Latest / Real STRength with Sarah Draper / Your Future Self Is About Who You Become With Chris Kolenda | #17

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Your Future Self Is About Who You Become With Chris Kolenda | #17 · Real STRength with Sarah Draper

• speaker-0: Uncertainty creates fear. People are always looking to you for how do I solve this problem? I don't have time to do all of this nice-to-do stuff. You become a people pleaser on steroids. Your future self is not about your what necessarily. It's more about your who. speaker-1: Welcome to the Future Walk Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Drapert. Each week on the podcast, I explore tools to help you lead your best now and into the future, and I talk with top leaders to see how they stay focused when life gets cluttered. It's time to stop reacting to your life and start leading it. Welcome to Future Walk. The Future Walk Podcast. I'm Sarah Draper and I'm so glad you're here. Today I'm joined by Chris Kalenda. He's a retired U.S. Army colonel, a combat commander, PhD, an award-winning author, and the founder of Chris Kalenda Academy. And I have learned so much from his perspective and his leadership strategy over the past couple of years. I subscribe personally to quite a few different weekly newsletters, and Chris's is one of probably three, if not two, that I deliberately intentionally read every single time it comes out. And I have to resist the urge practically every time I read one of his newsletters to reach out to Chris and say, another great one, thank you. So his work is just deeply impactful for me and very profound and it's based upon this incredible background and experience he's had. And his background to leadership development is really, really unique. He is the only American to have both fought the Taliban as a combat commander in Afghanistan and then negotiated with them in peace talks. He advised four star generals and secretaries of defense on strategy and leadership. And he also, at a very personal human level, he carries the weight of six paratroopers from his unit who were killed in action. So today, Chris helps CEOs and senior leaders move from success to significance and breaks something that he calls the dependency trap, which we're going to get into. This is this number one productivity killer for leaders. And his position is that strong leaders often unintentionally create dependency because being helpful feels good, feels productive. But that hero mentality is actually a tax on an organizational growth and that leader's well-being. He also describes himself as a recovering servant leader and something I've realized about myself as well. So we're gonna explore what that means and why. I think Kurtz and I, our backgrounds way back from the beginning, are very similar with our upbringing at West Point. ⁓ so maybe that has something to do with it going on into the army, or maybe it was something that was in us before we joined. Nonetheless, we're gonna dig into that. Servant leadership, what can sometimes be a trap with that? We'll also talk about how warrior diplomacy translates to the private sector and how he stays aligned with his burning heart while carrying the weight of combat leadership. So, Chris, thank you so much for being here. It's really, really, really good to see you. speaker-0: ⁓ thank you so much for having me, sir, and thank you for that kind intro. That was that was really extraordinary. speaker-1: Well, you have an extraordinary background, which makes you so well suited for what you do now. ⁓ I would love it if if we could start with talking about some of that background, like how you know, in the intro we talked about how you're the only American to have both fought the Taliban as a combat commander and then later negotiated with them. How you've brought this like warrior diplomat background into what you do now, which is helping CEOs, helping leaders. And beyond, you know, outside the combat arena, helping to scale, helping people grow, but also at the individual level, helping individual leaders be their best despite everything that's pulling them in many directions. speaker-0: Yeah, thank you. ⁓ I got interested I've always been interested in leadership, ever really ever since West Point or even before the Academy. And and ⁓ part of my background is I I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska as a very skinny and awkward teenager. So I think I wrestled at the eighty-two pound weight class. in eighth grade and the eighty nine pound weight class in ninth grade. And being skinny and being awkward makes you a target for creeps and bullies. And I got both of that. and it By the time I got to be a junior in high school, I I I grew and was no longer the same target. And I made a commitment to myself that number one, I don't ever want to feel that way again or be in that position ever again. number two, that I want to make sure that the people I'm associated with never feel like that. And and then what really attracts me into the working with leaders now is I can work with I get to work with other leaders who want to make sure that nobody ever feels like that. And instead they feel like they are valued and they are contributing something of value to something important to them. So that's my that's that's the origin of my passion. speaker-1: I love that. So you bring up this idea of being valued as a human being, being valued for, I assume your strengths, your contributions, your gifts, your three big things are leadership, culture, and strategy. To me, it makes great sense to have those be priorities and focus points in the military or government environment. Do you find that same connection when you are working with private sector companies, or is that a harder, a harder thing to ⁓ help people understand? speaker-0: The the same things are vital because ultimately what strategy provides is direction. What culture provides is is alignment. And what leadership provides is is good judgment and and action. And and so one of the things I I noticed in the military, and it's the same in the private sector today, is there there are lots of books that lay out principles that sound great. tell you to do this instead of that and evolve from here to there and and all of that's all of that's good and all of it's all of it's fine and wonderful. The question is how