107: Meta Performance: The Leadership Transformation Beyond Hustle w/ Joseph King Barkley

Most leaders are chasing better results by doing more — more strategy, more effort, more discipline. But what if the real breakthrough doesn’t come from doing more… but from changing who you’re being?

In this episode of the No Limit Leadership Podcast, Sean Patton sits down with Joseph King-Barkley, Partner at Novus Global and President of the Meta Performance Institute, to explore the powerful shift from high performance to true transformation.

Together, they unpack identity, failure, vision, feedback, and the internal lenses that shape how leaders see the world — and why those lenses often determine results more than tactics ever could.

This conversation is a deep dive into what it really takes to unlock fulfillment, capacity, and impact at the highest levels of leadership.

⏱️ Episode Chapters

00:00 – Why Doing More Isn’t the Breakthrough
01:20 – Meet Joseph King-Barkley & Meta Performance
03:00 – Why Elite Leaders Thrive on Teams
04:25 – From Pastor to Executive Coach: Joseph’s Journey
06:50 – High Performance vs. Meta Performance
10:55 – Why Leaders Play It “Reasonable”
14:55 – Fear of Failure & Identity
18:25 – The Power of Lenses and Reframing Reality
22:45 – Loss, Perspective, and Choosing a New Story
25:00 – Be → Do → Have (And Why Most Leaders Get It Backwards)
31:20 – Identity Is More Fluid Than You Think
35:20 – Practical Ways to Change How You’re Being
38:50 – Feedback as a Leadership Superpower
41:00 – Why Great Coaches Always Have Coaches
42:25 – How to Work With Novus Global or Become a Coach

🔗 Links & Resources Mentioned

• Novus Global – Executive Coaching Firm
  https://novus.global
  
  
• Meta Performance Institute (MPI) – Coach Training & Certification
  https://mp.institute
  
  
• Free Vision Call with a Novus Global Coach
  https://nolimitleaders.com/vision
  
  
• Book: Beyond High Performance (Joseph King-Barkley & team)
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637741581
  
  
• Book: The Three Laws of Performance (Steve Zaffron & Dave Logan)
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470193403
  
  
• No Limit Leadership Podcast
  https://nolimitleaders.com

Interested in exploring a thrilling vision for your life with me or another Novus Global Coach? Go to www.nolimitleaders.com/vision to apply.

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
Most leaders are chasing better results by doing more. But what if the real breakthrough isn't about doing more, but about changing your very being? In this episode, I sit down with Joseph King-Barkley, partner at Novus Global and president of the Meta Performance Institute. We explore the difference between high performance and the true transformation that comes from meta performance. We talk identity, failure, choosing your lens, and how shifting your way of being can unlock results, fulfillment, and impact that you never thought possible.

Sean Patton (00:43)
Welcome to the No Limit Leadership Podcast. am your host, Sean Patton, and we are blessed today to have Joseph King-Barkley. He's a partner at Novus Global and a president of the Meta Performance Institute. He's also an amazing and successful executive coach, author. He works with top performers, founders, and innovators on expanding possibility, increasing capacity, and transforming their way of being so they can create extraordinary results in their life and leadership. Joseph's known for his blend of

Deep philosophical insight with practical tools to help leaders move from high performance to better performance and build lives they are truly proud of. Joseph, thanks for being here, David.

Joseph King Barkley (01:21)
Oh man, I'm so excited to be talking to you, Sean. Good to see you again. We were in the same room in Atlanta. And so this feels like a bit of a downgrade to only be virtual, but I'll take what I can get.

Sean Patton (01:25)
Yes. Mm-hmm.

No, this has been great. For those of you who don't know, and when this podcast comes out, it may be sort of the coming out party, if you will. I haven't announced that I've officially moved my coaching practice over to Novus Global, where Joseph often was JKB as a partner. And I have to say that my exposure so far through the training at MetaPerformance Institute with you in Atlanta, and then my exposure to Novus Global as a whole has been...

maybe the most transformative professional event I've had since I was in Army Special Forces.

Joseph King Barkley (02:02)
Hmm.

I was going to say that's saying something you've been through quite a bit of transformational training. Your background is stacked. So that means a lot to hear. It really does.

Sean Patton (02:12)
It really does. And what's interesting is I've had people ask me recently, you know, they're like, wait a minute, why? know, cause you already had a coaching practice, I already had podcasts, I already speaking. And what I've literally told them, is, you know, which is going to lead into kind of my questions about your, you know, getting into Novus Global MetaPerformance yourself. For me, it came down to the team. Once I saw the people on the team.

Joseph King Barkley (02:30)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (02:37)
And doing some self work before this of where's my zone of genius and where do I need to be? And when I feedback, I got from people from my history of my life where, you know, you always seem to do your best when you're around other elite performers, like when you were part of a team. And that's been sort of missing in my life, if it will, as a solopreneur. And when I saw how Novus Global ran its team, its leadership, it had values that it lived into and what it did in a way that a lot of organizations don't.

Joseph King Barkley (02:42)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Sean Patton (03:04)
It reminded me of the closest thing I've seen to a special operations team since special operations of the high integrity and high agency people in it. So that I tell people, that's why I joined, not just for the, you the business or the, frameworks and all that stuff. It was that experience for me.

