How to Stay Human in a Digital World: A Conversation with Stephan Thieringer

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Kevin welcomes Stefan Thieringer, founder of Human Innovation Garage, for an inspiring conversation about the future of human connection in the age of AI. Stefan shares powerful insights on mindset, psychological safety, and emotional resilience — exploring how trust, hope, and self-awareness can help us thrive in a rapidly changing world. Whether you’re a coach, leader, or lifelong learner, this episode will remind you that success begins with the human element.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanthieringer/
Website: https://humaninnovationgarage.com/

Transcript

Stephan Thieringer: 0:00

So in 2024, a lot of people still started using or used AI for like they would use a Bing or a Google or a search engine, maybe you know, some text generation, maybe the research generation. What's what's sticking out isn't now the number one, two, and three reason is all individuals using it. Number one, as a therapy companion, as a have distrust and loneliness crisis around the world and mental health, obviously. Number two, to organize their personal life. And number three, to find purpose in life, new purpose in life.

Davis Nguyen : 0:32

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wynne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Kevin: 1:03

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Kevin, and today we are joined by Stefan Theringer. He is the founder of Human Innovation Garage, been in business for over 13 years. Welcome to show, Stefan.

Stephan Thieringer: 1:16

Kevin, good to be here. Thanks for having me. Excited to have a chat and explore the things you want to explore in.

Kevin: 1:21

Yeah, one of the things that was really interesting because we were chatting uh pre-podcast was kind of your origin story. I'm so curious about your origin story, the lore, because I asked you, how long have you been in coaching? And you're like, well, when do you consider when you start coaching? So I'd love to kind of hear how you got started and eventually how you what made you want to turn this into a business?

Stephan Thieringer: 1:41

Yeah. I think it's a great question. I think it's a question, not just you and I, but I think naturally we all have to speak about, and I think more so than ever before in 2025. And let me answer the question and let's come to present. For me, I I sometimes say to people, I was always a little bit the Robin Hood in school. I was the rebel, but also was the one to stand up when somebody else was not treated right. If that was in class, if it was myself or advocate on behalf of a cause or something else. So there was always a little bit that let's call it the human development and the human curiosity piece there. Why is somebody responding a certain way? And what is their state of mind, their human state of affairs, so to speak. And that kind of got me into the people business and in my first career, which is also how I ended up in the United States in the early 90s, which was hospitality. And I don't think that there's any other business. I don't care if you just do it part-time, that can teach you more about humans and interaction, the human psyche, human behavior, than working in hospitality for the for better or for worse. You just get to know people, you see people, you see how they respond to particular environments, the experiences also that you can create for them and you create for yourself. And I think that then when I was working in education technology and kind of hospitality, got me to education technology, got me to one-to-one and one-to-many impact through the open learning tablet that we did, a part of the world, and I I had the privilege to travel that that you are very familiar with in Vietnam. And that got me then years later, after frustration with investors and boards and others, uh, to literally on a Friday step out of the company after seven, almost eight years, and um and say, you know what, I'm done. Um I'm gonna do something else where I can take some of the joy I have in coaching and supporting people that I've done through all the years. If that was in hotels, if that was in sports, if that was in I mean, even I think there's a mutual coaching relationship in team sports, right? Think about soccer. I played goalie, I mean that's why I have no hair left. I played goalie all my life, very competitively until two years ago. Uh there is a certain coaching uh uh requirement, right, how you deal with each other in a team. And uh that got me to the curiosity of and 13 years ago when I started looking at it, coaching was not the mainstream uh domain as it is today, right? Coaches, please don't be offended, but you take a rock, you throw it out your window, there's a high likelihood you're gonna hit a coach with that rock. I mean, everybody wants to be a coach and it's got something to say. And there's no disrespect, but I think it's also for the consumer, for the person who's seeking coaching, it's become very confusing. So I got uh 12, 13 years ago introduced through somebody who wrote a few books about coaching into the coaching industry and said, interesting. And that's when I started building the Human Innovation Garage. Um, and we've been now 13, 13 and a half, almost 14 years around, matter of fact, now that we're talking about it, uh, which is kind of incredible. And that's all we do. So we work on high impact coaching, which is either individuals or groups. We do work around psychological safety and other things uh related to that. Uh we work on mindset shift, um, we work on uh things where we do destination retreats, which uh has a lot to do with you know the observation I had where people uh leave organizations for retreats or for conventions or for uh uh conferences, and it's that escapism. So what makes people run away from the workplace, but how can we help them to bring a structure, subtle environment back that they feel good about themselves, but also the work they do and the impact they're creating on the world? I'll stop here. I mean, uh as you can tell, I can talk about that for a while.

