To Grow You Need to Be Self Aware

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Today on the podcast Jayson Krause joins us. He is a leadership strategist, author, speaker and the founder of Level 52 - a boutique leadership and executive coaching firm with a global reach. for over a decade, Jayson and his team have worked with leaders from Singapore to Silicon Valley to disrupt and accelerate a new breed of meaningful leadership. Prior to his career as a consultant, Jayson began his leadership and high performance path as a Canadian national team bobsled pilot, competing against the best in the world. Jayson lives with his wife and four kids in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada.

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Call me crazy. I'm excited to have on Jason Kraus with us today. He is a speaker and author, founder of level 52. And he was a former bobsled pilot. So we have a lot to talk about. Jason, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. Yeah, I'd love to start off with the story of your past and how you Kate went from being a bobsled pilot. What is that like and now to running your own company and you just published a book. So lots of times. I Well, I kind of I just stumbled into bobsled. I was playing football, the equivalent of junior college football up in Canada. Yeah, we got to say you're from Canada too, because I think a lot of people in the US. We're not Bob.

Yeah, just just a Calgary, Calgary, Banff area. It's where I grew up. Well actually grew up just out to Denver, but lived in this area from a from when I was about eight years old. And I was playing the equivalent of junior college football and I was having a lot of injury problems. And someone said, You know, I heard about some football players that tried bobsled training. Why don't you take a look at that. And the Olympic track is in Calgary. And I saw an ad in the newspaper. Funny enough, not that. Not that long after someone said that. And so I went to a testing camp just to get involved in the training. I tested well, and a guy that just finished the Nagano Olympics in 98 as a brakeman, a pusher was starting to drive. And he came up and said, Hey, I like how you tested. What do you think about traveling around the world to push it bobsleds? That's wild. So you traveled around the world doing obsoleting? Yeah, so there I had to make a difficult choice. football was my passion. And it was the whole reason why I got involved in box training. But But I just the opportunity just seems so interesting, like, basically throwing a bunch of clothes in a hockey bag and traveling around the world to truly some of the most beautiful winter locations. And what just was a little adventure turned out to be an eight year career. Wow. So out of high school. You do that for eight years. Yeah, yeah. It was two years after high school, after high school. And from when I was 20 until 2008. And really I only pushed a bobsled for about a year and a half. And then the opportunity came up for me to learn how to drive so that yes, yours when you're you start pushing and then you kind of like work your way up. I don't know much about bobsledding. So yeah, yeah. Generally, okay. That's how it works. You they recruit strong fast athletes. And, and some people have no interest of driving. But for me like I was a smaller bobsledder five foot seven, about 200 pounds. And if I wanted a future in bobsled, it was definitely going to be as a driver because the best pushers are like, six, three, to 20 to 30. And so I had to carve my spot as a pilot, literally put my future into my hands as a driver, and was fortunate to have a long career. And so do you think you would do that for the rest of your life? Or like for a long period? Was that like your career path? Or did you have like, in the back of your mind, other careers that you wanted to explore?

I was so focused on living that life and it's such a seductive life. You reminds me of your Michael was in radio, and he thought that was gonna be his, like, right out of high school thrown into it. And it was a seductive life. Yeah. He thought he was gonna do that for life, because you're young too. So you're just like, Alright, let's take the ride. Let's see where it can take me. And sometimes you realize, like, maybe this is, you know, coming to an end or whatever you want to do with it. But yeah, I'm curious how you got from bobsledding all the way up to doing you know, executive coaching level 52. And like, how did that kind of take place, I guess.

And well, first did it the

the course the shifting trajectory happened as a result of a nightmare really went into the 2006 Olympic year ranked top 10 in the world, and was really fired up about what I could do at the Olympics and then just a funny change of events.

