C (2:50)

Yes.

B (2:51)

And then you went to China. Do you speak Mandarin or is it Cantonese or one of the dialects?

C (2:57)

I speak Mandarin and in China I was working at a Chinese consulting firm and also doing thesis research, studying Chinese attitudes, learning more about the culture. And that was such a cool experience. While I was there, I actually started dreaming in Chinese and I feel like that's how you know you've made it.

B (3:16)

With a language that is true. If you can count or if you can cuss in a native, in a, in your non native language, you've crossed over.

C (3:27)

Yeah, I think that that's the litmus test.

B (3:30)

Oh, well that's fantastic. And so what do you do? You work for McKinsey, which is a very prestigious company. And where did that lead you to today? If you wouldn't mind taking me along that timeline?

C (3:43)

Yeah, absolutely. So I started my first company about 15 years ago, then ended up joining McKinsey Management Consulting, which was this amazing business boot camp. And that's where I learned how lonely executives are. They can't go to the people above them and go help. I don't know what I'm doing. And they have to look really strong to the people below them. And so I kind of tucked that away in my brain. And then I went to work at an AI startup as chief of staff. And that's where I really learned how founders profoundly influence culture. In that time I was really interested, interested in the product and the people functions. So I started doing executive coaching trainings on the side and I joined Meta in product strategy. And that's where I learned to treat everything, including myself, as a product to be iterated. But I missed working with early stage founders. And so I joined a venture capital fund called Insight Partners where I spent three or four years working one on one with startup CEOs helping them grow their businesses. However, in venture capital, there's a little bit of a conflict of interest working with startup CEOs. They're so afraid that you're going to fire them, that they really don't want to open up to you. And so I decided to leave the mothership and go create my own executive coaching and advising firm focused on startup CEOs. And that's what I'm doing today, where I work with mission driven and underrepresented founders, helping them carve out their niches and scale their companies so that they can grow as fast as their company does.

B (5:14)

You said that they were afraid of you, that they were afraid that they were going to get Fired. Tell me about that. I, I'm not aware of this. This is rebel.

C (5:22)

So, you know, a lot of people don't realize that CEOs actually have bosses and their bosses are their boards. Correct. You know, there's usually 10 people above a CEO, and venture capital funds are the ones who take the seats on the boards. And so when you're a VC fund, every single time that fund is interacting with a founder. Yes, they're helping the founder. They want the founder to succeed. But they're also kicking that founder's tires. They're going, is this founder good enough? Do they know what they're doing? Can we trust them to be a strong steward of the company? Because the board has a fiduciary duty to make sure that the best person is in the driver's seat. And I can tell you, private equity funds especially have no compunctions about kicking a CEO out and putting someone else in that role. So you could understand why that's a conflict of interest for coaching because you need to understand people's fears, their deep, dark secrets. But if you have venture capital slapped on your forehead, ooh, makes them skittish.

B (6:23)

No, I, I get that. So they, they can't, it's a, it, it's self defeating in that sense.

C (6:29)

It's great, great. And you know, the people I was working with in venture capital were also super privileged people who didn't need, you know, that much help. Right. The reason I work with mission driven companies is work on products that are, have to have products, things that the world really, really needs. And if you're working in B2B SaaS all the time, you know, you might be helping someone optimize a widget that makes data science 10% faster or something like that. It just doesn't feel like a strong of a calling.

B (7:00)

So now you work. When you say mission driven, I mean that, that was a long sort of elevator pitch. Let's, let's talk about when you say mission driven, are they focused on one thing? So that is where they measure their outcome as, as the result.

C (7:19)

So mission driven in startups usually means that the founder is working on something that's going to help the world. And while that's obviously a matter of perspective, typically that means the founders I work with are in sectors like healthcare, artificial intelligence, environmental tech, things like that. Things that are things that the world really needs to become a better. And oftentimes the people who are doing the most meaningful work there are underrepresented folks because they have perspective on pain points that the rest of the market misses.

B (7:53)

So who are you? What are you finding as the common denominator of these CEOs?

