I am pursuing truth with Brian Kavicky

I am pursuing truth with Brian Kavicky

Brian: One of the vignettes I remember is when you stood up at my office and you yelled at me and said, "Just tell me what to do! I just want to know what to do."

Tiffany: I'm your host, Tiffany Sauder, and this is Scared Confident. There's people that know you, and then there's people that know you, know you, and then there's people who helped build you.

We're getting ready to talk to one of those for me. Brian Kavicky is joining me. I've been working with Brian for over a decade. Brian has played such a massive role in transforming my business, but also, and more importantly, helping transform me as a person. I think one of the things you need to know about Brian is like, this is a guy that could literally do anything he wanted to with his life and he's put himself in a place where he's literally in a place of service to others, helping us facilitate our dreams and what it is that we want out of our businesses. I have this thing in my head that those who can't do, teach. That is so a million miles from the truth with who Brian is. I think for those reasons, that's why I've always listened so fervently when he speaks. This really is a choice for him. He really feels called to helping others facilitate delivering their dreams. Take a listen.

I remember you cold-called me and I invited you into my office. I don't even remember what questions you asked me, but I remember it ended in me crying, saying I'm about ready to have a baby. I need to go on maternity leave because that is what I have to do. I don't believe anything good is going to happen to my business while I'm gone.

And then do you remember what I said? What you said to me?

Brian: I don't remember what I said, but I would have today. I would have said, do you want my help with that?

Tiffany: Well, you said in your head, because with my first baby, when I went and had her, everything happened with her financial crisis, you said in your head, when you have babies, bad things happen.

And so you are getting ready to have this baby. And so in your head that equals bad things are gonna happen and you are like gearing up for something, for some unknown, terrible thing to happen. I was like armoring up like a beast, subconsciously, because it had been so traumatic the first time around. And then you said, do you want my help with that?

And I started bawling and I was like, I don't have any money. And you were like, it's fine.

Brian: It's fine. I don't need money.

Tiffany: I think I paid you $500 a month or something like that and it felt like the equivalent of $25,000 a month today. I paid you $500 a month or a thousand, something like that, like a pittance.

And I was such a charity case.

Brian: The other thing I said is, how many months you have until you're due. And you told me, and I said, by the time you leave here, you'll leave here with confidence. You are going to leave this business in good shape. And, and you pulled it off by your third. You were like, whatever. I don't know if I need to come back to work for awhile by your last one.

You're like, I need to come back to work, but you were it's totally.

Tiffany: Yeah, no, it is true. I had more freedom with my second than I did with my first more freedom with my third, then I second. And then more freedom with my that's. Exactly right. And. It isn't an overnight thing, but it was like a guttural response to, I don't know what I need help with, but I just know it's a wreck.

When we started working together, I was messed up in my mind in probably three different areas, my own mind and my, like my self-talk my relationship with JR. And the third was with work. I was in over my head and we weren't performing in the way that we needed to. But the safest place for me to be able to say, 'Hey, I'm failing and I need help,' was business.

Like it was safe. In my head, it was the safest place to raise my hand and say, I really need help here. And so these lessons like, how do you ask questions to uncover true motivation? How do you be comfortable being wrong? How do you have the other person's perspective in mind and all the things that you sort of ask and see? Those were things I was practicing for years under the guise of sales training.

And I started to see like, Oh, this has universal application, like Holy cow. And the more vulnerable I was able to be in my business life. I started to see a different kind of success, which gave me courage to show up more vulnerably in my marriage. I would say the first thing I sort of fixed was the business.

The second was my marriage. And then the third, this sort of exploration of secure, confident is like, I have to really get right in my own head, like completely and be able to ask questions and being able to be honest about what's taking place and that. Adventure in, uh, in courage towards vulnerability.

Is that a path that you see is that like, did you know the whole time that was taking place? I guess?

Brian: Uh, well, yeah, you, you, you do know the whole time. Um, usually, and I, I usually ask those questions early on. I think some people even ask think it's weird when I say, tell me about your relationship with your spouse.

What's your family life like? And they're like, why are you asking this for sales training? Because that's the stuff that's going to quickly come up right after. And I need to know that of what, what the issues are there, because those types of problems show up in more than one place because it's universal.

