#96 Kyle Pertuis: Unlocking Leadership Potential and Cultural Growth

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Kyle Pertuis of Mindfit Coaching. Kyle and I have known each other for at least 25 years, first meeting in Lake Lure when he was in the hospitality business. Now he is a coach, and I was intrigued to hear what he’s been up to in the last decade or so, and what drove him to make such a huge career shift.

 

In this episode, we are catching up with each other after many years of not seeing each other, and along the way, Kyle offers many coaching insights that apply to many different domains. For example, he has some really useful distinctions on what makes a good team. 

 

Here’s a summary of his biography:

 

Kyle Pertuis is the Founder and Head Coach at MindFit Coaching, Inc. in New Braunfels, TX.   He is a seasoned Professional Executive Coach and Leadership Development Consultant with a 25-year track record in designing and facilitating programs to optimize strong organizational culture, business growth, leadership development, personal effectiveness, and employee engagement. Kyle’s coaching and consulting expertise have supported numerous Fortune 500 companies as well entrepreneurial start-ups. 

 

Ultimately, his coaching style is rooted in his passion to support people with a values-based approach to creating positive and lasting change in their business and personal lives. As Founder of MindFit Coaching, Inc, he works primarily with leaders and their teams enabling them to maximize their highest potential and performance levels. For well over a decade Kyle has taught, trained, and certified over 1000 professional, executive, leadership, and life coaches.

 

Kyle says Simply Stated--Coaching is not a BUSINESS—it is a MINDSET and an enhanced level of communication to inspire, motivate and empower others to act!

 

This episode was a real treat for me to catch up with a longtime friend and colleague. I hope you enjoy this episode with Kyle Pertuis. 

Episode Transcript

Intro (00:02):
Lynn, Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk
about the dilemmas of balancingwork and life. And now here's
your host. Lynn Carnes,

Lynn (00:19):
welcome to the Creative Spirits Unleash Podcast. I'm
Lynn Carnes, your host. My gueston this episode of the podcast
is Kyle Pertius of mind fitcoaching. Kyle and I have known
each other for at least 25years, first meeting in Lake
Lure when he was in thehospitality business. Now he is
a coach, and I was intrigued tohear what he's been up to in the

(00:40):
last decade or so, and also whatdrove him to make such a huge
career shift. In this episode,we're catching up with each
other after many years of notseeing each other, and along the
way, Kyle offers a lot ofcoaching insights that apply to
many different domains. Forexample, he had some really
useful distinctions on whatmakes a good team. A
conversation in this podcastthat I really enjoyed. Now

(01:03):
here's a summary of hisbiography. Kyle Pertius is the
founder and head coach at mindfit coaching Inc in New
Braunfels, Texas. He's aseasoned professional executive
coach and leadership developmentconsultant with a 25 year track
record in designing andfacilitating programs to
optimize strong organizationalculture, business growth,
leadership development, personaleffectiveness and employee

(01:26):
engagement. Kyle's coaching andconsulting expertise have
supported numerous fortune, 500companies, as well as
entrepreneurial startups.
Ultimately, his coaching styleis rooted in his passion to
support people with a valuesbased approach to creating
positive and lasting change intheir business and personal
lives. As founder of mind fitcoaching Inc, he works primarily
with leaders and their teams,enabling them to maximize their

(01:49):
highest potential andperformance levels for well over
a decade. How has taught trainedand certified over 1000
professionals, executives,leadership and life coaches.
Kyle says simply stated,coaching is not a business, it's
a mindset and an enhanced levelof communication to inspire,
motivate and empower others toact. So this episode was a real

(02:10):
treat for me to get to catch upwith Kyle as a longtime friend
and colleague. And I really dohope you enjoy this episode.
Kyle Pertwee, welcome to thecreative spirits unleash
podcast.

Kyle (02:25):
Thank you. It's good to be here. Lynn,

Lynn (02:27):
I am glad to be here. This podcast is going to be maybe a
little different than some, inthat we are, in a way, two long
time friends that have notcaught up in a while. Yeah, a
long, long while, long while,and one of our thoughts about
getting on the podcast togetherwas our lives have taken a lot
of different turns, and we'velearned a lot along the way, and

(02:51):
we were going to kind of justshare those things in a
conversation together so otherpeople could hear it. Yeah, I
love it. I'm curious for you,what would be the one thing in
the last I'm trying to think howlong it's been since we lived in
the same town. But what has itbeen 15 years?

Kyle (03:11):
Well, yeah, we we left Lake Lure in, oh, five when we
launched in Greenville. So it'sbeen 2020, years since we were
there.

Lynn (03:20):
And see, I still feel like you are such a part of my life
here, because we used to seeeach other so much. Yeah, so in
the last 20 years, what wouldyou say is a change that you've
made that I wouldn't be able tosee on the surface, but that you
know, has changed since I lastgot to see you all the time.

(03:40):
Yeah, I

Kyle (03:41):
Well, I think that the quick, very complicated answer
is shortening the longestdistance between my head my
heart. I think when we made thechoice to leave that area, there
was just a lot of selfexploration that I I needed to
do, and dove into head first.
And so I think on the surface,you wouldn't see reconnecting

(04:07):
with core values and probablyliving into those more fully.
Yeah,

Lynn (04:16):
what do you think triggered that? What made you
decide to do that

Kyle (04:22):
good? There's a lot of things, you know, if I if I had
to pinpoint, I think, I thinkthey're just, I believe this to
me, it was, it was my faith thatsaid, Hey, you're not going in

(04:43):
the right direction. And sothere was, I don't like to use
the word awakening, but therewas an awareness of taking small
moments to step back and look atthings from a lens, other than
being in the middle of whateverwas going on in my life and
really being able to, you know.
Victor Frankel says it's thatthat gap between stimulus and
response and really being ableto capitalize on those small

(05:04):
pauses and ask questions around,huh? Why is this happening? Or
is that what I stand for? So Ithink there was some awareness
that was influenced by a lot ofa lot of different things, my
family. Lynn, you, you directlyand indirectly, raised some
questions for me during a timethat was challenging, and I
think it allowed me to tap backinto to wanting to rediscover

(05:28):
who I really was, because I feltlike I had lost some of that
during that

Lynn (05:35):
time. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of us can lose that,
and you were in a business, therestaurant business, where one
of the things that stunned mewhen I sat, and it might have
been with you, but the number ofdecisions per day that are
getting made in that business,and they're large and small. So

(05:58):
I often think about leadershipdecisions as either being made,
you know, something that mattersin the next five minutes. Are we
going to get this person atable, something that matters in
the next six months? What are weputting on the menu, something
that matters in the next sixyears? Should we build another
location? You know, those kindof decisions I've I've never
been in a setting where all thedifferent types of decisions

(06:21):
were being made in the samespace, often at the same time.
And sometimes I looked at itwould be like, this is 100
decisions an hour or more. Yeah,right. And so it's not a wonder
to me that you would kind oflose sight of core values in the
bigger picture, because it'salso a very interrupt driven
business. So much stuff iscoming at you at once. At once.

Kyle (06:44):
Yeah, yeah. A lot, a lot of distractions. And I think
hospitality for sure, from theoutside, consumers just demand
and what their expectations met.
From the inside, you start togain a different appreciation.
And I would say that about anyof those kind of full throttle
businesses, like, yes, you know,healthcare, construction,
education, to some extent. So Ithink there's a lot of nuances

(07:07):
that are, that are so, yeah,

Lynn (07:11):
yeah, there are. And one of the Have you watched the
White Lotus series? No, oh mygosh, you have to go watch it,
because the hospitality side. Itshows you, sort of the consumer
side and the hospitality side,the front of the house, the back
of the house. And you just kindof get this whole different
perspective. To me, of course,they're always putting extra

(07:32):
drama and murders and such likethat. Make for good watching
without watching if theydidn't include that. But also
showed, you know, it kind ofreminded me again. And I think
this is true. Disney talks aboutthe front of the house, in the
back of the house a lot, butthis is true of a lot of
businesses, especially that areconsumer facing. Where you're
you're being, you're almostrequired to be two faced, you

(07:54):
know, smiling at the front,bitching in the back, if you
will, because somebody just madea ridiculous request or
whatever. So how did you then,and how do you now reconcile
those things of, you know,living to core values and being
consistent and congruent, butalso recognizing that you're

(08:16):
serving clients still. Yeah,yeah.

