Andrew Poles: Building Without Burning Out, Dirty Fuel & CEO Coaching

A hallway door thumps shut, a six-year-old freezes, and a lifetime relationship with fear begins. That moment—watching his grandfather die and feeling abandoned in the aftermath—didn’t just mark Andrew Poles; it wired him. Today, Andrew coaches founders and CEOs with a rare mix of empathy and edge, and he’s candid about the cost of running on fear. We go deep into the psychology of performance, where “dirty fuel” can drive impressive results while quietly burning your inner life, and how to swap it for a cleaner engine without losing ambition.

We unpack the realities of coaching at the highest levels: fundraising pressure, shrinking runways, investor scrutiny, and the invisible strain that can swallow leaders whole. Andrew explains why the best CEOs are diagnosticians—people who see the world as it is, separate ego from evidence, and pivot fast. He breaks down a three-part framework to prevent burnout: management literacy for first-time leaders, upgrading motivation from fear to meaning, and killing the habit of mistaking motion for progress. Along the way, he shares a raw story about missing his daughter’s prom—a moment that exposed how success had turned him into a coward—and the boundary shift that followed.

You’ll also hear a grounded take on the coaching industry’s promise and pitfalls, from confidentiality to professionalism, and a counterintuitive leadership reset: you don’t need all the answers; you need the courage to say, “I’m uncertain—let’s figure it out together.” We close with an unexpected vision about reducing conflict at scale, not through noise, but through empathy that humanizes the “other” and makes solutions possible.

If you’re a builder or an aspiring one, consider this your nudge: the dream chose you because it wants to enter the world through your hands. Listen, share with a friend who’s close to burnout, and leave a review to tell us what fuel you’re running on today.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Live Setup, Guest Introduction
• 1:57 Childhood, Loss, and Early Fear
• 5:39 Living With Fear: Vinyl vs Digital
• 10:00 Mortality, Meaning, and Time
• 12:50 Coaching Industry: Promise and Pitfalls
• 16:20 CEO Coaching Path and Approach
• 19:20 Managing Founder Stress as a Coach
• 23:20 Preventing Burnout: Three Core Buckets
• 27:30 Dirty Fuel of Success Explained
• 30:15 Burnout Story: Missing Prom
• 32:30 Leadership Myths and Mindset
• 35:35 Beyond Career: Ending War Through Empathy
• 38:45 Clarifications, CTAs, and Closing Invite

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:36

Welcome back to one on one with Mr.

unknown: 0:38

U.

SPEAKER_03: 0:38

Of course, I'm your host, Mr. U in studio with us. We have the founder of Andrew Pose Performance Coaching. He's an athlete, a husband, a founder, a small group coach. Andrew Poles is in the house. Andrew, how are you, man?

SPEAKER_00: 0:50

I'm doing great. It's so good to finally be here with you. I've really been looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_03: 0:54

Same here, brother. It's been a long time between this time and the time that we first got a chance to connect, but I'm excited about the conversation. For you guys that are watching and listening, of course, this is a live episode. So it's going to be uh going on all of our social media platforms, excluding maybe Instagram. So we'll have that going for you after the show, probably about an hour after the show. And all listening platforms also pick up the episode about an hour after the show. So if you are interested in following with me for any reason at all, in the upper right-hand corner of your screen, the QR code, use that. You can contact me, book coaching appointments, ask questions about our show, all in that QR code in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. I think it's the right corner of your screen, or is it the is it in the reverse? Mine is on the right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35

So I got it on the right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37

Thank you, Andrew. All right. So we always ask all the guests to come in and kind of share uh initially about their childhood, their upbringing. What was life like for young Andrew? How'd you get from there to where you are right now? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48

