and added responsibilities and all these other stressors.

So it's really figuring that stuff out.

It's understanding how the stressors or those inputs in our life are impacting mental capacity.

So how is it impacting our thoughts and our feelings, which then filter down into the choices we're making?

So, a lot of the problems that nonprofits, nonprofit leaders, and even those outside the nonprofit sector, because I do work with for profit corporate government officials.

So I market to nonprofits, but I work with everybody, whoever finds themselves in the situation.

But it's navigating the stressors that are impacting their thoughts, which is impacting their behavior.

And that is a very broad, um.

It's not very much of a niche at that point, I guess, if we want to get specific.

But at the end of the day, and I know you introduced this to at the beginning of the podcast, it's just like what athletes go through, it's the pressure, it's the stressors in our life that when we give them oxygen, they flourish, they breathe, they expand.

Um, and that can be very detrimental.

So a lot of those problems, those pain points, are our own thoughts in our heads in reaction to all of life's baggage that it's dropping out our front door.

And so, let's say that a company decides to bring you on.

How might you begin to assess workplace culture?

So, I'll back up and say this and that.

What's interesting is, when I work with different companies or organizations, it really depends on who's asking me to come in, because I may know somebody at like, more of a middle management level, let's say.

And they're really interested in working with me on some cultural stuff for the organization, maybe for their direct reports, but the CEO, the executive director, you name it, is like, yeah, okay, you can do that, whatever.

But they're not really wanting to participate.

And that's where I'm going to kind of put up a bit of a red flag and maybe even a stop sign, because when you're dealing with culture, you've got to get buy in at all levels.

I always say that if I have the buy in of everybody in the organization but the leader, it's not going to work.

But if I have the buy in of the leader, at least, and no one else, we can work with that.

And it's not because the leader is the most important person, but they definitely have influence over how that culture gets shaped and lived.

So the role modeling effect that happens inside organizations, if your leadership is not role modeling the cultural values that everyone has agreed to, it doesn't matter how good it is on paper, it's going to fail.

And so, yeah, I love to believe and do think in a lot of ways that a ground up, grassroots sort of thing, where everyone at the bottom is bought in, is going to build this.

There's almost too much control and influence at the top that can sabotage it.

And a lot, like I said, a lot of that is just through poor role modeling.

And so I definitely need to have as much buy in at all levels, and then we kind of have to understand what's going on.

I need to understand the history, the context of what's going on in the organization.

I have to understand where everyone is at with their motivations, why they're there.

With nonprofits specifically, did people understand what the mission is?

Are they all bought in on the mission?

Because there's.

I mean, here's the thing, is nonprofits, and it really is this for for profits, too.

But since nonprofits is kind of my area to focus on, it's not about you as the individual.

Once you step in the door of a nonprofit at any level, I don't care if you are the CEO or the ED or the CEO, or if you are the front desk receptionist, the first person that clients meet when they walk in the door, it's not about you.

The organization needs to succeed, whether you get fired or you choose to leave or not, you know, whatever the circumstances are.

So it can't be one person is what's propping up that organization.

It's got to be everyone involved.

But no one individually should be able to make it succeed or tank.

So I need to understand that.

I need to know kind of the history, the heritage of it, how I got started.

Is there still people from the beginning who were involved?

And so there's a lot of context and getting some information, and then, yeah, where do they want to go?

Do they have a strategy plan in place?

Because you kind of need to have that as well as you're in conjunction with talking about culture.

And then the other thing I really focus on when I talk about workplace culture is I talk about it as a recipe, and I talk about it as a more like a cooking recipe than baking, which is, I love to cook, but if I made ten on different days, I made every single day I made a lasagna.

It's going to taste different to you every single day for various reasons, based off of weather, based off of your mood, um, all these different things, like how you feel about salt and how much salt you want on a given day, that's going to change.

I may, as the chef, I may tweak how much oregano I put in it, or the brand of noodles I use, or whatever it is, or the brand of tomatoes, or if they're fresh tomatoes versus canned, and which canned ones, and all these little things go into it.

And that's also what culture is like, meaning that the tastes, the.

What people desire in that taste or what they want from that dish is constantly changing.

Just like every day that you're having lasagna, which, by the way, if you had ten days with lasagna, you've got some.

Some major health risks, I think, ahead of you, but it's not good to be eating the same thing.

Um, and it's not the healthiest, healthiest dish either, but it's.

We constantly need to tweak and adapt.

What is going on with, let's say, our taste buds and what our needs are.

Culture is you have to pay attention to it every day.

You have to ask questions every day.

You have to find out where everyone is at with those cultural values and those cultural goals every single day.

And it doesn't mean you're sitting in a meeting for an hour.

Everybody, you know, and at the beginning of the day say, okay, where's everybody with today's culture?

Like, it's.

It doesn't be that formal, but you do have to be addressing it and giving it attention, because if you don't, it's kind of like, I think, with having.

Getting a new pet that's a puppy, you can train it and you can influence its behavior, or you can just stand back and say, well, over time, it'll learn not to pee in the house and where it's sleeping.

And when we turn off the lights, it's bedtime at night, and it's going to learn.

You can passively let that happen.

But I, that dog, that cat, whatever pet it is, is going to learn something.

So you can actively be engaged in it and be intentional, like with your culture.

Or you can be passive and the culture will still form, but it may not be to your liking, but it's still going to be a culture.

So why not be active, be intentional, and keep working towards it, just like you are.

That recipe, keep tweaking it.

You know, if you give me feedback, that lasagna, it needs a little bit more salt or there's something missing.

I don't know if it's an herb or maybe it needs more garlic or there's something else.

I just can't tell.

Okay, then we, we tweak it and we tie, and then you say, still not there.

And then we tweak it a little bit more, and you're like, yes, I don't know what you did, but I'm really loving that.

But then tomorrow I give you the exact same thing, and you're like, it's off again.

It's like, this is exactly what you said you liked yesterday.

Well, that was yesterday.

Culture is the same way it does.

It's not static.

So a lot of that is helping organizations understand.

If you're going to invest in the culture work, um, you really have to invest daily, and then we have to talk about what that looks like and where everyone's committed to that or not.

So you mentioned talking to people then, about this stuff.

Is that kind of like an interview process, then?

Like, I'm imagining, you know, obviously some nonprofits are small, let's say 2030 people, whatever.

Some of them are large.

So it's, let's just say we're talking about a hundred, a hundred person, you know, company, hundred employees.

Like, are you, are you kind of bringing them in together in small groups or kind of talking to them one on one or, like, addressing them as far as a workshop goes or kind of how are you getting, if someone hired you, how would you kind of fulfill this process?

So, yeah, everything you said, Todd, like, all the different ways, the answer is yes.

Yes, I want to incorporate all that stuff, but it depends, it depends on a lot of factors.

It depends on the size.

It depends on the organization.

It depends on how long maybe the executive leader has been in that position.

Are they new?

Is this the first year of their tenure, or have they been there for 15 years?

And ultimately, it depends on how comfortable is the talent, understanding the culture where it currently is.

I can understand a lot by, if I were to do a kind of a meet and greet workshop with everybody, and I'm not getting any feedback because people don't feel safe talking in front of others.

You've told me a lot about your current culture, and that is going to mean a lot more.

That, okay, so, yes, I can get some information, and I'll go one by one, and I'll do one on one interviews.

I can do surveys, and everyone can voice their opinion independently.

But that tells me a lot about what I'm walking into versus we do.