Joseph King Barkley (03:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. And we've heard that same reflection before. actually have, people with military backgrounds, retired, ⁓ Air Force Colonel, is in the firm. people with, ⁓ professional sports backgrounds. have a two time Stanley cup winner who is a coach in the firm and they just realized based on experience. And I wonder if your own experience in the military was similar to this. It's like, however capable we are.

we're going to go so much further, accomplish so much more if we're with a group of elite people who are aligned on purpose, aligned on values, aligned on vision. So when they set out to do transformative coaching, they also wanted to find the same cadre of people, a collection of people so they could continue to grow, but also they could impact far more lives as a collective than they could as individuals. So it makes sense that you found more of what has helped you succeed in the past.

as you've explored being a part of what we're doing. So yeah, that was why I joined, frankly, was the theory that we could go so much further with a group of people playing at the top of their game than however far I could get on my own.

Sean Patton (04:23)
And when you came into Novus, I know you came from the faith world, the pastoral world, things like that. Were you executive coaching sort of as a solopreneur or was it in that faith space you were kind of coaching or like what drew you to Novus Global? What was your sort of origin story into Novus Global?

Joseph King Barkley (04:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, the short version is that I was leading churches. I'd started a couple of churches in the Hollywood area of Southern California and was burning the candle at both ends like so many people do, not just in the nonprofit space or church space, but in business and in life. So I hired a coach from Novus Global. That was my first exposure to it. I was doing some leadership consulting, which is different than how we see coaching in the world, but I was doing that for several years on the side, both in the

faith space and outside of it. And I enjoyed that a lot. I enjoyed getting to serve other leaders, but it wasn't until I experienced the transformation of what was happening in this coaching relationship that I had this idea that, maybe that's how in this next chapter of my life, I want to be impacting and serving people. So it didn't take long for me to figure out great if once I realized I was going to step down from

pastoring local church, my wife and I were aligned on that, we're exploring something new. It was on a very short list of things that I wanted to explore because it had changed my life. So I went into certification with the Meta Performance Institute, just like you're doing it, it's like so many others among us have done it, to be a part of Novus Global, to be a, what we would call a Meta Performance Coach, which is a very distinct way of serving. It's within the realm of executive coaching and...

even life coaching, sort of development coaching, it's in that industry, but meta-performance coaching is a very unique way of doing it. And then of course, getting to do that as a part of the firm was really appealing to me because I just, again, I had this idea that I was going to be able to impact more people and go a whole lot further faster if I was a part of a, if I was playing with people who are at the top of their game. So that's what, that's what inspired the path that I took.

And that was not that long ago. I stepped down from being a pastor in 20, would have been 2021, then started my certification journey and now I've been in the firm. At the time of this recording, I've just now clocked three years in Novus Global. So yeah, it wasn't that long ago.

Sean Patton (06:37)
What was,

when you just, when you came in and sort of discovered, I mean, you obviously you had been exposed to, guess, matter of performance probably through your Novus coach. But when you got exposed to that versus high performance, let's first have you lay out sort of that difference and then it's like, what was the biggest realization for you kind of living into that frame?

Joseph King Barkley (06:56)
Gosh, a lot. I'll continue to try and be concise, which is not really my instinct. ⁓ But if your audience is listening, I think it might be helpful to really quickly make a distinction between consulting and coaching. Consulting is awesome. Usually comes in with a preset list of answers or systems to implement. Think like EOS is a system that you can use to run your business, and there are consultants that will help you implement.

Sean Patton (07:02)
Ha

Joseph King Barkley (07:21)
even though they call themselves coaches, it really is saying, here's a system and let's help you use it. Well, that's great. Your accountant, your personal trainer are more probably like consultants in a way. The coaching part of what they do is really finding out your own capacity within their system. So you actually get to figure out how, how much you can use a system to get results. So that's where the coaching comes in. But consulting is here's an answer.

Coaching is, at least the way we do it, is almost exclusively inquiry based. So we are equipped with a powerful set of questions, but also skills in listening in a way that few other people in your life can listen and pay attention to you. So they can help you see things that you weren't seeing before and find out what you're capable of. Within the realm of coaching, there is life coaching, which is one way I'd describe it, is just helping you be a

helping you adult well, which is great. A lot of us need it. You know, just helping you adult really well, paying your bills and keeping a job and maybe even getting a promotion and having great relationships. Life coaching can cover a lot of that. High performance or performance coaching now is we're going to set some goals. Usually professional goals are included in that and we're going to help you achieve those goals. Okay. Now meta-performance coaching, as the name implies, it's like metamorphosis. We're going to use your goals.

as sort of an excuse to experience whole life transformation. That's really the widget is we want a changed person on the other side of this thing. So we will not only help you get what you want, but a great coach will help you expand what you want. We get to play with your, those vision muscles that were so strong when we were all kids. We've let those atrophy over time.

And now we've just set reasonable expectations for our lives. Now let's play with that and say, let's start to dance in the realm of, at least right now, feels unreasonable, that stuff. And who would we get to become and who would we partner with and what resources would we pay attention to, notice around the world if now we're playing this unreasonable game?