Less than two weeks before the season started, my best friend roommate died from cancer took a quick turn for the worse. And I went into the season and even though I was in the best physical shape of my career, I couldn't meet the fitness standard. I couldn't finish top 20 and so just like that February, February rolls around, and I'm watching my teammates go to the Olympics and I'm at home. And while incredibly difficult

For me, it was a nightmare that woke me up and forced me to ask myself the question, what value can I possibly offer the world? If I don't have the Olympic rings tattooed on my shoulder? Yeah. You know. And so that was really the beginning of a difficult journey that I started exploring. What else could I do? I had a, I had a marketing business and event production business. But I knew it wasn't it. And one of the gifts of being a national team athlete is every year you're a funded athlete, you get a year of tuition. Wow. And I would just started experimenting, I heard about this crazy coaching thing. Through the university in Calgary, they had a continuing ed program, I got certified in that. And then I started to see a path I, through the same institution, I went to leadership program a year long program just north of San Francisco, and met some incredible people that this whole idea of leveraging my high performance background, and starting to work in organizations with leaders seems very appealing. Yeah, I mean, that sounds, it sounds like a way because I feel like just being an athlete, you have so much structure, and so much like drive to be better. And I could see that how that translates into being a coach. We've been exploring with coaching a little bit for for us, like getting coached for our business. And I think we've taken a lot from it.

It's definitely something when we first heard about it, we're like, come on, like, do we need a coach? Yeah. And I think the people it's like, how many coaches can we have?

It's like, once you realize, like, Oh, you can get more out of this, if you just have that outside view. And somebody's kind of pushing you. Because when you're, you know, at home, like everybody's kind of working at home right now. There's not that drive to like, I got to be better than that person, I got to be better. And you don't see it as much. And I think I mean, at least for me, that's how I kind of view the coach like helping me see what I'm kind of falling through the cracks, I guess, obviously, you have a better take on it than me. But for executives, what are they coming to you for? For the coaching? Like what is the next level they're trying to get to?

It varies. I think, the our sweet spot, the perfect executives that come to us and really create great things and body to qualities, and that's just a hunger to want to be better. We don't know what we don't know, even at the higher levels in business. And so a hunger to make a greater impact leave an even better legacy. And the second one is humility, understanding that I don't have all the answers, and what are the diverse resources that I can use to, to think differently? Are these things that you do you think the CEO, or the executives and CEOs that come to you already possess, or these are the things that you guys are helping them kind of find within themselves? Because I know those are important things to have. But you know, sometimes you need to be reminded. So oftentimes, hunger is a part of it. And sometimes the humility takes some work. Okay, all right, especially if they're senior leaders, who've been nudged to coaching because of maybe some negative feedback on a 360, something like that. And so sometimes the humility needs to be encouraged, but that's part of the mindset we cultivate

is taking responsibility for the things in your environment. Yeah. And I was gonna good, or, you know, I was just gonna ask what it looked like in the early days, like your first couple clients, how did you get the company off the ground? And how has it evolved since that first day where you decided to go in on it

several evolutions, with a couple breaks,

started the business with this great vision and had the opportunity right away because of my connections to the National Sports Center. My early work, a lot of it was with Olympians, either going into major competition, transitioning from sport, and so athletes were really my first the first clients that I was working with, and how is that changed since you started until now? Because I think, I know, there's been a lot of shift in like, you know, taking care of your mind and your body and doing more of that. And I think back, you know, maybe 10 years ago or whatever, it might have been a little bit different, more like, kind of take a break if you want, but here, we're gonna do this, this and this, I don't know, because I've watched like a lot of sports documentaries. And you kind of see how people are taking care of their mind more, you know, mindfulness practice, and kind of getting into those states of flow of where you're trying to really focus in on this or do an alternative workout or something like that. Has it changed a lot kind of in your aspect of coaching, like from athletes until executives and any change in the last few years, or is that just me thinking there was

Oh, well, from when I first started the business. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know it, especially early on when I was proving myself, it was I was, I was focused on giving them the focus was on tools, let's give you tools models to work with. So that there's like a tangible value. Yeah. And while those are important, it when we run our programs, there is a,

there's a process that everyone goes through, they come wanting things to do differently as a leader, but then they all realize that yeah, these things are important. But it's the way I show up as a leader, that's the exponential factor when it comes to making an impact with these tools. So it is a lot of internal Well, yeah, mindset and maybe self, a lot of self awareness, I guess, right? Because it you need to understand yourself before you can kind of like make all these changes, right? Like you don't, you need to see it first. And that's I guess the hardest part, it is the hardest part. That's why.

