Do you want to become more calm, creative, and emphatic? Then you need to practice Positive Intelligence. Positive intelligence is built on mental fitness, which is your ability to handle life’s challenges. Stephen Jaye’s guest in this episode is Darren Kanthal, Founder of The Kanthal Group, where candid career conversations take place with clients. Darren talks with Stephen about how positive intelligence helps you face your insecurities and fears head-on! Doing so motivates you to take the right action for yourself and your business. Tune in!
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How Positive Intelligence Helps You Live A Happy Life With Darren Kanthal
My guest, Darren Kanthal, is an Executive and Leadership Coach with The Kanthal Group. He’s here to talk to us about a whole new idea behind how we assess ourselves. There are a lot of self-assessments or assessments of others. Everyone here is familiar with the IQ test, the intelligence quota, which is a measure of our intelligence and how smart we are. People have different feelings about whether or not they’re biased or useful measures.
What other measure that’s coming to a more recent utility that most people probably heard of is the emotional intelligence or the EQ, which is a measure of how well we read our emotions and emotions of others, how mature we are with that. It differs from IQ because it’s theoretically something we could improve on overtime. Darren’s specialty in his leadership coaching is talking about something called Positive Intelligence or the PQ. Darren, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Stephen. It’s great to be here.
Tell us about what PQ or Positive Intelligence is. What does this one measure when it comes to individuals or leaders?
Positive intelligence is built upon what we call mental fitness and we define mental fitness as your ability to handle life’s challenges with a positive rather than negative mindset. There’s lots of talk about mindset and this positive intelligence has its own vernacular, way of practicing, being more mentally fit, etc. PQ, Positive Quotient, is measured by taking a short assessment to see how often your brain is in positive thought versus negative thought.
Does this relate to that inner chatterbox that a lot of people talking about having in their head that, ” I’m not good enough. Something’s going to go wrong,” and all that type of stuff? Does it go further than that?
That’s the starting point. It takes many different names. The internal dialogue and conversations we have, the imposter. In the world of positive intelligence, we call it the judge. Positive Intelligence is built upon a book written by Shirzad Chamine. He too, is an executive coach and his book has been translated into over twenty languages. There are positive intelligence coaches in over 50 countries in all languages and in all cultures. We all have some judge and the judge is judging ourselves. It’s judging you and it’s judging our circumstance. When we start hearing that voice of, “I’m not good enough, you’re not good enough, my situation isn’t good enough,” that’s when we know where our judge is at play.
If you have strong roots and you're in the right environment, you flourish. Click To TweetThere’s an internal judge, which we all have in our head, that’s telling us and possibly telling some of my readers, “My idea is never going to work. I’m not the one to implement it.” We have external judges, which are the people around us, the people who are telling you your unique way of viewing the world is not sufficient. You don’t have a right to your unique way of wanting to be or whatever. What I’m wondering is in your view, do you think the external or the internal judge is more dangerous to most people?
I believe the internal judge is. It’s interesting how quick a lot of people are to point the finger and say, “It’s you. It’s your fault. You’re the reason why things didn’t go right for me,” the wind blew or whatever. It’s always this external stuff. At the end of the day, we have no control over the external. We only have control over internal and we find through our practice of positive intelligence through the clients I coach and through clients Shirzad has coached that the seemingly best people, world-class athletes, CEOs and people who have achieved societal greatness are miserable. They’re unhappy. Their level of success, the money they’ve achieved, the level of power and authority are not sufficing their happiness. It’s because it’s the internal judge.
Everyone has an internal judge. At one level you have this internal judge and it’s sabotaging yourself and people can overcome that in a way. There’s a whole second level where you’re able to overcome the external pressures that activate your internal judges. I think about that in the terms of people often say the people and the environment you surround yourself with matters quite a bit. It’s possible to get so strong in your positive intelligence that you can overcome a room full of nos and naysayers and still be there saying, “I’m still going to do my thing.” Is that accurate?
