The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders

Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in everyone. You are listening as always to The Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks for being with us and thank you for joining. What's going to be a great conversation here with my guest, Adam Barney. Adam is an energy coach who has helped hundreds of emerging and executive leaders unlock their goals, build vitality, and strengthen accountability for long term transformation.

He has more than two decades of experience in leadership positions at companies like Microsoft, Digitas, and Akamai Technologies. Brings a wealth of knowledge to his coaching practice, and he really believes that optimism and autonomy empower us to overcome challenges and seize opportunities with confidence and [00:01:00] resilience. and autonomy, keep those in mind. We'll be talking a lot about them here, that dynamic duo. Adam's book is called Make Your Own Glass Half Full, The Path to Empowered Optimism and Autonomy. Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam Barney: Thank you, Ross. It's great to, to be here today.

Ross Romano: I am going to test you right off the bat listeners, as we are recording. It is 9 24 p. m. local time, and I'm going to ask you what is an energy coach, and I'm going to see how much energy you have at this time of day after navigating through the workday and fatherhood and everything else that I'm sure you've done all day.

Adam Barney: Well honestly, Ross, it's a it's I wish I could say it was about mystical stones and sorcery and maybe at 9 30 at night. That's what I could bring into play here. But or maybe it's something I can roll into my practice in the next 5 or 10 years. But really the energy is just about what I've discovered over that two decade, over two decades in a [00:02:00] corporate career.

And then now a handful of years into having this coaching practice, I've found time and time again, whether it's with an emerging leader, an executive leader. Or honestly, anyone that I even have a coffee chat conversation with, I use active listening to, to lean into them, understand origin stories, get that deeper background of where they come from, and that opens up the door to then step in, really understand them and bring that energy their way.

It's. always done. Just like you and I are the same. We have young kids. I've got two dogs in the house. Somehow I still, even though I'm 42, have this energy inside myself and that's what I like to bring to the world.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Well, it's something that the world needs. I recorded in fact, an interview for my other show sideline sessions just earlier this week. And my guests, Matt Daugherty, former North [00:03:00] Carolina men's basketball coach talked about something that a mentor of his. Which is that everybody is one of two things, either an energy giver or an energy sucker.

Right? And it's like, which one are you going to be? And and that's not always even being the energy sucker part is it's really anything where you're not intentionally. Being an energy giver, right? It's all those times when you are in some way failing to add value to your environment, to your team, to your organization, those times when people really need it, power through, and then they need a positive outlook and optimism and things we're going to talk about here.

So I think that's a great framing on that. Out a lot of this and how it starts within right and and how there's decisions for each of us to make in our own lives about the way we're going to view our circumstances, view [00:04:00] ourselves, who we are, how we're going to approach things before we can effectively scale that as leaders to our organizations as.

community members, family members, et cetera, to those around us. What inspired you to,

Adam Barney: If you go Ross, you want to get, I love that mention of suckers. This probably won't apply to every listener out there, but there's a fantastic show called what we do in the shadows. four vampires who live on Staten Island together. And one of those vampires is an energy vampire.

Ross Romano: Right. Yeah. There's a lot of Colin Robinsons out there, right? And

Adam Barney: But it's a funny way if you're not familiar with that energy sucking, that's a fun way to get a little bit more understanding about how that happens, right?

Ross Romano: Right. Yeah. And it's it's something, I believe you're right. I mean, even to stay on that for a second for that show, I, I, that's As far as I'm aware, this is not any canonical you know, form of creature, but it was [00:05:00] created for the show. But in this case, it is one who gets his energy from draining others energy, right?

By primarily in this case, being kind of boring and lulling people to sleep or

Adam Barney: Boring, obtuse, long winded, and just droning on and on and on. But it's an entertaining way to execute on the opposite side of the coin a little bit.

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Ross Romano: Whether it's entertainment just being too indulgent of drama, or, or chaos, and all these things that, especially, really, here, we're speaking primarily to leaders, and that's a big audience for your book and your coaching, and if we think about the types of organizations we want to run, the way we want our you staff and our employees to feel about the organization, how we want people to work together, right?

