High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 339: Fearless Leadership with Carey Lohrenz, 1st Female F-14 Tomcat Pilot, Author & Keynote Speaker

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

Carey Lohrenz is a dynamic communicator with an incredible story. As the first female F-14 Tomcat pilot, she was a pioneer in military aviation. Having flown missions worldwide as a combat, mission-ready United States Navy pilot, Carey Lohrenz is used to working in fast moving, dynamic environments where inconsistent execution can generate catastrophic results. As a high content Keynote Speaker, who is both motivational and inspirational, Carey Lohrenz inspires Fearless Leadership and increased team performance. Carey has worked with AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, Kimberly Clark, New York Life, Prudential, State Farm Insurance, Sprint, TripAdvisor, Walmart, and Wells Fargo Advisors. Her ability to connect with both an audience and on a one-on-one level, coupled with her knowledge and experience in leading high-performing, diverse teams, has made her highly sought after as a business consultant and leadership speaker. Carey Lohrenz is the author of a Wall Street Journal Bestseller, “Fearless Leadership: High-Performance Lessons from the Flight Deck.” She resides in Excelsior, MN and is currently working on her Masters in Business Administration in Strategic Leadership.   In this podcast, Cindra and Carey talk: · What is Fearless Leadership? · The 3 fundamentals of Fearless Leadership · 7 Steps to lead yourself through adversity · How to put Fearless Leadership into action · Strategies she has personally used to become a Fearless Leader HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/Carey FB COMMUNITY FOR LIVE PODCAST INTERVIEWS: https://www.facebook.com/drcindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901 You can find Carey and follow her at: https://careylohrenz.com

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the high performance mindset. A positive attitude doesn't guarantee your success, but a negative attitude kills your ability to adapt. Welcome to episode 339 with Keri Lorenz. This is your host, Dr. Cindra Kampoff, and I am grateful that you are here. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place. Safe at Home has been lifted here in Minnesota and we are excited. 10 people max we can get together with, but we are pumped to see our friends this weekend and start social distancing and socializing safely. So that's what's going on here in Minnesota. We're excited because we haven't gotten together with our friends for a couple of months, so we're pumped. I hope you are

staying safe and mentally strong during this time period. And one of the things that has been incredible for me during this time period is my grit morning routine. It really has been a lifesaver. And you can get all of the details at beyondgrit.com slash morning, where I lay out a specific way

that you can start your morning in the right mindset. And when I work with my coaching clients, we always talk about the morning. And we talk about how the morning primes us for empowering emotions and thoughts throughout our day. And Caroline, who just sent me a message, said she just started the grit morning routine during this pandemic. And she said, Cinder, I'm so grateful to share this morning routine that you shared it with us. I have felt more on purpose than ever, and I know it's because of my morning. This routine has helped me feel less stressed and patient at home and with my family. Awesome, Caroline. Thanks so much for sending me the message.

And you can head over to beyondgrit.com slash morning for the full details. Now, in today's podcast, I have Keri Lorenz. And I've heard Keri speak three times. The last time was in July at the National Speakers Association main stage, and when you get to be on the main stage, you are an unbelievable speaker. So she did an amazing job, and I also heard her speak at her local chapter, the National Speakers Association in Minnesota, where she talked about building her business, and I loved every time that I have heard Carrie speak. So I am pumped that she is on the podcast today and to bring amazing value to you.

I have her book, Fearless Leadership, right by my side right here, signed copy. So Carrie Lorenz is a dynamic communicator with an incredible story. As the first female F-14 Tomcat pilot, she was a pioneer in the military aviation. Having flown missions worldwide as a combat ready mission United States Navy pilot, Carrie Lorenz is used to working in a fast-paced dynamic environment where inconsistent execution can generate catastrophic results. She is a high content keynote speaker who is both motivational and inspirational, as you'll hear today. And Carrie inspires fearless leadership and increased team

performance. Some of the companies that Carrie has worked with is AT&T, Prudential, State Farm Insurance, Sprint, Walmart, and Wells Fargo. So Carrie is also the author of a Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Fearless Leadership, High Performance Lessons from the Flight Deck. She resides in Minnesota, let's go, and is currently working on her master's in business administration and strategic leadership. And in this podcast, Keri and I talk about what exactly is fearless leadership, the three fundamentals of fearless leadership, seven steps that you can lead yourself through adversity.