do you actually get there from here to there safely? So here's one example. If I could draw my little white speaker-1: Okay, so Chris is very good at his visual models and I love these things. These go yes, please draw and and it's very helpful. And on the ground, we're gonna get to the on the ground work too. How you structuring with people. speaker-0: When I mean we're in a we're in a time of great volatility and uncertainty. You've got you've got AI, you've got social disruption, you've got wars, you've got economic challenges, ⁓ alliances falling apart, great power rival, all of this stuff that is creating massive amounts of uncertainty. And Uncertainty creates fear. And the first thing that we want to do in time of fear is is create safety. And we tend to see safety as control. So the more that we can control it, the safer I'm gonna feel because I'm I'm less vulnerable to other people's bad decisions. So when you look at back at ⁓ the COVID pandemic, for instance, what did what did businesses do? Hunker down. speaker-1: Yeah. Uh-huh. speaker-0: Tightened the reins, tightened information, and and became very detailed. So ⁓ very detailed in their control. Mm-hmm. And the the challenge, of course, with that is the more you detail control of things like ⁓ decisions and actions, the less autonomy people have, the less people are able to exercise their initiative, the slower you get, you create massive leader dependency. Because people are always looking to you like like birds waiting for their mom to you know to feed them. People are always looking to you for how do I solve this problem? How do I make this decision? How do I how do what do I do next, boss? ⁓ and and so over time you can try all the productivity ta hacks that you want, productivity hacks that you want, but over time you're gonna create slow, cumbersome dependency. And and it becomes a huge organizational killer. The opposite of detailed control is what I call directive control. So directive control says that ⁓ I'm gonna be in control of I'm gonna be in control of direction. So those are things like ⁓ priorities and purpose, ⁓ so P and P standards, and boundaries. and I'm going to decentralize decision making. I'm gonna essentially decentralize the how. So this is directive control is about is about the what and the why. And you decentralize the how, empower people to make decisions to solve problems. ⁓ you to innovate to try new things. You see organizations that do this really well. Netflix is a great example, where they they give their trim employees tremendous latitude ⁓ to to make decisions that over the control of their work, the standards and the purpose and direction of the company are the same. Toyo is another great example. Toyo's got very clear standards when it comes to quality ⁓ ⁓ what happens on the on the production line their process that they they encourage people to pull the lever if they see something amiss. ⁓ Toy is one of the best auto companies, arguably the most successful auto company on the planet. ⁓ So you've got some great examples of this and and the power of it when you can make it work. The challenges speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Well, how do I get? So, okay, I understand detailed control has bad consequences. Sears is a great example where they tried to control way too much in the face of ⁓ threats from Walmart and Amazon. And ultimately they were too slow and unresponsive, and boom, out of business. Blockbuster, out of business. Same kind of problem. So intellectually we get, yes, direct detailed is better than directive. ⁓ but how do I get here? How do I make that move without creating chaos? Right. Because if I empower people who aren't aligned, who are misdirected, who aren't don't have the capacity, then what I've done is I've just unleashed I've just unleashed chaos, and now we're almost enemy. So ⁓ I've developed a system, it's related to leadership culture and strategy. ⁓ called the three discipline leadership system. So it's a Venn diagram, it looks like this. ⁓ the three discipline leadership system, which gives you a safe, effective, deliberate way to get from detailed control, you know, or dependency into a situation where you've got directive control, where now you've got team-powered momentum that ⁓ that enables you to you know to grow and thrive as a business. speaker-1: What are those three disciplines? speaker-0: those three disciplines, love that question. Those three disciplines are strategic foresight. So how do we put people in ⁓ positions where they always find they're gonna be successful? So we're able to recognize patterns, we're able to put together simple strategies that are ex executable, and ⁓ we develop the the ability among people to ⁓ to think proactively. So you're shaping a future rather than reacting to the past. The next one is called empowering oversight. and it it's it's ⁓ its analog is is culture. And empowering oversight is all about working with leaders to go from a situation where they feel like they're micromanaging to make sure everything goes perfectly, into they're igniting people's ingenuity and knowing that people's initiative is gonna always move in the right direction because of. Those values and those standards and those boundaries that everybody has understands. And then third is courageous insight, analog to leadership, where ⁓ it it's a combination of where leaders go from cautious hesitation to decisive action. So Leaders are voting with their time, talent, and energy in places, times, and in manners which it matters most. ⁓ they're using, they've got the judgment to make sound decisions. And ⁓ they're able to translate decision into action very quickly. So those are the three disciplines, and there are what ⁓ what I call accelerators, so three accelerators for each one that give you the ⁓ This essentially the step by step process using visual models like this, so that you can you can make all of that happen. ⁓ the military is great about using visual models. And the beauty of it is that you everybody sees the big picture, everybody knows where they are supposed to be within that picture. speaker-1: Right. Yeah. speaker-0: They know where they're supposed to be in relation to everybody else. