Conversations With Christopher: Adam Kobler

On this week's episode of the Press Start Leadership Podcast, we introduce Conversations with Christopher with special guest Adam Kobler.

We discuss with Adam leadership coaching, the secret to good leadership, inspiration from Marvel heroes, and how to get started as a new leader.

You can find Adam Kobler at:
https://www.protagonist.life/
Twitch: Protagonistlife
Instagram: Protalife
Leadership Legion Podcast

Link to my FREE ebook: 5 Heroic Leadership Skills

Music by: Joey the Mad Scientist

Hit subscribe/follow and be sure to check out: https://pressstartleadership.com/

Transcript

Joey The Mad Scientist: 0:38

Hey there press starters and welcome to the press Start leadership podcast, the podcast about game changing leadership teaching you how to get the most out of your product and development team and become the leader you were meant to be leadership coaching and training for the International game industry professional. Now, let me introduce you to your host, the man, the myth, the legend, Christopher Mifsud.

Christopher Mifsud: 1:08

On this week's Special Edition, we have the Grand Master of protagonists coaching and consulting leadership geek and a guy who just wants people to enjoy life. Adam kobler. Let's meet Adam Kobler.

Adam Kobler: 1:22

Hey, everyone. Glad to be here.

Christopher Mifsud: 1:26

Glad to have you here. So Adam, I like to start off every conversation with the origin story. So what's your origin story?

Adam Kobler: 1:36

What is my origin story? You know, that's a good question. And one that I, I should spend some more time ruminating on. It's, I've been all over the place. Professionally, personally, I've lived in, I don't know, six or seven different states in the US lived in Russia for a short period of time as well. But for me, it's just been kind of this constant journey of self discovery over the last 10 years of my life or so. And really figuring out that we're all here. And we all work best when there's a certain amount of harmony and understanding. And that's lo and behold, the things that I like to help facilitate. And that kind of came out of a an instance earlier. Right around when I graduated college, actually, where I started to really delve into self discovery, a lot of self improvement stuff. Self Help, as some people might call it, read a lot of books did a lot of kind of, not up in the mountains, meditation, but just meditation in general, and really learned a lot about myself and about how I see the world and how I want to see the world. And since then it's been the windy path and the path of decisions to get here. And being that that Grand Master

Christopher Mifsud: 3:11

cool. And I think most of our listeners here will actually read it right. That's a big part of you and your current mission, what you're doing.

Adam Kobler: 3:21

Yeah. So for my part, the, you know, my goal, as you kind of mentioned in the intro is just to help people enjoy their lives more. And that's really from a leadership perspective. So I try and provide that example. I try and help other people figure out the example that they want to provide in whatever leadership capacity they happen to be in, so that they can not only enjoy their own lives and professional careers, but also help others that they may be responsible for enjoy it.

Christopher Mifsud: 4:00

That's awesome. Definitely can't beat that. So as a leadership coach, and a big focus of what you do, and a big focus what we discuss here, I always like to ask, how do you define good leadership?

Adam Kobler: 4:15

This is becoming my mantra as of late and it's two sentences. Leadership is the example. Management is the tactics. And I've got, if you if you look at my logo on my website, it's crossed swords with a kind of a red circle holding them together. I really look at leadership from three different facets, trust, communication, and systems. If one of those three is out of whack, chances are it's dragging the other two down with it. And so I help people figure out where they are with those three kind of overarching concepts. There's obviously a lot of subsets and subtopics to those. But help them figure out where they are on those planes, and then what they can do and when and how they should do it. To get those things into better balance to help things flow better.

Christopher Mifsud: 5:15

Another another read, I can't disagree with those three. I think those are awesome. So important question. Favorite donut?

Adam Kobler: 5:26

Oh, you know what, if you ever come to the US, I need to take you to a local donut shop here in Minneapolis. They have all sorts of all of their specials that I've ever tried are fantastic. But my favorite of all of them is called the North Star role. And now for those of you who are not familiar, Minnesota is known as the North Star State in the US. Just lots of Northern like, backwoods lore around that and things to that effect. But the North Star roll is essentially a Carmel roll light on the Carmel with kind of a vanilla hazelnut frosting on top with crumbled walnuts I believe, and a caramel drizzle over the top. It is amazing.

Christopher Mifsud: 6:25

It sounds amazing. It sounds more than amazing. I definitely have to check that out next time. I'm back on the states.

