From Trauma to Triumph: Stephen Falk's Guide to Resilient Leadership pt 1
From Trauma to Triumph:
Stephen Falk's Guide to
Resilient Leadership
Takeaways
- Stephen Falk shares insights on how unresolved trauma impacts workplace behavior and leadership effectiveness.
- The concept of 'Memory X's' describes how unprocessed experiences can affect decision-making and emotional responses.
- Effective leadership requires awareness of one's emotions and the ability to manage them strategically.
- Creating a supportive workplace culture is essential for enhancing team dynamics and safety.
- Stephen's journey from therapy to consulting showcases the importance of personal experiences in shaping professional paths.
- The three-lane highway metaphor illustrates how effective communication can prevent misunderstandings in a team setting.
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Transcript
Welcome to the Faith Based Business Podcast with your host, Pastor Bob Thibodeau.
Speaker A:On this podcast, we interview fellow entrepreneurs who are willing to share their stories, their trials, and their triumphs in business, all in an effort to help you avoid the same obstacles and to achieve success faster.
Speaker A:But at all times, continue to rely on our faith to see us through to victory.
Speaker A:Now with today's guest, here is your host, Pastor Bob Thibodeau.
Speaker B:Hello, everyone, everywhere.
Speaker B:Pastor Robert Thibodeau here.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Faith Based Business podcast.
Speaker B:We are so blessed that you are joining us today.
Speaker B:Our guest today is Stephen Falk, CEO and founder of Switchback Systems, a safety leadership consulting firm with a global reach.
Speaker B:I mean, for over 35 years of experience.
Speaker B:Stephen's journey started in marriage and family therapy where he honed his ability to connect with people on a personal level for over 20 years there.
Speaker B:And over time, he kind of transitioned his expertise into helping organizations reduce workplace fatalities, improve team dynamics, and that's resulted in his tremendous success.
Speaker B:And Steve is also a sought after speaker and the author of the Switch Down CEO how to Think Like a World Class Leader.
Speaker B:This book is awesome, folks.
Speaker B:It's a practical guide packed with strategies to strengthen leadership, resilience, communications in any organization.
Speaker B:Today, Steven joins us to share his insights on creating safer, more dynamic workplaces and leading with purpose and effectiveness.
Speaker B:Get ready to take some notes.
Speaker B:This is going to be a conversation full of actionable wisdom today.
Speaker B:Praise the Lord.
Speaker B:Help me.
Speaker B:Welcome to the program, Stephen Falk.
Speaker B:Stephen, it is a blessing to have you join us today, brother.
Speaker B:I've been looking forward to today's conversation.
Speaker C:Bob, you're hired.
Speaker C:That was some pretty good marketing.
Speaker C:I would like to meet that guy.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Well, the first question though, I always start with is this.
Speaker B:Other than that brief information I just shared, can you tell us in your own words, who is Stephen Falk?
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:I'm a west coast Canadian.
Speaker C:So from the very far edge of the west coast.
Speaker C:I live in a community that's like, full of like fjords and mountains and glaciers.
Speaker C:And so the primary industry is logging.
Speaker C:We eke out a little bit of farming right where I'm from, I'm from an ethnic background where, where like our little country church was mostly relatives.
Speaker C:So if you can just picture that in your mind, in our view, we thought like there was us and then everybody else we just called the English.
Speaker C:And so it's a real journey for going from being sort of in an ethnic enclave to having clients, like you said, around the world.
Speaker C:I've a Father, I've been married for just about four decades, and I know this sometimes drives some people crazy, but I already have 11 grandchildren, so.
Speaker C:Rich man.
Speaker C:And by every stretch of.
Speaker C:By every metric in my mind.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Newlywed.
Speaker B:We just celebrated our 47th anniversary.
Speaker C:Oh.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker C:Well.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But you beat us in.
Speaker B:Granted, we only have seven.
Speaker C:Well, stay tuned.
Speaker C:Out of our control.
Speaker B:No, not.
Speaker B:Not yet.
Speaker B:Not yet.
Speaker B:You know, I was born and raised up in Michigan.