And we specifically talk about how to lead yourself right now during COVID-19. How to put fearless leadership in action. And strategies that she has personally used to become a fearless leader. Now, if you enjoyed today's episode, wherever you're listening, go over and subscribe and give us a five-star rating and review. This helps us reach more and more people each week. And I would love to read your review next week. This is the review of the week from Janu. Janu from Canada said this, perfect amount of everything. Okay, quite simply put, I love this show. Really inspirational and uplifting. Dr. Asindra has great energy and is

real natural in this format. Oh, that's so nice, Janu. She gets so much out of her guests. Clear, precise, and most of all, authentic. Awesome. That's how I'm trying to be. So thank you, Janu. I would love to read your review next week. So wherever you're listening, head over and leave us a rating and review. And make sure you share this with a friend. Anytime that something resonates with you, if you think about somebody and say, oh man, they really need to hear Keri's message, we'd love for you just to copy and paste the link on Apple Podcasts,

iHeartRadio, Spotify, wherever you're listening today. Text a friend and tell them you are thinking about them. And you can share this on your Instagram stories and tag me at cindracampoff. We're going to jump right into the interview with Carrie and learn more about how she became the first female F-14 Tomcat pilot. Let's bring on Carrie. And tell us a little bit about why you decided to be a fighter pilot. What led you to that? So I was always drawn towards aviation. My dad was actually a military pilot and then flew commercially for about 30 years. And then I have an older brother who also had a 27 year career in the military serving and flying. So we were, we were raised around aviation, but we're never demonstrably told this is what you should do. It was always just kind of

in the background. And we were really fortunate. I grew up just outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin. So just up the road from one of the world's best air shows, the EAA air show down in Oshkosh. So every summer we would go down, we'd see just these super cool, you know, old airplanes and, you know, hear all these stories from all these aviators and listening to what they do even now. Lots of entrepreneurs, a lot of executives, actually a lot of athletes. And then they had this love for aviation as well. So it was just always kind of cool seeing that parallel of people who are able to be multi-passionate, if you will, and actually excel at more than one thing. So it was always there in

the background simmering. That's wonderful. And then tell us about your experience, you know, when you finished being a fighter pilot to now like helping high-performing teams and speaking, keynoting, and doing what you do now, give us a little transition into like, why did you start that? And what, what, how do you live your passion right now through that? Yeah. So I, I kind of call it going from a mock to, to preschool, if you will, because I left the Navy and I just had my second daughter right as I was leaving. And so it took a couple of years away from that, just trying to, you know, find this new routine of being a new mom and having young kids. But then I started doing some strategic planning

and some coaching and consulting. And what I found in the years since leaving the Navy is that there's this parallel, there's this parallel between the world of naval aviation and the world of business and high performers. And what I found to be the case is that those people who are working in these really complex, fast-changing, really challenging environments, it's going to take each of us in whatever role we may be to really step up and be a fearless leader. Because no matter your role right now, whether you own your own business, you are a high performing athlete, or you're an individual contributor or a director or an executive, everybody is counting on you to make the best

decision, right? To make a good decision. And what that requires again, to do that consistently and to be a high performer is for you to really step up and own your role as a fearless leader, because no matter your situation, the number one way you can assure that you are the best leader that you can actually be is to own this ability to have courage and feel fear and move forward in spite of that. Absolutely. Yeah. It's such an important time where we're talking about this idea of fearless leadership, I think, because there is so much fear, you know, of the unknown and fear of like how long this is going to last so many things outside of our control. So let's dive into this a little bit more. Tell

us what you mean by fearless leadership. So it's not this idea of not having any fear. It is this idea of how do we own this ability to move forward in spite of that fear. And on a personal level, there are three things that I always like to point out. It's about courage, it's about tenacity, and then always operating with integrity. And then there's a different piece of that when you're thinking about from a group performance or a team performance perspective, you know, how do you, what does fearless leadership in action look like? How do you set that vision? How do you establish a rhythm that your team is always learning? So you develop this high performance culture. And then what do you do when adversity hits, right? When, what do you do when you take that concrete block to the face? Up until a couple of months ago, I think there were a lot of people