C (8:01)

You know, when I am working with CEOs, there is common themes there. There are fears that these people will never be enough. There's loneliness. You know, I don't have peers. People can't keep up with me. I feel like I have to be on my email 24 7. There's concern about the uncertainty about the future. And that's why I ended up writing a book earlier this year. I had no intention of writing a book, if you'd asked me in January. But around February, my CEOs started spinning out. They were really worried, really overwhelmed. Some of them were freezing, some of them were panicking because they had never been in environments with this much macroeconomic volatility before, Especially working with mission driven founders where they're in industries that are highly regulated. It was like someone had taken the rule book and thrown it out the window. Made me feel like every coaching session I was having to, you know, grab my founders and re anchor their feet on the floor to help them find stability.

B (9:08)

Because of the tariffs that have been enacted through Trump because of his volatility. And that has rippled into all sectors.

C (9:16)

Yes, because we're in a period of really intense change. Whether you like the change or don't like the change, for most businesses right now, it feels like the ground is moving under their feet. You know, for people that rely on small business funding, some of that is changing. For people who rely on partnership with the fda, the rules are changing there. Whether you think that this giant governmental remodel is good or bad, what's true for everyone is that we don't really know what the rules are right now. And for CEOs, that means that for people who are responsible for hundreds of employees, it's a really scary time.

B (9:56)

Understood. I get it. And I've never in my years on the planet witnessed such an administration. And I shared the stage with President Trump some years ago when he was.

C (10:09)

Wow.

B (10:09)

Yeah. Oh, yeah. A long time ago in my speaking career back in Florida, he was flown in his helicopter, spoke for an hour, turned around, flew, got back on and left. Didn't even have a chime for a photo op. He was just then known as the Donald. Then he became Mr. Trump. Now he's President Trump. So the, the title changed each time and it was interesting. He had as he had a bombastic way then. And now this is being reflected worldwide. I think this has affected the global economy.

C (10:45)

Yes. It does. And what people don't think about enough when it comes to CEOs is that they are supervised by boards. So they have a bunch of bosses and they're part of ecosystems. And when those ecosystems have an earthquake, it's up to the CEO to figure out what to do about it. And in this case, it means that someone very unpredictable is determining the rulebooks for their businesses. And that's why I had to write my book, because I realized that people were missing the toolkit to deal with leaders like this. Most people are not used to dealing with feudal style, unpredictable, rigid, top down, hierarchical leaders that love to make your world chaotic.

B (11:29)

I think he thrives on that. And I don't necessarily talk politics during my guests with my guests, but in this particular case I think it's relevant and it also ties to your book. Tell us about your book. What's it called?

C (11:44)

Yeah, so my book is called Unbreakable how to Thrive Under Fear Based Leaders. And it's talking about this type of leader which you can find anywhere. You can find them in businesses and some families and some churches, both sides of the political aisle. But it's these types of people who are deeply, deeply insecure, which means that they are motivated by fear. What if I'm not good enough? What if people don't like me? And because fear drives them, they try to motivate everyone else around them with fear too. Do this right now or I'll chop off your head. I'll take away your salary if you don't get your MVP out by Friday. And a lot of people, when they see leaders like this, they go, ah, oh my God, I'm scared. What do I do? Not realizing that this type of leader is super predictable. They're really deeply unoriginal and they almost all follow the same types of rules. And so that means that there is a really well defined toolkit of how you can kind of run circles around them and protect what you care about, even when the stormy seas feel choppy around you.

B (12:51)

So who, what stories have you included in your book? What CEOs would we recognize? Do you call them out or do you speak in broad terms and we have to guess.

C (13:02)

You could probably guess, you know, if you look at my LinkedIn and then look at my book. But what I will say is when I started my career and I've had about 30 managers now, about one in three leaders was a fear based leader. And most recently the last set of companies I worked at, about 7 out of 10 were fear based leaders. And we're in this gloves are off era where now it's not only permissive, but it's cool in the business world to say like, listen up folks, I'm in charge. If you don't like it, get out. And for the people under them, it freaks them out and it makes them freeze, makes them overwhelmed. And my book is saying they're telling you you're powerless. There's nothing you can do. You're not powerless, you're powerful. You just have to wake up your agency and level up your skills and then you can make this game work for you.