Adam Kobler: 6:32

Yeah. Happy to happy to take you out for that. If it's in season one, you're here.

Christopher Mifsud: 6:38

Oh, well, I'll find a way. So. So I talked about mindfulness. Mindfulness is another big thing for me. You mentioned it a little bit earlier, meditation stuff. But um, what's your what's your Zen? How do you find mindfulness? How do you find peace, especially, you know, this has been a crazy year for a lot of people. A lot of people have been having some difficulties, you know, finding that kind of peace. So what's your What's your secret?

Adam Kobler: 7:05

My secret is really, in the systems. I apply those three facets very much to my personal life as well, in that I have a handful of little practices that I do, most days out of the week that helped me stay grounded, and centered. And stay in that Zen. More often than not, the big piece of that is I start out each day with 20 minutes of meditation. And that can be either just sitting and focusing on my breathing, it can be guided meditation, it can be mantras, it doesn't matter what kind of meditation it is, but just that I'm creating and enjoying that headspace first thing in the morning, after, of course, the glass of water. The next thing is, I endeavor to make time to go on daily walks for usually in the neighborhood of about a half hour, right after lunch. And I find that that's a good way to break up the day. Again, kind of helped myself refocus, and re reorganize my thoughts based on how the morning has gone. And then start fresh after I get back to my desk to be able to continue on with the activities of the day, late into the night.

Christopher Mifsud: 8:33

Or your day, your day. Sounds a lot like my day, actually. So that's awesome. Yeah, I totally agree. Starting the morning off with meditation, whatever the type might be. So it's a great way to start start, especially with some positive mantras because you start that day positively kind of carries you through the rest and definitely agree specially with so many people working from home, if you have the ability to go out and take a walk in the middle of the day, the break up the routine and and kind of come back fresh. Definitely, definitely, I think keeps your energy going through it. So we have both both Awesome, awesome ways to go about it.

Adam Kobler: 9:07

Yeah, and if I could expand on that real quick. I actually stumbled upon that practice. When I was working for a software company. A few years ago, in downtown Minneapolis, I had moved downtown after getting that job to be closer to work, because nobody likes commuting into the city center of any metro area that I'm aware of anyways. And so my apartment ended up being I was four or five blocks from the office. And once I had settled in, I realized, Hey, I could walk home for lunch. And after doing that for a week or two, I started to it started to click that, you know, I'm really enjoying this. Yeah, it was probably a little bit less than a mile round trip over the lunch hour and just, you know, even in the dead of winter, getting some fresh air and getting out of the out of the office environment and just changing things up a little bit in the middle of the day made such a big difference.

Christopher Mifsud: 10:12

Now that it makes sense, it makes sense. And I agree with you. I just the site change Ever since I learned that I could live closer to work, and that it cut down on my commute and basically, in a sense cut down on my work day, right? Like I would count the commute as like part of my, my work day, right? So, my last two jobs have literally been five minutes away from the office, which is both bad and good, because once they learn that you're super close to the office, that also means that they're more inclined to call you in and be like, Hey, can you do this thing? Like because you're only five minutes away? But working from home, I guess everyone's now like literally minutes away from rolling out of bed and rolling over to their computer and taking on their work day.

Adam Kobler: 10:57

For better or worse, for better for worse. Yes, that's where that discipline comes in.

Christopher Mifsud: 11:02

Yeah, of course. Of course. I'm favorite sis. You're talking about systems? Do you have a favorite? Like I do you play video games? You do those? I think you dabble in tabletop a little bit. So do you have a favorite video game system? You know? Are you PC Master? Sony PlayStation x Xbox. It's always good to look at or Nintendo. I don't know why I always forget that. But Nintendo is a valid life choice when it comes to systems.

Adam Kobler: 11:37

It's true. Nintendo seems to be the the frequent underdog Yeah. Yeah, for me, I'm, I'm definitely I wouldn't say like PC master race. But PC is my platform of choice. You know, I'm open to all platforms, I just don't necessarily want to pay for them all the time. Case in point, there are a growing number of titles for the PS five that I would love to pick up. And I think if one more gets tacked on to that list, I may have to actually buy the console to be able to play them because they're exclusives.

