The Switched-On CEO

Steven Falk part 1

Stephen Falk, CEO and founder of Switchback Systems, shares powerful insights on how unresolved trauma affects workplace behavior and the importance of creating a culture of resilience. Drawing from his extensive experience in safety leadership consulting, Stephen emphasizes the concept of "memory X's"—unprocessed traumatic experiences that can hinder effective communication and decision-making in organizations. He discusses how leaders can enhance their emotional and situational awareness to foster better team dynamics and trust within their companies. Additionally, Stephen recounts his personal journey from a challenging childhood to becoming a sought-after speaker and author, illustrating how overcoming obstacles can lead to profound growth. With practical strategies and engaging anecdotes, this conversation offers actionable wisdom for leaders aiming to create safer and more productive work environments.

Takeaways:

• Creating safer workplaces requires understanding the balance between emotional awareness and operational efficiency.
• Stephen Falk emphasizes the importance of addressing unresolved trauma in workplace settings.
• His experience in family therapy informs his approach to leadership and team dynamics.
• Leaders must foster an environment of openness to transform workplace culture effectively.
• The concept of 'memory X's' helps explain how past trauma can affect current behavior.
• Encouraging dialogue about emotional challenges can lead to a healthier corporate atmosphere.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Email: sfalk@switchbackos.com

Website: https://www.switchbackos.com/

Book: “The Switched-On CEO: How to Think Like a World Class Leader?”– on Amazon 

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Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads podcast with Pastor Bob Thibodeau.

Pastor Bob conducts personal interviews with Christian influencers from around the globe, helping Christian authors, recording artists, CEOs, entrepreneurs, non profit leaders, and yes, pastors and ministry leaders to get the word out about what they are doing to impact the world with the gospel.

Our podcast has been rated in the top 1/2% of all podcasts in the world by ListenNotes.com so you know your message will be heard.

Now here is your host with today's interview, Pastor Bob Thibodeau.

Hello everyone everywhere.

Pastor Bob Thibodeau here.

Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads podcast today.

We're so blessed that you're talking with us today and, and joining us for this very important interview.

Our guest today is Stephen Falk, CEO and founder of Switchback Systems, a safety leadership consulting firm with a global reach.

I mean for over 35 years of experience.

Stephen's journey started in marriage and family therapy where he honed his ability to connect with people on a personal level for over 20 years there.

And over time he kind of transitioned his expertise into helping organizations reduce workplace fatalities, improve team dynamics and that's resulted in his tremendous success.

And Steve is also a sought after speaker and the author of the Switch Down CEO how to Think Like a World Class Leader.

This book is awesome, folks.

It's a practical guide packed with strategies to strengthen leadership, resilience, communications in any organization.

Today, Steven joins us to share his insights on creating safer, more dynamic workplaces and leading with purpose and effectiveness.

Get ready to take some notes.

It's going to be a conversation full of actionable wisdom today.

Praise the Lord.

Help me.

Welcome to the program, Stephen Falk.

Stephen, it is a blessing to have you join us today, brother.

I've been looking forward to today's conversation.

Bob, you're hired.

That was some pretty good marketing.

I would like to meet that guy.

Amen.

Well, the first question though, I always start with is this.

Other than that brief information I just shared, can you tell us in your own words who is Stephen Falk?

Sure.

I'm a west coast Canadian.

So from the very far edge of the west coast.

I live in a community that's like full of like fjords and mountains and glaciers and so the primary industry is logging.

We eke out a little bit of farming right where I'm from, I'm from an ethnic background where, where like our little country church is mostly relative.

So if you can just picture that in your mind, in our view, we thought like there was us and then everybody else we just called the English.

So it's a real journey for going from being sort of in an ethnic enclave to having clients, like you said, around the world.

I have a father.

I've been married for just about four decades.

And I know this sometimes drives some people crazy, but I already have 11 grandchildren, so.

Rich man.

And by every stretch of.

By every metric in my mind.

Yeah.

Amen.

Amen.

Newlywed.

We just celebrated our 47th anniversary.

Oh.

And, well.

