#80 | Define Your Values (with Ken Larson)

Hello, it's Bri, your host, and welcome back to Into the Story. This is a podcast for true personal stories that help us learn how to communicate, especially in the moments that matter most. There are natural moments in life when we pause and reflect before a big change after a difficult moment or simply when we feel ready for a reset. This story is for those moments. It's an invitation to stop and ask yourself, "What is most important to me?" Today's storyteller is Ken Larson, a performance coach, keynote speaker, and the CEO of Champion Performance Systems. He is a former Canadian national basketball team player. And in this story, he takes us to a time when his identity as an athlete and a high performer suddenly changed. And he started asking himself a different question. Not what do I do next, but who am I really? My group, basketball player, and that's who I was, and then I couldn't play anymore so I became a coach, and that's who I was. And now I'm going, "Okay, who am I?" This story is for anyone who is ready to get clear about who they are and what they really want. Okay, let's get into the story. I had received an offer to accept the job here in Calgary, Alberta to be an athletic director at a local college. And it was the college that was the best in the whole country as far as athletic performance is concerned. So I was quite proud that I got selected amongst all the candidates. So I started out the job and things were going pretty well. At least I thought we were about 16 months in and my boss calls me to his office and says, "Ken, I don't think this is going to work out and we're going to end your contract and we're going to pay you about two months and your last day is today." Oh, okay. They had a staff member from HR walk me down to my office and Ken, grab your things, we're going to walk you to the door and I'm going, "Wow, high security or what?" And what was interesting is when I got there 16 months earlier, I had a box of all my personal stuff that I was going to decorate my desk and my walls and stuff. I had never opened it, which I found interesting. So I basically just picked up this box and the staff member just walked me to the door and didn't say a word and I walk out of the door and I'm standing in the parking lot. I'm in shock, I go sit in my car and I sat there probably for about a good hour and I totally confused, my mind is all over the place, my heart's upset and I just sat there for about a good hour and you know what was going on in my head was now what? So it took me probably, Bri, probably took me almost a good six months to recover from that. It was a blow to my ego, it was a blow to my identity. You know, I grew up as a basketball player and that's who I was and then I couldn't play anymore so I became a coach and that's who I was and then I moved on, I was an athletic director and that's who I was and now I'm going okay, who am I? Can you just tell us a little bit more about that? What level were you playing at? How serious of a player were you? Yeah, thank you. I grew up on Vancouver Island in British Columbia and in high school, I was six seven and 170 pounds. They called me the human hockey stick. I thought I had no hope. My hope was to make the NBA and then I got recruited to Simon Fraser and where one of my teammates was Terry Fox and I'm not sure if that name will ring a bell with your listeners but people should look that one up and then I transferred back to University of Victoria but while I was at Simon Fraser, I made the Junior National team so I got to represent Canada as a junior and then I made the team again in 81 and I played on the team from 81 through to 84 so I got to play for Canada for four years and then I also played at University of Victoria where we won seven national championships in a row so the level of athleticism that I was at was very very high. It was the highest in the country and that level of excellence of course props up my level of identity and then of course moving from that to the coaching world took that level of intensity and expectation of excellence with me and did the same thing as a coach we won we won lots and that was great and then moving on to Mount Royal as being the epitome of athletic program in the country again it was the highest level of excellence so I was always used to these high levels of excellence and expectations that go along with that. Yeah and I think anyone who's gone through an identity shift you know a change going from being one thing to being another thing there is this period of time where you feel lost and you're looking or maybe not even lost but just looking for who am I where where do I bring value to the world what what is my worth so explain to us that six month period of you know from being walked out of your job to trying to find what was next what what was happening at that time. Yeah it was you know I look back and was interesting that I needed I needed some time to think about it but I didn't I just jumped right back in so I did some strategic planning for organizations which I've been doing kind of off the cuff for a while I did some keynote speaking I started my own business I wanted to I called myself unemployable and I wanted to start my own business so I started that but I was floundering and luckily my wife had a good job and we managed to make Ken's meat and then at the end I wouldn't say six months but a little bit past that and I'm floundering I have no idea who I am I just need to get out there make some money and then I got offered a job with a career marketing company through a a friend here in town and he wanted to take his business to Arizona and he said Ken I need someone to run the Canadian office here in Calgary and I said yes absolutely so all of a sudden I'm in the corporate world I'm putting on a suit and tie every morning you know it's a basketball player and as a coach I'm never wearing a suit and tie except for a game so that was odd I got up really early I didn't work out which was a problem in time and I would race downtown find a parking spot in Calgary which is almost impossible and then spend probably a good 10 hours at this job trying to make it work and my my sense of self worth was taking a hit because it wasn't working very well and here I was trying to attach my identity to this new job and I'm going to take this place to the moon and all that and it was really dragging me down it was really really difficult I was there probably about