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How to Respond With Grace & Power When You’re Under Pressure with Crystal Davis

Episode 59

Crystal Davis is a certified Leadership Development Coach, consultant, and speaker whose business personality and work practices are the foundation of her success.

I’m incredibly excited to introduce you to Crystal because I personally love her “voice” and the way she comes across as a voice of wisdom.

In this episode, you’ll hear how Crystal works with companies to improve their business processes to become more efficient and profitable, the organization she started to help women thrive in difficult industries, the events that led her to commute to Mexico for work every day for four years, the difference between management and leadership, the importance of not trying to emulate how others handle difficult situations, how being comfortable with who you truly are will help you find your voice, why she has her clients write a love letter to themselves, and so much more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

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Crystal Davis Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast!

Today, I have with me Crystal Davis, speaker, coach, and consultant whose business personality and work practices are the foundation of her success as a speaker, coach, and consultant.

I’m really excited to introduce to you to Crystal because I have gotten to know her personally.  And I love her voice, the way that she comes across as a voice of wisdom and she shares her personal story whenever she needs to but she has incredible expertise.

So, Crystal, welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast!

Crystal Davis:  Thank you so much for having me and thank you for the wonderful and personal introduction.  I really do appreciate that.

Andrea:  Sure, yeah, absolutely!  So, Crystal, you got a couple of facets to what you do as a voice of influence.  You have something that you do more with corporate and then something that you do more with individuals.  Could you share with us a little bit about both of those?

Crystal Davis:  Absolutely!  About four years ago, I took the leap of faith and left my corporate job where I’ve been working for over 20 years.  I started a company called The Lean Coach, Inc. works with organizations and Fortune 500 companies and other medium and small companies to help them improve their business processes so that they can be more efficient, more productive, and more profitable.

Also, I am a certified leadership development coach, so I also help raise the level of confidence, courage, and resiliency within the leaders of the organizations that I work.  So that’s one facet.  The second facet is that I majored in industrial engineering and I spent my first 17 years out of college working in the automotive industry, which was very very good industry before the decline in 2006.  But it was very, very tough environment to work in.

Andrea:  Why is that?

Crystal Davis:  Well, I’m going to tell you about it.

Andrea:  Awesome!

Crystal Davis:  That’s part of my story, part of the Faith For Fiery Trials.

Andrea:  Go for it!

Crystal Davis:  I started actually, here recently, maybe within the last two years a women’s leadership development pillar.  I took just another niche out of leadership development and focused in originally on women working in STEM and women working in male-dominated industries.  However, since I started disrupt-HER, so it’s like a play onwards.  So instead of disruptor, it’s disrupt-HER, and just really helping women to, be able to, not only survive very challenging work environment but to, actually thrive in them and be able to change those work environments.  I’ll explain what the whole concept behind this disrupt-HER as well as doing our talk.

Andrea:  Awesome!  I know that you worked for really big companies doing amazing things and so can you give us context or do you mind sharing a little context what that was?

Crystal Davis:  Absolutely!  So I started my career as I mentioned before, in automotive and I worked for two really small tier 3 or tier 4 suppliers and what that means is that they were that far removed, so three or four tiers removed from the OEM.

Andrea:  The what?

Crystal Davis:  From the original equipment manufacturer.

Andrea:  There you go.

Crystal Davis:  Sorry about that.

Andrea:  You talk to me like a lay person.

Crystal Davis:  Then I spent majority of my career for General Motors and then at some point early in my career in General Motors span of parts division, and that company was then named Delphi.  So I worked for General Motors Delphi.  I worked for Coca-Cola refreshment and also Thermo Fisher Scientific before going on my own.

Andrea:  And in working in those places, you were helping them become more efficient and that sort of thing?  Is that part of what you’re doing?

Crystal Davis:  Yes, but later to Coca-Cola and Thermo Fisher that was my primary role.  My role in automotive span various departments, so I started out, as I mentioned before, in the engineering department.  And then I did some work in quality department, procurement, or purchasing department as well as working directly in manufacturing as a supervisor.

So I had varied experience, and supply chain also.  How can I forget that and that was probably the toughest assignment?  So anyway, I worked in supply chain.  The reason I said it was a very tough environment, first and foremost, it’s a very high-paced, very stressful environment and when mistakes are made, they are extremely costly.

So I’ll just give you an example what I mean by that.  So I was working for a tier1, Delphi was a tier 1 supplier to a General Motors, meaning there may be parts that went directly to the automobile.  If we missed a delivery, and the delivery ended up causing a delay in their manufacturing process, and this was in the 90’s, it cost $18, 000 every minute that we interrupted their production.

Andrea:  Wow!  Yeah, gotcha.  High stakes.

Crystal Davis:  High stakes, very, very high-stress environment.  Of course, you know with vehicles in consumer, just a lot of regulations, a lot of safety requirements, and a lot of quality pressures.  So it’s just a very, very tough environment.  While there were a lot of women working in the environment, it’s still operated and functioned in the manner that men like to function in the majority of leaders were men.

Andrea:  OK, the manner in which they like to function, I’d love to hear a little bit more about that.

Crystal Davis:  Yes, you know as women, we’re more collaborative.  We like to have conversation, talk things through, or balance ideas around.  Men are just very matter of fact straight to it, don’t mince words, especially under a lot of pressure _____.  So you end up taking on a lot of that or becoming intimidated by a lot of that or afraid in some instances.

I can remember a very stressful meeting where people were yelling and screaming and cursing.  And if you’re not there for that, it can really, really either change who you are to adapt to the situation or you try to become the person that mediate to situation so that you can find the different way.

So I found myself as a young engineer evolving through trying to find that safe and happy place that fit who I was and not having to take going the same mannerisms and roles but also to not become a pushover because I didn’t.  So at first, I took on that persona.

Andrea:  Uh-hmmm put on the boxing gloves kind of thing?

Crystal Davis:  Put on a boxing gloves and it’s just not…

Andrea:  And it didn’t fit right.

Crystal Davis:  Right you know.  But somehow you know that does fit right until you stay within the dysfunction that you know, “You know, this is crazy.”

Andrea:  Right.  Oh man, I hear yah.

Crystal Davis:  Yeah, and so the opportunity working in automotive was one that was really, really great as much as I talk about what I learned of how tough the environment was, it was really great.  For me, I had so much more responsibility even though I didn’t the privilege to travel the world and to work in other countries.  So it was a good overall life experience for me as well as professional in terms of developing me and expanding my breadth of knowledge way beyond just you know the engineering space that I started out in.

Andrea:  I know that you have contributed chapter two of really important book, Faith For Fiery Trials and this sounds like something that would have qualified as fiery trial?

Crystal Davis:  It was.  Absolutely it was!

Andrea:  How does the story relates to or other stories perhaps subsequently happened relates to this idea of having faith in the midst of all?

Crystal Davis:  Great question.  In the chapter of the book that I contributed to, I talked about in my stories, I always look for “What am I to learn from this experience and how is that what I’ve learned changed how I might approach situations in the future, or how I might shift my behavior to either avoid a repeat of the situation?”  I shared this a lot of my stories from my early career in this book, Faith For Fiery Trials because it was the time and period in my life where it was my first real faith walk in life.

So I was 25 years old, I was working in Gadsden, Alabama for this automotive parts manufacturer.  It was Greenfield site, we’re building a completely new plant and this particular plant was going to be nonunion.  So it meant that we were trying to model after another successful nonunion plant collaboration that had been going on for years.

Well, long story short, the people there try to unionize the facility and the company decided to move that business to Mexico.  I remember that the vice president came down from our headquarters and talked to all the engineers and the essence of this conversation was the union is trying to disrupt this facility.  We need to stay on schedule with the launch of this new product line removing the business to Mexico.

As the engineers laying up the operating processes, we don’t have the time to start new, so “You can go or you can go.”  Meaning you can go to Mexico or you can find a job elsewhere.  Then you could not apply for jobs anywhere else in the company because this is so critical for the business.  I was just so young and not married.  So I talked to my parents about it and decided to go to Mexico.  So I moved to El Paso, Texas and I crossed the border every day to work in Juarez, Mexico for four and a half years.

Andrea:  Wow that’s a long time in going across the border almost every day.

Crystal Davis:  Yes, almost every day.

Andrea:  Just every day, flat out, four and a half years.

Crystal Davis:  Just every day, yes.  And it’s so funny because when we went down there, we went for orientation, we sat in this room and they talked to us about basic stuffs like benefits and taxes and all of the different things that would apply because we were working outside of the US.  But then they also _____ and said, “So here’s what happens if we have a bomb threat on the bridge and you can’t get home.”  “What?  What I did just sign up for?”

So it was very, very interesting experience that actually, again, turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life.  Because here I am, I’m from Mississippi, I’ve moved to El Paso, Texas to the desert where there’s only one season.  The African-American percent in El Paso at the time was 2.5 and I’m working a lot of overtimes.  I’m dealing with just a lot of life-changing experience all at one time.  I don’t have family or support system there with me and I am having to cross the border where I do not speak Spanish.  I took French in high school.

So it was just a very tough time and I found a small church there that really, really got me focused on studying the bible, applying things to my life, and I found that to be my refuge with all of the stressors that I was under.  So I’m having to move, I’m moving far away from my family, I’m moving to a place that has one season, it’s brown.  And I’m used to greenery and trees and hills and water and all of that in Mississippi and I’m working under immense pressure because we also had to move the factory and I’m having to work with people who don’t speak English to keep this project off the ground and still on time.

That is why for me these stories reflect so much in terms of how my faith grew during that time because at the end of the day, it was just me and God.

Andrea:  So how did your faith impact the way that you responded in this situation do you think?

Crystal Davis:  I think that, for me initially, my faith increased because there were lots of time that I wanted to give up.  There were lots of times that I was homesick.  There were lots of times that I felt extremely undervalued on my job.  In addition to working in a male dominated space in automotive, now I’m actually working in a country where women were making stride.

Well, first of all, let me say this.  I later learned that there’s just a hierarchy of respect in Mexico no matter your gender.  So someone is considered jefe or boss, which is another level of respect that you give and how you behave _____ to say.  So that was difficult for me along with the machism that’s still around in some instances.

I can definitely say that was not the case for every man in Mexico because I have a lot of really good friends till to this day in Mexico that are men.  They’ve worked with me but that was just a very different environment.  So one of my stories that I _____ with when I’m speaking to women about being a disruptor, I was sitting in a meeting, I was the only woman in the meeting at the time.  One of my other American counterpart, he was also an engineer, was in the meeting.  He had a particular product and I had one of the larger products.

So we were in this room, in this conference room with manufacturing managers.  One of the manufacturing managers kept addressing my counterpart about my product.  So my counterpart would then in turn asked me for the answer and then communicate to this guy.  Finally, I started paying attention and I’m like “You know, why are you not talking to me, I’m sitting right here.  What’s the problem?”  I got so angry.  I was so angry and I was a hot head back then.

Andrea:  You sound totally not a hot head right now.  So you were a hot head?

Crystal Davis:  I was a hot headed because those were the mannerisms that I had picked up from the couple of years that I worked in automotive.  You got to be tough.  You got to stand your ground.

Andrea:  Yeah, and then you turned into a totally new environment where you’re trying to be this old persona.  Well, keep going.  Keep going!

Crystal Davis:  Yes, exactly.  So I was sitting there and I was literally like boiling over so much so to the point that I really just wanted to slide across the table and chalk him.  In a matter of seconds, I’m having these emotions.  I’m thinking these thoughts and I’m like “Wait a minute, I have what he needs.  So I have the power.  I just have to make sure I choose wisely how I use that power.”  And I said, “You know what, I have the information and if you want it, you will speak to me, otherwise, you won’t get it.”

Andrea:  OK, so you lead a very clear boundary about him and you said, if you respect and have this conversation with me then you’ll get what you want.  I think that boundary line is incredibly huge.  Those few seconds kind of came to you?

Crystal Davis:   Those few seconds, because I also realized that the room is watching.  I’m the only African-American in the room.  There’s a stigma about the angry black woman and I was angry.  I had a right to be angry.  This guy was not treating me like I was a human.  But that’s not the story that’s always told.  I just thank God that I was able to quickly regroup and be able to say that because had I made a choice to physically attack him or yell and scream then it really would have, I believe, change the path of my career.

Andrea:  So instead of demanding it in that manner where you would have, you know, essentially chalking or yelling, you pulled back into something where you were making it clear what the path was.  It was an invitation to speak with you and that this is the path.  So instead of demanding it, it was an invitation.

Crystal Davis:  I would say, at the end of the day, where you just said is correct, I honestly don’t know that I stated it as calmly as you just said.  So I don’t really know honestly if I gave him a choice, but I basically just let him know that I am the keeper of the information and if you don’t have enough respect for me to talk with me then you just won’t get it.

Andrea:  That’s so powerful.

Crystal Davis:  But at the end of the day, we said the same thing.  It was just an extremely emotional time for me, one where I did not feel supported.  So I went to my boss and I shared what happened that because of this whole respect for bosses and this hierarchy, my boss would not to go to back for me and he was also of Mexican descent.  And so it was just a very, very, very tough time and I found refuge in church through prayer and learning more deeply what the scriptures meant and how they applied for me and I could interpret from the scriptures.  It was just a very, very difficult time.  But it led to some of the most amazing time that I’ve had in my career.

Andrea:  And that was because…what are those amazing times?

Crystal Davis:  Well, you know, I talked about a few things in the book and I talked about the one thing that I can say about every promotion and elevation and new thing that I’ve taken on in life is that God never left me.  He always provided me with what I need or who I needed in my life.  At the same time that that was a tough environment, I experienced some of the best leaders in my life so that leader didn’t go to back for me.

There was some additional American that came to work in that region and I remember vividly the director of engineering.  These are guys who grew up in Ohio area, American-Italian descent.  The guy was a genius.  When he came in and he really started to go to back for the engineering department and he also appreciated talent and he also does not want a leader who’s going to tell you what to do.  He was going to challenge you to define what you needed and what obstacles you needed him to engage.  He would challenge you to go above and beyond.

Crystal Davis:  So I say that that was some of the best experiences I had because that was my first time ever when he came down there, to experience real leadership, not management, but leadership.  He opened doors for me.  He invited me to work on projects that were outside of the scope of my job title, if you will.  He is the one who invited me to be on a team of only seven engineers that were sent to Europe to work for a year to help them make them make some improvements in the operations, which was a bigger _____ of the headquarters, not just of Mexico.

So I got a chance to go work in Europe for a little over a year.  He’s a really, really great guy, because most people when they find your best people, they don’t want to lose them to anyone else but he was willing to say, “No, go, help, explore.  You’ve done well here.”  He was really just amazing because that just opened my eyes to so much more of the world.

Yeah, just tremendous and he gave me experiences where I could improve my skill set and learn more about diversity and inclusion and not what we talked about.  But I actually doing it because here I am in Spain, in Portugal and I am the minority there having to learn diversity and was so appreciative to people who were patient with me and who helped me during that time to just be able to live comfortably.

Andrea:  You know, Crystal, I think of that guy, that leader that came that really…it seems like he saw you.  He could see you for who you were and what you were contributing and he called that out of you and even more, really.

Crystal Davis:  Right, he did.

Andrea:  And kind of invited your voice out.  He wanted to hear your voice.  I think that’s one of the most difficult things for people when we feel like our voice doesn’t matter, when we feel like we don’t have a voice in a situation.  As women, I think a lot of times, and it might be men too, but I’ve heard it more often with women is that not feeling seen.

That situation of you in that office with this conversation taking place between these other two people and not including you, you were totally invisible in that situation.  You stood your ground in terms of saying that, “No, this is me and here I am.  If you want this information, you’re going to see me.”  And then you did have somebody that came along and saw you.  How did this change or maybe even impact the way that you approach working with individuals, with disrupt-HER?  I would imagine that you are excellent at seeing people for who they are and what they can offer.

Crystal Davis:  Absolutely, and it’s such a great question.  You’re spot on you know, I’m sure men experienced that also but women are probably most impacted or at least communicate their impact more about feeling invisible.  One way that I help all leaders but through the way that I help women is I meet them where they are.  I encourage them to learn how to operate within the authentic nature of who they are.

And then thirdly, I equip them to be confident and have the courage to be comfortable in the skin that they’re in.  So this weekend, I hosted a disrupt-HER retreat which was amazing.  I didn’t have a lot of women there.  It was a very small intimate space.  One of the women there said exactly what you said and she is a high-level executive.  She said, my entire life, I have felt invisible.  But yet, she still has been able to achieve you know, being a very high level in a very well-known company.

Andrea:  Hmm, isn’t that interesting?

Crystal Davis:  It’s very interesting, right?  And there’s one thing that people also need to recognize when you have mental health issues or depression or whether or not you just need an encouragement or some different ways to respond to situation in a workplace.  Because you know, when you look at, God bless her family with Kate Spade, someone who hasn’t acquired her level of success or financial wealth, Oh my God, she’s so successful and amazing and beautifully designed _____ but something is broken.

There were some areas in her life that she was not happy or she has suffered from depression.  You have to really separate coaching from where you need help around mental health issues.  I just wanted to say that to people but in talking right to this executive who said she felt invisible, she said part of what I have, the way that I operate is, I have to take time to…when someone says something to me that gets me off-kilter, she needs a being kind of process and then have time to respond.  But when she does _____ as she internalized and give power to what other people say.

So she said, “Crystal, sometimes I wish I could be a lot more like you, you know.  You’re very quick to respond.”  And I said, “Well, let’s be clear, you are who you are and there’s nothing wrong with how you’re made.  But what we might need to do is develop at least a scenario that you’d experience in the past.  I could tell you how I will respond but that’s not authentic to who you are.  But what need to do, we need to be able to _____ a protection, a wall that stops you from internalizing what they said so their words then don’t give power to over you.”

So that’s one way of how I help because she needs to be who she is.  She doesn’t need to act like me.  It wasn’t comfortable for me to try to take on the persona of how men were acting early in my career in automotive.  And she said and felt pressure to act like me.

Andrea:  That’s such an important point because I think so many people; they kind of look around and assumed that they should be like somebody else because they admire the ways that other person handles on thing.  It can become so pressure filled and it’s draining to try to be somebody else.  But to have somebody like you who could come alongside them and say, “But, no, this is you.  So let’s look at this from your perspective and your voice.”

And that’s what I love about this voice of influence concepts in general is that you find your voice of influence by helping other people theirs.  So for this gentlemen who helped you and kind of set you free to be you in your work environment.  I mean, he was a huge influence on you by letting you be you and now that’s what you’re passing on to somebody else.

Crystal Davis:  Absolutely!  He really was and he also taught me how to use my voice.  He was not a calm individual.  He was very intense and very high paced.

Andrea:  Because that’s his style.

Crystal Davis:  That’s his style and, while he was an influencer, he definitely could intimidate a lot of people.  But for me, what I learned from him and what I appreciated about him, he was very similar _____ said to me.  I appreciated the fact that he was going to be heard, and despite his approach, he was going to be heard.

That really, really helped me as a young engineer from that point of my career.  So this probably about 1998 before I left when I was like, “You know what, he says what’s on his mind.  He doesn’t mince words and while I’m not at his level, in terms of position, I’m going to make sure that I say what’s on my mind that I don’t mince words and that if nothing else, people will always know where I stand.”

I can honestly say that over my career, over my entire career, there were times that they got me in trouble but I could sleep at night.

Andrea:  Interesting.  Is that how you would define your voice at this point, like that not mincing words and making sure people understand where I’m at?  This is what I’m always going to bring.

Crystal Davis:  Yes.  Overtime, I’ve learned to adjust my tact.  I’m able now to speak calmly to situations.  I’m able to insert humor.  I can remember people always ask me, “Why do you laugh so much?”  And I’m like “I laugh sometimes _____ but I laugh because I’m a happy person.  While I’m happy, I’m gonna stay happy despite what’s going on.”  I remember I said, being comfortable with who you are and skin that you’re in.

Overtime, I’ve reached the point where, I am who I am.  There are behaviors that I can unlearn and learn new behaviors but I am who I am.  I have to be ultra comfortable in that and if I learn to operate in who I am and my strengths and the areas that I want to grow then I feel better and I have more to give to the world because I feel better about it.

Andrea:  OK, so when you’re working with women in particular, how are you helping them find out who they are.  You mentioned at the beginning that when you put on this persona of the male-dominated workforce around you that did it partly because you didn’t know what else you could be.  And I can totally relate to that so do you have any particular recommendations or suggestions about a woman who’s feeling fairly invisible because she has accomplished a lot.  She is good at what she does but people don’t seem to see her deep down.  Yeah, talk to me about what you would say to her.

Crystal Davis:  Right.  Definitely, there are lots of assessments that are out in the marketplace that really teach people about their cognitive skills, strengths finder, what their strengths are.  And so depending on the person and the situation that they want to resolve, I try to find an assessment that helps to give me more insight for how they behave.  It’s the first thing I do, because I have them write a love letter to themselves.

I remind them of being a young girl when you might have been giddy about a boy or a partner or whatever and the feeling that you had and what you wanted to say that person and how you wanted to tell them what you love about them.  You love their eyes or their smile or the way they make you laugh.  So you write a letter saying things, so whether that means you have to go back to a time when you love yourself or when you were unaware of all of the pressures that the world places on you.

I hear lot of women saying, “You know, I feel like I’ve lost myself.”  So I’m like “OK,” but when you were the person that you feel like you’ve lost, let’s describe her.  Let’s find out where she is.  What’s suppressing her?”

Andrea:  Do you find that women have a hard time writing a love letter about themselves?

Crystal Davis:  Most of them were very shocked when I asked them to do that, like “What?”  They were very shocked when asked them to do that and for the retreat, I did the same thing.  After I got them very comfortable with me and very comfortable with sharing amongst to other women and I told them, “You desire when you write it.  You can write it before we leave; you can write it tonight, or the next day.  But before we leave, I want you to write yourself a love letter.”  And I collected them and mail them to them at some random point in year to remind them.

Actually one of the ladies who were there, she said that she had that same experience at another retreat or similar.  It wasn’t a love letter but a similar experience.  She said that it was so amazing that when she was going through something, her letter came in the mail.

Andrea:  That’s fun.  That’s awesome!

Crystal Davis:  So that’s the second thing I do and then the third thing that I do is I try to find or develop with them a plan, a realistic plan where we can talk about equipping them in an area where they feel deficient, whether that’s increasing their own confidence, courage, resiliency whether that’s dealing with a difficult person at work or whether that’s applying for a new position or a new promotion, having a conversations with their boss about their career path or if it’s even about starting their own business.

I help them centered with self and then I help them to put together really effective plans to take a few steps that keep them pointed in the right direction and then we check in and of course we have coaching thereafter.  So like with this lady who talked about, she felt invisible and she wished she could _____ back like me.  You know, I told her that maybe one of the things we should work on is let’s talk to some different situations and I’ll create a lexicon and then you write a lexicon of what my responses would be and then you write how yours would be.

Again, it’s not about responding so that she respond negatively back to that person, but it’s about making sure that you go to that protection so that person’s words don’t have power over, you know making you feel bad or making you feel not valued or not worthy or anything that kind of stuff.

Andrea:  Hmm, interesting.  So one of my last questions here is if somebody is wanting to empower somebody else and to be that voice of influence for somebody else, not necessarily to be somebody else’s voice but to help them find theirs to release them to being more themselves, what would you leave them with? What would you want them to remember?

Crystal Davis:  The first thing that I would say to people, anyone who wants to find their voice is….

Andrea:  Well, how about the people who want to help other people?

Crystal Davis:  For people wanting to help other people find their voice is they should be transparent and be comfortable taking the risk of being super transparent.  People nowadays are inundated with information and you and I both know that the one thing that stops people from taking action is because they’re not clear.

So what I’ve learned is that people have access to information at the tips of their fingertips.  There are so many coaches out there.  There are search engines, insight papers, white papers, research; so there’s a _____ of information available to people dealing with any situation or circumstance.

But what people most relate to, at least the people I have encountered, they relate to the fact that I’m transparent and I’m able to share things that I’ve been through.  So they are looking at me as someone who has achieved the level of success and I have it altogether but I’m willing to share what I’ve been through and I’m willing to share what I’ve learned from it and I’m willing to share my success steps.

