How can we improve our ability to read people? Being able to accurately interpret the people we are leading so that we can see things from their perspective helps us with decision making and problem solving. It can also help us to build trust and to recognize when their needs are not being met.

In this episode, Lee Povey joins Chris and Jordy to discuss how we can al improve our emotional intelligence so that we can better empathize and understand others.

Lee Povey is a high-performance leadership coach specializing in working with founders and start-ups. As a lifelong entrepreneur, a former elite cycling athlete, and Olympic Development Program Coach for USA Cycling, Lee has a deep understanding of what it takes to lead at the highest levels.

Through coaching hundreds of World, National, and Olympic champions, Lee has gained invaluable experience in developing World-Class leadership and people.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, Lee shares practical advice and strategies developed through years of coaching high performance athletes.

Key Takeaways:

How can we improve our ability to read people:

Lead With Curiosity: Often we want to make assumptions by guessing or anticipating the feelings or thoughts of others. Instead, we should be asking questions with an open mind as to what the answers might be.

Ask the Right Questions: When we do ask questions, we need to make sure they are structured to reveal what we are looking to learn. Using a number system to identity how someone is feeling is one way. Another way is asking questions that are designed to generate discussion.

Learn the Person: Everyone is different. Approaching each person as an individual and learning their tendencies, needs and how they react in certain situations can help us to recognize patterns of behaviour. This can allow us to interpret what they may be telling us more accurately.

Training Them to Self-Analyze: When people can self reflect they can understand what is going on themselves.

Check for Understanding: Often we give people instructions, explanations or feedback and assume they understand what we want them to take away or to do. What we really should be doing is to get them to tell us in their own words what they understood.

Reading Body Language: This makes up a large part of how people communicate. Recognizing the behavioural patterns in the people we are interacting with can greatly enhance our ability to empathize and to interpret the thoughts, feelings and behaviours in others. Like every skill, improving our emotional intelligence so that we can better read others, takes purposeful practice.

Guest Bio:

Lee Povey is a high-performance leadership coach specializing in working with founders and start-ups. As a lifelong entrepreneur, a former elite cycling athlete, and Olympic Development Program Coach for USA Cycling, Lee has a deep understanding of what it takes to lead at the highest levels.

Through coaching hundreds of World, National, and Olympic champions, Lee has gained invaluable experience in developing World-Class leadership and people.

Lee helps leaders and high-achievers understand how to motivate, lead, give feedback, and empower their teams to incredible growth and performance. He breaks down the human experience in a relatable way, sharing tips, skill sets, and valuable mindset insights, allowing us all to perform like Olympians while retaining a strong focus on happiness and long-term fulfillment.

Guest Links:

Lee Povey: www.leepovey.com

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How do you become a great instructor? No instructor or guide wants to be mediocre. Few students or guests want their instructor to deliver an average performance. This would hardly improve learning, create great stories or build positive memories. So how can instructors, coaches and guides be great?

One person who has worked extremely hard to become consistently great at instructing and guiding is Cyril Shokoples. Cyril is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and a past president of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. Cyril is also an EMS instructor, and an Open Water Scuba Instructor. Cyril specializes in teaching high angle rope rescue, avalanche safety, avalanche search and rescue, wilderness emergency care and mountaineering skills.

Cyril has been training Canadian Forces Search and Rescue Technicians, known as SAR Techs, for over thirty-five years. He was also responsible for the creation of the Parks Emergency Responder program for national park wardens in Canada.

When he is not teaching, Cyril has been working extensively in the guiding industry as a climbing and Heli-ski guide.

Cyril joins Chris and Jordy to share key strategies and philosophies that can help anyone to be become better at instructing and guiding. If you work hard, Cyril’s advice might even help you to become great!

Key Takeaways

How can we become great instructors and guides?

Start by Aspiring to Great: If you want to be great, you have to want to be great in the first place. We generally become what we aspire to be. If your goal is to be merely average then that’s likely what you will end up delivering.

Prepare Like a Professional: This can sometimes require us to spend longer getting ready for what we are going to be instructing or guiding, than it is actually going to take us. Preparation should involve anticipating anything that can happen like the questions that might be asked, or anything that could go wrong.