Kyle (08:24):
I think, I think when you are in the business, the way you
describe being two faced is, ifthe intention is right, you're
honestly trying to serve theindividuals that are, that are
your clients, right, that arethat are paying the fare, but at
the same time, you've got toserve the people that are making

(08:46):
that happen, right? And soculturally, I think there's a
balance in that if you're goingto have a successful operation,
and really in any industry, youunderstand the balance between
that. The challenge is when itbecomes form over substance,
right? And it's, it's just kindof that, that very obvious, oh

(09:07):
gosh, you know, they're such agreat manager, they're such a
great leader. And then the flipside is, well, you know, which
version are you getting,

Lynn (09:15):
right? And do we not, as humans, have a little bit of a
bullshit detector that can tellus when somebody's really,
honestly smiling and whenthey're just putting on a

Kyle (09:24):
front Yeah. And the funny thing is, consumers can too,
yeah. You know, when we're stuckin it, though, we just think
we're pulling it off. And yeah,you're always going to be able
to pull the wool over somepeople's eyes, but others, you
know, it doesn't work. And that,again, that's the front and the
back of the house, and so Ithink you see a high churn rate
in that industry because of it.
I think you see people that arecan just move on to the next

(09:46):
thing, that don't really committo to the organization that they
work for, because there's reallyno substance from mission,
vision, values that connectpeople to a passion that they
have for serving. Other people,right? Yeah. And I think that
was a big challenge, becausethat's, that's really, I think,
at my core, why I got into thatindustry, and whenever I

(10:07):
started, probably in highschool,

Lynn (10:13):
yeah. Well, so, you know, I don't know that you and I have
ever talked about this, but I'dbe curious when you made the
shift, because it was, it waskind of, was probably not sudden
to you, but all of a sudden youwere, you were you started mind
fit coaching and and I'm tryingto remember if you did that

(10:35):
before you went to Greenville,or after, or when you moved to
Texas. But take me a little bitthrough how you made that
decision, and sort of what thewhat the birth of mind fit.
Coaching was like,

Kyle (10:50):
yeah. So we, we had opened the newest and largest location
in Greenville and oh, five,right? And that was a massive
undertaking. In fact, we moveddown there in a short period of
time. We had two kids. So nowwe're in October of Oh, eight.
And I think for probably somesome time, the whispers in the

(11:17):
back of my ear or back of mymind were this, this is not the
long term trajectory. You knowwhen, when my partners would ask
questions like, isn't this goingto be great for you to be able
to turn this over your kids toyou? And I said, Hell no, it's
not. There's nothing great aboutthat, right? When you know you
can answer, when you can havethat hard line of an answer, you

(11:37):
know in your core that this isnot the right direction. So So
in Oh, eight, our daughter wasborn. I think to me, that was
probably one of the most eyeopening moments where I really
just said it's time forsomething different. Worked with
a number of mentors, got somecoaching, decided to give it an

(12:00):
you know, another year, thingscontinued to to go in directions
other than what I felt like theyshould have. And so in oh nine i
i basically left. And so Istarted mind fit coaching. No
idea what I what I was doing atthat point, that was probably
October or so, but I knew Iwanted to help people that felt

(12:23):
stuck, and I didn't know whatthat looked like. I didn't know
who I was going to work with. Itook, probably, took, probably
six months off, and justbasically went into isolation
and hibernation. And during thattime, I read as many personal
professional development books Ican get my hand on. I did

(12:45):
assessments for myself,strengths, finders, you know,
all of those types of things,just to try to reconnect. I
think I had April, took the mywife, took the kids back to
Texas for a week, and I got thebiggest sticky notes I could
find and put them up all overour glass windows. And, you
know, just kind of went throughthis self analyzation process.
But I'll tell you one of thebest exercises I ever did. I

(13:07):
don't even know where I came upwith it. I'm certainly don't
claiming it to be proprietary,but I use it a lot for people.
Is over the past, I think I wentback two to three years. I made
a list of the top 10 peoplewho'd had the biggest impact or
influence on me, and really doveinto, what do they do? What was
it about them? You know,energetically, what was it about
them? Personality wise? What wasit about the way they led

(13:30):
themselves, that I was attractedto or that I that I really
valued or appreciated? And Ithink seven or eight out of
those 10 people, by the way, youwere on that list. Were in some
type of professional helpingmodality, whether it was
coaching. I had reconnected withan uncle of mine that was a

(13:50):
pastoral counselor, my runningcoach, and I had had a number of
conversations deeper than justrunning executive leadership
coaches, people in the personaldevelopment space that I had
attended, you know, conferenceswith, and become friends with,
as mentors. So I just kind ofknew, then I was like, yeah,
that's, that's the path. And soI took a, took a position as a a

(14:18):
consultant with a small firm outof Chicago, and was traveling
every week while I went and gota coach certification.

Lynn (14:26):
I think that we ran into each other in the airport. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. We did a couple oftimes at the end in terminal e
at the far end, I look up andthere you are running from one
place to the other. I remember,

Kyle (14:38):
yeah, and that airport is much more crowded now than it
was.

Lynn (14:42):
It's not the same as it was back in the day.

Kyle (14:44):
Yeah. So, so, yeah, I did that for a year, got my coach
certification, and probably, Idon't know, it was probably
April or so of of 2010 I said,I'm done. I'm not. I'm. Not
going to travel like that forsomebody else anymore, and just
hung my shingle and never lookedback. So that was, that was kind

(15:08):
of how it evolved.

Lynn (15:10):
Yeah. Well, isn't it interesting? I really love the
sticky note exercise. I, youknow, we probably use them
together because, you know, Iuse those all the time, like
they've been all over my glasswalls, whether I was writing a
book or trying to sort somethingout for myself. It's great way
to move things around and soforth, but it's interesting how

(15:30):
that kind of activity can giveyou a chance to like, if you can
get that balcony view, sort outwhat's really going on and and
what struck me as you weretalking about your shift was how
you wanted to help people whowere stuck, because you yourself
had felt stuck. Yeah. And theneat thing about being a coach

(15:56):
that's been in business and andbeen in the world, you have a
different perspective thanhaving sort of an analytical or
clinical approach. Yeah, it's aBeen there, done that real
world. I've, I've been in yourshoes kind of spot, yeah. So as
you look at the clients thatyou've worked with, how, what do

(16:18):
they bring you? Like, how oftendo they even know they're stuck?
In other words, how? What is thething clients most come to you
and say, Hey, Kyle, I'm hiring acoach, because how do they fill
in that blank? Yeah,

Kyle (16:32):
you know. And I think stuck is only defined by the
individual in whatever capacitythat that feels like for them,
right? Sometimes it's stuck intheir career. Sometimes it's
stuck in relationships. I mean,it can be any combination of
things and so, well, what weknow to be true is that when
people are looking for thatoutside perspective, it's

(16:53):
because they're not seeingthings clearly, right? It's kind
of that that in the businessversus on the business
perspective. It's kind of inyour head versus working on your
life. And I think people, peopleknow that they often want
something different in theirlives and want a different
outcome. They're just not alwayssure exactly if they're willing

(17:13):
to pay the price to get thatoutcome. They just want the
outcome. So I don't know thatthere's a common theme. Probably
now I don't do as much, one onone coaching. Those individuals
are always looking at what wecall the 2% tweak. And these are
high performers, senior levelpositions, a lot of them even

(17:34):
wrestling with do I want to takethe next step? Do I want to
become the next CFO CEOposition? Do I want to start my
own thing? And so there's a lotof those kind of questions that
kind of, I think, at that level,they're high performers, they're
they're excelling, they'resuccessful. And there's that,
that 2% tweak that can justreally amplify whatever they go

(17:57):
into next more confidently. AndI liken it to you remember the
reality show The Biggest Loser,and how they would come on and
and so worked so hard for thatfirst week, and they'd be able
to lose 2030, pounds. Sometimesit's just like astronomical
weight loss. And then you getdown the week before the finals,
and they've got to lose fivepounds, and it's the hardest
thing they've ever done, right,right? And so we kind of liken

(18:20):
it to that same thing is, youknow, you get to that level and
you really want to optimize agame that's already pretty,
pretty high performing. What arethe things that that need to be
focused on? And how are youthinking? What you know, what
does it look like from astrategic thinking standpoint
for you to really become moreintentional with the way you're
living out your life and howthat shows up in your work.

