Barbell Shrugged - Ken Kilday: The New Tough Leader - Being a Leader Means Not Only Knowing The Words to Say, But Also Putting Action Behind Those Words  — Feed Me Fuel Me #117

Episode Date: December 13, 2018

According to our guest this week, leadership coach and mentor, Ken Kilday, the failure of leadership presently lies in the fact that people in influential positions know the words to say, yet aren't capable of putting action behind those words. There tend to be two kinds of leaders that seek Ken's counsel: those that are proactive, seeking to bring their blindspots and shortcomings to the forefront, and those that are reacting to a failed state of leadership and Ken's coaching is a last ditch effort to right the ship.   Part of the definition of leadership is to influence. Another way of putting it is to influence another to do what you want when they otherwise wouldn't.   Ken’s breadth of leadership experience provides him the unique ability to help leaders understand that effecting positive change is the key to overall success. The challenges of navigating ever-changing corporate cultures, bureaucracies, and financial goals provided the catalyst for him to create a business consulting firm based on   The ‘New-Tough Leader’ mentality of success equips leaders with tools to expect the best, lead with compassion, and inspire each individual to their greatest strengths in order to create an environment of success for themselves and their teams.   Dive in with us and listen closely as Ken explains what it means to be a New Tough Leader! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/fmfm_kilday ----------------------------------------------------------------------   ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

What's up crew? In 2019, Feed Me, Fuel Me will no longer be part of the Shrug Collective. So to stay connected with us, go to everything on FeedMeFuelMe.com. From there, you'll see all of our latest podcast videos and everything we have going on social media. Thank you again for your support and we'll see you next year. This is episode number 117 of the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast with our special guest, owner of New Tough Leader, Ken Kilday. Welcome to the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast. My name is Jeff Thornton, alongside my co-host, Michael Anders. Each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message related to our three pillars of success, manifestation, business, fitness, and nutrition. Our intent is to enrich,

educate, and empower our audience to take action, control, and accountability for their decisions. Thank you for allowing us to join you on your journey. Now let's get started. Hey, what's good crew? Welcome to another episode of the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast. Ders and Jeff coming to you from Scottsdale, Arizona. And today we have the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with my coach, Ken Kilday, the founder of New Tough Leader. Really appreciate you making your way down from Sedona to have this conversation, brother. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for being here.

I know it's a tough trip leaving that beautiful city, right? It was a little chilly. Yeah. Oh, was it cold up there? Yeah, it was 28 when I went to the gym today. Oh, absolutely not. So you came here to thaw out a little bit. A little bit.

It's okay in the sunshine. Nice. Yeah. So you've been a member at CrossFit PHX since I can remember. And when you joined, you were part of the big corporate machine. And for one reason or another, you decided to follow your calling and have moved into this executive coaching role. have happened at a better time for me selfishly speaking as I was transitioning from one coach who was helping me on the the the number side of business development over into the the organizational leadership side of the house and one of the first tasks that you gave me was to rally the troops

so you could interview them about their experience in my organization. And one of the things that you prepared me for was the potential shotgun blast to the face of all the things that they could say. But you said there's two kinds of people that end up under your tutelage. They're the people that are proactive and forward-thinking and just sincerely want to know how things are going under their leadership umbrella. And then they're the people that need it from a reactive standpoint. And somebody is telling them to go prior to something really, really bad happening. And we'll dive into all that here in a minute. But for everybody who

doesn't know who you are, where New Tough Leader came from, kind of give us the cliff notes of your journey and how we got to this place. Sure. Sure. So I left corporate executive position last spring, actually made the decision December into January that it was time for something new and different for me. Took the first quarter of the year to transition out of my role, unwind what I was responsible for. In my final role, my organization, I had seven direct reports, 12 leaders, 136 people. So there was a lot going on. It was really exciting. It was a great firm, a lot of amazing people. And I was ready to move to something that was more of mine.

Sure. I really focused on spending my days and my time engaged in what I like doing most, is in in my professional roles I've often been sought as a mentor I enjoyed the development of my leaders creating space for them to figure out who they are as a leader and then put that into to effect to learn from mistakes that invariably happen along the way, which is true for all of us, and to watch that success. So where the new tough leader branding came up, as I was whiteboarding the ideas and how would I put this business together and so on, the best source for figuring out who I am as a leader and what I recommend to others is

ask people that have reported to you or that are peers to you or that you have reported to. And, and that will give you plenty of information about who you are. Sometimes that takes a little bit of thick skin more often than not. It's, uh, it's a, it's a great surprise that a lot of what you were intending to do showed up. So the new tough piece came up. I went and had a drink with somebody that had reported to me some years ago, had changed firms with me at one point, just fabulous lady. She is a baby boomer, so she's seen a few things and done a few things.

And, and I asked her, you know, what's your experience of me as a leader? And she said, you are one of the toughest people I've ever worked for. And I have never had anyone that cared so much about me as a human being. And I'd never experienced anyone who could optimize everybody's strengths for themselves and the and the whole team. She said, it's just it's really a different and unique approach. And I just loved it. She was I thought you were terrific. She goes, and as a bonus, I think you're just so funny.

Which was great to hear and I said so tough you know a lot of people don't think that caring is tough sure and I said so maybe I'm new tough she's well there's your brand right there so that's how that popped up well just it was a conversation we had over a glass of wine and mm-hmm and then we started to develop, you know, who would I work with? What are the challenges in leadership in general? What did I see? What have I experienced? What do I know to be true? What do I think to be true? And that's how I came up. And speaking on the first part, when were you first thrown into your first role of leadership and looking over people and getting them down that path? When I was 21 years old

okay so you've been in the game for a little bit yeah yeah and I'm 49 now so quite a while ago okay you know I worked in uh my first industry the way I paid for school for college was uh working in retail retail grocery and my first leadership position came at the age of 21. I was like an assistant at 20, but the real, like, it was on me, was 21. And pretty early on, I had responsible for scheduling and some of those things, but what I learned very quickly was some of the most senior people that worked, quote, for me, if you will, reported to me, they were the ones most willing to help pull aside the tenure and say, hey, look, you know, I was focused on the facts of the numbers of I need somebody here at this time, and they go at this time, and your break is at this time.

