Anger is a Beautiful Emotion: What a Therapist Taught Me About Leadership with Rich Reynolds, LMFT

[0:00] from family systems therapy to leadership coaching

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: how do you you know, start to see those stories for what they are and shift those narratives and start to welcome and recognize you can experience anger in like a really beautiful, healthy way that's not abusive or destructive.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: And you can experience sadness and grief and vulnerability and and tenderness in ways that are connecting and valuable

Dan Korus: Thank you so much for making time to join me, man. for being in the middle of a move, you've got a mighty good looking background there, I will say.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, slap together. But it's working.

Dan Korus: That's awesome. All right, cool. So, normally I think I just like to go through and talk about people's backgrounds and where they're from. So why don't you just introduce yourself and, you know, tell us about kind of who you are and where you came from.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: sure. I grew up in Utah, around Salt Lake area didn't really crowd for people who know. basically lived here my whole life. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. kinda took a long and winding road to get there, but that's maybe a story for another time. but more recently I have followed a little inkling that I've had for a few years to start leadership coaching. so it's bringing this kind of therapist family systems theory kind of mindset to what's going on with leaders when they're in the room doing leadership things. And so fun it's been a lot of fun.

Dan Korus: That's awesome. Okay, let's talk about why did you want to become a family systems therapist. Is that what it's called? Okay.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: yeah, marriage and family therapist. Or it it it should be called like a systemic therapist, I think, 'cause marriage and family is not everyone's married and whatever. Anyway, it's a little dated but the shorter version of that is in college I was studying psychology.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: for this reason that I think a lot of people study psychology because I'm trying to figure myself out, figure life out. And through a friend of mine learned about a job at a residential treatment center. And the idea actually was originally I was gonna do academics. like the philosophy of psychology really interested me. I have a grandpa who was a philosopher and taught philosophy at a university. Anyway, but I got this job at at a residential treatment center and got a C therapy up close and it was a game changing thing for me to see how life changing that could be but as a person I I'm a people person. People matter to me, close relationships matter a lot to me. and it just kind of resonated. Again, there's kind of a longer story of I got I got lost for a little while. I didn't

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: immediately get accepted to grad school.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: and had a little quarter life crisis about it and thought maybe I'd be a web developer and did a web development boot camp and well unfortunately is an expensive way to figure out I don't like the code, but

Dan Korus: You know, I think like but so if I could change if I could make one change in the educational system, before anyone goes to college or before anyone says, Hey, I wanna go be this Right, I think I would really want the last year of high school or maybe a year after that to just be walking around watching what other people do. And you just write down the top ten things and you're like, Okay, firefighter, astronaut, you know, line cook, chef, entrepreneur, all these different things, and then they pair you with people and you just get to go watch it for a couple of weeks. Because,

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yes.

Dan Korus: you know, how many people have these profound moments where, you know, just like you, where they're in these moments where they're they're seeing what another job looks like and then they're realizing like, that's that's for me. It sounds like that happened

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Korus: for you.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yep. Well, I had both examples. Like it happened in a positive way with therapy and it happened in a negative way with web development. I hadn't watched anyone do web developing and I would. I learned how to code a little bit and then it was time to actually like do it. It's like I hate this actually.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Right. So now that you're starting this entrepreneurial thing, and I'm just I'm just curious because I still want to go back to therapy for a little bit, but now that you're into the entrepreneurial world and you're building, are any of the skills that you learned, you know, from the web development serving you or was that, you know have th has things changed so much since you did that that it's not relevant?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I think there's like a little bit of just like understanding some basics of like some aesthetic things about how websites can look and but r I think that's about it. I mean, yeah, it has changed so much. I mean to have AI that can just kind of crank out a website for you and that's nice that I I can maybe but I don't I mean my I'm working on my website right now, so it is it is different.

Dan Korus: Great. Yeah, yeah. having the power of AI to be able to just one-shot a website for us and you know with no coding experience is pretty amazing. And it opens up opportunities to be able to go, you know, career pivot and add on these side things, which is really exciting.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah.

Dan Korus: so you know, it throughout your career as a you called it a systemic therapist. Right? what What's that like? What's it like to be a systemic therapist? Is it hard? Is it fun?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: yeah, it's like anything, pros and cons. So

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: the difference between like marriage and family therapy and other like psychology or mental health counseling or social work is yeah, the systemic piece where you're more rooted in family systems theory, which is just a family applied system theory. so the work I do as a therapist is not super visibly different, right? Like I sit with clients, we talk, but the the difference is kind of having that systemic lens of seeing things through like what's happening for any individual is a product of the systems they're embedded in and so we're we're paying attention to like family of origin is the the big one that is relevant all the time. You know, they tell me about your mom. rope that you hear all time about therapy. But yeah, so it's therapy just without that lens. and there are people I don't do as much, like I also do couples therapy. There's some folks who do family therapy more. I haven't done that as much. But that's it. As far as like what's hard and what's fun, I super duper love what happens in the room. Like the act of therapy, the sitting with people, the talking about stuff that matters, the getting a front row seat of people's humanity and all the incredible resilience and wisdom that shows up in everyday lives of lots of just random people. That's amazing. I never get tired of that. But the harder things are I mean there's like the mundane stuff of like notes and all the paperwork you gotta do as therapist, but probably the if I'm being more real, more vulnerable, the hardest thing is the emotional work. the emotional work you have to do to be the kind of person who can sit with suffering all the time. and I don't I don't think anyone can prepare you

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: for that. We we go to school, we learn therapy models and things, but I don't think there's any educational way. It's just experiential to like sit with people who are going through it and learn how to not freak out. And and I think that's I think that's what really ports over to leadership really well. Because I think leadership is the same problem, right? Leadership is it's an incredibly emotionally fraught situation that you're in when everyone's counting on you to have answers, to provide direction and that that emotional work of like looking inside and saying, Okay, what why am I freaking out right now? What work do I need to do? To be more stable, to be more to be to be more present. but yeah, that's the hard stuff.

[7:29] what does over-functioning look like in a leader?

Dan Korus: Yeah, if I can 'cause it it sounds like you're gonna get these beautiful moments both with the healing moments that people go through in the room, both with marriage and family therapy and with, you know, these leadership transformations. And so I'm wondering like, is it watching people have a breakthrough? Is it watching them, you know, kinda realize something about themselves that they didn't know, What is that what are those moments? What does it look like?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: man. How much time do you have? There's there's still a lot of stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah. A little over an hour. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: yeah, without getting lost in a bunch of storytelling, I think the biggest ones are the moments where people get to experience themselves differently. Like, I thought I was this way and now I'm having this moment where I just know that's not true. which often comes in the form of kind of emotional breakthroughs like feeling something that hasn't been felt for a long time and hasn't been allowed to be felt. So someone who finally like feels like anger that they've been carrying around for a long time or someone who finally acknowledges some grief or trauma that so those kinds of moments when people get to meet themselves a little more and see themselves and and that's really beautiful. but then the other favorite thing is when they come in and tell me stories about how their life is different because they had this breakthrough. or because they see themselves differently now, or because they can feel this one emotion and they come back and tell me stories about their lives and their relationships and their coaching client that just told them a story about just being like he had a conversation with someone on Steam that shortcut months of what could have been kind of painful and dramatic and hard stuff because he had he got clarity and he what he needed to say and even had a conversation and I think those are the moments where it's like wow, like I'm still kinda blown away this is a thing, this is working. Like what how cool is this? Anyway, that's fun.

