June 30, 2025 • 40 mins
In today’s #podcast episode I interview Yosi Kossowsky. I ask Yosi about the connection between real leadership and self-awareness. I also ask Yosi about how leaders have to understand themselves to really understand their teams. I also ask Yosi about the process we use to achieve a mindset shift.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Thanks for joining us on episode 1553 of the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. I'm Yesi Kasowski.
I challenge you to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
develop your influence and impact the world by using your time,
your talent and your treasures to live out your calling.
(00:21):
Having the ability to recognize that you always have the power
of choice is is key.
And one way to be inspired honestly is to do that
by listening to this amazing podcast.
To the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Mader.
(00:44):
I think you could talk about what it is,
but this process of being able to look inside does not
seem to be something that's transmitted by a book.
And people tell me,
oh, Ami is going to take over all the coaching jobs.
I'm like,
yeah, not yet.
Not until I can get someone to do that.
Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship
(01:08):
Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God
wants you to be,
then you must learn to use your time,
your talent and your treasures for your true calling.
In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast,
you will learn to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
(01:37):
In today's podcast episode,
I interview Jesse Kowalski.
I asked Yesi about the connection between real leadership and self
awareness. I also asked Yesi about how leaders have to understand
themselves to really understand their teams.
And Yossi also talks about the process we use to achieve
a mindset shift.
I have a great book that's been out for a while
(01:58):
now called Inspired Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering
your time,
your talent and your treasures.
You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com
it'll take you to a page where there's information and you
can sign up to get some mailings about it as well
as purchase a copy there.
(02:19):
I'd love to see you get a copy and share with
me how it impacted your world.
Today's guest is Jesse Kowalski,
a seasoned executive Coach with over 18 years of experience and
a background as a Chief Technology Officer and Senior Director of
Talent Management.
Yesi specializes in leadership development,
personal growth and effective communication.
(02:41):
Leveraging neuroscience and organizational development principles,
he's helped leaders across the globe navigate complex challenges by build
high performing teams and drive meaningful change.
Get ready to learn actionable strategies to enhance your leadership skills
and foster a culture of trust and collaboration.
Welcome to the show.
(03:02):
Thanks so much for being here.
Thank you so much Scott.
I'm really excited.
So I mentioned a lot of things in the intro about
some of the work You've done some of your background,
a lot of the studies.
You're man after my own heart.
I've also got science degrees and kind of look at things
from a science point of view.
(03:22):
And yet at the same time,
I always know that intros and bios and those sort of
things. It's kind of like the Instagram photos of our life.
It just shows the highlight reel.
Never really shows the whole reality.
So take us back a little bit and unpack for everybody.
What's a little bit more about your journey and why is
this your focus and what you're working on now and the
(03:42):
message that you're putting out in the world?
Yeah, absolutely.
So I start off my career in IT and then moved
into engineering,
and I had an opportunity to take more of a management
role. I wasn't calling it leadership or anything.
And what I discovered via feedback was I wasn't doing a
(04:04):
good job.
And it was a real challenge for me because I thought
I had read the manual,
how you do this.
And, okay,
the feedback indicated that knowing wasn't enough.
And looking even deeper,
I realized,
okay, so as an engineer,
(04:24):
this actually made sense.
You can read the manual on how to build something,
but until you get your hands dirty and,
you know,
in the weeds,
that's a whole different experience.
And so I just didn't have a frame of reference of
where to go to do a root cause on humans.
And the.
(04:45):
Luckily, I.
When you go searching,
life kind of provides,
hopefully. And it did for me.
And that led me to study emotional wellness therapy and neuroscience
therapy. And I was looking at that as the software and
the hardware of what I was trying to solve for.
And it.
It was just transformational as I learned about emotions and feeling
(05:07):
and how I have this perception.
And my perception is different than everybody else's perception.
And that means that just because I say something doesn't mean
everybody else understands it.
And just because I intend something or I'm thinking something,
people can't read my mind.
And it just starts to unravel from there that I live
(05:27):
in a world where I,
if I don't question it,
think we're all on the same page,
then I find out we're not.
And then the question is,
do I have the tools,
the resources,
the understanding to process that in a healthy way,
to allow me to remain effective as myself,
(05:50):
as a spouse,
as a father,
as a worker,
as a leader?
And so my journey was hitting a wall and saying,
okay, I got to figure this out,
and then letting go.
Because everything that I started learning Went against my Vulcan nature
of it's got to make sense because I found out that
(06:13):
emotions don't really make sense necessarily.
And that was a pretty wild ride.
Yeah. So I work with a,
I'm a coach myself and I work with a lot of,
I actually do a lot of training of coaches and I
actually was teaching class not too long ago.
And the people we're all,
they're financial coaches and so most people that are financially minded
(06:35):
and that's how they think about money and they're all about
the numbers.
Just show me the numbers and it'll make sense.
And I was telling them at one point,
I'm like,
you realize it's not about the numbers.
It's like,
it's like if it was information,
they'd already have changed.
They wouldn't have.
If it's missing information,
Google would have given them the answer.
It's not information,
it's how they feel.
(06:56):
So, yeah,
you had that same experience but in a different setting.
100%. And I'll tell you with reflection,
what's always remained as a question is how is it that
in our society we get trained on how to think,
we get trained on logic,
we get trained on math,
(07:17):
we don't get trained on how to process emotion.
Like, why,
where is that?
And it doesn't seem to be one of those inbred things
either. Like,
it's not like it's instinctive.
And I do find that like,
bizarre. On the other hand,
where I'm sitting now as a coach,
(07:38):
it gives me this opportunity to work with people and to
support people that if everyone did know it,
then I,
of course I would have to find something else to do.
Yeah, but I don't think you're in danger of getting out
of work anytime soon.
If the world is any evidence of people learning to process
emotion in a healthy way,
I don't think,
I don't think you're going to run out of work when
you think about process processing emotion too.
(07:59):
So it's.
Well, we'll get more into it later.
But just from the point of view of,
I'm trying to formulate the question as I'm talking in my
own head.
It's. There's us understanding our own emotions and then there's us
kind of understanding other people's emotions.
Right? Yeah.
How do you see that kind of division or how do
(08:24):
those two things work together when in the work that you
do? So I think the answer that I have is I
had a coaching session earlier with a leader and technical leader
And I tend to do very well with technical leaders,
I guess,
because I came from that background.
And this leader is saying to me,
(08:44):
how do I deal with an employee who.
Our personalities are just a conflict?
And I say,
okay, let me.
Help me understand,
what do you mean by conflict?
How does that play out?
And so the leader says,
they are not,
they're not maintaining the values and the mindset of the team
(09:09):
and really the company.
And I said,
so what?
Why is that a problem?
And the leader says,
well, because then there's.
Things are not going to be,
we're not going to be going in the same direction.
I'm like,
so what?
What's the problem?
And the leader what do you mean,
(09:30):
what's the problem?
That's a problem.
And I'm like,
no, but what's.
Why is it really bothering you?
And it took some different angles of asking that question,
but ultimately it's,
I want other people to do what I feel is important
and right.
So I said to this person,
are you illegal?