But you beat us.

Granted, we only have seven.

Well, stay tuned.

It's out of our control.

No, not.

Not yet.

Not yet.

You know, I was born and raised up in Michigan, and with a name like Thibodeau, you that French Canadian connection there.

And my family hails from London, Ontario.

Oh, wow.

I felt something in my heart with you.

I could tell.

Hey, man.

And it's funny, like right now.

Well, we've been living for.

I say right now last 20 years, we lived in Baltimore, Maryland area.

And we got about 8 inches of snow here past few days.

Right.

And cold.

It's like 20 degrees and stuff.

And people are, oh, it's so cold as well.

I say, know up in Michigan, they call it Wednesday.

That's shortcake.

Yeah.

What's the problem?

You know, I was.

I.

I went.

I took my wife.

My daughter, one.

One of my daughters lives about half mile from us, and.

And my wife wanted to go down visit, so I was, okay, come on, get in the car.

Take you down there.

No jacket, just.

You know, just.

Just like this.

And my dad.

How come you're not wearing a jacket?

Because I wasn't planning on being outside for extended periods of time.

And this is just.

I'm just walking to the car.

This is nothing, you know.

True story.

Yeah.

Amen.

Amen.

We have a.

We have four kids.

And one of our kids, he's a.

Her husband is a medical doctor in the subarctic in a.

In a city called Yellowknife.

And so when we watch her get her four kids ready, they're like long tongues.

There's no pants.

And then mittens and gloves just to get to the car.

Oh, my goodness.

For us, where we are, it's very mild.

We're in a.

We're in a temperate rainforest.

And so literally, I'm putting my trees right now.

And we could mow the lawn if we wanted to.

Amen.

Amen.

Praise the Lord.

That's in Canada.

That's saying something.

That is.

We are the Hawaii of Canada.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Now, in your book, you share how you suffered from meningitis and that helped you to.

To shape your calling.

Can you explain that for us?

Isn't that a crazy sort of origin story?

So it had nothing to do with me because I was, like, 2 years old.

What I'm saying is I didn't make it happen.

So there was.

There.

My mom and dad had felt.

I basically called the Lord to go to college with the intention to become missionaries.

And so when they.

When they got accepted to, like, wrap up their four kids and move to, like, Manitoba to go to college, he was a schoolteacher.

Also in this.

This small pandemic happened, like this meningitis outbreak in our community, and a number of little kids died.

And wouldn't you know what?

I got hit hard and on the way to the hospital.

It's a Catholic hospital.

Like, I'm completely paralyzed.

I can't even get in.

There weren't car seats in those days, but I wouldn't even be able to fit into a car seat because I was, like, as stiff as a board and silent, like, just done.

So my parents are bawling their eyes out on the way to the hospital, and they're.

They're saying almost like.

Like.

Like Abraham and Isaac going, like, really?

This is the cost of following.

Like, this is the cost of discipleship.

We have to give up one of our kids.

Like, this is.

This doesn't seem like this is really true.

So they said, okay, God, he's yours.

We give him to you in a dedication.

I think was quite a bit more sincere than you see in the normal church service on Sunday morning.

This is like a hardcore dedication.

Yeah.

So I.

We arrive at the.

As they tell the story, they live actually in my suite in my home right now.

So I verified the story a number of times.

They're in their late 80s.

And so they.

They get to the hospital, and it's a Catholic hospital, so there's these nuns there, there because there's a dying child.

So the nuns are hovering.

The family doctor puts his.

Puts his hands on me in Christian terms.

He lays his hands on me and he tries to adjust my neck.

He touches my.

My head and I just scream bloody murder.

And it's gone.

Wow.

All the symptoms are gone, like, instantly.

And in our little ethnic sort of Mennonite world, that was not a normal phenomena.

Yeah, we were.

We weren't in the custom.

We were in customer having barn raisings, not healing services.

And so it was Christianity, but it was.

It was Christianity without sort of the supernatural sort of a connection to it.

So When I, when I, my parents brought me home, the doctors sort of checked all my limbs and brought me home and said what?