So that's part of Meta performance and transformation. Another big piece of it with Meta performance is that we realize frankly, Sean, there's more to life than performance. So we really, really care about qualities that we would batch under nobility. And there's a lot of different ways of describing nobility, but we have identified four categories that we think are a part of human flourishing. We'd love to see any client, any team, any culture also expand.

their creativity. We want a vision around community. We want a vision around generosity. And we'd love to see a vision around prosperity. So in other words, your ability to notice and create value in the world, living in a world of abundance where we just can continue to perpetuate value. So I know I've said a lot in there, but maybe helping your listeners identify, maybe even from where they're sitting right now, if they were to...

in, invest in their own development, what kind of a team might they need? And also if they were considering, gosh, maybe I want to be a part of this too. That's one of the reasons that I've selected the path of meta performance coaching, is because I get to expand what I want. I change as a result. And frankly, I, I also ratchet up all of these qualities of my humanity, generosity, community, creativity, prosperity that I just think.

make for a better life. So yeah, that's my high level response to that.

Sean Patton (10:38)
When you've worked with all these senior leaders and you've brought this ideas in and you've helped them expand the way they're thinking, what gets in the way of people thinking in terms of reasonable, in terms of high performance, in terms of going to unreasonable transformation? Why don't we just do it?

Joseph King Barkley (10:45)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (10:59)
Like why does it take all that, right? Like if we're like, that's a good idea, I'll just do that. Like what gets in our way?

Joseph King Barkley (11:06)
What a great question. A few things that get in our way are, one is we already have a system that works. And the system, and your readers, or readers, your listeners would, maybe they can identify with this, I know I can. The system is something like, okay, let's look at past performance. Let's, you know, imagine a

some incremental improvement on that. We're going to get 10 % stronger. I will lose 5 % body fat. Like we'll, have some incremental improvement on that. Um, and then we'll work a little bit harder to create incremental change. Man, that kind of works. Like it's worked up until now that there's nothing wrong with high performance, but that's how high performance gets stuff done is let's move the goalpost a little bit, work a little bit harder.

Maybe hire a couple more people and then we're going to get to incremental growth. Great. No problem with that. Now your brain is also going to reward you for doing that because your brain is trying to keep you safe and your brain is trying to save calories. So the easiest thing for your brain to do is to reference stuff it's already experienced. It's going to look at data from this last year. It's going to look at data from your peer group.

and then it will calculate what's reasonable for you. And the only reason it does that is because at least initially your brain is thinking anything I've never experienced or anything that feels uncertain must mean it's potentially dangerous. I'm, your brain is gonna, at least at first, is going to discourage, it might even, you might not even think of those things, cause your brain's not even like paying attention to it, like the filters are on.

and it's gonna calculate what's reasonable and those are the things that's gonna first bring to mind. And so that's a lot of what stands in the way. The other thing that often we've found stands in the way of people exploring transformation is that growth is uncomfortable. So if to whatever degree I'm committed to being comfortable,

Nothing wrong with that. love being comfortable. I love my bed. I have this special pillow. My wife would tell you I'm a sleep diva. I've got all the stuff, you know, and every night I want to be as comfortable as possible. So nothing wrong with that. And to the degree I'm committed to comfort more than I'm committed to growth, I will resist things that necessitate my transformation at all costs because growth is always uncomfortable.

⁓ it means feedback. means risk. means potentially looking like an idiot. It means like growth is uncomfortable. Leg day sucks. And I always feel great after I'm done with it. But at first, no one, no one loves leg day. I don't care what anybody says. Sean, you're ripped. You hate leg day. I know you do at least at first. So, ⁓ yeah. So understandable. Like, so I don't say this as a, and I think some

Sean Patton (13:45)
I hate late day. Yeah. 100%.

Joseph King Barkley (13:52)
coaches actually, there's like a shame story that comes in, like how dare you want to be comfortable. And I just think that's a, that's missing the reality of humanity. Like, of course we want to be comfortable. And I noticed that if that's what I care about the most, then I probably miss out on a lot of the growth that could be available to me. And, and then the thing that I also miss out on, which most of your listeners will know,

is if I avoid growth, I also avoid passion and I avoid surprise and I avoid a lot of joy and a lot of, frankly, lot of confidence. The courage it takes to step into growth is part of what gives you the confidence to know that you're capable of it. And that's a pretty awesome gift that lies on the other side of the hard stuff.

So those are some of the reasons I think we avoid meta performance, dreaming, envisioning. think cognitively we're just, you know, we're already, the default for us is to play it safe. And then also growth is hard and people don't want to, I don't want to select that at first. So yeah, great question. ⁓

Sean Patton (14:58)
You know what it came up from when you were just talking, it was like everything you just said. And, one thing that I really should, I've come to in the last few years of my own growth and development is something I still battle every day though, is our relationship to failure or the identity of failure. And as, and as a high performer, someone who's achieved something and is maybe looking at those types of people who will listen to this podcast, like

Joseph King Barkley (15:13)
⁓ man.

