High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 211: Play Nice in the Sandbox with Penny Tremblay, Keynote Speaker, Trainer & Author

Episode Date: October 6, 2018

Penny is a genuine entrepreneur.  Founding the Tremblay Leadership Center, with relationship strategies training and keynotes internationally for 20+ years, thousands have benefitted with skills and confidence to be productive, play nice in the sandbox, and climb the ladder of success. Her Advanced Mediation certificate from Harvard combined with years of conflict resolution facilitation in workplaces bring stories, experiences and guidance for productive, peaceful and profitable business. In this interview, Penny and Cindra talk about: What it means to “Play Nice in the Sandbox” Why we need to resolve conflict at work Her tips for resolving conflict at work How we are all carrying around a suitcase Why it’s important to look in your suitcase You can find a full description of the Podcast at cindrakamphoff.com/penny

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you're here, ready to listen to episode 211 with Penny Tremblay. Now, the goal of these interviews is to learn from the world's best leaders, coaches, consultants, athletes, all about mindset to help us reach our potential or be high performers in our field or sport. Now, typically with two episodes weekly, we explore everything related to mindset.

You can learn the secrets from a world-class consultant, a speaker, a coach, an entrepreneur, or a leader each week. Or I also provide a short, powerful message to inspire you to be at your best consistently each week. Now if you know that your mindset is essential to your success, this is the podcast for you. So thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm looking forward to attending the Association for Applied Sports Psychology Conference, ASP it's also called. I have been going every single year for 20 years, believe it or not. Can't believe I'm that old. But if you are headed there, make sure you say hi. I look forward to talking with you if you're headed there. So today I'm going to introduce you to Penny Tremblay.

Penny is a genuine entrepreneur, founding the Tremblay Leadership Center with relationship strategies, training, and keynoting. She's done this internationally for 20 plus years. Thousands of people have benefited with skills and confidence to be productive, play nice in the sandbox, and climb the ladder of success. So her advanced mediation certificate from Harvard, combined with years of conflict resolution facilitation in workplaces, she brings stories, experiences, and guidance for productive, peaceful, and profitable businesses. And so today, Penny and I talk about a variety of different things. And I met Penny, I've been following her work for quite some time, but I met her personally

about a month and a half ago when I was also in Toronto, attending a speaker mastermind. And so I got to know Penny quite a bit there. And I look forward to hearing what you think about the interview and what you gained from the interview. So in this interview, Penny and I talk about what it means to play nice in the sandbox, why we really need to resolve conflict at work, and her tips for resolving conflict at work. She also talks about how we're all carrying around a suitcase and why it's important to look in your suitcase. So very intriguing concepts today in the interview. Two of my favorite parts from this interview is she actually says,

so this is a reason to keep on listening, that the average person spends 2. point hours a week in conflict, which is a lot. And that's the reason why we really should reduce conflict. And then when she's talking about the suitcase, she says, our attachment to our past creates our future. Very good. And you can hire Penny to provide training or keynoting at your work or bring the seminar

that you hear today to your work. So I'd encourage you to head over to cindracampoff.com slash penny to learn more. So that's cindracampoff.com slash penny. All right, without further ado, let's bring on Penny. Penny Trombley, I'm so excited to talk with you today. I'm looking forward to hearing more about your work and just like learning from somebody so awesome. So thank you so much for joining us today. Wow. Thank you. I'm actually thinking about how awesome you are and how privileged I am to be hanging out on the phone with you for a while. That's awesome. So Penny and I met just a little

short time ago. We were both at a speaker mastermind meeting and I was blown away by one of the talks that you gave or like a little snippet of your talk. So I'm looking forward to diving into learning more about your work and maybe Penny, just start us off by telling us a little bit about, you know, your passion and what you do right now. Okay. Well, my passion and my expertise is in relationships and workplace relationships is the lane that I've chosen to, you know, to really help people the most in where they work and help them learn to get along and help them unravel conflict that might be brewing or, you know, help an entire toxic department clean things up. And I do that with authentic conversation because there's so much value in when humans connect face to face and they share

communication. And we're living in such a technologically advanced society that we're becoming so very disconnected as human beings. That's so true. And I like what you said about authentic conversation. I think sometimes we hold ourselves back from having the real conversation or being real in our conversation. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So, so Penny, you know, I know you do keynoting, you do workshops, conflict resolution, you do coaching. Tell us a little bit about, you know, how you got to where you are now. Well, it's been a long journey. You know, they say every overnight success is 20 years in the making. So I've been working hard at training with groups of people and just

