Your Success Strategy Could Be Killing You with Steven Langer

After this health risk assessment, she says, which do you want first?

A heart attack, a stroke or diabetes?

I was like, none of them.

Thanks.

She says, well, you've already had burnout, anxiety, depression, a physical episode.

As a result of that, panic attacks.

You're well on the path.

These are the only three things you haven't had.

So if you don't make a change in your life and how you're doing things, you will have one of these things.

I'm telling you now.

The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more.

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Let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 356 of the Business Development Podcast and today it is my absolute pleasure to bring you Stephen Langer.

Stephen is an international keynote speaker and TEDx speaker who is redefining the way that we think about wellness and leadership.

With a career spanning executive roles in education, leadership development and human resource strategy, Stephen brings a rare combination of lived experience, research driven insight and practical wisdom to every stage he steps on through his company.

Well, by design.

He equips leaders, teams and organizations with tools to cut through the noise, challenge outdated narratives like work life, balance and embrace coherence as the true foundation for a healthier, more sustainable workplace.

His audiences don't just leave inspired, they leave with clarity, confidence and a roadmap to lead and live with intention.

At the core of Steven's message is a powerful truth.

The pressure, burnout and disconnection that so many are facing are not inevitable.

With his signature framework, the Coherence Compass, he empowers people to shift from default to intention, from friction to flow, and to reconnect with what matters most.

Stephen doesn't just deliver a talk.

He creates a transformative experience that leaves people ready to act.

If you're looking for a voice that can spark change and move the conversation forward in a meaningful way, Stephen Langer is the one you want at the front of the room.

Stephen, it's an honor and a privilege to have you on our stage today.

Kelly, it's awesome to meet with you.

I feel like I need you to go before me into every room as, like, a trumpeter ready to announce I'm here because that introduction was incredible.

Humbling to say the least.

But, yeah, really looking forward to a great conversation.

Oh, my goodness.

See, you wouldn't want that because you saw how much I mushmouth it the first place.

This is the magic of podcasting.

You can mush mouth all you want, and yet it's like it never happened.

Love it.

No, dude, you're incredible.

I appreciate you greatly.

You know, we've been connected now, I want to say, like, what, four or five months since we kind of connected for the very first time.

You're in Edmonton.

I'm in Edmonton.

You're doing pretty incredible things.

I'm aspiring to.

You're doing pretty incredible things.

No, it's awesome, dude.

You've been just, like, such a pleasure.

Every conversation I've had with you, I've enjoyed.

I look forward to everyone, and I'm especially looking forward to this one because I finally get to learn your story right alongside our incredible audience.

And, you know, you speak to something that resonates so strongly with our audience.

Stephen, everybody I talk to is like, I can't find this magical work life balance.

We talked about this ahead of the show.

Everyone's looking for this unicorn that, frankly, in my opinion, at this point, doesn't exist.

And I think we're going to hit pretty powerfully on that today.

Love it.

Absolutely.

Lead us into it, man.

Like, you've been in the teaching field.

That was kind of originally your path.

You've been a principal, and now you're coaching companies how to live better.

Talk to me.

Who is Stephen Langer?

How the heck did you end up on this path?

Yeah, you know what?

I've always been the kind of guy that says, if I see something that I think could be done differently or in a better way, then I gotta go prove it.

Don't just talk about it, and don't just complain.

And so I started my career as a teacher.

I had a great opportunity to start my career working with kids, doing coaching, doing outdoor ed, doing drama plays, and really embracing that idea of building a culture within a school.

And I had an opportunity to learn from some really great leaders, but I also had the opportunity to learn from those that sheltered their leadership, the ones that had a hard time seeing other people have success.

So that led me to think, if I think it could be done better, I got to become a principal.

So I applied and got an opportunity to lead a school.

And on the first day that I became principal at this school, my VP was new as well.

We both go outside at lunch to see what the kids are up to.

And it's a, it's a middle school, grades five to nine.

Kids are kicking soccer balls up onto the, to the roof of the school to make the staff go up and get them.

We had kids linking arm and arm across the road, making sure cars couldn't pass on the road.

We're thinking, what did we just get ourselves into?

And so the more we embrace what was going on in this school, we saw that the previous administration had done an incredible job with the staff in policy processes, planning, lesson plans.

All of that type of stuff was top notch and ready to go.

What they needed was someone to set them free.

It was like they were an elastic band, just like full potential, energy.

And so what we needed to do was empower our staff.

And it was my opportunity to see that when you actually let your staff lead and empower them to do the best that they can, you move so much faster than if you try and do it by yourself.

So we started with our students where there was a reputation within the community that the students were causing trouble, not necessarily engaged.

So we had students form groups and each group did service projects within the community, from shoveling snow for the seniors, going and playing games at the seniors complex, painting, doing community nights, helping in any way that they could to help build the reputation that these kids are good kids and they have a lot to offer from there.

Within our school, we gave each kid a role so they needed something so that they could believe and buy in.

So some of them, we, we had a learning garden that we built out.

Some of them took care of that.

We had kids that were building furniture.

Usually those are the ones that might be the ones that vandalize the furniture.

So now build it now you're not gonna break it.

And for the kids, it gave them a sense of belonging.

So now we started to see kids coming and getting engaged and seeing that they have value within the school.

For the staff, we had them the freedom to offer flexibility, programming in certain spaces and to bring ideas that they had onto the, onto the table so that we could enhance the learning.

We opened up our learning commons and became a flagship school for learning commons within our province.

And it was amazing to watch.

In the first year, we had over 300 suspension days.

By year three, down to 10.

Wow.

And so it didn't happen overnight, right?

It really didn't happen overnight.

We saw this shift.

My VP had incredible ideas.

The teachers had incredible ideas.

Some of it worked, some of it didn't.

But what we saw was a shift in belief and belonging.

And over time, that got everybody on board that this is their school too.

Wow.

Wow.

That's incredible.

300 To 10.

Yeah, it was awesome.

That is unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

Like you should be.

Like, you should be championing that across Canada at this point, across North America.

You know, what was one of the coolest parts about that was that as I started my speaking business, it shifted away from the education sector to my speaking.

I was at an educational leadership conference.

And the mark of a good leader is that you're building leadership.

