Negotiation

[00:00:00] Miriam: I have Meredith Thompson here today. She is a professor of management at the John M Huntsman school of business at Utah state university. She earned her PhD in organizational studies from Vanderbilt university. In a prior career, she spent five years at Deloitte. One of the big four accounting firms. Her research focuses on workplace culture, work, life balance, toxic work environments, and the joys and challenges of being a remote worker. Because the world needs more peacemakers. Something that Meredith is passionate about is arming people with negotiation and conflict resolution skills. And you’re recently an empty nester.

[00:00:41] And because of that, you’re enjoying more traveling and investing in the lives and careers of others, especially. Millennials and gen Z women. So I just want to welcome you and thank you for your gift of time. I’m so excited for this conversation.

[00:00:56] Merideth: Me too. Thank you for the invitation. It, it is a treat to get to chat with you.

[00:01:01] Miriam: And I hope we can have some conversations here that, that people find useful. That’s really where I am in my career in my life. Like I wanna be useful to other people and invest in them. So this is an opportunity to do that. So thank you. So something that I have enjoyed about you is. You are an incredibly accomplished woman and you are also incredibly approachable.

[00:01:22] I know enough of your story to know that you were not always as you are now. So one of the things I would appreciate is if you could tell our listeners, maybe just a couple of the hurdles that you’ve overcome to become the person that you are.

[00:01:38] A Mantra

[00:01:38] Merideth: Sure. The one that stands out to me is one that gave me a a mantra that I’ve had since 2004, which is underestimate me.

[00:01:47] I dare you. So I was, had just started a PhD program. I was two, two years in, so finishing up coursework and my spouse at the time got a job offer at our undergrad Alma mater policies at my PhD institution were, you know, you keep funding. Long as you’re on campus for your first two years in coursework.

[00:02:06] But then when I told them we were moving, they yanked my funding. I, I think I was so hurt that you know, they didn’t have faith in me. So in the short term, it really stunk over the long term. It gave me that, that mantra underestimate me. I dare you. On the tenure track it’s made me more successful.

[00:02:26] Cause it was like, you don’t think I can finish a PhD from afar, like watch me women underestimated more frequently probably than men for a whole slew of reasons. And I think for some of us it makes us more productive and it makes us more successful. Cause it ticks us off. But then I think it also comes to like, you know, a psychological, emotional, mental cost.

[00:02:46] So it’s kind of a mixed bag. I credit that experience crappy though. It was for how objectively successful I’ve been as a, as a faculty researcher.

Mindset

[00:02:57] Miriam: It draws attention to the whole concept of mindset. It sounds like that mantra was useful to you for beyond getting your PhD mm-hmm did that kind of become woven in the fabric of your life and you found it coming to your rescue at other times?

[00:03:13] Merideth: Oh, absolutely.

[00:03:14] Yeah, actually you’re giving me goosebump by saying that because either professionally or personally Things were just really tough. And I would realize I don’t know if some, if the other party was like daring me to give up or trying to maybe bully me into giving up. Whatever I was pursuing, but it did just kinda like, okay, yeah, underestimate me.

[00:03:33] I dare you. I will let me do it. And I will show you what I can do. And then when I was able to do whatever the thing was, I think in us fosters more confidence and competence. Like we, we know, you know, deep down in your core. When I look back you know, I was in a PhD program, a young child at home, a husband who traveled a lot for work.

[00:03:53] A depressed husband who was talking divorce, pregnant, blah, blah. Any one of those things, would’ve been a lot you know, I, I probably wasn the star PhD student, but I’m, I’m one that my PhD program now likes to trot out. That’s an example.

[00:04:06] Miriam: So yeah, I bet they do.

[00:04:08] It really underscores what you think matters and certain things you think lift your experience of yourself and your expression of yourself up other things that people think like really pushes it down.

[00:04:22] Clarity in Personality

[00:04:22] Merideth: I’m in a relationship with an entrepreneur.

[00:04:25] And he talks about himself as being a stage one guy. He likes the startup, he likes the building. And so I think entrepreneurs also need to figure out, do you want to start and build a business or do you want to operate a business? Cause those are different things and different people with different personalities may like one and not the other vice versa.

[00:04:43] So understanding yourself, I think is, is really hard but important so that you don’t get stuck in a situation you’re like, oh, you know, crap, this is not what I thought it was gonna be. And now what do I do? Yeah. Especially if you’ve got a lot of capital invested.

[00:04:55] Miriam: Sure. There’s some of that psychology stuff again, and I know you called it touchy, feely stuff, but I’m gonna challenge you on that.

[00:05:02] Cause that like is money, not in the bank, but out of the. When you get involved in something that is not suited for you, and if you don’t understand yourself well enough to know, do I have the grit that it takes to follow this through? Am I a starter and do I get it to a certain level and then sell it?

[00:05:22] Am I, I mean, your words are, are wisdom.

[00:05:25] Miriam: I wanna know what you see as your super power. kind of your gift to this world.

Investing in Other People

[00:05:31] Merideth: I have been told my, and I, I tend to agree my superpower is supporting or, and, and investing in other people.

[00:05:40] Mm-hmm I have appreciated the opportunities to do that. I think much of my life it’s one of the things I liked about being a parent. It Energizes me to be that for some of my closest friends and my partner and my parents, and you know, that to me, support can be a lot of different things.

[00:06:00] It can be, you know, stop on by the grocery store to get something that your, your partner really wants or needs, or to surprise them with something. Or it can be, you know, that listening ear to a friend or asking them hard questions. I think part of it comes from having young adult children, not so much telling them what to do, or when a friend says, what do you think I should do? Blah, blah, blah. I try really hard not to tell them, but to ask questions, but help them kind of figure it out what they think they should do. Cause sometimes I think we know, or we have like an inkling, but we’re like, no, it can’t be that easy or it can be that straightforward. Cause I think, you know, when we. When we take ownership of, of a solution we’ve identified or, or whatever our next steps are in a situation.

Assigning Solutions

[00:06:40] And it goes, well, then we can say, Woohoo, you know, yay me. I, I did well. And, and we, we internalize that. And then I think. If it doesn’t go well, we also like learn from it. But when we attribute a solution to somebody else, then we’re much more apt to like say, oh, it, it went poorly. And so it’s that person’s fault.

[00:06:58] Or they told me what to do and I did it and it worked well, so I don’t get the credit, they get the credit. And so I don’t feel like we learn as well. Kind of that deep down in our bones, learning if we’re telling somebody, giving them quote advice, here’s what you should do. I think that’s why I like the asking questions, cuz that way it’s, it’s their solution.

[00:07:15] Too often, we look at the next steps in a problem as if we do this, then everything else is shot the heck. And a lot of times it’s like so much better. We say let’s experiment with us for a month just because we do it for month.

[00:07:27] It doesn’t mean we have to do it forever and if it works great, and if it doesn’t work, then we’ll, you know, shift and go do something else. So like experimenting with our solutions instead of having this mindset of this is a permanent solution.

 [00:07:39] Negotiation

[00:07:39] Miriam: I love that you brought up negotiation, cuz that’s where I wanted to go. Next. Can you give a quick what people should be thinking as they go in or what they should be aware of?

[00:07:50] Merideth: Sure. Yeah, actually I’ll give you two one on the front end of a negotiation one for the back end of a negotiation.

[00:07:56] The, the one for the front is, it’s what we call our BATNA. Which is acronym for Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. Let’s say a job offer situation. We wanna identify before we get a job offer, or especially before we negotiate a job offer. It is an action that we’re gonna take.

[00:08:15] If we cannot come to a negotiated agreement with the other party, so with the potential employer. And so that may be that BATNA could be staying on the job market. Staying in the job. We currently have starting our own business, going back to school. Living off mom and dad or being a trophy spouse.

[00:08:32] So it’s all these other things.

[00:08:33] It’s an action. And so a lot of people don’t spend enough time figuring out what those alternatives are, and then taking a big yellow highlighter and circling the one that’s their best. And then the other tip I would say it comes at the back end of a negotiation.

Poor Settlement

[00:08:50] It’s what we call a post settlement settlement. And so I think we’ve all been in a, in a negotiation where we’re, you know, getting ready to sign on the dotted line and shake hands and all those good things. And it’s at that point that we should stop and ask the other side. Is there anything we could tweak in our agreement here that would help you without hurting me?

[00:09:11] And so it’s, it’s a tactic that. As keep from leaving value on the table from walking away from a negotiation where we could have gotten more and helped the other side get more. So when you say, Hey, Before we seal the deal. Is there anything we can do here to make this deal better for you without hurting me?

[00:09:26] If they come back and say, oh yeah, can we, you know, shift the start date to blah, blah, you can say sure. But then you be ready to come back with your ask. So if they say, yeah, we’d really like for you to start a week earlier, then the start we we’ve currently negotiated, say, sure, I can do that. If I do that, can you give me, you know, two more days of paid time off or whatever you’re.

[00:09:47] For you highly value. And so when we do that at the very end of a negotiation, we open up a new opportunity. For both sides to say, Hey, I really need more of this. Can we, can we make that work instead of like ending the negotiation and then, you know, two hours, two days later, one or both sides are like, Ugh, darn it.

Negotiation Prep

[00:10:05] I wish I thought to ask for this, or I bet I could have gotten that if I asked. I think we worry that if we asked something like that at the end of a negotiation, we’re opening a can of worms, or we are trying to go back on the terms. And as long as you are careful in the way you phrase it, and you’re, you’re asking the other party, what can I do for you?

[00:10:25] And then if they have something, then you can make your ask.

[00:10:29] And so those two kind of bookends of negotiation prep, and then at the very end really help guide. The value that we claim

[00:10:37] Miriam: so if it doesn’t go well, you know, beforehand how you’re going to handle it. And that really puts you in the position of power.

[00:10:46] Merideth: It can, if your BATNA is strong,

[00:10:48] Miriam: right? What I hear you saying is going in having a plan that keeps you from feeling desperate or keeps you from feeling like this is my only option.

[00:10:58] This is where I have to go.

Men and Women Negotiating

[00:11:00] Miriam: . So talk to me for a second, about how men and women negotiate differently .

[00:11:05] Merideth: Justifying. If, you know, if you’re asking for more resources at work say, well, I wouldn’t be a good manager if I didn’t ask for these resources for my people. So it’s not resources for her.

[00:11:15] She’s lobbying on behalf of someone else. Whereas if a guy did it and asked for him, it would be much more. Accepted. So mm-hmm, it stinks, but that’s, it’s kind of the way the world is right now. And hopefully won’t be that way forever.

[00:11:29] Miriam: Sure. But I do think it’s changing bit by bit as this research comes out and as people, you know, good men and good women are looking at how do we change these, you know, stereotypical norms?

[00:11:43] Toxic Culture

[00:11:43] Miriam: In terms of business. I think I, you could extrapolate this out to relationships but I, I think a lot about how genders perceive each other. And in what ways do you see men damaging their credibility? And vice versa. I mean, you do a lot of work with toxic work culture or creating a non-toxic work culture.

[00:12:05] I’m just gonna go with, how about non-toxic interactions for people who are, you know, developing their own company or they’re in relationships. I think that we each do things that are damaging, but those things might be different

[00:12:19] I would like to hear your thoughts on that.

[00:12:21] Merideth: I will say I I’ve been in an organization where the culture was highly conservative, highly male dominated. And I very quickly learned that as a woman, it was not okay to ask questions, not questions about strategy, not questions about resources, not questions about anything.

[00:12:35] It was say, yes. Say thank you, sit down, shut up. In a different organization with a different culture. Women’s questions are welcome, or at least not shut down.

[00:12:47] I think a lot of times with both, both genders, what I have seen that undermines credibility. Is dishonesty and just unethical behavior.

[00:13:02] And I think we’ve all, unfortunately probably experienced that, you know, we have a coworker that will lie to you. And you’re like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe they did that for a lot of people in organizations, both men and women, it can be tempting to. Not be honest in order to play the organizational politics.

Personality Traits

[00:13:18] You know, some of that’s related to some personality traits, those high and maconism are a lot more likely to endorse deception and to say it’s okay. And whether it’s negotiation or other things. And so, you know, if the end justifies the means, you’re like, sure, I’ll, I’ll lie to your face and tell you that, you know, this isn’t going on over here

[00:13:37] it’s not necessarily distinctions between the two, but it’s how our society perceives them. Women can get upset at work and they’re, they’re labeled emotional or, you know, they can’t take the leadership role or whatever. If men get emotional at work and they’re mad and they throw things and they slam doors.

[00:13:53] Oh, well they’re mad and they’re dude. And so it’s okay. And so it’s not so much that we’re necessarily doing things differently, but it’s, it’s the societal lens through which. The same behaviors are interpreted differently.

[00:14:04] Miriam: One of the questions I’m always asking is how do I show this person respect?

[00:14:09] And, you know, because of our different backgrounds and genders and all these different things, sometimes those things don’t necessarily translate, but my heart is always to show the other person respect.

[00:14:22] I’ll tell you a really quick story that still sticks with me now, like 18 years later of Deloitte and, and Jeff that I share with my negotiation students related to especially pay equity.

[00:14:34] So I, I think I’d only been at the firm about a year and Jeff came to my little cubicle at the time and he was like, Hey, I thought you said you had a bachelor’s degree. And I’m like, yeah.

Compensation Survey

[00:14:43] I think every other year Deloitte would do a compensation survey. They would look internally at compensation and go, is everybody being paid appropriately? You know, looking that’s really sometimes how gender bias, creeps into compensation is it’s, you know, it’s not like somebody’s out to get somebody or keep the women down or, you know, be evil or whatever.

[00:15:03] And he said, HR realized that you were making, I think it was like five grand, less than this guy who was in my same role had come in about six months after me. And he said, when they dug into it, they realized you were in the system with a, an associate’s degree and not a bachelor’s. And I was like, oh, okay.

[00:15:18] And he was like, just so you know, and we’re gonna get that fixed and we’re gonna fix it in arrears. How many organizations. Do that. Yeah. Like go looking for any problems, not only address the problem, but say, Hey, here’s what we found and we’re gonna fix it.

[00:15:31] I left the firm in oh two, 20 years ago. And I’m still super loyal because I, I felt like that took such integrity, courage. and respect for people so anyway, I just had to share that a little bit.

[00:16:18] Merideth: I felt like that took such integrity, courage. and respect for people. Like they respect every single one of their employees,

[00:16:27] Miriam: There are people listening who are considering paying people and , they need to have that in the back of their mind. You know, how, do I bump it up a notch in terms of the respect that I give to the other person in whatever way that plays out.

Put Yourself in Other People’s Shoes

[00:16:43] Merideth: I think the older I get and. In organizations, but other relationships too, I really try and put myself in the other person’s shoes, which is sometimes easier said than done if I have to share some unfortunate news with a colleague or something sensitive, I would say, okay, You know, they aren’t me, but if, if I were in their shoes, what would it be important for me to know?

[00:17:07] How would I wanna hear it

[00:17:09] especially when I was associate Dean, Hey, would you come to my office? I would go to their. Because then I’m on their turf and they may feel more comfortable.

[00:17:15] Their office has a solid door. My office at that point had like glass walls where everybody could see in mm-hmm . Trying as best I can to put myself in their shoes and go, what would I want to hear? What would be helpful? And what way could I hear it?

[00:17:28] Miriam: It takes into account that they are different than you and you take the whole conversation and you slow it down long enough that you don’t miss something that you’re trying to take it from their perspective. And you’re trying to help them. Look forward, not back. That is the premise of this entire podcast.

[00:17:48] Helping people reach their next level, understanding we all start somewhere and we all have a next level. And what I’m hearing you say is that you, your leadership style takes that into a consideration that they have a next level and you wanna help them get there.

Peacemakers

[00:18:04] Merideth: People who are kind people who are patient you know, It’s it’s ubiquitous.

[00:18:10] The, the talk about, you know, how our especially American culture has the rhetoric has just shifted and people are ugly to each other. I, posted a kind of a silly thing on social media, a video the other day. And. It was mostly targeted towards women, but I got some, it was just negative.

[00:18:28] It was trolls from men. You don’t even know me. Like this video was not targeting you. I was not saying men are awful. Like I kind of saying, this is how women are socialized.

[00:18:37] And I think the world needs more. It needs more peacemakers. It needs more good humans. And if we could impart wisdom training for, for parents to know how to raise children that grow up to be kind and patient and giving and not self-centered jerks.

[00:18:53] Oh man, this world would be a better.

[00:18:55] Miriam: Well spoken. Can you list a book that you either give to people often, or it had more of a life changing impact on you?

The Woman Code

[00:19:07] Yeah. Let’s see. About six or so years ago, I read a book called the woman code and it’s by Sophia Nelson. And I think it’s got four or five sections in it.

[00:19:19] And each section has like maybe four keys. So whether it’s like spiritual, relational, personal professional codes that we should live by. And I still five and a half years later have a little piece of paper on my monitor and my campus office that has some of the, the, those keys that really stuck with me.

[00:19:41] And they are know your front row. Know your value. Key is well, how to treat you, which when I started dating again in 2016, I focused a lot on that, cuz I had not taught people in the past how to treat me And then there’s one other one make peace with your past.

[00:19:57] So many of us, me included can just like fight with that past and not really figure out how to kind of put it to bed and learn from it. I did some foolish things in. A prior relationship that hurt me and were not smart. And I can, I can still feel some guilt or shame about that.

[00:20:18] And I have to turn around and say, okay, Meredith, I gotta make peace with that past. Which means I have to say to myself, however many times it takes is when I, I knew better, I did better. And you know, I, I did the best I could at the time. And then when I had. New realization, new information. I acted on it and that that’s all we can do.