Sean Patton (15:21)
you get to that point and in some ways it's like in your 22 and a college, like who cares? You just like throw yourself to the wind, but it's like when all of a you've done some things and people look at you as someone who's done some things, in some ways I think what's held me back in the past has been the fear, not even of failure myself, but of other people seeing me as failure.

Joseph King Barkley (15:41)
Totally.

Sean Patton (15:41)
What's, you know, so as, if someone is listening relating to that, what do you tell them?

Joseph King Barkley (15:45)
Hmm.

Hmm. Well, there won't be one answer. So it depends on the person. I will say that it's helpful to pay attention to the story you tell yourself about failure and to stay with the workout metaphor for just a second, because a lot of our listeners will identify with this. The way you get a muscle to grow is you take it to failure. Like it must not exclusively, but that is a technique to help a muscle grow is I've got to take it to the edge of what it's

capable of, and then the muscle as it restores is going to then shore up just a little bit more resource for the next time we're lifting so that possibly get one more rep and possibly get 10 more pounds on. So failure is such a wonderful, acceptable part of growth when it comes to exercise. Totally normal. The same thing is likely true of your vision and your leadership development and your marriage and your parenting and friendships like

Trying new things by necessity is going to be, is going to come with a set of like, wow, we tried it, we took some swings and we struck out that time, but we learned some lessons. Failure is just a part of growth in there, but we tell ourselves stories about it. The story in the gym is that this is a part of me, you know, gaining endurance or gaining strength or gaining size, whatever your goals are there. The story we sometimes tell ourselves with...

leadership in life is that failure means I am a failure. it's, it's, is, it's a sign that I will never, maybe the story you tell yourself is if I fail at this attempt, it'll never work out for me. If I fail at this big, bold request that I make of somebody and I get quote rejection from it, I get a no. That means I'll never get a yes. So pay attention to the story that you tell yourself about failure.

And is that a story that is resourceful? Because it's probably not a story that's true. It's not like objectively true. It's just a story that you've told yourself to keep, again, your brain keeping you safe from the uncomfortable feeling of a no or the uncomfortable feeling of a swing and a miss or a strikeout. A more resourceful story might be, as Sean, you and I have played with this before already on the business side of things like,

The only way I'm going to get a yes is if I rack up a bunch of nos. Yes lives in the land of no. So no is a part of the game that I get to play. Awesome. you know, failure is how I grow. It's how I learn. If I'm not failing, that means I'm not trying anything new. Cool. So if I try new things, that means I'm going to quote fail at added a hundred times. Tell yourself a story about failure that welcomes it, that embraces it, that normalizes it. And you're going to succeed far faster.

that way, the same way you would in the gym. So yeah, that's what comes to mind for me for the listener who right now is resisting failure. I get it. Find a better story for it so that your life is riddled with far more failures because that's where the growth and the success is going to come from.

Sean Patton (18:30)
I looked like you brought up the story, you've brought this language out a few times of the story you tell yourself. we use that term like the lens we see the world through, the world occurs to us. And what I found is when I have conversations like that with people maybe outside of sort of our space, if you will, it can be kind of a revolutionary thought that the world isn't as they see it and that they get to choose.

Joseph King Barkley (18:40)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (18:55)
And that, you know, and so I don't know how you feel about this. was, I mean, I'm almost of the, I'm not almost, I'm of the position that, no one knows the objective truth. Like unless you're an omnipotent divine being, like you're incapable of knowing objective truth. So everything in your world, everything you think and believe is subjective. And I often find getting people to play with that or get comfortable with that.

Joseph King Barkley (19:06)
Ha ha ha!

Sean Patton (19:19)
a lot of times is maybe like the chink in the armor or like the first break to get them to start to think in this new way and be able to play with lenses. I don't know what your experience is with that, but.

Joseph King Barkley (19:23)
Yeah.

Well, I'll say first of all, how often I still resist it because I do think there are some things that are true. So when we start playing with, you know, are the stories that we're making up about a thing and our occurrence or beliefs about a thing, it is okay if, at least at first, if it's like, well, what's the true thing? What are the facts?

and not wanting to be wrong. That's a very common instinct. And I would say, take that beautiful instinct, because there are times in life, before I move on into the philosophical part of this, there's a whole lot of examples in life where being right about something is going to be very resourceful. So if I was to visit the oncologist, I want the diagnosis to be right. Do I or do I not have cancer? Okay. Yeah, he's like, you know, exactly.

Sean Patton (20:16)
You don't want him to play with whatever is going to make him feel better that day.

Joseph King Barkley (20:20)
is this rabid tiger on the loose dangerous or not to my children? Like I want to be right about that. So it's not like it's always resourceful to be open-minded about absolutely everything and try on different occurrences. However, we overplay that hand more often than we'd like to admit because when it comes to our vision, we're going to be met with a whole list of circumstances. The market is doing blank. I had three...

You know intake calls this week and all of those were no's so there's there's data and then we make up a story about it and the story might be that Again, it's never gonna work out or this is a bad time and I would say put the true false part of your brain on the shelf for a second you could take it off the shelf later and then what you get to play with while that's sitting up on the shelf is

What is your belief about this set of circumstances or your belief about yourself or your belief about the vision that creates resource? So this is something Sean and you and I have talked a lot about is there's true-false and then there is more and less resourceful. Those are two conversations, two very different conversations. What is a belief you want to have about this thing that creates, that opens up more resource for you? And...

