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Chief Transformational Officer of the Month: Annie Yatch, Founder, North Star Leadership 1-8-26
00:17:59
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- [00:01]
A
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- [00:30]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business. In the Becker Private Equity podcast, we try each day to bring you one to two business or market insight episodes plus an interview with a brilliant business leader. Today we're thrilled to be joined by Annie Yacht. Annie's built a tremendous sort of leadership and coaching style and school called the North Star Leadership School. We're going to talk to Annie today about how she founded this, why she did so, the core mission, how they help and a lot more. Annie, can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about North Star and how you got to start it?
- [01:12]
C
Of course. So I'm Annie Yach and I help high performing founders, entrepreneurs and executives turn trauma driven survival patterns and do very clear, very calm, profitable leadership. And it actually started back in the day when I was coaching and working with a lot of the Navy Seals from Navy SEAL teams and I was running a company back probably 15 years ago that hired Navy Seals to go out into the world and prevent anti trafficking. And so during that time I learned a lot about the SEAL teams and I wanted to bring that incredible information as well as this knowledge about trauma and how to work through it to the leadership teams that I got to work with.
- [01:51]
B
And that's remarkable when you look at leadership development and when you started this, what was the problem you were trying to solve? What was the gap in the market that you saw or what led you to this direction?
- [02:06]
C
Well, I gotta be honest, I became pretty obsessed with solving the problem that we have a lot of leaders in the world who are winning on paper, but they are quietly losing themselves, they're losing their health and their closest relationships in the process to get to success, however they define it. And when I looked at the traditional leadership work that was being done, lot of focus on fixing strategy, but not many people were focusing on what was actually running the leader. And so from my perspective, it's more about the nervous system, the unexamined subconscious patterns and the cost of not addressing those things that really impact relationships, health and your ability to be successful. As a leader. So most people think it's a time or strategy problem, but it's actually a nervous system problem for all the leaders out there.
- [02:54]
B
And that sounds so right to me and residents me so right. We all know when we're in that right balance of calm and centered and purposeful that we can be effective. But when we're too frenetic, too all over the place, much harder to be centered in our leadership and much harder to be centered with the people that we're working with and the other people in our lives as well. I love that 100%. You talk a lot about purpose driven leadership. What does that look like in practice? And how does that feel for organizations, leaders that are running real organizations under pressure? What does purpose driven leadership mean when you talk about it?
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C
Well, I think what I've realized is that purpose driven leadership really starts with the emotional feeling of what we want to create for the teams that we lead. And so often I see that people end up in survival mode leadership where they don't focus on the emotion they want to create, they focus on a tactic or a strategy. And when you focus on the emotion that you want people to experience or feel around you, it actually increases your ability to make more quick decisions and it can prevent your team from turning over because they're so emotionally charged by that focus point. So for me, purpose driven leadership goes all the way back to what is the emotion we're trying to create for the team that allows them to stay driven, motivated and on task? It really is a huge difference from survival mode leadership. And that's really the contrast. I'm trying, trying to show that there's a difference between purpose driven leadership and survival mode leadership.
- [04:27]
B
What does that look like in practice? In business, it sounds almost like some of the things you always hear about, you know, when you see it. And it does sound like that. But what does that look like in practice when people are creating that right team versus running on survival mode or panic mode and so forth?
- [04:44]
C
Well, I think that when people run on panic mode, the nervous system is really, you're losing hours every week. You're staying in a loop around decisions you're trying to make. Your revenue typically gets locked at a certain level because you can't think outside of the box in a very innovative way to boost that revenue. What I find for most people is that you will see this show up where their revenue has been caught in sort of the same range for multiple years. And so when they do the work and they're more purpose driven and they're focusing on the emotional outcome they want to create with their team. Suddenly, you get hours back every week and your decision cycle is reduced dramatically. Revenue becomes unlocked. And honestly, the biggest change that I see is that the teams are much stronger because there's lower turnover and people are so much more motivated and in alignment with the CEO's goals.
- [05:36]
B
Thank you. When you first start working with leaders, and so much of what you say resonates so clearly with the things that I see and think about and struggle with myself. So it just sounds so right on. What are some of the most common blind spots or patterns that you see amongst high performers?
- [05:53]
C
Oh, my goodness. I love this question. Thank you so much for asking it. So what I see is the top three blind spots. Number one, a lot of the entrepreneurs I work with who are genius are emotionally outsourcing. So they're taking responsibility for everybody else's feelings, but they don't necessarily share their own expectations, their needs. And that tends to lead into levels of resentment and burnout for that entrepreneur. So that's the first one. This emotional outsourcing or emotional management of others. Then they've got. They confuse over responsibility with leadership. So they feel like they're carrying everything because somewhere along the way, they learned that being needed equals being safe or being worthy. And so they're caught in that loop around, I have to take responsibility for everything, I have to manage everything. I have to bear the weight of everything. And then the third blind spot is they live in this permanent state of fix it mode. So they're excellent problem solvers, but instead of going into more innovation around what they can do with their genius level, they go into fix it mode. And that keeps them very reactive, transactional, and it cuts them off from their own intuition and power.
