The Kitchen Table

Coaching High Level Executives With Adrian Koehler

Episode Notes

In episode 45 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden welcomes special guest Adrian Koehler, a high-level coaching consultant. They discuss Adrian's background, how he got into coaching, and the importance of keeping the audience engaged. They also emphasize that effective communication and persuasion necessitate active listening, understanding others' perspectives, and the ability to connect with their interests where one can build trust, overcome resistance, and achieve desired results.

Tune in as they dive deep into the world of coaching and consulting.

TIMESTAMPS

[00:05:40] Organizing Chaos in Coaching.

[00:07:32] Personal Transformation and Second Chances.

[00:12:23] Prisons and Reform.

[00:15:22] Trusting Dangerous Men with Control.

[00:17:42] Gratitude as a Strategic Advantage.

[00:20:01] Self-Mastery and Ambitious Entrepreneurs.

[00:31:04] Revenant Process and Personal Leadership.

[00:31:11] Investing in Personal Growth.

[00:36:06] A free resource: Naked Leadership Podcast.

In this episode, Ken Baden and Adrian Koehler discuss that leaders play a crucial role in shaping the world, and entrepreneurs understand the high stakes involved in their endeavors. They suggest that successful entrepreneurs and leaders often have unresolved pain points that drive their ambition and pursuit of excellence. They are willing to endure stress and intensity to achieve their objectives. However, they also propose that by focusing on self-mastery and emotional mastery, individuals can enhance their fulfillment and improve outcomes. This includes practicing gratitude, honesty, and generosity, which serve as guiding principles for effective self-leadership.

Additionally, Adrian mentions his skill in listening beyond the drama and offense that others may present. He believes that individuals who exhibit negative or offensive behavior often do so as a defense mechanism to feel safe. By listening attentively and striving to understand their underlying interests, he aims to disarm them and build rapport.

QUOTES

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

Ken Baden

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bluecollarcloser/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheKenBaden

Adrian Koehler

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adrian.k/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriankoehler/

WEBSITES:

The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/

Take New Ground: https://takenewground.com/

Naked Leadership Podcast: Naked-Leadership-Podcast

 

Episode Transcription

Intro/Outro: Welcome to the kitchen table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host. All right.
Ken Baden: Welcome back to another episode of the kitchen table where business is done. I'm really excited today. We have a very special guest, somebody who does coaching consulting on a very high level. Uh, and I'm proud to present not Adriana, Unfortunately, but Adrian and Koehler, like James Koehler, Adrian Koehler in the house. How are you doing, my friend?

Adrian Koehler: Oh, I'm doing great, man. So happy to be with you.

Ken Baden: Well, I thank you because I do know candidly we can let the audience know if you're if you fall asleep halfway through, you just got done doing an absolute freaking marathon of podcast.

Adrian Koehler: We're like, yeah, I just got, I just got, yeah, just got off. And, uh, you know, he'd asked me, you know, a lot of times people ask, like, how'd you get into this? And he said, tell the long version. I'm like, okay. And I looked up as 40 minutes in. I'm like, dude, I'm sorry. I like apologize to the audience. Like I just told like a 40 minute origin story. I mean, I don't know. That's like half a movie or something. Anyway, I won't do that here.

Ken Baden: We're going to rock and roll, but it's so good to have the attention span. So you, I get it. I get it. We're a bunch of sales people, man. We, you know, we're lucky if we make it past 15 minutes. In fact, uh, there was this, my, my, one of my coaches was like, dude, I do 15 minute shows now, man. I don't even, you know what I mean? I don't have full with 30 minutes.

Adrian Koehler: So let's do it, man.

Ken Baden: And it's funny you say that and that it burns a story in my brain. I have a mentor who, uh, is a true blue mentor, like not paid coach, but a mentor. He's a CEO here where I live. One of my very first mentors that I truly just like asked for help. I asked him for coffee, like a, like a date, you know, like, Hey man, uh, would you take some coffee? I pick your brain, but I knew who this guy was. Cause he's, he's a big, big shot in our roofing and remodeling world. And he's the CEO of like five different companies. Anyhow, came on my podcast in person, mind you, which was a big deal for me. He insisted that he come in person, take the time to come in person for like, because you have to wear pants, you have to wear pants, wear pants. But he was very casually dressed. I was surprised about that. Uh, surprised he wanted to come in person. Cause he like, you can barely get them on the phone for five minutes. He told a two hour, two hour. And I, and I know he listens to this show. So Adam, you would never have been stopped by me. And I didn't, I was just like. You know what I mean? But like, well, you know, but my friend told an hour long origin story followed by a second hour and it was all entertaining. So I was all about it. But yeah, sure. You say you did a 40 minute man. Hey, I've sat there and rocked with the best for two hours.

