Overcoming Setbacks and Discovering New Opportunities with Ed Temple

Unlock the secrets to becoming a revolutionary man as we explore the essence of leadership and personal growth in home and professional settings. Join us for an insightful conversation with Ed Temple, a value-based leader and social innovator, who shares his transformative journey and invaluable insights on effective leadership. From navigating the challenges of modern manhood to embarking on your hero's quest, this episode promises a deep dive into developing a robust leadership framework and overcoming feelings of loneliness and unworthiness.

Have you ever wondered how to pivot successfully after a dream falls through? We explore the resilience needed to transition careers, with real-life stories of moving from aspiring professional athletes to discovering new paths and opportunities. Learn the importance of embracing honest feedback, recognizing personal limitations, and turning closed doors into new possibilities. Whether it's shifting from executive roles to coaching or finding meaning in charity work, this episode highlights the power of adaptability and the lessons learned from professional setbacks.

Parenting, coaching, and community are at the heart of this episode, offering practical advice for those looking to balance professional and family life. Discover the pivotal shift in parenting as children grow from ages 12 to 14, the profound impact of vulnerability and humility, and the importance of prioritizing family. We also delve into mastering leadership through coaching, the power of human connection, and the irreplaceable value of building a supportive community. Tune in to learn how to become the man you were destined to be through self-reflection, connection, and continuous growth.

Key moments in this episode:
04:38 Lessons from Early Life and Career
12:05 Balancing Personal and Professional Life
18:19 The Leader as Coach: Book Insights
21:47 The Importance of Servant Leadership
22:11 Evolving Identities and Leadership Challenges
23:07 Personal Reflections on the Sprout Model
24:51 Coaching Up and Across
25:43 Common Challenges for Today's Leaders
27:08 The Role of Beliefs, Values, and Identity in Coaching
35:21 The Human Element in Coaching vs. AI
40:21 Final Thoughts and Takeaways

How to reach Ed:
Website: https://theleaderascoach.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ed.temple/

Chapters

• 0:00 Developing a Leadership Framework
• 4:38 Navigating Career Transitions and Resiliency
• 12:45 Parenting
• 18:18 Mastering Leadership Through Coaching
• 25:59 Discovering Inner Wisdom Through Coaching
• 35:50 The Power of Human Connection
• 42:37 Building a Supportive Community

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Regardless of what position we have in life, it shows us how determined we are in the kind of leader that we will be in that moment. I believe that leaders are made. They're not born, and we may have some skills or attributes that are more developed than others, but they're still useful in any interaction that we have, aren't they? I would suggest that some of them are and some of them aren't, and so this is why, as leaders, as fathers, husbands or in business, developing a framework or a model to how we lead in crucial situations is really important for us as men, and so today, my guests and I explore how we can put together a framework in leading our lives, both personally and professionally.

Speaker 1: 0:38

And before we get into all that, I just wanted to know that being a man today has never been more challenging, and so the pain for many of us we feel is real. It's a pain of loneliness, it's a pain of unworthiness, and it's masked by our anger and our resentment. It's all because we're uncertain and afraid to take that next step. So if you're tired and fed up with your life is out, I'm going to encourage you to start your hero's quest. It's where you can become more, accomplish more and live more than ever before. Just go to membersnet and start your quest today, and with that, let's get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:14

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother.

Speaker 1: 1:43

Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man Podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man Movement and your host, alan DeMonso. Let me ask you a couple of questions. What does it mean to be a leader, and are you the same leader at home as you are at work? I find my leadership style tends to be pretty consistent between the two and, having said that, I can say that when I need to adjust my approach is when my wife reminds me that to consider that I'm not talking to one of my guys and I go, whoo, it's a good thing. That's all it takes for me to get that sense that, though it isn't the same, the relationships are different, that I do need to adjust how I show up, and so we tend to lead the same way in different aspects of our lives, don't we? And so today, my guest and I explore a model that he has developed that has shaped the lives of countless executives and their leadership approach. So allow me to introduce my guest.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Ed Temple is a dedicated servant and value-based leader, and he's exemplified by his role as a president of the International Coaching Federation Calgary chapter. A social innovator and having launched a social enterprise accelerator development system it's called SEEDS. It's a great program which has developed over 400 charitable leaders with coaching skills and is on the board of the director, board chair, actually for Cause Canada. It's an organization that's committed to the extremely poor and overcoming barriers to health, education and medical support, and he's a dynamic and exceptional coach with a deep passion for unlocking the individual potential through both personal and professional growth. And I'm telling you I can't wait to get into this conversation with Ed. Ed, welcome to the show, brother.

Speaker 1: 3:20

How are things my friend.

Speaker 3: 3:22

Oh, very well. Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation, being a follower of what you're doing and some of the conversations that you're facilitating, so really honored to be one of your guests. So thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 3:32

Yeah, and I'm just I'm really proud to have you on the show. I think there's first one in very long time, maybe even the first of all, that we've had someone with your credentials to help us understand leadership, both at home and at work. And before we get into that, though I want to, as I talked about in the intro, we're all on our own hero's quest, and so I'd like you to my opening question. I'd like you to tell us about that time in your life when you knew things had to change. To tell us about that time in your life when you knew things had to change. What did you do about that, and how did that experience shape you into the man you are today and the work that you're doing?

