Are you ready to ditch “good enough” and lead your team—or your family—into a culture of authentic excellence? In this inspiring conversation, I sit down with Kyle McDowell, bestselling author and leadership expert behind Begin With We.
Kyle shares how his trademarked “10 We’s” framework transformed thousands of employees from silos and dysfunction into connected teams with purpose. We talk about how these simple, powerful principles can crush mediocrity, ignite real accountability, and even impact how you raise your kids!
If you’re a coach, leader, or conscious business owner ready to raise your standards and lead from the front, this one’s for you.
📚 Learn more about Kyle and grab the 10 We’s at kylemcdowellinc.com
Want premium clients from your content?
Grab a free Client Acquisition Audit and I’ll show you exactly where your message, offer, and CTA are leaking conversions—and the 3 fixes to turn your podcast/Substack into a client pipeline.
👉 Book here: https://coachsalchemist.com
Transcript
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Ready to crush mediocrity in your business. In this episode our guest, bestselling author, inspirational speaker and leadership expert, reveals how the 10 Wes can reignite your team's passion, eliminate workplace dysfunction, and build a culture of excellence that actually lasts.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If your company is settled for good enough, get ready for the mindset shift. You didn't even know you needed hi and welcome to the uworld order, showcase podcast where we feature life, health and transformational coaches and spiritual entrepreneurs stepping up to be the change they seek in the world. I'm your host, Jill Hart, the coaches alchemist on a mission to help coaches and entrepreneurs amplify their voice, monetize their mission and get visible leveraging podcasts and substack.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Today we are chatting with Kyle, Mcdowell, Kyle is a bestselling author and leadership expert behind the 10 Wes, a proven framework that helps leaders build cultures of excellence with nearly 30 years of experience, leading tens of thousands of employees at major us companies. He's on a mission to help teams crush mediocrity and rediscover their purpose. Welcome to the show, Kyle. It's great to have you here.
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::Kyle McDowell: Joe, man, it's great to be here. What an introduction! Thank you for having me. I appreciate being here, but if I may, you said 2 things that really stuck out to me.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Oh!
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::Kyle McDowell: Be the change.
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::Kyle McDowell: Don't wait for it. Be the change.
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::Kyle McDowell: and those that have you referenced like just kind of subscribe to good enough. Those 2 things really stood out to me. And now we're speaking the same language. So so thank you again for having me.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You are so welcome. So I'm going to ask you the big question. And then we're just going to dive into all the weeds because they are amazing, in my opinion.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So what's the most significant thing in your opinion, as individuals, we can do to make an impact on how the world is going.
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::Kyle McDowell: I think we might have already touched on it, but I want to put a bit of a finer point on it, so I think authenticity is the greatest gift in the world. I really do, and
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::Kyle McDowell: for a million or more reasons authenticity may not be as rewarded in some circles as it could or should be, and with that, I think, is an opportunity for us to to recognize and learn from one another, so I may not, may not agree with you, but if I know you're approaching the conversation authentically, it is exactly. It's how you feel. You're not. There's no ulterior motives. I think authenticity is massive.
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::Kyle McDowell: but I connect that to what we, what I touched on, or what you started the conversation with, and that's be the change. And you know, it was throughout my 30 year career in corporate America. But then, outside of the corporate world, where I realized
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::Kyle McDowell: I think it was Mel Robbins who's made this kind of like a thing. It's like, no one's coming.
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::Kyle McDowell: no one's coming. So if you want to be a part of an environment, right? You know, if you want to be part of an environment that affords you fulfillment, it reconnects you with the passion that I think we all enter the workforce with, I think, not waiting for someone to be that change for you, because it's probably never coming. If you want a better environment, you want a better existence. You want to find that fulfillment you have to be the change that you're seeking. I love that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I think we also mirror a lot of what we get in life. So along with be the change, and being authentic is also kindness. We can be kind to other people, and we can.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: One of your your wheeze is, you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: do what you say you're going to do.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Be being authentic is is owning and taking responsibility for your your actions, your thoughts.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: your words, your deeds. It's all one package, and it's, you know, once once you
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: once you embody who you are and just own it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But you can. You can do it in a way that doesn't make other people feel less.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And I think that's what I like about your wheeze is that it's really about helping people
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: step into who they are in a way that also allows others to be who they are, as well.
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::Kyle McDowell: Beautifully, said Joe, beautifully said, and maybe for your audience a bit of context would be helpful. So
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::Kyle McDowell: I entered the workforce like like so many others. Right? I had a ton of optimism. I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to find fulfillment. I wanted to do big things. I wanted to make a little bit of money in the process, and throughout my path.
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::Kyle McDowell: especially the 1st 20 years of my career.
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::Kyle McDowell: I'm going to lean back into something. What you what you just said, and that is, we kind of mirror what we see, what we've been exposed to, what we're a part of. And those 1st 20 years for me I saw a lot of bad bosses, man. I saw fist banging loud voices.