Yeah, so I, you know, I grew up in uh Phoenix, Arizona. My father was drafted during the Vietnam War, and we were really lucky that because he because he was a doctor, he was put on an Air Force base state side instead of sent for Vietnam. So I grew up on Air Force bases as a young kid in Phoenix. Um and you know, I had I had a middle class childhood, but um I think some of the things that were important about my childhood that shaped me and that sort of led in my journey to becoming a coach ultimately were, you know, I lost my grandfather at a young age and he died right in front of me when I was about six years old. And it was really terrifying. I didn't know at that point what death was or what it was all about. And you know, when he he just kind of keeled over and died in front of us during dinner, my parents ushered us, my siblings and I, out of the house to a neighbor's house while my grandfather was being attended to. And then when we were brought back, the house was empty, it was dark, it was eerie. And when my parents finally came back from the hospital, they looked really upset when I asked, you know, my mom, like, hey, what happened? Where's grandpa? She said, Well, your grandpa died. And I said, Well, you know, what does that mean? Like I literally didn't know what it meant. You know, my mom said, Well, it means he's gone and he's never coming back. And, you know, when she said that, something like locked up inside me. I felt true terror. And I started having thoughts like, Well, what are you gonna die, mom? Am I gonna die? Like, where when I die, where am I gonna go? And I started having these like nightmares, you know, about being buried alive. And I had to sleep in my parents' bedroom and I slept in the bathroom with my little dog, you know, with the lights on. I just got really scared. And I asked my mom every single night, Well, can you explain this to me again? Like, what is what is death? What does it mean? And after about a couple weeks of this, my mom sat me down on my sister's bed. I'll never forget this. She sat me down next to her, she explained it to me, but then she said, Andrew, this is the last time we're gonna talk about this. I just can't do this anymore. And then she got up, she left the room, she turned down the hallway, she walked into her bedroom and she closed the door, like thomp. I remember hearing the door go like thwomp. And I was looking at her back as she walked into the bedroom, and I felt like, oh my gosh, it just happened again. Like I did something, I don't know what I did, but I've upset my mom and now she's gone. And it felt like I was never gonna get her back. And it started to create this pattern in my life of being afraid, of losing things unexpectedly, and then never gonna be able to get them back. And that was one of the things that led me to want to become more aware of what other people were feeling and what other people were thinking. Not because I truly wanted to help people, but because I wanted to protect myself from ever losing someone again who was important to me. So, you know, at the same time, I had a very, you might call it normal, sort of middle class, you know, childhood. Those kinds of events, and I think we all have them, those events that happen, whether they're traumatic or whether they're just a moment like that, you know, shape you and wind up leading to the kinds of maybe strengths or superpowers you have that also have that darker downside to them. They're being driven by something that ultimately isn't productive, but it also helps develop you into someone who has like a superpower. So I think that would, you know, those are the kinds of things that led to me becoming a coach.

SPEAKER_03: 5:03

Wow, that's a that's the intense story, man. No real way to start that off, start the show off with that kind of tone, but it's like it's it's it's powerful, man. Very uh transparent of you, man. So I'm thank you for sharing it. Yeah. When, if you did at all, when do you get past the fear of losing someone or something? Have you gotten past that, or is that something that you still kind of uh have to manage or to kind of uh deal with on a day to day?

SPEAKER_00: 5:30

I I think that's a great question. You know, it in my experience, Mr. U, that there are two kinds of fears. Um, there are some kinds which certain kinds of insights just eradicate completely, they just leave you and they don't, you know, they don't come back. And then there are others that are like, I mean, you and I are old enough to get to know this analogy, like some are like digital and some are like vinyl, right? Like you you stamp a vinyl record and that thing never changes. You don't rewrite vinyl, and then some are digital. This particular one for me has been like vinyl, right? So, so with all the work I've done, I've never been able to eradicate the fear. But what has happened over the course of many, many years of being aware of it and actually working at it is that when the fear comes up, I'm able to now kind of just look at it and be like, oh, look, there you are, like an old friend. Like, hey, you're you're welcome in the car, but I'm gonna hold on to the steering wheel. You know, like, yeah, I know you're here and you don't have to go anywhere, but I'm still driving, you know. So it's one of those kind of fears for me that it never seems to go away, but it's more like a gnat at my heels than a big dragon looming on my path.

SPEAKER_03: 6:34

I love it. I love this man.

SPEAKER_00: 6:35

Yeah, that's true when it comes to relationships, but I will say this as I thought about your question, sometimes, and I bet you can identify with this because you also coach, you know, sometimes after you have a client for a while, like uh recently I had a client complete with me after four years of coaching. Even though I knew it was the right thing, like I knew that it was time for him to move on. When I lose a client, I start having this mild form of panic, you know, like, oh my gosh, I lost a client. Like, what if I never get another client? What if I turn all my clients? Like, what if I never work again? Like, you have these things of like I'm gonna lose something and I'm never gonna get it back. It will creep its way into my experience, and then I'll be like, Oh, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. That's just that thing, you know. So, yeah, it's definitely been uh it's been there my my whole life, and I think it will continue to be there, and I just have to keep being vigilant with it.