Speaker 3: 4:09

Yeah, thanks, and I appreciate that language of a hero's quest is. I use that a lot with my clients and that's kind of part of the belief I bring into it, so I appreciate that you use that same language. Right, I talk about a hero's journey and the fact that everybody's on their own journey and only you can be the hero of your story, and so a lot of what coaching is really helping people uncover that and discover who they are and who is the hero they need to become on their journey, and I think we all have stories and examples of that. I was thinking about that. One of my early ones was when I was in high school, having met some success in sports and really loving sport and wanting to pursue the path of becoming a professional athlete, and also being confronted with the reality that I don't know if I had it in me physically. I had a coach that gave me feedback that said he compared me to the rest of the team around if only everybody worked like Ed. And then he pointed out Ed doesn't have those fast, twitch muscles like a lot of you elite athletes and he's saying I'm not an elite athlete, but I work really hard. And that was a really good, honest feedback moment. But what became of it?

Speaker 3: 5:12

We were very successful and I remember going to the senior bowl and trying out for a junior team and having great success, knowing I could keep going with that. But I also had seen my limitations. I'd seen where this is going to go and probably as far as I could take it, and so I was confronted with that Am I going to give up on something that I like was a dream for me and go in another direction, or am I going to keep pushing? And that was one of those early moments I decided no. I think I've had enough here. I've loved this journey of football and what I've learned from it.

Speaker 3: 5:43

I enjoyed the success that I had, but it was also one of those things of also embracing some of the limitations and say it's okay to take another direction, to take a turn and to see that.

Speaker 3: 5:53

And when I look back on that, I know I could have gone a bit further with where I was, but it also opened the doors to different possibilities, and so I just learned from that experience. One door closed doesn't mean all doors are closed. It means there's 10 other doors that are opening, and so how do you start to get wise about the doors you go through and not just to be looking back of what wasn't or what could have been, but really looking at what is the possibility of the other doors that are available to me. And so that was very early on lesson, that I look back on and just realizing that some of the other doors that I went through I never would have went through if I would have kept pushing open that door and not coming to the point of embracing the feedback that I was getting and going and pursuing something different.

Speaker 1: 6:33

And what I really like about that story is that I was just making a ton of notes. There is that not in the. You recognize that you had some skill and some talent. Your coach recognized that as well. But you also recognized in that journey that there was going to be a limitation and I would. I wrote that down because I saw that very similar in my career as a chef and I could, even though I was blessed to be on a culinary team, regional team and competing in the olympics and that I recognized that on the team I was like that third line, fourth line, right.

Speaker 1: 7:03

I had to work really hard to make it happen. And so I assessed the model and said, hey, for me this is probably. Being a chef was a great career, and I continued to do that for several years after being an elite person. Elite chef at the time just wasn't it. But I decided to do something different with it, and that was the next note. Then here's that you still use that as a positive mindset. It's not like you were saying you were giving up on yourself. It sounded to me like you were taking the lessons and the skills that you had developed and really pivoting it into something else. So talk a little bit more about that pivot as well.

Speaker 3: 7:38

I would equate that with, professionally, what I've experienced more recently. I think a lot of people and I do a lot of coach training. Professionally, what I've experienced more recently, I think a lot of people and I do a lot of coach training. So I've trained hundreds of leaders to use and to learn coaching and many of them become accredited coaches and become professional coaches. And I find a lot of times you look at my LinkedIn profile and you see some things I've done and people would just look at oh, ed left a successful career as an executive and became a successful coach. And I look at that. I go, yeah, that's a wonderful story. If only it was true.

Speaker 3: 8:07

And people often go well, how'd you get to what you're doing? Cause they see only those things on the surface and they think it was success to success. And I'm like, how many minutes do you have? Cause let me tell you the story and I don't know if there's anything about my story, about following it, cause it's not a model to follow, it's just the story that I've lived. But I have learned over time is again, it's that closed door. A closed door doesn't mean it's the end, it means there's other doors. How do you find those other doors to open, and so, more recently, as I left, one career to become a coach was, I actually failed at three other things. Trying to become them. It wasn't a coach. That I was trying to do is something different. So I tried to acquire a company. I lost out with another competitor People that I knew I was internal to that company. It was a great opportunity, but I didn't get it and so at the end of the day, I had to go. What am I going to do with that? I stayed with the company. I was able to help them pivot through a very big transition and help the new owners become successful. I felt very good about that, but that was a closed door where I didn't get it. But I kept coaching.

Speaker 3: 9:06

The other thing was I tried to become a charitable. Work has been a big part of my career. I tried to become an executive leader in a charity that I believed very much in and was passionate about the work we did Microfinance around the world, passionate about the work, but realized the fundraising end and a lot of the work of what it was. I don't like that kind of work and I realized it was a bad fit. So again, I tried to do something, found out it wasn't a good fit and felt I have to find something else. So I had to eject and try something else. That was when that company came up.

