Arielle Lechner: Executive Coaching, Identity Shifts, and the Quest for Success

Full Episode Page: Arielle Lechner: Executive Coaching, Identity Shifts, and the Quest for Success

Is success a straight line or a winding quest? Host Nick Berry invites Arielle Lechner to map the inner terrain that shapes every outward result. They explore why founders who outgrow the hustle path lean on executive coaching to translate failure into data, reframe limiting beliefs, and shift identity from scrappy builder to strategic CEO. Expect lively talk on levels of creation, the superpower of deep listening, and triple loop learning that moves leaders from doing more to being more.

Find Out

• How executive coaching turns failure into actionable data
• What the inner game means for leadership mindset
• How triple loop learning speeds founder to CEO growth
• Whether identity shifts unlock business growth strategy
• Best and worst ways to use levels of creation in decisions

Links

• NewPo executive coaching
• Arielle on LinkedIn
• Arielle on X

Chapters
00:00 Curiosity, and Leadership Mindset
01:50 The Quest vs. The Path: Rethinking Success for Entrepreneurs
02:38 Shifting Mindsets through Executive Coaching
08:14 Journey to Executive Coaching and Identity Shifts
16:25 Superpower of Listening in Executive Coaching
19:05 Levels of Creation in Leadership Development
25:46 Vision, Identity, and Business Growth Strategy
34:33 Inner Game vs. Outer Game in Business Performance
41:08 Triple Loop Learning and Continuous Improvement
46:02 Transformative Coaching vs. Do Loop Coaching

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Transcript

00:00 Introduction, Curiosity, and Leadership Mindset
01:50 The Quest vs. The Path: Rethinking Success for Entrepreneurs
02:38 Shifting Mindsets through Executive Coaching
08:14 Journey to Executive Coaching and Identity Shifts
16:25 The Superpower of Listening in Executive Coaching
19:05 Understanding Levels of Creation in Leadership Development
25:46 Vision, Identity, and Business Growth Strategy
34:33 Inner Game vs. Outer Game in Business Performance
41:08 Triple Loop Learning and Continuous Improvement
46:02 Transformative Coaching vs. Do Loop Coaching Practices

Arielle Lechner (00:00)
there's what I would call like your inner game and then your outer game. And your inner game is, It's everything that's going on inside of you, beliefs, values, skills, identity, all that stuff.

And then your outer game is really like your behaviors, like the actions you're taking in the world and your environment, like where are you, who are you with, et cetera.

I wouldn't say that your inner game and your outer game, that one is better than the other, but oftentimes we have constraints in our outer environment. If I'm uninspired in the current city that I'm living in, well, yeah, I could change my city, but also I might have a lot of real constraints around that, like money, my kid might be in school here. There could be a whole variety of things that make it difficult to actually make a change in your outer game.

Whereas if you can shift something in your inner game, like if you can shift a belief or you can shift the way you see yourself, in a moment, everything could be different for you.

Nick Berry (01:01)
Arielle Lechner is an executive coach and founder of Newpo, where she's helping founders and CEOs master their inner game of leadership. What a success isn't a straight path, but instead a massive quest stacked with experiments, failures, and personal breakthroughs. You can expect to learn how to trade linear hustle for a quest style experimentation. What's something called triple loop learning unlocks that tactics will never touch.

Her take on turning failure into high value data. How identity shifts fuel the jump from founder to CEO. Whether your should beliefs are secretly holding you back. The best and the worst ways to use coaching for rapid transformation. What the levels of creation expose about hidden bottlenecks. How to balance ambition and freedom without burning out. And much more. Get ready, she's good.

Enjoy this discussion with Arielle Lechner.

Arielle Lechner (01:50)
I deeply believe our results, like what we're able to create is by and large a reflection of our current thinking. And if we can shift our thinking, you know, we can change everything.

And then the other piece that I think is important is really viewing, you know, your career, but especially entrepreneurship, your company as like a quest versus a path. typically people, you know, they're measuring success by like this upward linear path. And if it's not going up into the right, well, I'm failing.

And I just think that really messes with your thinking of how you're approaching what you're trying to do. And so I really like to look at things from the point of view of a quest and like a quest, like any story is ups and downs, twists and turns at the end, you're moving towards this North star, but you don't get so hopped up on like a detour. It's part, it's built into what a quest is. And the way to go on a quest is through like this process of experimentation, which is like all the...

also the cornerstone of what I take clients through. Just because something worked for someone else doesn't mean it's going to work for you. Or it worked for some other company doesn't mean it's going to work for your company. How do we find out what's true? We run experiments. How do we run experiments? Well, we've to have a hypothesis, have some variables, a container for the experiment, and how are we measuring success? And if we have suboptimal results or a failure, well, that's not really a failure. It's a lesson.