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::Kyle McDowell: Kind of results at all costs. How we get there doesn't matter as much as long as we get there, and it left me.
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::Kyle McDowell: and I'm not. I don't mean to come across woe as me, because I am very proud of the career that I that I put together. But I will tell you what I missed out on with every one of those promotions, and every greater scope that I was offered, and fortunate enough to to be responsible
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::Kyle McDowell: for was, was was only matched by my level of apathy.
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::Kyle McDowell: and I got to the point where I just felt like there was so much dysfunction around me, largely
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::Kyle McDowell: in the environments that I was responsible for creating, and I contributed a fair amount to that dysfunction, and perhaps even allowed more toxicity and dysfunction than I was even aware was happening, and I just reached a boiling point, and I knew I just started to replay this one question over and over, and that question is, is there a better way?
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::Kyle McDowell: And at the time I was leading about 3,000 employees for a massive, massive organization, and I made the tough decision to step away from it all. Now I say that with I don't want to sound naive like I was in a very fortunate position that I was able to step away from the corporate world, for at the time I didn't know how long I was going to be away, but
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::Kyle McDowell: it ended up being about 2 weeks. I was offered a role to lead about 14,000 people around all over the country, and some really, really purpose driven important work helping
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::Kyle McDowell: folks enroll into the affordable care, act as well as 1 800 Medicare. So I read the. I led the enrollment centers for those massive Federal programs.
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::Kyle McDowell: But when I took the role it was obvious to me during the interview process that there was an opportunity to find this better way. I sensed there was an openness for a transformation. I didn't know how I was going to get there. I just knew.
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::Kyle McDowell: hey, Kyle, if you want, if you want the same results and the same feelings and the same lack of fulfillment that you've witnessed over the last 20 years do the same thing. You know exactly how to get that recipe. You know how to deliver results. But you don't know how to forge connections that are deeper than the results. So
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::Kyle McDowell: I took the role. I was so excited about the transformation about 60 days in.
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::Kyle McDowell: I realized that there was a greater opportunity to bring this group of humans together in a way that would check a lot of those boxes. Fulfillment, passion, excitement, impact.
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::Kyle McDowell: In the night before I was gonna meet with the top 40 or 50 leaders of my new organization, I was in my hotel room we had all converged into Lawrence, Kansas, of all places. Place changed my life
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::Kyle McDowell: the night before. I'm in my hotel room, and I said, I have to put something together because I'm on stage with these guys tomorrow. And it's my 1st chance to meet most of this leadership team. And I just started to replay scenarios that made me feel less than whole, made me feel like I was a means to an end, even even in very senior roles like.
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::Kyle McDowell: and and about 2 h had elapsed, and I looked down at my laptop, and I have these 10 sentences, and they each do did, and they still do begin with the word we. I'm not super creative. So these 10 sentences become the 10 we's. And the next morning I stepped out in front of that group of leaders. And I just said, Hey, guys.
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::Kyle McDowell: these are the principles I want you to hold me accountable to. 1st of all. I don't care about our customers at the moment. I don't care who we serve externally.
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::Kyle McDowell: because I had this hunch, because I'd seen so much dysfunction behind the scenes that if we were to become high functioning, take care of each other, invest in one another. Actually, really.
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::Kyle McDowell: I don't know if I could say this really give a shit about those around you.
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::Kyle McDowell: I just had this hunch that we would deliver results wildly beyond anything that they'd ever experienced, and I would be able to forge the connections that I missed out on the 1st 20 years.
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::Kyle McDowell: and it worked.
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::Kyle McDowell: I shared those principles the next day, and the transformation that happened inside of the organization from A, from a results perspective unmatched.
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::Kyle McDowell: highest of highs and nearly every measurable. But what's more impactful to me, and what ultimately compelled me to write the book
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::Kyle McDowell: is watching bosses transform to leaders and watching watching individual siloed functions become a real team and actually care about the overall macro performance, picking each other up along the way when we stumble.
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::Kyle McDowell: And that's been my driving force. It's the fuel for all the work that I do today is helping organizations and leaders implement these principles because it is a better way. You can have that better way. But anyway, that's the context of how I got to these principles, and as we were chatting before you touched record, it's like they've changed my life, not just professionally, but personally as well.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They can't help but do that. And you you said something that was really telling. When you were talking about
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that you you went before your new group of people, and rather than saying, I want you to do this, you said you gave them a job. I want you to hold me accountable to these.
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::Kyle McDowell: Taken that approach before.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And that is such a powerful position to take, because you're exhibiting exhibiting lead from the front.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: An experience for these people to see what leadership looks like. It looks like having others hold you accountable to the standard that you
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: tangentially expect them to hold as well.
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::Kyle McDowell: That's right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But you didn't tell them. I expect you to hold these standards. You just said I expect you to hold me to these standards, so you better figure out what those are, because.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: yeah, different motivations in there. And it makes a big difference.