Adrian Koehler: So yeah, well, I got to get to know this guy. What's his name?

Ken Baden: Adam. You can't miss it, dude, because it's Adam Champagne. What a name, right? Adam Champagne.

Adrian Koehler: He's made for the red carpet.

Ken Baden: I mean, I'm a guy- A name like that, you better do something in life. He is the CEO of HomeFix at the top 25 of modeling company here. He is the, I believe CEO or I know he's the owner of Pure Marketing Group. No, Pure Finance Group. He is the owner of Install Services and a slew of other things. He's just- Amazing. One of those high speed all over the place,

Adrian Koehler: World needs guys like him, man. Set the pace, man. Set the pace.

Ken Baden: Good job, Adam. So Adam's the man. But yeah, man, that's what we have here on this show is a lot of high-level sales, coaching, anything that's involved in personal and professional development has a seat at the table. Awesome. No pun intended. Boom. Boom. So that's what you do, right? Take us through first things first. Explain a little bit about what you do and what your company does, and then I'll take you back into the tale of how you got there, but not the two hour version.

Adrian Koehler: Yeah, so I I'll be blunt. So I coach founders of companies. I've coached lots of people been doing this for 13 years like this. As of the last five years, I've just focused on founders because I love founders, and they're all troubled in the same ways. And all very ambitious, smart, you know, they, you know, all my clients are like twice as smart as I am twice as ambitious than I am. And they usually have, you know, very, very, very successful people are always, always probably always dysfunctional. That's part of, you have to be dysfunctional to be successful in some ways, because you're going to pay the price that sane people won't pay. So part of your insanity is being captured by the possibility and this internal drive. And most, we know this as we studied high-end people, like you watch Michael Jordan, you watch Tiger Woods, they all, all their excellence comes out of some kind of pain point that never got resolved. So anyway, we're all sideways and I love working with people like that. I love working with troubled people, especially because I know if I can help them make a handful of shifts, minor shifts, that ends up being major impact for them and the people close to them. So they'll live with less regrets and live a more, most of these guys like stress. I was going to say stress-free. No, they actually dig intensity. They dig stress. And so they want to get after it. But I know that fulfillment's going to go up and outcomes are going to go up if we talk. So that's what I do. I, and I train their leadership teams. I align a team. I can build a team. I can rip a team apart if that's necessary, help people get fired, all that kind of stuff. Um, when I get there, the chaos gets clear pretty quickly.

Ken Baden: So you, do you find a way to kind of like organize that chaos because you, you don't seem to discourage it or at least no.

Adrian Koehler: Well, I don't try to organize it before it gets clear. So usually you've got to illuminate the chaos and illuminate who's generating the chaos in a very non-judgmental way. So you've got to honor where people are coming from. And even if people are sideways and people are, what do I want to say, immature, they actually are usually coming from some five or six layers down. There is some kind of core interest that's honorable. So most of the time people deal with symptoms, which is like the first few layers and they don't get down to the core issue. If you get down to the core issue and can listen past all the drama, which I'm really good at listening past all the drama and past what makes people, uh, you know, some people are like such a dick, like nobody wants to talk to them, but I don't have a problem with them. I get that. They're just a dick. Like that's their best defense to the world. They don't like want to be that way. It's just a chosen way of making them safe really. And, and giving them the edge and all this kind of stuff. But so I can listen past that. It's really hard to offend me. I don't. think I'm offendable. So they could say anything to me, no problem at all. But I'm going to, they're not going to know what to do with me because I'm not going to take offense like everybody else does. I'm going to actually ask them five questions because I want to get to know them because I know they're giving me a smoke screen and the smoke screen doesn't work. And so I know they're in tons of pain, otherwise they wouldn't be acting this way. So I'm going to get past that and listen from their perspective, which is really disarming for them. That's why I build rapport with them right away because I don't reject them like everybody else does, nor do I revere them like everybody else does either. So I'm not, I'm not as impressed as they are with themselves either. So we build a lot of trust right away.

Ken Baden: How did you, now I'm really wanting to know, how did you get into that? How did you get into this work?