Dan Korus: That's awesome. That's really cool. that answers it for the good for me. And I think being that emotionally available does sound exhausting. You know, I think I was like reading about the history of burnout and it was coined by a guy who was going through burnout back in the sixties or seventies, back when free social clinics were started. And so this is this is the profession of burnout. Right? Like making yourself so available for other people and serving them and being available in those ways. And they don't teach how to do that in school. I think this is important for leaders too and people everywhere. They probably need the Padawan version, not the Jedi master version, right? but how do you be that available for people all the time? especially for, you know, probably some of the hardest periods of their life.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. great question. I think for me it's been a process of learning there are some ways that we show up that are kind of too effortful, like we're trying too hard. I think that's where a lot of the brain out is. So some examples of that would be someone who grew up in an environment where they felt like it was their job to take responsibility for everyone else's emotions, right? So everyone else has to be cool and I have to make sure they were cool all time. again, this is like a family systems thing. This happens a lot. You'll have someone in the family that's like the peacemaker and so you put them in a therapy room or again in a leadership situation. I think it's fairly much the same process. And they're gonna have a part of them that wants to over function all the time and that feels really overly responsible. And and that's what's unsustainable is when we're in these positions of I gotta fix this, I gotta handle this, it's my job. And so I think a big part of it is learning how to help those parts of you relax, right? Help those parts of you so some of that is like developing some sense of boundary about My emotions are my responsibility, your emotions are your responsibility. I can show up the best way I can show up. What you do with it is yours, kind of I like in my therapeutic work that was a big one. I really when I first got into this business, really felt and I think a lot of therapists experienced this, like deep, deep need to know the right thing to say and know how to help people. And that is so exhausting. And it's impossible. You can't know the right thing to say all the time. you know, new new problems come through the door all the time that you've never seen, you've never experienced, you have no idea about. so I think that's a big part of it is learning to recognize your own patterns around like when are you over functioning? I think with leadership stuff, this is more like kind of micromanagey kinds of things, or feeling like I have to have the answer to every problem. Or those kinds of things when it's like this this sense of we put more burden on ourselves than is actually necessary. and understanding why we're doing that and kinda helping heal that and shift that I think is probably the highest leverage thing that applies to them every situation that you're in. You can kind of move through the world feeling less overly responsible. It's nice. It's relatively easy. so I think that's that's a big part of it. I think another part of it is the more clarity the very related to that is like having clarity about what is your role right now. And again for me as a therapist the the the transition has been from feeling like my role as like a problem solver and a problem fixer to more of my job is to be like a safe place for people to land and to be kind and and to create an environment where they can experience themselves differently and like whether or not they fix their problems in their life is up to them. It's not mine. I it's not I'm not living their life. I'll have to live with the consequences of their choices. Like that sense of just being able to like get really clear about why am I here, what am I doing, what's valuable about what I'm doing and can I stay in my lane? I think is also huge. And again, I think that ports over to leadership very well as well. Like there's that scope creep and we can start to feel like we've got all these hats and all the things that we're doing and to be able to get really clear on like okay, but what's the most valuable thing about what I'm doing and and doing that.

Dan Korus: Yeah. So this is this is kind of a side question, but I'm curious to know what you think. So I've done personal training before. I've been coaching CrossFit and various endurance athletes for the past like five or six years. And one of the things that can discourage me as a coach is when, you know, you put effort into someone, right, and you're showing up for them and then they stagnate, right? And they're just kind of showing up for when you're there. As and I've only seen this in limited cases, right? But you probably see this all the time. Does it does it suck to like You know, know know the steps that someone needs to take to improve their life and you're like, Okay, I could I could write you know, we could put this into a spreadsheet, but it's self work, right? And you have to go do it. And then to watch people not do it or to regress, especially when there's a valuable relationship on the line and like a family

[14:57] the gap between what we know and what we actually do

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yes.

Dan Korus: on the line.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, I mean, in a word, yes, it does it does suck

Dan Korus: How do you sleep at night?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: a hundred percent.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: it's But again, I think that's that's where for me I've had to learn that thing of like that's not my job. My job is not to like know what they should do all the time. My job is to create a space where they can come in and I can say, What's happening with you and this relationship that you're burning to the ground? Like what what is that? Can we be curious about that? and again for me The the point of all of this is like there's the gap between what we know and again in the age of the internet we all know the answers to everything. Like we all know we should, you know, eat well and move our bodies and go to sleep on time and whatever. You can add all the lists of things that are always growing. But the gap between what we know and what we do is is, yeah, kind of where at least for me, this is and it I wanna be clear too, if you ask like a a hundred therapists these same questions, they'd all give you different answers. Like no one is a hundred percent on the same page about any of this. But to me that's that's my work is like how do we stay in that space of like, okay, what is this gap? And it's the same thing with leadership coaching. W because in leadership we all have read the books and gone to trainings and done the things. We know all jargon. We know we should be more clear and direct in how we communicate, we know we should. We should but like there's emotional stuff happening inside of us that gets in the way. And so for me it's just relaxing to like, yeah, that's where I live is in that space where we're just exploring, like, yeah, there's an intention from the information that we know, and then there's actual action and the impact of what we're actually doing and how do we how do we bring these closer together and how do we explain the difference? If that makes sense.

Dan Korus: Totally. Yeah, it does. And I didn't I think going into this I thought that the transition between your work as a, you know, marriage and family therapist versus your work as a leadership coach, I was like, okay, that's you know, those are on different pages. And I think I think it's just the same page, just the relationships that you're working people through are different, right? 'Cause

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yes.

Dan Korus: the leader isn't married to a husband or a wife, you know, or a partner, but they do have a team on their stakes there. Yeah, walk what's what's like the most similar part of this? Walk us through walk us through the similarities and differences between these.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, yeah. okay, well therapy will include things like processing trauma and whatnot that leadership coaching doesn't, right? That's that's outside the scope. Yeah.

Dan Korus: That's good. Ideally, right? Ideally? Does it sometimes yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: and of course coaching is not oriented toward mental health diagnoses. We're not trying to bring into mental health stuff

Dan Korus: Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: or so there's those differences. But the similarities are there's a lot of similarity because for me the whole thesis is that the reason why leaders struggle in their roles is the exact same reason why a husband might struggle in a marriage and an addict might struggle with quitting and you know, fitness coaching client will struggle with falling through on their fitness goals. There's this emotional process that's happening inside all of us all the time that I think absolutely translates and is relevant all the time. I think that's kind of been one of the gaps that I wanna fill. I think we keep trying to solve that by giving more frameworks and telling people what they should do more in different ways. We have fancier ways of saying what you should do and justifying why you should do it that way. I think emotional intelligence is kind of a concept that fits in this umbrella for me of like we're describing emotional intelligence to people and that they should be emotionally responsive.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: but that's still not that's still not addressing, okay, but why aren't you emotionally responsive?

Dan Korus: Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Like what's what what happened? Where are you? What that you don't feel like you can do

Dan Korus: Okay, we

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: that.