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::Kyle McDowell: Well, it's 1 thing to say it, and I learned very quickly, just saying, these are the principles by which I operate is really less than half the battle.
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::Kyle McDowell: It's living them, and it's setting the example over and over and over again. And I realized early on that
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::Kyle McDowell: it would have been naive to think that a hundred percent of the organization was behind me.
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::Kyle McDowell: There weren't, they weren't, I would say, 50% of the group that morning were really optimistic and excited about the path ahead. I would say a quarter of the group was
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::Kyle McDowell: optimistic, but a bit of skeptic, a bit skeptical as well, and then the last quarter was like this guy's full of it, because back to your comment about the mirror.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They had seen guys like me come and go before this. You know I fit the part. I had the shiny shoes, the start shirt this expansive vocabulary. Fancy Nba.
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::Kyle McDowell: And a lot of folks on the team, I learned, had been burned by that profile, so they were very skeptical and almost obstinate. So me living them every single day was. It was not easy, by the way, and I say this all the time. Is that the principles, the 10? We're incredibly simple. They're so simple, but they're not easy, and they take a commitment. And I think, unless we establish the standards that we want to hold ourselves accountable to, and then to your point, ultimately to the rest of the team.
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::Kyle McDowell: What are we?
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::Kyle McDowell: What bar are we trying to reach? What are we trying to deliver. If we don't, if we don't establish them, vocalize them, make them conspicuous in everything that we do, then people are going to be striving for behavior and approaches that you have not established, and they're they're going to miss the mark.
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::Kyle McDowell: So establish the expectations was was a massive takeaway for me, but only after learning that I have to. I have to. Actually.
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::Kyle McDowell: I have to actually walk the walk now, which was terrifying for a guy that was used to banging his fist on the desk.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah. And and these are all
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: they all have a few things in common, and one of them is that they're all centered around
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: a group approach to things. It's not like singling anybody out. It's not me first, st and you down here. It's we. We're together. We're a group.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and you're already setting the expectation that you know I may be the quarterback, but I'm just part of the team.
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::Kyle McDowell: Well said.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm not.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm not the owner of the team. That's right.
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::Kyle McDowell: That's right, and I went as far by the way, I went as far to say, because they were so new to me, and if you would have told me that morning, or even that evening, that I would write a U.S.A. Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller with those principles as the foundation of the book. I would have laughed at you, man, I would have, because even I was skeptical about the impact they would have.
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::Kyle McDowell: and it took several months before I started to really genuinely believe that the principles were working, and it took a senior leader on my team essentially grabbed me by the ear and just saying, Stop.
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::Kyle McDowell: it's working. Don't question it. We're not pandering to you. We're not brown nosing. These things are changing, how we operate, and and I respect and still do. Her name is Lori. Love her to death. She was the one that kind of kicked me in the butt to say, you know. Stop, we have something here, and it's working. So let's ride this together. And we did.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm looking at all 10 of them because I I took the time to type them all out.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I was looking at your website, and
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I do have to say, Kyle has on his website, the 10, we're all on on plaques or on. They're put in a way that makes a really nice presentation.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and you can get his book there. So I'm sure that he goes into too much detail about each one of these 10. But they're all simple. They're not like really hard things to do. And they're individually, you would look at them and you go. Oh, yeah, I always do that.
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::Kyle McDowell: Of course. Yeah, so, yeah, of course, I am. Yeah, right on.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But together they're so impactful when you look at them as a whole, and you look at them every day, so I highly encourage y'all to go to his website
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and and get yourself one of these. These plaques hang in your office or somewhere where your kids are. This is a great.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If you're a homeschooling person, I homeschooled my kids. So I'm looking at these going. Wow! If you teach your kids this information.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: they're going to go so far in life.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: not just in the business world, but just in in any situation where you're part of a community, these.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: these are really life changing.
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::Kyle McDowell: July.
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::Kyle McDowell: and thank you for that. And that was an unintended byproduct that I just never saw coming. It's the impact. And myself personally. By the way, I never saw the impact that these principles.
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::Kyle McDowell: or any set of principles frankly
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::Kyle McDowell: once stated and lived, the impact they can have on our being, not as a leader.
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::Kyle McDowell: but as a human and I'll tell you a quick story, man. I gave a I gave a talk to Audi.
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::Kyle McDowell: the car manufacturer, and it was probably 70 executives in the room, and I was at this big auditorium style venue, and I gave my. I gave A. QI gave a keynote, probably a 60 min keynote or so, and at the end I always do. Q. And a. And a hand goes up in the back of the auditorium, and this this you know, regular Q. And a call on this fella, and he stands up.
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::Kyle McDowell: and I'm not naive like it's not for everybody. Some people think I'm just here to do my work, and I want to go home like I don't. I'm not invested in this culture of excellence thing that this guy's talking about. So I'm always a little bit on guard with with what these Q. And as might bring me this fellas, raises his hand. I call him. He stands up.
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::Kyle McDowell: Looks like a looks like a Mr. Clean body, double shaved head. Big Jack Fella used to play division. One football I learned later.