Adrian Koehler: Yeah, well, the very short story, I've been doing this type of work. since I can remember, it wasn't this exact type, you know, cause you grow up and you're not a coach growing up, but I've just been the guy that people call when shit's hitting the fan, you know? And as a kid, that was a lot like in my family, I was like too intense and too psychological and too philosophical. I was way too much for my like small town, Illinois parents and God bless them. They did the best they could. But I always like really wanted to know what was really going on. And like, I really want to understand life and understand relationships and understand what makes things work. I've just always been insanely curious like that. But I, you know, so, but I didn't know what to do out of college. I was not, my parents were both school teachers. I actually went to school as like a, as like a, maybe being a doctor, I got a nursing degree out of college. but I worked in the intensive care unit, mostly pediatric intensive care. So like helping save kids lives on the brink and then helping families deal with that. So like ordering that chaos and bringing people together, even in the worst of times, which if your kid's dying, that is the worst day you can possibly imagine. So helping be a sane, somebody that can bring people together when people want to run and hide or just be crazy. helping people calm down and connect. Out of that, I actually come from a spiritual background, a religious background. As I said, I was from a small town in America, so I was kind of raised into this Christianity thing, which I rejected most of how it was practiced, but really connected to the heart and soul of the thing. I actually worked at a church out here in LA for several years and I was mostly an activist. So helping people leave their normal lives and go do something heroic for the sake of somebody else. And I built a big network of like 2000 people that we did that and we traveled overseas and I could take my healthcare background and like when the earthquake in Haiti, I'm on the ground with a group of doctors, like five days later, setting up clinics, that kind of stuff. I could tell lots of stories, which I won't hear. But then out of that helped a guy have his own spiritual jump in his spiritual life. His father's a billionaire. He was a millionaire. Long story short, he asked me to like leave the work as a pastor and help him set up a foundation, which I did, took him around the world, helped expose them to all the needs out there, which I was very well connected with just because of my work. in the philanthropic world, he ended up wanting to work with people who have really blown it and help him get a second chance. So long story, very short, we worked in the prison system and I found a guy that had been working with criminals for two decades and he's a world-class coach and transformational leadership guy as well. And so we trained murderers in prison. We put murderers through a three-day exercise. His research, recidivism, which is what they study in that world, 87% 87 guys out of 100 when they leave prison will come back, right? Because prisons are actually criminal factories, and they make people worse, right? If you go through our training, you go through our training, that number goes from 87% down to 12%. So why is that? Because we do the one conversation that's the beginning of everything is are you a victim? Are you responsible? And victims hurt people. Victims will always perpetrate again because it's not my fault. It's because I'm black. It's because I'm from the inner city, because my dad wasn't around because blah, blah, blah, whatever the story is to justify the behavior. If that's, you've got any of those stories, you're going to do it again. You're going to create more victims. If you can make a shift from being I'm here because of something or someone else to I'm here because I made the decision to be here, that changes the world. and it changes them and it changes their legacy. All of our guys got out of prison the next time they were up in front of the parole board. Many of them now are out in the community stopping gang violence right now, even though they led the gangs before. So that type of turnaround, I did that for a long time. I got connected to a guy that I trained to go do that work. Um, he's like Mozart. He's the, he's the best in the world at it. Best in the world. His name is Dan Takini. I saw him recognize his talent, hired him because I wanted to be his mentee, just like you and, and, uh, Adam. And, uh, now we started a company 13 years ago. Um, doing this work together, and he's a great mentee of mine. I've got lots of natural ability and several aspects of the work. But I live and die by being a fierce advocate for people, and I'm really good at it. And if you're up for something new, I don't know who's going to fight harder for you than me.

Ken Baden: Dude, that was powerful to take in just even for myself. I know we spoke a little bit yesterday, but I don't even think I told you, you know, I myself am a felon. And I certainly wasn't, and I don't believe that they're created or raised. I do believe that circumstances certainly can put you in a spot where it's harder, right? Like some of my cell buddies who were stealing cereal to raise their sisters when they were nine. And then saw the guy on the corner making a whole lot of money and that looked a lot more appealing than a nine to five that he really couldn't get. But, but I digress.

Adrian Koehler: That's true, man.

Ken Baden: That's all true. I had a whole much, much more healthy respect for all of that when I got out and you're absolutely right. Prisons and jails churn out. They did, in my opinion, man, nothing to reform anybody. No, there were some programs like de but but man, nobody taught any of these guys how to go out and you know, fill out a resume or present themselves a certain way so they can go get a job and be productive.

Adrian Koehler: No, if you want to hear some of the stories from our work, you know, we, I've got a podcast called the naked leadership podcast. If you scroll down, listen to an interview with Richard Morales, Richard was one of the original 30 murderers that we trained. Now he's out. Now he's got an organization called crop. I forget what it stands for, but they just got written into the California budget, not a grant, not money from rich people. into the budget for $20 million to do this kind of work. He's doing exactly the work we trained him to do. If you don't listen to that, you'll hear me crying nonstop on the, it's, it's breathtaking. The shift this guy took on himself and what he's doing now with these guys. So there are, there are, there are, uh, organizations, people that have shown up in organizations that are making a difference like this. So find Richard Morales or crop and check out naked leadership podcast. I forget what episode it is, but it's like two months ago.