It is accurate. I worked with a coach myself and I have coaches all the time. A few months ago, I was the keynote speaker for an HR conference here in Denver. I hired a speech coach. During our coaching, he said, “What do you do?” I said, “I’m an executive and leadership coach.” He’s like, “What does that mean?” What he was getting at is there’s a lot of people who say they’re executive and leadership coaches and then you, as the reader, whoever you are, you may start to form your own conclusion of what that is and maybe you don’t ask follow-up questions.
As he and I talked about what I do, I’m very attached and I love trees. We started talking about this idea of I’m an arborist and because positive intelligence is rooted in our emotions, what we came up with is I am an emotional arborist. I work with my clients to help them feel strong internally so their roots. Are they confident in who they are? Do they believe in the person they become? Are they rooted in values and morals? As an emotional arborist, I focus first on your roots.
We also know as a tree with the strongest roots in the wrong environment, you will not grow. The right environment with the strongest roots is the right job, boss, company and relationship. Do you live in the right physical location? If you have strong roots and you’re in the “right” environment then you thrive. Your canopy flourishes. Much of what you’re describing is if you are sound in who you are, if you believe in the person you’ve become and if you are almost bulletproof as people are shooting at you, those bullets like Superman are going to bounce right off of you because, “Your judgment of me is not going to affect me so much because I am so sound in who I am.”
That’s an amazing state of being. I have to acknowledge it’s a state that I’m still aspiring to get to but still not 100% there. It feels like what percentage of the population of the world, your country or city do you think has gotten to that point where they’re bulletproof, they let it bounce off them and any amount of negativity is not going to bring them down?
It’s such a hard question but I will give you an answer. With relation to the PQ score, we say that those who score above 80%, their brain, mind, chatter and conversations are serving them positively 80% of the time. That is the threshold for positivity. From the data, surveys and all the work that we’ve done, only 20% of the population is there. Even talking to Shirzad, we’ll use words like the Jedi Master and a comparison to someone like Bruce Lee, who right there in these situations of consequence and they seem as calm as anyone could be.
They’re not so concerned with any individual coming from any place. It’s almost like they see the totality of their situation but, nonetheless, we’re all human. Bruce Lee gets hit and a Jedi Master gets hit with a lightsaber. The point being is that even those who are as strong as possible, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and people like this who are seemingly at that pinnacle, they’re human beings. There’s no real 100%. It’s how quickly can you identify that you’ve been triggered negatively to how quickly you recovered.
Thinking of myself, maybe you can relate and readers can relate, is I used to hold a grudge for days, sometimes weeks because I was so rooted in, “I had to be right, therefore, you were wrong.” I’ve been able to shorten my time of recovery. My brother called me and he and I often have differences. He was so excited. He bought a new house and he says, “When we move in, I’m going to invite the whole family to come over.” My family is in New York where I grew up and I live in Colorado. To be frank, my family does not come to visit me, which is hurtful and upsets me.
In my brother’s happiness and he invites me to his house, I barked at him, “I’m not coming to New York until one of you people comes to see me.” I automatically shoot my brother down at a time when he’s so happy. In years past, I would have let that sit and probably cursed my brother up and down and said, “He’s not coming.” At the moment, I said that I was like, “I’m sorry. You got the brunt of my unhappiness and upset that mom, you, Marissa don’t come to visit me. He accepted the apology and we moved on. That is, to me, one of the greatest outcomes of positive intelligence. It’s that ability to recognize when I’ve acted wrongly and been able to recover pretty quickly.
It seems like it’s an awareness thing more than anything else. One thing I want to point out to my readers is that it’s not that it doesn’t happen. There is something specifically about human nature. We have evolutionary reasons why we feel certain ways and we naturally activate what a lot of people refer to as the freeze-fight response in our brains. It’s that awareness. I’m guessing this coaching in positive intelligence builds that awareness so that you can look at yourself and be like, “I am feeling this and I am going to have to react and respond differently.” One thing I’m wondering is that since you’re an Executive and Leadership Coach, it means you work with people at the executive level, how often do people get to the executive level without developing their positive intelligence? Is that common? Is it more common for people to need to develop their positive intelligence in order to reach that level?