And at that educational leadership conference, there was more than 10 of the staff that I was working with that are now in leadership roles as an administrator or a director or some other leadership role within the division.

That was amazing.

Right?

Because it's like, good for you.

You've been elevated, empowered, and built your capacity.

That's absolutely incredible.

You know, I mean, obviously your passion was in teaching.

You'd made it quite high and.

No, I mean, that was the principle, was only the start.

From there, you even went further along in the Alberta education system.

Talk to us a little bit about that.

Yeah, I had the opportunity to work for government doing wellness education, curriculum development and working with subject matter experts across the province in K to 12 curriculum as it was developing at a certain point in time, really getting a chance to open my eyes to the sphere of wellness.

I had training in that area, but that's next level.

And then an opportunity to work at a provincial level as well as an executive in an organization.

And in each of these opportunities, I was able to see the value of effective leadership versus challenging leadership.

Right.

And the ability to move people forward or set people back.

Eventually I found that I had given everything I had to the sector, and so it was time to step away and do something different.

The one common theme within all of that was that people are burnt out, stressed, exhausted, tired, anxious, overworked and overdone.

And anybody you speak to is like, yeah, me too.

Like, I just can't seem to find work life balance, and I just can't seem to connect it.

And I was the same.

I had an incredible burnout story which I'm happy to share with you at some point.

And it really led me to believe that, okay, again, if I think it can be done differently or better, then I better prove it.

So that's what allowed me to start.

Well, by design.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

And I really, I can't wait to get into that because like I said, at this point, I feel like somebody talks about work, life, balance, and like, just completely hitting a wall every fourth show, it feels like it's that common.

Like, it is a universal experience for high performance individuals.

At this point, from what I understand, from the amount of people I've talked to, I think that almost every single person is either walking the line of burnout or has hit the wall.

Yeah.

And you know what?

I was one of them.

And it comes from this idea of, I got this.

I was always seen as the social butterfly within my circle, the rock within my social circle that people could turn to and count on.

I had a master's in education in leadership.

I was a young principal, I was a young executive.

I'd had a lot of success.

On the surface, everything seemed to be fine.

But along the way, anytime you get this challenge and you're like, I got this.

I can push through.

No big deal.

I've always been able to push through before.

Why can't I push through now?

Yeah.

The reality is that I think everybody's got a bandwidth.

And so at some point in time, I got this doesn't work anymore.

And that's where you're saying a lot of people are toeing that line.

Yeah, I told the line.

I lost.

I learned.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

It's like, I. I don't think I've ever experienced a full hit the wall burnout yet.

Like, I know I've been damn close plenty of times, but whenever I've kind of gotten to that point, probably the closest I got was about a year ago.

And I remember it was like a Friday afternoon, Friday afternoons, where typically I'm doing show production.

It was like seven o' clock at night.

I put in probably 60, 68 hours that week.

Like, it was insane.

And I remember just looking at Shelby and just being like, I need to get the hell out of here because I'm about to lose my mind.

She's like, just like, okay, where are we going?

I'm like, I don't care.

Let's go see your dad.

We're packing up the kids.

We're going to Saskatoon.

Let's just leave.

I need to leave.

I need to leave this house.

And that was the closest I think I've ever come, Steve.

And I think had I put one more day in, I might have.

I might have just quit.

All.

Everything.

Life.

Yeah, you know what?

I.

In, in the height of mine, I had.

I had a health risk assessment.

Done as part of an employee assistance program just because I was at burnout point and had been diagnosed at that point.

And after this health risk assessment, she says, which do you want first?

A heart attack, a stroke or diabetes?

I was like, none of them.

Thanks.

She says, well, you've already had burnout, anxiety, depression, a physical episode.

As a result of that, panic attacks, you're well on the path.

These are the only three things you haven't had.

So if you don't make a change in your life and how you're doing things, you will have one of these things, I'm telling you now.

And that was a massive shift for me.

It was like, hang on, I thought, I got this.

I've always got this.

And yet here I'm being told that I am well down a path to something that has long lasting consequences.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Walk me through.

Like, were there warning signs?

Were there points along this path where you could have took an off ramp, but you chose not to?

And first off, it's one thing to take an off ramp, but I think a lot of people don't know what to do.

Like, they end up in this space where they're like, I got myself into this mess and I don't know how to get myself out of it.

Especially high performers.

Because what we do is we start, we keep upping the standard.

Oh, yeah, we add more and more to the buffet for this.

I told you this week, I'm like, dude, like, I have upped the standard too much.

This week has absolutely crushed me.

Next week will be better.

But I'm going to, like, clear my calendar a little bit next week because I really screwed myself this one.

But that's what we do, right?

Like, it's like, one more thing, one more thing, one more thing.

Move the needle a little more.

And it's like, I'm a huge move the needle fan.

But like you said, there's a point at which that that needle is ticking off the red line.

There is no more.

There is no more Runway for that needle to move.

And I definitely found my limit this week and I'm going to try to do some corrections next week to fix that.

But talk to me a little bit about some of the warning signs you were experiencing.

So I think a lot of people, we know about burnout, a lot of people talk about burnout, but not a lot of people explain, like, how do you even know that that's where you're going?

Yeah, yeah.

And you know what?

There, there are a ton of signals along the way.

That I, looking back on, missed or chose to ignore because I got this.

But the reality is there's only so much of you or Steve to go around.

There's your, your health, there's your personal life and there's your work life and that's all you got.

And so if you keep piling more on the plate of your work life and your personal life, the only place it can come from at the end of the day is your health.

And so the idea that you think you can continue to weigh that down and not see it break, eventually we hit capacity.

So some of the things for me, when you start to notice tension between your work life and your personal life, where all of a sudden you're getting called in late to work and now it's causing stress between the family, you can't pick up the kids on time, you're racing from one thing to the next thing and.

And it's causing frustration and anxiety.

That's one.

When you're anxious heading into work at the start of a day and you're starting your day in fight flight freeze.

Cause you've got so much on your to do list that you don't even know how are you gonna make it through your day.

Yeah.

When you don't have the autonomy to make the decisions that you need to make in a day where you don't have the direct support from leadership and management to be able to make those decisions in your day effectively.

So you're wondering it's out of your locus of control.