You have to deal with it all at once. The head stuff typically goes a little bit early is, you know, am I fixing a problem or am I fixing my head? A lot of the problems are in our head. They're not reality. We're we, we create those. There's a phenomenon where. What you're trying to either avoid or trying to attain you unintentionally draw out.

So when a salesperson is trying to get you to say yes, they, they want you to say yes, but you feel like you're forced to say no, because you're fighting that force to say yes, somebody that's. Trying to be liked by somebody typically is not liked by people because they unintentionally do things that cause them not to be liked as part of getting liked.

And when you're facing that thing of, I want this business, you are not looking through their lens. And once you shifted that and making about why it was good for them versus good for you, that was where you became confident again, because it wasn't selfish. It was for them not you. So

Tiffany: how does that play out in personal relationships, marriages, friendships, even your own relationship with your own Headspace.

Brian: So marriages I think are successful or unsuccessful based on, are you there to meet your needs? Are you there to beat somebody else's and if you focus a hundred percent of your effort on how do I get you to your needs? And the other person's doing the same. Two people walk out of that going, wow, I get my needs met through this marriage.

Same with your friendships. If you're focused on what do I get out of this versus what do I give into this? And both of you are doing the same thing. Typically it works very well. So it it's universal to people. Is, are we giving to get, or are we giving? And the other person's taken care of. And the only reason it won't work is when one of those people goes, no, I like taking, so I'm just going to take instead.

Tiffany: The other thing I've found is it took me way too long to be able to give language to what I need, because my natural inclination is to be. Chameleon and to meet other people's needs so that I get feedback that, you know, I'm great and fine. And all these kinds of things, instead of saying like, no, this is what I need.

Like, this is what I need in my marriage. This is what I need for my company. This is what I need from my relationships. It took me a very long time to get comfortable. With that, even the idea of thinking about it was very uncomfortable for a long time, let alone giving language to it.

Brian: And yet I remember is when you stood up at my office and you yelled at me and said, just tell me what to do.

I just want to know what to do. Why was it hard to do that?

Tiffany: I, I think that. All along the way and instill some ways. It's hard for me. It's hard for me to accept that there may be a beautiful outcome, that there may be success, that there may be. It's hard for me to accept that. And I don't know if it's a defense mechanism of.

If it doesn't work, whether it be element three or it's project or whatever, the thing is that I was like, Oh good. I'm I was prepped for it. And so I don't get surprised I'm not caught off guard. And I wasn't imagining myself there. I think there were times because I was a leader so young. And in some ways you played this, like, Weird role is like an older brother.

In some ways I could just be like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I could just sort of like, say that to you. And you were like, okay, well then that's probably what we should solve. And I, and I think when I was young and even sometimes I get just the mental fatigue of having to, it's not like I figure everything out, but you know, it's like when I was young, especially like in it.

Trying to solve both the client level and for element three and my young family and just all that kind of stuff. I think I just sometimes was tired and I really just wanted somebody to tell me what to do for a minute. I think that's part of it. I also think some of it was it just sort of de-risked it.

If I was told what to do and I didn't, and it didn't work, I didn't maybe have to own the failure quite as personally.

Brian: I think that's the big one. The two, the other pieces of the devil's tongue are I don't deserve it and I'm not capable. So it's, I'm not lovable, I'm not capable, and I don't deserve. When you hear those voices, those come from a chemical place, not a real place. There's either a little bit of capability there, or a little bit of, I don't deserve for it to be successful. I didn't do enough to be this successful. I didn't, I'm not responsible for the success. And I think that whole just tell me what to do, because if it doesn't work, I can blame you.

Not myself. It was meant to protect you and you needed to be protected at that time

Tiffany: or starting something or doing anything hard. You have to operate. Even when the wounds are still like bleeding, like you don't get to like go to war, kind of get her and then go home and heal and then like, come back out when you're whole. And so you have to still operate. When you're like, oops, you know, like, like, man, I just got the crap beat out of me, but tomorrow I have to go to work and I don't have any more answers than I did yesterday.

All I know is that didn't work. And so now I'm kind of battered and beat up and I supposed to find a plumb line so that we can have a new strategy. But I don't know when you do get to your wit's end. And for me, I usually am like, okay, I don't need to have enough brain power to rethink this. So I'm just going to do it as prescribed or whatever, you know, like you just sorta, you just get to work.