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::Kyle McDowell: and he looks around the room and he says.
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::Kyle McDowell: I'm paraphrasing, but essentially said, if you
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::Kyle McDowell: ingest these principles, they will change who you are, and they've changed. How I'm raising my children!
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::Kyle McDowell: 1st time I ever heard anything like that I teared up.
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::Kyle McDowell: I teared up, and I think he did as well, and we've become. We've become friends since then.
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::Kyle McDowell: And I looked around the room, and there was this reaction that I could feel it, and I just kind of sunk back into this little stool that was behind the podium I was at. And I said, You guys, that's all I've got. I'm done. There's nothing else I can add to that, and Brad's his name. Brad and I have stayed in touch since then, and but that was the moment for me. It was so important
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::Kyle McDowell: in cementing that you have a bigger calling like this is great for leaders. But man, principle-based life is really, really it's been such an impactful thing to me, and I didn't even know what those words meant. Even 3 years ago.
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::Kyle McDowell: probably 5 years ago.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Time goes by so fast.
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::Kyle McDowell: Doesn't it? Yeah. But it's all I do now is is so I'm on stage, a lot, do a lot of podcasts like this because I'm convinced that this message is needed. When I wrote the book I thought, man, if I sell a thousand copies I'd be over the moon never dreamt of bestseller status for Wall Street Journal, U.S.A. Today. Never dreamt that we would be selling the volume of books that we're selling. It's just been.
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::Kyle McDowell: It's been. It's it's really fun to marry your passion with impact. And I feel like I'm in that place now. And it's been. It's been such a fulfilling journey so far.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's a. It's like, I said. They are simple.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: but they are so impactful. And it's not.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's not just about the corporate culture. It's the world culture. If the world embraced these 10 statements.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it would be a totally different place.
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::Kyle McDowell: I think so.
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::Kyle McDowell: I agree. I think so.
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::Kyle McDowell: I think so. And that's why talking to folks like you and having a platform like this to share them.
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::Kyle McDowell: It means so much to me because I think the world is in need of of standards.
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::Kyle McDowell: irrefutable standards, things that we cannot just. No one's going to disagree that we do the right thing always, and if they do, you don't want to be around them. That's not who you want in your circle. So I think, establishing these principles in all aspects of our life has just been. Really, it's been so so helpful and
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::Kyle McDowell: and heartwarming.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And as we learn them we can hold our leaders accountable to them.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, are our leaders, you know, doing these things consistently. I mean, everybody fails to hit the mark
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: often, but it's it's being aware of. You know what the target is, and actively working towards it. When I was when I was homeschooling my kids many years ago I I was also part of
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the Christian community for a long time, and
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: they I heard somebody say that you should. You should run your home on the 10 Commandments, and you should discipline your children based on the 10 Commandments which you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: To me it was like, Okay, so we have a standard. We know what the goal is, and
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: we can. We can come up with, you know, disciplinary action for the really bad things that might happen. And you know we can come up with corrective measures for the other things that might happen. But it's all based on. This is the standard I expect you to maintain. This is our goal, and we're all gonna work towards it. Me, too.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm not just saying this is only for you. It's just for all of us, and it really helped me to be able to make decisions about. You know what was really a big deal.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because when you're raising kids, sometimes things are really big deal. And other times things are like, Yeah, it's it's something that somebody says is a big deal. But really it's in the big scheme of things, not so much.
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::Kyle McDowell: Right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But that was biblically based. And you know, the
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: if the world ran on just those 10, it it would pretty much encompass what you're talking about here, except that, you know you don't.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You just assume people are gonna not, you know, lie or murder, because that's covered in option number one.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah, yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Right thing, always.
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::Kyle McDowell: That's the right thing. Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's not the right thing.
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::Kyle McDowell: Right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If you're curious about what the not the right thing is, check out whatever that verses in Leviticus, where it goes over the 10 commandments. But other than that, everything else is just like it's so common sense
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that we just think, oh, that that's not. That's not a big deal, but it's really a big deal.
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::Kyle McDowell: Oh, my gosh! I could talk to you for hours. And and Jill that is, that was a driving force for creating these, because I found
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::Kyle McDowell: even in the organizations I led.
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::Kyle McDowell: Most most companies do. A,
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::Kyle McDowell: I think, do an okay, if not better than okay. Job saying, Hey, welcome to the team. These are the things that we're going to hold you accountable for or 2. But they're all performance based. You have to get this many widgets out the door. Your quality has to be here like very kind of performance driven.
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::Kyle McDowell: But what's lacking in almost every organization is how we get there. The behavioral standards that we expect out of each other. So I felt like there was a gap there. And if we could say, Okay, here's here are the black and white X's, and O things that you that we're going to hold you accountable to deliver because we all have those in our roles!
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::Kyle McDowell: But here are the things that are going to drive, how we get there.
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::Kyle McDowell: how we treat one another, and then, if we're lucky.