It's a, it's a conference room with 100 people, and everyone's raising their hand and they're talking and they're sharing.

And it's not, and it's not full of angst.

It's like people are excited, but they feel comfortable sharing positive or negative in front of everyone else, including the leaders.

That says a lot, too.

So it's, it's all that.

But I, it really depends on what I'm getting from the beginning.

And like I said, too, it depends on, is the, is executive team or individual leading the organization?

Are they bought in?

That tells me a lot, too.

And so how would you say that if a cult, if a company is sabotaging its own culture and you're kind of seeing that, you're kind of seeing the self sabotage, whether it's for an individual or through an entire organization, what might, if we kind of entered that realm, what might be something that you would notice or start to work on?

Red flags, I guess.

Yeah.

I think, like I said before, I think how open and how safe people feel to communicate openly around.

Are they only talking with a small group of people who are like minded that share it?

So it's almost like there's this bubble or bubbles that are forming, or is it completely open and people are open and honest.

So that's a, that's a red flag.

If people aren't, if they don't feel comfortable sharing successes and concerns in front of others, that tells me a lot.

Big red flag.

I feel like I'm pretty good at reading people.

So I think at the level, leadership level, I can feel defensiveness.

If a executive leader is, yes, we support everybody, share your opinions, we value your feedback, and then in front of that leader, people are sharing great things, and they're also sharing some concerns.

And I can tell that there's some major defensiveness going on at the leadership level.

That's a big red flag because it's telling.

It's saying one thing, but it's not following it up in another.

So if you say that you value transparency, and yet when people are transparent, either in front of them or behind their back, you're saying something completely different, like you're kind of throwing them under the bus.

And so those are situations where I'm not really so inclined to work with an organization because I don't feel like I can trust the leadership to follow through on anything we're going to do as a group.

It's not me saying, you guys need to do this, we all need to do this.

And so if they're not willing to role model certain things, it's nothing.

It's not worth my time, and it's not even worth the money that would get paid to do it because it's a huge mental and emotional drain to go through a process.

It's honestly no different than engaging in a relationship, like a romantic relationship with someone.

And then you sit down and you have a conversation about, I feel like, okay, this is what I need in this relationship, and you're telling me this is what you need.

And we agree, but then if we don't do anything about it, and then we just go back to our norms and our previous behaviors, like, at some point, one or both of us is going to walk away from that relationship and it's going to be a really tumultuous time in between that breakup.

And so I don't.

Not everything has to be easy, but it's not wanting to.

That I can tolerate, you know, that I have energy for in work and I don't want to carry that home with me into my personal life.

So I think maybe that's kind of the benchmark is if I feel like this is going to intrude and is going to start seeping into other aspects of my life in a negative way, that's probably not a good sign that this is probably not going to be a good working relationship.

Yeah.

So can you describe some of the first experiences you had regarding consulting or coaching in this, in this regard, and, you know, how it might have brought up some imposter syndrome in yourself, you know, being fresh out of a psychology degree or, you know, the graduate certificate, wherever point in your life that you were when you began that I'm sure it was a little bit stressful.

And then you had just described understanding, you know, what's too much to take on?

Understanding red flags, understanding when to walk away, and, you know, so maybe at the beginning, you didn't have that same understanding.

So can you describe, you know, what it was like starting out with all this stuff?

Yeah, I.

It's funny, when I finished my undergraduate degree, I was really bought into psychology and kind of wanted to see where I could go with it.

But at the same time, I was a little burned out by it.

I went to a very small liberal arts college here in Idaho, which was a great experience, but it was a very small psychology department.

There was only three professors in the entire.

I mean, it was a really small school.

And because of that, yes, you get a lot more, maybe one on one attention, and you can really build relationships with faculty and navigate that in whatever interests come about.

So whether it's on working on some research or whatever, but at the same time, there was some, I feel there was some drama in our department, and it was kind of just a little childish, and I was like, eh.

So it kind of turned me off to psychology a little bit.

I think I was a little burned out by the time I graduated, and I said, screw this.

And so I took a step back from it, and I actually started pursuing an acting career, and I moved to Chicago, and then I ended up moving up to Wisconsin.

And so then I was navigating acting jobs in Milwaukee and Chicago, and that was, I didn't have a term for it then.

I didn't know what imposter syndrome was.

But I would say now, looking back, that was the first time I really experienced it.

And it was stepping into something very new, very different.

And it was pushing myself because this was going to be my profession, at least short term.

And so then the pressure that we put on ourselves to, to achieve, whether it's for financial success or we want recognition or we want some other quote, unquote, level of success, I definitely, in hindsight, that was my first stint with imposter syndrome.

But after a few years and finding my way back into the nonprofit world, I never really felt that.

That's the funny thing, is, the next time I really felt imposter syndrome for myself was when I started my business a couple years ago, and it kind of kicked in.

I think it was probably it was after I'd had my first couple clients.

But I think this is what I talk about and coach about, too, is the comparison piece how and the role that social media has held in our lives for having us compare ourselves to other people.

So, you see, I don't really use LinkedIn, but seeing other coaches or consultants, either business owners or they're part of a bigger consultancy firm, and hearing their stories and showcasing pictures.

And that was the point of, like, oh, yeah, I've got clients.

Oh, but I'm not that level yet.

Oh, my gosh, I must be doing something wrong.

And so that comparison piece was really huge, and it's honestly still to this day.

It's funny because I started out really focusing on imposter syndrome with clients, and yet I was still struggling with it myself, which is interesting and weird all at the same time.

But I think we do tend to gravitate towards things that we struggle with in our own lives.

So I guess that makes sense.

But I think where that's kind of been clarified in the last year and a half in this role, I think it's mostly been.

I find that actually coaching and consulting makes me, because I'm teaching it, in a sense.

There's that whole sort of adage of, you can teach somebody something, but if they really want to learn it, they have to go and teach it to someone else.

So you can instruct them on whatever this is.

But then, really, this is why having students at whatever level then turn their knowledge into a presentation and talk about what they've learned and then teach it to somebody else.

And it's kind of a far distant connection, but it's also what AA is alcoholic synonymous.

Once you get to the 12th step, it really is about, okay, now go help somebody else.

Now go support somebody else in their.

In their struggle, whatever that is.

And.

And I find that my imposter syndrome, my doubt, my perfectionism, my victimhood, all these things, my self sabotage is improved because I am also out there helping other people with theirs.

So it's actively.

It's not just talking about it, but it's helping problem solve for someone else.

And then I hear myself saying, oh, yeah.

So take that note, put it back in, and then apply it for myself.

So I think that's actually one of the greatest benefits of what I get to do, is I'm not only a mental performance coach for my clients, but also for myself at the same time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's what's cool, is kind of understanding yourself to the point of building an avatar that is very similar to yourself and the things that you've overcome, you know?

So I'm dealing with the same thing here.

It's like I've got years of education under my belt, you know, I haven't really moved into the world of mental performance coaching yet, you know, watches why I'm having conversations with people like yourself, you know, so it's cool to kind of like, okay, well, I'm going to talk about imposter syndrome and perfectionism and self doubt and all these things that I'm experiencing as well that I'm helping myself through in the process, you know, being able to talk to people that are also helping people through as well.

And so.

And so that's huge.

And through talking to, what, 20 different.

You're the 21st episode.

So through 20 different people, you know, mostly mental performance coaches, it pretty much all said that imposter syndrome doesn't really go away.

Like you, we kind of experienced it through our whole lives.

