Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Carrington Smith on Why We All Have Moments That Define Us EP 162

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. I didn't have my job as about being out there in public. I lost my means for creating an income. I lost my friendship circle. I was too busy hiding out and shaming of like how I appeared. This whole thing about me being pretty. Boy, this thing, when it happened to me, really got to me because of that deep wound that's so wound from childhood.

Starting point is 00:00:27 Here I was. I looked like a monster at this point. Truly, I'm not saying that. I looked like a monster. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, Jon Armyles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors,

Starting point is 00:01:06 CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 162 of PassionStruck, one of the top health and fitness podcasts in the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly to listen and learn, how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And if you're new to the show, welcome. If you want to share this with friends or family members,

Starting point is 00:01:35 thank you by the way. We now have episode starter packs both on Spotify and on the PassionStruck website. These are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we organize into different topics. To give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything that we do here on the show, just go to passionstruck.com starter packs to get started. And if you missed my episodes from earlier this week and last week, we had on Professor

Starting point is 00:02:00 Sarah Medneck, who's a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California Irvine, and one of the foremost experts on sleep and the author of, to take an app and the power of the downstate. And we also had on, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and repeat number one, Amazon, best selling author, Stephen Conkley, who specializes in spy thrillers. Please go check them all out. And if you missed my momentum Friday episode last week, it was all on the power of meditation

Starting point is 00:02:28 and the 10 benefits that you can get from it. I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews. They go such a long way in helping to promote the popularity of the PassionStrike podcast and helping us move up in the podcast ratings. I so appreciate all your support and helping this build this

Starting point is 00:02:45 passion-struck community. Now let's talk about today's guests. Karrington Smith is a single mom, business owner, attorney, and executive search professional. For much of her life, it was struggling just to survive, to hold it together, to stay above water. She has survived sexual assault, two divorces, piles of debt, abuse, religious mind games, the death of loved ones and the loss of close friends. On her journey to self-acceptance, she learned the power of perspective

Starting point is 00:03:13 and began to thrive when she changed her mindset. In her day, Buu, best-selling memoir, titled, Blumen, her character combines wit and wisdom to share her journey through the shit of life, to a life that's bursting with joy, opportunity, and passion. And in our discussion, we talk about her continued journey and her inability to meet her parents and family's expectations.

Starting point is 00:03:35 Her trauma that occurred in college that forever changed her life, but more importantly, how her friends and her own mom responded to that event. How her family upbringing made her feel like such an imposter as she got older. The importance of life's microchoices in determining our long-term destinies, how she found herself lost in the wilderness, and her steps more importantly to get out of it. Why should we begin with the end in mind and so much more? Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your hosting

Starting point is 00:04:05 guide on your journey creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am so ecstatic to have Carrington Smith on the podcast today. Welcome, Carrie to the Passion Struck podcast. Thank you, John, for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I thought I would start this off. You and I, as I was reading your book, and I will put up copy for it right here. So the audience can see it. It's called blooming. But throughout the book, I saw several overlaps that you and I shared. And one of those I saw several overlaps that you and I shared. And one of those was our parents introducing us to tennis when we were both pretty youthful.

Starting point is 00:04:50 And I remember there were times as I was growing up where I was playing four to five times a week competitively. And as I was listening to your story, there are other elements of your tennis game that you can bring up. Do you find that at times you were fighting yourself through that experience? I definitely was fighting myself in that my background with tennis. I started out playing okay and I come from a family of

Starting point is 00:05:19 everyone playing tennis and having some real champions in the family. playing tennis and having some real champions in the family. The reason I was fighting myself is because when I was about five, my tennis game started to disintegrate. And suddenly, I could not hit the ball to save my life. And everybody thought, oh, this kid just like, just sucks. Has no athletic ability. What's happened here? I was rejected by my family. What I didn't understand was that I had a sustained an injury in the interim and developed a paralysis in one of my eyes, which caused the ball to be one height for one eye and one height for another.

Starting point is 00:06:00 And my brain would try to merge those images and if something's coming at me quickly, 100% of the time I will miss it. I will tell you, I was trying to staple something to the wall this weekend for my son, for his graduation. And every time I would go to staple, I would miss. Every time. And they were laughing at me. And I said, this is an example.