B (13:59)

So these leaders, the fear based leaders, do you think they're in that because they're swimming in quicksand themselves? And that's the, that's where they default to almost go into their reptilian brain. Survival.

C (14:15)

Yeah. So they're really deeply emotionally immature. Which means that in terms of how to hold on to power grab power, influence the people around them, they're more like emotional five year olds and you know, five year olds think, oh, blowing things up is cool, Boom, I'm going to scare you. Rah rah. I'm big and scary. And so that's kind of how they act. They're all about control. You know, they want to control all the information. They love seeing people around them react, they love seeing them jump. They love inspiring chaos. It's all about feeding attention. It's all about making them feel powerful because deep inside they feel really weak. They're, you know, that's their subconscious, it's not their conscious brain telling them that, but it really drives everything that they do.

B (15:00)

If you're willing, I would love for.

C (15:03)

You to.

B (15:06)

Assess or break down some well known CEOs you worked at. May I presume you met Mark Zuckerberg? Did you meet him or work with him directly?

C (15:17)

Yeah. So Mark Zuckerberg is a really interesting case and he does have elements of a fear based leader.

B (15:25)

Tell us more.

C (15:27)

So for example, fear based leaders feel like everyone around me needs to support me. If they're not on the same page as me, they shouldn't be here. And Mark Zuckerberg, you know, has this ruthless year of efficiency, this reordering of his company around him supporting only his goals. You know, that used to be the metaverse. Now this is AI and he surrounds himself by people who are deeply sycophantic. They might have really advanced titles, they might be hyper, hyper credentialed, but he's essentially created a big feudal state around himself where all of the lords are trying to Prove themselves to him, win his favor, and reinforce his version of the world around himself. And the types of callous behavior that I saw at Meta, you know, were really deeply intense in terms of being kind of unhumane to the people around them. And it's all wrapped in this west coast. Nice, superficial. This is all for your own good, but really there's a deep culture of fear there, and we're seeing that with performative layoffs. You know, everyone that I know who's been laid off from Meta has been rehired a few months later. They're just laying people off and then rehiring them to make it look like they're making cuts. Right? And we're seeing him integrate this culture, which is survival of the fittest. You know, every six months, I'm going to cut the bottom 15%. Be afraid. Do your hardest work. Be online all the time. Like, nothing is ever good enough. And. And that's a big shift. You know, 10 years ago, he was pretending that he cared about his employees, but now it's get in line or get out.

B (17:12)

Interesting. Elon Musk.

C (17:17)

Elon is a special case. You know, Elon is this guy who had a really difficult childhood. He had really challenging parents. He was bullied really intensely, and he's really deeply wounded. And that also means that he's kind of emotionally stunted. He never really matured past the age of emotional five year old. And that means that he's very easily influenced by extreme ideology. It also means that he is kind of this guy who has low impulse control combined with a high volume tantrum style of leading. Give me $60 billion or I'm not going to lead your stupid company. Everyone at Twitter, I don't care what you used to do. Prove to me why you're valuable or I'm kicking you out. And so, for the people around leaders like this, it's like someone's coming into their house and bombing the foundation, right? It feels like there's massive earthquakes happening. And everyone goes, whoa, how do I find my feet? But what both of these guys show you is that they're not that original. You know, it's almost like gorillas pounding on their chest. Look at me, I'm big and scary. I have all the money. I can blow up rockets for fun. Ooh, ah, ooh, ah. But that's not advanced, that's not nuanced, that's not subtle. And most importantly, it's not strategic. And so if you are a strategic person and you have the capacity to learn and grow you can almost always outwit, outrun people like this.