Ken Baden: Yeah, guys, check that out, man. I mean, that's, uh, that's powerful, man. And I'm starting to see the parallels. So, you know, in sales and high level people, um, there's, I would, I don't know what the metrics are, but I would wager there's a, a, certainly a higher level of addiction. I would guess. I know ADHD is probably almost like a precursor. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure.

Adrian Koehler: For entrepreneurs, for sure.

Ken Baden: So for entrepreneurs and your, your, uh, You know, even I think like the sales gene, right? Because the fast money, the quick, the, you know, the, the, you gotta be a little differently wired to be somebody who can wrap your head around a 10 99, a commission only, uh, in just that life, man. I mean, I.

Adrian Koehler: Yeah. Well, restless, irritable and discontent. Right. So if like, you've got that in your bones and you live that way, you're either, you're going to find something to fill that gap. And you know, some people like myself and my history as well, like you might just search after the bottom of a bottle or whatever drugs you're going to use or women or whatever your, your addiction of choices, I've done them all. Or you're going to throw yourself at something that's more meaningful and has a legacy attached to it, which is making a difference to other people. And there happens to be a big, a lot of dollar signs behind that if you are elite at it. So, You know, there's nothing wrong with those three things, restless and irritable and discontent. And for those listening, I'm referring to the big book, which talks about alcoholics.

Ken Baden: I was just getting ready to say, are you a friend of Bill, sir? Cause I myself am.

Adrian Koehler: So yeah, you mentioned that. Yeah. Yeah. I got sober in, uh, uh, August 30th of 2016. That's wonderful. So yeah. Anyway, that, but to your point, like that's, and, and, and for me, it's a big deal. Like if, if somebody appears to 2017, that's wild, dude.

Ken Baden: Awesome, man.

Adrian Koehler: Awesome. Sorry. But the, no, it's all good. If someone like the person I don't trust is someone who acts like they have all their shit together. I don't trust them at all. I won't get close to them at all. If somebody tells me that, you know, they spent 20 years in prison cause they murdered some guy and they're really honest about it. And they're really responsible about it. And they live a lifestyle now to make sure they don't go down that slippery slope. That's the guy I trust. You know, it's like Jordan Peterson says, we don't need soft men. We don't need nice men. We need dangerous men that have it under control. Those are the only people I trust. So I like, I love, we love, we're all criminals in our organization and take new ground and we're unabashed about it. It's great. And it's an invitation for other people to get real, because if you don't, if you're scared of the dark, you know, you can't really live.

Ken Baden: You know, and I couldn't agree more. And I personally have hired a lot of people. I would call them second chance folks. And right now it's like, I don't know, it's probably a less, but it ebbs and flows, right? Like I get guys and then I, and then I, then I say, okay, look, I, I'm, I want to get more, uh, folks that are in recovery, but you know, I need to have a higher threshold or a higher barrier for entry because you get them too new and it's just heartbreaking. But like, man, you know, I don't need to tell you the statistics, but just the same man, some of these folks, you know, and where I'm going at with this is what people don't and may not realize. And if you're listening to this and you are. sales, entrepreneur, building a business, working within a business, taking the entrepreneur approach, and you find yourself in that, like, go, go, go, you know, and perhaps you are somebody who's finding solace or comfort in a bottle or a substance. You're not alone, one. And two, the other side of that is some of these guys that hit, right, they go through the trouble, they go through the turmoil, they go through all the, they have this trauma, and trauma could be substance abuse, or whatever, right? The folks that have had like this huge bottom, that come back from it. And then they have this new healthy appreciation, right? And this new gratitude. And I think that gratitude is absolutely synonymous with, you know, the higher the gratitude, the higher propensity for success, in my opinion. And like, yes, I look at men and women in recovery. And I'm like, all right, where's your gratitude at? And that to me is their chance of survival for out because that was the biggest shift in myself. You know what I mean? And so yeah,