Are you a.
Do you believe that it's important to follow the laws of
(09:51):
the land or.
And they said,
yes, absolutely.
I said,
do you speed?
And they go,
yes. I'm like,
what's with that?
How can you possibly speed if you think that the laws
are important?
And they smile.
I'm like,
so are you just choosing which rules are the ones that
are important to keep?
And they said,
(10:11):
oh, I see what you're doing there.
I said,
what am I doing there?
And they said,
we're not,
we're not consistent.
We're just choosing where we want to play the game.
And this leader said to me,
she said,
oh, this is my ego,
isn't it?
So a long winded way of saying that dealing with other
(10:37):
people's emotions to me first requires us to understand ours a
little bit better.
And why am I feeling what I'm feeling about this other
person? Because if I can't reconcile that,
I don't know how you reconcile the other side.
Yeah, it always starts with understanding ourselves.
If we really want to understand other people,
(10:58):
period, I don't care what it is.
And of course I think too,
it's, that's actually harder in some ways.
It's hard enough to understand other people.
It's even harder to understand yourself because that's vulnerable.
That suddenly means admitting things that you don't want to admit
about yourself.
Yeah. And I,
by the way,
I don't know how somebody does that on their own.
(11:21):
The emotional wellness therapy work,
that's what we focused on.
Was not helping other people get better,
was helping ourselves.
And it was all about in the end of the day,
ripping the layers off,
not adding new things on.
It wasn't about additive work.
It was really about the deconstruction work.
(11:44):
So I don't,
I think I feel gifted or are blessed really as a
coach to be able to say I can bring that awareness
into the coaching engagement so that when people are talking about
conflict, I know how to lead them into that self awareness
without going into a therapy session.
(12:04):
And that's like you said,
I think it does take.
It takes working in a way that isn't just sitting in
your own stew,
so to speak.
It requires a therapy coaching even in some cases,
even a good friend or a good spouse can ask those
questions that make you get out of your own way and
(12:24):
you go,
or boss or a coworker or somebody else that you know
and trust.
But it is,
it's very hard to do it all by yourself,
sitting in your own stew,
if not impossible.
Yeah, I'm with you a hundred percent.
I'm a firm believer in not saying anything's ever completely impossible.
I'm sure there's someone out there that's managed to do it,
but I don't think it's going to be very many people.
(12:46):
So we're.
One of the things I like to highlight on the show
is the intersection between our own journey or our kind of
inward journey around faith and spirituality and belief and whatever that
looks like for us and then how that intersects the work
we do in the world and the life journey that we've
been on.
How has that played out in this journey that you've been
(13:07):
on? You prepared me for this question and I love this
question, honestly.
And what's just a preemptive.
I sometimes find that it's uncomfortable for me to share this
and I don't know yet why.
Still. I'm digging.
(13:28):
I'm. I'm dating that with you.
But as we got talked before and I got that sense
of where you're at spiritually,
I feel very comfortable to,
to talk with you about it.
I was raised in a family of religious people who believe
(13:49):
in God and in scripture,
and so I didn't question that.
However, as I got older,
I found myself not without comprehension,
like without conscious realization,
dealing with a lot of guilt.
(14:12):
And when I went through that again,
that, that whole training and started to understand the role of
the belief systems we take on,
how that translates,
or the belief systems we take on,
the value systems we take on and all of these constructs
(14:33):
that we build around ourselves without recognizing.
What does that do to our behaviors?
What does that do to the thoughts we have?
And I realized as I went through this and it was
a crushing experience initially that my belief system was screwed up
(14:56):
and it was self destructive.
And instead of bringing me up and lifting me up,
it was crushing me.
And it wasn't the religion,
it wasn't the scripture,
it was the what I had taken on in my understanding.
And so learning how to see that and then start to
(15:22):
pull it apart and gain not only a sense of freedom
and lightness,
but also a much deeper connection to life,
to the universe,
to people in general.
What has been crazy from forever since then.
Like I,
I look back at the,
like we say preco,
(15:42):
postco. So this was pre the awareness and post the awareness.
So in recognizing that again when we come to these situations
where leaders are like,
I want to have better executive presence.
I want to,
I want to be able to deal with conflict better,
I want to be able to not be afraid or I
want to have more self confidence.
What are the beliefs you are holding on to that have
(16:03):
shaped yourself so much that this is your response to these
events, to these actions?
And so that's for me the intersection and is in recognizing
what belief did to me.
And it wasn't.
Maybe we say that word is like it's a generic.
Oh, but it's for me it's not a generic thing.
It's. We have beliefs that are supportive and we have beliefs
(16:25):
that are not supportive.
Learning which ones are supportive and saying okay,
I want to reaffirm those.
But these ones,
no, they're not so good for me.
How do I go through this emotional mental neuro linguistic process
of letting them go and bringing on ones that are healthy
and supportive?
And I think that's the important message and kind of the
(16:48):
tie to,
at least to me,
to the tie between what we were just talking about and
the journey you went on is it wasn't so much even
quote the beliefs.
It was the fact that you hadn't examined them and unpacked
them and looked at them and you had just accepted them.
And I think that's the same,
(17:08):
that's the same behavior that we're talking about.
The worker that you're the boss that you're working with or
the manager that you're working with.
But they don't believe what I want them to believe.
This is bad.
But why?
What's the actual cause?
What's actually happening here?
It's very much the Same sort of behavior in a different
realm. And it's not the belief,
(17:30):
it's the fact that it hadn't been examined and unpacked and
thought about and process that was creating the burden.
Yeah, but I really wonder,
honestly, as you're talking right now and reflecting on that,
is, what are your listeners thinking?
Because when I do bring this up initially with people,
(17:53):
they're like deer in the headlight.
What do you mean,
questioning my beliefs?
What do you mean?
Like, you used a better word,
not questioning.
What did you say?
Evaluating or examining?
Examining. The word examining,
and that's the word I love examining.
Like people like what.
What are you talking about?
So even that idea often gets me like a stare to
(18:17):
get ready to do,
to even contemplate doing that.
Because think about it,
it's not a belief.
That's just a fact.
That's just the way the world is.
Because that's the way the world is.
Deeply rooted.
That's just truth.
That's not.
That's not anything to look at,
evaluate. It's just is.
(18:39):
Why would we look at the.
Why would we look at the sky and say it's green
instead of blue?
Look, it's blue.
I just know that it's blue.
And yet,
by the way,
actually, technically,
no, it's not.
And if we get into the science and the whys of
the wherefores,
we can explain that.
But it's blue.
Yeah, yeah,
but it is.
I think,
again, we work a lot.
Behavior, habits,
(19:00):
mindset, beliefs,
all of these things,
they become the water that we're swimming in as fish.
And we don't even know that we're swimming in water because
it's just.
It so obviously surrounds us that we become blind to it.
What are some of the ways that you've seen leaders?
How has this kind of not doing this work and not
(19:22):
looking at it as a leader,
how does that actually affect their teams,
their companies,
their business,
whatever environment that they're operating in that then has caused them
to seek help?
Are they seeing and what's happening that then causes them to
say, hey,
something needs to be different here.