B (19:07)

You know, it's interesting you say that. I worked for a family member a number of years ago, regrettably, and he was in a complete autocratic leader. Would scream at me, call me every name in the book. And he was a Harvard graduate, so he was a gentleman in public. I think he slept with his Brooks Brothers suit on east coast, the ultimate wasp. And then call back an hour later, hey, you want to go get dinner? And everybody walked around the company scared because he would, he would call in and just be a gorilla, as you, as you said earlier, beating the chest and it's my way or the highway. There wasn't much latitude and it, and it was uncomfortable. But we talked about two billionaires. Now I wonder if there's anybody at the top at that level in terms of economic performance, because Elon Musk is arguably one of the wealthiest men in the world. I don't know. I mean, we would have to get into the Saudis to really talk wealth. But in terms of the American CEOs, you mentioned two of them, or we talked about two of them. Is there one that's at the other end of the spectrum that you admire?

C (20:31)

Oh, certainly. For example, you look at the CEO of a company like Patagonia. Patagonia is a deeply authentic company. It says we care about how we treat the world, we care about how we treat our customers. You know, and, and they're super successful. You know, they're one of the most expensive, best outerwear brands out there. Because you know what I think people don't realize is that fear based leadership gets short term performance, but it chokes innovation. Elon Musk's autonomous cars aren't doing well. His cybertruck completely failed. Mark Zuckerberg is having real trouble keeping up in the AI race. It creates the illusion of performance. But when everyone around you is scared, their potential is all clammed up. They don't give you their best ideas because they're afraid you won't like them. When they make mistakes, they're afraid to tell you. And so that's where you get SpaceX rockets blowing up all the time. Because you've got this hierarchy where people aren't afraid to say, I'm not sure that's on. Right.

B (21:36)

Okay, so Patagonia is one company, see, and I'm not even familiar with them. They're. I don't live in the US anymore. They're an outerwear company. For what demographic?

C (21:50)

Oh, I would say, like anyone outdoorsy, you could think of them as a brand equivalent of Subaru, like but for clothes. And there, there are other companies too. You could look at Southwest Airlines. Southwest Airlines has said we're the customer friendly airline. You know, we like people, we want them to like us. They're very successful. People don't hate them the way they hate airlines like American. And all that is to say that if you want to build enduring brands, strengths based leadership is the way to go. Right. People who have a death grip on their companies and who choke out innovation are never going to be the ones who win long term.

B (22:33)

And so does your book cover all these contrasting leadership styles and what the pitfalls are?

C (22:41)

Yes, it does. And it says, hey, this is how fear based leaders think. This is how healthy leaders think. This is what happens when you follow down these paths. You know, take it as a cautionary tale or take it as a bible. This is how you can survive around fear based leaders. And this is how you yourself can be someone who's different, someone who's deeply resilient, someone who's secure in themselves. Someone who knows that there's more to being a person than power.

B (23:10)

So tell me, in your book, is it available on Kindle? Will be in paperback, hardback. Do you have an audible version coming?

C (23:19)

Yes, definitely. So it comes, it comes out October 28th. I think by the time this airs, pre order links will likely be live. And it's coming out in paperback. It's coming out in Kindle audiobook potentially eventually. But I wanted to keep this as accessible as possible. I don't need a hoity toity $30 hardback version. I just want everyone to have the information they need to really protect themselves in these types of volatile environments.

B (23:47)

Okay, and who's it published by?

C (23:52)

It's published by my imprint, Scale Heart Press.

B (23:56)

Your imprint? All right, good.

C (23:57)

Yeah, yeah.

B (23:59)

Well, that's, that's positive. And is it available on Amazon or where? And any other outlets?

C (24:07)

Yes, so it should be available on Amazon also anywhere Ingram books are sold. So it should be available in local bookstores as well as online sites like Barnes and Noble and things like that. I just got the ISBNs issue this week, so we're getting everything ready to go.

B (24:25)

How exciting. It's like birthing a child.

C (24:28)

It really is. It's very cool to see it coming together.

B (24:31)

Do you have any kids?

C (24:34)

I don't have any kids. Do you?

B (24:35)

You will very soon. It's your book. Will be your first birth, be your first birthday?

C (24:43)

Yes. I think that that is kind of the way it goes. I love seeing all the different editing rounds and how it comes together. Working on the marketing, working on the publicity. It's, it's, yeah, really a labor of love.

B (24:55)

How about Chinese? Are you translated into Chinese?