trying to get in front of as many people as I can. I live in Northern Ontario, so it's rather remote. It's not a big city. I'm a few hours north of Toronto, but I do try to stay close to home and local if possible. And I work around Ontario and sometimes throughout Canada and the United States. But, you know, I work with workplaces and I often get called in to work with an entire team or to do a conference, a keynote or a workshop. And about 2004, I started writing because I wanted to be able to work with more of a global audience. And I could only be in one place at a time. And plus, I was a mom with two very beautiful kids. And I wanted to be, you know, very well balanced between home and my career. So I started writing a leadership tip

once a month and circulating it and asking people if they'd like to read it. And it's just education, and it goes out as a courtesy monthly. So over the years, I guess it's 14. Now, I've written every month, and I have a collection of leadership tips. And so those leadership tips have helped me gain publicity in magazines, or trade journals, or, you know, online newspapers newspapers or different places where people could, you know, do a search and have have my information come up. And so over the years, my subscriber base did expand to about 10,000 people. And I learned, I guess, about the power of writing so that I could, you know, be sharing what I know, without being there in person. So, you know, it's just, it's just been a whole lot of hard work. And about seven years ago, I really got

clear and precise on my lane, my expertise, which is workplace relationships, you know, productive, profitable, peaceful relationships at work. Okay. So, you know, as people are listening, they're thinking, wow, successful speaker, you know, go, you go into workplaces and help them resolve their conflict. But let, let's kind of hear from you, Penny, tell us about a story where, you know, it didn't go well, so well for you, maybe, you know, that you did fail, or it was just a learning opportunity. Tell us a story and what you think we can learn from it. Okay. Well, I've had lots of flops and failures in all aspects of my life, but the, you know, there was, there was actually a keynote in my own hometown that was a Christmas

staff appreciation luncheon. And I was on after Elvis Presley, the impersonator. And then the client chose one of the topics off my website was called alleviating stress with humor. So I had about 45 minutes to an hour. I had all of these vignettes that I used to play off of. You know, when I asked the audience, what stresses you? The answers are always the same. It's marriage, it's technology, it's finances, it's work or whatever. And I had all of these, what I thought were comical and funny vignettes that I would go with in this keynote. And you know how sometimes you're in front of an audience and you just aren't like, things aren't landing well, like they're, you know, where the typical audience would like really find something hilarious or funny or they'd get engaged or they'd be jovial or laughing. I mean, let's face it.

It was a Christmas staff appreciation. People should be happy. It just was not going well. And it was a little awkward, but, you know, I got through it. And then the director of the organization stood up after I was done and said, you know, a few things Penny said was like a little on the edge, but I think that her intentions were good and we could all learn from it. And I thought, uh-oh. Oh, no.

I contacted the HR manager the next morning and I said is everything okay and she's like oh you know what it really just proves that you're a professional that you're even calling and asking me that question but to be honest we had to do some damage control already this morning because of a few things that you said and I'm like oh no really, really? Like what? And she said, you know, Penny, 20 years ago, those jokes would have been fine. But today the workplace is so sensitive that, you know, just to put it into perspective, she had to go down the hall and tell somebody to take down their Merry Christmas sign because it was offending somebody else in the workplace. So I felt like such a failure. This was my hometown hometown there was about 200 people in the audience and for

months I'd be walking around like ducking in the grocery store hoping that nobody would recognize me from that event because I live in a small town and then a few other comical things happen I won't get into, but about five years later, I ran into some people from that organization who are leaders. And I said, oh yeah, I was the speaker in there. Are you our inappropriate speaker? And I said, oh, is that what you've labeled me? And they said, listen, I want to tell you something. There was nothing that you said that was really inappropriate. She said, but how what you said landed is a direct result of the sick and toxic morale in our workplace. And that took me off the hook, but you know what? That was five years later. And my confidence really took a dive in my game, in how I perform, in what I perform, in what I was even willing to play with, with audiences, because I thought, man, if that stuff's not funny, then, you know, like if that stuff, then I guess I'm not funny, but the truth is I really am funny. I'm just

inappropriately funny and there's a market for me, but it wasn't that workplace. So it wasn't really, you know, I shouldn't have taken it so hard, but I did. Yeah. And what did you learn from that? Because, you know, what I'm hearing is that, you know, five years you were thinking about, you know, it may be taking it personally, you know, that I'm not funny instead of the situation. And, and, you know, so what did you learn from it and that you can help us kind of, cause we're all in similar situations like that, I think. Right. Okay. So, well, the first thing that I learned five years later is, you know, perhaps this is just one person's opinion or this is just one group or it's just one bad day. You know, it's just one ill-fitting gig.