So in my mind,
(19:43):
I think of it as human bumper cars.
And it'll image.
Yeah, it'll show up in some way like that.
But it's.
We are bumping into something and we don't necessarily know how
to name it.
Most of the time when it's presented,
it is.
(20:04):
They are not doing,
they are not following.
They. I've been told that.
So rather than it being,
oh, I have come to an Awareness that I am out
of sync and I want to get into sync.
And so far hasn't happened to me.
That's not ever been someone's introduction to,
hey, I,
you know why I want coaching?
(20:25):
It's always been I need to get my team aligned,
I need to get things going.
We, we've got a big deal that we've got to do.
We've got to produce certain things.
And I don't see how giving the teams.
So it's always they're almost in a sense.
Again, I don't bring this up right away in it.
(20:45):
The way I experience it is they are almost feeling they
don't have agency.
And so it is bumper cars,
but it's bumper cars where they're not even realizing they're driving.
And there,
there's your technical people where there's a lot of.
In their mind and maybe even in their language,
(21:06):
people should be doing things like it's.
This is obvious.
This is the right thing to do.
Therefore it's a given.
This is the process.
Why wouldn't you do it this way?
Yeah, why wouldn't you do it that way?
And then there's other people,
whether it's marketing people or HR people.
And then it's a different language.
Not that the should word doesn't just show up,
(21:26):
but the mindset behind it is often about don't we want
to get along?
Don't we want to be successful?
They can even touch on the more emotional side.
But the challenge still remains the same,
that if we haven't learned to first look inward and as
you say,
examine, we will never be able to really address the external
(21:52):
experiences of others.
If we haven't been able to address ourselves,
why do you think it is so hard to address ourselves?
We've talked about the fact that we need help,
but why do you think it's so hard for me?
That's the billion dollar question.
That's the billion dollar question.
It really is the billion dollar question.
And I don't like I.
So I believe in God and I believe in heaven.
(22:12):
And I.
This is one of my big questions when I get there
is what the heck?
Where was the manual in all of this?
That's okay.
We wouldn't read it.
No, no.
That's undoubted,
undoubtedly true.
And it's really interesting as I have read books that do
(22:33):
talk about,
as you say,
like bringing this awareness to people.
The biggest challenge I find with every book I've ever read
and I don't think it's a,
a failure of Any author is.
I don't.
I think it's very hard to translate a how to method
in a book.
I think you could talk about what it is,
but this process of being able to look inside does not
(22:56):
seem to be something that's transmitted by a book.
And I,
when people tell me,
oh, AI is going to take over all the coaching jobs,
I'm like,
yeah, not yet.
Not until I can get someone to do that.
Build the trust,
build the space where they are willing to take that step
with you into their deeper selves.
(23:17):
And I don't really know why it's so hard.
I think the one operating theory I have is my current
understanding is our prefrontal cortex,
which is our executive thinking center,
only matures,
they say around between 24 to 27,
Etc. So in my mind,
and I've never asked a neuroscience scientist about this exactly,
(23:41):
but in my mind,
the way that I translate that to is if you moved
into a house today and I asked you what did the
house look like last week,
what would be your answer?
Pretty much the way it looks right now.
You're making that assumption,
right? You didn't see it last week,
but I would assume so,
yeah. You assume so,
right. So like in my mind,
(24:03):
our pref frontal cortex,
I know,
doesn't just pop into awareness.
I know that it's a gradual process.
But in a certain sense,
when we are 1,
2, 3,
5, 8,
9, whatever years old and we are just absorbing all of
this information,
we don't have the cognitive executive function ability to question it,
(24:24):
to query it,
to ask ourselves,
does this make sense?
Is this going to be good for me?
We just take it on because we don't yet have that
capacity. So then we get into our 20s and our prefrontal
cortex is getting better and more active and we're starting to
utilize it to,
to query into question.
(24:44):
But how does it know to question everything that it already
has? It's like moving into that house.
So that's my one working theory about why it's so hard.
But I'm sure that some smarter people than me,
which there are many,
have better answers than that.
No, actually I think that makes a lot of sense.
My background or one of my degrees is in genetics and
(25:06):
my background is on that side.
And it's.
I get frustrated sometimes with the conversations because people very much
want to say,
is it genetics or is it your environment?
As if that's the question.
And this geneticist stopped asking that question a long time ago.
The answer to that question is yes,
it's Both.
What we're trying to tease out is how much of which
(25:27):
that's the complex interplay between the two.
That's the work.
It's not a,
it's not a yes or no question.
It's a yes.
Everything, all of it.
We're affected by all of it all the time,
from beginning till end.
You, your brain,
we used to think your brain got done,
and then it was done baking and it just kind of
stayed the same.
And it's.
No, that does not happen that way.
We know it's a lot more plastic than we ever believed
(25:49):
and constantly reforming itself.
So I think you're.
I think you're probably onto something in terms of if you
can't think about what's happening,
then how do you think about what's happening?
And then later,
once you can think about it,
why would you.
It's a,
it's there.
And from a,
From a.
At least for an analogy,
that works really well,
(26:09):
even if it's not exactly 100% right on the chemistry and
the physics and the neurobiology of it.
So let's talk some more to that leader that's out there
that's hearing some of this.
And maybe,
maybe they're having a moment of thinking about those human bumper
cars that you're talking about.
And they're going,
maybe there is something here.
Because I've tried everything else.
(26:30):
What does the process look like?
What are the.
What would it look like for them to begin taking this
journey of looking at themselves and unpacking and moving forward in
a more productive way?
So I like to call it digging into curiosity and what
(26:52):
I mean by that word,
because it's a broad.
It's one of those words that can be used in many
ways is start to ask myself,
is it true?
Just because I think it,
is it true?
How do I know it to be true?
And that these questions were very much informed for me by
(27:14):
the work of this woman called Byron,
Katie, who has something called the Work.
And she has these four questions that we.
That she asks us to ask ourselves.
And essentially those four questions,
I think they're great four questions is,
do I,
is it true?
How do I know it to be true?
Is it 100% true all the time?
And just start to.
(27:34):
If we can go and say,
okay, you're wrong,
how do I know that to be true?
What if I'm wrong,
that you're wrong,
what might change?
And so to me,
that's the starting process.
It's just being willing.
And I think it does take Courage to be willing to
(27:55):
try that.
And I always,
everybody I work with,
I say think of everything as an experiment.
It's not about getting it right,
it's not about wrong.
It's about trying something and seeing what you get,
seeing what you learn.
What would happen if all of these people that are wrong,
that are stupid,
that are idiots,
that should be following,
that should be doing this.
What if I'm wrong?
(28:18):
What changes for me?
That's my invitation to everybody is be willing to experiment with
that and see what you get.
How have you seen this affect the leader's well being?
Leader burnout is something that we see a lot,
(28:40):
just employee in general,
but especially in leadership and management roles.
How has this work?
Have you seen it affect leaders abilities to keep.
Do. Keep doing the hard work without burning out,
either professionally or personally?
So it's so funny coaching a whole group of leaders from
(29:01):
a really big entertainment company right now.
And they love their jobs,
they love where they're working,
they really do.
