[00:00:00] Michael Pacheco: Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to another episode of the Remarkable Coach podcast. As always, I’m your host, Michael Pacheco, and joining me today is Darren Canthall. Darren is an avid mountain biker and snowboarder, lover of live music and great food. Proud papa of a 15 year old cattle dog mix named Marvin.
I love that. In his spare time, he works with industry leaders to gain more confidence, find their voice, and Thrive in their career and life. Darren welcome back to an encore presentation of the remarkable coach podcast. I know this is your second time coming back on. I appreciate you making time.
Thank you. Yeah, man. So the last time you were on the podcast was June 7th, 2022. We’re recording this on June 26th, so it’s been almost exactly a year. Real quick for those of our listeners and viewers who have not had a chance to go back and listen to that first episode, why don’t you tell us just a little bit about yourself in your own words and what it is you do and why you do
[00:00:59] Darren Kanthal: it.
Yeah, big question. Born and raised in New York. I’m the oldest of three. My mom is a retired teacher. My dad passed away in 97, which is the unfortunate distinction of me being alive more with him being dead than not. Hopefully I said that he died in 97 of cancer. When he died, it took over his business.
So my first job out of college was being an entrepreneur, which is a pretty cool bottom piece of bread of my life sandwich cause I started my or maybe the career sandwich is I started my career as an entrepreneur. When I left the business, and I had good reason to do I made my way to human resources and I was there for almost 20 years.
Everything in terms of hiring termination, professional development, succession planning, learning and development, all of these things that are core to HR, turned out to be my training ground for being a leadership coach, because most of what I taught the people about today are their careers. And really the three main topics that I hear from most people is related to leadership style or philosophy.
Like what is their style? What is their philosophy? Communication style or communication in general. And most often it’s about how to disagree respectfully how to say no to people, how to manage up. And then the last is conflict resolution, and that’s certainly tied to communication and leadership for that matter, but specifically how to engage in meaningful debate and work towards win situations.
What I talk about, too, is the overarching umbrella is all about confidence. A lot of people lack the confidence to take the action and what they need is help figuring out what to do what to say. And the more they do it, the more confident they get and hopefully they become self sufficient. Nice.
[00:02:49] Michael Pacheco: Nice.
Good stuff, man. Let’s just, cut right to the thick stuff. What’s new, man? What’s new in the past year? It’s been a minute since we chatted publicly. Anyway, I know you and I have made some time to chat privately, but what’s new in your business?
What’s new in
[00:03:01] Darren Kanthal: coaching? I’m going to, I’m going to answer it this way. And you keep me honest if I’m too off base here. So the first thing just to mention real quick is when I went through my coaching certification program it was astounding the amount of self coaching that happens, right?
Like you’re being taught all of these theories and concepts and practices, and it’s really impossible. It was for me, at least not to process these learnings through my own life. And sometimes it was really sobering and sombering, if that’s a word somber is right. But really to like live life through these lessons was really remarkable.
Right now I’ve been a coach five years and, I talk to people all day, every day and hear challenges and successes and the analogy I always use is I’m in the car with you and I’m. More times than not sitting shotgun as you’re driving. And so I’m involved and all that is to say is there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of, I was going to say noise, but that has a negative connotation.
That wasn’t my intention, but a lot of talking, a lot of stuff, a lot of things going on. And I did a silent meditation retreat last November. And I don’t know if you’ve ever done it or anybody listening has ever done it, but man, to be silent for seven days when you never silent, man, crazy. Crazy. So that was new for me.
And and sorry, just to bring it into the question is it really taught me to be aware of my thoughts, how much I’m judging how present I am and bringing that to my practice of exactly what I’m saying is there are times. FrAnkly, that I’m judging clients and as I’m judging the client, I am certainly not present because I’m too caught up in my own thoughts.
I’M not exercising curiosity, which is one of the things that I’d like to say I pride myself on, but at the very least I lean into being curious. And coming out of their retreat I feel like I was improved in those areas of being mindful, less judgment, more curious.
[00:04:56] Michael Pacheco: That’s awesome. I want to stick on that, man.