Adrian Koehler: Well, if you don't have, if you don't have gratitude, you can, you cannot approach reality. That's, I think for me, that's the big math problem. Because if I, for me, gratitude isn't like a feeling and it's not, you know, something lightened and fairy, like, you know, I think people like kind of laugh about gratitude, but first off neurologically, we know that gratitude is literally like a, um, a lubricant for the brain. It generates versatility. I can move around if I have gratitude. But even besides that, for me, gratitude is whatever's going on, I will accept it as the starting place. Not as the ending place, but I don't reject reality. I find a way to… Gratitude equals acceptance. And it ends up equals like, you know, you feel okay about it or whatever. But for me, it's just, it's, it's operational. Like if I'm in gratitude, no matter, even if you came on this, you wouldn't, if you came on this and was cussing me out and blah, blah, blah. And if I have gratitude for it, it's like, okay, I'll start with that. Wherever you were at, I'll start there. You know, whatever's going on, I'm willing to start there. And so then you can like approach reality and you embrace it and you use current reality to move forward towards your goals. So gratitude is a huge strategic advantage.

Ken Baden: And you just put it in a way that I've… I love what you said, don't have gratitude, you can't approach reality. Because you know, I keep finding myself trying to express it like on social media or some way of just like, I can't stress this enough, gratitude it's not just this… you know, saying we say in good feelings. Yeah. Everything. Uh, so look, take me through. I mean, you, you're, you're working with folks, you're, you're doing all this amazing philanthropic stuff, but now what you seem to be really dialed in on at the very least, like what you do for, and like you said, you make no, it's unabashed, like, Hey, we, we intend to charge for this because we're really good at it. And we work with high level folks get even better. Uh, yeah. Who's that ideal client if they're listening? And I mean, you know, tell me about the revenant process upcoming, uh, that you have, cause I'm really interested one in your approach, but we'll go, I just threw three things at you. So first, tell me about who you're looking at first. And, uh, second, we can talk about the. The revenant process and I have a third, but I'm not going to, my ADHD is kicking in.

Adrian Koehler: Got it. No problem. I do a client for us. We're not industry specific. Uh, I'm attitude specific. So, uh, I, I own, I only work. I only, so it's like an eye and a wee, right? So we, I'll just talk to myself or from myself. I only coach people that I'm really interested in. I like what they're up to. I'm curious about it. I want to learn about it. Um, and I only work with people that are movable. So I only work with highly ignitable people. That's why I work with founders of companies, entrepreneurs like yourself. Entrepreneurs get it. The world rises and falls on the backs of leaders. We know that's the case. And if you're an entrepreneur, you've decided to bet on yourself. That's a pretty risky bet, period. because human beings are pretty unpredictable, even to ourselves. Even if you're a really disciplined person, you can still blow out and fuck it up. You know, and even if you killed in the professional sense, you might do something personal on your personal life that might burn it all down. Right? So, but entrepreneurs are betting on themselves. Therefore, the stakes are high. Therefore they know they need to find a way to lead themselves with impeccability. So 50% of my conversation is about self-mastery. That's what I call it. Like leading myself. And then you got the part of leading a team and you get the part of generating new results. So I only work with really ambitious people that are really going after huge results. And I don't have time to go through all the types of clients we're working with, but they're all moonshot-y type organizations. They want to exponentially take their company to the next level. and they're unapologetic about it. Like they really, they're committed to it. Not like, Oh, I hope, you know, it's not like goals. People bullshit themselves, talk about goals. People relate to goals in a very flaccid way. No, no, no. What am I committed to create? Like take it to the fucking bank. Like I like people like that, that are like really unapologetic about what they're about in life. Right. So they're not good. So I work with all these type A dickheads, which are my favorite people. So, Type A, really driven. They get the fact, not really well when we start working together, but by the end they get the fact that they only get to new results, like scalable results by working with other people. And everybody I'm working with, they're really independent. You know, they like to be left alone. They want people to get out of their way. They get in line, like they're pushy, right? But they realize over time, usually with enough pain, that they need to learn how to listen. Most of my guys don't listen at all. They need to learn how to communicate in a way that's versatile and can connect to multiple sets of interests at the table that are very distinct from theirs. As a human being, everybody thinks this is the number one human bias in the brain. I think that other people think the way I think. That's it. Everybody does that. Like you're like me. So when you're stupid, it's because you're not like me. Cause when you say something dumb, it's because you're not saying what I would say. And that's, that's, that's a bias. So everybody has that. That's, that's gravity, but you're ignorant. If you think that you got to get them to think the way you think, no, first off, start thinking the way they think. So you can actually connect to their interests and then you can bring them over to yours. And if they work for you, they better get over to yours. But if you can't meet them where they are, then you're going to keep begging them and then complain about babysitting and then keep banging your head against the wall. So you got to listen really well and be an expert negotiator. We train people in negotiation all day long. And that's the art of persuading somebody, but you can't persuade somebody if you don't know where they're starting. So Love working with people like that. Love people that get the, get the power and possibility of working on a team. So most everybody, every great entrepreneur is the best person at like almost every job in their company. That's just it. And quit being so fucking special about it. Of course, that's true. You're, you're an all-star. Well, get over it. Now your job is to get results through other people and you don't know how to do that. Cause that comes through communication and comes really through listening. That's where it all begins. So that, and then self mastery, which is not just about, you know, doing a thousand pushups every day. It's really about emotional mastery. And it's really about mastering how I think. And most people, they, you know, everybody I work with goes and kills himself in the gym. That's great. I do that too, but that's not what it takes when you're in a board meeting and Tom, once again, says something stupid for you to like, calm yourself down, connect with the guy and then shift the guy and keep the bar really high. You might need to fire him finally and take balls to do that. You should maybe do that, but don't be passive aggressive about it. Be really assertive about it anyway. So I'm training people into doing that. People that want to do that kind of stuff and take themselves and their possibility to the next level. That's who I work with.

