Shownotes
Ever wondered how your childhood influences your leadership style? Dr. Kevin Mays joins the podcast, and boy, does he bring the heat! In a chat that feels more like a spirited coffee shop conversation than a formal interview, we dive into the wild intersections of family life and corporate leadership. Dr. Mays, a former family therapist turned executive coach, reveals that the dynamics we experience at home often play out in the workplace—who knew that family drama could follow you to the boardroom?
As he shares stories from his own life and his work with executives, Dr. Mays emphasizes the need for self-awareness. He argues that understanding the familial patterns that shape us is crucial for becoming effective leaders. “You lead yourself first,” he proclaims, and it’s hard to disagree when he paints such a vivid picture of how our childhood experiences lay the groundwork for our adult behavior. With playful anecdotes and genuine laughter, he encourages us to reflect on our own experiences and how they shape our interactions in our professional lives.
This episode is not just for CEOs; it’s for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of themselves and how they show up in the world. Dr. Mays reminds us that leading is not about being perfect; it’s about being present, aware, and authentic. So whether you’re navigating the complexities of parenting, trying to climb the corporate ladder, or simply wanting to lead a more fulfilling life, this conversation is packed with insights that will inspire you to embrace your journey of self-discovery. Tune in and let’s shake things up together!
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Transcripts
And today I have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Kevin Mays. Dr. Kevin is an executive coach, author, speaker and facilitator.
He has coached hundreds of executives to lead with intention and to create successful collaborative teams. His clients have achieved tremendous system wide growth and fostered more meaningful workplaces.
With decades of experience and a depth of knowledge on team leadership and business development, Dr. Mays possesses a deep skill set that has set him apart from others in the field.
Along with being an award winning speaker and author on team performance, Kevin is a transformation facilitator for leaders committed to becoming best in class. Welcome Kevin. It is a pleasure to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining us. It is just a pleasure to have you here.
Dr. Kevin Mays:I'm fired up. I'm excited.
I love the work you're doing and I'm excited about this conversation because as we were talking about just before we started, you know, it's the work I do is with people and making a connection between how does this show up in family has everything to do with family. So I look forward to digging in.
Kristina:Excellent. Thank you so much.
And yeah, that was one of the things I was just going to bring up is like when you and I first started talking about you coming on the show, it's like well, you're kind of corporate, how is this going to work?
And one of your talk titles or one of the things you love talking about is like something like your leadership style is probably not your dad's leadership style or something, something along those lines.
And so that was like the key is like okay, right there, how do we take that stuff we learn in corporate or in businesses and bring it into our family? Or how do we take what we have in our family and take it to the other side as well? So this is going to be super interesting.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Well, the interesting thing is we do take what we learn in our family and bring it to corporate whether it works or not. And that for me is the power is learning how to be self aware.
And a leadership role is no different whether you're a father or a mother or a CEO or a founder of a company.
So I was just on the phone with an individual who is a leader in his organization and it was a wake up moment for him when he recognized that he was playing the authority role of his family at work. So as one of my favorite authors, Irving Yalam, says, we recapitulate the family of origin in our work situations.
And now he's the screen for receiving everybody's authority issues. He's daddy and rest assured, without awareness, you play the same patterns we all do, that we learned early on.
We play them out throughout the course of our lives and when they don't work for us, we say, you're the problem, not me.
And this is about pulling the blinders off so you can be the best parent, the best son, the best mother, the best employee, the best executive possible. How do you lead? You lead yourself first.
Kristina:Love it, love it, love it. So why this passion?
What brought you down this road that you are now so passionate about this leadership, communication and transformation and helping people take on this leadership? What was it? Where's the picture?
Dr. Kevin Mays:Yeah, yeah.
I started, I was a family therapist and then I, I ran a couple drug and alcohol inpatient facilities and I worked with a chronic mental illness and I worked with all these different individuals. I'm really, I'm a self awareness junkie, right? I mean I am the guy who will do anything to understand what makes my consciousness work.
And I realized at one point I had this aha moment that my goodness, everybody is lost on their journey, everybody needs help. Yet the people who are running organizations, their decisions have a far reaching impact.
If you run a company that has a thousand employees and you are twisted up in, in deceiving yourself about yourself and about the way you make decisions, if you're making bad decisions, it is affecting your entire community in a much bigger way.
So that being said, I also grew up in gm, car country, General Motors where I watch what happens when the largest company on the planet goes belly up. And I watch the erosion in the infrastructure and the family units and everything when there's no economy.
And it lit a fire in me to, to help leaders do it differently, to understand the kind of the neuro fabric that they, the, the programming they adopted early on, we all did, right? I love it. When you're three years old and your mind is forming, your brain is forming a million neural connections a minute.
Oh, you're being, you're being formed by your environment. And that's the thing. I think those alien highways in our brain will drive and dictate how we make sense of the world the rest of our life.
And unless you have awareness of that, you're going to end up, it's, I mean it's a difficult uphill climb without awareness.
Kristina:And a lot of parents, it's like they don't really realize or maybe they haven't been told that the first seven years of your child's life they think oh, you know, when they're a baby and they can't move or anything. That's like the most critical. No, it's all the way up until age 7. They're getting those roots, those foundations.
And so depending on how your household is and the experiences they're having, really does lay a lot of different things down for people to have either trouble with later or have benefit from later.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Well, and the fun thing is I have run a lot of, like, executive transformation workshops, and part of it is, well, I'll have executives or have along the way, you know, do like, holotropic breathwork exercises that are ultimately shifting their consciousness and waking up. This kind of these. This basement storehouse of beliefs and memories and all this stuff comes to the surface.
And it's amazing to see hardened executives kind of crack through that shell and find this deeper, vulnerable place within themselves. And. And then in tears in their eyes, recognizing it all goes back to this. These childhood experiences they.
They have that have formed this belief structure that they now carry. How do you cut through that? You know, it's funny. My wife and I are both. My wife's a psychologist, right. She has a. Sees clients as well.
And I now, I work more in the executive space, but we have two children. Blows my mind. I was in this bookstore up in. Up in Petoskey, Michigan, and I found this book called the Birth Order Book. And Kevin Lehman, right.