Silent meditation retreat for seven days. I I’m an only child and so I, I spent a lot of time alone in silence growing
[00:05:09] Darren Kanthal: up.
[00:05:09] Michael Pacheco: Seven days is a long time, even for me. How did you, what was it like? What was the, I’m very curious to know what it was like on the ramp up? I’m guessing throughout that seven days, right?
You’re going like this and this. And then at some point, maybe there’s a tipping point where it’s like all this stuff starts coming up and you start I guess for lack of a better phrase, learning about yourself or learning about things, what was, we’ll talk us through a little bit of that journey.
It sounds
[00:05:36] Darren Kanthal: fascinating. All right. First I didn’t have any major ahas, so I didn’t solve world peace or world hunger, like no real big ahas, but a lot of little stuff that like for 60 days after the tree just kept on trickling out. And that was really remarkable. The trip was in Baja. So I was in this really beautiful location.
We kayaked from shore to three different uninhabited islands. We lived in a tent. We had guides that did all the cooking and all the support and all this stuff. So just to set the setting we’re on the water, we’re on the beach and not really the beach. It was very rocky. We meditated, I don’t know, three, four, five hours a day.
Which is not my thing. It’s I’ve never done anything like this. And as dumb as this sounds, my real goal was to be present. And what that meant for me was I knew my brain was going to wander. And when it wandered, what did I do with it? There were certainly some times where I was like I would curse, but I won’t like I’m tired of this meditation.
I want to stop. I’m bored. And then undoubtedly all, not all the times, but more times than not. A bird would fly by a crab would walk up on the beach. The waves would crash or, trickle onto the beach and I’d watch the sand change colors as it went away. And so that idea of being present was really looking around and observing what was all around me.
So that was one thing too, is I kept a journal and a lot of songs kept on going through my head. So I haven’t made the playlist of those songs, but I wrote them down. I had I wrote a blog about it and I really came up with all these things that were required for. For that retreat to happen, right?
Like you needed support. We needed the guides that had all the equipment and all the knowledge and all the stuff. You had to put your sense of safety into these men that were going to keep us safe, which they did. They made a really big decision on the last day of not kayaking back to shore because it was like a two or three hour kayak because it was too choppy.
So we all got in the boat and they voted us back. So is there was all these conditions to make it. But I think more to your point in the question of the brain stuff is there’s just a lot of thoughts. I Don’t think I was void of thought often, which I know is real intention of meditation.
Sometimes I was just sitting there looking around and observing and other days I was closing my eyes and really trying to get into it. Interesting.
[00:07:57] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. I wonder how much of the, do you meditate like in your normal everyday
[00:08:02] Darren Kanthal: life at all? In very small doses, like two to five minutes at a time. Yeah.
Okay.
[00:08:08] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. I have to wonder, so I’m trained in transcendental meditation, which you’re supposed to do twice a day for 20 minutes each time. So 40 minutes a day. I also don’t do that as often as I maybe could. But I have to wonder, at the idea that meditation is just being devoid of thought.
I like it. I like it better and I think it makes it, it certainly makes it more accessible. And I also think it makes a lot of sense to just be present. And that’s, and it’s, you can be present and be thinking about things. The birds that were flying by the crab that was walking up the beach.
That’s not like. You’re not devoid of thought, but you’re also, you’re not you’re not stressed out about the past or anxious about the future, right? You’re very much like in that moment and able to process what’s happening directly in front of you, which I feel like is a more useful approach to meditation, if that makes sense.
[00:09:08] Darren Kanthal: It does. Yeah. And I would add that I don’t know what modality I’m not even trained, but I’m familiar with is a strong focus on our senses, right? So recognizing the tingle in my shoulder, cause I got a knot back there or got my jaw hurts. And I know that means I’m anxious. And maybe that means I explore what I’m anxious about, or maybe I’m just sitting there and I hear the noise of the air conditioning come on and, my dog is upstairs while I’m in the basement.
I hear the Creek of him walking or whatever. And so the way I was taught was a focus on senses and I love it. A and B, it really is. It made me attuned to the physiological responses. I give myself when I’m angry or anxious or fill in the blank. And it usually I shouldn’t say it. Usually when I’m aware of the physiological response, it cues me or clues me into whatever’s going on.