that, you know, things were going pretty well, particularly in the U S people were pretty comfortable. And when we think about resiliency or adversity, we, we always, you know, it's human nature to go, oh, that could never happen to me, or I would never know what I would do if that happened. So at the base of being a fearless leader or being able to be a high performer over time, the base of that though, is operating with courage without a doubt. Absolutely. Give us a little sense on, okay, you kind of told us the three fundamentals of fearless leadership, courage, tenacity, and integrity. What led you to choose those three in particular? So when I look back at not only my own experience in life, I was a division one athlete. I was a rower at the University of Wisconsin. And then I go into

this other really extreme environment, right? Where you're working with other aviators, you're working with big teams, small teams, special ops people. The one, the one consistent thing that I've found that's allowed people to do what other people perceive as being impossible is all of these individuals, when you dig down into how they do that, the first element that you have to have is courage, right? Because it's that flip side of fear. It's, it's that, that muscle, that courage muscle, that if you can cultivate that within yourself, uh, there'll be limitless possibilities. And so with courage, again, whether you're looking at athletes who come from backgrounds that maybe,

uh, people were told, you know, they weren't enough, they weren't good enough, or they weren't well resourced, they didn't have enough. They grew up in a really, really hostile environment, where, where it was always this, this limiting belief was even placed upon your developed in yourself that you were never going to be enough. It's having just, just the 51%, right. Instead of the 49% of, you know, being able to kind of raise your eyebrow and go, okay, I hear all this and I've been told all of these things, but why not me? Like I look at that Yahoo down the street and they're being successful. Why not me? So it's having just enough courage to be able to really step up and take an opportunity

when it comes along and understanding that, you know, there's, there's been this long standing debate. I know you've gone into so much research, research as well of people saying, Hey, some people are just born to lead, or it's a gift and, you know, leaders aren't made they're born. And quite frankly, leaders aren't made, they're born. And quite frankly, I don't agree with that. I think that leadership skills are for everyone. And it's just, it's having this ability to step up and learn and to own it and to work

towards developing that skill set. So it's understanding that it's not a gift. It's going to be you having that ability to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And this is what stops people, right? Because we hear it. We see all the pithy little Instagram sayings as we're scrolling or a little LinkedIn quotes and just have to get comfortable being uncomfortable right now. But what that means physiologically is that you're going to be sweaty

you're going to be filled with self-doubt you're going to feel like at times you're going to throw up or you might have i call it that burp right that combination of vomit and burp coming up the back of your throat and then you are going to have to figure out how are you going to take action in spite of that yeah and in a smart way, right? So it's, it's that courage, that courage to understand the courage to be vulnerable, the courage to learn. And I think even admit that you don't have all the answers, right? But trusting in yourself that through repetition and failure, you'll figure it out. Oh, there's so many questions I could ask you as a follow-up to that. First, I'd love to hear about how you define what failure is,

and maybe tell us about a time that you failed, and how you see failure just as part of this idea of fearless leadership. Yeah, so that's a bit of a tricky question, only inso far as everybody experiences failure very differently. What I might perceive as failure may be very different from some, what someone else does in so far as for me. I mean, we were chatting a second, you know, a couple of minutes ago, my list of different failures. I mean, that list is a mile long, right? So if you say, Hey, give me an example, I'd be like, where do we want to start?

But for me, the way the thing that, that I find the most damaging on a personal level for me, it's the failure not to try, right? That is the thing that leaves me saddled with guilt, with resentment, with a negative self-talk that I can look back and go, I cannot believe I didn't go for it. I cannot believe I didn't do this. So for me, that's what eats at me where it's not that I jump willy nilly into the unknown, because again, I, you know, there are things that scare me. There are things that transitions, even in my business, that particularly as a woman working in a high performing arena, you will expose yourself to critique and criticism and people telling you, you're not enough. You're not pretty enough. You're not smart enough. You don't have the

right credentials. Who do you think you are? Right. And that's hard. That is hard, no doubt. And I think women actually suffer from that more than men. So what I look at and what I define failures at more broadly and for the people I coach, and again, it comes from my own personal bias in this is the failure not to try because if you don't at least try, then I don't think you've earned the right to complain about it. Yeah. Yeah. That if you have to try and it's in the trying, it's in the, at least going for it, that every time you try, you will develop a little more strength and a little more courage and a little bit more confidence to try again. So it's, it's in that system and that cycle. Some days that might be two steps forward, one step back, or it might be a half a step forward, three steps back.

