Adrian Koehler | Courage vs Confidence, Relationship vs Religion, & Sincerity vs Society

“I’m doing today, what I’ll be proud of tomorrow.” – Adrian Koehler

GUEST BIO:

Adrian Koehler is a leadership engagement expert and senior partner at the executive coaching firm, Take New Ground. He coaches executives and entrepreneurs in the art and science of leadership for themselves, their teams, and clients to create new, unprecedented results and experience fulfillment in their work. He is the Founder and Senior Partner at Take New Ground, a leadership coaching, training, and consulting firm based in Los Angeles. TNG partners with select executives and organizations to get the results they want by creating the culture they need. He is the co-host of two engaging podcasts: Raising The Bar with Drybar Founder Alli Webb and The Naked Leadership Podcast with TNG Sr Partner Dan Tocchini. Drawing on his background in philanthropy, ministry, activism, and medicine, Adrian thrives in extreme environments and finds comfort in difficult conversations—in fact, his passion for human performance has taken him around the globe, serving people in times of crisis.

SHOW NOTES:

• Website: https://takenewground.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adrian.k/?hl=en
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriankoehler
• Additional Powerful quote from Adrian’s friend Dan:

“A man with a vision can never be held hostage by circumstances.” 

REMARKABLE LISTENER SPECIAL OFFER:

• Listen to special offer at the end of the episode and contact Adrian for more details and to get started today!

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Adrian Koehler | Courage vs Confidence, Relationship vs Religion, & Sincerity vs Society

Narrator: [00:00:00] The Remarkable People Podcast, check it out.

The Remarkable People Podcast. Listen, do repeat for life.

The Remarkable People Podcast.

David Pasqualone: Hello, my Remarkable friends. Welcome to this week of the Remarkable People Podcast. This is a new one. So we had some crazy stuff happen this weekend, life things that happened to us all, and our guest, after waiting almost nine months to be on the show, was willing and able to switch to an earlier time slot so we could bring you this great recording.

What happened though was a first for us in four years. [00:01:00] This guest, while we've had other guests come back and be on hanging out episodes, this is the first guest that while we were recording, we realized that we're pressed for time. There's just so much great content. We're going to come back and do a hanging out episode.

So in this episode, you're going to get a power packed episode of real, authentic, transparent. Christianity, religion verse, relationship, personal inner demons, the darkness verse the light. We're going to talk about failures versus moral successes. We're going to talk about personal and professional. We're going to talk about a ton of things with our guests today.

So when you're listening to this episode, stick through it. Like most of our episodes, they just keep building and building and building and getting better, and the practical life tips of what [00:02:00] the guests not just overcame or achieved and the story, but the actual steps of how they were able to achieve and overcome what they did are throughout the episode.

But in this particular episode, The whole episode kind of grooms our mind and gets us ready for the end where the practical steps are. So today's guest is Adrian Koehler. He is going to take us through his life from birth to today, and we're going to talk about many, many things. As you're listening, put your filter into seeking truth mode.

Not as what I'm saying, right? Not as what you're saying. Right. Not as what Adrian's saying. Right. But what's God saying is Right. And if you're someone that doesn't believe in God, definitely listen to this episode. 'cause Adrian and I are going to talk about how we go through different phases. We go through [00:03:00] believing in the sense of just, yeah, I believe there's a God, or maybe I don't believe there's a God to.

I've trusted God in my life, sold out to him, or there's a thousand levels in between. But religion, verse relationship, and that honesty and transparency and that realness verse, the fake show that most people have today, I. Is a central theme of this episode. So I know this was a long intro. I know many of you have been with us for four years.

I know many of with you have the Remarkable People Volume one book. I know many of you share it with your friends and family on a weekly basis. I know you're from all over the world and we love you no matter where you're from or what place you are on Earth. But listen to this episode 'cause we get into a lot of really fine details that are misconceptions in the world.

Like people say all the time, don't judge. But we talk about the difference between being judgemental and having godly judgment, and that's what we're commanded to do. We talk about a bunch of [00:04:00] stereotypes, so check out this episode again. Today's guest is Adrian. Taylor like James Taylor, and he is a great guy.

From everything I've known, he's been very patient. We had a rush a little bit through the episode, but it'll be worth your time when you listen. And then check us on the next follow-up episode as well in the Hanging Out Podcast, RPP Plus. So I'm David Pasqualone. I've talked plenty of time. Let's get into this episode now.

David Pasqualone: Hey Adrian, how are 

Adrian Koehler: you today brother? I'm great man. Great to be here David. Thanks for having me. 

David Pasqualone: Oh no, it's an honor. You've been super wonderful and flexible. I just told our listeners a little bit about you, how we had a kind of shift, the meeting last minute, how we had, you've already waited months to be on here and we're so thankful and grateful you have, you're here today to share your Remarkable journey.

Mm-hmm. So I really appreciate 

Adrian Koehler: it, brother. Yeah, [00:05:00] well, I, you know no problem at all. Number one, first things first, and always just great to talk to one once that, once you and I connected, I don't know, a couple months ago, maybe a few months ago now, around this opportunity, and you want me to be on the show, I thought, okay, this is great.

So whatever it takes, whatever it takes to make this happen, awesome. And I can't wait to connect with your listeners and hopefully can provide some value. Yeah, man. And 

we'll 

David Pasqualone: start off, we'll guide you through the past, the present, and the future of your life. But we always start off each show our listeners, they may be with us for the last four years and listened to every episode, or we might be talking to somebody new who this is the first time they've listened to the Remarkable, People, Podcast.

But Adrian, if they're going to listen to your episode, they're probably going to get dozens of gold nuggets. But if there's one thing you're like, if you listen to this episode from start to finish, this is what you're going to walk away with. What's that one truth or purpose or passion that you're going to be able to leave with them to help them?

Adrian Koehler: Great question. [00:06:00] I was just thinking about when I rode back from l a x last night in this Uber talking to this young kid, he was probably, he's 21 and I liked him and he immediately, you know, as soon as I got in, he said, how much is Uber charging you? You know, 'cause at L A X you gotta pay like a whole lot of money to get a ride, to have him pick you up at the curbside instead of walking to the lot.

So I always do that just to save time and energy. And he's a hustler right away. 'cause he said to me, he said, how much is Uber charging you for this? And I said, a hundred dollars. He said, do you want to just do this off the books? And I'm like, oh, I like this guy. He's got his own little side hustle inside of, inside of Uber.

We ended up having a really robust conversation all the way the 35 minutes from l a x to my home. And he had lots of questions for me. He came outta the medical world, interested in getting in the medical world. I came out of the medical world, have a lot of experience, and he had, he'd been, he'd been set up, he'd been, he's applying to PA school and he's gone for four interviews and he's failed them all.

And after big, long [00:07:00] convo about his background and my background, one of the nuggets for him, 'cause he said, how are you so good at interviewing? I could tell you're really good at this. Like, because I told him I, you know, whatever my journey and I got all these jobs and I can interview well and I can fake it.

He said, how do you get so confident? And I said, oh, you don't get confident man. You just choose courage. Courage looks a lot like confidence. And courage says, I'm scared to death and I might be a fool and I might fail, but it's worth it. The outcome is worth it, so I'm going to throw myself at it. That's courage.

And that looks a lot like confidence. Everybody today is looking, really wants this sensation of confidence. Like I feel secure in myself, but I'm a pretty talented guy. Pretty confident guy, pretty gregarious guy. Look really comfortable. When you see me in any kind of situation, when I'm talking to some kind of big wig at a company or whatever, I look really calm and secure, but I'm not.

And [00:08:00] I coach type A, driven, ambitious world class leaders and they being the most successful people in their fields, being world-class minds, being, you know, set apart. They're not confident either. They look like it. There's tools that they have chosen and that we work through in my work with them, which really puts courage at the center of their target.

And if you, if you put courage, which we don't talk about that much in our culture these days because we're so tied up and emotional states and, and anyway, we can get, you can spend two hours on that. But with the hyper therapeutic culture we live in, people go for some kind of therapeutic state instead of believing in themselves and believing that action and commitment can get you through the day.

So I don't know if that's one, I mean, I don't know if that's the most important thing to share, but that's top of mind just 'cause I was in the conversation with this kid last night. And anyway, it was a great exchange. So courage beats confidence every single day. Yeah, [00:09:00] that's 

David Pasqualone: great and very true. And especially in a society, not just in America, but globally, where yeah, honestly, so many people are watered down and men aren't.