Dan Korus: we gotta drill down on this. So the reason why someone is struggling in their leadership is the same reason why they might be struggling in their marriage or with their family. You know, and those close the relationships is the the same underlying problem. So what what's what's the theme you're seeing and what is that what is that?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. okay, so the way I break it down with my clients is that all humans are on the same arc. And the arc is we're born, we are utterly dependent on bigger people. Without the bigger people we'll die. But those bigger people give us some stuff that we don't need and they don't give us some stuff that we do need. That's just universal. Everyone experiences that. And what we do with that, kind of is where I think all this starts, right? Because if we're not getting what we need, oftentimes the best, most empowering thing we can do when we're tiny is decide that it must be us, it must be our fault. 'Cause if it's our fault we can work on it. I think that's why all of us have a mere critic, then all of us you must struggle with some form of dream or self deprecation, right? Is that sense of it's gotta be me, I'm the problem. And then we can get busy working on that. Then we can go like get good at people pleasing, we can be really good at again taking responsibility for other people's emotions, we can keep our abusive dad laughing so he isn't mad at us all the time. We can you know, there's there's a million ways that we deal with this problem of we don't we aren't getting our needs met. and those work for us and they get us through our childhood and for leaders especially, they often will like get us as far as we've gotten. Right? We we've learned to be like successful. We've learned to you know, all the kind of like a type personality traits we we learn our value is based on our accomplishment and we like we're in on that and we killed it in school and we did all the things, like there's all these layers, and they get us where we are, but then there comes a point at which they kind of expire. They're no longer they're no longer useful, but we're stuck in them. So you know, a leader will sit in a room and have one member of the team that like drives them a little bit crazy and they always snap towards that person and they don't really know why or they feel like they have to like shrink and disappear when this other person is around and it's and it to me it's all that same stuff of, yeah, this is how we learned how to survive and the work is like unpacking that, looking at that, knowing how that all happened for you and then comes the empowerment of feeling free to try other stuff. I guess another way to say it is we our our individual lived experience feels like somehow it represents the whole world. You know that's how the world works. And doing the work of like figuring out, actually out in the real world it's all kinds of ways. it works lots of different ways. Not everyone is like our parents, not everyone's like our third grade teacher, not everyone is

[22:26] the two-stage arc: survival strategies and their expiration date

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: you know, right.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: and and so to me I think that's that's where people who and this very you know, affects people to varying degrees. Some people are

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: less stuck in this than others and that's fine. It's great, honestly. but for people who like feel really stuck and feel like, I know in my leadership I'm trying to do X, Y, and Z and then I keep not doing it, we keep doing the opposite. I mean these are the kinds of dynamics that explain all that.

Dan Korus: Okay, so I'm I'm gonna is can I ask more questions about this? Is that all right? Okay,

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Of course, that's over here.

Dan Korus: cool. Cause I this feels like it's central to your philosophy as a leadership coach, right? And so someone listening to this, if this is like, shit, I you know, I'm learning a bunch of stuff and I'm really valuable, that this is how they would know that you're a good fit for them, right?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Dan Korus: Okay, cool. So so there's the arc. And in the beginning of the arc of someone's life, right? Like the chronology of their life or the arc of like their development. Like their life. Okay, cool. So they start off as dependent. the bigger people give us stuff we need, that's how we stay alive. They also give us stuff that we don't need, or they don't give us everything that we need. And stage one development, I'm calling it stage one development, like stage A, the first level is like Learning to be a successful human by staying alive and meeting your needs by

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: late stage yeah.

Dan Korus: overcoming those, right? And so we build up these reactions and we either tell ourselves, Okay, I'm not enough and so I need to do more, or I need to play the role of the clown and make people laugh for safety, you know, or Yeah, and taking feedback too personally because it's my fault. And so that their reac these reactions that we build turn us into a functioning adult on some levels. and we can become very successful up to a point. but there's a there's a ceiling there is what I'm hearing. And so when depending on where that ceiling is, marriages may suffer, re close relationships may suffer, and leadership potential becomes capped. so stage two development, if I can call it stage two, would be I'm gonna learn how to overcome these reactions. and I'm gonna learn to overcome my need to people please or ignore some of my internal critic or not feel like I need to be the clown. is it am I getting it right? Okay,

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yep.

Dan Korus: cool. So If we can just imagine the entire arc, is the top of the arc once we've you know, is this like a and the other it's the other side of the arc is death, right? Okay, cool. So is the is the

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Basically. Yes.

Dan Korus: top of the arc I've figured out I've figured I've figured out stage two, you know, or I've just moved past it to the point where it doesn't matter for me. You know, like the studies where they say that older people can, you know, stop giving a fuck about what other people think of them, and so it's just like You know, they learn to let that stuff go over time or they've intentionally worked on it and maybe it comes for them at an earlier age.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's a great way to say it. I think

Dan Korus: Okay.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: yeah, and that that age piece I think is a is a significant part of the the ceiling experience, right, that we're talking about because usually w when we're young all the strategies were kinda high energy solutions, right? Takes a lot of effort to be some version of yourself that you're not. Takes

Dan Korus: Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: takes a lot of effort in And there usually is a moment where a body is like, No thanks. Not doing that anymore Like

Dan Korus: Yeah. Okay.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: so I think yeah, there's an age component for sure. I see that a lot, that like in early adulthood, mid adulthood, people kinda hit that wall of like, No, it's just too energy expensive to keep pretending yeah, to keep giving a fuck about what everyone else thinks and

Dan Korus: Yeah. Give us an age range. Is it like forty to fifty thirty to forty, like when when's like the And I'm no I'm sure it's broad. I'm

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: it really depends.

Dan Korus: sure it's broad. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, it really depends and I I think I mean I've seen people with like more trauma it hits really early, like eighteen. I have seen people and they're yeah, probably like thirties, forties is where I sleep the most, I guess.

Dan Korus: Got it. So it kind of depends on the environment that they're in and how energy demanding the mask their masking strategies are or their reactionary strategies are. So someone

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah.

Dan Korus: who's undergone a lot of trauma is obviously more taxed and so they're their spiritual battery, you know, is gonna deplete a lot faster than someone who only has like some minor cases and is cruising and doing well. who might not have to address it until later. Does everyone have to address it or do some people just like flatline, you know, and never have an arc? Like does the arc is the arc mandatory?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: yeah. Not I don't know. I mean there's certainly a level which all this is a little bit hypothetical intellectual,

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: you know, I'm sure there are exceptions to all of this. I think for me that's more a framework that that helps create you know, for me the the goal is self reflection. It's the looking at looking inside, understanding, yeah, what is how does this work for me? And so we we yeah, we certainly could acknowledge that like probably it's not this way a hundred percent for everyone. I'm sure like I have definitely met people who they're older, they're later on in their life but and they're still very much in high energy stuff and they're exhausted but they can't stop either and

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: just you know, I think some people never really feel the sense of like, I can't do this anymore and give up on it.

Dan Korus: Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: But anyway.

Dan Korus: If I could if I could postulate a theory, I also think that a lot of the people that you would be experiencing are people who wanna fix a marriage or want to, you know, save a relationship. And yeah,

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah, there's already a problem, yeah.