Do Better

[00:20:37] And so beating ourselves up or about the past or not, not, not acknowledging it too. And there was some, some, you know, some of the tricky stuff that I had to acknowledge went on in my past,

[00:20:50] I think a lot of people are unhappy. and not as functioning as they could be because they don’t, they don’t wanna acknowledge what has happened in the past.

[00:20:58] And just because, and, and it can be scary, right? Like acknowledging, you know, abuse that went on in a relationship or when you were a kid or, you know, whatever it is like saying this happened is scary, but not acknowledging it and not figuring out how to deal with it and learn. Just means the damage is perpetuated.

[00:21:19] At least that’s my perspective.

[00:21:21] Miriam: You know, being able to say, when I knew better, I did better acknowledges that we’re human, that we are. In a, in a process that we have a next level, that we’re well on our way to reaching it, you know?

[00:21:36] One of the things that leave better, my company is about is, working on yourself and reaching that next level, but then leaving other things better.

[00:21:45] And so I have a deep interest in philanthropy. Charitable organizations. I wondered if you had a favorite one that you just wanted to expose our listeners to.

[00:21:57] CAPSA

[00:21:57] Merideth: sure. That’s CAPSA . . They help People who are in domestic violence, domestic, intimate partner, abuse situations, like get out and get safety and, and things like that.

[00:22:08] My life is so easy compared to what some people have had yeah. To deal with. And so I’m very much also at a life stage, in a career stage I’m about empowering women. And so I think, you know, for the most part they’re working with. Children there in helping them leave better, like new beginnings. I am, you know, at, at 43 I had a new beginning.

[00:22:30] I ended a very long term relationship and to my surprise found somebody new . Second chances. Helps provide that is just like man, to get a second chance at, at, at doing something. That’s a gift.

[00:22:42] Miriam: Remember second chances. Remember that we are not all that we can still yet be.

[00:22:48] And Meredith thank you so much. Thank you for gifting us with your time and your wisdom.

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Sustainable Excellence—Terry Tucker

8.15.22 Sustainable Excellence with Terry Tucker  [Recorded 8_2_22]

To hear the episode Sustainable Excellence with Terry Tucker, click here.

[00:00:00] Miriam: All right. I’m so excited for this interview with Terry Tucker. You have done so many interesting things, and I know in my introduction, I’m gonna miss a couple, but you’ve been a SWAT team hostage negotiator. You’ve been an NCAA division, one basketball player. You’re a cancer survivor. You’re an author.

[00:00:24] You’ve got some cool things going on. So I would like you to just fill in some of the blanks of the things I’ve missed and let’s start.

[00:00:34] Intro. Terry Tucker

[00:00:34] Terry: Yeah. You know, when, when I look at my resume, it’s kind of one of those things where I, I look at it and say, see, one of these days, I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do when I grow up, you know, kind of thing, because I have been fortunate enough to be very diverse in the things that I’ve done.

[00:00:47] I, I was born and raised on the south side of Chicago. I’m the oldest of three boys. You can’t. Tell this from looking at me or from my voice, but I’m six foot, eight inches tall. And as you mentioned, I was an NCAA division. I college [00:01:00] basketball player at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. My big claim to fame is that I got to play against Michael Jordan, my senior year in college, his freshman year in college.

[00:01:11] So he wasn’t really the Michael Jordan that we know. Right. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. So, you know, I was all set to make my mark on the world with my newly obtained business administration degree when I graduated. And, you know, I look back now and realize, I didn’t know anything about business, just because I had a degree.

I Started at Wendy’s

[00:01:31] Fortunately, I found that first job in the corporate headquarters of Wendy’s international, the hamburger chain in their marketing department. Unfortunately, I lived with my parents for the next three and a half years is to help my mother care for my father and my grandmother who were both dying of different forms of cancer.

[00:01:48] I’m sure we’ll get into kind of, you know, my, my jobs in particular, but I guess I’ll ride round it out with my wife and I have been married for almost 30 years. We have one child, a daughter. She’s a graduate of the United States Air [00:02:00] Force Academy and is an officer in the new branch of the military, the Space Force.

[00:02:06] Miriam: Oh, my word. I don’t even know where to go from there. That is so much and tremendous. We’re on, zoom for this and you can’t really tell, but, I’m five one. So if I were standing next to you, it would look pretty crazy. Oh, my word, you said six’ eight”?’

[00:02:26] Terry: yeah.

[00:02:26] So it it’s funny because my wife’s five, five. She literally has a stool in every room in the house so that she can, you know, climb up and reach things on the top shelf and stuff like that.

I Don’t Fit on Planes

[00:02:36] Miriam: Do you fit on planes?

[00:02:39] I

[00:02:39] Terry: don’t very well anymore. I mean, if I get the, the exit row or the bulkhead, I might but I, since I’ve had my leg amputated, I have not really had the opportunity to fly. It’s definitely not something that is.

[00:02:53] Is comfortable. Let’s put it that way. Yeah. I wouldn’t wanna fly to Australia or something like that. oh my

[00:02:59] Miriam: word. [00:03:00] Every time I’m on a plane and I see someone with some height, I always feel guilty because when I’m sitting down, I’ve got four or five inches between me and the seat ahead of me. And I know you guys just don’t well, you brought up your leg amputation, so that feels like a seamless way to just go into your cancer journey.

[00:03:18] If you would be willing to share whatever feels appropriate or relevant, I would love to just start there and we’ll just see where we go.

[00:03:26] Journey with Cancer

[00:03:26] Terry: Sure. So it it’s, it’s a rather long, I guess, Odyssey, for lack of a better word. It started back in 2012 when I, I, I had, it was a girls high school basketball coach in Texas.

[00:03:38] And I had a callous break open on the bottom of my foot right below my third toe. And initially I didn’t think much of it because as a coach, you’re on your feet a lot, but after a few weeks of it not healing, I went to see a podiatrist, a foot doctor, friend of mine, and he took an x-ray and he said, Terry, I think you have assistant there and I can cut it out.

[00:03:56] And he did. And he showed it to me. It was just a little gelatin sack with some white fat [00:04:00] in it. No dark spots, no blood, nothing that gave either one of us concern. But fortunately, or unfortunately he sent it off to pathology to have it looked at. And then two weeks later I received a call from him. And as I mentioned, he was a friend and the more difficulty he was having explaining to me what was going on, the more frightened I was becoming.

He Laid It Out For Me

[00:04:22] And so finally he just laid it out for me. He said, Terry, I’ve been a doctor for 25 years. I have never seen the form of cancer that you have. You have a rare form of melanoma that appears on the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands and because your cancer is so incredibly rare, he recommended I go to MD Anderson cancer center.

[00:04:42] In Houston and be treated. And so I did, I, I had the tumor excise on the bottom of my foot. I had all the lymph nodes in my left groin removed. And then when I healed my oncologist, put me on a weekly injection of a drug called interferon to help keep the disease from coming back. Now, [00:05:00] interferon for me was just a horrible, nasty, debilitating drug.

Flu-Like Side Effects

[00:05:04] The side effects were that I had severe flu-like symptoms for two to three days every week after each injection. And I took those weekly injections for almost five years. So imagine having the flu every week for five years. And that wasn’t a cure that was, as my oncologist used to say, we’re trying to kick the, can down the road and buy you more time for additional therapies.

[00:05:28] So after that five year Odyssey through interferon, I ended up in the intensive care unit because of the toxicity of the drug with a fever of 108 degrees, which is usually not compatible with being alive. I was fortunate that I had presented at a level one trauma center and they. Able to stabilize me literally by packing me an ice you know, to, to get me to the ICU.

[00:05:51] So I had to stop taking the interferon and almost immediately after stopping the drug, the cancer came back in the exact same spot on my foot, where they [00:06:00] presented five years earlier. That necessitated the amputation of my left foot in 2018 cancer worked its way up my leg, into my shin in 2019 to more surgeries.

And Then There’s More

[00:06:11] And then in 2020, an undiagnosed tumor in my ankle grew large enough that it fractured my tibia, my shin bone, and my only recourse right in the middle of the COVID pandemic. Was to have my left leg amputated. I also found out I had tumors in my lungs, which I’m currently being treated for. So I know that sounds like a very dark and ugly journey and it certainly has been, but I’ll say this to, to conclude cancer has made me a better person.

[00:06:41] And I also believe that you really don’t know yourself until you’ve been tested by some form of adversity.

The Fearful Spaces

[00:06:47] Miriam: Yeah, well spoken, we could spend weeks talking about what you just said in the last few minutes. That is intense. And as someone who’s had cancer [00:07:00] myself, it was a completely different route.

[00:07:02] But I understand the spaces of fear and of despair, of trying to hold onto your mindset and saying, this isn’t who I am, this isn’t my identity. I’m more than this. And then, you know, being in these hospital spaces in these gowns that make you feel incredibly vulnerable, all of it is just a huge ordeal.

[00:07:25] So. Thank you for being that vulnerable to share that with my audience. Sure. I think the place I wanna take this is that as someone who is a basketball star, as someone who is involved with SWAT teams, those are all incredibly athletic pursuits and you develop an athletic identity around those things.

Working With Your Mindset

[00:07:46] Then you have something like an ongoing illness. Of course the amputations and things like. That has to mess with your mind. And so I’m wanting to know if you will talk about the process you went through [00:08:00] and are probably still going through in terms of how do I view myself? How do I process and remain the man that you know yourself to be despite all these change?

[00:08:13] Terry: Yeah, that that’s a great question. I, I guess, to go back to when I was first diagnosed, I, I believe that I went through all the stages that we associate, you know, with grief. You know, when, when I was told that it’s like, first it was denial. It’s like, well, I, I can’t possibly have cancer. I’ve done everything right in my life.

[00:08:30] You know, I’ve eaten, right. And I’ve exercised. I don’t abuse that I’ve done everything that we know to do. Then, you know, I got mad. It was like, wait a minute. I, you know, I’ve done everything. How can I possibly have cancer? And then, you know, I, I have a pretty strong faith. You know, our daughter was in high school.

Bargaining With God

[00:08:47] When I, when I found out I had cancer, it was, it was sort of bargaining with God. It’s like, look, just let me live long enough so that I can see my daughter graduate from high school. And then you kind of get a little down, you feel, you know, sorry for [00:09:00] yourself. And then at least for me, I got to a point where it was like, You know, this sucks, but I’m gonna have to embrace the suck.

[00:09:09] You know, these are the cards that I’ve been dealt. I don’t like this hand. It, you know, it’s, it’s certainly not a winning hand, but I’m gonna have to play these cards to the best of my ability. And I, and I had a nurse actually rather recently ask me. You know, what was it like to have your foot amputated and to have your leg amputated?

Amputations

[00:09:28] And I told her it certainly hasn’t been easy. It’s it’s been a little over two years since I’ve had my leg amputated and I’m still learning to walk again. what I told her was cancer can take all my physical faculties. But cancer can’t touch my mind. It can’t touch my heart and it can’t touch my soul.

[00:09:45] And that’s who I am. That’s who you are, Miriam. That’s who your audience is. This is just a, a house or a vessel or whatever you want to call it to house who we really are. So, you know, when people get all excited and, and I’ve certainly seen it [00:10:00] over these 10 years where, you know, you wanna put me on chemotherapy, I’m gonna lose my hair, who cares It’s just hair. That’s not who you are, who you are, is your heart, your mind and your soul. And if you spend more time cultivating those, working on those, you know, improving those that’s who you really are. This is just something to hang out with, who you really are.

Who You Really Are

[00:10:22] Miriam: Oh again, well spoken. Okay. Let’s jump into this who you really are space.

[00:10:29] So one of the things I have on my ten-year goals is to develop the mindset of an athlete. I am the biggest slug you have ever met on the face of the planet. I mean, I’m always trying to eat more healthy and to exercise and I live on a little farm, so I do a lot of exercise like that, but it’s, it’s what I would call.

[00:10:50] Like intuitive movement, you know, these animals need to be fed. So you’re carrying this here and there. And it’s a form of working out with weights, but it is not what actual [00:11:00] athletes do. And I gave myself 10 years cuz I thought, well, this is a big project to shift my mindset that much. But something that I have always admired about athletes is this sense of discipline and this ability to say the goal that I want.

Sub Skills

[00:11:17] Down the road, whatever that is to be a good soccer player or a, you know, a basketball player or an Archer or swimmer or whatever. There are so many tiny sub skills that have to be developed that require this belief. That even though what I’m doing right now, doesn’t make any sense, or I have to do a hundred thousand iterations of this free throw.

[00:11:43] I’m gonna believe that in the end, it’s gonna matter. That’s kind of what I think of the mindset of an athlete is. And now you’re gonna correct me and tell me actually, what the mindset of an athlete.

[00:11:54] Mindset of an Athlete

[00:11:54] Terry: I, I, I guess, let me tell you a story that I think will illustrate exactly what this [00:12:00] is and, and I’m really gonna date myself now by telling you this story.

[00:12:03] So back in 1976, I was six years old. There was an or 16 years old, sorry. Well, I wish I was six years old, 16 years old. There was an Olympic swimmer, us Olympic swimmer by the name of Shirley Babashoff . And she had one of the greatest. Very simple, but one of the greatest quotes I ever heard, and this is what she said, winners, think about what they want to happen.

[00:12:26] Losers think about what they don’t want to happen. So I, I think, you know, she was able to say, you know, winners can override their, their negative minds, their negative brains and focus on what they want to occur. Whereas losers, they can’t, they can’t do that. You know, they focus on what they don’t want to happen.

Focus

[00:12:45] Oh, I hope this person doesn’t out swim or I hope, no, you gotta focus on yourself and you have to. You know, it’s those ugly days when you’re in, you know, at least from a basketball player, you know, the thousands of shots you put up every day in the [00:13:00] summer that, you know, we always used to say, when I, when I coach basketball, great players are made in the off season, great teams are made during the season.

[00:13:09] So if you wanna get good, you can’t wait till the season to have that occur. And, and so there was a basketball coach when I was growing up at Indiana university by the name of Bobby Knight. And one of the guys I played with in high school went to play for him.  Under Knight he won a national championship and then went on to the pros and won a couple NBA championships with the Detroit Pistons.

4-1

[00:13:32] But Knight had a saying that went like this mental is to physical as four is to one. So here’s this great coach teaching elite athletes to use their bodies to be great players on the court. But what he was really saying with that saying, or that quote, is that your mind or your mindset is four times more important than anything your physical body’s going to do?

[00:13:58] Miriam: Yeah. I believe [00:14:00] that.

[00:14:00] Every year I choose a word or I would invite God to give me a word of what that year is to be about.

[00:14:07] And this year my word is mindset.

[00:14:09] So I, I love that you’re bringing up these ideas.

[00:14:12] I think it’s everything because where your mindset goes, then your actions follow and your actions really determine the life that you have.

[00:14:20] .

Hostage Negotiation

[00:14:20] Miriam: I’m assuming the basketball player season happened before the hostage negotiator season in your life. I assume that every leap into a new career is informed by the career previous. And so you’re building upon things. Talk to me about the mindsets in your life, what you were taught as a kid and how it played out on the court and then where it went with this hostage negotiation stuff.

[00:14:48] Family Support

 

[00:14:48] Terry: Yeah. I, I was very lucky. You know, I don’t, my story is not, I came from a broken home and my dad beat me and all that stuff. I, I had my brothers and I had great parents, you [00:15:00] know, and it, it was, it was, I think my mom and dad that the sort. Made us understand the importance of family, the importance of what a family was because you know, it’s me and my two brothers, I have no sisters. Both my brothers and, and I were, we were all athletes. We all competed at a very high level. We all competed in college. One brother went on to the professional ranks in basketball.

[00:15:23] And so, you know, my parents did what I call divide and conquer parenting. So it’d be like, all right, Terry’s got a game over here. Dad’s going to that. Larry’s got a practice over here. So mom’s going to. And we were always going a million miles an hour, but what, what they taught us was, you know, family was about loving each other, caring about each other, supporting each other.

He Was Sick And Dying

 

[00:15:45] And I remember when, when my, my dad was, was sick and dying of cancer after I graduated from college, I mentioned I spent three and a half years at home. My youngest brother was in high school at the time.  I remember one night I said to my dad, look, I’m, I’m gonna skip my brother’s basketball game [00:16:00] and I’m gonna go work out.

[00:16:01] And my dad’s like, no, you’re not. I’m like, wait a minute. I I’m a man. I have my own job. What, what, what do you mean? No, you’re not. He said, you don’t understand.

[00:16:09] He’s like, you know what? Your brother needs you there, your, your brother needs your support. He’s going through me dying of cancer. He needs you at the game.

[00:16:17] And my dad was absolutely right. I was just trying to, you know, puff out my chest and say, you know, look at me, I’m a man, I’m gonna do my own thing, but that’s not what our parents taught us.

Be There

 

[00:16:27] Our, our parents taught us to be there.

[00:16:29] So, so that, you know, I learned all that very early on. And so, you know, we cared about each other. We supported each other. And if you look at my, and, and you’ll sort of understand the backstory here, if you look at my resume, my first two jobs were in business, I mentioned, you know, I started out at Wendy’s and then I spent several years as a hospital administrator.

[00:16:49] And then I made the pivot to law enforcement.

Law Enforcement

 

[00:16:52] And if you understand the backstory, my grandfather was a Chicago police officer. From 1924 to 1954. So it [00:17:00] was in Chicago during prohibition when alcohol was outlawed in the United States, during the great depression, the late twenties into the thirties. When the gangs, you know, Al Capone and those guys were shooting up the town and he was actually shot in the line of duty with his own gun.