I'm sure you've seen a great stuff. And I opened it and flipped right to the section youngest child. And I started reading, and this is what he said. You can't fool me. Youngest child.
I know. He just. Just opened the book and started reading at this section, skipped everything else and read about yourself. And I'm the youngest child.
And I looked over my shoulder, my, holy. This guy's got my number. I closed the book, went over and bought it, made it a study.
And now I watch as my wife and I both are students of consciousness and understanding how we form these patterns. In my kids, I tell you, not our textbook. My oldest plays the role of the oldest. My youngest plays the role of the youngest.
And I scratch my head like, how are we doing this? What is it we're doing? And it's. It's so much of. It's even beyond what we are consciously aware of.
We are creating this indelible impression in these people that are going to carry these patterns the rest of their life.
Kristina:Okay, so now you've got my complete curiosity up. What does it say? Or what have you learned about what is kind of the role of the older and the Role of the younger.
Dr. Kevin Mays:I love it. I love the roles. And that's it, right? So first of all, I want to preface by saying it's not hard. It's not hard science. I mean, but it is.
There is something to be. To be said that we fall into a role. I was on Mackinac island, this. This island up in Michigan with no cars on it, a little tourist resort.
And they had T shirts for sale for kids. And I had three T shirts that stick in my mind and tell the story. The first one, little tiny T shirt. I'm the oldest. I make the rules.
The oldest gets the undivided parental attention, the thing that others will never, ever get. They're special. They learn to be. And. And I watched my oldest when my youngest. When my oldest was two, the youngest. The next one came in.
His role changed forever. He's not the. He's not the baby anymore. Suddenly he's the helper, the responsible one. Help mommy go, you know, take care of your brother.
All of these things are forming this identity. The youngest comes home and, well, I'll get to the youngest. Then I saw. So the oldest T shirt said, I'm the oldest. I make the rules. What's the young?
The middle child. I'm the middle. I break the rules. They. They find themselves relative to the older. So everything they're doing is by comparison.
And what do they often hear? Oh, you know, and the older is always by default stronger, faster, smarter, usually. Right. Because they're more mature, they're two years older.
And so they have to measure themselves. So I love it. My family, my siblings, textbook. My oldest sister, family hero, valedictorian, got all A's, whatever.
You know, cut the traditional lives closer to mom and dad. Now did everything by the book. Youngest was the one who was the rebel.
I mean, at the youngest, the middle, the next sibling, the middle was the rebel. Wore the funky haircuts, wore pajamas to school before it was a thing, just. And then found her family.
As they say, the middle children often will find their family outside of the family. Much more social. She was. And now she lives furthest away, lives in New York City, has her whole family of friends and is just cut differently.
And then the youngest, the smallest T shirt. I'm the baby. There are no rules. When I grew, I know it was. I played true. When I grew up, I was told, you know, I.
Two older sisters, they had curfews, they had time to be home. Mom and dad, man, they'd been through that. Kevin, be home at a reasonable Hour, which for me was 2:30. It's reasonable. It seems good.
And I was just expected to look after myself, take care of myself. And I was given complete independence and freedom. But how I got my attention needs met goes back to, well, what I see with my youngest child.
It's like the youngest often have to show up and show off to get the attention needs met. Because everybody's older. They have all these eyes on them. So they learn to. They learn to perform. They're the performers. They learned to. I love it.
I think for myself it was, you know, they use humor. The charming manipulators, the one who opens the book and finds a section about them because they're really hungry to learn more about themselves.
Or my youngest child now who, guess what? When my. When he was brought home, the oldest child's role changed forever. Well, the youngest child was the baby. And guess what?
Now, 14 years later, who stole the baby?
Kristina:The youngest child.
Dr. Kevin Mays:And this. And I tell you what, this is what I see as brilliant. The ability of a youngest child.
You know, they have to know how to get their attention needs met. So for myself, like I could.
The charming manipulator, I could push the snow down my sister's coat in the winter time when I'm a little kid and then say, if I get snowed on my coat, I might get frostbit. Mom's gonna be so mad at you. And you know, it's a little manipulation of these beasts around me to make sure I don't get my butt beat by them.
But also I pull off shenanigans. And I was the one who would squeeze the mashed potatoes between the gaps in my teeth when they're stressed at the dinner table.
I learned how to moderate the stress where the middle is often a good moderator. But as the youngest now I watch my son and this, this boy, I shouldn't say this, but so don't let him know he is a future world class soccer star.
Because this boy can fall down and fake an injury like I have never heard anybody do. He can flop. And what happens? Mom rushes, she picks him up. Oh, my baby. You know the stories, right?
Kristina:Yeah. I see that in our two boys, the older and the younger.
We have a little bit of a different scenario though, because our oldest is on the autism spectrum.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Yep.
Kristina:Things that my younger son, when he got, finally got to a certain age, he came to me, he's like, why do I have to be the older brother? And that was a big eye opener to me as a mom for a while.
And so it's something that, you know, as we're working with kids and we have a special needs child or anything really, parents pay attention to those siblings because sometimes they need a little extra.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Support and the role reverse with an.
Herb:Older sister and a younger sister. And so we all had our roles. She was the oldest, I was the only boy, she was the youngest.
The responsibilities were different, the expectations were different, and I in the middle as the only, I got the short end of all of it.
Dr. Kevin Mays:So yeah, because you were the boy, so you were expected to behave a certain way. So in many ways you probably would bequeath a lot of the oldest child roles.
Herb:Oh yes, very much so, yeah.
Kristina:So.
Dr. Kevin Mays:So gender makes a huge difference. But the interesting thing is then to see, for me, what I'm always fascinated by is to see how this, these invisible patterns drive the way I show up.
And when the world validates that I feel good and when it, like I'm, I'm a pleaser. So when some, a client of mine is displeased, it'll keep me up at night unnaturally, like, like I'm in trouble, My God, I'm 50 some years old.
I'm not in trouble because somebody's upset. But that's just the, the old ancient patterns in me that DOS programming and I'm, I'm always trying to figure out how do we continually upgrade?