Christopher Mifsud: 12:12

That's the only outlet. So I'm an Xbox guy, mainly just because I move around the world a lot. So it's not as convenient to move really good. Constantly sorry, PC like rig. So I have like a very simple PC that I use for work. But my Xbox comes with me everywhere I go. But as much as I love my Xbox, I usually do end up picking up a PlayStation at some point in time to play the exclusive so I totally get. That's that's the but I prefer I prefer Xbox.

Adam Kobler: 12:44

That's just me.

Christopher Mifsud: 12:45

And occasionally if I decide I want to throw out some more money, I'll pick up the Nintendo console as well. Right so and that keeps getting this ad to say this this version or this console era for Nintendo is pretty good. Actually. They're good luck. Yeah, fun stuff.

Adam Kobler: 13:00

My brother in law just got a switch for his family and they're absolutely loving it. I'm still rocking the the the old weiyu technology. But it's still good. It's still good.

Christopher Mifsud: 13:17

favorite game?

Adam Kobler: 13:19

Oh, easy. Soul series. Oh, your dark souls. One, two and three.

Christopher Mifsud: 13:28

I am telling me why wait, like give me give me some reasons why this. I've This is definitely not the series for me. But I love to hear the people who do love it because the people who do Love it. Love it.

Adam Kobler: 13:41

Why is that? It took me a while to warm up to them, quite frankly. But it was one of those things. I'm a huge lover of fantasy in general. If you give me the choice between fantasy and sci fi, I do like both. But I will take fantasy every single time. And so when Dark Souls came about when was that 2008 or something like that? Early 2000s. I saw that on the Steam Store. And I saw and I went live sounds interesting. And this was before. Everybody had touted it as one of the hardest games known to man. And so I was like, Alright, another fantasy game seems like could be interesting. And I picked it up and set it down and picked it up and set it down something in me really wanted to like it. But just he because of how brutal and game it is. It took me a while to get into the groove to learn that it's not your typical flavor of game, you have to be a lot more tactical, you have to be a lot more mindful of the mechanics and the little quirks that the game has, so that you can play it well.

Christopher Mifsud: 14:57

Yeah, I never did get good on that game. But I have a lot of friends that are super passionate about it and they and I understand this a very nice enrich like background and story going along with it too. So it's not just the more brutal mechanic game but actually like solid storyline go along with it. So

Adam Kobler: 15:18

yeah, and that's another thing is they don't spoon feed you the story, you have to figure it out for yourself. And that's why so many people keep playing it over and over and over. It's like, Alright, I feel like I'm missing this detail. Where is it hidden in the world? You know, is it hidden in the Oh, the description for a weapon somewhere, let's say, Okay, now there's a lot of bits and pieces. If you read if you read the item and weapon descriptions, you actually pick up a lot more of the lower than interacting with the rare NPCs throughout the, throughout the world.

Christopher Mifsud: 15:56

Maybe someday, if I if I get through my backlog of games that don't make me cry? I'll put that one back on my list. It'll be

Adam Kobler: 16:05

fun fact I'll have you know, I actually just beat Dark Souls one for the first time. Okay, after 10 years of playing it.

Christopher Mifsud: 16:16

While there's still hope for me, then. That's what I that's what I'll consider that. Absolutely. So tell me, what are you working on right now? Like you have the business? So tell me a little bit more about business, what you're doing there? Like I got your philosophy, I understand, you know, we very sink in very well with the leadership and the beliefs and humiliation and the mindfulness. How are you applying light like, like, What are you? What are you doing these days with that.

Adam Kobler: 16:46

So these days, I'm doing a couple of different approaches. Right now I am spending a lot of Well, I'm going to be spending a lot of time once I get off my tail end of my hiatus here. I'll be getting back on twitch to do my leadership lessons streams twice a week. And I'm also looking to tack on some just chatting streams as well, where it will be more like live masterminds, with those who want to participate in the chat to discuss a specific topic or a specific. You know, I'm thinking of picking some quotes or books or haven't really decided fully on the material yet, but just having some discussion around leadership in the technology industry, and helping those people who are interested in that or who are involved in that to hone their skills several times a

Christopher Mifsud: 17:44

week through Twitch. That's sweet. The first one, the first part, the one that you were doing before currently doing Can you give us a little bit more detail with someone who tunes in the twitch and check it out for for the for those segments where those like for for those that are to the followers that are tuning in, or that would be watchers?