Speaker 3: 9:34

And then, thirdly, I became a partner in a company where they're starting a new line of business and they wanted me to lead the new line of business. All sorts of things came and after a couple of years it didn't work. That new line of business was not successful. Again, another closed door. But I kept sticking with what I loved, which is coaching.

Speaker 3: 9:50

There's other things that I was doing as well, and that's the thing that became the open door for me, and it wasn't because that's what I'd originally set out to do. I love doing what I'm doing. It's just one of those things. I had a vision for other things that didn't come to fruition, and it's a matter of how do you just take those, and I've learned this from coaching.

Speaker 3: 10:07

It's not about the goal or destination or the accomplishment. It's about learning each step of the way, and that's often with coaching, when I do the coach training is. It's not just about getting what you wanted out of the conversation right, accomplishing something or getting some action steps. It's about learning and growing first and then doing those other things. So I've really learned to say every opportunity in life is an opportunity to learn and grow. And sometimes it's out of successes that you learn and grow, and sometimes it's not successes. It's a matter of looking at all of them. They're all part of that hero's quest of becoming something new, becoming your best version of yourself. And your best version of yourself is not just the victories and the Super Bowls and all those great accomplishments and every great championship team and every great athlete or whoever you have as a hero or a model in your life. They all have those stories of things they try that didn't work out, and it's through developing that resiliency and courage that you eventually do get to those successes in life as well.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Yeah, I completely agree with that. I was just making a note here to you know, really, in my interpretation of what you're saying is in each of those scenarios, you were leaning in towards a skill that you had developed, maybe hadn't recognized it at the time or maybe even articulated it, but it was about coaching and leading people and that, as you went through each of these scenarios and they became they didn't have the success that you had hoped for there were still all of that learning, all that nurturing that you got from it. And I think that's part of the challenge with guys.

Speaker 1: 11:35

Sometimes we have this mindset as men at least in some of the work that I do with men is that if we just don't have but have it all together, we're really nervous about leaning in and trying out and trying to do that. And I think that's unfortunate, because it's in the leaning in and stumbling and picking yourself up and stumbling and picking yourself up that we truly have some growth opportunities. And yes, you learn when things go well, but you sure learn a lot, man, when things aren't happening right and how things to do and maybe not do or to tweak. And that's what I really appreciate and admire about what you're saying is that it's about the right, having the right mindset and continuing to develop that, thinking of us as fathers as well. It says how would you balance, as a typical as a father, balance between your personal life and professional commitments, especially when you're doing you have such a high demand on coaching leaders or coaching individuals?

Speaker 3: 12:27

Yeah, and that's a great question and I often say this is I think I had it much more figured out when my kids were younger. It was a different environment. My kids are all teens now, so I have three teens and I say I don't think I have anything figured out now, but when they're younger is a little simpler. But I'm still on that learning journey of how to figure that out of what does it look to transition from? I'd say, when kids pre 12 to 14, they look to their parents very differently and after they come to that point 12 to 14, there's been some great things written about how you can't then correct or tell kids what to do. They have their values. What you could do is reiterate and build on the values that they already have. Up to 12, you get to instill values, you get to teach, you get to educate, you get to model and lead and they follow in a particular way. But once they start to form that identity themselves, you have the chance to challenge it, to reiterate it, help them connect with what their values are becoming and really shape it in a different way. So I see the journey of parenting is you have to, in a sense, reinvent yourself. You have to look at it differently of what it looks like to parent. Teens looks very different. Same thing with as they become young adults.

Speaker 3: 13:31

My son is 19 now and we talk a lot often about adulting is hard and I don't have all the all the answers to adulting. I've said to him before one day you'll realize your dad is just a boy in an old man's body. You're like you'll get it. And dad is just a boy in an old man's body. You're like you'll get it. And I go, I get that about my dad. Now I realize I thought my dad had all the answers and I realized no, he was still trying to figure out life too. And that's part of the journey is that it's you expect that people like parents have all those answers, and so it. It requires that ability to reflect and learn and grow.

Speaker 3: 14:00

So I've had some recent conversations with my kids about how to receive feedback. So I take what I do professionally when I can into the home and it's applicable and they're receptive. It doesn't always work, but I try that at times and that can be really helpful. And at the same time there's that modeling of I don't have all the answers. I'm still on a journey of growth as well, and so that also takes that humility of you. Know what? I wasn't my best yesterday, that was not a good response that you got from me. And being able to go back and have those conversations and say I'm still trying to figure this stuff out as well, and so that idea of being vulnerable, of we're all on that journey I think that's a big part of modeling to our kids is how are they become the best version of themselves? And we're here to help, partner and be friends with that and be a parent role. But what it's going to look is going to look different throughout life as you age and as you go through different seasons. So how do we have a good relationship where we can support and help each other?