It’s chicken or the egg. My experience is that people achieve those levels of greatness without having strong positive intelligence or emotional intelligence. Kudos to anyone truly that goes through any personal professional development and decides to look at themselves objectively, no matter what the age. I have clients that are younger in their career and those closer to retirement. Irrespective of age group, if positive intelligence works for you and it doesn’t work and resonate for everybody. What I tell people is you take what you want and you leave the rest. For those that resonate with it, it doesn’t matter what stage of life they’re in, they then start making different decisions. I would call that an emotional wildfire. I would have these triggers and then I would curse you up and down.
As people, regardless of the stage of life, learn positive intelligence and adopt it into their lifestyle is they stopped igniting those fires. They recognize the trigger and emotional connection. “I’m angry, anxious, guilt-ridden and upset,” or whatever it may be. Before I act on it, I observe it. I ask them questions. Why do I feel like this? Is it that important? Oversimplifying and then from a more positive state, calm, collected, empathetic, creative, exploratory then I have a wider vantage point and I can respond in a different way that maybe doesn’t exactly ignite those wildfires.
One of the greatest outcomes of positive intelligence is to know when you acted wrongly and be able to recover. Click To TweetOne thing I do want to touch on and I’m curious about is how does positive intelligence relate to emotional intelligence? Oftentimes, is there a lot of overlap? Is one more prerequisite for the other?
It is depending on who you ask. Some people will say if you improve your positive intelligence or your PQ, the natural by-product is your emotional intelligence improves as well. What I often say is I’m a retired HR guy. I’ve been through countless training, assessments, etc. DiSC, Myers-Briggs, Caliper, Kolbe, EQ, etc. A lot of these assessments tell you what you are or how you are. What I think they lack is why you do what you do. My experience and what my clients are experiencing is that the work of positive intelligence gives you the why. Therefore, when you know why you do what you do, you can change what you do or how you do.
We’ve all read Simon Sinek and his Golden Circle and how the why is in the middle. It’s interesting because a lot of people still to this day and that book has been out for almost a decade now still neglect the why and focus on the how and the what. That’s how the world has trained most of us to be. What do you want to do and not why do you want to do it? That’s the first question we’re asked when we pick a major in college.
Why is so hard. What we do or how we do is easier to figure out in a lot of ways. Sometimes in the work that I’ve done with clients, the why is scary. It’s deep and going to the core of why we’re insecure. Why are we angry? Why do we attack when we feel as though someone has dinged our armor, such as has found out that we are insecure about something and they criticize it. Not because they know we’re insecure about it but because maybe we made a mistake on a project. Maybe we flubbed the presentation, maybe we lost a key account or maybe we did something at work or even in our personal life. Someone maybe provides feedback on it and then our natural response is defensiveness because you’re getting through our armor. That’s why my opinion is why the why is hard sometimes.
The why is a lot deeper in any career assessment. I did a lot of career assessments years ago when I was going through some of my harder times in life. One of the tactics that worked out best for me was someone told me to write down the last ten times I was in flow, that flow of idea of when you’re doing something and you’re so engrossed in what you’re doing, that you forget to do things like going to the bathroom. The last time you were working on something and you were so interested in what you were working on that you suddenly realized, “I have to pee,” as opposed to when most people are at work.
Whereas the average person at their job, I feel like those pee more often than they need to get up and around and get some variety. At least I felt that way in a lot of jobs. They said, “Take these last ten times, write down what you were doing and then write down the why and see what the connection between those whys are because that explains a lot of observations of things that are seemingly unrelated.” Why is this person excited about both this and this and this? These three things have nothing to do with each other? I thought your interest was science or HR but when it comes to it, it’s like, “The underlying why can manifest in a whole bunch of different whats.”
In my coaching, I lead people through a values exercise. The values are, in essence, our core. What do we care about as men and women? What’s important to us? Is it adventure and freedom? Is it loyalty, teamwork, problem-solving or family? Whatever it is, to your point, ease and flow are usually associated with those values. You talked about a lot of work stuff. In my mind, I immediately went to when I go mountain biking. Mountain biking is not easy but I’m usually with my best of friends. We are playing outside, which brings me back to being a kid.