And that to me is what helps give power to the voice of influence, because you’re not coming from such a mechanical space of just knowing information and knowing approaches or tactics, you’re able to share with someone. Yes, I left a very, very well-paid job and I’ve a good position to take on the risk of starting my own business.

But here’s some of the challenges that I faced or here’s some of the things that I didn’t know I needed to think about and people kind of appreciate that level of transparency I think and welcome what you have to share because you have the story attached to it.  You have the experience attached to it.

And so if they can relate to your experience they now view you as a person that can influence how they might do things differently.  So I say to anyone, we all have stories, we all have life experiences.  We may not all have made the right decisions, but our wrong decisions and sharing it that might help someone else not make the same decision.

Andrea:  Absolutely!  That’s great.  Thank you so much for that advice, Crystal.

Crystal Davis:  You’re welcome.  I kind of just add one other thing, Andrea.

Andrea:  Absolutely!

Crystal Davis:  I studied leadership development coaching under John Maxwell organization and I love one thing that John Maxwell’s say, “Leadership is not about position, leadership is about influence.”  And so when you think about that despite whatever position you hold in an organization, in your family, or in your job, you can be a leader and you can influence other people in a very positive way and of course they should be used in a positive way.

So I think everyone can be a leader to someone else if they sought to take on responsibility.

Andrea:  I love it and do so through connecting it sounds like for being transparent and truly connecting with someone else with your story.  I love it.  Well, Crystal, tell us a little bit about the book because I want to know how people can find it.

Crystal Davis:  So the book is Faith For Fiery Trial and I believe there are a total of 20 authors who share their stories.  Some of the women have overcome illnesses, challenges on their job, or challenges in business, etcetera, etcetera.  We were asked not to only share our stories but to share the lessons that we want to share.  We want other people to learn from it.  So I think it will not only be a book 2of great stories but also a book of great advice and steps that you can take.

So the book will be launched at the end of the month, June 30th and you can follow me on forms of social media at crystalydavis and I will be selling the book also through my website.  Our hope is that the book will be picked up by major publishers and carriers.  But at the moment, we are freelancing and they can share with getting the word out because a lot of people are struggling and they need to hear these stories and they need to know that they can overcome the challenges that many of us face in life.

Andrea:  Absolutely!  So if you’re struggling, if you found yourself in that situation where the trials just keep coming, you’re feeling kind of down about it or you know somebody who is feeling that way or you want to have some inspiration and be kind of buffer your own ability to handle those situations before they even occur, go out and get this book because I think that Faith For Fiery Trials will be a really powerful book for you to really inspire you and then to equip you to be able to handle them.

So thank you so much for being with us today, Crystal, and will be sure to link all of this in the show notes for this episode.  This episode will be coming out right after your book launch so it will be a perfect timing and I hope that you’ll have a great success with it.

Crystal Davis:  Thank you so much.  And thank you so much the opportunity to share with your audience.  Like I said before, I love your title, Voice of Influence and I just love that you’re exposing other people to different ways that they can become more influential.  I love the work that you’re doing.

Andrea:  Thanks Crystal!  Alright, we’ll talk to you soon.

Crystal Davis:  Great.  Thank you!

Posted on

How to Make & Keep Your Message Relevant with Joe Calloway

Episode 58

There are new businesses, thought leaders, influencers, coaches, consultants, you name it coming onto the scene every single day. So, how you can stand out and make sure your business, and voice, is relevant in a crowded marketplace? This week’s guest is going to tell us exactly that!

Joe Calloway works with leaders to help make great companies even better. He is a business author and conducts interactive sessions with leaders on how they can better simplify, focus, and execute in their businesses. Joe is also a partner in The Disruption Lab; which is a consulting group that helps companies with innovation and transformation.

In this episode, Joe talks about differentiating yourself by creating genuine value for your clients or customers, why he believes his influence is greater in smaller settings, why he takes a collaborative approach to his work, why just being different from your competition isn’t enough, the simple way to get the marketplace to “beat a path to your door,” how simplifying something is more difficult that it being complicated, and so much more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Joe Calloway Voice of Influence Andrea Joy Wenburg

Transcript

Hey, hey! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast!

Today, I have with me Joe Calloway. I’m so thrilled to have him because he works with leaders to help make great companies even better. He’s a business author and conducts interactive sessions with leaders on how they can better simplify, focus, and execute in their businesses.

Joe is also a partner in the Disruption Lab, which is a consulting group that helps companies with innovation and transformation. Oh, all these words that I love. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife, Annette and her daughters, Jessica, and Kate.

Joe, welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast!

Joe Calloway: Hey, Andrea, thank you so much for having me!

Andrea: So what would you say is the core of the message that you have in your business with your voice of influence, what are you trying to get across to the world or to leaders?

Joe Calloway: Yeah, I think that if I boil it down, it would be about value, how differentiate about creating genuine value for your clients or customers. And with leaders, it’s how do they create value as being a place to work for their employees and then also how do you lift that team of employees so that the entire organization is creating value. That’s mostly, as you said in the introduction, I mostly work with leadership groups now, which I love doing. It’s funny, after doing this forever; I’m really having more fun now than I think I ever had.

Andrea: Why is that?

Joe Calloway: You know, I think I’m like a bowling ball that bounces around and finally gets in the grove. I think I’ve got my grove on. I’m doing a message that I enjoy and that message continually evolves and changes. It has to, because I’m talking with businesses and business changes all the time. I’ve also gone from, I used to give speeches, I mean I would give a speech to 10,000 people or 5,000 people and it was made you in all the talking and the spotlight was on me and I really got sick of it.

Oddly enough, I got bored with it. And now, I prefer to say, I do conversations. I work with much smaller groups and it’s very conversational and, to tell you the truth, I have more meaningful influence. So I’m having more fun. I’m working with groups that I love to work with and I’m doing it in a style, in a format that’s fun for me.

Andrea: Hmm, yeah. I love those smaller groups where you can really go back and forth. So you feel like your influence is greater in this smaller setting because why?

Joe Calloway: I think because it truly does lend itself to that word that you used which was conversation. The group I’m going to be working with tomorrow is about 60 people and it’s going to be a very much a roll-up your sleeves and I’ll talk then I’ll give them something to work on and then we will talk together about what they came up with.

Here’s the coolest thing that I’ve discovered, Andrea, I think I’d do my best to work and I give them the most value in terms of my ideas in what I’ve learned when I’m responding to something that they just said as opposed to me going on with my outline, which I do. But I kind of set the stage for the conversation and it’s in that conversation that I think I have the greatest impact.

Andrea: It sounds to me like you’re talking about a difference between content and insight. Because content, it seems like we can share that and then they have to go and apply it, but with insight you’re able to offer something that’s specific to them in their situation.

Joe Calloway: Yeah, it is that, and I’ll tell you something interesting about this speaking business, a lot of people start out and they really just kind of do and book reports. They’re talking about what other people have said or written, which is fine. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. And then a lot of times, the next day, you start digging out the information on your own. But sometimes where your career leads you, and this is where I’m think and hope I am now, is the people that I work with they’re saying, “Well, Joe, what do you think? What do you believe about this? What’s your opinion about this?

You know, it takes some years and some going around the truck a few times to build up the credibility to, I think, legitimately have that kind of bliss with credibility and I hope I have accomplished that. But it’s that give and take of “Here’s what I think, what do you guys think?” And tomorrow I’m going to be doing a lot of that. I’m going to be saying, “Look, everybody in this room an experienced leader, what do think in addition to what I think?” So I think the combination of those opinions and those insights gives all of us greater insight.

Andrea: Hmm love it! I know that you are all about this collaborative environment and I’m curious if that sort of always been an important thing to you, you know, this bringing value, creating value and doing it with this collaborative environment? Is it personal to you in any kind of way?

Joe Calloway: You know it’s interesting. It’s funny; I just made a short promotional video, just a couple of minutes about how I work. The word that I focused on was exactly the word that you just used, which was collaborative. And what I say is I’m very collaborative in the way that I work, not just in the decision itself but I’m very collaborative before the event or the meeting because I want to know what’s going on with them.

It doesn’t happen much anymore but every now and then _____ would say, “Joe, just come in and do your thing.” And I’m thinking, I don’t know what my thing is until I know what’s going on with you guys.” I have some sort of contexts so that this really has some meaning for you guys. Yeah, it’s personal in a couple of ways. One way that it’s personal is that I simply find it personally much more satisfying for me to make it about them. Because a lot of times, we’ve all set and listen to people and we’re thinking, “OK, this is interesting and this is all well and good.” But I don’t really see how it applies to me.

The reaction that I want because it’s more fun and, because duh, it’s good for my business, the reaction that I want is for them to be thinking, “My gosh, I can do what he’s talking about and it makes all the sense in the world for me to do that. So I’m gonna go tomorrow and start doing that.”

So I do try to make it personal in just that way of working, the really highly customized messaging. Andrea, it’s just more fun for me because I get bored if I do the same thing over and over. I’ve got a very low threshold for boredom. I think it’s a double edge sword. It’s a blessing and a curse. But anyway, it’s the way I’m wired. So yeah, I like to make the messaging as personally relevant, and that’s another I think key word, as relevant as I can possibly make it.

Andrea: OK, so we’re talking about differentiation and that’s a big piece of your message. What kind of suggestions or what approach do you have to differentiation?

Joe Calloway: There are a lot of people out there and a lot of businesses that are falling into a trap. You look at the root of the word differentiation and the root of it is different, and yet, I think it’s a mistake for people to sit down and say, “OK everybody, we’ve got to be different. We’ve got to be different in the competition and if we’re different then we’ll do better.” Look, everybody can put on a funny hat and that will make you different. The best different and the only different that matters is to be better.

If you got a restaurant, you can be different through some sort of gimmick but that’s going to wear off. But if you’re different because you’re better, because the food is better, because the value is better, because your service is better, you know, just go down the list. If you’re different because you’re better that’s the wisest thing. Oh my gosh, what was it? I cannot take credit for this. I read it on the website of some company, who I would love to credit them but I simply can’t remember who it was. But it said, bells and buzzers wear off, value never dies.

So for me, that’s not key, key, key point on differentiation. Look, in every aspect of everything that you do and how you serve your particular market, how can you be better? How can you improve on that?

Andrea: OK, so value meaning improving what you have and making sure that what you offer is something of value to the other person. I’m assuming that’s what you’re talking about.

Joe Calloway: Yeah, it is. I tell you what, in business today more and more that’s getting to the point. Here’s a question that I post to my clients a lot, I’d say, “Something’s gonna put you out of business in the next five years, maybe the next three years or maybe quicker than that. Something will put you out of business, meaning the way you exist today. Now the question is, is somebody else gonna put you out of business or are you gonna put you out of business?”

Andrea: Right.

Joe Calloway: By moving on to be the next thing that you need to be or the next iteration or the next state of evolution for your business so that you can better serve whoever your market is because the market changes all the time. I mean, it just constantly changes and we all have to get better.

So a lot of differentiation is rooted in, what do we need to change? What do we need to start doing that we’re not doing? What do we need to be better at that we’re already doing? And this could be the biggest one, what do we need to start doing? That’s a tough one, Andrea. It could be that you say, “Well, everything is working. I’m not gonna start doing anything,” and that’s a trap. You’ve got to be one step ahead and figure out how you need to change because if you don’t, the market is going to tell you and it may tell you in a very unpleasant way.

Andrea: So, let’s say you have a couple of, maybe three or four leaders in a room that they realize that they need to stay on top of this. But how did they decide which things to target or is there…

Joe Calloway: Great question. That’s a great, great question. Let me tell you, there are a lot of big companies _____, you mentioned the Disruption Lab that I’m a partner in, we’re working with some very big corporations. But what we’re doing is taking a couple of people and working with them in their assignment from their employers, from that corporation is you need to think like a startup. We need to have part of this company thinking very entrepreneurially.

And the nature of a startup is you say, “OK, here’s the product or service based on what you wanna do, what you think has value, or what you think people will pay for it.” Here’s the product or service that I’m going to set up and then you put it out there and guess what, the market is going to give you some information and you’re going to say, “Oops, I think maybe we need to change course.”

And maybe then you’ll need to change course again and again or maybe you need to say the market is telling us, they’re not interested in this. We need to start over. But the nature of starting something new, and you have to look at it this way, is it’s largely a learning process. Now, where do we find these areas of opportunity? Here’s a really good place to look, what can you make easier for people to do? What can you make easier for people to buy? Look, at least I have a couple of examples.

Andrea: I love this by the way.

Joe Calloway: Say that again?

Andrea: I love this, what can we do to make things easier.” Keep it going.

Joe Calloway: Think about this, why is Amazon such a name of success and such a master in the marketplace? Because they made it so easy to buy anything, I mean anything particularly an Amazon Prime member, which more and more people are all the time, you press one button and you own it. It’s getting to the point where pretty soon, you’ll press the button and in 10 minutes a drone will be outside your front door with whatever that you just bought.

OK, look at the company that everybody’s sites is being the poster company for disruption, Uber. What did Uber do? They made it easier to get a ride. So if you can figure out an easier, simpler way to do almost anything, the market place as the old saying goes will be a path to your door.

Andrea: Hmmm love that! OK, so I know another thing that you talked about, it’s kind of related to easier is simpler and simplifying, which you have very, very eloquently stated in videos and in your website things about how being complicated is easier than simplifying. So talk to us about these concepts.

Joe Calloway: Yeah, I think in the video on my website. I don’t know where this word comes from. But I said, any knuckle head can make something complicated which is true. Listen, I will have a room full of anybody, but certainly if I’ve got a room for the leaders, I’ll say this, I’ll say, “Raise your hand if you frequently have this thought that the audience you know I think were making this way more complicated than it needs to be.” And Andrea, every hand in the room goes up every single time. We all make it, meaning pretty much everything more complicated than it needs to be.

I challenged them by saying, “Look, if you’re a leader,” but really this applies to anybody, “but certainly if you’re a leader, I would challenge you that one of your core responsibilities is to simplify the complicated.” I’ll give you a great example. I was working with a nonprofit 30 years ago. They were wanting to rethink their purpose in how to go about creating more value to their marketplace as a nonprofit. Well, they had a three paragraphs statement of purpose. It was kind of a vision statement. Three paragraphs and the paragraphs were kind of long, this is here we are and this is what we do.

So I charged them with boiling that down to the absolute essence of what it meant? Now, this was a nonprofit that works with young women, with girls in all sorts of ways helping them better themselves. What they boiled that three paragraph statement down to was three words and the words were, We Empower Girls. And they were so fired up over tapping into that _____ that in months and months later they said, it’s the most empowering thing for ourselves that we ever did was to simplify that goofy, complicated mission vision purpose statement.

So yes, simplification is kind of like making it easy but that’s a great thing for anybody to do in their business. Well, I tell people, go back and simplify. They say, “Simplify what?” And my answer is “Everything, everything that you can possibly simplify, simplify it.”

Andrea: Here’s what I have gotten…I have had some frustrations with this area and I’ve seen this a lot in working with other people who were trying to simplify their messaging. That is just doing it down to those few words like you’re talking about without becoming too abstract or confusing.

Joe Calloway: Yeah, because you sure don’t want to be confusing. You know, the first mission I think in a lot of communication, and this applies to your employees, to your customers; is number one, they have to understand to what you’re talking about. They have to get it. My gosh, I looked at my own website, this was about four years ago and I just look at it through my hands up and I thought, “You can’t even tell what business I’m in from this thing. This is so convoluted, so abstract, and so complicated.”

I’ve kind of boiled it down to, for me, I can have three paragraphs describing what I did and I boiled it down to, “I help leaders make great companies even better.” That opens up a question, which is how do you that? How does that work? But that’s fine. On the front end, at least I w ant them to get that he works with leaders to make their companies better. They may not want that. I may not be a good match for them. That’s fine, that’s okay. I don’t want to be working with the wrong people and they don’t want to be working with me.

So you bring at such a great point. You bring at such a great point because if there’s not clarity and that you know when I talk about simplicity, the very next step in that is to create clarity and that leads to the next step, which is so that you can create focus on what matters most and what’s most important. The winners are not the people that do the most things, the winners are the people that do the most important things and do them extremely well and with great consistency.

Andrea: And they choose the most important things based on how they have simplified…I mean, how do they choose?

Joe Calloway: Yeah, I generally look at a couple of things. The things that are most important to me are the things that will help me create the greatest value for my clients coupled with that will help my business grow. And then the third element which is that is something that I want to do because listen, Andrea, I have been caught in the trap so many times.

I mean, this is classic because I’m constantly telling people not to do this and I was the guilty as one in the room. I’ll put it this way, don’t get stuck doing something that you’re really good at but that you don’t want to do. I have gotten stuck doing things that I did well and there was a market for it and I didn’t want to do it. It wasn’t fun. It didn’t make me happy but I was really good at it and it was making money. So I got caught in that dumbo trap and it’s hard. It’s hard to give up something that’s working.

Andrea: Oh definitely!

Joe Calloway: It’s taking me a long time but I’m starting to get the hang of it.

Andrea: And so the reason why you shouldn’t get stuck in it is?

Joe Calloway: Well, you know, a couple of things, you could get stuck in anything particularly today. You’re putting yourself at some point in the future, and probably the fairly near future, and this goes back what I was talking about earlier, if you get stuck in anything, you’re going to go out of business or your business is little by little going to go away.

The other thing is, and I’ll go back to the very personal _____ of it which is, I mean, come on, what’s worth paying the price of doing something that you can’t stand to do. Listen, I understand the real world, there are people that have jobs they don’t love. It drives me crazy when I hear people say, “Oh you have to be patient about your job. You have to love your job and if you don’t then you’re a loser.” Well, wait a minute. There are some people that have to support families and they got to have a job and it may not be the job of their dreams. Come on, that’s just real life and that’s about responsibility.

Having said that, I am a great proponent of doing whatever it is that you can do to bring fulfillment into your life and joy into your life anyway you can and for some people that means what they do after work, away from work. But certainly for an entrepreneur, for somebody that has their own business, come on, we’ve got a leeway to try things.

The trick is, it maybe something you want to do but there’s another part of the formula. Is there anybody willing to pay you to do it? And there a lot of people that say, “Well, all I have to do is be patient about what I’m doing and I’ll be a success.” Yeah, if there’s anybody that wants to pay you to do it, you will be but it could be you’re passionate about what you do and nobody has the least interest in giving you the credit cards for you to do it so that’s a problem. That’s an indication you might need to shift a little bit.

Andrea: So I’m still curious about the simplicity thing because I interviewed your friend, Colby Juvenville, in episode 51 and he and I were talking about how it’s hard for him to simplify or not necessarily simplify, because I might be talking about two different things, but I want to see how they fit together for you.

Joe Calloway: Sure!

Andrea: But I’m similar to him in that. It’s easy for me to get a lot of plates going and I kind of enjoy spinning plates. I kind of enjoy having a variety of things going on and going on in my head sometimes. But then, it does, I think, become a problem when it comes to trying to simplify the message about what is the market message or the brand message or whatever because of so many different things.

How do people who are kind of on that creative spectrum of, we’d like all over the place a little bit but at the same time there’s this necessary piece of needing to simplify in order to communicate and actually grow something?

Joe Calloway: Yeah a couple of everything, and number one, I saw that you interviewed Colby. Colby is great. I like Colby a lot. He’s a smart, smart guy and great of what he does. You’re talking to somebody who loves nothing more than the next idea. Oh my gosh, I’m like the classic. I’m like a dog, squirrel. I mean, I’ll have a great idea and I’ll start to execute it but then I look up and go, “Oh but here’s a new shiny idea over there and I wanna do that too.”

So for me simplification partly means discipline about understanding the difference between a true opportunity and a distraction. I would never advice anybody to not try new things. And if you are wired such that you love to have, as you said a lot of different plates spinning, great, do that. There are people that are at their most productive when they are doing it.

Go back to Amazon. Oh my gosh, Amazon is getting into healthcare. Amazon is going to be into everything eventually and yet, Amazon still has to have some sort of unifying vision that makes all of these pieces work together. And I go back to what Amazon does; everything that Amazon gets into, they get into it to make something simpler or to make something easier, to make it easier to buy stuff, or to make it simpler to access healthcare.

So you can have a lot of different things going on but you still have to simplify in your mind to the point that you can keep up with at all, that you can manage at all. As you said, and this is really important, simplify to the marketplace so that they get it what your brand is about. Because if they look at your brand and go, “I can’t figure out what she does, she’s all over the map.” That’s not good for business.

For me, I do a few different things but it’s all now around effective leadership. And so I try to simplify the value of proposition but my delivery system, the way I deliver that value can take any number of different forms.

Andrea: Oh I like that. So simplify the value of proposition in what you’re saying what you offer but you can offer it in many different ways.

Joe Calloway: Yeah, exactly!

Andrea: Yeah, I love that. Oh this is so good. I’m so happy that you’re here, Joe. And I am curious, if you were to take this conversation we’ve been having and pull out something that you really think that somebody who has or wants to have a voice of influence. They want to make their voice matter more for a cause or inside of their business as a leader or even as a speaker, consultant; what piece of influence or advice you have around how they can make their voice matter for today?

Joe Calloway: There are a number of things that comes to mind and I just go to, I mean I have to do that, Andrea. I’ve been in business a very long time. I’ve got to work on those elements that you’ve just sited all the time for me to stay in business because the business I’m in has gotten way more competitive over the last few years. A lot more people doing it now, and my competitors, I hear people say, “I’m so good. I don’t really have any competition.” I think, “Gosh, what’s life like in that planet because on my planet, I’ve got tons of competition and they’re so good.”

I mean, these leaders are so good at what they do. I have to constantly stay on top of it. So a couple of things about creating value and truly being a voice of influence and one of them is this is to be 100% you. You know it’s funny, I don’t do so much anymore but I used to work with executives on giving more effective presentations. The main thing I have to do with them was get them out of their heads about giving a speech.

And I would say, please don’t give a speech, don’t ever, ever, ever give a speech just talk to them. You’ve got something that you feel is important to say and if you don’t, you shouldn’t be up in front of them in the first place, but if you do have something to say that’s important just talk to them. You’re not supposed to be in a particular way. You’re supposed to be you, 100% you, because people sense that and if they sense that you are fully present and if it’s truly coming from your heart with what you’re telling them then you’re going to have more impact.

I do think there’s a lot to be said for what we’ve been talking about in terms of getting clarity yourself on what you’re core message is. I’m not saying, it needs to be just one thing but you’re core messaging. I’ll put it that way, because if we don’t have clarity on it then nobody else is going to have clarity on it. And another part is listening and listening on the front end.

I can’t do a presentation unless I feel like I have absolute clarity on who I’m talking to, what their concerns are and what’s _____ for them. I’ve been relate my message to that. It doesn’t mean that I write something brand new just to suit them. That strikes me as kind of faking it.

And here’s the other thing, sometimes I find out that I’m not the right match and I want to know that, because my gosh, any of us that have been in front of the audience and we got that realization of, “Uh uh, I really shouldn’t be in front of these people.” So I want to know on the front in, “Am I the right match and how can my message match up with their concerns? How can I be relevant in such a way that truly creates value?”

Andrea: Being relevant with and also being 100% you.

Joe Calloway: Yeah.

Andrea: Great, I love that! Well, thank you so much, Joe. I really appreciate you taking time to be with us today in sharing so much wisdom and so much inspiration for us as we move forward with our own voice of influence. Thank you for your voice in the world.

Joe Calloway: Well this is…can we go this again tomorrow?

Andrea: I love that.

Joe Calloway: This is fun. Thank you so much for having me. Listen, I don’t ever ask people to agree with me but I hope that what I say at least provokes a thought or two. If I’m a catalyst for people thinking about what they do and what they want to do and what they should do then I’m happy. I hope we were a catalyst at least.

Andrea: I’m sure. I know that that is the case so thank you so much!

 

 

END

 

Posted on

Stop Putting Yourself On the Backburner with Keri Stanley

Episode 57

When someone asks who you are, how often do you respond with your title? Wife, mother, physician, executive, etc. You’re more than just your title and this week’s guest wants to help remind you of that.