Men and women aren't women and it's, yep. It's really a issue. So let's do this to bring you to this point in life where this is your passion and this is what you do every day and this is what you're excellent at and get paid to do. Let's start off your beginning of your life. We'll work chronologically through it.

The good, the bad, the ugly. Who, what made Adrian the man he is today? So what was your upbringing like? Mom, dad, grandparents, brothers, sisters, orphanage. Where'd your life start? Bro? 

Adrian Koehler: You know, it's really ironic that it's great to be able to talk about this, just 'cause I just completed a four day road trip with my stepson, who's 18 and he's going off to college and going to go play football in college.

And I'll probably get into some of the details about what makes this trip really significant. But I just drove from la he dropped me off at Columbus, Ohio [00:10:00] airport. And I got to go through my hometown. And I don't know if anybody has this experience when you go through your hometown and get to relive all these memories, so much comes back and is like it's captivating.

I dunno if you have that experience. I do. I wanna like, I wanna like drive every street in my hometown and collect all these memories. So, and I just need to see my parents. Yeah, a hundred percent 

David Pasqualone: true. Same thing. And the only other thing I'd say 

Adrian Koehler: is, doesn't it feel smaller? Oh, it feels smaller. It feels more desolate.

I don't know if it's just me or just felt more epic when I was there. And now as an adult I come back and like, wow, this place is sleepy. I guess I didn't know anything else before. I mean, I've lived in big cities as soon as I could get to the big city. I did moved to Chicago right after undergrad.

Now I've been living out in LA for 18 years, so obviously I chose diversity and I chose action in this little town in the middle of nowhere in southern Illinois, Salem, Illinois. 8,000 people when everybody's home. I guess it is naturally pretty sleepy, but it felt really epic when I was there. So, let's see, to your question, so a youngest of two boys.

Born July 6th, [00:11:00] 1980. And my, I had an older brother named court that was three years older than me, born to Jim and Angie. They both grew up around this small town in southern Illinois and both of them were public school teachers for 35 years. And so we had a very, it was very kind of unique, I guess, upbringing in the sense that both my parents were teachers.

So growing up the whole family was on the same schedule, which was pretty cool. I don't think I really got it at the moment. And now being a working dad and having a pretty atypical schedule, I could do whatever I need to do with my kids. I don't have a 95, nor will I ever, for a handful of reasons.

But I, you know, it was really cool. And my mom and dad are awesome people. I mean, they're obviously human beings and, and there was parts of it that worked and parts of it that didn't work. And we can double click on any of that stuff that you want to, but really great humans and So it was, I, I joke often that I grew up in an episode of Friday Night Lights.

That's what my life was like. So small town, everybody knows everybody. My dad was the football coach. My dad coached me and my brother through [00:12:00] everything. Both my brother and I were athletes. And he was a, what we would've called a Haas in Southern Illinois. Big dude. Just broad shoulders hit. He's the home run hitter, state winner and shot put center and linebacker on the football team.

I was not, I was small runt like which was a big gift to me later in life where kind of as I developed it was good for me. I'm definitely younger brother mentality, like chip on my shoulder, something to prove, you know? And I like that. I like being a, I like a challenge. I like, I mean, that's kind of the gift to it now.

I like the odds being stacked against me, kind of feeling like the underdog, like anyway gritty. And then, you know, would bend the rules when necessary in order to get the advantage, which usually meant when I was, you know, having a fight with my brother. I, I was the one that would grab a rock or a stick or whatever, just to kind of even the odds up.

'cause he was huge. But really fast growing up. So anyway, I grew up playing sports. My parents were very involved in the community which was a [00:13:00] huge gift. Like my dad literally built the T-ball and junior league baseball. Diamonds, like welded them. He built them. And so we spent, I spent all my youth like fixing up baseball diamonds, you know, so kind of idyllic in that way, like, you know, mowing and, and, and chalking the lines and spent all summers playing baseball, but played sports all year round.

And so anyway, in that kind of, in that kind of mindset growing up and my parents were both spiritually minded as well. And they were, there's a, they were a part of this, the church that I grew up in, so they helped plant this church. So, and for those who are listening that don't come from that background, they were like I dunno, it's like kind of starting a group, you know?

And then they were very involved all throughout. So kinda this it was a traditional Christian viewpoint. Some of which I've kept over the years, some of which I've discarded. But really grateful for it, you know, it really grounded me in some of these values. And some ideals now that I take for granted that some people aren't [00:14:00] built into a worldview that's altruistic and generous and, and thought and ethical.

You know, I was born into that context. So anyway, that was great growing up. And then you know, high school was high school and What to share. You know, kind of went after everything naturally just kind of went after, I don't know. I do leadership coaching now. People usually ask how I got into leadership or why I got into that.

I needed leadership. Like I, I needed it kind of as a person and I always had coaches and stuff and I, I gravitated towards leaders, but also leadership always, you know, put my roots in the soil. I realized early that like, life circumstances are up for grabs. We never quite know what's going to happen in the moment.

And a leader's, the one that shapes 'em and a leader is the one that pulls people together to navigate them. And I realized, oh, like being a leader actually feels more comfortable to me than being a follower. So, got into leadership that way, just 'cause I was some anxious kid, you know, you wouldn't have seen it on the outside.

I kept it together pretty well, but internally, [00:15:00] pretty socially anxious. But like every 13 year old, 14 year old And anyway, so got into leadership work early in high school and naturally in that space which came back to serve me now. Had high school was a fun ride. You know, I had a freshman year broke my arm in football.

That was a big moment for me and really sent me on a philosophical nose dive. 'cause I'd always been the athlete guy and I broke my arm in the middle of a football game and now who the hell am I now if I'm not the quarterback of the football team, who am I now? That's what started kind of first round of maybe hedonism will work, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Let's go do that. So I was like, you know, freshman high school and. Going and you know, trying to dip my toe in every pool that might have some meaning or might have some thrill in it. Did that hardcore for a couple years, which is pretty hard to pull off in small town America if you wanna do it. Like my parents weren't into that, that's for sure.

So had to keep it kind of behind the scenes. And with 

David Pasqualone: her, let me [00:16:00] before you go on too, 'cause that kind of ties together with the church involvement. Was it one of the ones they're planning a church? So was Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday nights, you know, youth group on Thursdays midweek activities?

Was it that involved or? 

Adrian Koehler: Oh, very involved every time that, I mean, we were there, we were the ones unlocking the door. So yeah, we were very involved. So yeah, there was like this dual, it started this kind of dual life for me of like having this proper engagement that would work in order like with my parents and like with the expectations around me and then kind of building this other I.

Also pursuit, which this theme would come back at later in life too, where it's like kinda these dual Adrians that I was experimenting with and seeing if I could pull off having these two different worlds happening. So yeah. Yeah. Very involved. And if you don't mind, 

David Pasqualone: this may tie down the road, so you can be like, sure.

That thought, or you can be like, I don't want to answer, but whatever. Yeah. With your parents being minded for what they believe, you know, this is God, we wanna serve God. Yeah. And you're a [00:17:00] teenager, you know? Yeah. Teenagers have to choose their own way at that point. Do you remember, do you heard everything they taught all the time, right?

But did you believe in and trusts God at that point? Or were you just like, Hey, this is what I'm born into? I I have no idea. 

Adrian Koehler: Well, it probably happened in phases. I liked being exemplary. Now I don't know why that was. So, I, I think, I think I knew that if I was a exemplary, like. The kid that knew the answers, like the kid that would step up.

I, I, I knew that that kind of, I guess we all kinda get trained in that. Like we figure out what, how to get on, how to get through, how to win favor, how to be, you know, how to be essential in the tribe. I think we learned that like how to be essential. 'cause we're tribal and so I, I, I knew all the stuff.

I definitely didn't, let me, let me think back. I, there's parts of it that I believe for sure. It definitely wasn't tested though. I mean, when I hit that [00:18:00] kind of existential crisis in, in at freshman year I rejected most of it. Now why did I reject most of it? Because I saw that I didn't know a faith at that point.

I didn't know a faith that could handle struggle. I didn't know a faith that could handle doubt. We didn't talk about that that much. So all the answers don't matter really. I think probably in life the answers don't matter. It's what do you do in the questions. And nobody like had, had modeled that that like struggle is a part of the faith and doubt is a part of the faith and inauthenticity and being broken or whatever you want to call it, that that's a part of it.