How do we upgrade? How do we upgrade?
Herb:That sounds like an introverted, intuitive start there. So as an infj, you know, I did the Meyer Briggs test and when I found out, it's like, oh, damn.
Because, you know, most people like, oh, I want to be this. No, you don't. So a true infj, when they start reading that, one thing that happens is like, oh, that explains a lot.
I feel a lot more comfortable in myself. But then there's a second part.
Dr. Kevin Mays:It's validating.
Herb:Yeah. So.
Dr. Kevin Mays:And what's the second part?
Herb:This. This kind of sucks.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Oh, well, for me, once you. Yes, the validation is great. And this is who we are, right.
So it's like, then you can stop struggling and you know, when I was a kid, I was always the kid who lost everything. I drove, I. When I got old enough to buy a motorcycle, I bought one.
I went to my sister's graduation from Western Michigan University, up to Michigan State after work, put my saddlebags on the bike, put my helmet, all my clothes for the graduation ceremony, drove to Michigan State. And I got there and I got off my bike and I said, oh my God, where'd My saddlebags go. I just always lost stuff. And that's the kid I was known to be.
And I just figured that's the way it is. I. I treat the world as the ephemeral place that it is. Well, I come to find out now, decades later, I have pretty severe adhd, huh?
I don't pay attention to things. I pay attention to everything at once and nothing with depth. And I'm. I celebrate that because the same thing would be an infj. Man, that's brilliant.
There's so much brilliance in that and it's not. You know, I think about the miners.
Herb:So much depth and it's so hard to be on the surface.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Yes, yes.
Herb:Like, oh, so.
Dr. Kevin Mays:So that's not your place.
Herb:Let's talk about why you just did. That's interesting.
Dr. Kevin Mays:So this is a great place for you. In this podcast, you said it's really about finding your gift and finding your place. And the same thing I think about with our children so often.
I grew up in GM country. Any job worth its salt is you're an engineer. And so I was on the engineering track.
And so I, I took all this raw potential and I formed it into this programming. Kevin the engineer, the smart kid doing this stuff. But the raw potential was still back there, breaking through.
And I was doing what I thought I should, but it was totally out of alignment with the raw potential. And it.
Quite frankly, I found myself upside down in an airplane plummeting towards the earth, pulling the wheel back, skating just over the trees as the blood rushes out of my head and the airplane's in the never exceed speed. And the whole. The wind is whipping through the wires. And I had this aha moment. Wait a minute, Kevin, this is not.
Herb:The career path for you.
Dr. Kevin Mays:And I started to tune in, kind of like you're talking about. Tune into what? Who am I? And can I do something that matches that a little more effectively?
And is it just programming or is there some potential that we can really align with? That's. And how do we help our kids do that as well? How do we get out of our own way and help our children do that?
Herb:That's a really super thing that I, I'm really. That I really like to talk about is, Is how can you talk with your children about personality and personality traits. There's a lot. I know.
We know some people who use discs, some people who use a child version of the Meyer Briggs. And it's like, what that. And people think, oh, that's just going to label my kid.
And it's like, no, it's going to show your kid where he needs to push to succeed in life. So as an infj, I'm an introverted intuitive.
It's like there's things that, that, that, that my brain, when something happens, my brain goes to this part first, this part second, this part third. And that's just the way it's going to happen now. If I want to change my actions, I have to know that. And it's like I now have get to pick.
It's like this is my default. This is what's going to happen if I don't make a choice. And now here I am. It's like, okay, make it an easy way.
Every time I go to a restaurant, she always orders the same thing. She's also an infj.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Oh no kidding. Oh my goodness.
Herb:Yeah, this is actually an awesome pairing as after like 20 years, it's like we always order the same thing. We always. And it's like amazing. And then I read this and I found out about it and I was like, oh, that's because that's how I'm comfortable now.
When I go to a restaurant, I intentionally go through the menu and I pick something different because I know as my personality is like, no, I want this thing, but I want new experience as well. So I am using that knowledge like oh, this, this is my personality speaking. But I want my character to be like this.
Dr. Kevin Mays:It's so brilliant. And for me it's like the recognition. It's like being right handed or left handed.
When you sit down to eat without thinking about it, you grab the fork with your right hand if you're right handed. And so in doing so, this other part of our brain begins to atrophy. We don't use that non preferred part of ourselves.
So I love the simple act of ordering something different is actually much bigger than ordering something different. It's exercising this different mental muscle that allows you to step out of your comfort zone in an easier way on your daily living chores.
It keeps you less entrenched in doing things the way you've always done it and it just expands your comfort zone. It's beautiful.
Kristina:So two questions. First of all, what happened to the saddlebags? Did you forget to hook them on or did you just leave them at the house?
And the second thing was, how do we give some parents strategies to help this all make sense?
Dr. Kevin Mays:I never found the saddlebags. I drove all the way back looking for them and then turned around, drove back, never saw him again. They're gone.
Somebody stole them when I was driving down the road. It wasn't my fault, Right. It couldn't have been my fault. Another quick story.
I was on the coast, you know, I used to drive around, just on my motorcycle around the country in a tent and just go. And I was on the coast of California. I had a little tank bag for my motorcycle.
I loved it because with 50 bucks, I go around the country back in the day, you know, back in the 80s and maybe 100, just camp, stay for three months, get a job somewhere.
And I had this little tank bag and I was sitting right on the coast of California on the rocks and watching the water get low and get high and the shelf below me, right. And it kept getting. And I watch it get lower and lower and lower the water. And then it came higher and higher and washed up over my feet.
Pick the old tank bag away and washed it out into the ocean. Just things seem to happen that way for me. How is that? I don't know. I don't know.
But for me, it goes back to the same thing we're talking about right now. Like what's helpful for parents. Well, first of all, awareness.
Not only of their children, awareness of yourself, in your own bias, in what you project onto them. Because when things I see it with my kids, they behave differently than I understand or than I would, especially with technology these days.
And it'll twist me up, it'll trigger me, and then I'll come off in a way that is emotionally reactive.
Herb:So doing that.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Right, right, right, right. So step one is like get out of your own emotional reactivity.