Keri Stanley is the CEO of Keri Stanley Coaching, Huffington Post Writer, and Inspirational Speaker who spends her life looking for the a-ha moments to share with her clients. She now hosts international experiences for healthcare and service-based professionals to Ground, Grow, & Give so they’re able to serve from a space of fulfillment rather than sacrifice.

In this episode, Keri talks about her journey of living a picture-perfect life while feeling lost and empty inside to now helping others prevent the same thing happening to them, how you can become more connected to yourself and those around you, the importance of letting go of some control and focusing on the positive “what if’s” instead of the negative ones, and so much more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I have with me, Keri Stanley, a sweet sweet, awesome, power-packed woman.  I’m so excited to share her with you!

She is the CEO of Keri Stanley Coaching.  She’s a Huffington Post writer and inspirational speaker who really spends her life looking for a-ha moments that she can share with her clients.  She enjoys the diversity of a worldwide client base, helping healthcare professionals learn how to fully connect, first to themselves and then to the rest of the world creating a really fulfilling life of meaning and impact, I’m excited to hear more about this in a minute.  She now hosts international experiences for healthcare and service based professionals so that they can Ground, Grow, & Give to be able to service from a space of fulfillment rather than sacrifice.

So, Keri, it is so great to have you here with us today on the Voice of Influence podcast!

Keri Stanley:  Oh Andrea, thank you so much.  I am honored and blessed to be here with you and I’m super excited to just have this conversation with you and to listeners.

Andrea:  Yes!  OK, so let’s start with…you’re really passionate about a lot of things.  If you could kind of distill it down to a core message or a main thing that you’re wanting to get across to the world with your voice of influence, what would that message be?

Keri Stanley:  Really that message would be that we all have a difference that we can make in this world and that we get to do that at the same time as we are taking care of other people.  And so, so often, we put ourselves on the back burners, so often we live our lives just fully in service to other people and then we’re kind left in the dust.

So my main message is that we can actually have both and do it in a way that tapped into the gifts that we have that we have meaning and impact in the world and that we get to take care of ourselves at the same time.

Andrea:  We have so much in common in that area for sure, so why does this matter to you?

Keri Stanley:  So yeah, just going back real quick, I am a single mom with two kids.  I have twins that are getting ready to turn 14 and I lived the life of a healthcare professional for a really long time.  I always knew that I wanted to help people or animals like that’s been a _____ since I was a little kid.  So the core of me is about helping other people.

So I lived my life based off of that and I lived my life in healthcare.  But what happened along the journey is that like I had everything from a picture perfect picture that from the outside looks great.  I had a successful career.  I had the marriage, the white picket fence, the kids, the whole nine yards, right?  But on the inside, I was completely lost.

I had days that I would look in the mirror and I’m like “I had no idea who I am anymore and how I exist in this world.”  I was feeling empty.  I was feeling used.  I was feeling abandoned.  I really didn’t know who I was anymore.  I didn’t feel like I was a good mom.  I would have days where I would just yell and scream at my kids and then I would feel awful.

I lived my life just in sacrifice of others, both in my profession and at home.  I didn’t understand the value of taking care of myself at that time and everybody else got _____ that.  So I ended up losing almost everything in my life.  My marriage fell apart.  I ended up losing my job.  I ended up, like all of these things that I was doing the right thing out there ended up costing me so much.

In that time, I stepped back and really started looking at like, is there a way to do life different?  Is there a way that it doesn’t need to be like this?  Is there a way that I can feel fulfilled that I can feel a really good mom and that I can make a difference in the world and like it all can work together?

I started seeing other people in life just in general that I was exposed to that they were making this happen.  I was like “If they can do this, why can’t I?”  So I started surrounding myself with people like that and I really started learning this value of understanding that you don’t have to give from a sacrifice state that you actually can give from a fulfilled state and starts with you.

So transforming my own life and even going back in the healthcare with a completely different shift and perspective, and now coaching individuals into how they can create this in their own life, my kids now see a truly happy mom on the inside and the out and they understand the value.  So not only am I doing that for myself but I’m actually teaching them on how to do that in their future as well as other individuals in the world.

We get to choose how we live this life but a lot of times, we’re just conditioned that we have to put all of our needs to the side.  And so learning how to shift that really makes the difference for both of you and the world.

Andrea:  So Keri, do you think that people get lost in that way that you were describing here a little bit ago?  I see it happen mostly with women but I think it happens with men as well at times, especially in that midlife kind of range when you’re starting to kind of question everything and ask what you’re really all about.  But how do you think that we end up really getting lost like that?  Does it have to do with the way that you’re talking about that living from this place of sacrifices instead of abundance, or what do you see there for that?

Keri Stanley:  Yeah.  I love your point about men because it is from women a lot.  But I do _____ with the fact that men go through the same thing, it’s just that that’s not talked about in the same way.  Women actually will talk about it more when they feel safe enough to share, when they get in an environment that they’re seeing other women in the same place.  Men tend to hold that inside way more than women do but they actually go through the same process of feeling lost and not having that identity.

So part of the things that I see, and I love that you talked about from sacrifice to abundance, that a lot of people actually don’t even know what the word abundance means.  That it’s just, again, we’re conditioned in how to live and we just kind of accept that as it is.  And you start saying things that just like “I’m just gonna survive this day,” or you start saying things like, “If I could just make it through this stage,” or “If I can just make it through to tomorrow,” or those types of things.

The other things is that we start identifying with our titles as who we are rather than remembering who we were as a _____ child that we have turned off through our life and we started accepting our worth is based off of our title at the time.

So whether we are a mom, whether we are an administrator, whether we are a wife, whether we are even single versus divorced versus whatever.  We just start identifying with these titles of that who we are.  If you ask anyone for the most part who they are, they’re going to start rattle off their titles.  The truth is that if you look at, look you and me for example, you are a mom just like I am, right?  You’re a woman just like I am but we may have all these similar titles but that the core of who we are, it’s actually very different, right?

We have so much in common but we have different gifts.  So who we are is really who we are as individuals and those are the pieces that we forget.  We forget our worth and actually who we are in the world and who we’re meant to be in the world because we’re just completely identified with a title, which means if you ever lose that title for some reason, a lot of people go into massive self doubt because they identify themselves completely by labels.

Andrea:  Right.  Yeah and then they don’t know who they are in the inside which is what really sustains the person through life and through hard times and through everything.

OK this is really cool, so what difference would it make in the world if people were to really embrace this idea that they can be more than their titles?  Yeah, what sort of difference would this actually make in a bigger sense, more than for just the individuals but also for the world in general, like what is your vision for this?

Keri Stanley:  Yeah, it makes such a difference in a way that we lived our lives and not only for ourselves but the impact that we have on the people that we touched on a daily basis.  So when you think about the people that you want to be around every single day, what do they have in common and what are the people that you don’t actually want to be around?

You know the difference in a person that is somebody that’s like really attracted in this magnetic way and they are people that like they have really good energy, they’re doing things in life.  They’re making a difference, like you just enjoy being around them.  So you get to choose to be one of those people.  The difference is the impact that you can make by just showing up in the world as you, like we’re always trying to be someone else.  So you get to be you, you get to bring your gifts to the world and when you’re authentically happy with your life, because 90% of people aren’t happy with their life.

If you ask people on a scale of 1to 10 how happy are you with your life, 90% of people are going to be less than five.  So you want to ask yourself, are you OK with that?  If you could actually make the changes to where you’re living a life that was, at least from the upper end if not closer to 10, what difference does that make for you as an individual, how you show up in your family as an individual, the impact that you actually feel like you can make in the world, it completely changes the entire perspective and your confidence in what you can achieve.

Because the reason that we don’t go out and do the things that we are actually meant to do and the reason that we’re here is because we don’t believe that we can.  So suddenly, when you allow yourself to step into that, you now see the world as possibility rather than, like “I’m just trying to survive.”  We were not mean to live on this earth in a way that we are just supposed to make it through the day.  That’s not at all why we were sent here, right?

So once you adapt to this lifestyle of living on purpose, living while you were here, taking care of yourself so that you can actually take better care of others then in some way you have a reason to be here rather than just making it through the day.

Andrea:  You know what I really like about what you just said is that you’re not saying that people need to totally change all the circumstances in their lives.  I understand that that could be a part of that, you might need to change your job or you might need to you know whatever, but you’re also talking about this internal shift that actually changes the way you approach your current circumstances.

Keri Stanley:  Absolutely, and to remember that you are not your circumstances.  So we like to go into blame, complain, and justify all the reasons that we are where we are.  So our circumstances are simply that that’s our circumstances.  We still get to choose how we want to create our life and how we want to live our life regardless of our circumstances.

As a matter of fact, your circumstances actually maybe a gift or something that you are learning so that you can do the next thing, but if you’re not connected to you and you’re not connected spiritually and you’re not connected to people, because we live a very disconnected life.  We’re very connected to technology that we’re very disconnected from all the things that are out there even the opportunities, the messages, all of that.

The people that are the most important in our life, a lot of times, they’re the most disconnected because we’re so focused on our _____.  So when you can step back from that and actually grasp the magic of the everyday life and the miracles that are happening all around you then you actually get to even enjoy the circumstances that you’re in with entire different set of lenses.

Andrea:  OK, Keri, when you’re just talking about this connectedness and how we’re disconnected, but what is it look like to be connected or how does one…you know if you feel disconnected in either areas of your life or just totally in general, what is it look like for somebody to actually become more connected in these ways that you’re just talking about?

Keri Stanley:  I truly feel that once people get so much more connected, because it’s a rhythm, right?  We go in and out of being connected versus disconnected.  It’s not a 24/7 am I connected but the goal is to be more connected on a much more regular basis.  So first of all when you’re connected to yourself, when you’re truly connected, there is the peace and a calm that you can even achieve in the midst of a storm because you are moving through it and there’s a light that happens to where people actually, like I said that actually want to be around you.

So there’s a different energy that you carry as you are going throughout life.  Mo most people are looking for this peace and fulfillment factor and so you actually can feel that peace within because so often we’re trying to get back from someone else.  So imagine being able to just create that regardless of what’s going on in your world within yourself.

And then when you are connected from a spiritual standpoint whatever that looks like for you, but when you’re connected from that spiritual standpoint, there is always a message, there’s always an answer, there is always something of what my next step gets to be when we allow ourselves to be supported.  Especially, we as women think like, I have to do this on my own _____ always have to be on my own.  And so create this on my own-ness and when we can learn to receive from others and from just the universe God whatever that maybe _____ in life doesn’t have to be so hard and lonely.

So that connection in and of itself allows you to feel primarily supported in life and you’re not ever doing it on your own or alone.  Those connections are critical in living a life but then it allows you to be truly, truly, truly connected in your relationships and that includes with your kids that includes with your spouse or your partner, relationships with your friends.

It could go on such a deeper level because how often do you pass by someone and just have a conversation that’s a fly by, right?  And we don’t actually get into real conversations.  So that is partly just because we are disconnected, which also doesn’t _____ to make a true difference.

Andrea:  Yeah, I cannot think of it too and so like the connectedness, it’s centeredness.  There’s something about that point when you feel like that calm that you’re describing that you realized how distracted you’ve been in these other conversations with other people or whatever.  That’s definitely been my experience as well and that’s been the kind of grand scheme of things, like I used to feel super distracted and that’s been decreasing overtime but it’s also been a cycle like you talked about.

You kind of go in and out of this feeling distracted, feeling the angst and that sort of thing and then kind of coming back to that center or connected place where you _____.  It’s just so distracting and I think that for me, this is something that I’ve been thinking for myself recently so maybe you have some thoughts on this, but I have felt an increasing amount of peace around what I’m doing.  I think when you’re creative or when you’re on a mission whatever, you can get in that hassle mode.  You can get in that mode of like “I gotta get a stuff done.  I gotta figure this out, I gotta figure this out.”

We actually talked about this recently where I was just like so like you said “You’re just so in your head right now, Andrea.”  And I was like “I know, but I don’t know how to get out of it in this moment,” because I was feeling this angst and I think that this angst to find and to kind of come to a conclusion about something is something that I’ve adapted as part of my identity like I have to feel angst or something.

Recently, I’ve been feeling less of that.  I’ve been feeling like “Why do I need to feel that way?  Why I’m always saying, I don’t know when I actually do know?”  So when people ask me a question about what you do or what you’re thinking or that sort of thing, I’d answer with, “I don’t know.  I don’t know.”  I’d get so lost in my head like you’re talking about.

So what is that looks like for somebody like what were you trying to help me do in that moment when you said, “Andrea, you’re so in your head?”

Keri Stanley:  There are two words that comes to mind as I’m talking to you right now and I remember this conversation because how often do we all get into that space because we’re doubting.  We’re doubting our value, we’re doubting that we can have the answers, and we’re doubting that it’s going to be okay because there’s this need for control.  So most of us have gotten to a point that we’re living life on the defensive, we’re trying to protect as _____, right?  We’re trying to protect.

So we’re living in life to where we’re trying to make sure that nothing bad is going to happen.   We’re trying to make sure everything is taken care of and we lived this life with control.  So when we do that, we lose sight of letting go to surrender and trust.  So those are the two words that as you’re asking me that and I have so many clients that there is their biggest thing is learning to let go of control because that’s really, really scary and that’s back to the “I’m the one that has to do it so I’m the one that has to figure it out.”

When you surrender and you let go and you actually trust that it’s all going to work out, that I actually already have the answers or they’re coming in perfect timing then the pressure gets to be released and I actually get the opportunity to be and enjoy my life.  And that’s a very scary thing even getting connected for most people because we live so distracted lives.  It’s a resistance and a way for us to protect ourselves from getting connected.

We use “busy” as this shield of our badge of honor because actually most people are scared to have stillness because they’re afraid of what they might find out and they know they’re lost but they’re afraid of what they’re going to find out as they go along with their journey and so in their minds that’s all what ifs that could be bad.

So what I challenge everybody that I work with is, what about all the what ifs that are amazing and that you get to experience by going on this journey.  I’ve seen time and time again; executives, VPs, moms, or physicians, that when they start letting go of all the control they’ve been holding so tightly to, which is actually just an illusion and it takes so much energy, that when they start letting go of that and the allow themselves to be supported that life actually gets easier and they’re amazed of how quickly things can happen in their life.

Andrea:  Love it.  Yes, awesome.  OK, I want to get into what you’re doing now because I didn’t come from a healthcare family but I married into one, so I have a big heart for them, for healthcare providers and you are now providing a means of support and vision for them.  I would like you to talk to us about your program first of all and then we can _____ out a little bit as far as why and that sort of thing, so what is the program?

Keri Stanley:  So the newest program that I’m launching, because I ran international retreats across the globe, some of just for women, some are for men and women together that anyone can come to, and the entire purpose of them is to ground, grow, and give.  When we talked this idea of surrender and that messages get delivered to you, I really got this clear message on a run because I’m a runner and I do that for my own self-care and I also do that for my own mental stability.  It really helps me from that standpoint but at the same time it’s when I can get those messages come through.

So this one was a very clear message that one of the gifts that I have is teaching people how to get grounded in their lives so that they can hear better, because we’re blocking that on a regular basis, because it’s disconnected and living from the state of fulfillment.  So allowing individuals to go on a retreat experience where they get to get grounded both in their own like who they are.  They get to get grounded in being disconnected from the day-to-day and actually just getting connected in life and getting connected in what really matters because how often are we focused on doesn’t matter that we think of.  But once we get quiet, we realized it doesn’t.

Then we have opportunity to grow which is getting out of our comfort zone, getting out of our routine, getting into a space where you’re connecting with other people, connecting with other cultures.  And then finally the last piece, and especially with healthcare providers and professionals just in general, is that after a while you give so much that you almost become resentful.

And we will love our jobs, and I’ve been there, we will love our jobs and we give and give and give but at the end of the day, if you go home exhausted day in and day out and not doing any kind of self-care, you start getting resentful whether it’s even to your kids or to your husband or whoever it may be, it starts appearing in life and you’re just not enjoying life as much as you could which also translates into how you serve.

So being able to really take the time to recharge and refuel yourself in a completely different place where you disconnected and reconnected to you, allows us to give to an environment wherever we may be, for example in Peru we’ll be with the farmers of Peru that we get to connect with the actual people that don’t see the _____ on a regular basis.  We go into the villages and get connected to the heart of the people and are able to give back in this beautiful sacred way that you really feel like you’re giving from a fulfilled state that then in turn can fill you backup.

Andrea:  That’s an interesting concept.  I’d like to hear about this giving from this fulfilled state because I end up feeling being resentful.  I think that you’ve totally hit it on the head that people who are here to help others or in professionals in general, like you said, I think that sometimes we feel like we’re serving someone else even our boss or the company at large or whatever and it can totally turn into that feeling of resentment.

So how does this resentment change because of giving?  How does that shift happen in a person, is it because you’re getting more connected and you’ve already grounded and now you’re growing?  What would you say as happening in a person when they shift from feeling resentful to a place of willingness and ability to give so much?

Keri Stanley:  Yeah, you know there’s that thing out there that you can’t pour from an empty cup and how often are we trying to do that on a regular basis even your gas tank in your car that you would panic if it was getting ready to run out of gas, right?  You might let it get all the way down to _____ but you’re going to make sure that you stop and you refill it backup.

We run our body and our physical lives on a regular basis not only with the low-fuel light but also with the maintenance light and every other light on and we just keep going.  We would never do that for other things in our life but we do it for ourselves.  So a car can’t keep going unless you stop and refill it and at a certain point like it’s just done, right?

So when we can take our perspective for ourselves to understand that if we would take the time to fill back our tank, if we would take the time to do some maintenance, if we would take the time to _____ some of those things like we actually function on such a better state and can go further.  We just have been taught that we’re not supposed to.  We actually don’t even know what it feels like to truly be able to be fulfilled in a giving state.

So yes, once you get grounded _____ and to be able to give then that process allows you to give in a way that is truly heart centered.  We talked about this idea that am I giving to give or am I giving to get?  At some point, you’re expecting or wanting somebody to say something to you like a thank you or something and that’s actually giving to get but that’s the state that we get into.  Once we realize that if we are constantly in a filled upstate or we understand how we can fill our cup back up that we actually don’t need those things and it doesn’t have to take this really long time.

I mean, I was just _____ in San Diego last week and in 24 hours there was a group of us, that even in our off hours of a training that we were in, we ran a project and we raised over $14,000 in less than 12 hours essentially overnight in the off hours and fed over 325 homeless people on the streets.  And actually deeply connected with them on the streets and gave them flowers and gave them food and heard their stories and gave them love and gave them hugs and literally just connected with them, you know talk about you’re not your circumstances, really just connected with them as human beings, because how often _____ at something?

So you can create that giving experience from a fulfilled state very quickly once you learn how to do it, it just that most people don’t even remember, like it’s been so long that they’ve given themselves as a break.  It’s been so long since they’ve allowed themselves.  There’s a lot of guilt that comes from “if I take time for myself.”  But once you realize, “I’m a better mom.  I’m a better caregiver, I’m a better physician.  I’m a better administrator.  I’m just a better person in the world,” and that makes the difference in everything.

Andrea:  I think it’s huge and it also…you know all that energy that we waste on that angst, on that desire to control and that grip that we try to have on life that we can even really ever really grip.  It’s such a waste of time and energy and when you’re not doing that, gosh you have so much more.  I think we forget how much we actually really have because of that, so I love that.  I love what you’re doing.

OK, so what would something that you would want the influencer listening to remember about themselves and their own influence in the world?  What something that you can give them to take home and say, “I’m gonna remember this this week.”

Keri Stanley:  So they always say on a plane to put your oxygen mask on yourself first.  Most of us in life don’t actually understand that concept nor do we do that, but if we don’t save ourselves, and we have a choice in life to save ourselves and actually choose living, ____ exist.  But once you choose living and you choose to save yourself, you actually get the opportunity to make a difference in so many more lives than you ever would if you choose not to give yourself that oxygen.

Andrea:  Hmmm yeah.  OK so what’s the challenge?  What challenge do you leave us with then Keri?

Keri Stanley:  My challenge to you is for all of you listening is find one thing.  It’s so common that I’ll ask my clients and those who come my retreat, I will ask them what’s one thing that truly makes you happy that you really love to do.  And most people have forgotten, they’re like “I don’t even know what that means anymore.”  So my challenge to you is find one thing that maybe you’ve enjoyed as a kid or find one thing that truly is something that just makes you feel excited about life again.

Maybe you love to dance, maybe you love to play tennis, or maybe you love to be in a drama like you love to doing the acting piece, whatever it is.  There’s something out there that you forgotten that you love to do and allow yourself to step back into that and even feel like a little kid again because that child in you still exists and that when you tune into there is where the magic happens.

Andrea:  Hmmm love it.  OK Keri, how can people find you?  What should they do to find you, your program or you as a coach, whatever?  Where should they find you?

Keri Stanley:  You can find me on Facebook that’s probably where I’ve been most active.  I do video every single morning and it’s Keri Stanley and Keri Stanley Coaching that I’m on there for both pages.  So either one, you can find me.  I’m extremely active on there and always giving tips every single day and my retreat and everything on there as well.  You can also find me, my website is www.keristanley.com and all of my retreats are on there.

I’ve got the next, Ground, Grow, & Give is coming up in September and October and then there’s a ____ specifically for women in Costa Rica in November so those are the two big ones that are coming up.  My challenge is just to continue taking care of yourself and enjoying every day because each and every day is a miracle.

Andrea:  Thank you so much, Keri!  Thank you for your voice of influence in the world and the way that you’re impacting people.  I appreciate it!

Keri Stanley:  Awesome!  Thank you so much for having me, Andrea, I truly enjoyed _____.

Andrea:  And I’ll be sure to link everything in the show notes.  Alright, thank you so much!

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Find Authentic Confidence in Alcohol-Free Living with Kate Bee

Episode 56

How often do we see memes on Facebook about it being “wine o’clock” or how often do we hear references in pop culture about how alcohol is the answer to a stressful day or the perfect way to celebrate a special occasion? Today’s guest has made it her mission to change this narrative.

Kate Bee is the founder of The Sober School; where she coaches women through early sobriety and helps them navigate alcohol-free living without feeling deprived or miserable.

In this episode, Kate talks about her own journey with sobriety, her mission of trying to change the narrative around sobriety, why she tries to work with people before they’ve hit rock bottom, her tip for handling a situation where others are pressuring you to drink with them, what helps her publish her content even when she has doubts or insecurities, and so much more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Kate Bee Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I have with me my Kate Bee, Kate who lives in Manchester in the United Kingdom.  I’m so excited to have you and we were able to connect on this, Kate.

Kate is the founder of the Sober School where she coaches women through early sobriety and help them navigate alcohol-free living without feeling deprived or miserable, which I think is just a really interesting topic, so I’m excited to hear more about that.  And Kate, how you got into it?

So welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast, Kate!

Kate Bee:  Thank you so much.  Thank you for having me and it’s nice to talk to you.

Andrea:  Yes.  We were just discussing before we started the recording that it’s been a year in a half since we meet at Amy Porterfield’s live events in San Diego.

Kate Bee:  Yeah.  I know that was so cool.  That was such a big deal for me at the time going all the way, leaving rainy England going to sunny San Diego.  But yeah, I met lots of great people at that event including your good self, so it’s nice to catch up.

Andrea:  So Kate, could you share with the audience just a little bit more about what it is that your program is and what you’re doing right now?

Kate Bate:  Sure!  So yeah, I help women who are drinking too much to stop drinking and actually feel good about it.  So rather than feeling like it’s the end of the world and it’s an awful thing that they got no choice in, I try and inspire people and show them that alcohol-free living can actually feel really good and just be a really positive way of life.

So I’ve got a 6-week online course which I run a few times a year and I gather together a big group of women and everybody starts the course on the same day.  So you kind of get to be part of this tribe who are all going through this exact same experience.

It guides people through their first six weeks of early sobriety and really helps set them up either for an alcohol-free lifestyle or guide them through a break, because lots of people are kind of dip in their toes in the water and just want to see what it feels like to stop drinking.  Wine can make you feel really rubbish and it’s good to take a break and do it with a support of a group around you.