You know, even that Navy SEALs at the highest levels and olympic athletes and stuff, they're all experiencing some sort of imposter syndrome.

And they have their tools and they have their things in place that allow them to continue pushing forward and believing in themselves and things.

But I think that it kind of just does.

Just does exist, you know?

And so, yeah, there this.

I want to jump in because this is interesting.

I love that you brought that up.

It's.

I think it's a.

It's one of the things that frustrates me sometimes when I hear from other coaches, usually online, and it doesn't have to be mental performance.

They could just be a life coach.

They could be a stress coach.

That can be a resiliency.

It doesn't matter what the title is, but anytime anyone says, work with me and I will fix this or cure that or whatever, if they use any very definitive language like, I will make this go away so it never comes back to haunt you.

Bullshit.

Complete bullshit.

None of this stuff, like, anything that I work on with clients is, and I use this actually metaphor this morning with another client, I was saying what we are doing is we are, there's a levy in front of us, and we are on a regular basis building up more dirt, more gravel, more rocks, more sandbags, and building it up and creating a bigger buffer and strengthening it.

And even though it's not, you know, the levees not threatened right now to break, um, we want to build it up so that when it is.

When there is more of, like, a higher end crisis that's really going to push on the edges of that levee, we know it's going to hold.

Um, and there may be some small leaks here or there or it may overflow, but it's not going to completely wipe out the levy.

And that's really what coaching is.

It's providing tools, coming with new tools, refining the tools that we have to build up that levy, to build up our mindset, to build up our foundational needs that we need met, building up our mental fitness, so that when we do come across the inevitable crap in our life that is really overwhelming.

It could be an illness, it could be a death of a loved one.

It can be being blindsided by being fired for no reason because of mass layoffs or whatever, that we are not completely derailed in our mental performance.

And, yeah, there's gonna be setbacks, but let's kind of bulk up that levy a little bit every single time.

But someone saying, hmm, yeah, if you work with me for six months, you'll never have imposter syndrome again, is a big, fat fucking liar.

Sorry for the language, but it really bothers me because it's.

It's.

It's selling snake oil.

It doesn't exist.

Doesn't exist.

Yeah, yeah, I agree 100%.

100%.

And you.

You mentioned in there kind of quickly the foundational needs.

And so I definitely wanted to touch on that at some point during this conversation.

So, obviously, you know, I don't know if everyone in the crowd understands foundational needs, so feel free to touch on that as a part of answering this question.

Um, but how might you see foundational needs not being met show up in, like, a workplace as well?

I love this because I think this is the thing that is, it's so easy to understand, but it's also very hard to not necessarily implement.

I don't know if that's the right word, but to follow through on, at least for individuals and for organizations.

So, foundational needs theory, which I've kind of tweaked just a little bit.

So I'll give you kind of the baseline of it.

So, in a lot of mental performance, a lot of what we focus on is, in general, motivation and goals for individuals and helping them understand their motivations and how that is fueling or sabotaging the goals that they've set in place and whether those goals even existed or if they need to be tweaked or whatever.

And at the heart of that, for me, really comes down to these four foundational needs, which is kind of a spin off of Maslow a little bit.

So when Maslow came out with this hierarchy of needs, he had all these different levels, and then it was, you know, and then at the end, you.

You reach self actualization and all this and stuff.

And there was a lot of pushback in the years after Maslow, which was saying, I think it's almost like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Which is also a horrible metaphor.

But it's the idea that I think Maslow at a time was saying, like, you have to progress through these steps.

And then the pushback later was, no, you may backslide.

And you may, you know, you may have these safety nets of physical safety and food and shelter in place.

And then you can maybe start working towards self actualization, different points, but you may backslide, because maybe you become homeless for whatever reason.

But you can still process at a higher level, even if some of these basis levels are missing or in flux.

But coming out of Maslow, there was self determination theory, which was kind of part of that foundational needs theory, which is saying, when you look at the middle part of that pyramid, what Maslow was talking about is now you start getting into the cognitive processes, the cognitive needs, the emotional needs.

And I've changed it.

But basically what they were talking about was that we all have a sense of autonomy or agency in our life that we need met.

We all have a level of competence in whatever we do, whatever we pursue.

We need to feel competent in that.

And then we also need to feel connected to other human beings and Orlando society or to a belief system.

And so I've kind of reworked that, and I've just called it the abcs of foundational needs.

So, a is autonomy, b is belonging.

So that's the connected piece, but I terminate belonging.

And then c is the competence.

But then what I've added to it is because I think this is actually huge.

There's a term out there that is gaining more strength.

And it's one I buy into, which is called mattering.

So having a sense of mattering in life, that we have impact, that we have agency, that we are recognized, that we are contributing to something bigger than ourselves.

And mattering is really important.

But if you look at what mattering is at a base level, its purpose.

So my framework for foundational needs is the abcs, and then the D.

And d is purpose.

But d also stands for drive, desire, direction, slash purpose.

It's all the same thing.

It's mattering.

And that's really what self actualization is.

But it's even beyond that.

It's almost transcendence.

It's looking beyond yourself.

It's saying, what am I contributing to humanity?

What am I contributing to this world that is not just about me?

Um, gaining fame, gaining notoriety, gaining financial success, whatever it is, what's something above that?

And that's purpose that's mattering.

And so the ABCs and DjDeh of foundational needs theory for mine, that for my framework is when you understand where you need agency in your life and or where it's lacking, where is belonging existing with other people or in a community, or in a larger picture of spirituality or not, where that's absent or lacking, where do you feel competent in what you are doing or not doing?

Where is there some gaps?

And then where is your purpose being felt?

Where is it being defined?

Is it being subjugated?

That's what's happening inside the walls of a business as well as outside.

But if you want to understand why we get toxic employees or the person who is a huge gossip in their office and is talking about people behind their back and spreading rumors and lies or whatever, and it's hard to work with, and that's just one example.

You can pin it down to the a, B, cs and D.

There's something there that's not being met in their life and why they are and the behavior that they're exhibiting, what's motivating them is a symptom.

It's not the root cause.

So the root cause is maybe a lack of autonomy.

So if they are in a role in their work where they're being micromanaged, they don't have a great sense of maybe agency, and maybe that's also impacting their level of self competence, that they don't feel like they are able to do the best job possible because they're being micromanaged.

So your a and your c in that situation are being hindered in some way by leadership, let's say.

And so the behavior is gossiping or backstabbing.

You don't treat the backstabbing, you don't treat the gossip, because that's just a symptom.

You got to treat the root cause, which is in this case, maybe it's all a, b, C and D, but you've got to understand the proportion.

It's kind of like the recipe piece I was talking about.

With culture, you've got to understand, and that it's always in flux.

And so a lot of what I do with clients is we talk about that early on, and it's not because we're going to have this conversation today about your basic needs, and then going forward, they're always going to be met.

And everything's kubaya like.

It's like the culture, it's always in flux.

You've always got to pay attention to it.

On some days, like, I remember when I was the last stint I had working in a nonprofit.

I loved going in on Monday mornings.

I loved working in general.

I was weird that way.

I really got a lot of satisfaction from going into working.

And Mondays were great days for me because those were days I got to go, and I did a lot of administrative tasks, and I kind of would love to knock out some budgetary stuff, some operational things.

And even though my door was always open for my director reports to come and talk to me, I kind of really enjoyed being in a silo for that day.

And then the rest of the week was a little more open.

But that was how I got competence for the week, was when I could kind of.