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And so they know how to adjust. It's the same reason why sports teams use visual models, right? Play X's and O's. So this is very similar. Essentially the X's and O's for how you do those so called soft skills that are really, really hard. Communication, buy-in, accountability, all that stuff. ⁓ yeah. So so that's the beauty of the system. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So strategic foresight? speaker-0: So yeah, strategic foresight, empowering oversight, and courageous insight. speaker-1: I encourage. So thank you. So you're what if you're a leader who's like, I mean, I'm all in, right? I'm totally, yes, yes, yes, that's where I want to be. You're a leader who's in an organization or in a subculture within an organization that is not there, right? What what can a leader do in there or what What can they do to start to empower others? Because I imagine some people's resistance could be, gosh, that sounds like it's going to take a lot more time. Gosh, my boss measures me only on my output versus like my development of people's. So so some of the there might be some internal barriers to being able to really fully get into empowering others and courageous insights. What what can they do? speaker-0: Mm. ⁓ I would invite them to consider it's not an either or. So there is a tendency for people to say, I don't have time to do all of this nice to do stuff. speaker-1: Yeah, great. speaker-0: Because I've gotta focus everything on the must do stuff. And the question is, are developing your skills and your people's skills, is that an ice to do or is that a must do? It's a must-do. Mm-hmm. ⁓ and and so one of the exercises I'll do is on communication with people and and develop their skill to listen to understand and give guidance that speaker-1: For sure, yes. speaker-0: Creates understanding rather than confusion. And people say, well, I don't know if I want to go through those extra steps because that's going to take time. And a Harris poll recently, I think it's 2023, said that the average company in the United States loses eight hours per week per employee due to miscommunication alone. speaker-1: Huh. Right. Wow, a quarter or or a fifth ⁓ twentieth. Twenty percent. I can't do my math. Twenty percent twenty percent of your productivity. Might as well give you a speaker-0: You've got a $10 million payroll. $1 million of that is just going right down the drain with miscommunication. So you can take 30 additional seconds to listen to understand, or you can take several hours in rework. speaker-1: With miscommunication. speaker-0: ⁓ and misunderstandings and and cleanup. So what would you prefer? Right. Right. And what leaders find is the more that they do these things well, these leadership skills well, they've got less on the plate because there's fewer unforced errors, ⁓ fewer people like coming to them saying, Hey, boss solved this problem. Hey, boss, what do I do now? So, so this is this is a It's a both and situation where, yes, you've got to be productive in your job and you've got to accomplish your missions. And doing that well and sustainably requires us to develop the capacity of ourselves and our own people. speaker-1: And I can imagine also on the back end of those two different scenarios, ⁓ the one in which the the people are more empowered, and and the communications have been deliberately clear and and debrief or backbriefed to make sure any miscommunications have been clarified before something happens. There's a much higher level of trust in the team and the leader organically ⁓ for the future. speaker-0: 100%. You do a confirmation brief and you know everybody's on the same page. And then they come and they give you their their game plan. You know they're on everybody's on the same page. I mean, and you agree on a period of check-ins, you don't have to like, are you done yet? Are you done yet? Are you done yet? Or feel like you're the helicopter leader hovering over people to see if they've they've done their job. Because if you're so busy focused down. on making sure everybody's doing their jobs. Who's doing your job? speaker-1: Right. Right. Right. Absolutely. You know what I sorry, go ahead. speaker-0: If you're not, who is? Nobody. And this is exactly why so many companies that are compliance focused very down and in, very detailed control wind up ⁓ wind up in very difficult circumstances. speaker-1: And it also wears the individual leaders out. It wears the people out when you've got a leader who's constantly hovering and adjusting and like trying to orchestrate, but also where's those leaders out? I sometimes I I like the ⁓ what all you've got on your plate. And it's just making me think when I when I talk with groups often in a workshop type setting. Sometimes use an icebreaker, a kickoff, like what's all on your plate. Just get it out there to normalize the numbers of stresses and life things and work things and all the things that are happening that are occupying people. What I generally get when I share it with a big room are the big things, like the things you would expect. ⁓ my mom is sick, my gotta do this, I gotta do that, I've got all this like big time period at work. I don't think what most people recognize is what else they've put on their plate that isn't beneficial for them or anyone else to be carrying that keeps them from leading. And and I think that's what you call the dependency trap. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, certainly part of it. And Duke has joined us. speaker-1: Hi Duke. It's good to see you. All good with that. speaker-0: So there are a couple of things to drill down on there, which is I mean, I love how you teed that up. So one of the things is you're familiar with General Eisenhower. ⁓ Eisenhower, former Supreme Ally commander in Europe during World War II, 34th president of the United States. He was known for managing his time and all the demands on his plate very effectively. And still getting plenty of sleep. speaker-1: Right. Yeah. speaker-0: Eisenhower used a very simple thing called the Eisenhower matrix, two by two, double axis chart. So this is the Eisenhower matrix. And I'll be happy to share any of these graphics with the speaker-1: We can put them attach them to the show notes in this one. Thank you. speaker-0: And and so he would organize things. ⁓ every task that came in, he would triage as you know, either important, important was, hey, this is something that I must do. I must have my hands on. speaker-1: Important for the winner. speaker-0: Yeah, yes. So not important. Maybe it didn't rise to his level. It could be adequately done by somebody else. Okay. And then you have urgent. ⁓ Urgent and not urgent. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: And so ⁓ he said if it's if it's not important but urgent, this is something that you should delegate, delay, or delete. If it's not urgent and not important, well, that's a pretty strong delete. Like get it off your plate. ⁓ if it's important and urgent, so if the house is on fire, you must put it out. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Right, that's a do-it. You've got to do it. And then if it's important but not urgent, he said you have to schedule it and you have to defend it. speaker-1: And defend why it still deserves to stay and to occupy some mental and capacity and time. Yeah. speaker-0: Hundred percent. So all those things like strategy and culture and developing leaders. Nobody's breathing down your neck to do them. Right. And so they're the first things that can get kicked to the curb. Sure. And over the tyranny of the urgent. And he said, This is your most important. This quadrant here, the defend quadrant, your most important. You have got to like You've got to make sure that those things happen. Otherwise, that they won't. When I work with leaders, I'll often do this matrix with them and give them homework that says, okay, look at everything on your plate and tell me what quadrant they belong in, you know, where they go. Invariably, 40 to 60 percent of leaders' time has been very consistent over the years. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Forty to sixty percent of their time is below the equator. speaker-1: Sure. speaker-0: Is spent there. And so if you just take that off the plate by delegating, by delaying, or just just getting rid of it. I mean, imagine how much time in a you know, let's say a a 40-hour week, what is that means 25 hours or so are consumed in ⁓ in in stuff that you don't need to do, 20 to 25 hours. speaker-1: And then another eight hours miscommunication. So now you've got what eight hours left of product. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. And I still wonder why ⁓ Gallup says that only thirty percent of Americans are are engaged at work. speaker-1: Yeah. There's something called this makes me think of the z I think is a Z garnik effect about a researcher that founds I I don't remember the specific percent, but the our brains hold on to undone tasks. And so it's it it might not even be something you're committing time to. But the fact that you're still giving a like brain real estate to occupy that you need to do it, this This ⁓ Eisenhower's matrix here is very helpful in understanding how important it is to get rid of those tasks. And and what they advise, what they recommend is like a physical mark through something. Like you said, you'll have your leaders write it down. Well, mark through those delete tasks. Like take a pen to paper, get rid of it. Those ones that you delegate actively do it to free up your mind as well. speaker-0: Yeah, you're you're you're so right. And and it reminds me of communication errors that we can make. It's the same principle where a lot of people spend time listening to respond. Which means we're hearing somebody and then something triggers and we start formulating our response while they're still talking to us. And which means the the internal process is always going to override the external one. And we we're essentially stopped listening. speaker-1: Right, yeah. We stopped listening because we're just thinking about yeah, how how to respond. Yes, exactly, exactly. So ⁓ so so valuable. Thank you. So that's a bit about the dependency trap. I believe it's super closely related to BB. It for me. I'll say for me. My what did they say? N of one. For me, it was very closely related to my idea of servant leadership. And I just my background on that is ⁓ learned, I think, a lot of others oriented. people are drawn into service of some sort to begin with. So I think there's probably a tendency there. But then we go, at least I, you know, go into West May, go in the army, and the model of leadership I learned was servant leadership. And it works. Great when I remember I had going out to the back 40 during training when I was a assistant one, so a new first lieutenant, and just like or assistant three rather, and the the major was out there like helping to put up the tents. And I'm like, ⁓ that is awesome. The S3 is out here, so that's the operations training lead for a like a battalion size or brigade, but in this case a battalion, you that you're like, ⁓ look at that, just right out there with all the troops, helping everyone out. You know, like that example is awesome and great. And there's there's so much humility built into that that you just it it's it's part of that military ethos. I I never learned though like at some point that shouldn't be all you do. Like like like you need to start to to let go a little bit. It took me a long time I don't talk in probably 15 years to figure out like ⁓ wait everyone doesn't want or need to be led that way. And there's a lot of negative impacts I experienced. I exhausted myself trying to continue to serve, probably to please and appease everyone and doing all that. I know I ex I know that's, you know, like in my career that happened. And I I don't think that's uncommon. speaker-0: No, I like to I similar experience. I'm a recovering servant leader and and had always been taught that well that's that's the gold standard. It means you're humble and you care about people and you're willing to lead selflessly. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And so that sounds good to me. speaker-1: Yes. Great. I'm in. I'm in. Absolutely. speaker-0: And and the challenge is that you can take this in in one of a couple of this idea of service ⁓ to serve in one of two directions. One direction is become subservient. So when you're subservient, then you're the one who's solving every problem. ⁓ you're the one who is ⁓ sacrificing family so you can do that PowerPoint slide. You're the one that allows your your direct reports to delegate work to you, to have no boundaries to be available 24 or 7. And I mean, I have I have I have through this idea of servant leadership, ⁓ stayed up an entire 96 hour exercise and then just fell flat on my face, completely exhausted. I servant leadered my way into coming home all the time, being totally exhausted and ⁓ damaging relationships with family, friends. And and and so I recognized go back to the to the whiteboard To serve is noble. That's what we want. That's when that's we want leaders to serve. There are two ways to do that. Number one is to become subservient. And this is where servant leadership tends to go. ⁓ It's the logical outcome because once you define yourself as a servant. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: you are by definition subservient to everybody else's wishes. You're you you become a people pleaser on steroids. The other meaning to serve of to serve is to be of service. Now this is very different. I can lead in a way that is of service to my company, of service to my people, and part of being of service to them is developing them, is sometimes letting them wrestle with problems, sometimes letting them face plant. And picking ⁓ up and saying, Hey, that's that's all right, let's let's figure out what we learn from this. And part of subserv or or or being of service is I've got to be able to stay in a fight. You know, I I can't exhaust myself. I can't face plant ⁓ because I've I've ⁓ you know, I've I'm I'm totally wiped out. I have to obey the oxygen mask principle. Yeah. speaker-1: Yes, you do. speaker-0: Apply your mask first. Yep. Before you so it's not apply your mask first so that you can steal everybody else's oxygen. speaker-1: So you gotta t stay alive to help the others out. speaker-0: Yes, so that you can be of service to everybody else. So that I would call it if I were ⁓ and even in my book, Leadership the Warrior is Art, I haven't changed this yet. and ⁓ and I need to ⁓ need to put out a new edition or see if they could just change it. I even have a double access chart that has servant leadership on it. And it's like actually I need to change that. Yeah, I need to change that. ⁓ to ⁓ I call it service centric. When you're service-centric, you are somebody who is being of service to your people, to the common good, to your family, to others, not being subservient, or let me spell that correctly, subservient to the whims of ⁓ of everybody around you. speaker-1: Thank you. I I also love that you just like us ex modeled growth, right? You modeled, hey, I've been learning, I've been changing, and I want to go back and correct something. Like that this is super powerful. ⁓ just to recognize we're all learning and growing. And that's why we do these things. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah, mistakes are data points, you know. speaker-1: Well it's not a necessary yeah, so it was such a mistake. I would say it's like that was what it you you know, that's what you learned, is what you practiced, is what you believed at the time, and you've evolved, you've grown, and and now you have a different framework. So that's growth. So that's awesome. I also I another thing f that I I I do share with folks is not everyone views servant leadership, especially the way I was doing it, as ⁓ has the positive, the up, the service-centric type thing. And some, and I didn't even figure this out until I was in grad school. I was studying leadership, and it was in one of our texts, and because it's this tiny little thing on this chapter, I think in like the anthology and different leadership theories about servant leadership, this tiny little text said That some view it as micromanagement. And like those are dirty words, right? Man, I and that's when it finally hit me. I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, I was trying to help. However Not everyone wants that level of engagement. And that that was, I don't believe in like full pivots or big turning points necessarily, but that was a big, huge aha moment for me for a lot of things. I began to recognize how important it is to lead people as the individual needs to be led and and to be of be of service to them where they are and and their skills and their experience and their background. And one thing might apply to a new Person who's just learning the job, who really does need that good positive role model, who shows them how it's done, is there with them to help out. Someone else has been doing it for a very long time. That is not what they need, right? They may need other things for you. They might need resources, they might need you to be on the balcony view. They might need you to ⁓ just kind of de-conflict or be a sounding board, whatever, something entirely different. So that one line in this text during a class, a grad school class, was A big shifting point for me on this very thing. So I too am in the recovering servant leadership. speaker-0: ⁓ I love it. Yeah. And yeah, the one path, you know, the the subservience path leads to ultimately to dependency and micromanagement and all of this stuff and learned helplessness on the part of the your employees. Whereas the other path being of service, part of that being of service is I'm gonna I'm gonna support your growth. I'm gonna meet you where you are and I'm gonna support you in growing. to the you know kind of employee that ⁓ contributes their best yeah and and your full potential. And you may not even realize all of that potential that you've got. Sometimes it takes somebody outside of you. And and so I'm gonna work with you to grow to be you know the your best possible self. You can't do that servant leadership when you're subservient. speaker-1: Yeah. You can't do that in subservient subservient leadership, certainly. So ⁓ thank you. next thing I want to talk with you is about staying aligned to your values, what matters most to you. And we I would love to have you talk about how you think, envision, and think forward. This is the future walk podcast. I mean, the the purpose of the podcast is twofold. One is to introduce a tool of walking while thinking forward to readers to use for in different ways. The other is to talk with leaders like you, accomplished people who have found their own ways to stay aligned or figure out what matters most to them, to stay aligned with that or to get back on track. Because r I mean, inevitably or invariably, life pulls us off track at times, or it really pulls hard to do that. So I would love