Ken Baden: I have a quick question. Yeah. Where is your opinion on My wife always gives me a hard time because she says, and Alex Ramos, he always kind of dismisses this idea. But you know, if I found myself as I continue to go and climb and I'm like, Oh, I got a, I got 5am club, man. And now it's, you know, I got to get an ice tank or whatever it is, you know, I got to get the cold, all those things, right, which I have myself established quite the morning routine. But I can tell you a few years ago, when I was just my back against was against the wall, and I was living over garage and you know, couldn't afford a vehicle and then just barely was able to get one via cash. I didn't have any of those things. I just did whatever it took. What do you think about the whole idea of like, well, you self-mastery is cold plunges, getting up at 5 a.m., journaling, meditating, prayer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or just doing whatever it takes. What's your thought process on that? I'm just curious.

Adrian Koehler: Well, yeah, for me, it's both right for me. It's both. So I'm, I am, uh, my alarm goes off at five 40 every day. I get up, I journal for 10 minutes. I go to the gym, I come back and I cold plunge. Now there's reasons for all those things. Probably the most important one for that is probably journaling. Why? Because there's like five or six Adrians in here. And I don't know which one I'm going to wake up with, you know? And so I need to talk to myself and journaling is a prop for me. The purpose of journaling is to talk to myself and like sift through the bullshit and get myself to a place.

Ken Baden: Explain or elaborate on that, because I don't know if people understand exactly what you're saying. Sure. So I, what do you literally write out? Like, how do you write explaining that?

Adrian Koehler: I don't mind at all. I'm going to write out what's going on for me. So it's just stream of consciousness. First off, first is just stream of consciousness. What am I thinking about? What am I feeling? What am I wondering about? What am I, you know, you know, I'm always in some, typically in some kind of reflection about the night before, what's going on in my life right now. And I want to listen to what's going on in my head. I want to make the unconscious conscious. So I want to write it down so I can see it. Like I'm being a little whiny bitch today. Good to know. I'm being very confused today. Good to know. I'm being very whatever today. Good to know. And now, then I get to direct myself. So I get to see myself and then I get to make choices. And especially when I was in early recovery, every day I would, on my thumb with a pen, I'd write GHG. Why was that? Grateful, honest, and generous. Those were like my anchors for myself. And that comes out of the big book, actually. We pray that we're not self-seeking, we're not full of self-pity, self-seeking, or self-whatever motives. So I'm thinking of Grateful and honest and generous. Those are pretty good anchors. So I get myself grounded before I go attack the world. So it's always an inside game as we say, right? So if I'm grateful and honest and generous, it's going to be a great day. It's going to be a great day. I can take on whatever. So I journal to see myself and then I journal so I can master myself and direct myself. So I'm leading myself first.

Ken Baden: I love that, man. I mean, thank you for elaborating on that because I do think that there are a lot of those. I get why she sent me a meme the other day and said, Hey, you know, I'm just saying if I was a billionaire and I wanted to tell my. up and coming adversaries. Or if I was a billionaire and I wanted to, what I would do is teach all my adversaries that the trick to being a billionaire would be getting up at 5, 4 a.m. every day and taking cold plunges. You know what I mean? Something silly like that. I was like, that's funny. That's funny. But I do think, I know the health benefits and stuff. And I journal every morning. More what I write is my goals. And so selfishly, I write what you were doing. But I took that from the Miracle Morning from Hal Elrod. Yep. What about this Revenant process, man? You got one coming up in Idaho. Can you talk about that?