Kevin: 5:21

Yeah, I can tell. And what I'm really curious about is like you said, two things, psychological safety and mindset shifts. And you know, everybody in the coaching industry, they talk about ICP, target audience, and I'm kind of curious. Like, how did you kind of decide who you want to help and what you want to help them with?

Stephan Thieringer: 5:40

I think a big part is my own journey. I come out of a large corporate and I was somebody who I grew up privileged. I grew up my father was a politician, and the first thing I learned in a tool set that didn't serve me later in life was I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. We're gonna do it my way, but I don't want to talk about it. And I think as you start getting older and you you start maturing, and you maybe also at the parallel time start redefining success, not in terms of assets and houses and cars and whatever you may, not you personally, but I'm saying as as listeners, whoever is you know digesting the statement here, may define as six and what we maybe mainstream define as success, I don't define that way anymore. For me, success is the more peace I have, the more success I have. And peace, being able to go to sleep at nighttime and not worry, and being able to get up in the morning and not worry, whatever that worry may have been or maybe, or potentially could have been, that is to me, that is success. So having said that, for me today, when I work with clients and when I work with people on what I call their personal operating system. But I just last week was keynoting in Detroit and I used an expression, and Simon Sinek, I love your book, start with why, but I got another layer on it, which is I called it the golden circle of life. And let me explain, because if we really talk about who we are and we want to be good about the why, we got to be good about the who, that means who am I? Who am I in terms of the value system that I operate on? And being able to observe people like myself, but also on the external seeing people who struggled with the same things, but people addressed a psychological safety, people are afraid of admitting weakness in whatever in whatever level that may be. But if you can get somebody kind of that resource, trusted advisor, that trusted feedback, that trusted resonance of hey, take a second look at this, or the invitation to reflect, kind of that vision, that action, but also the willingness to reflect, that is growth. Because if I can reflect, I can say what worked, what didn't work. And that allows me then to establish what we call or what I call an inspired standard, right? This is what happened yesterday, did X, Y, and Z. Didn't feel so good, didn't work so well. Okay, what do I need to change to impact differently tomorrow? And if I'm able to put that into, let's call it, you know, for corporate guy, girl, let's call it a KPI, curve KPI of your personal operating system, that then really creates the impact. And the ultimate level of a golden circle of life for me is really the impact that is the legacy. It's not about legend, it's not about me, right? Like the minions all like to say. It is really about the legacy. What is the leave behind? What are people gonna say about you that is sustainable left behind? If that's a family legacy, and I'm not talking about wealth in terms of assets and money and generational wealth. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking really about the human being and the impact you've made on other human beings. And I think that's you know that to me was really the biggest part. And as I went through my journey and you know, everything from moving to different places to divorce to you name it, you burn a couple of empires yourself and you build a couple more, and then maybe you burn another one and you build another one. And that is, I think, the reality where then also you know you kind of start reflecting and understanding about yourself. And um, I just I I'm tremendously curious always about people, and that got me into coaching, and that's why I do today what I do.

Kevin: 9:12

Something interesting was like you said, you built some empires, some of them burned down. And for this kind of stage or season in your business, you've been in business for about 13 years. And one of the things I'm very curious about is like your marketing, right? Because you obviously have sustained these last 13 years through the ups and downs of the economy and all that. And so how do people tiply find you? And what kind of marketing are you kind of doing right now?