I remember knocking on my neighbor’s doors and saying, “Can Joey come out and play?” I’m going to play on my mountain bike. We get dirty, talk and tell jokes. It’s adventurous and exciting. There’s adrenaline. I’m down. This is all ease and flow to me. When I apply that to work, it did not align with Corporate America for me because I was not in my ease and flow. I was too busy contorting myself into this corporate box that I did not fit into. The ease and flow came in very small snippets as opposed to holistically.
I feel like a lot of people have a similar story because there are a lot of places in this world where people and almost anyone can relate to the idea of, “I’m in a place where I’m not supposed to be. I’m struggling to find that flow and motivation because this isn’t me. This is not who I am. This is the who the world told me I should be, which is quite a bit different.” Now, before we get into your specific story, I have one more question about the concept of positive intelligence because I’ve heard some people talk about the concept of toxic positivity being too over the top positive and not acknowledging when certain things are negative. I’m wondering if there’s any danger as we go about the process of retraining our minds to quell that inner chatterbox, the judge inside and think more positively about ourselves. Is there any danger in going too far or probably not too far or taking it in the wrong direction where it gets into the realm of this toxic positivity?
It can and brings up a good differentiation for us in positive intelligence. That is positive intelligence is not about simply putting on rose-colored glasses and seeing life through those lenses. Positive intelligence is rather more about looking at perspectives in which maybe the bad or wrong thing isn’t all that bad or wrong, to begin with. What I would challenge you and the readers is to take an inventory of the things that, in the past, you said, “This is a bad day, wrong day or stressful day.” When you’re in it, it feels that way. When you get through it and you have the gift of hindsight, if you look back and reflect, was it that bad after all?
Did good things come from this otherwise bad thing? In a lot of instances, the answer to that is good things come from otherwise bad situations. There are so many things at the core I believe. That is one of the core beliefs of positive intelligence is not that we simply put on rose-colored glasses but when we are dealing with a challenging situation, instead of succumbing to our mindset that this is bad, this sucks, it’s wrong, the worst thing since ever, fill in the blank, we say, “I’m in the struggle and in some strife. Things aren’t ideal. What is something positive that could come from this? What is a gift that I might get from this otherwise difficult situation?” That shift of perspective is what positive intelligence is all about.
That’s timely at the time we’re speaking now. We’re coming out of the global pandemic from COVID-19 and we’re finally at the point, in most places in the US, a lot of other places around the world are still having deeper ongoing challenges where we’re able to look at it and say, “When this pandemic hit, what were we doing? What were you thinking? How were we responding? Did we cower up in the corner or, as I have to admit, spend too much time drinking with our friends on Zoom? Did we say, “This is the opportunity to rethink a lot of things?”
I also used it as an opportunity, the other side, to rethink the way I was going about some of my social interactions because I had previously always tried to blow everything up into a big group event and the pandemic taught me the power of one-on-one conversations with people and how impactful they can be in our lives. We all can go about it both ways. There’s a way you can cower and be like, “This sucks. I’m mad.” There’s a way to say, “What can I do that’s good out of it? How do I respond?”
I was listening to that Apple news podcast and it so happened to tell this story about a guy who was $30,000 or $40,000 in debt at the start of the pandemic. He lost his job. He got the unemployment benefits and all the increases that the government gave us. He paid his debt off and got a new job. This is one story of a guy who took an otherwise bad situation of COVID, which no one would wish this pandemic and all the harm it’s caused to families who lost loved ones. Yet through this otherwise terrible experience, here’s one story of a guy that paid off his debt. He’s got a new job and I shouldn’t say he’s living a happier life because I don’t know that. I would assume he is because he’s not in debt but that was one positive. There was a “bad situation” and good to come from it.
Before you act on your emotional trigger, observe it, and ask yourself, “Why do I feel like this?” Click To TweetLet’s get into your personal story. How did you hear about positive intelligence?
