The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:09 - 00:00:34:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Success! We all have a definition of it in our heads, but might have a hard time describing it in words. And even if we can easily define it and describe it, we likely have mixed feelings about success. As leaders, we are striving for some version of success for ourselves, our teams, and our organization. So getting a clearer picture on what it is is critical to, well, our success.

00:00:34:06 - 00:00:58:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively, effectively and make a bigger, positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world. If you are listening to this podcast in the future, you can join us live on your favorite social channel. You can get all of those future live episodes and therefore interact with us.

00:00:58:07 - 00:01:22:03
Kevin Eikenberry
See all of them sooner by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Just two of the places, not the only ones, but two of the places where we do live. Stream these episodes first. So you can go to remarkable podcasts. Com slash Facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to learn more about those groups and get connected there so you can find out when you can join us live.

00:01:22:05 - 00:01:51:11
Kevin Eikenberry
And of course, all things about this podcast can be found at remarkable podcast.com. Today's episode is brought to you by my latest book. For those of you on the podcast, it's either just about to come out or has recently come out. The book is called Flexible Leadership Navigate Uncertainty and Lead with confidence. It's time to realize that styles can get in our way and that following our strengths might not always be the best approach in a world that is more complex and uncertain than ever.

00:01:51:17 - 00:02:17:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Leaders need a new perspective and a new set of tools to create the great results that our organizations and team members want and need. That's where flexible leadership comes in, and that's what it can provide you. You can learn more and or your copy today at remarkable podcast.com/flexible. That shouldn't be too surprising. Remarkable podcast coms flexible. And with that let me bring in my guest Adrian Kelly, joining us.

00:02:17:15 - 00:02:43:13
Kevin Eikenberry
From across the pond. They might we might say, let me introduce him to you. Adrian Kelly is a recognized sports and performance coach. He's an author. He's an award winning lawyer and a sought after guest speaker on subjects ranging from motivation, high performance, life direction, sustainable success, and positive psychology. He has lectured and been an external examiner in the Law Society of Ireland, where he's currently undertaking a master's degree in psychology.

00:02:43:15 - 00:03:17:07
Kevin Eikenberry
He has a keen interest in promoting sport and well-being, and is the current chairman of the Peace Link Sport Complex. Clones in Ireland. With a broad spectrum of sports coaching experience from senior inner inner country, later ladies Gaelic football to amateur baseball both domestically and internationally. With the U18 Irish international team at two European Championships. He also works closely closely with a number of high schools, pioneering the Dragon's Den programs and competitions for students and overseeing a college scholarship program.

00:03:17:08 - 00:03:28:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Today we're talking about his new book, The Success Complex Ancient Wisdom The Building Blocks of Life and Your Path to Sustained Success. Adrian.

00:03:28:08 - 00:03:33:03
Adrian Kelly
Thanks, Kevin. That was a hell. That was that was a real mouthful. Yeah. I'm humble.

00:03:33:07 - 00:04:03:08
Kevin Eikenberry
I was talking a little too fast. But here we are. And I'm so excited to have you, today for us to talk about your new book, The Success Complex, but really not to talk about the book as much as what's inside of the book. That's what matters the most. But before we do that, you know, one of the things I've learned in doing the show, Adrian, 470 some episodes in, is that the people that join me are not only smart and accomplished, but they're interesting.

00:04:03:09 - 00:04:22:19
Kevin Eikenberry
And so I'm kind of curious. You didn't wake up when you were five and say, I'm going to sort of be a sports and performance coach. Right. So like, what's the journey? How do you end up in this spot? And then we'll get to the book. But what sort of what's the journey that leads you to doing this kind of work?

00:04:22:21 - 00:04:28:12
Adrian Kelly
Well, that's a great question, Kevin, and I'm humbled to have this on the screen above me here. Remarkable leader who.

00:04:28:12 - 00:04:31:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Did a better job than I did. You pointed out correctly.

00:04:31:13 - 00:04:50:15
Adrian Kelly
Which is like this one. So yeah, I mean, I started that my career as a criminal solicitor or lawyer, as you would say in the US. So I've had a few careers and I spent about six years doing that. But you brought me right back to my childhood. And, you know, I wasn't one of those kids that thought I would do this or do that when I grew up.