Stephan Thieringer: 9:36

Damn, you're gonna be disappointed. I think marketing, no, marketing, everybody you talk to, I mean, yes, there is a commonality, what we call marketing, but marketing I think goes far beyond, you know, Facebook ads and Google ads and a big billboard. And we've done all those things when we had a training company, which was a compliance training company years back. The number one marketing really for us is brand building, and really is how do we, how do I show up at conferences? And if if I'm gonna say this here, I'm gonna be a ruthless self-promoter for a moment. I was at that conference last week, and when I look at my LinkedIn based on a short post that I put out, what the experience was for me. Now it was a global lean conference, global lean summit. And I'm saying this because people can look it up. It's not that I'm saying this and there's no proof. So I'm not a lean expert, but there were people like Jeffrey Liker, if you're in the business of lean, he wrote the books in the late 90s and in the 90s about what lean business is all about, which goes back to TPS, Toyota production systems, etc. And I was invited to keynote at that an opening keynote on Thursday morning, and I brought the human element to it. And when I then have people in that room say to me, I mean, besides the joking things like the most interesting man in the world, but also you created a mind shift for us. You made us stop and think about the human element that we need in lean management, etc., etc. That to me is success because it redirects people onto the human element. And I think that's exactly what we got to talk about. Because when we leave that piece behind and we don't think about it, we forget that. And that is a memorable experience in an interaction going back to Maya Angelou. They may not remember me the way I look, but they're gonna remember certainly how I made them feel. And that's what not only a great keynote is about, but also that's what human interaction is about. And that's why people I think also allow somebody like me who comes from the external side in an organization, open up their, you know, their kimono, so to speak, and say, you know, this is what we're really dealing with. This is what's going on. Can you help us? Can you serve us? Can you support us? Because here's where we want to be. And that becomes, again, pre-podcast you and I talked about it a little bit. One of the biggest factors that allows people to engage is in 2025 is hope. And the number two factor, which is equally important, I believe, particularly for human one-to-one, is trust. And if you can establish through your presence, your showing up, your being of service without expectation, if you can establish those two things for people where they feel they're in a space where they may realize it's not optimal, but they may not even have the answer how to get from point A to point B. But if you can show them that vision of personal transformation and they can hang on to that, to me, is most certainly the strongest proposition of why somebody would become willing to change. So that's one part. And then the second part is yes, we have presence of LinkedIn, yes, we do some emails, we do a newsletter where you can subscribe to that. I just published a brand new book as of September 3rd, a book that's called You're Finished, You're Not Finished, Your Human Art in Progress, which speaks to the same thing we all are. And I most certainly don't claim that I'm finished. I'm work in progress every day, multiple times, and I sometimes look at myself and go, Oh my god, wow, I got suckered into that again. And it's on all areas in life, right? It's boundaries, it's engagement, it's the constant yes saying, the conformity dance we sometimes do, etc. etc. That to me is our approach of marketing. We're changing that a little bit going into the later part of this year. Um so we're gonna start um kind of the awareness building a lot more on the brand, simply because a big focus for us in 2026 will be destination retreats and dinners that connect. If anybody's listening, you can go to human innovationgarage.com to the website or dinnersthatconnect.com. Um and we just hosted one in Boston. We're hosting one in the middle of October in New York City in a beautiful spot there. You know, again, I I I think of service without expectation and not it being a sales pitch and allowing people to see what the value is they can get from an interaction, a piece of resource, whatever it may be, um, and and leaving choice on the side of the individual that is seeking support, that to me is probably the biggest the play. We use some AI, you know some AI, but not to a large extent. Um and and and mostly kind of just feeding the various platforms that we're on.

Kevin: 14:03

You know what's really interesting as I'm listening to you? You mentioned the human element and then you m mentioned two things, especially right now in this kind of time of like uh uncertainty that a lot of people are experiencing. You mentioned hope and trust. And it's really interesting because those are kind of like the psychological safety. Those are two elements that are and I I'm not quite sure what your social media content looks like, but especially with the dinners in, I can imagine the retreats. It's creating those psychological safety communities and areas and stuff. So yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. Especially in a very digital world right now, you know.