So you're wondering how it's actually going to start to shape your day.

Yeah.

And when you start to see decision fatigue where it's like you just can't even think about writing another email or getting on another meeting or solving that problem, you just almost need to mind numb because there's just too much.

All of those things were signs along the way that I just pushed through.

Because you know what?

You got to push through and I'll get through it eventually.

It's no big deal.

But it is a big deal.

Those are the signs that you're starting to move yourself down towards exhaustion and burnout.

And so for myself then I was on that path and then we had unfortunately a pretty catastrophic event happen in our family during the height of COVID So I had young kids at the time, five and three year old.

And my wife and I decided to take them out skating and she fell and she broke both her wrists.

Oh, wow.

Absolutely.

Imagine what you do with one of your hands at any point in Time.

And now imagine not only can you not do it, you need someone else to do it for you.

Right.

Yeah.

So the first thing that I did is I went out and got a bidet.

Because there's some things that you just give privacy for your wife.

Right?

Absolutely.

You're a great husband.

Right.

But you know, you're everything from pouring a cup of coffee to helping her sip it, putting your like the fork in her mouth to feed food and trying to navigate the kids and trying to make sure they get off the daycare while working a demanding job and trying to navigate that sphere.

And so I was on my game and I was trying to be the hero husband, the hero father, and the hero employee.

And I was trying to do it all because I got this.

That was always my mentality.

And so I neglected the pain that I felt in my stomach.

That came about two weeks into that.

I had gotten into a bit of a rhythm, but then, you know, I'm tired, but I just got to keep pushing through and I thought just go to bed, take some Tums and off you go.

Turns out it wasn't an ulcer or just sore tummy.

It was my appendix.

And it had gone beyond septic to the point where.

Oh yeah, it was like, it was pretty tough.

By the time I got to the hospital, the doctor said I had about 90 minutes and it could have been serious.

It was, it was already beyond septic, eating away at my intestine and the whole thing.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

You know, I was pushing so hard.

Yeah.

To try and be this hero that I actually almost cost myself everything.

And you know, not everybody has that happen in their life, but how many of us push through and work so hard that you're not there for your kids activities and now you're feeling that tension or you're not there when you're, when your partner needs you to pick up the pieces at home.

Right.

And.

And you're forgetting and neglecting the time that you need with your friends or for your self care like the rest that you need.

And so all of those things push us towards that.

And hopefully you don't have a catastrophic event.

But we all have complexity happen in life.

So when that complexity comes, where's the room for it so that you don't hit burnout too?

Oh, a hundred percent.

A hundred percent.

That's.

We're all good until that thing happens.

I. I'm totally with you.

I th.

So I think as like, as high performers, we do have it, we do have it within our Box.

Right.

But like you said, there's so many things outside the box that we do not control that can just jump in and be like, you need to deal with this.

And suddenly you're just like, oh, shit, I can't.

I can't deal with that thing.

And you know it's coming.

You absolutely know it's coming.

And you just close your eyes and pray that it doesn't.

Right at that moment.

And you know it.

Like, as you said, you know it's happening.

The second you get your life into some static state where you're feeling all right about it, that's when your tire pops or someone needs ye care.

Someone gets sick on the day of a presentation, you've got a big work plan, your kid gets sick.

Right.

Life happens.

So we need to be able to have room for it so that when it does, it's not the straw that broke the camel's back.

Yeah, and.

And exactly.

And I think, like, for most people, it's that unexpected thing.

It's that extra thing that you thought you could take on, that suddenly it's just enough to tip the whole thing over the edge, and suddenly you're tumbling down the hill, head over, head over heels, and just hoping to God you don't die.

I think sometimes.

I think sometimes people think that burnout is a.

Is a product of workload, and sometimes it's a product of workload.

Let's.

Let's be honest and call it what it is.

But I think so many more times, it's a product of misalignment with your values to the work that you're doing or the cognitive issues, the cognitive load that you have to face because you don't have the ability to make those decisions or to solve that problem, and you're wrestling with this, and you got so much in the air.

And so if you don't have the autonomy, you don't have the support from leadership, you don't have the ability to make the decisions.

You know, you could have your workload in check, but those are the things that are taking away at your cognitive restoration ability.

Yeah, well, let's dive a little bit deeper into that.

Right.

Cause, like, that sounds like things that you have zero control over, but you're clearly trying to control it, and that's maybe where you're running into challenges, because it really sucks to try to control things you don't control.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that a lot of times when we're trying to do too much or when we're trying to push Those things that's we talked about at the beginning, this idea of friction to flow and this idea of being in friction is we're overdone, we're over capacity, we're overstretched.

And that's sometimes on what we do, but that's sometimes on the impact of the decisions as well.

And a lot of times we neglect that.

It's not just the decision you have to make, but the impact that that decision may have on someone or yourself as a result of that.

Take a conflict situation.

Nobody likes to have conflict in the workplace.

It can be incredibly helpful to have a difficult conversation, but the energy and the stress that comes from having those conversations, particularly for some people, has a huge weight.

And so it may just be one thing on your to do list to talk to someone and have a conflict conversation, but that can be something that has a lasting impact and draws down on your reserves and.

And really impacts your cognitive restoration over time.

So what do we do?

Like what you.

I mean, the reality is you're a principal or you're governing the future of Alberta education, and you are absolutely going to have that conflict conversation.

There's pretty much no avoiding it.

What do you do?

Do you put it.

If you were in that situation, is it something that you just push off until you can handle it?

Do you hand it off to somebody else?

Because there's certain things we just can't get out of, especially as leaders running teams.

There's going to be conflict.

There's going to be situations where there's disagreements and you have to handle it.

What do you do?

Yeah, you know what?

It goes beyond being a principal.

It goes beyond being a leader for a team.

It's everybody in every circumstance who has a relationship with anyone is going to have that type of a situation.

And you can use conflict as the one, in which case, I would say it might be easier to sweep it under the rug today, but what it's going to do is create a bigger problem for tomorrow.

And so we do need to deal with it.

But this is where that idea of intention over default comes in.

And so the idea is, we're not letting our days happen to us by default.

How many times do we go through that in a day where, you know, you get up and you splash back some coffee on your way to work, and you're in a meeting before you even knew it happened?