And I’ve noticed that when my chest is tight, if I stop to explore why, it usually gives me an answer of something that I’m irritated by before I blow up, lose my temper, and then have to apologize for my actions.
[00:10:20] Michael Pacheco: So again, yeah. It’s important, I think, to, take this thing that can be a little esoteric and difficult to approach and make it practical.
One of my, one of my favorite. Film directors that you’ve all probably heard of David Lynch. He’s big into transcendental meditation and what he uses it for is to come up with ideas and he calls it, what does he call it? Fishing, getting the big fish, right?
You go deep, but he doesn’t. Again, not devoid of thought. He’s looking for ideas in there and paying attention to things and, following weird trains of thought until he finds a big idea. I love that. I also heard on, I want to say it was maybe the, either the Ben Greenfield podcast, or maybe Tim Ferriss.
There was a guy on there and I don’t remember his name, but he called it, uh, instead of meditation, I think he called it thinkitation. And he would just, sit in a chair and have a little notebook and he would meditate. And then whenever he had an idea, he would just jot it down.
And he he claimed that’s, that was one way that he would. Solve problems is thinkitation.
[00:11:30] Darren Kanthal: It makes perfect, it’s, I’m glad you mentioned Tim Ferris. He, his interview with Jack Kornfield from however long ago many years ago now, like five or eight years ago is the reason I even I shouldn’t say the reason it was an influence.
It was an influence. It was an influence of me going my first instructor and coaching said he was going on the same retreat I went to. And so it was in my head. And then I listened to Ferris interview Jack cornfield, and they were talking about silent retreats. And I was like, all right, this is my sign.
I should go do this. Nice.
[00:11:58] Michael Pacheco: Nice. That’s something. Yeah, I would like to do that at some point. I’ve never tried anything like that. Seven days is a long time.
[00:12:05] Darren Kanthal: The saving grace for me is this was on location, right? If it was in a what do they call it? A Zendo, like a meditation place.
I don’t know that I would have had the fortitude. You couldn’t do that in your office. No. Hell no. No. I’m watching these seagulls glide across the air, like this far from the water, like it looked like an inch away from the water. And this is happening all day long. And so my, my my sense of wonderment and short term focus was well taken care of with all of these real things happening around you.
Dolphins, whales, birds, fish. It was amazing. That’s
[00:12:40] Michael Pacheco: cool. That’s cool, man. Sweet. Wow. So what what, what else has been going on since last year, since last we spoke?
[00:12:48] Darren Kanthal: Yeah. Business wise business is good. 23 is a little bit of a down year compared to 22 and it’s okay.
I’m looking to the left here where my goals are. And over the last few years I’ve gotten into the habit of, Titling the year before I do my goals. And this year I wrote, this is the year of the fine art of refinement and expansiveness. And it’s a lot of what I’m doing. I’m trying to refine what I do, who I do it for, how I speak to it.
The expansiveness is, not getting my sucked into something that’s so narrow. And I’m not talking about niche per se, but I do better with. What I describe as guardrails, right? Everybody, a lot of people, a lot of people go guardrails, whatever, right? It’s what are the parameters or the boundaries in which I’m playing in?
And once those boundaries are defined, I get to play wherever I choose or we get to play wherever we choose. And so that expansiveness was trying to be mindful of what are my boundaries? What are the guardrails? How am I playing within them, but not playing small, playing big.
[00:13:52] Michael Pacheco: Nice. Nice. Are you familiar?
There’s a book. The authors plural, I believe escapes me, but it’s called a beautiful constraint.
[00:14:00] Darren Kanthal: No.
[00:14:01] Michael Pacheco: So it’s a book of essentially about guardrails and how these, if you’re generally speaking, if you’re given, If you’re given all the breadth in the world to do absolutely anything and whatever you want, you will create, let’s just say, create less than you would if there were constraints placed upon you, because the very act of having guardrails or having constraints, the very act of having a constraint on whatever it is you’re trying to solve or create forces you To become more creative to, to build something around that constraint, to work with that constraint to, break through the constraint whatever the case may be, it’s a, it’s an interesting book.