And those are the lessons that are gonna propel you forward and create the velocity and the insights you need to figure out what's next, what's the next step. And as much as you can lean into that, not seek out failure, but embrace it when you have a suboptimal outcome and make sure you're distilling the correct lesson, well then it's not a matter of if, but when with success. those are the kind of the things that come to mind with what I think is important.

Nick Berry (03:51)
Why do you think we're, we get into that linear thinking? Why is that the starting point for so many people?

Arielle Lechner (03:58)
well, that's a great question. No one's ever actually asked me that. What comes to mind is the story books I was read as a child. Like there's a clear progression and a happy ending. ⁓ and then, you know, when you get older, it's just, it's societal, right? Like you're supposed to do this, then you're supposed to do that. This is what success looks like. ⁓ and it's supposed to progress up into the right. That's really what we're taught.

Nick Berry (04:27)
supposed to and like should, right? Those are the red flag words, right? Expectation.

Arielle Lechner (04:30)
Like you should get married, you should buy

a house. Yeah, you should grow revenue every single year. You should continue to hire more and more people. Like more, it's just more. What's more? What's next? You know, it's probably why anyone who does like a lateral move or who maybe takes a step, you know, takes a step down to kind of create a new, you know, trajectory for themselves, they often struggle there because even though they're trying to do something new, well,

Nick Berry (04:41)
Mm-mm.

Arielle Lechner (04:59)
Society now views that as like a step down and they have to grapple with that.

Nick Berry (05:03)
So let's see, you run into that instance, you're working with someone and you start to recognize this, like how do you bring them up to a level of awareness where we can start working on

Arielle Lechner (05:15)
you know, I always say no one needs a coach. I really don't think anyone needs a coach, but folks who are trying to do something that requires a transformation or a new way of being often seek out a coach. And what I think coaches, or at least the way I see my work, most, the kind of the most important thing I can do for a client is to

help them see the way they think. Because it's very hard for, even if you're an introspective and reflective person, it's very hard for someone to really see how they think. And if I can help someone see how they think, which a lot of the time is, hey, you're telling yourself you're failing and this is a failure and it's all a muck, and you're getting into this doom loop when in reality, this is actually a part of the quest, a part of the process.

and helping them shift to see how they're thinking and how they might want to think differently if they're going to continue on and be successful is like, you know, at a high level what I'm doing with clients.

Nick Berry (06:25)
So, can I push back a little bit on the coach? I think, I suspect I know where the disconnect is, but I think, so I always say everybody does need a coach. That's making some assumptions about what their goals, or their intention is, but it's basically, I feel like you can move faster with than without.

Arielle Lechner (06:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. Yes.

Nick Berry (06:56)
⁓ and

that doesn't mean that you can't get there without one, but I feel, mean, it's kind of the need for, okay.

Arielle Lechner (07:04)
Yeah, we're in agreement. Yeah, I think that's

what I mean. It's not that you're not gonna get there, you're not gonna create what you want without working with me or someone else. I think people are capable, but yes, to your point, faster, with more congruence and integrity, making aligned decisions, yeah, that's certainly more possible.

Nick Berry (07:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

awareness.

Arielle Lechner (07:32)
with a coach who's

helping awareness, who's helping you see the way you think, you your blind spots.

Nick Berry (07:36)
Yeah. Blind spots. may sting. The stings may come faster and more frequently, but that means the healing and the progress on the other side of the sting comes up a little faster too, right?

Arielle Lechner (07:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I like that you say sting because in my experience, you know, starting a business, there's no faster path to, you know, personal growth. can I say bullshit on this podcast? Okay. Like all your bullshit is revealed very quickly when you are doing your own thing because the puck stops with you.

Nick Berry (08:06)
You can say anything.

Arielle Lechner (08:15)
And it's helpful to, yeah, have someone in your corner to kind of help you move through that stuff and like get over it because it is really, everything is revealed when you're doing your own thing. There's nowhere to hide. Like you are it.

Nick Berry (08:32)
as I've gotten older and done this for longer, you know, I grew up playing sports. So I was exposed to, unfortunately, like I'm one of those people who's probably rare that I had a lot of good coaches. Like way more good coaches than bad. Yes. And, but there was a lot of, you know, a lot of conversations along the way.

Arielle Lechner (08:47)
in sports.

Nick Berry (08:56)
If you want to improve, this is what you're going to have to do. You're not doing the things that you've said that align with what you wanted to accomplish. And so, you know, as an adult, I crave those things. Not everybody's like that. And it took me a while to figure that out.

Arielle Lechner (09:11)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. no.