Nobody had really modeled that. And so when I came to my own struggles, my own being a teenager as you called it, there wasn't a lot of places that that seemed to overlap. Like my parents didn't share their struggles, they didn't share their doubts, they didn't share their insecurities, they didn't share their dark history with me.

So when [00:19:00] my, when my presence started getting dark, I figured that there needed to be a two paths here, there's kind of this faith, shiny looking thing over here that that felt inauthentic in some ways or felt maybe altruistic or whatever. But then you don't. You, you kinda need to feel guilty or shame.

That's all you can do over there is just feel guilt and shame when you fuck it up. There's no space that, that, that the kinda the god of the scriptures or whatever. He had standards for you and you better get your shit together. And then once you get your shit together, then God's cool with you. Now, they would say opposite of that, but they didn't live opposite of that.

So when I went dark, I didn't know that there was space for me in the faith conversation. Not authentically. I could still go do the dance and go to church and act all blah, blah, blah. But it didn't seem like there was a spot in which I could be found. So that came later. So whenever I went hardcore in the drinking and the drugs and the girls and all that [00:20:00] stuff I did that hardcore for, I don't know, a couple years and then that ended up, I felt the emptiness in that as.

As well. I was always a seeker as a kid. Like I was always asking those deep questions and wondering about deep things. Which there wasn't a lot of room for, not a lot of like exploration with my parents or you know, I had some peers that would do that, which usually means get really high and listen to Led Zeppelin and wonder about what it means.

But the you know, when I, when I went to the end of that rope, that's when I went back to the scriptures myself and that's what shifted like kind of first round of like authentic faith journey myself. That's when I started reading the scriptures for myself and that's when I actually went and looked at the kinda the person of Jesus in the New Testament.

And I won't get too into that 'cause I might lose some listeners, but I went, I went and 

David Pasqualone: saw, hey, our listeners are from all over the world. They come at this. That's great for truth and growth. You go wherever you want. Whether we gain listeners or lose listeners, I don't care. That's great as long as we glorify God and help people grow.[00:21:00] 

Adrian Koehler: Awesome. Well, so for me, when I started, I started reading the scripture for myself which is very different than like doing it because somebody else told you to started looking because I needed some answers. I knew that I'd done the toe the line, and that didn't work for me. I knew that I'd done the go to the abyss and that didn't work for me, and I was still lost.

Neither one of those ways worked for me, so I needed to find something that mattered. And when I went to the scriptures myself, and I just started, I just said, well, let's go back to the chief here. Let's see what Jesus was up to. And then I found that he as a whole did not have time or interest in, you know, securing, teaching leading religious people.

He was actually the opposite. He was rebellious and he turned the whole thing on its head from like the religious system that was built there. That's why they killed him because he said things, did things that broke the rules. And that first off, that was interesting to me. Second off, when anybody that was, that was like [00:22:00] seeking and especially those that were really in a hard spot, they were broken.

They'd made some huge mistakes, either privately they had, or publicly they had those folks he got closest to,

you know, He, like, he went close to the prostitutes. He went close to the crooked people, the tax collectors that were like the scoundrels of the day. He got close to them. He got close to the adulterer. He got, he got close, he got close to the lepers. He got, you know, he got close to the ones that the culture was shunning.

He said, no, no, no. This person, I see them. I'm with them. Their problems. Their problems aren't my problems. I'm with them. And that kind of penetrating love or that kind of love that, that transversed and went beyond that was captivating to me. So like last half of my high school career was really about finding that for me.

And the fact that I could finally be honest, I could be real and that, and so I spent a [00:23:00] lot of the last half of my high school career exploring that for myself and then being the guy that then be, I'd stopped drinking and stuff and went, would go to the parties, but wanted to have deep conversations.

So I'd hang out in the kitchen and when people got hammered then we'd talk and they called me the priest. I wasn't Catholic, but they called me the priest. 'cause I just sit around, wait around and when they want to talk and everybody needs to talk. Everybody wants to talk. And I was the guy at the party that used to throw the parties now that wasn't drinking and was there to talk about how they were really doing.

That became a theme in my life as well. Like what's the real conversation you want to have or the real conversation you need to have but don't want to have and you're just dying for a person to show up in your life that's got space for you. I love that I needed that myself 'cause I knew that having the real conversation with them would be having the real conversation with me.

I knew that although I didn't have a lot of the answers spiritually, I did have the right pursuit, which was to like that there's a benevolent God and it's family. And there's nothing that'll separate [00:24:00] you from the love of God. The scriptures say that was a captivating idea to me. And being with people and helping folks that were down and hearted and broken and scared and ashamed come to the surface, that was, I needed that and people need that.

So a lot of my, those years from like junior high school through college was really about that. That was like the, that that captivated me, man. Like the fact that God was for the world, not against the world. That was an idea worth throwing my life at. And so definitely during that season of my life, like that was, that was number one for me is like, oh, no, no.

There's a reality here. A spiritual reality. That's, that is, I don't, I, I still don't think there's anything more captivating as far as like, if you're going to find an idea, find a pursuit and an aim that makes life meaningful, being a part of the redemption of humanity, that's pretty cool. That's like macro and micro, like that, like tells you what to do when you cross.

When you pass a homeless dude on the street, [00:25:00] it tells you what to do when you hit an ethical crossroads in your business. If you're a part of the redemption of the world and you, and you're, and you know, for me, like, God, if there's big questions about what God's up to in the world, it's up to you developing and to the most integrous gift to other people.

I was con I'm still convinced of that, that God's will is really around who I'm becoming. And to be rebellious. And if you, you know, the world's dead pretty much. I mean, as a whole, the world's dead. Like people just are coasting through life trying to get by and get a decent 85 years and, you know, not feel guilty about it, not be on their deathbed with some regrets.

That's how the world lives. Like playing not to lose and playing to win was like going all in. Having, you know, following your gut and being for other people and having the conversations. People are scared to death to have, but are desperate to have, like, so being on the search for their soul shaking conversations, that became probably the most thrilling thing for me.

[00:26:00] And that shaped really my late high school and college days. And so I, I left high school, went to a school that really, none, nobody from my high school went to to go play football. I was, you know, I was not the most talented guy, but I was going to be the most hardworking guy. And so that gave me opportunities in college.

Played at a little D three school in central Illinois called Milliken University and. Didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. I went, you know, I, I loved the sciences, I loved biology and a, and anatomy and physiology and all that stuff. Really worked for my brain and I can got a pretty good memory and systems thinking.

So I could figure all that out. I was like a pre-med guy even though I didn't, didn't know any doctors but sounded pretty cool. But, you know, realized that was kinda the dream of my grandmother. So the whole idea of like asking a 17 year old what do you wanna be when you grow up, I think is a pretty silly question.

'cause it's usually around vocation instead of who do I want to become as a human being? That's a more important question to ask. You'll find out what you're going to do vocationally later, but who are you going to become is the most important question. The, [00:27:00] I was pre-med for a bit and then, but I was still captivated by traveling the world and making the biggest difference.

That came from a faith background in my mind at that time. But I went on and got a nursing degree in college and I. I lived it up in college, had a blast, was not a party guy in college, was a involvement student, you know, student leadership involvement, guy in college involved in lots of different student organizations, so nursing, nursing major, and football players.

So I was kind of this oxymoron. There weren't, there weren't really, you know, there was only two dudes in my nursing program. So I kinda liked being rare. I liked being unique. That made it more fun for me. And I really just got involved. Got involved in, in student and people's lives, and got involved in community service, that kind of stuff.

Then moved to Chicago after college. 'cause I was dating a girl that lived in Chicago during my senior year. We broke up two weeks after I got there. So now I'm in the big city, Chicago. And anyway, took a job, worked at a, at a children's hospital there and worked in the pediatric intensive care space.

Did that for a couple years. And loved [00:28:00] it. Loved it. Never wanted to be a nurse, like as a career, but loved the opportunity that nursing was. And you know, I guess everybody kinda has some view of what that is for me. I was in the middle, right at the crossroads. Standing with people in the most crucial day of their life.

Mostly, you know, for those that have kids, you know what I'm talking about? Like if your kid's on the brink of death, every word matters. Every second matters. And the fact that I could be in between medical care and the family unit and be the guy at the crossroads helping to translate information, helping to motivate, you know, getting the doctors to be humans that was a feat.