I think people respond in one of two ways they retreat or they just, and my purse, it is so much easier to make something wrong. Than it is to make something right.

Brian: The reason it's easier to make it wrong is because we're, that decision is forced on you is when something is typically hard. So you can come up with a lot of reasons not to do something.

You can come up with a lot of reasons why something won't work. You can come a lot up for the reasons why it's stupid or it's silly or all those are the first thing. The first. Justification it's justification to where you are today. Not justification to where you could be. And that's where it starts is feeling good about the fact that I'm where I am today and saying that's okay.

Versus what I could do, where I could be, what it could be accomplishing. It's where it starts.

Tiffany: We've been working together. Formerly for 10 or 12 years, a very long time. And I think one of the things people do is they glamorize in their minds, the fresh start, and don't realize that like, everything that was dysfunctional about that relationship, your to carrying forward, you just have a new starting point.

So you've prolonged the data point where that dysfunction is going to start up, sort of show up again. It just sort of kicks the thing down the road instead of really dealing with. What did this conflict bring forward? And how do we deal with this in a way that advances, where we're both trying to get?

Is that also the application of that?

Brian: Yeah. And it's, it typically shows up when people say that's not the problem. The problem is something else. You know, that that's where the can gets kicked. Oh, that's not the issue. The issue. Isn't how I'm talking to the person. The issue is how they're acting the issue is and how I've structured.

My business. The issue is they're misbehaving. And that's where you start to make it wrong, to justify what you've done.

Tiffany: Yeah. We experienced it in the business when it's like, feels like just suddenly somebody calls us and they're like, they're, you know, we're going to find a new agency relationship. It's like, Oh my, okay.

But can we talk about like, what's going on? And they start to share things. It's like, Oh my word, we totally could have fixed that. If we both would've known, it's just, why didn't we not have the language? Or why do we not have the opportunity to be able to share this with one another so that we can.

Build on all the things that we do know about each other, and that is going well so that we can fix this piece of it. And I think people kind of pendulum then, and like find a partner that fixes that one thing that was broken and then all the other things that were working suddenly, you know, it's like, I see that play out for sure.

And I think in marriages, sometimes it can be that way too, where it feels easier to just have a fresh start and it feels easier to. Just do over and make the other person wrong and see yourself as right. And kind of move forward and try to justify that position. Instead of doing their really hard work on sort of self in relationship to figure out how do we get this to a place where we're both really proud of what it can become.

Brian: And the complication there is that people don't think they can be better or improve. There's a place where people go, you know what? I just think this is all I am and that I can't be changed. Especially as they age, they just go, you know, this always happens to me. It must be just who I am.

Tiffany: What are the fears that you see?

Most acutely in the people that you work with. And I, I let's focus on like, sort of the Headspace of CEOs and leaders that you work

Brian: with fear for a CEO is that they're the problem. I've not done enough. I've done something wrong. I could have done something earlier. Uh, that, that I'm the, they don't want to discover that they've been the barrier, even though they've been the barrier.

And some people will accept it. And some people won't. The other one is the risk taking is that their fear of risk that they, they know their business and their business risks, but personal risks with how they talk to their people, changes in the way that they lead changes in the way that they pay, what they accept from people have to adjust.

And they're afraid to do that because they think the outcome. Is going to be negative, which is why they've always been doing it before. The last one is that, that big one of fear of success, they set out for success. They're driving towards success. They, they believe they have some destination and the closer they get to it.

And the more that they see the path, there's a piece of them that says, I need to slow this down. It's getting out of control and I'm going to lose it all versus I'm going to adjust. And the reason they think I'm going to lose it all is that they didn't follow the plan. They just did what everybody else did, or they just added people or they just whatever.

And they go, Oh, I'm going to lose it all. And they don't make the hard choices because of the effects they think it's going to have. And that's where they lose it all. So those are the big pieces. I

Tiffany: remember, as you sort of start to learn the relationship between goal strategy and like daily behavior, you were like, do you think it's random?

Like, is that you think it's random? You just think it's random. I was like, well, yeah, actually I do kind of think it's random. And you're like, well, that's because it's been random to you. Like when you got a new client was random, like the thing that you did to get them, nothing was intentional. And so it felt random.