Right. But, but you, you continue to try. It's about having this bias to act and understanding that the only way you're going to figure it out is by taking action. And sometimes your lessons learned will be brutal, right? It will be whether it's, it's monetary, it's relationships, whatever that may be, but without that ability to at least just get in, get into the arena, get in and try, you'll never develop the confidence in yourself that you'll be able to figure it out. So this isn't a chicken or the egg thing. And that's to me, when, when we think about being fearless and when we think about failure, that's how I internalize that. And I will share with you one of the things that I started off years ago, even with my kids, because my kids are all so different, right?

Same parents, same environment. And yet they respond to challenges differently. And one of the magical phrases I try to use with my kids when they're struggling or they're frustrated because they're not as far as they want to be, or they've had a setback is not yet. You just don't have it yet. Right. Because then when you use the phrase not yet, instead of, Oh, that was really bad. Or yeah, you failed big time. It's you just don't have it yet. It opens up that possibility of belief that, okay, as long as I stick to it, I stay gritty, right? I stay tenacious, I stay engaged, you know, we'll figure it out. It's just not yet. So I think not yet,

when you pair that with failure is that encourages people that, Hey, you just don't have it yet. That means we're just going to keep continuing to learn. We're going to figure out ways to do this, but it also makes, you know, me as an individual or somebody you're coaching or an executive, a teammate, whoever that may be, it, it makes them also understand they have to be accountable for their performance as well, because the possibility is there for you to be successful. It's just not yet. I think the not yet is very like growth mindset, right? That, you know, just continue. It's a failure as a way of learning. And I appreciate what you said is like failure is just not trying. As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about just being the first, you know, I want to make sure I

say it right. F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot as a female, right? Give us a little insight on like what that was like. And I'm, as I'm listening to you, I'm also thinking about my experiences. I do a lot of work in sport, in the NFL, where there's not a lot of women around, you know, even maybe when, you know, you and I speak on stage, we might speak to an all male audience. So give us a little sense of like what that was like for you and what role did being fearless and being courageous like play in that? So as you can imagine, it was a, it was a pretty broad experience.

I certainly didn't go into the military flying thinking, I want to be the first. I want to be the first at something want to be the first at something. I want to be a pioneer. That was nowhere in my mindset. I just wanted to fly. Right. And I had, uh, like I said, my dad flew in the military. I had a brother who was a year ahead of me, who was flying in the military. I just wanted to fly. And I wanted to see how well I could do. And what I didn't understand, and part of this comes from age, right? I was young, I was 22 years old. And the fact that I was raised in the Midwest, where Midwesterners have a generally very strong work ethic. And we're very generally stoic,

right? We're not super demonstrative. And if you're performing or you're doing well, you don't tell anybody, you don't boast, you don't advocate for yourself. You don't, you don't push the envelope. You simply show up and do the work. And what caught me off guard was there were small pockets of pushback still about women in the military and women flying. And because of my experience going to EAA to the, that air show that one of the world's biggest air shows every year, you know, I saw these women who were flying. And so mentally, and I couldn't even quite thread it all together. Then there was this disconnect because I was like, do people like, has everybody forgotten the WASPs, the women Air Force service pilots flew 2 million hours during World War II, like in 44, 45, this cadre of 1200 women did everything but fly over in combat

overseas. They were training, they were training other pilots, they were towing banners, they were carrying airplanes, and then they were told to go home, to put their stuff away, to never speak of this experience again. And so it was just this strange disconnect for me. I'm like, how can we be here in the 90s talking about whether women are smart enough to fly or can fly at high speeds? Or what happens if they're a POW when women flew almost 2 million hours in the 40s? Wow, in the forties. Wow.