That we, we [00:06:00] can't, we have to be really mindful about what we are thriving on, what we're feeding into and, and what we're feeling like. Is additive to the whole and you know, it doesn't mean that there's no time or place, of course, for healthy competition or for you know, deadlines and, and and to do hard things kind of, but it's right there.

There's ways. That there's a lot of truth in in the comedic illustrations, right? Of, of what it means when we are fueled by energy and kind of maybe ways that are detrimental.

Adam Barney: You know, it's, it's funny not to, not to take away from, from my, my own book, one of my, In this sort of realm of leadership, one of my favorite books over the last couple of years is actually a book called Humor Seriously, and it's it's a business leadership book from two Stanford professors who talk about how humor can be so valuable in [00:07:00] business and in terms of leadership, and it's maybe the aperture to humor is just a little bit tight.

It's more about levity, right? And the humanness That leaders should bring to a practice, no matter what realm of leadership that you're in, whether it's community organizing school organizing in traditional business leadership, education, leadership, having that human nature of what you do and how you lead teams is so important to, to not lose sight of no matter how you grow or what your Responsibility is within the organization.

Ross Romano: Yeah, no, absolutely. It's it, it can be the great leveler equalizer, right? The thing that brings us closer together. It also can be when done right. Just a great way to. Demonstrate that you were listening, I think, to say, if you're able to pick up on a humor in a situation or something that's happening, it kind of shows that you're attuned [00:08:00] to it.

You're paying attention. And so anyway yeah, that's, it's a whole other topic, but it is. It's a skill and it and to the serious point, right? It can be seriously valuable.

Adam Barney: Well, it also gets into the fundamentals of power, right? And that power is something as a leader. I think you have to be cognizant of because it comes down right to that balance of your power versus their the collective, their power. Right. And you've got those quadrants of the resources they value, the alternatives and the resources you value in the alternatives.

Right. And that really drives that dynamic of power and you know, where I come in as an energy coach. And again, it's about as you mentioned, I love emerging and executive leaders one of the, one of the facts that I think brought me to launching this coaching practice is actually the fact that there is not a fantastic process Set of leadership training guides that are out there [00:09:00] for people who transition from being a just a worker to a leader.

And that's an unfortunate miss in terms of driving the effectiveness of perspective that I think that leaders should have to be able to maintain the right balance of power. And power is also not something that you control. It's based on the things around you, and that isn't reflected. A lot of people get thrown into that leadership position and they just have to kind of make it up as they go, unfortunately.

And I think that underserves their ability to lead and motivate teams. And you know, going back to sort of my history of my professional journey, I always had the perspective, even Early in my corporate career, I was working in the ad agency space. I was managing teams of 20 people plus working with fortune 50 clients spending tens of millions of dollars a year through our team.

And [00:10:00] as a leader, I stepped in and I always had this perspective and this is probably the simplest level of how my energy coaching practice works. I always felt like when I was hiring Teams of employees and bringing them in number one in an interview, I knew within five minutes whether they were going to be the right hire or the wrong hire.

And it was so much based on gut feeling of what is their energy, maybe not even their energy, but their openness to learning and mold ability. But then when they would come in and start working under me, I'd give them the tools to succeed, of course. But I was always working from the perspective of number one.

You know, all boats raise the ocean. Of course, that's the perspective. We're in this together. I'm gonna I'm gonna work as a leader, but I'm gonna not hesitate to level back down a little bit if I need to help you achieve something or grow, and that's in the perspective of always hoping [00:11:00] that Those employees that I managed that I was giving them tools that would serve them in the next job and then the job after that.

And it's incredible to see where some of them have gone from those early days when they were much, much earlier in their career. It's a, it's, it gives me that perspective and confidence on what I've built with this practice and it's what I like to bring to the clients that I work with.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Those are all really important things to think about. And again, like a whole other conversation in itself, but 100 percent the mentality of serving. Your team serving your employees prioritizing their growth and development, things that are going to benefit them throughout the course of their journey whether that is with you or beyond and and there we've had conversations about that.

I know it's a topic I've talked about on other [00:12:00] podcasts, but especially with respect to. You know, from the leader's perspective, how it also serves, and you can tell the difference as an employee between a good and bad opportunity. If there's a place that is. Treating you that way and investing in you that way.