Stephan Thieringer: 14:44

So I think it's I mean Netflix did a study years ago, and uh it's I think a school case, and they said, you know, you're not hiring a weekend family team, you're hiring a pro baseball team. Keep that in mind. Nevertheless, one of the things they talked about, I and and Netflix, forgive me if I quoted incorrectly, but I think uh they said something to the effect of you know, the brilliant jackass has no place in a well-functioning team. And I think that used to be for a long time soft skills. Everybody talked about STEM, right? Science, technology, engineering, mathematics. And there's really, I think in 2026, or going into 2026, two factors we have to talk about. The factor number one is soft skills is a real thing. And soft skills is not something to be poo-pooed. Soft skills is what you and I are doing in having an energy exchange and course of this communication, this correspondence, this dialogue, where a lot of what we get to talk about, and as a result of a connection you and I have and the pre-talk, that's the result what's coming out here, right? We openly talk about something. The second half of this is, and people don't realize this. So we talk about you know, Gen Alpha now, which is has been said to be born since 2012. There's a lot of people in the workforce that say, Oh, I won't see Gen Alpha. Well, friends, let me tell you something. If you're born 1964 or after, you're gonna see Gen Alpha in your workforce. Because the retirement age, if you are applying it to the proper retirement age, at least in the United States, it is elevated from 65 to probably 67 at this point. So congratulations, you're gonna see Gen Alpha. So you better figure out how to deal with this generation. Gen Z, 100% you better deal with. Because those are the people who are 26, 28 years old who are telling old folks how to do their job. And that's not a bad thing. That's rightfully so oftentimes and well-earned. And it needs to be that way because cross-generational is a is a in the dynamics, if rightfully applied, also in regards to productivity, innovation. I mean, if we're talking about companies, profitability and income. But what people don't realize is that, and here's the thing there's a lot of, and I said it years ago in an interview at the Tischler Center in New York, there was a panel discussion. And are we X-rated in your podcast? Can I use the word? Okay, sounds like I'm gonna I'm gonna say it. Um, the in order for you to be, you don't have to have an Ivy League degree to be fucking brilliant. And people go, oh my god, that's true. And people suddenly in this room, there were three, four hundred people in there, they suddenly felt seen. Because I think we put this thing out there where we say if you have a high socioeconomic level and you have great education, then you're gonna do really well in your job. Well, that's not true. Because there is in the meantime, and there's a brand new study out, I think it's from Financial Times, which says it's a 2025 study, which says if you have kind of not the highest level, I mean, actually, I in kind of the bracket of one, two, and three, you're on the lowest level of socioeconomic level. You have some struggles, even in the education system, not necessarily the best. But the predictability, which is that you're probably going to be successful in the job, is 2.5 times higher than somebody who comes from the highest socioeconomic level, has the Harvard degree, and drops into a job because it's all about privilege and entitlement. And the problem we're having is that today still, the generation who is deciding does Generation Gen Z and Gen Alpha soon, or even Gen X, gets a job is based on what did you do in the past, what kind of certificates you had, have you proven in a model job that you can do what we're doing here? What nobody's asking about, and finally people are starting to ask about, is behavior. How do we predict behavior? Because if I apply what I just explained to you, that the person who's used to struggle will fight their ass off to be successful versus entitled privilege, because look at me. I come from a pristine institution. I come from a pristine institution, but I also understand the other side of it. And I see it, I experience it, I watch it, and I see people, you know, kill it, so to speak, in terms of positive. And not because they have an Ivy League degree, but because they work their ass off for it. And I'm not talking about the grind, just they're committed. They just want to get it done. And those are the examples where I think we're seeing more and more because we're no longer live just in a domestic economy. We're living in a global economy of competition.

Kevin: 19:05

Global.