Lynn (18:42):
That is that little piece.
I really like that language, the2% tweak. And sometimes it's the
half percent, yeah, working withpeople on the tip that are
playing on the tip of the spear,you know, like you said, they've
already accomplished a lot. Wewere talking about this
yesterday, as it relates towater skiing and moving up in
different passes and when youreach a certain level, I
remember April Coble, who I haveworked with many, many times,

(19:05):
really phenomenal water skierand water skier coach, said it
took her 10 years to go from thehard pass to the hardest past
while she's at Ski Schoolwatching Kids go up 345, passes
in a week. Yeah. And the lowhanging fruit is there for them.
But then that reaches this pointwhere the differences of what

(19:26):
makes that 2% difference, it'sso subtle. And, like you said,
so difficult, yeah. So whenyou're working with somebody on
the tip of the spear, like that,and you said something else I
thought was very, very sage,which is, to what extent are
they willing to do it? How doyou help them find the trade

(19:49):
offs? Because a lot of times Ifind people are kind of stuck in
an equilibrium. It's like, well,yeah, I want to lose weight, but
I still also want to eat thechocolate. That's me, right? Is
you're wondering who that mightbe, yeah, so how much chocolate
Am I willing to give up to getwhere? Yeah, how do you help
people cross that threshold andmake the sacrifices

Kyle (20:12):
necessary? Yeah, we had a shop teacher in high school that
would say moderation. So simple,right? That's the key to life. I
think it's we. We spend a lot oftime helping people really

(20:33):
anchor into core drivers, right?
So what's, you know, there's alot of talk and a lot of value
in setting goals and a lot ofways to do that, right, but we
try to lock into core drivers sopeople really understand at
their core what it is that'smoving them forward in their
life with the things that theythink are most important. And
then from that, we start toidentify routines, right? And so

(20:56):
if your example, weight loss isreally a driver, because deeper
than that is I want to, youknow, live into my 80s and have
years with my family and mygreat grandkids, and we really
kind of unpack why is thatimportant? I lost my parents
early, and whatever it is, thenwe say, okay, what are the
routines that are going tosupport that? And I think people

(21:16):
really paying attention to yourroutines, other than looking at
how your calendar is color codedto make sure you don't miss
appointments, takes a differentlevel of thinking to really
connect back to what are theroutines I have in place in my
life that are allowing me tosupport those drivers, and then
for us, the goals come afterthat, right? Because then we're

(21:38):
locked in. Those drivers are on,always aligned with core values
of what's most important. Andthat gives us, you know, the the
ability to check in at any time.
Yeah, we can fool ourselves, wecan break our routines, but we
only have to answer to ourselvesand God, you know so

Lynn (21:59):
well that's so that's where I've seen a lot of mindset
breakthroughs for people. One ofthe ways I define mindset is is
it's along the lines of Carol.
Carol Dweck work on fixed versusgrowth mindset, but I like the
language of proving versusimproving. And if you look at
the definition of proving, mostof the time you're proving to

(22:20):
something external. Yeah. And soit goes with my this was, this
is not what I do now, but therewas a time when I was like,
Well, if I don't eat it in frontof anybody, does it count?
Because they didn't see mecheat, you know? And like you
said, you have to be accountableto yourself and to God, like
you're actually not doing thisfor someone else. You're doing
it for yourself. So you're onlycheating yourself if you play

(22:40):
that game. Yeah, and that's beena big shift for me. So what I'm
curious about for you, well,first of all, how do you define
mindset? How do you work withit? Because your mind fit
coaching. I know you work withmindset a lot,

Kyle (22:57):
yeah. I think the simplest answer to that is helping people
think about their thinking,right? Um, it's interesting. We
we don't often think about ourthoughts. We might think about
how we're feeling aboutsomething. We'll ask a kid to
say, hey, I want you to thinkabout your actions and why you
treated Johnny that way. Butlet's get back to what's really

(23:19):
driving that are you thinkingabout your thinking, right? And
let's really lock in. Where arethose, you know, fixed mindset
versus growth mindset types ofthings. Where's the limited
thinking holding you back? Whatdoes it take to see more
opportunity or reframe some ofthose things? So I think going
in inside, and I think again,going back to some of the flip

(23:41):
chart, but, you know, stickynote kind of things. I think if
we can make our thoughtsvisible, then it's there's a
bigger opportunity andlikelihood that when we can see
them, we can start to sortthrough them almost as as more
tangible, right? Well, I thinkwhen we can take what's
intangible in our minds, or whatwe can shuffle through, filter

(24:02):
through, and hide and put it onthe table, or put it on a you
know, in words, then we can lookat that more tangibly and say,
Huh, do I want to keep that? Andif so, I'm going to file it back
away. If I don't, it's going inthe trash can. Yeah. So I think
there's a combination of thingsaround that to help people
reconnect with mindset.

Lynn (24:24):
I remember a coach years ago. This was when I was just
starting to understand, I wasdeep in my banking career still,
and I was just starting tounderstand the idea of a little
bit of self awareness. And wewere working on, we were in a
room full of people. Not hugefor him, maybe, maybe 10 people.
And this woman that was a coachlooked over at me. She goes, You

(24:46):
know, you don't have to believeyour thoughts. And what was
interesting is that sent,obviously, I still remember it.
I've had a lot of people coachme on a lot of things I don't
remember. But I remember thatmoment because it hit me very
deeply and in my. Emotions.
Because I was like, well, thehell I don't, I mean, I have to,
you know, it was like, I really,she really struck a nerve with
me, because I thought she was100% wrong. And it took many,

(25:10):
many years for me to recognizethat thoughts are chooseable.

Kyle (25:21):
Yeah. Yeah. And there's so much power in that,

Lynn (25:25):
right? Oh my gosh. That.
Back to that Viktor Frankl quoteyou mentioned, you know, between
the stimulus and response, thereis a space and there is where
you have your choice, yeah, andthat we run through that moment
so often, so fast, that we thinkwe don't have a choice.

Kyle (25:41):
Yeah, yeah. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes
from the legendary coach atUniversity of North Carolina,
Dean Smith, used to say, I thinkeverything I say, I just don't
say everything. I think there'sso much wisdom in that, right?
And being able to regulate andcontrol that thinking as to what

(26:04):
comes out is often whatdetermines the way we show up as
leaders and as people andrelationship and all those other
kind of things, right?

Lynn (26:12):
Right? Well, and that that's, you know, soon, on the
heels of that conversation,somebody, a different coach,
said to me, it's as I as I wasprobably beating myself up over
not doing something, right. AndI was using the word should a
lot. She goes, You know, itsounds like you're shutting on
yourself, yeah. And again, justthat sounds, you know, it sounds
enough like the other word foryou to kind of wake up and go,

(26:33):
oh gosh. Why am I doing that?
And who gave me those thoughts,right? Who decided that I should
or should not. Yeah, you know,so there's, there's we have. As
we grow up, we don't recognizeall the pressures that were put
on us to fit into someone else'smold.

Kyle (26:52):
Yeah, well, and we don't, we don't, maybe even until a
later point, realize that theyweren't put on us. Those were
just the things that we havehold, held on to, without ever
challenging as we became adults,

Lynn (27:04):
right, right? We just decided that was the way it is.
We kept That's right, yeah,yeah. And, and I've actually
helped many a client cross thisbarrier, which is you actually
have the right to change that.

Kyle (27:19):
Yeah, yeah. And I remember one of the things you said to me
in in in one of our fewsessions, you know, asked me. I
don't remember what you asked,but it was something that led to
my response being, I just feellike I'm being parented. You
know, I'm a 3839 year old man,or however old I was at that

(27:41):
point, I was like, I just feellike I'm being parented and
followed around and all thosethings. And you just kind of
say, you said, how that'sinteresting, because in order to
feel parented, it means there'sprobably a certain level of
parenting that you're accepting.
And I was like, oh shit, youshould have just punched those
So, right? I mean, and that wasa that was a reframe that said,

(28:02):
Yeah, wow, that's there's somuch truth in that. And I think
people fall into that all thetime, because it's easy when
we're there to blame and put iton somebody else, instead of
taking, taking the stand forwhat our role in that is.