And, or a place that's afraid to do that because they think, well, if we let them develop these other skills, then they're going to leave. And the way I always say it, it's like, if they're not developing, they're going to leave, trust me. And if they stay without developing and it it. Indicate something else, but it doesn't indicate that they're thrilled about being there.

Right? And and there's many, many more examples of people who just knew that they were continuing to grow and they, they felt like they were making forward progress in their career. And that's why they wanted to be where they were, and it was so anyhow, let's talk about the book a bit here and give our listeners a sense of what it's all about.

What was [00:13:00] the idea that launched it? You know, what was the, the moment or the, the thing that you kind of grasped on to that made you realize this should be a book?

Adam Barney: It's really the journey that I've been on throughout my life, Ross, at the most effective level you know, I, number one, we were talking about this ahead of hitting record here today, but it's about the individual journey that each of us follow, right? We're all unique. We've had unique paths that informs.

Where we go in the future that because that builds our history, right? But it's the experiences that I went through in that corporate career. I was laid off twice. You know, the first time was due to a, sales team reorganization, right? Picked up the pieces, stepped out of that, built a boutique marketing agency.

That was just me, myself, and I, the second time. That it happened. It was due to a 4 percent global workforce reduction, and it led me on this path to just pick up the [00:14:00] pieces. And it was this realization that no matter what the challenges that we focus that we run into, if we refocus our energy to optimism and autonomy, we can lift back out of that and really realize that no matter what that challenge is, if you continue trudging straight ahead on that path, The sun will come up, the success will come over time.

And that's a piece of it, but it also comes down to the personal side. There were I lost my mom to ALS just over 10 years ago. That led me on this really interesting path where I used those tools of optimism and autonomy. You know, obviously to mourn the loss of my mom, but at the same time, it led me to get involved with some really powerful organizations making change in that.

that ALS space. So that's an example everyone experiences trauma differently. Everyone experiences setbacks differently. So [00:15:00] much of it is how you work to not get sucked in by the allure of darkness, which is a fun, I love to talk about that allure of darkness because it's really one of those things that can wink its eye at you and suck you in.

And then it's really tough to claw back out of it. So that's a real aspect of it, but through any of those steps in my own journey, I always really realized that it was going to be okay. It's the matter of if I, and I love to bring this to my coaching clients as well, if you stick to the center of the vision of what drives you, and I love to use the Japanese Ikigai, the Japanese concept of the reason for being, which pulls together what you're good at, what you love, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for.

If you sit in the center of what that looks like, then that gives you a path to stay on. And no matter how you trudge ahead and it [00:16:00] feels like a plateau or it's dipping down, you stay directly centered on that mission. Eventually that. That leads to success and it ties back to one of the things I love to talk about as well.

I didn't bring this into the book, but it's this idea of the growth paradox, right? Growth is slow, slow, slow before it gets faster than ever. And I think the difference of people who, so many people who either fall into regret. or not taking action. You know, it's not just about taking that first action and staying resilient on that path you know, keeping having accountability partners that can keep you on that path of that vision.

You just walk ahead on that path and it's going to, it's going to work out eventually over time.

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Ross Romano: To help our listeners, like, center themselves in the conversation that we're having, and particularly as we're going to get into some of the. [00:17:00] specifics that you write about in the book. What, what is the why and the why now for reading the book? What is the there's the aspirational points of just continuing to get better and develop ourselves, but there's also the, I'm facing this pain point or this challenge and this is when I need to seek out these ideas and really reflect on them.

How would you describe that?

Adam Barney: Well it comes down to the fact that we're facing a lot of challenges in the world, right? You know, this is an idea just like any book I think that anyone has written in this realm of nonfiction, personal development, mindset, whatever the case might be, it's about it. what we're facing right now and how we can work towards a better place in the future.

And that's maybe a nebulous way to describe it a little bit, but you know, I've my background after stepping away from the corporate world intentionally to try to build something that changed [00:18:00] the world to bring more justice and equity. This is a piece of that puzzle. I feel like the concepts of optimism and autonomy, no matter the background that you have, the experience that you have from a professional standpoint, no matter what your origin story is, you can use those tools effectively to find that path to success.