Speaker 3: 14:54

Some of the most profound conversations I've had was after I'd gone through coach training and I learned to become receptive, to reflect and to grow in that prioritization, and I've told my son this many times. He was about seven years old and I came home from work one day and this is that balancing, and I wasn't doing a good job of balancing and he said how come work gets the good daddy and we get the grouchy daddy. Oh boy, did that cubby hit me deep? And that was that feedback in the moment. And I know at the moment because he's a sensitive, kind kid I could very easily put that off and talk him into. Oh no, you're not really seeing it right. That's not true. I'm not always grumpy Like I can make excuses.

Speaker 1: 15:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 15:32

But at that moment that just really cut me deep and I was like, okay, there's something wrong here and what's wrong is not the observation from my son, what's wrong is how I'm showing up at home. And I realized I go to work and I do what I do and it's for those people I love and I care for my family. I had reversed those things, I had prioritized that and my son innocently made the observation. Similarly, like you said earlier, my partner in life, my wife Hannah, I think it was the same day I went upstairs and I used to have this habit of I used to do this deep sigh and she never said anything for a long time, but it really stressed her out, Cause that was me letting all my stress off from the day out and is in that breath. And I remember she just said to me said you know what that really stresses me when you breathe like that, and what would help is if you just took those breaths in the car before you came inside. I was like, ah, good feedback. Yeah, but that was a really kind of catalytic moment of saying I got to reverse that. Yeah, but that was a really kind of catalytic moment of saying I got to reverse that.

Speaker 3: 16:25

Yeah, Home's first, work second, and if I don't reverse that now, there's going to be a problem because at the end of the day, work comes and goes. It's part of who we are. It's a huge part of I love doing what I do and it's really important to what I do. It's not all of who I am and at the order of those things and that's really helped me through it. I'm still ambitious, still doing lots of work, but I just look at it differently around. What's happening as home is the paradigm or the framework to look at the rest of life, and work is one of those things that I do and I'm passionate about, but it's not everything.

Speaker 1: 17:03

Yeah, no, I hear you totally, and a lot of the work we do here with the Awakened man and our group mentoring program, the Band of Brothers, is really.

Speaker 1: 17:09

I ask guys to really be reflective on themselves and to look first at what we can do, because that's how we're showing up, is what's impacting and influencing the things around us, and so if we're not happy with the way things were being received, maybe take consider about how we're showing up.

Speaker 1: 17:26

And so I really liked that story about with your son being so perceptive at seven to say that and then for you to have the courage to not deflect and deny and to actually lean into that. And that's a great lesson for us who are parents and at any age, just seven, the teenagers, my kids are in their late twentiess, early 30s now and sometimes dad's cool again and sometimes I'm still not sure if they think I know anything. But when we can be more real to them and let them know that hey, I don't have all the answers, it makes a lot of sense and the thing the comment of the sigh with your wife as well just really resonates with me, because we forget, we don't know from body language and how we're showing up just the impact, and so it tells me also a lot about the work that you've done as a couple and be able to have that kind of a conversation and to be able to do something.

Speaker 1: 18:16

I think that is really important as well. So you wrote a book. It's the leader as coach and I really wanted to dive into that material today, and so if you can take us through a little bit of your coaching model actually maybe before we get into the model how did you come up with the idea for the book? How does what was the catalyst for it and and what would people expect and when they pick it up and start to implement it?

Speaker 3: 18:36

yeah. So big driving factor behind it is making. As I learned this coaching stuff and I got good at it and I moved more into the space I remember thinking like this is not some magic thing, like it's just a human skill. That's like it's just reminding us about how, what it means to be human. How do you listen without being judgmental, how do you ask good questions? How do you help people navigate life without shitting on them or telling them what they should be doing? I just realized like this is something like it's not special, it's not unique, and I know the work that I do, typically as an executive coach who gets paid as an external person. The ROI of that, the return on the investment, has to have a certain amount of dollars to justify the expense for it. But coaching is becoming much more mainstream where everybody's talking about it. There's lots of availability around coaching and stuff, and so my vision behind it was like these are important human skills. How do we make that accessible to all humans? Like it doesn't need to be accessible just to executives or to leaders or those kinds of people. It's a matter of how do we do that. And so that's where the model came in, and for me it's really a simple model that I figured. If my son could get this, like when he was a earlier teen, in a few minutes, and get it, I'd go okay, that's the win. The win is making it accessible. It's not highly technical, not a special thing that only certain people can get access to. So the model is how my brain works visually.

Speaker 3: 19:57

So sprout is just about growing something right, and that's what coaching is all about. What you get in the book is a pretty simple thing around planting. Planting is the idea of creating an agreement and a coaching conversation. There's a whole series of things that you do, but the idea of what are you trying to plant in the garden to see what would grow? Water and pruning kind of self-explanatory Water are questions that help to add to people's thinking, to help them dream and vision and just see what's possible and exploring something. And then pruning is when stuff starts to grow. You start to grow weeds and all sorts of things and you need to make some choices. You need to choose different things. You can't do all things. So it's a cycle. It's not one, then two, it's both right. So it's cyclical around water and pruning and helping, and as a coach. You're supporting that. You're helping explore to see what grows. And then, finally, obvious the harvest. You help cultivate a growth. So harvesting is all about learning and growth and then applying it to what you wanted in the planting.