SPEAKER_03: 7:27

Oh, I love this man, and I definitely want to uh you know, kind of stay on that tone for this next question, just to kind of kind of finalize it, then we move into some other things regarding the coaching space in which we've been doing founding multiple businesses and small group coaching and things of that nature. But final question about this particular part. What does being that close or that impacted by death has had changed the way that you live? I'm asking that because I know a lot of people who have been uh attached, if you will, to that kind of stigma, they've felt it ours. I've been in that place too. But I think the measure of us is how we handle it, how we adjust. What do we do? Not not to compensate, but to uh I guess uh turn that uh fear, if you will, into fuel. How would how did you do that based on the thing that you you've dealt with? You just uh described so transparently. How do you how do you deal with that and how does it has it changed the way you view your life and how do you live?

SPEAKER_00: 9:18

Well, yeah, I mean I like the way you put that. I definitely turned that fear into fuel, but I turned it into what I what I would call a dirty fuel in the early stages of my life, right? Like it burns hot, but it comes at at a cost. Um but as I've as I've gotten older, uh you know, I I've stopped being quite so afraid of dying, of my own death as I was when I was six, and as I even was in my 20s or 30s, now that I'm in my 50s, I can actually embrace I I've gotten to a point where I can embrace that, you know, it's gonna, I've seen enough of it, it's gonna happen to me too. And it doesn't feel quite as frightening. And I I think part of that is is maybe just sitting with the idea of it for so many years and initially just moving through what for me was terror at a young age to the point where it feels more natural now. And I think it helps me now that I'm can can be with it without feeling so much terror, to ask myself the question like, am I living my life in a way that's meaningful? Because I don't have, I don't, I don't have an unlimited amount of time. So is the way I'm spending my time meaningful? You know, am I gonna look back on my life when I reach that point, if whether it's tomorrow and 50 years from now, and be like, I'm really happy about the way I use that time. I'm glad what I did with it. So I feel like I'm more able to do that now as I'm older, but I was not able to do that when I was younger.

SPEAKER_03: 10:44

That makes a lot of sense. Uh, one of my favorite quotes from our duty departed mentor, Dr. Miles Munro, he always said this, it's a long quote, so I won't try to butcher it, but the bottom line is that he said the richest place in the world is the graveyard. All the inventions, the poems, the songs, the books that haven't been written. That's where they are. So all the untapped potential. And for me, I think some people are scared of spires, some people are scared of freeze, even believe it or not. Some people are scared of going outside. I'm scared of going to the end of my story and still being full and not being empty.

SPEAKER_00: 11:20

Yeah, yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_03: 11:22

Yeah, that's what drives me to do what I'm doing. I want to get into your coaching a little bit because I know you do some small group coaching, which I love because that's kind of where, for lack of a better word, the magic happens. Yeah, yeah. People can really get changed. It's not, it's not even in the big groups, despite if you're doing big groups, it's no offense to you. But the small groups, that's where it's at that's where the individual stuff turns into a collective uh boon, if you will. But what do you like and dislike about the coaching space in general? Let's hear that from a fellow coach. What do you like about the coaching space? Doesn't that be the uh genre where you are, but just in general? If you got a personal account, you can share it.

SPEAKER_00: 12:01

But yeah, yeah, no, I'm I'm I think I get your question. So, yeah, what what I like about the coaching space in general is that it coaching as a as a as a field gives lots and lots of people an opportunity to be entrepreneurial and to contribute based on you know their lived experience and creating value from both who they are and what they've been through. And I think that's an incredible thing. I just think that's awesome for so many people that we can contribute to each other from our experience. So I like that about the space. I what I don't like about the coaching space is I feel like because it's still a little bit like the wild, wild west, um, you know, it's not a regulated space, even though there is credentialing for coaching, not everyone who coaches gets credentialed or has any formal training. I think there's a there can be a lack of professionalism, I think that some coaches bring to it that isn't good for their clients, especially when you do like when you do small group coaching or if you coach like I do in companies and you work with people in every area of their life. So maybe I'm coaching the CEO of a company, and every once in a while I coach his or her partner in the business and or and or his or her partner in life, and then I coach their leadership team. You know, I know things about people in in someone's life that they don't know that I know. And so it takes a lot to be able to hold all that in in the vault, so to speak, and not let it slip out. It takes a lot of energy, concentration, and practice. And I just I know, for example, examples of coaches who don't do that well, and they really do damage, in my opinion, to people's relationships because they don't keep the vault airtight. So there are just things about coaching that you don't generally see, for example, in a therapeutic space, because therapists are trained in this, and you know, they there's a certain level of confidentiality there that people can expect. So I think that's a downside of the space. Um, I also think it's becoming a little oversaturated, maybe, you know, making it harder and harder for new people to break in.