And the right now we're facing, obviously you know, climate change is one piece that I'm deeply entwined into, but really more broadly it's taking myself as a white male in the world and taking some of the position and the confidence that that has, has given me and in a book format, bottling that up so that I can hand that to people who come from different backgrounds and You know, for the listeners here it'd be great to sell three million copies of the book, but ultimately the mission within making your own glass half full, [00:19:00] if I can influence say five individuals of a younger generation to take an idea that's in the back of their head and actually act on it and stay resilient towards it and things that Cause a positive impact on the world through that, then I've, that's my mission, right?

Then the effectiveness of what I've done has come into reality.

Ross Romano: So let me quiz our listeners, see if you're listening, it's optimism and right. I hear, I hear a lot of right answers. It's autonomy, optimism and autonomy. So this is the dynamic duo at the center of the book. Let's start a conversation about them with why, why do they need each other?

Adam Barney: They, there are two levels to a toolbox. That's really the way I view it. You know, you need to build the optimism first and then put the autonomy on top of it. Optimism, of course, isn't about toxic optimism either. You lean too far. It's about realistic optimism. And then it pairs together with autonomy because if you have that positive perspective, [00:20:00] and then you can act for yourself, that, that sits in the center that moves you forward, that gives you that path to move ahead.

And those are things that live with inside ourselves. I pull in through the book a lot of some of the deep knowledge over the last 40 years of positive psychology. Which I'm a fan of Martin Seligman is really the father of positive psychology, but it's about distilling that into these two tools because they are transformative.

And it's literally this perspective I have that they allow you to there are so many ways that we classify people in this world, right? Whether you're a dog person or a cat person, or you're a night owl, or you know, you're a morning person. The most. One of the level setting ones, you're either a glass half full or a glass half empty person.

And I say, throw those glasses away, take your own glass, take your own pitcher, and make your own glass half full. [00:21:00] That's where that perspective of how they tie together and what they allow you to do comes into play. And there are two tools that also You can use to understand how to navigate out of that allure of darkness, right?

How to realize that the sun is always behind the clouds and that you can sustain those tools for the long haul and then use them also as a change agent to cultivate those skills and those tools within others, right? There's a wider applicability to going back to that power dynamic to influence change in the world through the two tools.

Ross Romano: Yeah, yeah, for some reason when you said toxic optimism, I almost heard like taco bell and I don't know how maybe that could be a new flavor of Baja blast. I don't know what maybe I'm hungry. But yeah, but I mean,

Adam Barney: that's a different side of toxicness.

Ross Romano: Yeah. And I think there's also a toxic autonomy, right?

Which is kind of autonomy without the optimism, without the [00:22:00] perspective of what we can control, can't, how we determine our outlook. You know, the. Belief that things can be better and that there are things that we can do to achieve that right like the autonomy can become really imprisoning.

I think the feeling that we have to control everything and that whatever is happening in a moment is our fault. You can become very self. Blaming and hard on ourselves if we're not pairing it with that optimism and that ability to put things into perspective and to really envision our goals and and that's the and, and similar.

Concept maybe with different words, but that's a starting point as well that I almost always I mean, I always start here, but I almost always, like, really need to drill into it when I've done performance [00:23:00] coaching with people, which is. You need to know what you want first before you can have it. You might already have it. And if you don't know that you want it, you don't know that you have it. Right. But especially when we're talking about the making our selves better, our lives better, our circle whatever. You can have all the tools, all the resources, everything you need to be able to do it.

It might not be that difficult, but until you, actually think about what it is and why you want it and what that looks like and what you're going to do once you get there. It's not possible for it to happen.

Adam Barney: And that's where to shift into a little bit more on my energy coaching practice. That's where those things come into play, right? I love to work with my coaching clients and do visioning work is the first step, right? That visioning work opens up that path to where you go. I mentioned it could guy before that's one of [00:24:00] the tools, but I love to pair it with another key tool that's called an odyssey plan.

And an odyssey plan is really fascinating because it 10 years in the future and then forces you to lay three options out there. One being everything you're doing remains consistent. The second being, The first option just disappears. What's the alternative? And then the third option is no constraints, no limitations.