You go from meeting to meeting, to phone call, to groceries, to drop your kids off at activities.

By the time you get to the end of the day, all you have Time left for is Netflix scrolling social media and numbing yourself.

The day happened to you in there, right?

Versus a day with intention where we're looking at like, okay, how am I building my day to make sure that it actually aligns with what I need and where I need to go?

I'm tackling and triaging my workload to make sure that I'm taking on the biggest things first.

And I'm creating room for myself along the way with rest and renewal so that I have energy to take that on.

And that's the ticket right there.

As I think so many people push through and think, I'll just keep working, keep working.

But we are designed for rest.

We are designed and intended to restore and renew.

You can't go from one thing to the next thing to the next thing without allowing downtime, because that's the time that allows your brain to restore and renew.

That's the time where you can let that cortisol just flush out.

And when you're doing things that bring you renewal, I call that rest time.

You know, not sleep rest.

The intentional things that you do when you're awake that bring you renewal and restoration.

So they're the things that tap into those hormones that you need, like dopamine and oxytocin, endorphins, the serotonin.

Right.

You're doing things for yourself to allow those hormones to flush the cortisol and get you back to baseline for you.

What does that look like?

I got two.

One of them.

I love taking my dog to the off leash because when I do that, I leave my phone at home and it's time outside in nature, going for a walk.

And so I'm getting the fresh air, I'm getting all the benefits of nature, which is incredible.

But also I'm watching my dog play and run through the trees, and my mind's just not on work, and it allows me to just sort of sit with my thoughts.

A lot of times that's where my best ideas come.

And a good half an hour, and all of a sudden I'm feeling great again.

And the second one is tennis.

Love playing tennis, right?

Because if I'm mad, if I'm frustrated or tense, I just crush a serve, and if it goes in, who cares?

Whatever.

But I'm active and I'm with a friend and I'm outside and I'm doing things that help to restore and renew myself.

I come away from there more tired, but also more renewed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you intentionally schedule these items into your calendar each week as Non negotiable.

Uh, you know, some people do, I don't.

I schedule one time for myself and that's first thing in the morning.

The first thing that I do before I grab my phone, I get up, grab a cup of coffee that Steve from the night before programmed for myself.

And I make sure that I grab a cup of coffee, go outside and go for a walk.

It's 10 minutes outside in fresh air around the block just to start my day with intention.

And that allows me to wake up well and kind of gear myself up for the day.

That's the one non negotiable that I have.

But the rest of the time I listen to what I need.

You know, I listen to my body as I'm going.

And you know, sometimes I can get it, sometimes I can't.

There are busy days and so there are days where you're like, I'd love to go play tennis, I just can't.

But you have to have time within your week for yourself.

And even if it's as simple as, you know what I'm going to, instead of eating my lunch at my computer still working, I'm just going to go and eat it out on my front porch or at a picnic bench or whatever so that I can have a little bit of time to just disconnect and restore.

And you'll come back so much better for it as a result of that.

You specifically mentioned leaving your phone behind.

Yeah, because I think that's where I think most people are not leaving their phone behind.

Steven, is that one of the key requirements to being able to truly relax?

Yeah, absolutely.

Because otherwise you're numbing yourself by just going to the next thing, you're just, you're bringing your work with you, you're bringing your social media with you.

When you get outside in nature for 20min a day.

There's research behind this.

You get, get outside for 20 minutes a day.

It can be a walk, could be a bike ride, gardening, whatever you like to do.

Sit under a tree and read.

You get greater cognitive restoration.

You get vitamin D absorption and better circadian rhythm.

Your heart rate goes down, your blood pressure goes down, your mind gets the break.

But when you bring your phone with you, you negate all of that.

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I get it to you because it's like, it's like even when it's there, you know it's there.

Like it doesn't have to be dinging, it doesn't have to be doing anything.

You just know you're very aware of your Phone being in your pocket all the time and it.

I think we forget how aware we are that it's like not really enough to just put it face down on the desk.

Do you really have to leave that damn thing behind?

Well, we used to not have it, and so we can survive without it.

It's a little bit.

It takes a while.

Are you sure?

Are you sure?

There was a time before.

I don't.

I don't know what that was like.

No, right.

I was.

I was looking back when I was doing prep for this show and when you first got into teaching, I was in grade 10.

Oh, no way.

Look at that.

Yeah.

2005, Grade 10.

Just going into grade.

Almost grade 11.

But yeah, and so.

Yeah, no, I'm saying that when you got into teaching, I didn't have a phone yet, but that was about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's fair, right?

Yeah.

And you know what?

Honestly, people have a hard time with that at first, right?

Because, well, what are you going to miss out on?

What if someone.

That's it.

And my answer to that is, so what?

So what if someone messages you?

It takes you 20 minutes.

Part of the pressure and the anxiety that we feel around our world right now is that this immediacy culture, we have to respond instantly or we're missing out.

And so, you know what?

Sometimes it's actually really nice to miss out and just let things happen around you while you're focusing on yourself, and then you can come back and you can engage with it 20 minutes later.

Nothing ever happened in those 20 minutes that is that critical.

Right?

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

You're absolutely right.

But we sell ourselves a different idea, don't we?

We sell ourselves that idea that something might happen and we have to be reachable at all times, at every moment.

Now, I will precursors by, like, if you're a first responder, please don't leave your phone behind.

Like, you need to keep it.

Yeah, we do need that.

We need you to not have work life balance.

I'm sorry.

No, it's.

It's interesting.

And you know, I look to you at.

I look to you at the switch to work from home.

Right?

Dude, I struggled so immensely with the switch to work from home during COVID because I'd never worked for my home.

So my relationship with my home at that time was this is my relaxed time.

This is my place.

Like, this is even before I did any work from home, really.

And so, like, my phone wasn't ringing me for work stuff after work, typically.

And so I would literally get home, and I was able just to shut off.

And I found that it was.

Once we started to work from home and I made, you know, my basement office, it took me, first off, it took me months to get used to working from home.

It was a very, like, hard shift.

I literally had to lock the door and not let myself out for, like, months, Stephen, before I could, like, get into the habit of working well from home.

I now work exceptionally well from home, but now there's a new problem.

My home is my work while that.