Andrea:  You know, this topic, when I was first introduced to you, Kate, it really intrigued me because actually I spent some time working with some folks in a recovery counseling center, not as a counselor per se, but more as like  a minister or chaplain kind of voice in that setting.  So in that setting, it felt like people were sort at the bottom of the barrel in their lives.  They just were sort hit that rock bottom and they were going through rehab really or a 12-step program.

It sounds to me like what you’re talking about here is not necessarily that 12-step program kind of thing but a little less intense.  How would you fit it into the scheme of you know, the landscape of the sort of program?

Kate Bee:  Yeah that’s a great point because one of the things I try to do is to work with people before they hits any kind of rock bottom and that’s a big part of my message is that, if alcohol is making you feel at all unhappy and miserable then you can stop and you can change that path.  You don’t have to wait until you are in rehab or you have lost your job or, you know, any of this other kind of stereotypical things that we associate with people when they really do go a bit further down that downward spiral.

So I tend to work with women who are, to the outside world, perfectly fine.  They are holding down good jobs.  They got busy lives.  Generally they got kids and you know, they make everything happens.  They get the kids to school.  They go to work.  They do good job.  They put a meal on the table at the end of the day.  Their lives to the outside world seem to be on track but they are feeling more and more rundown by the amount of alcohol that they are drinking.  I tend to deal with people just _____ who had years and years thinking that wine, beer, or whatever it is is a thing that keeping their lives together.  And now they’re just starting to think, “Actually, I think this is what is making my life so hard enough _____.”

So yeah, it is about showing people that you can stop drinking before things get really, really bad, just in the same way that you can stop using any of the drugs.  You can stop smoking before you get some kind of lung disease.  So a big part of my work is trying to change the narrative around sobriety and making it less of something that you have to do when all other options are being exhausted as a kind of punishment and more a conscious choice that you can make any time.

Andrea:  Yeah.  That’s really encouraging.  I think that a lot of people who have a message, we struggle to figure out exactly what that niche is.  And it sounds to me like you’re not necessarily saying; everybody should stop drinking, even though it might something that’s inside of you a desire to see.  You’re also not saying, if you’re at the rock bottom.  You’re speaking specifically to a certain kind of person.  From what I understand, you have a personal connection to that person, is that right?

Kate Bee:  Yeah, definitely.  I was inspired to start with the Sober School after going through something like this myself.  I was never a rock bottom alcoholic.  I was that person, you know, I showed up to work every day.  I kept things together.  The most common reaction I got when I stopped drinking with people would say to me, “But I didn’t know you had a problem.  Are you sure you need to stop drinking?”

So I was really good at hiding how alcohol affected me.  And yeah, I don’t have any dramatic stories of waking up in hospital or getting into trouble at work or anything like that.  But I was like many women.  I started drinking at a young age because it made me feel more confident.  It made me be the kind of teenager and young person that I wished I was.  You’re better at partying, better talking to boys, better at everything and then it just slowly moved from my best friend into my worst enemy.  It didn’t seem to _____ whether I had a good day or bad day whether I cheer myself up or celebrating something, I was always just drinking a bit too much and waking up feeling hang over and feeling awful.

But my problem was that when I look for help and this is kind of…I’ve only started looking for help back in 2009, 2010 and it was a while I stopped drinking in 2013.  When I was looking for help, I couldn’t find anything that applied to me.  It all seemed so extreme and it was talking about people going to rehab or going to meetings or you know talking about a kind of level of addiction that I wasn’t experiencing.  But yeah, I knew in my gut that alcohol wasn’t doing me any good at all.

So yeah, I’m really pleased I kind of took a leap of faith and did decide to quit.  Yeah, I’ve been really passionate since then about kind of saying to people; there is this middle ground between being a normal drinker and being alcoholic.  There are many shades of grey in between and it’s trying to get off the bus a bit earlier if you want to.

Andrea:  So why do you think that people need or want a program like yours, you know, that something that has some guidance to it and it sounds like some community as well.  Why do you think that people need that and don’t just…

Kate Bee:  Don’t just stop drinking?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Kate Bee:  I think it’s really because alcohol is in everything we do.  I mean, obviously, I live in England where we are particularly big drinkers.  I went with women all over the world, lots of women in the U.S. and some in Australia as well and whatever we’ve agreed on is that we seemed to be living in this very busy world while we are encouraged and it’s cool to drink on your birthday, on a wedding, on a debut’s party, or a funeral.  You think if any kind of event or gathering and the chances are this will be involved in some way.

If you’re on Facebook, the chances are you see Facebook, means all the time about Wine O’ Clock, Mommy Juice and all the stuff, because if there’s problem in life can be solve by drinking alcohol.  It’s very difficult to change your behavior when you are surrounded by those kinds of messages.  It’s cool to be sober, but also it’s not cool to be the person who can’t control their drinking.  You’re really stuck in that environment.

So one of feedback I got most from the women I work with is “Wow, I had no idea other people felt like this, because people feels so alone and they think they’re they only people who are struggling in this way.”  So yeah, it’s a funny old world really and it’s hard to stop drinking.  I often compare this actually to smoking.  I don’t know what it’s like where you are but here, smoking is not cool anymore.  Things have really changed in terms of smoking.

But I can remember not that long ago when I was at school, smoking was still a bit cool and actually I had a bit of a hard time because I don’t really like smoking.  And I think we’re still stuck in that when it comes to drinking.  We’re still pressuring people to drink and be cool and we’re questioning them when they don’t drink, which is kind of crazy.

Andrea:  Do you get that a lot.  I mean, maybe not so much now but when you first were deciding to be sober and you were out and about, did you get a lot of questions and looks and things like that?

Kate Bee:  Huh yes, absolutely!  Yeah, it’s like I have to justify myself choosing not to consume this drug, not to drink and people just can’t understand it.  I think sometimes people; they’re coming at you from a place where, perhaps they feel a little bit self-conscious about their drinking or they prefer drinking in a group and it’s a bit odd when someone changes their behavior.  Yeah, I used to get a lot of questions about it, but fortunately, now I’ve gone so far the other way, people know just _____.

Andrea:  Do you think that people feel like you’re judging them by not participating with them.  I mean, have you heard that kind of feedback or did you get that sense at all and how do you navigate that?

Kate Bee:  Yeah.  No one said that explicitly but I think that is what behind…I think that is what people feeling when they’re saying “Oh come on, come on, just have one, just join in.”  They do _____ a bit judged.  My tip for navigating that situation is always to be extremely positive _____ how you’re feeling inside.  Make it clear that you’re just taking a break from drinking or taking some time off and you’re loving it.  You’re feeling really good.  You’re really surprised how much you’re enjoying it and you’re very happy for everyone else to drink.  You’re still going to be the life and soul of the party, nothing else has changed.  Own that conversation and be really positive about it and don’t let people push you into drinking.  I would always _____ first to say that sometimes I’ve seen people bullied other people into drinking.

Andrea:  Yeah that’s probably true. You know, I was thinking about the…oh gosh, I had this thought in my head and so I’m going to add this out.  So one of the things that I hear from people and I’ve noticed is that people do seem to feel more comfortable when they have a drink in their hands and yet, you just said something about, you know, telling them that nothing’s going to change, they’re still going to be the life of the party.  Do you find that the people that come through at the Sober School that they actually are able to still tap into that person that they were like when they were drinking in the positive sense you know being more outgoing perhaps or comfortable.  Is that part of what you talked about or how do you know how they’re able to handle that?

Kate Bee:  It’s the big part of what we talked about.  First of all, people do feel more comfortable with drink in their hands.  I feel more comfortable with the drink in my hands in an alcohol-free drink.  So I say to people, get a drink and just because you’re not drinking alcohol doesn’t mean you should be empty-handed, doesn’t mean you should be drinking water or something boring, get a nice drink.  But a big thing we do on the course is to really analyze what is you think alcohol is providing for you because a lot of people fall into these habits where they think that alcohol is what is making the party fun or alcohol is what’s making them sociable and having a good time.

So we go through some exercises while we look at parties where you have perhaps not had a good time, where you have actually felt pretty bored or stuck for things to say even though you’ve been drinking loads and loads and loads.  So yeah, how does that workout?  If alcohol is the magic fun in a glass party juice type _____ then it should work every time.  We talked a bit about, you know, if you’re going to events that you can only enjoy by getting drunk with them, should you be going to these events anyway?

We’re not around for long.  We’ve got one shot at this life, we should be living it to the max in doing stuff that we genuinely enjoy creating.  A life that really is fun, not one that we have to kind of bumble through slightly drunk in order to stomach certain things, so yeah, it is an adjustment.  I’m not going to lie about that.  It feels a bit a lot you’ve lost a comfort blanket at the beginning.

But when you start really analyzing these thoughts rationally, you can get to a place where you go to a party and you do feel like your best self because you know you are.  You’re showing up.  You’re clear-headed.  You’re not going to be the boring person who’s saying the same old anecdote five times because you’re slightly drunk and you can’t remember that you said it already.  You’re going to be a good company.

Andrea:  Yeah, I like that.  OK, so Kate, I know that as with anybody who is sharing something, sharing a passionate message that they have, our voices kind of shift, morph, or mature become even sometimes more powerful.  Do you think that over the past few years that you’ve been doing this, have you felt a shift in your own voice as you’ve spoken about this, as you’ve executed the Sober School and talked to more and more people about your message?

Kate Bee:  Yeah.  I’ve been thinking about this ahead of knowing that I was going to speak to you and just kind of reflecting on how things have changed because I really think, “Yeah, things have really changed so much over the past few years.”  When I first started out, I felt very unsure of myself and _____ I would think the most often is, “Who do you think you are writing this blog, giving people this advice?  What are you doing?”  I would have these massive doubts, so unsure of myself.  I think it’s only _____ as my blog has grown and I’ve had more people follow that and really resonate with it and tell me that they like what I was saying that I became more confident and I think I will say I’ve become more confident in my own style and my own approach.

I used to get worried about offending people who had slightly different opinions on alcoholism or the best way to go about things and then I realized that that’s OK.  Actually, there is something to be said for certain people who just don’t resonate with your message rather than trying to be, you know, wanting to all people.  It is better to _____ down effectively and have your beliefs and answers stick with them.  So yeah, I feel like it’s been a long, long journey and I still have plenty of doubts now.

Andrea:  Especially when you’re first starting, but even now if you’re still having doubts at times.  What gets you passed those to actually press publish on your blog post or on your social media pages or whatever, why do you keep doing it or why did you have the courage even when you didn’t have the feedback yet?

Kate Bee:  Well, yeah.  I guess I’ve been held out slightly on that.  Before I started the Sober School, I did have another blog just on WordPress.  A kind of free WordPress and I do _____ experimented with my own voice and I I have _____ idea what resonates to the people.  I’d have some really positive feedback from people through writing that blog.  They said to me like, “I just like hearing what you’re doing and your emails always seem to come at the right time.”

So I think that gave me that confident to really go for it and think, “Well, if I helped five people with that blog, perhaps if I do my Sober School blog and work consistently and be really kind of establish myself there, I can help more people.”  That’s the thing I still come back to each today.

Every time, I write a blog, I always get an email from someone saying, “Huh, this came at just the right time.”  So I think, “OK, I helped one person.”  I think that’s what makes me keep going.  It’s a bit late in a day here in the UK, I just had a day of really struggling to write a blog post, so yes that would be one of those that I think, “OK, you got to stop worrying about this,  press publish.”

Andrea:  What kinds of things are still hard to publish?

Kate Bee:  I think probably about things that has more to do with me personally.  When I started off on this journey, I used to share a lot about me on my drinking, on my experiences.  But as more people have found out about the Sober School and my auntie knows and my cousins _____ from my mom, I sometimes really get self-conscious about the things that I’m writing, whereas, I didn’t use to think about that before.

I used to just write and I’ve been thinking about my ideal customers or readers.  I just been thinking about that and I published it with them in mind.  So something I really have to work on is that self-conscious kind of…what do you call it?  That voice that kind of saying, “Ohh do you wanna say this?”  Maybe it will come from the same place, the self-doubt, they just have a different _____ now, but yeah, sharing personal stuff is still quite a big deal for me.

Andrea:  It can put you in the line of judgment, it sounds like.

Kate Bee:  Yeah, yeah definitely because there are some parts of the recovery community online who are quite vocal about why you shouldn’t do this or you should do this.  And yeah then there are other people in my real life, who I always think “Oh what are they really thinking about me?”  I’m coming across like a very paranoid person and I’m not.

Andrea:  Well, now, you’ve come so far.  It’s clear that this is a small piece of it but it stills something that everybody deals with I think and so that’s why I asked.

Kate Bee:  Yeah, yeah.  I do feel _____ when I hear about other, you know, people who have much bigger businesses, like I’ve heard Marie Forleo and Amy Porterfield talked about self-doubt as well.  So that’s what makes me feel better.

Andrea:  Most definitely.  Yeah, the idea that somebody else could pull back or you know cast some sort of judgment on us, I think is definitely one of those things that is ever present and yet what’s telling is that you keep pressing publish.  There’s still that you care more about the message of the people that need it than you know…I call it a sacrifice.  It’s essentially saying, “You know, I’m willing to put myself on the line for this message.”  So every time you end up pushing publish, you’re just reinforcing that passion inside of you that really, that willingness to put yourself on the line for others and I think it’s a really beautiful thing.

Kate Bee:  Oh, thank you.  I appreciate that.  I used to be a reporter and a journalist before this, so I think I do still have something engrained in me that whatever happens, you have to meet the deadline and you have to publish something.

Andrea:  There you go!  I like that.  This is still along the same line of feeling a little unsettled about sharing _____ but it seems like when we talked a year and a half ago, you weren’t sure how much of that you wanted to put out there and then it continued to morph and no here you are.  I love that you’ve gotten on camera, on social media and you keep sharing ideas.  I feel like what you do is you give people that opportunity to say, “Oh, I don’t have to live like this.”  But you’re the face of that.

Kate Bee:  Yeah.  I mean, you must feel the same way; you’re the face of your business.  It’s estranged.  Yes, I am the face of my business and I have tried to be a bit more visible because my comfort zone is definitely in writing that’s what I feel comes to me most naturally.  But I will _____ from the point of view being a follower of other people.  The videos and podcasts connect with people in a way that sometimes wisdom words don’t.  So I have been trying to push myself out there and do more videos.  Sometimes I do free workshops and _____ videos.  Other times, it’s more “Hey, I’m in this place.  I’m full of these things that I want to say and let’s talk about what’s relevant here.”  But yeah, getting my face on screen is a goal for me, to do more of that this year for sure.

Andrea:  Do you do any speaking like live events?

Kate Bee:  No, I’ve never done anything actually.  That’s kind of thing that will give me sleepless nights.  I know you do that but no.

Andrea:  It’s not something that you want to do.  I understand.  If you don’t mind, I know that you took that Fascinate Assessment…

Kate Bee:  Uh-huh.

Andrea:  And you came out with your top two languages being Mystique and Passion, which is one of the most rare combinations, because mystique is about not wanting to share a lot about yourself and passion is about sharing and connecting with people.

Kate Bee:  Oh my goodness.

Andrea:  Isn’t that interesting?

Kate Bee:  I do know somebody else who is a Mystique plus Passion too, and there is this sense of depth like you exude a sense of depth and also desiring to connect and listen to other people.  So I think that it’s just your voice.  It does have a very reflective sound to it not just in a way that you in a tone that you’re speaking with but also just how you process things.  I can see how that would be such a struggle too, the desire to share but the desire to want to put the focus on other people instead of yourself.  It makes a lot of sense.

Kate Bee:  Yeah and perhaps you can help me with something because I went to a conference earlier this year.  I went back to San Diego where we met and I went to lots of different lectures.  It was for entrepreneurs in growing your business, and the last event I went to on a final day was about writing a book and becoming a self-published author.  I’ve always wanted to do something around what I do now and write about alcohol-free living.  So on a whim, I purchased this self publishing course and some sessions with a writing coach.  I paid the money _____, but I got this book commitment coming up.

As the deadline coming closer, I’m thinking..I don’t know if I can share enough with my personal story to make this book what it needs to be.  You wrote your book and what would be your advice for me given that I’m so conflicted?

Andrea:  Yes.  Well, I understand because that was not my intention when I started to write my book.  I was intending to share a little bit of pieces but not anything extensive and I ended up writing…my writing coach actually coached me and ended up finding the voice of my book needed to be on my own story.  But I don’t necessarily think that’s the case for everybody.  I know there’s a lot of people who write really good books that have a theme to them for each chapter and then they share snippets, like little stories that might illustrate the point that they’re trying to get across but not necessarily go into great depth.

But I think the book writing process itself is such a…I don’t know, transformative experience but I think specially if you have somebody alongside of you who can encourage you and help you to see what’s best.  When you start writing and you just give everything out that you possibly can and you don’t edit.  That’s the mean thing that you want to do when you first start I think is to not edit what you’re saying and you don’t want to spend a lot of time going down _____ but you do want to get out what you feel like you really want to get out and then you go back and then you say, “OK what’s effective here?”  And you push yourself a little bit but I understand too.  You don’t always want to share why you feel certain way or why you did the certain thing or…

Kate Bee:  Yeah, it’s funny isn’t it?  I just felt that once I get started, I will just end up sharing more and more.

Andrea:  Probably the case, but I wasn’t going to say that.

Kate Bee:  I thought of that assessment you got me to do, I’ve never taken anything like that before but it seemed release button.

Andrea:  Well, this has been just a really, really delightful conversation, Kate, and I would really appreciate it if you would share with the audience how they can connect with you the at the Sober School.  I think that anybody would really benefit from just seeing Kate online, on her Instagram feed or whatever.  So maybe you could share your handles and where they can find information about the Sober School.

Kate Bee:  Cool!  Thank you!  Well, I am on Instagram, I am the soberschool and that’s for everything, Facebook and Twitter.  I think Instagram and Facebook come out _____ so I’m definitely the most active there.  Yeah, if you’d like to find out more about me, read any of the blog and I’ve got a couple of free guides on my website.  I’m over at the soberschool.com.  I’ve got a free workshop that’s coming up very soon.  It’s all about reviewing where we are _____, having a bit of a research and if you want to take a break from alcohol, it’s about sharing you how to kind of kick stat that break.  So I’d be excited to share that with anyone.  It will be out very soon.

Andrea:  Great!  Well, we’ll be sure to link everything in the show notes and so I’m excited to share this interview with the listeners.  Thank you so much for your generous time with us today, Kate.

Kate Bee:  Thank you for inviting.  I really enjoyed it!  I think you’ve told me a lot about myself and given me a lot to think about, so I appreciate it.

Andrea:  Well, thank you for your service.  We’ll talk to you soon!

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Find Your MOJO Even in Hard Times with Karen Worstell

Episode 55

We all have that loud voice inside our head screaming at us to avoid doing things that make us comfortable. While this voice is just trying to protect us, we must learn how to silence this voice and not let it stop us from going after our goals or making our voices heard.

Karen Worstell went from being a mom to toddlers who couldn’t afford to buy groceries to the Chief Information Security Officer for companies like AT&T Wireless and Microsoft. Now, Karen coaches women in tech and has a consulting business around tech and risk management.

In this raw and powerful episode, Karen shares why you must make peace with the skeptic voice inside your head and listen to the whisper of your heart, her advice for maintaining your resilience when things become difficult, her mission to help companies realize they should be encouraging their employees to be their truest selves instead of forcing them to fit into a set company culture, and so much more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Karen Worstell Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I have with me Karen Worstell who went from being a mom of toddlers and a computer science graduate student all the way to Silicon Valley with all kinds of amazing experience to the point where she was even the chief information security officer for companies, like AT&T Wireless, Microsoft, and Russell Investments.  Now, she is doing her own consulting business around tech and Risk Management as well as coaching women in tech.

So Karen, I’m really, really excited to have you here on the podcast today.

Karen Worstell:  Oh thanks Andrea.  Thanks for having me.

Andrea:  Actually, I was introduced to Karen, I should say.  I think I might have gone up to you, Karen, to tell you that you did a good job.  But I actually heard you speak at a conference and I was so impressed with your story and your presence on stage because I looked at you and I thought “Oh my goodness, this is a classy lady.”  And you told your story then really wowed us with some of the things that you had to say.

So I wonder if you would be willing to tell us a little bit of what you share that day about that moment in time when things really changed for you, however long ago that was.

Karen Worstell:  Sure!  Well, yah, you know how we all have those events in our life that it’s usually some kind of a crisis that gives us crystal laser like focus.  Really, what I was talking about then, and I’ll just share again, when I was a mom of toddlers as you call it.  I had 2-year old and 4-year old at home and through a series of my own choices, I found myself in a situation where I was standing literally in the grocery store staring at the fruit section and it was like apples, “Where the heck are affordable apples.”

In those days, apples were $49 cents a pound.  That sounds like cheap apples because today, you can spend $3 a pound for apples.  But $49 cents a pound was the going rate at the time in the 80’s and I did not have money to buy apples and I had to go through the manager and asked him, did he have any apples that he had already pulled from the fruit stand that he could sell to me at a discount.

For me that was this moment that said, “You know what, something has got to change.  I can’t keep doing this.”  So about that time my amazing brother, Michael, who is thinker and one of my best friends.  He had a TRS-80 computer with a serial number of six.  He brought that over to my house and spread it out on the table.  It took up quite a bit of space with all of its various components at that time.  It had 64k of RAM, which I couldn’t even operate with my phone with that today.  But he put it on the table and he looked at me and he goes, “Sister, you have to learn to code.”

Now, I have never done anything with computers in my life, and I was pretty sure that if I put my fingers on the keyboard of that thing and did something wrong, it was going up in flames.  I was quite nervous about this piece of technology in my home.  He was very encouraging.  I mean, I literally put my fingers on the keyboard and typed in H-E-L-L-O, and nothing bad happened.

So with his help, I learned to this in programming and Visual Basic and I learned how to program in a language called Forth.  You don’t have much about it these days but I was really attracted to it because it was the way my brain works, which is something called Reverse Polish Notation.  It’s a technical term for the way information get pushed into the computer and then popped back out of the computer when you’re doing code writings.

So I really liked that and I did pretty well with that.  I found out that I was really good at it.  And about that time, _____ University opened up a program in computer science.  They were advertising for students.  It was a graduate program and I did have my bachelor’s degree, so I went ahead and applied and to my surprise, I got in.

When you tell the story before this, there’s just all this opposition in my head that just really exploded because it’s like “OK, mother of toddlers.  I thought you want to be a good mother, right?  How can you go to a graduate school and be a good mother and clearly you have no money,” which is true, I had no money.  And truthfully, I just didn’t do very well with math.  Hello, the computer science department is part of the math department.

So I went ahead and applied anyway.  Kind of ignoring all the voices in my head and fear factor truly because I had no idea how this was going to all play out and work.  I got accepted, and two years later, I graduated with masters in science degree and computer science.  There were tons of people helped me along the way.  After I graduated, I had a number of positions and you mentioned this CISO in Microsoft.

Twelve years after I graduated with my computer science degree, I was the CEO of a Silicon Valley startup, and it focused on technology in cybersecurity.  So it sounds like a really incredible story.  And the reason I like to share it is because it really is everybody’s story because in my experience, really, what happened there was I took it one ordinary day at a time.  It was not a smooth path whatsoever.

There were a number of really huge crises along the way, but you show up every day, just show up every day.  Sometimes it’s enough to show up and say “Whatever today deals me, I’m going to deal with.”  I have no idea how it’s going to play out tomorrow and I did truthfully didn’t think in a million years that I would ever embark on a technology career like the one that I had.

My biggest goal frankly was to be able to get a job that paid me enough to have somebody come in the house…there were two goals.  Two big, hairy, audacious goals I had in my life.  To have somebody else come in the house and scrub the toilets, like that was a big deal because I only had two.  The other one was, it was so important to me to be able to pay my bills and to be able to pay all the bills that were due in one month in the same month and not have to make the choice about, you know, “What am I gonna pay this month and what am I not gonna pay?”