For example, in our extended programs, we have group programs, we work with leaders, the first, the first four sessions are around mindset and awareness, you get a 360 you get disruptive feedback, you analyze your environment, and then you look at in what ways am I responsible for all of the chaos? that crap The challenge is in my space? And is the kind of was the inspiration for the book because I know your book speaks about mindset. Yeah, science behind success. Yeah, we Exactly. That's how we frame science in Ignace. Symbol vise in the 18. hundred's was a scientist that saw big problem, too many women were dying when they were giving birth. In clinics. He found a repeatable solution that he proposed. And it was rejected. He thought that people thought he was crazy. He proposed, hey, all physicians have to do is wash their hands.

Right? Am I crazy? No, because now it makes total sense. But here's the problem with leaders. In in many situations, if we use the same example, the irony in that whole thing is that the physicians who were trusted to help their patients, were the ones infecting the situation.

And as leaders, that's that's a place we have to look at. If my business isn't, isn't

successful, if there are things that aren't working, how am I infecting the situation? And that's how we frame the whole mindset focus of and responsibility as a leader. What are what are like a few steps, you know, say you're at home listening to this? How is there any steps you could take at home by yourself kind of be trying to become more self aware? Because I don't think it's the easiest thing. But I am curious myself, is there anything that you could do at home questions to ask yourself? Yes, to kind of see if how you might be affecting your business for the negative. The starting point is what we call a CSP inventory. And

CSP inventory. Imagine three columns, the first column, give yourself permission to complain about anything and everything in your environment. Whether it's Michael doesn't take the dishes out of the dishwasher, right? Like, yeah, name it, all of your coworkers, the things you wish people just did differently.

Give yourself permission to complain. And then move over to stressors, these are the things that keep you up at night, they often start as a question like their problems to be solved. How do I get x client to increase their business with us, whatever it is just a list of these problems to be solved. And then the last one are the pains, what are my pains from the past the things where I may be kicking my own ass about the mistakes that I made? let's get let's get that inventory. Now we've got this, this opportunity. This is your leadership fitness gym, where now I can look at if I don't address these complaints, there's a good chance that they compound become infections that are more significant. So what is it to tackle them while they're smaller? And then the stressors are the problems that now I seek what are the tools? And looking at in what ways have I allowed them to get here?

It's an awareness builder and it's the beginning of your roadmap to start changing your business in your environment. And sounds very tangible. Well, cuz and probably super use last night, Aaron was stressed out, woke up in the middle of the night, but you're actively trying to do something about it and trying to fix we're trying to do you know, more wholesale. So we're trying to figure out a plan to expand wholesale at a faster rate, instead of just kind of doing it ourselves to try and to expand and kind of not automate it, but take it to a place where it's easier to grow faster. And I think Aaron's been stressed out about it. So you got to complain and I wake up with my mindset.

Recall items, I'm just thinking about all the things I should probably get that on paper and kind of see how to address them. Exactly. Because now It enables you to prioritize your actions to both alleviate pain and accelerate the gains that you want.

What's also like the, the more, the bigger the issue, the more you stress about it. And then when you don't do anything about it, you're stressing about it even more. And that's always the issue too, because you're like, I don't want to do it. It's like, I don't know, just any task. Like there's a lot of stuff on the computer like I, I know I can do it. It's gonna take a lot of brainpower. But if I get it done, I'll feel better and sometimes just realizing on the other end, it is like a rainbow like, oh, wow, I do feel better getting this done. Like it makes sense. My stress has gone. Yeah, it's what it's what we call meaningful masochism.

It when you when your compelling vision of your business and what you're going through all of this pain for when that's so strong, then it can reframe all of these obstacles that you face in your environment, just like an athlete, we will go to the gym and punish our bodies, because we have that compelling vision. And the same thing happens as a business owner. What's the difficult conversation? What's this agonizing pursuit of wholesale in this case that I'm willing to put myself through? Because I see the other side? Mm hmm. Yeah. But that's hard. That's, that's not easy. Yeah. And sometimes asking the right questions or having your coach just kind of help you break it down, like I had an extra session with my, with our business coach to kind of literally just talk about the issues with wholesale, and then what we're going to do moving forward and just giving it the time, and the life to think about helps a lot.