It's almost like maybe when you leave on a Friday from work and you want to clean out your inbox like that, then you can go into the weekend, feel like you've got everything cleaned off your desk, more or less.

And that really feeds into our competence.

And when that's disrupted, then it can impact other things.

It can impact, hence the mental performance side, what we're processing, how we're thinking, how we're feeling, how the thoughts and the feelings are feeding off each other.

So when we feel like our needs are being met at a base level, again, always fluctuating, then we're in a better space for not just mental performance, but really how we show up for our relationships, for when we go home, how we show up to church on Sunday, how we show up when we go to social hour with friends.

So the foundational needs stuff of the ABCs and D.

It's so fundamental in what I talk with my clients about.

And I find that we're always coming back to it on a regular basis, and we're always asking the question, okay, how is this external stimuli or this internal thing that you're thinking about, where is it swirling around these needs, what's not being met?

And then we can start strategizing.

Okay, so what would give you greater autonomy or a greater sense of agency or greater sense of freedom in this situation?

What could you do?

And we start brainstorming, and it's not just one thing, and it's maybe building up a toolbox of ideas so that down the road, when something comes up, you can say, okay, this.

I don't know if this is what's going to help me with my agency or my sense of belonging today, but so I'll push that aside and I'll save that.

But it's in the toolbox.

But, oh, this little thing down here, there's this weird wrench in this toolbox, this, this belonging wrench that, I want to give that a try today and I want to try and enact it.

And you keep testing things out and you keep it, keep adapting and keep tweaking it.

So you've definitely got to have some tools in your toolbox for helping to, you know, improve autonomy, belonging, competency, purpose for people.

But I'm definitely curious about the, the blending into the line, the line of mental health.

So let's say that you've got an employee working for a nonprofit who is struggling with autonomy.

So they're kind of toxic, but you end up finding out it's in their personal life.

It's, you know, their husband is, you know, very, you know, oppressive and things like that.

Like how might you traverse that, those waters?

Yeah.

So it's, it's understanding, too, that there's a lot of things in life that we can't control.

So maybe it is maybe just honestly like an illness in the family, you know, maybe it's a, it's a one of our parents who is aging and having a lot of health issues that we can't control.

It's not always about going after that when we're trying to raise some of these other needs.

It's finding other aspects of our life where we can increase it.

So if we feel like we don't have autonomy with an aging parent with health issues, but can we get autonomy in some other aspect of her life?

And this is why it's always in flux and why we always need to revisit it is because, okay, this weekend I'm going to this weekend and, yeah, I've got, my father's really ill and he's in the hospital and we're kind of unsure, certain what's going on and getting a lot of tests.

And it looks like he's not going to come home this weekend.

And that's really impacting my sense of autonomy as an example.

And is there some other way that I can get it?

And maybe it is.

Im going to go out and mow my lawn, really cut it short for the fall as we go into winter or something like that.

Its something very basic, but it gives me a sense of control over something because other aspects of my life I dont have control over.

And this other one here with my father is a really big deal.

So maybe its not just mowing the lawn thats going to meet that need.

Maybe you have to do a couple other things.

And then I walk away feeling, okay, I've got a sense of agency now.

I have a sense of control is an interesting term, but at least I feel like I can influence something for myself or for the betterment of myself.

But then tomorrow it's a whole different situation, and maybe doing the exact same activity is not going to sort of meet that threshold for me.

And I've got to try something else.

Hence why I've got to find this toolbox of things that I can go to whenever I'm in that it's having all those sandbags by the levee that are just sitting there.

And then I can go grab one and then go fortify the levee, say, okay, today I'm going to do this landscaping stuff, and that's really going to help tomorrow.

I wasn't going to do this, but I talked about maybe doing some repainting of my garage.

Okay, I'm going to do that even though, like, it's not an immediate concern, but it's really going to fuel some of these needs that I have.

And it's going to give me a sense of control over something that I can't control, which is outside.

It's not the garage, it's my dad's health.

So you've got to give up on trying to find the solution for the problem of, like, this, this symptom, which is my father's health.

And I've got to be able to fix that.

And I think that's where we ruminate, is we've got.

Well, I've got to.

I need to fix that problem, and then everything's going to be great.

Well, you can't control that loss if we can't control.

So then shift your focus on what you can and what you can influence.

You may be able to influence some things.

I could maybe do some influencing with my father's health, maybe with the hospital or a care provider or with calling an attorney or whatever it is.

But what I can really control is some of this other stuff there outside of that situation.

And that's, I think, where we get hung up is that we don't look outside of the situation itself.

And I have to agree, and I'm glad you brought up Maslow, too, because I'm a big fan of that work.

But I think that there's some subtle nuance within that that is not necessarily understood.

One of those things being from the book, man's search for meaning, I don't necessarily believe that all those things have to be met in that order, especially, you know what I mean?

Okay.

We don't have to have our psychological needs met and our belonging needs met and all these different needs met to ultimately self actualize, because that's kind of how it makes it seem.

Once these needs are met, then you can self actualize.

And I believe that in that book, man's search for meaning, you know, he was able to find and maintain that sense of purpose without any of those needs being met.

And potentially by meeting him through different needs, through different ways, like you're saying.

So it's like, okay, he may not have, you know, a psychological well being, you know, at the moment, but he's found a place in his mind where he has a purpose of, I'm going to go, you know, get out of here so I can go find my wife and be with my wife again, you know?

And so I think there's a lot of different ways in which we can redefine.

Okay, may I may not have love, you know, in this certain aspect of my life, but there's these people that love me.

I may not be belonging at home, you know, but I belong at work, you know, finding different ways of kind of filling those buckets, I guess.

So to say, I think in the belonging category, too, it's interesting that sometimes we don't get a sense of belonging from maybe people we interact with, and then it's a matter of then going out.

And you said this with the word love.

That is what kind of connected it for me is.

Another example is we may not be feeling love in our life that would really satisfy that need.

But then going out and giving love to other people freely without an expectation of return can still get that need met.

And so I think sometimes it's about looking about, maybe I can get my need met by giving something else.

And that could be on any level of that.

It doesn't have to.

It could be with boring, it could be with purpose.

And honestly, this is kind of maybe transition a little bit.

But it's one of the things I love so much about my current role is I don't even know.

I meet with a lot of people on a regular basis, sometimes on virtual calls, sometimes we have one on one coffee dates around town where I live.

And I never go into that thinking or hoping that it's going to turn into a new client.

I am just so excited to get to know people and hear their stories.

And that makes me a better coach, too.

One, it helps me learn to be a better listener.

In those moments with someone who I've never met before, I get to learn their story and I get to sort of understand and ask questions that may inform how I coach somebody else in a different arena.

So I think that for me is I get my needs met sometimes by going out and being present for other people, too.

And that's very rewarding.

And it's not transactional.

That's another.

That's a whole maybe separate piece.

But I think that's one thing that is very interesting to maybe focus on.

Is are our relationships always so focused on being transactional that I need to get something if I'm going to give versus.

How about I just enjoy the experience and there doesn't have to be this sort of algorithm that says that I have to.

Something has to be spit out and I have to get this in return for my time.

That's a little off topic, but it's on the topic of, I guess, what I gain and how my needs are met sometimes is being more altruistic versus trying to get something as an ROI.

No, I love that.

And that makes me curious, too, how you're able to maintain that mindset.

I'm sure at some point in your life you've been, quote unquote, desperate for a client.

Like, oh, man, if this would work out, this would be really amazing, you know?