Speaker 3: 20:49

What's the topic that you chose? Is it an action plan? Is it about a change of mindset, is it about a strategy, or is it about getting clarity on something? So often, coaching is about getting unstuck on things, so then it's about choosing actions and moving forward with it, and so that's the model.

Speaker 3: 21:04

Really, simply put, I teach this at Lethbridge College in an accredited program for the International Coaching Federation. So if you want to become an accredited coach, that's where you go. You get 65 hours of training. If you want to be a leader that uses coaching skills, that's the program that you can do, and so I've been involved in that program since the beginning. I helped write it and I'm the program chair there. It's a great experience and that's the driver behind the model the book, again, making it accessible to everyone and I have a vision and I'll talk a little bit later about the technology that I'm developing to help make it accessible but a vision for leaders to use coaching as a key leadership capability, like it's. There's lots of capabilities you need to have as a leader. I think coaching is the most important one.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Yeah, absolutely, I think it is the most important one. Yeah, absolutely, I think it is the key. It's what makes everything really run, and in your introduction there you talk about I introduced you as really being a servant leader, and that's one of our core principles here. It's one of the virtues that we practice is what does it mean to be a servant leader and being able to show up and be there to ask questions, support similar to what you're talking about in your model, and so I think we're evolving and changing as human beings. Men are evolving and changing. Our identity of how we show up as men is being shaped and changed all the time, and so I can see why, as leaders, we can struggle. We can struggle on trying to understand how are we showing up.

Speaker 1: 22:29

I'm currently reading a book from the Gottman Institute about why we fight, and it's really interesting learning and I've been catching myself. I have a 45-minute commute between different places, and so I'm listening to this and I can resonate with some of the action steps that they're having in there and it makes me think of we need more stuff like that, like your book, to help us, as leaders, really understand a simple model, something to help us through those moments of when we have some opportunity to reflect. Why am I showing up this way? What's really going on? And because it is about being stuck and getting unstuck and how we do that. So how has the Sprout model showed up in your personal life? How have you utilized that model to overcome some challenges that you faced?

Speaker 3: 23:16

Yeah. So I think it's the regular conversations that are coach-like that help you become reflective around how you're showing up, the challenges that you're facing and how to navigate through them. One of the things I know the feedback I got from my wife was when I went through coach training. She saw the difference of how I started to show up differently, and part of it was coaching people. The other part was being coached. I got coached. It created that oh, I need to get coached on this stuff, I need to figure those things out and really expecting that from people, and so I've had a lot of really great coaches. I got into coaching because of a great coach that I had conversations with and about how they talked about coaching. That it really interested me and so it's that impact. So I figured if I can have impact on people like that around what coaching can do, and so I would say that's an easy way. But I'd say the model also just helps with some of the skills of coaching. You don't have to follow the model completely to benefit from coaching skills.

Speaker 3: 24:08

I remember I worked on a team and they had some coaching background. They were the most junior people person on a team and I remember we would get into heated debates and sometimes I'd be butting heads with somebody and they always asked a great question that helped us get unstuck as a team. They'd ask questions. Suddenly we realized, okay, yeah, that's a good question, like we're not, we got it. We're more on the same page than we are not on the same page. But I wasn't seeing it.

Speaker 3: 24:34

The question created the change, and that's one of the great powerful things about coaching is just by asking a question you change people. It's not the answer, it's actually being asked the question. There's a lot of good examples of that is when you ask the question, people start thinking differently before they even answer it. So you can see that on teams with direct reports.

Speaker 3: 24:50

One of the ways that I've been the most impacted and successful with coaching is coaching up my leader. I became a great coach to my leader that I. They ended up trusting me so much more and depending on me, because they saw me as not somebody who just needed to get things from them, but I was there to support them and help them be their best by asking them good questions, and that was a lot of my success was how I was there to support them and help them be their best by asking them good questions, and that was a lot of my success was how I was able to coach up and coach over to people who I didn't have any authority through role or responsibility, but I had influence and impact through coaching.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Yeah, I love that Absolutely, but with the idea of really how we're, how we manage ourselves in terms of coaching up and across, and I think it really goes to show how we're truly effective as leaders, and I think that's part of our work to do, as well as in our home environments, is to how can we be that same and have that same model in doing that, and so the next thought I had was even coaching so many executives and leaders at different levels of organization that what are you seeing as today anyways, are the most common challenges that are facing.

Speaker 1: 25:54

These are facing today, and how does your model help them address that challenge?