Starting point is 00:06:26 You can literally see in real time how my eyes think something is one place. And I go to do it and it misses. And so it was really illustrative of the difficulty I would have with any hand-eye coordination effort at all. But the thing is, in a family where that was so highly valued, I was completely rejected, like I was disposable because I suddenly lacked the ability to play tennis. I mean, of any skill there is, that was it for them. They were like, she's not one of us. I was outside. I was on the outside

Starting point is 00:07:05 looking and it's still a source of frustration this day. Here are friends talking about going to play tennis knowing that that's something that I cannot do. I can't even get surgery to correct this. It's not possible. And so it's a source of frustration. But I've had to learn that the differences that I have, the fact that I can't play tennis, means I'm exceptional at other things. And I've had to learn that we can't value somebody just on one trade. And that my family was overlooking all these wonderful things about me because they were so focused on the one thing I did not have. And that's the sad part of that.

Starting point is 00:07:42 But it also is what makes, kind of made me grow into a better person. So. Interestingly enough, in some ways, I can emphasize with you because when I was probably about the same age till I was eight or nine, I had a eye condition called Ampliopia, which means you have a weaker eye and so I had to play tennis with a patch on one eye. So it made hitting shots and realizing their death and other things very difficult. But I do find that quite interesting because I was raised in a family of huge tennis players. We would all gather around and watch Wimmelton or the US Open or that was everything and our summers were all just consumed by playing tennis. So I can get the expectations and how they could be so high on you even at such a young age. But the expectation setting didn't stop there.

Starting point is 00:08:35 As I heard your story, there were so many moments in your life that were just unbelievable. And I think one of the most shocking to me was the comparison on your outer looks that your dad made between you and your sister. Can you talk about that a little bit and how that is impacted you? So for the listener, when I was probably about eight or nine years old, like every little girl does,

Starting point is 00:09:02 looking to my father to find out if I was pretty or not. I asked him, I said, Dad, am I pretty? And he gave me the ones over. And he really gave me kind of a look up and down and kind of stepped back and looked at me and said, Yeah, no, yeah, you're not pretty. Look, I don't want to set you up for disappointment in life. I don't want you to have false expectations. You need to know, you're're not pretty. Look, I don't wanna set you up for disappointment in life. I don't want you to have false expectations. You need to know you're just not pretty. But your sister, she's beautiful. Oh man.

Starting point is 00:09:38 For a little girl, I mean, he didn't just break my heart. He's stomped on it. For the rest of my life, I've had issues with body dysmorphia. I've always been sort of obsessed with being pretty and trying to be pretty. And the worst part of this was I learned 30 years later that he'd had the same conversation with my sister, but in reverse.

Starting point is 00:10:07 He had told her that she was not pretty, but he as a malignant narcissist, he did that intentionally to drive a wedge between me and my sister, and also to put us in a situation where we were constantly looking to him for approval. It's a very common dynamic with a malignant narcissist. So what happened was not only did I have this complete loss as self-esteem, but I lost my relationship with my sister for years because we were constantly competing with one another. And I was always being compared to her.

Starting point is 00:10:41 So it was this very sick dynamic. But yeah, for years, I mean, even to this day, the good, as I always like to find this little relining in these things, the good news is, my self-esteem is not based on being pretty. It's based on being smart, because that's where I got my accolades and praise from as a child, my very core personality is based on intelligence. However, because of that dynamic, it's very important to me to be pretty. Obviously, I value beauty on the inside so much more,

Starting point is 00:11:17 but it's definitely something that's interwoven into my personality because of that, yeah. Interesting. I found another overlap that we sort of had was my parents didn't pay for me to go to college, but they paid for my sister and brother. Unfortunately, my father had lost his job for an expended period of time

Starting point is 00:11:38 and had used up some of the college savings. So when it was my turn, I was gonna have to pay for the majority of them myself, which I couldn't afford. It's not the reason I ended up going to the Naval Academy, but it sure helped to have free tuition. Yeah. But in your story, you talk about how your older siblings were set up by your parents to go to really exclusive schools, not only for college, but also, I think in the case of your sister, a private school to prepare her for going to college.