And so you kind of go into that meeting, but you're able to still somehow bring that passion with you that, you know, I care more about interacting with this person.

I care more about hearing what this person has to say than I do about getting this client.

You know?

Is that just a deep seated within you as a personality traitor?

Is this something you developed?

It's definitely developed.

I I think I'm kind of on the cusp of Gen X and millennial.

And so I think I definitely grew up in the eighties and nineties where it was capitalism on steroids.

And I'm not saying that to bash capitalism, but it's in our culture, it's what we experience all the time of that our success sometimes is defined by our output and what we gain from that output.

And I find that definitely my twenties was very much trying to acquire all that stuff, acquire experience, acquire titles, acquire money, acquire recognition.

A lot of these external validations.

And I think the nonprofit world is very humbling.

And that if you can recognize that it's not about you, that it's about the mission, it's about the organization, it's about the community that you serve, that's very humbling.

And then what I said before, too, is I'm very lucky in that the job that I do, I get to support people where they're at and where their needs are.

But I also gain the same thing by coaching, by teaching, by role modeling.

I also gain the same stuff.

So I've been building up that levy for myself.

I've been building up my toolkit, by helping other people build up theirs.

And it's not a quick fix.

It's a really hard thing.

There's things that don't bother me as much anymore that would have two years ago and definitely five years ago.

And it's just, here's the thing that I've been talking a lot more about recently.

Whether it's in different speaking engagements or in workshops or one on one sessions with clients, it's about consistency.

So whatever you do, whatever you're working on for your own mental performance, meaning how are you addressing the stressors in your life that we are constantly being bombarded with?

How are we recognizing and addressing how those stressors are impacting things like imposter syndrome or self doubt or perfectionism?

And then how are we consistently addressing and or looking at our well being, the different types of things that influence our well being?

How are we being attentive to those things consistently?

Because that's the only way that we more or less find the solution.

And I know that sounds like I'm saying it's a fix and it's a cure all, and it's not maybe a better way for me to kind of say that.

Is this a lot of what I do, and I think a lot of what coaches do and whether they say it or not, is we're dealing with neuroplasticity.

So the tools that I work with my clients on, and honestly, by default, with myself, is I am trying to rewire my brain towards better mindsets, more positive thinking, better coping mechanisms.

There's that old adage of the neurons that fire together, wire together, and that's what neuroplasticity is.

It's we have our brain at this moment in time that you and I are talking is wired.

And the neurotransmitters that are firing and firing along paths, some paths are stronger, connected, some are weaker.

But what the tools that I work with my clients and myself on are sometimes rewiring and or at least strengthening connections that are more positive.

So that by the time you've gone through a month of coaching or three months of coaching or six months, or you maybe have done six months of coaching, and then you've been away from it for a year, but you've been still implementing these things consistently.

You have built strong connections that help you process information better.

So you're not always going down and spiraling in negative thought patterns.

And you're not just sitting in a fixed mindset that you are constantly working on, maybe a growth mindset or more focused on an internal locus of control versus an external, things like that.

But that comes with repetition, because the repetition is strengthening your neural pathways in the way that you want them to fire better for you with better coping skills.

That's why consistency is huge, is because we are literally strengthening and rewiring our neurons in a better way.

That's going to help us with coping mechanisms, with resilience, things like that, and a lot of ways.

So, like, we haven't even talked about, you know, mental performance and, like, sports psychology and how this applies to athletes.

But, I mean, I think that's what a lot of people think about when they hear mental performance is, oh, like a sports psychologist helping people in athletics with the yips, you know, when all of a sudden, like Shaquille O'Neal, and honestly, I don't know if he ever was.

It's not like you're not diagnosed with the yips, by the way.

That's.

That's not like something that's in the DSM five, but it's not like someone said, oh, yep, Shaq's got the.

Yep.

A lot of it was really focused on, oh, his mechanics.

I have a good feeling, though.

There was a lot of mental stress and anguish going on with Shaquille O'Neal.

That why he was such a poor free throw shooter.

Okay.

Um, but when you start spiraling sometimes then that those neural pathways for spiraling in that one area get strengthened, and then it just keeps snowballing from there.

That's where you have to kind of short circuit that thinking and then start working towards something else.

And if you don't do it consistently, then when you have some of those negative thoughts, then they happen again and again, and then those become the new norm, the new consistency patterns that are formed and strengthened.

So, yeah, it all comes back to consistently practicing and utilizing the tools at our disposal.

So how would you help people to gain awareness of these patterns and begin to break them, especially?

I mean, obviously, I could imagine a one on one session, but again, you working with corporations and stuff, it feels like that would be incredibly time consuming to sit down with each person and to help them kind of discover their patterns and where they're kind of spiraling mentally and to help them shift into new mental states and mental patterns.

So is there like a overall overarching lesson that you're kind of giving people around, like gaining awareness?

You know, obviously, like, self awareness is a big thing, meditation, things like that.

So perhaps that's part of your answer.

I'm not sure.

So there's a couple things.

One, I'll jump back and say that with like corporates or structures and organizations.

Gosh, I'd say about a little.

About a year and a half ago, I developed, I took a lot of my bigger coaching program that is six months long, and I created into a one month long program, and it was meant for organizations and employees and teams and departments where they could go through and for a month they could get a very slimmed down version of my six month program and get a really in your face 30 day program that really talk through some of this stuff.

And I actually, funny enough, before we jumped on this call, I was doing a LinkedIn post talking about that.

It's not just about knowing the stuff you've actually got to put into action.

So there's a thing there, too.

So this 30 day program really is almost like an awareness piece.

And then obviously there's some tools in there that you can implement either individually, but also as a team.

So then you can maybe move forward because that.

Yes, the time constraint of working with large departments, large staffing structures in big companies can be really tough.

I honestly, I think every company needs to have, like, not just it could be contracted coaches or they could be hire someone to come in and you work for this company and your whole job is to provide coaching to people.

I think that would actually just be brilliant and smart and economical.

But anyway, all that said, that deals with.

That's one area that I can kind of address some stuff with a larger group of people faster.

But to get back to your main question, yes, there is one way that I touch upon early on with all clients to help them recognize this.

And we deal with it when we talk about feelings and emotions.

We talk about it with the needs, we talk about it with the mental performance blocks, a lot of the disruptors in our heads that are kind of steering us off into maybe bad directions.

They're there to keep us safe, but they're also telling us a bunch of lies.

And that is name it to tame it, which is name that feeling.

You can't.

If I just had this actually situation last night, I was telling another client about this morning that last night I was sitting down, and I was watching tv with my wife, and I was kind of sitting there, and I was feeling very, let's just say, anxious.

But there was a lot of stuff going on in my head, and I was feeling sort of uneasy, and I couldn't.

I didn't know what it was because there were so many thoughts and feelings circulating in my head.

It's almost like when you're trying to cram too many people into a subway car, and then the doors are about ready to close, and then one more person is trying to squeeze in, and then you're just like, oh, my gosh.

We're, like, all in a sausage casing.

Like, what are we doing?

Why are we doing this ourselves?

And I had this in my head last night where all these stuff was ruminating and processing and more so I didn't have.

I hadn't identified what it was.

It was just things were ping ponging back and forth, and it was just causing me unease.

And I couldn't just sit there and relax.

And I said, okay, Mike, name it.

What is.

What are you feeling right now?

And I said, I'm feeling frustrated.

And then I corrected myself and said, you always say frustrated.

Stop saying frustrated.

Break it down further.

What is it about?

What kind of frustration?

