Transcript
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Speaker: Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Speaker: I'm your host, Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abbasida. In this episode of The Independent Minds, where we don't tell you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think, I'm learning about how to turn chaos to my advantage from Robert Kalboroski, the author of Capitalizing on Chaos.
Speaker: Robert is an executive coach with a client roster, including Fortune 500 executives, C-suite leaders, visionary entrepreneurs and Olympic gold medalists.
Speaker: Rob only works with top performers who want to dig into their work so that they can achieve huge results. And here he is working with me. Go figure. Thank you very much. Rob is based in Costa Rica.
Speaker: I've not visited Costa Rica, but when I do get to go, I will make use of my membership of the Ultimate Travel Club to make my travel arrangements. That is because members of the Ultimate Travel Club get access to trade prices on all of their travel purchases.
Speaker: So you save a lot of money. I have added a link with a built-in discount to the description so that you can become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club as well and just like me travel at trade prices.
Speaker: Now that I have paid some bills it is time to make an episode of the Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to and probably good enough to share with your friends, family and work colleagues as well.
Speaker: Hello, Rob. Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me. And absolutely, folks, sign up for Ultimate Travel Club and and come down to Costa Rica. We'd love to have you. Thank you very much. Please, could we start by, well, how did someone one with your Canadian accent end up in Costa Rica? What sort of career have you had that means that you can live in Costa Rica?
Speaker: Well, I mean, as you mentioned, I'm i'm Canadian. i grew up in Ottawa, Canada. And early in my life, I started playing water polo. And I started learning that, you know, my parents were very much along the lines of like, do well in school, do well in sports, get into the best university you can, that'll get you a great job. And then You know, get married, one and a half kids, house in the suburbs, golden retriever, and you'll be happy.
Speaker: I was on that path for a long time. I got into MIT as a mechanical engineer. Once I graduated, i got my first job in in mining.
Speaker: In my first year working in mining, I saved my company tens of millions of dollars. And I thought I was on the fast track to success, to happiness. And it all came crashing down.
Speaker: I worked in a toxic workplace. My boss was a micromanager, passive aggressive. He kept flip-flopping on what he wanted. And for someone who would define himself as based on his results, for me, it started deconstructing who I thought I was.
Speaker: And the chaos turned inside of me. Every morning when I woke up, I felt like I was at war inside my own mind. Not a good place to be Yeah, and it's a common thing is is there are parts of you that want something, parts of you that are telling you achieve more. the devil and angel on your shoulders, very common thing that we talk about.
Speaker: And that's what I had. And it was was a slippery slope for me where I started questioning purpose and meaning in the world. Who was i Ultimately, in 2013, I tried to take my own life. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I don't want to focus on that part. But the next morning when I woke up and I found myself still alive, the part of me that was focused and driven on high achievement took right over again.
Speaker: And I actually got up and I went to work. Logically, I knew that my workplace was not helping me. It was actually killing me, but I couldn't change. And here today, that's where I go with folks, is if we can get a handle on on our internal chaos, the external becomes easier to manage and we can work our way through it and actually take advantage of it while everybody else is struggling.
Speaker: so is it competitive then if you're taking advantage of something when everyone else is struggling or is it more of a survival mechanism Well, when we're in uncertainty, our brains activate the stress response because our brain is basically, it's created to keep us safe and alive.
Speaker: And so when we're in chaos, our brain goes, well, I can't predict a safe outcome. So we go into the stress response, which everyone knows is fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. Those are our survival mechanisms. Those four stress responses do not allow us to be good leaders. They also don't allow us to make good decisions, to be innovative, to be creative, or to grow.
Speaker: Because literally our amygdala shuts down the frontal lobe of our brain. And so just by cultivating that inner peace and a quick tip, you want to start doing this if you feel that stress is just to take a deep breath and just acknowledge that stress and just say, I'm human because we've all experienced stress at one point or another. We've all experienced fear. It's totally normal.
Speaker: And just by acknowledging that, it's going to allow your stress to come down a little bit and then you can choose what to do next. And so it's actually getting out of that survival mechanism, which helps us take advantage of these opportunities that are around us.
Speaker: As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about the various different people that I've worked with in different parts of the world. I'm thinking about how their behavior has impacted other people and thinking about are they in that fight or flight or freeze situation situation or are they actually being managers?
Speaker: Well, tell tell me more. We didn't talk about how you ended up in Costa Rica, actually. So how did you end up up going from Canada to what to Costa Rica?
Speaker: The long and the short of that was after I pivoted out of engineering, I became a coach and I never liked snow. I've never met a Canadian who did.