[00:17:14] It was not a serious injury. He was shot in the ankle, but my dad always remembered the stories. My grandmother told of that. Knock on the door of, you know, Mrs. Tucker, grab your son. My dad was an infant at the time. Come with us, your husband’s been shot.

[00:17:27] So when I expressed an interest in going into law enforcement, my dad was, oh, absolutely not.

[00:17:31] You’re gonna go to college. You’re gonna major in business. You’re gonna get out, get a great job. Get married, have 2.4 kids and live happily ever after.

My Passion

[00:17:38] But that’s what my dad wanted me to do. That wasn’t my passion. That wasn’t the road I felt I had to travel.

[00:17:45] So I, you know, I, I had a choice I could say, sorry, dad, I’m gonna go blaze my own trail and go into law enforcement or out of love and respect for you, and the fact that you’re dying, I will do what you want me to do and go into business.

[00:17:58] So I sort of [00:18:00] joke I did what every good son did. I waited till my father passed away. And then I followed my own dreams.

[00:18:05] So the first two jobs, because that’s what my dad wanted me to do. And then after he passed away, I was like, look, I’m not getting any younger. I was a 37 year old rookie police officer.

37 Year Old Rookie

[00:18:16] You know, when I, when I started. That was the bad news. The good news was I had some life experience. You know, I had been in business. I had worked with different people on, in, on different projects and things like that. So I brought something to the table as a police officer and, and sometimes people will reach out to me now and say, you know, I’m interested in law enforcement.

[00:18:36] , and they reach out like, what do you suggest? I always tell them put down your devices and go out on the street and talk to the homeless guy and then go up to the penthouse and talk to that guy. Because if you can talk to people, you’ll be successful in law enforcement.

[00:18:51] If you can’t, you’re gonna be very frustrated along that line.

SWAT Team

[00:18:55] When an opening came up on the SWAT team for a negotiator, [00:19:00] you know, as you said, I’ve, I was a division one basketball player. I’d always wanted to be the best in my life and SWAT is the best in law enforcement. They get the best training, the best people, the best equipment.

[00:19:13] And so when there was an opening, it was like, absolutely I’m gonna put in for that. But I was older, you know, I was probably in my. Early forties. So I had to do all the physical fitness. I had to do all the shooting. I had to talk to the psychologist, take all the exams, go through all the interviews, and then finally got chosen to be on it and then realized, I don’t know a thing about hostage negotiating, and it had to learn all that

[00:19:36] Miriam: It would’ve been very interesting to see a movie with like the highlight reel of those years, you know, and to just see the bits and pieces as the person you were continued to evolve and your thinking evolved and your mindset evolved.

[00:19:50] What would you share with our audience about.

Share What You Know

[00:19:54] Negotiation that you know, I’m sure there are certain things that apply [00:20:00] specifically to hostage negotiation that might be of interest, but there are other things that would just apply to negotiation- you know, between your spouses or work or I just would like to hear kind of what you feel are the low hanging fruits of the negotiation training.

[00:20:16] Effective Negotiation

[00:20:16] Terry: Sure. So a couple things, if, if you, if you sort of step back and don’t look at it as, you know, a, a police interaction, but look at it as an interaction amongst two people. And if you think, and what I always used to say is the, is the overarching thing of this entire negotiation. Is trust,

[00:20:37] and, and one of the reasons negotiating was so emotionally and, and physically exhausting was you had to get down in the mud. You had to get down in the weeds with these people.

[00:20:49] There was a movie back in the nineties that Samuel L.

[00:20:52] Jackson star in called the negotiator. So any of your, your audience that saw that movie, people always ask me, is that the way it was? And Samuel L. Jackson was [00:21:00] like, the Superman of negotiations was like, no, that’s absolutely not the way it really works. The way it works is we have a primary negotiator.

It’s a Team Effort

[00:21:07] Somebody that’s actually doing the talking and then we have another negotiator sitting right next to them, listening to everything that’s going. And then we have a group of negotiators who do what I used to call working the crowd. So they’re out there trying to glean intelligence or information. Why are we here?

[00:21:24] What happened? So as the primary, you may get a note from your secondary that says, don’t talk about his mother, because the people in the crowd learned that you were there because he had a big fight with his mother and he grabbed a gun and he barricaded himself in the house. Okay. So we’ll stay away from his mother.

[00:21:40] Now that was great if you had that information, but there was a lot of times where we would just so show up and it was like, I, I have no idea why we’re here. So we need to build that trust. And there were many times where we’d be over here for like two hours talking about something. When the real problem was over here.

Developing Trust

[00:21:58] And we hadn’t even gotten to that because we [00:22:00] were trying to develop trust. One of the ways we did that we developed trust is we never lied to people. So people would, you know, say to us, look, I’ll put the gun down and I’ll come out, but you gotta promise me. I’m not gonna go to jail. And we would have to say, well, I’m sorry, when you come out, you are gonna go to jail.

[00:22:16] Then we try to deflect the conversation into something more positive. So developing trust was one thing. The second thing was the importance of listening and, you know, we always used to get credit for, well, good job. You talk that person out. What we really did is listened that person out. You know, we let them burn off a lot of their emotional energy to the point where, you know, okay, Now there’s silence.

Silence

[00:22:42] We don’t like silence as human beings, but we had to be very good with silence of using it to our advantage of not saying anything, not wanting. And, and you probably thought, how did you ever do that, Terry? Cuz you can’t shut up. But you know, it, it it’s really one of those things where we got good at that, where we would just not say [00:23:00] anything and then the other person would, oh gee, this is uncomfortable.

[00:23:03] So they’d start talking again again, burning off more information, but it was listening to understand. Versus listening to respond. Yeah.

[00:23:12] And even today, you know, I mean, we’re screaming at each other today and if I’m screaming at you, Miriam, and you’re screaming at me, I, we don’t understand each other. But if you say something, whether I agree with it or not, and I wanna understand, okay, Miriam, you said that where are you coming from, help me understand that.

[00:23:29] Now we’re communicating as, as human beings. And that’s what we tried to do as, as negotiators.

[00:23:35] Message from LeaveBetter

[00:23:35] [00:24:00]

[00:24:14] Terry: Oh,

[00:24:14] Miriam: Very, very interesting. I wanna pull on the listening thread and ask you you know, whether you are a spouse or you are a boss, an employer, a neighbor, there are many, many situations where somebody is going to have to listen to somebody else and listening to listen and understand is significantly different than listening to respond.

[00:24:40] And we have within us. Oh yeah. But I wanna say I wanna, you know, there’s that space in every human being that wants to be heard and sometimes they don’t even let people finish their sentences before they interrupt.

[00:24:55] What kind of input or advice would you give to help someone listen, [00:25:00] to understand?

[00:25:02] Listen to Understand

[00:25:02] Terry: I always one of the things we used to do and, and what I try to do now is, you know, you say something to me, say it, you know, as a hostage shaker or somebody, just a barricaded subject, you say something to me now, all I’m going to do is parrot that back to you, but I’m gonna attach an emotion to it.

[00:25:22] And, you know, let let’s say somebody and, and, and that’s where there was kind of the nuance you had to. To develop trust. You had to attach the right emotion. So if somebody’s yelling and screaming and, you know, waving their hands and, and they are irate and you say you attach the emotion. You seem a little upset.

[00:25:42] You’ve totally missed the mark there. And that person’s then gonna get mad at just like, what do you mean? I’m a little upset, of course I’m, I’m fury, you know, you have to get to where they are. And again, that’s why I go back to, that’s why it’s so exhausting because you know, you you’re down in the weeds with them.

Empathize

[00:25:57] You’re, you know, you’re trying to empathize. You’re trying [00:26:00] to, you know, to make all that work and stuff like that. That’s just incredibly hard and incredibly. Exhausting in, in a lot of ways. So, you know, trying to, trying to make people understand. And, and, and I, I think you gotta be careful because, you know, sometimes what you say when you’re negotiating with somebody can sound accusatory, you know, like, oh, are you accusing me of something?

[00:26:24] So I always like to try, when I get to that point, use, use two words. We always talk about, you know, when, why, what, how and all that kind of stuff use these two words use, what and how, you know, if somebody says something to you, you know, it’s like, I want to get out of here. Well, how do you want to do that?

[00:26:45] Now? You know, that puts, that puts the ball back in their court and it makes them start to think about how they’re gonna come out or, you know, you may, they may not even say that, but you may say, how do you see yourself coming [00:27:00] out now they’re helping you get them out where they’re like, wait a minute. I got hostages.

The Hostages Help You Get Them Out

[00:27:05] You know, I’ve no, they don’t even realize that they’re now helping you get themselves out. Cuz now they’ll start thinking about.

[00:27:11] Well, this is the way I see it going super. That’s exactly what I wanted from you. I wanted you to start thinking about how you’re going to come out. So use the words, what and how with people and that way it doesn’t sound so accusatory and it puts the ball kind of back in their court and gets them to the point where they’re helping you solve the problem.

[00:27:32] Miriam: Hmm. I like that

How Negotiation is Like Coaching

[00:27:33] I assume at some level negotiating is similar to coaching or therapy. None of these are the same, but they have overlaps where you’re creating this space and this container where the person can be safe long enough to hear their own thoughts.

[00:27:51] And when they hear their own thoughts, they start saying things like

[00:27:55] “I don’t, I “don’t wanna die.”

[00:27:56] Or in a therapeutic space, “I don’t, I don’t wanna lay in bed all [00:28:00] day.”

[00:28:00] “I wanna do something different” or “I don’t wanna wreck my marriage.”

[00:28:04]Or “I wanna do X or I don’t wanna stay in this job forever.”

[00:28:09] “I would like to pursue something else”

[00:28:12] And it, it takes a space of being able to have enough presence that you can hold and expand and allow the person to almost hear themselves think. Usually solutions lie within the person, if you can help them get quiet enough to access them.

[00:28:31] Terry: Right. And, and that’s why, you know, getting them involved in solving their own problems is so much better.

[00:28:37] I’m getting you to help me get you out or the hostage out or whatever. But you’re now involved in this. Now we’re together in this.

Personal Truths

[00:28:45] Miriam: I love it. Now I’m gonna take a little bit of a tangent change the topic here.

[00:28:49] I mean that one again, we could talk for quite a while on. Yeah, but you had mentioned four truths that help others lead uncommon and extraordinary life. [00:29:00] And you’re you have a book, sustainable excellence. I’m assuming that these four truths and the book have some overlap. I would love for you to talk about your four truths.

[00:29:10] The Four Truths

[00:29:10] Terry: Sure. So the, the four truths are things that I have learned over these last 10 years. Some of them a little bit longer than that. They’re what I call sort of the bedrock of my soul. They’re just a good place to build a, a quality life off of.

[00:29:26] And I have ’em right here on my desk. They’re they’re one sentence each I have ’em on a post-it note. So I see them multiple times during the day, and they constantly get reinforced in my brain.

[00:29:35] The first one is:

[00:29:36] You need to control your mind or your mind is going to control you.

[00:29:41] The second one is:

[00:29:42] embrace the pain and the difficulty that we all experience in life and use that pain and difficulty to make you a stronger and more resolute individual.

[00:29:53] Now The third one is more of like what I like to call a, a legacy truth. And it’s this:

[00:29:58] What you leave [00:30:00] behind is what you weave in the hearts of other people.

[00:30:04] And then the fourth one is:

[00:30:06] As long as you don’t quit, you can never be defeated.

They Work For Me

[00:30:09] So I use those truths. They work for me. I, I mean, I always tell people if they work for you, then my all means take them and incorporate them in your life. If maybe one or two resonate with. Take those and maybe develop your own truths around them. I, I don’t purport to have all the answers, but these for me have worked.

[00:30:27] And like I said, I’m offering to you and your listeners. If they work for you, then by all means, please take them.

[00:30:33] Miriam: Oh, they are amazing. Give me a story that your number one truth a story that illustrates it or utilizes it.

[00:30:42] Terry: Yeah. I I’ll go back to my high school days cuz the number one is really kind of the one that controlling your mind that I learned early in my life.

[00:30:49] I, I had three knee surgeries in high school and I remember when I went back playing basketball, after those knee surgeries, my brain was putting all kinds of negative thoughts [00:31:00] into my mind. You know, things like. Hey, you’re probably a step slower since these operations and coaches, aren’t gonna be interested in reaching out to you about playing for their college or university.

[00:31:08] And I remember thinking, wait a minute, I’m still playing at an elite level and coaches are still reaching out about the possibility of, of going to school on a scholarship. I realized early on that I had to change the narrative. I had to change the negative and put something positive into that, into that space.

[00:31:27] Now the Cleveland clinic, estimate that we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts that pass through our minds every single day, most of which we don’t even pay attention to. But if you think about it, your mind can only hold one thought at a time. Why would you wanna make that a negative thought?

[00:31:46] And, you know, I, I think back to when I was in college, you know, when people would go out, you know, drinking or partying the night before a test and then they’d, you know, come into the test and they’d be hung over and, you know, not feeling good. And so, and what, what did they [00:32:00] always say? Oh, man. I’m gonna blow this test, you know, I’m not gonna do well on this.

[00:32:05] Nobody ever said, yeah, I, I went out drinking last night, but you know what? I paid attention in class during all the lectures I’m gonna do great on that test. Nobody says that everybody goes to the negative. Everybody goes to, yeah, I’m totally gonna blow it. Why would you do that to yourself? Especially when you know, you’re hungover and you know, you’re kind of behind the eight ball anyway.

Find Something Positive

[00:32:23] It’s like, why would you say something negative? Find something positive. And so people ask me, how do. How do you go from being a glass half empty person to being a glass half full person? And what I always tell ’em is it it’s not gonna happen overnight. You’re just not gonna go to bed one night and say, tomorrow, I’m going to be positive and everything’s gonna be great.

[00:32:44] We’re human beings. We’re going to have negative things, negative thoughts that go into our break. Doesn’t make you a bad person. It, it, it’s just the way we are. So don’t beat yourself up when those negative thoughts. Just realize when they happen. Okay. There’s a negative thought, what are [00:33:00] you gonna change it to?

[00:33:00] What positive thing are you going to change it to? And if you do that over time and I, I Miriam you probably know this more than I, I don’t know what the timeframe is, but over time, your brain will start to expect that the positive, then it’s like, no, wait a minute. That’s negative. No, we’re gonna change that immediately to something that’s better for me.

Visualize The Win

[00:33:20] That’s something that’s good for me. And I, I remember back when I was. In high school, there was a coach. I don’t know if this story ever happened, but it certainly sounds interesting. He wanted to improve the free throw shooting percentage of his team. So he split his team in half and after practice every day he had one group shoot, 50 extra free throws.

[00:33:42] He had the other group that would sit on the sidelines, sit on the bench, close their eyes and see themselves shooting those free throws. At the end of the season, he looked at the free throw shooting percentage of that, of the two groups. And he found that the group that never shot a free throw, but always [00:34:00] saw it in their mind, had a better shooting percentage than the group that physically shot more free throws.

[00:34:06] And he, you know, he thought about it for a while and he’s like, well, that’s gotta be because those players. Never missed in their mind. You know, they saw themselves, I made it, I made it, I made it. I, I made it every single time. And Miriam, again, you probably know more about this than I do, but the part of your brain that, that creates the synapse is that creates the, the connections when you’re shooting free throws is the same part of your brain.

Your Brain Is Going To Make Those Connections

[00:34:33] That lights. When you’re thinking about shooting those free throws. So I always tell people, be careful what’s in your mind because we all become what we think. If you think about something long enough, eventually your brain’s gonna make those connections. And that’s the way things are gonna be.

[00:34:52] Miriam: Yeah. If my kids are listening to this podcast, they’re gonna say, mom, did you, did you prep him to say that?

[00:34:59] Did you, [00:35:00] did you pay him to say that stuff? Cuz I say this sort of stuff all the time and I, I think something I would add to that. I mean, without me just going, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm I’m with you. Yeah. You’re preaching to the choir here. So many times people think that those negative thoughts are THEM- instead of separating out- it is a thought.

Stand Outside Of Yourself

[00:35:23] One of the things that I like about mindfulness exercises, meditation exercises is that they teach you how to stand outside of yourself. Just enough that you can start seeing those thoughts go by. Oh, that’s a negative thought about me. Oh, that. Positive thought about them, or that’s a thought about lunch, or that’s a thought about, you know, my taxes, whatever.

[00:35:43] And you start seeing that these thoughts are going on almost a freeway in your brain.

[00:35:48] I saw this was in some catalog, like signals and it was a drinking glass. You know, the glass is half full, the glass half empty. And they said, the important thing is that the glass can be refilled.

[00:35:59] And it’s like, [00:36:00] well, yeah, You know, you might be a glass-is-half-empty kind of person, but you don’t have to stay that way.

[00:36:07]  You get the opportunity to make the choice about what you’re filling your glass with.

[00:36:13]  Nobody who has done any of this kind of work would say that it’s easy. It actually takes work to not stay on automatic and to be able to sort of look at your thoughts and go, okay, well, what am I actually thinking?

Neurology

[00:36:27] And then there’s another step of saying, do I wanna continue to think that? Then another step of what do I wanna think instead? And those can happen in milliseconds.  Then while your brain is learning this trick of trying to think something new, it tries to grab the old thought back over and over

[00:36:45] however many times you’ve thought it before.

[00:36:48] I don’t know that this is scientifically exactly how it works, but I was listening to something this morning where they were talking about how every time you participate in a different kind of [00:37:00] thinking you’re laying down another layer on your myelin, sheath and helping that neuron connectivity happen quicker.