Adrian Koehler: Sure. So Revenant process isn't for everyone, but it's probably for most people listening. So if you're going to come to the Revenant process, first, it's like a four day personal leadership deep dive, not for the faint of heart. It's long days. You don't come and sit back as a student. You don't come and like, you come to go participate. So you only come if you want something new in your life. So anybody listen to this, you guys want something new, whether it's like to double your goals from last year or make that relationship work or kick some habit or whatever. If you're looking for the edge to get to where you want to go, we'll help you get there a lot faster. I promise you that. Cause so that's part of the point of the revenue process is to illuminate the beliefs, the thinking that generates everything else, by the way, the thinking that's currently governing our lives and we're, and we are so full of shit. And we're so, you know, we are so scarce. We're so scared. We're so arrogant. We're so historical. We're so as a human being, this is what's happening. If you're listening and you're disagreeing with me, you're just a fool because you don't know. So, based on the way our brain works, we use the past to, to interpret the moment we're in. And that's normal. It's just not helpful. You need to use the future to interpret the moment you're in. And that takes, you got to work on that because that doesn't happen naturally. We're all baked in Freudian psychology, which says we're etiological. I am where I came from. That's all the criminals you hung out with in prison. They said, I am because, and everything because was the past. If you want to get powerful, you get clear on what you're committed to. And you interpret this moment, even if it's really shitty, you interpret this based on what you're committed to. So we practice that for four days. It's like a gym for the mind. So it's, it's very experiential. You get really deep with people. You get a ton of feedback. You get challenged to look at things in brand new ways, which we don't want to do. We'd rather be dogmatic and be really sure about it. Even if it's a road to hell, I'd rather be sure about it. And we invite people to get out of themselves and take a look at things in a brand new way. I co-train it with Dan Takini, Dan's fucking Mozart. He's the best in the world. And we've got several of them coming up. Don't come if you want to stay where you are. Only come if you want some exponential results and then go to wearerevenant.com. If you're curious about it, have questions, hit me up on Instagram, Adrian.K. We are Revenant, R-E-V-E-N-A-N-T.com. And I promise you, I mean, we just did a survey of 2000 recent grads and 97% of them said that it was the one of the top three experiences of their life. And they've been married, they've got kids, whatever. Wow. So believe them and just come check it out.

Ken Baden: Sounds badass, man. I'm actually interested myself.

Adrian Koehler: Oh, you would love it, man. You would love it. I'd love to have you in the room. You'd be a gift in that room, man.

Ken Baden: I'm very much interested, brother. I mean, as a matter of fact, I'll hit you up after this. I really am. I mean, that's right up my alley, man. I mean, I spent so much money in the last year. It was just last year where I realized that you could, like, invest in you in a way, like coaches and stuff. I found that world. And then I got obsessed with wanting to be a coach, which, you know, We're running up against it here and I'm building something myself with the blue collar ballers, which isn't just about creating another vertical, but like trying to bring up the next group of blue collar and home service.

Adrian Koehler: I love it, man. I love blue collar ballers.

Ken Baden: Badass, man. I can't take that. My coach made the name, so I got to give Ryan the credit there. But the group is mine and the group is something I'm really passionate about. But nonetheless, man, I love what you said last time we talked, which is like, man, look, you know, we just get We just help people get their shit straight. And it's definitely not for the faint of heart. We have a very unique, uh, What's the word you said? It seemed like rated R approach, but that's the way my brain processed it, but that's what I need.

Adrian Koehler: Yeah. I'm not going to be blocking out. For anybody. Yeah. I mean, for anybody for, especially for hard driving people. And we want to fill that room with hard driving people. So, uh, we don't learn by suggestion. We learn by somebody getting in our face and say, what the fuck man? Like, would you, could you get real? Could you get honest? Cause you're full of shit. And I don't say that out of judgment because I know I can be full of shit. The best thing we can do is be inauthentic about our inauthenticity. We're all inauthentic. We all lie to ourselves constantly. We lie to other people constantly. You got to get real about that. Even if you think you're all Mr. Integrity, you're always lying to yourself. Not always. You're frequently lying to yourself and just get real about it. Your life will open up if you get real about it and can hug that cactus. You're not as good as you think you are, you know, and you're better than you could. And you're, you have more possibility than you're, you're scared to own that as well. So it's both. And so that's really humility, right? Seeing yourself as right size. You're not as, as, as awesome as you think you are. And your potential is way far beyond the bullshit that you're telling yourself and how you train other people. to expect less of you to keep you safe. So let's get over that and go fucking skydiving for four days in Boise.