And that's not an acute guide to use my coaching clients to guide my coaching clients with, but it opens up that perspective and both those, the odyssey plan and ICA guy are not tools that you should be able to do in five minutes. And then you're done with it, right? There are tools that you should spend at least a few days.

and do some work on it, walk away from it, come back to, and then iterate on it over time to get to the center of what each of those pieces are and what that Odyssey [00:25:00] plan

Ross Romano: Yeah,

Adam Barney: The other thing with that Odyssey plan, although it's three options within it, typically what I see happen is you, two or, two or all three of them, it turns into some merge of each idea, but it's that vision of the future that becomes so clear and you know, and tying back into the book isn't just about my journey either, right?

There are hundreds of examples across history of people who've faced challenges and then they've clawed their self back into a path to success, right? So think of someone like Viktor Frankl, who of course turned into a brilliant neurologist and psychiatrist. But you know, being born in Vienna rather in 1905 and surviving concentration camps through World War Two, he left that experience with this perspective that even in the darkest times, we have the freedom [00:26:00] to choose our attitude to find, this is a really important piece, find meaning in the struggle. And then shape our destiny and use that inner strength to tackle those challenges head on and then carve your own path. It's a transformative piece of the message, but it goes back thousands of years, even to stories from you know, Africa a thousand years ago. There are real examples of history where these tools have come into play with people who've had huge challenges.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And applying a lot of that to the professional role for leaders. Particularly the, the vision of the future piece, right? Like scaling that organizationally. The same applies like you have to determine what the vision is, have clarity, then be able to articulate that [00:27:00] have transparency or like you, you have to be able to motivate people around that.

And it starts with, they have to know what it is. I have to know what the organizational goals are. I have to know. What leadership is driving toward and why understand that then I can make decisions that are consistent with it align with it. I'll make I'm becoming better at what I do because I understand how it fits into the whole.

And now our organization is getting better. But those steps has to start. Somewhere, so it starts with that person, that leader that whether they're in a certain role or a founder or whatever in the case of a school leadership, right? Like, our vision? Well, thought through unique to us.

Do we have rationale behind it? Is it based on values and principles? Adhering to it and, and referring back to it and using it to guide [00:28:00] decisions on a daily basis. Right. And not just have it as something that yeah, we, yeah, we, we did that. It's, I think it's somewhere, or I think it's on our website, but it's, it is. It takes mindfulness and thoughtfulness and and intentionality to make that happen the same as it does in one person's life for an organization as well,

Adam Barney: Right. I mean, it's it's also not just mindfulness is a piece of it, self compassion, having a growth mindset. I think you even need to include some levels of gratitude in it and understand that there's neuroplasticity in the way that our brains work, right?

And our brains can reorganize themselves. And if you believe as a leader, you're set in your own ways. and you can't change, that's a limiting factor in how you evolve and grow.

Ross Romano: you know. So the context in which the book is [00:29:00] largely written, right, is in response to a world that is comprised of external pressures and expectations, right? I think my question to you would be, what do you think is a Realistic relationship that people should have to the external pressures and expectations, right?

Being like having the sense of self and the focus on what's important in our own lives and not being swept up and consumed by that, but also. Realistically, right, not being oblivious to the world or to sometimes where, like external pressures are indicative of things that might matter, right, and we may still need to do it.

You know, determine our own belief and relationship to that, but that's why I'm asking, right? Like, what is, what should we aim for as far [00:30:00] as our a healthy a healthy perspective around those?

Adam Barney: Well part of it is a perspective of We're all individually unique people in the world, but what we're actually trying to achieve is just a replication of what someone else has done in some format, right? So I mentioned that not to downplay ideas of the individual, individuality piece of it, but it's more about be confident in what your perspective is, right?

You know, know that there's an opportunity no matter where you come from to point in a direction. And that's your unique perspective and it's maybe it's a simplified way to sort of answer that question, Ross, but that's truly what I feel is the right way to approach it.

It's dropping a little bit of that judgment. It's a little bit of who cares what anybody thinks, because if you sit in the center back to that vision of what, where you know, Individually, uniquely want [00:31:00] to go. Who cares what other people think, right? You know, and there's ultimately someone out there who's going to recognize you for that being a strength. takes time and it takes resilience. And so many people so many individuals out there. Have these fantastic ideas, they never act on them, so acting on them is one step, but staying resilient is another piece of it, right? Because so many people, this is hard to put an exact line into, so many people give up right before something is actually going to succeed. It's not like Murphy's Law at all, but it's some aspect of stick it out just a teeny bit longer, and those doors are going to start to open.