It’s a beautiful book. It’s not a exactly a picture book, but it’s very well designed and the stories in there are, I highly recommend it. Yeah, I think if the guardrails is a thing that you’re focused on in 2023, a beautiful constraint, I would recommend you check it out.
It’s a good one.
[00:15:02] Darren Kanthal: I love it. Totally resonates. And I’ll tell you this quick story if I can. I’ve shared so I’ve shared this with people that I’m coaching and also sometimes in front of the room when I do facilitation, which is and if anybody listening knows the facts of the story, keep me honest here.
And you too, please. Michael is. So the story I was told was some scientists, if you will, social scientists took a bunch of, let’s say eight year olds and put them in a field with their teachers. They were safe and all that kind of stuff. Mom and dad said goodbye, left, and the kids were in this wide open field with no guardrails, no boundaries.
And what they found was the kids mostly played close to each other. No one really wandered off or got too far away or any of that stuff. Okay. One, they did a second experiment, same kids. Same thing. Parents came, said goodbye. They were well cared for. Teachers watched them, but this time they were in a field that had guardrails, barriers, and the way it was told to me it was fencing.
And what they found was that because the kids knew they couldn’t get outside the fence, they played everywhere. So those constraints or those boundaries created a sense of safety. They knew they couldn’t get lost. They weren’t going to get, too far away from their friends etc. And so as you talk about the constraints, and I’m telling this story in my head, they’re making.
Perfect sense together. And what I find is in my work with leaders and coaching them is a lot of times the constraints or the barriers or the guardrails are unknown. So they don’t know how where did their, where does their decision making authority end? Where does my job end and your job begins?
Am I allowed to fire this person or am I not? Can I put them on a pip? Can I not? Like all these things of what am I allowed to do to my own accord or do I need your approval, whatever. And a lot of people, as I was saying earlier about confidence, don’t have the confidence to ask what the boundary is.
Uhhuh , what’s the guardrail? So they make it up in their head, they believe whatever their internal dialogue tells them. And that becomes the truth, which is an assumption. That they never check or confirm if that assumption is true or not. I find that very fascinating.
[00:17:01] Michael Pacheco: So in those cases as you’re, coaching a leader through something like that, like what is, what does that look like, on the way out?
What did, are you, do you. What am I trying to ask here? What is that? What is that? What is that? What does the coaching process look like around that? Because you’re essentially saying that you’ve created your own constraints here. They may or may not be true. What is the coaching around that look like?
Do you have them check and see what the actual constraints are?
[00:17:31] Darren Kanthal: Yeah, it usually starts with the story, right? They’re sharing the story and for whatever reason I’m clued in or they admit that this is an unconfirmed story, right? They tell the story, whether they say it directly or I pick up on it, it’s is this story true?
And we dig in, right? Is it true because I said it’s true? Is it true because I have enough experience seeing it true for other people? Or do I have hard, firm confirmation from whoever the decision maker is? Once that’s uncovered, and we know the answer to that second bit, those three questions then we could decide what the go forward is, right?
Some people may still acknowledge it’s an assumption. And we’ll not get confirmation. They’d rather live with the assumption, which I am baffled by. But as you asked the question about coaching, it’s digging into why
[00:18:23] Michael Pacheco: stories that we’ve carried around since childhood, man, those are comfortable stories.
Yes,
[00:18:28] Darren Kanthal: they are. Whether they’re self limiting or not. Very much. So they’re meant to keep us safe, and at some point, whenever Taking on what you’re saying of childhood, it’s usually to keep the child safe. And then when we become adults, a lot of times those safety measures as a child are no longer relevant or even serving us as adults, but we don’t know how to let them go.
And sometimes that’s the work.
[00:18:52] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. And that, and digging through that stuff, man, it’s, it is never easy. I had a lot of I had a lot of interesting stories about fatherhood before I, so I’ve got a little baby girl. She’s 16 months old. Before she was born, I did a lot of work around fatherhood because my father was not there when I was growing up.