SPEAKER_02: 14:07

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:08

Yeah. So I think that's another challenge of the space. Yeah, do you feel that personally? Yes, I do. Yeah, I feel okay. I hear you. Yeah, I mean, I'm luckily I've been coaching for 22 years.

unknown: 14:19

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03: 14:20

Say that again.

SPEAKER_00: 14:20

What's happening to you?

SPEAKER_03: 14:21

I I cringe at the idea where people still call me coach and mentor in some area of life, even if they're not clients anymore. I still cringe and like I won't be associated with the people who are doing this that don't, yeah, probably shouldn't be doing it. Yeah, it's like that's right, maybe more pervasive and maybe perhaps have the appearance to be more successful than I am. I'm like, Oh, I don't want to be associated with that. But finish your point, man. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00: 14:47

No, no, that's good. It's good. We can end on your point. I like yours better.

SPEAKER_03: 14:50

No, it's fantastic, though. I love this before we get into uh some more what you're doing from uh a coaching standpoint. If you guys have any questions after you're watching or listening, you have any questions for Andrew or myself, I'll jump into the live chat. Can't wait to hear from you. If you want to shout out on our podcast, shoot me a text, 904-867-4466. 904-867-4466. I will promise you I'll answer you back and shout you out on the next episode of any of our shows that we do here. But go ahead, Andrew. So, in regards to this, I'm gonna ask you a question. How did you get into the role of being a coach for CEOs and founders? I know that everybody needs coaches, and I don't know how everybody goes about finding them. Probably different for everybody, I guess. But how'd your role come about? That's sound like a uh a pretty intense role to uh I mean, I'm a high performance coach, but I I feel like I'm just starting to get to the place where I'm on that level where I'm coaching high achievers on that level, on the success lab, if you will. How'd your role come about? How'd you look on an everyday basis? Talk to us about it.

SPEAKER_00: 15:53

Well, so uh how it came about was I I have been coaching professionally for 22 years, I mentioned, and I've I've coached a little over 10,000 people over those 22 years in both group settings and one-on-one settings. And so, you know, when you coach that many people and you deal with so many different areas of life, um, you start to discover that on the one hand, you know, we all put our pants on one leg at a time. And from the perspective of being a human being and dealing with other human beings, dealing with the challenge of working in teams and influencing people and outcomes, there's a lot about that that's going to be the same from industry to industry in business, or even from area of life to area of life, whether you're a relationship coach or you're a performance coach or your business coach. So that part of it can be generally applicable. But then when you coach startup founders, which I do as well, and these are people who are um not necessarily bootstrapping their businesses, but they're raising seed capital and then potentially institutional capital to try to really scale a massive company. That's a very special space in terms of the kinds of challenges that those people have. And so uh it helps when you're a coach, coaching executives in business to both have that human side of the equation where you have coaching ideas that will work in any context, and then at the same time have deep domain expertise where you can bring that to the table with what they're dealing with in the world of business beyond just the human elements of business. So, what does that mean? It means when you're doing the kind of coaching that I do in the space, you're going to be coaching an individual on their performance. And what is the performance of a CEO or a founder? It's fundraising, it's recruiting people, it's building their team, and then leading and managing their team, it's managing their relationship with a co-founder, with their board, with investors. So there's, you know, there's all those interpersonal relationships. But then there's also just certain, you know, there's the business side of it that they also have to be very strong at. So on that side of the equation, Mr. Yu, I think what led to my being able to do this was this is my third business. So I've started three businesses. And then I've also run three other multimillion dollar businesses for other people in various leadership roles, from being like a president or general manager to um, you know, being sort of like the like if you've ever seen the movie Pulp Fiction, you know, the the character, the the wolf, you know, the guy they would send in when, you know, the you know what hit the fan and things needed to get sorted out and turned around. I've been that guy in companies. Wow. And so what happens is when you go through those scenarios, you start to understand the kind of the dynamics of business, just sort of like you can learn the dynamics of being human. And so I think to be an effective coach for an executive, like a founder or like a CEO or other C-suite executives, you it's really beneficial to bring both. You know, it's if you have one, you can be powerful, but if you have both, you can be like a double threat, you know, or a triple threat. And so that's what I love about what I do. I get to coach my founders on their marriages and parenting their kids. I get to coach them on recruiting, I get to coach them on how to influence their teens, I get to coach them on the vision of their companies. I get to do all the things I've worked on over the course of my life. So for me, it just is more fulfilling that way, right? To be able to contribute from my experience all the things I've learned.