[00:37:06] And it was stated by a scientist, but I don’t have the research to back that up. So I’ll just, I’ll just put it down as anecdotal.

[00:37:14] But I think that so many times people say, well, I tried it, it didn’t work. And they just go back to their old ways and it’s like, How many years of how many days of how many moments did you have those negative thoughts?

It’s Going To Take Longer

[00:37:27] It’s going to take a lot longer to shift into that other space, but my goodness is it worth it

[00:37:33] because those people who visualize the free throws, you know, look at how it impacted their, the performance for lack of a better word.

[00:37:42] And isn’t that what we all want to perform at our higher selves or our better selves.

[00:37:51] Yeah. Okay. So give me give me a story from number three, understanding what you leave behind is what you weave into the hearts of other [00:38:00] people. I, I love the, even the poeticness of that statement. Yeah.

[00:38:04] Terry: I, I, I mean, like I said, that’s a, that’s a legacy truth. I think it’s important regardless of what stage of life we’re in to sort of look at the end game, you know, what are people gonna say about you at your funeral?

What Are They Going To Say At Your Funeral?

[00:38:17] What do you want people to say about you at your funeral? You know, I, I have friends that still read the obituary page in the newspaper or online for two reasons. One to keep themselves humble and two to remind themselves that someday somebody’s gonna be reading their obituary. I remember when I had my leg amputated and I found out I had these tumors in my lungs.

[00:38:39] I, I went with my wife to the, to the mortuary and to the church and to the cemetery and I planned my funeral

[00:38:46] I got some brush back from people who were like planning your funeral.

[00:38:49] That’s kind of defeatist don’t you think? And you know, I had to remind these people that the last time I checked, we’re all going to die. Don’t think anybody’s working on a cure for life right now. [00:39:00] Every one of us is going to. But not every one of us is really going to live.

[00:39:06] And I heard a native American Blackfoot proverb years ago that absolutely love.

The Proverb

[00:39:10] And it goes like this:

[00:39:12] When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way so that when you die, The world cries and you rejoice.

[00:39:24] That’s what I want. That’s what I’m looking for. You know, don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking to has of my demise in any way, shape or form, but death isn’t nearly as scary for me because I believed, I found my purpose on this earth and I lived that purpose.

[00:39:38] Yeah.

[00:39:40] Miriam: Yeah. I felt like when you finished that there needed to be a mic drop or something.

[00:39:46] That that’s quite a Proverb and quite something to think about.

[00:39:50] Hmm. My goodness. This is really fun. I’m having a great time with this interview. Very fun. Good. Tell me about your book.

[00:39:59] Sustainable Excellence

 

[00:39:59] Terry: Yeah, [00:40:00] sustainable excellence was a book that was really born out of two conversations.

[00:40:04] One was with the former basketball player that I had coached to move to Colorado with her fiance’ and my wife and I had had dinner with the two of them one night. And I remember after dinner saying to her, you know, I’m really excited that you’re living close and I can watch you find and live your purpose.

Live Your Purpose

[00:40:21] And she got real quiet for a while. And then she looked at me and she’s like, well, coach, what do you think my purpose is. I said, I have no idea where your purpose is, but that’s what your life should be about. Finding the reason you were put on the face of this earth and then living that reason. So that was one conversation.

[00:40:36] And then I had a young man reach out to me on social media. He was in college and getting ready to graduate. And he said, what do you think are the things I need to learn to not just be successful in my job or in business, but to be successful in life?

[00:40:50] I didn’t want to give them the, you know, get up early work hard, help others kinda stuff.

[00:40:54] Not that those aren’t important. They are incredibly important, but I wanted to see if maybe I could go deeper with him.

Ten Ideas

[00:40:59] [00:41:00] So I spent some time, I took some notes. I, you know, I had these 10 thoughts, these 10 ideas, these 10 principles. And so I sent them to him. Then I kind of stepped back and I was like, well, I got a life story that fits underneath that principle, or I know somebody whose life emulates that principle.

[00:41:16] So literally during the three month period after I had my leg amputated and before I started chemotherapy for the tumors in my lungs, While I was healing. I sat down at the computer every day and I built stories. And they’re real stories about real people underneath each of the principles. That’s how Sustainable Excellence: the 10 principles leading to leading your uncommon and extraordinary life came about.

[00:41:40] Miriam: , I assume it’s on Amazon

[00:41:42] Terry: Pretty much anywhere you can get a book online, you can get Sustainable Excellence.

[00:41:45] Miriam: Very good. Have you always been a high motivational type person?

[00:41:53] Terry: Yeah,

There’s No “S” On My Chest

[00:41:57] I mean, I have, and, but I guess what I [00:42:00] want people to understand is that, you know, I mean, you’re looking at me right now. There’s no S on my chest. I don’t wear a Cape. I have down days. There are days where I cry. I have days where I feel sorry for myself. And when I do, I remember a couple stories and, and I’ll tell ’em to you real quick.

[00:42:16] The first one was about a professor back in the 1950s at Johns Hopkins University, who did a very simple experiment- he took rats and he put ’em in a tank of water that were over their head and he wanted to see how long the average rat could tread water.

[00:42:30] The average rat tried to water for about 15 minutes. And just as those rats were getting ready to sink and to drown, he reached in, grabbed them, pulled them out, dried ’em off, let ’em rest for a while. And then it took the exact same rats and put ’em back in the exact same tank of water. The second time around those rats treaded water on average.

Hope Matters

[00:42:51] For 60 hours. So think about that the first time, 15 minutes, I’m just not gonna fail. You know, I started a business, my business, but I’m gonna die. I’m gonna drown [00:43:00] in this tank of water the second time, around 60 hours, which said to me, two things, number one, the importance of hope in our lives. We have to believe that maybe not this week, maybe not next month, maybe not even next year, sometime down the road, our life is going to get better.

[00:43:15] And the second thing that it, it taught me was. We can handle our physical bodies can handle so much more than we ever thought they could. Now don’t get me wrong. I think everybody has a breaking point, but that breaking point is so much farther down the road than we ever thought it would be.

[00:43:33] My wife works with a young man who.

40% vs 60%

[00:43:35] Was a former Navy seal, some of the toughest men in the world and the seals have what they call their 40% rule, which basically says if, if you’re done, if you’re at the end of your rope, if you can’t go on, you’re only at 40% of your maximum. And you still have another 60% left and reserved to give to yourself.

[00:43:54] So whenever I get into those dark places and believe me, I do. But when you get into those dark places, [00:44:00] realize you have so much more left to give to yourself.

[00:44:05] Miriam: Wow. One of the things that I think is I interesting about this particular podcast is I haven’t asked you any of the questions I normally ask people and I’m trying to decide if I want to or not, because I just like where we’ve gone.

[00:44:20] And I feel like that to me, seems like an appropriate place to, to call it a good. Cause people need hope, and you have so much more in you than you think.

[00:44:31] Before we got on and started recording. We were talking about the various charities that I like to support. And you chose a donation to Mercy Ships.

Mercy Ships

[00:44:40] So we will be doing that in your honor. And Mercy Ships helps people who need surgeries off the coast of Africa. They’re in Senegal this year, taking care of myofacial surgeries and corrective surgeries- so legs. As someone who formerly could, you know, walk under your own power , I think that [00:45:00] has a meaningful space to you.

[00:45:02] Terry: It does you for doing that

[00:45:04] Miriam: oh yeah. What a delight. Can I have you come back again? Sure. I would. I’d love to do another interview. That’d be great. It’s a date then. Thanks again.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts, or wherever podcasts are found.

Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

All LeaveBetter Podcast episodes can be found here.

Music by Tom Sherlock.

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

  

Work and Life Balance and 

Self-Sabotage

Work and life balance with Cary Prejean

Work and life balance.

[00:00:00] Miriam: I am so happy to introduce you to Cary Prejean. He is a CPA and also a coaching consultant with business systems. And I’m gonna let you explain more of what you do, and then we’re gonna get into some of the nuts and bolts of this.

Introduction

[00:00:15] Cary: What do I do? I help business owners out of what I call managing the minutia. A lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, they’ve got the fingers in everything and it’s really not their best. It’s not their strong suit. That strong suit is being visionaries.

[00:00:29] Now all of a sudden you begin to empower your business

[00:00:32] When I come into a business, the owner hadn’t taken a vacation in a few years, They’re scared to, because they’re scared the business gonna fall, fall apart with them gone.

[00:00:39] And they kind of at some level kind of dread coming to work, but it’s, you know, what’s gonna be dumped into my lap today. What fires are gonna have to put out. It’s not fun anymore.

Scan the Horizons for Opportunities

[00:00:49] Cary: One of the really important jobs that a business owner is supposed to do is to constantly be scanning the horizon, looking for opportunities they can take advantage of as well as risk with perils that are coming at them, [00:01:00] that they’re gonna have to, to mitigate, navigate around, eliminate do something about if you’re not scanning for what’s coming at you, you will get blindsided.

[00:01:07] It all goes back to a, a, a question a mentor asked me about 30 years ago.

[00:01:12] He goes getting exactly what you want being totally satisfied said, man, that’s great. He goes, you know how you get that? And I went, no, he goes knowing exactly what you want. And that takes time. That takes practice. That takes reflection. It’s a process.

[00:01:28] It starts with you. You are, you are the culture, you are the mood that sets the tone for everything.

[00:01:35] Let me talk to some of your employees.

 A Bad Manager

[00:01:37] And two things that are pretty common that come back is they’re a bad manager. They’re always micromanaging everything. They don’t get that. You care about them. All you care about is your business, your profits, your wealth, your lifestyles are the rich and shameless. If that’s all, if that’s what’s driving you, I, you know, you don’t care about me. I’m just a cog in your machine..

[00:01:57] But if you’re asking them, what do you need [00:02:00] to do your job? Is there anything missing? Is there anything I can get for you? You need some training. How about your career? Is there anything we can do to help you further your career? How’s your family doing? How about good morning. just start with, Hey, good morning. Good to see you.

[00:02:12] That’s my perspective, I know you do coaching as well. What’s, what’s some of the things you do for coaching.

Create a Positive Business Environment

[00:02:19] Miriam: I I think probably what makes me the most unique of the various coaches that I’ve seen in the business realm is that I’m also a therapist and that I am very convinced that many of the problems that you see in businesses are less about the business and more about whatever’s happening within the owner.

[00:02:37] And I agree with you entirely that what that leader is bringing to the table is what creates the atmosphere and charts the course for the organization. And if they’re bringing selfishness and uni- focus, then their employees are also going to be selfish and uni- focused.

[00:02:59] And I [00:03:00] was thinking when you were sharing earlier that everything you’re saying could also apply to a manager, they have to have vision for where their department is going to go. It also applies to a parent. They have to have vision and take into account that their children have feelings and it’s not, “My way or the highway.”

Human-ness

[00:03:19] All of these things are interrelated. So the space that I bring to the CEO or the owner, or the founder is this broader perspective of our human-ness. Our humanity is woven all through this and it isn’t just spreadsheets and bottom lines, although spreadsheets and bottom lines are important, right? The other stuff is important too.

[00:03:43] You have to be able to hold it in both hands, right?

[00:03:46] Cary: Yeah. Their human beings, you know,

[00:03:47] we have our own narratives that drive us or have our own preferences. And we have our own concerns, you know, if you come to work and it’s just, work and nothing else, there’s not much room for, for humanity in there. Why, [00:04:00] why would you want to come to, to a place where you’re just part of the machinery?

[00:04:04] Miriam: Exactly. And what I have found with employees is that if you offer them a large salary, they will take it and appreciate it for a very limited amount of time.

[00:04:16] And then it’s not enough.

More Than Just a Paycheck

[00:04:18] I’ve coached quite a few people who are trying to figure out, you know, where is their next move? Because the big paycheck is awesome, except that they want more out of their life. And it seems to me that most people want to be developed on the employee side and most people on the employer side, the business owner side would like their people to be less yes- men and more self-directed

[00:04:47] One thing I was thinking of that you mentioned initially you ran through a list of reasons why these owners were doing the minutia. Sometimes I think that it’s habit, they have been in [00:05:00] control for so long, especially if they started as a solopreneur they had to do everything .

[00:05:05] And it was, ” I would love to hire someone, but I don’t have the money.” And then they have the money to hire someone and they don’t know how to delegate. That is a learned skill.

Delegation

[00:05:16] Cary: Well, yes, they, they don’t know how to delegate. That’s very true. And they’re used to seeing it done their way.

[00:05:23]  Really what you should task your employees with, “these are results I want in this timeframe.”

[00:05:28] But if you tell ’em you have to do it the way I would do it, they’re not gonna do it the way you cause they’re not you.

[00:05:33] Miriam:  I have found in my own situation, as I have hired people that I’ve struggled with. Exactly. Some of the things you’re talking about and I’ve had to take a step back and say, “well, Miriam, are you God, do you know the best way to do this thing?”

We All Can Win

[00:05:48]  I try really “hard to be collaborative and to say, ” this is my idea, but if you have a better idea, I’m all for it because I’m looking for everyone to win. [00:06:00] I’m looking for me to win and for you to win and for the customer to win. I want us all to win.”

[00:06:05] Cary: I’ve had employees in the past. I mean, at one time I had 16 employees and I was making tremendous money, but I was working 80-100 hours a week. I was that, that typical business owner driven, killing himself ,you know, and totally impatient with employees.

[00:06:23] Totally wondering why they didn’t see what I saw. At some point I went through somewhat of a, revelation of this is not fun. . The money’s great. But look at the rest of your life.

Work-Life Balance

[00:06:32] Miriam: Was there a moment, like a situation where something happened that was the slap upside, the face and you went, oh my word.

[00:06:44] Cary: I was in my office on a Sunday evening and I was missing out on one of my kids’ birthday parties. Cause I had to get something done for Monday. Yeah. And it just kind of hit me, you know, what am I doing? Yeah. What am I doing?

[00:06:58] Miriam: If your business is a [00:07:00] success, a raging success and your life is in the toilet, you have lost.

[00:07:05] One of my principles is I wanna help you win in business and in life. Right. And if you’re winning in one and not the other, you aren’t winning

Connections of Humanity

[00:07:15] Cary: well, if, you’re losing in family.

[00:07:17] You’re losing in social, you’re losing in body, you’re losing in spirituality. I mean, there’s all these other dimensions of humanity

[00:07:24] This is come from ontological design, there’s 13 primary domains of human concern. And, you know, work finance is just a. Blend of two.

[00:07:35] But there’s so many more that don’t get addressed or get swept aside and suddenly you wake up – like they say, I’ve never heard anybody in a death bed wishing they had put more hours in at the office.

Ontological Design

[00:07:45] Miriam: Yeah. Isn’t that something? Love the term. Ontological design is probably probably one that most people are not familiar with.

[00:07:52] Why don’t you explain that a little bit and some of the other categories.

[00:07:57] Cary: Language actually generates your reality. [00:08:00] In fact, the, the, now that you and I are in, we coordinated in the past through language, even though it was written, I mean, it’s still language, right?

[00:08:09] . We coordinated this present in the past. Yeah. Animals don’t do that. Now wolves will coordinate in a hunt in the present, but they don’t say, Hey guys, let’s go hunting next Tuesday, night, nine o’clock.

[00:08:20] They don’t do that. We as humans have that capacity to design the future. Right? So not only can you generate a future through language, your present, your perspective generates your experience of reality.

[00:08:34] We’re we’re pattern seeking and our narrative is always trying to make sense of what patterns we’re seeing.

Benefit of the Doubt

[00:08:40] Miriam: , an example, if you are in a car and someone cuts you off and you think, oh, that person’s so rude. They cut me off. Now you’re gonna get mad .

[00:08:49] . And if you think, oh my goodness. I wonder if they just found out someone they love is in the hospital. You feel completely different.

[00:08:57] Cary: As we go through life, you know, [00:09:00] we, we pick up certain beliefs and certain assessments and certain judgements and prejudices. And we forget that they’re just opinions. There’s no truth, you know, the ultimate universal truth about it.

[00:09:12] And at some point it becomes like the truth for you, you know, like that’s just the way it is. That’s life.

[00:09:18] A good ontological coach will have the right questions.

[00:09:20] Not the answers have the right questions for the person to examine their own stuff, their own, their own narrative.

[00:09:27] How is that serving you? Is that empowering you or disempowering you, that belief you have and where did the belief come from?

What is Driving You?

[00:09:34] So you have them examine what is driving them and help them to reinterpret by asking good questions and maybe offering, you know, possible alternative interpretations. And what happens is it’s like a light bulb goes off. .

[00:09:47] A lot of times we make up, what we think the other person is saying, and a negative assessment real or made up is just an invitation to suffer. Mm-hmm you can accept or [00:10:00] decline it.

Teenage vs Adult Discourse

[00:10:00] Cary: Here’s difference- a teenage discourse versus an adult discourse,

[00:10:04] teenagers give everybody in the world authority and permission to, to assess them, categorize them.

[00:10:10] They take it all extremely personal.

[00:10:12] Adults are very careful – they’re specific with who they give the authority to, to assess them. You know, and a lot of times it’s like your spouse or maybe close family members, close friends, but the rest of the world, you know, you kind of take it with a grain, eh,

[00:10:26] Miriam: I’m going to say mature adults.

[00:10:28] Cary: Here’s a distinction this teenage discourse versus adult discourse.

[00:10:32] Ah, I know, I know people in the teenage discourse in their eighties.

[00:10:35] Yes. Okay. I’m on the same page with you now. Yeah, we are in full agreements. Yes. Good.