a good I don't know five or six months then tried to get a handle on my life and I hired my a hard personal trainer his first name was Scott and I've known Scott for quite some time to being downtown I had to go to a downtown gym so I'm about five or six months in I'm getting up early I'm drinking coffee all day along I'm hardly eating I'm just buzzing and just wired the whole time trying to make this thing work and then I wouldn't go home till I don't know six maybe seven snarved down some food that was not good for me and then I'm off to bed and it was hard because I had a little one Nicky was I don't know four or five at the time and I wasn't spending any time with her never mind my wife and I was driving myself into the ground Scott says let's get your workouts going again I'm going okay so I said okay I'll meet you at the local gym it's halfway cross town come on over at lunch we'll get some lunchtime workouts in okay great so I got a few in and it started to feel a little bit better and then this one day I was really low on on food I was jacked up on caffeine and I was late so now I'm panicking so I'm getting across town I'm running into the gym I'm getting dressed as fast as I can I get on the gym floor so I'm just absolutely wired and Scott I had played a practical joke on Scott some time ago and he was gonna get me back so I'm going bring it on so we get into the gym and in this one particular set he wanted me to do some leg press so if you can visualize that I'm sitting and I'm pressing up at a 45 degree angle and he's piling the weights on and as he's piling the weights on he's piling on way more than I've ever lifted I'm looking at both sides of the rack and he's got like four plates on each side five plate I'm looking at him going really and he goes yep I go okay so I go bring it on baby so I did a set I forget how many reps I did but I really really pushed hard and he's okay get a drink we'll go to the next one so I got up and I went to go get a drink and as I'm drinking I feel something in my head and my eyes start to cross now I can cross my eyes for you on screen right now but it's not very pretty so I won't do that but my eyes crossed and I just closed my head and I'm going to go back to the gym and I'm going to go back to the gym eyes and I stood up and I thought, okay, I'll just wait a couple minutes or a couple seconds here and I'll go back and I waited and I waited and I opened my eyes and there was still crossed and now I start to get dizzy every time I open my eyes. Scott's all worried, what's going on? What's going on? I got to lay down. I got to lay down. So I lay down and I'm on my back and every time I open my eyes, they're still crossed. They're not coming back. So he goes and gets some orange juice, get little carbs in me. I'm just low on carbs. That didn't help. And what are you, what are you thinking at this time as you're laying on the gym floor? Are you thinking, ah, I just pushed too hard. Are you thinking the worst? Something is very wrong. What's going through your mind? Well, I'm used to push you a lot of weights. I'm thinking that I've just, I'm just low on fuel and my body's reaction is just across my eyes. But I wasn't that worried about it at the time, but Scott was more worried than me and his worry kind of leaked into my worry. I'm going, okay, something's going on here. So he calls EMS and we're on the fourth floor of a building and there's an elevator and it was quite funny. Scott reminded me and I did open my eyes and see it is the door opens and out comes the EMS workers and there are two women who couldn't have been five foot five. I'm six seven. They have a stretcher and the no way there's no way the stretcher is going to fit in this elevator and it was kind of humorous. Everyone's kind of chuckling going, here's this huge guy. So they couldn't get me on the stretcher. So they're holding my hands. So my eyes are closed and I'm being led by them. Okay, we're got a little lippy. Okay, we got a stair here. We got a stair there and I'm just following holding these two women's hands and I'm sure people were laughing at the size difference. We get in the ambulance and I have to keep my eyes closed because every time I open them I get really really dizzy and I start to get nauseous. Well, I had them closed and the ambulance ride wasn't fun. You know, hitting all the bumpy roads here in Calgary and I'm starting to get nauseous. So luckily we got there in time before something happened and they shuttle me to the 11th floor where the neurological unit is and they put me in this room that was on the corner south west corner and a beautiful big window, no roommate, so I'm by myself and a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains. Of course, I couldn't see them because my eyes are still crossed. So the doctors come in and for the night, I was there for a week and the doctors ran every test known to mankind on my brain and the rest of my body to try to figure out what happened. As the week went on, my eyes started to come back a little bit so I could open my eyes a little bit and about the third day in, they were straight again and I could see. So that was a bit of relief, but they were still doing tests. So I'm laying there in bed. Now I'm starting to think about life and I reflected back on my path and what got me there and I came to the realization that I can't keep doing this. Something has to change. My body was sending me a message that I could no longer ignore and of course the body is very smart and I'm laying there and I'm wondering, okay, my mind's all over the place. I'm a journalist, I love the journal, I pulled my journal out and just started writing and the question came to me in my head, okay, I have to figure out what's what matters, it's important to me before I can decide what I'm going to do. That was an aha moment. Instead of do, do, do, do, I needed to realize who am I first before I can channel out to doing something and that was a big epiphany. So I write and I write and I write and I'm getting a little more clarity as I go. I'm talking to my visitors who are coming in about this and about that and I was writing one day, I think it was about day five and my wife and daughter came in to visit and they go, what's wrong? I'm in tears. I had just got, excuse me, this massive aha moment that really rocked me going, wow, I had no idea. So I gone to this exercise of figuring out what my core values are, what really matters to me most and writing about it, writing