Lynn (28:19):
Well, and remember, as we're growing, as we're growing
up, we're a lot of parentingbuttons get installed on us,
right, right? And it's, it'skind of helpful to keep us from
running out in the street, orkeep us on the straight and
narrow to get through school orwhatever, all the things that
you know, your good parentsdecided to do for you. I wish we
had a ceremony, sort of a riteof passage that would uninstall

(28:41):
those buttons and say, Okay, nowyou're an adult, and you get to
go act like an equal with otheradults. Yeah, because so many
times I work in corporatedynamics where I'm like, this is
just a bunch of sibling rivalry,and they're calling the bosses
like parents and and the bossesactually don't really want them
to act that way, but they butthey don't know how to interrupt

(29:03):
it. And to some, they takeadvantage of it because it
creates that power overdifferential that they like.
Yeah, that's right. So whenyou're now, it says you said
earlier, speaking of workingwith teams and so forth, it
sounds like you aren't workingwith individuals as much you're
working with teams. Tell me alittle bit about how that's
worked, yeah, so

Kyle (29:23):
I don't know, seven or eight years ago, I realized that
we probably were more in oursweet spot by working in groups
and teams and leading thosetypes of things. And so I love,
I love the one on one work, butI limited it to five to seven a
year. That just kind of was thenumber that felt right most of

(29:44):
the time. Those were individualsthat in were in some high level
leadership capacity, or thebusiness owner. And often it was
really a hey, let's worktogether to understand what you
think you really are lookingfor. I. And that will give me
insight into the type of leaderyou are, how you approach

(30:05):
things, what your perspective ofthe organization is. It may open
some doors to have conversationswith other people. And at the
end of that six month period, wesit back down and say, Hey,
here's some things that we feellike we can do to support you.
Here's some, you know, otherresources that may serve you
better. Or we say, Yeah, thishas been great. Let's continue.
So, um, the the work from therereally has come just kind of,

(30:30):
because I love the energydynamics of people in a room and
helping them create theexperience that they can benefit
most from, right? And I thinkthat's that's truly from in the
world of learning anddevelopment. That's truly where
organic growth comes from, andthat just makes it that much
more sustainable, right? I mean,people reach out and they want

(30:54):
us to do something on strategicplanning or on conflict
management, or any of the thingsthat people think they always
need help with communicationskills, those kind of things
like, well, there's this thingcalled Google, and there's
probably a billion books on anyone of those topics. And if
that's not enough, you can gobuy micro lessons on Udemy or
Coursera or whatever. What is ityou're really trying to

(31:16):
accomplish? And so trying tohelp them unpack what's really
going on, and then leveragingthe energy of the people that
are in that room. Sometimesthey're in intact teams. We do a
lot with leadership teams, youknow, 810, 12 people. Sometimes
they're cross functional teams.
Sometimes they're just leaderscoming from different parts of

(31:36):
an organization that that havecommon interest in on developing
themselves in a certain area.
But we, we really try to createan experience as opposed to a
training, right? And I thinkthat's, that's the difference,

Lynn (31:53):
yeah, I'm big on the experiential piece as well.
Because, you know, when I tookover credit training at Bank of
America many years ago, it wasclear to me that the learning
yield in the program was like a10% learning yield, like
lecturing, and it was, it wasthe way we'd all been taught.
And there wasn't anything wrongwith what they were doing. It
just had a really low yield,yeah, and they told me I had to

(32:17):
do the same thing in 10 weeksthat they were doing in a year
before. And I was like, well,that ain't gonna work, because
we don't have enough hours inthe day to get that so we have
to do something different. Andwhen we switch to more of a more
experiential way, where peoplehad to solve problems for
themselves, and, mostimportantly, make a lot of
mistakes along the way, which ishow we learn and we you know,

(32:41):
make mistakes. We sometimes takemistakes and say they're bad.
It's like, no, they're good.
That's how you learn. When welet people start making mistakes
in an environment that said,Okay, figure it out, solve the
problem, they came out so muchbetter because they had the
experience rather than somethingin their head. Yep, that's
right. So now, when you'reworking with a team, you know,
I've worked with a lot ofleadership teams as well as, you

(33:03):
know, I'm curious if you havenoticed any one or two things
that makes I mean, there'salways a lot of lists that
people have, but, but really,what makes a good team, like,
what is a What's an essentialnutrient or ingredient that a
team must have in order to be aneffective team? Yeah,

Kyle (33:27):
I think there's an expectation that accountability
exists. That's a huge piece,right? And so that. And then
that leads into the second pieceof communication that's not, not
just used as a buzzword, it'sit's open, it's honest, it's
authentic. There's a level ofresilience that exists without

(33:49):
ego interfering. That resilienceunderstands that vulnerability
is as much of a strength asanything else. So I think if I
had to give a quick answer,those, those two things I think
stand out a lot with the teamsthat we work with.

Lynn (34:06):
Okay, I got four. So you have to tell me what? Oh, yeah.
So, vulnerability, what were thetwo? Yeah.

Kyle (34:13):
So the accountability, and then the open and honest
communication piece, right? AndI think part of that were the
other two, right? Okay, yeah,

Lynn (34:21):
got it so accountability and communication, which is so
essential, yeah, yeah. Do youhave you run across teams that
don't want to communicate with

Kyle (34:32):
each other? Of course. I mean, people probably ask you
this all the time. It's like,what's the number one challenge
you see in corporate America?
What's always communication? Aslong as it's humans involved,
it's always, I mean, you know,you're, you're gonna always have
that challenge because of thehuman element. And I think
that's, that's not a booksomebody reads to learn their

(34:55):
communication style andautomatically changes, right? We
just put. The facade on it'sit's the the the personality
profile, stick somebody in abox, and because you're a D and
this, then you get to act thatway, that it's not necessarily
the way it works. And then, oh,when Lynn walks in, I have to
treat her differently, becauseshe's an s in the box. And now I

(35:15):
gotta talk differently, becauseI'll ruffle her feathers, right?
If the if the mind iscirculating that way, even if
you have access to a tool thatmay temporarily solve a, you
know, an interaction. But at thecore, if you don't understand
and see people and accept themthe way they are, and establish
a way to communicate aroundthat, yeah, it's, it's going to

(35:36):
be temporary.

Lynn (35:39):
Yeah, I've run into the same thing on the Myers Briggs,
with introverts and extroverts,and worked with cultures that
actually were so introvertedthat they could not move
effectively under pressure,because the introverts had to go
think before they could work. Sowe had to work with okay, how do
we help you actually show upwith that kind of energy and

(36:03):
still be able to think underpressure and, oh, by the way,
extroverts, how can you put apause in a meeting so that
someone can actually have achance to interject? Yeah,
because you're so busy talkingout loud and working things out,
that's me. A lot of times Iprocess out loud that the people
that process internally neverget a chance to say two things,

Kyle (36:23):
yeah. And in that context, without the support of coaching
or that external observation,people continue to go through
the motions and have noawareness around the impact that
it's having, right. Right?
That's not a major change for anextroverted leader to close
their mouth for 10 seconds whilesomebody processes something
right? You don't need some magicspecial training or skill to do
that,

Lynn (36:46):
right? I will say, in my case, my team offered a very
effective tool called duct tape.
Yeah, yeah, on the table and andthen if I would not shut up,
somebody would push it towardsme and be like, the next move is
it's going on your mouth, butright now, we're just going to
suggest you shut

Kyle (37:04):
up. Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and, I'm sure you've seen the
ELMO tool, right? We startedusing this as well. So it's the,
I don't have him sitting herebecause I've got my office
packed up for moving it around.
It's a, just a small Elmo doll,right? Okay, and when you find
that individual that's ramblingon a topic that's not, not doing
anybody any good. Elmo getspushed over and almost stands

(37:24):
for everyone. Let's move on.