And again, depending on the circumstance, I'm going to speak in hypotheticals here, but depending on the circumstance, your occurrence can be, can sound like it's wild fantasy, but it creates a lot more creativity, innovation, and resource. An example that I've shared with you before, Sean, but I'll share with your listeners now is we lost our home in the Eaton Canyon wildfire. So we live in the Pasadena area of, of Southern California. January 8th of this last year, fire took our home.

And I was with my coach, my Novus Global Coach, two days after that fire. And he invited me to try on an occurrence. I had this occurrence of belief and experience of the event, like this is the worst thing that's ever happened to us as a family. And he said, if you're up for it, I want you to try on a different lens. And what if the lens is, what if this is the best thing that's ever happened to my family?

And everything in me wanted to resist that because the ashes were still hot on my property in Altadena. So it almost seemed offensive to suggest that this is the best thing that could have ever happened to my family. But I just tried it on. I tried on the lens. I didn't worry about whether that was true or false. I just tried it on and it was remarkable, Sean, how quickly I noticed opportunities, resources, friends.

creativity that would not, I would not have noticed if my story about this was this is the worst thing that has ever happened to us. So I was actually able to continue grieving deeply because that was still happening. I was still very sad. I was very tired. I was, you know, very confused. All that was true. And I started to see a whole other list of things on the menu.

available to myself and to my family because I tried on a different lens, a different occurrence of the situation. And that has put us miles ahead of many of our neighbors in terms of recovery and what it's created for my family. So those are some examples. And I should say, because it's a great resource, we didn't write this book that first explores it. We love our book, Beyond High Performance, and that explores it, I think.

even more deeply, but we first got some of these concepts from a book called The Three Laws of Performance, which you can check out on Amazon. Three Laws of Performance is Steve, I think it's Steve Zafran and Dave Logan are the authors. Great book, quick read, but it gives you at least like a primer, a beginner's course on occurrence and how that determines your behavior.

Sean Patton (23:45)
Well, it's a great transition because another thing that I wanted to bring up for you is you talked about how this decision to shift the story you're telling yourself shift this currents. Maybe if you might hear this as a frame, right? Reframing something like that, right? Like if you when you choose to see that differently, you then have a different experience of life and it changes a little about you as you.

Joseph King Barkley (23:57)
Yeah, that's great.

Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (24:09)
then decide, well, I want to see things this way and I want to create a vision in accordance with this new way of thinking. A lot of people go through this normal thinking of I'm going to do a thing, right? So I can have the thing I want and then I'll be X, right? I'll be happy. I'll be fulfilled. I'll be a good leader. I'll be whatever, right? Like, I'm to do these things. And the more clients I talk to, I see the same pattern of their immediate

Joseph King Barkley (24:22)
Yeah, that's right. ⁓

Sean Patton (24:35)
go to and I speak into the man in the mirror here too is what do I need to do? You where's my checklist? Here's my notebook, you know, all the things. And then I can get to be the, be that person. And the challenge from you through MPI and through the train at Novus that and in a matter beyond high performance is about switching to a be, do, have model of setting the vision is to have, but changing the being in the process first. But that is, is like one of those things.

Joseph King Barkley (24:39)
the

Sean Patton (25:02)
that, all right, that sounds great, Joseph. Like, yeah, change who I am. All right, but like, what does it even look like to change the way I'm being, even if I decide that's what I want?

Joseph King Barkley (25:04)
Hahaha

Yeah. man. This is a beautiful, creative and super confusing and frustrating concept all at the same time. the good news is we didn't make it up. In fact, I would be very cautious of going into any reading any book or meeting with a coach and they're like, I've got this new way of doing anything.

I'm not saying there's no new things, but there's probably no new things. We just repackage timeless things. So this is another way of getting to leverage a timeless idea. This is how life always has worked. So it's not like we're the geniuses that made this up. You'll see this in Landmark Forum. You'll see it in other books. You'll see this in the Bible. You'll see it in, you know,

neuroscience and cognitive behavioral therapy. Like it's all over the place. It's because this is how life works, whether you like it or not. Uh, so let's say you have a vision, right? Here's the concept on a very, um, simple level. You have a vision is something you want to have. I want to have 10,000 more dollars in my bank account this year. Okay. That's a, that's a vision. Okay. That's something you want to have. And it's okay. If your brain first goes to, well, what do got to do? What do I have to do to get 10,000 more dollars in my bank account by the end of this year?

Sean Patton (25:57)
You

Joseph King Barkley (26:17)
And you might succeed. You might try some things that you've seen other people try or that you Googled or AI'd. Here's some steps to get $10,000 more in your bank account. Those are just some things I get to do. And again, it might work. So that's fine. And we continue to run that system because it's sometimes we pull it off. The usually...

the experience of life, like we're proud of ourselves for the $10,000 or we're finally feel safe and secure because I have the $10,000. Now I have enough money for a rainy day. We usually wait until after the result to get to have that experience of life. I'm finally confident that I'm somebody who can provide for my family because I've got the $10,000 in my account. I must be a good leader. I must be good at my job. I must be good with money because I have $10,000 more in my bank account.

