Check it out, check it out. Welcome to the Art of Coaching Podcast. I'm Brett Bartholomew and at a young age, poor communication nearly calls 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 in the no-nonsense type who appreciates frank conversations, advise 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. Alright, we're going off script for this one and it is because today is a really, really meaningful day. For me, I always promise to give you guys my most authentic takes on a lot of subjects. And hopefully you feel like I've done that throughout the years. You know, it was my birthday, my 40th birthday, this past Sunday. And thank you to all of you have reached out and to all of you have been such generous supporters over the years with all the risks that that I've taken and and all the things that I've tried to do to continue to evolve as a human. And with that one of the biggest risks I have easily taken in my life is one that is nearing the end of its journey in some ways. And it's something I'm sharing with you guys and my mighty networks community first. You've heard me talk about my next book for a very, very long time, and it has been a very, very long journey. But I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you now that my book, my new book, the same one that I've been working on for more than half a decade, the same one tied to my doctoral work, the same one that touches on so many subjects that are relevant in our lives today and we'll get into that a moment is officially up for preorder.

Now we're still finalizing some of the bigger launch pieces.

There's going to be a new landing page.

There's going to be exciting preorder bonuses, cover assets, all of that, but I really

didn't want to waste time.

So if you already know that you're interested in my next book, you can go to artofcoaching.com slash book right now. And that will take you to a list where once you sign up, the minute those retail links go live, we will send you all those details. Now, why am I doing it that way? Because my publisher said, hey, the retail links may be available, they may not be. So we thought it would just be easier to get you on the list and then we'll do the heavy lifting. So literally all you have to do is go to artofcoaching.com slash book. If you've already signed up before, we will get you those retail links. And we're going to be talking about so many more things about this soon. We're going to be doing a launch of the newsletter soon. We're gonna be doing a big push to it soon, but I just felt like at the end of the day, you guys are my most loyal people. You guys and the people in our mighty networks community, and many of you that are in our newsletter for sure, you've been on this journey with me. Now, I also wanna be really clear about what this book is because I talk straight to you. I got asked a really good question one time and they said, what do you want the reader of this book to say? And I said, well, many things, but more than anything, I would like them to say, holy shit, I wish I had this book sooner in my life because it would have kept me from getting taken advantage of,

getting in my own way, wasting time and energy on the wrong things. In my opinion, and I'm not saying the book's perfect, but this is the book that nobody gave you when you needed it most. This is the book that you wish you would have gotten. And then I got pushed even harder. They're like, yeah, but what's the one sentence like line? I'm like, guys, this is gonna be impossible.

But I can say this, we always hear about

like good people finishing last. And then I got pushed even harder. They're like, yeah, but what's the one sentence like line? I'm like, guys, this is gonna be impossible.

But I can say this, we always hear about like good people finishing last. And I don't think that's true. I think that's true in some cases. But I think if this book had one line, it's that good people finish last when they don't understand power. And I think that we see that more and more in today's world.

Power is something that's never going away.

Certain people are always going to wield it.

Many people do not wield it wisely and the vast majority of it do people do not wield it well. People have used power for a lot of things, but it's not power that corrupts people. It is people that corrupt power because many of us are not taught how to navigate the gray areas of life. We're not taught how to navigate a truly manipulative people in gray area situations in the morally ambiguous and more and more as asked from us daily as parents, as people, as providers, as professionals. And we needed kind of a black book of secrets to learn how to do this stuff well. And that's exactly what my next book is about. The controlling idea of the book is all about how to deal with the messy realities of leadership, how to deal with the dark side of leadership, what do you need to know and learn in order to become the most adaptable, effective version of yourself. And it dives into the psychology of power in a very practical sense. It dives into the psychology of conflict. How do we deal with our own inner conflict? How do we deal with conflict with other people? How do we quit running from conflict? None of us like it, but it's a part of every day life. And so when I would get asked about this, I'd say, yeah, it's fundamentally the black book of secrets for how leadership really works. And the only way to become more effective in our lives is by leaning in to the many different aspects of ourselves that allow us to become more socially agile and learn how to operate in complex environments. I mean, think about how many things exist out there and they're great in their own respect. I really don't want to get into criticizing other people's work. We know that there's great books out there on positive leadership, on charismatic leadership, on how to do more of this and do more of that and slow down and to be more mindful. But there are situations in life where we don't get that. We don't be that version of ourselves. So we need kind of a no bullshit treaties that centered on helping people confront themselves because none of us are perfect, me most of all, and also learn how to deal with real world conflict, whether it's with your 13 year old daughter or an executive that's been in your business 30 years, really evolve in a way that makes us able to be better

at operating in the gray area.

So a lot of the themes of the book are pragmatism,

personal accountability, strategic thinking,

how to recognize when people are leveraging certain

influence tactics against you,

how to not be a people pleaser.

That is a huge one because a lot of us

that have people pleasing tendencies were clinging tout dated ideals. We're playing by somebody else's rules. We're listening to our own doubts and demons and fears and insecurities and there's a way to harness those. There's a way to harness those for more utilitarian purpose. And frankly, I think a lot of the books out there and again, they're fine. They're for a certain audience that just tell us, you know, you're gonna be your best self when you just slow down and you're more mindful and you're this. That's great, but like I said, a lot of these are written by people who are at certain points of their lives where they're a bit comfortable. You know, they make decent money. They can schedule their day accordingly. Maybe they don't have to go into the office. They don't have to work with as many people as the rest of us do. But a lot of us have to deal with shady contractors. We gotta deal with employees that are difficult. We've gotta deal with people in our own family that sometimes as much as we love them can drive us crazy. And we don't get to take that out. We don't get this kind of prescriptive, simple, idealistic situation.

So. we love them can drive us crazy. And we don't get to take that out. We don't get this kind of prescriptive, simple, idealistic situation. So this book is for those people. This book is for the people that realize, man, I deal with a lot of messy situations. Man, I really want to do good, but I have some chaos in my life, and I really need something that can help me see it for what it really is, what it really is. And whether you run from conflict or not, we've got to learn how to deal with it better. We've got to deal with it better. And these themes in our life are so important. We're always going to deal with themes like conflict and chaos and doubt, and we're going to have to let some people down, and we're not always going to be able to be popular or liked and many of us struggle with that too, even if you say you don't, right? And great leadership isn't really about that. Great leadership is about fit, knowing how to show up as a version of yourself, the version of yourself you need to in that situation because none of us can afford to just be one dimensional. To make a change, you actually have to be willing to be a misfit at times. You're going to have to break some rules. You're going to have to accept that not everybody's going to like you. You're going to have to learn how to deal with some real part in my language, but shitheads. And so you're going to have to get more power fluent. And if you think about it if you're really honest with yourself, whether it's you or somebody you know, people that often struggle the most are the ones that don't adapt. They always say, there's this other version of me I wish I could let out. There's this thing I wish I could learn how to say. There's these doubts I wish I could get rid of. I know I'm constraining myself. We're going to tell you to let that monster off its leash a little bit, to channel it,

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