And the story that I was told as a child. Was that he told my mother have an abortion or I’m leaving and my mother will not have the abortion so he wasn’t there. So man, yeah, did I have some stories about fatherhood as I was about to become a father and that was that was rough. It was a lot of work.
Digging through that stuff and changing that story. So I can see how a lot of people would want to just be comfortable with their story, no matter how shitty it is or self limiting it is or whatever. When you’re coaching someone through stuff like that, are you, so you’re a leadership coach primarily.
Is one of your dirty, is one of your dirty little secrets that you’re also a a life
[00:19:56] Darren Kanthal: coach. It’s funny. Like I never had a negative connection to the life coach moniker, but some people do. I often joke like this. I tell people, if I tell you I’m a career coach, you tell me you’re not looking for a job.
If I tell you I’m an executive coach, you say, I’m not a C level person. If I happen to tell you I’m a life coach, you’re going to scoff at me and say, you figured out life. You’re going to tell me. And that’s how I landed a leadership coach. What I tell people a lot is my corporate career was built in human resources and it’s all the things I said earlier, right?
Hiring and firing, performance management, yada, yada, yada. My coaching education is rooted in life coaching methodologies. So what I like to believe is one of my value propositions is I get to marry these two things together. And what I tell my clients is whatever you want to bring to the table, we can talk through it and I can handle it.
I may not be great at all these elements, right? There are certain, some clients that bring some stuff and I’m like, wow, I feel really ill prepared. But generally speaking, people at times will bring up marital challenges, parental challenges, insecurity issues, fears, right? Things that are certainly related to their career and their job, but not apples to apples.
It’s related to the person, right? Which is the professional and the parent and the things and all the stuff, right? So the stronger we are as people, the better we are as professionals and all the other walks of life we play. So the answer to your question is yes. Yeah.
[00:21:25] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. I think I agree with that.
The idea of comparts, like somehow magically compartmentalizing here’s my professional persona. Here’s who I am at home. Yeah. I don’t, I just don’t buy into that. I guess you can do that. Maybe if you’re, an entertainer, if you’re on, if you’re literally on stage for a living, but even then.
It’s a little, I don’t know, I think, I feel like it’s, that’s difficult stuff. So
[00:21:53] Darren Kanthal: I fully agree. And I say not verbatim, but I talk about this. I don’t think we as humans are great at compartmentalizing. I think we can do it in doses. Sure there are some people that I am sure are phenomenal at it.
Most people I talk to work with and friends with my family, like all these people are really not very good at it. Yeah. At some point not even at some point. I’ll just make it personal, right? If my girlfriend, Rachel and I have been together for seven years now, if we’re having a fight or disagreement, man, that’s on my mind all day long.
CaN I still be focused with you and do my job effectively? Yes. But that noise, that little tinkle or whatever you want to call it is back there and it doesn’t turn itself off until it’s resolved. And I think that’s true for most people that I talked to.
[00:22:38] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, I think it it harkens back.
It reminds me of the saying, you probably heard this before, how you do one thing is how you do anything. How you do anything is how you do everything. And the idea, yeah, you can’t really compartmentalize that, how you do stuff On your personal time is how you’re going to do stuff in your professional time.
[00:22:57] Darren Kanthal: It, it lends itself. There’s two things I want to share. The first is what you’re describing lends itself to what’s called behavioral style interviewing. And the concept of this is that how you behaved in the past, i. e. how you acted or how you solved the problem in the past is how you’ll do it in the future.
And so a lot of companies will ask questions like, tell me a time when. Huh. Tell me a time when you overcame the same challenge that we have here. Tell me a time when you worked with a different, difficult personality or whatever the tell me a time when is. Yeah. And what the interviewer is looking for is a specific story when you did the thing, right?
That’s the whole premise of it. Yeah. The other thing that came up for me, that’s not exactly apples to apples is this saying. I think a lot of us know the saying, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. And I like that saying, and I think there’s an even better one, which is there is what I say and what I mean, and what you hear and what you make it mean.