Nick Berry (09:14)
I just feel like that's an important characteristic to understand the need for that. seeking feedback, constructive criticism that's going to help you move forward.

Arielle Lechner (09:25)
Yeah, you got to be coachable. Otherwise, what's the point? Well, and especially like for your past coaches when you were on sports teams, if you're not willing to be coachable, well, they probably can't have you on the team.

Nick Berry (09:31)
it.

Right, yeah, I mean, there are very few people who are so good at what they do that it's okay, they can't just go replace you, right?

Arielle Lechner (09:50)
But even, so even

the athletes who are like so good at what they do, they still, I think, have coaches. I mean, I'm not super big into sports, except for hockey, because I'm from Canada, Montreal.

Nick Berry (10:00)
Sure, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. They do have coaches. I mean, it's just like in the business world. I mean, the best are getting there by, leaning into things that are challenging them and helping them push forward and grow and expand themselves and not taking the path of least resistance.

if you're going to survive the quest, much less thrive through the quest, like you're, it's going to take some time under tension and. Yeah. so I want to, how did this all come to you? Because I know enough about your background, like you obviously very talented, very sharp had opportunities and.

tech with startups and I think you were marketing and maybe even like in a previous life were more in like politics. When did the light bulb come on? When did you decide like, this is the direction that I need to go?

Arielle Lechner (10:56)
Yeah, I always wanted to be a diplomat.

Yeah.

So the light bulb that set, like when that happened that set me on my current path, which as an executive coach probably happened in let's say 2018. I had joined a big company that was growing really quickly. And the team in particular that I was on,

Everyone had, in my view, in my head, everyone on that team came from, you know, blue chip companies, know, top universities. And I felt like I was the weakest link. Like I wasn't supposed to be there. And, ⁓

It was really messing with me. It was getting in my head. I was carrying around this anxiety and just, it was really messing with me. And so I thought to myself, I need to deal with this. And, know, I had never done any type of therapy or coaching. you know, one thing led to another Google search and I ended up, you know, saying, well, this person who was a coach looks like, you know, they might, they might be able to help me.

⁓ and so I worked with that person for, let's say like almost a year. And what came out of that was I felt that my brain was completely changed and the impact that work had on me changed everything. It really felt like completely different.

And then what I was kind of sitting with after that experience was, well, you I loved my job, you know, taking products to market, working in tech. had no complaints. ⁓ but what I did notice was, you know, as a marketer, you can, you can have an impact, especially if you're working on products that a lot of people are using. You might, you know, you could say, you know, these products are improving people's lives. I'm helping bring them to market. You know, I'm having.

a pretty large impact and that might be true. But what I felt with coaching is there was less, know, the impact that person, that coach had on me was, you know, it was, I'm one person, but it was so deep. And I think what I learned about myself is I'm much more interested in having, let's say, you know, impacting fewer people.

but on a much more profound level than I could possibly do with bringing software products to market. And that kind of led me on my quest to make a pivot in my career. I didn't initially know I was going to do this pivot. I kind of thought, well, this is interesting to me. Let me learn more about it. Let me take some certifications and maybe try this on the side and just see.

What I ended up noticing is I became a lot more engaged in this work and I started caring less and less about my day job. And then I eventually left my day job and the rest is history. But that's how I got into this.

Nick Berry (14:31)
when did you start this, the executive coaching business, Newpo?

Arielle Lechner (14:35)
Well, it wasn't always called New Po. So actually it used to just be called my name because it was very scrappy. Like I took my website that I used to get marketing jobs and just rejigged it into like a coaching website because, know, scrappy and only, yeah. And then only, maybe it's like two years ago that I properly rebranded into a name that's outside of myself because, know, for things I'd like to do in the future, I want it to be bigger than me.

Nick Berry (14:51)
MVP.

Arielle Lechner (15:04)
But I've been coaching since 2019.

Nick Berry (15:09)
Okay. So when you were working with this coach and you reached this point somewhere along the way that you realized like, what I really need to be doing is working with people, like a fewer people that I can have this profound impact on. Like how heavy was the discovery, like the process of getting you there? Or was it just like a light bulb coming on all at once?

Arielle Lechner (15:35)
No,

not light bulb, not light bulb. Definitely not light bulb. I think...

there were light bulb moments, like bright spots throughout my process working with this person where I felt, wow, you know, with one powerful question or one powerful observation, like something clicked for me. And I think I had a few of these bright spots throughout our engagement, but then at the end of it, you at the end of eight months,

I really thought, hey, that was really different and really incredible. And I wonder if, you know, I could make a career. This was so meaningful and impactful to me. I wonder if I could make a career doing that for others.

Nick Berry (16:23)
And the answer is yes. And now here we are, right?