And sometimes it doesn't mean we don't use a stern voice sometimes, but it's more with purpose and intention to get a desired result. Not just because we're pissed off. When you let that caveman inside take over, it doesn't end in a good result. That's number one. Number two.
Well, it is about focusing on the child and helping them be. I like what you're saying. The child's mbti. Helping them have some self possession, some.
Some self agency to understand and to learn to be okay with who they are. Especially through the years of angst, when they don't.
They don't know, you know, the teenage years, when they're learning to individuate and to push back against and to figure out who they really are in their own awkward way. And their hormones are going, growing and changing. Yeah. To help them learn how to be settled in, even in their own squeamishness, to Be okay.
Herb:And because.
And because our world is so visual, this is going to impact introverts a lot more because those introverts are going to be looking out at all those people running across the stages and having all these amazing relationships and just being social butterflies. And they're going to think, how come I'm not. Not that. Is something wrong with me? And so there.
So instead of that, it's like, oh, no, my brain is more comfortable in these kind of patterns and I have to create an environment where I can do that. So I have to build tools where I can do that. But that's not my default. So for.
But as an extrovert who's out there doing that, they're not even going to notice. So. And they will have their own issues and their own things. But, but we do.
But as a, as a just real in easy one to understand is, is someone who's quiet and shy wanting to be out there. That could be so much. So just as a personality trait.
And then you need to build the tool so it's not something wrong with you, it's not something broken. It's just something that you need to develop with intention instead of having to just come naturally.
Dr. Kevin Mays:This is why I, I love the conversation and the different perspectives. So we talk about working with kids. Absolutely. And guess what? It's exactly the same thing working with executives. It's no different.
Now the crazy thing is when you talk about the struggle with the introvert, if I'm an extrovert and you're an introvert and you're just behaving your natural way, I will start to feel uncomfortable, like there's something wrong with me because if I'm in my zone, feeling good, I'm talking, we're. We're yucking it up. And if I'm quiet, it's because I'm uncomfortable. I'm pensive. I'm up to something or something is wrong.
So when I see you being quiet, I project my beliefs onto you and say, oh, you don't like me. You're up to something. I can't trust you.
Herb:Or.
Dr. Kevin Mays:But it's. There's something wrong. I make up. There's something wrong. If an extrovert doesn't know what's going on because we're not. You're not talking.
Then we make it up.
And this is, I think that the thing that's really good to be aware of, not only in our own head, but we can manage the perception of others to let them know even if we're an introvert. Hey, I'm just quiet.
Herb:So I have a. I have a really good friend who's. Who's an extrovert. He's also kind of narcissistic.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Those are the best for an introvert.
Herb:You know, we would attract narcissists. That's kind of what we do. But what you just said, rep. We've had lots of conversations with that before.
Because when I go to his place, he's always, oh, can you do that? You know, he's trying to give me drinks. He's trying to do that. When he. When he comes to my place, I, like, sit back, I chill. It's like I let him be.
And so it's like he doesn't like coming to my place because it's boring. And sometimes when I go over to his place, it's like, man, I'm always trying to get you to do stuff and be a good host, and you just so chill.
And so, yeah, I kind of get that. But, you know, over the 20 years, 25 years we've been friends, we smooth a lot of that out.
But yeah, at first it was like, why are you always trying to do stuff? It's like, man, just chill, settle down. I'm good.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Well, it's so funny because for me, like, the extroversion or introversion is really this thing that charges us up more than anything when we're off preference. It'll wear us out. So I'm an extrovert. My wife's an introvert. And I remember very clearly we spent.
You know, for me, the worst thing is just sitting in my office doing administrative stuff. It drains me. Those quiet. I mean, I can be quiet. I can. I've been to meditation centers forever.
But when I'm just in this quiet space of the day too much, I just feel exhausted, and what do I need to do? I need to go out and be around people. I'll just stop randomly at the store and talk to people to get my fix.
Now I remember one week, and now she's an introvert. She was working at a university back when we lived in North Carolina. And so she had presented three days in a row, and I remember it was Friday.
She spent her week off. Preference. I spent my week off preference. And now we get home at the end of the day, what does she need? What do I need?
She wants some downtime, and I just need to go. We both want to just relax. It looks very different to both of us. I remember this so clearly. She said, you know, we had this. We Both had a long week.
I thought we'd do something really nice tonight. Maybe we can just relax. I'm like, yeah, I like to relax and stay home and watch a movie and just have a quiet time.
And to me, that sounds miserable because the last thing that doesn't charge me up, I want to go out and just sit belly up to a bar stool and just randomly talk to people. But I don't say anything, right, because I'm not thinking about this. So I want to keep her happy. I say, okay, sure, let's do that.
But part of me has a little resentment, and then I'm off a little all evening. I'm not showing up for her. I. I feel like I'm sacrificing and. But the reality is I'm just not giving myself the opportunity to get my. My energy back.
So I've learned now I'm older, back then I'm like, oh, I'll stop at the bar for a few minutes on the way home. I just stop at the store, like I say, wander around my shopping cart, hey, is that organic broccoli?
And, you know, fill the cart up and then park it and walk out. But it's really about getting that connection right, that fills me up so I can have the time, so I can be the best version of myself at home.
And she needs that downtime to be the best version of herself. And that's the cool thing. Our preferences aren't necessarily how we. How others think. You know, I wouldn't know. You're an introvert or extrovert.
You seem. You don't seem like you're completely stuck up like most introverts are just kidding, of course. Well, that's just. That's what extroverts create.
If you're quiet, you must think you're better than me. Yeah, right. That's the. That's the craziness. The extroverts. Oh, you're. You're just too good for us. No, you're just naturally quiet.
Kristina:This goes back to something I talk to parents about whenever we're talking about supporting our children through, like, big challenges and things like that. And parents, lots of times, or at least we did, we kept things away from our kids.
We didn't tell them when we were going through financial difficulties or whatever. Whatever. And being a teacher for so many years, I saw that in the classroom.
The kids would come to me in the classroom, either confused or emotional or whatever, because something was happening at home. And so I tell parents, it's like, you know, you Actually have to do the opposite of the old saying. It used to be, don't air your dirty laundry.