No matter how big the challenge, you know, it's like, ultimately, it's not gonna happen overnight, but kind of seeing the the vision and the plan, it makes you feel a little bit better that you at least took the first step. So that's kind of where we're at, like, at the very beginning, take the first step. Yeah.

And with, with the coaching, how, how is the business yourself? Like, how is level 52? Like, how, how did that become a business? You thought? You could actually, this could be something? Because I think that's a hard part to actually realize, too sometimes. Because you said at the beginning, you're doing like this, these other things, but you're like, this is not what I'm feeling. How did you grow this into something that is actually career

in engaging with the pain, like, as you say, like,

a biological requirement for growth is struggle and pain, like at the physiological level. And the same goes with being a business owner. How do we adapt to those challenges?

I mean, the business has changed significantly, even, you know, the hashtag because 2020 even our business right now looks different and is better because of, you know, the events that changed the way we live right now.

I feel like you're in this room a lot now to because of 2020. Right? You're together, Mike, I feel like this year alone, there's been more people with nice setups like yourself, you have a microphone, you got a little, you know, wind screen there, green screen. And these are things that people are now getting, because now there's more, you know, zoom conferences and everything like that and communicating this way. And it's changed everybody. I mean, we don't go anywhere. We're in LA. So we're still on lockdown. And it's a December something right now. December 17.

I didn't know the actual we on our very last podcast, we talked about the hashtag because 2020 and our guests thought she like coined it and I thought she did too, but apparently it's a real hashtag.

I saw it when I was researching the show. It's

forever now there we started because it is so valid like because 2020 we're doing things differently. And it sounds like you are too. Was there anything?

How did it impact your business? Did you do a lot of face to face? Or were you able to quickly switch remote?

We had a huge COVID cliff. He did me and the team would be flying everywhere from New York, San Francisco, Houston, Singapore, delivering in person group sessions. Teams Oh, wow. Okay. And instantly

60% of our revenue evaporated. People probably just cancelled had to cancel their their seminars and why not? They work it and they weren't bringing they weren't traveling their employees to one location. How did you guys make that adjustment?

After about two days of tears, feeling sorry for ourselves.

We went to one of our orientation points when common sports analogy what's important now like, we can put our tail between our legs but truly like what's important

Now. And we oriented to that and went to how do we take our work and make it completely virtual. And now instead of three day compacted off sites, we went we converted it into 12 week programs, more bite sized two hour sessions, and quickly delivered a pilot, and would you believe it?

A WAY better product than we were delivering before, way better.

So that was a good thing. And then it ended up being a good thing. And then we said, okay, well, what if we bring in this technology, and this technology, and version two rolled out? And wow, it's even way better. And so now when we look back at the caveman, that we were the beginning of the year, and now I don't have to hop on a plane, I get to see my four kids at the end of the day, because I'm not jet setting everywhere. It's awesome. And I'm really excited. I'm actually curious, what software did you end up using to start doing all these? I guess, speeches and conferences like how did you start with those because I want I feel like that was a struggle. Like we're always trying to get things out. Like, you know, we're on this thing right here called stream yard. It took me years to figure this out. Before I was screen recording Skype calls and zoom guy was like, then this came along. And I know, it's just like, it's out there somewhere. But it just takes a while to figure it out. Yeah.

It for our group sessions. So one of the things was we would be working specifically with an organization and have their people. But now we said, Hey, if we run our sessions on zoom,

we could have people from different industries. So we started now, having people from Philadelphia to San Francisco to Edmonton, Alberta, all in these group sessions from different industries. And that diverse collaboration was a huge win for people, different industries, different levels. And so the the sessions themselves were on zoom with a lot of fast paced breakouts highly experiential. But what really added value was we started using a program called mighty networks, righty now.