So my goals were not big.  I didn’t have like _____ goal that said someday I’m going to be the, you know, have this big role.  It was just showing up in dealing with each day at a time and that’s where we went.  The thing that I look back on is that it was this kind of a whisper that was in my heart that said “You should do this.  This is the path, you should take this path.”

And I had plenty of opposition also in my head saying, “Don’t pay attention to that.  We’ll try to do around that out if we can because this sounds risky to us,” and to go ahead and say “I’m gonna follow the whisper of my heart and I don’t understand how it’s all gonna work and I can’t give anybody a plan.”  But look where it went, you know.

I think it happens multiple times in our lives for paying attention that exact same scenario.  We hear that whisper that says “This is your path, walk in it.”  And then we hear the opposition that just really fires up, the skeptic in our head that says “What, are you crazy?  We’ll give you the list of all the reasons why this won’t work.”  And that can be so discouraging and there are times when we succumb to that.

I guess that’s the reason I share this story is to say, don’t succumb to that.  If that’s the whisper of your heart then follow it, because you won’t know the whole plan.  You can’t see the future.  All you can do is _____ that big desire to go in this direction and I’m going to do it, and yes, there will be obstacles.

In fact, some time during my first year of grad school, my 2-year old developed appendicitis which is extremely rare in a 2-year old.  He nearly died.  So I took everything I had, all my computer gear which was still that TRS-80 computer which takes up a lot a room.  I took that with my suitcase, with my clothes and a modem into children’s hospital with my son and all that computer gear in his room so that I could continue to write code.  It’s just that stuff happens.  Don’t let it take you off.  Don’t let your train off the rails.  It’s going to get you where you want to go if you stick with it.

Andrea:  You know, Karen, that image of being your son’s bedside in a hospital still trying to maintain your education, it reminds me of a lot of women and how it’s easy for us to struggle with guilt over that kind of scenario.  I’m assuming that you would have felt a little bit of some of that too, I don’t know, maybe you didn’t.  If not, then please tell us how.  But how did you handle that tension between being a mom and still pursuing your path that was whispered in into your heart?

Karen Worstell:  Yeah.  That’s a great question.  I think for me, I distinguished between a couple of very important emotions.  One of them is guilt and the other one is shame.  I felt guilty about lots of things by being a mom of toddlers in grad school.  I felt shame about not being able to feed my children.  Which one was I’m going to pick?

I could say I’m doing something about this situation that I’ve gone myself in that I considered shameful.  But I had two small children who I couldn’t afford to raise and I could say “Yes, you know what, that path is gonna be difficult.”  But guilt is a lot of that is in our head, right?  The master skeptic is in my head.

Shirzad Chamine wrote a book about this.  The name of that skips me right now but I can send it to you so that you can share it with your listeners if you like.  He really talks about how all of us are completely equipped with the judge, jury, and all of the accusers in our head and they all take on very specialized roles and one of them is the master of guilt.  And that voice, it says “Boy no, other people wouldn’t be doing it this way.”  Or “You really should have handled this, don’t you think?”  I mean, “How how could you be in this situation and how could your son be so sick?”

I had taken a week off the school when my son got sick.  I took a week off and didn’t go to class and stayed home with him and he was still sick.  The doctors, the nurses, and everybody that we call over the phone and everyone we talked into in urgent care patted me on the head and said “Dear, your son has a flu,” and he sent us home.  So after seven days, my toddler was changing color.  He was so septic and I just said “That’s it, we have to take him to emergency room.”

While we drove in, we called the doctor, we said, we’re coming in.  So here’s a good guilt one for you.  I handed my limp toddler over to his pediatrician who looks at me and says “Why the hell didn’t you get in here before now?”  So yeah, a guilt.  I think, in some ways, I tend to be a little less willing to accept the guilt that other people lay on me and I’m not really sure why.  I’ll lay enough guilt on myself for a lifetime but when somebody else…I said “Excuse me, I called your office every day for a week and you told me it was the flu.”

So yeah, it’s a situation that we can sit down and say “Wow, you know, he’s right.  This is something I did totally wrong and I’m a bad mother.  I’m a bad person.”  What I can say in all honesty was “Could I have done things better, yes.”  “Does that make me a bad person?” “No.”  I’m always about learning how to do things better and I accept that.  People have always told me throughout my career, “If you did X,Y, Z you could have done that better.”  I’m like “Great, thank you.  I will do that better next time.”

I did not beat myself up over the fact that I did my best and I didn’t.  I might not have met somebody else’s standard of what was good.  I did my best and that’s all I can ask for.  That’s all anybody can ask for.

Andrea:  You know, I know that you talked about resilience and I’m wondering how resilience or how that being plays out in these kinds of scenarios with both your education and your career path and then also resilience as a mom and continuing on even when things get really hard.

What kind of advice you have for people along a similar journey who feel like they’re hearing this voice that you’re talking before but they seem to keep getting setback.  What makes somebody resilient or what kind of advice would you have for them?

Karen Worstell:  When it comes to that voice in your head the one that stops us then and attract sometimes, the best thing I can say and it’s echoed in Shirzad Chamine’s book, I think it’s positivity, intelligence or something like that is to recognize that, first of all, every single one of us has that voice in our head to some degree that is going to be the skeptic, right?

I learned to make peace with that skeptic.  The way that I describe that to people and teach that actually in one of my courses is to recognize that skeptic actually all it really wants is for you to be safe.  It wants for you in not be ever in harm’s way in any degree.  It doesn’t want you to fail.  It doesn’t want you to do anything wrong and the way for you to do nothing wrong is to do nothing, right?

So I try to just recognize that when that voice pops up in my head or that feeling in the pit of my stomach, I ask myself “Am I actually making a decision here that’s just a very dangerous decision?”  If the answer is no then I come back and say “Alright then, I will listen to this to the extent that says, what do I need to do to be smart, but I’m not gonna listen to it to extent that says stop.”

Andrea:  Hmmm great distinction.

Karen Worstell:  It’s there to keep us safe.  It’s just that we don’t exercise the part of our self.  So why is that a whisper in our heart and a skeptic screaming in our head, right?  Why is that?  It’s because the skeptic gets more exercise.  We need to learn to listen to the whispers so that the whispers speak with a loud voice.

Shirzad Chamine talks about it as if it’s stepping into your sage as opposed to stepping into your judge.  When the judge starts to get very active, they have to be very conscious and intentional about it and to say “I’m not going to give you all that exercise because my sage needs it more,” and to step into the part that says “What’s the wisdom in this.  How is this the right thing for me to do?”  Why does this make a difference to my life and why would this be so helpful?”  And to let the sage speak as opposed to the skeptic.

I think if we give that more exercise, and he has a ton of exercise about it in his book, but if we give that more exercise, we would definitely not wrestle so much with such a loud skeptical voice all the time.  Maybe we just give out way too much exercise.

Andrea:  That is a really, really great image.  I love that.  OK, so Karen, I know that eventually you stepped away from cybersecurity for a time.

Karen Worstell:  I did.

Andrea:  Can you tell us about that experience?  Why did you stepped away?  How did you end up as a chaplain of all things?

Karen Worstell:  Well, I have always, and throughout my career, I was very fortunate very early to listen to Stephen Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle Centered Leadership and all these other books of that organization put up.  One of the things he always talked about there was writing down your goals, what are your goals.

In 1997, and I still have the paper where I wrote this down and took that in my day timer.  I wrote a list of things that said, these are the things that I want to do in my life.  I want to write a book.  I want to lead an organization.  I want to be a chaplain.  It was on this list.  It had always been there and I think it was born out of my experience of being a caregiver of some capacity for elders when I was an adult.

This is a whole lot of the conversation that five times during my career; I either scaled back my career and I took a leave of absence so that I could care for somebody in my family with Alzheimer’s.  So I knew that that very difficult experience of doing that kind of care giving had to have a purpose and it seemed to me that at that point in time the chaplaincy was the way.

Well, fast forward to 2011 and my mother was dying from Alzheimer’s.  My sister had just been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and I was working as the chief information security officer at Russell Investment at that the time.  So in a space of about a month, my sister gets very ill, I get laid off at Russell Investments and then the next day, my mom died.

So for me, I was like “OK, I get it.  I’ve been through this before.  This is it.  This is a setback.  This is how I’m gonna do it.”  And I always have like plan A, plan B, plan B1, plan B2, plan B3.  That’s how I work.  I would always shift into the new plan.  If the first plan didn’t work out, I have to shift into the second plan and I had that.  And I couldn’t make any of those plans work, for the first time in my life, I was unable to put one foot in front of the other.  I think my grief finally was so overwhelming that I feel myself really unable to make a decision.

I love cybersecurity.  I didn’t stop loving it.  I just was like “OK, I’m gonna get back into it.  Here’s how I’m gonna get back into it.  I’m gonna take this _____ course and I’m gonna study forensic and I’m gonna get back into the forensic thing.  I had always wished I was going to expand my capabilities and all I had some time off and none of it worked.  I couldn’t make myself even take a class on a subject I had always loved.  I was like “What is up with that?”

It was really like being stuck in a rip and being able to tread water and nothing else.  I couldn’t find a way out of the water, all I could do is tread water.  And I turned down all those dates with my friends who wanted to talk with me, who wanted to talk about projects.  I was like “I can’t.  I can’t and I don’t know why I can’t, but I can’t.”

I was very frustrated by all of that and then I finally just decided, “Hey, listen to this.  You are gonna have to settle it.”  It took about a year which was extraordinary amount of time but then when I ended up doing I was talking with a friend and I said “You know, I haven’t been able to go back in the cybersecurity.  I’m not really sure what that’s all about.  I love it.  I’ve always wanted to be a chaplain.  I don’t know what’s that about, but I’m not really sure what I’m gonna do next.”  And my friend basically says “Hey, I know this person, you need to call her.  She’s the head of chaplaincy.  You need to have a conversation.”

Basically to make a long story short, I called them.  They were interviewing candidate for their incoming class.  I called her and I signed up.  They accepted me like that.  I was enrolled.  This is pretty much about three years of training and my interest was in palliative care.  I loved, loved, and loved the work with the whole different side of connecting with people.  I did about 2000 clinical hours of supervised training and class time.

I got another masters degree and started off on that and my last role was as a palliative care fellow at the VA hospital in Portland.  I truly loved the work I was doing there but more and more what I saw was the moral distress that I was witnessing not only with patients and their families but with medical staff, reminded me so much of what people in the cybersecurity industry were dealing with.

I wasn’t really sure how they characterize it or describe it but I made a decision to go back.  Because the truth is that someone gets about 15 to 30 minutes of their time when their in crisis in the hospital _____, but the bulk of the people who are really hurting who need that kind of support in order to continue their daily life are in the workplace.  And there’s this principal of proximity in chaplaincy that was in World War I where the chaplain didn’t wait in their field tent for the soldiers to come to them, they went to the _____.  That’s what I decided to do.

Out of that, our program on resilience, you know, we have a program Make Resilience Work.  We also call it MOJO Maker, but it is intended to bring the kind of resilience needed to thrive in an imperfect workplace and to be able to build your career, excel in the place where you plant it and to be able to navigate your career and your life through all the stressors that we have to deal with.  I’m mean; I’m not the only one who has kids who get sick.  But we all have to figure out how to navigate that and stay healthy and that’s what we decided to do.

Andrea:  That’s awesome!  Have you worked inside of a company around this particular, you know, bringing in your chaplaincy kind of background?  Have you found that to be a welcoming place or you mostly focusing in on the individual?

Karen Worstell:  We’re focusing on the individual right now and I just had a conversation with another missing individual who has a career in HR.  We’re looking to clear this to be able to bring a weekend intensive and to offer that to a corporate environment.  And then what we have on to back into that is a years’ worth of programming that people can access online to support them with all the things that they learned in the intensive.  We’re hoping to be able to take it there.  We haven’t done that.

I will say that one thing that I did in April, I was invited to run to a peer-to-peer sessions at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, which is a conference that attracts 40,000 cybersecurity professionals.  I’ll try to be very brief about this but what was very interesting about it was we ran a very quick exercise.  The title of the peer-to-peer session by the way was Why are Women Leaving Computing, which is a big issue for us because the number of women in Stanfield is making in progress everywhere accepting computing where its dropped off the cliff.  Nobody really knows why and I’ve been attracted to try to figure that out.

So I ran this session and I had everybody in the room, walked around the room.  I said “Walk around the room once for one minute.  We’re going to walk around the room and I want you to be yourself.”  And then I said “Walk around the room next and I want you to pick the energy that’s the opposite of yourself.  So whether you identify as a female, walk around the room as male, whatever that energy is for you that’s the opposite of what you are, I want you to walk as that.  And just take a look at the other people in the room and see how everybody was doing.”

And then the third time I had them walk around the room I said “I want you to be neutral.  Don’t be yourself but don’t be anything else either.”  What was mind boggling about that exercise; first of all, it was a great ice breaker because it made everybody uncomfortable.  So nobody had any fear speaking up after that.  The thing that was so impressive was that universally, everyone noted how much energy it took for them to try to walk around the room as something other than themselves that when they try to walk around the room as neutral, not only did it take energy, it sucked all the energy out of the room.

It basically made the room slowed down.  So people said, it made the room slowed down.  It looked like a room full of zombies.  And I said “OK, let’s think about what it’s like for people who come in to a work place with unique gifts and talents, unique life experiences.”  We hire for diversity and we have an organization full of color of every kind you can think of and we managed it all down to beige.  We tried to manage everybody the same.  That means that we have a culture where the people who are in the culture have to try to figure out what the culture is and used up a fair amount of their energy just trying to be what the culture expects.

I came away from that thinking, “This isn’t a gender issue.  This is an equal issue.”  I’ve shared that with a number of people.  I’m going to be writing some stuff about that to post on to LinkedIn and onto the RSA blog, but this is where we’re at, right?  We have beige organizations.  We have organizations where all the colors have been sucked out.

What happens is people used up all their energy trying to fit the culture and they don’t have energy left over for creativity and innovation and all the other things that we need so desperately right now, especially in cybersecurity.  We were dealing with issues that only get worse and we have to come up with some really creative ways to try to really deal with that.

The creativity is born out of a person’s feeling safe enough to express their ideas as their ideas, you see.  And if they’re so busy trying to figure out how does their organization want them to be, they’re walking around the room as something other than themselves.

Andrea:  Definitely!  It kind of goes back to that imagery that you’re using before about the person’s screaming or the judge screaming, what was it called?

Karen Worstell:  The Sage and the Judge.

Andrea:  Yeah, the judge was screaming and so then your attention is drawn to that.  You have to spend all of your time worrying about that instead of being able to listen to that voice, that other voice inside of you that’s saying “This is you, just do it.  Just be it.”  Oh it’s so good.  I love that exercise.  What a neat way to help people visualize and experience the truth of what it means to be authentic, really.

Karen Worstell: Yeah.  It took three minutes.  And I have to credit Rachael Jane Groover.  She was the one who introduced that exercise in a workshop that I attended with her.  She had 300 women in the room who were walking around trying to be neutral.  I just remember looking, “We are a room full of zombies, like there’s no differentiation, no creativity, nothing here.”  That’s what inspired that exercise.  But yeah, in three minutes, it made the point.

Andrea:  And I think you could even make that point for whether be a culture at a work place or school or a family or wherever you are when there’s this heavy expectations that drain people and make them so that they feel like they have to be something else, or they can’t be who they are.  That’s really a neat description.

Karen Worstell:  So our Make Resilience Work, what we focus on is helping people find out who they are because a lot of us have been trained not to remember right?  It’s true, right?  We have a little bit of that trained out of us.  So learn to be comfortable in your skin, in your own space unapologetic for who you are.  Understand where your path is.  What is that whisper?  Where do you want to go?

And then the third strategy is all of the tools and techniques that we can all learn to help us navigate to that place that we want to be and _____.  Now does that mean that we completely don’t ever blend in with other people?  No, it means that we make a conscious choice to fit into those places that fit us where we can really fully bring all those gifts and talents and make that contribution that everybody craves.  Everybody craves to have their work be meaningful and to matter.

We’re pretty excited about it and this is going to be…we started off with some early steps in helping people get started and people can take a look…we have three sample courses that we really want people go out and test drive and give us feedback.  So I’ll share with you a link for that so that you can try it your listeners.

Andrea:  Oh yes, absolutely!  So we’ll definitely link to this in the show notes, but do you recall what those are right now at the top of your head?  Or we just go to karen…

Karen Worstell:  Yeah, sure.  You can go to karenworstell.com.  There is a menu item there called MOJO Maker.  If you go to MOJO Maker, you’ll have the link that will take you straight _____ the website for MOJO Maker.  You can sign up for free.  We’re not going to bug you to pay later.  Really what we want to do is get people’s feedback.  We put it out there so that people can try that.  It’s three of our most important modules that will eventually be part of about 22 different modules that people can take over the course of the year if they want to.

Andrea:  So that would be www.karenworstell.com correct?

Karen Worstell:  Yeah, karenworstell.com and it will take you to…there’s a link inside there under MOJO Maker.  It will take you to the class.

Andrea:  Well, thank you Karen for spending sometimes with us today, telling us about your story and sharing your abundant wisdom and your heart for people.  I really enjoy listening to you and having this conversation with you today.  It was really, really great.

Karen Worstell:  I enjoyed it too, Andrea!  Thank you so much for having me in your show and for the chance to talk with you.

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Why Her View From Home Matters with Leslie Means

Episode 54

I want your voice to matter more and I’m absolutely thrilled to bring you a guest this week who shares this exact sentiment!

Leslie Means is a former news anchor, published children’s book author, and the co-founder and owner of Her View From Home; an online platform millions of women turn to each month for positive inspiration about parenting, marriage, relationships, and faith.

In this episode, Leslie talks about how Her View From Home started, why she says we should listen to God’s whispers, her mission to help women realize their voice does matter, how she runs a successful business from home while raising three children with her husband, the impact video has had in growing her audience, what she looks for in an article for Her View From Home, and so much more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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How Your Attention and Energy Can Change the Game with Neen James

Episode 53

Neen James is a speaker, entrepreneur, and the author of Attention Pays. Neen’s client list has included companies like Viacom, Comcast, Paramount Pictures, Johnson & Johnson, and more! However, Neen also loves working directly with thought-leaders who want to share their ideas with the world in a unique way.

In this episode, Neen discusses how she decided to center her message around the concept of paying attention, how she got the word out initially about her message, the three we pay attention, why you need to own your uniqueness, how to maintain momentum when you’ve been sharing the same message for a while, how to leverage your book long after it’s been launched, what a habit loop is and how you can break it, and more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Neen James Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I have with me Neen James.  Neen is a speaker and entrepreneur who works in the corporate space and does some amazing things with her speaking and her writing.  She just came out with a book, Attention Pays.  So I’m really looking forward to diving into this book with Neen and just discussing your leadership in this area, Neen.  I’m so thrilled to have you.

Neen James:  G’day!  What a treat to be on your show.  I was so looking forward to have time together today.

Andrea:  Me too.  OK, so Neen, can you start by just giving the audiences a little bit more of a clue as to what you do on a day-to-day basis or for your career?

Neen James:  So I grew up in a corporate business in Australia.  So I worked in retail banking telecommunications in the oil industry.  You got to imagine, Andrea, I worked in Australia, right?  So I have this fabulous corporate background, but as an expert, I’m obsessed with getting the world to pay attention.  I think that when we pay attention, Andrea, companies make more money and we have better relationships.

I have the privilege of working with really cool clients whether it’s media companies, like Comcast, Viacom, Paramount Pictures, or maybe pharmaceutical, you know, Johnson & Johnson.  There are so many cool corporate people that I get to work with but occasionally I have the privilege of working with thought leaders.  I want to take their ideas and share them with the world in a very unique way.  I know that you have a lot of listeners like that.

So I love this opportunity to be able to solve some of the challenges.  For example, people that are in positions of leadership, they may have a message but they’re just not a 100% sure on how to articulate that to be able to grab someone’s attention and then keep it.  Or maybe they have people in their team who wants getting everything done before focusing on the most important things.  Or maybe, there are people that are out who want to be able to create attention-grabbing strategies for their company, their product or services and I fix that.

So generally I’m hired as the keynote speaker for a large corporate events or sometimes I go and work with leadership teams and do their retreats.

The reason I do what I do, Andrea, is I just want the world to pay attention because I think when we do that, we create this significant moments that matter.  So there is no day in the life of Neen James, not one day is similar.  It could be me still sitting here and my work out gear after I have worked with my personal trainer by FaceTime or me on a stage in front of a thousand people in some fabulous hotel and then everything in between.  It’s those late nights at the airport.  It’s trying to do business in a cab in Uber or a lift.  That is what so fascinating about this career that I’ve chosen, Andrea, there’s no day in the life of Neen James, not one day is the same anyway.

Andrea:  So do you love that variety?

Neen James:  Oh my gosh, I crave that variety.  I am not a person who’s good with routine and I learned that very quickly in career.  My ideation productivity is crazy.  But I’m a fantastic person to have in a brainstorming meeting but when it comes to the execution of all those ideas, I love handing them over to someone else.

So one thing I learned is I was a really great project manager to a point.  So I could brainstorm the projects, scope it out, create the budget, get consensus from everyone, you name it and I could do it.  But when it came to having to do like weekly reports or the routine of the projects, I had to have people in my team who are brilliant at it.

Even to this day, I have surrounded myself who are brilliant, people are brilliant at detail and execution and so that allows me the freedom to have a routine thing.  I’m a kind of personality that needs to be constantly challenged, constantly looking for something new, change, evolution and transforming something.  And there are people who are brilliant at execution, logistics.  So I have some really brilliant people around me like that.  I have some clients who do that kind of work.  So I think you just got to find what you’re good at.

Andrea:  Yeah, that’s really encouraging to people like me who are like you.

Neen James:  Yeah.

Andrea:  Yes, it is.  It is fun to be able to…if you’re an activator, you like to start things but you’re not great at following up.  It’s wonderful and it’s so encouraging to know that there are people who do that and who can take it all the way to the finish line.

Neen James:  You also need to make sure that you’ve realized not a single thing, like when I ran my first marathon, I realized…and by the way, I’ve never ran in my life so that was like stupid thing to do.  I started running and then I did my first marathon within like five months.  It was crazy but here’s what I love, running a marathon is not an individual sport.  It’s a team sport, right?

So what I realized was while I’m maybe being a person who actually steps to cross the finish line to use your analogy, it was really a team of people that got me there.  My running mate, my sister, my husband, my physiotherapist, and my doctor; you know like there were gazillion of people, not to mention that there were clients waiting at the finish line.  That’s crazy to me but what it showed me was, we don’t do these things on our own.  I always believed that success comes when there is a really cool group of people around you and that has always been my experience.

Andrea:  OK, so I want to start talking about this message, Attention Pays, because one of the things that fascinates is how people decide on the message.  I know that this is something that you’re brilliant at but this message and throughout the book, you touched on a number of different sub points, like leadership, personal branding, productivity, and even the environment.

Neen James:  Uh-hmmm, yeah.

Andrea:  So how did you decide that it’s really the attention piece that you wanted to focus on as sort of the front runner of these messages or the umbrella message?

Neen James:  Yeah, I was always known for my work and productivity.  So Andrea, I had a reputation in corporate.  I was the person who could be given a project that might be like…one of my projects. it was like 10 months behind.  It has to be delivered in two months.  I had to raise $10 million and I literally had two months to do it and it was just me.

I remember, I have always been given these projects where I could get things done.  It was something I had a reputation for.  I didn’t even really understand that was important until I decided to leave the corporate world and then people were always asking me “How did you do that?  How did you get things done?”

And I thought “Oh my goodness, surely people get this.”  I think what happened, Andrea, is when things are intuitive to you, you just take for granted that you’re really good, like with your singing, right?  You kind of almost assumed that because singing comes naturally to you, you don’t think other people know how to sing too because it’s a gift you have.  So productivity was definitely a gift that I had.

I realized the world needed to be able to get more done.  My big learning came when I realized you can’t manage time but you can manage your attention.  That’s what led me down this path to really explore.  If it’s not about time management, we don’t really have a time management crisis, we have an attention crisis.  So then I set about to try and solve “How do we get people to start to truly pay attention?”