So there was always this, this little piece in the back of my mind of a, I didn't want to, um, uh, do anything that didn't honor that legacy. Then there's this middle ground where you're just like, Hey, for everybody who's going through flight school, you're working so hard every day and academics and flying and the physical training that there's just not a lot of time for a lot of nonsense, right? Like you're just trying to learn everything you can, you're drinking from a fire hose. So in my mind, um, what I believed was that as long as my performance, uh, was good that the rest of it didn't matter. Well, now that I'm a little bit older and I have a little more experience and wisdom, um, that's not true. Yes. Your performance

has to be good and it has to be probably above other people when you're one of few, but you better be very clear on what the other perceptions are and what the whole external environment is doing and what's happening or the things that can take you out or knock you down. You will never see coming. And, and so that for me, it was a big lesson learned because again, I was pretty, you know, I'm from the Midwest. We're pretty functional people. And I was like, Hey, as long as I perform all, nobody will care. Right. The jet doesn't know the difference. But what I've learned very strongly since then, and actually advocate for a knowledge on now is how important perceptions are and that perceptions are reality. And it's a leadership

challenge. I see every single day, even this morning, a call that I was on that. I heard somebody say, well, whatever that I know they think that, but they'll figure it out. No, they won't. They won't. If you're trying to get to a place of high performance, you better understand what every pocket in your organization or every teammate is thinking or feeling because their perception is their reality. And if you need to work together to get to a place that's more valuable than where you are today, the onus I think is on you as a fearless leader to meet them where they are and be the guide that throws the arm out and brings them either with you, or you understand what that

perception is. Maybe it's a misperception and hopefully come to at least a good place that you can move forward constructively together. Because if we just dismiss people's perceptions, which I see a lot of happening right now, we were going to be stuck. We will be stuck. We will not get to a place that's more valuable and in a positive way than where we are today. So those were some big lessons learned along the way of definitely being, you know, one of, one of this first group, one of, you know, being in a pioneering space because there are no rules. There's nobody who's there telling you, Ooh, you might want to take a look at this or, Hey, you have to own this other space or don't be afraid to speak out. Don't be afraid to own your voice. Um, so there was definitely some lessons learned. So hopefully,

you know, in some of the work that I'm able to do today now through, uh, you know, the keynote speaking, uh, coaching that I do and working with executives, that that then becomes a great domino effect or a ripple effect that allows other people to help people along that way too, along that path. Yeah. Well, and it makes me think of, I work with this CEO who works in a predominantly male industry. And we were talking about gender issues the other day and she said, well, for a long time, I just didn't think it mattered. Sort of like what you just said, like if the performance was good, it doesn't matter. And I wonder if that's like a coping

strategy that like helps you stay focused on your performance. And so what are your thoughts on that? And then, you know, are there any other advice you'd give to young women, whoever, what they, you know, whatever career they want to go into that maybe they might be the only one or very few women in that space? Sure. So I think this is an, I mean, my gosh, this could be an entirely like extra hour on this piece. So I'll try to, I'll try to add it down and do a couple of things. Yes, I think it's a coping mechanism that we tell ourselves it doesn't matter. And that we've heard other people beat the drum that says it doesn't matter as long as you perform, it'll work. That actually I think does not serve us well, because what we don't recognize then is that there are very, very important and critical differences between the way men respond and the way women respond, not only under pressure, but from an, a self-advocacy perspective and a performance perspective. Because if you take the general body of research right now, even when you look at

promotions and this, you can apply this to high-performing athletes, Olympians, I've coached Olympians, D1 athletes or executives. Okay. When an opportunity presents itself for an opening, for a new boat, a new team, a new squad, a new position, a new lateral transfer, but in a different skillset area, men generally only have to feel about 35% ready, right? And they'll raise their hand. They're like, I'm in. Women on the other hand, across the board have to feel, this is self-reported about 125 to 135% ready. Now, math is challenging for some people.

That's huge. That is a 90% delta. So why does that matter when you look in it, or you look in STEM related fields, or you look at NFL refs, right? There are very few women or women coaches that generally speaking, when there's a slate that comes up of, Hey, we're looking for qualified candidates to be a new ref, to be a new, um, to be, uh, an offensive coach. Here are the 10 things we want men go through. They'll, they'll gaze over and go, I have three or I have those four, or they got their, they got their name first and last in, and they count that as one. And this is not, this is not man hating. This is just how we generally operate. And they go, I'm totally

throwing my hat into the ring. Women will look at that. They'll fill the whole thing out. They'll get to the ninth thing and they'll look at 10, whatever the 10th attribute or, or a requirement may be. And they're like, Ooh, I only have half of that next year. I'm not ready. Or I have kids. I don't know how I'm going to balance both of these things, but, but then they stop. So women are generally over here working at a PhD level subject matter, expert level work, and they're not throwing their hat in the ring. So as the funnel goes up, as it narrows, right. It's not because women have taken this off ramp for motherhood. Yes. That is a factor in some, in some situations, but it's because right out of the gate at every checkpoint, we have taken ourselves out. Or when, when we have a manager or a director or a VP