They were kind of like, I guess we got our Steve back.

But when I look at my pathway versus, let's say, my siblings and my cousins, I don't think they got him back.

Yeah.

And so there was something different about how the veil between heaven and earth was cornered kind of messed up in my life.

And so as a kid, I would be able to.

I'd be driving the school bus to school, I'll be looking at the house and go, there's bad people that live in that house.

Go buy another house.

There's a, there's a little girl that's in trouble in that house.

Oh, that's a.

It was like, what is that?

What is going on?

And there was no framework for it until finally, you know, as an adult, I, you know, I, I broaden my perspective.

Oh, this is like the regular ministry of the Holy Spirit.

So an interesting beginning.

Yeah.

Amen.

And you were labeled as an underachiever.

I read what's going on.

Like age four and a half, five.

Like I could make my uncles and aunts fall off their chairs laughing at family gatherings.

Like I was that kid, you know, that rooster.

But then all of a sudden I show up in school and I cannot read and write.

It just makes no, no sense to me.

I'm reversing numbers and letters and back then, you know, with a bit of help, probably would have been four or five days of neuroplastic training around visual closure and I would have gotten on the path, but, you know, they're just not aware.

And so in my 40s, I sorted it out through some really, really good training to be able to really capture that my discipline my eyes to focus on what's actually in front of them instead of having a quasi visual panic attack.

I have a lot of empathy towards even kids and parents that are.

Canada is probably the same as states.

Very quick to medicate all this kid, man, I just think.

No, no, no, think neuroplasticity.

People can change.

Like for me, it was literally holding up, you know, holding up two different views, viewpoints into practicing having my eyes track back and forth standing on a, on a balance board, maybe with a beanbag, doing some cross patterning.

And I was able to retrain my brain.

I mean, it's a tragedy that I did in my 40s, but nevertheless, here I am.

I now write for a living, for part of my work, which is kind of crazy.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a good, that's.

So that started as proof I'd have, I would just breeze through life and then all of a sudden, boom, you hit school and now you're the underachie.

Amen.

Amen.

So what did you learn from that to encourage people as you continue on with what you're doing today?

You know, I, I, I.

Not everything is like a silver lining, but I think something like what I had around the learning disability, maybe dyslexia, whatever it was, that's is, it is for me, it became a superpower because I ended up with fairly hyper vigilant situational awareness.

Like, plus with what I think God was trying to develop in my life, I would just have these nuance, like if, if someone started just like scratching a part of their, their hand in the crossroom, I go, what's that?

What's happening?

What's going on there?

What's happening there?

And so I was very outer focused rather than inner focused.

And I think that became so, so important to me as a family therapist.

I would, I really believed in a model where if I could get people into a helicopter, looking at their problem as a third party, then you get rid of a lot of that, say, the emotional reactivity.

So often I would just have a coffee table between us and just a blank piece of paper and say, what?

Say, so what's good?

And I'd be just drawing.

So does it look kind of like this?

It'd be like some sort of like a sketch, like not a sketch of what's going on, which is a dynamic like circles and it's this thing and this big arrow and then they grab the pen and go, oh, no, it's more like this.

And before long, we'd be all up in the helicopter looking at the situation from a strategic point of view.

That was the superpower of what took place because the written words were blocked from me, so the visual representation was available to me.

I bet you I haven't spent any time in the Orthodox Church, but I bet you if I went to the Russian Orthodox Church, I'd go, these are my people.

Because their whole theology is in paintings and in stained glass windows.

It's not theology of written word, it's theology of pictures.

Amen.

Amen.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Now you start off your book, the Switched on CEO.

You start off by sharing that the CEO is probably the loneliest person in the entire company because they have almost nobody they can confide in and share things with, but yet everybody's Coming to them for feedback and support.

When did you receive this?

Let's just say this divine revelation about this.

And what motivated you to start making changes in this area?

Boy, those are a bunch of loaded questions.

I literally stumbled into this.

I had no grand plan.

And so just the full disclosure, number one, I married well, so I married someone that was really smart, hurt, and could read and write and was funny and had great situational awareness.