I mean, think about it, Andrea, our parents tell us to pay attention, our teachers tell us to pay attention.  It’s so annoying when people tell us to pay attention.  We hear it all the time and yet, we don’t always pay attention to the right people, the right things, or even the right way.  That’s really what made me pursue this so it was interesting to me.

I don’t know if you know a fabulous speaker by the name of Mark Sanborn, but Mark Sanborn is a dear friend and a phenomenal speaker.  He has written gazillions of books including the Fred Factor, which is a fantastic book.  But Mark and I were sitting in his office and I was getting very frustrated with where I was in my career.  I had hired him for some advice and so I got to spend some time with him.  He has a brilliant program for speakers who want to really elevate what they’re doing.

And so I was sitting in his boardroom and he said “Look, what is this really about?”  I was so frustrated, Andrea.  I was like “Arrgghh, I just want the world to pay attention.”  He said “I know it, because that’s what you’re all about.”  And I was like “Oh man.”  So it was that conversation with Mark where we really came up with this whole clever framing of Attention Pays, instead of Pay Attention.  I will always remember sitting at that table with him.  He’s been a huge influence in my career and he’s a very dear friend.

Thought leaders are notorious for this, if you want to be a thought leader or if you are a thought leader, often, you’re so close to your own content that sometimes it’s hard for us to see it ourselves, right?  So think about your hair stylist. She can’t color her own hair as well as she might be able to call someone who’s sitting in her chair.  I think for me, I needed someone brilliant like Mark Sanborn to see the big picture for me and really force me to think about what was the most important to me.

What I had realized too through my whole career, I knew I how to get attention.  I knew how to give attention and I think those two things are very different but they’re vital.  So as a thought leader, you need attention for the message that you have for the world and so you need clever ways to not just get attention but to keep people’s attention in a time where everyone is so distracted.

Andrea:  Yes, absolutely!  You chose this concept, Attention Pays, which is really clever, then how did you figure out how to communicate this message in a way to decision makers so that they understood that they needed to have you come speak about it or to come help their teams with it?

Neen James:  My brain is this freakish place.  It’s kind of like crazy town up there and one of the things that happened to me is when I start listening to a thought leader or an information expert about the intellectual property, I see a contextual model in my brain.  I’ve always done it.  I don’t know why it is and that’s a little scary.  So I start to draw shapes in my mind and I think to myself “How would I sort that in different way so that people could remember it more.

So I’m a huge advocate for contextual models and I believe if you can have a great contextual model that demonstrates your intellectual property.  It commercializes your intellectual property so much greater because it helps other people see the value of yout ideas in a way that makes commercial sense.

Now, having grown up in corporate, I totally understand that corporates are about making money, full stop, period, end of story, that’s it.  So if you have a great idea, it doesn’t matter how great your idea is, if a company cannot understand how that’s going to contribute to their bottom line then all you have is a really great idea.

So what I’ve learned was in order for me to commercialize attention, I have to be able to tie back to how companies would make greater profits if they started paying attention to their existing clients so that they could get the upsale if they could pay attention to new clients, so they could attract the kind of clients they want.  So from a customer service and experience’s view, it makes commercial sense.

But I took it further to say, it’s not just about _____, it’s about to the team.  If you really want to attract attention in an organization, you’ve got to be able to grab their attention and keep them so that they want to be able to work with you.  So it’s about talent retention as well.  And then I also realized, because I’m Australian, I don’t know if this is just an Aussie thing or it’s a “me” thing, but Australians are very environmental way.  And because we have a small country, we protect our planet, we recycle, we do all these things that I just assumed everyone did until I moved to the US.

You know, when I walk into the grocery store and everything was like triple wrapped in plastic and at that point, Australia banned plastic bags, we’re talking like 15 years ago now.   So I think that for me, it’s also about paying attention to the planet.  The way that I’ve sorted the books is I really think we pay attention in three ways, Andrea.

I think it’s personally that’s one way to pay attention and personal attention is all about who deserves your attention, right?  So that’s being very thoughtful.  Professionally, it’s about what deserves your attention.  That’s about being productive.  That’s about getting the right things done.  And then globally, it’s about how you pay attention in the world and that’s very much about being responsible and being a contributor in our planet.

So if you think about attention personal, professional, and global and obviously I have a contextual model for that that’s really where I started.  I started with the contextual model and then I started to unpack my intellectual property under those guidelines.  What that does is makes it super easy for the reader to understand it.  So there’s the visual of the contextual model and there’s also the strategies for the person who wants to have the application and execution.

So I think thought leaders need to consider, do they have a contextual model for their intellectual property because if they do, they’ll definitely make more money from that.  But if it’s just great idea you have in your head or that you’re sharing a speech, blog, or a podcast, until you can make it easy for people to process, it’s just sometimes, because people’s attention is very split, you’re not going to be able to keep their attention, right?  So unless you have a really cool way to grab that person who wants to see it in one page, that makes a big difference.

Andrea:  I love contextual model as well and I’ve read up on some of the things that you published about them and enjoyed that section in your book as well.  I know that contextual models help people not just…they help people process it because it hits on so many different areas of the brain.

Neen James:  Uh-hmm that’s exactly, right.  Yeah.

Andrea:  So it really reaches people at a deeper level in a quicker level and they’re able to apply it more quickly.  But I’m curious, on a practical level when it comes to somebody who has a contextual model, how do you decide what to share from stage either for free or in a big setting versus how much to share in your book or with clients?

Neen James:  So I have an abundance mentality and I think you know that about me.  I give steps away and people are going to rip you up.  That’s going to happen.  Let me give you an example, one of my books is called Folding Time:  How to Achieve Twice As Much in Half the Time.  That book was published way back in, I want to say, like 2014 or 2015.  One of the things that I have in this book is, obviously, a contextual model.

So in the book it makes sense to be like a PDF that also it could go on a slide deck which is animated which could go on the website, which could also be unpacked because every chapter is just basically on text model.  When I’m on stage, I draw the model with my body using my hand gestures and then what I do is then I reveal the animated model or I do it at the same time.

So you can use models in very clever ways.  You can use them and draw them with your body as you’re explaining a really key concept to your audience.  You could use it in a blog and then you could unpack what that means in the blog.  You could describe it in a podcast.  You could even say to people, “What I’d like you to do is draw a Venn diagram with three circles.  Now, in the first circle, I’d like you to write the word, Time, and in the second circle, the word Attention, do you know what I mean?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Neen James:  So you can actually share with people how do you want them to use the model as well.  Something I’m widely known for is I always ask for a big pad of paper to be on stage.  Now, that could be in front of thousand people and every time the meeting planner assists me, no one will see it.  I’d say, “I know, that’s not for your benefit, it’s for mine.”  So because I pull people from the audience all the time that’s another thing I’ve become very known for, it’s because I want to create this facilitated experience with my audience.

So I’ll pull someone like you out at the audience.  I’ll ask you some questions or play it on the stage and then I’d be like “Is this your contextual model?”  And then the audience goes crazy and it’s the only magic trick I have.  But because my brain thinks that way, it’s easy for me to do it in public.  It’s easy for me to do it in private when I work with people on their message.

I have a call coming up where a founder of a brand created by agency is about to a launch and they’ve hired me to be able to create a contextual model that would be very essential in their messaging and essential on their website.  And here’s the other thing that’s really powerful, Andrea, is in every proposal I ever have to submit, if I’m submitting a speaker proposal or someone wants to ask about my services, my model is always included in my proposal.

Here’s one of the things that’s important for thought leaders to consider is because you are the only person who can articulate that model the best way, but it shows you have _____ of intellectual property.  It shows that you have really thought about the offering you have for the world.  So I cannot rave enough of how important the contextual model is.

Andrea:  That’s so good.  OK, so you don’t believe that there is a point at which you could share too much on the front end so that people don’t end up hiring you because you sort of giving it away.

Neen James:  Oh honey, there will always be like DIY, right?  So there’s always going to be DIY people, do-it-yourself, and that’s great.  Give them the tools.  Let them go for it, right?  And then there’s going to be people who would never be able to replace your energy.  So for example, all the meeting planners call me that energizer bunny – you know, the Duracell pink bunny, that’s so me and that’s what they’re paying for.  They’re hiring me to bring in energy to the environment, to the conference where I kick it off and create this really fun environment where everyone feels like “OK, I can do this,” right?

While I look little and I sound like I’m 5, then I can show them stuff like contextual models and go “Oh, and by the way, I’m kinda smart.”  And I think that that’s a lovely contrast when you consider what you’re doing for your audience is my only job is to stand in service at that audience.  So for me, I will do whatever they need at that moment in time.  If they need me to give them the model, you bet I will.  If they want take further on my slides.  I don’t care if they want a PDF from me, I’ll happily give it to them.

I think we need to have this place of abundance.  You will never be replaced if they want that life in person experience or they want your brain to coach them or mentor them.  No one will ever be able to do that, not a PDFs is going to ever do that for you; however, the PDF will show the value and I do believe not everyone is always in a financial place where they can afford someone like me, and so I’ll give them as much as they can to do it themselves.

If they get stuck and then they want my help then that’s another conversation to be had.  But I think as a thought leader, we have to have a role value and we have to deliver enormous value so that people literally want to just hire you and it doesn’t matter what your price is.

Andrea:  OK, so have you always felt this confident about your message and about yourself on stage and the value that you’re offering?  I love to ask this question of my guest, but where does your confidence come from?

Neen James:  Oh good Lord, no.  I have not always felt this confident and _____ they have, oh for goodness sake that’s so not true.  Seriously, like I still have like self-doubt, I’m like “What on earth am I doing?”  I remember when I sent a manuscript off to the publisher.  I pressed the send button and I was like “Oh man, what if they don’t like it.”  Oh honey, I think everyone has that.  Look, I’m as human if not more so, than everyone else.

But here’s what I do believe in.  I do believe that each of us as thought leader has a calling that is on your life.  You can call it something that doesn’t sound as woo-woo if that’s important to you, but for me, a big reason why I do this work is because the feedback I get, when people read the book and say “I had to put it down because I wanted to pay attention to my wife.”  Or “I had to put it down because I decided that I need to spend more time with my team.”

All the things they’re telling me that they’re doing as a result of listening to me in a speech or maybe they have read the book or maybe they listen to a podcast like this, that to me means that I’ve stepped in into my calling.  I’m doing what I mean to do on this planet.

So I think for me, that’s where my confidence comes from and you know, I once heard and I wish I know the author of it, but I heard someone say once, “You can’t be nervous when you stand in service.”  So my job has always been…I’ve always had that belief that my only job is to stand in service.  You know, I have this amazing performance coaches.  I work with Michael and Amy Port, and every month, I invest time with them.  They’re helping me to be better speaker on stage, because they come from an acting background so they’re brilliant people.  They’re great people, very accomplished as you know but they are truly the best in the in the business I’ve ever seen.

So I worked with them and what I realized was Neen James does not work with the script.  I can’t work with the script.  My brain is not wired to work with the script.  We have tried to work with the script and it just didn’t work and I was losing my confidence and Michael explained that I was looking to like…it was too sweet.  He could tell when I would step into the part of my brain that I was like “Oh no, I’m supposed to say this.”

But what we’re able to was what I’m really brilliant at is creating an environment for the people in the room, facilitating that experience.  So we decided to elevate all of that, Andrea, and what that does is I’m stepping into stuff that’s so easy for me.  It was so much fun and they’re still learning at the same time but it’s not a traditional way that other speakers might work.

When you think about the fact that you’re trying to encourage people to find their voice in their life, as you say, then this was the way that we find my voice.  My voice is not changing for them.  So I’m still going to sound like a Minion but it still works, right?

Andrea:  Oh come on.

Neen James:  So that’s another thing that you’re probably aware of.  As soon as I step on stage, I talk about my height, my voice, my accent.  We get it out.  It’s in the first two minutes to move on.  So I think too that sometimes the confidence comes from owning those things about you that are very unique.  So for me, I don’t apologize at all because they’re part of who I am and that’s one of the things that the meeting planners remembered.  It’s one of the things that the audience loves and treasures.

So for thought leaders, you know, I really want to encourage you, don’t be like anyone else.  Find the uniqueness that is truly yours and leverage that because that’s help people to remember the experience of you and you’ll be more confident when you step into that place.

Andrea:  Oh yes, leverage your uniqueness, and that can be difficult.  I mean, it can be because sometimes it feels a little intimidating or you feel like you should be something that everybody else expects you to be and you’re taking a pretty big leap of faith to step out and be you.

Neen James:  It’s true.  And then the other day, like because the book has launched, you know we launched…I think we sold like 6500 copies the first few days.  I mean, it was crazy.  I was very proud of that.  We came in number one, the best new release on Amazon.  That was so very exciting to me.  And then stupid me when I read book reviews for an old book that I had written years ago and some guys wrote, “Oh she sounds like a Minion, which is why I _____.”

It’s really quite enough that kind of review and it had nothing to do with my writing.  It has nothing to do with the intellectual property.  It was just that he didn’t like my voice.  I was like “Oh my gosh that’s amazing.”  That’s tough, like it could throw me for a loop.  I remember reaching out to some friends going “How do you do with these kinds of people?”  So I think we all get our confidence from that by the way, you know what I mean?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Neen James:  So those types of things that like “Oh man, what am I doing?  Why is this happening?”  So sometimes because as thought leaders, especially if you have this message for the world and you’re very driven as a leader, what happens is there’s a place of a vulnerability that occurs, right?  So when you step in the world and say, I stand for this, and then you write a book about it, “Oh good Lord,” right?

So you write a book for that and you are opening up your heart and putting it down in a platter _____ about the world.  It is an incredibly vulnerable thing whether you do a podcast like you, whether you write a blog, whether you write a book; you’re putting your ideas into the world.  When you do that, it’s a place of vulnerability but I don’t think people understand.  I think speaking is one of the most vulnerable things that you can do.  You stand on a stage and share with the world what you think and standing in service to people.  That’s a very vulnerable thing and yet, you have to have the confidence to be able to do it.

Andrea:  You know, I know that you’re friends with Elizabeth Marshall.

Neen James:  Oh I love that woman! If you’re listening to this podcast, stop what you’re doing and go and call Elizabeth Marshall.

Andrea:  I need to have her on here for sure.  I know that one of the things that she talks about is making sure that you continue to market your book after you put it out.  This is something that’s difficult and that’s difficult for me and we’re talking about follow through and execution before.  So when you’re somebody that kind of has a lot of energy on the front end and it’s harder to get all the way to the end of the finish line on your marathon, I think it’s the same way with a book or with a message in general.  It’s so easy to want to just start a new one.  So do you have any thoughts about where you’re at?  I mean, you’re just starting this launch, I mean really, it still a start in just a month or so.  But how do you keep going with the same message for quite a while?

Neen James:  Well, fortunately for me I had Liz Marshall and I had her in the process like the need to hire her because she’s brilliant and she knows the industry and she knows the _____.  But one of the beautiful things she said to me was, we’re talking about relationships, and I was talking to her about the fact that I felt like I was calling in every favor I possibly had in getting people to write testimonials and buy books.  And then now, I’m begging people to write Amazon reviews, like I felt like I was literally calling in every favor.

She said to me, you know, just be really conscious that this is a long term relationship game, it’s not about the launch.  It was a beautiful reminder that I think every author needs to start because it can be very consuming, the launch.  Now, the launch has happened and it was literally only two weeks ago and at the time, I was listening to this some amazing _____ but it was very, very fresh to me.  But as soon as it was launched, I went into an Evergreen Marketing Strategy.

So I hired a fantastic guy by the name of _____ and I have been building this phenomenal Evergreen Marketing Strategy.  So one of the things we talked about is yes, the book is launched and that’s great.  Now, I have to be very intelligent about actively leveraging all of the work that I put into the book.  Because that’s very easy to a point, Andrea, once you hand the manuscript in, I was like “OK great, that’s one major chunk of a project and then it launches.  “Well that’s great too,” right?

But then if you have published it with the tradition publishing, you couldn’t earn back your worth.  So you know, we all get these lovely words to _____.  That’s just funny, it’s doesn’t mean anything.  So I’m very conscious about you know to earn back very quickly.  And then I think for me, it’s very much about thinking, “Who do I need to get this book in front of?”  So it changes the way that I market.

I think it’s one of things that I would suggest the thought leaders if you’re considering publishing, whether it’s self-publishing, hybrid publishing, or traditional publishing; all of them have their own benefits.  All of them have their own drawbacks.  Determine a launch strategy for sure, but put more attention and energy into the Evergreen Book Marketing Strategy so you’re doing something every day to move your book closer to its goals.

Andrea:  OK, let’s just bring this down like my personal own experiences.  So I think my struggle has been with this, number one, I self-publish and so I don’t have the royalty issue.  I was really paying back my own family _____.

Neen James:  That’s more pressure than a publisher.

Andrea:  Well, it can be, it can be, or it can’t.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be so I don’t feel that responsibility.  I felt a responsibility to get it out but then it was kind of…and there’s a little bit of me that is a little bit like “What do I use it for me now?”

Neen James:  Ahhh, well then definitely _____ the different things that I know that I _____.

Andrea:  Yeah.  Do you have any thoughts about how…and I think I would also put out there too that I think that there’s also…and the reason I’m bringing this up for me is not just to get some advice from you, but also because I think that there’s a lot of people that struggle with this and that is that you continue to make yourself vulnerable by continuing to put it out there.  If you put it out there and then you take it away then you’re sort of like “Well, I tried.  I created it.  I did my best and now I’m gonna hide.”

Neen James:  What’s that thing in Sunday school that they used to teach and I thought that the phrase was something like “Don’t hide your light under a bushel,” or something like that.

Andrea:  Yes, yes.

Neen James:  That’s what makes me think of.  See, doing this way and then you have this beautiful product that you’re proud of when it was printed and yet, you know, you’re like “Huh, I’m exhausted.”  That’s the challenge too, right?  It’s the exhaustion that comes from getting it too the place where it’s in the world.  I think you have to fall in love with the product again.

So one of the things that I did was I handed the manuscript in in the fall of last year, but the book didn’t actually come out officially, you know, I got my hands on the very first copy in the beginning of last month.  I literally…I remember, I sat and read my own book and that sounds so self-absorbed…

Andrea:  Oh no!

Neen James:  And I was like “Oh my God, I love the story.  Oh my gosh, I forgot I write that.  Oh I love that,” right?  So what’s happens between handing manuscript in, or in your case going to print production, it is that you worked so hard to pull up this particular project.  And maybe it’s not book, maybe it’s a speech, maybe it’s a blog you’ve been thinking about it, maybe it’s finally launching a podcast you wanted into the world, or it’s finally designing a training workshop, whatever it is that you release into the world.  When I sat and read it, I was like “You know, I really like that.”

Here’s just some quick ideas of ways that I think you can leverage books.  If you have particular case studies that you’ve written about, you definitely reach out and make sure that it gets into the right hands of the person that you wrote about.  If you are looking to book speeches from it, be very deliberate.  I have a particular financial goal and number of speeches I want to achieve as a result of publishing this book and I’m going to track every single one of those.

I also think that it’s a very powerful way to be able to serve the world and thinking through, you know. so Melissa Agnes has a great new book called Crisis Ready.  It’s a phenomenal book and would make the most brilliant curriculum for universities and anyone in academia and schools.  It’s just such a fantastic book on how to build that invincible brand.

So I think what she’s really good at is understanding who she wrote the book for, and then think about, would your book be a great curriculum for someone?  And if so, how would you make that happen?  Some of my clients have done this, they bought the book in bulk and then they put something on it.  So for example, women in cable and television, this is in association for women who are cable and television obviously.

So one of my clients put copies for everyone and then put a sticker of _____.  It’s just really lovely.  So there are ways that you can also leverage the book and then for me, it is the required handouts.

So if I ever do a contextual modeling session with someone or with an organization, I ask that everyone has read that section in advance.  Now, you can also use it during your speech or your training workshop and you just make it required reading or required resource and so that’s another way to be able to move the book.

But I also think that the book can, you know, find its way into the hands of people which is quite serendipitous, right?  So you may meet someone and you might be talking about your particular type of expertise and then you invite them and say “Hey, may I send you a copy of my book.”  I never assume people want the book, by the way.  That’s another thing.  I think thought leaders get so obsessed with their _____ that they think like the whole world wants it.

I know myself, like I literally have a _____ sitting behind me that needs to be read, still there are books every time my friend publishes book, obviously.  But then people send me books all the time which is very lovely.  But if they know where the book was in my reading cue, it might be a little discouraging.  So I always ask permission.  I just say “Hey, would you like a copy of my book?  If so, I’ll be delighted to send you a copy.”  Don’t _____ they have to say yes.

Andrea:  Oh those are some great tips.

Neen James:  Yeah.  We just need to think about how do you cleverly leverage your book.  And then also think about, not just the book but you know, my book is about attention so, obviously, I’ve got to be a little bit more clever.  We had some special packaging design.  We had stickers design.  Inside the cover when I saw in it, we have this little like lipstick kisses that I stick on it.  Stupid stuff but, you know, I thought of as many different things that I could to grab someone’s attention.

And then if I worried about anyone, because the book cover is red, as you know I bought those little red sticky Post-It notes that kind of a little, I don’t know if what kind of sticky notes there.  But they’re little things like tabs and then if I mention anyone, I made sure, I put a red tab beside that section of the book so it grabbed their attention so they go straight to that page.

So rather than saying “Hey, I featured you on page 82,” I tabbed page 82 and then they would go find it themselves.  So there are little ways that you can also think about, you know, what is the role your book serves in the world and how could you leverage that and how can you get it in more hands.  You know, some people book sales are their aspirations.  For others, it is used _____ and for others, it might be just a really expensive business pad.  You have to decide what the role is of the book and then leverage it accordingly.

Andrea:  OK, so you’re so good with these tips, and so before we sign off, I want to go back to some of the ones that you gave in your book specifically.  One of the things that you talked about was the habit loop.  So when you were talking about it, you were also explaining how to break the habit of essentially checking your phone too often or those types of things.  So would you mind sharing with us about the habit loop on how we can break habits that are not healthy?

Neen James:  Well, think about what a habit loop really mean.  If you really want to change your brain, if you really want to change your habits, if you really want to change your focus, it’s not just the matter of saying “Oh, I’m gonna stop doing that.”  It doesn’t really work like that, right?  Which you’ve got to think about this; number one, you got to identify what are those attention triggers that are negative, the things that are really damaging.  Maybe it’s your relationships, maybe they’re damaging your productivity, or maybe you’re not getting goals that you really want.

So the first thing you’re going to do is definitely identify those negative triggers then you’ve got to take responsibility to make a change so that you can get rid of those triggers.  That might mean the simplicity of turning your cell phone completely off or putting it in a folder or putting it in your glovebox so you don’t actually drive and text at the same time.  You got to think about what that means, right?

And then what you got to do is once you do that, you got to then replace that with a new behavior.  So you have a new habit.  For example, when you get in to your car, if you put your phone in your bag if you’re a woman or in the glove compartment maybe, then that’s the new habit that you’re creating, right?  You’re breaking the negative habit of texting while driving and you’re creating a new habit.  So every time, you get into the car, your brain associates that activity with that.  When you think about this new habit, in order for this to new behavior to become a habit, you got to keep doing it.

Did you ever hear that stupid saying that it takes 21 days to form a new habit?  It’s not true.  It’s so not true, and so many speakers including myself, unfortunately, I believed it until I actually did some research and they said, the true amount of time that they find that it takes to create a new habit is actually 66 days.  That’s very different to 21, right?  So it’s about identifying the negative habit, it’s about making sure that you then create a new behavior.  And once you have that new behavior in place is that you keep repeating that that’s the habit.  Make sense?

Andrea:  Yes, and to the influencer listening, there are so many…I mean, dozens and dozens and dozens of like specific ideas and examples that she gives in this book so you really need to get Attention Pays and let’s give them one more, shall we?  What about the 90-day promotional strategy?  I really, really love this.  I think that people need to think about this because it doesn’t matter whether you’re working for yourself or someone else.  You can be intentional about your personal brand, and so tell us about that 90-day promotional strategy that mentioned.