Stephan Thieringer: 19:06

Where it doesn't matter if you're in in Vietnam, if you're in in Nairobi, if you're in Africa in one of the continents, if you're in Germany, if you're in the United States, it doesn't matter. Whoever these people are, they're all competing with each other. And I think that's the piece we have to remind ourselves and forget this. I almost want to say arrogance sometimes, because the the kinder we are with each other, I think the more possibility we're opening up, the more connection and the more I mean if we're talking innovation and creativity, the more innovation and creativity.

Kevin: 19:38

Yeah. It's really interesting as you're speaking. Like I was I had a doctorate at the Dream Life at the White, like kind of like the colour career and stuff, and I left it for a lot of the soft skills. One hundred percent. Yeah. And as I'm as I'm traveling around another good point about the global economy, where like I'm traveling around Asia right now in this phase of my life, and I'm meeting so many brilliant people, and I'm hiring people from out here too. And there's just something about that extra drive that people have that is not present in like the Ivy, like from my from my experience, I'm not present in the Ivy League schools. It's different, it is so different. Resourcefulness. And with the element of AI, and with the global, like you can do anything anywhere. The the playing field is now, and it's gonna be really interesting to see what's gonna happen in these next few years as well.

Stephan Thieringer: 20:36

I mean, you know, AI think is another interesting part. Let me just quickly say this. When you look at studies from 2024 and changes of the use of AI to 2025, I'm not sure if you had an opportunity to look at that. So in 2024, a lot of people still started using or used AI for like they would use a Bing or a Google or a search engine, maybe you know, some text generation, maybe the research generation. What's what's sticking out isn't now the number one, two, and three reason is all individuals using it. Number one, as a therapy companion, as a have distrust and loneliness crisis around the world and mental health, obviously. Number two, to organize their personal life, and number three, to find purpose in life, new purpose in life. So that's I think another piece where we also again, how can we offset that? How can we offset that crisis, right? So to your point, it's commitment to yourself, but it's also building connections, you know, connecting people in a genuine human way. Because I mean, COVID, everybody ran the other way, and like, oh god, stay away from me. Um I mean, these things here, they don't help us because that's an outsourced brain, right? The rise of the outsourced brain, as I like to call it. And when you look at behaviors, a lot of people they can't even look at each other anymore. And there's like these studies about, and they're not proven, the theory more than a study, about autism that's caused by overuse of digital device, because we're no longer able to interact with our natural environment, because the natural environment is not digital devices, the natural environment is humans, but we don't know how to connect. And it kind of closes the loop, right? If we talk about coaching, because that's why a lot of people, when they're now exposed to engage with other humans, they don't know how to. And it it's it's it's a it's a it's a cycle.

Kevin: 22:26

You know, what's really interesting, because I've I've done like head of sales, right? And I've had younger people come up to me and like, how do I get into this high-ticket sales industry, right? I also do YouTube, so I observe trends and when the loneliness one of the most depressing trends I saw a few years ago, and probably still now, is like I have no friends. And it'd be like, I have no friends at 20, I have no friends at 50, I have no friend like this is a shared human experience. And something I'm curious about because you're all about human connection and this human element. As you think about your business and like I guess over the next few years, like where do you kind of want this business to take you and how do you want it to impact others? I'm really curious about that.