And so all of a sudden, when, when I tricked her into marrying me, that was the, that was the power of team that gave me the pathway into higher education.

So that was this piece.

And then when I got into, there was a seminary that accepted me in, in, in California.

And I probably shouldn't have been accepted because of the path that I was on, but they took me on.

And there, the department head, he was fascinated rather than frustrated by how my brain was wired and just by God's providence, his son was struggling with some of the same things that I struggled with.

And he was in his high school, his senior year in high school.

And so rather than kicking me to the curb, he brought me in to team.

And that's, I mean, there again, it's like almost I was giving him every reason to kick me out of the, out of the program.

And then he coaxed me back in, almost like a raccoon that's cornered.

He came the raccoon, which is amazing.

And, and I went from basically worse to first.

Like, I went, I was the most least likely to succeed in graduate school to being their valedictorian of one of three.

Right.

It was like ironic of ironic.

And then it's like, what should I do?

And I said, should I go get a PhD?

Goes, oh, Steve, please don't get a PhD.

Because why?

He goes, a, school's hard for you, but B, you actually like people.

Most people that get PhDs, they like ideas or like, they like, like the scholarly process.

They don't actually like people.

And so if you get a PhD, you're going to get stuck in some research project somewhere.

It's going to be terrible.

You need to be a clinician working with people.

That's your gift.

And so I just said, okay.

And, and my friends were like, steve, you're, you can become a family therapist.

I don't see that because it wasn't very affirming, but, but it was actually amazing because I really was cut from a different cloth.

I, I, I enjoyed that strategic challenge of trying to find people's what's going on and getting behind the veil.

I really enjoyed consulting with God while I was working with people, whether they're people of faith or getting that spiritual sort of like intuition, insight into their lives.

Yeah.

So I was just behaving myself, but my wife and I, like, I had always wanted, like, I felt God's call in my life already in great age too, right.

That there's something big.

My brother and sister, like, say, well, you know, there's nothing big for you.

You have all that encouragement big, right?

No, I think there's something big.

There's more like.

And.

And so my wife and I, we looked at each other and said, hey, you know, we've committed to.

We got four kids and we're swamped because was basically just with parenting and looking after kids.

She said, steve, there's going to be a season.

We actually took a stolen page out of Stephen Covey's book, you know, that where I say, you know, begin with the end of mind.

So she asked, how long do you want to work to.

I said, oh, probably 80, 85.

Okay, then we got time.

You could, you can go make your big splash, but let's raise our kids first.

So I really throttled back anything that looked like an opportunity to, like, become, you know, more nationally recognized or something.

I just kept it humble and did our thing.

And then our youngest is like 16 years old.

My wife basically slaps me in the rear end, says, Steve, it's now.

The season is now.

So amen.

Ready.

Be ready for God to open up the doors.

And then, wouldn't you know, the door that opened had basically nothing to do with what I was doing for work.

It came out of minor hockey coaching.

Amen.

Amen.

Explain that.

Sure.

I was just coaching like the house team.

Like one of, one of the eight house teams.

Right.

It's 14 year olds.

Let me interrupt for a second, folks.

Hockey is the Canadian national pastime.

Okay?

Might even be our religion.

You always want to know what, what faith country is.

That's probably the faith hockey.

So I was just doing my Canadian thing and coaching hockey and loving it because again, what a social experiment to work with crazy parents and kids.

And because I was involved in my profession, I would have kids coming out of the foster system joining my program, kids coming out of juvenile detention.

Kids had never skated before on my team.

So we had a ragtag team.

And there's this one kid that was supposed to be going all the way.

He was amazing skater, but he had terrible, terrible attitude.

He was cut from the evaluations of the travel team, the team that's like the high, the, you know, the team of a real talent.

And they thought, who are we going to parachute this kid into?

Because this kid could ruin any team because not only is he good, he's got this terrible attitude.

So I said, well, Steve, you're the only one because you're the therapist, right?

And so I got this kid on my team and.

And we say people can change in the power, successes and team.

Those are the pillars of our.

Of our work.