And I remember she was a very tenured employee named Cindy who came to me and said, hey, this isn't about having the right people at the right time. I mean, it is, but she said, this is about making sure that, uh, that I get to bowling on Wednesdays and she gets to, you know, daycare on Tuesday cause her husband's not available. Those sorts of things, the people still taking care of people, taking care of people, knowing what a trainer I had once said, knowing what makes them tick and what ticks them off. Oh, okay. And being sensitive to it. Sure. That, that, that matters, right? That all that matters. And, and what really popped up and what has shown up over the years is the missing piece

is the connectedness between human beings in business, because a lot of business they they profess to say that people are our most important asset and those sorts of things and and they end up not matching the behaviors behind the scenes because they really don't care about what night is bowling league night and those sorts of things that that matter i think there's in corporate america in particular there's an expectation that all the employees represent the brand outside of the office or the structure. But then when they come to work, there's this notion of, Hey, uh, this isn't personal. It's just business. Well, wait a minute. Right. I'm your brand everywhere, but I, I'm also, you know, I, I'm not two separate people. I'm not one person

at home. I'm not dad, husband, brother, father, sister, all those sorts of things at home. And then not any of those things when I get to work, it's still the same. Sure. And businesses that are really successful teams that are really successful where they foster trust and they move very quickly and they put up, you know, the big financial results that most businesses are looking for. They foster that community. They understand that people are that whole person all the time. And, um, again, I think what people get disconnected from is they know the words to say because, uh, Ken Blanchard and now the more current, the Simon Sinek and Dan Pink and Brene Brown. We know the words to say as leaders.

We don't always know what actions back them up. Right. And that's the toughest part of all. Now, in terms of the way that you impart your coaching, how do you connect those two universes between the the rhetoric and the action like where did you learn or how did you learn to connect those dots because that if you're you know virtually unaware that those things are independent of each other although they work synergistically, you'll never connect those dots. So when and where was that lesson?

When did that become part of your lesson plan as a coach? Well, I think that's, I've always used coaching in my leadership roles. And then when I switched career out of retail grocery, I was an individual contributor again as I got into financial services 18 years ago. So I had a book of business, I had clients, and that's where I realized very early that some of the traditional sales techniques, there was sales a little less where it was convincing people to buy something or do something. And it was almost separate from the person where professional sales,

big S is more about who are you? What do you need? How do you interpret? What do you know? What do you want to achieve? And then the bridge, the financial plan as it was in my, in my profession was the bridge, was connecting those two for people. So that's where I learned to do that. And then as I learned, as I moved into leadership again I took working with clients into my role as a leader so I treated each time when I had a team they were my new clients that's how I thought of them when I had leaders who had leaders who had clients all the way I always treated the people that reported

directly to me like they were my clients. I worked for them. Right. So I needed to know everything about them in order to serve them. Sure. So, um, I think it's just part of my background, part of how I grew up. Uh, I, I've always been sensitive to what other people are thinking and feeling and connecting. So in coaching, I'm always looking for where is that person now? I need to know where they are and go meet them there. That's, I think the most important part of leadership is, again, I serve them, not the other way around. They don't need to come to me. I need to come to them. I'm the one, it's a push pull. You know, there's, there's leaders that will say, I push my people really hard. Well, think. Well, you're pushing them in the pool.

They're not ready. Sure. If you pull them along, they're reaching up to you and you're reaching back. You're pulling them. You're helping them. It's an assist. Yeah. And that's different.

Sure, sure. As you're working with your clients, I know you mentioned Kim Blanchard. Were there other mentors or people that you looked into in the self-development space that helped you grow along that path or was it just something that you picked up in your roles i think uh the people that that um i that really resonated with me i just finished bernie brown's most current book that daring dare to lead i keep saying daring greatly that's the other one dare to lead. I keep saying daring greatly. That's the old one. Dare to lead is her new one. Simon Sinek is somebody that has deeply resonated with me. And Dan Pink and his thoughts around motivation also just really hit home with me. Because they call out some of the things that are just disconnected in business.

So there's always this tension in business about long game versus short game. Yeah. And I think sometimes business leaders tell themselves a falsehood so they don't have to do the hard work. It's not easy to care for people. It's sort of like parenting they're not always going to love you when you're really doing what's what's in their best interest and i think business leaders tell themselves well you know i have to make this number in these three months or else

and that becomes the sort of the overriding excuse it can be this weird tangle of i'm doing what's great in the three months. However, these people may not, my team may not stay with me for a year, two years, three years. And I think we're seeing in the economy now that the labor market is so tight. This is where executive leaders in corporate America and everyone else starts to look up and think, I don't want to lose my good people. But I don't know that they always know what to do about that. Sure. You know, we, one of the things that we we've talked on, touched on multiple times in, uh, our conversations as it pertains to what I'm doing with the gym, the podcast, the book, culture comes up a lot. And the interconnectedness between my coaches and my staff,