Speaker B:And with a name like Thibodeau, you know, there's that French Canadian connection there.
Speaker B:And all my family hails from London, Ontario.
Speaker C:Oh, wow.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I felt something in my heart with you.
Speaker C:I could tell.
Speaker C:Hey, man.
Speaker B:And it's funn right now.
Speaker B:Well, we've been living for.
Speaker B:I say right now, last 20 years, we lived in Baltimore, Maryland area.
Speaker B:And we got about 8 inches of snow here past few days.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And cold.
Speaker B:It's like 20 degrees and stuff.
Speaker B:And people are, oh, it's so cold, this weather.
Speaker B:I say, you know, up in Michigan, they call it Wednesday.
Speaker B:That's shortcake.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:What's the problem?
Speaker B:You know, I was.
Speaker B:I went.
Speaker B:I took my wife.
Speaker B:My daughter, one.
Speaker B:One of my daughters lives about half mile from us, and.
Speaker B:And my wife wanted to go down, visit us.
Speaker B:I was, okay, come on, get in the car.
Speaker B:Take you down there.
Speaker B:No jacket, just, you know, just.
Speaker B:Just like this.
Speaker B:And how come you're not wearing a jacket?
Speaker B:Because I wasn't planning on being outside for extended periods of time.
Speaker B:And this is just.
Speaker B:I'm just walking to the car.
Speaker B:This is nothing, you know.
Speaker C:True story.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:We have a.
Speaker C:We have four kids.
Speaker C:And one of our kids, he's a.
Speaker C:Her husband is a medical doctor in the subarctic city called Yellowknife.
Speaker C:And so when we watch her get her four kids ready, they're like long jobs, no pants, and then mittens and gloves just to get to the car.
Speaker B:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker C:For us, where we are, it's very mild.
Speaker C:We're in a.
Speaker C:We're in a temperate rainforest.
Speaker C:And so literally, I'm pruning my trees right now.
Speaker C:And we could mow the lawn if we wanted to.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Praise the Lord.
Speaker B:That's in Canada.
Speaker B:That's saying something.
Speaker C:That is.
Speaker C:We are the Hawaii of Canada.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker B:Now, in your book, you share how you suffered from meningitis, and that helped you to.
Speaker B:To shape your calling.
Speaker B:Can you explain that for us?
Speaker C:Isn't that a crazy sort of origin story?
Speaker C:So it had nothing to do with me.
Speaker C:Because I was, like, 2 years old.
Speaker C:What I'm saying is I didn't make it happen.
Speaker C:So there was.
Speaker C:There.
Speaker C:My mom and dad had felt.
Speaker C:I basically called the Lord to go to college with the intention to become missionaries.
Speaker C:And so when they.
Speaker C:When they got accepted to, like, wrap up their four kids and move to, like, Manitoba to go to college, he was a school teacher.
Speaker C:All of a sudden, this.
Speaker C:This small pandemic happened, like this meningitis outbreak in our community, and a number of little kids died.
Speaker C:And wouldn't you know what?
Speaker C:I got hit hard.
Speaker C:And on the way to the hospital, the Catholic hospital, like, I'm completely paralyzed.
Speaker C:I can't even get in.
Speaker C:There weren't.
Speaker C:There weren't car seats in those days, but I wouldn't even be able to fit into a car seat because I was like, as stiff board and silent, like, just done.
Speaker C:So my parents are bawling their eyes out on the way to the hospital, and they're.
Speaker C:They're saying almost like.
Speaker C:Like.
Speaker C:Like Abraham and Isaac going, like, really?
Speaker C:This is the cost of following.
Speaker C:Like, this is the cost of discipleship.
Speaker C:We have to give up one of our kids.
Speaker C:Like, this is.
Speaker C:This doesn't seem like this is really true.
Speaker C:So they said, okay, God, he's yours.
Speaker C:We give him to you in a dedication I think was quite a bit more sincere than you see in the normal church service on Sunday morning.
Speaker C:This is like a hardcore dedication.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I.
Speaker C:We arrive at the.