Dan Korus: there's a problem and they want a solution. so they've come to you. And then through leadership coaching, there's people who've hit the glass ceiling and they're like, Well, I know that there's a better that I could do more and so how do I How do I get beyond? so it's people looking for more. And I think there's probably, you know, a ton of people out there who don't know that there's a ceiling and are just gonna be stuck in stage one forever, and they're kind of the problem, right? And they're the reason why you have a job. You know what I mean? Because they're never gonna look past and be like, dang, maybe I should lead with empathy, you know, or maybe I should ask my team how they're doing. Or maybe a pizza party isn't all that we should be doing for retention here. Yeah.

[29:54] why scripts and frameworks keep failing emotionally intelligent leaders

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. For culture. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Maybe that's not enough for

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah.

Dan Korus: culture building. so you know, I'm sure I'm sure a lot of those people are out there and maybe it's just unfortunate that you know, they're the ones who are having the impact on everyone else that's pushing them towards finding stage two versus, you know, not wanting to do the self-work for themselves. anyway, I've just what is how does that land with you? That's just my that would be my theory. I don't know if that's

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: No, absolutely. And I think there's another layer to this. I actually want to write more about this soon. 'cause I think we also are in an environment where because so many people have not really hit that ceiling or aren't aware of this dynamic, the solutions that are being offered to anyone who is struggling are still kind of like not addressing the issue. Like the systems of not being self reflective, of not learning to feel and process our own emotions, to not look inward, everyone is still being offered solutions that invite them to stay outside of themselves, right? you can fix this with reading creature conversations and having a script for these tough conversations you need to have where can where it's like all still techniques and it's all still kind of external. If you do stuff outside of you, then it'll be okay. And to me I think that just doesn't work that well. I think at some point you're gonna always have that gap between what you intend to do and what you actually do. And if you're not taking that gap seriously and not getting really curious about it, it's just gonna keep biting you in the mess, right?

Dan Korus: Yeah. and the skills playbook, right? Like Crucial Conversations you brought up, I think that's a great example. there's other ones as well. I think it kind of allows us to role play a emotionally conscious leader and you know, ends up making it harder to stay in that role because we then don't have the tools we need to actually follow through or take responsibility for the kind of leadership that we're creating. I think it's devastating, right? Because then you're feigning, you know, empathetic care or, you know, some sort of higher form of leadership without actually meaning it. And that's it's pretty fucked up. You know? Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah. And everyone in the room

Dan Korus: So

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: feels the difference. And I think this is this

Dan Korus: Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: is actually what got me into leadership coaching

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: from therapy is sitting sitting with therapy clients, and I worked for like four or five years in like a s sex therapy clinic. And even in a sex therapy clinic, the thing I was hearing about the most consistently from all of my clients was workplace stuff. Was

Dan Korus: Word.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: bosses was bosses I think very similar to what you're describing, right? Who are trying to to do some version of being a normal responsive person but all the tools that they are given to do that just don't feel real and don't feel healthy and don't feel and and so that's that's the thing that like got in my head was like, wait, who's helping these leaders with this? 'Cause

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: It's it's clear that like I've I've seen the downstream effects up close and personal a lot. I've heard a

Dan Korus: Right. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: lot of terrifying stories. I like but I think yeah, what you're describing is a hundred percent part of the deals. Like then then everyone has this weird experience at work and we all know about that, right? I mean that's that's what everyone's writing about on Substack and that's what

Dan Korus: That's crazy. So okay, so you're in a sex therapy clinic and the biggest theme is they're talking about their bosses in the workplace. What the Yeah. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Well and I'd want to be clear about like what I biggest there is that's the theme that comes up with everybody. Everyone mentions

Dan Korus: Okay.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: this. Everyone this is not like the focus of therapy with anybody. It's not why they're in it's just it's just background noise. Always background noise.

Dan Korus: Right, right. It just this is this is a pattern and it includes that subset of of okay. Damn. All right. Okay. I guess that I think that's the thesis, right? That's the the the problems are the same and people need to learn how to deal with whatever maladaptions they had to overcome in childhood and if they don't then they become the problem for the other people around them and especially in leadership because you have people under your charge who you're directly influencing every day.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Well and they keep Yeah, and they keep positioning themselves to be in those situations partially because of the the baggage, right? Partially because of like again the sense of effortfulness, the sense of I have to achieve, the sense of like I have to be important, I have to do something big. Like that's that's part of it too is w and that's a weird and again this is very similar to like what happens in therapy. A lot of therapists are therapists because and myself included. I got into this business partially because I didn't understand my own shit, right? Like and as

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: and like and coming in trying to be this helper and save everybody. And and that's like not a healthy place to try to be therapist from.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: But it w got us here. So now and

Dan Korus: Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I think it's very similar with leaders. Like a lot of times w we're driven to like be ambitious and do more and all the things were similarly like I w I kinda wanna say unhealthy. I don't really love the word unhealthy, but like unhealthy reasons. And and being able to get that unpacked of like, wait, why do I keep putting myself in those situations where then I Yeah, don't know how to handle it and I don't but I have to pretend that I know how to handle it. And it's a weird cycle.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Well it's the it's the I I think it you're making sense in my mind and if I were to try and distill it down, just tell me if I'm wrong here. the two lies that people would force someone into leadership is like I don't belong or I'm not enough. and multitude of other lies, those two for example. And they go into leadership almost to prove to themselves that that's not true. Right? That if they could

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, and everyone else. Yeah.

Dan Korus: if they could if they could get into a leadership position, then they are someone who is lovable, correct, high achieving, an

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, worthy.

Dan Korus: enough, yeah, belonging, right. And so okay. Yeah, there's a very like self self motivated reason to a aspire for leadership, right? Yeah. You know how like there's always those people who are like, I don't want to be the leader. You know, and then we like we're like, hey, okay, that's the one. We found him. That's the person who should go do it. Right?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Korus: The person who doesn't want it for themselves. It's the person who's good at it. Yeah. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Well it's it's more complicated than that because you can also say, I don't want to be the leader because you don't believe you're worthy and because you don't right right. And

[37:22] live coaching: sitting with anger about a boundary violation

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: that person's work often is recognizing like, yeah, you are as capable as anyone else to like do this stuff. And yeah,

Dan Korus: Okay, this is really interesting. Can I just ask a couple more questions about your framework? 'cause I feel like I've got like sixty percent of the picture and I'm almost there to knowing it. Is there are are there any stages after stage two? Are there more

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I mean

Dan Korus: glass ceilings?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: to me that's like the rest of your life kind of is you keep having moments of realizing there's still some way in which the past is driving the bus a little bit and I have to like re update and reorient toward the present and I have to

Dan Korus: So Sage two's never really over.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: not totally. I don't feel like it's totally over for anybody. It's not totally over for me.

Dan Korus: I think if someone thinks it's over, then maybe they're in a good patch and they should enjoy it and live it up and and

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, love that. Soak it in, yes.

Dan Korus: try not to get too curious in the meantime. okay, so yeah, so it's just there's there's stage one and there's stage two, and stage two is never really over. It's a journey and it's not a physical location, but it's just an awareness that we're not done. Okay. I get it. And then the positioning of the arc of stage one and stage two is relative to age just based on and the and the height of it, I guess, the intensity of how much work people have to undergo is just really dependent on environment, circumstances, past and you know, the in individual person. Awesome. Okay, this is a cool model. I like this a lot. okay, so you're working with a leader, right, and they say, Yo, Rich, I need help. I'm hitting a glass wall here. What's going on? what do you do with them? Like what's what's step one? What does this look like?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: step one is getting really curious about like, okay, so what's happening?