And they work their butts off because they love it.
And one guy said to me,
I don't exercise anymore.
And I know that I need to.
Another one like,
(29:22):
I, I'm not able to balance being home for my kids
and get,
and really get all the work done.
And so my,
my, again my reflection with them is often they think they
need to build a muscle to learn how to say no,
to make this decision.
(29:43):
And I say,
what if you looked at it as a different paradigm?
What if it isn't a matter of I gotta learn to
say no?
What does it matter?
If you looked at your life as am I aligned with
myself? Am I aligned with my values?
Am I aligned with what I want?
(30:04):
That's the first question.
Because I find that burnout comes not from overwork or whatever.
It comes from this space of if we look at it,
I look at it this way,
am I aligned with what I want?
And often people will say,
no, I'm not.
I'm like,
okay, so the question isn't what you say yes or no
(30:25):
to. The question is what do you need to do to
feel more aligned within yourself?
If there wasn't some global right and wrong way to do
it, if there wasn't what just you for you,
what would alignment look like?
What would it feel like?
How would that play out?
And that becomes the conversation rather than what I need to
(30:49):
stop doing,
start doing differently is more of that emotional attunement to my
alignment. Again,
when I'm thinking now about the coaching I do with money
and time and these sorts of things.
It's the same question.
It's not there's a right way to spend your money and
there's a wrong way to spend the money.
It's. But are you spending your money in a way that
(31:10):
actually is getting you the things that you actually say are
the values and the things that you want?
And if the answer is no,
then we need to do something different.
And yet we'll do that.
We'll spend the money in the way that we think we
should as opposed to the way that we actually should because
of, of,
yeah, that's.
And again,
(31:30):
we're back to it's not the thing,
it's the examining of the thing that is,
that's the value.
It's so what.
I've got a few questions that I like to ask all
of my guests,
but before I ask you those,
what else about your work do you think is really important
for the listener to hear?
Something I keep on getting reflected back to me by people
(31:55):
I'm supporting,
who I've often had other coaches before me,
is that my approach is really practical.
And I,
I, I think that's because of my engineering background.
Right. If you can't put it into practice right away,
then what's the good.
All the information in the world.
(32:15):
So every coaching session is spent mostly on practical things.
What is going on today?
What are your current challenges or priorities?
How are you feeling about them?
Let's talk about some techniques to deal with this right now.
And yes,
there's these bigger goals I want to have.
You know this.
(32:36):
I want to get a promotion.
I want to be able to be more balanced.
I want,
yes. And that will all come about because the,
everything I'm doing is informed,
as at the beginning,
by the neuroscience and the emotional wellness.
So I look at the system that,
that we operate under as human beings,
and as I help people practically understand that and what to
(33:01):
do with that,
it becomes a very applicable way for them to put things
into practice and make those shifts.
And so what I'd like people to know is if you're
looking for something,
a coaching experience that is very practical,
very grounded in frameworks that you can apply right away,
and they work.
(33:21):
You can apply them not only in the certain situation that
you're looking to grow in or achieve,
but, but beyond the coaching,
you'll get it as those will be just as applicable.
I will add to that because I've worked in the corporate
world and other things,
and a lot of,
I've had a lot of leaders around me who say that
the emotional work,
the soft skill work,
(33:42):
all of that stuff,
it's all just boo and,
you know,
not practical.
What I will tell you is if you've got the right
person working with you,
it is incredibly effective and practical.
And I've seen that myself,
where it does not have to sound all woo woo things.
It can actually be something that at the end of the
(34:02):
day, you're like,
that worked kind of thing.
So that.
I will second that.
When you get the opportunity to work with somebody that takes
that approach,
it does change.
It does change things.
Yeah, I agree.
My brand is inspired stewardship,
but I run things through that lens of stewardship.
But yet,
like we were talking about earlier,
that's one of those words that can mean a lot of
(34:23):
different things to a lot of different people.
So when you hear the word stewardship,
what does that word mean to you?
To me,
stewardship means that I have the opportunity and maybe,
as Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker,
(34:45):
the responsibility to recognize that life is actually happening for us,
for me,
for you.
And that what we have,
what we bring to the table,
our abilities,
our gifts are really the.
The means for us to bring that to the world and
(35:09):
to share it with others,
to help others,
to elevate others,
and then to let go and let the ripples go on.
I cannot control others.
I'm still working on controlling myself.
And so the more that I can stop questioning,
(35:30):
why am I here?
Why do I do that?
And recognize that we all have gifts,
we all have abilities,
and if we can learn to recognize them,
then we can be more intentional about them and bring those
into the world.
(35:51):
And I find for me,
that's what stewardship is.
So this is my favorite question that I like to ask
everybody. Imagine for a moment that I invented this magic machine.
And with this machine,
I was able to take you from where you are today
and transport you into the future,
maybe 150,
maybe 250 years.
And through the power of this machine,
you were able to look back and see your entire life,
(36:14):
see all of the connections,
all of the ripples,
all of the impacts you've left.
What impact do you hope you've left in the world?
I hope that people would say about me that I help
them see themselves more clearly,
to allow them to access their courage,
their kindness,
(36:35):
and their awareness.
And that they therefore felt that they had a sense of
choice in how to respond and react to the world around
them more intentionally,
more of the time,
rather than feeling,
(36:57):
oh, my God,
what's happening?
Life is happening.
I have no control overwhelmed because when I might it's been
my experience when we feel and re and find our choice
which certainly in the US we call it agency also but
I find that's not necessarily translates globally.
(37:20):
Then all of a sudden a sense of energy and renewed
self power comes back into play and then I can do
something and so I hope I dream that's what I'll be
remembered for.
So what's on the roadmap?
What's coming next as you continue on your journey?
(37:40):
So right now I am focused on expanding my network,
on reaching more people,
starting to gear up,
getting ready to be to do some keynote speaking,
working with more coaches to share these ideas and these thoughts
and to really reach more clients so that I hope again
(38:03):
to help more people feel that they are not in bumper
cars. So you can find out more about Jesse on LinkedIn.
It's @Y K O S S O W S K Y.
I'll have a link to that over in the show notes
(38:23):
as well.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with the listeners?
If you feel that life is happening to you and you
feel or find yourself using the should word a lot for
others and you would like to actually make a shift where
(38:46):
you feel you are actually having an intentional influence and impact
on yourself and on those around you,
reach out.
When you get to my when you get to the LinkedIn
page, you can book time with me.
There's a link there just to schedule time.
I am open to talking to anybody and seeing if there's
something I can do to help you,
(39:06):
support you.
That's wonderful and I encourage folks to take advantage of that.
Again, this is sometimes the harder work,
the scary work,
but it's honestly the much valuable work if you want to
make a real change in who you are and how you
see the world and how you interact with others.
So thank you for that.
(39:27):
Thank you,
Scott. Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship podcast.
As a subscriber and listener,
we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen
but but act on what you've heard and find a way
to live your calling.
(39:49):
If you enjoyed this episode,
please do us a favor.
Go over to inspired stewardship.com
iTunes Rate all one word iTunes Rate.