I like that. I like how there’s ownership on both sides. Huh. Because as silly as this example sounds, this is a true example. I’ve had people tell me that, as Michael walks into the office and says, Hey, Darren, how you doing? I’m like, I’m good, Michael. And then I walk away and be like. That Michael is such a phony, right?
Like you’re genuinely asking how I’m doing and I’m making it mean that you’re full of it and you have no care of how I’m doing. Sure. Yeah. I find it
[00:24:25] Michael Pacheco: fascinating. Yeah. I think, yeah, this is, this is the stuff that causes wars, like experience experiential. exPeriences themselves innately are subjective, right?
Everybody, you and I could go through the exact same thing when we were seven years old. And it means something different to you today than it does to me today. And it was the exact same situation, right? So it’s, yeah, the subjectivity of experiences it does, dude, we could wax philosophical about this for ages, talking about truth and reality and what that means.
Who knows?
[00:25:01] Darren Kanthal: Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, but you gotta proceed in, in, in ways that make sense for you. Huh. And, yeah, to your point, it’s like, all the things that make you color your lenses of life. All the things that make me color my lenses of life, right? So that’s just a statement. The experiential, the subjectivity of experience is straight up, no doubt.
And going back to what we were saying earlier about the assumptive nature of things is that so many people in my personal and professional life, me included, proceed without getting enough clarity on whatever the thing is. And then my reality is X and your reality is Y. And we never agreed to whatever the thing was.
We never got clarity on where we’re going to dinner, or how we’re going to solve this work problem, or I’m going to do the PowerPoint, but you’re going to make it pretty. Or whatever the story is. And then we walk around with these assumptions, and then shit goes haywire, and next thing you know, it’s that Michael didn’t do it!
And it’s did you ask him? Did you confirm the assumption? And anyway, I may have lost my train of thought, but this subtive nature, I just, it’s so prevalent.
[00:26:07] Michael Pacheco: How important is the act of setting expectations?
[00:26:12] Darren Kanthal: Oh my god, it’s, it, What comes out of my mouth a lot with some of the people I coach is when you’re a leader.
And what’s being carried out or the message that are being communicated below you, if they’re not to what you expected, then it’s on you. And it comes back to, there’s what I say and what I mean, what you hear, what you make it mean. So that’s one. Two is, were you clear enough? And this is tied to it. Did you ask the person how they heard what you said?
So I could ask you to mow the lawn, but if I don’t tell you to do it, with vertical lines, as opposed to horizontal lines or diagonal lines, right? Like I didn’t set the expectation other than mowing the lawn. And if you mow the lawn in circles, am I annoyed with you because you did that?
I didn’t set a clear enough expectation, so maybe a silly example, but yes, there’s too much lack of clarity and too much assumption that then results in things going sideways. Yeah.
[00:27:14] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. Nice. I like to I’m on my lawn in a check.
[00:27:17] Darren Kanthal: Of course you’re Pacheco. Of course you do.
[00:27:19] Michael Pacheco: Awesome, man.
Let’s see. Let’s see. What three books would you recommend all of your clients read today? This year.
[00:27:27] Darren Kanthal: Can
I do four just because absolutely. All right. I mentioned I think I mentioned earlier positive intelligence, maybe I didn’t positive intelligence is a practice that I’m very much embedded with and I’m in love with it. So the book is foundational for me. And I have clients read excerpts from it regularly, uh, two is I love atomic habits.
I know it’s an older book now, but it’s just a really good. Sound read that I think is actionable and actions big for me. For leaders who are having troubles with accountability and getting things done. I love Patrick Lencioni’s five behaviors of a cohesive team. You have it. You’re looking.
[00:28:10] Michael Pacheco: I’ve got ideal team player.
All right. There you go.
[00:28:12] Darren Kanthal: Yeah. I like the way the dude writes and his stuff is easy to digest and it makes sense for me. And then the last book that is really foundational to the leadership framework that I like to subscribe to. It’s called the leadership challenge. Okay. And for a lot of leaders that I work with they just lead by doing what they do.
And they don’t have a framework. I don’t want to say they don’t have thought because they have thought, but maybe it’s not deliberate or they don’t have a picture of a framework in their brain of how they lead. And the leadership challenge is a very simple framework that I love. And it’s got a whole bunch of exercises and a book and a, an assessment and yada, yada.