Ken Baden: Man, I could talk to you for hours, man. I tell you what, I really appreciate one, you coming on and two, I just see, and I have to say this, man, and I mean, I've been saying this for a while now, but probably not out loud, but it just sort of, I don't bring a ton of the whole 12 step, but like a lot of the things you're saying, the parallels between what's needed in recovery and what we do to stay sane and stay sober, and the parallels that could help really everybody or excuse me, the parallels to the entrepreneur world. They're just so freaking drained and like, oh, yeah, what a blessing for us to go through those things and then be able to like, holy shit, this applies. First of all, anything and everything. But man, it really, really applies deeply to that entrepreneur, a high level just Yeah, go to for the moon person. And so I think that you were probably the perfect person to be doing that. And I tell you what, dude, any way that I could. First of all, I'd love to just go but any way that I could I would give back in a heartbeat. Free. You wouldn't need to pay me if I could help at all ever speak or do anything, especially if it's somebody in recovery or prison. Dude, I'm there. So let me know.

Adrian Koehler: Yeah, well, we got things we got things budding man.

Ken Baden: So come come first and then you can you can see I want to come Take in myself. Yeah, but if I can't help I do want to throw that out there as well, man, because do I love that? I love what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02: I love the philanthropic part of this and I love everything that you have going on. I love all of what you're doing, man.

Ken Baden: I mean, you're right up my alley and I'm pretty sure if you're listening to this, Probably there's two. So where can our listeners find you outside of the Revenant process?

SPEAKER_02: Sure. Revenant.com, by the way.

Adrian Koehler: We are Revenant.com. We are Revenant.com. Our company is TakeNewGround.com. You can always reach out to me. Instagram's easy. Adrian.k, A-D-R-I-A-N.k on Instagram. Ask me any question, any whatever. I'll make time for anybody in your network. I'll make time for them. So hit me up. Let's have, let's have a conversation. If you're personally, it's great. If you've got a company that you're looking to scale and you got to clean things up, we are the best at that. So reach out to us. I got a phenomenal team of seven or eight people. Now it keeps growing. Um, and we can help no matter what you're up against. I've got somebody that's an expert at it. So from a consulting perspective, but you know, we are bread and butter is, is coaching, uh, top end leaders and then aligning a team around them. So whatever you got, I just love to have a conversation. If it's not a right fit, I promise you, I'll tell you. Um, so love to connect with anybody, Adrian dot K on Instagram, Adrian dot K on Insta.

Ken Baden: I just found you and followed you and listen, if you've got a company. If you were an entrepreneur, a potential entrepreneur, and you could use Adrian services. Hit him up, hit him up.

Adrian Koehler: Check it out, man. Oh, let me tell a free thing too. If you want to, uh, naked leadership podcast, I think I mentioned that earlier, but that's, that's a free resource. If you want to hear us and how we think about leadership and how we approach leadership, it's not, we don't interview many people. Um, we actually just talk about issues that we, you know, our clients are going through to try to illuminate ways of approaching ways of seeing naked leadership, uh, on Spotify or Apple or whatever.

Ken Baden: Anywhere, major streaming services for plaid. Yeah. I'll check that out, man. That's a very cool. I'm in man. I'm going to check out the revenue process myself. You guys should too. I, uh, I'm loving this. If you want to hit up my guy, hit up Adrian at Adrian dot K and stuff. Adrian, thank you so much, man. I, uh, I now have to do the antithesis of, well, actually the exact. thing you just did, but I'm jumping into the other room here. So that's where it's a little different. So I'm going to go jump into the other studio now live and jump in and do another one. Are you done? Is this it for you?

Adrian Koehler: All done, brother.

Ken Baden: All done for Friday. Well, you enjoy the rest of your Friday, my brother. I'm going to go knock another one out here. And I, uh, I appreciate you and look forward to getting with you in the future, because I have no doubt that we'll be working together here real soon, man. And I'm going to come check out that revenant process for sure.

Adrian Koehler: Can't wait.

Ken Baden: Can't wait going on next year. Correct.

Adrian Koehler: We do. We've got three on the books now. We'll probably have another couple. We've got a, a, a, a November. We're going to Italy for a three-day process called icon. We've got a coach's Academy. That'll be happening. or like a leadership academy, that's kind of a deeper dive. Anyway, we've got a lot of, anyway, there's a lot of stuff. So just hit me up.

Ken Baden: A lot more stuff than just Boise coming up, but just wanted to make sure. So look, get out there to one of these events, check them out. Thank you again for coming on. Thank you so much for bringing all of this value to the podcast, my friend, and we'll catch you the next time.

Adrian Koehler: Awesome. Thanks, brother.

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