Lynn (37:28):
Oh, cool, right, everyone.
Let's move on. I love it, yeah.
And that, see, both are donewith, like, a form of humor
that, like, it's like, I see youand I appreciate you, and we're
not going to let your littleblind spot keep us from being
effective.

Kyle (37:44):
That's right, and that's the expect, the expectation of
accountability can be done inthose types of ways. That's the
nudge. Instead of poppingsomebody upside the head and
saying, Lynn, be quiet. You talktoo much. You let Colin Steve
say something, right? Yeah, it'sit can just be like the subtle,
hey, here's the tape when,

Lynn (38:03):
yeah, well, it's a nicer way than hitting, because the
other ways I what I found is, ifyou hit somebody's mistake
button, I call it, depending onwhat their history is and their
triggers and so forth, you'llget a whole different set of
behaviors that's just designedfor them to feel okay about
themselves, sure, instead ofbeing on the team, and instead
of trying to do what's right foreverybody is they're so busy

(38:25):
trying to do what's right forthemselves, which is not have to
look bad because they don'tknow. Thanks,

Kyle (38:30):
yeah. Oh, and when that's reinforced, the self
preservation gets deeper anddeeper, and you have silos, and
then you wonder why you'rehaving challenges.

Lynn (38:37):
That's exactly right. I've definitely run into that. So you
also mentioned the termvulnerability. How have you seen
people begin to open up tovulnerability? Because in the
last it's really come about, Ithink, to a large extent. Thank
goodness to Brene Brown's workof making vulnerability as

(39:00):
strength. But I know back when Iwas in my corporate life,
vulnerability was definitelyconsidered a weakness, and you
had to be pretty damn carefulabout showing any vulnerability,
or you were just labeled asweak, and especially as a female
in a male dominated environment,I had to watch out for that. So

(39:22):
how have you seen what? Whattrends are you seeing on that
front? Because you've been

Kyle (39:28):
at this for a while. Yeah, I think the stigma around it
will be around for forever,right? So I think leaders that
that are really strong in howthey connect with people,
leaders that have incrediblyhigh emotional intelligence and

(39:50):
personal awareness andunderstand that authentic isn't
just some word that we use, liketransparency, it it's really
being. Real, and when thingssuck and we're feeling low about
it, that we share that in a waythat's not not from a limiting
perspective, but in a way thatsays this is where we are now,

(40:13):
and at the same time, I knowthat we have the ability, the
support, the resources to movethrough this, if we'll work
together. And so I thinksometimes the vulnerability, the
willingness to be vulnerable inan organization, and not
sometimes it's always, is theirability to be vulnerable with

(40:34):
themselves in their personallives, right? That's, that's
typically where, where I thinkthe breakthroughs happen these
people willing to be vulnerableabout how, you know, maybe I am
a little more broken than what Iwhat I show when I walk in the
office. And how am I dealingwith those things, instead of
filing them away and acting likeeverything is great, right? It's
kind of my, my, my social mediaenvironment that says

(41:01):
everything's great, look at mewhen that's not the case.

Lynn (41:05):
If we cannot buy into those. You know the Instagram
story of the day wheresomebody's showing their
Pinnacle and not showing theirwork? Yeah, and I'm in the
middle of reading a book rightnow about it's written by tech
Maynard. It's called starting inthe middle. And he signed on to
do the World Championship ofcult starting, which is getting

(41:27):
horses from not being ridden tobeing able to be ridden in a
very short amount of time. Andhe signed on not being a cult
starter. A lot of people whosign on, that's what they do
professionally, but he was ahorseman, but he takes you
through in the book in a veryvulnerable way, his self doubt,
but also his passion to try todo it like I want to do it. I'm

(41:50):
not sure I can. That balancingact to me, I tried to capture
that for myself and dancing thetightrope when I wrote it, which
is, I want to get back on thehorse. I'm not sure I can. And I
think, and the cool thing aboutthe getting back on the horse
metaphor, getting on any horsemetaphor, is everybody uses it,
whether they ride horses or not.
You know, people have a failurein a sales presentation or, you

(42:12):
know, whatever, and they'relike, Well, I gotta get back on
the horse. I gotta get back inthere and do this again, right?
But that the ability and as he'stransmitting in this book to
show the vulnerability of I havea lot to learn, and yet I'm
still going to trust in myselfenough to put myself under the
scrutiny of all these people andtry this thing that I'm not sure

(42:35):
I can do to me. There'ssomething magical about that,
and I think it's what makes usbe alive, rather than just
exist.

Kyle (42:46):
Yeah. Now I say confidence is equal to the number of
promises that you keep toyourself, right? And so if
that's the message he continuesto reinforce, the confidence
builds.

Lynn (42:56):
Yes, yeah. I've not thought or thought of confidence
that way. Say more about howyou've come to that way of
thinking about confidence.

Kyle (43:06):
I just I, you know, we think about confidence is built
in kind of that small,consistent series of steps that
we take doing little things,right? And so for in that
example, I'm not sure if I cando this, that's a great place to
be right, because then the onlyexpectations that should be
imposed are the ones that youput on yourself, right? And so

(43:27):
often we find ourselves tryingto live into other people's
expectations, and that may ormay not be realistic. So I think
it's, it's number one, knowingwhat you're setting out to do,
and number two breaking it downas granularly as we possibly can
so that we can make thoseconsistent promises. I mean, my
my morning routine, in myjournal, I actually have a an

(43:51):
entry that says, Today, mypromise to me is, so what is it?
Sometimes it's just smile more,right? Yep, um, but if I go back
and look at that and say, did Ikeep my promise today, that's a
reminder to me that nobody'sgoing to do it for me, right?
And sometimes I fail miserably,and other times I'm like, Yeah,
I did. And because of that,tomorrow, we're going to focus

(44:14):
on this, and this is going to bethe commitment that I'm going to
make. And so I think, I thinkconfidence doesn't necessarily
have to shine in just oneparticular area, right? So I
could say I am confident thatyou do not want me to sing to
you right now. Lynn, I am just100% confident, not only right
now, but ever so. That may be aninability, but it's also

(44:37):
something I have no passion ordesire to develop, right, right?
And so I think confidence takesshape in a lot of different
ways, but largely in the way welead our lives and we the way we
think about ourselves, allright. I mean, sure, you've done
work with the confidence grid,where you kind of on the x and y
axis you have on the left sidethat the that. Size access you

(45:01):
have, you know, opinion of self,and then the bottom is opinion
of others, and you kind of workthrough that. And the confidence
really is having a high opinionof yourself and a high opinion
of others, right? I think thearrogance comes in, and what we
see is high opinion of self anda low opinion of others. And so
I think confidence is fed inwhat we do every day. It's

Lynn (45:23):
interesting because I hadn't, I have not thought about
it being connected to the wayyou make promises to yourself.
But you know, the thing aboutpromises is there's a different
energy to saying I'm going topromise myself to do something,
versus I'm going to commit,yeah, and I saw this, actually,

(45:44):
it was very interesting, becauseI was working with a company
where we were doing little liveinteraction things where, you
know, everybody would bewatching two people role play.
And I was like that the coach,as they would, they would role
play and helping them learn aset of skills. And in this case,

(46:06):
we actually we were using anactor in the role play, which
was cool, because the actor wasto respond as based on what the
person was giving them, notbased on anything pre conceived.
But this way, the two peoplewouldn't like collude to make
each other look good. So if theygenuinely kind of hit the mark
on what we were teaching, theactor would go with it. So

(46:29):
there's this moment where theguy was asking for something,
and the the actor was asking andthe person promised it. And I
hit time out, and I said, Now,did you notice him shift?
Because the actor immediatelyrelaxed and said, okay,
everything is good. And I said,did you notice that happen? I
said, it's because you promised.
And the guy went white. And Iwas like, interesting. What is

(46:54):
happening? He goes, I did notpromise. I committed. And I
said, and what's the differencebetween a promise and a
commitment? And he goes, Well, Ihave to do a promise, a
commitment I can get out of. AndI thought, oh my gosh, you have
just shown me something. Becausewhat we had been trying to
understand in this particularculture was they were having a

(47:14):
lot of breakdowns, and wecouldn't pinpoint where the
breakdowns were coming from, andit was that very thing,
commitment versus promise. Theywere actually not accountable to
each other. Back to point,right? They They a promise he
knew he had to keep, yeah, andso I was looking I was thinking
about your your word, usingpromise, connecting to

(47:39):
confidence, and if I promisemyself to do something, breaking
it down into small parts, that'sthe other key part. Yeah,
because I think a lot of times Iuse the language, gulp, we try
to get too much done at onetime. And I've learned anything
on this journey of what I calllearning to balance under
pressure. It is that you canonly take the moment at the

(47:59):
time. So if, the more you canthin slice things, the more you
can do, yeah, so true, more youcan take on.