Speaker C:As they tell the story, they live actually in my suite in my home right now.
Speaker C:So I verified the story a number of times.
Speaker C:They're in their late 80s.
Speaker C:And so they.
Speaker C:They get to the hospital, and it's a Catholic hospital.
Speaker C:So there's these nuns there, there, because there's a dying child.
Speaker C:So the nuns are hovering.
Speaker C:The family doctor puts his.
Speaker C:Puts his hands on me in Christian terms.
Speaker C:He lays his hands on me and he tries to adjust my neck.
Speaker C:He touches my.
Speaker C:My head, and I just scream bloody murder.
Speaker C:And it's gone.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker C:All the symptoms are gone, like, instantly.
Speaker C:And in our little ethnic, sort of Mennonite world, that was not a normal phenomena.
Speaker C:Yeah, we were.
Speaker C:We weren't in the custom.
Speaker C:We were in customer having barn raisings, not healing.
Speaker C:And so it was Christianity, but it wasn't.
Speaker C:It was Christianity without sort of the supernatural sort of a connection to it.
Speaker C:So when I.
Speaker C:When I.
Speaker C:My parents brought me home, the doctors sort of checked all my limbs and brought me home and said what?
Speaker C:They're kind of like, I guess we got our Steve back, but When I look at my pathway versus, let's say, my siblings and my cousins, I don't think they got him back.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so there was something different about how the veil between heaven and earth was cornered kind of messed up in my life.
Speaker C:And so as a kid, I would be able to.
Speaker C:I'd be driving the school bus to school, be looking at a house and go, there's bad people that live in that house and go buy another house.
Speaker C:There's a, There's a little girl that's in trouble in that house.
Speaker C:Oh, that's a.
Speaker C:It was like, what is that?
Speaker C:What is going on?
Speaker C:And there was no framework for it until finally, you know, as an adult, I, you know, I, I broadened my perspective.
Speaker C:Oh, this is like the regular ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker C:So an interesting beginning.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:And you were labeled as an underachiever.
Speaker B:I read what's going on.
Speaker C:Like age four and a half, five.
Speaker C:Like I could make my uncles and aunts fall off their chairs laughing at family gatherings.
Speaker C:Like I was that kid, you know, that rooster.
Speaker C:But then all of a sudden I show up in school and I cannot read and write.
Speaker C:It just makes no sense to me.
Speaker C:I'm reversing numbers and letters and back then, you know, with a bit of help, probably being four or five days of neuroplastic training around visual closure.
Speaker C:And I would have gotten on the path, but, you know, they're just not aware.
Speaker C:And so in my 40s, I sorted it out through some really, really good training to be able to really capture that my discipline, my eyes to focus on what's actually in front of them instead of having a quasi visual panic attack.
Speaker C:Yeah, I have a lot of empathy towards like, even kids and parents that are like some.
Speaker C:I mean, Canada is probably the same as states, very quick to medicate, you know.
Speaker C:Oh, this kid.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, man.
Speaker C:I just think.
Speaker C:No, no, no, think neuroplasticity.
Speaker C:People can change.
Speaker C:Like for me, it was literally holding up, you know, holding up two different views, viewpoints into practicing having my eyes track back and forth, standing on a, on a bal, maybe with a beanbag, doing some cross patterning.
Speaker C:And I was able to retrain my brain.
Speaker C:I mean, it's a tragedy that I did in my 40s, but nevertheless, here I am.
Speaker C:I now write for a living, for part of my work, which is kind of crazy.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, that's a good, that's proof.
Speaker C:And I thought I'd have, I'd have, I would just breeze through life and then all of a sudden, boom.
Speaker C:You hit school and now you're the underachiever.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:So what did you learn from that?
Speaker B:To encourage people as you continue on with what you're doing today?
Speaker C:You know, I, I, I.
Speaker C:Not everything is like a silver lining, but I think something like what I had around the learning disability, maybe dyslexia, whatever it was as is, it is for me, it became a superpower because I ended up with fairly hyper vigilant situational awareness.
