Psychopath-turned-life coach: Detachment is key to strong leadership

Lewis Raymond Taylor says he is a psychopath and credits emotional detachment with helping him build The Coaching Masters, an online coaching education company with 15,000 students in 87 countries and a business valued at $25 million. Before entrepreneurship, he served multiple prison sentences for offenses ranging from shoplifting to violent assault.

Diagnosed as a teenager with antisocial personality disorder, Taylor says traits such as lack of remorse, impulsivity, low fear, and emotional detachment have persisted. A turning point came after a 2014 fight left a man with a brain hemorrhage; Taylor was sentenced to 18 months and served nine.

Seeing a photo captioned "Nothing changes" and his own reflection in a scratched piece of metal made him confront his role: "I realized I was the problem," he said. "But I'm also the solution." Rather than reject those traits, Taylor learned to channel them. "I just figure out what I want to do and then I make a plan of one, two, three, and then I take steps one, two, and three," he said.

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