You know, 'cause they just want to go talk data and, and I, and getting moms and dads to like, find themselves, usually moms would be very hysterical. Or just, you know, scared to death and loud and controlling naturally. And that's a good mama's job. When the, when the, when the chick is in trouble, mama hen comes out.

Dads would usually get really quiet and angry. And [00:29:00] so to get people to the table in a way that works for them and so that they could actually make the make good decisions. And stay connected in the midst of chaos instead of, instead of disintegrating in the midst of chaos. That was important to me and a huge opportunity became really my calling card.

I would say, give me, give me the, the hard family. When I came into the hospital in the morning, I said, who, who's struggling? Let me be with them. And I loved it. I loved, this was fast-paced. You had to be, you had to be sharp and do 15 things in five minutes, and that was, I'm very competitive and like action and getting stuff done and pulling off, you know, things that seem impossible, but then also doing that with presence, that was really meaningful to me.

So I did that for a little while, while I was there involved. Still, my faith conversation was alive for me. Was involved in a church there, and I was a musician back in the day too. You could tell. I, I wasn't ever that focused. I tried to do it all. Which, you know, people usually say pick a thing, you know, live your [00:30:00] strengths and all that.

I, I maybe, maybe. I think especially when you're younger, it's what I was telling this Uber kid last night. It's like, man, your twenties are for experimenting. So just experiment. If you can experiment in the same direction, but go do it all. Go have every experience you could have, you know? So I definitely did that in my twenties.

So I was a musician guy, and would take, would be on teams going overseas. And I heard, I heard a message, I heard a speech or a sermon, whatever you wanna call it, from this guy named Irwin McManus, when I was with a team in India. I was supposed to listen to the talk before we left on the trip, but I didn't.

But so I'm sitting, I'm, I'm like trying to take a nap. I'm like taking a nap on this cott in India with this team of 20 people. And I listened to this talk called The Barbarian Way out of Civilization, and I was stricken. This guy talked about faith. This guy talked about Jesus, this rebellious figure in a way that was so captivating to me.

Nobody ever talked about, talked about faith or about [00:31:00] Jesus. Like that before, and I thought, holy shit, I want to go be near this guy. So I packed bag and I moved, I moved to Los Angeles and I you know, took a travel nursing job and became an intern at this church called Mosaic and with this guy named Erwin McManus.

And 

David Pasqualone: and not that it matters, but what was the, what was the I guess. What's it called? Like your Baptist, you're Catholic. 

Adrian Koehler: What, what was the denomination? The denomination? Yeah. It was mosaic has officially always been Southern Baptist, but we were like the, we weren't conservative at all. We were like the outlier in that organization.

We call ourselves the research and development arm of Christianity. Back then, we like pushed the lines from a handful of things. I mean, we had, you know, services and nightclubs downtown and anybody can come. And we had a very diverse group of people that were there. Like, loved having atheists in the room, loved having Muslims in the room, love having Hindus in the room mean we were very inclusive before inclusive became a political statement.

It was like we were like anybody. That had any [00:32:00] kind of seeking in them. Come here, we're on this exploration together. And we always used to say, you can always belong here way before you believe. You don't even ever have to believe you can belong here and we'll be your family. And it was great. And it was like in, in, in LA we had like 3000 people, which is like, if you guys are around church world at all, that doesn't happen in the city.

It happens in the suburbs with all like very homogenous society, but in, in, in heterogenetic, whatever the word would be, heterogeneous anyway, diverse society. It doesn't happen in the city. Big churches don't happen. But a mosaic it did. And so I moved out and was an intern and did whatever it took.

And my passion for the streets, my passion for standing with marginalized people or poor and the oppressed or whatever you wanna call it, that always got me going. So they ended up asking me to stay on staff after this internship program where I went and got a theology degree and had built a handful of things and was really involved in some key work at the church and I helped run the nightclub venue.

They said, Hey, would you come, would you stay? And I that was a crossroads moment [00:33:00] for me. I'd already been to Africa several times and met a guy over in Africa that I thought was my next mentor. A guy named Dan Moyer. 'cause he was kind of like, if Jesus and Crocodile Dundee were one person, he was like crazy and awesome.

And I thought, oh, that'd be, that'd be pretty cool. He was like a guy that if, if a crocodile was like killing villagers, he's the guy that would go in and do it. Or he like built a bridge with his bare hands. Anyway, just super cool dude. But Irwin asked me to stay and I'm so glad I did. So I spent my, the rest of my twenties in this very altruistic adventurous community and got to become a guy that was helping to shape it.

So, and I loved it. So I was a pastor guy. So I'd meet with people all the time on their spiritual pursuit and, you know, lots of people would came to faith all the time at Mosaic. We were not an insider group. We were a, we were an outsider group. We were always looking for somebody that was, that was seeking.

And that was great and I really fit my personality and I loved it and [00:34:00] got to mobilize about 2000 volunteers a year to go make a difference in the community or globally, and got to lead a whole bunch of teams. I mean, you know, then I got to start to fuse my nursing background and emergency medicine background and faith.

So, like when Katrina happened, like me and a team of 15 people went, you know, went to Houston actually to receive all the folks that were escaping New Orleans, or, you know, when the, her, when the earthquake happened in Haiti, I got a phone call saying, Adrian, what are we going to do? And 24 hours later I had a plan together, had eight people enrolled, three doctors and three nurses, and a couple EMTs.

And we were in Haiti, you know, five days after the quake and setting up a clinic and helping people that were scared to death and many of them hurt. And so got to feel like this kind of Jack Bauer slash existence for a while, which was awesome. You know, 24 reference for those listening that haven't seen it anyway, like this kind of, you know, it's go time and like feeling like, you know, you're on some kind of.[00:35:00] 

Like mission, that's like captivating, you know, I, I don't know if other people, I dunno where they get their meaning. Captivating mission is a big part of where I get my meaning. Like, holy shit, I am doing today what I'll be proud of tomorrow. Like, that type of mentality instead of just kind of cruising through the day.

Like, I wanted ep, I wanted to live the epic. I wanted to do something I knew would last. And that was thrilling to me. So I did that for a good while. Through that, helped a guy named Jesse come to Faith whose dad was a billionaire, so he was a millionaire. He grew up like Jewish atheist. And just happened to be the guy that met him, you know at the nightclub venue downtown at Mosaic and helped him in his own kind of spiritual exploration if we had a lot of time, I'd tell you that whole story.

But helped him get connected, his own faith process. And then he wanted to give a lot of his money away naturally, you know, 'cause he'd been, he wasn't a crazy trust fund kid. He just had a lot of money. In a bank account. And after he had this epiphany around [00:36:00] meaning and spiritual life he wanted to do something with his money.

So he asked me to leave the work at Mosaic to help him figure out what to do with his money. So that was a a big move. And it was awesome. So I took him around the world to help him figure out what he wanted to get done and where he wanted to give his money simultaneously, right when that was happening, I had one of the thrill, most thrilling experiences of my life where I got a phone call and somebody was saying, Hey, we're looking for a nurse to go to the Middle East.

And I was leaving Mosaic and starting this foundation. I, I said, no, I got a job. Sorry, this got, I'm about to start this new foundation, which I had no idea what I was doing, by the way. They said, no, you're going to wanna do this. And ended up going with the mem, a member of the royal family of Qatar. So brother-in-law of the king of Qatar had cancer.

He was in town in la. Stage four cancer, liver cancer, and needed to go back to Doha. So for two months, I, I lived in the Middle East with the royal family of Qatar, which was like, you know, amazing. [00:37:00] And I was there, I was in the long white robe and the red and white checkered, you know RA and the whole thing.

And just got to be fully entrenched. I felt like a i a operative. It was amazing. And, you know, I had to keep the guy alive and they needed a guy, they needed a male nurse. They needed a guy that could do critical care. Like if he went, if he died in the desert, could I keep him alive until the chopper came?

That type of pressure. And a guy that could do chemo and all that stuff. So anyway, like, I guess maybe a point of that is definitely in my story, nothing's wasted. Like if, like as I went through all these big transitions career-wise, which is pretty unorthodox for most people that do my work now, all those very odd.

Shifts in my career. All of it came to pass. All of it came, all of it was a resource for the moment that I was in. So it was really great. And then I went back and, and ran this foundation called the Cornerstone Project, which is a spiritual reference like the, the stone, the builders rejected, became the chief cornerstone.