[00:10:41] This is personal, but it was just, it’s so huge. Looking back. My parents got divorced when I was like 13 and next thing you know, my father’s dating my mother’s best friend . And it got like ugly, crazy scenes on the street and having my youngest siblings hanging out the car screaming blocking ’em in traffic and [00:11:00] making scenes. It was just, it was crazy.

[00:11:01] You look back at it, it’s like,, how mature was that?

Wake-Up Call

[00:11:05] Talk about a wake up call, it was life transforming, you know, because I was, I still pretty much locked in teenage discourse, even though I was in my early thirties when I went through it.

[00:11:13] You know, I was demanding, I was, you know, driven. I was, you know, “do it my way.” the whole bit. .

[00:11:20] The whole thing of the ontological training that generally what triggers us the most is the things we’re most scared that we are.

[00:11:26] Miriam: The things that we are most scared that we are. Triggers that that makes a ton of sense to me as a therapist.

[00:11:34] [00:12:00]

Specifics of Adult Discourse

[00:12:13] Miriam: , what specific behaviors did you see shifting and changing?

[00:12:19] Cary: One of the things that adults do is they begin closing possibilities and doors, you know, of opportunities and what have you, so that they can pursue what they’re really passionate about and actually achieve mastery mastery at something

[00:12:31] Achieving master requires that you, you, you narrow your possibilities for what you’re gonna pursue in life.

[00:12:38] The other big thing is what I had already talked about is that you begin to limit who you give authority to, to assess you.

[00:12:45] One of the things of adulthood is to begin to be able to be an observer because until you can see, oh, that’s just some language. That’s just some opinions I have. That’s just some stuff that I was taught when I was younger. And I took it as to put the truth and it’s not serving me anymore.

[00:12:59] I’m [00:13:00] suffering from it. I think I’m gonna stop suffering

[00:13:02] because back then, before I went through this training and practice for years I was very angry. I was very impatient. I didn’t enjoy being around people and now it’s these, you know, they just have a different perspective.

Manage Your Mood

[00:13:16] There’s a lot more peace in operating in, in adult discourse and you get to manage your mood.

[00:13:22] If you’re grateful and joyful and ambitious and peaceful all at the same time, and you’re optimistic behind all of that, you see a ton of possibilities. You see a lot of things that are available on the horizon.

[00:13:35] You are able to ask for help.

[00:13:37] Whereas if you’re in a teenager discourse of they’re doing it to me and parents are doing it to me, life’s doing it to me. Other kids are doing it to me and it has nothing I can do about it. So that has you resigned and resentful.

[00:13:50] And you know, so what can you do if there’s nothing you can do about it, except become a, become a victim and develop a really good victim story. And be, be angry at your parents and angry at everybody who’s doing it [00:14:00] to you and you’re miserable. You suffer.

Observe Yourself

[00:14:03] Miriam: I love this new language of adult discourse and teenage discourse. I have talked about it more in a internal or external locus of control and what you’re describing about the victim mindset or the ability, the opposite of that, the ability to stand outside of yourself and observe yourself.

[00:14:24] These, these are concepts that are easy to say and difficult to live, and it takes a while to figure out –

[00:14:33] What is it I’m actually thinking and how is what I’m thinking, influencing what I’m doing. And then everybody else is responding to me in ways that are not necessarily useful to my life or my business.

[00:14:48] I was thinking about some of the teenage discourse spaces and the adult discourse spaces in my own life.

It’s O.K. to Say No

[00:14:54] One thing I had to learn was that “no” was not a four letter word that it’s [00:15:00] okay to say “no.” I think a younger version of me was very invested in people- pleasing and if they had a need, I was invested in helping them accomplish that need maybe to the detriment of myself. And I think as I have matured in some spaces, I’m able to say, you know, that’s actually your story and your job to deal with.

[00:15:24] And this is my story and my job to deal with. And I don’t need to have my fingers in your business. You know, making sure you succeed because whether you succeed or fail is not actually about my story. It’s about your story,

[00:15:37] Or another thing I was thinking about as you were describing this business of accepting suffering or not accepting suffering.

Guilt

[00:15:46] I have a similar concept, but I was thinking about it in terms of guilt, guilt can cause a lot of suffering. Yeah. I come from a long line of people who are happy, to feel guilty – they should have done this or should have done that.

[00:15:59] [00:16:00] And I remember in my mind seeing like a glove on my hand, like a baseball glove I can reach out the glove and I can catch the guilt or I can hold the glove into my body and let the guilt fly right by.

[00:16:14] And once I learned how to do that, Oh, my life got so much better.

[00:16:19] Cary: You know, I’ve gotten the point where I, if I notice I’m suffering I get out of that. . I don’t have any, I don’t wanna waste any time suffering anymore than I have to.

Give Yourself Permission

[00:16:28] Miriam:  Once you start owning your life in a way that says the decisions I make are mine to make and they impact all the people around me, your life takes on a different perspective and a different freedom.

[00:16:43] You give yourself permission, I guess, more than anything to be yourself. You know, you’re not so worried about what other people are gonna think about you say about you,

[00:16:50] I’m gonna live my life the way I’m gonna live my life. And some people will be drawn to what I do. And some people will be repelled by it. No matter what I do.

Avoid the Financial Pitfalls

[00:16:57] Miriam: Okay. I’m gonna take a little bit of [00:17:00] turn. My podcast talks about not only wisdom, which I think we’ve been talking about but also practicality. Because you have a CPA background, I would love for you to talk a little bit about some of the pitfalls that you see people falling into- business owners, as well as non-business owners with their finances.

[00:17:21] Cary: Right. The, the big part of it, I, I see is not knowing anything about finances. I mean, again, just cause you have a, you started a business successful with the business. Doesn’t mean, you know, anything about money and probably the best example that I know of personally is doctors. Doctors make a lot of money.

[00:17:38] So they think they know a lot about money. But most doctors I know of they’re easy pray for, for you know, slick salesman. They really are. My father was a doctor and he couldn’t read his tax return.

Athletes and Coaches

[00:17:52] Why do successful athletes have coaches?

[00:17:54] Why does anybody who’s successful have coaches? Because you can’t see yourself in [00:18:00] the performance of what you’re doing.

[00:18:01] So your coach can not only see you perform and give you this, you know, little coaching tips on how to improve this and that they can also give you distinctions. That’ll help you up game up your game. Not just a little bit, but by a lot.

[00:18:13]  Money is the domain that most people know very little about.

[00:18:17] so really what you need is a, a coach there and it could be your CPA,

[00:18:20] Another thing I’ve seen business owners get in trouble over is their taxes. And a lot of times they don’t know they’re in trouble until the tax man shows up

“Affluenza”

[00:18:28] Miriam: I have seen this happen with people.

[00:18:30] Cary: The other thing I’ve seen business owners or people do is they get successful. They start making some money and they come down with the disease. I call “Afluenza” and they start buying resort homes.

[00:18:42] I was representing a client and this guy is gone bankrupt

[00:18:45] he had a 6 million boat and he had a full time employee on the boat keeping up. And by, and by the time he hit bankruptcy, the boat was about worth, about 2 million. He had also bought a horse farm, which was sucking the company dry.

[00:18:58] He also [00:19:00] had about eight family members on the payroll, some of which he did very little for the company. You know, this guy. near 70 and going through chapter seven, bankruptcy, total insolvency.

Be Informed Financially

[00:19:13] Miriam: I hear you saying two things. One that you absolutely have to be informed at a basic level of how money works. and that so many people really do not understand the basics of taxes and of maybe some of the laws or how to find someone to help you.

[00:19:33] And the other thing I hear you saying is spend less than you earn.

[00:19:37] Yeah. If you spend less than you earn, you are never gonna find yourself in trouble.

[00:19:42] Cary: You always want to have some reserves, you know, you you know what I tell some of these people is that the seeds of destruction are planted in times of abundance.

[00:19:51] mm-hmm

[00:19:52] you know, so everything’s great. Now don’t go tie your business down. You start tying your business to that kind of those kind of cash drains and business [00:20:00] takes a downturn.

Risk and Opportunity

[00:20:00] You’re stuck with it. Cause that stuff like a horse farm and a $6 million boat, they lose value immediately. And there will be down times.

[00:20:07] Again, that’s why the owner has to be scanning horizon, looking for what’s coming there gonna be some opportunities you can take advantage of, and there’s gonna be some risk.

[00:20:15] You better be prepared for.

[00:20:16] Miriam: Absolutely. Being an optimist and a realist at the same time is a hard Teeter- totter to ride hard, hard, but that is the job of every business owner and of every parent and of every manager, every human needs to be able to say I’m gonna have a positive outlook and I’m gonna believe the best.

[00:20:40] And also what, what might be coming down the pike and how do I prepare for it?

“Productive Paranoia”

[00:20:45] I’m pretty sure Jim Collins called this concept productive paranoia, where you look, you scan the horizon and you say, what could go wrong and how do I prepare for it? Not. In a like, obsessive way that is [00:21:00] unhealthy, but in a wise way that says I’m gonna make hay while the sun shines and I’m gonna put it in my barn so that when it’s snowing, I have something to feed the things that I care about.

[00:21:10] Cary: You don’t wanna be paranoid, but you do want to be, you know, you wanna be cognizant of, of what’s going around you and what’s happening in your industry and technology and government regulation.

[00:21:20] You know, we’re, we’re hardwired in our limbic system with what’s called the, the herding principle.

[00:21:26] You know, you see Gazelle’s out the herd of gazelle, only one or two have to see the lion coming and they take off the rest of the herd takes off with them. They don’t, they don’t ask where’s the lion.

[00:21:36] You see it in financial markets, you know why everybody’s buy at the top and everybody’s selling at the bottom.

[00:21:42] You have to be careful of that. You don’t get caught up in some, some frenzy, some fad, some unsustainable trend.

The Herd Mentality

[00:21:48] Miriam: How do you help people and yourself? When you can, tell,” oh, I’m getting caught up in the herd mentality.” And how do you talk yourself out of that space?[00:22:00]

[00:22:00] Cary: Well, again, with questions – real thinking happens when you ask questions, right?

[00:22:06] Yes. So it’s like, okay, so what’s appealing about this. Is this similar to other fads that other crazies that I’ve seen that have. Crashed and burned, you know, am I getting in the wrong time? Is there any professional analysis that’s not biased

[00:22:19] A lot of times ask a pessimist. They’ll poke holes in stuff that you didn’t see before valid ones.

[00:22:25] Miriam: All the pessimists in my life say” I’m a realist.”

Accept Other’s Differences

[00:22:28] They all say that. It is a skillset that they have and the holes that they are poking into various things need to be addressed, not just blown over. It really is a good reminder of how much we need each other.

[00:22:42] We need to be able to accept each other’s differences as value- added instead of annoying, you know, to say, okay, they might have a point. Maybe I should at least pause before I move forward with “X”, whatever “X” is in the herd mentality.

[00:22:59] Cary: [00:23:00] The problem I’ve run into with business entrepreneurs is they’re so optimistic. They absolutely do not see risk, period. Yeah. All they see is opportunity if they have somebody who’s a realist or pessimist, but is always talking about risk, they get like, impatient, why are you trying to bring me down?

[00:23:16] Why are you being so negative? You know? Yeah. And I, and I’ve had to caution them. No, you need to embrace that perspective cuz they’re gonna see risks that you absolutely are blind to. You need to take in, you need to reflect on it. Because they’re gonna see, they’re gonna see things. That’ll come back and bite you on the butt.

What Are You Chasing?

[00:23:32] Miriam: This has been so much fun.

[00:23:34] You’ve gone through, you know, the teenage discourse space and more of the adult discourse space. And your business has had quite a few iterations. Your children are grown. So what do you believe you’re chasing at this point in your life?

[00:23:50] Cary: You know, I, I have, whatever years I have left, you know, who knows 20, 30, maybe I maybe I’ll be dead tomorrow. In the meantime, I really enjoy what I do. [00:24:00]

[00:24:00] I enjoy working with business owners. You know, now I don’t enjoy working with sociopaths and narcissists. I, I, I don’t work with them. Because it it’s all about,

[00:24:09] I have nothing to change. You know, I can’t help you,

[00:24:11] but the people that I do work with, I really enjoy watching them.

Stressed to Ambitious

[00:24:16] You know, they, they, they go from being stressed a lot with their business and dissatisfied with some things to, you know, they start to develop more of these moods of ambition and peace and gratitude,

[00:24:27] And because you see the business becoming much more functional and much less dysfunctional the employee morale goes up and you see their businesses thrive

[00:24:36] Miriam: What you’re talking about is a rehab project. I don’t know if you’ve seen this movie the, the Biggest Little Farm. They took this dead piece of land and they brought it back to life and made it incredibly productive.

[00:24:49] I think what you’re talking about is you’re taking something that has some significant challenges and you’re bringing it to life and watching it grow and expand and be [00:25:00] able to serve people in a way that it couldn’t do before, because of these various pitfalls and self sabotaging behaviors that were found within the business or within the owner, et cetera.

[00:25:11] Cary: Thank you. I appreciate that insight.

Book Recommendations

[00:25:13] Miriam: You mentioned earlier when we first started, you had a couple books that you felt like were good recommends.

[00:25:19] Cary: Thin Book of Trust Charles Feltman.

[00:25:21] There’s four basic distinctions of trust. Number one is caring. Do you care? My concerns, your concerns.

[00:25:27] Are you sincere? Is what you’re saying with your mouth match what I think’s going on in your head?

[00:25:32] Are you competent? Can you actually do what you say you can do, you know, can you perform and

[00:25:37] fourth, are you reliable? Do you have a history of keeping promises over time?

[00:25:41] So yeah, those are the four things to trust and, and he does a real good job of breaking them down and easy way to understand it.

Charity

[00:25:48] Miriam: Right.

[00:25:48] , this has been. So fun before we go.

[00:25:51] I think my listeners know that I always do a small gift- we talked about four charities earlier today and you chose the Sheldrick [00:26:00] trust, they help orphaned elephants whose moms have been poached. You said you had three rescue dogs and you had a heart for helping in that way.

[00:26:08] Yeah, I appreciate it.

[00:26:09] Thanks having me on the show Miriam.

Full audio episode found here.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or wherever podcasts are found.

Music by Tom Sherlock

Strategic Business Advisors

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

 

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

 

 

 

Self-Sabotage and Your Sense of Self Worth

 

Caroline Blanchard  [Recorded 6_21_22] Empowering Your Sense of Self Worth

[00:00:00] Miriam: All right. I am so excited to have you, Caroline. I appreciate just your, your presence. And we have talked before on your podcast and I love what you stand for. I mean, we started talking right away and I feel, I was like, Hey, maybe we should hit record, cuz this is good stuff. So Caroline, I’m gonna let you talk a little bit about who you are and what you do, and thanks so much for being on the leave better podcast.

[00:00:26] Caroline: Well, my pleasure. And thank you for having me. You’re such a great soul and yes, we had an amazing connection on my podcast. So I am pleased that you invited me. Thank you.

Who she is

[00:00:36] Who I am. Wow. That’s such a charged question. Right now where I’m at now, I’m a life coach.

[00:00:43] But even life coach, I don’t like it a hundred percent cuz I feel like I really focus on helping people go through sobriety and staying sober. It is a reality out there that a lot of people need that.

[00:00:54] I’m a mother of three kids and three dogs and a cat . So I’m [00:01:00] an animal lover. My, my kids bring back dogs and we end up all. rescuing them.

[00:01:06] And besides that, I’m also in network marketing. So I’ve published books into regarding this industry because it’s an industry that I’m passionate about. I do think it’s the greatest equalizer in business and you know, you can thrive and succeed regardless of your education, gender, race religion, whatever it’s really into the effort you will put in.

Author

[00:01:33] So I’ve published three books up until now. There’s a fourth one coming very soon. They all hid best sellers. So thank you everyone. And recently, well, in the last two years, I decided to start a podcast just because I had so much to say , but I started it specifically to to target women empowerment.

[00:01:56] And. , know, I, I thought about going into business, going [00:02:00] into, you know, talking to entrepreneurs and all of this. But what I realized is that I’m a woman, I’m an entrepreneur. I used to be a corporate executive. I’m a mom. I’m, you know, I wear so many different hats that my podcast is called simply Caroline.

Empowering Women To Have Self Worth

[00:02:16] And we basically talk about anything and everything that will help women and will empower them to live a better.

 

[00:02:24] Miriam: I was looking at my reasons for wanting to do a podcast and it was so I could meet remarkable people doing fantastic things. And that is absolutely you. How fun to just hear the breadth of your life and experience and for sure, in the show notes, we’ll link to your books and to your podcast.

[00:02:45] And oh, it’s just a pleasure to have you with us. So why don’t you give a little bit of a history? I mean, you’ve got a wonderful accent. Why don’t you tell our listeners the threads in your life that you see preparing you to be who you are.[00:03:00]

[00:03:01] A Little History

[00:03:01] Caroline: Okay. So I was born in a small town called Rimouski in the middle of the province of Quebec. My parents divorced when I was nine months. So I think that right there, it was the start of, you know, of what built me today because you know, obstacles will help you build resilience. I was raised by my mom and with my sister. Who’s the closest to me.

[00:03:27] And the two older kids were raised with my dad. We were living apart like three hours cities that were three hours apart and it’s French cities. So that’s where it comes from, but I moved into an Italian neighborhood and The only way to make friends was to play with the Italians. And the only kind of middle language we had was English.

Feeling Isolated

[00:03:51] And my mom was listening to a lot of English songs. So, you know, as kids, even if you don’t understand each other, you do understand each other and you end [00:04:00] up playing together and eventually you end up like understanding their language. So I guess I, I, I learned my English. That way nothing too official.