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I mean if I don't know if you're down for this. if you got like an example of something that's happened that has been a struggle, we could kind of like just do it. I could show you what this looks like. We just have a conversation. Like it's

Dan Korus: Yeah. Okay. I'm in. so you just want like what do you like a problem, a situation, like a a moment of growth?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Sure, yeah. Anything anything that you're dealing with in leadership that that

Dan Korus: Okay.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: feels sticky.

Dan Korus: Yeah, let's do it. I want to bring an example from my own life that's current for me. It's a workplace situation where my role is to protect my team's focus, I feel like someone pushed past that, and I'm sitting with anger about it. I'll keep the specifics off the page here, but the texture is: I feel disrespected, and I feel protective of people I'm responsible for. I notice both are showing up in my body. Where do we start?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Great. Where do you feel it right now, in your body?

Dan Korus: Head's hot. Cheeks flushed. Tension at the top of my gut. Something that needs to be felt and resolved. Everything else is kind of fading.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. That tracks for normal healthy anger of 'you crossed a boundary, not okay.'

Dan Korus: Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: So if you sit with that anger and the angry response, what are you worried would happen if you didn't get angry about this?

Dan Korus: If I make it about me first, I'm worried I'd get stepped on again, or that I'd be disrespected. That's something I'm sensitive to because I've been in environments before where people walked all over me. Part of my personal journey is learning to stand up for myself and vocalize my feelings in an emotionally intelligent, professional way. I can go too far in that direction. The other piece is that I'm scared that my team is having to spend attention on nonsense when they shouldn't have to.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. That also feels righteous.

Dan Korus: Yeah. And righteousness is the harder one to deal with responsibly, because it feels paladinesque. There's a sense of justice in me that's hard to quell.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Great. So what would you have to feel if you didn't do that, didn't take care of your team the way you want to? Worst case: you don't do any of it. What's the feeling?

Dan Korus: Out of control. Embarrassed. Powerless. Useless.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of pain in that story. I mean that's that

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah, it's a it it it's a simple story. And most leaders should just be happy that their team is competent enough that like, you know, someone they they have teammates that are worth taking. Right? that's cool. That's a cool thing. Not everybody gets that, you know. Yeah, yeah, there is.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. So so this is this is the stuff, right? This is this is what I do. So with the client is what

Dan Korus: Okay. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: we're what we're interested in is there's the intention of I want to be able to sit with people and be calm and present and and show this person who's having a really shitty stressful moment that like I'm here for them and I can hold space and but instead what's happening is there's a part of me that is terrified of feeling useless. Who has all this backlog of like bullshit that happened with past bosses that's like never again. That that shit is not happening again, not on my life.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: And so then there's this whole sense of and again, we could there's probably more history there or whatever, but like that that sense of, but there's this emotional process inside that makes it impossible to do it. Like we You can't stay and be calm when there's a part of you that's like, Well, I have to go send the message to this guy, he can never do this shit again.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Like that's the priority. To keep everyone safe, to keep this person I care about on my team safe and to be a good leader, to not be useless and to feel powerful. I need to need to go do the thing.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: And it's it's resolving that conflict inside that is the work, right?

Dan Korus: Yeah. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: It's like how do you how do you help and some of that is like just knowing that like and again this is something that therapists have to do a lot, is like, that knee jerk thing that wants to happen inside of me, I'm just gonna wait and do that later. Like

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: note to self I'm pissed about this, I'll go feel the pissed and I'll go communicate to whoever I communicate. But I'll do that later, 'cause right now I gotta stay here and and be in the room.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Okay. So this is this is a common thing that other leaders will have. Okay, I know that, you know, being being present and having real empathy you know, effortless present empathy is is the right move. And then what we're saying is, okay, there's this there's this backlog of other things that make us want to act in a certain way. and when we act on that, you know, we're we're feeding a cycle that we're not able to break out of. And so where your coaching comes in is you're allowing us to have metacognition over the cycle and allow us to hopefully find find ways that we can, you know, self-coach in those moments. And so if this ever happens to me again, my action would be that you would you would coach me as like okay find a find a way to pause and take the knee jerk and just put it as far into the future as I can. At least at least out of the presence.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, maybe. Or we could add like, or can I at least acknowledge why I'm so pissed and like and meet my own anger with compassion, right? Like

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: to understand like, yeah, to have a part of me that's like fucking pissed about this and wants to go do battle and be a paladin about it is awesome and badass. And we could love that part of us and

Dan Korus: Yeah. Right. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: say, Cool, cool, cool, bro, yeah, I got it. I will do that. We will we'll handle this. But right now I'm gonna stay here with this person. You keep it in a

Dan Korus: Put it put it in time domains. Yeah. Yeah. And wise

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah.

Dan Korus: wise enough and the emotional control enough to be able to compartmentalize those. So that way you can give the person in front of you what they need. How do we

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Well and compartmentalizing is an interesting word choice there because I don't even know if it's like compartmentalizing in the well, it is. I mean I get why you're saying that, but I I think there's something to be said for this is where it gets a little more nuanced and tricky. 'Cause

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: we're not just like shoving it away. That's the part of the pattern of all of it is we always just shove stuff away. It's just like I can I can like

Dan Korus: Yeah, we're not putting on the shelf. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: make this anger feel welcome inside of me I know that it can belong inside of me and I don't it doesn't have to go anywhere and

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: that it doesn't need like I don't need to do that thing right now. Or at least I can have some judgment about what are the pros and cons. Can I like maybe it would be useful for this employee if together we both went and had a conversation with this guy and they're like, Hey bro, like not cool Maybe that's part of the solution, but you

Dan Korus: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: know, to just have that presence with it instead of it feeling like that 'cause what happened gathering, you tell me if I'm getting this right or not.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: It was not that. It was you're trying to have the conversation. The anger's roiling. You're like, shh hush, anger, shut up. I gotta I'm trying to and then it not like nothing can happen. You can't stay totally with your person. You can't stay

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: with the anger. There's just kind of this weird in between and then and then yeah, you kind of come out of situation with that feeling afterwards of like, that wasn't the effortless thing.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: That wasn't it.

Dan Korus: Yeah, I absolutely, absolutely. You know, and when you're in the moment, and I I love the times in myself when I'm able to see that coming, you know, and react a different way. and I think I'm slowly getting there. I think it you know, it's a journey and this is a sticky point for me and I'm open about it, where you know, I think emails for the longest time was something that I was like, you know, I would draft tens of replies. You know, and I would

[59:48] how do I handle anger without blowing up the team?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yes.

Dan Korus: spend hours like trying to pick the perfect words that would A set boundaries, you know, and I would stand up for myself and I would like do all the right things because someone said something in there that was just you know, obviously messed up. And I think I've finally gotten to the point where I see those and I've just I just delete them. You know, and I skim and I'm like, this is that kind of an email and just goes into the trash. You know, never gets a response

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, yeah.

Dan Korus: from me. and I think like maybe I'm at the point where I can do that nine and a half times out of ten. You know. or I catch myself in that moment as I'm writing that email and I'm like, I've rewritten this twice. Delete. You know,

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah.