You know, it wasn't the audience for my topic. It wasn't even my only topic. It was just one of the ones I had delivered successfully elsewhere and over time. But I learned that, you know, man, we can sure take ourselves out and get off track on what we really, really want to be doing just because our confidence factor, our knees got taken out from under us by one bad performance. Absolutely. We can let like one past experience impact how we're showing up in front of other audiences and let the fear, I'm sure you had this little gremlin in the back of your mind, you know, saying, well, I don't know, is this going to work with this audience or, you know, like I'm not funny off my website. I stopped promoting it. I stopped doing it. I tightened up my belt, per se. Like, I tightened up my image, and I tightened up my language, and I just wanted to be, you know, more polished and professional.

And I guess that's been a good growing process for me. But at the same time now, I'm learning that I have to loosen up. I have to be who I really am. And there's a market for me. You know, there's, I'll call myself a swinger because I swing from the depths of really emotional stuff that people don't want to talk about because I'm in the business of conflict and, you know, conflict resolution and good workplace relationships and swinging all the way to the, to the other side of hilarious. And that's who I am. And I just want to be all of that. I don't want to be boxed into like, okay, I have to be prim and proper. Absolutely. So it

sounded like that experience happened for you in some ways, like it helped you, you know, become more professional or, you know, tighten up what you're doing right now. Penny, tell us a little bit about like right now your branding and your main keynote is playing nice in the sandbox. Tell us about why the sandbox and what that means. Okay. You know how we have an elevator pitch when somebody says, Hey, what do you do? You've got a very short time to engage their attention. So I was working on my elevator pitch when somebody says, hey, what do you do? You've got a very short time to engage their attention. So I was working on my elevator pitch because I was in a very deep sea of leadership training. And you know, it's a very big, big topic. So I found it hard to really

capture somebody's attention. But because I'm in the business of relationships in business, not just in workplaces, but with with businesses and their customers and their employees, and so on, I came up with this elevator pitch that said, I helped teach people how to play nice in the sandbox. And it was just intriguing everybody. When I say that, they just laugh, they go, you have to come to our workplace, or, gee, we could use you at home. You know, so it was just that playful metaphor that everybody kind of seems to understand. And they just get it. And so if you get the sandbox, you get what I do.

So I just built a whole brand around it because the elevator pitch was performing so well for me. And I went through a rebrand. I had a couple of choices to look at, and I picked this one. And it's just been so strong. So I when people ask me what I do, I say, I help teach people how to play nice in the sandbox. And when they don't, I help them fix broken relationships. Because I do conflict resolution service called mediation, or in some more formal instances called alternative dispute resolution, where, you know, people in business, people in workplaces aren't, aren't, they're not connected, they're, they're arguing, they're fighting, they're miffed or ticked off about

something that's happened a long time ago, and it's still showing up today. And it's costing a lot of money, or you know, it's costing a lot of performance, productivity, and so on. Awesome. So increase your sandbox factor, maximize your performance with productive, peaceful, and profitable relationships. So Penny, tell us what, what do you mean by sandbox factor? So I, I, I kind of relate the sandbox factor as your get along ability. You know, if you were to hand me a resume, and your, you know, your colleague was to hand me a resume, and you were both equally qualified, I would want to know, you know, what's your people skills like, right? You know, you've got this, this great education, you've got these great credentials, you've got

this good work experience, but you know, how are you when the going gets tough? You know, what if somebody does rub you the wrong way? You know, what's your bounce back factor for that? How well are you at getting over the hurdles and obstacles? because the most successful teams embrace conflict. That conflict will always be, there will always be, you know, competing priorities or differences of opinion, or somebody is going to act out irrationally because we're just human and these things happen. So what's your ability to get over it and get through it and work through it, not just sweep it under the carpet. That's the sandbox factor. And what do you see in terms of the most successful teams embrace conflict? How do they embrace it? And what are you seeing? What does that mean?