Speaker 3: 25:59

Yeah. So I think one of the ways there's lots of ways, but one of the ways is the speed of change that's happening, the sense of overwhelm. Like it's interesting I coach in so many different environments, so many different leaders and how often people think what they're going through is unique, right, the overwhelm and what's happened in a post pandemic world and now with AI and so many things changing, and this sense of not being able to keep up and in coaching, where I find and again, I don't teach or tell people, but when people discover it through coaching is it's a change of mindset that it's not about keeping up. It's like the ocean and trying to stop the waves. It's no, no, you got to get on top of them and ride them. That's the change of mindset. Is that you can't keep up, give up, don't even try. It's not going to happen. But you can ride it and be effective if you learn how to elevate. And that's the whole thing. Is that the idea is not to keep up, because if you're trying to keep up, you're losing. It's the idea to get up, up above it, because if you're going to keep growing, the challenges will get bigger, not smaller, and if you're having a hard time with the challenge that is today, then you're not going to be able to go to that next challenge and what might be tomorrow.

Speaker 3: 27:05

And a lot of that is around beliefs and mindset, and so coaching really is about where it really leads to is about beliefs, values and identity. Yes, typically it comes through the form of I got this problem right, I got a difficult person, I got work-life balance. It comes through topics, but really those topics are a door to helping people try to just investigate who are they and who are they in the midst of this role and these kinds of things, and it's dealing with those kinds of things. So not every coaching conversation gets there, but as a seasoned coach and one who's been doing this a while, I know that's what's underneath it and we'll just see when and where and how they're willing to explore those things. And not everyone's there. I don't take people there to make them explore it. It's a matter of when did they discover that?

Speaker 3: 27:54

And I remember I was working with a person in a role and I got to coach them like 10 times. Was our agreement, 10 sessions, right? Having these conversations always dealing about project management, logistical stuff, like really tangible things, and just being like this is where this person's at. That's totally fine. But I remember it was in like our last or second last session. They suddenly just had this realization of who cares about all this stuff. Who am I? And that was.

Speaker 3: 28:16

They stumbled upon that question and I was sitting there going, oh yeah, there, it is Interesting. But they got there themselves. It wasn't me. You need to ask this question Like those, that's people aren't there. That's a big part of coaching, is you just you calibrate to where they are and see where they might be able to go, see what possibilities there are? But when they discovered that, I was just not surprised. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. Yeah, it's in this last session that you've suddenly said wait a second, who am I without this job? Who am I beyond these things and beyond the things that I need to do? Yeah, those things are important, but really asking those questions and so it's a great opportunity to partner with people to explore those kinds of things, to get to that place of oh yeah, that's a more profound, that's a deeper question. Maybe that's a question I need to consider a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 28:59

What I really like about what you're saying there, ed, is you're talking about and through our whole conversation today, you just articulated it it's meeting people where they're at. Yes, conversation today you're really you're. You just articulated it. It's meeting people where they're at. Yes, from the story with your son and your wife and and those other situations of different opportunities, you were really meeting people where they're at and meeting yourself where you're at, just as importantly, and I think at times as as guys, I'm an a-type personality, right, so I'm ready to do dive in and I have to catch myself just to slow down. I'll just take a breath and trying to get to the end state right away, and so that's what I really appreciate and I hope listeners are catching that nuance about that happened. Meeting people where they're at is just as powerful in our personal life and in our for ourselves. Go ahead.

Speaker 3: 29:49

Yeah, and if I could add to that, because you're right, that's in coaching, you really need to let go of where you think people should be or where they could be. It just you let go of that and you have no judgment. It's just your job as a coach is to find out where are they and how do I? Here's a way of attune to that. Everybody is a tune and we're a tuning fork that needs to find that tune with them, be there with them and resonate with them, because there's a thing that happens in that resonance of connecting, of safety and trust, and then discovery happens. So you have to let go of the expectation of where it needs to be and when you get in tune with somebody it's powerful, because here's the reality is like, the neuroscience of coaching is that when people go through an aha moment, they have an insight like, oh, I see what's going on.

Speaker 3: 30:36

A coach can never give that to a person. I know what it's like to cultivate a conversation where that might happen, but I can't give it to somebody. So I can't give any of my discoveries on my hero's quest, on my journey, to you. You have to discover your own and it's the questions that opens the door for you to discover it. And so I just have to be patient, I have to be silent, I have to be present, I have to connect, because it's through that connection, where you feel seen, heard, understood, that suddenly you discover something about yourself. It's a neat little thing that happens, but that's what coaching is all about. And that's the thing is I can't make it happen for you, I can't give it to you, I can't give you my change. Even my story. Stories can be inspiring and they can be helpful, but there's somebody else's story, so they don't really create that. It's when you reflect and reassess your own stories, your own hero's journey, that you're able to capture learning from it, to go, oh, and so much of it is like you can look back. This happens a lot.

Speaker 3: 31:35

You look back on something that you thought was like a failure or a negative experience in your life, and when you're able to reframe it, and reframe it through the lens of oh, I learned something and learning was more important than it being right, when you think of some of the terrible things that happen in our lives, it's not because those were good, no, it's just the fact that, oh, it's an opportunity that I got to learn who I was. Yes, I got to discover what I valued. I discovered what my limitations, what pain was about. And then, through that learning, I get to grow and it's through that mindset that you're able to elevate into a new version of yourself. And that can only happen for that person. I can't make it happen, I can only have my own experiences. But coaching cultivates an atmosphere, a kind of an experience or a space where it's not a coincidence that it keeps happening.