And in, in your home, you actually need to air that dirty laundry in age appropriate ways. You need to tell your child what's going on.
Or like you just said, most likely they're going to make something up and they're going to think that they've done something wrong or there's, you know, something wrong with them.
And, you know, then we put our kids in this whole whirlwind of this imaginary story and it might be something completely different, causing traumas, causing problems that they're going to have to deal with later.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Well, now, one thing you said in all that is really, I think, very important. Age appropriate.
Kristina:Yeah.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Because as children without a prefrontal cortex developed. Right. They're making, they will misinterpret. And I love you probably seen the old picture of the, the woman with the emotional expression.
The research they did. There's the woman who has this look of a surprise. And all the kids see that. Adults see surprise, Kids see anger.
Kristina:Anger.
Dr. Kevin Mays:So kids are misinterpreting because they don't have the sophistication to be able to think things through. Their brain doesn't, hasn't developed that yet. How do you determine what is age appropriate?
Kristina:That's a really great question. And it's one of those things that, you know, a lot of it has to do with what you know about your child. Right.
But then also the biggest thing is like, don't give them more information than they're really asking for.
You know, the old, the old joke, you know, oh, yeah, little Johnny comes home and talks about, asks about the birds and the bees and mom and dad go into the full discussion and he was really only talking about the bird and the bee, right?
Dr. Kevin Mays:Yes. Yeah.
Kristina:Really watching that. Exactly.
Dr. Kevin Mays:And I've seen too many folks, too, who don't want their kids to learn to make the same mistakes they made. And the hard thing is, I mean, it's a great idea. Your kids got to go out and make their mistakes. That's just the way it works. We can't protect them.
And, you know, I've seen too many people who try to do that. I mean, yes, we have to protect them. Yes. But they have to make their own mistakes, too. That's how we learn.
I've seen people who, who protect their kids, protect them, protect them, protect them and then send them off to college where there's nothing but the world dumping on them and they can't handle it, they don't know how to show up.
Herb:You know, it's, it's an amazing trait to be able to learn from other people's mistakes and consistently. Sometimes I can, a lot of times I can't. Early in our career we got involved in real estate. You know, we went to all the classes.
We, we, we were in it for like two or three years. We exited successfully because we, I didn't have the mental capacity for it. So we got out of.
But they, they, it was like, yeah, you don't do this, you don't do this and you don't do this. And there was a whole lot of these don't do's and we went through and we found out every single one of those why you don't do that.
We did it and until we did didn't make as much sense. It's like oh yeah, you don't do this. And then once we did it was like oh yeah, yeah, don't do that. Now we have to.
Dr. Kevin Mays:So it's the difference between knowledge and wisdom I think. Knowledge, you know, great. There's a whole library full of knowledge. You can go and read a book and great.
And I've seen people who devour books and they have all this knowledge and then you see the way they show up and none of it's really integrated. It's just, it stays at a cerebral level. And that's the thing.
True wisdom is understanding that your personality is composed of your thinking you're feeling, you're behaving all the neuro circuitry in your body and you can actually kind of become self aware of that. And that's the, for me, that's the wisdom. And it's not about having all the right answers. It's not being the smartest one in the room.
It's not always winning, it's not always being pleasing, it's being present. And I think that's the. For me, if parents could do anything better if I could any. It's like just coming back to being present.
Kristina:Yes.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Be in this moment, not thinking about what's next now worried because then what happens? All the emotional we experience is conditional based on where we place our attention.
And so now we're thinking about this thing that's going to happen and we create worry and anxiety and stress or we're thinking about what happened and we create regret and anger and frustration. Now, right here, right now, things are okay.
And this is the hard thing, I think the expectations we attach ourselves to, then we walk into a relationship with our Children or if we're a CEO and the children is our team, we have that, that lens of expectation that that really starts to warp the relationship and people start to react to that and they don't bring their, their authentic self. I see so many kids who are, and I was just on a conversation with this earlier, you know, the, the CEO walks around, everybody snaps too.
And they're not the real genuine self. Right.
How do you get, how do you get your kids not to snap to when you're there, but to just be good and kind loving beings all the time, to be them, their best self.
Kristina:And that's that presence. Yeah.
And having those times where you can sit down and be present, your devices are away, you're having game night or you're having just a family discussion or really those dinners together are just so super, super important because that builds that space.
Herb:And presence doesn't mean you aren't still the mom and the dad. And it doesn't mean you're not still the disciplinarian and the leader and taking control of Stu. It doesn't mean you're just observing.
It means that in the activities you're fully there. And wow, when you're dealing with little kids, that is exhausting because man, a three year old has like way more energy than I do.
And so to be present it's like you can do it in spurts but. And so like take care, be there when it's important. Yes, yes, well, take care of yourself so that you can come back and be present again.
Dr. Kevin Mays:In my mind I see it, I've kind of constructed as a four step process to like dynamic parental leadership. And it starts with presence. That's the foundation. You have to be able to know how to be here in the moment.
And then from presence you can develop awareness. You can't be aware without presence. And awareness of what?
Awareness of yourself, your patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving, awareness of what's going on in the other, awareness of the dynamic in between, awareness of the situation, awareness in so many levels. Once you have presence, that platform, then you can build that faculty of awareness. Beautiful.
With my mind it's like with awareness then you can start to behave with intention.
And what I mean by that, it's not reactive, it's not just emotionally reactive based on what you're perceiving and it's not just dictated by the, the patterns you laid down when you were 3 years old by your neurocircuitry. So you have to be able to interrupt those patterns and you Can. So with presence, you can become aware.
With awareness, you can behave with true intention. And your intention must align with your vision. Who is it in that moment? What's the best version of yourself in that moment?
Who is the father, the mother, the. The husband, the wife, the boss that you are becoming? Isn't it fascinating? So I think those four things, just to lay it down.
Presence, awareness, intention, and vision together is for me, that's the powerful work I do in trying to understand who I am and who I'm becoming. Why is it so many people, we grow and evolve till we're done with college, and then we stop growing and we just deepen the path.