Speaker: Yeah, and so it's so once once I was in coaching, i actually we were working with a bunch of global companies and I didn't even actually have any clients in Canada.
Speaker: And so that led me to choosing with my wife to move down here. And we've been down here two and a half years now. And actually, funnily enough, now I have Canadian clients. Right, yes.
Speaker: I hear it's a beautiful place. The question about was this manager managing... or where they then fight, flight or freeze.
Speaker: I suppose in some ways, because there were there was always something negative for them to say, they never had any praise for anyone unless it felt like you were being praised because they were then going to ask you for something else.
Speaker: There was never praise just for praise's sake. There nothing positive feedback. was constantly on edge, constantly criticizing constantly swearing and that that i suppose when i listen to you talk is making me think that they were in a constant fight flight or freeze situation rather than actually being a manager being a leader and you've only been talking for a couple of minutes but you've made me think about those managers that i've that i've worked with who were i think now clearly struggling because they were in a fight flight or freeze
Speaker: type mode all the time. And I suppose instead of criticizing those people, we should be thinking, how can we be more supportive of them? Yes. And this is the key, Michael.
Speaker: Nobody sets out to be a bad leader. I mean, maybe like in the research, roughly 1% of the population is a sociopath, right?
Speaker: So on average, you know, 99% of people, they're good people. They're trying their best. But these stress responses can get activated and that turns us into poor leaders.
Speaker: It's not our fault. It's just neuroscience. Now, acknowledging that and understanding that, now it's our responsibility as leaders to improve and get feedback and work ourselves out of that.
Speaker: And so the research that I talk about in the book... There was a study done in 2021, and it says that 65.1% of the workforce experiences a what's called a destructive leader.
Speaker: These are leaders that are in that stress response. And they range, there are six different categories of them. But regardless of which category, and I actually believe that all we Each of us have the capacity to have all, to be one of, not one, but to be all six of them. Yes. In specific moments, we tweak.
Speaker: But I think the big piece here is once we give ourselves the compassion and we work to improve, that's when we can start seeing it and helping other people who get in those responses.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. And that's when everybody becomes a better leader for themselves, for their teams, for their families and for the world. Yes. I think accepting that if one human being is capable of it, then you are also capable of it helps with the compassion for those difficult situations.
Speaker: ah hundred percent. You talk about chaos. and capitalizing on chaos. That's the title of the book. But think initially about chaos. You're thinkingre thinking about a work environment where everything seems very frenetic, disorganized, panic-stricken, all sorts of negative things happen.
Speaker: But in some ways, what you're talking about there, this fight, fight, freeze type of scenario, is that the chaos can actually be inside ourselves because we haven't analyze the situation, the decision-making process, our role in that situation, in order to then look at it coherently.
Speaker: And until we can do that, then the whole situation is a chaos. Yeah, I'll give you an example for this, Michael. great i'm mean I mean, have a client and last week we were chatting and she was presenting in front of the CEO of her company.
Speaker: Naturally, she felt a bit of stress and anxiety. It's like, I have to go present these findings in front of the CEO of my company. This is really big deal. Like at the same time, she's trying to get promoted And, you know, like the tech world is, is there's layoffs that are happening and AI is taking things over. And so it's like she's in this very, you know, chaotic world.
Speaker: But like in reality, her presentation, it's like the last time she presented in front of her CEO, which was, you know, it was in the fall.
Speaker: Basically the presentation couldn't have gone any worse. Like her manager told her to do the wrong, to present the wrong thing in front of the CEO. And so it was like, there was a huge misalignment and it was like complete, basically nothing could have gone worse. Yeah.
Speaker: And yet this time she was more prepared. She knew what the CEO wanted to see. They were all aligned on what the material would be. And everything was more aligned on this is what success is going to be like.
Speaker: And yet she was still feeling this stress, this almost panic. But it was like, I don't want to make a mistake. I'm trying to fight the results.
Speaker: And yet, like if you step back and you go, logically, And if we're not in this fight or flight response, we already experienced the worst thing.
Speaker: We didn't die. We didn't get fired. There was really no meaningful negative impact on ourselves. Yes. So what are we nervous about? And it's the internal chaos, the parts of us that are like, you have to be perfect. You have to be better. What's wrong with you? You said the wrong thing. All those inner voices Those are the ones that are causing that stress.
Speaker: And once we learn to sit down with those and work with them, then our internal team becomes supportive of ourselves. And then that stress goes away and we show up and we deliver a great presentation.