to hear from you how. you've identified what matters most, what you know, those values that we talked about earlier a little bit as a big word, but you know what what that means and practice in your own life and how you stay aligned to that and how you stay well so you can continue to do what you do. speaker-0: Yeah, that's a that's a really ⁓ important question that can go in a lot of directions. ⁓ lot of lot of elements to that. Yeah, very rich. I used to think future self and again this was just up up till a couple of months ago. ⁓ future self was about my what. And and so like growing up in the military or starting my own. speaker-1: Six, I think. ⁓ speaker-0: consulting business. I could I could imagine, I could visualize like what's next. I could visualize what I wanted to be in the future. And and this was just several months ago. I'm doing I'm I'm trying to do a future self visualization. And and I'm just I'm I'm just getting it blank. Mm-hmm. Nothing's coming. And I thought, is this a signal that that I'm yeah, I'm gonna die soon, that I have no future? That was that really freaked me out. Yeah. And and I was in a retreat with one of the my mentor groups, and and we were going through going through one of our exercises and and And it just struck me that I have been trying to visualize the wrong thing. Your future self is not about your what necessarily. It's more about your who. Who do I get to become in my future self? Who do I want to become? ⁓ and that just opened up a whole new world for me. And it's like, okay, yeah, who do balloons? ⁓ who do I who do I want to become? I have these Zoom superpowers. speaker-1: Two. Celebrating this. We're celebrating. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ I ⁓ that opened up a whole new world. It's like, well, especially in this time ⁓ I'm time a huge transition. My wife, Nicole, just became a foreign service officer. She's a an American diplomat. Congratulations. And we just moved to Mexico and ⁓ in ⁓ Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. And it's like okay, well this I mean it's gonna have a speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: effect on my business, a huge time of transition. Who do I want to be during this? That's what I envisioned. and and so now when I do the future self-meditation, it's like, all right, who do I want to be? What are what are those ⁓ you know what are the what are those values? ⁓ what what do I want to exemplify? And then all right, what are the actions that that that exemplify those? And what are the actions that are Don't exemplifies those that that are not acceptable. All those are f important. speaker-1: Yeah, so values based. It's like a values ⁓ exercise and the values that you don't want to do. ⁓ you know, it's like a reverse bucket list in the sense of like, okay, I need to remove or the or the delete, right? We went through that in the original quadrant, size and hers, like delete the things that just like get rid of those things that are not important for you. So who what do you want to exemplify as values? Are there any insights you've had that you want to share? are willing to share with us. speaker-0: Yeah, one one one was that ⁓ just being as I mentioned, you know, bullied and and molested as a kid and and then you go through the military and often it's like emotions are bad, emotions make you do bad make bad decisions and stuff like that. And so you you're almost conditioned over time to like be very guarded about your your emotions. Yeah. And Yeah, and not not let them run through you, not feel them, boggle up. And and then you go through combat and you you have joy, you have grief, you have all of these different things. And again, I was at one of these ⁓ one of these ⁓ one of these events, one of these retreats, and we're doing breath work. I'd never been exposed to breath work, no idea what that was. Like, okay, we're just gonna we're gonna breathe. Okay. I had no idea what this was. It was awesome. Yeah. And what it did was it it showed me that. speaker-1: Right, right. speaker-0: My essentially, I had imprisoned my spirit, you know, my emotions, my emotion of spirit, my dragon, I call it it, inside this fortress, you know, feet, feet, feet upon feet thick, you know, no sunlight getting out, you know, nothing. Just, you know, pretend guarded, you know, with all sorts of these, you know, sentinels and stuff. And and it was like, I'm what I'm I'm not allowing myself to fly. I'm not allowing myself to be who I want to be. I have to crack open those walls. I gotta bring down those walls, tell those sentinels, hey, you know, you've done your job. I appreciate you. You know, it's time to stand down and, you know, let that spirit, that burning heart that I call it, you know, that dragon, let them fly. And ⁓ yeah, it's been transformational for me. speaker-1: That's amazing. And you use the word transformational in a way I can get behind. You hear that word a lot. Transformational. This is like that does absolutely sound transformational because I've known you for a few years now. And how long ago was this that this your dragon you recognize it? So I this is what's amazing about this for me is, and it was the first time we've talked about this. speaker-0: Yeah, this was like a year a year and a half. speaker-1: On the outside, you're just this you you're like, I mean, your your energy is is is the same. You're your your delivery, but you were hiding all that on the inside. Like you had my point, I guess, is like you had a really good facade. You had a really well honed ⁓ exterior that probably others did not know you were dealing with this or have pushed these things down so much on the inside. And it took something completely out of the ordinary to, I guess, lead to this really extraordinary thing where now you recognize like you've got your dragon. I love this. This is this imprisoned spirit. This dragon is out, this burning heart. That is awesome. What is it? What is it like? speaker-0: I don't like to call it a a facade because it's it's genuine. It's just not complete. Complete. And and it it wasn't serving me well or or the people around me and loved ones, it wasn't serving them as well as I could. There we go. ⁓ because that dimension of me was too contained. speaker-1: Genuine, yes. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Okay. speaker-0: and and so bringing that dimension to me, I'm able to it's like on a keyboard, you're able to play so many more keys. ⁓ man, because of you know, because there's a new dimension of me that ⁓ you know that is ⁓ that is serving. speaker-1: I love this. This is so great. And thank you for that important clarification. So the incomplete, and now you've got you've got your your full array of keys and the all the octaves on the piano. You've got a bigger, ⁓ you've got a bigger rainbow of colors. You've got just so so much more that you recognize because you're willing to do this work. ⁓ I'm I'm sure like I'm doing therapy right now for the well for the first real time, I will just say that. And and I I cannot believe the insights I'm having and the things that I like I just subtly let go of or change a little bit. It's it's it's similar, like like like this deep self-work, how valuable it is. Like it is transformative, truly, in like the most authentic intended way of that word. speaker-0: Yeah, and and nobody teaches you how to do this. We don't teach it in middle school or high school or college. None of that. And so we just all go doing our best and think that, well, all the bad things that happened to me in the past are uncomfortable things that you bottle up, you know, and then hope they don't, you know, explode out at some point. You or get triggered at some point and explode out. but you can you can work through those things. So they're not triggering. You you can, I mean, Victor Frankel said it best between stimulus and response is where we have sovereignty. Yeah. And so that sovereignty, our ability to respond to whatever happens to us is vital. And and you know, all of these things that uncomfortable things or challenging things that you know happen, nobody teaches you how to deal with being molested as a kid or bullied. I can work through that. I've worked through that now and I can talk about it. You know, with ⁓ you know with people. And ⁓ you know, loved ones who die in combat, ⁓ you know, you nobody teaches you how to deal with that. ⁓ and and and so by by having that building that capacity. speaker-1: Thank you. speaker-0: And oftentimes it's through it can be through therapy or other advisors that help us like understand the spiritual and emotional sides of us. We're great at the physical and the mental stuff. Yeah. It's the spiritual and emotional stuff that we're not always so good at. And nobody teaches you how to do. There's no school, there's no class in high school on emotional intelligence. You know, there's no class in high school about how to deal with difficult situations. ⁓ and and so the I have grown so much ⁓ by working with people who help me with greater spiritual and emotional capacity. speaker-1: Thank you so much for sharing all that. That is just needs to be heard by everyone and and the courage to do that work. And then the, I don't know if it's courageous, if it feels courageous for you to share, it feels courageous for me to hear, but maybe it feels freeing for you. How does it feel to share that with others? Does it speaker-0: it yeah it just it just feels important. It's it's a lamb. ⁓ and so ⁓ you know if ⁓ like if I can if I can do it, so can everybody else. speaker-1: feel too about me like I kept my crap buried down for a lot of decades, right? And so yeah, working through all that. And then it other things come up, right? And it all piles in and kind of gets all intertwined. thank you. I I so many more things, but I think I want to finish with, you know, ⁓ Saber Six. What what Saber Six is, I I think this is a really, really important message about you as a person, you as ⁓ service centric and and what you yeah what it is and and how you help others through it. speaker-0: thank you, Sarah. I appreciate you asking. ⁓ so Saber Six is a nonprofit foundation I founded in twenty twenty-two dedicated to working with veterans who want to turn post combat stress into growth. ⁓ since nine eleven, over one hundred and fifty thousand veterans have died by suicide. You could take you could take any of these World Cup stadiums and fill them twice with those numbers and still have people waiting outside to get in. Within my unit, as you mentioned, we we had six killed in action. Fifteen by at the end of fifteen years, fifteen years later, we had lost more to suicides and overdoses and recklessness and other deaths of despair. than we did to enemy fire. And I was just like, I you know, ⁓ I can't just know this going on and not do something about it. One of one of my one of my just best paratroopers from Afghanistan. I mean, his kid was just a he was every commander's dream. Great soldier, lots of initiative, natural leader. His father was a retired Medal of Honor recipient from Vietnam. And we were able to bring him out to Afghanistan and reunite him with his son. And And afterwards, as you know, as Robert says, you know, ⁓ boss, I I I really love this. I appreciate this. I I I love the army. I want to make this a career. second deployment, he gets a back injury and discharge from the army. ⁓ and Robert, I'm gonna go back to my so Robert, like many others, ⁓ he transitions and He had a good job, he had a young family, and you know, things are going okay. And then he he also had to he like he had this need to for adrenaline rushes. They didn't understand. and so he would do extreme four wheeling. ⁓ accident paralyzes him, he loses his job, he loses his family, and he drank it to death. Sorry. And that pushed me over the edge. I was contemplating doing a bicycle ride to visit the graves of the six troopers from our unit who were killed in action. And ⁓ and that was like I I am doing this. Yeah. ⁓ And and so, you know, there are some veterans at the transition point who go right on the deep red line into crisis. They're actually fairly easy to identify, and because they're easy to identify, you can treat them, you know, pretty quickly. Most veterans, like Robert, come out on the yellow line. The yellow line is the okay line. Things are okay. Got a job, got a speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Got a family, got a roof over my head, things are going okay. Well, why why is okay okay? speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: I mean, when it comes to your personal and professional life, okay, that kinda stinks. And the risk with okay is that an unfortunate event or series of of unfortunate events can put you down onto the red line. So I call this the lighter red line of drift. And drift can only lead in one direction and that's downhill into despair. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Every soldier I know, every one of our veterans that I know who died by suicide or overdose or other deaths of despair didn't start out in crisis. They started out on the yellow line and fell off. So there are a lot of veteran nonprofits that work in this space and work in this space, and they do great life-saving work. I love the fact that they are there. Yeah. So in starting the foundation, we asked, well, what difference can we make? speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Well, what if, what if we could backstop the yellow line, excuse me, backstop the yellow line so people didn't fall off the yellow line and gave them a straightforward path to the green line, which is growth, leading to whatever version of success that veteran and their family envisioned. So you create that straightforward path through purpose, belonging, or purpose, belonging, and well-being. When you got those three things, when you got a sense of clear sense of purpose, you feel like your life is worth living, your impact is worth making. When you've got belonging, you feel like you're making this journey with other people who matter. And when you've got well-being, spiritual, emotional, physical, et cetera. ⁓ you know, you can go the distance. So that's what the Saber Six Foundation is all about. We essentially reunite veterans who serve together. ⁓ we give them the tools, adventures, experiences to strengthen purpose, belonging, well-being. And we sustain that over time. So in event, a reunion is not a one-off. And every veteran from that organization knows that they always have a home. Since we started for people actively involved in our programs, No suicides, no overdoses, no attempts. speaker-1: Wow. Phenomenal. Super powerful. Thank you so much. ⁓ how can people learn more about it or support it or your other work? speaker-0: Pretty powerful. ⁓ so the the the best ways just go to ⁓ my website ChrisCalenda.com or contact me by email Chris at ChrisCalenda.com. Perfect really super simple. Please put it in the show notes. ⁓ I will send you the visual these visual models and and you know, if you got another one like, Hey, do you have a visual model for how I gained buy-in? Be happy to send that. And yeah, a hundred percent for the Saver Six Foundation. speaker-1: Great. Thank you for all of that. speaker-0: If you go to SabersticksFoundation.com, that's our website, or email me and just say, hey Chris, I'd like to learn more about Saber Six. speaker-1: Perfect, thank you. And I think ending with growth as the direction is a beautiful way to to wrap this up because we're all on that growing journey. I know from when I was in the FBI and teaching the National Academy, I'm getting law enforcement leaders, similar suicide tragedies. And so One thing that we would talk about is the importance of growth, right? Like because if you only know most people have heard of PTS or originally PTSD and all that, like like the downward, downward, but to know the potential exists for the upward, right? As well, just to even be armed with growth is as much of a possibility, if not more. And it takes these deliberate actions with purpose, with beliefs, with well-being. And there's a way forward, Saber Six Foundation. ⁓ for people, I think that's just a a wonderful place to summarize all of that. So thank you. speaker-0: Yeah, you you can have your trauma and experiences and all of those things and and you can live your best possible life. You know, you can you can have growth. You can hold both things at the same time and honor both of them. speaker-1: And Yeah. And I I again another like really great parallel to what we started talking about on the leadership side, the and it just doesn't have to be about the and the and piece ⁓ leading towards growth and fulfilling your hoop, right? And and and where you're at right now, it sounds like you are you are just working. You've released your dragon and you've got this, you know, you're you're going that direction. And I'm just so grateful. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I love this. Sorry in New Heights. I love that you you took this time to share so openly ⁓ with us. So grateful for that. So and and thank you again for being such an important mentor for me as well. speaker-0: It's an absolute joy, Sarah. I I appreciate you so much and ⁓ thank you for having me on this. Thank you for the service that you continue to provide for people to help them achieve their dreams. speaker-1: Thank you. Thank you so much. Just appreciate all this. And and for again for everyone, ChrisCalinda.com or Saber Six Foundation. And we'll put some of that information as well as some of his visualizations. Is that what you call them? Your visual visual models in our in the show notes as well for you. And for listeners, if you are finding value in this podcast, still pretty new, right? So please follow. So want a couple things. It helps you not miss any future episodes, of course. And it helps others. There's some magic out there and some algorithm somewhere that helps others find this, other leaders that can benefit from this, because extra or extraordinary leaders like Chris share their decades of wisdom and lived experience with you to help you live your best life and lead your best as well. So please do follow, share, like, comment, do anything with it to help other people find this as well. And ⁓ this week, you know, as you as you spend your your time this week, you can think about some questions that he brought up, like. Where am I creating dependency instead of building people? ⁓ maybe there's one thing that you can think about doing to help perhaps liberate your team from some of that and help empower them to move forward. So if you're If you're wrestling with some of these things, just plant that seed. Write a question for yourself about what is one thing I can do to release or start to remove some of the dependency I've created as a leader, and then go out on a future walk and see what becomes clear to you. So again, thanks for joining us on the Future Walk podcast. ⁓ And until next time, enjoy your walk.