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From Breakdown to Breakthrough: The Radical Truth About Leadership & Failure | Charles McLachlan
The Leadership Conversation That Challenges Everything You Think You Know
Join Lev Cribb on the Virtually Anything Goes podcast for an extraordinarily candid conversation with Charles McLachlan, Founder of the CEO Growth Academy. This isn't your typical success-story interview. It's a raw, honest exploration of failure, mental health, vulnerability, and what leadership actually means when you strip away the corporate facade.
Three Truths That Define This Episode:
Charles shares his journey from being "basically unemployable" to building multiple businesses and becoming a sought-after executive coach. But the real story lies in what happened between those milestones: a catastrophic mental breakdown at 17, three years in psychiatric hospitals, electric shock therapy, and the terrifying prospect of permanent institutionalization. This experience taught him the most valuable leadership lesson of all: working harder and smarter won't solve every problem. And trying will destroy you.
Why We're Failing at Failure:
Charles exposes how our obsession with defining success implicitly defines failure, yet we have no cultural mechanisms for engaging with it. From Premier League managers to politicians to corporate leaders, everyone pretends failure doesn't exist. This denial is massively damaging. Charles argues for mourning failure, acknowledging it openly, and building cultures where vulnerability replaces toxic positivity.
The VUCA Framework Reimagined:
Forget vision, clarity, and agility. Charles proposes responding to today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world with vulnerability, unity, community, and acceptance, i.e. a framework that transforms how leaders operate and creates space for extraordinary results.
Plus: The CEO who almost died chasing success, why "leadership" might be a delusion, the power of followership, and Charles's painful exit from a family business that taught him everything.
This conversation will change how you think about success, failure, and what it means to lead.
Subscribe for transformative leadership conversations!
Charles McLachlan is the Founder of the CEO Growth Academy, as well as InspiredCEOs, and the Portfolio Executive Community. Connect with Charles McLachlan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesmclachlan/
More info at:
CEO Growth Academy https://ceogrowth.biz/about-us/
FuturePerfect https://futureperfect.company
Portfolio Executive Community https://PortfolioExecutive.biz
Lev Cribb is the Founder and Managing Director of Made To See, a UK-based Video and Livestreaming Agency, specialising in the strategic and tactical use of video across B2B organisations. Lev is also the host of the Virtually Anything Goes podcast.
Made To See: https://madetosee.com/
For more information, content, and podcast episodes go to https://www.madetosee.com or our YouTube channel @madetoseemedia
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By madetosee.comThe Leadership Conversation That Challenges Everything You Think You Know
Join Lev Cribb on the Virtually Anything Goes podcast for an extraordinarily candid conversation with Charles McLachlan, Founder of the CEO Growth Academy. This isn't your typical success-story interview. It's a raw, honest exploration of failure, mental health, vulnerability, and what leadership actually means when you strip away the corporate facade.
Three Truths That Define This Episode:
Charles shares his journey from being "basically unemployable" to building multiple businesses and becoming a sought-after executive coach. But the real story lies in what happened between those milestones: a catastrophic mental breakdown at 17, three years in psychiatric hospitals, electric shock therapy, and the terrifying prospect of permanent institutionalization. This experience taught him the most valuable leadership lesson of all: working harder and smarter won't solve every problem. And trying will destroy you.
Why We're Failing at Failure:
Charles exposes how our obsession with defining success implicitly defines failure, yet we have no cultural mechanisms for engaging with it. From Premier League managers to politicians to corporate leaders, everyone pretends failure doesn't exist. This denial is massively damaging. Charles argues for mourning failure, acknowledging it openly, and building cultures where vulnerability replaces toxic positivity.
The VUCA Framework Reimagined:
Forget vision, clarity, and agility. Charles proposes responding to today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world with vulnerability, unity, community, and acceptance, i.e. a framework that transforms how leaders operate and creates space for extraordinary results.
Plus: The CEO who almost died chasing success, why "leadership" might be a delusion, the power of followership, and Charles's painful exit from a family business that taught him everything.
This conversation will change how you think about success, failure, and what it means to lead.
Subscribe for transformative leadership conversations!
Charles McLachlan is the Founder of the CEO Growth Academy, as well as InspiredCEOs, and the Portfolio Executive Community. Connect with Charles McLachlan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesmclachlan/
More info at:
CEO Growth Academy https://ceogrowth.biz/about-us/
FuturePerfect https://futureperfect.company
Portfolio Executive Community https://PortfolioExecutive.biz
Lev Cribb is the Founder and Managing Director of Made To See, a UK-based Video and Livestreaming Agency, specialising in the strategic and tactical use of video across B2B organisations. Lev is also the host of the Virtually Anything Goes podcast.
Made To See: https://madetosee.com/
For more information, content, and podcast episodes go to https://www.madetosee.com or our YouTube channel @madetoseemedia