It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review
and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so
(40:10):
that you can get every episode as it comes out in
your feed.
Until next time,
invest your time,
your talent and your treasures.
Develop your influence and impact the world.
Thanks for joining us on episode 1553 of the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. I'm Yesi Kasowski.
I challenge you to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
develop your influence and impact the world by using your time,
your talent and your treasures to live out your calling.
(00:21):
Having the ability to recognize that you always have the power
of choice is is key.
And one way to be inspired honestly is to do that
by listening to this amazing podcast.
To the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Mader.
(00:44):
I think you could talk about what it is,
but this process of being able to look inside does not
seem to be something that's transmitted by a book.
And people tell me,
oh, Ami is going to take over all the coaching jobs.
I'm like,
yeah, not yet.
Not until I can get someone to do that.
Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship
(01:08):
Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God
wants you to be,
then you must learn to use your time,
your talent and your treasures for your true calling.
In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast,
you will learn to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
(01:37):
In today's podcast episode,
I interview Jesse Kowalski.
I asked Yesi about the connection between real leadership and self
awareness. I also asked Yesi about how leaders have to understand
themselves to really understand their teams.
And Yossi also talks about the process we use to achieve
a mindset shift.
I have a great book that's been out for a while
(01:58):
now called Inspired Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering
your time,
your talent and your treasures.
You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com
it'll take you to a page where there's information and you
can sign up to get some mailings about it as well
as purchase a copy there.
(02:19):
I'd love to see you get a copy and share with
me how it impacted your world.
Today's guest is Jesse Kowalski,
a seasoned executive Coach with over 18 years of experience and
a background as a Chief Technology Officer and Senior Director of
Talent Management.
Yesi specializes in leadership development,
personal growth and effective communication.
(02:41):
Leveraging neuroscience and organizational development principles,
he's helped leaders across the globe navigate complex challenges by build
high performing teams and drive meaningful change.
Get ready to learn actionable strategies to enhance your leadership skills
and foster a culture of trust and collaboration.
Welcome to the show.
(03:02):
Thanks so much for being here.
Thank you so much Scott.
I'm really excited.
So I mentioned a lot of things in the intro about
some of the work You've done some of your background,
a lot of the studies.
You're man after my own heart.
I've also got science degrees and kind of look at things
from a science point of view.
(03:22):
And yet at the same time,
I always know that intros and bios and those sort of
things. It's kind of like the Instagram photos of our life.
It just shows the highlight reel.
Never really shows the whole reality.
So take us back a little bit and unpack for everybody.
What's a little bit more about your journey and why is
this your focus and what you're working on now and the
(03:42):
message that you're putting out in the world?
Yeah, absolutely.
So I start off my career in IT and then moved
into engineering,
and I had an opportunity to take more of a management
role. I wasn't calling it leadership or anything.
And what I discovered via feedback was I wasn't doing a
(04:04):
good job.
And it was a real challenge for me because I thought
I had read the manual,
how you do this.
And, okay,
the feedback indicated that knowing wasn't enough.
And looking even deeper,
I realized,
okay, so as an engineer,
(04:24):
this actually made sense.
You can read the manual on how to build something,
but until you get your hands dirty and,
you know,
in the weeds,
that's a whole different experience.
And so I just didn't have a frame of reference of
where to go to do a root cause on humans.
And the.
(04:45):
Luckily, I.
When you go searching,
life kind of provides,
hopefully. And it did for me.
And that led me to study emotional wellness therapy and neuroscience
therapy. And I was looking at that as the software and
the hardware of what I was trying to solve for.
And it.
It was just transformational as I learned about emotions and feeling
(05:07):
and how I have this perception.
And my perception is different than everybody else's perception.
And that means that just because I say something doesn't mean
everybody else understands it.
And just because I intend something or I'm thinking something,
people can't read my mind.
And it just starts to unravel from there that I live
(05:27):
in a world where I,
if I don't question it,
think we're all on the same page,
then I find out we're not.
And then the question is,
do I have the tools,
the resources,
the understanding to process that in a healthy way,
to allow me to remain effective as myself,
(05:50):
as a spouse,
as a father,
as a worker,
as a leader?
And so my journey was hitting a wall and saying,
okay, I got to figure this out,
and then letting go.
Because everything that I started learning Went against my Vulcan nature
of it's got to make sense because I found out that
(06:13):
emotions don't really make sense necessarily.
And that was a pretty wild ride.
Yeah. So I work with a,
I'm a coach myself and I work with a lot of,
I actually do a lot of training of coaches and I
actually was teaching class not too long ago.
And the people we're all,
they're financial coaches and so most people that are financially minded
(06:35):
and that's how they think about money and they're all about
the numbers.
Just show me the numbers and it'll make sense.
And I was telling them at one point,
I'm like,
you realize it's not about the numbers.
It's like,
it's like if it was information,
they'd already have changed.
They wouldn't have.
If it's missing information,
Google would have given them the answer.
It's not information,
it's how they feel.
(06:56):
So, yeah,
you had that same experience but in a different setting.
100%. And I'll tell you with reflection,
what's always remained as a question is how is it that
in our society we get trained on how to think,
we get trained on logic,
we get trained on math,
(07:17):
we don't get trained on how to process emotion.
Like, why,
where is that?
And it doesn't seem to be one of those inbred things
either. Like,
it's not like it's instinctive.
And I do find that like,
bizarre. On the other hand,
where I'm sitting now as a coach,
(07:38):
it gives me this opportunity to work with people and to
support people that if everyone did know it,
then I,
of course I would have to find something else to do.
Yeah, but I don't think you're in danger of getting out
of work anytime soon.
If the world is any evidence of people learning to process
emotion in a healthy way,
I don't think,
I don't think you're going to run out of work when
you think about process processing emotion too.
(07:59):
So it's.
Well, we'll get more into it later.
But just from the point of view of,
I'm trying to formulate the question as I'm talking in my
own head.
It's. There's us understanding our own emotions and then there's us
kind of understanding other people's emotions.
Right? Yeah.
How do you see that kind of division or how do
(08:24):
those two things work together when in the work that you
do? So I think the answer that I have is I
had a coaching session earlier with a leader and technical leader
And I tend to do very well with technical leaders,
I guess,
because I came from that background.
And this leader is saying to me,
(08:44):
how do I deal with an employee who.
Our personalities are just a conflict?
And I say,
okay, let me.
Help me understand,
what do you mean by conflict?
How does that play out?
And so the leader says,
they are not,
they're not maintaining the values and the mindset of the team
(09:09):
and really the company.
And I said,
so what?
Why is that a problem?
And the leader says,
well, because then there's.
Things are not going to be,
we're not going to be going in the same direction.
I'm like,
so what?
What's the problem?
And the leader what do you mean,
(09:30):
what's the problem?
That's a problem.
And I'm like,
no, but what's.
Why is it really bothering you?
And it took some different angles of asking that question,
but ultimately it's,
I want other people to do what I feel is important
and right.
So I said to this person,
are you illegal?
Are you a.
Do you believe that it's important to follow the laws of
(09:51):
the land or.
And they said,
yes, absolutely.
I said,
do you speed?