or a head coach go, you need to do this. Instead of going, I got you, you're right, I do. We go, yes, but I only have these things, I'm missing this. So again, a different part of research, then you pull in and go, every coach, every team, every executive, when we are picking people, people for our team, we pick the people that we perceive to be the most confident, which does not necessarily mean they're the most competent, nor that those people will actually ever be the best performers. So it's because of this, this tendency with women, particularly and girls, and it starts even about fourth, fifth grade, we intuitively are trying to de-risk everything we do instead of having somebody just look at us and go, I'm going to tell you,

if you have just enough confidence to take action, you will eventually be able to trust yourself that you'll figure it out and it's going to be okay. Yeah. But so it, it starts early and, or even with some, some of the female executives I've worked with, they might've had a bad experience at a manager or director level with somebody questioning and hammering down on whether or not they deserved to be there because there were a quota in somebody else's mind that that made them stop. And that made, made that woman or that girl or that teenager feel like they had to double down on every qualification so that nobody could ever poke holes in their, their earning their seat at that table. So I think there's a mindset of this, that, that the best way to operate through

that and to get to a place of higher performance, especially for women is know that and understand that regardless of your situation, you can de-risk to the best of your ability. And there's always going to be somebody sitting there. Who's going to say, you don't deserve to be here simply because you're a woman and you need to be okay with that and go all right why not keep it I just think of what you said earlier right and I think what you said earlier is so important for women to hear and men too but I think especially the stat you just gave us it's like that courage is not you're going to feel the fear and you might be sweaty and you might have some self-doubt, but it's like moving forward and taking that action anyway. Absolutely. And I do think, I do think understanding you don't have to dig into the research yourself really deep, but understanding broadly what the research is showing us is why that is actually so important

for men to hear as well, is that if you're in a position of authority, you're in a position to hire, you're in a position to promote instead of just looking and going, well, obviously we don't have any qualified women on the team or women available, or they would be on this list. That's actually a misperception. That's not true. It's because the women have probably been self-selected out of that list before it got to you. So I would proffer to people and say, Hey, take a second, take a, take a beat and go push back, push back down through the channel and go, I want you to find me. I don't know, pick the number three, five women, three, five people from a diverse background, because this slate is incomplete.

If I don't have that. And what you will start to find is that you are going to find people who are, were tremendously qualified that because they didn't tick the box on one thing, took them out of the running right away. So again, I think that's, I think it's really critical for men to hear this as well, because they don't even, they don't even, and it's our own personal bias. We don't understand that somebody else wouldn't raise their hand for that. You're like, you're crazy. You've got a PhD. You've done this. Why are you not raising your hand? So it doesn't, it doesn't, they don't even find it relatable and that's not their fault. Right. And this isn't a

who's right or who's wrong or men are evil. It's just simply understanding how humans generally are wired, how we're making our decisions so that when it comes to getting the right people in place that can afford us the ability to have the best chance at success, we're making sure we're dipping into that pool the best we can, not simply the way it's always been. I really appreciate that conversation. I'm glad I asked you those questions. So Carrie, one other thing from your book that I really liked that I thought was really relevant to what's happening right now is you provide seven steps to lead yourself through adversity. And I was like, well, how powerful are these seven steps?

And, and just particularly everyone in the world is experiencing change and adversity right now. So give us a sense of like what those seven steps are and why you think those are really important for us to lean on during this time period. Well, I think this is, and this kind of goes back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier that, you know, if it's, if it's one thing I've found to be true, because I have a little more experience now is that adversity will introduce you to yourself. Ah, nice. When you're going through these tough times, when you're going through what you may perceive

as a crucible is understanding that there's a path forward, right? That there's, there's, we've all gone through something hard before. This is different than maybe what, what has happened before, but the worst thing we can do right now, wherever we sit is, is get mired in feeling like we're a victim, right? It's the most damaging thing we can do psychologically. If you look at anybody who's been held captive or POWs, anybody, it's those that survived were the ones who had that ability for most of the time to reject victimhood. So the first step I would say is that you have to reject victimhood. The second step is this idea of embracing change, right? We always talk about, and especially when you're, you know, I work with a lot of different companies and everybody's trying to install operational excellence plans and hey, leading

through change and 80% of operational excellence initiatives fail. Why? Because we talk about change, but to our core as people, we're okay with change as long as it's somebody else changing. We don't actually want to have to be the ones that change. It is very uncomfortable. Again, go back to the feeling sick, nauseous, hair standing on the back of your head, all that stuff.