Speaker C:Like, plus with what I think God was trying to develop in my life, I would just have these nuanced, like if, if someone started just like scratching a part of their, their hand in the crossroom, I go, what's that?
Speaker C:What's happening?
Speaker C:What's going on there?
Speaker C:What's happening there?
Speaker C:And so I was very outer focused rather than inner focused.
Speaker C:And I think that became so, so important to me as a family therapist.
Speaker C:I would, I really believed in a model where if I could get people into a helicopter, looking at their problem, looking as a third party, it would be, then you get rid of a lot of that, say, the emotional reactivity.
Speaker C:So often I'd have a, I would just have a coffee table between us and, and just a blank piece of paper and say, say what?
Speaker C:Say, so what's good?
Speaker C:And I'd be just drawing, say, so does it look kind of like this?
Speaker C:It'd be like some sort of like a sketch, like not a sketch of what's going on, just a dynamic like circles.
Speaker C:And it's this thing and this big arrow and then they grab the pen, go.
Speaker C:I don't know, it's more like this.
Speaker C:And before long, we'd be all up in the helicopter looking at the situation from a strategic point of view.
Speaker C:That was the superpower, what took place, because the written words were blocked from me, so the visual representation was available to me.
Speaker C:I bet you I haven't spent any time in the Orthodox Church, but I bet you if I went to the Russian Orthodox Church, I go, these are my people.
Speaker C:Because their whole theology is in paintings and in stained glass windows.
Speaker C:It's not theology of written word, it's theology of pictures.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker B:Now you start off your book, the Switched on CEO.
Speaker B:You start off by sharing that the CEO is probably the loneliest person in the entire company because they have almost nobody they can confide in and share things with, but yet everybody's coming to them for feedback and support.
Speaker B:When did you receive this, let's just say this divine revelation about this.
Speaker B:And what motivated you to start making changes in this area?
Speaker C:Boy, those are a bunch of loaded questions.
Speaker C:I literally stumbled into this.
Speaker C:I had no grand plan.
Speaker C:And so just, just the full, the full disclosure.
Speaker C:I, number one, I married well, so I married someone that was really hurt and could read and write and was funny and had great situational awareness.
Speaker C:And so all of a sudden, when I tricked her into marrying me, that was the, that was the power of team that gave me the pathway into higher education.
Speaker C:So that was this piece.
Speaker C:And then when I got into, there was a seminary that accepted me in, in California, and I probably shouldn't have been accepted because of the path that I was on, but they took me on and they're the department head.
Speaker C:He was fascinated rather than frustrated by how my brain was wired and just by God's providence.
Speaker C:His son was struggling with some of the same things that I struggled with.
Speaker C:And he was in his high school, his senior year in high school.
Speaker C:And so rather than kicking me to the curb, he brought me in to team.
Speaker C:And that's, I mean, there again, it's like almost I was giving him every reason to kick me out of the, out of the program.
Speaker C:And then he coaxed me back in, almost like a raccoon that's cornered.
Speaker C:He came the raccoon, which is amazing.
Speaker C:And, and I went from basically worse to first.
Speaker C:Like, I went, I was the most least likely to succeed in graduate school to being their valedictorian of one of three.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It was like ironic of ironic.
Speaker C:And then it's like, what should I do?
Speaker C:And I said, should I go get a PhD?
Speaker C:He goes, oh, Steve, please don't get a PhD because why?
Speaker C:He goes, a, school's hard for you, but B, you actually like people.
Speaker C:Most people that get PhDs that they like ideas or like, they like, like the scholarly process, they don't actually like people.
Speaker C:And so if you get a PhD, you're going to get stuck in some research project somewhere.
Speaker C:It's going to be terrible.
Speaker C:You need to be a clinician.
Speaker C:Working with people, that's your gift.
Speaker C:And so I just said, okay.
Speaker C:And, and my friends were like, steve, you're, you can become a family therapist.
Speaker C:I don't see that because I wasn't very affirming.
Speaker C:But, but it was actually amazing because I really was cut from a different cloth.
Speaker C:I, I, I enjoyed that strategic challenge of trying to find people's what's going on and getting behind the veil.