I did randomly. I was working with a coach as I was going through my coaching certification. She had mentioned Shirzad’s work in positive intelligence. I went to his website and took the Saboteur Assessment and didn’t think much of it. I read it and I was like, “Cool.” A few weeks later, a friend of mine who’s also a coach had called me and said, “I’m going to do this coaching program with this positive intelligence thing. Do you want to do it with me?” I was like, “I learned about this positive intelligence. I’ll do it.” There wasn’t a deliberate seeking it out and yet I did it. What I tell people is it has been life-changing for me. I see life now as before positive intelligence and after. I also say it has been the missing link for me.
It took a couple of different iterations. It wasn’t this light bulb moment where all of a sudden, whatever the lights or the heavens burst down at you and say, “This is what I was meant to do.” It became something by doing it and trying it, which is how a lot of people and hopefully my readers included, are going to find their paths. You try things and it resonates or it doesn’t. I’ve heard this so many times that the idea that the “lucky ones” are the ones that are out there trying things.
Here’s an interesting story. I’m probably going to butcher it and if anybody wants to fact-check me, please do. There was a study many years ago, maybe it was in the ’70s or ’80s, where a group of people who thought they were lucky and a group who thought they were unlucky were given this task and they were given a newspaper or something like that and said, “Go through the newspaper and count up how many times you see something.” It was either a picture or a word. If you flip the second page, it said, “The answer to the question is X.” Those that thought they were otherwise lucky saw that and answered or solve the riddle or the problem within moments, seconds maybe. The people who otherwise thought of themselves unlucky missed that clue and went through the newspaper or whatever it was, counted each time and it took them minutes.
The lucky aspect of things may very well simply be a mindset. I don’t know that I fully believe it but I thought that was an interesting study but more what I believe is you got to take action. Too often, we get stuck in our brains. We tell ourselves the stories of why this or that isn’t going to work. We’re not going to try this or do that. That is the curse. It’s we start believing these conversations in our head versus stopping the talk and go do and try something.
It sounds like in your story before you even discovered positive intelligence, there was a mindset adjustment maybe because you had already decided to start this coaching certification service or program. Had you already decided at that point that you wanted to be an Executive and Leadership Coach specifically?
I did. I had a rough time in Corporate America. At the time, I was working for one of my greatest bosses of all time. The company went through the typical turnover up top. They brought in a president. My boss and he were not in favor. She left and the new manager that came in was hands down the worst manager of my entire career. This was my corporate Achilles heel. It’s I worked for these leaders whom I otherwise didn’t respect. At the time, I just assumed. My career was in Corporate America in Human Resources so I said to myself, “I got to learn how to play better in these corporate sandboxes.” I hired my own career coach and said that to her. Her words still ring in my ears. She said, “Maybe you need to change the sandbox.” That was it.
Those words started me down the path of entrepreneurship. When I talk about taking action, this is exactly how I see it. I was in a bad corporate position. I could go apply for another job and get another shitty boss. I said, “I’m going to get a coach, take action and learn from someone who I believe can help me in taking action.” She planted the seed of change in the sandbox. I took action on that seed, watered it, fertilized it and all that stuff. Lo and behold, here I sit as a coach and I had someone tell me, “You seem like you’re in the right role and enjoy what you do.” I smiled and said, “I do. I am in the right place.”
I want to reiterate that phrase, “Maybe you need to change the sandbox,” because I feel like there’s a lot of people out there in the situation where they don’t necessarily understand or embrace the full set of options that are out there. Most people, if you don’t like your job, you say, “I can either grind it out and hope for a new different boss.” That’s one of the problems I have with the general Corporate America job. If someone’s happy in that role, I’m more than happy for you. I’m not here to throw shade on anyone for enjoying something but what I don’t like is how that sandbox that you’re in, certain pieces can change without your input. One minute you’re working for a great boss, you’re in a great role and people can change your boss or even some aspects of your role.