SPEAKER_03: 19:17

I love that, man. It's a great answer. Uh, I got a two-part question for you, Andrew. Yeah. All right. Well, first part, because I I'm I'm walking in, I've been I've been coaching for I think I'm going into the 25-year realm now.

SPEAKER_00: 19:30

Amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 19:32

But I was doing personal and business coaching. I'm not, I wasn't doing high performance coaching until now. So this is a new four-way for me. It's not super different because some of those same issues that people came to me before, high achievers deal with them as well. So it kind of uh it kind of translates, but you have a lot of experience with high achievers and dealing with burnout and stress. I want to ask you a two-part question. One, what's the first thing you do when you're dealing with a high achiever in the coaching space because of all the distress that they deal with, and you can help them avoid burnout before it happens. And the second question is how do you not get that stress on you? Because what are trying to accomplish is so massive, and it's like it's it's really hard to not feel the stress that they're feeling, you know. Kind of like almost, I mean, if you if you're not even if you're not a feeler like I am, you still you get the residue of that because like it's so intense with the dealer, and you try to help them stay off of the ledge and still get perspectives. I mean, two-part question. Hopefully, you got both of those.

SPEAKER_00: 20:35

Yes, I got both of those. Uh I guess I'll start with the second one first since it's probably closest to mine for people. Yeah. So, in my personal experience, uh with this, if you if you really care about and connect to your clients, if you are really invested in what they're trying to accomplish and you take it on, like the the way that I was trained to think about coaching was um the the person I'm coaching, their performance is my performance. It's like they're a dart and I'm throwing the dart, right? So if the dart doesn't hit the bullseye, I have to look at, okay, how did I throw that dart? So I was trained to take coaching on that way. Now, taking coaching on that way makes you very, very sensitive to how your coaching is is performing. But at the same time, to your point, it also can lead to you taking on a lot of the worry and stress of how your clients' businesses are going. So I think you've asked a really important question. And my my experience with this is that it takes practice. In the beginning of my this business, so I've had this particular of my three businesses, I've had this one for five years or five and a half years. So when I started transitioning into coaching um startup founders, startup founders, the the the level of of stress, like structural pressure, stress of having this sort of like ever-diminishing cash runway inside of which to prove you have a viable product. And then once you've done that to scale the growth of it, and you're always running out of money, you're always running out of money because startup businesses, unlike bootstrap small businesses, don't run on profits, they run on capital, invested capital. And so you have this set of investors watching you, you know, either in your imagination or in reality, like watching your every move, thinking, how well are you spending my money? How hard are you working to make my money make money? And so there's just a lot of stress in that situation. So the pull for as a coach to feel like, well, this is also my challenge is strong. What I've learned is just that it doesn't actually do any good in terms of my ability to be an effective coach to take that on. It hasn't produced better coaching out of me. If anything, it's produced worse coaching out of me. So I've had to develop myself inside my commitment to be maximally effective myself, to let it go, you know, and to get that there are so many things out of my control as a coach. The only access point I have in the situation is the call I have with that client. And so if I feel like on that call, I have performed at my best, then however it goes after that is out of my control. And I just need to let it go. And the unfortunate challenge of my industry with startup founders, which is not all of my roster, but it's a good chunk, is that no matter how great of a coach you are and how great your coaching is, four out of five of those businesses, if not nine out of 10, will fail because the business model was never going to work, regardless of your coaching. It just wasn't gonna work. That is the deal with venture. You know, like no, no venture capitalist generally picks better than one in 10 companies that make it and they know that. And so you kind of have to, in my case, develop that perspective at the same time, which is a little contradictory. Feeling like, yeah, but on this call, I want to be on this call. Like my coaching is going to be the thing that either makes or breaks the business and take it on with that kind of focus and intensity. So I've trained myself to hold that seemingly contradictory space. So that's my answer to your second question. Well, now you're gonna have to ask me the first one again because I've already forgotten what is the first question.