Adam Kobler: 18:04

Sure. So I this, I started doing these with Final Fantasy 14. And what I would do is I would just play the game. And as I went about different quests and different things, accomplishing objectives within the game, I would take a look at the various leadership elements that were involved and expound upon those based on my philosophies, my experiences and my perspectives. And so from time to time, this would mean talking about a quest giver, and the type of say communication that they used, the words that they use the tone of voice, the urgency, and talked about ways that those were good or not, and why in a real world business environment. And I would then expound upon that and say, Alright, well as somebody who is carrying out these tasks and objectives for so and so, these are the things that I'm thinking about as from a leadership perspective, and why those are important. I actually started Final Fantasy 15 which is actually my first playthrough of that, and we're we have mariachi noctus who gets to wear the mariachi outfit until he starts becoming a good leader.

Christopher Mifsud: 19:32

I was I was I was checking out your twitch stream the other day and I saw that you just were starting that up so that looks awesome.

Adam Kobler: 19:39

Yeah, it's it's a great game and I'm looking forward to play more of it

Christopher Mifsud: 19:44

nice yeah very cool. The you also do I mean, you do a lot so let's let's cover some of the things you do. You also you blog is correct as well like your website also you do blog posts, I believe you also do podcasts as well. So yeah, let's let's hear about some some more things. Were if people are like man, I like this this attic cobbler. What else? What else can I learn about from him? Let's Let's hear it.

Adam Kobler: 20:18

Sure. So there's a plethora of outlets for getting the getting the things that are on my head into media, be it written, be it vocal Be it video, I'm actually working to simplify those a little bit because as a lot of us know, content creation can very quickly become a full time job. And I just, I want to get this stuff out there. But I don't want to spend hours on the editing board. So stay tuned for what those changes are. But presently, I do have a podcast that I do with a cohort of mine, called leadership Legion, you can find that on Spotify right now, that'll be available on other platforms in the future. But essentially, what we do is every other week, we get together for it's usually about 90 minutes. And we talk about examples of leadership provided by a character from geek culture. So folks like john Luke Picard, Aragorn, we even did one on Dr. Robotnik from the new Sonic movie. Any character is game really, as long as it's from some sort of show or movie that we can digest in a reasonable amount of time. And so that's been a lot of fun, really good ways to look at leadership through the fun lens of fiction. And above and beyond that, yes, there is a blog, I do still contribute to that regularly. But I'm also looking to do some more kind of off the cuff just 10 second or not 10 second 10 minute video clips that may end up on the blog as vlogs since everybody's going video these days and I there's definitely a lot more that you can do with those that you can't in written form.

Christopher Mifsud: 22:15

Definitely. I'm just gonna circle back to to to the podcast with the heroes and villains sort of I guess. Yeah. Who has been your your favorite to dissect leadership wise and why what was the what was the exciting learning that that you pulled away from that? You have to give all the details obviously, you know, wanting to know more on their own but

Adam Kobler: 22:41

so my favorite hero of all time is Tony Stark, Iron Man himself. And if you want to hear the full schpeel he he was our second episode of the show. So we're still kind of dialing in the technical aspects in terms of getting like the recording stuff, right. But the the work there and the discussion there is very solid. So the thing the the big takeaway from that is just emotional intelligence. Tony Stark doesn't sound start out as having a whole lot of that. And we go into detail about you know, the goods and Bad's and uglies about that and give some examples from the Iron Man trilogy, and how that affects the people that are involved in those scenarios. So definitely recommend checking out that episode that certainly my favorite so far. Dr. Robotnik comes in a close second, though. Okay, fair.

Christopher Mifsud: 23:43

Well, yeah, like, I mean, I like that. Because it basically what you're saying, and that is EQ can be learned and developed. Right, which is true. And I think a lot of people lose sight of that they you know, they a lot of people focus on IQ, which doesn't really change too much throughout your life. But EQ is something that is not only like 100%, teachable, and growable and influenceable. Influential, and for influenceable. Yeah, whatever. But it's what's one, I think it's probably one of the well, it's definitely one the most important things that you find in leadership in companies. You're looking for it more and more of that now to have a couple companies. Before I took roles, they tested my personality and IQ and for leadership roles. And I think it's awesome, because I love being told that I'm really smart and have a great personality. does feel good, doesn't it? I print them out and I put them on my refrigerator. Just to remind my wife

Adam Kobler: 24:50

I'm sure she appreciates.