We ended up working in the prison system in California. So I helped a guy, I helped when with Jesse, I [00:38:00] helped him figure out what he wanted to do. He wanted to, he wanted to give people a second chance who had really blown it, big part of his story that he had just gone through. And he so we worked with lifers in prison, so followed some nuns into prison.

Catholics do great restorative justice stuff. And I met this group of lifers. And what do they want? They wanted, they wanted meaningful programming in prison. Most, most stuff in prison is just bullshit. And even if like religious stuff is so cheesy and so coercive, at least in my view, obviously I. We simultaneously, I met a guy named Dan Tini.

Dan had been doing management consulting for 30 years, 25 years at the time, I guess 25 years, had been doing his own consulting firm, but on the side he'd been doing gang interventions. Now, Dan Tini is like a, I always imagine if Mother Teresa and Yoda and Tony Soprano had a baby. That's Dan, that's, that's Dan [00:39:00] Tini.

So, very loving, very altruistic, very wise. Like to talk with you for five hours about the intricacies of Sorin kicker guard's philosophy and Hegel and, and Heiddeger and Hagel. Anyway, a philosopher by nature. But he's a badass. You know, he'd come out of a long. Had his own dark side, which I always love connecting people with the dark side, especially people that are friends with their dark side.

Those are the people I trust the most. People that have, everybody has a dark side, by the way, number one. Number two is people that avoid their dark side. They're the most dangerous people that adopt their dark side and make it an ally instead of an enemy. They're the people I trust. Dan Kini was one of those guys.

He had, you know, long coke addiction, long history of selling drugs and running guns up and down California. Anyway, he became a mentor of mine right away. I hired him to run this programming in prison. So you can imagine we'd go into, so ad state prison up in Central California and we would, we started by doing a, a, a three day leadership training with 30 murderers.[00:40:00] 

So that's, bars are locked behind you. You've got these guys that, you know, I've been there. Some of them will be there for the rest of their lives. Most of them, all of them had a life sentence, most of them with a possibility of parole, but they would never get out when we met them. And we put them through the ringer and we were with them in the process, right?

Because, you know, we we don't pull any punches in our type of work. We, but we have a, you know, our work is, we call it fierce advocacy. So very committed to the person, very committed to what's possible for the person that we're talking to. So advocacy and helping them generate the future they want, number one, it's fierce in the way that, I don't care if you don't like me, I don't, I mean, in prison you'd have to have some conversations that were pretty dangerous, you know, if you were going to get to the core of the matter, you had to not have the bullshit conversations.

You had to talk about what was there. And for most of them, Very victim mindset for all of them and for humans, by the way, very victim mindset, because we'd say, why do you want to be [00:41:00] in prison? And they'd all say, we don't wanna be in prison. We didn't wanna be here. And, and that's what kept them there.

That's what actually caused them to generate their crime, is that they were victims of the system. Or the fact that they were from, you know, Compton or that they, their dad wasn't around, or the gang, or the blah blah blah, or the whatever. They're bullshit reasons why they didn't make the choice. The choice was made for them by society.

This is a big conversation and culture today, of course, that circumstances run the show and pressures and whatever runs the show, instead of, I run the show, I get to make choices despite circumstances. Dan Tini, that guy I was talking about earlier, Dan says, A man with a vision can never be held hostage by circumstance.

And that's, that is true, but you have to have a vision. Like something, I'm committed to a stand. I'm willing to be in the world and that orders my circumstances instead of I am my circumstances, which ha which is how most people [00:42:00] live. Whatever's happening, I adopt it like it's me and then I don't like it typically.

'cause that sucks and I'll complain about it instead of, no, no, no. What am I committed to despite my circumstances? And how do I shape my cir, adopt them. Like I'm, I better get connected and become friends with current reality and own current reality. Like, 'cause whatever's happening is happening, and if I'm avoiding it, there's no chance of something new happening.

But if I adopt it, and I'll start with gratitude, I'll start with where I've got. And if I own all that and I am the rock in the middle of the stream, then I can, I can order my circumstances to fit my vision, not with denial and not with arrogance and not with showmanship but with, with reality. And I'll adopt it all and I'll line it up in order to, so that it is fuel for my vision.

So we did those types of trainings. Then we trained these 30 murderers to be trainers. So it's not that they could just go be a part of our program. They could run our program and we believed in them. They felt it. We believed in them beyond the the worst moment of their [00:43:00] life, which is when they pulled the trigger or when they killed that guy or whatever.

They aren't their worst moment, and all of us need to know that, that I'm not my worst moment of my life. I actually am what I'm committed to. So we believed in them that way. They became trainers. The program is still happening today, like five wardens later, which never happens. Usually when a warden comes in, just like a president or whatever, they clear out the administration, clear out all the programs and start over.

This program, the Cornerstone project is still happening and stole it at state prison. And these guys still meet on a weekly basis and hold themselves accountable to the ideals and what they're committed to and to being responsible instead of being. Victims and most of them, al almost all of them, the next time they went up for the parole board to get out, they got out because they had shifted, because they'd taken responsibility for all their decisions, had a vision for getting out beyond just getting out.

Most of their visions were just to get outta prison instead of to get outta prison for something important, like reconcile with their family, like make amends to the person's family that they'd murdered, like change their [00:44:00] neighborhood, like shift the gang, like help save people from society. When they had that vision, they wanted to get out and they, you could see it when they sit in front of the parole board.

So I did that for a couple years and it was great. In the meantime, I'd gone through all this personal leadership training just 'cause I'm a sucker for that stuff. And personal development, self-development, self-mastery, whatever you wanna call it. We call it self-mastery. My work now, that was always really captivating for me.

So Did all these trainings. Went through a three day training and a four day training and a marriage thing, and, and coaches' academy. After I got out of that, what was I going to do? I, you know, so got the foundation up, hired all the staff, got the board in place. Programs were in place. I wanted to go take it to the, at least nationally, if not globally, the guy that had funded it.

Great guy. He wanted to really focus on this one prison and this certain group of people, which is wonderful. It's just not that interesting to me. So I bailed out, what am I going to do now? I could go back in the medical world, of course, I could go in the pastoral work. Of [00:45:00] course I could go do philanthropy of course.

But engaging people in the most crucial conversations of their lives. I'm the weird person that thinks that's fucking awesome. So when I'd gone through the coaches training, I knew that who I am and definitely who I'm becoming and where I wanna be in my life, it's the right environment for that.

'cause that always, like, there'd been aspect of me that I'd been told this, that I was too much, that I was like, too intense. And like, you know, people would say like, Hey, why don't you chill out man? Or Why are you so serious? Or like, in my family, it's like, I'm like the psychological one and I'm the philosophical one and it doesn't, everything doesn't have to mean something Adrian, you know, and I, but I was always that kid at the dinner table asking very deep questions, which was a little bit too much for my family, understandably so from where they were coming from.

But I realized in the coaching space there's no limits here. And people come to me and come to my team in order to get something done. And it's always a very deep conversation. It's not strategic. I mean, strategy is a part of it, right? I mean, and [00:46:00] the i, we work, we, we coach. So essentially now works almost solely with founder-driven organizations.

So it's a, somebody that's that I'm coaching is usually the founder of the organization and the whole team in this place, and there's not strategy. Yes, the strategy might be off, but that's not the problem. The problem is the thinking and the thinking that generated the strategy because if you don't unearth the thinking that said, the crappy strategy was the best one, you could put a brand new strategy in the hands of that thinking.

And the new strategy becomes the old strategy pretty quick. And so we, it's all for our work. It's very personal. So I always warn folks saying, Hey, whatever conversations are under the table in your organization, those are the ones that are running it. And I can prove it every time. Like what people are committed to not talking about is what they're talking about the most.

They're just think talking about it in their heads or by the water cooler. So we go after the most difficult conversations in any [00:47:00] organization and. As I'm looking, you know, eye to eye with a founder, it's them and there's shit they don't wanna talk about. And there's impact they're having that they think that they can't shift and there's things that they wanna run from or want to conceal or want to cover up, which is really human like looking good.

My own eyes is like ego 1 0 1, right? Like survival 1 0 1, look good in my own eyes look good. We call survival needs. Look good, feel good, be right, be in control. Those are the four basic human survival needs. Nobody gets a vote on that. That's gravity for human beings. Look good, feel good, be right, be in control.

And if those are running your organization, it will suck. You might be successful monetarily, but the experience will suck. And everybody knows that. And so anybody I'm talking to, they bring come in and it's sideways. And so we have to get to the heart of the matter, which is always the person, the one that can make a choice.