Some companies are getting better about it. I love how the startup world works in that way but they don’t have it. The old school companies don’t care what your input is about what they want to change about your role, your boss. They’re going to do it and if your performance suffers because you’re suddenly in the wrong place, they just can you essentially. Changing the sandbox means widening that perspective of what are all the options that we have in life or how we’re going to find the two things that careers provide for us. They are resources, the money aspect of it that can’t be ignored and the second one being a fulfillment of a purpose but there might be another way to fill those two parts of your life.
If you’re old enough to remember Dirty Dancing, “Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner.” What I experienced as much of what you’re saying is that we put ourselves in the corner. When we’re in the corner, we can’t see other than that little right angle that tells me, “I need my job. My job is my safety net.” It provides all these resources and hopefully, some purpose together. If it doesn’t, we stay in the corner because we almost give ourselves an ultimatum. I have to have this job or another job like it. If we take a step backward, turn our back to that corner and look at the rest of the room, there’s a lot of stuff to see. Broaden your perspective. Widen your vantage points.
That, to me, is a lot of the missing link for people. I also believe we don’t always empower our decisions. If you stay in a crappy job, you’ve made that decision. Empower it and embrace the fact that you’re choosing that. If you don’t want to choose it anymore, make a different choice. I’m not saying it’s that simple but if you make it this job or no job, that’s obvious then you “have no choice.” If you say, “I’m going to go explore different sandboxes. I’m going talk to a coach, speak to my trusted network, consider another company, industry, job or something.” That is all broadening your perspective, which often and this is where I coach a lot of my clients, leads you to a greater sense of life’s happiness because you’re not stuck in the corner.
When you first heard this, “Maybe you need to change the sandbox,” how did your broadening process go? Did you already have a broader perspective or did you have to transform yourself in that capacity?
It scared the heck out of me. As I was describing it, I was tied to my HR persona. I making six figures. I living a comfortable lifestyle. She didn’t tell me what to do. She made a suggestion, which is what we do. We ask the question. I knew exactly what she meant. We were talking about entrepreneurship and it scared the heck out of me. Where do the clients come from? How do I market myself? How do I make money? What do I do between now and whenever I make my corporate money again? I was scared and resistant but I also listened and took moderate, incremental steps towards looking at these other sandboxes.
Good things come from otherwise bad situations. Click To TweetAs I made those incremental steps, the vantage point continued to increase. I spoke to other entrepreneurs who gave me their perspectives. I asked people that I trusted, “Would you consider hiring me? If you did, what would you hire me for? Here are some ideas I had.” Through this moment, it started to gain some steam. Over the course of a few months is how long it took me before I had the discussion with that pretty crappy boss and said, “I’m leaving. Let’s negotiate that.”
For any of my readers out there who are dealing with this fear, how would you suggest that they work with this fear?
There are two trains of thought. There is the Nike, “Just do it.” On the other end, not everybody resonates with that. What I suggest and what I coach too is let’s explore the fear. What are you afraid of? I have the same fears. I’m putting myself out there. I was afraid of being embarrassed and ridiculed. What if it’s not good? What if nobody reads it? Other people’s fear related to the job, if we’re using that as our subject, is the fear of not providing for my family, losing my house, having to feed my children food that doesn’t align with my nutritional values, fill in the blank.
Identifying the fear and putting it up there, magnetize on a board, written on a piece of paper, just known then you can take action towards alleviating that fear or strengthening it in the sense that, “I can afford to take a 50% pay cut.” What do you do with it? I’m being myopic in that example but explore the fear. What’s behind it? What are you trying to protect against? What can you do to mitigate the fear, align concerns and whatever it may be?
I definitely see merit toward both approaches that you described. Sometimes it’s, “Just do it.” One of the first books I read and this is a pretty old book but was way out of its time was a book called Feel The Fear… and Do It Anyway by a psychologist, Susan Jeffers. The book came out in the ’80s and I read it in the early 2000s when I was young. It resonated with the idea of expanding the comfort zone but there’s also a lot of good merits behind exploring it and getting down to why we feel the fear.