Well, teams that can actually sit around a table and discuss what's not working and why it's not working and how to get it working. That's often, you know, conflict about systems and processes. And that is very, very healthy. You definitely want to be embracing that kind of conversation, right? Nobody wants to be making the same mistake over and over. And let's face it, you know, we're all needing to be as profitable as possible. And so we really need to embrace the challenging things, right? Conflict about personality styles and personalities and people, that's very unhealthy conflict. And it's very costly. It costs billions and billions of dollars a year. In fact, the average employee spends 2.8 hours in conflict every week. Wow. Yeah. So that's, you know, if,

if there's any type of conflict that we can shift and work and help people with the skills to get through and over. It's that conflict that's internal or it's conflict with people in their workplace who are, you know, they're just not, they're not clicking together. They're not being respectful of each other or their differences or, you know, just harnessing different people's strengths and weaknesses and so on and creating that inclusive workplace culture that is so very productive. So let's kind of dive into, you know, how you said conflict is internal, and then conflict is within, between people in the workplace. Let's talk a little bit more about that within the workplace. And 2.8 hours a week, that's a lot.

And tell us, like, what are you seeing in the workplace in terms of what are, what's that 2.8 hours look like for most people? Well, okay. Here's an example. Let's say two employees aren't getting along. I was going to say they're not playing nice in the sandbox. Let's say two employees are supposed to be working together. They're sharing a department or they're, you know, supposed to be handing off tasks to each other, having each other's back, you know, both working the same administrative process or, you know, equipment and so on, but they're not because they're not getting along. So they don't talk to each other. So then what happens is there's a lot of lost time just in

that scenario. Would you agree? Yes, for sure. Because things aren't getting done. They're not getting communicated. Okay. So then if I just can't walk up to you and say, here, Sandra, here's the task I've been working on. Can you take it from here? I'm going home or I'm going on a holiday or it's my off shift, your on shift, whatever. Instead, things have to say that, you know, things have to be communicated perhaps in writing, in a journal, or they have to go through a manager that then gets passed out. Like it's just inefficient, right? There's inefficiency. But then if you take that even further, like, like the petals of a rose, you know, if the conflict were the little seeds in the middle of the rose, the petals are all of the, well, now she goes to her friends in the department and

talks about the other girl and the other girl goes and talks to six people about how brutal it is working with, you get my point? Now, Now this conflict is really spreading to not just the people who are involved, but now the managers are involved. And now HR is getting involved because, you know, somebody's claiming that there's workplace discrimination or harassment. And then there's this big investigation that happens. And the whole department basically shuts down for six months. While some investigators come

in and do like a full-on written report investigation where no one's allowed to talk to anybody about anything and it's really crazy cost right and and really it's all of these different petals of the rose that you know sometimes we try to accommodate people in conflict and say okay well you go in this corner and you go in that corner and nobody talked. But really, it's not difficult to just have this, whatever these has created these seeds of conflict in the middle of the rows, just, you know, rectified, resolved, dissolved, even. So that's, that's how, you know, like often when I work with a group of people, a team, I get called in because a couple of people aren't getting along. And the more I get to find out about it, the problem is bigger than that, because there's a manager involved, there's other

people involved. And so when I get an opportunity to speak to the group, I say, imagine the conflict here was like a great big knotted rope in the middle of this floor. And everybody could just reach in and take their piece and say, this is mine and I own it. And this was my contribution and I'm sorry. And this is what I can do better. There would be nothing left in the middle of that circle. Right? So a lot of times people don't think that they're involved in conflict because maybe they're not the original two seeds, but they're maybe avoiding it. Maybe they're talking about it. Maybe they're letting people come and vent to them. And so they get to see they are involved and you know what nobody likes conflict right and they all want it to go away because it's exhausting because by the time I get called in it's uncomfortable

and they don't want the stress so when you go in and work with with teams within businesses tell us a little about you know where you might start start and then what are you hoping the outcome to be when you leave? Well, I do training. So sometimes it's just a matter of, hey, we've got some training dollars, you know, let's get some professional development training. Let's get Penny in. I do a three-day play nice in the sandbox content that people can have all three days or pick and choose I do keynotes at conferences people people can learn a little bit more about my expertise from more like a bird's eye view like a high level but when a team is in conflict like I said it's usually I'm getting called because a couple of people are I won't say that it's the people that

are problematic but I'll say it's their behavior that's problematic. And HR is calling me in to see if I can come and help sort it out. And so when I do go and get debriefed on what's going on, I usually recognize that there's way more than just these two people. and so if the if the department is very toxic I'll do what I call a workplace restoration which is basically having the entire department hit the reset button through a process that I take them all through and sometimes that department could be even just a few people from the department if that's kind of what I think is going to be enough to nip this in the bud right there. So what I'll do is I'll meet with people one-on-one and it's in that individual information collecting, confidential conversation, trust building, coaching, slash, I don't know.