And I'm always working with the major stakeholder. So, I got out and started coaching because I loved it. [00:48:00] 'cause it was just license and liberty to go talk about whatever was there and I could follow my instincts and go point at the toughest conversations. The thing they don't wanna talk about. That's what I'm always listening for.

That's where the gold is. You know? It's like who is the guy Foster that said the treasure you seek is in the cave. You dare not enter. And that's my work. And then, So I've started doing that, started coaching people and I coached anybody with a little bit of money in a pulse when I first started, as you do.

And, but got a lot of clients really quickly, started working in corporate America 'cause that's where a lot of money was and some big name clients and blah blah blah. Blue chip companies. That was great. I don't like corporate people very much. They definitely don't like me just 'cause there's a lot of hiding spaces in the corporate America and I'm into entrepreneurialism and people taking risks.

And if you don't want to take a jump, don't talk to me 'cause I'm going to bother you. But if you do wanna take a jump, I am perfect for knowing how to, how to, for you to make the right decisions at the right time. The time's almost always now.[00:49:00] And it's worth it. And you can enroll a team and get a team aligned.

And most really brilliant entrepreneurs are great at getting people rallied around an an idea. As the organization develops, they must generate trust in the team. They haven't thought about that. They haven't, definitely didn't take a class on that in college, and that's mysterious to them and not mysterious to us.

We know how to enroll people in a team and know how to get, keep the most crucial conversations on the table and help people leave and help people come in and correct and have all the conflict resolution, all that interpersonal stuff, which is where the heart of possibility is. Conflict is where the heart of possibility is not the thing to avoid, which most people wanna avoid it naturally 'cause they wanna look good and feel good and be right and be in control.

So they don't wanna have the tough conversations. I help really smart people have the right conversations. So that's how I, anyway, so now the rest is history. 12 years later, take new ground as our [00:50:00] firm. I'm partnered with that Dan Tini guy now. He and our business partners and we've got a, a, a a, a rapidly growing firm around us because there's lots of possibilities in this space.

And most, most of the co quote unquote coaching space is bullshit, which I agree with most of, like, the training and development space is bullshit, which I agree with. If you look on our website, I say that, you know, explicitly most any kind of like personality assessment stuff is bullshit, which I agree with.

And we get to the heart of the matter. Which is a blast. And we're not for everybody, which is perfect. We're for the folks that are really committed to something and are desperate to like find that next level and don't know what it looks like and want to have the real conversations right away. So anyway, that's a, that's, I can double click on anything in there, but that's how I got to where I am today.

David Pasqualone: No, man, that's fantastic. Adrian, thank you for sharing. We covered a lot of ground, a lot of territory. And let's do this to help the listeners so they've heard your story between your birth and [00:51:00] today in your personal journey. Is there anything we missed that's significant before we pick up where you're at and where you're headed in the future?

Adrian Koehler: Sure. Well, what to share. I mean, there's a lot in there, of course. No, I'm just 

David Pasqualone: saying, is there any significant things that you're like, sure. Or I feel like to share 

Adrian Koehler: this? Well, the biggest thing, yeah. Yeah. The biggest thing for me Of a big shift happened for me coming up on seven years ago. So I was married had a couple kids and that phenomenon that I mentioned in high school, this kind of having an external persona and an internal struggle that came back.

So it was after the time that I'd left the church. So I left the church, started running the foundation, and while everything externally was moving forward internally, I was pretty much in crisis. Because I'd lived this pretty big life. I'd traveled the world speaking and teaching and made this shift and I, [00:52:00] I was lost.

I was lost. I had taught all the right stuff. I'd helped thousands of people, but I hadn't really helped myself, meaning I, I hadn't, I didn't really know who I was Now you know, in that kind of existential crisis. And for me that meant, okay, well start, you know, you know what helps whiskey. And started taking, you know, I, I didn't drink much at all really in high school.

And I mean, after that stint in high school, but then in high school and college, and then worked at a church where, you know, you don't drink too much or really much at all. And then, anyway, I started this, this path that got pretty dark. So started with drinking and started with hiding all the drinking.

'cause I wasn't just social about it. I was, I was, I was intentional about it. Like I, my, the point of drinking was relief. It wasn't social. The point of drinking was relief. And so that developed over time and got worse and more over time. And then this whole bifurcated life happened again. I didn't like happen to me, I created it, right?

So I [00:53:00] didn't wanna like do it out in public. I wanted to deal with it myself. And then that led to a whole other dark side too, which is me being really unfaithful to my wife and all the despair and shame of that. And then once you cross the line, it's like full go and I'm a full go type guy. People could probably listen or probably pick that up.

I'm like a pedal down guy. So pedal down towards the great stuff, pedal down towards the bad stuff as well. And so, yeah, I went through about five years of the dark ages there where I had this kind of double life going on. Which ended up becoming very devastating obviously for me and for my then wife and for a lot of people around me.

And finally crashed a car, finally, you know, got arrested. And I was done. I was toast. It wasn't like I was trying to keep that going. I was desperate for help. And finally it created enough chaos that I got the help I wanted, and finally came to the surface, asked for help, became an AA guy and got sober.

That was October 30th, 2016. So coming up on seven years. And you know, had to [00:54:00] like live with the consequences of that, obviously devastated my then wife. Her name's Jess. She's amazing. And I had to reconcile with that, you know, so we got a divorce and I had to put a life together. Most people left, most friends left because I'd, now, I'd been running a, you know, I'd not been honest with a lot of people, I'd been deceptive.

And obviously I had a shame and guilt and blah, blah, blah. But still, same impact. And I had to, like, I lost most of my friends and had to start fresh and need, needed to start fresh, needed to get rid of a lot of the thinking that kept that alive. 'cause at any point in, at any point in that process, I could have come clean and said, Hey, I'm struggling.

I need help. And I didn't, out of, out of shame, out of pride, and burn it all down. That was seven years ago. My life is, is a hundred percent or 180 different today than it was back then back, you know, mid-August 2016 when I was living in tons of deception and tons of secrets. And spending my life kind of keeping that game going.

I don't do that anymore, thank God. Literally thank God. But you know, that, that was [00:55:00] another, I mean, big significant thing. So, you know, if anybody that's listening to this has issues with alcohol or any kind of addicted to anything and you don't have anybody to talk to, reach out to me. Love to be an ear for you.

Let, at least let you know how I did it. How I've stayed sober this time and I've been through a lot of stuff. Gotten married again since then, and in the middle of a divorce process now for different reasons, thank God, like not for my own integrity reasons. So anyway, I've been in the midst of like throwing myself at.

Living as honestly as possible. And for most of us, we don't wonder about how to do that really well. I mean, I, I, I can definitely hold something that's not working for a long time and kind of can run my own nowadays, can run my own scam on myself. And kinda like playing the martyr, keeping things together, asking for help last helping other people and avoiding myself.

That's probably, that's going to be a never ending challenge or tension for me, which is like asserting from my own needs and helping other people. I'm at, I'm first step typically [00:56:00] into helping other people, but if I don't take care of myself, I've learned this deeply over the last seven years. If I don't take care of myself first, it's pretty inauthentic and I'm going to grow in resentment and I'm going to make some bad choices.

So over the last seven years, I've gotten a lot better at, at paying attention to what I need and paying attention to what I want and paying attention to how to get real, even, even with even the marriage just exiting now. We probably shouldn't have ever gotten married, but I wasn't that honest. I was trying to make something work that really wasn't working early, and so I am responsible for that.

So anyway, what else we missed? There's a couple of those episodes in there and a lot of darkness and a lot of, you know, so therefore, anything I see in somebody else doesn't shock me. Number one doesn't shock me and I don't run away from it either. Like, and if we can get the dark stuff on the table, I, I have zero judgments for anybody, which most of my clients are still shocked by.

'cause they could tell me. They do tell me some pretty serious stuff and I [00:57:00] take it in stride and don't have any kind of judgment for them at all, which I think as humans we're all searching for, like, can I be fully seen and fully accepted at the same time? For most people, they don't want to test those waters and so we keep a little bit of ourselves to ourselves.

We live this maybe 90% lifestyle and like live in some kind of secrets, some kind of shame, some kind of history, some kind of area of our life we don't wanna get real about. And that feels like prison to us. So I tend to be a stand for people to be fully honest. And that works. And people feel liberated.