00:04:50:17 - 00:05:09:16
Adrian Kelly
Ireland in the 1980s was a lot about survival, really. You know, it was, you know, it was it was a difficult upbringing. Not from a family perspective, but a societal perspective. We live right on the border. We're about a mile from what was then a hard militarized border. And the north side, Ireland, you know, very, very different worlds than it is today.

00:05:09:18 - 00:05:28:07
Adrian Kelly
If you drive for an hour and you wouldn't even see evidence of that border here today. So it's changed a lot. And we're very kind of forward thinking country compared to where we were. But I wasn't a great student at school. Struggles. I lost my mother at an early age when I was ten. And, that had a dramatic effect, I think, on my on my motivation of school and everything else.

00:05:28:07 - 00:05:51:04
Adrian Kelly
And and in the end, anyway, I didn't do well on my final exams in high school, so I had to repeat which, which I so I did the year again and improved the results dramatically and then went on and ultimately ended up in what you would call a law school and did quite well there and ended up back lecturing in the law school where to train solicitors during that part time, and also practicing, practicing as a criminal solicitor.

00:05:51:06 - 00:06:15:03
Adrian Kelly
And then during the crash back in 2000 and 2009 as an intern, I decided to move on because what the government decided to do was to slash all, legal aid, which would pad my fees, governmental fees. You know, even though we're in a private practice, we're heavily reliant on, on money from the government to to provide defense to, to, to criminals.

00:06:15:07 - 00:06:35:19
Adrian Kelly
And, that was paid for by the government. And I was slashed by 25%. How's it going? Back up a lot since I moved on. A friend of mine was starting a renewable energy company needed a needed business partner. And, so I did that for the following 8 or 9 years, and we built up a bit of a starting staff, and we sold some products, to China and to America, as it happened, renewable energy products.

00:06:35:21 - 00:06:54:16
Adrian Kelly
And then I moved out of that company and I moved down to consultancy and, and training. I work with the government, help the big law firms provide training and education. And you mentioned some sports there. You know, I played a little basketball, amateur basketball here. I played in Arizona twice actually out there in the atmosphere. And and that was quite an interesting journey.

00:06:54:18 - 00:07:14:07
Adrian Kelly
Back in the day. And also I got to get a couple you mentioned, which is probably very alien to although it's grown in the States, it's very alien probably to a lot of your listeners. And that's kind of and I actually work with the team at the Ladies Gaelic football team, which is very popular over here. You know, last year we have one of our games, I think we had 15,000 people at the, at the, at the game.

00:07:14:07 - 00:07:44:07
Adrian Kelly
It's a big sport here. And and the men's is also a big sport here. So my interest gravitated, and flowed and fluctuated in various directions and settled on the area of performance. And I'm currently doing a master's degree in performance psychology in University of Wales, actually, and distance learning. And I've spent the last four years researching and writing the book on a subject matter which I find very interesting, which is how to get the best out of ourselves, and I suppose, how to define that sense of direction on what we want to achieve in life.

00:07:44:09 - 00:08:08:09
Kevin Eikenberry
So you really answered that second question about why this, why you wrote the book. It's related to your life journey. It's related to the work you're doing for your for your master's degree as well. And you've tackled a slippery topic. How about that? Like we have we have all sorts of definitions of it. I hinted at that in the open and so, you know, you wrote the book.

00:08:08:09 - 00:08:28:02
Kevin Eikenberry
So, you could give us yours, which I'd like, but I'd also like, because you've written this, you've heard lots of people's definitions. So I'm curious what your observations are about, sort of what's floating around in people's heads about what success is. And then maybe compare that with what you would suggest it should.

00:08:28:02 - 00:08:48:09
Adrian Kelly
Perfect. Well, let me answer that in two ways. One, the reason I wrote the book. I've read a lot of positive psychology or books in the positive psychology genre, and what I find is a kind of a jungle of information out there, some of which can seem a little bit contradictory, etc. so one of my goals in writing the book was to put in place a framework which would hopefully go beyond the book that read.

00:08:48:09 - 00:09:10:19
Adrian Kelly
The book will have this framework, hopefully to assess new information beyond the information in the book, where they can attach and make sense of that positive psychology genre and see where it fits for them. And the structure I adopted for the book was kind of a pyramid structure, seven chapters and scales you might have quite overcome. Challenge five chapters on how to how to achieve balance in order to sustain that progress or success journey.