Neen James:   Well, everybody knows that we have a personal brand.  That’s not kind of new to all of the people who are listening to your podcast because you unpacked this so beautifully in your book.  People know the importance of the fact that you are a product then you got to treat yourself like a product as well.  But I also believe that when you think about it, like say for example…I think what you’re referencing is that, you want to be able to create…

Andrea:  It’s on page 66.

Need James:  I exactly knew where it is, believe me.  It’s like when you have a career plan…now, I say that confidently but that’s not a hundred century.  But this one I do know, when I was looking in my career early in banking, I realized that the people that were getting promoted were getting the attention because they were getting things done.  So here’s what I decided to do, I decided that I will have what you’re calling what we have in the book called, the 90-Day Fulfillment Promotional Strategies.  I decided, it would take me 90 days.

So basically, I would think 90 days is going to take me to learn the job then it’s going to take me another 90 days to master the job and it’s going to take me another 90 days to find my successor so that within 12 months, I could be promoted.  So three months to learn it, three months to master it, three months to find my successor and then within 12 months, I’ll be promoted.

Now, if you track my _____ you can actually see the _____ in banking.  I was promoted on leverage every 10 months.  As thought leaders influences leaders in our community, we have to look at our plans and think “What am I gonna achieve in this 90 days and then what am I gonna to evolve that in the next 90 days,” because I think we can our head around 90 days.  But people that are doing five year plans, huh, so much can change.

So what I’m trying to get my client to do is think about how can you accelerate your commercial strategy, and it could be for example, if you don’t work for someone else, maybe you’re not looking to get promoted inside the company if you’re not corporate.  If you’re an entrepreneur, I look at my business in 90 days cycle.  So every 90 days, I’m developing a new marketing strategy, a new message so that I’m constantly looking at the different modalities of the work that I do and how that can be received.

I could get my head around 90 days because you can also see a shift in behavior in 90 days, right?  So yeah, the 90-day strategy was something that I was notorious for in my corporate career.  I had a mentoring program for executives and I cancelled them to look at the same thing, because as leaders we also have to train our successor and I think that’s a gift many of us have.

So in corporate, we are always training the next person who takes our role and if you don’t do that, you can’t get promoted.  As an entrepreneur, we need to know what is our succession plan or what is the plan for our practice or our business so that you have that next-level thinking that allows you to decide how you’re going to take your vacation, what’s going to happen if you, you know, if something happens to your health.  We have to have succession plans and the ways.

Andrea:  Alright, Neen, this has been so great.  Thank you so much for taking time to be with us today and share just abundantly in your words from your wisdom, your brilliance, your experience and your energy.  Thank you for the inspiration as well.  We really, just really appreciate your time with us today.

Neen James:  It was my absolute privilege and thank you for everything that you’re doing in the world to help people find that voice so they can be that most amazing version of themselves.

Andrea:  OK, so Neen, where should people look to find more of Neen?

Neen James:  The good thing for me is there’s only one Neen James online.  So if you just Google it, neenjames.com, you will find me.  That’s the easiest way and you can follow me on Twitter or you can see my adventures in Instagram or you can find out so many free resources at neenjames.com.

Andrea:  Hmmm and YouTube channel as well.

Neen James:  Oh yeah, hundreds of videos, literally hundreds of videos there for free.

Andrea:  Yes, great!  Well, thank you so much, Neen

Neen James:  My absolute pleasure.  Thanks for letting me serve your listeners.

 

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How You Can Change Your Experience of Physical and Emotional Pain

Episode 52

We tend to talk about authentic self-expression on this show, but what does that really mean?

Most people equate being authentic to “being real” and always saying what’s on your mind in the moment. However, that’s not exactly correct.

Being “real” in the moment, may not truly be an accurate representation of how you truly feel because your perception of your emotions may be skewed.

It’s this exact concept of our perception of physical and emotional pain and how that relates to our ability to authentically express ourselves that I’m diving into today.

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

Hey, hey! It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Authentic self-expression is something that we talk about quite a bit around here. It is one of core values at Voice of Influence and part of what we want to encourage in the world.

But authentic self-expression is kind of confusing. It’s maybe a little bit difficult to even explain to other people and in some ways, it’s simple because we think of words or phrases like keeping it real. We’re just going to keep it real. I want to be real. The real me. Things like that.

But I think that the idea of being real or authentic is still more complicated than it seems on a surface, because as I’ve talked about in other podcast, being real isn’t just about saying whatever is on your mind or heart right in the moment. Being real, I think is more deep than that.

We’re going to talk about that here today on the podcast. We’re going to talk about what authentic self-expression can really look like. We’re going to put it in the context of how much we feel we are worth or value. Now, I’m sharing this with you as somebody who feels that you do have a voice of influence. You’re wanting to make your voice matter more.

I’m also sharing it with you in case you have other people that you’re working with as a coach and you’re wanting them to realize some of these things about themselves. You’re wanting to help other people be more authentic in their self-expression.

Today, we’re going to tackle this by first talking about pain perception. So we’re talking about the perception of our own value, but eventually, we’re coming back to that. We’re going to start by talking about the perception of pain.

Now, the reason why we’re doing this is because I think there are a lot of parallels. I’m really excited about the science behind pain and pain perception and the experience of pain and how that relates to other things, such as our experience of our own value and whether or not we believe that we have value in a context. And essentially, it’s about our confidence and how we move forward.

So let’s go back to pain perception. A few years ago when I was starting to really dig into this research about pain and pain perception, I stumbled upon a video on YouTube. It’s a lecture given at the University of Oxford in 2010 by Irene Tracy. I am fascinated by Irene Tracey’s work in this area of Pain Perception.

First, I want to tell you about the story that she tells. I’ve used this story with my own children and even other people’s children to talk about pain. Because you know how when you kiss a “boo-boo,” (if you’re a parent, you probably know this) when you kiss a boo-boo somehow or another, it feels better to the child. It means something when they get a hug. They feel better.

Why did they feel that way? It’s magic. It’s mommy magic. It’s all these different things that we think of ourselves, you know, this really doesn’t help and the Band-Aid doesn’t really help. But I don’t really care; you stopped crying so I’m going to put it on anyway.

Well, through Irene’s research, I’m learning how this actually could be and why it really does matter. Why a mom kissing her son’s boo-boo actually make it feel better and can make them feel less pain.

So she tells this story about this builder in London. He’s building and he’s doing whatever he does as a builder and apparently, a nail gun goes off and shoots a nail right a through his boots. I’m telling you what this guy goes crazy. He is riving in agony from the pain of this nail that just went though his boot. It’s even sticking out on the other side and they bring him into this hospital, this ER. They’re carefully, carefully cutting away the boots while he was screaming pretty much in agony just riving in pain.

They cut away this boots to find out that this nail had gone right through the space between two toes. That’s right. He did not even get a scratch. This nail went through his boots and went through this space between his toes without actually breaking his skin and yet he felt this intense pain because why? Because of his pain perception.

Because even though the nerve endings in his foot were not saying that he was in pain, the nociceptor input was not saying he was in pain, his eyes saw what he should be feeling. His eyes saw this nail go through this boot and signals to his brain to help him assume that it was that bad. Then he should be feeling an incredible amount of pain. Well, of course, when they cut the boot away and he realized that he wasn’t hurt at all, he didn’t feel pain anymore.

The simple moral of the story is that pain isn’t always what we think it is. When we perceive pain, when we think that we are in pain, sometimes it is our brain playing tricks on us because sometimes that input, the actual nociceptor input, the nerve endings that are telling our brain that we have been injured and we need to pull our hands off the hot stove or that sort of thing, those are not actually firing off. It is not as intense as we think it is but there are things that are going on in our brain that can manipulate those perceptions to kind of make us experience the pain more intensely than we really need to.

So if we are hyper vigilant in our minds, our attention is really hyperly-focused on the pain that we’re experiencing. That’s one of the tricks that I used of my son. “So think about something else. Let’s watch this video instead; maybe the pain will go away.” Indeed often that helps to get distracted or even sometimes catastrophizing. If this happens once, it could happen forever or making it this really, really big deal when it really wasn’t that big deal in a first place.

So that some stuff that could go on in our heads. But then there’s also the context and these are all things that Irene Tracey talks about in this video. I’ll link to that in the show notes for sure. But we also have this pain beliefs that, you know what, one of my child’s pain beliefs is that if there is a drop of blood, it is the end of the world. And because of this belief when he sees blood, it feels like the end of the world. So it’s that belief that it brings to that pain experience that makes it worse.

Sometimes, there’s an expectation that this medicine is going to help a lot more than the last one. And so we assume that it will and then perhaps, we feel better and the pain is lost. Or there’s often that placebo effect when we think that we’re getting medicine and it’s going to make a difference. So we live as though this medicine is making a difference which then actually means making a difference for our own health or our own pain.

Then there’s the mood that we have, the emotional experience that we are having at the moment when pain can come. If you’re feeling good then you’re probably able to handle more pain or the more input of pain perception and then your experience of the pain is diminished because you’re already feeling good. Whereas, if you’re already feeling poor, if you’re depressed or anxious and then you get a prick of pain, well then, all of a sudden everything is much worse.

Again, I can see this out play out in my household all of the time with these children. Because if somebody is already upset about something and then we get poked, we get pricked, or I’m helping you up and all of a sudden that hurts to help you up instead of it just being the normal mom picking you up. Well, that mood that is already present has cast a negative light on the sensations that they’re feeling.

And then there is that chemical and structural components to this, so neurodegeneration, metabolic changes, and specifically maladaptive plasticity. So when we have a consistent way of handling pain, it sorts of burns a road or a pathway in our brain telling us exactly how things are going to play out every time.

So we have this maladaptive way of handling things in our brain based on our previous experience. This can lead to some real chronic pain. The plasticity of the brain is such a beautiful thing and we really can change the pathways in our brains to be able to make a difference in the way that we experience pain.

It requires some very intentional disruption. So instead of handling it the same way every time, we start do something else. We have to target some of these other things I mentioned before, our cognitive set, the contexts, and the mood; to be able to reset or retrain our brain so that it doesn’t feel everything quite so intensely.

Now, this is a very personal thing for me because I have personally experienced intensity of pain that goes beyond what most normal people would experience. So I very well know the feeling foolish because some small burst of cold air has all of a sudden made me feel like there are pins pricking me from the inside. They’re pricking my skin and I don’t like that feeling and so I tensed up and they’re all sorts of reactions that I have sort of trained myself to do unwittingly but then make it even worse.

So I have had to do some serious looking at what it would take to retrain my brain so that I’m not doing the same things all the time, and I’m not training myself to handle this pain in a maladaptive kind of way. That is the beauty of our brains. I mean, this is so amazing, isn’t it? That we can really truly change our pain experience by changing our mood, by changing our beliefs, and by changing these things so then our pain perception is not as intense or it doesn’t feel as bad as it used to feel.

So perception is really about how we know this. How do I know that I’m in pain? I know that I’m in pain based on my senses. What do I see? What do I feel, hear, touch, etc? But that pain perception can be influenced by these other things mentioned previously, our beliefs and the way that we’re responding, our mood and things like this. We can take that concept of pain perception and apply it to our emotional pain perception because what is absolutely fascinating is that the same areas light up in our brain whether we’re experiencing physical pain or emotional pain.

So emotional pain is very similar to our experience of physical pain and this makes a difference in how we respond. So just as when we’re feeling physical pain because we put our hand on a hot stove and so we pulled that thing off because, otherwise, it’s going to get burnt, we did the same thing with emotional pain.

When we start to feel emotional pain, when we may back off from whatever situation we’re in, because in a sense we’re trying to protect ourselves and that’s a very understandable experience. It’s a very understandable reaction, and unfortunately, just as our physical pain perception can be off from the actual need to protect so can our emotional experience of pain or perception of our emotional pain can also be off because it may not be as bad as we think.

So we make these decisions based on our experience of pain whether or not they’re right. It is really important but if we’re wanting to be authentic and we’re wanting to move in the world in an authentic way that we get really in touch with our pain experience, our emotional pain experience, so that we know when it is a good time to be self-protective and to take care of ourselves, our hearts or that sort of thing. And when we can actually take risks, when we can say “You know what, this is not as bad as I thought it was so I am going to do this anyway.”

Now, I have a really fun example of this. So I recently went to the movie, I Feel Pretty with Amy Schumer. I saw this thing advertised a few months ago and I was like “Oh my goodness, I wanna see this thing because it was really cracking me up and it looked like it would be funny.” And it was. It was very funny.

But the reason why I really wanted to see it was because I knew it was going to have something to do with confidence and how one decides whether or not they should be confident. Well, it’s truly based on this woman’s experience of emotional pain. She feels emotional pain because she assumes or senses her perception is that people do not appreciate her or want her around. She feels invisible because she’s not drop dead gorgeous.

So in her mind, her perception of drop dead gorgeous is somebody who gets the whole world opened up to them because of how they look. They get whatever they want because of how they look. So that is her perception, then her perception is also that because she’s not drop dead gorgeous, she is not getting what she wants. And there are certain opportunities in the world that are closed up to her because she’s not that person that she thinks she wants to be, which is drop dead gorgeous.

Well, the funny thing about this movie is that she is ends up getting hurt and then her whole perception of herself changes. So instead of seeing herself as a little chubby and not that pretty, all of a sudden, she sees herself as everything she always wanted to be, that drop dead gorgeous woman who can have anything she wants.

So she started walking through the world as though that’s who she was, as though that is what she has. The world is open to her now because she can have whatever she wants because she is that beautiful, that pretty. So of course this is really funny and it puts her in a lot of funny situations.

But what’s really fascinating to me is how people are so attracted to her because she is so comfortable in her own skin. She’s not worried about anything about what other people think of her because she knows who she is and so she just lets people know who she is and she just welcome them in and walks through the world with this great amount of confidence.

So she has this cognitive set that is already saying, “I already know my value. I already know that I am drop dead gorgeous and that the world is gonna open up to me.” Those are her expectations and because of that when people say things or do things that could cause her emotional pain, she perceives it in a different light. She perceives it as their problem, instead of her problem. She perceives it as though that she’s OK and she’s going to be OK and that she can still have whatever she wants.

So that’s how she continues to move through the world and people then are so attracted to that, and she does get a lot of what she wants. It is truly fascinating to think about this because I think a lot of us know…I grew up wanting to be real, not wanting to be fake at all so much so that I that I would just…anything that felt fake to me, I would just totally avoid it. Then I started to learn more about this.

I started to learn more about how, you know, just because I feel like this doesn’t mean that I have to feel like this. Just because I feel this pain doesn’t mean I have to feel this pain. So maybe I need to take another look at how I’m perceiving my pain.

So when somebody asks me “how are you?” I don’t have to say it’s terrible, or “I’m not fine but thanks.” But maybe I could reframe it and think about it in a way that would be more authentic because it’s a deeper thing. I know those deeper beliefs that are more true than that pain perception I’m experiencing in the moment.

So even though I experience this pain if I can tap into something that’s deeper inside of me and know it’s not that bad. I’m not just saying that because I’m trying to make myself feel better, I’m saying that because I really believe it’s true based on X, Y, and Z. And so therefore, I can come back to you and share that I am OK when you asked me how I’m doing.

Our perception of pain whether be physical or emotional pain, may or may not be right. It may or may not be corresponding to the actual amount of pain we should be experiencing. When you do have your hand on that stove and you’re feeling pain, yeah, you should take your hand off of out because otherwise, it’s going to get worse. That can be the same thing with our emotional pain too.

But how do we know unless we start with a really solid understanding of what we do believe about our pain, what we do believe about ourselves, our value. How can we be truly confident unless we go there, unless we take that look inside? You know, I think that there are a lot of us running around thinking that we have nails going all the way through our feet when maybe that nail isn’t deep and breaking the skin. Maybe it’s the same thing with our hearts. We feel like there are some things so terrible that’s causing so much pain. But maybe it’s not as bad as we think.

Maybe if we take a good look, we’ll realize that it’s not actually breaking the skin. That we’re actually going to be OK, that we have what it takes to be able to handle this with grace and humility and to release a deeper sense of freedom. And then be able to experience that in such a way that we really are authentically expressing who we are.

I actually created a little resource about this and I call it Love Edits: The Three Practices of Authentic Self-expression, because I know that there are a lot of people out there who are really wanting to be real. But they’re a little confused how to say what they really want to say and whether or not it is real. There are just a lot of confusions out there about that.

So I wanted to make it more clear and to offer a resource for people so that they can learn these three practices and get better and better at perceiving their pain, their emotional pain. At perceiving their experience of life and emotions that is going on inside of them so that they know how to express them in a way that’s going to be truly loving.

So instead of feeling like you have to say whatever is in your mind and heart in the moment so that you can be real, this is an opportunity for you to learn how to take a step back and dig in deep to kind of find out what is really true about what’s going on inside to filter those perceptions through something that is more sustainable, more reliable. So that then you can go ahead and act on that in a way that is really going to make a difference and really seem, not just seem loving, but be loving and loving self-expression.

So it’s not just about you and saying what you want to say right in the moment but it truly edits. It takes a step back and says “OK, is that really what I wanna do? Is that really wanna say?” And this gives you the opportunity to figure out how to do that.

So if you’re interested in this little mini training, it’s called Love Edits: The Three Practices of Self-Expression, you can go to voice of influence.net/loveedits and find that course there.

So filter your perceptions to something that is more reliable and make your voice matter more.

 

 

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How to Use Adversity to Accelerate Growth with Dr. Colby Jubenville

Episode 51

Colby Jubenville, PhD is an accomplished author, international speaker, professor, business advisor, entrepreneur, and inventor who holds an academic appointment at Middle Tennessee State University as Special Assistant to the Dean for Student Success and Strategic Partnerships in the College of Behavioral and Health Sciences.

Due to various experiences throughout Dr. Jubenville’s life, including being born with a condition that negatively impacted his vision, he’s figured out how to use adversity to accelerate growth in both his personal and professional lives.

In this episode, we talk about some of those adversities and how he was able to overcome them, why we need to rethink the process of how we change, why we can’t be lazy with language, the importance of trust when it comes to influencing people, the phrase we should replace the word goals with in our vocabulary, and so much more!

Take a listen to the episode below!

Mentioned in this episode:

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

Hey, hey! It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I have Colby Jubenville on the line, and he is an accomplished author, international speaker, professor, business adviser, entrepreneur, and inventor. He holds an academic appointment at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) as Special Assistant to the Dean for Student Success and Strategic Partnerships in the College of Behavioral and Health Sciences.

So I’m really, really excited about talking to Colby today. Welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast, Colby!

Colby Jubenville: Well, Andrea, hey, thanks for let me being with you today. Thanks for letting me share some ideas that hopefully will be valuable for you and for your audience. I appreciate of being with you today.

Andrea: Yeah, alright. So Colby, can you tell us a little bit about what you do at the college. What do you do in MTSU and how does that all fit into your overall career?

Colby Jubenville: Yeah. I run a Center for Student Coaching and Success at Middle Tennessee State University because I came to the simple conclusion that students come to higher education, come to some kind of formal education for one reason and that’s gainful employment.

When you ask students why they come to college, they can’t give you that answer. The very first thing that I teach them is employment straight income for money, and gainful employment is where you get some kind of meaning and purpose and contribution from the work that you do. Once you understand that you’re there for gainful employment then every decision that you make in terms of your education needs to go to that filter.

Andrea: Hmmm, yeah, go ahead.

So, I’ve been in education my whole life. I was born to two educators that taught me the way you take on the world is to become an educator and educate other people. That works all the way up till you get these things called lifestyle and freedom. Then you’ve got to figure out how to get paid for your value and not paid simply for your time.

So, there’s an old joke about college professors, you know the joke, they say “Those who can do, and those who can’t, finish your point.” That’s okay. I can handle it.

Andrea: Teach.

Colby Jubenville: Those who can’t, teach.

Andrea: Oh yeah, I was a teacher too.

Colby Jubenville: And those who can’t teach; teach PE. That’s the old Woody Allen joke.

Andrea: Oh no!

Colby Jubenville: I thought about that for a long time early in my career and what I said to myself is “If you can do anything and you get paid for your value and not your time.” So John Floyd is in Rutherford County in Murfreesboro and he runs Ole South, he owns Ole South, and he started Ole South. It’s the largest independent homebuilder in the State of Tennessee.

We workout every morning together and, while working out, he makes fun of me and says “You know, you _____ professors up there, you know, collecting a government’s check and not doing anything.”

So I decided to drift the success that we had. And then I had, specifically, with individual students throughout my time in MTSU, and along the way, he hired me as a consultant at a crossroads in his life and his business life. He said something to me that I’ll never forget. He said “Colby, if you can help me get this thing back on track, we can all prosper together.”

So we did get it back on track and survived the economic downturn. He is the largest independent home builder in the State of Tennessee, and he committed a seven-figure gift to the center because of the work that I’m doing, and the work is really simple.

So John Floyd, he was the president and founder of Ole South Properties, is a good friend of mine. We’d workout together every morning in about a decade ago. I helped him with his company during the economic downturn. I’ll never forget what he said to me, he said “Colby, if you can help me get this thing back on track, we can all prosper together.”

So we did get it back on track. He’s now the largest independent home builder in the State of Tennessee and we do prosper together. He committed a seven-figure gift to the Center for Student Success and Coaching in MTSU and it’s been incredible to watch the transformation that has taken place.

If you think about gainful employment and you think that that’s why kids are on college campus then you start to ask yourself “What ultimately would put them in a position to become gainfully employed prior to walking and cross the stage in graduation and that’s the vision for our center.

So here’s the simple conclusion that I’ve come to through this process and I think it might be the first big takeaway for your audience that the students, people, adults; they don’t necessarily want personal development as much as they want personal change.

So I think that personal development has become this extensive broad term that nobody really understands anymore. But when you talk about personal change and people start to nod and shake their head and say yes, then the question becomes “What is it that you’re trying to change?”

Here’s what we’re trying to change. For me to help you, Andrea, the very first thing that I have to understand is your narrative. There was a narrative that has been written for her or by her and if I don’t know what that narrative is then I can’t help her change. But we use narrative based coaching sessions. We use a personal assessment, _____ assessment which measures behavior versus personality. You can’t change somebody’s personality but you can change your behavior.

So we use an assessment and then the narrative based coaching templates to draw up change and create a new narrative for the students. The change is the narrative and we help them uncover that narrative through that process so that they can write a new story about the life they want to create for themselves.

It’s ultimately about becoming the person you’re supposed to become in order to live the life you’re supposed to live. So we use six foundational coaching sessions based on the personal assessment and that personal coaching to create personal change.

Andrea: Hmmm that’s exciting because I know that a lot of students when they’re going to college really don’t know any of this. They don’t know how to move forward or not sure exactly, even sometimes, how this relates to what choices their making for their major and where they’re going to apply after school.

I know that this is really important. I’m sure it helps retention at your school as well.

Colby Jubenville: Well, we’re just in the beginning phases of tracking the students that come to the center. But every piece of feedback that we get is there’s nothing like this in my college experience. It was more valuable than any other piece of my college experience.

Here’s a thing that people don’t understand and this probably the second big takeaway in terms of thought leadership, change does not happen _____. Change happens incrementally and do feel _____. If you change what you do, it would change the way you feel about what you do. That would change the way you think about what you can accomplish. So the coaching, it’s broken into two key pieces. What is the greatest conclusion that you’ve come to and what is greatest realization that you’ve come to.

So there’s an a-ha moment and there’s an end, and then based on those, what are the three activities that you’re committed to doing? We track that in 30-day windows, and the cool thing about helping 20s is you don’t really have to help him a lot to get him started. At the end of the day, _____ said it best, he said “Don’t let start stop you,” and that’s really what most…they don’t know how to transition off the campus and get out into the game.

Andrea: Yeah.

Colby Jubenville: So it’s been powerful. I build version one and version one was clunky. It was overwhelming. It was cumbersome. Version two is just very elegant and simple, and it’s personal assessment, personal coaching, and personal change.

Andrea: You know, you were talking about the narrative driving change and driving the person. Tell us a little bit about your narrative because in researching for our interview today, I was really struck by your childhood and some of the struggles that you had.

Colby Jubenville: Yeah.