Kyle (48:08):
Yeah, that slow series of consistent steps, a slow series

Lynn (48:12):
of consistent steps, and then you see a lot of changes.
So right now, when you're like,you're in a new braunsch Now,
right? Yep, where you are. Tellme about life in New Braunfels.

Kyle (48:23):
It's awesome. So when, when we moved, we moved back in
early summer of 17 you know,grew up in Texas. We had been in
the Carolinas almost 20 yearsbetween North and South
Carolina. Loved it, hated toleave. It just was the right
thing at the time, my wife'sfather was here in New
Braunfels. He was having somesome medical issues. We knew

(48:46):
when we came back, we wanted tobe closer to family. That was
the, really, the value driver ofwe need to be back. We've got
aging parents and so forth. Weknew we didn't want to be back
in Dallas. We didn't want to bein, you know, Houston and New
Braunfels was kind of still atthe time, even though it had
grown considerably, this sleepylittle river town that was

(49:07):
beautiful and had a lot of a lotof really unique pieces. And
like I said, her, her dad washere, sister was here. So we, we
landed hard and fast. I think wecame home spring break, spent
three days looking at houses,took the kids back to finish
school, bought a house onFaceTime or whatever the app was
at the time. And honestly, don'tI don't think any of us believe

(49:32):
we would have stayed if April'sfather had passed in that first
year. We all it was a toughmove. We love the Carolinas. We
love the the community, the kidsschool, I mean, our church, all
of those things seem to be, youknow, just perfect. As with any
transition, what you're leavingoften seems to be the the
greatest thing, and woe is me,and how are we going to figure

(49:54):
this out? But a lot of reallybeautiful things came out of,
out of the move. Have he livedalmost three more years. April
got to spend an incredibleamount of time with him. Our
kids transition very quickly.
Both of our businesses juststarted growing. April really
leaned into what she was doingon her side of the business. And
you know when, when we, I think,realized we were going to stay

(50:17):
we kind of had that dream to buyfive acres on the river, and we
did that about four years ago.
So I think we love it here. Ourkids call it home. They're
they're incredibly connected intheir school and our church and

(50:38):
their camps, and it's just, youknow, I couldn't think of a
better place to to raise afamily in the way that we wanted
to do it. So we're right, youknow, almost halfway between
Austin and San Antonio. So weget the the flavor. In fact,
they call this area AustinTonio. Now, if you haven't
driven through here, you'll knowwhy I haven't.

Lynn (50:57):
I've been down to San Antonio a fair bit, but I have
not gone.

Kyle (51:01):
It's, it's crazy the amount of growth that's
experiencing, which is why welove our property even more,
because we can be removed fromit and then right back in the
middle of it whenever we want.

Lynn (51:12):
So you're on a you're on the Guadalupe,

Kyle (51:14):
yeah, we're our property is just about a five minute walk
from that

Lynn (51:17):
you have, but you're high enough up that the flooding
hasn't affected you.

Kyle (51:20):
Yeah, yeah. We're, we're high enough, yeah. So yeah,

Lynn (51:24):
believe it when they say that you don't want to put
buildings in the floodplain.
Yeah, right,

Kyle (51:31):
yeah. It's, it's crazy.
Even the homes that are alongthe river are high enough now, I
think lessons learned over thelast 50 years, when they've had
to rebuild over time, and youcan see the flood plains. But
when it rises, it rises fast.

Lynn (51:45):
Yeah, well, you know, during Helene coming down
Highway nine, yeah, on the wayinto what used to be Larkins in
the Lake Lure, there was a goodhalf mile, if not more, of that
river below the lake and edgerdam that went over the road by,
I don't know, 1520, feet. Yeah,that's just crazy. Luckily, the

(52:06):
road actually held up. I mean,we one of the bridges washed the
edges out a little bit, and ittook them a couple of months to
fix that. We were having to goaround. But, yeah, you just
really wake up to how high thewater can come. Yeah, so. But
how cool to to be that close onthe river, and it does sound
like you guys found a littlepiece of heaven, because I know

(52:26):
when I was asked to move back toTexas from the Carolinas in Oh
goodness, what was it? 92 Ithink they asked me to go to
Houston. And I was like, I justcan't I, I'm, I'm a girl from
Wichita Falls, and I kind ofknow the Dallas Fort Worth area,
but Houston is just beyond mycapability. And besides that,

(52:48):
you know, it takes an hour toget everywhere. I really don't
want 30 minutes I can live with,but an hour I don't know if I
can do. So they moved the Dallasarea, and I was very happy
there. But even then, it kind ofoutgrew me, and living in the
big city and freeways. And now,of course, now that I live here
in Lake Lure like, I don't evenlike having traffic lights. I
don't like, yeah, right, youknow, you know, this life, it's,

(53:11):
it's much, you know, it's a muchsmaller, simple life. And I
really like being able to be outon the land every day. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely, yeah. So, soyou mentioned April, and you
have to give a shout out to whatshe's doing, because I follow
her on Facebook, and it justlooks incredible what she's
doing.

Kyle (53:28):
Yeah, she, she felt a strong calling, probably 11
years ago or so now, to start acommunity called Light beamers.
And really, I think the premisebehind that was to help help
people tell their stories, andshe focuses largely on female
entrepreneurs, but helping themreally connect more deeply with

(53:52):
their stories, and using that toshine their light and empower
other people. Light. Beamers.
Lights. Beamers, yep,

Lynn (54:02):
you know, I we came down to y'all place in Greenville for
Christmas, for a Christmasparty. Yeah, I remember, I don't
remember what year that was, butI remember the seed of that was
just being planted. Then I thinkshe actually said, I'm thinking
about doing this thing calledLight beamers. So that struck

(54:22):
me,

Kyle (54:23):
yeah, that's, uh, that was probably about the same time,
see, so we have seen each othermore recently than we thought. I
forgot

Lynn (54:30):
about that for the Christmas party, but I don't
know what year that was, but itwas,

Kyle (54:35):
yeah, it might have been 14 or 15, if she was thinking
about it, yeah, it's probably 14or 15. Yeah, um, yeah. And so
it's, you know, as businessesdo, when you start something,
you don't, don't really knownecessarily, exactly where it's
going to go. And she's, I think,listened, and now it's, it's
evolved into, she's producedthree books that have been

(54:58):
amazing, helping women's. Aretheir stories. She's in the
middle of writing her first solobook, and has launched a number
of things, but the the thingthat she'll tell you she loves
is what she calls the speakeasy,and it's really just a private,
not so much private, it's it's aan academy, so to speak, to help

(55:20):
people really tell theirstories, to get out on and do so
on bigger stages. And so I thinkshe's running maybe three or
four of those a year. Nine to 12people come in. And, you know,
it's a series of touches withher on a on a regular basis, a
lot of writing and peer to peertype learning. And then at the

(55:42):
end of that, they do a big threeday type of retreat where
everybody gets to share theirstory. You leave with all of
your assets, from video toheadshots. So when you leave
that that program, you'rewalking out ready to, you know,
put a speaker's kid out on onsocial media, or share it with
whoever may be interested. Soshe's having a lot of fun with

(56:04):
it, and we're actually workingon some new things. She just,
actually just held a writer'sretreat this past weekend for a
handful of women, which is,which is great to see people who
want to, you know, tell theirstory in a book like you have,
yeah,