It's a very amazing process. I don't even know what to call it sometimes sometimes it's a personal session with Penny but we connect and I get to understand things from their perspective and their point of view and it's confidential and they get to tell me whatever they want and so I I by the time I meet everybody involved I have a really good pulse on what's going on. But it's very interesting what I learn in that. But I'll come back to that. Then the next thing that I do is I bring them all together in a conversation. So everybody that I've interviewed one-on-one gets together for an authentic conversation.

And I prepare them for that. They know that they're coming into that and they're nervous. They're not, you know, it's uncomfortable, but let's face it, you know, staying in the conflict is also uncomfortable. So there's a cost to staying in it and there's a cost to getting out of it. So the real question is, what end result do you want? And therefore, what price are you willing to pay? You know, what cost are you willing to, to go with? I create a very safe, safe place for people to talk about unsafe things. These are things that people don't want to talk about. They'd rather just sweep them under the carpet.

But at this point, they've tried that already and it's not working but the fascinating thing that I wanted to tell you that I learned is when I have those individual conversations with people one of my great talents is helping people connect the dots so what I mean by that is conflict today is often a result of stuff that's happened in the past right and that's why I have a keynote called what's in your suitcase because I really believe that when we show up to anything we're packing around unresolved stuff lack of confidence lack of self-worth stories we've made up in our mind about ourselves because of things that we've gone through that have been unpleasant.

Yes. Or been, you know, very painful. And we're still packing them around. And I think that the more that we can really shine a light on what we're packing around and get clear on it, we realize that, you know what, this has very little to do with the manager sitting in front of me that I'm in conflict with. In fact, it has a lot more to do with the manager I worked for 20 years ago, who sexually harassed me. And that's an actual story that I tell in my suitcase speech about a woman I call her Mary, who, you know, who was accusing her current manager of harassment. And her current manager's like, I'm just being a manager. I'm not harassing her. But she had been sexually harassed by somebody about 20 years ago. And it was investigated and it was taken through the

appropriate channels and it was resolved, let's say, but she hadn't let it go. Absolutely. Right, right. So it continued to show up for her. It was like a lesson that kept presenting itself to her in her life until she finally realized, aha, this is old and it's haunting me. And it just keeps on coming back. That's right.

Yeah. So Penny, I have one question before we talk about what's in your suitcase. When you think about conflict and conflict resolution, right? Many of us work in the workplace. You know, what, what kind of tips would you give us? Just, just, uh, I would say, um, uh, I don't want to say avoid conflict because what you said was embrace conflict, but I mean like decrease the probability that conflict will occur. Well, you know, when you think about best practices and tips you'd give people, what do you think, you know, decreases the probability that that conflict

is going to occur? Okay. I have two tips. Okay. First tip always, always, always is look at yourself first. Okay. So I say, know what's yours and what's not yours. And this is an, this is an art or it's a practice of self, self-awareness. Yes. Know what, you know, know what you're even packing around with you, because if you can get your suitcase cleaned up because you know, what's in it, you know, know what you're even packing around with you. Because if you can get your suitcase cleaned up, because you know what's in it, you know why it's there. And you know that it, it is what it is, but it has nothing to do with current time. And you can kind of just with that awareness, you can kind of reshape your thinking like you are a strong and powerful 51 year old woman, not a, you know, 16 year old college reject.

Okay. Something like that. I tell a story about my own, my own college rejection letter that I read in front of my dad. And we had some conflict about that and how I carried that through my life unknowingly, really. I mean, I knew that it happened, but I didn't know because I was so attached to it and I was so hurt by it. I didn't know how it was taking me out

every time I got into something tough. I just remembered, oh yeah, I'm just, you know, too stupid to go to college, right? Yeah, that's right. So that we all have these limiting beliefs. And so it's really getting aware of who you are and what you are packing around because the less you have, the less loose ends you have, the less chance you're going to get entangled with somebody else. Absolutely. So do work on yourself. That's what I'm hearing is look at yourself first. What would be the second tip that you would have? Well, the second tip would then be, you know, if I can give everybody a tip on how to relate to somebody else is just show up and listen, try that strategy. I just did an

article and a video on this. It's called show Up and Listen. It came out in September. And you know, if all you did was show up to a challenging conversation and just listened and said, you know, Sindra, yeah, we've been having a challenge, you and I. Did you want to talk about it? Great. Go ahead. I'm all ears. And just listen and when cinders finished talking say you know cindra here's what I heard you say did I get it right and then you say yeah you did but but there's more or you know you kind of got something not right so here's here it is again and then I say okay now I I think this is what I understand and you go yes yeah yeah that. Yeah. That's it. Period. Right. You are all,