Finding a way to mitigate or from a pure therapy type standpoint of exploring the fear and putting it into the right context and saying, “Your fear is being ridiculed or rejected and processing through the mental exercises that people do,” and I’m not a therapist so I can’t comment on it with any authority. That’s interesting and one thing I want to make sure my readers get a chance to do is in case anyone wants to hear more about either positive intelligence or your specific coaching services, anything you want to provide some information on would be fantastic.
I do want to comment on what you said. It is in the realm of fear. Sometimes the fear is about what we don’t get or our safety and those kinds of things. For me now, when I left Corporate America and I realized that I could run a business and I tell people, “My aspiration is never to write my own resume again.” That’s my aspiration. My fear now is maybe I can’t or don’t run a successful business and I have to go back to corporate. That “fear” is a motivating factor for me to do what I can to take action to grow my business. It feels a little reverse to me but I wanted to mention that. It’s cool for me as a motivating factor.
If anyone reading out there wants to get a hold of you or wants to find out more about your services. First of all, you focus primarily on executives and leaders. To anyone out there who is an executive leader or aspiring leader that wants to build through your program, where would they go?
There are a few things. I’m hoping somewhere my name will be there. Luckily for me, I am the only Darren Kanthal on LinkedIn. If anybody wants to connect with me on LinkedIn, please do. If you’d reference Stephen’s show, that’d be a great thing. I’m sure Stephen would love to know that as would I. That’s number one. Two is my website is CandidCareerCoaching.com. I chose candid on purpose as a New Yorker. I’m a direct communicator. I try not to beat around the bush and the analogy I use is I try to land the plane. I don’t try to do the maverick fly by up the control tower. That’s part of my candid career coaching and on my page or on my website, there’s information about my overall coaching, in addition to information on positive intelligence.
Is there anything that you want to tell the readers about your coaching and how it differs from standard coaching?
Anyone that is a coach that’s been through a coaching program has a similar foundation to the way we operate just like any professional has a foundation in their vernacular, the skills required to do their job, etc. What I like to focus on is the value proposition. The first thing that I like to say about my value proposition as I spent my corporate career in human resources so conflict resolution, professional development, hiring and firing and difficult conversations. It’s all part of my corporate and professional DNA.
As a coach, my academic background is from Collective Training Institute, CTI, and that is rooted in life coaching methodologies. What I’m able to do is combine and marry a corporate background in HR with a life coaching methodology and bring those two together. What that typically means for my clients is cutting through the noise, getting to the point and identifying my client’s shortcomings. Where they’re rooted in, what they’re rooted from and why are they are showing up? What are you willing to do, what actions are you willing to try and putting them into the real world. It’s an incremental process. I don’t have an agenda other than what’s right for my clients.
Anyone that knows anything about coaching is it’s not our job to tell you what to do. If that’s what you want, seek a consultant. As a coach, we explore the current state. We help you deepen your understanding of where you are now and where you want to get to tomorrow. We are curious about what actions you are willing to take and we see how they work. That’s the approach I take.
Hopefully, everyone reading out there, if you want to get a hold of Darren, go right ahead. Regardless, I hope you all embrace a broader perspective on life and life’s possibilities. Embrace, overcoming the fear and, most importantly, the fear of digging down into the why’s behind how you’re feeling and where you want to be. If you put yourself out there and try things, take action, start moving, you’re going to be far more likely to find yourself in a good place and where you want to be, the place where you feel fulfilled, happy and not having to write resumes if you don’t want to. Darren, thank you so much for joining us on the show. For my readers out there, stay tuned for more interesting stories and discussions with inspiring people that have done inspiring things that will hopefully help you get onto the right path.
Thank you, Stephen. I like what you’re doing with your show. One thing in close is for anyone reading, the adage, “Rome was not built in a day,” applies to you as a human being. The action starts with one thing. If you are delaying, resisting and hesitating on action, choose one thing and do it.
I couldn’t have closed it better myself.
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About Darren Kanthal
Darren is a corporate HR executive who, after seeking out the services of a career coach and discovering positive intelligence decided to start his own executive coaching service. His service Candid Career Coaching cuts through the “bullshit” and gets straight to the point.