Dan Korus: no no response. No response needed. If it's important, it'll come up again. And so, yeah, what a what a good strategy. So for for teaching that like self-compassion to be able to sit with two things at once and to be able to meet, you know, an emotion that we normally associate with negatively, right? Because we associate anger in the workplace as like a negative all the time. and I also I think that that's a mistake. maybe I'm wrong about that, but I I think it's a mistake. because I think anger's a really useful emotion. how do we teach that compassion for at least a pause, you know, or some sort of reflection, or at least like, you know, what you were saying? Like at least we need to know why it's there and what it's coming from.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: yeah, that's the real trick, right? it's

Dan Korus: Ha ha.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I think that's probably the longer term project for most of us because usually it just boils down to again, this is this goes back to the stage one stuff, right?

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: 'Cause stage one stuff was when we got taught that some emotions should not be felt and expressed.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: And we got taught that by our families and our, you know, teachers and our whoever, right? That

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: some families it was anger was outlawed, right? We all have to be nice all the time and no one ever we cannot be mean in any way or you're you know, punished by the family in some way. Or it's the opposite. We can't be vulnerable. We can only be kind of angry and aggressive and all the things, right? So it's that and then then how those things are then get connected back to feelings of shame and unworthiness and And so it's the longer term project of yeah, how do you start to see those stories for what they are and shift those narratives and start to welcome and recognize yeah, like for example, you can experience anger in like a really beautiful, healthy way that's not abusive or destructive.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: And you can experience sadness and grief and vulnerability and and tenderness in ways that are connecting and valuable and right and And so some of that is like experimenting, trying that, you know, you play with it, you see what happens. And then

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: the other thing is like, yeah, working on what are these narratives, these stories that we're holding and where do they come from and and again can we see them for they are, that they are just a story. It's just a story that we got taught. And we can believe it or not believe it and you know, all that and we've worked through those things, but

Dan Korus: Yeah. So what's an example of what like anger would look like in a healthy and beautiful way in the workplace? Cause like I don't think I don't think a lot of people have that. And I know I didn't just give a great example of reactionary anger. So give the audience give us give us something that's like positive and healthy and like a good example of what this would look like.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, yeah. so I think to use your use case here, right? You've got some other guy that, you know, basically lied to your face or you can tell with what happens, right?

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: and so yeah, we can talk about like the unhealthy, unhelpful version of that is you go in and you come in weapons hot and there's name calling and there's don't you dare ever you piece of shit. How yep, right?

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: There's that kind of an anger energy. But the like the really repressed anger version of this would be going in and not being able to make eye contact and being like, Hey man, listen, you know how we like did the thing and you did that thing and I really kind of didn't appreciate it when you you know, and we we can't say no with our body. And so the middle ground is when you can go in and with your body communicating some level of, you know, this is not okay with me, and you can look him in the face and say, hey, As near as I can tell, you just lied to my face. Is that what happened? And he can say what he says. And you that you'd make you know make some peace with maybe he didn't mean that. But again, that sense of presence of I'm it's fully online that like I'm not okay with this shit. You can feel that. And I'm not gonna come at you. I'm not gonna punch you in the throat right now.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: But don't get it twisted. I'm not chill. I'm not I'm not over here like this is fine. It's not fine. I'm here to communicate

Dan Korus: Yeah. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: to you. This is not fine. I'm not okay with this. And I think that that's kind of the middle ground of I don't know, does that answer the question? Does that do that feel like enough to go on?

Dan Korus: Absolutely. And for people who are listening and not watching this, I want you to watch it and come to this this point where Rich makes eye contact with me and says this because I think all of us have that, right? Where we either we crash out, you know, and

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah.

Dan Korus: it becomes unproductive and then easily the narrative and then we end up having to apologize because we didn't do it in a calm and professional way. and

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah.

Dan Korus: then there's a side where Yeah, we underdo it and we don't put enough gas in the tank and yeah, it doesn't it doesn't do anything and I think it sends it to s both or both don't serve us. but what you just did is like very direct. There weren't extra words, there was strong eye contact, I could feel it in your presence, you flip the switch and I was like, Whoa, okay, I you know, this is this is it. Yeah, damn, I think if people could do that in the workplace and it like if people could practice that skill, you know, particularly people who have really great ideas and are used to, you know, getting a a little bit walked on, you know, for lack of a better term, like,

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Korus: damn, being able to set boundaries like that, what a great skill to have, you know. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yep. Yeah, and what a beautiful culture that is when we can all be like this, we can all feel animated by these strong emotions and keep it respectful and and have a constructive conversation of like Yeah, no, I I have feelings. I feel this about

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: this. And we could talk about it. And again I'm not I don't have to like blow up or or be mean, but I can be

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: really direct and honest about like, mm, nope, that's not okay with me. I don't like that. You need to like we need to keep talking. I'm not I'm not sold on what you're saying, so like let's do this. And or no, you really did cross a boundary. And I think what you're talking about with this is working is that kind of a thing, right? you told me this was something personal and then you continue to recruit my my team member, make it make sense.

[67:17] what boundary setting actually sounds like in the room

Dan Korus: Yeah. I th I like that a lot. I like that a lot and I really hope people can learn something there. Because I think, you know, one of the things that I wish we spent six months teaching people in high school, college, middle school is boundary setting. And we don't teach people how to set boundaries. And rue the day you have to learn that you should have set a boundary and didn't. you know, and so we learn it the hard way through experience instead of being able to come in and test, you know, find our boundaries and find our values and set, you know, value relevant boundaries. so just working off the same example, you know, if I'm the offending manager, and I say offending 'cause really, you know, there's this is business undone. So maybe they have a perfectly great reason why they said it was personal and it wasn't. Yeah. We'll

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Maybe, yeah. We'll hold that possibility. Yeah.

Dan Korus: we will hold space for them. we'll go in curious. what would it look like to set a boundary? You know, and so you come in and you say, Hey, you you did this and I say, Yep, you're right. Sorry, I'm short people and didn't think didn't think you'd care. So what what would setting a boundary look like?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I think for me well I I have some ideas. I'm just always curious what other people think. So I wanted

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: to do that classic therapist move and be like, Well what do you think? But I could just answer first and then you can tell me what you think.

Dan Korus: Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: for for me, I imagine that being something like okay, yeah, cool, I get it, I understand. You're in a tough spot. I you know, and whatever, you can't read my mind. I understand. So now let me be really clear. In the future there will be no situation in which you handling things like this will work for me. and if you have if you're under the gun and you've got problems you can let me know, I will happily collaborate and work on stuff with you. We will find solutions together. But It's never gonna be okay with me that you just light on my face. Or or say you're gonna do a personal thing and then do a business thing or like or whether we're gonna play these games about people. I don't I don't wanna play games without people. You need something. Let's talk like grown ups can do it. Like let's figure that. Like some version of that of like I see you, I get it, I understand this is why it's business. Business is complex and stressful and whatever and you're a human. Noted.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: And There's there are some ways of handling this that I'm not okay with. And here's what they are.