Ross Romano: Yeah, oh, yeah, right. As you said that it's making me think of maybe you've read this book with your kids, Sam and Dave dig a hole. I think it's it's called [00:32:00] they continue to change course every time, right? When they're about to hit treasure. And, you know it's, it's at least gives us one perspective on that.

What questions do you hope this is bringing about for listeners as they're hearing this conversation and hopefully engaging with it and thinking about how this applies to, to what's going on in their lives?

Adam Barney: I mean, I mean, part of it I, it's about Contributing to effective leadership, right? That's a part of it. You know, I actually think in more of the sort of education realm, how it connects back to, both literacy and educational leadership and really hoping that. That leaders from those realms can inspire their teams and students, right?

And that's where the questions I hope come in. You know, goal setting is a piece of it. Accountability is another part of it. 1 thing. I would love to see more people do is find a board of advisors, right? Who you can bring in. They're not people who [00:33:00] you met. 6 months ago through a professional environment.

There are people who know you that you either went to school with them. They've or you worked with them early in your career, or you've been friends with them for years that board of advisors is a sounding board to make sure that you're marching in the right direction. And there are people that you can trust because they're going to give you that constructive feedback or validation on whether you're heading in the right direction or not heading the right direction.

Ross Romano: It's amazing. I mean, it's been great talking to you and, and there's, I mean, we could continue on and on, but, but we have to tie it together somehow. And I think a good way to do that would be, do you take aways practical things around our listeners, our leaders out there can manage their energy and maintain resilience, right.

When things are difficult it's. It's not only about what we can put energy into, but how, of course, we need to protect to [00:34:00] protect the things our energy is going into, right? But that, that whole resilience piece and understanding what that means and how to navigate that, you have a few things to share in that regard.

Adam Barney: I mean, I think it goes back to one part of it goes back to that visioning work, right? And doing that visioning work is so essential. It's also one of those things that when you do it, if you do it tomorrow or in the next week you can use it for a certain period of time. We change and we evolve as humans, right?

So go back to it and revisiting it is a piece of it. Another thing that I think is so essential on this journey is having that approach of curiosity and continuous learning. You know, none of us You stop to build any muscle, whether it's your brain or your anything, and you start to atrophy, right?

So that continuous learning and bringing that back to the center of that vision, that curiosity for how you understand that path to the vision [00:35:00] better. It's essential to to use to keep that ball moving forward.

Ross Romano: You know, so Adam, we will put the link in the show notes to where listeners can find your book to your website where they can learn more about the work you do. Anything you want to point out or have people check out?

Adam Barney: I would love you obviously if you're a leader who's looking for some additional energy and accountability to work towards that vision and achieve those goals, I'd love to connect. I'm, I find me Adam W. Barney on LinkedIn. That's where I post a lot of my thought leadership content and bring things together.

And if you pick up a copy of make your own glass half full, I'm happy to to somehow get you a signed copy at some point in time as well.

Ross Romano: Excellent. We'll put all that below. Put the link directly to Adam's website. We'll put the link to all the different places where you can find. The book and and where you can connect with him on LinkedIn. Make that easy for everybody. Just click on through and and let us know. Yeah. [00:36:00] Anything that stood out to you from this conversation, any ideas that are you finding very helpful, any things you have questions about, you're always welcome to reach out here and we can we can help to get you connected with some answers on the show.

And even do more episodes around the topics that are resonating. So please do that. Please also do subscribe to the authority if you have not already. Every week we have interviews coming your way with a wide array of authors, really in education and personal growth in business leadership, a lot of great topics every week.

So there's something for you. No matter what you're working on, what you're working toward or you can also visit the podcast. network to learn about many more shows and I'm sure there you'll find something else that suits you as well. Adam, thanks so much for being here.

Adam Barney: Awesome, Ross. Thank you so much. And I look forward to seeing all of you listeners around and thank you for the support. [00:37:00]