Speaker C:I really enjoyed consulting with God while I was working with people, whether they're People of FAI and.
Speaker C:And getting that spiritual sort of like intuition, insight into their lives.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I was just behaving myself, but my wife and I, like, I had always wanted, like, I felt God's call in my life already in great age too, right.
Speaker C:That there's something big.
Speaker C:And my brother and sister, like, say, well, you know, there's nothing big for you.
Speaker B:But you have all that.
Speaker C:No, I think there's something big.
Speaker C:There's more like.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And so my wife and I, we looked at each other and said, hey, you know, we've committed to.
Speaker C:We got four kids and we're swamped because it was basically just with parenting and looking after kids.
Speaker C:She said, steve, there's going to be a season.
Speaker C:We actually took a.
Speaker C:Stole a page out of Stephen Covey's book, you know, that where he's saying, you know, begin with the end of mind.
Speaker C:So she asked, how long do you want to work to.
Speaker C:I said, oh, probably 80, 85.
Speaker C:He goes, okay, then we got time.
Speaker C:You could, you can go make your big splash, but let's raise our kids first.
Speaker C:So I really throttled back anything that looked like an opportunity to, like, become, you know, more nationally recognized or something.
Speaker C:I just kept it humble and did our thing.
Speaker C:And then our youngest is like 16 years old.
Speaker C:My wife basically slaps me in the rear end, says, steve, it's now.
Speaker C:The season is now.
Speaker C:So be ready.
Speaker C:Be ready for God to open up the doors.
Speaker C:And then, wouldn't you know, the door that opened had basically nothing to do with what I was doing for work.
Speaker C:It came out of minor hockey coaching.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Explain that.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:I was just coaching, like the house team, like one of one of the eight house teams, right?
Speaker C:It's 14 year olds.
Speaker B:Let me interrupt for a second, folks.
Speaker B:Hockey is the Canadian national pastime, okay?
Speaker C:It might even be our religion.
Speaker C:You always want to know what, what faith country is.
Speaker C:It's probably the faith hockey.
Speaker C:So I was just doing my Canadian thing and coaching hockey and loving it because again, what a social experiment to work with crazy parents and kids.
Speaker C:And because I was involved in my profession, I would have kids coming out of the foster system joining my program, kids coming out of juvenile, you know, detention on.
Speaker C:My kids had never skated before on my team.
Speaker C:So we had a ragtag team.
Speaker C:And there's this one kid that was supposed to be going all the way, right?
Speaker C:He was amazing skater by that terrible, terrible attitude.
Speaker C:So he, he was cut from the evaluations of the travel team, like, the team that's like the high, the, you know, the team of a real talent.
Speaker C:And they thought, who are we going to parachute this kid into?
Speaker C:Because this kid could ruin any team because not only is he good, he's got this terrible attitude.
Speaker C:So I said, well, Steve, you're the only one because you're the therapist, right?
Speaker C:And so I got this kid on my team and.
Speaker C:And we say people can change in the power, successes and team.
Speaker C:Those are the pillars of our.
Speaker C:Of our work.
Speaker C:And wouldn't you know it, three days into being on our team, he was loving it.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:Just loving it.
Speaker C:And finally had to tune up his dad, who was not loving it.
Speaker C:His dad was still standing at the far end of the rink like, this is bs.
Speaker C:I can't believe the politics of this organization.
Speaker C:You know, I should probably sue them.
Speaker C:His dad was a powerful man in the logging industry.
Speaker C:So he watched the team that his son was parachuted into, and he watched how his son joined the team, how his son changed even how he spoke, his attitude, his language, how he passed the puck, you know, became a team player.
Speaker C:He went.
Speaker C:Fascinating.
Speaker C:So they had a big problem within their union, and they were just coming up with ideas like, who should we get?
Speaker C:We should get this university's leadership program or this and.
Speaker C:Or Stephen Covey or some organization come and help us.
Speaker C:So he's kind of cheeky because loggers are right.
Speaker C:He just put up his hand and said, I think we should give my kids coach a try.