And I said, I'm feeling a little.

And I think it was really about uneasy.

I think that was the term I came up with.

And I said, okay, so why are you feeling uneasy?

And one of the things that came up was, and again, this is all in my head.

This is all internal.

I'm not actually saying this out loud, which I guess could be a helpful tool, too, but I was.

Why was I feeling uneasy?

Well, I've got a client that I've been working with over the last year, and they want to start working on a strategy plan for the organization.

And I'm feeling uneasy because I'm not sure I want to do it, and I'm not sure that they're ready, and I'm not sure I'm the person to do it with, but I've been working with them in other capacities for a year.

And so then that starts spiraling in the mental performance sphere of, you take some thought, and then it just builds on itself, and then you add a bunch of assumptions and a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty, and then next thing you know, it's got a mind of its own.

And so I had to kind of this naming to tame it is I had to identify and name the feeling, and I had to identify what was causing that feeling to happen?

And as soon as I did, it was almost like that ping pong ball that was rattling around my head was taken out.

And I still had a couple in there, but just by taking one out, it was all of a sudden, it was almost like this big sigh of relief that I felt.

And so then I started tackling the other feelings that I was feeling.

Um, one of them was so stupid.

It was my fantasy football team, um, had struggled with.

There was an injury, and I started freaking out about that, and I was like, okay.

So I named it, like, when I was feeling frustrated, and I had to, again, say, stop saying frustrated.

You're always saying frustrated.

Drill down deeper.

And so then I identified that.

And so then I was another ping pong ball that I got on my head.

And by the end of, honestly, about 15 minutes, I was able to sit and relax, and I was able to process, and it was all because I named it.

I named the feelings that were going on.

I named and identified what was causing those feelings to surface.

And I identified.

And this comes back to the needs.

I identified what.

What is not happening right now.

What need is missing in this?

And it could be in one situation or it could be in all of them, and all of a sudden, it's out of my head.

And I named it and tamed it, and it was gone.

And then I could now move on, enjoy.

That stuff was, doesn't happen automatically.

That's that consistency piece.

So I constantly have to go back and do that.

And sometimes I'm.

Some days I'm better at it than others.

There are some days I actually do tell myself in my head, stop trying to fix it, Mike.

Stop trying to do all the stuff you tell your clients to do.

You just want to sit and stew in this crap right now.

Just let me be in anger for a little bit.

And then I let myself be in anger for, like, five minutes, and then I say, okay, that's all I needed.

Now I can move on, you know?

And that's not always the easiest thing to do or say, so.

Yeah, yeah, that's.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

I mean, I can't imagine that's easy for a lot of men specifically.

And then now you add on the title of being, like, an executive or a leader, you know, and a man who struggles to be in touch with their emotions in the same way that you just described.

And so my question, I guess, then, is, like working with executives and professionals, leaders and things, who are obviously a lot of them are perfectionists.

You know, a lot of them are dealing with perfectionism.

So how might you deal with the.

Helping them gain awareness around their feelings, letting go of some of that stuff, and then battling the fear of being scared, that these negative emotions are actually their fuel?

Yeah, we talk a lot about fear, and I kind of approach fear from, I boost it up one level.

So it's almost like instead of drilling down, I drill up a little bit.

And I think that fear comes from, most of the time, from this sort of nebulous thing called uncertainty.

And I think when we're in times of uncertainty in our life, and it can be big things, like, I could use that reference point with my father and his health, which, by the way, he's completely healthy ish.

But it was a good metaphor.

But if I want to use as an extreme example.

But uncertainty can be like, well, what am I going to have for dinner tonight in like 3 hours?

You know, that's still uncertainty.

And then I think we have a couple paths that we can go down.

And one of them, and I think it's our default, is that we tend to default towards fear.

And then fear can spiral into anger, and then anger can spiral from there.

So a lot of it for when I talk to clients, and it can be men or women, though, I definitely recognize that regardless of people in leadership roles, maybe I'll just claim that, that people in leadership roles have a hard time with vulnerability because they feel like lack of vulnerability is what got them to their high achieving status and state of being a leader.

And by a leader, I'm also, I mean, we, there's leaders at all levels of organizations, but we're talking about like an executive level leader.

And so a lot of it is really having questions about where are you feeling uncertainty?

And then what assumptions are being created in that uncertainty.

One of the tools, kind of a quick tool that I throw at people is obviously, we talked about naming it detainment.

The other one is that every thought in our head is optional.

I mean, we are having thousands of thoughts into our head daily, but those are just thoughts.

What we choose to give attention to is us actually thinking.

So where are we choosing to think versus what are we just letting go of and just letting flow out as soon as it comes in our head?

Are we saying this needs to stay here and I need to ruminate on this?

Or are we saying that's not a big deal, and then we skip it, it moves on and it's out of our head and we're having thousands of thoughts like that on various levels.

So when I tell clients, we're talking about uncertainty, but it's like, also, do you realize that every thought is optional?

So what are you giving weight to?

Where are you attaching assumptions to?

What do you know for a fact?

So I always like to throw out clients.

To think of yourself as an anthropologist, you're going in to study this old, ancient amazonian tribe that has no connection with humanity.

And I know there's cases of this recently.

And if you're going in as an anthropologist, you're going in to observe, you're going to understand basic facts like, this is what their behavior is, this is what they eat, this is how often they eat.

This is their rituals, this is their spiritual practices.

This is how they.

What family structures look like.

You're not editorializing that that's what we're doing in our heads most of the time is these thoughts pop in and then we add the editorial to it.

We're creating the narrative.

That's all optional.

But from an anthropological standpoint, what is actually factual?

What are you just seeing on the ground?

And so this can deal with that uncertainty level.

You know, just name it.

What is, what is actually happening in the situation versus what are you attaching a narrative to for whatever reason?

And I think that actually is less vulnerable for a lot of leaders, is when you can take it from a very more objective standpoint, and then you can say, okay, this is what actually is happening.

This happened, then this happened.

It's almost like writing an incident report or a police report.

First this happened, then this happened, and this happened.

These are the people involved.

Now you're not as vulnerable, but you are at least seeing things a little from a different perspective, and then we can start broaching.

Okay, what assumptions are you making?

And tell me about how you feel about this situation.

So it's not bombarding people, I think, upfront with a lot of the heavy vulnerability stuff, which I think is key for moving past it, but it's really tough, yeah.

For certain segments of the population to address those things.

Would you say that you're addressing any of the self worth feelings that might be placed around perfectionism?

And is that objective viewpoint something that works for that as well?

So it's like, hey, you know, you may not feel like you're good enough if you don't, you know, nail this presentation or, you know, hit, hit these numbers.

As a leader, you may be battling perfectionism, may not feel like you're worthy, but in reality, there's this and this and this, a, B and C that are, you know, benefits of you, you and yourself and your way of being that are able to help you kind of like, latch onto a sense of self worth.

Are you, do you feel yourself or find yourself dealing with that linkage between the perfectionism and someone feeling like, you know, maybe unworthy or dealing with some self image issues and stuff?

Yeah, for sure.

Perfectionism, I find, kind of encompasses a lot of the clients that I've had today, that it's the most, maybe the most common denominator in most people, whether people would work with me and say, yes, I struggle with imposter syndrome, and that's why I reached out to you, Mike, or it's something else.

Perfectionism is always kind of the.

This, like, weird, shadowy figure that's underlying it all a lot of times.

And yes, because I think there is a sense of self worth and we have attached it in our culture so much with our output and our outcome.