Stephan Thieringer: 23:13

Yeah, and and and and I appreciate your question. And I think that's one of the big shifts that I foresee us making. We're not gonna stop doing what we're doing today in the business predominantly, which is kind of the in-cline coaching in companies, we go to organizations, do talk shops. But the retreat site is gonna be a significant stronger focus. And the reason why this is important to us kind of ties directly into the question because when we take people on a retreat, kind of an overall title is and I think I said it earlier, is re-emergence. So we take 12 to 15 people onto a retreat facility and we provide them um a very strong and good amount of structure. And let me explain. At the very core to me, when I get up in the morning, I have a very rigid practice. And the practice is um, and it goes a little bit back also. Uh a colleague and somebody who I I deeply respect is Robin Schm. Um, he wrote the 2020 20, right? Kind of the morning protocol uh in the 5 a.m. club. And um I'm not a 5 a.m. club guy, but I'm a 7 a.m. club guy. Um and and and you know, judge me uh if if you want, not you personally, but whoever's listening. Um but the first thing I do is I get on my Peloton and I go for a run. And then I come back and then I meditate. And then I read or write, before 8 30, you will not find me on my phone. Because what people don't realize, if you don't protect your time and you set that boundary and you don't choose when you let something in at the right time, you're gonna start working for someone else because this mobile phone is a digital leash. That's kind of like this choker behind your neck, where the moment you pick it up, it's gonna go. And I don't care what anybody says. There is absolutely no argument to me, if positive or negative, that whatever you get on a text message, on a WhatsApp, on an email, on a I don't care what it is, a notification that your stocks went down or up or left or right, you are not focused on yourself. And in moments of hardship, whatever that may be, and where you need to really focus on yourself, if you don't have a grounding ritual, a grounding habituation to recalibrate every 24 hours, if that is your ritual, maybe for some people it needs to be twice a day, you are not serving yourself. And so being able to bring that to even more people and taking, which is again the retreats, that's 15 people at a time, we're gonna do them initially six to seven next year, it's it's that ripple effect where the get out, they come back and say, Oh my God, I can do this and then share it. If we can help teach the teacher where people let people see what happens when you are committing to that change, which is also then reflective in the human interaction, that's a huge factor. And and you're affecting families. Um if a if a husband also retreat and comes back and is able to self-care in a better way, there's no doubt about it. Anyone who's ever been through it understands the impacts of that. Or when when you've ever been through a breakup and you started calibrating yourself better, or you've been on the other side and you saw the other person taking care of it, you kind of see them again and you go, Oh my god, what did you do? You look amazing. But it's not that they look amazing, it's about their energy is completely switched. And I think that's the piece we as human beings, we are energy animals. We are driven by that. And we gotta allow ourselves to see that, to feel it, to engage with it. And I think too many times we you know we become vessels of someone else's directive, and that's not that's not serving us good, that's not healthy, and it certainly is not, again, back to why we're doing it, not the vision we have, the vision we have, the vision I have is if we can affect, you know, 150, 200 people over the course of six months and ratchet up, um, I think that's exactly where we want to be. Not to underestimate when we're in companies. I mean, we work with, I mean, I do workshops sometimes with 60, 70, 80 people, as we call them talk shops, which is kind of lecture style engagements with large groups, but that's four hours, right? That's not three days. There's a difference. Um, and and I think the other to it is is the nature connector, awake senses of people that is very different. If you, you know, if you to a grass, take your shoes off, stand in the grass, hug the tree. As silly as that may sound, stand at the ocean, walk into the ocean barefoot. There is a recalibration that happens and a human connection to grounding that if you do it all the time, it's not that that suddenly switches on or off. But over a course of time, three weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, the change that you can in a reflective manner see is tremendous, which is also why we invite people to journal, right? Journaling is not about just writing about the future, journal is about I I I don't want to say explaining, kind of manifesting, not manifesting, but but uh uh establishing where am I at today. That's the journal. And if I pick up that journal eight weeks later on my journey, and I say, let me see where I was eight weeks ago, where I was twelve weeks ago, where I was six weeks ago, whatever the number is that I pick, that's where you then start going, oh my God, I don't want to go back there. Look at where I'm at now. That's where you see progress. So a journal is not just some fantasy booklet, a journal is really capturing, uh capturing my current state of affairs emotionally, expressing how I feel, and expressing maybe a desire for the future. Because one thing people don't realize is um, and I just looked it up also in the context of a study for the keynote. When you journal versus the person who does not journal and you're able to articulate emotions and you're able to write about it, the likelihood that you're able to change your emotional state is 40% higher than somebody who doesn't journal. 40%, which is crazy high when you think about it. So the question really is why wouldn't you?

