There's nothing more important than return on investment anytime you pay for personal and professional development. But there is nothing that will give you more return on investment than improving as a communicator. Then learning more about yourself and your own tactics and your strategies and your blind spots

and all of these things when you're interacting with anybody. It doesn't matter whether you're a coach, whether you're a leader, whether you're talking to your kiddos, whether you're talking to your family, we all have the responsibility to do everything we can to become a more complete person. And that's what our workshops help you do. We're not raw raw, we don't do truss falls, we are a welcoming small group tailored environment

that will help you do. We're not raw raw, we don't do trust falls, we are a welcoming small group tailored environment that will help you develop skills that don't have a shelf life. Tired of being underpaid, we can help you become a better negotiator. Tired of feeling unconfident and socially anxious, we can help you learn how to be more assertive without losing yourself. Tired of feeling like nobody gets what you're saying or respects you or about you, we can help with that as well. Or maybe you just wanna figure out, hey, I've led 30 years, I think I've done so relatively successfully, but I wanna communicate better with different generations of staff or I wanna actually see where I can improve. We have had firefighters, other first responders, strength coaches, lawyers, doctors, surgeons, all at our clinic. The thing that people that come to our clinic, all have in common, is they're past all the superficial fluff. They've done all the other con-ed, the same con-ed, year after year after year, they wanted something different, they wanted something challenging, and they're at a point in their life where they recognize the value of doing that. I hope that's you. If it is, reach out to us. Go to info at artofcoaching.com. We do custom-in services, keynote presentations. We've even gone into an organization for a week and done a whole SWOT analysis of their communication strategies so their staff could be more cohesive. At the end of the day though, we just want to help. But ask yourself this, and this is my only little pitch,

what is poor communication going to cost you if you let things slide? Because poor communication

is the only thing guaranteed to make anything in life worse. Double down, improve with us,

we'd love to get to know you. Welcome to the Art of Coaching Podcast. I'm Rev. Rathalamu and at a young age, poor communication nearly costs me my life. Now I help others navigate the great area of social interaction, power dynamics and communication so they can become more adaptable leaders regardless of their profession, age or situation. This podcast is for everybody who is fascinated with solving people problems. So if you're the no nonsense type type who appreciates frank conversations, advice you can put to use immediately and learning how others navigate the messy realities of leadership, you're in the right place. I'm glad that you're joining us. Let's dive in. Hey, checking in. Nice to have you with me again. Today's episode is grounded in, I want to think about how to phrase this because I rift so much on this podcast, but I also want to keep it tight. For a while now, and this is just my take, I'm not asking anybody else to share my views, but for a while now, it seems like there has been, and I hate this term,

because of how it's been used in different ways

with toxic masculinity.

But there's been a lot of culture stuff

that's saturated with toxic optimism.

And for some people that alone's gonna piss them off,

because you can never be too optimistic.

It gets a dark war.

Hear me out.

What I mean by this is, and it's been going on probably for a half a decade if not more, and I'm sure there's larger societal trends that have happened even longer back, but this idea that if you're not up and at them every morning, something's wrong with you. If you don't wake up feeling like, man, I have the greatest job in the world. I'm so blessed with my family. I'm so blessed with this. It's just another opportunity to get better that something's wrong with you. It's just like weird psychological lever that is pulled to create this unrealistic standard and makes people feel defective when they don't meet a certain standard. And this is done in diet culture, fitness, finance, culture, every part of it, any part of self improvement. And so what I wanna make sure I'm also doing is this episode is not glorifying low days or the antithesis of that. It's just acknowledging them. I have no interest in enabling people that are like human eaurs and wanna stay in bed forever and all that I am going to do in this episode is make sure that there's a threshold where you understand you have permission to be human. I think I'm a fairly credible person in that I've been through a lot in life. I put skin in the game again and again. I put myself out there in every media. I've opened myself up to ridicule, criticism. I've had death threats online.

I've had amazing people give great reviews of my book

and I've had people that have never even bought my book

or seen it, tried to negatively review vomit.

I've dealt with all this stuff.

I felt like I failed as a parent.

I felt like I failed as a spouse.

I felt like I've been a great parent.

...