you are right there. You are feeding the greatest need of the human spirit. So our greatest needs are food and shelter, and then the need to feel understood. And that my friends, that listening piece, just, just remove your own agenda. I know there's a million things you want to say back to this person because you're so also entangled in the conflict, but what if you could just show up and listen? And when they're finished talking, not interrupt, not defend yourself, just listen to what they're saying and then feedback what you heard them say so that you understand and just let them have the floor. Let them have the conversation. Just say, yeah, here's what I understand. They may give you the same privilege and they may not,

but you know what? Their conflict will dissolve. And I'm also hearing about how it's like suspending your own needs, right? Like you're not thinking about what you're thinking or saying what you want, your perspective. It's like really being there, listening with open ears to whatever is happening. Exactly. Absolutely. And that in itself is a great gift. It's a great relationship builder. You don't even have to be in conflict to use it. Try it at home with your spouse. Try it with your kids. It is such an amazing connection, conduit, you know, to connecting with people.

But we don't do it because we're so busy talking about, you know, ourselves or we're so conditioned to the conversation where he says, she says, he says, she says, ping pong, ping pong, back forth. Nobody's really listening. It's just two people taking turns talking. Absolutely. So you gave us a little bit of snapshot of your other keynote, Penny, about what's in your suitcase. And that this idea that we all have this suitcase we're carrying around with us, which might be our past experiences or difficulties that shape, you know, what's happening in our lives right now. Your story about your dad was very impactful. Tell us a little bit more about that and then kind of expand on what you mean by like what's in your suitcase.

Okay. So yeah, you heard the story about my dad because you were in the audience when I delivered the opening of that keynote. So I believe that when we show up to anything, we are packing around our past and we're packing around. And I mean, that sounds really like, yeah, of course we are, Penny, but we're packing around more specifically, we're packing around our attachment to our past. Okay, so attachment to our past creates our future. So if we are at peace with our past, we're going to create peace in our future. If we have resentment in our past, we're going to keep creating resentment. So it's really worth doing the work, the internal work on getting clear about what it is you're packing around.

And you'll know, because when you start turning a light on and taking a look at what's inside you, you can never unsee what you see. You know, when, when you start being aware, when you ask for that, that knowledge and wisdom, like, you know, how am I really showing up? And you know what? Sometimes the best things that can help us really understand how we show up is conflict, right? And you look for patterns.

You're like, gee, I'm in the same bad relationship I was with Harry as I was with Bill and Tom and Fred and so on. And I hope you're laughing because, you know, whether it be a workplace relationship or a love relationship or a friend relationship, you'll start to see patterns happening because, you know, you're the only common denominator. So when we really take a look at what we're packing around, we can get clear on where it comes from because we're so attached to our stuff for several reasons. One is because it's old programming or old wiring. We get wired that way. For example, like you said the story, my dad will tell it very quickly. When I graduated high school, my dad wanted me to be a court reporter and I wanted to be a fashion model. And so there was a big difference. My dad wanted me to be a court reporter or a secretary, you know, somebody that takes dictation and types up

reports. Well, my mom was a secretary and my dad's cousin was a court reporter and he just felt like that, you know, he wanted that for me. And so I went and I gave that test an honest try. And my dad and I went away on a little holiday to the big city for me to take that test. And, you know, he invested in us, he invested in that weekend. And a few weeks later, after trying my best on the test, I got a letter in the mail and I was excited to open it in front of him. And it was a rejection letter. And he, he said, you're too stupid to go to college. And I, and I was young, You know, I was, I don't know, 16, 17 years old. And those that got etched in my soul. And I never realized how impactful it was. All I knew was that I was hurt, but my dad was just

that kind of guy. Like when he was in a rush and he wanted to get something off his chest, he just blurted it out. And, you know, he was also a very wonderful dad. He was a loving dad. You know, he's, he's my hero today. And he's with me in spirit every day. And I know he knows I tell this story with absolutely no resentment anymore, because I've forgiven him for being human, because I too am a parent, and I am not a perfect parent, and I don't know a perfect parent. But in the moment, you know, or in the time of my life that that happened, that really landed like a boulder in my suitcase. And I guess I formed some old wiring that I was too stupid to go to college. And I never did go to college or university when I was young. I just started