Dan Korus: Yeah. That's great. I love it. you led with empathy, you led with understanding. And then you said, okay, here's the line. and I think that's what people need to do. Right? I read a couple books on boundaries. I think one's called Boundary Badass by Jan Hajillion Yuhas. You has they're twins. We got to know They're really cool people. And, you know, they give a really good model and they have an entire book about boundary settings. So if anyone was like curious and wanted to know more, and just like read a book out there on boundary setting, boundary badass. And the models in there are really salient and I think it's you know also just going back to other boundary setting methods, it's always just like, hey, I I value this thing. You know, the actions were not in line with this thing. Going forward, here's the line. You know, so you can plug it with whatever you want. Like, hey, I value not having my chips eaten. And don't don't finish my chip bags. You know, going forward, I would love it if you would buy your own chips and not eat the rest of my bag. and So let let's work together and find a way to make that happen. I think offering the negotiation is nice when someone's not directly lying to you or being, you know, malicious.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Yeah, right.

Dan Korus: I think in this case if we if we assume malintent and we assume, okay, they did lie and you know there w there was some dishonesty there and they don't understand the consequences of their actions, I think setting a a firm line is the appropriate response. Right? but if it's my wife talking to me because I always finish her chip bags and I leave like one or two and don't finish the bag and then roll it up and put it back, really bad. That habit, it's on me. I'm working on it, it's on me. you know, the the negotiation there of like it's like, okay, let's have two different snack bins, right? So they're there's they're delineated and that's we can do that. yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah, well I think it's interesting, right? 'Cause we're just w this is this conversation is also an example of like how tempting it is to like go to like let's have a script.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Because I mean I think this would be my whole point. If if there's anything like the whole point I would say is like more important than the actual words and the order that you say them in is

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: what state is your body in when you're having this conversation. Like

Dan Korus: Good point.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: How because you can say those words and say them really passive aggressively.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: You can say those words and not mean them. You can say those like it to me it really

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: is it really is always gonna come back to again, what's happening inside of you. What's happening inside? If if you're terrified about holding this boundary and you don't really feel like you deserve to have boundaries and all the things You can say all the words and someone's gonna be like, Yeah, whatever you don't need to know.

Dan Korus: Yeah. I guess it is all in the delivery. So if we ditch the script, you know, and you already gave an example of when it wouldn't be the right time to deliver that, and obviously there's some precedent self-work you know, that's needed in order to deliver this effectively. how can someone listening to this know that okay, now I am ready to deliver some sort of a boundary or I am ready to, deliver in with the example you know, frust a frustration based boundary, how does someone know if they're ready?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Ooh, that's a amazing question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are the questions that yeah, like is readiness the issue exactly? I mean again it's it's complicated. I don't know that there's gonna be like a one size fits all answer here where

Dan Korus: Sure.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: sometimes it's worth trying it even if you don't feel ready and y it's worth trying to have a boundary and failing at having the boundary if you don't know how to have boundaries. You gotta you

Dan Korus: Amen.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: gotta try that. You gotta cross that bridge. You gotta play with it. but but I think there is some level at which boundaries similar to what we were talking about earlier with empathy and things like that, there there's a moment where it does feel more effortless, more of a given. Like if you're doing your work and you're processing through like sense of shame, sense of unworthiness, then th that's basically I think what a lack of boundaries often is, is we don't believe that we are someone worthy of having boundaries, but we don't deserve to have boundaries. Or we're we're afraid that if we have boundaries that people will hate us and all the things. and I think if we do that work there is a moment where it feels much more effortless and to some extent like if there are negative consequences that come with having a boundary, like I feel okay navigating those. Like if someone is pissed at me 'cause I have a boundary, like, okay. I can live with that. I can let them be mad and feel satisfied that I'm taking care of myself and then and again I'm not trying to be hurtful about how I do boundaries.

[74:45] how do you know when you're ready to hold a boundary?

Dan Korus: Yeah. I think what I'm hearing is you know you're ready, or you you at least might have an inkling if you're ready, if you're willing to accept the consequences of trying. And knowing that trying is better than than not trying. because there are consequences to all and if it feels right, then go try. You know, and you're if it if it wasn't right, then you'll you're you're about to find out. You know, and there's nothing wrong with that. But the being strong enough and having a you know, a strong enough resolve to be able to accept the consequences on the back end is is what is the primary driver. 'cause maybe you never know if you were it fully ready and there's no knowing about how it should go, so you shouldn't perseverate on that. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah yeah. Well and we can call out like you're gonna like people are gonna screw it up. If if you've never had boundaries before and you start having boundaries, you're gonna be overly boundaried in some ways.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Like there will be kind of some compensatory like over boundarying.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: and you kind of and there's some practice of like, wait, what do I actually need and what are my actual boundaries? And

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: you slowly figure that over time and you figure out how to again communicate a boundary with your body. that full bodied sense of, no, this is my vendor and and I absolutely mean that. And and you know, that's a very different thing. But yeah, we're we're never gonna get it right in the beginning. It's just normal.

Dan Korus: Yeah. I get it. Okay, so changing topics. I see behind you you've got at least Harry Potter, Jared Tolkien, and Brandon Sanderson.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, good eye.

Dan Korus: nice. I was I really I was looking and then I saw Oathbringer and I was like, okay, there it is. nice. Yeah,

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. A big boy. Yeah.

Dan Korus: dude. That's great. what's sitting on top of it? What do you got on top of there? On top of Oathbringer.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: that's a really old the way it can be.

Dan Korus: nice. That's great. Okay, so you read those. You read and listed Okay, cool.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, I love I you love all Brandon Sanderson stuff. I've

Dan Korus: It's awesome.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: yeah, I've listened to all of those Stormlight archive books at least a couple of times each.

Dan Korus: that's awesome. That's outstanding. Okay, cool. And I think I think fantasy and written literature this is this is something that I want my company to explore in the future and have some modules for. because I think there would be some really cool work that we can do around like role play and Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy S stuff with, you know, learning how to have better leadership skills.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. yeah.

Dan Korus: 'cause I think, you know, the power of writing and the power of like looking at story and and stuff is how we can wrestle with deep concepts within ourselves that we wouldn't normally have access to. so I I I love that you have those books. What I'm wondering is what sort of lessons are in there as far as like relationships and leadership, you know, that that you particularly like if you if you have some off the top of your head?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: There's lot.

Dan Korus: Ha ha.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I mean there's so many character arcs that

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: are relevant. I mean I think Kaladin's character arc is one that comes to mind for me. especially like in the first couple of books for Kaladin, the whole thing of you know, it's exactly what we've been talking about. Like he he is this fierce leader. I can see why you like Kaladin and there's some of that like paladin y

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: sense of trying to be the a just leader in an unjust world coming

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: of situation. But you can see like how a lot of that is so motivated for him about guilt and shame about the death of his brother. And

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: and that you know, shows itself. I think it's such a beautiful example of everything we've been talking about where that's where his story starts. and then he's carrying that weight and it means that he can only do one of two things. He can like be the badass leader or he can like collapse. And in the book of Ham, he's the wretch, right? He can be he can be Caladin Stormblessed or the Wretch. Because the Stormblest is this over functioning, overly protective, overly responsible,

Dan Korus: Action hero.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: action hero absolutely epic. I mean so good.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: And but it's in s not sustainable, right? Then he has this moments of collapse where he can't do it and he's lost in the shame and he and I think like that that whole story to me is a really great illustration of everything that we've been talking about today. Of and like him finding his way to maybe that was being a little spoiler-ish, but his finding his way toward a role that like makes more sense for him when he's not over functioning. He's not having to be a a superhero all the time and he's not and I think that's a really That's a really great character arc and story about everything that we've been talking about today.