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::Kyle McDowell: more will embrace than not, and ultimately those outside of our circle will feel it our clients. They're going to feel it. Because if we're high functioning behind the scenes, we're going to promote that and project that externally the opposite is true. If we're dysfunctional and it's toxic, and it's all kinds of me orientation behind the scenes, they'll feel that as well. So that was a driving force for me is to let's establish the standards. I can't hold you accountable to behave a particular way if I haven't defined them, and that's where the we's came in.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's it makes the process of being a leader so much easier when you're having to talk. Have that conversation with somebody, whether it's a review, you know, where you're saying. You know, you're doing this part great. This part sucks.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And you know, over here, let's look at the board. Really good up here. This could use a little more work, maybe the next time you run into somebody, and they're having a bad day.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you can like, encourage them in a positive way that, you know, helps their standard
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: a little more. I have a son that works for Nucor and Nucor is an amazing company.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They're they're driven on performance. Everybody makes minimum wage, maybe even less than minimum wage. But the bulk of their income is produced
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: on production. So they really don't need a lot of managers around because they manage each other. They want each other to be the best they can be, because their paycheck depends on it.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah, that matters. Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Put up with people who are slackers.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Management never has to say anything to them.
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::Kyle McDowell: What a beautiful environment that must be! Well, and that's kind of the spirit behind these principles is that we cannot rely on one person, the boss, to pull the best out of everyone. We shouldn't we should. The math doesn't work. I've got one of those, and then, you know, 10,
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::Kyle McDowell::164
::Kyle McDowell: I always always start that conversation with like, Hey, Jill? We challenge each other right?
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::Kyle McDowell: And you can see you can see the person on the other end. You can almost see their shoulders dropping, not in a negative way. But it's like, Okay, I'm in a safe place now, because these are the behavioral standards that we've all subscribed to.
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::Kyle McDowell: So when someone says we challenge each other. By the way, the very next principle is, we embrace challenge.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah. So we know that that challenge is coming from a place of good intention. And there's some rules behind that. I walk the leader, the reader through. But the point is that true?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Challenge each other. We challenge each other diplomatically.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah, yeah, thank you. Thank you for adding that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Which is not the same as just, you know, like confronting people and and leaving them like staring at you in shock, like I have no idea how to how to embrace whatever it is you're trying to get me to embrace, because inside, I'm like thinking how to defend myself.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and that's it's never a comfortable position for either party to the conversation to be in, whereas if you can approach somebody diplomatically
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: where you're pulling them into your team. And you know, huddling with them and saying, Okay, this is this is what we need to do to really, really up your game. So you're going to be even more special than you are right now.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Just different, different.
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::Kyle McDowell: Very different. Approach. Huh?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Approach, yeah.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah, yeah. Well, the rule is inside of we number 8. We challenge each other diplomatically. Thank you for for inserting that, because I rarely leave that one out. But you caught me. Challenges should be grounded in data or experience, not your opinion, because we all have them. But if we want to move the needle. Hey? I got this
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::Kyle McDowell: I got. Listen, I have this report in front of me that shows your production has fallen to this. That's data, or I have experienced someone make the ask of of the thing that you're asking for us to do, and it didn't go well, or maybe it did go well, so I want to use those as the filters, not to just say, I don't like.
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::Kyle McDowell: I don't like the fact that we can't insert anything here? Because that's your opinion. Yeah.
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::Kyle McDowell: which, by the way, which is why I think that level of authenticity is really really important, because I've found throughout my career and my life in general. Now
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::Kyle McDowell: that people are much more accepting of dissenting opinions, if they know how you arrived at that opinion.
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::Kyle McDowell: If they know there's no malice or nefarious intentions behind it. You may not like what I have to say. You could vehemently disagree, but you know that authenticity is pulling me. It's actually pushing me to tell you exactly how I feel. We can agree to disagree. But we're going to move on.
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::Kyle McDowell: And I think that level of authenticity.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Data that backs it up.
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::Kyle McDowell: That's right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Don't just tell me, because I said so.
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::Kyle McDowell: Bingo. That's right, that's right. Which is the way I led for so many years with the business card, and that's it works. But it leaves you completely apathetic and not connected to those that you're going to going to work with every day, which is a bad place to be.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, yeah, I love this. I love this, and owning your mistakes.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah, big one. Big one. We number 5. Yeah.
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::Kyle McDowell: most environments don't encourage it. Right? So if I make a mistake, man, I just hope nobody saw it, and I can just keep my head down and keep moving along. But we don't get better that way. There's no there's no improvement, and that's in life, that's all aspects. We can't fix what we don't know to be broken.
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::Kyle McDowell: And more often than not.
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::Kyle McDowell: especially in a complex environment like a lot of corporate environments. You shouldn't be asked or expected to resolve those mistakes on your own, and I can't help you resolve them if you don't share them. So we're going to own them. Let's own our mistakes. Use them as fuel for growth, an improvement opportunity. And let's move on. I'm tough on problems. I want to be tough on the person that brought the problem.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it we all learn through mistakes, I mean even.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I lost his name. It was the tip of my tongue, the guy Edison.