Speaker C:So I didn't.
Speaker C:There was.
Speaker C:I had no business card or nothing.
Speaker C:It was just a, what we call a red phone moment, which means the divine and humans connecting up.
Speaker C:And if we can, if we can, if we can be tuned into those red phone moments and actually then go all in, that is the game.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:I love.
Speaker B:I love that story because, you know, like I said, I grew up literally two miles from Canada, right?
Speaker B:So we're always going back and forth across the border for hockey and all this other stuff.
Speaker B:They come over, you know, the youth teams and all that stuff.
Speaker B:So I understood the power of hockey.
Speaker B:I love that story as.
Speaker B:Oh, man, we got to talk about this.
Speaker C:I think the point is that we prepare our mindset by what we think essentially God has called us to do.
Speaker C:But we don't necessarily have to push the rope on this.
Speaker C:Yeah, we.
Speaker C:We wait until you.
Speaker C:You prepare yourself.
Speaker C:Like a master's degree certainly helped, you know, and.
Speaker C:And having 22 years of really solid business, you know, business development under my belt.
Speaker C:But as far as opening up the Big old door and, and letting you through.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:That's not always our work.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:That's something that, I think it's good because it keeps you more humble.
Speaker C:Just realize you sort of stumbled into it and might not even being God's first choice.
Speaker C:Like, you might have gone through the list and you were number 14 people.
Speaker B:He was like, oh, this one might work.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I sort of maintained that attitude all the way through.
Speaker C:I'm going, you know, I'm, I'm willing.
Speaker C:I'm willing and available, but I may not be God's first, first pick.
Speaker C:And that.
Speaker C:I think that helps.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Now, in your work, you've seen how unresolved trauma can impact workplace behavior.
Speaker B:Is that what you call the subconscious X's that we all have in our brains, according to your book?
Speaker C:Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker C:So for those of you that from a strategic point of view, when we started delivering, when I started delivering training in industry, it was in logging, heavy industry, wildland, fire.
Speaker C:Those were the, those were the folks and, and most like mostly men.
Speaker C:And I just was like, I just can't afford to use words like, like wounded or emotional trauma or the little, the little boy inside.
Speaker C:Like, those kind of like psychobabble terms would just, you'd be thrown off, you'd be thrown off the dock using those kind of terms.
Speaker C:And so I thought I need to come up with language that grown men that run massive pieces of equipment out in the bush can freely use to describe complex things with each other.
Speaker C:And so I came up with a term called memory X's.
Speaker C:So literally like a black X that we draw on a white page in front of the room.
Speaker C:So a memory X is something that your front brain operating system is not able to store because it's, for whatever reason, it's not compatible with your general success.
Speaker C:So it needs to be stored in what we call your back brain.
Speaker C:And it's stored in isolation, essentially in a limestone cave.
Speaker C:And sometimes there's even vault doors that are put on front of them, and sometimes there's a collection of X's, but often they're just individually stored there.
Speaker C:And they're stored for good reason so that you can carry on with your day to day.
Speaker C:However, with the right stimulus, those, the code on those vault doors are known by adrenaline and cortisol.
Speaker C:They know the secret code.
Speaker C:And so if you have a shot of adrenaline and cortisol, what happens is you can end up with what we call.
Speaker C:You can switch, you can switch to the back of your brain, you can end up in what's called the battle of the brains.
Speaker C:So your intentions are to speak respectively to your spouse, or answer the email in an appropriate way, or talk to your staff in a reasonable way, or not shout at the board of directors.
Speaker C:That's your front brain.
Speaker C:And for sure, 95% of your life is going to be run and managed and regulated by your front brain.
Speaker C:But under the wrong circumstances, if you have memory X's that have not been harvested out of the back brain and repositioned in your front brain, they become the independent, an operating landing pad for the neurological process of being inappropriate.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Sometimes to a devastating level.
Speaker C:So, so the question is like, does everybody have memory access?
Speaker C:The answer is yes.
Speaker C:Is everybody aware of their memory access?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker C:And do CEOs have memory access?
Speaker C:Tons.