And so again, a lot of the stuff that I do early on with clients, as we do talk about personal values and personal strengths, because once you identify those, then you can start cracking away at the perfectionism and chiseling away and kind of shattering the myth that being perfect or that this project or this PowerPoint has to be perfect, one that doesn't exist, but it doesn't align with who you are.

It's an external driver versus your values being an internal driver.

So a lot of this is, I talked about this a few minutes ago.

I was talking about our different mindsets, and one of them being the locus of control, internal versus external.

And with perfectionists, it may really tie into an external locus of control focus where we are feeling that these external factors or contributors are what drives or greatly impacts our outcome as people, as individuals.

And when we can start pushing that a little bit along the scale to, let's look more inward to your efforts, not to the perfectionism, because we can also highlight where perfectionism is also hampering or hindering your sense of self, because, one, you're going to get burned out, but you're also probably self sabotaging yourself, too.

You think that?

I mean, horrible metaphor again, but it's almost like when I think back to fantasy football, you overthink things.

Perfectionism is like, oh, I know what's going to happen.

And I, like, I have the crystal ball and I can figure it out.

I know how this presentation is going to go.

It's.

And I, this is what's needed.

And all of a sudden, you walk in and everything gets switched up and.

Or by the way, you spend hours trying to craft the perfect PowerPoint or presentation, and all of a sudden, technology doesn't work when you get there because that always happens, like 21st century.

And there's a lot of weird stuff that we've been able to work on in the development for humanity, and yet we still can't seem to get a USB and Bluetooth to work perfectly from a tv to a laptop.

Like, it just never fails.

So, yeah, your perfectionism actually set you up for failure.

Um, so, yeah, let's look at those internal versus external validators.

That's perfect.

And so we're going to kind of wrap it up here.

Well, I'm curious, what if this is kind of a blanket question, so answer it however you will, but I'm curious what you wish all leaders knew if you could address all the nonprofits or profits, whatever you want to, but what are, what are some things that, that just leaders should really kind of focus on and should know based upon what you've learned and experienced in your field?

I think, first and foremost, that your talent.

So everybody who reports to you, so if you're the CEO or Ed, everyone technically below you in title and rank and authority will look up to you more, respect you more when you are open with and vulnerable with your own shortcomings.

One is because if you try to put on a brave face as a leader and showcase that you've got all figured out, there's things that you're not perfect at.

And maybe you rephrase that because I think that can feed into the perfectionism, because no one's perfect at anything.

It doesn't exist.

But there are things that you're doing that are transparent to those that you supervise or lead.

So they see it anyway, whether you admit it or not.

And so you're really not hiding anything.

It's not a secret.

So if you're really not good at communication or you're not good at constructive criticism of positive feedback, or you're not really good at mentoring or, you know, and we could get into the technical stuff, too.

Like, I don't.

I don't.

You don't need to be maybe an expert in a spreadsheet, I don't know.

But there are things that you're nothing excellent at, and people that you work with know this.

And then if you come out and say or at least try to portray that you've got it all figured out, I think it's.

It's not just disingenuous, but I think it really hampers trust going forward in all levels versus the person who says, and I had that.

We were in my podcast.

We did this interview back in May with a social worker and licensed counselor, and she was saying with her, like, four year old son, she said to her son, who was really having some behavioral issues, you know, she said to him, you know, let's just say his name is Timmy.

You know, Timmy, I understand, like, I don't know what I'm doing either.

This is my first time being a parent, just like this is your first time being a child.

And so we're learning together.

And I know I'm always very cautious about equating supervisors and leaders with their subordinates, with parents to children because you should never really equate it that way because you shouldn't talk down to your employees as if they're children.

But in this sort of metaphor, having a parent and child at whatever age admit, hey, I'm still learning, too.

I'm still trying to navigate this goes so far with empathy and giving people grace and giving people a little bit of slack.

So I guess that comes back to, don't think that you're hiding anything by putting on a brave face.

I'm not saying you have to tell everyone your life story, and that vulnerability means you're talking about all of your traumas to your team.

It's not that.

It's being open and honest with people.

And when you make a mistake, you're obviously honest.

And, hey, I own this.

I did this.

And not trying to throw someone else under the bus or say, nope, that's not an issue, we're fine.

So that would be my first thing.

And whether you work with a coach or not, to do that or to develop that, I really don't care.

And I honestly sure as hell don't care if it's me.

There's a lot of good coaches out there, and honestly, it could also be maybe working with a therapist.

But I think role modeling that and then role modeling, if you do work with a coach, is role modeling that and then open the door for the rest of your talent to have access to that.

I put this on my LinkedIn profile when I first started, but I don't think coaching is one of those things that should just be for executives because we're all dealing with the same garbage in our heads.

We're all processing the same stressors.

It may look different from day to day for each of us, but we're all struggling with it.

And the idea that only the executive or only those who have financial resources should get it is also B's.

We don't treat people like, if you have resources, then you get to work with a counselor or a therapist.

Like people who don't have it, you don't deserve it.

I would say that we've kind of gotten past that a little bit with therapy and counseling and mental health on the whole.

But working with a coach is just, you know, it's a form of mental health.

I like to think of what I do is helping people with their mental fitness, but it shouldn't just be for the haves.

Everybody should have access to it.

So if you're a leader, show your vulnerability, be open to it, and then also provide services or an avenue, even if that means it's three years from now, because you're setting up a budget for it to work down the road.

Set up a plan so that everybody in your organization or your company has access to working with a coach to help them overcome mental performance hurdles.

Yeah, that's huge.

That's huge.

And, and the vulnerability piece has been something that I've really learned as well as a parent.

I've read, you know, things about that, too, and I've been very honest and open with the kids, not, not over sharing, but being like, hey, you know, like, I'm struggling with this or, hey, you know, I'm, I'm sorry that I lost my cool.

You know, I'm working on that as well, just like you are just on your emotional regulation skills.

And I think that the coaching aspect is very valuable in even having these conversations, for me, is about helping people.

Like you said, develop the toolbox.

So it's like, yes, we're not all going to have access to a coach, but there are tools, resources, books, people you can have conversations with, conversations you can listen to that will help you to develop that mental toolbox for yourself so that, yes, you can accept the fact that everybody needs help, everybody's working on things.

You know, we're all kind of human ultimately in the, in the game of life, you know?

So for sure, there was here locally, back in May, during mental health awareness month in the US, I attended a panel locally and it had about a dozen teenagers, mostly girls, who were struggling with mental health issues, depression, anxiety, suicide, suicidal ideation, things like this.

And it.

Some of it, for some of them, it was more new and some of it had been there lingering for years.

And it was really just a chance for adults in the audience to hear from these teens on what they were struggling with.

And the one thing, there's many takeaways, but one that really stood out to me was the moderator asked, what do you want the adults in this room, whether that's your parents or parents of friends or just adults in general to understand or know what you need from them.

And pretty much every teen on that panel said, we just wish that adults would open up and tell us that they're struggling with the same stuff, too, because we feel like when you put on a brave face and, or you say to us, oh, don't worry, you'll get over it, it's just a phase.

We feel as teenagers, as young people, as young adults, that, oh, we're the only people dealing with this.

We're unique, and that almost makes us feel more isolated.

And I think that inclusion piece of saying as an adult, whether you're, it's, it could be a cousin.

Not a cousin, but like a nephew or niece, that, because I don't have my own children, but I do have nephews and nieces.

And just being, saying, being able to say to them, yeah, I struggled with that when I was your age, and I still struggle with that.