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::Kyle McDowell: When he was inventing the light bulb. He's like, you know, I know a thousand ways it doesn't work.
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::Kyle McDowell: History is. When I wrote the book. I did a bunch of research on mistakes, and how mistakes turned into something less than a mistake, and and.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Some of the jobs.
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::Kyle McDowell: He was fired from his own company. Yeah, yeah.
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::Kyle McDowell: Had some colossal mistakes along the way, but much greater came of his connection than being disconnected. But if we don't encourage our mistakes to be owned, and let's let's put them out in the light of day. Shine a light on them. We're gonna repeat the same.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And other people are going to make the mistake too.
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::Kyle McDowell: Being.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because if you made it, it's, you know, 5 other people have made that same mistake, because.
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::Kyle McDowell: Totally.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Obviously it was.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It was logical for you. So it's going to be logical for somebody else. So if we can get them out in the open, so other people can learn from your mistakes. My husband likes to say it's a wise person who can learn from others mistakes. Most people have to make them themselves.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah, that's profound. That's really profound.
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::Kyle McDowell: and you can't. But so so back to the whole premises, like.
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::Kyle McDowell: I want to learn from your mistakes, but I can't learn if the mistake wasn't made. We can't get better collectively, and you're likely to repeat it. I might repeat it. There's just no value in hiding behind mistake. Now let's be clear back to your point around murderers, and you know, bad actors. We don't own those mistakes. We get those guys and gals out of the team. There's just no tolerance for that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah. And those aren't generally mistakes. Those are.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Those are bad actions.
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::Kyle McDowell: Bad actors, yeah, no doubt.
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::Kyle McDowell: No doubt.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And that they weren't doing number one, either.
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::Kyle McDowell: That's where you go back to. Right? It's like, if you're not going to own the mistake, then you're not doing the right thing.
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::Kyle McDowell: or if you're out there, you know, doing something unethical, immoral, illegal, whatever. Clearly not doing the right thing. Don't want you around. I just, you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Obviously going to be making mistakes.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah, well, and that's probably the another byproduct I never foresaw was
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::Kyle McDowell: was the the growth that can come when these principles are embraced, not just leadership growth, not just business growth, but human growth. And that continues to fuel me because I think it's we're only you know what we do for a living is but a fraction of our being.
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::Kyle McDowell: and it took me a while to disconnect from that. By the way, like, it took me a while to recognize that my identity inside of corporate America was not. It's not who I am. It contributes to who I am. But it's just a it's a component. It's not who I am, so approaching it across the board allowed me to be more authentic, allowed me to be more true to myself, and allowed me to be vulnerable in living the principles in a way that inspired others to do the same.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And really working is just this game we play to entertain ourselves, and we get compensated for it.
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::Kyle McDowell: I love that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I look at school the same way. I used to tell my kids
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I I did send them to a a public alternative school for high school. They all got through it in 3 years, and they were all out of high school at 16, except for the youngest, and she was out at 15,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: but.
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::Kyle McDowell: You've got some underachieving children.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I know I really do
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::Kyle McDowell: Impressive.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And I'm sending them your 10 weeks because I just know that it's gonna
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: push them even further in their in their growth. But
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I lost my train of thought. Anyway, it's they're important, this
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it it's so important for people to be able to have a standard. And for all of us, because all of these are just like
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: we can all live by them. This is not like something hard or something that's gonna cause us to miss out on something which is, or
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: cause us to be fearful about something.
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::Kyle McDowell: There's no downside.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There's no downside exactly.
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::Kyle McDowell: No downside what I see happen a lot, though, in my work now is so an organization will ask me to come in, deliver a keynote, or even we have some. We have a workbook that accompanies the book, and I'll go in, and
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::Kyle McDowell: I or a member of my team will go in and we'll we will walk leadership teams through the workbook really deep into each one of the principles. And what I see happen
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::Kyle McDowell: more times than I'm proud of, but it is. The exception is, hey? I've made this choice. We are going to be a we oriented organization. We are going to live the 10 we's. They've made that choice. But that's not even half the battle. It's easy to make these declarations in the good times when when results are great. Everything's kind of humming along. It's when adversity strikes.
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::Kyle McDowell: It's when challenges become really, really kind of prominent inside of our team. That's when people slide. That's when
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::Kyle McDowell: the next best alternative becomes the alternative. Because it's hard, you know, as I said earlier, and you've echoed it a couple of times is that these principles are so easy or simple, rather, but not easy. And they're certainly not easy when our metal is tested. That's when things like absolute ownership. There's something I'm really big on is, if it's in my world, I own it.
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::Kyle McDowell: I didn't create it. I don't like it, but I'm not going to run from it, and I'm going to own it. Absolute ownership, I think, is critical, which requires us to not just say something. We have to actually do it. And that's where, if you make the choice, that's the beginning. But I tell folks you have to make that choice every day, not just every day, every interaction.