00:09:10:21 - 00:09:45:05
Adrian Kelly
And finally, three chapters and direction, as in one of the things we're having more of in our lives, what I found in researching the book, there's a lot of very valuable behavioral science and positive psychology, research information out there, which is largely unacceptable to the general public. And I thought it would be fun to write a book that mixed some of those learnings with my some of my personal journey, but also with events that were events and people that were very familiar with throughout history, stories about them that we aren't, we think we're familiar with, but stories that they might not realize what drove their success, the insights that kind of help

00:09:45:05 - 00:10:14:08
Adrian Kelly
them achieve certain goals and and also what sustained their success in many cases over multiple decades. And I focus on on people like Martin Luther King. That's Mandela. The big events like the NASA, shuttle crash, the challenger crash, World War two, etc., etc., etc.. So all events, I think people will be projects but explored, I hope, in a very new and exciting way with interest and up to date insights on performance.

00:10:14:08 - 00:10:35:05
Adrian Kelly
And have a second favorite science. So then we come to the subject of of success. And of course, growing up, you know, we were trying to build as well as define success in an early stage development as as personal possessions are a nice car or house or, or even an achievement when in a trophy or whatever else.

00:10:35:05 - 00:11:01:15
Adrian Kelly
That's certainly objective to buy success, let's call it. But what you come to realize about success after research and writing about it and having many, many conversations is that, number one, it's highly subjective. It's it's what that's that word success means to us. Secondly, success is fleeting. It's nonpermanent. So usually if we achieve one thing, for example, winning, winning the trophy, usually the competition starts the very next day for the following year.

00:11:01:15 - 00:11:27:22
Adrian Kelly
So it's it's fleeting, it's momentary and hard. It's rarely done alone. Success is usually a team sport. It's done with the help or assistance of others. Are many chances to help others achieve their success. And as such, and you kind of have a success in that for yourself. So that's how broadly I would define it, I suppose, and it's difficult to define how you get there and how you achieve it is, is is a second is a whole lot of conversation.

00:11:27:22 - 00:11:44:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's the conversation we're going to have. But is that last point then success is rarely individual thing that but in fact it's a team sport is one of the reasons why I asked you to be here. And I sort of again, teed that up in the open when I suggested that, as leaders, we've got to get it.

00:11:44:06 - 00:12:05:07
Kevin Eikenberry
We've got to get some clarity around this for ourselves, just like any other human. Better human equals better leader. And vice versa, but also so that we can help others. Because how do we help if leadership and I believe that leadership is about reaching valuable outcomes with and through others, both of those are things that we had can influence.

00:12:05:07 - 00:12:31:11
Kevin Eikenberry
And so how do we make that happen? So why is it that you think that there is sort of so much sort of consternation or, challenge with the word because in you call this this the success complex? Like there's a lot going on in our heads about it. And we all say we want it, and yet, what's the challenge here?

00:12:31:16 - 00:12:40:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Like what sort of going on in our heads that in some cases keep us, we self-sabotage, etc.? What? Why the challenge?

00:12:40:13 - 00:13:01:23
Adrian Kelly
So the success complex and you know, you going to turn too is complex in the sense it is difficult. Just a lot of it's multifaceted. It's hard to understand complex in the sense of the book. I also mean the sense of what if we had a complex about heights or small spaces, you know, a sphere of that was a blind spot we couldn't see that was stopping us achieving something or climbing that ladder, let's say.

00:13:02:01 - 00:13:23:05
Adrian Kelly
Well, I mean it in that sense of what's your success complex, what's holding you back? What's that invisible force, out there that are within you that that is stopping you from achieving one particular goal or another? So I think that that's kind of where I'm coming from, from from the books, respectively. You asked a very interesting question and an interesting comment, I should say, which is it's a team sport.

00:13:23:06 - 00:13:41:00
Adrian Kelly
Now I'm going to skip right towards the end of the book here. So spoiler Raiders. But, what we examined in the in the final chapters is, for example, Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And Terry. And in the early 1940s, as many people have studied any sort of business course, we've come across Maslow. He had this pyramid.

00:13:41:00 - 00:14:02:10
Adrian Kelly
And at the bottom of the pyramid was, you know, food, shelter, our hygiene needs. You mean, as in sustaining ourselves, then self esteem and so on, so forth, up this ladder, up this pyramid, I should say. And at the top of the pyramid was self-actualization, being all we can be as people. But towards the end of his life and the late 1960s, and he died around 1970, in his personal papers, I said, I might have got this wrong.