One of the risks that is baked into that system is that you don't get to have that experience of life unless you have the $10,000. So let's wind it back. What if you try all the things that you saw everybody else doing? You read all the books, you read the blog posts, you ask the robots, how do I get $10,000 more? And then it doesn't work. You tried the thing, you didn't get the thing, and now I am not the thing. I'm not proud of myself. I don't feel safe.

I must not be good with money. Whatever that profile is, it waits on the other side of getting your vision. The good news is there is another way to live life. And it's what you, Sean, you already explained, I think really well. Okay. Let's start with our vision. Okay. We want that $10,000 more in our bank account. Now let's just slow down for a second and imagine what kind of a dude creates $10,000 in his bank account.

Okay, must be somebody who's good with money. It be somebody who creates value in the world. It must be somebody who is already confident. It must be somebody who is a provider for his family. Like that's the kind of person that does this stuff in his sleep. Cool. What would that guy do? Well, maybe that guy would go to the books and he'd go to the AIs and he'd go, he'd figure out some systems to, you know, pull off the thing. Sure, that guy would do that. Well, if that stuff doesn't work.

What if you're still that guy? What does that guy do when his first attempt at doing the thing doesn't work? Okay, well that guy asks a friend, gets some mentors. That guy, he doesn't panic. He doesn't stop. He just uses this as a learning opportunity and tries some new things. Okay, great, let's try that. Well, what if that doesn't work? Let's start, go back to, huh.

Well, what does this guy do when his second attempt at something doesn't work and you start to ideate again and again and again and it becomes an almost infinite set of creative, innovative ideas to pull off the thing that you want to create in the world because you are committed to being a person first and foremost, not committed to a result that then tells you that you are a person. That's a very sort of generic high level way of explaining how the whole thing works. And at first it's, I

It's okay if some of your listeners think that it's sort of like a fake it till you make it. That is kind of one way of doing it. Like just act like you're a guy who's confident or act like a guy who's good at money. And I would say on some level that's okay. It's kind of a shallow experience of this. There's other ways to reinforce who you are committed to being even before you have the thing that you want to have. And it would take way too much time.

get into it here. But I would say that's one of the benefits of having a coach in your life is because I show up as your coach and Sean and I have already agreed what he wants to have his vision. And Sean and I have already agreed to who he's committed to being. And as his coach, I get to treat him like that guy. I get to treat him like, wait, is this our Super Bowl year? So you must be a Super Bowl athlete. So even on the days where you feel injured, on the days where you feel like practice didn't go well, on the days when you feel like your team has fallen apart,

Wait a minute, you're still the Super Bowl guy. I'm going to treat you like that guy. So what does that guy do given this current set of circumstances? And don't be surprised, friends, as you have somebody treating you like this person and you start treating yourself like this person, it will not be faking it until you make it. You will discover that you are actually capable. You are in fact this person. Because your identity, we say this all the time in the firm, your identity really is a fluid concept. And...

all of the personality tests aside, which are great, take the personality tests, those are great, great starting points. You know this is true because you have seen your identity shift on a dime when you wanted to. I'm a dad, I've got two, they're now 17 and 20 year old daughters, but I remember when we brought home our very first daughter and immediately I...

I started to take on different perspectives, emotions, choices, because I am now a dad. And instead of our identity just being the most comfortable, I think one of the disservices that we do ourselves is we think that our identity, first of all, our identity is, is unchangeable. Like it's just who you are. The second one is that I think a lot of people think their identity is just the, their preference. It's just the thing that they're most comfortable doing.

And I just say BS on that because there's all kinds of times where my daughter would wake me up in the middle of the night and the most comfortable thing, the most like me being me and living my truth would have been like, just stay in bed and tell her to go, you know, ransack the medicine cabinet and figure it out as a three-year-old. That would have been the most comfortable thing for me to do. So instead I was like, no, no, I have a vision to be an amazing dad. So I'm going to get out of bed and I'm going to help my sick daughter or

Sean Patton (31:24)
Yeah.

Joseph King Barkley (31:33)
my daughter just had a nightmare because that's who I'm committed to being. So I would say that the being of who you're committed to being is when you are making choices aligned with a vision that you have, even if that is not a comfortable choice to make in the moment. So again, as promised, you have unlocked a beautiful and incredibly confusing and abstract concept. I hope I've given some clarity to it because I said a lot in there.

Sean Patton (31:55)
Yeah, no, I think that's such a good way to put it. I think you gave a great example there. And maybe if I even pull this back, I think of ⁓ one of the experiences or the set of experiences in my life that have been most valuable for me were in the military when I got to go to other places in the world that are completely unlike the place that I grew up in.

Joseph King Barkley (32:13)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (32:15)
and really shift my perspective 180 on, which I think travel is such a powerful tool if you can use it this way, to see how the world sees people differently. And it's like, if our identities were set, we wouldn't have culture. People in a certain area together have one set of culture because it's just like the environment they're in has created one set of identities. if you took, but you're in California, you take someone who,

Joseph King Barkley (32:23)
So good.