And so that is what I believed. And I do think there were some deep seated fears around not being able to like perpetuate element three's growth or commit to its growth, because I was like, I don't know how to systematize randomness. And it wasn't until you were like, you have some intuition and you have some natural gifts and you have some things that make some of this easier, but you have to behave this so that it has a predictable outcome.

And that was. Earth shattering to me. And it took the randomness away, even from the success and the failure of I'm not going to roll out of bed one day and just literally have no company and have no idea what to do. It was like, no, well, what on the plan needs to be reworked because you just get back to the plan and it felt so much more manageable.

No,

Brian: you, you fell into a common trap. The other piece that you learned is to narrow the focus of what the goals were. It's not about having 42 goals. It's about having three and I can manage a lot more if I'm focusing on little or things that make the big impact, instead of the many things that I'm never going to touch her.

Tiffany: One of the things I've learned is that. In every experience in life, our soul begs for there to be a witness to the journey. And for me, there's parts of the journey of building element three, that I'll never be able to give language to, to somebody who wasn't there. And if my company's office space was the place where I needed to be brave and a leader and in charge and have the answers.

When I would go to Brian's office in many ways, it was the place that I could just be me and be present with all of my vulnerabilities and insecurities. And so I think there's a lot of the journey that I'll never be able to give language to, but I think Brian will silently stand in the background and say I was there too.

What growth would you say that you have seen in me as a person?

Brian: I think the biggest shifts for you have been. Not needing to be the most important person, not needing to be the reason that things happen. And you didn't do that because you were uncomfortable with it. You actually loved it. When you could be attributed with success, you loved it.

That people came to work for you cause they wanted to work for you. But you, you adjusted over time to really focus on the team to the point that your whole company is now branded towards them. Versus you and I, and that, that was a long shift, but a good shift. I think one of the other big strengths is that you, you, weren't afraid to dream big.

You would say, my intuition is telling me we can, when I back into my plan, it looks like I'm right. I just want to double check versus I'm scared to do this. I don't know if I'll fail or anything is that you got very good at going. This makes sense. So I know we can not, this makes sense. So I must've made a calculation error.

You didn't try to make yourself wrong so much. The third. And I think this is the most important is is you stop trying to emulate what you saw in others and be like everybody else. And. Do things that you read in. I remember the phase of, I would go to a meeting and you'd say, have you heard about this phenomenon?

And I go, Oh, did you read this book? And you'd go, yeah, I read this book. It's great. We're going to do this across the board. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, here's a headache. We have to undo. It makes me sweat.

Tiffany: Yeah.

Brian: But the way that you emulated, how you spoke was to copy other people, the books, the idea is all those things is that you finally got to the place where now you're like, no, this is a way we're going to go.

This is what I see. This is what I going to do. If somebody else does it differently, good for them, but this is how we're going to do it. And it's more, it's finally at your path, not somebody else's that you're operating

Tiffany: under. What do you see that I still struggle with, like, what's next, as you see it on my growth journey.

Brian: What do I still see in Tiffany that needs growth? I, I think that you need to be okay with some things that. The world tells you are not what you're supposed to be. You know, we hear a lot about vulnerability and I think not wearing the armor and being vulnerable and being vulnerable with your team has merit, but you don't have to take that to an extreme where everything has to be about your vulnerability.

I think for you, it's really going, this is who I am, and I'm okay with that. And I can do great things and I deserve great things and I have built great things and sort of just letting things run versus trying to adjust or fit or justify.

Tiffany: It was interesting to hear Brian say to me that it's important in this next step of the journey to not. Armor up with vulnerability because it's a different kind. But if that's the thing that if that's the only card, I know how to deal. I understand what he's saying, that it's not actually entirely authentic.

And it is for some reason, a struggle and a journey for me to own what I know for some of it to be declarative for some of it to be, this is my truth. And so I think in this next stage of the journey, It is still certainly that I have questions to offer up. I have the transparency and vulnerability of my own life to offer up.

And I think there are also some absolute truths. Some things that life has taught me some lessons that I have to share that it also need to own. With equal confidence.

So what else is on your mind? Text me (317) 350-8921. (317) 350-8921, and be sure to follow along on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening today.

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