Jeff and I on the show, comes up a lot in terms of what makes or breaks an organization. For people that don't readily understand how important that is. How do you bring that to the forefront? It depends on where they are, of course. I think a lot of people have a sense for culture. If I'm trying to get somebody in the mindset of best culture, best experience, experience is the popular word out

there now, creating a client experience and so on. It's tell me about your favorite company, brand, store, what have you, that is not the one you work at or that you own. And tell me what that feels like. What do you admire about? What do you like? What's your favorite story? Has it ever gone sideways? How did they fix it? That's culture. That's culture, how people experience. And there's plenty of, and then I use plenty of examples of my favorite companies

and how I know they've managed to both small and large, and I know how they've managed to keep their culture alive. And it's an ongoing process because sometimes, you know, you can have a team member, again, small business or large, that just has a bad day, and maybe your client customer member has one bad experience, but they know in the collection they've had mostly good experiences. And in those sorts of organizations, that's usually where the client will say to the person having a bad day, are you okay? Cause they know it's out of the norm. Right. I mean, I've, I've had that happen where I've been in a store that normally everyone's

very, and somebody's not like, are you all right? Right. Cause it's so outside. I know it's outside the culture. The other piece I know in a corporate world, I think what they're, what a lot of big, big corporations are, are fighting is I think they're searching for secret sauce that really doesn't exist. And it's,

um, it's a day to day fight by fight person by person kind of battle. And you know, there are some things that ail corporate corporate world. And when I'm working with corporate clients, a lot of times we have to be sensitive to, they live in the culture they live in and it might be an overarching good culture.

They still have to navigate some bureaucracies. Sure. The small business owners that I get to work with, I mean, it's, it's their baby, so they can just, they can do whatever they want. And that's a little bit different than navigating a corporate environment where there's some, a little bit more plate spinning going on. Who would you look at for yourself as like a company culture that you admire personally? Oh, my favorite companies, Costco, wholesale for sure.

Okay. When, you know, I've shared with most of the people that I work with, I admire Jim Senegal understanding how to put together a retail culture. Retail can be, it's a fast-paced business. If you've ever been inside a Costco, you know how busy they are. I've never been in a slow Costco.

Even if I walk in as they're opening the door, there's a ton of us to go in there, right? Trying to get out of there for under a hundred bucks, that sort of thing. Right. Uh, they are some of the highest paid employees in retail, which Jim Senegal, when he ran it, he is retired now, but he took all sorts of heat from Wall Street on your degrading shareholder value and so on and so forth. And I don't have the numbers off at the tip of my fingers. However, if you chart Costco stock compared to the S&P 500, you'll see that they know exactly what they're doing. And it goes deeper than that. It's not just paying their employees. I think all of us could go to our local Costco. I know there are people there that have been there for ever. And they have, they have degrees in all sorts of things. They love working at Costco. So

they remain a lot of times they have another profession, and they remain there. Costco's very good about their people. They also enjoy some of the lowest employee turnover, some of the lowest shrink or employee theft. Yeah. Because, you know, if you underpay people, they'll get it out of you one way or another.

That's my theory. So the other element is, Costco has this relationship with their customers, that when I go in there, I know if I see if I'm shopping for make something a GoPro for a kid for Christmas, and I see it there, I just buy it, I don't really need to shop any further, no one else is going to beat them and they stick to that and i recall reading a white paper that at costco if you are let's say you're the produce sales manager and your target is a 17 gross and you're tracking a 20. the rest of retail you're a hero because you're you're earning more at costco you need to go lower some prices and bring it back in line.

So they're focused on delivering value to their membership. So their membership never questions the value they deliver. It's a contract they have. So they get the employee part right. Their employees love working there. They treat their customers really, really well. The prices are correct. We talk a lot about, and there's several examples, working there. They treat their customers really, really well. The prices are correct. Uh, we talk

a lot about, um, and there's several examples of that's the, the dollar 50 Costco hot dog that started as just this promotion they ran one time and it's hugely popular with their members. Uh, and they lose money on it or they make very little, one of the two. They eventually had to buy their own. They used to do contracts through Hebrew National, then they just created their own hot dog plant because they couldn't keep up, and that's that little value piece.

Their executive business members are, or executive members are something like 30% of the members and 80% of the sales, something like that. Right. Some of that 80-20 rule coming into place. Sure, sure. We will go and we'll spend thousands of dollars a year, but dollars per year, don't take away my $1.50 hot dog. Right.

Right? It's the funny thing we do in business. And sometimes, if you're getting back to culture, we forget how it all comes together, and we get too micro. You know, we're like, hey, if somebody in some meeting somewhere disconnected from customers says, you know, we could just do away with that hot dog, and we make another whatever million dollars a year. And then all of a sudden, it really irritates the customers. And now all of a sudden, they're like, you know, maybe I should give Sam's dollars a year. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it really irritates the customers.

And now all of a sudden they're like, you know, maybe I should give Sam's club a try. Right. And that's, that's culture too. Sure. Is you never,

you never give your customers a reason to be unhappy and to try someone else. Once you've earned them, you want to, you want to earn every single time. I see that. That's so interesting that you mentioned that because it's, as you're going through it, it reminds me of what Amazon does because with their Amazon Prime service, they lose money every single year by getting that two-day free shipping.

But that's a cost that they're willing to eat for the value of their customers getting their stuff instantaneously pretty much. I mean, in Phoenix, you can get the stuff the same day. Same day, yeah. And a lot of people, it doesn't please shareholders potentially, but, you know, Bezos and Crew, like you said, they created the culture to where customers are first and everything else is second. And I think it's just, as you see companies growing Apple and ones like Costco, it's a top-down thing from the CEO down, and everybody just really resonates with them. You can tell people really live and breathe that identity, so to speak, even when they're in and out of the office. Yes. So it's interesting that you say that.