SPEAKER_03: 24:23

What's the first step you take when someone is uh potentially as a high as a high achiever?

SPEAKER_00: 24:29

I can't I can't say that there's always one thing. So let me tell you the two or three things I've got my eye on, and then depending on the person, we'll start at one of these three spots. Yeah, but so um okay, so number one, high performers, when they move into a position of leadership for the first time, so like a first-time founder, first-time CEO. Generally speaking, these are people who, because they are high performing, have already learned how to get themselves to produce results in a way that they've never needed to be managed by someone else. So oftentimes they haven't even had management because they they just they just produce, produce, produce. And people just leave them alone and let them go, like a wind-up toy. You just wind it up and let it go. So when they move into this position of leadership, it's the first time for many of them they're experiencing management on either side of the equation. So they literally don't know what they don't know about what does good management look like, what is bad management look like, what is like um micromanagement versus appropriate oversight. They just have no register for this. So one of the things I have to keep my eye on is how much of that gap do I need to fill in by giving them like a baseline. Hey, here's what management is, here's how it works, here's what it looks like, here's when it's done well. So that's one place. So then the other place of three, some of the second one of three is like we talked about with dirty fuels, almost all of these people run on dirty fuel. And dirty fuel is not sustainable, and it doesn't generally lead to fulfillment. And that's the problem because uh the way that I the way that I that I like to talk about this is don't try to be fulfilled by success. Go do your best to be successful at what fulfills you. And the problem with dirty fuels is they're not oriented around fulfillment, they're usually oriented oriented around compensating for some experience of lack that you feel as a human being. So the more you win with those mechanisms, the more you feel the lack of being okay or the lack of being complete. And so it's a surefire recipe to burnout. So another place I'm looking at is are they running on a dirty fuel? And if so, like what do we need to deal with about that so they can still perform at a really high level, but without being driven by an untrue sense of that there's something wrong with them as a human being. So that's the second bucket. And then, you know, the third bucket is people who misunderstand motion for effectiveness. So, especially in the beginning stages of a startup where you're not exactly sure what the product is going to be or what the one that works and exactly who the market is or what channel to sell them. There's so many experiments you have to run to quickly figure out, okay, this is the product, this is the market, this is the channel, you know, and you can run out of money. So people are running these multiple experiments, they're trying to generate lots and lots of results, but it's easy to mistake all that when you're not really thinking of it from the end backwards, like, okay, what are we trying to accomplish? How are we getting there? You know, how do we know if we're on our track? You if you don't do that kind of backwards planning, you will mistake generally motion for productivity. And that's another pure fire recipe for burnout because when you mistake motion for productivity, you you can always keep moving. So you're never ever ever done, and you're never satisfied, and you never know if you're on track. All you know is you just got to keep going, and that's not sustainable either. So those are the big three buckets I'm looking at. And depending on kind of how the person's functioning, I'll begin at one of those three spots.

SPEAKER_03: 28:12

I love that. All right, so we got three time founder of multiple multinational, multi-million dollar businesses, Andrew Poles and House. If you contact him for his services, find out more about his story, andrew poles.com. That's spelled P-O-L-E-S for those that are listening and not watching, Andrew Poles.com forward slash services. All right, so let's go ahead. We're kind of almost up against it a little bit. So okay. All the question I wanted to ask you probably aren't going to happen now, but uh but you mentioned the dirty fuel of success. I understand what that means because we had a prior conversation about it, but break it down really briefly. What is the dirty fuel of success? What is that?