[00:04:10] The, the typical schooling system when I got out, I went to study to become a cop six months before graduating, I decided that it was not my field because being really immersed in it for two and a half years I realized that I am a. Justice Seeker, but not a criminal code seeker. Mm-hmm, , you know, as a police, it can be extremely frustrating to you know, arrest people.

[00:04:37] And if you don’t collect the proof properly, it’s gonna be dismissed. You know, sometimes you, you watch guilty, people walk away, you know, they’re guilty, they know they’re guilty, but. Something was not done. Right. They still walk away. So I’m lucky enough that I realize yeah. At a young age that you know, I would’ve been like extremely frustrated.

Too Much Partying

[00:04:59] So I [00:05:00] left that field, stayed out of school for three years, partied way too much. Worked in bars. Like I had that whole life. And at some point I, I woke up one morning and I was just. I need to use my brain I need to do something. So I went back and I completed my university. In my last year of university, I got a bursary to go and do an English immersion in Vancouver, Canada.

[00:05:30] So I went there. Uh, It was super fun. Spent the summer there met a. Really hand some summer fling and when I came back I found out I was pregnant. So had my son reconnected with the fling and we got to know each other and eventually we got married. We had two kids together. I lived in Vancouver for a while and that’s when I also started my corporate career.

I Needed to Be Flexible

[00:05:53] I started in. I was always a sales rep or account executive, because [00:06:00] for me, that was the, the most flexibility I could get. And I always wanted flexibility to be able to come home if my kids needed something or whatever. Wow. I really feel like I’m deep that I’m digging deep here.

[00:06:14] Miriam: Hang on for a second, because what I want to say is you are, I mean, you’re young and look at how many things your life has brought across your path.

[00:06:25] We could spend a podcast on every single one of those episodes of your life. Like my brain is humming with what did you learn from the time you were training to become, a law enforcement person? What did you learn in the time you were training to become a business person? What did you learn having half your family being separated from you by three hours, which to a kid is it may as well be across the end of the world, you know, and if I remember correctly, even the story about how you reconnected with your son’s father, [00:07:00] incredible, incredible.

[00:07:02] So many things packed in one life. It’s amazing.

Wisdom

[00:07:06] Let me switch gears for a second and have you. Reflect a little bit, because my podcast is wisdom and practicality to help people overcome their self sabotaging behaviors in business and life, which is too many words, but it’s hard to say all of that succinctly and each piece of it’s very important to me.

[00:07:30] If you’re practical, but you don’t have wisdom. you lose in the end. And if you’re only talking about business and not your life, you lose because those things are inextricably intertwined. Talk through this history what are some self sabotaging mindsets you saw in yourself that, Had you continued that direction, would’ve sabotaged your life.

[00:07:53] Trying to Fill the Empty Hole

[00:07:53] Caroline: Well, quite a few, honestly, I’ve always been Leaning on humor and leaning on making people [00:08:00] laugh, I think to hide a big part of the sadness or the empty hole that was in me that I feel like I carry since I’m little.

[00:08:09] So I looked for a lot of different things to fill it. I turned towards people. I turned towards experiences. I turned towards drugs, alcohol,

There Was Always a Good Person There

[00:08:21] In every situation I was, or in every obstacle I had, there was always a good person placed in front of me. That would help me go through it.

[00:08:32] And I was always lucky that even in the bad groups that I met. I would get close to the good one that would help me, you know, always stay clear of too many, too much trouble. So yeah, I would say that my biggest self sabotage was always to seek out something to fill to fill me basically.

[00:08:53] And the worst was alcohol and drugs. But I always hit it very well [00:09:00] so that no one knew mm-hmm , but I basically started drinking. I was 12 and you know, stopped only 10 years ago. The worst kind of self sabotage is to you know, keep yourself where you’re at and destroy yourself.

I Would Mess Up My Life

[00:09:16] Caroline: So there’s places where life wanted to take me. That was good places. And I would find a way to mess it up. Obviously while I was in those situation, I didn’t realize, but I think that I also was very open that I listened when people talked to me and like I said, I was lucky to have amazing people on my road.

[00:09:37] So I had people planting seeds and to, Hey, Do you think this is smart and Hey, do you think you should treat yourself? Like what, like this and, and, you know, a bunch of different comments. So even if I didn’t apply it right there. And then when they told me,, it was planted in my mind

[00:09:54] Pay Attention to the Feedback Others Give You

[00:09:54] Miriam: hmm. What I hear you saying- if you’re one of those people who [00:10:00] is in that space, pay attention to the people who are giving the good input they’re there. And it’s whether you listen to it or not, and you might be one of those people who could give good input. Sometimes people say, oh, I didn’t.

[00:10:16] I knew I should have said something, but I didn’t want to, I didn’t wanna offend them. I didn’t want to. I’m wanting to know at what point did someone say something to you and you were offended, but also it stuck in your head and you continued to mu and chew and think about it.

[00:10:35] Caroline: It’s hard to say because the offended feeling is gone.

Offended In the Moment

[00:10:41] The lesson stayed so maybe I was offended in the moment. Yeah. But I let it go. I think that’s one of my strengths too, or I don’t even know if it’s a strength, a trait, a gift. I really live in the moment. So when I go to bed, I always feel like tomorrow’s a new day and what happened today will stay in [00:11:00] today.

[00:11:01] And, you know, I’ve been through a few traumas and abuse and separations and stuff like that. and the reason why I didn’t stay stuck there, I think is because really when I go to bed, I’m like tomorrow is a new day. The bad will stay here. So probably when someone offends me, I’m like, okay, whatever.

You Might Need To Hear It

[00:11:22] And mm-hmm, , that’s, that’s really, you know, what’s the important thing. I would say that if you stay offended by something, it’s because it’s something you really need to hear. And sometimes it can be harsh. It can be said very wrongly. Like the person didn’t use the right word, the person included insults or whatever, but there’s always a part of truth.

[00:11:45] Into something. So you can take the offense and feel offended and move away, or just ask yourself, why was this thrown at me.

[00:11:55] Miriam: It’s a good question. I love your perspective about [00:12:00] putting it to bed when you go to bed. And tomorrow is a new day that, I mean is one place that just makes you successful.

[00:12:09] LeaveBetter Has Something For You

[00:12:09] Miriam: Hey, this is Miriam jumping back in.

[00:12:11] Are you looking to go to the next level in your life or business right now? That’s what lead better is about my friend. We give you the coaching to level up, have those breakthrough. So you can stop the self sabotage that keeps you where you are currently. Let’s make self-improvement a way of life. Go to , leavebetter.com and download the free resource that’s there today.

[00:12:31] We change them regularly. So go and see what’s new at leaf, better.com. Now back to our interview.

Back to the Interview

[00:12:40] Miriam: From my perspective, you come across as extremely well put together very competent and successful. And I have a feeling there’s been an aspect of that.

[00:12:52] In your life throughout your entire life. I want you to talk about how can you in one area of your [00:13:00] life be doing so well and in another area of your life, shoot yourself in the foot and self sabotage, because I know a lot of our listeners are super good at their businesses, but their marriages are falling apart or they’re incredibly good in their athletic pursuit.

[00:13:17] But their work performance sucks or whatever, you know, there, there’s this weird thing within us where a piece of us can know the steps we need to take to be successful. And another part of us just seems hell, bent on ruining it.

We Know the Steps, But We Don’t Do Them

[00:13:35] Caroline: Yes. And that’s an amazing question. That could be answered in a lot of different ways.

[00:13:41] I will give my perspective on that, but I think I was raised with my mother was very big on appearances and she was raised that way as well. You know what always be proud. Don’t walk out of the house with your hair. I’m brushed or, you know, stuff like that. Always have a [00:14:00] proud image. I think that one of the big things is that we were extremely poor.

We Were So Poor

[00:14:04] But people didn’t even know cuz I had that one pair of Jean, but it was always clean and you know my mom would always take care of it. Everything was clean, everything was sparkly. So we didn’t have much with what we had was very much taken care of. If we had people coming over for supper, we would never say I don’t know, like we don’t have enough food.

[00:14:25] We would give them our food and just be quiet about it. So it was really much about the appearance, the external image. There is a lot of good in that, cuz it helped me learn a lot. But there is also a lot of bad it’s I was thought with hint insight, I was thought how to wear a mask and to always pretend that everything is sparkly, clean and everything is a okay.

Depression

[00:14:52] Which, you know, brought me into depression. I started pretty young. I don’t even know what age, but it was a, a, a mild [00:15:00] depression. It did not stop me from doing my daily activity, but stopped me from being happy. So I was able to always be high functioning.

[00:15:12] Nice you know, care for the others. I guess what I’m trying to say is that how the other felt others felt and how they saw me was more important than what I was actually feeling. And, and, you know, going through which, you know, led me to also, when I was in corporate, I had really high positions you know, I was a high achiever and I was good at what, what I was doing.

I Had It All, But …

[00:15:41] after my working hours, my depression was there. And you know, I would drink. And I was never like super drunk falling everywhere. I was well put together on the outside. I was a corporate executive. There was my marriage, I had my cute kids, my animals.[00:16:00]

[00:16:00] I was a volunteer for my hockey sons team, a volunteer for my daughter’s soccer team. You know, I was present at school and everything, but inside everything was falling apart.

[00:16:12] And I really had this very logic part of me that was like, I have a problem that I need to solve. When I would explain it to people, I would be like, yes.

The Dark Thoughts

[00:16:25] And sometimes I have dark thoughts. Like I I’m thinking about ending life or whatever. And they were like, well, it’s not that dramatic. If you are able to explain it to me this way, you know, because I really had this logical. Of me that was able to, I guess, step back, look at my life, tell you what my problem were.

[00:16:45]

[00:16:45] The Almost End

[00:16:45] And all of that lasted like until one day I overdosed and my husband had to bring me to ICU. But I think that, that when that happened, I realized what I could have lost, like my kids and I [00:17:00] guess like people around me also realize, wow, I think she has an issue , you know, and that’s also when I shared it with some people, how much people were shocked, they were like, oh my gosh, you had the perfect life and you had this and I wanted to be you in this area and blah, blah, blah.

[00:17:22] And I was just like, I realized this was all my mask. Everyone knew my mask. Yeah. So there was two Carolyn, there was a one home and the one outside of the house.

Acceptance To All Parts

[00:17:32] And the big downside to that is that if you don’t accept all parts of your personality and you choose to only show what shines, you’re not showing the real you and the rest will come up and bite you.

[00:17:46] Miriam: I so appreciate your vulnerability to share that story. I’m certain, there is someone out there listening who is saying.

[00:17:56] She gets me, whether they’re a man or a woman, it doesn’t [00:18:00] matter. This who looks good on the outside, who looks like they have it all together. And on the inside, they feel like everything’s crumbling. I, I personally have talked with many business owners who are like that, even high performers.

[00:18:15] Miriam: What, what advice, if you were speaking directly to them, what would you say if they’re in that place where they’re.

Advice

[00:18:23] That’s me. She just described me.

[00:18:28] I think the biggest thing is to be honest with yourself. And I know that when we’re in that place, there’s a lot of fear. There’s a lot of fear of first of all, facing what’s gonna happen because let’s face it. .

[00:18:42] And also at some point you know, especially in the last 10 years, I did a lot of self development, but I, I had started a bit back then. One of the thing was, what is your definition of success?

Her Definition of Success

[00:18:55] Like not your parents, not your siblings, not your. [00:19:00] Yours. And I realized, you know, when you ask back, like, what were you playing with when you were young? What happened for me? It was always just to be happy, but when people would ask me my goals, that was a pretty silly goal. And I’ve been told, well, be happy.

[00:19:18] Well, just be happy. , you know, I’m talking about goals. Like what’s gonna be your career. How much money are you gonna make? But I was just like, I just wanna be happy. So I was seen as someone that was not ambitious by certain, but for me, that was the hardest thing to go get was happiness and feeling fulfilled.

[00:19:40] What Are You Running After?

[00:19:40] Yeah. And I think that a lot of those high achievers it’s that we run after something to make us feel that we’re worth it. Yeah. So it’s really like, what’s your definition of. and you may be like the CEO of a big organization and have the big paycheck [00:20:00] and be miserable inside because you know, you can’t accomplish all of that.

[00:20:04] You know, you can achieve that, but you still feel empty when you get home.

Having a Coach

[00:20:09] And now what I say is that without a, a doubt, having a coach mm-hmm, like, if you would see an Olympic athlete going to the Olympics without a coach, you would say, wow, that’s not a smart decision.

[00:20:25] So for an athlete, we understand. That they need a coach. Yeah. But as a human being, we always need to justify why would I need a coach? It’s the same thing though. Yeah. It’s someone to keep you accountable. It’s someone to be real with you. It’s someone to help you ask the real questions because let’s face it.

You Will Make Your Life Easy

[00:20:43] If you’re the one, asking yourself all the questions, you will give yourself all the answers you want to hear. and you can, you will make your life easy. And, but that’s not how to grow.

[00:20:56] Miriam: I couldn’t agree more. You know, I wanna double back to that [00:21:00] person who made you feel foolish for wanting to be happy, because if you read anything, any like that is what people want, through the ages, people want to be happy and fulfilled and feel like their life is meaningful.

What If They Had Given You Different Advice?

[00:21:16] And do you ever wonder if someone had given you different advice? If they had said. Yeah, I wanna be happy too. Let’s set about making that happen.

[00:21:27] I read something two days ago. I believe where they said success is when your, your vision of the life you want on the outside of you matches the vision of the life you want on the inside of you.

[00:21:41] So there’s this congruence between what you want on the inside. And then what you’re experiencing on the outside. And too much of the time, there is not congruence between those two things, you know?

[00:21:55] Caroline: Well, that’s why it’s important to know. What is your definition of [00:22:00] success?

[00:22:00] How Are Other’s Limiting Themselves?

[00:22:00] Miriam: As you look at people, you coach what self sabotaging behaviors do you see in them? They’re on a growth track. They’re doing many, many things good, but also, you know, in your mind, you’re like if they would stop doing this or stop thinking this, they would catapult forward

[00:22:23] Caroline: a few things. But I think that one of the most common one.

[00:22:28] and the most difficult to accept, I think is that we reject a kid in us. Mm. You know, cause we wanna be grownups mm-hmm and we are successful people and we thrive in everything so that we reject the idea that there’s a scared little kid in us. Yeah. And for me, I know that I rejected it for the longest time and I really had to learn to embrace the five year old and me the one who was scared and explained, you know, to her that I’m an adult.

Learning To Embrace The Young One

[00:22:59] Now we [00:23:00] got this, you know, you’re okay. But for the longest time, this part of me really felt like, you know, I wasn’t worth. I didn’t deserve it. And we were raised with so many different limiting beliefs and, and sayings like money doesn’t grow on tree. You need to work hard. You were born for, you were born for a small bread, you know, all of these things so that when that’s put in your head, whether you want it or not, it’s there until you actually go address at that period of your life.

[00:23:32] Made you feel like you’re not entitled to all those big things. I’ve seen a lot of people doing like low six figures getting to a point where they plateau and they don’t know how to surpass that. Now some could say, well, if you’re at six figures, be happy you have enough, but it’s okay to want more, you know?

[00:23:53] Yeah. And, and that too, like that money is evil and all of this or if you are rich, you’re Grady, all of. [00:24:00] Old sayings. I feel like it’s the kid in us holding all of this and being like I know, but we need to really reconcile the two together and understand that you are worth whatever you want. You know, if you want pure abundance and all of the fields of your life, you’re worth it and you deserve it.

The Plateau

[00:24:21] And I remember working with one person who kept hitting the same plateau. one time. She was about to surpass the plateau and go to the next rank. And she clearly self sabotaged. Like she stopped working consistently. She stopped her discipline. She, she reduced what she was doing to get on her way to passing her plateau because it was pure fear.

[00:24:48] There’s a fear also like when I get there, what is it gonna be like? What if I don’t handle it?

[00:24:53] Miriam: I see the exact same thing.

[00:24:55] You’re talking about that little boy who was shamed or [00:25:00] shunned or whatever. Those behaviors follow through into adult life. And then they manifest in how you treat other people or how you are organized or disorganized or whatever, fill in the blank. It’s amazing when people do some internal work, how they’re free to reach that next level, whatever it is, that next level of relationship or level of business or level of health It is, it’s very thought provoking.

[00:25:30] Just, just listening to you talk about these things. My brain is going in a thousand different directions.

The Current Concept

[00:25:35] Miriam: What concept or idea are you currently chewing on today?

[00:25:41] Oh, quite a few, but one of the big one, actually that just happened last week, I went to an amazing convention and it was really like I’m in a bunch of different project. And it’s all things that I love and it’s mainly all things that I’m good at. But I realized, you know, that’s not how you can [00:26:00] offer your maximum.

[00:26:02] And that’s when I had my breaking point 10 years ago, I was there as well. I was a superwoman and people thought it was a compliment, but now I clearly know it’s not a compliment because when someone is a super achiever or a superwoman or whatever, They quite often neglect themselves. So I came to the conclusion of streamlining a lot of what I’m doing, understanding that there’s some things that I’m doing that I absolutely love, but it’s there for me to love and not necessarily build a business around.

I’m So Busy

[00:26:37] Because if you have too much on your plate, you can. Really give yourself a hundred percent to certain things. And then you start forgetting yourself in it, and then you start having this syndrome of like, I’m so busy.

[00:26:49] When someone is telling me I’m so busy, I’m like, good. You need my help. I teach time management. But it’s not a compliment. It means that you are not managing your stuff properly,[00:27:00]

[00:27:00] So what I’m chewing on right now is really, I’m gonna be focusing on my coaching business because I realize that in everything else that I’m doing, that’s my passion. It’s to actually help people, help people better their life, because I promise you for the first 40 years of my life, I did not believe that being happy was a possibility.