Arielle Lechner (16:26)
Well,

the answer is yes, but I certainly wasn't. I mean, there was plenty of times where I'm like, God, like this isn't going to work or, you know, where's my next client coming from? ⁓ you know, it's, it's been a quest ups and downs, twists and turns.

Nick Berry (16:35)
Mm-hmm.

So the

gremlin is still creeps in from time to time.

Arielle Lechner (16:46)
It, I wouldn't say the, I mean, let's say the gremlin, I don't know, if we think about it, like there's like a little angel on my shoulder and a little devil and like one's my inner critic and one's my, you know, my higher self. Certainly there's still chatter from the little devil and there always will be because it's, we're humans. I think I am far better now at just taking, you know, listening to what that little devil says objectively and saying, okay, cool, thanks for your input.

And then asking the opinion of the little angel or the higher self and then taking their input and being much more balanced and neutral and objective in, yeah, what I'm trying to do rather than just going into like a doom loop.

Nick Berry (17:32)
Okay. So what is your, as a coach, what's your superpower? What makes you great at this?

Arielle Lechner (17:38)
Well, I will share what clients have shared with me, which is I am both extremely demanding and extremely supportive. So I think people, especially if you're investing in coaching, you want to be able to do your best work. And I think I'm able to create a container in which there is no sugar coating. I'm not afraid.

to be provocative with my clients and I am not afraid to ruffle their feathers because we have built a container of trust and they know I have their best interests at heart. And also I'm extremely supportive. know, not everything, sometimes it's just about really listening and there's nothing to be said. Being with someone through their dark night of the soul, because that happens.

And so, yeah, I think that's what I've heard repeatedly from different types of clients. So that's what comes to mind.

Nick Berry (18:39)
Would your coach have pushed you to be, to give an answer more of your own, like from your own perspective?

Arielle Lechner (18:49)
of like what I think versus what other people have told me.

That's an interesting question.

I don't think so. Right? So every coach is a different style. The coach I worked with was very gentle. And I think it was a very, I was in a very, it was very fragile time for me. So that's what I needed at that point.

but it sounds like, okay, you wanna know what I think.

I think...

really good at listening between the lines or

listening for what wants to be said. And what I mean by that is people will often present, know, come with a presenting problem and you can either like listen to the content of that problem and get lost in the content of that problem. Or you can listen to the underlying context and like, is this really about? Like,

It's often not the presenting problem. There's something more upstream. And if you can really listen for that, you can be much more effective, much quicker with a client and not go down these rabbit holes that, you know, aren't really going to get you to the, to the core kind of the crux of it.

Nick Berry (19:50)
Mm-hmm.

I think I've heard that called, is it like a third level listener or something like that? I think that's from a book, Conversational Intelligence, It's a fantastic book, Conversational Intelligence. But it's being able to kind of...

Arielle Lechner (20:13)
intelligence.

Nick Berry (20:20)
as above the conversation, see like what's going on here. Yeah.

Arielle Lechner (20:24)
Yep.

Nick Berry (20:25)
Yeah. even so, even when one of your clients is presenting with a topic and that's not necessarily what is actually going on. They may not even, that may not be intentional, right? It's sometimes we're just buried. We're in it.

Arielle Lechner (20:39)
Right.

Yeah, they don't, mean, they're being honest. think they're telling, right? They're telling, they're explaining their problem as best they can and identifying what they think the problem is. And I think this is where, yeah, where leaders can get stuck is you think it's about this, but really it's about that. And, you know, the way I think about that, so,

Nick Berry (21:02)
Mm-hmm.

Arielle Lechner (21:09)
I use this model called levels of creation, which my mentor Robert Ellis coined. there's different, you know, in figuring out where leaders get stuck there, there's different levels. You know, at the top level, we have essence. And essence is your, the way we would define that is your natural way of being and adding value that requires little to no effort. It's just the way you show up. You know, then we've got your vision.

on like the levels of creation. are you trying to create? Underneath that, you've got identity. So how do you identify? And then you've got your beliefs, values, capabilities, skills. Then you've got behaviors, like what are you doing in the outside world? And environment, and environment could be where you are, the people you're surrounded with, the projects you're working on, stuff like that. And so,

When I'm doing this listening, I'm always listening through these levels. So someone's telling me, a client's telling me a problem, I'm trying to think through these levels, essence, vision, identity, values, capabilities, behaviors, environment.

Where, where this problem, like where are they, where on this, where are they getting stuck here? Like, what is this really about? And which place has, will give me, is the highest leverage for me, you know, if we could shift something at the identity level, would everything else stop being a problem? Or is this more of a values problem? Is that the underlying like thread here where we have to address something that's going on in terms of values? So really being able to listen and figure out like, where is this

really falling and what's it really about and let's go tackle that upstream problem rather than like the presenting problem, which it's not to say the presenting, sometimes the presenting problem is just a presenting problem, but oftentimes it's more than that.