But also, I'm going to maybe call you on that because I love watching your kids come up into your lap while we're in a session and stuff.

Right.

And so there's two where it's like,.

I'm working exceptionally well from home until my son comes up and starts pushing all the buttons.

Right?

Yeah.

Yes.

Jet loves to push buttons.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, yes, that idea of your home also then becoming your work, because I,.

Like, I said, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

Like I was saying earlier in that moment when I was hitting my breaking point and I said I had to get up out of here, I could.

Like, home was one of the places I had to run from.

Yeah.

And so I actually do a full keynote presentation for teams on how to build a healthy, remote workplace culture.

Because it is such a different thing to tackle.

And the idea that we can just have people working from home and carry on the culture and build the connection that we need, it is very different.

Requires a different level and layer of intention to make sure that it's done well.

Because think about it.

You know, you're.

You're working at home, and you go upstairs to start cooking dinner or connect with your family, and then you think of one more thing.

So you just pop downstairs and start it.

But whenever you start one, you don't start just one.

You do two, three, four things, and the next thing you know, you're two hours.

Don't you say that.

It's just one thing, Stephen.

It's just one thing.

It's not eight things at the same time.

You're absolutely.

Damn it.

I hate it when you're right.

Oh, my gosh, dude.

All the time.

That happens to me, like, all the time.

Yeah.

And so it requires a different intention in setting routines and setting expectations for yourself.

Remember when you used to go to work, you used to, like, get dressed and just head out the door and shut the door behind you.

And now you're no longer at home.

You're on your Way to work.

But you have that time.

And same for work to home.

I even put on pants for our interview today.

I'm not a cat.

Not today.

I appreciate that.

Oh, goodness.

Yeah, man.

It's.

It's a whole new world, and we're all trying to figure out how to play in it.

You're right.

You're right.

And you know what?

Like, especially when you're talking hybrid, there's even things around policy, like, do we have core hours that we work together?

Are there certain things that I need to do?

Like, do I need to wear pants to immediate?

Do I have to dress up well, do I have to have my screen on?

You know, do I have to have my camera on?

Am I allowed to eat during a meeting?

What happens if Amazon comes to the door?

You know, all of those things need to be addressed, and I think so often it's assumed, but then you end up with these unintended miscommunications where you're thinking someone's doing things for the worse, when really it just hasn't been established what's the expectation?

So then you don't do it.

Right.

So it really does require an intentionality when we're talking about those things.

Well, it's so interesting.

I'd love to have your opinion on this, because obviously, for a major part of your career, there was no such thing as working from home.

Like, you can't teach kids very well without a classroom, right?

Yeah, walk me through it.

Like, what is your take on this?

Do you think that we should be working from home, or do you think we should figure out how to get.

Back to an office?

Oh, that's a topic.

It's not the Easy Business Development podcast.

No.

Yeah, fair.

You know what?

Okay, so I think that there is no right, wrong way to do it, but it does require time and intention with whichever you choose.

And so for.

For me, like, I work from home, and I love it, right?

I love being able to spend the time here and be able to go out on my front porch where I'm comfortable and have my coffee, you know, and.

And take care of my dog during the day and not have to sort that out.

And if a kid's sick, I can still work, and it's not a big deal.

Now I'm working with a small team, so it's easy.

But I did work from home during the COVID pandemic, and it was challenging because, you know, a conversation where you used to just go next door and talk to someone, now you got a teams message them and you're interrupting them and you don't realize three other people just did that too.

And so it's creating that interruption in their workflow.

Either way that it is chosen, whether it's in person, hybrid or remote, I think it's critical that you have the deep and hard conversations about how are you going to establish processes that make sense and how are you going to connect in a way that you would if you were in person so that you can make sure that your team comes along.

Because for someone who's wanting to be in the trenches with your team, if you don't connect with them and you're virtual, it can be really challenging to feel aligned to the vision of the organization.

Well, and then you see the opposite problem happening with some of the organizations.

My, my fiance is also in education, where they're doing a lot of meetings and not a lot of work, frankly, which can be the opposite problem of working from home where everybody wants the meeting.

And it's like, great, we can have all these meetings all day long, five meetings a day.

But then what time is there to do the actual work?

Yeah.

And you know what, that actually comes down to a really good point.

Regardless of whether you're in person or at home, I think that it's really important to triage your workload so that you can do the things that are important within your day.

You talk about a first responder.

That's how they address issues when they go to a site of a scene and so they'll talk about the first ones are the red, the serious things that we really need to address.

If not, it could be life threatening.

Then there's the yellow things, and those are serious but not life threatening.

They might become it.

Then there's the green, the things that are like, you gotta do it, but it's not critical.

Right.

How often do we spend our day doing green, green, green, while the red one is thumping in the back of your mind, causing you anxiety and you don't address it, partly because maybe you're a little intimidated by the process of tackling a red task, but also at times, you're so interrupted you can't get into a flow and a rhythm.

And so this is the piece.

It's so important for organizations to allow their teams deep work time.

Yeah, there's.

There's research from Johann Hari in the book Stolen Focus.

I recommend that book, but not as much as I recommend my book.

And so I recommend that book because it talks about how we're so our time is just taken from all we're so overstimulated and our time is taken from so many different places.

And when you're interrupted, when you're in a state of deep work, it can take up to 23 minutes to get back there.

So now think that you're trying to tackle a red task and someone messages you quick, hey, can I just have a quick minute of your time?

Then you get a phone call five minutes later.

Then you have somebody you know asking for a quick meeting, whatever it is, teams message.

If you're in the office, someone stops by your open door.

All of those things pull you away from the deep work.

What you need is you need a chunked off time.

And it doesn't have to be long, two hours, right?

Once a week, Wednesday, 10 to 12.

This time is deep work time.

No interruptions.

And it allows you to get into a flow.

And you'll find you do more work in that two hour period than you wouldn't otherwise full day.

Because you can get into the flow.

And so absolutely, that goes at this whole idea of your professional energy.

You know that common phrase like my door is always open, right?

I think that's the biggest crock of shit ever, right?

Your door should not always be open because if so, your time is not valuable.

So you need to make sure that you set aside time for yourself to do the deep work.

Oh, I couldn't agree with you more.