And wouldn't you know it, three days into being on our team, he was loving it.

Amen.

Just loving it.

And finally had to tune up his dad, who was not loving it.

His dad was still standing at the far end of the rink like, this is bs.

I can't believe the politics of this organization.

You know, I should probably sue them.

His dad was a powerful man in the logging industry.

So he watched the team that his son was parachuted into, and he watched how his son joined the team, how his son changed even how he spoke, his attitude, his language, how he passed the puck, you know, became a team player.

He went.

Fascinating.

So they had a big problem within their union, and they were just coming up with ideas like, who should we get?

We should get this university's leadership program or this and.

Or Stephen Covey or some organization come and help us.

So he's kind of cheeky because loggers are right.

He just put up his hand and said, I think we should give my kids coach a try.

So I didn't.

There was.

I had no business card or nothing.

It was just a, what we call a red phone moment, which means the divine and humans connecting up.

And if we can, if we can, if we can be tuned into those red phone moments and actually then go all in, that is a good amen.

Amen.

Amen.

I love.

I love that story because, you know, like I said, I grew up literally two miles from Canada, right?

So we're always going back and forth across the border for hockey and all this other stuff.

They come over, you know, the.

The youth teams and all that stuff.

So I understood the power of hockey.

I love that story.

I was, oh, man, we gotta talk about this.

Am.

I mean, I think the point is that we prepare our mindset by what we think essentially God has called us to do.

But we don't necessarily have to push the rope on this.

Yeah, we wait until you prepare yourself.

Like a master's degree certainly helped, you know, and having 22 years of really solid business, you know, business development under my belt.

But as far as opening up the big old door and, and letting you through.

That's, that's not always our work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think it's good because it keeps you more humble.

Just realize you sort of stumbled into it and might not even being God's first choice.

Like he might have gone through the list.

You were number 14 people.

He was like, oh, this one might work.

Yeah.

And I sort of maintained that attitude all the way through.

I'm going, you know, I'm, I'm willing.

I'm willing and available, but I may not be God's first, first pick.

And that.

I think that helps.

Yeah.

Amen.

Now, in your work, you've seen how unresolved trauma can impact workplace behavior.

Is that what you call the subconscious X's that we all have in our brains, according to your book?

Yeah, it's a good question.

So for those of you that from a strategic point of view, when we started delivering, when I started delivering training in industry, it was in logging, heavy industry, wildland, fire.

Those were the, those are the folks and, and most like mostly men.

And I just was like, I just can't afford to use words like, like wounded or emotional trauma or the little boy inside.

Like those kind of like psychobabble terms would just, you'd be thrown off, you'd be thrown off the dock using those kind of terms.

And so I thought I need to come up with language that grown men that run massive pieces of equipment out in the bush can, can freely use to describe complex things with each other.

And so I came up with a term called memory X's.

So literally like a black X that we draw on a white page in front of the room.

So a memory X is something that your front brain operating system is not able to store because it's, for whatever reason, it's not compatible with your general success.

So it needs to be stored in what we call your back brain.

And it's stored in isolation essentially in a limestone cave.

And sometimes there's even vault doors that are put on front of them, and sometimes there's a collection of X's, but often they're just individually stored there.

And they're stored for good reason, so that you can carry on with your day to day.

However, with the right stimulus.

The code on those vault doors are known by adrenaline and cortisol.

They know the secret code.

And so if you have a shot of adrenaline and cortisol, what happens is you can end up with what we call.

You can switch, you can switch to the back of your brain.

You can end up in what's called the battle of the brains.

So your intentions are to speak respectively to your spouse, or answer the email in an appropriate way, or talk to your staff in a reasonable way, or not shout at the board of directors.

That's your front brain.

And for sure, 95% of your life is going to be run and managed and regulated by your front brain.

But under the wrong circumstances, if you have memory X's that have not been harvested out of the back brain and repositioned in your front brain, they become the independent operating landing pad for the neurological process of being inappropriate.

Yeah.

Sometimes to a devastating level.

So the question is like, does everybody have memory X's?

The answer is yes.