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::Kyle McDowell: because you're being watched. You're being observed. Is he living the things that he is evangelizing? And I don't want to be seen as a hypocrite. So yeah, I'm living them, and when I don't live them
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::Kyle McDowell: hopefully, I have the wherewithal to raise my hand and say I blew it, or you're comfortable enough to tell me I blew it, and that's that's a real stretch, because we don't see that a lot in the workplace today, because no one's comfortable to tell their boss. Hey, man, you blew it
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::Kyle McDowell: or you stumbled, and I'm here to help you. There's always this one directional feedback that we're all used to, but when you can have a leader who is vulnerable enough to hear that feedback and be open to it. You close this thing that I call the leadership gap. So we're now genuinely on the same page, and results become
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::Kyle McDowell: almost second nature at that point.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's all solution oriented instead of blame oriented. And I'm a big proponent of, you know. I don't care if there's a problem. Let's work on how we're going to fix it rather than you know who's to blame for it, or you know why it happened, or you know, other than you know. Sometimes you do need to know what the situation was that led to the thing happening. But it's not about
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: punishment, or making people feel bad or or wanting people to take ownership of feeling bad about something that you know
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: shit happens in life. It's got to move on. And let's let's find a way to make it so. That particular thing doesn't happen again. But you know, and how we can set it, set us ourselves up for success. And well said, what I love about all of these is well said.
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::Kyle McDowell: You know, you hear Simon Sinek talk about this infinite mindset and it the way you just framed that reminded me of it. It's like, yeah, if somebody botches something.
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::Kyle McDowell: The the inclination for most quote unquote bosses is to is to rain down on them, you know, to to flex that business card.
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::Kyle McDowell: and that is such a short-sighted view of a long infinite, as Simon Sinek calls it.
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::Kyle McDowell: Equation, yeah, I can rain down on someone and make them feel less than whole. Do you think they're going to come back the next day and work harder? Do you think they're gonna you think they'll be more comfortable in their role? Of course not.
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::Kyle McDowell: But when I can demonstrate a behavior that says, Yeah, you blew it, man, you you stumbled. But that's okay, because you're in this role for a reason.
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::Kyle McDowell: There's actually a story I tell in the book about a fellow on my team many years ago who made a 10 million dollars mistake.
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::Kyle McDowell: He called me one evening and said, Hey, Kyle, we own our mistakes right? And I said, Yeah, Nick, of course we do, he said, Hey, Kyle, we do the right thing. Right? I said, Yeah, man, we do the right thing. And he shared this 10 million dollars mistake, and he expected to be fired.
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::Kyle McDowell: We're still buds to this day. He made a mistake. He implemented lots of Qa. Checks within his team. They created processes to to ensure that this, that mistake never happened again. And it's a long term relationship man. The pricing exercise that he was going through that drove this mistake with our biggest client, by the way, has never happened again. As far as I know. I mean, I left the organization a long time ago, but we learned from that mistake, and our outcomes were so much more polished because he raised his hand.
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::Kyle McDowell: And I think that was a test for me at the moment, because the Kyle of old probably would have been really difficult on that phone call. Instead, I just said, What's up, Nick? Tell me what's going on? He told me, I said, All right, cool. Let's figure out how we get out of this move forward, and it can never happen again, so I don't want folks in your audience to hear like there's this soft.
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::Kyle McDowell: you know, kind of. We allow anything to go. Mistakes are not met with with repercussions, they are if they're repeated.
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::Kyle McDowell: So that principle is, we own our mistakes, and I always kind of add the second or subtext to that. It's like we're not judged by our mistakes, I truly believe that we're judged by how quickly we remedy them.
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::Kyle McDowell: and if we repeat them, that's where folks really get kind of annoyed is if it's the same thing over and over again. So if we own it, fix it, and sure it doesn't happen again, let's move on. Why would we belabor the point? Let's go.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And if you're in an environment where you can't own it or you're, you're afraid that you're going to be fired. If anybody ever found out about it that leads to secrecy and and the mistakes guarantee it's going to happen again, because you haven't put the safety things in there to keep it from happening again.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So it just it opens up an environment of transparency right? And it makes everybody feel like they're on the same team, you know. Sometimes people miss the ball when they're playing football.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It might have been a really important catch, but they didn't make it. Does it mean they're bad people.
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::Kyle McDowell: They maybe need to study the play a little more. But
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And remember, we have another game.