But the truth is, we're always becoming. Most folks just become a more deeply ingrained, sometimes neurotic version of themselves. Like, how do we.
Herb:I'm gonna. I'm gonna answer that question a little bit because this is my outside of the box answers. It's like, that's kind of intentional.
Our school system is designed to wipe out the creativity in our children and create factory workers who can consistently do the same things over and over.
So if we homeschool our children, if we alternately educate them and they keep that creativeness and they keep that love of education going, then school doesn't end. Education doesn't end at 18. And you can really see this in the entrepreneurial world.
Entrepreneurs know that something's wrong, so they're going to go do a business.
And then it's like, then there's self development, then there's personal development, then there's self development, then there's business development. And it's just this constant thing of going up now in school. It's like, everybody's like, oh, I can't wait to get out of high school.
So there's this thing that at 18, I'm done with school, except for those on the college track. It's like, oh, I got to get to 22 to get my degree, and then I'm set. And that's the mindset right now.
It's like, oh, I get my degree at 22 and I'm set and I'm done. And then it's just living life then on out.
Dr. Kevin Mays:It's so interesting.
Herb:Totally see that mindset right now through our school system.
Dr. Kevin Mays:It's a process. I think it's a holdover of the industrial revolution where the. The person was a worker, right?
And it goes back to like:I love it when we first started inventing the machine that became the central metaphor, right? For the universe. Everything's a machine and the organization is a machine. And the person is a cog in the machine.
So we're going to train these parts to get him to sit. Now, you little machine, we're going to train you. Sit at a desk. What on earth is a kid supposed to be doing sitting in a desk for six hours a day?
Now how do we foster that creativity? It's interesting. So I go back to the story of me becoming the. The engineer. I think that was a story we started talking about.
I'm the engineer, I'm in the airplane. I had this realization. This is not the career track for me. I was sweating it in school before that and I was. I hated it.
I remember I was in this class one time, engineering class. We're studying. Studying metal structures and stresses or something. And I'm like. And I was actually riveting.
There was a class, we're designing airplanes and learning how to rivet. And I'm laughing at my friend. I thought, what the freak am I doing? This is not where I belong. Learning how to rivet airplanes. And when that.
When I had that near death experience. And then I got on a motorcycle and drove out to the east coast or west coast and I sat there when I was. Everything was in the rearview mirror.
All my identity I left behind. And I'm just sitting there fully in the present. And I had this realization, I can write this script any way I want to.
I went to college after that for 12 more years. I fell in love with it. I just studied everything I could and everything I wanted.
From philosophy to political science to geography to economics to English to leadership to organizational structure, whatever. I was just in and I realized this isn't. I mean, we get to be creative beings in this lifetime and find our passion.
But it's interesting for me, it's the balance between the structure in the should. There is a society of rules that we can. There's a game we can play. Without rules, there's no game.
Let's figure out what the rules are, but also then not be bound by them, but to find your own potential and your own unique gift.
Herb:I call that a tomato cage.
Dr. Kevin Mays:A tomato.
Herb:What we needed to put around kids is we need to put a structure like a tomato cage.
So a tomato plant, if you just plant it and let it grow, it's going to spread out and it's going to be a mess and the fruit's going to be small and icky but if you put a cage around it, a structure, a framework, then it's going to start to grow up through that, and it's going to hold on to that. Is it going to contain it? No, it's going to go outside of it. It's going to grow up, it's going to go inside of it, it's going to grow up.
It's going to use that structure, and then you prune it. It's like, okay, this. This. This isn't right. That branch, that was that engineer that almost died, that branch goes, oh, over here.
This branch goes, now look at this. Now, there's all these branches that are growing in college. Which one am I going to now follow?
So that structure, that framework, that cage you build doesn't hold you down. It gives you up something to hold up and to reach for the sky.
Dr. Kevin Mays:That is so fantastic. It's so fantastic. It's flashing this memory in my head of when I was in high school and I took the test and it might have been Myers Briggs.
It was some kind of aptitude test. And I remember I was excited. I was going to go study aeronautical engineering and be a pilot and. And the school counselor, right. There are no rules.
I'm the youngest child. There's no rules. And you're. And he told me, well, according to the test, you. This might not be the best fit for you.
It's very detailed, oriented, and this, you know, suggests that that's not really your. The way you move through the world. My first thought was, who do you think you are to tell me what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go out there and do it.
And I was flying airplanes. I almost killed myself because that was definitely not the right thing for me.
Kristina:Yeah.
Dr. Kevin Mays:It took a long time to find it. Right. But that's all right. What's the big hurry? I see people who are so interested in their kids advancing very quickly now.
Enjoy the sweetness of this moment. We're not in a hurry to get into college when you're 15, so what? So you can be done when you're 20, so you can get a job.
Is that the goal, to be a good worker? I don't think that. You think it is, Herb. I have a pretty good sense.
Herb:No, I hurt my head. I'm not a good worker anymore. I had my cosmic egg cracked open. And I use psychedelics to. To save my life because I. I was done. And it. And it. It did.
It helped save my life.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Well, and I bet it. Yeah, I bet what it did well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, I'm just curious. The use of psychedelics, what to do.
It probably helped you recognize the narrative that you had been creating and the story that. That everything is a story. What was. How did it play out for you?
Herb:So I did psychedelics for several years before I got to the coaching aspect of it. And what really helped my life, but what. What it did for me. Wow.
Kristina:You haven't visited there in a while.
Herb:It changed what was real. Okay, so society going to. Going to a job, getting a car, getting a house, doing the stuff that we do in society, that's not real.
That has nothing to do with being human or why we're here.
Kristina:We.
Herb:We are here. We are in this body. We're wearing this meat suit. What is this? Who are we and why are we here?
We're here to have an experience and to grow and to have relationships. And that aspect of it is real. And the stuff that we do as a society, it's not real, but it's kind of necessary to kind of pay the bills.
And so there's this fine line of. Of the world that we live in is. Is so real for some people that they're. That it holds the reality of our society together.
Now I've stepped outside of that and I see the cracks and I see the flaws and I know that that's not real and that we're people. And so part of our.