about it and all of a sudden things just started to come together and I lost control. I just started to cry and of course looking out at the mountains that whole time makes me really, really easy to think when I have long sight lines and you can see the beautiful Rocky Mountains here in Canada and wow. So I told my wife and daughter, oh good, oh good, you know, that kind of thing and it was fascinating and at the end of the seven days I was there, I'll never forget this. The doctor says, can't well, as you know, we've done all these tests on you. I want to show you something. So he takes me down the hall and he shows me a picture, an MRI of my brain and he goes and I'll never forget this word because I remind people of it. He says, can we can't figure out what's going on? Your brain is in pristine condition and I'm going pristine. I've heard my brain call a lot of things, but not pristine. So I had to laugh at that. So I leave the hospital and I'm going, okay, now what? Well, at least I know what I want. And what was it? Do you mind sharing with us? What are your core values? I don't mind sharing at all. In fact, I'm quite proud of them. You know, I had a coach a long time ago who says, don't tell anybody what your goals are because the people will just laugh at you and tell you you can't do that. I'm going to tell people what matters more to me. In fact, it helps reaffirm those with me rather than forgetting them. So I don't mind sharing it all. And they're not exactly an order of priority. It kind of are. But the first one for me is health. And I heard a phrase years ago that said, you might think you have a thousand problems. But if you don't have your health, you only really have one problem. I don't know, wow, that was huge for me. So I define health as mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, relational. Any way you want to look at it. And I look at all of those to make sure that I'm living as healthy as I can. Second one is connection. And connection to me is connecting with myself first and foremost, connecting with my higher power, how I define that. I'm not sure how other people define it, but I have the way I do. Connecting with others, connecting with family, friends, relationships, clients, connecting with nature, connecting with a good book, maybe a great song. I love to play the drums. I'm really bad at it, but I love to play the drums connecting with the song, the beat, the rhythm of life. So to me, connection goes in all kinds of different directions. And then my third one is excellence. And having been in areas of my life where excellence was such a high level, I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing well. So when I'm focusing on either business or relationships or my health or whatever it is, I want to do it as well as I can. In fact, this morning in my workout, I was supposed to do a certain number of reps with weights. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to step it up a bit and I add an extra couple of pounds on and still got it done. And to put that weight down going, I'm living to that level. Hard to do every day, but I work at that. My fourth one is contribution. And I heard a great phrase a long time ago that contribution becomes us. I want to make a difference in life. And I think that's why we're part of the reason why we're on this planet is to make a contribution to people's lives. So I try to think about that during the day. How can they contribute? And the last one is freedom. And I remember being in those jobs that I've had in the past and I didn't feel like I had any kind of latitude to be free to make choices on what to do, how to think, who to be with. So freedom is a really, really big one for me. And so for you during your hospital stay or near the end of your hospital stay, you define these and then was it relatively maybe not easy, but at least linear once you define these core values to find what was next. There's a B have and do. And I was so focused on doing I forgot how to be. I was doing in order to have. And then I realized that B is more important than that. And when I know how to be myself, my true authentic self, the do will just come naturally. And the have will just be the result of that. You know, my coach is back when I played on the national team and with you, Vic, never talked about winning. They never talked about having the win and the prize. Just talked about playing the game the best you can. So as time went on and I was more solid with my values and what really mattered to me, my purpose started to evolve. My vision for what I wanted in the rest of my life started to evolve. It would not have done that had I not figured out who I am and what really matters to me. And then my career started to evolve. I went back to school. I finished off my masters in sports. and became a certified executive coach. Next thing you know, I'm running my own business and now coach executives, CEOs, presidents, owners of businesses anywhere from millions to billions. And I get to sit down, I get to act all day long as a healthy person and make healthy choices. I get to connect with people that make a difference. So I'm contributing by extension. I'm doing the best I can. I'm reading. I'm staying up to date with these things the best I can. And then I take Fridays off. And that's an exercise in freedom. So I get to lay in bed at night and I do when I reflect and I just think, how did I live my values today? And more often than not, I'm proud to say, I'm either four to five or five but if I pretty much every night. And that puts me in position to sleep very, very well. - And that's where we're going to leave Ken's story today. He did go on to build a new career, a new identity and a new life. But it all started with that one question. What matters most? And in next week's bonus episode, Ken takes us through how to uncover core values and how one question can help us find them. If you'd like to connect with Ken Larson or learn more about the work he does, you can find him on LinkedIn or visit his website at championpsi.com. I will leave you links in the show notes. And if you use English at work and want to speak in a way that makes people listen, you can join my newsletter at intostory.com. That's where I share tools, stories and ideas to help you communicate with impact, especially in high stakes, high pressure moments. Thank you so much for listening today. Until next time, I hope that you have a good time or at least a good story to tell.