There's a community element to it, we started putting content videos, pre work, post work, where they could track their activity and metabolic the technology that we researched. This really worked for us. That's great. I mean, and that's what you're looking for, too, because I think zoom, it has capabilities. And I know it's introduced a lot more. But being able to kind of do what you want and add these certain functionalities is a big deal, especially when you're doing a lot of stuff virtually. And that's why I went with this platform to for for podcasting because I can have banners, I can have names we can record, we could even go live to YouTube right now if we really wanted to. But that's the tough part too. When you're just kind of starting fresh. You're like what do I do with all this? So that's, that's great. Mighty, what is it a mighty network mighty networks? Yeah, check it out. And people are probably more inclined to adopt a new technology because they're forced to because sometimes people are resistant to try new things. But with COVID, you kind of have to get on the wagon immediately. So much, you know, we're resistant. In our programs, we talk about creative constraints. How do you like force yourself to do something? Well, COVID forced us it was a creative constraint that forced us to live and look at our lives differently.

And are you going to be it sounds like this program is, you know, 10 times better than what you guys thought you were doing before? Do you think you'll ever go back to some in person stuff? Are you kind of going to move forward with these new digital

meetings? I won't say never.

I mean, there are some changes, like having four kids at home, there's a reason I have a green screen.

I took a picture of my office downtown gorgeous view. And so when I'm on zoom, I have that out because it makes me on there.

I tell them envision us going back to being an in person organization. And it's not just for the ease.

The from a learning standpoint, there's something called the forgetting curve, that within a week, you're going to forget 90% of the content if we spend time together today. But if we take that and take that one day and expand it over a period of time, and have those, you know, one hour two hour sessions, it significantly increases the retention because you leave with specific exercises application, and he just built so much more depth so that you build the muscle memory of leadership. It's just a better model. Yeah, I agree. Because you can just get things out faster and it can happen in a timely manner and you're and you're at home which is very, very convenient. And it makes it a lot easier to just do everything which we're at home recording this podcast.

Our dogs are behind

Jason, we need to hear your call me crazy story so we can inspire our listeners. A lot of listeners might be aspiring entrepreneurs and maybe afraid to take the first step. So we really wanted to create a space where we can share and have our guests share their call me crazy story when they made a decision in their business career that, you know, maybe their friends and family thought they were cuckoo for, but they took that plunge anyway, and kind of hope to inspire people that are on the edge.

The plunge to my own business?

Well,

I took a two year break in the business, to join the senior leadership team of a consulting firm down in the Bay Area in California.

Great job.

But I had this this science behind success content started. I tried it. And you know, it inspired but it wasn't working. And so I spent two years working with this firm. And I was I had a great job worked with great people. And I was at the world's largest talent development conference walking around, and it wouldn't leave my head, saying going around to all the world's greatest leadership offerings out there. And I thought, there's still nothing like this thing that I created.

And I'm in Atlanta, and I left going, if I don't do something with this, I'm going to regret it. Yeah. And so I left a great job with a lot of security and wonderful people to really put the full court press on making this thing real. That's great. Because when there's something that you can't let go of, you know, you're not going to be satisfied until you

know, yeah, you know, just before this call,

I was meeting with an executive. And they talked about this value of courageous innovation.

And in our discussion, we realized that courageous innovation is having so much faith in your vision, that you're willing to jump even though you might not have the evidence yet.

And that was kind of what I did it call me crazy out here. I am passionate as ever. And this thing, despite

a pandemic inspires me more every day. That's great. It's a beautiful story. I love it. That's a lot of the times that happens you like you can't not start your business. So you do it and you don't know what the hell you're doing. But that's okay. Then you figure it out. That's it, you really did figure it out. And then because 2020 happens and you know, take it to the next level. So well, and you know, there are always things as we go, whether it's wholesale, it's penetrating into a new market. There are always things to figure out, but that's the game. Yeah, that's true.

Mm hmm. That's true business. That's wild. Well, Jason, thank you so much for coming on. Your new book, the science behind success of whatever leader needs to know about mindset influence culture and performance. Yeah, website level 50 two.ca. And if there's anything else, we'll put it in the description. But if there's anything else want to shout out, if there's another place, people want to find you go buy the book, all that stuff. Yeah, they can find the center website or the books on Amazon. Amazon makes it easy. You got it. Yeah. I love it. Thank you so much, Jason. It was really nice getting to know you. Likewise. Thanks for having me. Thanks.