Andrea: Yeah, how you came to where you are? Would you mind sharing a little bit about that?

Colby Jubenville: So just pour my heart out to the audience and be very vulnerable.

Andrea: Pretty much yeah. That’s pretty much what we do here.

Colby Jubenville: I really wonder if I chose this or it chose me. I was born to those two educators and one of them is my stepdad but usually my dad. His name is Wayne Williams, and we joke now but I tell people I went to the school for better living and better people by Wayne Williams. He’s from Citronelle, Alabama. His father served for Patton and he was the most kind, compassionate, loving father than anyone could ever have.

My mother who made a huge investment in me and never gave up was told early on that the best I could ever do was be some kind of functional literate working at a McDonald’s because I was born with something called remnants of the papillary membrane. It’s basically a protective coating that melts off your eyes when you’re born. Well, mine didn’t melt off away.

So from first through sixth grade, I had this really bad headaches and I never forget you know, I would just go back to my room and just really fall apart. My mom would pick me up and put me in a bathtub with my clothes on to calm me down because that was the only what that I could make that pain go away.

So I eventually taught myself to see through those cobwebs, through those remnants of the papillary membrane. And then along the way, through all the struggles, I learned how to use adversity to accelerate growth. And along the way, because I went to Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, I fell in love with learning.

I became a student in the process and played football there for _____ and he taught me some new lessons along the way and part of that whole process was the general theme. If I look back on it now, the general theme was how to use adversity to accelerate growth.

So being born to those two teachers who really believe in self-reliance, you know, I never forget my dad said to me, he said to me early on, “Son, you got one or two choices,” this is probably from 7th or 8th grade, he said “You can either work for me for free or you can find a job this summer. I don’t care what you do.” I didn’t believe him and my dad was meticulous.

He knocked on the door that first day of summer and he had note cards that said inside and outside painting, you know landscape. And he said, “When you get down with these, _____ when you’re done with these let me know, I’ll give you the next set of things to do.” I got up on my bike that day and drove up to downtown _____ and knocked on all the doors and started the grass cutting business.

So my first hard skill in my life was knocking on doors and cutting grass. I realized I like knocking on doors a whole lot more than cutting grass. So I got _____ to cut the grass. He just told me the value of being self-corrected. He taught me the value of “If you want something in life, nobody can do it expect for you.”

So because I have a handful of loving people that cared enough about me to make an investment in me, and I think everybody that listens to this podcast at some point had probably decided to give up on themselves or give up on life, and so this is it for me.

At one point, I was a straggler that said “The success is for the rich and strong and the powerful but not for me.” And before that I was a reactor that said “Well, I am here because mom and dad, you put me here.” I went to St. Paul’s with these kids that drove BMW’s and Mercedes and you’re making me drive a 1972 Ford Thunderbird with a rust on its bottom where I had to find a piece of plywood to put on the bottom of the car so I wouldn’t get wet when _____ when it rained.

But upon looking back on all those things, it was that great, that resilience, that adversity to accelerate growth that gave me a competitive advantage when I decided to ultimately go to Millsaps.

Nobody ever told me that you have to go through all comprehensive exams under grad. I was never going to Millsaps. But I didn’t ask because I didn’t know because I wasn’t really invested in my life. And then I get to the end and they say “Have you signed up these all comprehensive exams? And I said “What are you talking about? I’m not taking that.” And they said “Oh no, you have to to graduate.”

So I didn’t prepare and this is just a really great story of using adversity to accelerate growth. But I didn’t prepare and I said “I made _____ this class because I played football. I was a pretty good football player. I play _____ through here. They’re gonna let me let me out this place.”

Sure enough, I went in there and I’ll never forget, it was this cold room and there’s four guys staring at you and they’re the four most expert in the world in areas like _____, the old south, the new south and the Great Depression and they just start firing out questions of which I had no answers too because I had not prepared myself.

So they said “Could you talk about the whiskey tax and colonization? Could you talk about the Whiskey Rebellion?” So all these questions were about whisky and I think it’s because they know I was over the fraternity house hanging out and drinking beer after the football game, so I failed. They called me back in after about four or five hours and they said “We think you would benefit by retaking these exams. I’m not saying you failed, we think you would benefit.”

At that point in your life, you can only call one person and that was my mom. I called her and I said “Look, I’m coming home over to South Alabama and I’m gonna finish up there.” And my mom said “You were absolutely _____. You’ve paid the money, you made the investment and you would figure out how to work through this.” I said “What should I do?”

She said, “Well, if you were me, I’d do two things. First of all, you learn a very valuable lesson here, son. If you gonna do it, show up prepared and then the second is, I go back in front of one professor that believes in you that thinks that you can do this and ask them, build a relationship with them and ask them what you need to do to successfully complete the _____.”

I go back to this one guy, and he said “You know, Colby, you got all the confidence in the world in the football field but you have no confidence in the classroom. So I’m gonna give you the first question, I’m gonna give you the answer and I hope that gives you enough to get you started. Now, go get yourself prepared.”

So while everybody else was graduating, going on their way and going on to the next stage of their life, Colby was over at the Café Seagulls reading all the books that I was supposed to read over that four-year period. And I went back in there and another four hours and Robert _____, I’ll never forget, he said “Colby, you obviously come here prepared this time and we appreciate that you took the time to do that. I’ve got one last question for you and if you get this right then I’ll pass you.”

So he said “Can you tell me how this is the foremost expert of Great Depression?” He said “Can you tell me how the _____ and the Great Depression _____?” And in that moment, in that classroom, he unlock something for me that changed my life because he taught me one of the key concepts of entrepreneurs which is taking patterns from one place and moving them over to another place and understanding how these different patterns work.

And so I said “Yeah, I can tell you. I’ll start saying that California is the _____.” And he said “I like it, continue on.” So I get through and talked about all these different analogies that are related to that. And so I passed and I walked out and I said “One day, I’m gonna be a college professor and I’m going to teach other people how to be prepared so they don’t end up where I did.”

It was because of that defining moment because I was looking for that defining moment and I had that defining moment that ultimately unlocked for me. And I think that’s what has to happen for people. I think that all of us have to have that struggle in order to find your voice, which to me is the intersection of talent, passion, and conscience and need in the world.

He unlocked it for me that day and it led me to Southern Miss and ultimately to starting a football team in Jackson, Mississippi and Eastern Kentucky University where a comedian says, when the world ends, he should be in Kentucky because they won’t find out about it until 20 years later. Then down to MTSU where I was lucky enough to catch a university and a president that had a vision.

And Sidney McPhee has built that university into what I consider to be one of the top universities in the country, and I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of it and be a part of Murfreesboro and be a part of John Floyd’s life and success and just been very fortunate.

Andrea: You know, you just mentioned the concept of voice and I’d like to go back there. I was wanting you to touch on this, but what is your thought on what it means then to have a voice of influence?

Colby Jubenville: Well, you can’t be lazy in language. People are making decisions about your value based on what you say to them and how you present it to them. I think you need to be really careful and think about what is it that you want to say. If persuasion is the key centerpiece of business activity then what is it that you want to say to them and how can you say it in a way that will connect with them?

One of the things that I figured out is that when you speak in emotional ways, it will allow you to connect with people in ways that most people cannot. So I’ll go back to Heath and Heath in Made to Stick, and they have that really simple framework and frameworks help us create predictability structure and efficiency. But what the framework was was a success framework. It’s simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, and emotional stories.

So if you want to build a voice of influence, the way I did it, initially was I watched _____, the movie. After he made it big, he went back to the New York night clubs and struggled. And it showed you just how hard it was to continue to be somebody that can engage the audience in ways that he’s one of the best.

One of the things that he did that I saw in the movie was that he had a piece of paper and he wrote down 10 words, 10 stories. I watched that technique and how he unpacked that. So that’s how initially I got started. So what are the 10 defining moments in my life and how can I tell a simple, unexpected, concrete, credible emotional story that connects with people in ways that nobody else can.

 

 

That led me to really where…I think my space is where I want to own is the intersection of personal brand and personal relationships. So the intersection of personal brand and personal relationships to me is trust. What is the foundation of trust? If we say “Hey Andrea, it’s Colby. You gotta trust me. I gotta trust you. We gotta trust the process. We gotta trust each other.” What’s the foundation of trust?

Well, to me the foundation of trust and to build influence is safety. And safety is, am I known, am I heard, am I valued, and I important? Does my opinion matter? If you want to influence other people and say “Hey listen, I’m gonna build a relationship. It’s going to be founded in trust. The foundation of trust is safety. I want you to know that when you walk through here, we’re gonna build a container of trust together.”

The container of trust looks like this, am I known, am I heard, am I valued, am I important? Does my opinion matter? I am the leader and leaders go first and good leaders make good followers. In this container, four things are going to happen, you have to believe that as the leader, “I’m confident.” You have to believe that as a leader that I have good intentions for you. You have to be vulnerable and show me that so that we can connect. And then whatever we agreed to, whatever we agreed to, if you do not live up to that agreement or I don’t live up to that agreement then swift action must be taken. That’s how you build influence with people, about building a container of trust.

Andrea: Yeah. I like that a lot. Respectful dialogue and definitely making sure that we hold space for other people that have and share their voice is such a huge piece of what we talked about here.

I want to go back a little bit. Did you always feel super confident in your own voice? I mean, when you started out after college, when you started sharing your ideas and putting yourself out there, were you always confident? Where did the confidence come from?

Colby Jubenville: Oh God no! No, I wasn’t confident; I wasn’t going to make it at a high school.

Andrea: Yeah. I hear yah.

Colby Jubenville: I wasn’t confident; I wasn’t going to make it at Millsaps. You know, I want to read and I have not put this to memory but I want to read a quote and I want to see if I can find it. It comes from a book called Hillbilly Elegy. Have you heard of it?

Andrea: No, I haven’t.

Colby Jubenville: Now, listen to this because you asked me a very specific question about where did this confidence come from. Listen to this, “I want people to know what it feels like to never give up on yourself and why you might do it.” That’s the first place of where my confidence came from. I know what it feels like to never give up on yourself and I know why you do it.

“I want people to understand what happens in the lives of the poor and the psychological impact that spiritual and material poverty has on their children. I want people to understand the dream as my family encountered it. I want people to understand how upward mobility really feels, and I want people to understand something that I learned only recently that for those of us lucky enough to live the American dream, the demons of the life we left behind continue to chase us.”

So my confidence is not from my IQ, my confidence is from my circumstance of being a middle child that was born with a brother that he looked up and idolized and he was better in every facet of life. I chased him my entire life to be better than him and he knew it. So that’s a piece of where my confidence comes from.

As a middle child, my older brother did it first. My younger brother did it better and I was constantly stuck in the middle trying to say “Hey, if I do this, didn’t I’m getting enough? Hey, if I do this, didn’t I’m getting enough?” Here’s the difficult part about that. So it’s not IQ for me, it’s circumstance that gave me my confidence.

Here’s the difficult part that it comes with a cost. When you start trying to build your life based on fear of failure and scarcity versus abundance then that comes with an emotional cost. That certainly something and that part of my story was that my mother said from a very early age, she said, “Colby, people just don’t know what to do with you.” And I had somebody recently tell me that. In fact, Warren Brent who is a mentor to me and really started the next phase of all these things that I’m talking about with container of trust and agreed reality and agreed upon the future, he has a background in therapy and divinity.

We had about a two-hour meeting. We met somewhere. We met at a New Year’s Day party. My good friend, John Byers, we met at a New Year’s Day party and we’re sitting, watching football. And I could feel him trying to pry to my soul, I didn’t like it. I know when people trying to pry to my soul because I do get it all the time. So he kept trying to pry to my soul, and I got in the car and I said to my wife, at the time I said, “You know, I really didn’t like that guy.”

About six months later, we had this meeting and it was one of the most incredible meetings that I’ve ever had. And he starts talking about all these ideas and then he just stands up and Warren is about 6’8” or 6’7”, he just stands up. He sticks his hand out and he shakes my hand, he said “Alright, Colby, I’ll talk to you later.” And I said “That’s _____ young man.” He goes, “I have no idea what to do with you.” And I’ll never forget, I walked out of that meeting and I was like “What do you mean?” He doesn’t know what to do with me.

So, Warren used his therapy skills to help me really looked inside of myself to get in touch with those emotions that I had over the years that were part of the collateral damage of trying to find success out of fear of failure versus abundance. So my confidence comes from those handful of people that knew how to pull it out of me, my parents.

If I look back at my life, these coaches that I had, great coaches did three things for me. They made me have conversations I didn’t want to have. They made me try to do things I didn’t think that I could do to ultimately become something I didn’t think I could become. So if I look back on my life, it says coaches have the greatest impact on me and helped develop that confidence; Charlie Miller, Bob Rutledge, Scott Atkins, _____ and Tommy Ranager. All those folks invested in me in ways that…you can’t really invest on people. Today, they call it child abuse. That’s a joke by the way.

Andrea: I was assuming so.

Colby Jubenville: How do you use adversity to accelerate growth? What is its trying to teach me? Once you understand that and can frame it up for other people in ways that help them make sense with their own lives, which is what that quote from Hillbilly Elegy does. I want people to know what it feels like to nearly give up on yourself and why you would do it.

I’ve been right there. At Southern Miss., I decided I was not good enough to get a PhD. I went in and out started managing a fine dining restaurant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. After six months of doing some of the most emotionally exhausting work of my life, I said to myself “I going back and I’m going to get that PhD come hell or high water, whatever I have to do, I will do it,” and I did it.

Andrea: Yeah. The prevailing way that people handle the stuff though is that we try to keep people from experiencing that moment of almost giving up. We’re trying to talk people out of it.

Colby Jubenville: Yeah, absolutely! The other goals and some of the most overused and unrenowned words in America, we set goals and the minute we don’t achieve, we _____. So I get people to think about dominant focus versus goals. What’s that one thing you want to accomplish? What’s that one thing? And for me, it’s always been the coaching and teaching on ever increasing stage.

The reason that I’m interested in sitting down and having this podcast with you is because it is part of my dominant focus. I get to spend 45 minutes with you, coaching and teaching on the stage that has a national audience, which is what I love to do. Not goals, not goals dominant focus. What’s that one thing?

And here’s a nice question once you know what’s the dominant focus is, can you do three things today, five weeks, or 16 months towards the dominant focus in your life? Once I do three things today towards my dominant focus, I don’t have to do anything else because I’ve done the three things that I want to do. If I do five that’s great, but if I do three, I’m keeping it all. They’re all what I need to do.

Andrea: Those little things that you do each day, they just continue to add up and built.

Colby Jubenville: Yeah. I value activities, which is where part of that confidence comes from. At one point, I was scared to death that you didn’t get all these things and then John Lee Dumas in EOFire, entrepreneuronfire.com. That was my support ever, and I was scared. I was shaking. When we got it done, he goes “Colby, you absolutely crashed it.” He said “Man, you need to have your own show.”

Now, I should have my own show, but I have ADD and I haven’t slowed down long enough to put the show together. But it would be good and it would be fun, but I’m just not there yet, maybe one day, I’ll get there so I can make people like you and have a lot of fun doing it.

Andrea: Yeah. Well, that’s going to lead me to another question that I was going to ask you, because you’ve done a number of different things. I mean, your bio even says that you’re an inventor. What did you invent?

Colby Jubenville:   Yes, it’s a big question. Coming back on an airplane, I was _____ yellow pad and I listen to other people in what they say and I call this the strengthening of weak thighs and so I just take notes. It’s people from different places saying different things with different perspectives about life and business. So I heard this conversation with this one person said “I’ve got 10 books to read and I don’t have time to read any of them.” And I thought to myself “Yeah. I know what that feels like.”

And the second person said “I never read books, I just want the best ideas.” The third person said “I read the books and I want the best ideas but I take notes in the margins and then I go back and look at those notes when I can’t read what I wrote.” And the last person said “I don’t need that. I just want a digital content. I want the information of podcast.”

So I drew up a self-content learning system that had big ideas, simple explanation and digital content and I called them “QR books,” Quick Read books. So the other side of that…what comes back with that is there are two questions that turn learning into action and I learn this from a VP of sales of a major medical company that said “You spend millions of dollars on the sales meeting, what’s the _____?”

He said, “Colby, here are two things we want to have happen. Here’s the number one. Did I get the information?” That’s number one. Number two, how they’re going to get that information to drive their business and life over? So why is the information important to me and how can I use it to drive my business and life forward? So that closes the gap and that was a self-content learning system that I built.

The sad part of the story is, I invested $12,000 in trying to pattern that and I didn’t get very far, but I didn’t mean it. So everybody here, take that or run! You got the simple explanation of digital content.

You know here’s the cool thing, so for example, I’m going to show you how I invented this. There’s a direct selling for a company called _____ and he wanted a simple, easy way to take this information and teach to other people and he saw one of these books and called me and said “You know, can I order 10,000 of these?” I said “Sure, yeah.” So I invented that. I got paid for it. I gave him the system and showed him how to do it, off and run.

Andrea: So you said, you’ve got ADD or whatever but I assumed that means that you have lots of ideas. You kind of move back and forth between them, do you have a hard time staying focused?

Colby Jubenville: Yes, can you help me?

Andrea: Well…

Colby Jubenville: Yes, I have a hard time staying focused but here’s the thing, I’m happiest when I have 10 things going on and all of them in progress. I am at my worst when I have zero things going on or five things going on and I’m stonewalled I get really upset and frustrated.

Andrea: Do you play into each other, like one thing that’s going kind of help inspire you to do something, another thing that’s going and they sort of have some synergy like that?

Colby Jubenville: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I believe that progress is a natural motivator. So when you communicate progress, you’re communicating natural motivation. So yeah, they certainly play with each other for sure.

Andrea: So we shouldn’t be too afraid of having more than one thing going at a time. Even though you can have a dominant focus, that dominant focus is…how do those two things relate?

Colby Jubenville: OK, the dominant focus is one thing that you run the filter through. If my dominant focus is the coach and teach on ever increasing stage then every decision that I make should be based off that then you got to decide what activity or the highest value of the activities. What activities would create higher value in your life and then do this, focus on this.

Andrea: There you go. So when people say to me, they say “What should my next step be? Should I write a book next? Should I create a course, online course?” That sort of thing, what kind of advice would you give to emerging thought leaders, people who have a message about how to choose their next step?

Colby Jubenville: Well, I think the first thing you have to do is make sure the message is right where you want it to be. So I’ve spent many, many years honing ideas and deciding on what stories and what is the message that would resonate the most with the people that I want to try to impact and serve.

I’ll give you an example, whenever I write books, I turn on HBO and I listen to movies in the background and I listened to Jerry McGuire here recently. It’s my favorite movie, and of course the most famous line of Jerry McGuire is what?

Andrea: Ahhh you put me on the spot…

Colby Jubenville: “Show me the money.”

Andrea: Show me the money, OK.

Colby Jubenville: Yeah, and so that’s not the best line in the movie. The best line in the movie is when he _____ to write the mission statement. And the mission statement is “The Things We Think and Do Not Say: The Future of Our Business.” And I thought that was so powerful that…

Andrea: Could you say that again?

Colby Jubenville: Yeah. The things we think and do not say: The future of our business. That’s his mission statement and so he writes this stuff and my favorite line in that clip of that movie says “I became my father’s son again.” I became my father’s son again. And it took me back to walking at a football field or soccer field holding my dad’s hand and what that felt like and how that would be so important in how you build relationships and how you build a brand and how you communicate and articulate your value.

So I think you have to look for those big rocks, those messages and then what you decide what that message is. For me, that’s the thing we think and do not say the future of our business. Well, here’s the reason we don’t _____ because we don’t have the relationships because we have absence of trust that leads to fear of conflict, that leads to lack of accountability, that leads to status ____ versus collective results.

So if you want to get collective results, I mean look at the University of Alabama, all they have is some trophy winners these days. They did it for a long time. They just won national championships every year and their focus is on collective results, because they have a philosopher that runs their program, Nick Saban. Saban says things like “High achievers don’t like mediocre people and mediocre people don’t like high achievers.” And that’s OK but that’s his message.

He built a process where he said “Keep it simple. Surround yourself with _____.” Make wise investments in the future.” These basic things that manage the message, these basic things that everyone needs to understand on now to build culture and how you create culture as a competitive advantage in a workplace. All that starts with personal relationships and trust.

I mean, think about what Warren said, “Colby, I don’t know what to do with you.” Man, that is a powerful statement and now Warren, we get on the phone and “hey, I’m in a container of trust and I didn’t do something right. Guess who’s coming down on me.” “Colby, I love you but your ADD has gotten a way here. You’re not doing this the way that we agreed that you would do it.” “You’re right, Warren. I’ll get that corrected.” “Thank you, Colby.”

It’s seems a very powerful way to build relationships, and so you asked me what’s the next step? Well, I think the first step is to get the message right. You look in for those defining moments that when they give you the chance to stand in front of somebody…I’ll tell you who gets it right better than anybody on the planet in my humble opinion, my good friend, Joe Calloway. Do you know, Joe?

Andrea: I don’t.

Colby Jubenville: He needs to be on this podcast. Joe Calloway, his books are so good. I called him one day and said, Joe, your books are so good. And I don’t even have to read the book because the title is so good.   He goes, “I know, Colby, ain’t it cool?” I said, “Yes, but I’m cool when you’re cool.” But his books are…my favorite book is Be the Best to What Matters Most: The Only Strategy You Will Ever Need.

Think about that now. If you and I are sitting there, we’re going to build a business together or build a consultant group together, or we’re going to have clients together and you’ll hire me and I say “Hey, Andrea, listen to me. I need to know one thing, what matters the most? Won’t you tell me what that is? I’m gonna do everything to make sure that we deliver on that.”

So I know we’re running out of time here, but my favorite Calloway story…now, listen how good he is. He comes on stage, “I use Discount Tire.” I’ll say, “How many of you have used discount tires?” And everybody does in Middle, Tennessee. Everybody does in the southeast, discount tires, and I’ll say why, and somebody from the crowd screamed, “Because they run through your car. When you pull up, they run through your car.”

And I said “I know, whenever I’m feeling bad about myself, I don’t go home because when I go home, I walk through the door and nobody cares. I go to the Discount Tire because somebody runs through my car.” Well, I feel a whole lot better about myself and you just came running through the car.

Now here’s the takeaway. When Calloway tells a story, he goes “I would imagine that it came from the top. That there was a _____ that came from the top.” He said “I imagine three guys sitting around _____ about 22 years old. He’s working hard all day. They sit around and talk and the man would say “We sell tires. There’s a hole, there’s a round. There’s a good, better, and the best. How can we do it different?”

And he said “I don’t imagine that somebody is in the _____ he goes “These guys are sitting and talking, and this guy with grease on his face who has worked hard all day says “I don’t maybe we can run through the car or something. And he laughed and says “Am I running through the car?” And I’m demonstrating to you that in this moment that you are the most important thing to me.”

When I heard that, it makes me think about the relationships that I tried to have with my kids. Do I demonstrate to Mary Burke? Do I demonstrate to Jack that in the moment that they are the most important things to me.

Andrea: Yeah. Oh, gosh that’s beautiful! Thank you so much, Colby! Thank you for being with us today and for sharing your voice of influence to the world.

Colby Jubenville: Well, hey, I love it and as you can see, we could keep going for hours. So if you want to do another one at any point, you have sometimes, we can keep on going, absolutely!

Andrea: Thank you so much, Colby!

Colby Jubenville: Thank you, absolutely!

 

 

END

 

 

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A Step-By-Step Process to Creating Innovative Solutions

Episode 50

Innovation is important because we don’t want the same old solutions that give us the same old results.

That’s why I’m breaking down how to come up with creative, innovative solutions to complex problems; even if you don’t consider yourself a creative person.

In this episode, I talk about the problems that get in way of being able to come up with innovative solutions, what divergent and convergent thinking is, and how you can use those types of thinking to come up with innovation solutions either for yourself or in a group setting.

Take a listen to the episode below!

Don’t forget! The Voice of Influence is open for enrollment until April 27, 2018 and, once the doors close, they won’t be open again for another six months! If you want to find your voice of influence and make your voice matter more, click here to learn more.

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.