Dan Korus: I think so too. if you were in a therapy room with Adolin and Dalinar, you know, what would be the first thing that you'd kinda what would be like your first question? Who you know, how would you open that up?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I don't know. I mean like if I was actual therapy I'd just be asking them like why did they come to therapy? What you know, what do you what do you want? What are you we what are we working on here?

Dan Korus: Yeah. Hey gents. Why so what do you do? What do you say you're doing here? Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: but I mean, certainly there would be some w I'd would love to help them learn how to be more vulnerable and how they attack each other. But

Dan Korus: Yeah, like there's so many times in the book where they're like this close to having a conversation and it never happens. And I'm

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Korus: like, Mr. Sanderson, please let

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Come on.

Dan Korus: them have the vulnerable conversation that I know they could have because there's so much left unsaid, you know? And I think Navalny even is like, Hey, you know, you gotta just talk to him, right? she's trying to push for the vulnerability. and it just doesn't happen. or at least not the way we want. but that's what makes it good, right?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Exactly.

Dan Korus: okay, so I got three more questions for you if if you're ready. say someone is about to start their first day in the workforce, first day ever at work. What's your advice for them? They want some job advice.

[82:14] advice for new hires, middle managers, and the C-suite

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I think the first thing that comes to mind if I'm just being totally transparent here is like none of this matters as much as you think it does. Like

Dan Korus: Cool.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: you can have fun with this. You can try to enjoy it, you can

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I think there's so much sense of like in our culture, again, late stage capitalism, whatever, like your work defines so much of what and who you are and I think to me it's just like, no, let's be really clear, like that's not the deal.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: You're you're always gonna be more than what you do for work. They're always

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: and you're gonna have to try a bunch of things to speak to what you were saying earlier. You might you might have to do lots of different things before you find something that really feels like it's what you wanna do and that's humble and enjoy the ride a little bit.

Dan Korus: That's awesome advice. I love that. That's great. middle level managers, middle career contributors, you know, people with folks above them and below them. What's your advice?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: I think that's maybe more one of the places where everything we've talked about today is the most relevant, right? You That's where you really have to be on your game of understanding what's going on inside of you because you've got people above you who are pushing their agenda on you consciously and unconsciously, emotionally and professionally. and you have all the stuff you've got about like, you know, your role as a leader and trying to get your feet under you that way and And so I to me it's this conversation is is my advice. It's like you you really have to start looking inside and seeing what's going on inside of you, why are you you know, where you're at, what are you hoping to get at this and yeah, that whole thing of like managing up I think is where a lot of these dynamics really come into play the most, where you've got people with authority over you, it brings up a lot. And you've got people over whom you have authority. I that's so I don't know, maybe that's a little bit of a cop out answer.

Dan Korus: No, no, it's a it's a really great answer and it's very complex and that's appropriate. because I think it's a complex time and I think that's the first time where people hopefully in their career are meeting that challenge, right, of their internal self. And the things that they tell themselves maybe not functioning for them in the way they want and having these drawbacks. And so maybe for someone who can't afford coaching, you know, or you know, is just doesn't doesn't have a lot of time or has never done therapy before to work on themselves and be able to apply those skills to a professional setting. how would you advise someone to start that journey?

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: So to me it's like, yeah, get on the internet, look around. there's like Joe Hudson. I don't know if you're familiar with him. I think he's a great resource. I can shout him out. Art of Accomplishment. He has a YouTube channel and he's on Subdeck and things. I think he's a great resource. I think there are starting to be more books. I haven't read all of them yet, but just by titles and things like it feels like there's more books that are starting to try to fill this space, which is an exciting thing to me. I'll have to get back to you on whether or not many books are actually good.

Dan Korus: That's fine. Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: but then I think the other one is just finding this is where I think Subtact shines as well, but like finding community about this, finding people to talk to, finding other people are out there, other people who are struggling with this, finding their way, whether it's other middle managers or you know, strangers on the internet, whatever, just finding like having these conversations. for me, that's been my experience, I guess see it a lot, is like we're all going through it. who hasn't been affected by these dynamics at some level in unpleasant ways. who like

Dan Korus: Yeah. Right. Right.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: so I think to me just that sense of like finding safe people to talk to might need to be someone outside of your organization in some cases, maybe.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: But yeah, that's Maybe the best I got for now.

Dan Korus: No, I think that's awesome advice. I heard reading, finding other resources, finding ways to listen, finding ways to engage, being critical of some of the things that you read because some of it is gonna say, here's a template. templates are just templates. and they're can be incredibly helpful, but take that with a grain of salt. I think yeah, I found I found the process of writing on Subsec to be demonstrably helpful in processing my own thoughts around this and you know, finding different voices and different ideas that I didn't have before. So I I think the advice is spot on. I think there's enough content out there that if you know what you're looking for you'll be able to find some helpful things. And that was advice that someone gave me about how do you build empathy to was go find conversations that you're uncomfortable listening to from people who you would not normally agree with. because that conversation was not was not meant to include you and it it isn't focused on on you, so then you just get to listen to it and you know, try and be present with it, which I think is phenomenal advice.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, beautiful.

Dan Korus: Yeah, so I I think I I think it all comes together. Yeah, and I think that's just the truth that there is no one training plan towards starting to wrestle with stage two, as it were, in the rich model.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah. What about for people at the top? What about for the CEOs, you know, the C suite, maybe some founders out there VPs

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: yeah, good question. the advice I'd give is that they have to go out of their way more than they realize to reconnect with other people at different levels of the organization and the world. I think it's so easy the more successful and there's a lot of interesting research about this, that people in higher positions of power and authority, higher wealth, empathy tends to go down. there's a lot of dynamics there at play and some of that seems to be of that you isolate yourself more. Like it's just the nature of the job. It's the nature of like you are more contained in the little bubble making decisions about things that you don't have to look at personally and about people whom you don't have to look in the eye. And and to me I think that's that's something that is really valuable for people who are getting more senior in organizations, especially in larger organizations and things like that is It seems like that's something that takes more and more intentional work to just like stay connected to everyone else.

Dan Korus: Awesome. that's solid advice. for people who are interested in reading your content, getting to know you, or maybe interested in booking a session and you know, getting involved, plug your stuff. what's the best way for people to find you? I'll have all your links in the show notes by the way, so I'll link to whatever you tell me to link to.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: yeah, I think probably the best spot we can just keep it simple is to just find me on Substack.

Dan Korus: Awesome.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: so I've got my newsletter, the self reflective leader, Rich Reynolds LNFP. people can just find me there. Feel free to read the stuff, feel free to DM me. It's fun to have those conversations.

Dan Korus: Awesome. Yeah.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: So yeah, I think that's that's it.

Dan Korus: Okay, great. Rich, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time and and joining. This is this has been an awesome conversation. I got coached up a little bit too, and I hope that that experience was helpful for other people who are, you know, I've gonna find that situation in the future. so I I I really appreciate it. This is this has been really great. Thank you for sharing all this.

Rich Reynolds, LMFT: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, likewise, it's been a blast. I I really appreciate the invitation.

Dan Korus: Awesome. That's a wrap. Thank you.