You know, you're part of Catalyst Club.

The thing I do every Monday is essentially the red list items, right?

We do a move the needle list.

Yeah, Move the needle lists are kind of.

I know there's a lot of people who don't want to do them.

Actually, we, we have a lot of members who don't want to do the move the needle list and it's.

I don't do the move the needle list.

I get why, I get why we hate red tasks, right?

But every single one of those five, five or six tasks are going to be red tasks.

But even if you do one or two of them each week, moves the needle.

Little bit, Little bit, little bit.

And they're all the things that over, you know, in the course of a year, it's a lot of movement.

It's a big jump.

If we even tackle one or two of those red list items every week.

Yeah, absolutely.

Right.

And, and it's those things that then come off of your back that you're not feeling as well as having to do, right?

And sometimes you just gotta start them, right?

Put it on the list and then you'll Start it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.

I can't remember exactly where I heard it, but.

And once again, could be total bullshit, but I remember reading somewhere once that 80% of a company's revenue comes from about 20% of the effort, like of the clients, of the, of the workload.

Like, basically we're, we're wasting about 80% of our time and 20% of that time is the actual thing that's moving the needle for us.

Yeah, absolutely.

And yet that 20% so rarely gets the focused attention.

We don't want to look there.

We don't want to look at that.

Right?

Yeah, no, that's amazing.

You know, one of the things that I found very interesting or that I am very interested with regards to your story is it's an interesting jump.

Like I said, I think you're the first teacher we've had professors, but you're the first like teacher principal, worked in the Alberta School division, you know, worked with Alberta School board.

We're doing some very high level education things and then was just like, no, I'm going to go be an entrepreneur.

Like, it's real.

Like, honestly, dude, I've been so curious the whole time.

Starting a company is frigging scary.

Everybody I talk to, it's one of the biggest, like, things that comes up on the BDP is like, how scary it is to take that jump from that, safety from that, from that nice paycheck.

Because most of the people that I've had on this show left very nice paychecks to go and do their own thing.

Not only did you do it, you're having immense success with it.

You're now an international keynote speaker.

You have a book as of the time.

People are reading this for our listeners who are like, how the heck do I leave my incredibly cushy career to go and do something terrifying?

How the heck did you do it?

Why did you do it?

Great question.

I have no idea right when.

If I would have known.

Yeah, no, I would have done it so much sooner.

I think part of it was I felt like I had given everything I had to the education sector and so it was time for a shift.

However, I also, as I said earlier, if I think something can be done better, then I gotta go prove it.

And I myself experience burnout in my sector.

And it seemed like everybody that I was talking to, as you said before, they're all burning out, stress, teetering, that line of work, life balance and all this stuff.

And so I think it could be done better.

I gotta go prove it.

That's what led me to start my company.

And yeah, you know what some people say, dip your toe in the water and see if you have something that makes sense.

And.

And for some people, that's really good.

Do it on the side.

But for me, my mindset was, if I do it on the side, then it's getting the leftover energy that I have, and it will always be put off for another day.

And so I burned the boats.

Let's go.

We're going for it.

And so I started my company and thought, you know what?

Life's short.

You're meant to enjoy it, so let's try it.

Let's see what happens.

And I think I've got a better way, so let's see what takes.

Now, being honest, in the first six months of my business, I had a whopping zero clients, right?

Because I was looking to do deep strategic work with organizations, and yet I was trying to reestablish my credibility in a new industry, and nobody knew who I was, and so nobody wanted to trust me with that.

What I needed was to flip my perspective and begin with training and development and getting my foot in the door, building trust with clients and letting them see that I have something to offer that could help them, and then it fuels that relationship to allow it to move forward.

So for me, it really all stemmed from thinking that there's a better way to do this.

The narrative out there at the time was, you know, we got, we need better work life balance.

We've got to find a way to mitigate stress.

And.

And I think work life balance is bullshit.

I think it's actually part of the problem.

You and I have talked about this, and I think that there's a much better way forward.

And it's this idea of work life coherence.

Yeah, right.

Work life coherence.

Coherence by definition, means that it fits together and it makes sense.

And so work life coherence means that your work and your life fit together and make sense for the stage of life that you're at.

And that's the best part, is it's, you know, it's constantly changing.

And so this idea of balance, this 5050 idea, life's way too complex for that.

50 50, Right.

We've got way too much going on between in our home with navigating family needs and navigating all the pressures that we've got of taking care of our home and then all of our work.

And often you've got two people working in the home as well as Taking care of homes, whatever your situation is, life is complex, right.

And so this idea that you're magically going to balance it at 50, 50 and then it's all going to work out and be perfect.

Right.

Great.

Maybe you do one day and then you don't want to touch anything because, you know, all of a sudden it's going to throw it all off kilter.

Yeah.

My idea is that it's less like a balance scale and it's more like a teeter totter.

The seesaw, right.

From back in the day.

And it's meant to flow.

I haven't ever seen anybody on a seesaw at 50, 50 sitting there just happy as clam, thinking this is the best ride ever, Right.

You're meant to go up and down, you're meant to flow, right.

So just.

And then like some kid kicking his legs, right?

And then remember when you were like with a brother or a sister or someone who was bigger than you and you sit on the seesaw and they.

Like, yeah, there was no, you're up, you're gone.

Right.

But how many of us are living up there all the time?

Constant flight freeze and we're just pushing ourselves beyond.

It's meant to float.

And so if you end up in a situation where you've got to work a little bit more at a season of time.

Yeah.

But you got to build intention for that and plan for that so that you can do that well.

And then know that the seesaw is going to come back and you're going to restore and renew in a different way.

Right.

And that's this idea that we need to find the intention rather than just let it happen to us and juggle it all in the air.

We need to actually move with intention to allow that to happen.

Well, yeah, yeah.

And I definitely want to go into the coherence aspect of it.

You know, one of the questions that I have regarding work life balance, it's an old idea, right.

And I think I kind of wonder if the, the age of the Internet, the age of the cell phone is what destroyed it as just like an almost impossibility, right?

Because I think, I wonder, did work life balance?

Because I look at like my dad as a kid, right.

My dad was an entrepreneur, but when he was off work, he was off work.

That was it.

Like there was.