- [07:00]
B
And what can leaders do about these blind spots? How do you work to fix those or see those more clearly or get yourself more on track?
- [07:10]
C
So I have a process that I work a lot of leaders through, which is called superpower versus Kryptonite. And what I do is I help to identify the recurring pattern in how they create revenue that limits their ability to move them forward. And once the CEO sees, oh, my God, this is what I've been doing to myself, it's a very easy fix, because then they don't want to run that same pattern over and over again. So usually in less than an hour, with any leader I've ever worked with, I can identify what's been holding them back throughout their entire career. It's something they typically have never seen seen before. And that's the entry point for all the change that they want.
- [07:47]
B
Thank you. And talk a little bit about this. Next question. Sort of developing self awareness in leaders. How do you move leaders? Because so many people you work with are highly competent, highly technically competent, and some of them are less is clued into how they come across or true self awareness. How do you work with people on that shift from being great at what they do to being truly more broad and more self aware, almost like that 360 view of themselves?
- [08:20]
C
Well, I think self awareness always starts with having an increase in your emotional intelligence. So I think if you can see what you're doing to yourself, if someone can show you that, then you're much more aware of, oh my gosh, if I'm doing this to myself and I can't even see see it, what am I doing to other people? So sometimes, you know, people come in and you know, obviously I'm working with very high performers and you know, usually that has a lot of ego associated with it. But what I've found is if you can show someone something that they've never seen before about themselves, then they're much more open to developing their awareness and their clarity. And that is really thankfully what helps me, I guess, get that in for everybody so that they can start working differently. It's really a way to cease the burnout that we all get into. We're all, I think as entrepreneurs, sometimes we overwork ourselves, we're overly exhausted. But the reality is we don't have to live in that over functioning space. We're actually doing things according to a trauma pattern, not according to our own genius zone. So I think when you show a man or a woman, this is how you get into your genius zone versus here's the trauma pattern. Nobody wants to go into that patterning anymore. They want to move into their genius zone every day.
- [09:30]
B
When you talk about moving into that zone of genius, that zone where people are really doing the best they could do at sort of the top of their ability, they're really self actualizing as a leader. Talk a bit about a moment or story from your work that captures that kind of transformation. Because that's a lot of what we're all looking. They talk about in different books of being in a flow state, being in the zone, being self actualized, so many different ways to think about it. But a story or a moment on capturing that kind of transformation that you're trying to create in the leaders you work with.
- [10:06]
C
Sure I have many but One of my favorites is I was working with a founder who came to me convinced that the problem was with their team. They had a pretty large team, they were working overtime, they were managing their team's emotions, they were on the emails, they were seriously considering selling just to get their life back. And as, as we worked together, they realized that their pattern was never trusting anyone to support them. So they were over functioning, rescuing and then resenting that they were rescuing their team members. And their nervous system literally didn't know how to feel safe unless they carried it all. So about, I would say probably three weeks into the coaching program, they had started delegating a bunch of different key responsibilities. They had shortened their decision making cycles from days to minutes and they started having dinner with their family again five nights of the week, which is pretty, it was a pretty huge change because they would skip dinners all the time. But what was even cooler for me was that they found an extra 750,000 in the company that they didn't even realize they had that they use now for a new offer. So it was really incredible. The real transformation from my perspective is that now they're spending more time with their family, they're not as stressed, they're in this peaceful environment in their home and their business is thriving in a whole new way because they're not trying to do it all. So that, that's one of my favorites. That's a gentleman who runs a big real estate company that I work with.
- [11:30]
B
We love that. We love that. Talk about as leadership evolves. You know, I was from a generation where if you were to ask somebody, is it more important to be respected or liked at that point, 30 years ago, someone would have said not even a question, more important to be respected than it is to be liked. But it seems as though leadership has changed so much over the years and over the decades that if you ask me that today, I'd say that as a leader, you better be both, really, because you better be building great teams. Every best friend. But people got to like you as well. If they want to work with you, at least respect and like you. Doesn't mean you have to be buddies, but. But you have to be liked and respected. But I'd love your thoughts. As leadership expectations continue to change, what will leadership look like over the next decade? And how is Northstar evolving to meet that? What skills or mindsets or how do you look at leadership as things are evolving and how do you help people as leadership evolves?