Speaker C:Does you know, someone running heavy equipment have memory access?
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And so the fun thing in our model is that we've created language that people can freely talk to each other about on a daily basis.
Speaker C:We sit in sometimes 31 stories up in an oil and gas, in an executive boardroom.
Speaker C:And once they're aware of our model, like they've adopted our language, it's amazing.
Speaker C:They'll go, okay, everybody, says the cfo, I'm about to give you our quarterly results.
Speaker C:And before you all leave your front brains and land on giant X's in the back brain, I just want to let you know, buckle up because it's not going to be pretty.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:So they actually.
Speaker C:And then away they go.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker C:And, and the cool thing, it's not as if it doesn't exist.
Speaker C:It's that if you can expose that dynamic and make it common language within the workplace, then, then you end up with what we call human agency.
Speaker C:You have the ability to not only build amazing team, but you have this transparency and openness and it's, and it's.
Speaker C:The dynamics are, are completely reversed.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:You know, when I was reading that, I had a saying, you know, back when, let's just say before I was born again and give you that idea.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:But I had a saying back then and, and when I read this X's in the back of the brain, like you said, secluded under lock and key.
Speaker B:Well, my saying was that they were pushing all of the right buttons and in the right sequence.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:That brought me out where I would.
Speaker B:You know, they opened it, they opened this can of worms and now we're going fishing.
Speaker C:Oh, I got, I can write that down.
Speaker C:I'm going to Use that, by the way.
Speaker B:And I, I'd give them a piece of my mind.
Speaker B:I mean, all these things that, you know, when I was reading your book, I was like, that's me, that's me.
Speaker C:And your back brain is saying, attaboy, Bob.
Speaker B:You get, oh yeah, I was enjoying it too.
Speaker C:You need to stand up for yourself and demolish your career right now.
Speaker B:And it happened.
Speaker B:And it happened.
Speaker B:It did.
Speaker C:Of course, nobody gets triggered, let's say with a military or a policing background, right?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I remember one that my daughter worked as a dispatcher for our department and I was on a traffic stop and this guy was just say, let's say not being cooperative and says, your front page.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I just keyed up the microphone.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:As I start me another unit.
Speaker B:That's all I said.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's all I said, just start me another unit.
Speaker B:Because I knew it was going to get real, real quick.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And my daughter is like, oh, somebody's about to get their butt kicked.
Speaker B:And what.
Speaker B:He didn't say anything about fighting her.
Speaker B:I know that voice.
Speaker B:She knew she, she picked up on the tone of voice and just, you know, and, but yeah, and that's.
Speaker C:And I think like if we are fully aware that we're accessing some adrenaline and cortisol in order to achieve a specific result, go at her like, have fun with it.
Speaker C:But if, but if it is something that is, it becomes out of our control, then it becomes a massive liability.
Speaker C:So I think the message has to be really clear from, even from our company's point of view.
Speaker C:We're not asking people to just become vanilla, like to, to become like this somehow where they never get upset or they never develop, you know, have, have like, like strong opinions.
Speaker C:It's, it's on the contrary.
Speaker C:The cool thing is if you can have a self and situational awareness to regulate your two operating systems in your brain, what happens then is your brain actually gives you more opportunity to grow.
Speaker C:I'll give you an example.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Someone, let's say you and your wife go to Mexico, have a great time, but you know, it's after hours, you go to the marina, it's 11 o'clock at night, and you and somebody wants to steal your phone.
Speaker C:So you have your big switchback moment, you save the day, you end up with an X because you say, hey, we just spent $5,000 doing this trip.
Speaker C:And you know, it could have been, could have been bad.
Speaker C:It could have gotten poked with a knife.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So if you don't process that X that was a surprise attack during your nice holiday in Mexico.
Speaker C:Next time your wife says, hey, let's plan a trip, guess what?
Speaker C:Mexico is off, off the list.
Speaker C:Yeah, you'll be going somewhere else.
Speaker C:You'll be going to Hawaii, to Costa Rica, somewhere.
Speaker C:So if you multiply that as adults, we, our lives can get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.