What we're doing in this in is to help people come back to peoplehood and to help children realize that they're people before they get caught up in all of this other.
Kristina:Stuff.
Herb:Stuff that's. That's. That's really not real.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Well, it's amazing as a society and a culture, when we buy into it and we then mutually believe, we tend to. We start to believe it's real. And that's what I think springs so much emotionality because we become attached to the belief.
And then when that belief gets challenged, it evokes the emotion. And then you see this. This culture full of people who are angry and frustrated and hatred and all this stuff, and they're missing it completely.
The thing I love too is that when people become attached to their view that they're right. Because if nothing's real, then. I challenge. If nothing's real, then, then. Well, there is. There is truth though, and it.
But it doesn't come in the form of anything you can attach yourself to because it's a. It's a dynamic thing. So as soon as you make it static and say this is it. You're pointing the wrong direction.
Herb:It's not true anymore, right?
Dr. Kevin Mays:It's not true anymore.
Herb:Oh yeah. You're messing in my world right now. Holy cow. Yeah. This is where I spend most of my days and. And I live here. So. Yeah.
Talking about the weather sometimes just. And trying to pay bills and trying to fit into life because again, some days they call it cracking. Cracking the cosmic egg open.
So I. I got a big wink in my left prefrontal cortex that severely hampers my executive decision making. I've wanked both of my. My parietal lobes. So my emotional processing centers are. Are damaged and I have trouble feeling a lots of positive emotions.
But the. But the anterior cingulate is overactive. So that's like where the negative emotions. So all of the stuff that, that, that.
Cause that calms down the negative stuff that's going on in me are all compromised. So yeah, I have to live. I have to live on this edge or I just kind of blow up and become absolutely useless. So I don't fit in normal society.
I can see it. I love it. I know it's not true. But yeah, I'm. I'm weird.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Well. And I think though. But you know, it's interesting. Everybody's weird. Yeah.
Kristina:Yeah.
Dr. Kevin Mays:And. And I think that's the power. And like so when you talk about that to own it, to have presence and have awareness and it's okay because you know what?
Everybody inside, you know, I think weird isn't necessarily the word I hear so many people say. But like there's this belief that somehow underneath it all, I suck. I'm not good enough. I don't measure up. And all of it because it's out of sync.
So we all show this game face. But underneath it all, there's this depth in so many of us that. That's isolated and lonely and doesn't know how to connect and feels invalidated.
And it's like how do you integrate that? And that's something that seems like you've done it. You're doing a great job. You've integrated the shadow of who you are.
And what a beautiful lesson to just be okay with. What is that? For me, it's their presence that's the awareness with what. Not. Not trying to be something you're not.
Not resisting or reacting negatively against those part of your.
Herb:I'm still in that. That is still my work right at this moment.
Kristina:And you've grown in the last three years because.
Herb:Because when I think it's like I can't fit in society. I haven't. I got fired from my last job that the first job I had in 10 years because I've been messed up and it's like I don't.
So it's like I'm not making money. I'm not. It's like this all is like I'm not good enough because of all of this. But then it's like I step back, like, wait, I'm okay.
I'm a person, I love my family, I contribute where I can. And right now we're actually building a healing center. We're going to have like hyperbaric chambers and float tanks.
And it's like that fits with how to heal myself and how to help other people. And so that's me stepping into my flow because all of this other stuff in society isn't going to work for me.
Dr. Kevin Mays:But managing that well, I love it that, that self doubt. I think of it when you can find the state within yourself of being that objective observer where the thought is not you.
It is just a pattern that's playing itself out. And I think for myself, it's like watching the sky. The sun is always up in the day, right? The sun is there in your own aliveness.
But sometimes the cloud covers thickness and you don't find the sun by focusing on the cloud cover. Just remembering the, you know, it's like there's the self doubt, there's all the narrative, all the internal stuff.
And for me it's like the more I learn to put down my thinking and just notice, oh, look at, there's the pattern again. Oh, there's that monkey mind of mine. Oh, there I am beating myself up. Okay.
The clouds seem to get looser and looser until there's more and more clear sky. It's like. But gaming, gaining that kind of mastery is. It's a pathway. I like it. It's not a destination. You don't just arrive. Nobody arrives.
And the person who tells you they've arrived over there. Yeah. The person who tells you they've arrived is kidding themselves. It's a pathway and it's beautiful.
I love that you guys are on this pathway where it sounds like we're all on this pathway right now. And this is the thing I encourage for parents who are listening and leaders who are listening to recognize that, hey, they're on the pathway too.
You don't have to be right all the time. You have to show up with heart and with presence in your kids. Guess what? They're on A pathway. And we're all just trying to be.
Can you help them be the best version of themselves? You can do that best if you can show up as the best version of yourself. That's the hard work.
Even if you don't know, even if you have anxiety, you can come back to the present moment and breathe and know that right here, right now, you're okay.
Herb:And if you model this for your kids, if your kids start seeing this when they're young, if they can start doing this as a teenager, if they can start seeing this in their 20s, it's like they won't have the same kind of problems when they're in their 50s. It's like if they learn how to be human earlier and then be human through the society instead of.
Instead of becoming society and then trying to learn to be human after society, it's like, let's. Let's be human first.
Dr. Kevin Mays:When I've worked with leaders, it's interesting to see the younger leaders will. They can adopt some of these larger ideas and let go of their programming easier.
The older leaders have bigger breakthroughs because there's more ingrained attachment that they've developed over the course of their lifetime either way, right? It's. It's about learning how to be full, fully human. And that is, you know, but what that requires is, you know, letting go of the ignorance.
Ignorance is bliss. And sometimes that recognizing we feel pain, we create suffering. We have this in our head, owning it, not reacting against it.
And when you do that, I.
My experience is when I stopped resisting against that part of myself that doubted and just allowed it, and then just again, the objective observer just watched it. I'm like, oh, it's just a thought. I don't have to react against it, because when I react against it, that which I resist, persists.
That's what I found. I push it down. I try to be the guy who's always okay. I'm always happy. I'm always the pleaser. I'm always the hard worker. No, that's right.