Is everybody aware of their memory access?

No.

And do CEOs have memory access?

Tons.

Does someone running heavy equipment have memory access?

Yes.

The fun thing in our model is that we've created language that people can freely talk to each other about on a daily basis.

We sit in sometimes 30, 31 stories up in an oil and gas, in an executive boardroom.

And once they're aware of our model, like they've adopted our language, it's amazing.

They'll go, okay, everybody, says the cfo, I'm about to give you our quarterly results.

And before you all leave your front brains and land on giant X's in the back brain, I just want to let you know, buckle up, because it's not going to be pretty.

Amen.

Still, actually, they.

And then away they go.

That's awesome.

And, and the cool thing, it's not as if it doesn't exist.

It's mad.

If you can expose that dynamic and make it common language within the workplace, then, then you end up with what we call human agency.

You have the ability to not only build amazing team, but you have this transparency and openness and it's, and it's.

The dynamics are, are completely reversed.

Amen.

Amen.

You know, when I was reading that, I had a saying, you know, back when, let's just say before I was born again and give you that idea.

Okay.

But I had to say back then, and, and when I read this X's in the back of the brain, like you said, secluded under lock and key.

Well, my saying was that they were pushing all of the right buttons and in the right sequence.

Yeah.

That brought me out where I would.

You know, they opened it, they opened this can of worms and now we're going fishing.

Oh, I gotta, I can write that down.

I'm gonna use that, by the way.

And I I'd give them a piece of my mind.

I mean, all these things that, you know, when I was reading your book, I was like, that's me, that's me.

And your back brain is saying, attaboy, Bob.

You get.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

I was enjoying it too.

You need to stand up for yourself and demolish your career right now.

This is.

And it happened.

And it happened.

It did.

Of course, nobody gets triggered, let's say with a military or a policing background.

Right?

Right.

I remember one night my daughter worked as a dispatcher for our department and I was on a traffic stop and this guy was just say, let's say, not being cooperative and says, you're front.

I just, yeah.

And I just keyed up the microphone.

Yeah.

As I start me another unit.

That's all I said.

Yeah, that's all I said.

Just start me another unit.

Because I knew it was going to get real, real quick.

Right.

And my daughter is like, oh, somebody's about to get their butt kicked.

And I was like, well, he didn't say anything about fighting her.

I know that voice.

She knew she, she picked up on the tone of voice and just, you know, and, but yeah, and that's.

And I think like, if we are fully aware that we're accessing some adrenaline and cortisol in order to achieve a specific result, go at her like, have fun with it.

But if, but if it is something that is.

It becomes out of our control, then it becomes a massive liability.

So I think the message has to be really clear from, even from our company's point of view.

We're not asking people just become vanilla, like to, to become like this somehow where they never get upset or they never develop, you know, have like, like strong opinions.

It's, it's on the contrary.

The cool thing is if you can have the self and situational awareness to regulate your two operating systems in your brain, what happens then is your brain actually gives you more opportunity to grow.

I'll give you an example.

Yeah.

Someone, let's say you and your wife go to Mexico, have a great time, but you know, it's after hours, you go to the marina, it's 11 o'clock at night, and you and somebody wants to steal your phone.

So you have your big switchback moment, you save the day, end up with an X because you say, hey, we just spent $5,000 doing this trip.

And you know, it could have been, could have been bad.

It could have gotten poked with a knife.

Right.

So if you don't process that X, that was a surprise attack during your nice holiday in Mexico.

Next time your wife says, hey, let's plan a trip, guess what?

Mexico is off.

Off the list.

Yeah, you'll be going somewhere else.

You'll be going to Hawaii, to Costa Rica, somewhere.

So if you multiply that as adults, we, our lives can get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.

Smaller, smaller.

Yeah.

So we need to process that scuffle in Mexico, harvest that X in the back of our brains and come back down so that we can actually go back to Mexico.

So when you think about CEOs, they, they've been in the trenches for years and they have many, many Mexico scuffles with regulators, with safety infractions, with actual fatalities, with financial issues.