Yeah. I also noticed that companies and organizations in general that have a really great culture, they usually have an owner or executive who has some humility about who they are and their role. They understand it really isn't all about them. They're not so hierarchical. Sure. I mean, they have a responsibility. The larger the company, the bigger the responsibility, of course. That said, it's not a, it's not,

they don't expect team members who aren't their rank to bend the knee if you like Game of Thrones. Bend the knee. I know exactly what you're talking about. The humility thing is extremely interesting to me because one of the things that you've helped me overcome is

finding my voice out in the world in terms of being too humble, holding things close to the vest, and not putting myself out there enough for fear of leaving people behind or potential envy or jealousy or people losing track of the mission of the organization for me pursuing other personal and professional efforts. And in the aftermath of the interviews you did with my coaches, it's the exact opposite. If I do, what we found was if I go and do those things, write the book,

you know, take Feed Me, Fuel Me to the next level, all of those things, it will empower them to do the same so we're all growing together. And CrossFit PHX benefits in its entirety. But, you know, if you're at the top of your organization, you don't, you feel almost, I know for speaking personally, you feel braggadocious talking about all those other efforts that, you know, seem very personal to you, but they're in the long game, you know, part of the big picture. So how do you get somebody to understand the difference between, uh, being too humble and, and on the other side of that braggadocious or eliminate the perception of both? Right. It's getting to the heart of, is that, is that something you believe or is that something somebody has told you?

So if our conversation is, well, I don't want to ask Caitlin, I don't ask Caitlin to do one more thing. Well, did you ask Caitlin if she wants to do that? Is that a task, effort, project that Caitlin would enjoy? Maybe. Maybe we should let Caitlin decide what Caitlin wants to do. And it's that disconnecting of and it depends. Leaders come up with a couple of everything is it's the rescuer piece.

Our jobs as leaders is just like it is as parents is not to protect. It is in some right. We want to create a safe environment that that doesn't mean that we wrap the kids in bubble wrap and wait until they graduate from high school. Right. Because it doesn't get easier after that either anyway. But in leadership, it's the same way of walking through people

through finding their own awareness of what do you believe and is that, especially when it comes to, well, my team thinks X. Does your team think that? Did they tell you that? And that's where the connections come in. It's getting to the heart of are you preserving them from something that actually isn't true in the first place? And then is that keeping you from a success?

Right. So it sounds like you're sort of uncovering projections and stories at that point. Right. That could be valid or could be false. Right. But just trying to get to those different layers. That's interesting. Yeah.

And it's also getting to every single client has some big goal for their business and themselves that they've set. It usually comes with some sort of quantifiable dollar figure, sales, customers, patients, bonuses, stock price, something that we can measure. And then we take a look at, again, it's old financial planning skills of, well, where are you now? What behaviors did you practice last year that got you this far? If you're going to do that exact same thing, if last year was a 10% increase and you're going to do the exact same thing and you want a 25% increase, that math won't work. There has to be something new, and that's where we start to dig and uncover. Where are your blocks?

Where are your blocks? Are you working in your business or on your business? I'm pretty sure it's dynamic from client to client. Completely. From a list of prioritization, what, in your mind, do you see as the most, I guess, common priority should be the top of the list and go down sequentially. Like is it culture first? Is it finances first?

Or, you know, how does it work when you're working with a client that's starting a small business, for instance? Well, and starting a business is different than being at an inflection point where you're hitting significant change in a business. Yeah. So those are different questions, too. A lot of it is, number one is, where are you right now? So you just take the as-is process first. Yeah, where are you right now? First, it's the triage.

Are you hurt? Are you injured? Are you damaged? First and foremost. And if there is a team, then it's and where's the team? What's the team inventory? Okay. Then we can start to uncover where do you want to be?

That's the future piece. And then we build the bridge between the two. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, because coming from the consulting world, that makes sense. Right. Because it's a blueprinting process that you go through. Like you mentioned, you take the as-is process, you define the to-be process. Mm-hmm.

You say you bridge the gap to get to that point, whatever it takes, development, whatever it may be. Right. And the part that, it's always, it's the heart part. Mm-hmm. It's not the numbers. It's not the numbers it's never the numbers it's always the heart because that's um they're really the big leaders again they want to bring the whole team with them and it's uh it's really important that they understand so a lot of the

work that i've done with several clients is acknowledging, acknowledging what they're good at. I'm a, I usually like to argue with people that say my best lessons came from my biggest failures. That's why, yes, the reason they recall that is because it was painful. And then they forget some of the big successes. And for each of my leaders is tell me about your, your most amazing success. Why? And, and there's that first, it's almost a false humility of, Oh, well, it just sort of, it just happened. No, it didn't just happen. It was not accidental. Right? And usually there's that piece of if I ever hear somebody say, oh, well, Jeff's so lucky.

No, you didn't see all the late nights or early mornings or plans or near misses or complete misses, et cetera. So it's as important to know why you had a success as why you had a failure like what what was it was it really a failure did you why did you miss but why did you hit as well and then sharing that piece sharing that with your team yeah i there's a lot of conversation with leaders around celebrating success because it's something that's very easy to gloss over. Well, that was my team. Yeah, we are moving on to the bigger things now.

And what I know is teens at each level in a corporation or in a small business, either one, they want to see their leader celebrate because they're rooting for their leader too they they have a lot of what they a lot of their gratification is they participated and they're happy to participate they want to know that um that they came through for for their guy or gal that they succeeded the. The leader's success is also the team's success. And they want to know that the leader knows that. How do you build that muscle for the, where somebody celebrates that success? You know, because if you're not doing it often,

like a quarterly basis, or you just tend to gloss over it if you're not setting those milestones. So how do you set that up to where somebody builds that in their framework? It's different for everybody. Okay. It just depends on their personality. For, and their homework will change. Sometimes I'll ask them to journal a little bit about that. Sometimes I'll ask them if I know, if I know there's an event coming up where I know they're going to get approached and thanked, there'll be a little homework regarding that i'll tell them that