into the work world. And, you know, over time, I've compensated for that with education and certificates from places like Harvard. But, you know, in the process of becoming who I am, I really took that I'm too stupid story, we'll call it, old programming, and I used it. I used it to my advantage. I used it when things were getting tough. I'd say, oh, you know what? Nah, I don't go to that depth. I don't work that hard. I can't figure that stuff out. I could be a gazillionaire today, I'm sure, if I didn't have that old programming and wiring, because I, I, when I look back, I've been on the cusp of some like incredibly creative online learning tools and whatnot. And you know, I just didn't want to push through. And, um, you know, we, you and I met a guy the

weekend that we met who sold his company for $120 million that he started in his bedroom. And I, I tell you, I've thought a lot about him since I met him thinking, gee, I wonder if I had stayed the course in some of the amazing inventions of online learning that I did, you know, what that would look like today. But anyways, my point is, we are so attached to our stuff because of old programming. We're emotionally programmed, you know, by the time we're in our early 20s. Also, people are very afraid of conflict, so they don't want to work through it and let it go. So they just decide to like hang on to it, kind of, sort of like push it down, and then you're

still carrying it around, right? Our ego gets a payoff when we get to stay attached to our conflict because our ego's job is to protect us. So as long as it has something to protect us from, it's getting a stroke, right? It's getting a, oh good, way to go. You know, I can protect Penny because I'm an ego. I'm her ego. And, you know, we do have a lot of stress hormones that we used to use a long, long time ago, like back when a saber-toothed tiger might have popped out on your way to your village. You needed those fight-or-flight reflexes, but we don't really need those anymore. But we still have the hormones.

So we tend to make mountains out of molehills so that we can utilize those hormones. And another reason we are so attached to our stuff is that we use it as a reasonable excuse. Like, I'm too stupid to push through, you know, with this invention of an incredible online learning tool and make it like every bit as amazing as, I don't know, fill in the blank, you know, Facebook, Uber, Google, those types of things. Because we use that as a reasonable excuse. One is, I'm too busy. I'm too busy to sort out conflict. Oh, I'd love to talk.

I'd love to talk to that person, but I'm too busy. Yeah, you know what? That's a reasonable excuse. It sounds very reasonable, but it is an excuse. So Penny, I'm sure, you know, I'm listening to you. I'm thinking about my suitcase, right? And I'm sure other people are thinking about their suitcases. They're listening. What do you think, like, how do we, you know, what have you experienced, like people from your audience or people have asked you afterwards, like, how do you examine your suitcase? What do you think about that? Like, what are some practices there?

Well, I think the most, the best practice is a, you know, even asking the question because I, I start my keynote keynote by asking, you know, how many of you think you have a suitcase and everyone puts up their hand. And then I say, how many of you would like to know what's in your suitcase? Half the hands go down. You know, some people don't want to go there. They don't want to look there. They don't want to go into that emotional stuff. They don't want to dig. They don't want to feel. And, and they get to, you know, they, they get to live however they decide to live. But I think in the asking of how do I unpack my suitcase, it's a really, it's a green light that says, you know, I'm ready to see.

And I think that if your intention is being ready, then things will start to show up for you. So, you know, I'm a spiritual person. I pray, I ask, I offer, I give, I give time and attention and I give, you know, monetarily and I give time and service and I lay tobacco as a, you know, part of my spirituality just to offer when I want something, you know, I will ask, I will ask for it. Absolutely. I think if you ask, you know, what's in my suitcase and you sit and you journal and you think about it and you take some time, you can ask your, your trusted friend, you know, not, not the person who's going to keep you in your spin when you're fighting with somebody and in conflict, but somebody will help pull you out

of it and, and help you see things from a different perspective and just be really open, you know, be vulnerable. Don't be afraid to be messy. Don't be afraid to feel or to hurt or to cry because that is a real emotion and we all have that. Absolutely, Penny. You know, so you've given us so many different things to think about. You know, we've talked about right now, what's in your suitcase. And I was thinking about how, well, how would I examine my suitcase? Well, first it's, you know, awareness that I have a suitcase, kind of what you said, but then reflection, you know, so maybe that's journaling. I like your idea of journaling because then you're writing it down and it's not just like in your mind going back and forth and back and forth. Right. So you've really given us a lot

to think about. Tell us, you know, where we can go to find more about what you do. Let's say if we're thinking about, oh man, I have a business that could use Penny in terms of keynoting or workshopping and the conflict resolution part you talked about, and then you do some coaching. So tell us where we can find out more about you and, and hire you. Okay. Well, everything that I do put out, uh, they're all links back to my website, penny trombley.com. So it's P E N N Y T R E M B L A Y.com. And you know, the menu of options is there I am really really passionate about helping people through you know what's bringing them down and I I know how much corporate spends on conflict as I told you 2.8 hours per week equates to like you know billions and billions of dollars in lost

profit that could be used for better things and And I really think that it's both the employer and the employee's responsibility. I, you know, if I, if I ask the question, like, who's responsible for conflict? Or who's responsible for mental wellness? Or who's responsible for personal and professional development? I think it's, it's, it's, it's a joint responsibility. You know, I think that today employers need the highest caliber employees coming to the table. In fact, I overheard a recruiter the other day. He owns a car dealership and he said, I'm looking for salespeople.