Kevin: 28:57

Yeah. There's something really interesting, like because I'm a big proponent of like morning routines and grounding and all that sort of stuff too. Like there's so many different modalities these days, it's kind of crazy and it's overwhelming. But I think you said something really interesting. It's like really honoring your energy in the morning and like your for those that aren't like woo-woo, I think they could resonate on the other side where it's like if you don't have a morning routine, things start stacking up, it's very reactive. And every single time I've kind of just jumped into things or like let the momentum of other people's priorities bleed into my life. But every single time I've had overwhelming resentment and bitterness, like consistently. And I think having something like a morning routine and stuff, for me, it's just a way to practice what we were talking about earlier, is like those boundaries. Maybe we're not a hundred percent every single time, right? But it's that big that's why we call it practice, right?

Stephan Thieringer: 29:56

It's not like I mean it's this whole discussion, right? What's motivation and What is uh what does motivation actually mean? I mean motivation is discipline in the first level. It's like I love to say to people, so when you go to bed at nighttime, do you set your alarm clock? They go, Oh yeah, I set my alarm for six o'clock. And then when do you get up? Well, I hit the alarm snooze button like once or twice or three times. The average of people snoozing is seven to eight times. So if every snooze is three minutes or six minutes, whatever the number is, I mean, at a minimum, they're getting up 20 minutes later. So when you really think about it, if we're really being jerks for a moment, right? Let's be jerks for a moment. If somebody sets their clock, everybody listening, if somebody sets their clock for seven o'clock tomorrow morning, you hit the snooze button, guess what? You already broke your first commitment. And you did not have the discipline to get up at the time that you actually committed to yourself. Period. So here's my question for anybody listening. Tomorrow morning, or maybe it's an invitation, tomorrow morning when you set your clock tonight, don't hit the snooze button. Put it far enough away that you are invited and mandated. You gotta get up. And just be okay with that. Because I promise you, you're not gonna be any less or more tired than hitting that snooze button six times. You probably feel worse. And we all know that because we've all at some point in our life we've done it. And so it's you know, again, it's not it's just again establishing habituations, routines, rituals, habits, whatever you may want to call it, that's that's the biggest factor.

Kevin: 31:20

Yeah. It's really interesting that you mentioned that too. And I think two things that come to mind. One, it's like the real problem. It's like, okay, are we not getting enough sleep, or do we just freaking hate our lives like where we just don't want to get out of bed? Like that was the first thing that came into mind. But even if none even if we're getting enough sleep and maybe we're just having a bad day and stuff, right? I think on the other end, it's like the importance of having a basin ceiling, right? Like this is what it looks like on a 10 out of 10 day. And what does this look like when I'm like run down and I can't do anything? Maybe that means just like, well yeah, just like get up, just get up, drink some water, chill for five minutes, and then go back to bed if you're really, really tired or some blood, right? Which probably you won't. Like, honestly, like once you're up, you're up usually, but right.

Stephan Thieringer: 32:09

But I think, you know, to your point, I think it's it's it's this reminder because I mean we have a circ as a as a human body, we have a circadian rhythm, right? There's some people are really good going to sleep very early and getting up very early at three o'clock, four o'clock, five o'clock. And then there's some people, and I'm one of those people, I have a a late, I'm a late morning. And that means for me, seven o'clock is for me it turned to be seven, seven fifteen the optimal time. I wake up about that time automatically and and and then the alarm, and then I'm up. And the funniest thing I always tell people is this I have a sheep a doodle, and she's about 75 pounds. She's a dog, and she sleeps, and she knows the morning routine. That means she doesn't get up. She looks at me like a teenager, like, okay, I know what you're gonna do now. So then I go around out of the bedroom, I go around the corner, I go on my peloton, I'm 20 or 30 minutes, depending on how my morning sets up, and then I meditate, and she doesn't bother me. She comes at some point out if I'm out on the terrace, and then she sits there to my feet and knows what I'm doing. And then she knows I'm sitting down, I'm gonna make some coffee at that point. After I drink almost a bottle of uh 16 ounces of water, and then um I I start moving, and then she knows, okay, now we're going out. And dog owners, I'm not being a jerk to my dog. My dog is perfectly comfortable because I know you have some people here, what you're not taking your dog out first thing in the morning. No, she's perfectly fine. And so it's so the reason why I get the dog up is because even the dog has a routine which she has learned through me. That's peace for her, that is grounding, that is the way it is. If I would do anything else, she would look at me and go, What is going on? And whenever I change that, for example, if I have an early flight or whatever it may be, or I need to leave the house earlier and it's not that same routine, exactly at 7, 715, but it starts earlier, looks at me and she goes, What is happening? And human beings, even though we want to believe we're that different, we're still creatures of habit. And that actually is good for us. It serves us. And and I think we have admitting that.