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::Kyle McDowell: Ball fan. But we have another. Yeah, like
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::Kyle McDowell: likewise we have another game, too. It's a long season, and once this season's over, we got next season, and I want you on this team for the for the foreseeable future as long as you want to be here. So let's let's not treat this like. It's the one and only game we're ever going to play.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's cheaper in the long run to work with your employees than it is to have to keep finding new talent
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and and and being able to. This is something that people corporations do. I see it all the time that it always mystifies me. They keep promoting people beyond the thing that they're really good at.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you know. If you find somebody that's really good in a position
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: don't promote them to a different position. That's
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's totally different than where they were excelling at.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Give them more incentive to do that job even better, and to teach other people how to do that job better.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah, well, I think it's even exacerbated. I've seen this more times than I can count, and I'm guilty of it. Promote someone into a position because they've shown
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::Kyle McDowell: an ability to deliver in the role that they're in. So the logical next step would be to kind of supervise people that do the same role, and then we just expect them to be this great leader on day one
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::Kyle McDowell: never happened.
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::Kyle McDowell: And then and then we end up like either firing them or moving them somewhere else, or just being critical of them long enough to where they self-select and but they didn't fail. We have failed to arm them.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yes.
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::Kyle McDowell: You can't promote someone into a different type of position, especially one of leadership, and expect them to knock it out. They need help. And that's where the principles come in. It's black and white guardrails, if nothing else.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yes, yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And and that that person needs to want to move into that position, and they need to take some steps
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to prepare to move into a position like that. It's generally from like
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: some lower position that they're really good at into a leadership position that they really don't understand
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: what's required in the leadership position.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's it's fundamentally different to be a leader than to be a person doing a job in a.
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::Kyle McDowell: No.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: In an environment or in an organization.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yep, no question very different, very different now. And this is a question I get from leaders. A lot is like, Okay, I've never done that job. Can I be successful in the role that I'm in? Of course I can.
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::Kyle McDowell: but you've got to get. I say, you have to know. The sausage is made. You don't have to know every single detail of every single thing, of every standard operating procedure that that your folks execute every day. But you have to know enough to ask good questions. You have to know enough to be able to answer questions, and if not, go, find the answers. But to drop someone in a position of authority, you know a boss and expect them to thrive is really naive.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Then you get mad at him. A new firearm.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah.
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::Kyle McDowell: not never taking the time to look in the mirror and say, What did I do? Different? What could I have done differently? What role did I play? And that was a big transformation as me as well. So when things would go sour the 1st 20 years of my career I would look for someone to hold accountable. I would look around the room around the organization. Why did this fail? Why did that fail and hold people and even make an example from time to time. And a really important pivot for me was
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::career, probably around year:295
::Kyle McDowell: the 1st question should always be, What have I done? What have I done to enable this, or what have I done to allow this? What could I have done differently? And that level of self-reflection, I think, is void in a lot of leaders, especially in big organizations, because they've gotten so comfortable leading with their business card. But when you can say and be honest, look in this thing, I call the mirror of truth to say, yeah, I should have done this differently, or I could have done that differently, and then actually vocalizing and sharing that with your teams so they can see that you're human
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::Kyle McDowell: to see that you are relatable. The Trust is so much, easily, much more easily found when they recognize they're working with, not a robot, not someone that just has these standards and wants them to live wants everybody else around them to live them, and they don't live them themselves that creates disloyalty that is really hard to overcome.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It is, and you're owning your mistakes.
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::Kyle McDowell: Bingo!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Living, living, living. The tan wes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Just not on.
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::Kyle McDowell: Appreciate it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm glad you sent it to your kids.
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::Kyle McDowell: That's cool.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'll keep you posted. And I have some ideas that I want to share with you after the podcast. But how can people find you, Kyle, and and get your book.
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::Kyle McDowell: Yeah. So the book is, it's called, begin with, we 10 principles for building and sustaining a culture of excellence. It's available wherever books are sold. Audio kindle. You know, ebook, paperback hardcover. I think Amazon's probably the easiest for most folks. Social media and my website are all the same. It's at Kyle Mcdowell, Inc. My website is kylemcdowellinc.com. And
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::Kyle McDowell: I use those as communication conduits. I'm not chasing vanity metrics or likes or follows. I personally, reply to every message that comes through.
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::Kyle McDowell: and I use those as an opportunity to help folks kind of avoid some of the mistakes that I made, and hopefully find the fulfillment that I've ultimately found.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Awesome, and you can find his, his merchandise on his website as well.
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::Kyle McDowell: Right.
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::Kyle McDowell: Thank you so much for joining me today, Kyle, this has been amazing conversation. I've really enjoyed it.
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::Kyle McDowell: It's been an honor to be here, Jill. Thank you. Thanks for the time and the platform, and I'm looking forward to following you in the future as well.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Awesome, and to learn more about Kyle and the 10 we's please visit
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: kylemcdowellinc.com, and we'll be sure to put those links in the show notes below. Thank you for tuning in with us today. If you have a podcast are interested in starting one, be sure to reach out to us at support@heartlifecoach.com. We love to help spiritual entrepreneurs and coaches amplify their voice and monetize their mission, and offer a variety of ways to do this leveraging substack.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: join us for our next episode as we share what others are doing to raise the global frequency. And remember, change begins with you. You have all the power to change the world, start today and get visible.