And I share this story during this episode about sitting on the couch last night and kind of all the stuff that was running rampant in my head, that stuff's pretty consistent.

It looks different every day, and how debilitating it is can look and feel very different every day.

But to basically hide that from everybody else and say, I've got no issues, I don't struggle with anything.

I've got it all figured out for the young people in our lives that they look up to us to say, you know what?

I still struggle with that.

And it's a work in progress.

And some things I'm better at managing than others gives them a sense of hope that they're not on an island by themselves and that there is, again, not that it has to be cured, I think that's the problem, is I think a lot of young people is like, I just want to get to the point where it's gone and it's not going to come back.

This mental issue that I've got, this depression, this anxiety, this fear, and it's like, that stuff's always going to be with you.

But let's talk about how, you know what?

I'm now 46 years old, how throughout my life I've learned how to secure up that levy.

So it's not as debilitating when it does hit me.

And I've learned tools to help me navigate through it easier so I'm not ruminating on it for a whole weekend and I'm stuck in bed and I'm with the covers over my head wishing I would die or something like that.

We don't have to get to that point, but teenagers are going to, if they don't hear that from us as adults, they're going to think like, oh, I'm the only one who's dealing with this and so I don't see a way out.

So then what?

You know, it's, yeah, we're giving hope to people.

So I think we can do that in a workplace.

I think in a professional environment.

We don't have to go down the most extreme circumstances, but we can talk about as a leader how, yeah, I suffer with imposter syndrome and hey, you may be my marketing director and now you feel comfortable talking about, hey, I know you asked me to work on this project, but I have a huge level of imposter syndrome now.

We can talk through it and share it and maybe move past those initial stages so it's not impacting the project that we're working on.

But if I'm like, well, you better figure that shit out because there's a timeline in place.

What do you think it's going to do to your marketing director if I don't admit that I've got some similar issues and help them work through it.

So, yeah, dude, what a powerful point, you know?

So whether it comes to parenting or coaching or being a leader, being more willing to share your struggles is huge, and I'm glad that you shared your struggle about what was it last night?

I had a guest last week who's worked with MLB teams, you know, World Series winning teams, IMG Academy in Florida, all these awesome things.

You would think again, he's got it all figured out right?

And he told the same story about how the day before he had gone down this rabbit hole of negative news and the hurricane stuff and stuff going on in Israel and all this stuff, and he just really was struggling and he had to kind of bring himself out of it, use his own tools on himself.

And so I think it's really cool throughout these episodes for people to see that because that's something that I've struggled with myself through coaching is I've never wanted to be a life coach or a mental performance coach or any of these things until I had it all figured out.

And that's something that I've struggled with myself because when I was a personal trainer, it's like I had to be like a bodybuilding shape.

Like, I was, like, in shape for bodybuilding.

I competed in bodybuilding.

I was ripped and lean, and I felt like I had to be that to be a personal trainer, you know, and I kind of looked down on anybody who wasn't, you know, which is not right.

I get it.

And so now it's like I'm finding myself in this mental performance place, you know, wanting to coach and things and wanting to help people out, but I'm like, well, I don't have all my things figured out, so I should guess I should wait, you know?

And so having these conversations is hugely valuable for people to hear.

People like yourselves with all this knowledge and all this experience are struggling.

But for me to hear that as well is awesome.

To know that, like, okay, you can still help people while helping yourself.

So that's huge.

That's huge.

I think you're sharing that.

Yeah.

Think about medical professionals, like doctors, surgeons who are top of their game, like some of the best neurosurgeons, or whatever it is, or plastic surgery, whatever.

Um, they may not be in the best physical shape of their life, or the best mental.

I mean, they may have a really shitty diet, but they can still be really good and they can still be working through that and towards something.

Um, I think if we were basically like, okay, let me interview you, doctor.

Before you perform surgery on me, I need to make sure that you are the epitome of mental physical health.

Because you understand medicine, you understand the mind and the body.

So you should have this all figured out.

And there's doctors who smoke, and there's doctors who have other vices, and if we help people to that standard, I don't know how we could function in society.

And yet we are trying to do that to an extent.

But I think sometimes we're trying to hold ourselves to a higher standard than because we think everyone else is doing the same, and it's not.

So I applaud you too, for saying, hey, I thought I had to be in the best physical shape to be a physical training coach.

It's like you can still have so much insight and influence over people about their physical health and their physical goals, even if you don't look like Mister Universe or whatever it is, you know, like, yeah, yeah, it's, that's interesting.

So, yeah, I applaud you for sharing that, too.

That's a really powerful story.

That's awesome.

So I want to wrap it up here with, I'm just curious where you see your coaching going in the future, and then I want you to tag yourself in any sort of, you know, LinkedIn website, anything like that.

Yeah.

The next, you know, the next year, the next five years, whatever.

I don't know for sure.

I do, actually.

In a weird way, I do want to start working with other performers, whether it's in the arts and.

Or in sports.

And part of that is I.

It's actually twofold.

One is because I think.

I think there's a universality to all this.

I think whether you are an MLB player or an executive director of a small nonprofit in the middle of Bumsville, Idaho, it's all the same stuff.

It's all the same stressors and mental hurdles that we're dealing with.

And so I kind of want to keep branching out and learning from different areas and different tools and strategies that can cross over from different professions and disciplines.

So finding more or less best practice, which is a term I have issues with, but we'll just throw it in here.

Um, that's what.

That's what the podcast is about, just to throw it out there.

It's exactly.

It's like, it's all universal.

Let's talk with all these different people, and you guys will ultimately hear that it's all the same stuff.

Yeah, it really is.

That's.

That's.

Yeah, everything.

It's all universal.

We all struggle with mental health issues.

It just may look different from time to time.

So, yeah, that's one of it.

That's one of the reasons I want to branch across is learn from other disciplines and apply it across the board.

The other one is because I work with law nonprofits.

And I talked about this early on the episode that law nonprofits don't always have the resources.

And.

Or they're like, yeah, I'll work with you, but first I have to apply for this professional capacity building development grant for my staff and myself.

So it may be a year or two.

And so what I end up doing is I end up subsidizing a lot of my services to nonprofit clients, you know, offering some very discounted things because I recognize the value and supporting them where they're at in this point in time.

So the other thing is branching out is to help supplement so that I can offer more scholarships to nonprofits so that I can bring in some more finances to support my nonprofit client base a little bit.

So that's kind of the.

In the near term, and then we'll see where it goes from there.

But.

And then you can reach me.

My website is global bounds.

It's www.globalbound.org.

and then my LinkedIn.

It's under global bounds, so you can find me or search for Mike Krause.

K r a U S e.

I don't do any other social media for my own mental health.

I choose to steer as far away from it as possible.

So good.

Good.

That's perfect, dude.

So thank you very much for being here.

Thank you, everybody, for listening.

Your insight has been spectacular, and I'm very curious to see where you end up taking it.

I'm very excited about your idea of using other services, like other training other performers to ultimately fund your ability to help nonprofits.

That's something that I myself, I originally got into this wanting to help foster children.

I used to be in foster care and people dealing with addictions and all these things, and I had a.

Had a mentor.

Tell me, well, how are you going to make money?

Like, oh, okay.

Like, I have to figure you kind of got to balance those two worlds together.

So it's awesome that you're doing that.

I love what you're doing.

And again, thank you for being here.

Thank you for being a light in the world.

Perfect.

Thanks, Ty.

Appreciate it.