their homework assignment is they may only say one thing and one thing only whenever somebody expresses gratitude and that is he got you he got me with that shit we we had a a deal at the gym and uh you know we were now we're deep in the process with this organizational development piece. And he's like, okay. You've already expressed that when you have these group outings with the gym, you stand back, you watch, you observe, you see all the amazing things that have been created as a byproduct of CrossFit PHX. Now when somebody expresses their gratitude for what you've created,

number one, you take responsibility for what you created because I have a habit of passing that off. Like you were saying, glossing over it and spread loading that across the coaches and you know, the members for being so cohesive and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, you're only the members for being so cohesive and blah, blah, blah. And he's like,

you're only allowed to say thank you. And I cannot tell you how monumental a task that was for me. Super hard. And one of the things that Ken has expressed in our sessions is, you know, that, that, that thing doesn't, doesn't just exist in, in me. Uh, the going back to what you're talking about, uh, celebrating success is like, it's got in the top three things of challenges that leaders have because they just don't, you know, and, uh, for why I don't know. Um, but you're, oh, you're so, you know, nose to the grind that, you know, and for why, I don't know. But you're oh, you're so, you know, nose to the grind that, you know, as these successes come up, they've gone and passed you by before you realize, like how awesome that was or, you know, really taking

the time to bask in how monumental that success really was. So I appreciate tasks like that because what I got from that was like, oh, like, not using that knee-jerk reaction to gloss over it or pass it down to somebody else, pass the buck of gratitude, if you will, really gave me an opportunity

to truly enjoy the success of what I've created, you know? So I, I totally resonate with that. Yeah. And it honors and respects the people that are, that if, if somebody is coming to you and expressing gratitude to deflect,

that is to dishonor, disrespect them to respect it and say, thank you. It, it honors who they are. It honors what they're expressing. So it's another, it's a reciprocal appreciation. Thank you is the proper reciprocation. Interesting. That seems two words at the hardest damn thing to say. It's crazy. That's nuts. Um, but you know, backtracking just a little bit,

would you say that it's fair to say for every big goal, there is look back on it in hindsight, there was always this limiting belief. Or this big looming question that I was afraid to answer. Is my staff really on board with where I want the gym to go? I'm not going to ask that because I'm afraid of the answer, you know is is that dynamic present and is that Hurdle required to get over at as you move from one level to the next well, that's self-awareness That's that's the whole element of what got you here won't get you there. That's true of business owners at a five or a ten year mark where you hit the exponential growth mark. It's true in the corporate environment where leaders are asked to take bigger roles, bigger spans, new businesses, new teams.

Your track record showed a stream of success. that doesn't mean you get to repeat it so uh for instance a lot of times people they i think they convolute experience and talent say oh well jeff here has 20 years of experience said a different way does he have 20 years of experience or a year of experience you repeat it 20 times because those are two totally different people right and uh it's it's looking for um dr miller talks about this what story do you have you told yourself so far and are you willing to be wrong about that story and it's getting to the heart of uh for instance um it's some someone, it's like a Simon Siner, because it talks about making those transitions up, especially if you came out of an individual contributor role where you controlled the widgets. And then now you're supervising the people.

So what do you know how to do? Control widgets so you tell them how to do their job. But that's actually not leadership. So, uh, there's, there's some broken stuff in there too, about how you, um, how we're taught to lead or not lead like through we there it's, it's, um, there's a paradox that I can control the more that I control, try to exert myself on someone else. I can control the outcome, but that's not leadership and and you don't get the magic that is people people will people by and large will absolutely astound you with how amazing they are if you let them if you let them and and that's the hardest part is there has to be some um there has to be some room in there. So one of the big hurdles is those artificial timeframes that we can sometimes set up. And my mom used to talk us through whenever I was getting impatient. Uh, and I'm the fourth child. So mom has a whole bunch of stuff saved up by the

time I came along and she, if I was impatient about something, she would often ask me, is this, um, are you fighting the baby? Because, you know, it takes nine months to make a baby. Assigning nine women doesn't get you the baby in a month. And it was a way to force us to think, am I, am I certainly something artificial onto the timeframe? Sometimes it takes the time it takes. It's, it's the same thing of, well, how long does it take you to get a leader to an awareness? Sometimes never, sometimes five seconds because all people learn in their own time. So there can be, um, and you know, Jim, the Jim environment is a great metaphor for building, you know, building the physical skill compared to leadership skill.

I attempted double unders for five years, and then it clicked in my brain that I could do them. It took the time it took. It goes along with there's a Chinese proverb, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now. So not getting artificial timeframes I think that's one of the most significant hurdles that leaders face because they're in a hurry mm-hmm and then

there's sort of a rehash of wish I'd done this sooner I wish I understood that sooner I wish I'd put those pieces together sooner. Well, you didn't. So you have to keep it. Does that go with that? The same falsehood that I watched a lot of people, uh, at the onset of their business, the trap that they fall into is they compare where they are right now to the, the avatar they're chasing, right? With, and forget the fact that you know whoever they're chasing is running their race at the five-year mark and you're at day one you're not gonna you know is it realistic with the resources that you have to be doing five-year stuff on day one well if the answer is no then it's not it's not saying you should lower your expectations but be realistic with those expectations yeah comparison's always dangerous because

we only see the surface it's the iceberg metaphor we don't know the battle that that person fought or is fighting. We don't know. It's the same, you know, there are several CEOs that are my age. I'm not a CEO. Are they better than I am? They had a totally different track. I mean, there are people that have been in the exact same company since they got out of college.

When we got out of college, they went to one company and now they're CEO. Maybe that was their track. I don't know. It wasn't my journey. So everybody's on just a really different journey. The other piece that I like to get to the heart of is separating the vehicle from the message or mission or purpose. Those are two different things.