With all these issues, if they aren't processing these X's, their world gets smaller and smaller and smaller and they become almost one dimensional.

They'll even be encouraged by legal counsel to be one dimensional, Say, just play in the lanes, keep it safe.

But at the end of the day, the CEO's job is to build trust among the executive to be able to deliver inspiration and understanding and clarity to the board of directors.

And if they are one dimensional, that just doesn't take place.

It doesn't happen.

Yeah.

And the problem is what happens at work happens at home too.

And so that same executive, when they're driving home, there'll be one dimensional, non decisional as well.

Because they're just managing risk.

It's so popular in the corporate world to manage risk, but you manage risk to the point where you're not a leader anymore.

And behind the, behind the veil, why are they managing risk at that level?

Because they haven't harvested their exes.

Yeah.

Amen.

Amen.

Hey, folks, Pastor Bob here.

Well out of time for this portion of this great interview with Stephen Falk.

Oh, man, can you tell I was enjoying this interview?

I mean, I was enjoying reading this book and developing the questions for this interview and asking the questions and just this interaction we have going back and forth.

This is a great interview.

I pray you're getting a lot out of it.

I know I am.

Because as you heard, going through this book, I was like, that's me, that's me, that's me.

Oh, man, that is definitely me.

And I have a good feeling that as you go through this book, you're gonna have the same responses.

Best part is you get to learn from the expert.

Right.

He's gonna share with you.

Details in the book, we just don't have time to go into during this interview.

But this was just part one of a great two part interview.

So be sure to come back for the very next episode.

Alright?

Till then, this passed by reminding you to be blessed in all that you do.

Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Kingdom Crossroads podcast.

Please subscribe to our podcast so you can be notified when another episode is published.

To share their messages with the world, please visit our website@www.podcastersforchrist.com.

that web address again is www.podcastersforchrist.Com.

for more information, until next time.

Be blessed in all that you do.

Nobody ever questions whether a CEO is smart.

They're all going to be smart.

Supposed to be.

Yeah.

No, but they are.

You don't get to that spot without being smart.

You don't get to be a leader without being smart.

The question is whether you are a fascinated now with the people side of your job.

Yeah.

And whether you're willing to tool up into that world.

That's.

That's it.

And for that, all of us need to take a giant dose of humility.

Because the tools that got us to this new role are not necessarily the tools of the mindset that's going to help this role flourish.

You are no longer a technical expert.

Now you're an expert of people.

Yeah.

Amen.

Amen.

I've seen fantastic examples of that transition, by the way.

Some people just crush it.

And others.

Don'T and others don't.

I remember we worked with a crown corporation in Australia in forestry and wildland fire.

And that CEO, he was like the finance guy.

Pretty quiet and non confrontational.

But he recognized I need to be that guy that people come to.

So he, when he got his office, he designed it as a place where people could visit.

He made himself a commitment.

He said, I am not going to sit at my desk when someone comes in the room.

And then here it is, ready.

He told himself this.

Distractions are now my primary job.

So if someone says, hey Steve, you got a minute?

Hey Bob, you got a minute?

In his mind, he says, absolutely, you are my primary job.

Me like working on my presentation for the board.

That's a secondary piece of homework that I do kind of on my own time, but listening to people and hearing them out.

And of course you have to have great boundaries.

You say, absolutely, I've got seven minutes.

Come sit down.

I'll even set my clock.

Because I do have a meeting at three so the goal, seven minutes.

Do we have time for a joke?

Maybe not.

Okay, so tell me what's up.

See, that alone is a joke.

Just saying that.

Yeah.

Amen.

That's right.

And then you lean forward, say, what do you have?

What do you have for me?

Say, oh, man, this.

You know, this ranger district is just like, we're.

We're under the.

We're under the pump.

Things are not going great.

We had.

Did a community meeting and went totally south.

We basically have people throwing fireballs at us at the community meetings.

Like, well, I'm not sure.

I might even lose my chief forester out of the deal.

Like, this is not good.

And go, so, what's your plan?

What's your thought?

How can I support you?