They weren't calling him at home to come in.

Nobody was texting him or emailing him.

Like, I remember doing lots of fun with my dad as a kid after, after work and then during work time, he would be at work.

I almost wonder if that was the idea of work, life, balance.

Like there was a time when you could separate work and life because they were very different places.

Nobody bugged you, typically when you were off work and nobody was calling you at work unless there was a real emergency.

Right.

I think maybe once upon a time it was real.

And that's why we're so, like fixated or, you know, I mean, we're the generation removed from it would be the way that I would maybe say it.

So it's like an idea that our parents had.

And so we were taught that, like, oh, you got a balanced work life.

But now it's like, like I work at home.

Right.

Sorry.

That is so far out the window, guys.

We need new ideas.

And I love that about you because that's exactly what you are doing.

You are shaking up the idea that it's not about balance, it's about coherence.

Yeah, yeah.

And you know what?

You're.

I think you're partially right in that sense.

Think back to the industrial age, where it's like you go to work, you work in the factory, you come home, whatever.

But I remember my dad would be bringing home his briefcase and after dinner would open up the briefcase and do a little bit of work.

It was just done differently.

My mom happened to work out of the home at the time as well.

And I think that's a major shift is that a lot of families have both parents working full time now.

And so instead of one parent, whoever that be, working and another parent home to navigate or adjusting in that way, now you're taking on both working and the home responsibilities.

And let's be honest, the home responsibilities around, you know, getting your kids to all the activities that we have to have them in these days.

And, you know, just the different intention that's required for that.

And yeah, you constantly got messages on your phone and people reaching out to you.

All of those has just bombarded the system and overstimulated ourselves.

Right.

You know, part of it, I think, you know, when I, when I was a kid, I did one activity.

And so that's what we do with our kids now.

They're in one activity.

And after that, if we want to do more with them, we do more ourselves.

So, you know, my, my son's in hockey, my daughter's in synchronized swimming, and if we want to take them skiing, we go skiing with them.

Right.

That way we could do it as a family, but it's not a requirement.

I'm not chasing them to the hill each night and doing all those things.

And so I think sometimes we just fill our schedules too full and don't allow that room for complexity.

Do you ever remember, like, maybe we were too young?

Like, I'm trying to look back and like, say, did my parents deal with burnout?

Did my, like, like, I have family who's in business.

Like, I don't remember burnout.

I don't think it's a new concept, but I just don't remember it being as big as it is today.

Like, I.

Is it a modern day challenge?

I don't think it's a modern day challenge, but I do actually think it's a positive thing that we're hearing about it more because I think it was, it was dealt with in silence before.

Yeah.

And I think that we still often do.

It's very rare that people reach out and feel comfortable talking about it.

In my circumstance, I went through my own burnout.

I had three friends that I've known since high school and I didn't tell them till after it had happened.

Why?

Right.

Why not?

But then once I did, it opened the door for them to say, yeah, me too.

You know, I'm dealing with this too.

And so I think now what we're seeing is people are starting to communicate about that more and be more self aware and also other aware rather than before where I think it was just dealt with more in silence.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One of the things that I think has really helped me, like selfishly, the Catalyst Club is as much about making me feel better, all of our members, because I wanted a place where I could come and just be like, I am having a shit week.

And I'm probably actually going to put that right after this, right after this, just to let everyone know, like, I am not infallible.

I had a really hard week.

The reality is we need that space and we need those people who understand us.

I. I have a weekly call with one of our members, Colin Harms, and he's become an incredible friend of mine.

I've known him a couple years.

He was an early listener of the show and then went on to sponsor the show through his company.

So there's just been a ton of help.

But I've always felt like I can have that authentic conversation with Colin because it's like, he gets it.

He runs a big, big company.

They do lots and lots of dollars in business.

So I can call him and be like, I'm having a shit week.

This deal fell through.

I'm not able to make my show Deadline.

I'm, like, crushing it, trying to get by.

I missed this meeting because I was so busy.

I forgot about it.

Like, real life happens and we need those people that we can share with.

But it's funny because you made the mention that you didn't tell your friends.

I do the same thing, but I will tell my business friends.

I will tell my peers, because they'll get it.

My friends will just be like, stop complaining, Kelly.

Your life is great, but they're not in that world.

Right.

It's.

You need people who understand you, who are in a similar situation to you, because they are going to be more empathetic there.

You need people who get it.

Yeah.

I think everybody.

Everybody needs to find people that connect with and resonate with what they're doing, because there's the context around that.

Some of the things that we're dealing with are unique to your industry, and you need someone who can hear about it and share about it and understand exactly what you're dealing with.

There's also times where having someone who's not connected in that way can be a really positive thing, too, because they give you that outside perspective and they remove you from that sphere for a moment and all you to think about things in a different way.

Right.

And so, yeah, I think both are really valuable.

I think one of the biggest shifts that we might have seen, and I've experienced this in the Catalyst Club, too, is it used to be seen as good leadership meant you were strong.

Right.

You had control of the boat.

Right.

Whereas now I think there is a bit more of a mentality that in vulnerability you show courage and therefore you show strong leadership.

You don't have to have all the answers, but you need to be authentic and people need to be able to rally behind what you're doing.

It doesn't mean that you're not capable of leading.

It just means that you're actually a human.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so funny because it's like that shift, if I even look at.

If I even look at my career in business over the last, you know, 15 years, I wasn't allowed to talk about shit that was going on in my home life.

I had to keep it together.

You sucked it up and you kept on going.

I could be having the worst day ever, and I still had to put on a smile and go to my meeting and kill it for my company, because that's what was expected of me.

Covid changed the whole thing on its head.

I don't.

I don't quite understand how or why what it was about COVID but it was like somebody unlocked the handcuffs and said, you know what, we get it.

You really are just a person.

We don't expect you to be a superhuman.

You're gonna have shit days and you can tell us about it.

But pre Covid, we really had to just keep it together.

And it's like, I don't know why, I don't know what it was about COVID that really shook it up.

But there's definitely going to be a pre Covid business world and a post Covid business world with regards to mental health.

And what we value in leadership, we now value vulnerability.

Absolutely right.

And I think the leaders that are going to be the most successful are the ones that realize too, that you can have all the strategy in the world.