And I said, who are you looking for? He goes, I don't know anyone that doesn't have any problems. That's funny. But I think it is funny because you know what? I think our problems, our stuff, our baggage, our stuff in our suitcase, it is our responsibility to take a look and unpack that. Yeah. It's just so valuable when we can. And you know, I also think that, you know, kind of like we talked about at the beginning when you said, tell me a time when you flopped. And then I said, then I felt like I had to be so polished and I had to wear a business suit and I had to overcompensate with this perhaps like cardboard cutout facade of myself that's so perfect. I realized that it's

very, very difficult for people to connect with that with that persona of perfection or that that we and you know I'm not saying I'm perfect by no stretch of the mile but I think you know what I mean like when we can be vulnerable and real and admit our stuff and say sorry and say you know I've been thinking about something that happened a long time ago and I really want to clean that up with you wow like I've been thinking about something that happened a long time ago, and I really want to clean that up with you. Wow. Like I have seen groups of people together, sobbing, crying, hugging, you know, snot coming out of their nose, crying. And people say to me, like, doesn't that drive you crazy? I say, no, I think it's the most beautiful thing. I really do because people are being real. Penny, there's so many different things that I'm taking from our conversation. I'm

so grateful that I had you on the podcast. So I'd like to tell you what I'm getting from today is kind of a summary for the listeners, but also like, hey, this is what stood out to me. Okay, good. I love how when we were talking about conflict and you said like the most successful teams embrace conflict and that, you know, we waste 2.8 hours in conflict each week. Wow, that gives you like a tangible reason why, you know, we should really take care of it. And then the two tips you gave us were first, look at yourself when you're in conflict, what's in your suitcase kind of idea. And then the second one is like, show up and listen. And I thought that was really powerful to like extend and for, you know, like remove our needs that really think about the other person and, and the way that you kind of suggested, you know, to summarize it and say, did I get this right?

Right. You know, this is what I heard. Is this right? And then when you were talking about your suitcase, which I love that analogy, by the way, you know, you said like our attachment to the past creates our future. And I thought that was so powerful as a reason for people to examine what's in their suitcase and reflect on that and journal about it to help them think about how does that impact them right now. And then this last thing that you just said about, you know, just, you know, because thinking about one person, you know, when you said at the end about just going to that person and saying, you know, I really want to clean this up with you. I've been thinking about it, right? That also shows to the person that, hey, this

person really cares about me. They've been thinking about me and they don't want to carry around this conflict either. I think you've given us some really tangible things that we can use in our life and our work. Thank you. Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to do that. And, you know, I challenge the listeners to one of two homework assignments, you know, to just call to action here is go home and listen to somebody tonight, you know, somebody that matters, just listen and watch what happens. I'm actually getting moved handing out the assignment because I know how it affects people and they come in and tell me about it the next day when we have a two day program. And I, and I give it, give it to them for homework, I am moved beyond my wildest imagination on the connection that they encounter by that one thing. And the other

option for a homework assignment is call someone up where you've got some cleanup work to do. You've got a cleanup conversation to have. And I don't mean text them because a lot can go sideways in a text message, right? I mean, call them up and, and, and clean it up. And all you have to say is, Hey, can we talk or, Hey, you know, is it possible that I clean something up with you? I just want to, you know, I just want to clean this up for both of us. And just unpack your suitcase that little bit and feel how it feels to have that extra space and opening and energy because it takes a lot of energy to keep our conflict down. And when we can reduce the amount of energy that we need to spend to keep a reduced amount

of conflict, then we have more energy to put toward better things. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Penny, for those listeners, you can head over to the show notes at cindracampoff.com slash penny. So I'm so grateful to talk with you more about what you do today. So thank you so much for providing such value to our listeners. Thank you, Penny. Thank you, Cindra. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you liked today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend and join the conversation on Twitter at mentally underscore strong. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out drsindra.com.