So the second thing I'd say to people is you have to be able to get to this place where you embrace change, get your arms around it, give it a big bear hug. It's here to stay, get okay with some of the uncertainty. The third thing is, I always tell people, you have to focus on what matters. If you burrow down the rabbit hole right now of letting yourself get assaulted with 10 hours of daily news or super negative relatives or the constant fighting on Facebook or Twitter, you will feel an extreme sense of a lack of control. So I share with people focus on three things and I always write it down. My coach people write it down. So right now, Ooh, sorry, I know bumping my camera. My, my three things are family fitness and finances, right? If I,

if I hold things together in my family, that's good. You know, fitness, both, both mental fitness and, and site, uh, physical fitness, like get sweaty every day, crucial to not only building your immunity system, but getting your cortisol levels down, uh, just so you can cope. But three things do not make this over complicated. Focus on what matters, not what other people are telling you should be important right now, because this is a really extreme situation. The fourth thing is find a wingman, right? Don't be afraid to ask for help. Find a wingman.

We cannot do this alone. None of us ever wants to go into a fight, into a battle, into an extreme situation by ourself. So if you have to reach out to somebody into a fight, into a battle, into an extreme situation by ourself. So if you have to reach out to somebody on social media, do it. You'd be surprised right now, the people who will actually respond to you on social media even, back channel DMs, on Twitter,

on Instagram, on LinkedIn, don't be afraid to ask for help. The fifth thing would be know what you can control, right? Don't worry about those. Well, I don't want to say don't worry about it, but set aside those things that you cannot control. I can't control who's going to show up at the podium for the task force coronavirus briefing. I can't control that. I've had to get to a point where I don't watch it every day anymore because it was driving me crazy, right? And I can't control it. So figure out what's under your span of control and focus on that. The sixth thing I would, I would recommend is learn from adversity,

right? It's whether it's, it's a gratitude practice right down at the end of the day, ever since, and please feel free to do this. Please feel free to share this. Since my kids were little, we always try to eat dinner every night together when everybody else is there. Even if it's something super quick, we always do good day, bad day. My kids are older now, right? They're 23, 21, just turned 18 and 16. I'm like, all right, let's fire it up.

Good day, bad day. What do you have? And you, you don't, if you didn't have anything bad happen today, that's awesome. But we always have to end with something good. So we want to learn from this. What did you learn? What, what should you start doing? What should you start, stop doing, but good day, bad day. And the seventh thing is always take action. It is when we get stuck, when, when we, when we're paralyzed by that fear, or we wait for somebody else to figure it out, that's when we lose any sense of personal agency. It's why you see right now, so many people organizing their closets. It's why they have a really tidy house, right? Because the

one thing you can control is how you're responding and what feels easiest or, or most gratifying to a lot of people right now is, you know, vacuuming, right? Well, at least I was successful at that or dusting, but it's, it's figuring out what, what are you going to take action on? I'm encouraging my, my clients right now. And, and the executives that I work with is, yes, there's a level of survival right now, but shift your mindset to focus on the rebuild. What come June 1st or June 15th or July 1st, who do you want to be? What do you want things to look like moving forward and take action on that. You don't have to have a list of 15 things. You know, we're not looking to be, Oh, I'm suddenly going to have a, you know, I'm going to get an invite to an NFL tryout, or I'm going to be the world's best soccer player, or, Hey,

the Olympics just got pushed back. So I know the training is going to be this, and I'm going to do all these things on that day. And it's a list of 50 things. Narrow it down. Just do one small thing every day that gets you headed in a better direction. And you'll build that sense of span of control of agency. And again, it goes back to in this rebuild, it'll, you'll earn a little more strength and courage and confidence and trust in your ability to figure it out. Awesome. Yeah.