Speaker: And we know that we've put in the work. And so, of course, we're going to do well. You're reframing the situation, aren't you Yes. In parts, it's reframing. In parts, it's updating the parts of us.
Speaker: And it's also, you know, learning to give ourselves the compassion that we would give to other people. Yes. The twist here often is these parts of us that are very harsh or that are scared or that are, you know, demanding perfection, they're often parts of us that are from our childhood. Right.
Speaker: And they don't understand that you're an adult. They don't understand that context has changed for you. They don't understand that the world's not as dangerous as it was when you were a kid or even the event that created those parts of us.
Speaker: wasn't even something that was dangerous. And so often it's re-updating these parts and just having them understand that things are a lot different now. Yes.
Speaker: And you're an adult. You have to look at the situation from an adult's perspective, not the perspective of a child who would reasonably be feeling lost and worried in the situation. But it's almost as if We end up in situations where we are capable of doing what it is we're being asked to do but we need to convince ourselves that you are the other people who've asked us to do what they believe we're capable of doing, we need to believe that they are all right, rather than believing or convincing ourselves that we're wrong to believe in them.
Speaker: it's It's why 70% adults, actually I believe it's higher, but the stats say that 70% of adults have imposter syndrome. Yes. had not yes I had not thought, but yes, you're quite right. is the Why am I here? Well, you're here because you applied for the job you accepted the job.
Speaker: And at that time, you were very excited about it. But the reality of it makes you doubt yourself. Whereas... you've been through the selection process.
Speaker: So how do we use, or what sort of things can we do if we understand the chaos in order to turn it to our advantage? What would be the things to do?
Speaker: The first is exactly what I mentioned, right? Is once you understand and you start feeling the stress, is to just make that pivot, is to acknowledge you're human, to acknowledge those parts of you that feel that stress, and just to update them on it's 2026, context has changed,
Speaker: and that you will manage this. only I mean, that can take a couple seconds. It changes everything. Because once you are able to get out of the stress response, that's when your brain, the full capabilities of your brain actually comes back online.
Speaker: And so you have access to logic to decision making to innovation to creativity. And that's when you can start solving problems in the most effective way and leading people in the most effective way.
Speaker: And I mean, it's it's not like I'd love to say it's just Rob saying this, but this is just neuroscience. Like your brain doesn't work when you're in fear. No, it's getting out of the fear, which I think will be the challenge for lots of people, especially if they're not working with a manager who is particularly supportive like the micromanager that you mentioned at the beginning it's that getting out of that situation take the deep breaths practice relaxing almost and understanding why you are there rather than why you shouldn't be there which is the imposter syndrome yes there's limitations so you can do a significant amount of amount of internal work and yet if you go to a toxic work environment where let's say your boss is you know, Gordon Ramsay from Hell's Kitchen, where he's just yelling at you and calling you a donut.
Speaker: That's not going to be a place where you'll be at your best. And so there's limitations, right? And if you're in an environment where you walk into work and, you know, you're in ah an environment where you just feel that way the whole day. And, you know, your manager is like, there's roughly 25% of the workforce experiences a manager who's either a an arrogant and violent boss or an abusive narcissistic boss.
Speaker: And so if, if you're one of those 25%,
Speaker: those are environments that you will need to leave or at least find a new manager because there's no amount of internal work that's going to help you overcome that. However, in the vast majority of the other cases where maybe sometimes you have a ghost manager who just doesn't set expectations or maybe you have a messy boss who just their their instructions are kind of unclear or they flip-flop on decisions,
Speaker: those are environments where if you do the internal work you actually can manage your manager and then you can thrive in those environments too right and so yes it starts with us and it starts with our own internal system but we also have to look at what's the context that we're playing in because of course if we're in a context and like i mean think about it like this like if you're getting shot at in a war of course you're going to feel stressed.
Speaker: That's normal. And it's like completely rational. And there's no amount of inner work that should, actually you don't even want to do it, but there's no amount of inner work that's going to change that.
Speaker: And so we have to be aware of just like our environment. And if our environment is not supportive, then we need to think about like what are alternative strategies? Yes.
Speaker: What I suppose you're saying is we need to look at things in the whole and work out whether the environment that we are going into is actually a suitable environment for ourselves.
Speaker: Whether the people that are in that environment are people that we need to or should be interacting with, being managed by or managing.
Speaker: and But it comes down to understanding ourselves as individuals. through that process Absolutely. Because different environments are different for different people, right?
Speaker: And so I always talk about this when I when i work with leaders on how to delegate. Let's say we have somebody who's a world-class expert in, I don't know, building AI agents.