[00:27:23] The Seven F’s

[00:27:23] And I really wanna help people to go to that level. And I’m working with a company that is really teaching the seven Fs of your life, how to live a balanced life. The company is OOLA. I’m not gonna get, I’m not, I’m not gonna take credit for this amazing, you know, framework.

[00:27:41] But I do teach it. So the seven F are your family, faith, finance fitness field, which is your career or whatever you’re doing the most of all of your day. If you’re a stay at home, mom will, your field is stay at home mom and fun and friends. So basically [00:28:00] what I realized when I discovered this company and this philosophy is.

I’m Goal Driven

[00:28:04] I’m a goal driven person. And I teach that how to set goals, how to, you know, write a clear vision, reverse engineer, your clear vision to bring it into all the way down to your daily goals. But I was really focusing, always on finance and field. Mm, mm-hmm , you know, like when I did my own evaluation for faith, I scored at 11 on 100

[00:28:31] So I was just like, Hmm, I think I’m missing faith into something. Yeah. And it can be faith into anything, you know, it’s not attached to a, a certain religion or whatever. When I was looking at fun, I had never set goals for fun. Like we all have our bucket list. Like one, they all jump off a plane. But that’s kind of like, I call it the virtual bucket list, cuz I know I’m not gonna jump off a plane, but it’s a cool answer to give when someone asks to but you know, they’re real goals for fun.[00:29:00]

Living By Design

[00:29:00] What are they in your life on a daily basis on a weekly basis? So I didn’t have that. My family, I adore my kids and I live and breathe for them, but I have no goals for my family. Yeah. Like to really say where am I going with this? What do I want? So living life by design, you design your life and then you follow it.

[00:29:22] Yes. And really be intentional about everything. So that’s really my focus for the next. I don’t know how many years, but I want everything to turn to really evolve around this. So I wanna help people live that I wanna coach it. I want to live it. And all of the decisions that will, you know be taken on my part, whether it’s a new project or whatever will have to fit into that F.

[00:29:49] Miriam: it’s a good framework.  I love with the, all the Fs. It’s easy to remember. I use something similar, but it does not have such good alliteration. So thank you for sharing [00:30:00] that.

[00:30:00] Biggest Impact as a Leader

[00:30:00] Miriam: When you think about yourself as a leader, what beliefs or actions do you think have made the biggest impact on you as a leader?

Time Management

[00:30:09] I think honestly, it’s time management. Mm-hmm I used to be the perfect rebel. So I would rebel rebel against authority against rules, you know, rules were made to be broken all of this. For me, time management and a schedule was all empty. What I wanted to be, cuz I wanted to be free, you know it, except in my work days, I have to say that that was really structured, but all around all after and before I wanted to go with the flow, you know, always.

[00:30:41] So I had somehow seen time management as very restrictive and being in a box. And it’s completely the opposite because when I actually started applying it and I started reading and I, I think you’re gonna ask me one of my favorite books. So I’ll just merge it to here, throw it out there. Yeah.

The Slight Edge

[00:30:59] 10 [00:31:00] years ago, someone suggested that, that I read this Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. And that is really a life philosophy. Implementing small, simple disciplines in your life. Do them consistently. Which for me, that was the hard part consistently and small. Yeah. Like for me, it needs to be big and exciting otherwise it’s like, why would I do it?

[00:31:23] But to get results, it’s that, to make sure that you, you achieve and do these little things, you have to plan them. Yes. Because, you know reading. My thing is reading 10 pages of a good book every single day. Well, it’s easy to not have the time to do that. So if it’s not planned, you will toss it aside.

Having Things Planned

[00:31:47] If your workout is not planned, you will toss it aside. You know, all the little things that you know you have to do, but don’t really wanna do. You will toss it aside. So time management for me became really a way [00:32:00] to reduce my anxiety. And to stay on track because like I said before, I’m really good at reverse engineering.

[00:32:07]  I think about one of my dreams, I put it into a goal and then I break it down into realistic deadlines. So when I break it down, like from year to quarter to month, week, day, I know that if I do this in my day, every single day, As small as it seems, I’m going towards exactly where I want to go.

[00:32:32] So I don’t stress anymore. And I don’t panic, you know? Yeah. Because it’s gradual, it’s little it’s daily and it’s planned. Yeah. So it, it really calms me down and helped me achieve. And I think that that’s one of the big things when I, I coach, you know, whether it be someone who has a, a high corporate position.

A Piece People Lack

[00:32:55] Has their own business or whatever. I find that this is one place that a lot of [00:33:00] people lack. Yeah. Because you let life, you react to life always. So there’s all these things that you wanna do, or you should do, or whatever that builds your anxiety and you, you don’t get to do them and you’ll talk to people and they’re like, oh my gosh, you should see my to-do list.

[00:33:19] If it’s too long, there’s an. , you know, because that too should be planned into something feasible because otherwise you just like, you always live in this constant, stressful place. And and yeah, sorry, what I wanted to say is that when I see people who have like a secretary or something, their work agenda is well filled because it’s done for them or they have a bunch of meetings or whatever.

[00:33:50] but then they’re not as productive on the development side. Mm. Because they don’t allow time in their schedule to just think about [00:34:00] what I wanna do in the future. And I’m not saying that as a general, everyone does that. I’m just saying that as a quite often, your work schedule will be well scheduled, but everything else that is for you or growth or changing a situation is not in.

Scheduling Open Space

[00:34:16] Miriam: As, as I look at the people who are crossing into that next level, one thing that I see that is common is that they schedule time to do nothing, but think, and that is incredibly difficult when you have these other things pressing. And I was working with a young entrepreneur who. Was trying, he said, do you think it’s a bad idea to hire an assistant?

[00:34:42] I don’t wanna be arrogant. And I said, no, I think it’s a great idea. He had the means and he was trying to basically duplicate himself and pass on, to this other person, things that they could do to free him up. he said, I, I feel like my job is to [00:35:00] think about what’s next. I said, Bravo, That is exactly what your job as the CEO is.

[00:35:07] It’s to stop doing this, this, this, this, this, and this, and, you know, granted, there are some people in life who are not at a place where they can hire someone. There are some people in life who are not business owners who. The principal still holds if you spend even just 20 minutes in the morning, getting quiet and thinking through your day, looking at your day, building in some margin for travel to a, to B or in between appointments to go to the bathroom and get a snack or whatever,

It Makes You Calmer

[00:35:39] it does make you calmer. You’re not caught off guard. And one of the things I love about just this friendship between you and I that’s developing is that, you know, we got on to do this podcast and there was a little bit of a misunderstanding and this was entirely my fault. Am I being interviewed or am I interviewing?

[00:35:58] And you know, because both of [00:36:00] us are professionals and we both take the time to. Get calm and centered. It wasn’t a big deal. We just sort of shifted gears and away we went and it’s been a delightful time thus far.

[00:36:11] An Organizational Tip

[00:36:11] Caroline: I wanna give a little tip here on, on when you plan your day, first of all, you should plan your day before your day begins.

[00:36:20] Yes. So that’s when you plan tomorrow, tonight. Yes. You know, the night before, I’m not gonna talk about it all, but it’s the same for your month and week. You always plan it before. And it’s, it’s important to block a 15 minutes to do that. Cuz again, you’re not gonna have the time something’s gonna happen.

[00:36:36] You will get texts, you will upon Facebook, whatever mm-hmm .

[00:36:40] The 60% Rule

[00:36:40] And the other thing is to never schedule more than 60% of your day. Mm. I used to schedule when I started that I’m a bit extreme, so I always go from one end to the other. So when I started planning, it was every 15 minutes. After two days I was exhausted, done drain.

[00:36:58] I was just like, I [00:37:00] can cuz exactly, like you said, I didn’t have the time to go to the bathroom snacks cuz it was not in my schedule. Yeah. So 60% of your day should be what you plan and the rest is life will happen. yes. And what makes me laugh a little is that a lot of people will tell me. No, I don’t like scheduling because anyway, it doesn’t work on paper.

[00:37:24] Well, I’m sorry to say, but if it doesn’t work on paper, it’s not gonna work in real life either. You know, all those things that you have to do, some people feel it’s too complicated to schedule it down. So they prefer just to live it. Yeah. But if you can’t put it down and schedule it, it’s because there’s something that is not feasible or realistic.

Training Your Brain

[00:37:45] Miriam: Also that business of scheduling things like that is a habit. And at first it’s very difficult to do because your brain isn’t used to it and whatever that piece of you, that doesn’t wanna be tied to organization, there’s [00:38:00] little moving pieces within yourself that you have to work with,

[00:38:03] but you are correct once it happens.

[00:38:06] There’s there’s so much freedom. I love this notion of 60%. I have been doing that, but I hadn’t thought of it quite like that. And I really like just that notion. It’s a good benchmark.

[00:38:18] One last question. If you could turn back the clock and talk to the younger version of you, what advice would you give her?

You’re Enough And You Have Self Worth

[00:38:27] I would say you’re enough. Mm. And believe in yourself

[00:38:33] on the flip side I’m here today because of all of the mistakes that I made. So I don’t know where I would be if I did not make those mistakes, but yes, it would really be, I think, to avoid a lot of pain you’re enough and believe in your.

[00:38:47] Miriam: I like that. And maybe a corollary: the mistakes you make are okay. They’re gonna get you where they get you. You know, mm-hmm , this has been just such a [00:39:00] fun time, spending time with you. I appreciate you. And what you’re doing in this world so much.

[00:39:05] One of the things that I mentioned before we started is that I like to gift a donation in the person’s name to one of four charities.

[00:39:13] And you chose the nature Conservancy. I believe you said, if we can fix our planet, we end up fixing everything else by. Proxy and I, I agree. So we’ll be sending off a donation to the nature Conservancy and the name of simply Caroline.

[00:39:29] And why don’t you share how people can find you?

Where To Find Caroline

[00:39:33] Caroline: My website simply caroline.com.

[00:39:36] I kept it simple.

[00:39:39] Miriam: I love it. It’s in the name. It’s so great to have you here. Thank you again. And we’ll look forward to a return visit at some point. Thank you. Bye bye.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform.

• SimplyCaroline.com
• OOLA
• The Slight Edge
• The Nature Conservancy

Music by Tom Sherlock.

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

Joe Templin—Everyday Excellence!

8.1.22 Joe Templin  [Recorded 6_28_22]

To hear the episode Everyday Excellence with Joe Templin, click here.

[00:00:00] All right. People. I’m so excited to have Joe Templin with us today and I’m going to he’s so diverse already, rather than me introduce him. I’m gonna let him introduce himself. So tell me some salient things about yourself.

[00:00:15] Intro

[00:00:15] So I’m a auto didactic, poly mass. As a kid, I told my mom, I wanted to learn everything.

[00:00:24] I became a physicist. I eventually became a financial advisor, but I was focused on the technical. I was one of the few people who had actually read the entire tax vote. I built my reputation off of being smarter than everybody else. I built my reputation as martial artist as being faster and having greater endurance than everybody.

Speed Fades

[00:00:43] And eventually. Speed fades. I don’t care if you’re a 99 mile per hour fastball throwing pitcher. I don’t care if you’re a martial artist. I don’t care if it’s your mental acuity. Eventually you’re not gonna be the golden child, the [00:01:00] child prodigy, you know, the gifted one, people are gonna come up on you. So you need to learn to develop.

[00:01:07] Synthetic intelligence, where you can take multiple ideas and put them together to be able to have better things and better insight. And you need to listen and understand, and that allows us to be able to serve others better. Give me a little bit of a trail of how you got from a to B and what you’re doing currently.

[00:01:28] Right now at eight years old, I told my mom who is a former nun and in college professor in biology that I wanted to learn everything there was to. So she told me, well, you better get to work. So that’s sort of my attitude, a lot of things, we became very self-reliant in a lot of ways, my mom used to kick us outside and say, you know, have fun.

Don’t Die

[00:01:48] Don’t die, which is why I tell my kids. And I don’t wanna see you until lunchtime. 13. I started college cuz my parents said 12 was too young at 12 actually though I started doing TaeKwonDo. Eventually got my black belt won [00:02:00] an international championship. So that taught me a lot about discipline, hard work resilience overcoming.

[00:02:06] Cause I’ve had more than my share of injuries. I started college at 13, as I said at Hopkins. Then I went to John RPI, worked for a department of defense. I’m doing advanced laser research. That was really cool. You know, thank you star wars for influencing my life like that. Finish that up. There was an unexpected tragedy.

[00:02:24] We lost our family farm. So I went to financial advising, which combined with my background in TaeKwonDo really brought me into. Performance psychology and sales psychology, which eventually brought me into behavioral economics running my own business. I was training, developing other people, led more into training development, which led consulting.

Books, Books, and More Books

[00:02:43] I wrote a bunch of books along the way, and then that eventually all combined. Led to everyday excellence, which was part of the way that I dealt with pandemic and everything else going on there. Oh, along the way, I also picked up ultra marathons. So, you know, most I’ve done a day is a hundred [00:03:00] kilometers.

[00:03:00] I was training for 125 kilometer race when I broke my leg earlier this year. So I’m just starting to get back in. Wow. Tell me why you like to do podcasts. Podcasts in my mind are really like two people sitting down having a cup of coffee or an adult beverage and allowing other individuals to essentially be the fly on the wall for the conversation.

[00:03:22] Yes. So they can be very organic. There might be a couple of points that we actually wanna hit, but it allows us to explore new ideas and concepts that the listeners can get a lot of benefit from. I agree. I have no natural athletic ability. You know, I run ultra marathons. I am not the fastest person around by far, and I’m definitely not a beautiful runner, but I don’t stop.

[00:03:49] Marathons and Business

[00:03:49] And to get to the point of being able to do an ultra marathon, you’ve gotta do all this work beforehand to be a successful business owner. You gotta do all this work beforehand. You know, it’s like [00:04:00] practicing an instrument. Or learning a language. A lot of it is repetition and just doing it. I don’t care if you’ve got an IQ of 90.

[00:04:09] Or 150, if you do the work consistently, you’re gonna be successful. I care about your effort and your attitudes. Good, consistent effort, and good attitude. You’re gonna be incredibly successful in no matter where you apply it is those. Mindsets and skill sets that I think are most appropriate. And so I teach those to financial advisors, business owners, people who are trying to become successful in various capacities.

Having An Excellent Life

[00:04:38] And those are really the core. Of having an excellent life in a lot of ways, having a good effort and good attitude, you know, good attitude means that you’re going to find the silver line. You’re going to be able to know, all right, life knocks you down, you stand back up and you keep going. You know, it’s the re development [00:05:00] component of resilience, which ultimately is one of the greatest determinants of your.

[00:05:07] Where you end up and how much you enjoy life along the way. That’s right. It’s all about the grit, right? Exactly. And the stick to, and the mindset, the growth mindset. I mean, you’re talking about really important concepts. My dad taught me when I was in grad school. In any situation, whether it’s reading a book or attending a conference or taking a class or an interaction with another person, always look for the.

Look for the one thing

[00:05:33] Look for that one thing that you can use to make yourself better, to improve your insight, to apply in your business or your personal life. So whenever I’m working with somebody, it’s like, all right, if I can have one good idea to help them out, if I can extract one, you know, interesting piece or good idea.

[00:05:51] Or phrase from this situation that I can then add to myself. This has been a great time because I am better [00:06:00] and I have shared something and ideas are one of those things where it’s like lighting a candle. I can light your candle and it doesn’t diminish mine at all. I can give you an idea. And now if you give me an idea, we both have more ideas than we started with.

Lighting someone else’s candle

[00:06:15] Neither of us has lost anything. In fact, maybe we can get some synthetic discussion going. Absolutely you lighting someone else’s candle does not diminish your own. That feels really wise. I would love an idea of how you saw yourself self sabotaging in the past or now, and what you did to sort of overcome that

[00:06:38] Recognizing Your Own Self-Sabotage

[00:06:38] as much as I try.

[00:06:39] Sometimes I’m a jerk. Okay. I will say things that really don’t need to be said, or shouldn’t be said partially because I’m frustrated partially because I’m angry at really at watching other people, you know, hurt themselves and the people around them. And that makes me. That really gets [00:07:00] under my skin. And, you know, I can be very short tempered when I was a kid.

[00:07:04] I had a very bad temper. I’ve worked on it for decades. So, I mean, I have interfered with my own capacity in numerous ways in the times where you are. Who you want to be? What is it you’re doing differently sometimes it’s, it’s better to not say anything. Yes. And that’s a sign of maturity is not to send the long text back.

[00:07:28] Not even to say, okay, sometimes you just read it and you move on. Mm-hmm even when it hurts.

[00:07:34] Practice Every Single Day

[00:07:34] Well, I was first building my financial services business. There were 11 of us who started at the same time. They were all had better networks, everyone, you know, better skills than I did, but I had the discipline. I was told, do X, I did X plus.

[00:07:50] Now I was told that I needed to keep 15 appointments a week. So I kept 18. I can get better. And I practice every single day. I had a [00:08:00] fake fish in my office that I practiced my language on every single day that fish never gave me an introduction. He never gave me an appointment. He never bought anything from me, but I practiced every single day on him.

Growing Through Sales

[00:08:14] And so my sales skills accelerated past everybody else. Wow. At the end of the, of a year, there were four of us left. I was number one. I’m not you put in the reps. I put, I put in the reps. Yeah. Just sure you got some of that put in the reps from your farm or your TaeKwonDo or both. Absolutely.