C (25:01)

Maybe someday we'll have to see what the uptake is. Something that people who grew up in cultures like China understand. They're very used to fear based leadership because that's the default there, right. They're used to people with an iron grip ruling their society. The people who really need this message the most right now are the people who are not used to it. So that would be Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, people in Europe like things, things like that. Because for people who are used to gentle and or strongly values based leadership, all of this has been like someone tossing a bath of ice water on. It's been really uncomfortable and they're all going, I'm cold. What do I do? This sucks. I'm walking on eggshells. How do I stop?

B (25:53)

Do you think that there a lot of leaders have gone into that mode of leadership or management because of President Trump.

C (26:03)

In some ways I don't think it's just a Trump based thing. This is something we're seeing across every single section of society. So my book is more written as a business book than anything else. But we're seeing this happen across social sector leaders, public sector leaders, private sector leaders. It's like a tidal wave of people who are saying, oh, look, he's doing that. I can do that too. Hey, they don't need to be nice anymore.

B (26:33)

Yeah, that's where I was going. Is it spilling over? Because when you say it's business sector. Well, politics does spill over into business in a big way.

C (26:43)

True. And right now, politically, on both sides of the aisle, there are fear based leaders everywhere. And so it seeps into everything.

B (26:52)

And is this going to be part of a series or do you think you're. Or we'll wait and see.

C (26:59)

No, I already know what I want to write about next. I love to write. I love putting things together more than anything. I like helping people understand the world and know how to navigate it in ways that are true to them. And so I've already started working on my next book which is about the types of themes that I see in the business leaders in my coaching practice. Because there are commonalities across all of them and I can't have the time to coach, you know, a thousand leaders a year. But if I can reach them with a book saying, oh, here are all the pitfalls, let me give You a guide. You can help yourself out. You got this. That's exactly what I want to do.

B (27:38)

Kate, where can people get a hold of you?

C (27:41)

Absolutely. They can reach out on my substack, which is kate lowry.substack.com. they can follow me on LinkedIn and they can check out my personal website@Kate Lowry.com and my business website at Scaleheart Code.

B (27:55)

How do you spell Lowry? Just to make sure because there could be a couple.

C (27:59)

No worries. It's L O, W R Y.

B (28:01)

All right. Yeah, but I've seen it ey and just want to make sure people find you the directly. Tell me about Substack. I've heard a lot about that. Has that been good for you?

C (28:14)

It has. So what I'm finding is right now with people feeling really shaken up, it's very hard for them to absorb like a whole book because their brain is in fire drill mod. And so Substack allows me to give little bits and pieces every week saying, hey, I know that you've got a lot going on, but if you just want one thing that you're learning this week about how to navigate your environment, here you go. And it's interspersed with things that I'm seeing in coaching. You know, different things I'm noticing about the world right now. And so it's a really good way to kind of keep in touch. And you can also hear about all the different podcasts and things that I'm on for my book tour on there too. Because this is a really important topic and I want people to know this isn't normal. It is a big change and it's okay that you don't know how to deal with it yet.

B (29:02)

Are you gathering emails? Is that what's going on? Is that building your list through substack you're following in a way?

C (29:11)

In a way, yeah. I think that people deserve support and substack is the best way for me to support people at scale. I also have a quiz on my website. If you're not sure if you're dealing with a fear based leader, you can go take it and it'll tell you yes, looks like that is or no, there's some hope after all.

B (29:30)

Oh, that's great. Well, you and and subsect. Well, let me ask this. Has it turned into pre orders for the books? Will that turn into has it monetized for you? Has it been a good platform?

C (29:42)

I think Substack is a great platform. Right now. I'm still waiting for my pre order link to go live. So TBD but I think that anyone who's considering it should definitely think about Substack or Ghost. They're great places to write.

B (29:56)

That's great. Well, thank you for your time today. You have been an illuminating guest. I will guess not. Yeah, Guest. I didn't say guest. Guest today. And truly an amazing authority. And good luck with your book promotion and I will buy it as soon as it's available.

C (30:13)

Thank you so much Mitch. I appreciate it.

A (30:16)

Thanks for tuning in to the Amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired you, take a moment to subscribe, rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top for behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarson.com until next time, stay Amazing.