And they go,
yes. I'm like,
what's with that?
How can you possibly speed if you think that the laws
are important?
And they smile.
I'm like,
so are you just choosing which rules are the ones that
are important to keep?
And they said,
(10:11):
oh, I see what you're doing there.
I said,
what am I doing there?
And they said,
we're not,
we're not consistent.
We're just choosing where we want to play the game.
And this leader said to me,
she said,
oh, this is my ego,
isn't it?
So a long winded way of saying that dealing with other
(10:37):
people's emotions to me first requires us to understand ours a
little bit better.
And why am I feeling what I'm feeling about this other
person? Because if I can't reconcile that,
I don't know how you reconcile the other side.
Yeah, it always starts with understanding ourselves.
If we really want to understand other people,
(10:58):
period, I don't care what it is.
And of course I think too,
it's, that's actually harder in some ways.
It's hard enough to understand other people.
It's even harder to understand yourself because that's vulnerable.
That suddenly means admitting things that you don't want to admit
about yourself.
Yeah. And I,
by the way,
I don't know how somebody does that on their own.
(11:21):
The emotional wellness therapy work,
that's what we focused on.
Was not helping other people get better,
was helping ourselves.
And it was all about in the end of the day,
ripping the layers off,
not adding new things on.
It wasn't about additive work.
It was really about the deconstruction work.
(11:44):
So I don't,
I think I feel gifted or are blessed really as a
coach to be able to say I can bring that awareness
into the coaching engagement so that when people are talking about
conflict, I know how to lead them into that self awareness
without going into a therapy session.
(12:04):
And that's like you said,
I think it does take.
It takes working in a way that isn't just sitting in
your own stew,
so to speak.
It requires a therapy coaching even in some cases,
even a good friend or a good spouse can ask those
questions that make you get out of your own way and
(12:24):
you go,
or boss or a coworker or somebody else that you know
and trust.
But it is,
it's very hard to do it all by yourself,
sitting in your own stew,
if not impossible.
Yeah, I'm with you a hundred percent.
I'm a firm believer in not saying anything's ever completely impossible.
I'm sure there's someone out there that's managed to do it,
but I don't think it's going to be very many people.
(12:46):
So we're.
One of the things I like to highlight on the show
is the intersection between our own journey or our kind of
inward journey around faith and spirituality and belief and whatever that
looks like for us and then how that intersects the work
we do in the world and the life journey that we've
been on.
How has that played out in this journey that you've been
(13:07):
on? You prepared me for this question and I love this
question, honestly.
And what's just a preemptive.
I sometimes find that it's uncomfortable for me to share this
and I don't know yet why.
Still. I'm digging.
(13:28):
I'm. I'm dating that with you.
But as we got talked before and I got that sense
of where you're at spiritually,
I feel very comfortable to,
to talk with you about it.
I was raised in a family of religious people who believe
(13:49):
in God and in scripture,
and so I didn't question that.
However, as I got older,
I found myself not without comprehension,
like without conscious realization,
dealing with a lot of guilt.
(14:12):
And when I went through that again,
that, that whole training and started to understand the role of
the belief systems we take on,
how that translates,
or the belief systems we take on,
the value systems we take on and all of these constructs
(14:33):
that we build around ourselves without recognizing.
What does that do to our behaviors?
What does that do to the thoughts we have?
And I realized as I went through this and it was
a crushing experience initially that my belief system was screwed up
(14:56):
and it was self destructive.
And instead of bringing me up and lifting me up,
it was crushing me.
And it wasn't the religion,
it wasn't the scripture,
it was the what I had taken on in my understanding.
And so learning how to see that and then start to
(15:22):
pull it apart and gain not only a sense of freedom
and lightness,
but also a much deeper connection to life,
to the universe,
to people in general.
What has been crazy from forever since then.
Like I,
I look back at the,
like we say preco,
(15:42):
postco. So this was pre the awareness and post the awareness.
So in recognizing that again when we come to these situations
where leaders are like,
I want to have better executive presence.
I want to,
I want to be able to deal with conflict better,
I want to be able to not be afraid or I
want to have more self confidence.
What are the beliefs you are holding on to that have
(16:03):
shaped yourself so much that this is your response to these
events, to these actions?
And so that's for me the intersection and is in recognizing
what belief did to me.
And it wasn't.
Maybe we say that word is like it's a generic.
Oh, but it's for me it's not a generic thing.
It's. We have beliefs that are supportive and we have beliefs
(16:25):
that are not supportive.
Learning which ones are supportive and saying okay,
I want to reaffirm those.
But these ones,
no, they're not so good for me.
How do I go through this emotional mental neuro linguistic process
of letting them go and bringing on ones that are healthy
and supportive?
And I think that's the important message and kind of the
(16:48):
tie to,
at least to me,
to the tie between what we were just talking about and
the journey you went on is it wasn't so much even
quote the beliefs.
It was the fact that you hadn't examined them and unpacked
them and looked at them and you had just accepted them.
And I think that's the same,
(17:08):
that's the same behavior that we're talking about.
The worker that you're the boss that you're working with or
the manager that you're working with.
But they don't believe what I want them to believe.
This is bad.
But why?
What's the actual cause?
What's actually happening here?
It's very much the Same sort of behavior in a different
realm. And it's not the belief,
(17:30):
it's the fact that it hadn't been examined and unpacked and
thought about and process that was creating the burden.
Yeah, but I really wonder,
honestly, as you're talking right now and reflecting on that,
is, what are your listeners thinking?
Because when I do bring this up initially with people,
(17:53):
they're like deer in the headlight.
What do you mean,
questioning my beliefs?
What do you mean?
Like, you used a better word,
not questioning.
What did you say?
Evaluating or examining?
Examining. The word examining,
and that's the word I love examining.
Like people like what.
What are you talking about?
So even that idea often gets me like a stare to
(18:17):
get ready to do,
to even contemplate doing that.
Because think about it,
it's not a belief.
That's just a fact.
That's just the way the world is.
Because that's the way the world is.
Deeply rooted.
That's just truth.
That's not.
That's not anything to look at,
evaluate. It's just is.
(18:39):
Why would we look at the.
Why would we look at the sky and say it's green
instead of blue?
Look, it's blue.
I just know that it's blue.
And yet,
by the way,
actually, technically,
no, it's not.
And if we get into the science and the whys of
the wherefores,
we can explain that.
But it's blue.
Yeah, yeah,
but it is.
I think,
again, we work a lot.
Behavior, habits,
(19:00):
mindset, beliefs,
all of these things,
they become the water that we're swimming in as fish.
And we don't even know that we're swimming in water because
it's just.
It so obviously surrounds us that we become blind to it.
What are some of the ways that you've seen leaders?
How has this kind of not doing this work and not
(19:22):
looking at it as a leader,
how does that actually affect their teams,
their companies,
their business,
whatever environment that they're operating in that then has caused them
to seek help?
Are they seeing and what's happening that then causes them to
say, hey,
something needs to be different here.
So in my mind,
(19:43):
I think of it as human bumper cars.
And it'll image.
Yeah, it'll show up in some way like that.
But it's.
