The Parts of Yourself You Threw Out Too Fast (ft. Michael Kopper) - The Vibe With Ky Podcast | Lyssna här

There is a version of you that you already decided was worthless. Michael Kopper spent years proving his was, and then went back for the pieces worth keeping.

Michael is the Executive Adviser and Coach at Basis Technologies, where he works with executive teams on the conversations they have been avoiding. He is not a therapist or a clinician, and nothing in this conversation is clinical advice. What he is, is someone who rebuilt a life after it came apart in public, and who now spends his days helping leaders be honest with the people who work for them.

Michael was a finance leader at Enron. The decisions he made there sent him to federal prison. He does not soften that, and neither did we.

But the part that stayed with Ky is what came after. Michael did not just rebuild. He spent years working very hard at pretending the old version of himself had no value at all, and it took four or five years before he went back and looked again. When he did, he found two things worth keeping.

In this conversation, Michael and Ky get into why companies keep promoting their best people into management and then never show them how to do the human part of the job. Why owning a bad decision is what makes the consequences survivable instead of fatal. Why there is no work version of you and a home version of you, and what it costs a team when leaders pretend otherwise. And what you can actually say at work when telling a senior person you are scared is not safe.

If you have ever decided an old version of yourself was worthless and then spent years proving it, this one is for you.

The framework Michael works from is The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp.

Want more? The ADHD Vibers Subscriber Hub is where Ky goes deeper.

The Real Ones tier, five dollars a month, includes the ADHD Deep Dive Library and Reverse the Mic, where podcast guests flip the script and interview Ky. Reverse the Mic is for subscribers only and is not part of this public episode.