Speaker C:Smaller, smaller.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we need to process that scuffle in Mexico, harvest that X in the back of our brains and come back down so that we can actually go back to Mexico.
Speaker C:So when you think about CEOs, they, they've been in the trenches for years and they have many, many Mexico scuffles with regulators, with, with, with safety infractions, with actual fatalities, with financial issues, with all these issues, if they aren't processing these X's, their world gets smaller and smaller and smaller and they become almost one dimensional.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And they'll even be encouraged by legal counsel to be one dimensional, say, you know, just play in the lanes, keep it safe.
Speaker C:But at the end of the day, the CEO's job is to build trust among the executive to be able to deliver inspiration and understanding and clarity to the board of directors.
Speaker C:And if they are one dimensional, that just doesn't take place.
Speaker C:It doesn't happen.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And the problem is what happens at work happens at home too.
Speaker C:And so that same executive, when they're driving home, there'll be one dimensional, non decisional as well, because they're just managing risk.
Speaker C:It's so popular in the corporate world to manage risk, but you manage risk to the point where you're not a leader anymore.
Speaker C:And behind the, behind the veil, why are they managing risk at that level?
Speaker C:Because they haven't harvested their exes.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:You know, as I was going through your book, I absolutely loved the concept of the three lane highway.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Because in your book, you know, I started to adapt that almost immediately after reading it with my assistance and stuff that I have now.
Speaker B:And your explanation of this, you mentioned the military.
Speaker B:And as we said before the recording started, that was basically the environment that I didn't grow up in a military family, but I matured and the beginning phase of my adult life was in the military.
Speaker B:So I guess you could say that that was the environment that I grew up in, at least mentally anyway.
Speaker B:And it's where I learned about leadership and responsibility and all that.
Speaker B:And as I was going through your book, I could identify some of the issues with how I was, according to your book, taught wrong.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker B:I mean, for example, I might need information for a report I was working on.
Speaker B:And I had tasked that out to a subordinate to research and get back to me with.
Speaker B:And when I was preparing to the materials to work on, you know, I just walk as I saw something like, you know, hey, Sergeant Jones, you get that information I need yet?
Speaker B:You know, and you know, you're laughing, but that's, you know, the military, you know, thing.
Speaker B:I asked you to get it.
Speaker B:Did you get it?
Speaker B:Yes or no?
Speaker B:It's a, it's not a discussion, it's a yes or no answer.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Type thing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that according to your book might be considered confrontational, maybe even a bit.
Speaker C:Of a T bone where you're.
Speaker C:If this three lane highway is a lot of traffic flowing on, you've actually caused an accident, like a neurological relational accident.
Speaker C:And when you pull away from that cubicle, they're like rolling their eyes going, Bob, oh yeah, what a jab.
Speaker C:And you're not a jerk.
Speaker B:That's what I would do when they come in at me.
Speaker C:It just meant that you just what in our world, you just skipped a lane?
Speaker C:You didn't merge through the lane to get to what you needed to get to.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:Hey folks, Pastor Bob here.
Speaker B:What time for this portion of this great interview with Stephen Falk as he's been sharing with us, you know, about the switched on CEO.
Speaker B:This is some great information.
Speaker B:I know you're getting a lot out of this interview because I know I, I've been taking notes.
Speaker B:Praise God.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:And as you can tell, his book is absolutely fabulous.
Speaker B:But we're all out of time for today.
Speaker B:You need to drop down the show notes, click the links right there.
Speaker B:Get in touch with Stephen Falk.
Speaker B:Be sure to order his book because it will just, it'll just open your eyes to a lot of different things.
Speaker B:But the good news is he's coming right back in the very next episode to conclude this discussion with us.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Till next time.
Speaker B:This pastor by reminding you to be blessed in all that you do.
Speaker A:You have been listening to to the Faith Based Business podcast with Pastor Bob Thibodeau.
Speaker A:We appreciate you as a listener and fellow believer and want to encourage you in your entrepreneurial efforts.
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Speaker A:Until next time, be blessed in all that you do.
Speaker B:SA.