Herb:We'll talk about. I think it's Gabor mate. Gabor Mate. He talks about the issues are in the tissues. I believe he's the one who talks about that.
And so if you get angry, he's like, oh, stop being angry.
Kristina:He's like.
Herb:And you hold it down and you just. Well, then what you're doing is you're holding that pressure inside of your body.
And the next time you get angry, he's like, oh, I gotta hold it down. I was like, okay, I'll pretend I like look like. But you're holding it, then you're creating a pressure inside of your body where that exists and you.
So knowing that you can release that earlier so that this is. The issues are in the tissues, it's in your body. It's like let go, bring, let that out and don't hold those in.
Dr. Kevin Mays:So the question is, I ask and how do you do that?
Herb:Exactly.
Kristina:That is exactly why we have the podcast and, and so exactly why we ask for coaches like you and for us.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Right, exactly.
Kristina:All those things to help us move through and help that and help all of us.
Herb:And knowing that it's a path, knowing that it's a, it's a, it's a coil, it's a circular path.
Dr. Kevin Mays:It's.
Herb:It's not that, oh, I got this. It's like you got this at this level and you can move through it.
It's like, oh, so this problem that I'm having with, it's like, great, now I'm, I'm doing this problem. This like, oh, I'm back to this problem.
Yeah, but it's up here and it seems so much worse, but it's like you've done the work underneath of it and so it, the problems are going to keep coming back. It's not going to be, oh, I've done this, I don't have to do it anymore. No, you get to do it at a different level, at a different competency.
And if you become really good at it, then your competency gets better and the amount of problems that you can resolve just like that becomes easier as well.
Dr. Kevin Mays:It's a coil. I think that's brilliant. And it's like peeling off layer upon layer of the cognitive framework we've created.
I work with a gentleman now, was very high up in an organization and he does a brilliant job. Technology officer in a very large company in the states. And when it came time, he was second in command behind the chief technology officer.
So he is doing stuff that is by all, you know, getting recognized in the industry. But it came time to replace his boss and he didn't get considered.
So he has this self concept and now he's seeing invalidation in the world around his self concept is invalidated and right away he starts to self doubt, he starts to feel this anxiety, he starts to get smaller. It was brilliant.
When we've been working together to recognize that the more you allow your self concept to be dictated by your perception, you're in a conditional state where your value only comes from what happens in the outside world. And I said, you're so much larger than that.
And he learned to be able to settle back into that place of presence and awareness with his whole self and then change that cognitive framework. No, I am. And not only who we I am, but who I am becoming. That's the thing for me. I am becoming. I am.
And he kept training his brain, retraining his brain to stop the old pattern of self doubt and just notice it when it's there. But know that you're the one in charge of where your attention goes. You have that ability to control your attention, to control your thinking.
And as he did that over and over and over, it was amazing. This doorway opened as his cognitive framework shifted. Suddenly, all these new job offers at a much higher level started coming in from recruiters.
Recruiters started calling him. He's like, how is this happening? I said, because you're making the cognitive shift with your thoughts. You create the world.
And when you change your thinking at a core level, this is a beautiful thing. You can change your mind. And as you do it, over time, your brain starts to rewire. Now you have new habits, and it's just phenomenal.
When I see people do that successfully, it just warms my heart.
Herb:And now I'm going to add something here. It's like, you can hear this and you think, oh, great, I'm going to do that. It's like.
And then you can go find all the information and it's going to be here. It's going to be knowledge. And what you need is, you need a coach.
A coach who is going to, on a weekly monthly basis say, hey, this, this is our game plan. How are you executing? What are we. Let's practice now. What is our next step? And so you think, oh, great, I know how to do this. I've got it.
It's like, no, you don't. You got it for a week, you got it for a month. You need. You need help. I'm a coach. I help people do this stuff. I have coaches. I'm working with coaches.
Because if I stop, then I start to develop things. So I need help getting to the next level. So if you're listening to this, you need help.
Dr. Kevin Mays:Get a coach.
Herb:Get a coach.
Kristina:And that's a great segue. Dr. Kevin. This is a awesome conversation.
Dr. Kevin Mays:I love it.
Kristina:Know how they can get a hold of you if you've resonated with them, if they're looking for somebody like you to help them in there?
Dr. Kevin Mays:Oh, yeah, fantastic. So you can just go to my website, has all my contact info mazeladership.com I have a new book coming out soon, Lead yourself first.
So I'm very excited.
You can find information about the launch revving big launch parties around Michigan and going to give a talk soon out in Colorado next week actually about the same thing. I love it. I'm kind of doing keynotes around the country and this is the stuff that makes me, makes my life worthwhile.
This is why I'm on planet Earth for these conversations. So I sure like these conversations better.
Herb:Than I like keynotes. I like keynotes. Lots of information, lots of stuff right up here. But these conversations help bring it into here.
So thank you for joining us here today. This has been amazing.
Dr. Kevin Mays:I really, it's been, it's been fantastic. You guys are the best. Keep on creating that vibrant family education that you do. It's just the world needs. The world needs it. And you know what?
Beyond what the world needs from you all, for the listeners, the world needs you to be better. The world needs us all to be good leaders.
And when I say good leaders, I mean by leading yourself first to stop just focusing externally, turn your attention in, start to notice yourself, right? Notice what makes you tick. Notice your head, your heart, notice how you move through the world and be on purpose.
Because when we're all on purpose together, when realize, like, like you said, Herb, that our purpose here on Earth is not. We've been sold a bit a bill of goods.
Our purpose is to experience and experience and to bring kindness and love and connection and to help others be better and to learn and to grow. That's why we're here.
Do that and do that for your children, for your family, for your community, for your colleagues, for your peers at work, what have you. This world relies on you being the best version of you.
Kristina:Awesome. And on that wonderful note, thank you so very, very much. It has been an amazing conversation and I know we can go on and we have to go.
So, audience, you know what to do, right?
This has been one of those conversations that if it hits you, please, please, please, like share, give this information to other families so that we can keep making sure that we are the best that we can be, so that we can help our children become the best that they can be. Thank you for being here. Thank you for joining us. And until next week, we will talk to you later. Bye for now.
Herb:For now.