Christopher Mifsud: 24:52

Yeah, great personality and, and super smart. But

Adam Kobler: 24:56

speaking of EQ, right. Yeah. And that's, you know, to take that one step further before we move on is any of those leadership skills that we're talking about, can be learned and improved by anybody. I don't care who you are. You know, if you've come from a service in History Background working retail, never had a formal day of leadership training in your life. Go pick up some books, you know, LinkedIn learning, there's all sorts of free stuff online that you can use to get started to further the skills that you have. There is no such thing that I've found so far. I don't know about you, Chris. But that is on learnable. As far as leadership goes,

Christopher Mifsud: 25:47

as far as I know, there's nothing it's unreasonable. They're only those who don't wish to learn. I think that's that's the only thing the only thing that limits people is their, their it's their attitude, about about leadership, right. And then honestly, if they don't want to learn it, they're probably not the best people to be leaders in the first place. Yeah. You know, I think I think that's one of the I believe one of the key key pieces to a leader is they're constantly learning, right? They never stop learning, never stop picking up always feel they can improve and be better, right? self improvement is a journey, you know, that continues on and on and on. So that that's that, but I agree with you, I think everything can is teachable. You know, people, there are people that have natural abilities that I think and again, I won't say it's like, you're born this way, but nurture, definitely lead them that direction. Right, like so. You know, there's certain people that have better soft skills and others naturally, but learning perfectly possible. Soft, yeah, definitely. But actually heard this was the other day that they didn't like the word. I think it was Simon probably Simon said that because he says everything. But he didn't like the term, soft skills. He liked the term human skills. Because when you say hard skills versus soft skills, it's kind of saying like, one thing, but human skills, everyone has to know them. Right? It really matter. And for sure, all of us can improve human skill. So I definitely, definitely feel feel that, especially especially as you know, a leader, or you know, being a human being I see that a lot in this stuff that I talk about is it's the things that I teach that only make you a better leader that make you a better human being. And I think at the end of the day, that's the most important thing be better human.

Adam Kobler: 27:42

Yeah. Let me let me throw out my own quote here to put a bow on that. This one's by ganky pseudo, who is Gosh, the man's a prodigy. His his quote is, we are all one. And I think that human skills really reflects that well.

Christopher Mifsud: 28:06

Yeah, yeah. 100% Yeah, we are one. I love it. I once Good. Very, very good. So we've got Twitch, got the podcast, we've got the blog, that there's blog content, new content coming into the future. Anything else you'd like to talk about that you might have up your sleeve going forward working? You know,

Adam Kobler: 28:34

I am working on some online coursework. That's probably not going to be available until later this summer. But that is in the works. Just

Christopher Mifsud: 28:46

something I need their eyes out for. Exactly.

Adam Kobler: 28:50

And other than that, you may find me at the me and my podcasting cohort at the occasional con. We're actually doing a panel on we're essentially doing a live podcast at an anime convention coming up here next month. For those who are interested it's Centrepoint anime convention. Like it's virtual, so it's free.

Christopher Mifsud: 29:18

Oh, it is virtual. Okay. Cuz I was like, I like I know. There's some in person ones that are planned for later on the year. I was gonna say the expo like that's really fast. I know. I know. Those vaccines super quick. But man, I thought you were gonna laugh at us. But

Adam Kobler: 29:34

yeah, it's it's a virtual con. Oh, cool. Cool. Good. I'm not safe. Yeah. And, you know, in the spirit of setting the example, I have set a resolution for myself that I'm not leaving the house or traveling for any unnecessary reasons for the rest of the year.

Christopher Mifsud: 29:53

That's jolly wise. Yeah. I mean, if you don't have to, and you can do it. I know not everyone has that ability. But if you have the ability, and you can share some wisdom there. Yeah,

Adam Kobler: 30:04

yeah, I'm one of those. I'm one of those eyes on the Ei is on The MBTI scale where I'm right about at the 50% mark. So I can go either way.

Christopher Mifsud: 30:14

No, no, I understand. I depending on how when I take the test I flipped between it as well actually, everyone always thinks it's extrovert. But occasionally, there's a fun thing about introverts, it's like if you get them talking about a subject that they're really interested in, they actually can appear like an extrovert because they become very animated and super excited about it. But then they need to recharge, like, immediately after. So

Adam Kobler: 30:40

that's me.

Christopher Mifsud: 30:43

So, so you touched on technology, your leadership coach, if, if one of the listeners out there, or watchers, depending on how you're how you're checking this out, is a young technologist that has an aspirations for leadership. What would you you know, what are some recommendations for them that you can give? Besides this awesome podcast?