Speaker: And then on the other hand, we have somebody who's fresh out of college. And yeah, they have a computer science degree, but they've never really done any, you know, building AI agents before. On one hand, if you're the expert, I can go, hey, Michael, you know I need an AI agent that does this.
Speaker: Can you go out and do it? And you will be able to manage that because you've done it before. You're an expert. You'll probably tell me, hey, Rob, you know this will take me two days. Does that work for you? Great. OK.
Speaker: if it if it was a student that hasn't done this before, I'd have to be more prescriptive. I'd have to give more details. I might even have to say, hey, like you can work with Michael on this. He'll help you out on the details.
Speaker: Right. And so like the same thing is different for different people. And so we have to just acknowledge that the same leader can feel different to different people as well.
Speaker: And so, Ultimately, like all the work that I do, all I want folks to be empowered about is to choose for yourself. And really choosing for yourself is, I choose to work for this person or I choose to move to and work for somebody else. I choose to live in Costa Rica or I choose to live in England.
Speaker: It doesn't really matter. I can't tell you what your choices should be, but you got to choose them for yourself and choose them deliberately so that you can be the person who's happy with whatever you choose.
Speaker: Yes. I think especially at work, Many people that I've worked alongside and been the professional for seem to forget that they are volunteers.
Speaker: They're being paid but they volunteer to be in that work environment. And for many people the work I suppose, the job, the going to a particular place becomes a habit that is very difficult for them to break.
Speaker: They know that they're not happy in a particular job, but they tell themselves that I won't get paid as much somewhere else. no There's all sorts of reasons why people convince themselves to stay in toxic workplaces, working with toxic people.
Speaker: And yet, The only way in which you're actually going to thrive is by going through the process of working out whether it is the right place for you whether it's somewhere that you should actually be thinking about leaving.
Speaker: The status quo is incredibly powerful and it makes sense. It's security, isn't it? The status quo is security.
Speaker: It's 100% right. And that's like the status quo and the reason why is exactly that, right? Is like, you've done this before and you haven't died.
Speaker: So your brain goes, I can do this again tomorrow and I can reasonably expect that I'm not going to die. Yes. Right. and And you said it, Michael, is like so many people, they're not happy in your job and you go, hey,
Speaker: are you looking for other jobs? And they go, no.
Speaker: Right? So if that's you and you're out there and you're thinking about, like, I'm not super happy, but but I'm not looking,
Speaker: But I do feel that internally I want to change. I actually have a free tool for folks and you can get it for free. If you go robkalvaroski.com slash reason and you'll, it's hard to spell my last name. So like, I'll put it in the podcast notes. We'll put a link in the description we'll put a link in the description to the free tool. What does the free tool help people do? It helps you overcome status quo and how it does that.
Speaker: is it's going to ask you one is, what are the goals that you want to achieve and how will you feel when you achieve them? So it's giving you this positive aspect to look forward to.
Speaker: It's also going to help you look at and understand the pain and suffering that you're experiencing by not changing. And the goal really is to leverage those two ends and add as much detail and as much on either side.
Speaker: So it convinces your brain that it's safer to change than it is to stay in status quo. And that's what that tool helps you do. And with that tool, it also by writing your goals down, it's also going to recommend you share them and you can share them with, you know, a friend of yours, a colleague, your mom, your dad, you can even email them to me.
Speaker: Like even by sharing your goals, by writing them down and sharing them, you actually increase the probability that you achieve it to 70%. Yes. And so literally in 10 minutes, this is going to be one of the most important things that you can do with your time.
Speaker: Yeah. That makes an awful lot of sense. That does, Rob. Yeah. Certainly made me think. Thank you very much. Thank you. Really enjoyed our conversation. All too short, but thank you very much for your time today. It's been really very interesting.
Speaker: Thanks for having me, Michael. And i I definitely make people think, whether you agree or not. It's the thinking that is important. The opinion is important.
Speaker: is would not happen unless you did the thinking ah oh i am michael millward the managing director of abbasida and i have been having a conversation with the independent mind robert kalvarovsky the author of capitalizing on chaos you can find out more information about both of us by using the links in the description
Speaker: Regardless of how much money you have, it is always important to be healthy. Staying healthy is the key to enjoying life. The best way to stay healthy is to know the risks early.
Speaker: And the best way to know the risks early is to use the tests available from York Test. I'm sure you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Rob and I have enjoyed making it.
Speaker: So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. You'll probably want to share the link with your family, friends and work colleagues as well, especially those that are causing the chaos for you.
Speaker: Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next step episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.