00:14:02:13 - 00:14:25:00
Adrian Kelly
In fact, I think I did. He said that it wasn't self-actualization. That was the most important selling thing. In his experience, on reflection, it was actually self-transcendence. Self-Transcendence, not in the religious sense, but more in the sense of, a process element is usually found in what we can do for others. Now, again, that don't sound terribly religious.

00:14:25:02 - 00:14:46:15
Adrian Kelly
We've all heard that some before, but I think there's a lot in that, people that come towards the end of life. People that's, very famous examples. I can conclude one in the book of Robert McNamara, the former secretary, defense for JFK, former president of the world Bank, former president of Ford Motor Company, etc., etc. super high achieving guy at the end of his life.

00:14:46:15 - 00:15:09:09
Adrian Kelly
And there's a great documentary released in cinemas a few years back called The Fog of War. He talks in depth about, if only he could have spent more time trying to put himself in the shoes of others. Particularly he talks about the Vietnam War, a 19 year long war which perhaps could have been avoided, and he had a meeting in 1995 with his with his counterpart, secretary, defense for Vietnam at the time.

00:15:09:09 - 00:15:47:10
Adrian Kelly
They met in 1995. And he says he quickly discovered that I had we spent more time trying to understand their position that America perhaps, is a colonial, colonial kind of force coming into Connolly's colonize. It's like Vietnam. We could have resolved, at least avoided the war. That was his opinion. And I think I think the point is self-transcendence not only in the sense of, of helping other people to succeed and being part of their journey and being a team effort, but also self-transcendence in the sense that how how can we get past ourselves and see the other side of the fence and, and and collaborate together because we're all on the

00:15:47:10 - 00:16:08:00
Adrian Kelly
small planet here, you know, we're not just no easy way off this planet. And, and particularly for, you know, the society has become so polarized each, each, every week, a month goes by. I think we need a little bit more of that in the conversation in terms of how do we get back to see another people's point of view and working together.

00:16:08:02 - 00:16:15:04
Adrian Kelly
And I think that that's a very worthwhile related aspect of of success, in my opinion.

00:16:15:06 - 00:16:45:06
Kevin Eikenberry
So in the book, you talk about and you use different words just now, which is perfectly fine. But in the book you talk about the ABC in the book is certainly ABC, abilities, balance and congruence in that that last piece that we've just been talking about. So since we started at the back, let's go backward. But not to the beginning, but to the middle, because one of the things I love about the book are the chapters on balance, because your and maybe in part because it has a connection to the book that I talked about.

00:16:45:06 - 00:17:21:22
Kevin Eikenberry
At the top of show is my next book, Flexible Leadership. But the longer I live, the more I think understanding balance, competing tensions. What I like to call flexors are a critical need for us. And I think the source of wisdom, if you will. And so let's talk about what you mean by balance and give us a couple of examples of these tensions that we run into as we're now moving in the direction of these things that we would call success.

00:17:21:23 - 00:17:45:11
Adrian Kelly
So that's a great question. So the middle part of the book, which I mentioned, which has five chapters, it explores, first of all, how we can go wrong. So as individuals, we lose our balance, lose our way. And there's lots of examples out there in terms of ambitious, hard working, skilled people who just make bad decisions of critical junctures and it sends them down a bad path which which ultimately sabotages them.

00:17:45:11 - 00:18:04:05
Adrian Kelly
And unfortunately, many others along the way. And I talked about the example of Nick Leeson. Barings Bank lost 130 million pounds. I've got a couple of bad decisions and gambles they should have, shouldn't have taken. But you admit himself. Jordan Belfort was also involved. You know, I tried to pick examples which are big and bold and extreme examples.

00:18:04:05 - 00:18:23:22
Adrian Kelly
And again, there's a guy who employs approximately a thousand people at the age of 26, you obviously had some skills, a lot of charisma, a lot of drive. But again, some bad decisions, you know, a lot of bad decisions. Many drove his career after ills, you know. But, towards the end of that middle part of the book, then we get to something particularly interesting.

00:18:23:22 - 00:18:43:00
Adrian Kelly
Not that's not interesting, which is, number one, how we can gradually go wrong from a fraud perspective, etc., but also a loss of balance in terms of our health. And I think everything starts with our well-being. When we talk about success, we can't ignore that as a fundamental, because we're not going to be around to enjoy anything else if we can't take care of ourselves.