Hahaha

Sean Patton (32:40)
you know, maybe their first generation, you know, immigrant and their parents are both from China or something. And you hear them talk like they don't talk or act like someone who's ethnically, you know, from Shanghai, right? They are from whatever they're from Orange County. All right. So like they're like, that's how fluid it is. They've acted exactly, you know, for better or worse, I guess. But yeah, the you know, I just think about how when you see

Joseph King Barkley (32:53)
That's right.

Yeah, they've acclimated.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (33:05)
I think sometimes we get in our own little world, our aperture is this big in our own town and the people we were around and like, this is the way things are. and I see your point to get a little uncomfortable and be like, there are an almost infinite amount of ways to do this life, to even live, to interact with people. Like it's, it's, it's just the canvas is so much bigger. If you, uh, you know, to your point, how the courage to sort of step out and

Joseph King Barkley (33:08)
Hmm.

yeah.

Sean Patton (33:33)
ask yourself, you know, which part of this plane field that I'm on is great for me and what parts are not and what else is out there.

Joseph King Barkley (33:41)
Yeah, totally.

Yeah, and there's going to be ways of being, because that's a phrase that we'll often use, there's ways of being that you're going to try on and they will feel like a bigger lift. They'll feel harder than other things you'll try on. And that's okay. Again, I want, because the exercise metaphor can be so helpful. Physiologically, there are going to be some

lifts or some exercises or some workout routines that are going to be easier for you because of your biology and maybe your anatomy and your conditioning up until that moment. There's going to be some things, new things you'll try that are going to be a little bit easier than some other new things you will try. That's okay. Just notice that, but notice that in this, I think this is really good news. Notice that even though up until now you've always been a ENTJ, Enneagram eight

you know, working genius, like fill in the blanks, great. Who else could you commit to being? What kind of a person would create the vision that you want? And what if it might be a little tough, it might feel a little new, you know, like a new exercise routine, but what if you're just as capable of that as you have been to showing up the way you've always shown up up until now. So, and I've seen, I've just seen it over and over and over and over over again.

You either believe that transformation is possible or you don't. That's the bottom line. You're either a person who believes that transformation is possible or you're not. And what is transformation if not a change in who you are? Like it is a change in the fabric of what you find important, how you live your life, the results that you create, the value that you open up in the world, the things that you notice. So I think the B do have

dance that we get to play is how we experience the transformation that I do think is absolutely possible. I think it happens all the time.

Sean Patton (35:23)
When I agree, when you have leaders that are listening to this and they're like, okay, yes, I'm going to try this or I'm going to get a coach. I'm going to work on this for myself. Like, and they've decided to try on a new way of being forget, kind of like, get tactical here. Like what's a practical for way for them to sort of like check in with themselves or daily or, or even be aware of like, who am I being right now? Like what are some ways to actually do that?

Joseph King Barkley (35:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

it's beautiful.

I, well, first of all, Sean, I love the question you just asked. Um, I would encourage your leaders to just try that on as they're walking through their day saying, who am I being right now? Maybe another question could be, who am I committed to being right now? So envision the person, the man or woman who is leading at that level, put some adjectives in there, really describe that person. Uh, you probably have some experiences with leaders like that. So go ahead and fill out that profile. Who is the Sean that creates these results?

Really make that a, a, let it jump off the page. What kind of a person does that? And then in some moments where you're feeling stuck or you're feeling insecure, you feel like you're falling back into old patterns that aren't working for you any longer, pausing and asking yourself, who am I being right now? And who am I committed to being right now? Even that might just be a reboot of the computer to help you engage with the challenge in a different way.

That's beautiful. The next thing that comes to mind for me, and there's a whole list of tools, but the next one that comes to mind for me that is often resisted if we're just in like a high performance mentality, and that is feedback. it is a massively untapped resource in my experience as a leader where I will walk to my team, to my wife, to my clients.

And I will tell them I am committed to being and I will, I will share this like new way of being I'm committed to, which feels kind of vulnerable and naked. I'm committing to being the best coach in the whole wide world. I'm committed, you know, fill whatever blanks you want to fill in there. I'm committed to being kind of a leader that is trusted every single time I give my word to something. So you just, you really set the bar high. I would love to know my friend, how you think I might be getting in my own way.

how you might think I'm missing the mark on that, how I might have some spinach in my teeth. And I'll sometimes even add on top of that because it can be a challenging muscle for people to flex, the gift of feedback. I will say, I promise you will not hurt my feelings. For the sake of my own growth, I really wanna know. And I will press because I know that I'm not there yet. The vision I've cast for my way of being is so exemplary. I know there's gonna be gaps. I did it on purpose.

I want to be the best in the world at something. I created a gap there because that's where all the growth happens. Okay, so I know I'm not perfect. Help me from your perspective. You don't have to be right about it, but I'm just wondering how you experience me. How do you think I'm getting in the way of that? How do you think I'm missing the mark on that? And then we get to leverage that feedback if we want to, if we can stomach it. We get to leverage that feedback for on growth. And that is part of how we discover ways that we're...

creating impressions, we're creating an impact on people that we may didn't, maybe we didn't intend it. they might in their feedback, they might help you come up with ideas of how you can engage your vision and your problems in a way you weren't even thinking about. because they saw something you didn't, they saw that, you know, your shoelaces untied. I you're trying to run fast, but I don't know if you noticed that like, my goodness, I did, I didn't even think about that. Thanks.