Starting point is 00:12:09 Oh yes. So my grandmother and my sister all went to Miss Porter's in Farmington, Connecticut. It's a very exclusive, all-female boarding school. And so they decided that my sister, who's I'm the baby of the family because she was the older sister, they and of course she could play tennis and was more athletic and kind of became the the the was my brother and my sister being the favorite and then I was sort of the leftover. So in this circumstance, when they decided to send my sister to Miss Porter's, they actually asked me to transfer to public school. I've been going to a small private school

Starting point is 00:12:54 in the Seattle area, and so she goes off to Miss Porter's in Farmington, Connecticut, and I end up going to public school. And it really, it's weird, it's just your life. You don't really even think about it while you're going through it. But as we got older and started talking about

Starting point is 00:13:07 our high school experiences, I mean, she was going to the black and white ball in New York City at this debutant ball. She was going off on private jets on the weekends because that she was in the private jet crowd. I was in public school in an industrial town. We would have go have a party on a vacant lot somewhere. I was just very different life experiences.

Starting point is 00:13:33 And part of that too, is that she walked away with a role of X, I mean, crazy role of X. And then she went from there to USC, University of Spoil Children. And eventually she got an MBA from Dartmouth. So, and my brother went to Stanford. So, they were definitely set up for success

Starting point is 00:13:52 and financially supported and positioned for that to happen. And I was always told, look, even when I got to college, they asked me to go in state because my brother and sister were off at these exclusive private schools and they couldn't afford to pay for all three of us going there. So in the end, it's, I'm a much more resilient person. I really believe I turned out the best of all three of us. And it's because of the character that I built through the experiences I had, because of the character that I built through the experiences I had,

Starting point is 00:14:29 them sort of abandoning me, not sort of truly abandoning me in law school. And that definitely shaped my life in a lot of positive and negative ways. But I know that I can take care of myself. I dug myself out of $150,000 in debt. And that was totally me. And there's no one else who can take credit for that. You learn from those experiences and those good traits that I know I'm scrappy. I have no doubt that I can get something done that I can take myself out of something. And those experiences helped to shape my personality and helped me professionally in the end.

Starting point is 00:15:02 experiences helped to shape my personality and helped me professionally in the end. Well, I think this is a good segue into perhaps this next question, but I'll kind of build into it. That as you mentioned, your brother wants to Stanford, your sister went to USC, and you end up going to Washington State. And we all have moments that define us. Can you tell me about a moment

Starting point is 00:15:27 that shaped you and how during your undergraduate experience? You're stealing the question from my book. But again, for the listener, that is the framework of my book is that question. And the first chapter is about being raped in college. So yeah, I went off to Washington State University and outside of this very rigorous sort of micromanaged life into on my own and sort of again, sort of just like go, we're kind of done with you. I went over for, it was during Homecoming Week

Starting point is 00:16:03 and I went over for, it was during Homecoming week and I went over to fraternity house because we were building yard displays for Homecoming and went over with the group of sority sisters and one by one they killed off and I didn't realize I was there left by myself and I ended up getting, I don't want to go into all the details, but I ended up getting raped, and it was truly a horrific experience, and I'm very deliberate about being specific and detailed about that experience, because I think too often these days, the sort of the bad side of the Me Too movement is that people think, oh it's just another sexual assault. I really wanted people to experience what I went through, to understand from beginning to end, like how it happened, how I ended up there, the pain that I went through, how I duck myself out, the responses I received from my mother, from my sorority sister. And I guess one of the most shocking things about it, I think people find is how my mother responded when I finally told

Starting point is 00:17:13 her that I've been raped. And what happened was I confided in her, and her response to me was to get angry. And she turned red in the face and stood up and said, I am so disappointed in you. We had hoped that you would be a virgin when you got married. And just shaking red, just angry with me and said, you were never to speak of this ever again. And you were never to tell your father. And just, that was it for me. I didn't talk about it for six years. I tried, like so many people just forget about it,

Starting point is 00:17:57 to pretend it didn't happen, but what happens with trauma, if we don't deal with it, is that it comes back to bite us and it ends up coming out through our own behavior. We start reliving the experience because it's unaddressed and so I became promiscuous, which you know years later after much therapy, I learned that's a fairly common response to being raped is you start to act out those behaviors and so suddenly I'm thinking that I'm only worthy of sex with some random person. I don't think there's any value to me or who I am. Actually, well, the first thing that started

Starting point is 00:18:33 the healing process was I actually sat down and wrote the story of the rape and shared it with somebody who I was romantically involved with. And it was through writing about that trauma that I began to heal. I talk about that because I want to encourage people to think about that as an option, because I think for a lot of people talking about trauma, it's so hard not just because you go back and you relive it, because of the immediate judgment that you get from people. And the worst is the minimizing. Oh, it wasn't that bad. the media judgment that you get from people, and the worst is the minimizing. Oh, it wasn't that bad.