00:18:43:06 - 00:19:10:22
Adrian Kelly
So recognizing and looking after our stress levels and, work hard, yes, but also get good replenishing. Recovery is a very interesting conversation for me, and one of the most interesting interviews I had around this subject was with a gentleman called Doctor Cairns and someone who appears in the book, and, he is a physiologist. He was the director of the of the Great Britain Olympic team up until the January 12th Olympics, one of the record medals up to that date.

00:19:10:23 - 00:19:39:23
Adrian Kelly
And he talks about building a bank of resilience and exposure to stress on situations which would appropriate recover recovery. Rest replenishment can actually build our battery bank for for for dealing with difficult situations. Now he uses some extreme examples, and one of one of which, incidentally, is the loss of a parent, which I've some personal experience of it early in their life, and how that can be a catastrophic experience without the right supports to recover.

00:19:39:23 - 00:20:10:21
Adrian Kelly
And not everybody does. But he found that certainly people that push themselves to extreme achievement in the Olympics or in various sports tend to be people that have coped with a lot of setbacks in their life, sometimes major setbacks. And the lesson there, I suppose, is not that that's, you know, desired in any way, but it's against the extreme example of the benefit of exposing ourselves to, you know, some level of risk, some of that not risks, some level of stress at difficult situations and then allow and recovery.

00:20:10:23 - 00:20:33:13
Adrian Kelly
And unlike your iPhone, you know, where you plug it in and charge it and recharge the battery replenishes over time. Your battery can actually grow in terms of your your ability to be resilient and your ability to have that extra energy and and and to make whatever progress and and achievement you're trying to achieve more sustainable. I think that's such an interesting conversation and not well known.

00:20:33:13 - 00:20:34:16
Adrian Kelly
I don't think.

00:20:34:18 - 00:20:57:13
Kevin Eikenberry
So. One of the things that I was just thinking, as you were sharing that is that you and I, I'm confident, could have a full episode on every chapter in the book. And that's you're certainly not the first person that I thought that, of in the context of the show, because, you know, we've been blessed to have a lot of really, really smart folks here.

00:20:57:15 - 00:21:30:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And yet, I think that's a really important piece. I think that there are too many leaders who are pushing themselves for the purpose of, of supporting and serving their teams and their organizations. And yet, if we're not restoring, if we're not replenishing, what I've been saying, I've been saying ever since, really at the beginning of the pandemic, is that, so taking care of ourselves is not selfish, right?

00:21:30:02 - 00:21:51:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, do we have to do that? If we can't do that, then we can't be at our best for our teams. And and oh, by the way, to your point, if we do it well, we actually build our resilience, which I think is a really, really useful thought. The rest of the book, since we worked from the bottom, are the.

00:21:51:04 - 00:22:22:20
Adrian Kelly
Can I add one point there, Kevin? Apologies. And I'll jump in in that middle section, when I talked about individuals losing their way, I meant to mention as well, for the stress was collective, groupthink, where, you know, if we surround ourselves with the wrong people or get into an organization that has perhaps a flawed ethos, and I use and run, for example, as an extreme example in the book, there's, there's often the regression towards the mean, you know, if you've got way over here, you've got good people over here, you've got people with ill intent in the middle.

00:22:22:20 - 00:22:47:04
Adrian Kelly
Sometimes it people's the gravitational pull of our decision making and our moral compass gets, gets compromised. And it's and it's the ability to recognize that developed the ability to be able to to try and fix it and if not perhaps exit the situation. But it's, you know, use the is the phrase to buy the fog and water where the water is getting hot, you know, and we can see the warning signs, you know, it's it's no one.

00:22:47:04 - 00:22:55:05
Adrian Kelly
No one. Those warning signs be able to exit at the right time is also a very, very important skill. When we walk in teams and surround ourselves with a particular group of people.

00:22:55:07 - 00:23:15:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Now, I love that. So, there are seven of the skills or abilities that you talk about, and we can't get to all of them. I'm going to pick a couple in part because I love the way you framed them. Right. So I'm going to start with the last one is keeping with our theme. What the heck, of working from the end of the book up.

00:23:15:17 - 00:23:37:00
Kevin Eikenberry
The last of the seven abilities you talk about. As you say, you say never lose again. Like, okay, that is there are a couple others of them that are a little more, intuitive. Right? Like defining potential, like, okay. Right. Like, we can kind of have a clue, but I people don't have any clue what you mean by never lose again.