A library on that. So I had a, what an exec I used to work with, she made a comment that she said, you know, you've always been so passionate about financial planning. Financial planning was a vehicle. My passion is human connection. I don't need to work in in financial planning or something

else to focus on the building human connections and how important that is so the metaphor would be you know mom's coming for a visit mom's the mission the purpose the message she drove the Toyota I was hoping she'd drive the Ford that's the vehicle you don't care how they got there. You care what's in it. That's the more important piece. So it's digging with every single business leader. What is your mission, passion, purpose? What do you care about?

What do you hope to accomplish? And the actual vehicle, whether it's a CrossFit box or any corporation, that's not nearly as important as people understanding their why, is what Simon would say. How do you structure timeline within somebody's framework? Because I'm thinking of the example I have is Peter Thiel. Started PayPal with Elon and those guys. And he said, take your 10-year vision and you have it, you know, you get clear,

granular with it. Now condense that 10-year vision and execute on that in six months. And that's how you go zero to one and you create something exceptional.

So how do, like, from a guy with a startup mind like that and a business owner who wants to essentially replicate what he's done

or somebody who's just like, like, I guess, like a stoic, like a monk where they're like, my timeline's a thousand years. I want the monastery to live a thousand years past my lifetime. How do you structure in timelines for people? It's, it's still the same of where are

you now? What did the last year look like? Like what were the behaviors? I focus on the behaviors. What did you do think, say over the last year to get where you are? And now you want a 4X in the next year, or you want to launch the hockey puck graph that every corporate leader is familiar with, every banker is familiar with of, oh, no, we may have a dip, but then we're going to grow. What does that take? What's the jet fuel that's going to

make that happen? It's literally getting into what has to happen on every hour of every day in order to make that happen in terms of cadence of how I work. Uh, and I know all coaches are different in their, in their frequency. I work on a weekly basis. I meet with my clients on a weekly basis. And then there's, you know, drop-ins and other sorts of things that go on behind the scenes, other interactions that can happen. But in terms of our interaction, it's one hour, once a week, all in. And, uh, what I'm told is that helps people. That's just enough. Like if it was every two weeks they might drift so that keeps us going the goal is to create some new habits that get to that wildly important goal the covey wig if you will so whether you're one of those people that's hey i'm going to be a

millionaire in a year great was last year last year, what did you do? Did you become a millionaire? No. Are you going to do the exact same thing this year? Because you're still not going to be a millionaire. Everything you need to know about that process is covered in the 12 steps. That's the definition of insanity. It's just not going to happen.

Interesting. Because do you think long extended timelines, say like a five-year timeline, for instance, is an excuse to delay success or a goal? Because say you take that five-year timeline and I think, I believe it's called Parkinson's law. You know, you have two weeks to finish a term paper. We delay all the way until the last second and then miraculously in 24 hours, we finish that term paper, right? So the amount of time you give yourself Could actually be crunched down into a shorter time period to achieve that level or that goal of success

Do you think there's too long of a timeline for things or do you just it just is a case-by-case basis? Does that sort of make sense? It does I think I don't think it's a five-year plan. I think it's a five-year vision Okay, I think that's a vision and and it doesn't matter whether you're a small business or whether you're a corporate leader, you have to directionally know, you know, in five years we want we intend to. What do you intend to do? Because you're leading other people that that are not that, you know, you have frontline employees,

whether you have four of them or 400,000 of them, it doesn't matter. You have a lot of people who like to know organizationally where are we going. Part of the reason for a five-year vision is to bring people in, and people stay with organizations they feel part of. If you have no idea of, yeah, we're going to be on rocket fuel for the next year, that's not a motivator for necessarily your entire team. Five-year visions are about motivating everybody. So what I do with the leader is also, hey, who are you going to bring along? Who do you want to be along? And I know most leaders are not comfortable with the conversation of you need to know that not everybody is going to take the whole journey with you.

Their lives will change. Their wants will change. And letting go and leaning into that, if you will, and just supporting that and then being ready, like always keeping the bench full of really good people that are interested in being part of what you have that's the purpose of the vision ah and if somebody is like explaining a client explaining their vision or plan or purpose to you how how do you or do you do this where you listen to the the subtle soft talk or negative words that they say that they don't understand that they're saying how How do you pick that apart and you stop them at that point and say,

that's a negative thought, that's a soft talk. Are you going to follow through with this action? Because going through that vocabulary course, you find yourself talking to yourself every day and you're like, I can't do, hold up, I can do that. Well, and so the sentence you just said is you find yourself well actually the sentence is i find myself it's owning your own so that's one right there okay for you it's it's owning i so uh a lot of people will project out you know how some people you think this and you think that well no i'm i'm expressing myself, so it's mine and I own it.

So that's the first piece is projections, right? I listen to what they're saying and I ask a lot of questions. I also listen to what they don't say. So, for instance, in my financial planning world and life, it became really important to hear a lot of times people would talk about markets and business and economy. They didn't care about any of that. That was just the easy stuff, the head stuff that's easy to talk about. And then we'd get down to the favorite questions. What are you afraid of? Like, what are you afraid of? And that's where, that's where you get the

really good stuff. And the business owners, there's no difference. What are you afraid of? I'm afraid if something happens to me, my spouse doesn't want this business, now we start to get to the heart of things. So I'm always listening for, I'm looking for the void. I'm looking for what they're not telling me. I'm looking for who they haven't mentioned on the team,

those sorts of things. I'm looking for what's not there and the word choices they use. Interesting. And then we'll, uh, we just build on that from there. Yeah. See where it goes. It takes a lot of no dissection and working with somebody to figure that out, especially somebody's personality traits. That's pretty interesting. Well, and, um, a lot of people in business have already done some work on either its disc or Wealth Dynamics or Colby Index or Myers Briggs. So they have something in there and or Gallup Strengths is another popular one. So they have something. And that's what I look for as well is what have you done so far? Let's talk about that. What does

that mean to you? Uh, and then it's, it's what are your strengths and who's helping you with the things you either don't like or don't want to do. Right. There's, um, some people believe in trying to work on the weaknesses, uh, Clifton and StrengthsFinder that Gallup is the owner of, that was their whole, the whole premise was if you really unleash someone on their strengths and don't tell, you know, don't focus on, hey, you hate to do these things, let's get you better at them. Why don't we just focus on the things they're really, really naturally good at?