Nick Berry (23:06)
Is there one level or an area of that model where it is more common for business owners to be stuck?

Arielle Lechner (23:15)
Yeah.

I would say identity and beliefs are big. Especially, you know, I tend to work with startup founders a lot. And so what happens is you're a founder and then all of a sudden, you know, you're becoming like a CEO, but you know, how you show up as a CEO to, you know, a team of three versus a team of 30 is different. And it continues to become different as your company grows.

There is an identity shift that's happening as your company is scaling, as you are growing as a leader, as your team is growing. And you need to be able to step into this new identity and show up as that type of leader and be who your company needs you to be. But if you're still kind of stuck in like that old identity and showing up that way, well, you're limiting yourself. Same thing with beliefs. If you don't believe, I mean,

people have all kinds of beliefs about themselves and what they're capable of or what other people think of them. Even the most brilliant people have ways of thinking and assumptions that get in the way of them reaching their full potential. And so if...

Nick Berry (24:28)
mean, you have to have

some assumptions just to operate, Like assumptions aren't necessarily bad.

Arielle Lechner (24:32)
Right. No, assumptions are not necessarily

bad. Of course, they help us make quicker decisions and they can also be the wrong assumptions or we need their assumptions that worked for us in the past. these beliefs are actually no longer accurate and we need to update them.

Nick Berry (24:53)
Yeah, an assumption can be one you could consider it totally reasonable, but it's still be the wrong assumption in a scenario.

Arielle Lechner (25:01)
Exactly. It can be totally reasonable and not be the correct assumption and not be an assumption that's actually helping you generate the results you want.

Nick Berry (25:10)
So which of the levels would we, what we were talking about earlier, the shoulds, right? These expectations that are being placed on something either from someone else or by yourself, where do the shoulds go?

Arielle Lechner (25:22)
Yeah,

yeah, so I call those like should beliefs, should thoughts. Those typically are at the beliefs level, right? Like you have a belief that you should be doing this even though you're really longing to do why. So those tend to fall at the beliefs level.

And then you can ask, well, how did, you know, how did these beliefs come to be? Are these beliefs like, do I really believe this? Or was this kind of like some learned thing from the, from the past that's not actually mine? I've just kind of adopted it without thinking.

Nick Berry (25:59)
And I guess there are probably instances where does it matter where it came from? Like it could be something that's pretty simple that it's just, you just need to really recognize that it is a belief and you can let go of it.

Arielle Lechner (26:06)
That, so-

Yeah,

and that's where I would say my, kind of, know, there's coaching and then there's therapy and maybe there's some overlap, but looking at the past and the why, I say, you know, if we really have to get into that, I always refer out saying, hey, if you really want to dig into this, it's best you speak with the therapist because I'm not clinically trained in that. Coaching, not to say that we don't touch on that.

here and there, but it's much more about looking forward and how do we create the results we want rather than trying to unpack and understand exactly how this came to be.

Nick Berry (26:40)
that makes sense. Okay. Can you, so can you give me some common examples, recognizable examples of how, from these other groups, from essence, vision, values?

type of situations like what does this look like when maybe there's an issue with one of your clients?

Arielle Lechner (26:55)
Yeah, exactly.

vision, for example.

Nick Berry (27:02)
to

Arielle Lechner (27:02)
a person could be getting stuck there because the vision, say the vision for their company that they're trying to execute on. If that vision isn't actually aligned with what they want, or it's not a big enough vision that's gonna get them

you know, to the levels they need to get to to continue growing. That might be a place to kind of look at, you know, what is incongruent about your current vision? Is there something that doesn't feel good about it? Is it missing something? Right? Are you not letting yourself dream your true dream? And maybe getting curious about there because if the vision is not aligned, well, vision is very important. It's like at the top, right? You can think of it like North Star. And if there's something not congruent there,

it's gonna have downstream effects. Identity, know, identity, think the simple way, the identity level, the simple way to think about it is, you know, this question of like, well, who the fuck am I to do this? Like I'm just whoever. Even again, like the most successful, yeah, like you would, I mean, it continues to surprise me how

Nick Berry (28:15)
like self-worth.

Arielle Lechner (28:23)
people who have already had success, who are clearly brilliant, how even they, how weighed down people can get with questions around, know, am I the right person to do this? Am I capable of this? Self doubt, you know, imposter syndrome.