So I think feedback is one of the ways that we can leverage community, leverage great consulting or coaching relationships, leverage therapy, leverage marriage in a way that could be really productive. That's why we often say it's almost impossible to do surgery on yourself. It's really helpful to have somebody in your life, at least one person, and I'll beat this drum until I drop dead. I think it's so important to have at least one person in your life who believes in you more than you believe in yourself, but is not impressed with you.

because that's the person who's going to give you gold, really going to partner with you to get the results that you didn't think you were capable of.

Sean Patton (39:11)
And that's, you know, that's why from my own perspective that, you know, I do all the time, like, I right now have three coaches, you know, like, it's like, it's like, I have, I have, if I'm trying to get good at anything, I've, I'm getting ready to do keynote speech. Guess what I'm gonna do? Go hire a coach. You know, like it's just every time, if I'm going to be better at something, you need to leverage that. And that's where I think it's so powerful to find a great coach of, know, whether it's Novus Global or somewhere else, of course.

Joseph King Barkley (39:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

Sean Patton (39:38)
As we, guess this is the coming out party. I'll be announcing that with Novus Global as an executive coach. And it's a journey I'm very excited for because I get to work on a team with amazing people like you, Joseph.

Joseph King Barkley (39:48)
one thing there that I really want to acknowledge you for Sean is to be a part of Novus Global means that you are among many things you are committing to being coached ongoing. So I know you mentioned you already have three coaches. We would really advise, and this is helpful for your listeners, really advise you never hire a coach who does not also have a coach. So part of what Sean is saying here, and I hope you all hear this, is that he is somebody who cares about your growth, but he's so...

He's such a believer in transformation growth that he's committed to his ongoing growth and transformation. All of us in Nova's Global have coaches as we are coaching the world. So I do think that's a powerful differentiator with how we serve people.

Sean Patton (40:25)
And a good check, because I've gotten asked, I show you too sometimes, the coaching world can be as much as different certifications and credentials and titles. There's no one out there, there's no certifying body telling people they can't put coach on their LinkedIn. So there's a lot of them out there. ⁓

Joseph King Barkley (40:34)
Mm-hmm.

Anybody with

an Instagram account is a photographer.

Sean Patton (40:45)
Yeah, exactly. So,

but that might be one of the most powerful checks, right? If you're going to shop around, you're going to ask and you're going to feel like, I want to get a coach. Okay, who's your coach? And figure that out. Yeah, that'd be a first question I would ask.

Joseph King Barkley (40:58)
That's so good. That is so good. Yeah,

ask your potential coach what his or her vision is. Do they have a vision for their own growth? are they being coached? Do they have a vision so big that it necessitates a coach? Because I think you don't have a coach the year that you don't want to win. Like that's when you stop having a coach. Ask Kobe Bryant. Well, get RIP. As an Angelino, that was a rough one for me to just bring up. Ask LeBron.

Sean Patton (41:19)
Too soon.

Yeah.

Joseph King Barkley (41:24)
Ask

LeBron when he will stop having a coach and it'll be probably the year that he wants to stop growing and stop winning at whatever game he's wanting to win. anyway. ⁓

Sean Patton (41:33)
Yeah. Well,

and know, it's the bronze, a great example, cause he's someone like, can guarantee you, I think I've actually seen this in some of the documentaries where I'm like, you know, as he transitions out of playing basketball to, you know, media and I think like he has coached, like he's getting, he's getting coached in, in all of those other areas that he's trying to be successful in as he trans is he goes through this transformation out of like one way of being into another. Um, cause I think we talked with him getting about how

Joseph King Barkley (41:47)
A thousand percent he does.

That's right.

Sean Patton (42:00)
I don't know, it's just like the transformation from any point in life, whether that's your decision to become, to move to meta performance and discover you're capable of, or you're selling a business and you're moving to something else, or you're retiring, or you're moving out of the military to something. If you wait to clarify your identity, the world is gonna tell you what it is.

Joseph King Barkley (42:11)
That's right.

That's exactly right. Yep, I couldn't have said it better.

Sean Patton (42:22)
Man, well again, just this has been awesome. I really appreciate your time today.

Joseph King Barkley (42:25)
Yeah, thank you so much for hosting this conversation, Sean. It was an absolute gift to me.

Sean Patton (42:29)
Thanks for listening to the No Limit Leadership podcast. If today's conversation inspired you and you're interested in working with a world-class executive coach at Novus Global, you can simply go to nolimitleaders.com forward slash vision. That's nolimitleaders.com forward slash vision and sign up for a free vision call. Now, if something this episode sparked a thought that maybe you want to become a meta performance coach and train with Joseph King Barkley.

You can explore that too. You can go to mp.institute. So again, if you're interested in a Novus Global Coach, you can go to nolimitleaders.com forward slash vision. If you're interested in maybe becoming a coach, you go to mp.institute.