Adam Kobler: 31:09

Yeah, no kidding. And the other things we've already talked about, there's obviously the recommendation, you know, small self plug here to to get a coach, whether it's me, whether it's Christopher, whether it's somebody else, find somebody you trust, that you can learn from and who is going to help you progress in some way, shape or form that you know, that you can learn to know like and trust. As far as leadership goes, I feel like mentorship is one of the biggest things that I've ever experienced and taken part of that helped truly accelerate my leadership skills. And that's, you know, that's the whole reason what of what I'm trying to do with protagonist is be that trusted, liked mentor, to help people succeed.

Christopher Mifsud: 32:08

That No, I, again, I've not disagree with anything that I've said so far in it again, I'm agreement once again, I actually was saying the other day, you know, three quick ways to level up as a leader, you know, like, take online classes, watch some YouTube videos, find a mentor. And, you know, like Adam said, reach out to a coach or whatever. If you have the ability to do it that way, or there are so many people get a LinkedIn account, if you don't already have one of those. That's what I would say, get a LinkedIn account, reach out, like network and reach out to people because like, I answer questions all the time, I get people all the time, sending me emails, and DMS and so forth, I'm more than happy to answer most questions for folks.

Adam Kobler: 32:59

Yeah, likewise. Yeah. Well, it's obvious that I don't like talking about these things at all.

Christopher Mifsud: 33:06

Which saddens me a little bit, though, is I feel like the the follow through on that afterwards, right? Like, they'll be like, Oh, can I do it? You know, and then when they get a response, and it's like, I totally go do it, chase after people, those people are want to help other people, honestly, I think I think most people inherently are good people out there. And they want to help people. And I think almost anyone who's ever struggled in any industry, appreciates, like you mentioned, the mentors that they've had, and being able to, you know, pay that forward to other people and be able to help them out. You know, I mean, just, you know, be respectful of people's time and everything like that. And I think we're, you know, we're again, hire, hire somebody, and then you're paying for their time. So that works. Yeah.

Adam Kobler: 33:52

Then you're, then you're more likely to respect their time because you're invested.

Christopher Mifsud: 33:56

You're invested in it, but yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I hate to say, but it does, it does, it does say a lot for a lot of things, right? Like, if you put even just a little bit of money towards it, you're more likely to follow through on something unless it's like a gym membership. Right? One doesn't prove prove out, but most other things like they they find, like, you know, I think event breaks and stuff like that those events that normally would be free, right? But they'll charge like $5 or $1 that way they're there, people are more likely to actually show up for the events and so forth. It's kind of kind of the same thing for anything you invest in here. Yeah, my parents my parents would have liked that more when I was a child because I actually didn't do that. But

Adam Kobler: 34:40

I think most of our childhood stories

Christopher Mifsud: 34:43

that's on them too for for not pushing me more to actually attend to things I signed up for. I signed up for everything as a kid, but I think I went well.

Adam Kobler: 34:51

And that's part of it is we are the product of our experiences. Yeah.

Christopher Mifsud: 34:58

Any any, anything, any takeaways, as we as we get towards the end here that you'd like to pass on to any of the listeners, anything that you you've anything we missed that we didn't cover here that you'd like to say and be like that's even more so. Cuz I think there's been golden nuggets are out here. But

Adam Kobler: 35:21

yeah, we've we've had some good stuff here I think for me, you know, I just like to reiterate the the mantra that I had at the beginning of leadership is the example management is the tactics, and really impressed that the example part is, in my mind, one of the most important parts of leadership. And the reason being for that is that, as a leader, people are instinctually looking to you, as the example. And I think a lot of leaders don't necessarily make that connection, especially if they're new to that type of position. And they wonder why their teams are doing things they don't want them to do performing poorly, you name it, that is not necessarily desired, when they themselves are showing all sorts of the similar traits that they're seeing in their team. But they're just not necessarily aware of it, because it is a habit it is, you know, part of that nurture cycle that has just become second nature to them, you know, it could be any number of reasons. But there's a certain amount of introspection that is involved on a regular basis, to make sure that you are conveying the right example, to the people you are either directly or indirectly affecting.