So values, typically the way that I've seen this present is like, we, can call it like competing commitments. So sometimes it happens that, ⁓ and I'll just use a simple example, you know, we value, ⁓ success on one end, and then we also value freedom on the other end. Well,

Here you might have competing commitments, two things that are important to you, but they there's tension because success might require giving up your evenings and weekends. might, you know, it might require all these things when if you're also valuing freedom, well, you want an open schedule and you don't want to have to answer to a board. you know, so part of that work is figuring out, well, how do we kind of navigate these competing commitments? How do we do things to make sure.

you know, we're honoring this and also honoring that. And when are we pulling too much in this direction versus that direction and really helping a client understand why they're feeling like stuck and where that tension is coming from, helping them identify those competing commitments or values. And yeah, it, bringing it, helping them see that that that's coming up for them and bringing that to light so that they can have a more objective view and think through how they want to approach that.

Nick Berry (29:58)
Yeah, it's just being all of these things, know, the pattern is being in alignment or having things that are in conflict and with, and especially without realizing it, then it's even, you know, it's even worse.

Arielle Lechner (30:09)
Yeah.

Yeah, and it shows up even in the most like, okay, I had my first kid this summer. So I'm a new mom and I wanna, thank you. And I wanna be a present and incredible mother. And I also have a lot of ambitions for my career. There's competing commitments here. And I have to negotiate that and figure out, how do I...

Nick Berry (30:23)
Congrats.

Arielle Lechner (30:42)
navigate like there is attention there. But being able to give language and name something already gives folks better tools to be able to understand why they're feeling a certain way.

Nick Berry (30:53)
⁓ think the example that you just gave is a really good one because it's really common. If you go online on social media, you can always find a conversation about the mothers and careers and that balance. that's a really important topic, but it's also one that it's

Evident, you can see as the debate goes on and you follow it, every perspective is imposing their own system of like all of their beliefs, their values, they're imposing that on everybody else through that out the thread or the conversation. You can just see the miscommunication just compounding.

everybody has a perspective, but they're speaking on it under the assumption that everybody else means the same thing and everything means the same thing to everybody else.

Arielle Lechner (31:53)
Yeah, that, yeah, you just like hit the hammer on the nail. That is such a thing. I mean, people, we just do that. We tend to assume like our point of view is the point of view or our way of thinking or understanding something is like the truth when it's a version of the truth for us, but there are other truths or other points of view. ⁓ and that's even like a leadership problem too. Like when you're a CEO or a leader, right? You also have your own point of view or ways of understanding and making sense of things. And sometimes

where people get into trouble is assuming that's just how everyone also sees it when it's not. Because everyone has different, yeah, ways of different experiences that impact the ways they think and things they believe and value.

Nick Berry (32:34)
think you're kind of at the risk, when you think about that, it could put you in this constant state of sense making, which is, well, that's a lot of work. Trying to get calibrated in every conversation, like, what do you mean by that? I'm not sure if all of the things that you said, if I should receive them the way that I would have intended them, or do I need to unpack things?

Arielle Lechner (32:59)
Yeah, well, so I'm laughing because when you said, well, what do you mean by that? I say that all the time in my client conversations. Well, what do mean by that? Say more about that because I need to really just because I need to really know what you mean by that. You I can't just make especially in like a coaching conversation. I don't want to make assumptions. I want to make sure I understand exactly what you're saying. And

Yeah, it might feel.

Like it's taking a lot of time, but especially as a leader too, you want to really ask a lot of clarifying and open-ended questions and really understand like what's the current situation for this person? What, you where are they at? What are they understanding? What do they believe? ⁓ and what do they mean when they say this? Cause yeah, that's how miscommunication happens. So assumptions are useful to go, to go full circle to what we talking about earlier. Assumptions are useful. They help us move quickly.

And they have their limits and we need to be able to discern when is it okay to make some assumptions? When are the stakes low enough that we can do that? And when are the stakes too high where we really need to clarify and make sure we understand exactly what the other party is thinking.

Nick Berry (34:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the assumptions are, so have you read Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke's book?

Arielle Lechner (34:27)
Yeah, and I

actually, I actually just took her, her she has a course on Maven now like making better decisions. And I'm in the process of going through that course. love her and her work.

Nick Berry (34:37)
Same. And the assumptions, that's what comes to mind because sometimes you know, like, I'm making an assumption here and based on these circumstances, like, it's fine to do. The odds are high enough considering the risk. You know, that's a lot of it, especially with the decisions that you have to make all day every day is just knowing like how...

Yes, I could eliminate all or most of the, of the assumptions that are being made, but is it worth it? Like, do I need to, or can I just roll with the amount of information that I have that I know for a fact and what I think is probably true beyond that. And that'd be good enough. And the better you do at that, then, you know, the overall odds are going to be in your favor and the worse you are at that, you may find yourself out of position. That's my two cents.