Kevin: 34:10

Last question, because I know we're coming up at time, but something I'm very curious about is like you clearly have this mission for human connection and this human element in your coaching. What kind of challenges are going on behind the scenes that most people people wouldn't be able to see outside looking in? Like, are there any secret battles that you're kind of going through at this season of your business?

Stephan Thieringer: 34:33

Well, I think it's it's forget about the business itself. I think we, you know, the the biggest battle I think sometimes me, myself, it's where where you're seeing certain behaviors that are reminders that you may have had yourself. There is still conversations which sometimes, you know, let's call it for the sake of this discussion, trigger you. And you have to really recalibrate, not to go down the line. And and where you gotta apply everything that you teach. It's a little bit like skiing, right? When you teach it again, you learn it better, but then you're on the mountain and you're kind of going down and you're going, Oh, that was bumpy. Um, and and uh so I think that's me. I don't want I don't want to say struggle, but it's a a reality check at times where you gotta come to grips with. And then I think the biggest struggle for us right now is as a company, as a business, is that significant shift of attention to the retreats. Um, but I wouldn't really create it and and and name it a struggle. I think for us it's a huge opportunity. And and you know, the athlete, me, and and the competition guy uh looks at this and says, okay, how can we make this a world-class human experience and while also protecting the business, most certainly, uh and the assets of the business.

Kevin: 35:46

Stefan, how do people find you and most importantly connect with you?

Stephan Thieringer: 35:50

Easiest is as you as you introduced us kindly, the human innovation garage. And so it's humaninnovationgarage.com um and on LinkedIn. I think that's the cleanest way to connect with me. Uh feel free to send a message. I also, you know, always like to tell people, and I think I said it earlier, if we can provide value, reach out. We're happy to provide value. It will not be a sales pitch. Run into us in the wild out there somewhere, say hello. And uh again, Kevin, thank you for the opportunity of being on your podcast and and being able to share as much as you allowed me to.

Kevin: 36:21

Yeah. One last question. You said you have a book as well. Who is your book for? Who should read your book?

Stephan Thieringer: 36:26

Anybody really. So this is now you know, it sits on my desk. It's called You're Not Finished, Your Human Art in Progress. I think I referred it earlier. It comes out at the coffee chat that's every Thursday morning, which is free to attend. It's um out there. And it's for anybody who is starting or has at some point journaled in their life and who is interested in maybe redefining words like anger, words like fear, words like worry, words like what does home really mean? What is really connection? And it becomes a journaling exercise and a self-reflective exercise. And I think anybody who is agreeing with the fact that we're all beautiful, brilliant pieces, but we all got some work left to do, and that is a lifelong learning process, that's what that book is for.

Kevin: 37:07

Stefan, thank you so much for coming on today. And the thing I really got the most out of it was like that sometimes in the business world you can get so caught up in the business minutiae of like sales, marketing, all that sort of stuff. But I think uh having this chat with you today is a good reminder for me and probably some of the listeners to like dive back into the human element of connection. It's really interesting. Like I mentioned before, we're in a very unique time where everything feels uncertain. There's AI, there's political turmoil, there's like a lot of different people losing their jobs. There's a lot of things happening. So, you know, going back to creating those safe spaces of like psychological safety, I think is going to be really, really important. So thank you, Stefan, for all the work that you do, and thank you for coming on to podcast.

Stephan Thieringer: 37:56

Kevin, thank you again. It was a pleasure being here.

Davis Nguyen : 37:58

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com.