Why Leaders Need to Confront Their Trauma with Mike Skrypnek

In this latest episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Emma Sinclair talk to Mike Skrypnek. Mike is a strategist helping entrepreneurs and industry leaders find their happiness. He is the founder and chair of The UNLimited WORTH Wellness Society and Project, an organisation that he set up to realise a vision of a world free from the impacts of trauma. Mike hosts the Unlimited Worth podcast and in August 2023 his book UnLimited Worth was published.

References from this episode:
UNLimited WORTH: Lessons of Healing from Childhood Trauma; Finding Happiness, Love and Success for Male Leaders

The UNLimited Worth podcast


Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading in a Non-Linear World: Building Wellbeing, Strategic and Innovation Mindsets for the Future (Jean Gomes, 2022)

The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence: A Journey to Personal and Professional Success (Scott Allender, 2023)

Social:
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LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter               @Evolving_Leader
YouTube           @evolvingleader

The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:39 Purpose is a recurring theme in your work. Can we start with your definition of purpose and how you found that definition for yourself and your work?
• 6:41 Can we step back and get a sense of your journey, where you started and how you’ve come to the place you are today in terms of the things that matter most to you?
• 11:08 Can we zone in on those two moments of crisis? What did that feel like and what assumptions were turned on their head for you in terms of how you had thought about things, and then flipped those in your mind?
• 13:14 In the greed is good phase, had you felt a growing sense of the disconnect between what you were doing at work and what you were doing outside of work up to that point, or was it more the moment?
• 15:50 Let’s move onto the second moment of crisis.
• 19:52 That sounds like a really dark and scary place to have got to. What was it that pulled you out?
• 22:32 You mention that the last of those moments was only a couple of years ago. What’s the journey been for the last two years?
• 29:25 There’s a flip side to the impact of trauma that it can drive a lot of people to succeed.
• 31:44 You work with entrepreneurs, and they are in that space between risk and the thrill of the opportunity. How many of those people do you see with some origin story in their character being trauma?
• 41:05 Can you give us a sense of the kind of responses that people have to trauma?
• 44:52 In your own ‘Unlimited Worth’ podcast, the audience hears menu talking openly, frankly honestly, enabling others to hear that story. How do you enable that for people? What is it that people need in that space?
• 50:31 How do we get more men comfortable having conversations in a business setting?
• 53:23 How is this playing forward for you in the next 5-10 years, because hopefully we’re normalising more of these issues that sit beneath the waters. Do you see with the generational changes that it will get easier to get into these topics earlier?
• 57:29 How can people get hold of you and learn more about your work?
• 58:28 If you’re feeling that this might be helpful to you, but you’re a bit doubtful or concerned, what would you suggest people do to make the next step towards helping them with deep seated trauma?