[00:08:33] Absolutely. And in fact, a lot of it came from my training as a classical cellist. My cello teacher, Kara Dolan, you know, taught me. You need to practice every single day. In fact, he said, if I don’t practice one day, I notice if I don’t practice two days in a row. The critics notice if I don’t practice three days in a row, the public notices.

I still practice

[00:08:56] So even on a weekend, I’d still practice my [00:09:00] language because come Monday, I needed to be in front of the public. And my TaeKwonDo master Daniel Grant taught me something years and years before Malcolm Gladwell talked about the 10,000 hour rule was that you have to do a technique a hundred times to do.

[00:09:17] You need to do a thousand times to understand it. And 10,000 times to master it, you know, every single morning I still get up and I do the same basic punch that I learned 35 plus years ago, I do it a hundred plus times each hand. And at this point I have done it over 10 million times. I don’t have to think.

Do The Reps

[00:09:36] And that’s one of the reasons I’m faster still than guys. Half my age is because I continue to do those basic reps. Just for curiosity’s sake. Why do you continue that now? What does the TaeKwonDo practice in the morning do for you? Well, it helps set my mind and body for the day. So cause every day you need to work on your mind, body and spirit.

[00:09:58] And so I get up [00:10:00] four, 15 ish in the morning and I sit down and have my cup of coffee. I read some stuff. I, I actually brain dump anything. That’s in my head cuz when you sleep is when you process a lot of stuff. So I write real quick. Whatever’s in there. I read. So I have stuff in me and then I go and I do two miles and do my TaeKwonDo every single morning.

I Write Again

[00:10:19] And I sit down and I write again. Because now my mind and body and spirit have been processing stuff. And so I’m inspired by why I had read earlier or why I listened to while I was running. And so it gives me something to then work on. And so by six o’clock in the morning, I have been more productive than most people are for an entire day when I had my breakfast shower up.

[00:10:41] Boom. And I’m. At that point, then you’re on podcasts all over the world. I’m writing, I’m working on analysis stuff. I’m burning YouTube videos, whatever it is, and I’m going. So by the time nine o’clock rolls around, I have [00:11:00] already accomplished the equivalent in the entire business day. I’m just getting better.

More Energy?

[00:11:04] Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that your particular physiology. That you have an extraordinary amount of energy or do you feel like anybody could have that amount of energy? If they did X? I think that most people can have it. It’s like, you know, the cover on the book has this cool nonlinear growth curve. Right?

[00:11:26] Mm-hmm so not, you know, I did not start running marathons until I did my first one right before my 30th. Because I said, if I won’t do it by the time I turned 30, I’m never doing one. So I had a deadline on the calendar, which a lot of people need, but you ramp up. So you don’t go from sitting on the couch, eating Cheetos, trying a marathon, you get up, put your shoes on, you run a couple of miles.

Run a couple of miles

[00:11:47] Then a couple days later, you run slightly more and you accumulate the miles on you so that your body can adjust to the. Same thing with martial arts, you don’t, you know, go and start doing a full split right away, cause that would [00:12:00] hurt or you know, training for an hour. You need to build up to that mentally.

You Need to Build Up

[00:12:05] You need to build up. When I first started in financial services, I wasn’t keeping three appointments per day. I was lucky to keep one, but kept hammering at it. And that one per day became two, became three became eventually the point where, where I was averaging 5.1 appointments kept per. So you build up to that and you build the staff around it and you need to sleep and you need to have the proper nutrition and you need to feed your mind properly.

[00:12:29] And you just develop this habit of excellence. It’s like in good, great, Jim Collins talks about the fly wheel gang and going gang it going. And then once you get up to a particular level, it’s much easier to maintain it. So anybody can gap five minutes. Anybody can work out for an additional five minutes per day.

[00:12:48] That starts compounding,

[00:12:51] Message from LeaveBetter

[00:12:51] Hey, this is Miriam jumping back in. Are you looking to go to the next level in your life or business? Right now? That’s what lead better is about my friend. We give [00:13:00] you the coaching to level up, have those breakthroughs so you can stop the self sabotage that keeps you where you are currently.

[00:13:06] Let’s make self-improvement a way of life. Go to leaf, better.com and download the free resource that’s there today. We change them regularly. So go and see what’s new at leaf, better.com. Now back to our interview, that starts compounding because let’s say that you’re working out for 20 minutes a day on average.

No Goose Eggs

[00:13:28] Well, then you one make sure that you get a minimum amount every single day. So no goose eggs. That’s very important in your business. No goose eggs, no zeros for the day. Yeah. Have to accomplish something, but also ramping up that workout. So you’re getting five minutes, minimum per day, then 10 minutes minimum per day, a week later.

[00:13:46] And then you’re doing 30 minutes on. Every single day, then you take that 30 to 35 and that’s a couple weeks later that 35 to 40, and you’re changing your sleeping patterns a little bit. And you’re designed to eat a little bit healthier because you realize that eating [00:14:00] nachos, you know, for three meals a day is probably not the best thing for you.

Happier, healthier

[00:14:03] You know, you start having cheese was going through your veins. So you start making these little changes and they add up and after three months people are like, Hey, what are you doing, dude? You’re looking good. Yes. And you’re feeling good and your production at work’s going up and your friends are noticing that you’re happier, you’re healthier.

[00:14:24] And it’s just those little compounded changes that James Claire talks about atomic habits, but you gotta keep doing them. And it’s that consistency because you’re gonna have bad days. You’re gonna have days where you’re like, you know, F it, I just wanna sit here and, you know, drink beer and eat nachos.

[00:14:42] Shift Your Mindset

[00:14:42] What do you think is the difference between people who care about high performance? You mentioned the name, James clear, and anybody who is interested in business or self-improvement knows the name. You mentioned Jim Collins, anybody in business knows the [00:15:00] name. but a lot of people don’t, you know, I think a lot of people don’t know the names is because I saw this from pew pure charitable trust that the average American, after they finish their education, so high school or college or grad school or whatever reads on average, less than two books a year.

People Don’t Read

[00:15:17] Ugh, that’s a travesty. That’s the problem right there. That is a travesty. And you don’t need to read a book necessarily. I mean, you can go on YouTube and there are literally hundreds of thousands of books there that you can listen to while you’re doing the dishes, which is one of the things that I do.

[00:15:33] Or while you’re driving to the office, you know, you can read graphic novel to be able to get good stuff. I mean, audio, there are so many ways to consume information at this point. But people don’t want to, they want the distraction. They wanna turn their brain off after eight hours of work. And so Dr.

[00:15:52] Carol Dweck in her analysis said that roughly only about 40% of grown up Americans have a growth mindset. [00:16:00] Now here’s the thing. Every single baby has a growth mindset. Babies are sponges. They absorb the world, they see people walking and they, you know, stand up and they try and to, and they fall down, they get back up and they do it again.

Toddlers

[00:16:11] They toddle and they fall down and they do it again and again, and eventually they’re pushing the chairs over and they’re climbing up to get the cookie truck. Why aren’t adults, cookie truck, wiring adults, big people. As I say, climbing up to get that cookie jar because they failed and they. You know what?

[00:16:26] I really don’t want that cookie jar, they settle. And as I said to one of my friends in, in terms of relationship, advice, better to be alone than just. Mm. Okay. You want that? Go get it. It might take you a while, but you, they give the same medal in the marathon to the person who does it in two hours and 15 minutes as somebody, it takes five hours and 30 minutes doesn’t matter.

David Goggins

[00:16:52] You still want the 26.2, you still get the same thing. So David Goggins talks about the fact that he’s stupid in to be able to, [00:17:00] you know, learn things for classes. He had to write it. Eight 10 times to do it. I know some people who that’s, how, what they had to do to pass the CFP exam. So even if it takes more time, more reps, then do it.

[00:17:15] So I’m naturally talented in terms of the academics. I can learn a lot of stuff and be able to do it, but you know what? I’m not task naturally talented in terms of the physical component. That’s what I did. I was not naturally gifted. Cellist. So I practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced in repetition to it.

You Have To Want It

[00:17:32] The, if it takes you five reps to do something instead of two reps to get it. So be it it’s worth it. Yeah. Yeah. I think the big issue is you have to want it. You have to want it enough. Do you have any thoughts on how to fan the flame on desire? You need to find something that gives that spark. So, as NCHE said, [00:18:00] a man who has a strong enough, why will overcome any, how, you know, if a car falls on a kid, the parent is gonna suddenly turn into Superman or wonder one, pick that car up, right?

[00:18:10] Because it is that I. As I think, I think it was Diana. You know, when learning is as important as breathing, when you quest for knowledge, that much, when you’re desperate for it, you will find a way to learn between Khan academy and YouTube and the rest of the internet. Literally anybody can learn anything.

MIT

[00:18:32] Yeah. The entire world of knowledge is out there. MIT’s got their entire undergraduate curriculum available for. Wow. Why don’t people take advantage of this? Why don’t people look? Why don’t people learn? Cause they don’t care, but if something interests them, they’ll go down their rabbit. They’ll spend two hours on the internet looking for stuff, or they’ll spend hours on TikTok scrolling.

Just Find Stuff That Interests You

[00:18:56] Just find stuff that interests you and just start [00:19:00] in life. Everybody’s focused on. Doing the big quest, cause it’s like a video game. They wanna get to the castle, save the princess, get all the gold and all that. But you know what? It’s not a straight path. Sometimes you gotta take the side quest.

[00:19:13] Sometimes you gotta go to the Tavern and talk to the weird old man that’s me typically, you know, sometimes you actually need to rest and recover some you’re buildinging resources. You’re getting allies. You’re getting you know, capital, but people aren’t trying to even understand what that request is, because if you have that vision, that thing that you’re trying to work for, that really excites you, you are going to overcome anything that gets in your way to do it.

People get tied up

[00:19:42] So people, unfortunately. They get too tied up. They do their nine to five. They come home. They watch Desperate Housewives or, you know, 90-Day-fiance and they eat their high fat food and they feel like crap. And then they’re just too tired cuz there’s nothing. [00:20:00] Sparking that. Yeah. So I tell people college or university is like the giant Smorgasburg, go try the 900 types of tacos, go join the juggling club, you know, take a class in something on a pass fail basis that excites you.

[00:20:16] I mean, Steve jobs dropped out college and took a CMY class. And that’s the reason why we got all the cool fonts on the Macintosh, which now are in word. So because of that, we have. All these other things. So just explore. I mean, one of my friends in my fraternity got me back into TaeKwonDo and look where I am today because of that, another friend introduced me to holography and I went and really did some cool stuff there.

The Nobel Laureate

[00:20:41] And then I got a chance to meet a Nobel prize Laureate. And one of my best friends that I met from that. Is now this big shot in a publicly traded company doing awesome laser technology. And so I talked to him once every two weeks or so, and it’s really insightful because of that, you know, side [00:21:00] interest that I took a chance on exploring for a little bit.

[00:21:03] And you know what, if you explore it and you don’t like it, no harm, no foul. It’s not like you spent tens of thousands of dollars to pursue something like that. You know, you spend a little bit of time. Right. What I hear you talking about is fanning the flame of your own curiosity that you have to nurture that muscle.

[00:21:23] Fan the Flame of Curiosity

[00:21:23] And I find that people get progressively less curious when they’re too stressed. And so part of this is learning how to manage stress so that you can fan the flame of the curiosity. What concept or idea are you currently chewing on? So I write every single day, in fact, between. My various writing projects, I’m probably writing three or four pages every single day on different subjects.

[00:21:50] So I explore a lot of things right now. I am playing with Emily Dickinson in terms of her cadence. Another thing is I’m looking at [00:22:00] cross-training techniques to be able to accelerate healing. I’ve got a commitment that I want to win. A race in my age division in the age 100 plus division, which means I gotta live that long.

Basically Dead

[00:22:12] And the only reason why I think I can win one then is because everyone else will basically dead. So it’s you know, war of attrition essentially, but it’s forcing me to evaluate lifestyle and all this, and I’ve got teenage kids. So I am constantly, constantly looking to, okay, what’s going on in their world in terms of.

[00:22:32] Media in terms of what they’re exploring. So these are sort of things that currently I’m interested. One of the things that Einstein said is to maintain the curiosity of a child is the essence of genius. So I hang out with seven year old boys through Cub Scouts all the time. So I get down my knee. I look ’em eye and eye.

[00:22:52] We talk about our favorite dinosaurs and what cool socks I’m wearing. Yeah, I, I heard in a general sense, the things you’re [00:23:00] talking about, you’re curious about your health and your children and communication, all the nuances of that, that anybody who’s listening, who says, well, my life doesn’t look like his, or I don’t have that kind of energy or I’m not doing well.

Curiosity about your own life

[00:23:16] You, you have that same curiosity about your own life, your own health, your own children, your own business. We don’t have to be exactly like each other to learn from one another. No, nobody wants to be like me and I don’t want other people like me cuz I probably hate them. I’d be like, dude, calm down. What sort of beliefs or actions kind of made the biggest impact on you as a leader?

[00:23:39] Like maybe from a leader to you and then as you look at leading others, One of the big things was the old scout leader who retired during COVID. After 35 years did this thing. When my oldest was just first joined Cub Scouts and he always did this, he would get down on one knee [00:24:00] and be eye to eye with the kid.

[00:24:02] They were the most important thing in the entire world. Then at that point, and that kid felt heard and seen, and somebody was communicating on their level. Yeah. And so from a leadership point of view, know, I don’t care if I’m talking with my friend, who’s a CEO of fortune 500 company or somebody who is 19 years old.

Getting on their level

[00:24:25] And in college I’m going to literally get, or my seven year old Scouts, I’m going to get on their level, look at them eye to eye and make them understand that at that time they’re the most important person in the. Yeah. And that I believe in them and their capability, even if what we’re trying to do is beyond them at the moment they can grow into it and I need them to become the best bet they can be.

[00:24:55] I need to understand what they need from me to achieve those things, [00:25:00] because then we both. Yeah, well spoken, throw out the top three to five things. Your parents taught you have fun. Don’t die. that’s very important. Suck it up. Learn that from my mom. Everyone thinks I learned that in my train. Now my mom taught me that always do the right thing.

[00:25:19] Hmm. Another thing my mom taught me was when you’re having a bad day, go help somebody else. From my dad that, you know, always look for the part, this question is too faceted. Normally I just ask people to tell me about a book that they would highly recommend. You’re someone who’s written. Excellent. That’s right.

Everyday Excellence

[00:25:39] So give a small blurb on your book and then tell me about another book someone else wrote that you would recommend. Okay. So everyday excellence. I call it multivitamin for life because we all have these different dimensions of our lifestyle report. We have our physical health, our mental health, our spiritual health.

[00:25:57] We have our occupation, we have our relationships, we [00:26:00] have our communication ability, you know, so we’ve got all these different parts to us and. Especially when we’re under stress or time constraints, we drop one of the balls. Everyday excellence is designed to help fill those needs and help people get just slightly better, a little bit better in some capacity every single day.

[00:26:20] But then there’s an action, right? And that’s one of the things that differentiates my book from all these other daily readers out there is that there’s a translation from up here. To hear actually doing something which crystallizes it and reinforces the messages.

Good to Great

Nice other books that I would really recommend if somebody’s going into business, you know, Good to Great by Jim Collins is just an absolute phenomenal book.

[00:26:50] Cuz it talks about the mindset in leadership. Yes. You know, whether you’re a sole proprietor. or you’re leading an organization, you know, getting the right [00:27:00] people on the bus and in the right seats is very, very critical. Agreed, agree. Servants leadership is one of the biggest things that I see there and being able to get all components of the organization focused on what that goal is.

[00:27:15] There’s a military concept that Jack William talks about of commanders and tech mm-hmm . If everybody knows the mission. That you’re trying to accomplish. You can give everybody power, empower them, let them make the decisions. And you’re gonna have a faster, more flexible organization that is much more innovative and ultimately profitable because everybody’s focused on beating the Nazis or, you know, whatever the mission is for that organization.

[00:27:47] Yeah, love it. Any other recommends books, you tend to give people, you know, James clear atomic habits is always good. Yeah. Ryan holiday, you know, almost anything he’s wore released is awesome. Courage is calling [00:28:00] is a very good one, especially in the environment that we’re in right now. So that’s an, a very good one, you know, and people are gonna laugh at me, but I still drive a lot of insight from some of the oldest books within.

No One Walks Through The Same River Twice

[00:28:17] The martial arts community, the Dao de Jing the Art of War, things like that, because there’s an old stoic saying that no man can walk through the same river twice. Yeah. Cause the river’s different and the person’s different. Why go back through? And I read these books. I mean, even reading my book, I wrote the thing.

[00:28:35] You know, I get new insights from what I wrote today, because I’m a different person than I was when I was writing the book well said.

[00:28:45] How to Find Joe

[00:28:45] So why don’t you share how people can find you and where they can find your book? So they can find the book, basically anywhere books are sold. So, or they can find it online at my website, which is [00:29:00] everyday-excellence.com and actually recommend people go there.

[00:29:02] Because even if you don’t buy the book every single day, there’s a new micro blog post the espresso of excellence as I call it. Excellent. Joe. Thank you so much. This has been so fun. And those of you who listen to my podcast know that we always do a small gift to a charity in this person’s name and Joe chose the Nature Conservancy.

The Nature Conservancy

[00:29:23] So we’ll be sending a donation in your name to them. And hopefully that’s one of our ways of leaving things better. This is just such a fun, fun interview. Hopefully there’ll be an opportunity to do another one. Oh, I would love to come back and have a completely different conversation, Miriam. Thank you.

[00:29:42] Be excellent. And grow today. Love it.[00:30:00] [00:31:00] [00:32:00] [00:33:00] [00:34:00]

EveryDay Excellence

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