SPEAKER_00: 28:51

Yeah, that so a dirty fuel is one that burns really hot, so it makes things happen, right? It is actually effective, but it comes with unwanted like side effects. It comes with unwanted, like, you know, you burn gas, burn natural gas, it produces methane, I mean it produces carbon dioxide. So, you know, too much carbon dioxide is not a good thing, right? If we don't have enough plants to recycle it, it's bad for the planet. So the dirty fuels like that. So in the world of human performance, dirty fuels are things, like I said before, where they push you to act, they push you to adapt, they push you to be really good at something, but they come with a cost to your sense, your emotional well-being, your psychological well-being, your sense of being whole and complete. And I will tell you that I think that is the single hardest thing to do as a high performer is to be able to generate the level of activity required for success in business while at the same time getting that, whether it's a successful venture or it fails, you know, however it goes, it doesn't tell you one thing about who you are as a person. And to be able to maintain a sense of yourself as a person that is empowering, that's whole and complete, regardless of the results you produce or fail to produce in any given moment or period of your life. So a clean fuel is one that allows you to perform really at a high level, but doesn't cost you that sense of yourself. Whereas a dirty fuel will not only cost you something in that sense of yourself, but it will force you to do things that undermine other important things in your life. Like you will not tend to your marriage or to your children or to your health, right? And that was will all come with consequences you don't want. So that's what I mean by a dirty fuel, lack of balance. Copy that.

SPEAKER_03: 30:30

I want to start to try to get four more questions in before we get out of here. So I need your help with that part.

SPEAKER_00: 30:36

Do rapid fire, I'll talk less. Go, I'm with you.

SPEAKER_03: 30:41

Because you have people who deal with burnout, I'm assuming that you have a burnout story.

SPEAKER_00: 30:46

Oh gosh, yeah, it's called the first 25 years of my career.

SPEAKER_03: 30:51

Do you have one you can share briefly and tell us how it impacted other people outside of just you?

SPEAKER_00: 30:56

Yeah, so uh, I think that the probably the most emotionally like upsetting one is when my daughter was around 17, I was. working you know maybe 80 hour weeks and I was both running someone else's business while I was also still coaching professionally so I was I was double I was double dipping and uh I was working with a group of coaches who were doing international coaching programs and we would quarterly have these trainings where we'd have to travel and be in person and this one conflicted with my daughter's prom, her senior prom. And I made the request not to attend this this session, you know, this coaching session or to do it remotely and it was declined. And so I had to make this choice to you know maybe break with this company or be at my daughter's prom. And being so driven by success as I was at that time in my life, I chose the coaching weekend and I went. So I'm at this coaching weekend I had made arrangements to talk with my daughter by phone and a video call before her prom. And I show up and there's this big table of all of us and one person's missing. And it gets announced at the start of this weekend that the person who's missing isn't there because she is staying home for her son's senior prom. So her request was accepted and mine wasn't. And in that moment I just I realized that I was a coward. You know that my drive for success had turned me into a coward. And I was my own success was more important to me than my own daughter's senior prom. And I missed that prom and it broke my freaking heart. And that was a real breaking point for me of realizing that you know I just I needed to have more courage about the things that mattered to me. And success actually didn't mean more to me than being there for her. So I have many examples of things I did like that over the course of my life trying to be successful at the expense of things that matter.

SPEAKER_03: 32:46

I love it.

SPEAKER_00: 32:47

Let's keep going hardest thing you ever done in your life well I think there's different kinds of hard physically and in terms of mental resilience it was definitely from nothing training for and completing a hundred mile mountain biking race at 10,000 feet of elevation up in the Colorado Rockies that was brutally hard why in the world okay we have to leave it there.

SPEAKER_03: 33:15

What's one big uh leadership myth that you have noticed that kind of hold uh potential leaders back 100% the myth that because you're the leader you're supposed to have all the answers and know what to do.

SPEAKER_00: 33:28

That is the single biggest thing that holds them back that they're just in when they believe that they're unable to say I'm uncertain let's figure it out together you know so such a simple thing to do. But if you feel like you're supposed to know everything you get so locked up trying to pretend you know something when you don't that you don't get the uh opportunity to learn and to have people partner with you on what you're trying to accomplish.

SPEAKER_03: 33:53

No I love that I love that is there a in your mind a number one mindset shift that you think separates people who are successful in business from those that are not um yeah I I think I I don't know if it's some mindset shift for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 34:12

So tell me if I'm not answering the question as you intended it. But I think the people who are good diagnosticians, the people who can look into what's happening on the ground and see it for what it is and therefore make really smart adjustments because business is a series of adjustments based on feedback you know from the market from people etc and so the the the ones I see who are successful are ones who can who can see the world the way it is without personalizing it making it mean something about them. They could just see oh people don't like this part of our product or you know whatever and then adjust those are the people who tend to be really high performing.