And this isn't just, you know, I kind of put a whole bow on this on that, you know, I think, I think having a positive attitude really matters. But this isn't about, you know, I tell people, Hey, this isn't about the Polly Annish. Hey, I'm happy to be here. Right. And all the, all the super hokey motivational BS stuff that you see on Instagram nonstop from people just pummeling you with positivity. Right. But where I'm really, really grounded in, and again, this comes from my personal experience, as well

as these high performers that I've been able to work with is that a positive attitude doesn't guarantee your success, but a negative attitude kills your ability to adapt. Absolutely. And right now we have to be able to adapt because nobody can predict the future. So we just have to be able to adapt in little ways every day and trust that we'll figure it out. Awesome. I think those seven steps are gold, particularly all together in this package. And I'm thinking how people could even write down those seven steps and just use them to guide them throughout this time of change and adversity and the unknown. So awesome, Keri. I got one final, a couple of final questions for you. One, we'll wrap up. Give us a sense of like how your business has been impacted during

this time. And like, what have you been doing to stay grounded and, you know, uh, focus on what you can control and to not have a negative attitude because that's going to really kill your ability to adapt. Yeah. So I've been, so my business has shifted over the last several years where, uh, you know, 10 years ago, I was doing a lot of strategic planning, account planning, a lot of that work, as well as a little bit of coaching, and some keynotes to where in between. And that industry, the events industry, as you know, has been decimated. And as clients and associations and the fortune 100 fortune 500 are trying to figure out how do we flip this around? Are we going to go all virtual? Are we

going to go put this year on hold and just reschedule for next year. Right. That, that definitely has happened and it's happened in both ways. But what, what I've found is that I have spent a ton of time on the phone with different clients, with different executives, trying to help them navigate a way forward in this time of change. So for me personally, it's been, and now I have four kids at home, three of them are still in school. So we're all fighting for bandwidth, right. And trying to keep them on track. So what my world has come down to being homebound is I'm trying to bit late because I've been doing all these other things. So I'm trying, I'm, I'm trying to finish writing, writing my second book. I'm coaching clients nonstop. I'm moving pieces of my business virtual as well. And, and quite frankly, it's, it's trying to work in you know, those aspects of fitness

because at the end of the day, if, if people are working 18 hours a day right now and burning the candle at both ends and not sleeping and watching Netflix or Hulu until 2 a. go, you know what, I'm so fortunate, I've had, I've had dinner with my kids every single night since March 12. Like I haven't done that since they were toddlers. Yeah, I have to and it's like, I'm so grateful for it. I am. I am. I know they, some days could be like, Oh, I just want to see my friends. I'm like, I know, but look, and they're like, yeah, I know. So I'm trying to, you know, I'm just trying to stay positive and I'm trying to in this as well, do what I can to help people who maybe when I was traveling on the road a lot, didn't have time to connect with them. Uh, but making sure that in this turn, uh, because I'm fortunate to have some of these skills to know that I'll figure it out, to help people along the way too, and get them to a place that they're going to come through this. I don't think there's another side of this. I think it's we're building the airplane going

down the runway right now. Let's make sure it's a strong one. Excellent. Well, Carrie, I really enjoyed talking with you today. I know everybody who's watching on Facebook Live is loving it. And thank you so much for listening on the podcast. I want to kind of wrap it up and share with you some things I took from it. And then we'd love to hear how we can connect with you. So I appreciate what you just said about courage and how it's not really the absence of fear, but it's stepping forward. And even just having like 51% more courage than fear can help you do that. Failure is just not trying. So I thought that was awesome. I loved our conversation about women and making sure that as women that you step forward, even if you don't feel like you are 125% ready, because what does that even mean, you know, and seven steps to deal with adversity and lead yourself through adversity. I thought that was gold. And then just at the end, how, you know, a negative attitude is going to kill your ability to adapt. So thanks for bringing it today. Thanks for sharing with all your wisdom and your knowledge and just your experiences.

So how can we reach out to you if we're interested in booking you or if we wanna learn more about your coaching or follow you on social or get your book, Fearless Leadership. Tell us how we can go ahead and do that. Yeah, so my book's available at all major bookstores. You can order it from an Indie if you want or Amazon. Their shipping times are a little bit varied right now,

but you can find me at karylorenz.com and I'm on everything except for TikTok and I barely check Snapchat. So I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook as well. So don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'm here to help. Thank you so much, Kary. I'm so grateful that you were on today.

Glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes

and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-I-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.