And then you come back in and say, just the fact that we're talking about this means that we're going to sort this thing out.

Thank you for bringing.

Your bringing it to me.

Thanks for not holding it back.

I know it's sometimes not necessarily embarrassing, but you don't want to show the soft underbelly to what happened at that, at that community meeting.

But you did it.

Good for you.

And I'm here to help.

Okay, so we don't have a time for a joke, but that's seven minutes.

And you get up, stake their hand, pat them on the shoulder on the way out, and they go, best leader I've ever had.

That's right.

Amen.

Amen.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Steve, this has been great and I appreciate you sharing all this with us.

How can someone get in touch with you to ask a question, receive more information on your programs, your trainings and all that?

We're pretty old school because our clients are mostly government agencies and like private, like aerospace, like on people that are flying helicopters.

And so it's switchbackos.com so OS stands for operating system.

So it's really easy to remember switchback os.com.

and then of course, there's just a contact me, contact us, and surprise, surprise, it comes into my inbox as well as my IT and my business partner.

But anyways, it'll come right onto my desk.

And, and, and I, I last thought, take a page out of Mother Teresa's playbook.

And so some people asked her for their interviews, would say, how do you do it?

How do you.

How do you serve in Calcutta?

And then you meet with presidents, like, what's.

Like, how do you sort it out in your brain?

And she said, easy eight.

She's a life of prayer.

But then she says, I stopped for the one.

And so I'm letting you know, if you send us an email, contact us, I'll stop and read your email and I'll respond because that's stopping for the one.

Amen.

And then it's awesome.

Boeing is the next email.

I'll stop for Boeing.

And if, and if you know, Montana Wildland Fire is the next one, I'll stop for them.

If it's Bob next, you stop for Bob.

And so that's a model where, where you just trust even in God's email management system, that you have the provision to stop for the one.

And if you feel overwhelmed with stopping for the one, you probably just need more bench strength.

So maybe you need an assistant that helps you stop for the one.

Or maybe you need a team of 300 that helps you stop for the one.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, Steve, I appreciate your time.

And how can someone get a copy of your book Switched On CEO how to Think Like a World Class Leader?

I've taken.

It's on Amazon.

Yes, that's the very best place to find it.

Okay.

All right.

And I'll put in the show notes giant copies.

Like if you want like 100 copies, then you should definitely contact me because I get author copy price.

Right.

And so I can then ship to a different address and offer a really great discount.

Amen.

I'll put links all this in the show notes below.

Amen.

Folks, I want to thank you for joining us today as Stephen Falk shared some incredible insights into the power of neuroplasticity, the battle of the brains, the role of teamwork, and leadership transformation.

If you're ready to implement the strategies that he's discussed today, like reframing your limiting beliefs and managing back brain triggers and fostering a culture of resilience, you need to connect with him right now.

Don't wait.

You don't know what tomorrow breaks.

You need to be ready for this as soon as possible.

Let's put it like that.

Okay.

By applying these principles, you can unlock better communication, improve decision making, and have a more dynamic, engaged workplace.

Immediately visit switchbackos.com to connect with Stephen and his team right now.

Just drop down the show notes, click the links right there.

They're all there for you to connect with Stephen and his team.

Just take action.

Do it now.

Don't let those X's in the back of your brain hold you up.

Amen.

Take care.

Take move to the front.

Click the links down below right now.

Be sure to click the link to order his book switched on CEO as well.

Discover how his tools can transform your leadership and team dynamics right now, today.

And don't miss the opportunity to take your growth to the next level.

Praise God.

Stephen, I want to thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come on the program and join us today.

Man, I learned a lot and I just, I just appreciate you taking the time to do it, brother.

Yeah, thank you.

And I'm glad.

Those three P's just blessed you right to the core.

In fact, that might be the most memorable part of our whole conversation.

And honestly the most was transformational.

So by the way, you're hired.

You can do the best promo ever.

So thank you so much for your kind words.

I appreciate it.

You have a blessed day, folks.

That's all the time we have for today for Stephen Falk, myself, Pastor Bob, reminding you to be blessed in all that you do.