00:23:37:00 - 00:23:39:11
Kevin Eikenberry
So talk about that a little bit more.

00:23:39:13 - 00:24:23:23
Adrian Kelly
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think to never lose again is regardless of the short term outcome from any, any adventure or exploit, it's what we gain personally from the endeavor that really counts. So when we talk about never lose again, we don't really lose if we're doing things that are important to us and perhaps important to community and society more widely, even if the short term defined goal is no one's achieved, and it's it's important to push ourselves and grow as people and in the example or in the book, I talk about, mystery at Logan Airport where there's a there's a, a study done, around, the danger that security people in an

00:24:23:23 - 00:24:42:19
Adrian Kelly
airport had, as well as their, let's call it, their, their danger radar or whatever for certain people and an a gun to this level after nine level 911 understandably, and that it hadn't dropped much even though customer compliance at the airport, people going through the airport security had compliance had gone way up. They were still searching as many people as ever.

00:24:43:00 - 00:25:03:02
Adrian Kelly
And it's because our brains have an efficiency mechanism that, the more it it can kick over to our autopilot, the better they, the less we have to analyze, the less we have to reappraise, the less energy our brain has to use. So we also have to be conscious. Be careful that your autopilot doesn't kick in and send us in a an unproductive direction.

00:25:03:07 - 00:25:29:10
Adrian Kelly
And here what the professors that studied this phenomenon, found was that if people are presented with a lot of information to digest, generally we get a little bit lazy and we set a barometer around here and it doesn't really change. And we need to be careful with that because, as we get older and as, as we get as we maybe push ourselves a little bit less, sometimes our world can close in on top of us.

00:25:29:10 - 00:25:45:16
Adrian Kelly
And, I, I talk from time to time about my own personal experience, but I don't write about the book about my father. As he got older, you know, he sadly passed away last year. You know, he used to be a sales guy, and he was on the phone. He was making deals. He was selling cars. It was really a con sort of guy.

00:25:45:21 - 00:25:59:02
Adrian Kelly
But as you, as you get older, this can happen. All of us, the world seem to close in on him and he to make a phone call was a struggle. It was it was a big task in his mind. And I come home. I was at this sort of time come home. And he still had made don't phone calling supposed to make I'd make the phone call.

00:25:59:03 - 00:26:23:03
Adrian Kelly
It's that so we can build things up in our mind. And to relate all that back to the book, what they found with with the airport security paper was this thing called problem creep. The more that the, the more that we become uncomfortable society and and stop seeking out challenge and pushing ourselves to do hard work while things.

00:26:23:05 - 00:26:55:04
Adrian Kelly
Well then the things that didn't seem as tough a year ago can seem tougher. And there's a great book called The Comfort Crisis on This, which is centers on this. And, we have to always be wary that, to challenge ourselves, to grow as people, to take on challenge, to ensure that our world doesn't shrink around us in terms of what we're capable of doing, in terms of skill set and also our, our, our broad outlook and, challenge, as well as to summarize, I don't know how well I worded that, but that's, that's that's a summary of, of what that chapter's messages.

00:26:55:07 - 00:27:00:07
Adrian Kelly
So the growth is in the endeavor. Not all was in the in the short term result. How I summarize.

00:27:00:07 - 00:27:27:02
Kevin Eikenberry
It. Yeah. I do love that. I want to do one more of them before we sort of roll in and finish our conversation. And that is the chapter right in front of it, which is increasing. You're like, I'm going to read the the, the quote that you open the chapter with. Opportunity does not waste time with those who are on prepared, which probably frames this up as well as anything.

00:27:27:04 - 00:27:29:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Tell me what you mean about how we can increase our luck.

00:27:30:00 - 00:27:52:20
Adrian Kelly
Yeah, so it seems it's quite provocative. How can you increase your luck? Luck is luck. So what I talk about there is, What can seem like luck. You know that. Guys, look at me. You know, he's always. He always gets the breaks. Whatever it commonly is about. I also have on the right skill set and diversified skill set to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.

00:27:52:22 - 00:28:18:08
Adrian Kelly
And that can often seem like luck to others. Guy. That guy who gets asked to Harvard and that guy, you know, okay, how can we get to all the bricks? So Our Lady, I should say in the book I talk about two stories. One is a school principal of a local school here told me the story firsthand, and it was of a bicycle that she should sell in a shop window when she was ten years old and a very, real black spot of unemployment in in west Belfast in the early 1980s.