Right, because exponential growth if you work on your strengths, whether than minimal gain over a short term with the weaknesses. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, there's people that are very good quick starters and love to create and generate new ideas. And there's other people that love the analytical. But you need both of those if you're going to be successful in business. Interesting.

So what inspired you to start your business after being in the path you were following for so long? What was that catalyst that made you start your business? Well, it's been in the back of my mind for quite a long time. It was taking a good hard look at what aspects

of all of my leadership roles did I enjoy? And it really always came down to the one-on-one time I had with the leaders that reported to me, all of my leadership roles that I enjoy and it really always came down to the one-on-one time I had with the leaders that reported to me the development when they they let go and trusted their own instincts made their decisions good bad or indifferent learned from it and kept going and got to see results that come out of that lasting results that come out of that. So, um, I've been fortunate and part of it was, you know, as I left my firm, um, I also had quite a few leaders that wrote to me afterwards that told me,

uh, that, that shared with me what it meant to work with me. So I thought that's, that's gratifying that they had, they felt so much success in that environment. And I thought I can keep creating that, right? I can help others do that. That's dope. Have you ever heard the, the saying that if, if when you, if you're trying to figure out what to do as an entrepreneur to start a business you know you should probably just listen to what people tell you you're good at and pursue that instead of you know trying to create something out of thin air right you know I that's how the gym how CrossFit phx came to be you know I you know, one too many people tell

me I should start my own thing. And then when the opportunity came my way, you know, it was like, it was the obvious choice, you know, is that, is that kind of the, the, the same thing that occurred to you? Yeah, it was, you know, it was interesting at first it first it was, as I was leaving one firm, recruiters were coming after, and I was entertaining that at first. And at the same time, people that were close to me were like, you should just start your own thing. It was almost some of the 5 o'clock crew from PHX, oh, you should just get that Ken Kilday brand out there.

And I'm like, what are you talking about? I don't even know what you mean. I kind of knew what they meant, but I't ready to and and i did take time after i left the firm i was talking to recruiters and doing some of that work and at the same time i was just giving my brain time to relax and uh get a little emdr in there there you go just see what bubbles up and then it was you know uh the the kind of conversations i was having for the roles that that were coming that were coming up it wasn't really sparking anything and i listened to um ketan ketan ketan i was listening to that podcast and he said you know uh i just left one firm and I needed to pay a mortgage.

And so I just started my own thing. I thought I could just start something and kind of see what's going on until or unless something else comes along. So I started to do my research, talk to people who used to report to me. I built my website, which was this great 90-minute tutorial that took me a week to watch. That's what I do. Those sorts of things. That's how it all came together. So I know for some people it feels like, or they'll tell me, oh, well, you know, you did that fast.

Like, well, it's probably been in the back of my head. It has been in the back of my head for a long time. So it really wasn't that fast. It was, um, it came to fruition when it became, um, rather than the back of my mind at the front of my mind, and then it became a focus and then I got it done like most things. Yeah, sure. Right. We, when we focus, when I focus, I bring it to, to fruition. That's awesome. So from what I hear, I know you're amazing at helping others. Who do you have help you grow as you continue to, you know, develop in your life, develop your business and everything you go? Well, one is my husband of 20, almost 22 years. He is, he is by far, if I'm the creative outgoing one, he is the logical, practical person by far. And, uh, from the beginning he'll, you know, as anyone

who's started something, there's all sorts of, for me, there was a lot of hand-wringing. I've heard others say the exact same thing of, you know, what if I is sort of the, what if I open the doors and no one comes? Like, what if I turn the open sign on and nobody comes in the door yeah uh which didn't happen and again mark was just well we'll just see what happens again that logical love it will or it won't and um you're doing great just keep going so i i have him uh you know i have him look at a lot of he comes with very fresh eyes. He's in a completely different industry. He thinks completely differently. His strengths are compliments to mine.

So that becomes super important. The support network is super important to me or anyone else who wants to be successful. But also, you know, my morning crew. Switching out of going from having a paycheck to making it happen. That takes a lot of support, too. So that was my other community. Showing up at 5 a.m. every day and being with the same people that supported me all the way through. That's super important. Oh, man.

That's super important. Oh, man. That's really, because it makes a lot of sense because if you don't have the structures or the support system in place, you're just sitting in your head. And I don't know who said it, but they said 81% of the thoughts or the self-talk you have in your mind is mostly negative throughout the day. Right. So putting in systems where you're talking to yourself positively, it's very important. Right. You're listening to this good stuff, so good stuff comes back stuff comes back out yeah that's cool to have that yeah and i i mean i have a huge network of friends family that that support that my that are my fan base and i found out who that was as i left my last firm, there was a period where, I mean, I wasn't launching anything.

So on any given day, I'd have somebody reach out to me and check on me, that sort of thing. And that meant all the world. And sometimes people I didn't expect to check on me would check. So I think we all end up having a bigger support network than we realize until we're going through a transition. Sure. And, and then all of a sudden a lot of people show up big. Um, and sometimes it's a reflection of, uh, and I had people tell me, um,

cause I, I thank them for showing up. They're like, you always have. Oh, well that, that was really heartwarming to hear. That was a,

well, thank you. And, uh, so it was a, it was a great awareness period of time. But yeah, I have a huge support network. But it starts at home. I mean, first and foremost, it's the person I go home to every single night. Yeah.