Arielle Lechner (35:31)
There you go. Now

I agree.

Nick Berry (35:35)
from the time that I read her book and it was when it first came out, like that changed the way my view on so many things. Because you just all day, every day, really with life, it's not just business, you're dealing with an incomplete set of information. So those who can process that better tend to do better and those who struggle with it, it works against them.

Arielle Lechner (35:50)
Yep.

Yep, we're always dealing with incomplete information and being able to discern, yeah, when is it okay to move forward with this incomplete information? And then what will I learn by moving forward that will help me then adjust that information? Or do I need to spend more time trying to get more information in this particular situation or context because the stakes are very high.

Nick Berry (36:16)
Mm-hmm.

Is there anything remaining on the, like the levels that get stuck? What did you call that model?

Arielle Lechner (36:26)
levels of creation. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think especially in my work, like I'm all about trying to help people create what it is they truly want when you're, especially when you're a leader or CEO, you're trying to create. So I think, you know, the other, the only other thing I'll say on that,

Nick Berry (36:27)
levels of creation. I really like that.

Arielle Lechner (36:48)
is when you're thinking about these different levels, know, essence, vision, identity, beliefs, values, capabilities, behaviors, and environment, there's what I would call like your inner game and then your outer game. And your inner game is, know, it's everything pretty much up until behaviors. It's everything that's going on inside of you, beliefs, values, skills, identity, all that stuff.

And then your outer game is really like your behaviors, like the actions you're taking in the world and your environment, like where are you, who are you with, et cetera.

I wouldn't say that your inner game and your outer game, that one is better than the other, but oftentimes we have constraints in our outer environment. If I'm uninspired in the current city that I'm living in, well, yeah, I could change my city, but also I might have a lot of real constraints around that, like money, my kid might be in school here. There could be a whole variety of things that make it difficult to actually make a change in your outer game.

Whereas if you can shift something in your inner game, like if you can shift a belief or you can shift the way you see yourself, in a moment, everything could be different for you. And you could really change your results without having to do a lot of legwork in the outside world to try to make that happen.

So that's the only thing I'll say. It's sometimes I do tend to like to look at the inner game first just because

I feel like we can have a lot of impact there without having to sometimes make a lot of physical changes in the real world, but sometimes changing a behavior, changing who you're working with or where you're working or your resources, that is what's called for. It just can be a little bit harder to shift sometimes.

Nick Berry (38:35)
Tell me where this fits in the model or if it doesn't, and it's okay if it doesn't. you'd tell me if I'm just like out there. So one of the things that I use, a tool that I use for myself is like, you know, it's easy sometimes when you look up and you're kind of on the verge of overwhelm. It's like, there's too much. Everything is a...

Arielle Lechner (38:42)
Yeah. Okay.

Nick Berry (39:02)
wreck or whatever your descriptor is of the scenario where it just feels, to me, just feels like everything is just scattered when I'm like that. And so, you can take that perspective and kind of figure out your way through it, whatever that may look like. And at some point as an adult, I realized like I could just as easily take the perspective and reframe it into something like, okay.

There's a pattern here that's an opportunity that I'm not seeing. if I just, that alone, reframing it in more of a, I guess an optimistic, I'm not necessarily an optimist, but there's possibility to it. know on the other side of this, I'm gonna look back and feel either good about how it went or bad about how it went.

Arielle Lechner (39:51)
Yep.

Nick Berry (40:00)
how I was through the process. And so if, when I frame it more as like, there's something here that's an opportunity, I just need to figure it out. Even if it doesn't automatically sort itself, after it's over, I tend to look back much more favorably on how I managed my way through.

Arielle Lechner (40:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, that sounds like a really healthy mindset. I guess what I'm hearing you say is you're kind of rejigging it to not why is this happening to me, but like, this is happening for me. Like, where is the lesson here? How am I showing up to this challenge and how might I be better or improved or learn something at the end of it? Am I hearing you correctly? Yeah.

Nick Berry (40:40)
Yeah. Yes. Yes.

And I've never thought about it like that either. I would have never have even considered that I would have been in a why is this happening to me mode. But that's what it was.

Arielle Lechner (40:55)
And

then, I mean, I think we can all ease, know, I'm not gonna lie, something bad happens. like, ⁓ God, why the hell is this happening? It's a very reactive kind of first kind of gut response when something shitty happens. But then having the kind of tools to kind of pull yourself out of that and say, okay, how do I wanna show up to this? What might I learn about myself?

You know, what is this challenge, you know, place to help me practice something I want to improve on? So if I want to be better at navigating ambiguity and this feels like ambiguous AF, you know, how can I learn to dance with ambiguity better right now? What would that look like? You know, if I feel like I'm a six on 10 on that, what would a seven on 10 look like? Just really, yeah, like, I don't want to say like glass half full, but.

your traditional growth mindset. Like how is this growing me?