SPEAKER_03: 34:49

That's really good man I like it somebody who wasn't sort of how to answer it that was fantastic. I like that our final question for today is called a CMV question. It's uh a theoretical exercise if you will okay career mission vocation question. What I do is not to diminish your abil abilities talents and all of your accolades but theoretically and temporarily I erase it off of the board. Okay as a hobby career vocation I erase it what do you believe andrew poles is doing right now outside of those things outside of those areas wow what a great question let's see I don't have any music so you're kind of on your own with this one yeah okay fair enough let's see let me think so I'm not I don't get to have any of my vocations or hobbies or anything um it's still gonna be inherently you though but it's not anything you've done up to this point.

SPEAKER_00: 35:46

Yeah so this isn't something I've done but I could this would be very me and it seems daunting even to be honest but I think I think I would try I would be doing something to try to move the needle on ending war uh on the planet I just I'm really really it really affects me to see um and I just see it's so completely unnecessary and so many innocent people get harmed so I think I'd be doing something with that I don't know how I would do it but I would really want to because that that creates a question for me any time I ask this question I always wonder if the person can still do it is there's still time but here but I'll I'll leave that with you I want to ask you a question outside of that okay when I hear something like that people might think automatically oh he means activism but is this something greater or or more impactful than activism is there a I'm this is a a a theoretical question might not have an answer to it but is it something greater than that that can actually impact war at at this at this at its deepest level because sometimes activism it just sometimes it just noise yes I agree with you on that I don't attend marches for that reason because I just don't get like what you know what happened right so no I think uh if if I knew I I really feel like if I knew how to do this for sure I would I would actually be doing it right now but this is my hypothesis okay and I don't think I would go towards activism but what I have found in my life is that and I think social media is a good example of this not you know where this this breaks down is that when you're with a human being in person in a room face to face you know there's always an opportunity to have a conversation that allows somebody to connect to another human being as a human being versus as an enemy or as an adversary you know and to create a form of empathy. And I think the truth and reconciliation commissions in South Africa are a great example of this uh just an unbelievable example of where this was done in a in a in a in a truly horrific situation. So I think the answer to it's gonna come from empathy. I really do. I like it and I don't know if activism is ever going to create empathy maybe it can create pressure but I don't think it'll create empathy. Fair I love it three time founder of multi-million dollar multinational companies small group coach this man is an influencer if there ever was one andrew poles thank you for being here with us man i appreciate your time here thank you yeah you are welcome it's been such a pleasure to meet with you and I I do want to say one thing so that your people will have an accurate view of me otherwise I'd be lying none of the companies I've founded have been multi-million dollar multinational companies I have run those companies for others I w I I I would like to say that my companies have been that I have is it is that not impressive I mean you you think it's easy if it's impressive that's awesome I just don't want to feel like I'm I'm letting you say something that I know is inaccurate and not and not correcting that's all so I'm sorry if I didn't say that clearly with you but yeah so like my my companies are smaller businesses but the ones I've run for others and the people I coach are running those kinds of companies.

SPEAKER_03: 39:02

Yeah you've built them and you've grown them and you let them that's not that is absolutely true absolutely true yes that's that's that's still astounding you got control andrew poles.com forward slash services you can check him out for coaching or to get any insights to him maybe pick his brain on how he's been doing what he's doing I'm sure he's happy to help you out as your next performance coach if you want to uh contact me for any reason at all feedback on this show or you want to think about me as your high performance coach QR coach upper right hand corner to our landing page love to hear from you there and to thank you again for jumping in here and doing this man this has been a fantastic conversation man thank you so much you are great interview I really enjoyed this a lot thanks for having me on thank you man if you want you got 60 seconds man to speak to the audience man with whether you want to send any pearls wisdom you want to share 60 seconds you know if I if I thank you for that here's what I want to say if you're if you're out there listening to this because you're a builder or a dreamer is even if you're an aspiring builder or an aspiring dreamer but you're not acting on it yet I'd like people to you know to consider that when you have a dream the dream came and found you it's trying to come into the world through you you know so I invite you to believe in yourself and actually act on that and go build a meaningful life from what you dream is possible. That's my invitation I hope you'll accept it I do fantastic words that's Andrew our Mr. You we're out of here thanks for watching and listening this episode is going to be on all the live and listening platforms within the hour have a great day thanks again for watching and for listening thanks to