Christopher Mifsud: 36:58

People are always watching, you don't realize it, but people are always watching and, and we communicate so much in our actions, even more so than our word. So I agree 100% on that. I mean, you said it earlier, lead by example, which I wholeheartedly believe in. I also really think, you know, take it upon yourself to better the situation. Right. And, and, absolutely. And but the thing is, yes, is is that too many bad leaders, get it if you're doing anything bad, or like it's your your leader, but bad people in authority that the bad traits is, is that they do things that they don't want their team to do. And then they're shocked, like you said, like, oh, why is everybody late? Like you're always late? You know, like, or, or like, oh, why does that person keep doing that? Well, because you don't do anything to stop that you never, and you do that? Right? Like, I've seen, I've been in environments where I've seen bad behavior from leadership. Again, people have authority

Adam Kobler: 38:08

to act a certain leadership in name only name

Christopher Mifsud: 38:11

only, right? Yeah. That's the other one that I like, which is, you know, leader leads without title, you know? I like doing things and then and then they're, they have this behavior where kind of like trickles down, right. It's that was it was a line from How I Met Your Mother, I think Barney gave it about the circle of circle of hate circle of yelling, or like, one person yells, and then the next person that comes around, like, everyone passes around, so you have people treating people badly, or whatever. And people see that as acceptable behavior, and then they do it until as far as they can get away with it. And, you know, unless you're, unless you're setting the right example, for folks, right, positivity I show up on time. You know, like, Don't Don't delay on things, take action, make decisions.

Adam Kobler: 39:03

Yeah, keep your word.

Christopher Mifsud: 39:04

Keep your word, except the results, like, take take the tick, you know, take responsibility for those actions, that kind of stuff. You know, if you make excuses other people make excuses, it's it's definitely anything, you know, that's,

Adam Kobler: 39:18

yeah, it's an as a huge element of integrity to good leaders. I, you know, to add the flip side to add to the bad leaders were alluding to here.

Christopher Mifsud: 39:31

Yeah, easy to pick up bad leadership. I, you know, we all have a million examples of that.

Adam Kobler: 39:37

And another thing that I point out a lot to people is that as a, you don't necessarily even need to have a leadership title. You know, you don't need to be a manager or a supervisor or a CEO. Any kind of executive, you can be a leader at any level of the company, any level by simply following those things that we just talked about. And having integrity and setting your own example simply because you have decided that that's the correct way to operate.

Christopher Mifsud: 40:13

Anyone can be a leader, really, really again, and you can begin to apply those skills. Tomorrow, you know, I think but that's, that's, that's probably

Adam Kobler: 40:25

we can have a whole other discussion on on that semantics. So,

Christopher Mifsud: 40:29

so there's that. So let's, let's, let's, let's follow through and tell everybody again, where they can find you and all the different platforms. In case you didn't have time to write down, though, though, you can always check the liner notes. Because there will be all that information there of all the places you can find Adam, and what he's doing, but I'll have him tell it one more time for us.

Adam Kobler: 40:52

All right, one more time with feeling the so the best place to find me and all of the things that I am associated with is my website, you can find links to everything from there. So to keep it simple, head on over to protagonist dot life. That's right. You heard me protagonist dot life, love these newer high level domains these days. From there, you can find the blog, you can find links to my twitch the recordings of that on YouTube. There's also the links to the leadership Legion podcast, and everything else that we've touched on in this here, discussion today.

Christopher Mifsud: 41:41

That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, I've been super happy to have you here is to the today. And today, Junior, today, Junior. And super, super glad that you were able to chat with us. Tell us a little bit more about what you'll be doing. I met you a few few months ago. And I've been loving everything that I've been finding from you. So I was happy that you were willing to come on here and share all that great stuff. With everyone here. So thank you again. And yeah.

Adam Kobler: 42:16

Appreciate the opportunity, Chris. And I look forward to returning the favor sometime here in the near future.

Christopher Mifsud: 42:22

Definitely. Look forward to it, too. All right. Well, that's it. This is all kinds of stuff at the end. That's all folks. That's That's it for this week's episode of Star leadership podcast conversation with Christopher. Thanks for joining us by

Adam Kobler: 42:40

Cheerio.

Christopher Mifsud: 42:42

That's this week's episode of press star leadership podcast. As always, thanks for being awesome. If you haven't yet, make sure to give us a follow. Till next time. If you haven't downloaded my free ebook, five heroic leadership skills, click on the link in the description. Tune in next week for your next episode of press star leadership podcast. Thank you