Lynn (56:17):
no, that's and actually, you know, at Mystic waters,
we've started not for, not forhuge groups, but for small
groups and or even individualauthors offering writing space
for that very reason, becausethat whole idea of writing
retreat, I didn't understand itwhen I first heard about it, and
then I sort of came to realizeit's almost like any promise you
make to yourself, if you'll, ifyou'll put the time on the

(56:40):
calendar and say, This is mywriting retreat. I'm going to go
write. Yeah. Then it doesn'treally matter if what you write
is any good, just write. Itdoesn't matter. Everything is a
shitty first draft, as AnneLamont says, right, yeah, on
paper, and then

Kyle (56:54):
you can edit it. Yep, that's right. It's right. It's
how simple that first step is,right? That Zig Ziglar used to
say, if you want to write abook, start writing. It's
nothing complicated about

Lynn (57:04):
it. But, you know, I used to have this assumption around
my art, which was every paintinghad to be a masterpiece, and if
it was not good, you know, thenI'm wasting paper. Yeah, and I
can specifically remember theday that I said, No more of
that. I'm going to just treateverything as an experiment,

(57:26):
writing, art, everything. And Iactually indulged and bought
myself like a full package ofwater color paper, which was
like a huge indulgence. And Iwas like, I can use all of this,
and if I don't like any of it,guess what? I know where to buy
more. That's right. And, youknow, it was the same thing with
the writing. It was like, Youknow what I threw away, probably

(57:49):
100,000 words that I never used,and some of it I've actually put
back out, because I go back andI'm like, well, this isn't part
of a book, but this is a goodblog post, or this is a good
other thing to share withsomebody. But, I mean. But the
thing about having someone in agroup like what April's offering
is it gives you sort of thatmoral support, like you said,

(58:10):
that peer coaching and and spaceand, in a way, permission to
write, which I think is supercool.

Kyle (58:17):
Yeah, yeah. Speaking of your your artwork, your
masterpieces. I still have oneof

Lynn (58:21):
those. Oh, I forgot about that. I did the painting of you
in Dallas. Yeah, on the beach,

Kyle (58:28):
yeah, from that picture.
In fact, you titled it in step.

Lynn (58:32):
Right in step. We're gonna have to find, I'm gonna have to
put that out. I'm gonna seefive. I think I've got an
electronic copy of that, I mayhave to, oh, yeah, as part of
the notes for this podcast,

Kyle (58:46):
yeah, I occasionally will tell April, it's like, you know,
I need to find a picture ofIsabella, our daughter and I,
like, in a similar type ofphoto, and send that to you and
commission you to do anotherone. That

Lynn (58:59):
would be cool, because I am going to start getting back
into painting. I'm cleaning upright now. I'm cleaning my art
studio, and I just keep gettingthese like what I've realized
about both art and writing,frankly, is they start long
before paper goes to or pen goesto paper, or brush goes to
paper. Most of my paintings,they they gestated before birth,

(59:25):
and like they float around in myeye, in my in my back, in the
back of my brain, and then Ihave to put paint on paper. And
what I'm remembering Now, goingback, though, is, because I've
done this many times over thelast 25 years, as I've been an
artist is I can't go back whereI ended up. I have to go back at
the beginning again. You know, Ihave to do some warm up

(59:47):
activities and paint small andso forth. I can't go do like you
see over my shoulder. These areall my paintings. People can't
see this because we do this onaudio, but I can't go into that
level of painting. You. Uh,without a warm up. And I think
that's a good reminder foranybody who leaves something and
comes back. We see this at theski lake all the time. Somebody

(01:00:07):
go, oh, I ran 35 off. You know,it was five years ago, but I was
read 35 off, and they come backin and they're like, I can't
even run a pass. It's like,yeah, that's the way this works.
You better break it back down.
So, so you mentioned somethingway early. I want to pull this
thread back, because you weretalking about your transition,
and as we wrap I want to giveyou a chance to share with
people a couple of things thathave mattered to you, and one of

(01:00:29):
those would be books. Youmentioned reading a lot of
books. I know you'rerecommending books now. Do you
have sort of a top of mind listof books that you recommend, or
are you very specific to yourclients? Like, are there few
books like for me, the artistway? Interestingly enough, we're
just talking about art foreverybody, not just artists. Is

(01:00:50):
one of the books I'll oftenrecommend. But do you have any
books like that that you justthink, you know, people do? They
need to read these books?

Kyle (01:00:59):
The Bible.

Lynn (01:01:02):
I love it. I say that that's

Kyle (01:01:05):
I don't I think it probably, for me, is more
situational. I've found it's,it's been interesting. I've,
I've been doing some work, morework lately, with young
professionals and emergingleaders. And it's amazing to me,
at least the interactions thatI've had with mid, 20 to late,

(01:01:26):
20 year old people, some of theinterest that they have in older
books, like somebody brought upthe the fact that they were
reading the magic of thinkingbig by David Schwartz. I don't
know if you remember that one,but that's probably in the 50s
or 60s, when it was without andso I think a lot of time people

(01:01:46):
think about thought leadershipas it applies to today. And
you've got your Brene browns andBrendon Burchard and all of
these people who are doing somegreat work in the world, but
they're just, you know,massively exposed on stages and
publicized and all those things,which is fantastic, but there's

(01:02:06):
some real gold that goes backseveral 1000 years, if we'll be
willing to look at it, right? SoI tell people all the time. I
was like, you know, nobody'sreally inventing anything new
when it comes to the way wethink and the way we lead. And
so in a lot of ways, thoughtleadership, leadership is a lot
like music, right? There's onlya certain number of notes that

(01:02:28):
every song is made with. Andyeah, there's some sharps and
some flats, and we can add thoseas enhancements. But outside of
that, it comes down to what'syour formula. And so, you know,
I get asked that just aboutevery time in an interview,

(01:02:48):
what, what is it? And I, I don'tknow. I think the Bible, for
sure, is, is one. I think, Ithink, you know, things like, as
silly as it sounds, but Thinkand Grow Rich anything
challenges the way that we thinkdifferently, even if it's

(01:03:09):
something that that we know, Ithink there's always goal and
always a nugget that we can pullfrom those those things.

Lynn (01:03:17):
So I think that's so true.
Do you have any particularfiction books you love.

Kyle (01:03:22):
You know what? I am not a big fiction fan, really? Nope, I
am. I struggle in high school toread anything I really, I mean,
that's, that's just completelyhonest, if there was a
cliffsnote version, that's whatI took, because I knew what I
needed to get, you know, getthrough the class. And I think
probably my, my first real forayinto even anything leadership

(01:03:43):
development was a Les Brown bookthat my mom gave me whenever he
was, like, one of the only oneson stage, and that was probably
in the, you know, the early, mid80s, maybe. And from there
being, having spent some time inDallas, you may know, price
Pritchett and he made thoselittle those little

Lynn (01:04:02):
kinds. I have a stack of them over here.

Kyle (01:04:05):
I've got the I've got the whole library. So if you're ever
curious, I'll mail it to you.
But I my mom had him layingaround in her office for years
when we were young, and I wouldpick him up, and I was just
always blown away by thestatistics and how he even
create those. And it was, theyseemed really interactive with
how he kind of moved throughstory to so I'll pick those up
periodically, just, you know,because he does a lot of work on

(01:04:26):
mergers and acquisitions, andoften clients that we're working
with are dealing with thosetypes of things. And yeah, I
think, I think situationally,and for me, I probably have a
library full of books that have8090 pages read in them, some of
them seven. I think somebodytold me once that, you know that
multi billion dollar industrythat exists in personal

(01:04:48):
professional development, andpeople spend so much money
buying these books, and theaverage they read is about seven
pages.