Speaker 1: 32:22

Yeah, absolutely I, just as I'm thinking about the hero's quest and that journey. When we're in it, we all come to that point where we meet that sage, that wizard, that person, the mentor to help carry us through, and they're there to help point us towards a direction or a possibility. It's still up to us to be able to either choose to take that or not. Either choose to take that or not, and when we can reflect enough and pay attention to what's happening, I think we can do. We do a lot of service for ourselves, and so I for me.

Speaker 3: 32:54

That's what Grogu represents behind me Right on. I mean the, the inner sage. It's our inner sage, that inner wisdom that we all have. But what we all also have is a saboteur, yes, that inner judge that keeps us in the fog of not being able to see who we really are, and so that Grogu represents that it's not about the care, it's actually about inner wisdom that we want to help tap into. We all have it, and in coaching, what you're helping people is get through the fog to find it for themselves, and how they find it for themselves is unique every time. There's no prescription to it, but coaching does cultivate that to happen regularly.

Speaker 1: 33:31

Yeah, absolutely, completely agree, and I think that's why it's even it's so much more popular today. Men's work has become more and more accepted and popular and I think it's important as guys that we learn to find that, that inner guru, and, if we need the help, to reach out to folks such as yourselves and your programs or what we're doing out here in winnipeg just to find that place, because life's fulfillment is when we can live to the best of our abilities and it's and when I see men struggle which is really the passion for me about doing this work is to help them get through that phase, that chapter, and to really take the light that was in there, that they just can't see yet, and really take a, take advantage of how it can transform their lives. And you know what? I'm sure you've read a ton of books, my friend. What's currently on your nightstand?

Speaker 3: 34:16

So I want to respond to what you're saying. If it's okay, I'll come back to this question if you want, but because something that you're doing that's very important is that a hero's journey is not a solo journey. It happens through connections and community, and that's what coaching to me is that connection happens with people in really, and that's why I like the groups that you're putting together and how you're helping, cause I don't think we as men are really equipped to do this effectively. We don't naturally do it, and we can talk about whether it's societal or born or whatever. I just don't think we do it really effectively, and so that's one of the things that I'm working on now, which I'm very passionate about. Moving forward is around helping people. Particularly, right now, what I'm working on is helping young people connect in relationships, and I'm doing it in a bit of a reverse kind of a paradoxical kind of way, and it's through technology, and so it's through technology I think that we can help us be human again, and so this is for me.

Speaker 3: 35:15

The question of why AI is so important is because, when I started to read about it and understand AI, the question that brought to me is with the introduction of AI and how it's changing our world. The question posed to us is what does it mean to be human? If AI can do most of what we do, then what does it mean to be a human? And in my book I actually talk about that, and that's the next book I'm writing is now, why AI will not replace human leaders is because, as you look in the mirror, here's the thing about AI AI does really effective coaching when you have a clear goal and you want to get something out of the conversation. Ai does great coaching. It does better coaching than humans. Now that's how effective it is. So it's caused me to ask the question oh okay, so what do I do as a coach that AI cannot replace?

Speaker 3: 35:56

And some of the things that you are facilitating? So the answer is not that unique or profound. You'll know the answer already, but it's things like presence. I can be present to somebody that an AI can't. I can offer silence, and in silence is where transformation happens. So it's being present and silent that people change. I can do that as a coach, and AI can never do it If you. If an AI is being silent, you think something wrong with it.

Speaker 3: 36:20

The other thing is connection. Connection is where change happens. That's what you're doing in your groups and in this work. That you're doing is you're helping create a connection and that's where change happens. It's a human to human connection. It's not a human to AI connection. It's not the same.

Speaker 3: 36:35

Just whether it's gaming or your phone or any of those things, there's still a longing to connect. It will never satisfy how we're wired and social to connect. So presence, silence, connection, those are all the things that, for me, as a coach, I go oh, that's the heavy lifting of coaching. That's the part I have to be really attuned to and really good at, because the reality is AI can do a lot of it, and so what I've created now in my coach with sprout app is an AI coach.

Speaker 3: 37:03

Enzo coaches you, you will see what it does, you'll see how it does. Is an AI coach. Enzo coaches you, you will see what it does, you'll see how it does, and it helps you get unstuck on relationships when you feel you need to connect and you're just not sure how to do it, and it's helping us. What it's meant to do is bring us back to connecting with people so you can talk to that difficult employee, so you can go and have a conversation with your sibling that you've been avoiding, whether you can have an argument with one of your parents or whatever it might be the people where you feel unstuck. It's all the conversations that you need to have before you go to a therapist.