We are bumping into something and we don't necessarily know how
to name it.
Most of the time when it's presented,
it is.
(20:04):
They are not doing,
they are not following.
They. I've been told that.
So rather than it being,
oh, I have come to an Awareness that I am out
of sync and I want to get into sync.
And so far hasn't happened to me.
That's not ever been someone's introduction to,
hey, I,
you know why I want coaching?
(20:25):
It's always been I need to get my team aligned,
I need to get things going.
We, we've got a big deal that we've got to do.
We've got to produce certain things.
And I don't see how giving the teams.
So it's always they're almost in a sense.
Again, I don't bring this up right away in it.
(20:45):
The way I experience it is they are almost feeling they
don't have agency.
And so it is bumper cars,
but it's bumper cars where they're not even realizing they're driving.
And there,
there's your technical people where there's a lot of.
In their mind and maybe even in their language,
(21:06):
people should be doing things like it's.
This is obvious.
This is the right thing to do.
Therefore it's a given.
This is the process.
Why wouldn't you do it this way?
Yeah, why wouldn't you do it that way?
And then there's other people,
whether it's marketing people or HR people.
And then it's a different language.
Not that the should word doesn't just show up,
(21:26):
but the mindset behind it is often about don't we want
to get along?
Don't we want to be successful?
They can even touch on the more emotional side.
But the challenge still remains the same,
that if we haven't learned to first look inward and as
you say,
examine, we will never be able to really address the external
(21:52):
experiences of others.
If we haven't been able to address ourselves,
why do you think it is so hard to address ourselves?
We've talked about the fact that we need help,
but why do you think it's so hard for me?
That's the billion dollar question.
That's the billion dollar question.
It really is the billion dollar question.
And I don't like I.
So I believe in God and I believe in heaven.
(22:12):
And I.
This is one of my big questions when I get there
is what the heck?
Where was the manual in all of this?
That's okay.
We wouldn't read it.
No, no.
That's undoubted,
undoubtedly true.
And it's really interesting as I have read books that do
(22:33):
talk about,
as you say,
like bringing this awareness to people.
The biggest challenge I find with every book I've ever read
and I don't think it's a,
a failure of Any author is.
I don't.
I think it's very hard to translate a how to method
in a book.
I think you could talk about what it is,
but this process of being able to look inside does not
(22:56):
seem to be something that's transmitted by a book.
And I,
when people tell me,
oh, AI is going to take over all the coaching jobs,
I'm like,
yeah, not yet.
Not until I can get someone to do that.
Build the trust,
build the space where they are willing to take that step
with you into their deeper selves.
(23:17):
And I don't really know why it's so hard.
I think the one operating theory I have is my current
understanding is our prefrontal cortex,
which is our executive thinking center,
only matures,
they say around between 24 to 27,
Etc. So in my mind,
and I've never asked a neuroscience scientist about this exactly,
(23:41):
but in my mind,
the way that I translate that to is if you moved
into a house today and I asked you what did the
house look like last week,
what would be your answer?
Pretty much the way it looks right now.
You're making that assumption,
right? You didn't see it last week,
but I would assume so,
yeah. You assume so,
right. So like in my mind,
(24:03):
our pref frontal cortex,
I know,
doesn't just pop into awareness.
I know that it's a gradual process.
But in a certain sense,
when we are 1,
2, 3,
5, 8,
9, whatever years old and we are just absorbing all of
this information,
we don't have the cognitive executive function ability to question it,
(24:24):
to query it,
to ask ourselves,
does this make sense?
Is this going to be good for me?
We just take it on because we don't yet have that
capacity. So then we get into our 20s and our prefrontal
cortex is getting better and more active and we're starting to
utilize it to,
to query into question.
(24:44):
But how does it know to question everything that it already
has? It's like moving into that house.
So that's my one working theory about why it's so hard.
But I'm sure that some smarter people than me,
which there are many,
have better answers than that.
No, actually I think that makes a lot of sense.
My background or one of my degrees is in genetics and
(25:06):
my background is on that side.
And it's.
I get frustrated sometimes with the conversations because people very much
want to say,
is it genetics or is it your environment?
As if that's the question.
And this geneticist stopped asking that question a long time ago.
The answer to that question is yes,
it's Both.
What we're trying to tease out is how much of which
(25:27):
that's the complex interplay between the two.
That's the work.
It's not a,
it's not a yes or no question.
It's a yes.
Everything, all of it.
We're affected by all of it all the time,
from beginning till end.
You, your brain,
we used to think your brain got done,
and then it was done baking and it just kind of
stayed the same.
And it's.
No, that does not happen that way.
We know it's a lot more plastic than we ever believed
(25:49):
and constantly reforming itself.
So I think you're.
I think you're probably onto something in terms of if you
can't think about what's happening,
then how do you think about what's happening?
And then later,
once you can think about it,
why would you.
It's a,
it's there.
And from a,
From a.
At least for an analogy,
that works really well,
(26:09):
even if it's not exactly 100% right on the chemistry and
the physics and the neurobiology of it.
So let's talk some more to that leader that's out there
that's hearing some of this.
And maybe,
maybe they're having a moment of thinking about those human bumper
cars that you're talking about.
And they're going,
maybe there is something here.
Because I've tried everything else.
(26:30):
What does the process look like?
What are the.
What would it look like for them to begin taking this
journey of looking at themselves and unpacking and moving forward in
a more productive way?
So I like to call it digging into curiosity and what
(26:52):
I mean by that word,
because it's a broad.
It's one of those words that can be used in many
ways is start to ask myself,
is it true?
Just because I think it,
is it true?
How do I know it to be true?
And that these questions were very much informed for me by
(27:14):
the work of this woman called Byron,
Katie, who has something called the Work.
And she has these four questions that we.
That she asks us to ask ourselves.
And essentially those four questions,
I think they're great four questions is,
do I,
is it true?
How do I know it to be true?
Is it 100% true all the time?
And just start to.
(27:34):
If we can go and say,
okay, you're wrong,
how do I know that to be true?
What if I'm wrong,
that you're wrong,
what might change?
And so to me,
that's the starting process.
It's just being willing.
And I think it does take Courage to be willing to
(27:55):
try that.
And I always,
everybody I work with,
I say think of everything as an experiment.
It's not about getting it right,
it's not about wrong.
It's about trying something and seeing what you get,
seeing what you learn.
What would happen if all of these people that are wrong,
that are stupid,
that are idiots,
that should be following,
that should be doing this.
What if I'm wrong?
(28:18):
What changes for me?
That's my invitation to everybody is be willing to experiment with
that and see what you get.
How have you seen this affect the leader's well being?
Leader burnout is something that we see a lot,
(28:40):
just employee in general,
but especially in leadership and management roles.
How has this work?
Have you seen it affect leaders abilities to keep.
Do. Keep doing the hard work without burning out,
either professionally or personally?
So it's so funny coaching a whole group of leaders from
(29:01):
a really big entertainment company right now.
And they love their jobs,
they love where they're working,
they really do.
And they work their butts off because they love it.
And one guy said to me,
I don't exercise anymore.
And I know that I need to.