Lynn (01:04:57):
I think that's interesting, because it's so
interesting. Interesting thatyou're saying that as I'm going
through, because we're going tobe moving soon, and I don't want
to move all the books, and I'mgoing to give a lot of my books
away, and I'm very attached tothem. I'm surprised at how much
I don't want to give some ofthem away. Yeah, I asked myself
the question the other day, howmany of these have you read from

(01:05:18):
cover to cover? And the answeris almost none. But then I grew
and I realized there are a lotof places where I have them
earmarked. I have a bookmark, Ihave a sticky note, I have
something I've done to say thatthis particular nugget I did
take away. Yeah, so yeah, it'sgoing to be very interesting,
because every time I get deepinto this, I back away and I'm

(01:05:39):
like, Oh, I'm a I know I'm afood hoarder, and I know I'm
other thing hoarders, but Ithink I'm also a Book Hoarder,
even though I don't read the

Kyle (01:05:47):
books. Yeah, yeah. I know.
I know my wife is for sure, andthe invention of Audible is
something that probably elevatedmy readership, even though it's
now listenership. But as far asdigesting knowledge, to me
that's just especiallytraveling. I don't like to, you
know, out throw books in abackpack. No one. Why are you
even packing them? You're notgoing to open it, but being able

(01:06:07):
to get on the on the phone andpull it up and listen to it
audibly, I think I've probablyread listened to much more than
I ever would have before that.
Well,

Lynn (01:06:20):
that's what convinced me finally, to put my book out on a
on a podcast. And now I'mactually, as we speak, working
with getting the audible editorto take that those files, clean
them up, and get them intoaudible format. Is, you know, it
just has to be available thatway. And I've gotten so much
feedback that it was me readingit that helped, because of the

(01:06:43):
because of the emotion thatcomes through. Yeah, you know,
so that's been, that's beensomething. And I actually really
love these podcasts. I have abig podcast listener. I'll go
back and listen to ours andlearn something, because these
conversations, to me, areanother way to learn in a way
that wasn't available all thatmany years ago. And to me, it's

(01:07:05):
almost like getting an MBAwithout having to go to class,
because you're talking to peoplewho have practical knowledge.

Kyle (01:07:12):
Yeah. And it's real energy, right? I mean, the
there's some true value in areal conversation, even if, if
you're just observing it orlistening to it?

Lynn (01:07:20):
Yeah, absolutely. And with that, my, my closing question
that I ask everybody, sort ofis, you know, given that this
audience is listening, and youknow, we don't know who's
listening, it's going to be somebusiness people, it's going to
be some water skiers. It can besome horse people, but a lot of
the people that are here are,are interested in improving
themselves, and often in workingon being more balanced under

(01:07:43):
pressure, that kind of thing. Ithink that's who this podcast
attracts. So you know, given allthe experience you've had with
all your clients and so forthover the last years, and your
just own personal journey, whatwould you want them to know, or
what would you have themconsider, maybe a question that
you would have them ponder, whatwould you want this audience to

(01:08:05):
know for the sake of their ownlife journey?

Kyle (01:08:10):
I think the two hardest questions we ever have to
answer, if we can ever answerthem fully, are who are we and
what do we want? Right? And assimple as that sounds, I think
there's a lot of unpacking thatgoes on throughout our life, and
I think it's the the acceptanceand understanding that the
journey is laid out, and for usto really embrace that and step

(01:08:33):
into it, there's a choice everysingle day. I think the thing
that I would say now lookingback over the last, you know, 15
years or so, is that it's reallynever too late to start over.
That sounds cliche, but I hadbeen in hospitality for probably

(01:08:53):
20 years, if not longer, andwhen I made the decision to walk
away from that partnership, Ipretty much severed ties with
everybody that I knew in thatindustry. Now, some of that was
just out of out of fear andisolation and a lot of the
emotion that I was dealing withat that time, maybe even some

(01:09:15):
embarrassment, but when Istarted mind fit coaching, I
knew that it was coming fromsomething deeper than just me,
having an idea about how to helppeople. And I think if we listen
to that, and whatever faithpeople have, I think we've got
to connect with something biggerthan us. For me, it's God. And I
would attribute my success inthis to nothing more than that,

(01:09:38):
right? I think we hear people. Iwas reminded by this, I'm doing
a presentation thing thisThursday, and somebody was
talking about, you know, peopleget so caught up and feel like
they have to perform at acertain level to be accepted.
And the reminder to me is, in myfaith, I'm already accepted.

(01:09:59):
Just go pray. Form, you know,and I think when you can carry
that confidence into whateveryou're doing, or how you're
you're you're leading yourselfand how you're supporting other
people and creating opportunityand whatever it is, then, man,
there's so much freedom in thatright

Lynn (01:10:16):
is because, instead of just believing you are actually
acting as if it's true, becauseit is true. Yeah, the truth of
the message, yeah,

Kyle (01:10:28):
yeah. So that, this is a quote that I'm actually going to
use on that point. If we don'tbelieve something can happen,
the picture is not ready to betaken much less developed,
right? And so we've got to beable to see that. And sometimes,
like your art, sometimes like,Nope, that's not it yet. Nope,
that's not yet. I've got tothrow 100,000 words away so I
can get to the words that aregoing to really matter.

Lynn (01:10:51):
Yeah, yeah. I it's interesting because, yeah, when
I, when I had the insight thatbelief isn't worth anything
unless you're acting as if youbelieve it. Like saying you
believe it and living that youbelieve it are very different

(01:11:14):
things, very different. It'slike stepping off that cliff and
trusting that you're you'll fly.
Yeah? And it's interesting,because it was the falling off a
horse that had me actually haveto really put those things into
perspective, because putting myfoot in the stirrup the first
time and believing I was goingto be okay was only true when I
swung that leg over, yeah, and,and I didn't just swing the leg

(01:11:38):
over and then go off and run ona horse. You know, it took me
5060, horses and over 1000 ridesbefore I ever ran on a horse,
which was my dream. I want torun, but it took odd, a lot of
little steps. And so I thinkthat's the other piece. Is just
taking it one step at a time,which you've mentioned several

(01:12:00):
times in this conversation.

Kyle (01:12:02):
Yeah, so, so important.
And it's funny how God remindsus of those things, whether it's
falling off a horse I had, I'dbeen skiing for 40 years of my
life. I've never been hurt andblew my ACL a few years ago. And
you know, of course, whensomething like that happens,
we'll we're like, Oh no, I'm notgonna be able to run anymore.
I'm not going to be like, yeah,step back, follow the process.
And you know, my doctor pattedme on the back and said, Hey,

(01:12:29):
you spent several $1,000 on thisprocess. Go use that knee. And
you know, Oh, wow. I'm happy tosay I conquered the Black
Diamond that took my knee fromme this past winter. So

Lynn (01:12:42):
backing out. That's, that's your version of getting
back on the horse is gettingback exactly. Yeah, all right.
Now, which ski resort did you dothat at?

Kyle (01:12:49):
We're, we're going to Park City a lot now, just because
it's so easy to get out, yeah, Itry to get up there two or three
times a year. And we love it.
And, yeah, I love it.

Lynn (01:12:59):
That's fantastic. I love, I love snow skiing as well. We
didn't get to see last year, butwe were in Deer Valley the year
before, right next door to ParkCity. So,

Kyle (01:13:07):
yeah, it's that's changing too growing. Yeah,

Lynn (01:13:12):
everything is changing and growing, yeah. Well. And back to
the one of the words you've usedearly in this podcast is we all
have to learn to be resilient.
We all have to learn to beresilient. So Kyle, thank you so
much for this catch up. I havethank you endlessly, and I feel
like we could touch on so many,many more things, but I'm sure
this is well enough to keeppeople satisfied for learning a

(01:13:36):
little bit more about you andwhat you do and let me find out
what you've been up

Kyle (01:13:41):
to. Yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate you reaching out and
and it's a great way toreconnect and share a little bit
of our stories, right?

Lynn (01:13:49):
Exactly, exactly. So for those of you listening, if you
like this podcast, be sure andshare it on all those platforms.
Rate it. We love that. And ifyou'd like to continue following
me, I have a newsletter calledthe coaching digest, and you can
sign up on that [e-mail] see you on the
next podcast. Thank you forlistening to the creative

(01:14:10):
spirits unleash podcast. Istarted this podcast because I
was having these greatconversations, and I wanted to
share them with others. I'malways learning in these
conversations, and I wanted toshare that kind of learning with
you. Now, what I need to hearfrom you is what you want more
of and what you want less of. Ireally want these podcasts to be
of value for the listeners.
Also, if you happen to knowsomeone who you think might love

(01:14:33):
them, please share the podcastand, of course, subscribe and
rate it on the different appsthat you're using, because
that's how others will find it.
Now, I hope you go and dosomething very fun today. You.