That's great, man. What are, at this point, what are the, what's like the biggest surprise, good or bad, that's occurred since you started New Tough Leader, since you've been full in with New Tough Leader? What's the thing that you didn't see coming? You know, I thought I would pull more clients quicker from financial services because that's where I've been for 18 years. And it's more like 50-50 of just other contacts that are in other businesses and small business owners and corporate clients. So I thought it would lean corporate. It didn't.

Which I thought was, which has been very interesting and cool for me yeah who do you do you think that you experience the same kind of problems minus the the bureaucracy and the structure of corporate in terms of like the identity and the storytelling uh first in your entrepreneurs versus your your corporate folks you yes, you all have the same. Mm hmm. Yeah. You're all leading the same way. There's there's always the there's a drive for all of you entrepreneurs and and corporate execs as well.

You want to do more, better, faster. And and sometimes the toughest parts are always hardest on yourselves. So there's a lot of work around, now hold on. Because it comes back to you have to put your own oxygen mask on first. If you don't do that, you cannot help the person next to you that needs assistance. You must take care of yourself first. So that's a common conversation. But yeah, the biggest surprise is just where the clients came from, where they are coming from. Yeah. How do you define your vision at this point

for yourself and your company? So the way I would short brand myself is I work with business leaders, business owners, and corporate executives who are at an inflection point, meaning a period of change for themselves that they've identified they want to achieve something big and they need a little guidance on it. And the best, unfortunately, sports metaphors work really well. CrossFit metaphors work really well. Teams that are highly successful,

generally speaking, don't have... Teams that are highly successful also have a good coach who is highly invested. In fact, there are, especially at the college level, you can see coaches can go anywhere, and they just keep winning. Different teams, different players, they keep winning. And invariably, there's these great stories from players

of that coach has taken a personal interest in every single one of those people, every single one of those men or women, and they have helped them and guided them and moved them. And so that's why I do put on a professional level, not a sports level. So, um, you know, in corporate America, they get a little twisted because if you look in the sports world generally speaking if you have too many losing seasons the coach goes right in corporate America too many losing the players keep changing yeah that's not the problem mmm that makes a lot of sense so do you see yourself expanding beyond personal coaching do you see yourself stepping on stages and you know sending your message to

the masses or how do you want to? Yeah, I, uh, I hold myself out as a keynote speaker as well. So I'm having a couple of those conversations talking about, um, I'm talking to a couple of companies about their leadership messages. What are they trying to convey to their team and, and getting on stages. So I did that in my past role where I was Giving a vision that sort of thing Talking about where we were where we're going painting a picture and that sort of thing. So where do I see myself going is? Ultimately getting that getting that out. I am I am happy if I can get in front of a group and connect with someone in some way that shows them that what they're thinking is valid, that it's okay to care as a leader, that that's actually what will get you the biggest successes is why I would want to get on stages and be very public about it so that I can be present for somebody that I don't know that, uh, needs somebody that thinks just like

they do to affirm that they're, they're on the right track. That's awesome. You're going to do it, brother. I already know it. Yeah. That's awesome. Before we let you get out of here today, I'm going to ask you two questions. You know what they are because you listen every Thursday. First is what do you do each and every day to feed yourself and kickstart the motivation that you carry out your career with? And the second of which is what do you do each and every day to fuel yourself to create that sustainable momentum over the longterm. Yeah. Feed, uh, to feed myself every single day. I go to the gym that, um, and it does, the gym does two things for me. Um, one is something that, uh, I, I named cause coach Nathan just talked about this years ago. And that is, um, I set the tone for my day in the gym, right? The effort that I make, the focus that I have,

that sets the tone for my day. And the other pieces from Coach Teddy, also from that same period, and that's the mental toughness that comes from working out. That really, when I'm missing a lift and that sort of thing, it has more to do with what's between my ears than what's going on with my physical body.

That my physical body is not going to give out. It's what I'm telling myself. For me, that working out in the morning is to develop some of that physical toughness for the day. To fuel myself, I focus a lot on gratitude.

Either I'm journaling, what Graham would say is counting my blessings. I'm somewhere in there journaling or if somebody that I haven't interacted with in some time comes to mind and I think of something

that was really important that I'm thankful for, then I reach out to them and tell them that. Nice. And where can everybody in this community go follow you and support you and your company?

Yeah, best way is at my website. So kenkilde.com or newtoughleader.com. It gets you to the exact same place. All the other social media links from there and all the information and all of my contact information is also there. Dope, Ken. Appreciate you, my man. Thank you.

Everybody out there in Feed Me, Fuel Me land, if you're in need of a coach, if you need to get out of your own way, Ken and the new tough leader are most definitely a resource for you. Um, wherever you're at in the country, listening to this podcast, uh, he's a universal resource for you. Um, you do a lot of remote stuff, um, and remote stuff and we'll travel for coaching as I understand it. So, you know, celebrate everything that Ken is doing

with the launch of New Tough Leader and wish you nothing but the best of success, man. You've definitely helped me to get to the next level and I know that you can help a ton of other people as well.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, brother. All right. Until next time, guys. Feed me, fuel me. And that'll do it for this episode with our special guest, Ken Kilday. If you want to check out everything that Ken has going, please go to the full show notes on shrug collective.com.

Also be sure to connect with us on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at feed me, fuel me. We would love to connect with each on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Feed Me, Fuel Me. We would love to connect with each and every one of you. If you found this episode inspiring in any way, please leave a rating and a comment in iTunes so we can continue on this journey together. Also, be sure to share this episode with your friends and family on social media. We really appreciate you spending your time with us today and allowing us to join you on your journey.

We would love to hear your feedback on this episode, as well as guests and topics for future episodes. To end this episode, we would like to leave you with a quote from Ray Kroc. The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves. Thank you again for joining us, and we will catch you on the next episode. you