So that’s my other one. I really liked that book.
[00:28:54] Michael Pacheco: Nice. I am not familiar with that one. I’ll have to check
[00:28:56] Darren Kanthal: that out. Yeah. Read the clip notes. Yeah.
[00:28:59] Michael Pacheco: Awesome, man. Sweet, Darren, is there, man, is there anything else that, that you would like to talk about that we didn’t get an opportunity to touch upon?
[00:29:07] Darren Kanthal: Oh, man. Great question. Something that’s been thematic with a few clients lately has been around this. Not this, but around the topic of happiness. And I would put satisfaction and fulfillment into that same bucket. But in essence, some of my clients are just not happy. And what I find with some of them at least is that they’re very much leaning into their professional persona.
At the expense of their personal persona, and I don’t want to say it’s obvious because in, in the throes of each person’s life, it’s not so obvious as I’m communicating it, but maybe the thing just to touch upon is if anybody is listening, that is. Feeling any sense of unhappiness. I think it’s important to take stock of what we’re doing, how we’re showing up.
Are we leaning into both personas equally, one more than the other? And I think ultimately is, are we embracing the people we are? The sons, the daughters, the moms, the dads, the brothers, the sisters, the friends, the mountain bikers, the things we do, the guitarists, are we leaning into these things that generally bring us joy that you might otherwise hope bring more happiness?
Cause that’s the thing I find missing with a lot of people is they’re not embracing the things that usually bring them happiness.
[00:30:26] Michael Pacheco: I love that, man. Yeah, I want to triple down on that message. That’s a good one. For me, These guitars, I just pulled them out a couple months ago and it was far and away the most impactful thing that I did for myself, for my family, and for my business in Q2.
Yes. Because it’s just, they’ve been sitting in their cases for six, seven years for reasons, I don’t know, I just decided to pull him out. I didn’t want my daughter growing up without music and I had completely forgotten the joy that I get from sitting around and diddling with a guitar. And it’s just, it takes me to a peaceful, happy, creative space.
Yeah.
[00:31:11] Darren Kanthal: As cheesy as it is for those listening, I literally have a blow up microphone on my desk and what Michael said is a mic drop. Nice. That was awesome, man. I especially love how you made the connection to your daughter in the music, how you playing isn’t positively impacting your business, right? Those aren’t apples to apples thing, but like we were saying earlier, like the man behind you.
Plays all the roles, right? And if you’re neglecting a certain piece, that brings you great joy. Like you’re neglecting you and when you honor you, more of you shows up, man. I got chilled. That’s a great story. Yeah,
[00:31:46] Michael Pacheco: that’s great. I know. I appreciate it. And I think I want to encourage those watching and listening to I didn’t know that I was missing it.
So you might not even realize that you’re missing it, but malaise or just generally unhappy. If there’s something that you used to love, try doing it again or just, try stuff, right? Go karting. Who knows? Maybe you’ll love it. I don’t know, right? Just try different things, man.
And, find something that just Lights you up and makes you feel good. If it ain’t light, it ain’t
[00:32:20] Darren Kanthal: right. I love it. Love it.
[00:32:22] Michael Pacheco: Sweet man, Darren Canthal. Thank you so much, brother. I appreciate you making time to be back on the podcast again and catch up with me.
[00:32:30] Darren Kanthal: Thank you for having me.
I appreciate that. Real
[00:32:32] Michael Pacheco: quick before we leave where can our listeners and viewers connect with you online?
[00:32:37] Darren Kanthal: Two best places. First is LinkedIn. I am last time I checked, which was not that long ago. I’m the only Darren Canthal on LinkedIn. So I, I have that whatever I have that yeah, distinction.
Thank you. My brain wasn’t working on the word. And my website is the Canthal group. So those are the two best places to find me.
[00:32:57] Michael Pacheco: Love it. Thank you, ma’am. And thank you to our viewers and listeners. You guys are fantastic without you. This show is nothing. Thank you so much for tuning in and we’ll see all of you next time.