One, you know, there's an old rabbinic saying like, the truth will set you free. I think that's a hundred percent true. So yeah, there's some, there's some extra color in there. 

David Pasqualone: Yeah. No, no, that's beautiful. And thank you for being so transparent, Adrian. Sure. So when we were discussing Jesus earlier in the first half of the interview, you made a great point that anybody, if you're not familiar with the Bible or [00:58:00] if you think you're familiar with the Bible, it's so basic.

But if you really read, especially the New Testament, what Adrian said is completely true. Jesus. God loves the whole world. Jesus loves everybody. But Jesus absolutely had a beautiful relationship with the sinners. He had a beautiful relationship with the saints. The people he had the issue with were the hypocrites, the scribes, the Pharisees.

Yeah. And he never like took trash. He took everything they gave him when it was towards him as a person. But when they defied God, he drew the line. And that's like the model that we're supposed to have as Christians, to be Christ-like. So Adrian, when you're talking about being real and being transparent and being who you are, the good, the bad, the ugly, you know, it's, it's real.

That's who God wants us to be. Yep. He doesn't want us to engage in sin, but he'd rather us be real about what we're doing. And that's something that's [00:59:00] lacking all over the world in humanity. Right on. Right on. Is people would rather you be fake than you be real. Because they're, they're pulling this. So this is my question to you.

You are not without sin. I am not without sin. All of our failures are our own. Mm-hmm. All of our victories are gods. I think you'd agree with that. 

Adrian Koehler: Well, yeah. Well, anyway, I've got some thoughts about it. Like I'll, I'll, yeah, yeah. We 

David Pasqualone: can share those. And that's all I'm saying is like we can't claim like, oh, I did this.

'cause in the end, God, we did our part. We did everything we were supposed to do. But we can do everything, quote unquote right and fail. We can do everything wrong, quote unquote, and succeed. But what I'm saying is we're called to do something. We do our best and then we accept the results. And the thing is though, like if me and you are talking and we said something in pride, that's not God's sin.

That's our sin. And we don't want [01:00:00] God to look bad for us. When it comes to our successes, we can't be proud and be like, look what I did. 'cause really anything we do means nothing. God could use a goat, a cow to do it. You know what I mean? He could do, he could make a wall talk or have writing on the wall.

He's done it before, right? Yep. But this shows all about not just what you overcame or achieved, but the practical steps of how you did it, or at least the starting point. So for our listeners who are like, man, I, I am living this double life, I am living this double life, what are some steps, at least to start the process, to help them get out of living in that duality and really that lukewarmness, and that's what God hates the most.

It's the what he wants to vomit out of his mouth is the lukewarmness me, you, everybody. And it doesn't mean he hates us. But he hates our actions in that lying. 'cause really, if we're not being honest, we're lying. Right? And we can lie to everybody of, we can even lie to ourselves, but we can't lie to God.

So what are the [01:01:00] steps, Adrian, that at least you used to get out of the lukewarmness and into the heat? The good heat? 

Adrian Koehler: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, so if you, if anybody's listening and has that double life going, and you, you might be tempted right now to turn this off, so that's okay. Don't turn this off. Just stay right here.

It's okay. First off, I would just say you gotta put your arms around it. We call it, and you know this, there's a, there's a metaphor from the Desert Fathers, which are like early Catholics, like St. Augustine and such. They had this metaphor that was called Hug the cactus, which is, you know, there's something that's painful that we have to embrace.

So if you've got a double life, first off, you don't have to have a double life. You like having a double life. A double life is a strategy at getting by. And if you don't own that, then you're just going to be a victim anyway. And any new steps you take are also going to be, you're going to be a victim in the new steps.

So first off, you better own it. And the responsibility is the first step. Always. So own the fact that you like [01:02:00] having a double life and it's nobody's fault but yours. It's just a choice you've been making. And by the way, get off of if it, that you're a bad or bad person, stop doing that. Like, shame is also bullshit 'cause it's just self-protective.

It's not a feeling. Shame is, we could do two hours on that, but so get outta the shame and just if you, if you want something new, which is the only reason to ask this question, by the way, is if you want something new. 'cause if you don't want something new, then just keep it up and, and you'll reap the rewards of the double life.

I've done that, right? There is a future coming to a dis dis to an inauthentic life. There's a future coming to that. I got the results of that. So, So if you don't want something new, keep this up and you'll get, you'll finally get found out. You'll live this mediocre existence. I don't think there's anything else coming for you.

If you're in this double life, you'll have a mediocre existence. I had that, like I couldn't actually get the full amount of joy on the table because I was unwilling to suffer. [01:03:00] So if you want something that's unprecedented, like even beyond what you can imagine, if you want something new, then you gotta really own current reality, which is, I've got a double life and I like it.

So that's first off. Step one is ownership. I dunno, getting outta denial, whatever you wanna call it. Now, first person you gotta be honest with is yourself, and it means probably stop beating yourself up or judging other people. Because that's usually how people justify their behavior, is it's them and their own history.

And my dad didn't, my mom didn't, my history didn't this thing happened. Therefore, all this kind of Freudian view of the world, like I am my past. That's what Freud tried to tell us. And Etiological view, the scientists call it I am the effect, the past is the cause. You gotta get outta that and you gotta get outta judgment and resentment, which is like, it's somebody else's fault.

That's also not true. It's choices you're making. So if you decide to get real with yourself and say, okay, what, [01:04:00] and, and so first off, you gotta tell yourself the truth, what's really happening And journaling is always helpful for this. I know when I was in the dark side, I didn't wanna journal just in case somebody would find it.

'cause I, you know, didn't trust anybody. But you gotta find a space to be honest with yourself. And my experience and why, I know why the recovery world works is because there's people that are on the journey. There's people that are. Five days, five years, 10 years, you know, past where you've been and they could say the same stuff.

You're scared to death to saying, but they don't die when they say it. It's actually a part of their journey. So I'd find somebody, so once you get honest with yourself and that's like get real, like sit down, write everything down, what's really going on? What are the, and usually what are the conversations that I need to have with myself, with other people, with God?

What are the conversations I need to have? What are the things I'm working really hard not to talk about? I get real about that. Second, I'd find somebody that's been there before. So [01:05:00] for good reason. We don't trust a lot of people in our lives. Like, I know that whenever I told the truth and was real, a lot of the religious people in my life ran for the hills.

So that's true, is that most people don't want to get close to darkness 'cause they don't wanna see their own. So I'd find the most honest person in your life, like the one that's been through shit, the one that has fucked up their, especially somebody that's has already fucked their world up and can, is here to talk about it.

Now, that's the person you talk to because they needed grace for themselves. They needed to reinvent themselves and they've done it and they've got the scars to prove it. And they're not hiding the scars. Like it's actually, you know, and the, and the 12 step world, they, they say we do not close the door on the past.

So somebody that can talk about their past with honesty and with compassion and with conviction. So I'd find somebody that's already walked the road and say, Hey, I need to have a conversation. Can I tell you a few things? [01:06:00] And if they're the right person, that's great. So you gotta get honest with other people.

Then you gotta get, I mean, that's step, I guess step two, step three is you better get a real clear vision on on what? On what's worth having the most important conversations, which are with people that are closest to you, like your partner, like your spouse, like your kids, like your intimate friendships.

'cause when you bring this to them, it's going to be heartbreaking. It is because you've been lying and you better get a vision for what's worth it. Because if you, if you take incremental, incremental truth is still a lie. So if you tell a little bit of what's true and don't tell the whole truth, you're still lying.

So you, if you start these conversations with the people closest to you, you want to be in a place that you're already fully surrendered. Like you've, you've, you have detached from outcomes. Like, I need to go be honest and I can't manipulate the person [01:07:00] anymore, which is what we've been doing when we've been living a double life.

It's manipulating other people. I'm done manipulating, I'm done trying to control this person or the situation. I need to be honest. I don't know what's going to happen, but I need to really be honest. So you gotta, you gotta count the cost of that because people might leave like my story and I'm not a victim to it.

I earned it and I make, makes sense. Wouldn't be the choice I would've made, not the choice I make every day. When people tell me drastic things they've done or deplorable things, I don't run for the hills. I get closer. But most people run for the hills, so get ready for that. But you gotta have a, so you're on integrity and what life will be like if you live in the light.