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C
Well, I think as leadership evolves and people start to realize that strategy or buying a new program or a new process isn't the answer. I think the next decade of leadership is going to really belong to the, the people that can hold more complexity. So being able to be respected and loved with less chaos in their bodies. Right. So leaders who can regulate their nervous system, who can create psychological safety and still make really firm, really decisive calls. And I think some of the skills we're going to see people building are going to be skills like self regulation. So managing themselves emotionally, physically, mentally, very honest communication that allows you to feel more connected to the person and that reduces a lot of defensiveness. I think there's going to be more awareness of people's trauma patterning and there's going to be a lot of, there's going to be a greater focus on very clean boundary setting. So it's not going to be a nice to have. It's going to be an essential performance skill that's going to protect all of the organizations we work with from that level of burnout, turnover and avoiding crises.
- [13:34]
B
Thank you. Annie, let me ask you another question. Observations in working with different types of people, different issues, different challenges, the operation of nervous system and self awareness and taking control of that or maintaining as much of an awareness, control of it as possible seems so, so important. Are there any other observations that you come across working with men leaders, women leaders, other types of leaders, Anything that's top of mind in terms of working with people? Are some men less receptive to advice, more receptive? It's just really not gender based. It's all over the board.
- [14:15]
C
Well, to be honest, what I've found is that for men who are leaders, they have a cross wiring in their brain where they sometimes believe that they can't have a thriving business and have a peaceful home at the same time. And so one of the biggest gaps that I think I help on that awareness and leadership piece for men is teaching them how to lead better in the home environment and lead in the boardroom. I joke about it a lot and I say, well it's like I want you to win in the boardroom and in the bedroom. And so that's something that I think for men working on their leadership, once you can help them let go of the ego piece and many men, once you show them the gap, they're 100% all in on doing the work. That's been my just absolute honor of working with men. And then when I work with women, what I've noticed is that women have a much more difficult time investing in themselves and doing this work individually in themselves, even if they're extremely high level performers because they're so used to taking it all on. And it's harder sometimes to get the woman to be real with themselves, to realize, oh my gosh, I do need to accept that help. So for men, it's dealing with the ego. For women, it's dealing with are they willing to accept help and really move themselves forward. It's an exponential shift, no matter if you're a man or a woman. But men and women have to overcome different aspects of themselves to do the work.
- [15:32]
B
Annie, it's really remarkable to visit with you. Let me ask you another question. Do you work mostly with companies that hire you, teams that hire you, individual founders that hire you? Who's the typical client? Or is it a mix? All those?
- [15:49]
C
Well, originally when I started doing the work, it was all individual founders, but then the founders were like, could you work with my wife? Could you work with my ex wife? Could you work with my executive team? Could you work with my employees? And so over time, I think it's evolved to be, yes, those individual founders. But then as they do the work themselves, like, oh my God, my entire team needs this. And so that's where I'll jump in and help their executive teams, typically, because once you up level the executive team's ability to function, everything else in the company can follow from there. But my favorite work is working with individual founders and then their families, because I think that says a lot about the trust they have for the work that we do together.
- [16:29]
B
Simply a remarkable business and career that you have built. Talk about Annie. When did you found the company?
- [16:37]
C
Well, ironically, I started, you know, this is probably my fourth iteration of a company. I started originally as a counterterrorism analyst working for the Defense Intelligence Agency. And that's where I started because that's where I met all these seals and started backwards engineering. How do they think? What are their mindsets? What are the structures that allow them to be the most elite team in the world? And so from there, I started trying to solve the problem of why are all the entrepreneurs I know completely burned out, exhausted all the time, their health is suffering, they don't feel fulfilled, even though they're very successful in making millions. And so that's where it all started. But I think over the years, the leadership training evolved. I had a leadership program for kids, and it was helping 60,000 kids across the country. Then I had a leadership program that went in and worked just with executive teams. But now I do a lot more of the private work because I find it so fulfilling to help the entrepreneur not only make their relationship the best it can be, but then to help their executive team at the highest levels and then to make sure that their family unit is doing exceptionally well. Because what's the point of having all this freedom, time, energy, money, if we don't have the key relationships in our lives that are, you know, incredibly connecting for us? So that's sort of how it's evolved over the years. But I think my most fun work has been what I've been doing over the last seven years or so with these individual founders and their teams.
- [17:59]
B
Really, really remarkable. Again, I want to thank Annie Yachts for joining us today. An incredible work that she does with leaders. An amazing perspective. Annie, I enjoyed visiting with you so much. I want to thank you for joining us today on the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Truly just remarkable. Thank you so much.
- [18:21]
C
Oh, thank you so much, Scott. It was wonderful being here, and I appreciate everything that you do. Thank you so much.