Another one like,
(29:22):
I, I'm not able to balance being home for my kids
and get,
and really get all the work done.
And so my,
my, again my reflection with them is often they think they
need to build a muscle to learn how to say no,
to make this decision.
(29:43):
And I say,
what if you looked at it as a different paradigm?
What if it isn't a matter of I gotta learn to
say no?
What does it matter?
If you looked at your life as am I aligned with
myself? Am I aligned with my values?
Am I aligned with what I want?
(30:04):
That's the first question.
Because I find that burnout comes not from overwork or whatever.
It comes from this space of if we look at it,
I look at it this way,
am I aligned with what I want?
And often people will say,
no, I'm not.
I'm like,
okay, so the question isn't what you say yes or no
(30:25):
to. The question is what do you need to do to
feel more aligned within yourself?
If there wasn't some global right and wrong way to do
it, if there wasn't what just you for you,
what would alignment look like?
What would it feel like?
How would that play out?
And that becomes the conversation rather than what I need to
(30:49):
stop doing,
start doing differently is more of that emotional attunement to my
alignment. Again,
when I'm thinking now about the coaching I do with money
and time and these sorts of things.
It's the same question.
It's not there's a right way to spend your money and
there's a wrong way to spend the money.
It's. But are you spending your money in a way that
(31:10):
actually is getting you the things that you actually say are
the values and the things that you want?
And if the answer is no,
then we need to do something different.
And yet we'll do that.
We'll spend the money in the way that we think we
should as opposed to the way that we actually should because
of, of,
yeah, that's.
And again,
(31:30):
we're back to it's not the thing,
it's the examining of the thing that is,
that's the value.
It's so what.
I've got a few questions that I like to ask all
of my guests,
but before I ask you those,
what else about your work do you think is really important
for the listener to hear?
Something I keep on getting reflected back to me by people
(31:55):
I'm supporting,
who I've often had other coaches before me,
is that my approach is really practical.
And I,
I, I think that's because of my engineering background.
Right. If you can't put it into practice right away,
then what's the good.
All the information in the world.
(32:15):
So every coaching session is spent mostly on practical things.
What is going on today?
What are your current challenges or priorities?
How are you feeling about them?
Let's talk about some techniques to deal with this right now.
And yes,
there's these bigger goals I want to have.
You know this.
(32:36):
I want to get a promotion.
I want to be able to be more balanced.
I want,
yes. And that will all come about because the,
everything I'm doing is informed,
as at the beginning,
by the neuroscience and the emotional wellness.
So I look at the system that,
that we operate under as human beings,
and as I help people practically understand that and what to
(33:01):
do with that,
it becomes a very applicable way for them to put things
into practice and make those shifts.
And so what I'd like people to know is if you're
looking for something,
a coaching experience that is very practical,
very grounded in frameworks that you can apply right away,
and they work.
(33:21):
You can apply them not only in the certain situation that
you're looking to grow in or achieve,
but, but beyond the coaching,
you'll get it as those will be just as applicable.
I will add to that because I've worked in the corporate
world and other things,
and a lot of,
I've had a lot of leaders around me who say that
the emotional work,
the soft skill work,
(33:42):
all of that stuff,
it's all just boo and,
you know,
not practical.
What I will tell you is if you've got the right
person working with you,
it is incredibly effective and practical.
And I've seen that myself,
where it does not have to sound all woo woo things.
It can actually be something that at the end of the
(34:02):
day, you're like,
that worked kind of thing.
So that.
I will second that.
When you get the opportunity to work with somebody that takes
that approach,
it does change.
It does change things.
Yeah, I agree.
My brand is inspired stewardship,
but I run things through that lens of stewardship.
But yet,
like we were talking about earlier,
that's one of those words that can mean a lot of
(34:23):
different things to a lot of different people.
So when you hear the word stewardship,
what does that word mean to you?
To me,
stewardship means that I have the opportunity and maybe,
as Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker,
(34:45):
the responsibility to recognize that life is actually happening for us,
for me,
for you.
And that what we have,
what we bring to the table,
our abilities,
our gifts are really the.
The means for us to bring that to the world and
(35:09):
to share it with others,
to help others,
to elevate others,
and then to let go and let the ripples go on.
I cannot control others.
I'm still working on controlling myself.
And so the more that I can stop questioning,
(35:30):
why am I here?
Why do I do that?
And recognize that we all have gifts,
we all have abilities,
and if we can learn to recognize them,
then we can be more intentional about them and bring those
into the world.
(35:51):
And I find for me,
that's what stewardship is.
So this is my favorite question that I like to ask
everybody. Imagine for a moment that I invented this magic machine.
And with this machine,
I was able to take you from where you are today
and transport you into the future,
maybe 150,
maybe 250 years.
And through the power of this machine,
you were able to look back and see your entire life,
(36:14):
see all of the connections,
all of the ripples,
all of the impacts you've left.
What impact do you hope you've left in the world?
I hope that people would say about me that I help
them see themselves more clearly,
to allow them to access their courage,
their kindness,
(36:35):
and their awareness.
And that they therefore felt that they had a sense of
choice in how to respond and react to the world around
them more intentionally,
more of the time,
rather than feeling,
(36:57):
oh, my God,
what's happening?
Life is happening.
I have no control overwhelmed because when I might it's been
my experience when we feel and re and find our choice
which certainly in the US we call it agency also but
I find that's not necessarily translates globally.
(37:20):
Then all of a sudden a sense of energy and renewed
self power comes back into play and then I can do
something and so I hope I dream that's what I'll be
remembered for.
So what's on the roadmap?
What's coming next as you continue on your journey?
(37:40):
So right now I am focused on expanding my network,
on reaching more people,
starting to gear up,
getting ready to be to do some keynote speaking,
working with more coaches to share these ideas and these thoughts
and to really reach more clients so that I hope again
(38:03):
to help more people feel that they are not in bumper
cars. So you can find out more about Jesse on LinkedIn.
It's @Y K O S S O W S K Y.
I'll have a link to that over in the show notes
(38:23):
as well.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with the listeners?
If you feel that life is happening to you and you
feel or find yourself using the should word a lot for
others and you would like to actually make a shift where
(38:46):
you feel you are actually having an intentional influence and impact
on yourself and on those around you,
reach out.
When you get to my when you get to the LinkedIn
page, you can book time with me.
There's a link there just to schedule time.
I am open to talking to anybody and seeing if there's
something I can do to help you,
(39:06):
support you.
That's wonderful and I encourage folks to take advantage of that.
Again, this is sometimes the harder work,
the scary work,
but it's honestly the much valuable work if you want to
make a real change in who you are and how you
see the world and how you interact with others.
So thank you for that.
(39:27):
Thank you,
Scott. Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship podcast.
As a subscriber and listener,
we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen
but but act on what you've heard and find a way
to live your calling.
(39:49):
If you enjoyed this episode,
please do us a favor.
Go over to inspired stewardship.com
iTunes Rate all one word iTunes Rate.
It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review
and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so
(40:10):
that you can get every episode as it comes out in
your feed.
Until next time,
invest your time,
your talent and your treasures.
Develop your influence and impact the world.
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