You can have all the KPIs, the metrics, the outcomes, all the targets.

You can be looking for growth and you can show the great spreadsheets.

But if you don't take care of your team along the way, then your foundation is fragile and you're not going to be able to move those things forward ongoing, because the people that do that aren't going to be well.

And so that's the shift that we need to see in a workplace, is that, yeah, it's great to have all those great targets, but we also need to make sure that we're taking care of our team along the way so that they can be engaged to do those things in a sustainable way.

I show an image in one of my keynotes that has this guy that's ripped like huge muscles up top, right?

And then the classic image is skinny little legs, right?

And it's like, guy forgot leg day.

Right?

How many times in an organization are we seeing that?

I got all the strategy, all the metrics and everything else, but I forgot leg day.

And the leg day are my teams.

And the leg day as a leader is myself.

If I'm not taking care of myself as a leader, I'm no good to anyone.

If I can't be there, if I'm sick, if I'm burnt out, I'm not able to lead well.

And so that's a shift that we really need to make as an organization to creating a healthy workplace culture.

Yeah.

Amazing.

And I think that's like a perfect segue to start talking about your new book, the Coherence Compass.

Why did you write it and what is it about?

Love it.

Yeah, so I wrote it because I want to shift the mindset of people in terms of understanding what wellness looks like and how that we can actually do this in a way that's sustainable.

I don't think that we need to be burnt out, stressed, exhausted, and tired.

I think that we shouldn't wait until we're thirsty to dig our well, so to speak.

Instead, we need to do this for the long haul.

And life's actually meant to be enjoyed, too.

So instead of just pushing through and being exhausted all the time, I think it's time that we shift that narrative and start to build a life with intention.

When I speak at conferences, often organization, like, people will come up to me afterwards and say, you know, I really loved what you had to say.

I wish you could speak again so that I could just chew on some of that.

And so that was the impetus for me to write my book, was okay.

This gives people an opportunity to really take home and think about and reflect on some of these ideas.

And honestly, if it shifts your mindset just a little bit, that's a huge win for me.

Amazing.

Amazing.

And at this point, it's funny because we're actually talking ahead of the release.

Otherwise I would have read it by now.

I will have a copy very shortly.

I can't wait to read it.

But as of this listening moment right now, you can actually order the Coherence Compass.

Who is it for, Stephen?

Is it for the leaders of tomorrow entrepreneurs?

Who were you thinking about when you wrote this book?

You know, my intention for.

For the people in this book are those who are really trying their best to try and make it work, but they're just feeling like they're missing something.

You know, they're just.

They're burnt out, they're stressed.

There's too much going on.

I love it for leaders in working with their teams because it really helps shape the intention that you're bringing into your organization.

So it would be great for a leader with their executive team, with their full leadership team, as well as just for organizationally, people have an opportunity to really shift the culture towards intention and an opportunity to move forward in an optimal way.

So it's really intended for those that are looking for a different mindset and how to lead.

Amazing.

And so frankly, all leaders and all new leaders especially, I think, because you know what I mean.

I love the idea that leadership books are great, but I think there's leadership books for certain times, right?

A leadership book written 30 years ago, it might be great.

It might have some good information in it.

But like I said, Covid changed everything.

And at this point, that was only, like, five years ago.

So yes.

So we need our books for this generation.

And Stephen, you have written one.

I can't wait to.

To share it with the world.

It will be in the show notes.

If you're listening to this right now, you will be able to buy it right in the show notes.

All LinkedIn posts and everything else easy to find.

Take us in as well to your company.

Obviously you're doing international keynotes, you're a TEDx speaker.

Dude, you are incredible.

Take me into well by design.

You know, it's funny, when you look back, you can see all these things that you've been able to experience.

You're like, wow, that's amazing.

And then you look forward and it's the mountain ahead of you that you still gotta climb.

Right?

Yeah.

So yeah, I appreciate you nodding those things that I've been able to experience.

I absolutely love connecting with teams, leaders, organizations and at conferences to really share this shift in mindset and raise awareness about the idea of personal and professional wellness by design.

And so I do keynote speaking at conferences across Canada and the U.S. i've had the opportunity to go to Iceland as a part of that too.

So hey, no, no destinations.

Off limits.

Let's go have some fun.

But I also love getting in and working with organizations and doing leadership development, healthy communication practices, and taking a look at how we can build an optimal workplace culture.

And at times that builds itself even further down to where we're looking at the strategy side of things.

Digging into the processes within your company, what you're already doing, what's working, and hearing from your team what they need for an optimal workplace culture.

And that's deeper strategic work.

It's really nice because I get a good flow, I get a good variety.

At times I'm traveling, at times I'm at home, sometimes on a big conference stage and other times working close knit with a group of small.

A small group of leaders.

Excellent.

Yeah, that's so amazing.

And obviously congratulations as well.

You were recently admitted to the Speakers Bureau of Canada, weren't you?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was nice.

I had that opportunity and building a relationship with them as well.

So really, really appreciative of the opportunity.

That's super, super cool and it'll definitely catapult.

You were already catapulted and it'll just give you that extra boost you needed.

But TEDxStage was already pretty friggin incredible.

You know what, that one was wild.

Being able to step into the circle.

There's something humbling when you know there's been that many people that have stepped in there before and to be able to share a unique idea and have that as a, as a lasting legacy is pretty cool.

Super amazing.

So if people want to get ahold of you, Steven, they want to hire you, they want to get you to come in and give a keynote for them.

What is the best way for them to reach you?

Yeah, please do.

I'm happy to connect.

Website is WellByDesign CA and my LinkedIn is Steven Langer.

Either one of those ways, I'm happy to connect and discuss if there's a fit for you.

Amazing.

This has been such a great conversation, Stephen.

I. I appreciate you so much.

Like I said, I feel like we just connect on this, like, really great level.

I love your energy.

I love every conversation we have.

I'm so appreciative to have you inside Catalyst Club and I just look forward to seeing whatever comes next from you because I know it's going to be amazing.

Awesome.

Thanks, Kelly.

Yeah, I really appreciate it.

It's always nice to connect and we'll.

Just keep building until next time.

You've been listening to the Business Development podcast and we'll catch you on the flip side.

This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.