Nick Berry (41:59)
the situation is what it is. I'm going to be through it. I may as well like make the most, the best I can out of

Arielle Lechner (42:08)
Yep, and to go back to your question, I think where that would fall on the levels of creation is,

You know, your beliefs, beliefs is also just ways of thinking, right? How am I thinking about this? And can I shift how I'm thinking about this? It's also maybe an identity level. So am I like feeling like a victim to my circumstance? Or am I feeling like I have agency and I'm in control of when I want to get out of this? something there. And then also your

Nick Berry (42:42)
you

Arielle Lechner (42:44)
behaviors could be something there, right? Like things are challenging. Am I just gonna, know, doom loop and like turn on Netflix and like be rude to people and scroll my phone or you know, do I want to change some behaviors to help me move through this challenging time? Do something good for myself. It can often hit at many different levels. And I think what I think about in a coaching conversation is, hey, this problem might actually hit at like four different levels that are, you know, popping up for me.

which one do I think would be like the highest leverage to like unpack first.

Nick Berry (43:19)
Yeah. So, if I'm, I typically like I'll go through and think about, all right, what, you know, what the type of person that I want to be or the type of leader or owner or whatever the situation or the context is that I want to be. And then kind of use that as my beacon for like, all right, then if that's, if that's my aspiration, then I need to take that into consideration when I choose my.

words or actions or whatever as I navigate through this period that I was describing earlier. So that is me using the identity.

Arielle Lechner (43:56)
Yeah, well, you're using the identity piece. Like, how do I want to show up? What kind of person do I want to be? Like, do I want to be this type of leader or that type of leader? So you're making a conscious choice of how you want to show up and then you're ideally shifting your behaviors to meet that type of identity. But you are also making me think of something else that I use often in my coaching practice, which is

a model called triple loop learning. And, you know, I guess the way I would explain this, is, know, anytime we're trying to generate a result. We have three different ways of doing that. Number one, we can do something different to generate a different result. ⁓ but sometimes.

You know, we can do a bunch of different things and still we are unable to generate the result we want. And that's typically an opportunity to shift into the second loop learning or what I would call thinking. So sometimes it's not about doing something different to generate a different result, but how can I think about this problem differently? And then from that different vantage point, how might, you know, might I be able to generate a different result?

You know, looking at maybe I thought the problem was this, but really the problem is that. ⁓ and then sometimes, you know, we can think about a problem from like every fricking angle and still we're not generating the result we want. And that's usually an opportunity to shift into the triple loop learning, which is what I call being. So rather than doing something different or thinking differently about the problem, how can I, as a person, as a leader show up to this differently? ⁓

which is kind of what you were describing earlier of like how you want to show up to a challenging thing you're going through or a that's presenting itself. And by just showing up differently with a different attitude, with a different mindset, how might that shift my results that I'm trying to create? sometimes it really is about, I just need to do this differently and that'll solve the problem. But oftentimes I think maybe the other thing I

if I'm going to go back to not bragging, but just that I'm proud of in my coaching practice is I think a lot of coaching can get stuck in single loop learning. Like, hey, you want this? Let's do that. And let's project manage all the things you're doing. And if you're not doing them, let's like, you know, force you to do them. And I find a very, I would call it like do loop coaching. And it's not, I don't find that type of coaching that transformative. Cause to me,

it's not getting to the root. Like yes, your behaviors, you're not doing certain things, but like why? And let's really like, if we could shift your thinking and even more than that, if we can shift how you're being, I think that's much more transformational and deep work. And so no hate to the do loop stuff. Sometimes that's exactly what's required. But I do, I think that's like,

phase like step one, and then there's often you got to go deeper than that to really have results that last that are transformational.

Nick Berry (47:30)
Yeah, I really like there's just less that you have any control over? It's more like what you might call it's a situation, not necessarily a problem. What you can affect is here.

Arielle Lechner (47:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, I actually, that's so well put situation versus a problem. Like an example would be, you know, your, your startups running out of money. You've done everything you can to raise your next round. Not happening. You've thought do the think loop, second loop learning. You've thought about other ways to survive a bunch of different angles.

Nothing's proving to be promising.

The third triple loop learning, you know, might be, well, how do I show up through this challenging time of winding down my startup in a way that I will be proud of in a way that, you know, helps my team have a soft landing, right? And it's not about changing the result necessarily, but how do I be with what is in a way that I can

be proud of, or at least generates the best type of result given the circumstance. Because right there are things that are in our control and then things that are always outside of our control.