Speaker 3: 37:31

The therapist is yeah, maybe at some point, but how much more do we need to learn about how to have effective conversations where we just connect, we talk about our values, we talk about our perspective in those things and we don't avoid relationships? I think technology is a perfect kind of black hole that just helps us avoid connecting with people, and that's where I think this is leading me is to help people reconnect, because it is a lost art form. That's why what you're doing is so important. Is connecting in relationships? Is we're losing some of the simple things of how we used to do it, whether it's through sports or the local church or different kind of community hubs. Those more and more are becoming technology driven. Whatever question that we have, but reading it on a screen or even if a voice was voice automated.

Speaker 1: 38:16

It's not the same as that connection with the human being. It's just. There's just something that happens. It's just different Best piece of advice you've been ever given, and how has it served you even to this day?

Speaker 3: 38:44

I'm sure after I get off here I'll think of five other buttons, but I do think of one of the things my dad said to me when I was young books were a big thing to him. So he had a huge library, loved reading. It was a real bookish person. But I remember him giving me a couple of books I have here on my shelf down there. I haven't read them, but he was a big literature and history guy and theology guy and that's what his library is filled with.

Speaker 3: 39:12

But he gave me a couple of books and he just talked about how we stand on the shoulders of others and how it's our job, to our responsibility, to grow and learn and develop, because others will come and stand on our shoulders and so it's just that appreciation and respect for what's gone before us that we get to stand on their shoulders. So we can be very easily judgmental of those who went before us. But it gave me this perspective. They've built such a foundation of things, not because they're perfect, but because they created whether it's writing, artifacts and different things, whether it's in society or academics, whatever form you want to take. That it's to me, it's applicable in so many ways and now we have this great privilege of just standing on their shoulders and seeing far beyond they could have, farther than any of them could have at their time.

Speaker 3: 39:50

But then the idea of oh yeah, and somebody else is going to do that to us, so we also serve in a way, to who's that person looking at standing on our shoulder, to be able to look further. So now I'm in that phase of, oh, that's my kids, that's that generation. So how do I do something that helps them see further than I ever could have? And also realizing that I have limitations on what I can see because I'm a product of my generation. All these kinds of things and that's okay. It just matter of how do you help the next person. And that was just really great advice I got from my father many years ago.

Speaker 1: 40:14

Man. I love that. That's outstanding Out of everything that we spoke about today. Maybe there was something we didn't get a chance to touch on. If there was one takeaway you'd like our listeners to have, what?

Speaker 3: 40:24

would that be? I've appreciated the conversation. Thank you for it. I think there's lots more that we could talk about. I think for me is to see the future as many doors, and so when you have a door closed or one that doesn't appear to be opening is just be patient and keep trying other doors, because they're endless and you never know and, I think, also go at that with a hopeful attitude of what's possible.

Speaker 3: 40:46

Some of the things I'm working on now is I never could have mapped out where I am. I could have never planned this. It took so many is the oblique way. It was not a straight line. There are so many ways of going about it, but taking each step of the way as an opportunity to grow for the next step.

Speaker 3: 41:03

And some of the things I'm really excited on working on with Enzo is some of that work has returned me to working with my son. He's the face of that. He has an intuitiveness and he's given me such wise feedback he's 19 on how the technology can help people get unstuck in relationships. I never could have mapped that out. I never would have thought of working with him. We don't get along in many ways. It's not like that was an obvious answer, but it's through a whole series of things and trying things. Same thing with the tech space. I've been through some tech startups and hubs and I've had to pivot numerous times, the thing that I dreamed of at the beginning. It's nowhere close to what that was, but just converting those things into that next thing and then being content every step of the way because you have what you have and you can either be grateful for it or not, it's just way better to be grateful for it, just a better way to live.

Speaker 1: 41:49

Yeah, absolutely. What a great way to sum things up and I just love that, that that truth bomb there and really looking at as fathers, to look back and look at all the wisdom we can get from our children and being able to utilize that and in the work that we're doing, because they do, they are a product of their generation and how they see things right. Even though we're living it with them, they are coming at it from a totally different perspective.

Speaker 1: 42:13

So, Ed, I just want to say thank you so much, my friend for showing us the way of how we can utilize any type of framework to help us be better leaders, husbands and fathers. And so if men are interested in getting a hold of you or participating in your work. What would be the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 3: 42:28

So I'm on LinkedIn, so Ed Temple is the best way. The book is on Amazon. The leader is coach Program chair at Lethbridge College, so if you're interested in coach training, look up the program there. There's a cohort starting. We run that cohort like three times a year and, yeah, feel free to reach out. I'm always happy to have a conversation, have an online coffee or in person, and I really look forward to just seeing connecting with others who are on the same journey and either being a resource myself or pointing you to resources that have been helpful to me.

Speaker 1: 42:54

Right on. I'm going to make sure all that information's in today's show notes so folks can get a chance to reach out to you. Once again, my friend. Thank you so much. Loved our conversation.

Speaker 3: 43:02

Thanks, appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 43:06

Thanks, appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you were destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakendmannet and start forging a new destiny today.