You better get clear on that. So I'd write all that down. I. And then you start thoughtfully having a conversation. Therapists usually aren't good at this. Find somebody that's done it. Talk to me, I'll help you frame out how to have the conversation with people closest to you. We do this all the time. Even though with founders I work with and their spouses or even with like their teammates, like there's us, there can be some really dark, dark stuff going on.

And so you gotta like know how to [01:08:00] have that conversation really responsibly. And that's all you need, man. If you do those steps as I'm just thinking off the cuff, it's a great question. If you do those steps now you've got a great adventure now, now you're playing to win and you don't know how good it can get.

You're going to go through some pain, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Count on that. People are going to leave. You're going to feel like crap for a while and you're going to feel alone. You know, anytime people pursue the promised land, they hit the desert. Like the old, old Testament stories, like you leave Egypt slavery.

On the way to the promised land, you gotta go in the desert. So anytime you take a stand for freedom, you will hit isolation that comes next because you're trying something new and you don't know this terrain, and so you're going to feel really alone. So you better be ready for that. But if you stand there and you, you can slowly put your life back together with integrity I'm a living example that your life can be immeasurably more than you ever think or imagine.

If you put your own integrity and your [01:09:00] own truth on the table first and, and your real legacy, like the one that's worth dying for, like legacy, like the impact you leave on other people when you're gone if you put that center for you then you are, you're going to be great. But it's, it's, it's a great conversation David.

David Pasqualone: Yeah. And Adrian, I know for time's sake, normally we have no time limit on the podcast, but because you were so kind to adjust the time today I know you have to go and I have to go. But I'd love to continue this conversation in another episode, which we've never done in four years. So if you're open to that, I know our listeners I'd love it.

Would love to continue it. Love it. Yeah. We'll have a hanging out session and continue this, but man, thank you for being on the show. Thank you for being so transparent, and thank you for bringing so much truth and balance and being real about your highs and lows and strengths and weaknesses. So if someone does connect, they're listening to you and they're connecting and they want to continue the conversation with you, whether it's that personal struggle or that corporate struggle, [01:10:00] what's the best way for them to reach you and continue the conversation?

Adrian Koehler: Well, first off, thanks for having me on and yeah, this hour and a half flew by and we'd love to be on again to talk through. You'll probably get, maybe if you get feedback from this episode and there's pe there's questions people have that wanna hear more about it. That's awesome. I don't mind going deeper in any of those, any of that context.

And would love to talk about the future, just, you know, the commitment that we are to make a difference with founders and folks that are striving in business if they want to get connected to me. Now, obviously you can go to Instagram like everybody else, Adrian dot K on Instagram, adrian@takenewground.com.

You can email me directly, anybody that's seeking and striving after something that's going to be impeccable. I'll, I'll make time for anybody. So reach out and let's have a conversation if there's, let me tell 'em about a couple different opportunities just 'cause I don't know when the next episode's going to happen.

Yeah. And also, just so 

David Pasqualone: you know too, you can. You can let people know where you are today and where you're heading. So if they want to connect [01:11:00] and help or contribute anything to help you, man, tie that all together. Now. I just was trying to respect your time and I didn't want to be able to be like halfway, halfway through and then just shut 

Adrian Koehler: down.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it, man. Lemme tell folks that are wanting something new and are desperate for a next step. Obviously, reach out to me. And I'd love to connect with anybody if you want. There's two different environments, two different events. Two different experiences we're we've, that we're having in the next couple months that if you want to take a leap come do these things.

One's called the Revenant Process. It's a four day personal leadership accelerant process. The Revenant process. We are ret.com, R e v E N A N t. We are revenant.com. This next one's up at the end of October in Hawaii. It's four days. It's no holds barred. It's 30 very successful people in the room, and we talk about everything.

It's not me with a whiteboard teaching you stuff that won't ever matter. It's a deep conversation. It's [01:12:00] highly experiential. It's only for folks that are courageous or at least want to be courageous and want to, if there's something missing for you, if you already know there's something missing for you and you don't know what it is, that's a perfect place to come.

If you know what the struggle is and you can't get over on it, it's a perfect place to come. So come to the Revent process. I went through this training 18 years ago. I co-train it with that guy Dan Kinney. Now it's world changing. We just, we surveyed 2000 graduates recently, and 97% of them said it was in the top three experiences of their life.

So that's true. It's true for me when I went through it. Now I get to help train it and it's, it's it's amazing breakthroughs for people and all very successful, engaged. Engaging people. So come to the revenue process end of October if you want some, if you've got a business and you've been really successful, we just put together a new training that's for folks that have really made it and are now what's next in life.

That's called Icon, and that's going to be in [01:13:00] Tuscany first second week, second week of November. So that's for folks that you've already killed it. And now it's like, what the hell's next? And maybe you're 40 and you've already killed it. Maybe you've already exited. Or maybe you're about to, you know, you're about to have an exit in the next three to five years, and you want to get yourself ready, get your world ready to make a difference, come to Icon.

That's take new ground.com/icon. You can learn about that. Both of these things you just apply and somebody from my team will talk to you to make sure it's the right experience for you before you invest the money and the time to come. So take new ground.com/icon. Love to have anybody apply for that, and we'll have a conversation, see if it's the right fit for you.

So if you want to take a leap, trust me, we love helping people make the most important, impactful conversations and decisions in their lives. So that's what we stand for. So can't wait to have another conversation. David, you're awesome. Thanks man, for having me on. Oh, Adrian. 

David Pasqualone: Absolutely. And then quickly, the best way to reach him through the website and then which social media platforms the best Did.

Adrian Koehler: Yeah. Hit hit me [01:14:00] up on Instagram, adrian dot k. That's my handle. Okay. A D R K. Alright then you, do you have time 

David Pasqualone: for one more question? 

Adrian Koehler: I do. I got 

David Pasqualone: two minutes. Two minutes. All right. There's a point you made earlier, and I wanna leave the listeners with this. 'cause you hear the saying so many times, don't judge people.

Don't judge people. And that's bss because truth is, you shouldn't judge people. But good judgment is part of a balanced Christian life and a balanced world. So how do you explain to people, Adrian, the difference between judging people and good judgment? Because there's absolute commandment for us to exhibit good judgment.

Adrian Koehler: Yeah. Well first off, you're going to judge people anyway. Your brain's going to do it, right? So first off, own that and yeah, we're human. It's happening. Yeah, right. And, and it's good. It's useful, right? So number one is, or at least the principle that I think most important to talk about is be hard on the problem.[01:15:00] 

Soft on the person, hard on the problem, soft on the person. If, if somebody is living, if somebody's living outside their own integrity, they're dying for a conversation. A broken commitment is a cry for help. A broken commitment is a cry for help. So if someone's doing something devious and something that's outside of their commitment to you, or their stated commitment to the team, or if they're a spouse or something and something's going sideways and you have judgment for them, be really hard on the problem.

They're dying to have the conversation. So be hard on the problem. Be soft on the person. Meaning, you know, they aren't their worst decision. They aren't like, they are not that's not who they are. That is the choice they're making. And so you don't do them any favors by sugarcoating how bad the problem is.

So be really hard on the problem. And I would say just treat them the way you'd wanna be treated. Like if you've been devious, if you've been sideways and you, somebody comes and approaches you with love and commitment and the truth. Both of those things, grace and truth simultaneously, that makes a [01:16:00] difference.

David Pasqualone: Amen. Thank you for that, Adrian. Hey, it's been a true honor having you here. Ladies and gentlemen. Don't just listen to this great content that Adrian shared, but like our slogan says, do what you know you need to do. Repeat it each day so you can have a great life in this world, but most importantly, an eternity to come.

So, I'm David Pasqualone. This was our friend Adrian Kaler and Adrian. I said that right, right. Perfect. All right, perfect. Just wanna make sure ca Kayla, like Taylor. So you got, listen, we love thank you Adrian for being here. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here. Share this episode with your friends and family.

Not so we can be rich and famous and have fortune and glory like Indiana Jones, but so people, we can glorify God, people can get help, we can see growth. Amen. And we're all just better humans together. Right. Awesome. So awesome. Thank you again, 

Adrian Koehler: Adrian. Thank you brother. Good to be with you. Talk soon. 

David Pasqualone: Talk soon, brother.

Bye. [01:17:00] And ladies and gentlemen, we'll see you in the next episode. Ciao. 

Narrator: The Remarkable People Podcast, check it out.

The Remarkable People Podcast. Listen, do repeat for life.

The Remarkable People Podcast.