00:28:18:08 - 00:28:35:15
Adrian Kelly
And unemployment rates were 20 to percent at the time. And, it was actually in that area at that. Remember, back to the future. You know, the baby, back to the Delorean. The black future was made in that area. Dunmurry and Belfast and the factory just closed down the area with 1500 job losses. So it was a it was decimated economically.

00:28:35:15 - 00:28:50:08
Adrian Kelly
Nobody had any money. And her parents, her father was sick and nobody's really working. And she told me she stuffed what kinds into the meter at the house to keep the electricity on in the house. And you just have to study by the later the street pulls outside and through the window was because they didn't have enough money to get the power on at night.

00:28:50:10 - 00:29:11:05
Adrian Kelly
But she spotted this bicycle on the window, a bicycle that she could never have in a million years just didn't have the money. But it was. There was a draw to win the bicycle. And, so her and her sister, they came up with a plan in that, in that kind of, in a sense, supermarket people would pack their bags, and so people would do the shop and then the wheel, their trolley over to pack their bags.

00:29:11:07 - 00:29:33:15
Adrian Kelly
And each person who shop there got it, got a form to sell out, and they had to complete the title shop at crazy prices because and it was like, you know, crazy prices. Was the shop on the because it's great because of whatever and people it was too much after people discarded these and what she what on her sister did, they went in every day and picked up these discarded forms, filled out the caption, wrote her name on it, and entered the drawer.

00:29:33:19 - 00:29:53:00
Adrian Kelly
And they did that all summer long for about six weeks. And then she won the bicycle. And I just it's such a great example of consistency. Of of observation, she observed at ten years old, and observe what was after their timing, because obviously she had to be quick to get in to grab them before they were cleaned up and put back in a pack and, and a stack.

00:29:53:02 - 00:30:12:18
Adrian Kelly
But most of all, you know, the ability to visualize something which seems impossible, but to consistently work towards it in a meaningful way while there's still risk there to that won't happen, you know, and I also look at the examples of Napoleon and, this battle, it was called the Practicing Heights. It was a modern day Czech Republic where he used the fog to his advantage.

00:30:12:18 - 00:30:35:05
Adrian Kelly
And a people might say, well, you know, it was a foggy morning. How lucky was that? And in the story, he marches all his troops in the in the fog. The enemy don't see them approaching. And they launch this very success and surprise attack. And, but he manipulated those set of set of events. First of all, he withdrew from high ground to an area that was prone to fog, and when it was found the next morning or not, was still in the lap of the gods.

00:30:35:07 - 00:31:00:13
Adrian Kelly
But at least he he manipulated, his environment to to capitalize on something that regularly happens. Is fog. And not only that, when it did materialize, who knows how long would last. He had his men mobilized and ready for action, and he took full advantage. And I think those two examples teach us a lot about life and business and everything that I think we need to know about how to create more opportunity for ourselves.

00:31:00:13 - 00:31:32:10
Adrian Kelly
So in society, for example, there's rarely a career that people have now for 40 years. So when when I talked to, you know, I mentioned the Dragon's Den program and scholarships. We do a lot of talks with schools, talk about skill diversification and the ability to equip yourself with which be multi-skilled, be able to present like this, be able to write properly, be able to use, you know, social media and all those things, and be able to take advantage then of a route that we might offer ourselves and uncapitalized and opportunity along that route as we go use.

00:31:32:12 - 00:31:46:15
Adrian Kelly
So when the fog appears, however, and have ourselves and our people mobilized to take advantage of those opportunities that a lot of people might be, might be quite as ready to to jump on the boat hands. And that's kind of the lesson that I chapter.

00:31:46:17 - 00:32:10:02
Kevin Eikenberry
One of the things I think that all of you who have listened have been with us for this entire time, will recognize, is that the book is filled with examples and stories some of you may have heard of, most of which you haven't heard of. And it's a great balance. It's a great mix. And, and I think that, you know, my goal in doing these conversations, Adrian, is that people not only leave a tangible stuff.

00:32:10:02 - 00:32:26:09
Kevin Eikenberry
And we'll talk more about that. I'll say a couple more things about that before we're finished, but that they also get a sense of who the author is, because once we know who the author is, we're far more likely, if we feel connected to go out and get a copy of the book. In this case, it is Adrian Kelley's book, The Success Complex.