Practice With Purpose: This can involve mixing up how we do things including trying out new ways of explaining or presenting information. It also involves reflecting on how we did after the fact with the goal being to learn how we could do it even better in the future. If we keep doing the same thing without reflecting on how we can make it great, we can expect to get results that are more likely to be mediocre.

Ask People for Their Advice: Don’t underestimate the fact that people like to share what they know. This is a human need that most people have.

When Presenting: Try to stay calm, be dynamic, engage the group you are dealing with and add fun where possible.

Guest Bio

Cyril Shokoples started his career as a scout leader over forty years ago. Since then, Cyril has become one of the most respected rescue skills instructors and mountain guides in Canada.

Cyril is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and a past president of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. Cyril is also an EMS instructor, and an Open Water Scuba Instructor. Cyril specializes in teaching high angle rope rescue, avalanche safety, avalanche search and rescue, wilderness emergency care and mountaineering skills.

Cyril has been training Canadian Forces Search and Rescue Technicians, known as SAR Techs, for over thirty five years. He was also responsible for the creation of the Parks Emergency Responder program for national park wardens in Canada.

When he is not teaching, Cyril has been working extensively in the guiding industry as a climbing and Heli-ski guide.

Guest Links

Cyril Shokoples: www.rescuedynamics.ca

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How do you deal with challenging people on an adventure? This is a challenge that can test even the most experienced and prepared leader.

When it comes to delivering adventure, people can be grumpy. They can have unrealistic expectations. They can show up to an adventure with personal issues. They may not have the resiliency needed to manage or overcome challenges. Some people are socially awkward, while others are just rude. In some cases, people may have anger management issues. In other cases, they may not want to be there at all.

While most of these situations are not a leader's fault, they often do end up becoming the leader’s problem.

In this episode, we are joined again by master guide, guide trainer and author, Colby Brokvist. Colby joins us to explore some of the strategies that we can all use when we find ourselves dealing with challenging participants on the adventures we are leading.

Colby Brokvist is a professional guide who leads worldwide expeditions for some of the most acclaimed companies in adventure travel. He has guided trips around the world including in Greenland, Antarctica, Africa, and Patagonia, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. Colby currently serves as the Chair of the Polar Tourism Guides Association.

Using his expertise and extensive experience, Colby has written The Professional Guides Handbook – How to lead adventure travel trips and expeditions. This is a great resource for anyone leading others. Colby has also recently launched the Waypoint Guide Academy.

Key Takeaways

How we can better manage difficult people:

Unmet Needs: If you can figure out what needs are not being met and meet them, you can unusually create a situation where they are easier to deal with.

Aligning Expectations Early: This is essential. People tend to get what they expect, so ensuring expectations are known to everyone and are realistic can address a lot of problems before they arise.

Pulling Difficult People in: Gives an opportunity for leaders to build relationships with them. It’s important to remember that people can usually tell when people other people don’t like them. If someone is being difficult and they don’t feel the leader is getting along with them, resolving the conflict becomes that much harder.

Leading with Empathy, Patience and Curiosity: Can help leaders to build healthier relationships with the people they are leading. When people are being difficult it can be very valuable to try to discover why. This can take some empathy, and some detective work.

Guest Bio

Colby Brokvist is a professional guide who leads worldwide expeditions for some of the most acclaimed companies in adventure travel. He was inspired to pursue guiding as a career during a through-hike of the Appalachian Trail in the summer of 2000. Since then, he has led hundreds of adventure travel departures as an Expedition Leader, ranging from backpacking and trekking adventures to mountaineering and rock-climbing trips, sea kayaking and sailing voyages, and wildlife safaris. His work has taken him to destinations as far-flung as Greenland, Antarctica, Africa, and Patagonia, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. His current basecamp is Boulder, Colorado.

When not actively leading trips in the field, Colby assumes a variety of managerial, operational, and consulting roles within the adventure travel sphere. His work centers on developing and facilitating guide training courses and programs as well as trip program consulting and field-based guide team management. Colby also serves on the board of directors for the Polar Tourism Guides Association and is a certified Senior Polar Guide through the same organization.

Guest Links

The Professional Guides Handbook – How to lead adventure travel trips and expeditions -