00:32:26:09 - 00:32:41:22
Kevin Eikenberry
So I have a couple of comments or questions for you, Adrian, before we start. Yeah. And they're the common things I like to ask our guests, kind of like going back to where we started, knowing more about you. And one is, what do you do for fun?

00:32:42:00 - 00:32:56:16
Adrian Kelly
I do a lot of run, and actually, I run a half marathon in the summer there, and, so this is. I'm in late 40s now. I used to play baseball and used to play a bit of Gaelic football myself as well, but, I like to run runs. Where basically on your head. It's a great stress buster.

00:32:56:16 - 00:33:05:22
Adrian Kelly
We talked about stress. I think it brings a lot of balance to my weekly kind of, my plan for each week is to try and get those runs done running.

00:33:05:22 - 00:33:11:02
Kevin Eikenberry
And so then what are you reading or what's something you've read recently?

00:33:11:04 - 00:33:47:02
Adrian Kelly
Well, one of the books I read recently was The Irrational App. How flawed logic puts us all at risk, and how critical thinking can save the world is by David Robert Grimes. And I like this because there's there's also a laugh in my book about flawed decision making, how we can make the wrong decision. And I focus on the Battle of Stalingrad in the book Hitler and Stalin, and how each of them were very similar to begin with, kind of how Stalin started to change as various events happened and how effectively he, you know, he became more humble because he he had that humility forced upon him with various defeats by Hitler and

00:33:47:02 - 00:34:21:08
Adrian Kelly
so on, so forth, and how we grew and changed the strategy from that. So it's very evident how bias, overconfidence, an ability to take on information that's glaring right in front of us are the people that are trusted to us or telling us, but we don't want to hear. They are. They're real dangers. I think anybody that's out there working in the leadership role, if we were not, open to taking on the right information, you know, if we think we have all the answers, if we're overconfident and overbearing, that it's a recipe for disaster.

00:34:21:08 - 00:34:34:02
Adrian Kelly
And I think that's why the irrational there is is also a great read from your research out there in terms of how people can make bad to say, how good people with the right intentions can make very flawed decisions.

00:34:34:03 - 00:34:47:03
Kevin Eikenberry
We will have a link to that in the show notes, as well as a link to Adrian's book, The Success Complex. But where else do you want to point people? Adrian? How can people connect with you? Get to know more about what you're up to, learn more about the book, etc. for sure.

00:34:47:03 - 00:35:11:18
Adrian Kelly
So my website is Ask More. So ask more of ourselves. Ask more life. My time on our social media is LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out and connect, for sure. And also check check out on Spotify as well. We have a show there called The Success Complex. Same name of the book with three episodes on there, one for each part of the book, and I interview three different people, one for each part of the book on those episodes, which I think is quite interesting.

00:35:12:00 - 00:35:30:05
Adrian Kelly
And I always like to give a plug as well to Marcus McGee, who was very helpful and and assist me with interviews. Marcus is a is a musician is is reaching it recently released an album called rising from the hollow. Right. The Irish guy, and he played at the book launch event a couple weeks ago. So plug that for Marcus.

00:35:30:07 - 00:35:54:14
Kevin Eikenberry
All right. Rising hollow. Yeah. And so I have a question now before I say goodbye to Adrian and say goodbye to all of you, have a question for all of you. It's a question I ask you every week, every episode. And the question is, now what? What action will you take as a result of our conversation? And there's been plenty of things that Adrian's talked about and ideas that he has shared.

00:35:54:16 - 00:36:16:06
Kevin Eikenberry
But ideas and knowledge are one thing. Action is something entirely different. And so it's my challenge to you to decide what action you will take as a result of being here, because it is in the action that the change will come. I hope that you will do that and we'll think about that. I hope you'll take action on what you learned today, and I hope that you'll be back next week.

00:36:16:08 - 00:36:19:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Adrian, thanks for being here. It's such a pleasure to have you, sir.

00:36:19:02 - 00:36:22:18
Adrian Kelly
Thanks, Kevin. It's been a real pleasure being on your show and well done.

00:36:22:20 - 00:36:42:01
Kevin Eikenberry
And everybody, we will be back next week, so make sure you come back if you're not subscribed. Wherever you're listening, do that. If you are subscribed, invite someone to join you. That'd be a great thing for them. Everybody wins. By the way, if you invite someone else to join you when I win and they win. Hope you have a great week, everybody.

00:36:42:01 - 00:36:47:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And like I said, we'll be back next week with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.