Starting point is 00:19:06 Oh, you should have known better. The minimizing is so harmful. But when I wrote it, there was no audience. It was me telling my truth. And there was no one there to minimize or shame me or make me feel bad about what happened. And then when I shared my story with the guy that I was romantically involved with,

Starting point is 00:19:27 he surprised me by embracing me. And that was the beginning of the healing process for me. Do you have a topic like today's that you would like to see us cover? You can reach us at Momentum Friday at passionstruck.com. Keep your emails concise. Use a descriptive subject line. That keeps things easy for us. Reach out to us if there's a topic you're interested in learning about. There's something

Starting point is 00:19:52 that maybe you're going through, any big decision that you're wrestling with, or perhaps you just want a new perspective on work, love, or life. Whatever's got you staying up at night, hit us up at Momentum Friday at passionstruck.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous now back to passionstruck. Well, I can't even imagine what you went through and then to lose the support that you thought you were going to have from your sorority sisters. And then to again lose it from the one person who should have been most compassionate, your mom, to not being then to again lose it from the one person who should have been most compassionate your mom to not being able to talk about it. I know myself from having

Starting point is 00:20:30 and endured my fair share of trauma that I tried to internalize everything. I tried to just wear it inside. What ends up happening over a period is you start internalizing more and more to the point that you become emotionally numb after a while and that's a terrible state to be in. So the sooner you can find alternate ways to relieve that trauma, whether it's, as you said, writing it out or cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive process and therapy or long exposure therapy, etc. I highly encourage people not to wait because the longer you let it endure, it has such a long term severe impact leading to depressive disorder and other things that just carry a huge weight over you.

Starting point is 00:21:22 And I experienced all of that. I had a major depressive disorder, basically, and actually spent a year on the couch doing psychoanalysis with a therapist to kind of deprogram all these messages that I'd received, whether it was from my father telling me I wasn't pretty to some of the other horrible things that he told us, but also deprogramming the messages I got from the rape and really dealing with that trauma. I mean, at five days a week for a year on the couch, it was the best money I've ever spent.

Starting point is 00:21:53 And I didn't stop there. I mean, I've done all kinds of things. I'm constantly trying to identify those obstacles and things that are stopping me for being successful and figuring out the paths to get there. And for a lot of it, it was that psychoanalysis I've also done healing hypnosis, which I've done to be incredibly helpful and it's much faster in some ways. So whatever works for you,

Starting point is 00:22:15 encourage people to reach out for those resources and not be ashamed that they've experienced trauma. That's the worst part is the shame, which shouldn't be there. No, not at all. Yeah. It's been amazing for me over the past couple of years. I have been reaching out to more and more veterans and for a very long period of my life, I tried to avoid being around veterans or going to the VFW or American Legion or anything like that because ultimately when you start talking to a veteran, we sometimes are best friends and worst enemies because they immediately want to understand what you

Starting point is 00:22:51 did and then go into challenging questions of what did you experience in combat. This is what I did. And for me, it would bring back all kinds of flashbacks, which would impact my life and my sleep and everything else. But I've now learned to kind of embrace it. I only share what I'm willing to share, but I've gotten comfortable because of the work I've done on myself that I don't let those things bother me anymore. But it did take me putting myself purposely in situations that I didn't want to be in to get myself over them.

Starting point is 00:23:24 And I guess you could say the same thing with public speaking or other things that you go through, but that's sometimes what you have to do. I feel with trauma. Absolutely. They say, at least with regard to writing, something that you're gonna put out in public, don't share anything that you haven't already done the work on.

Starting point is 00:23:41 And the same would be true, as far as any kind of traumatic experience. Before you get out there and start talking about something in public or with a group, or you open yourself up, it's important to already have done that work because otherwise you're opening yourself up to being re-traumatized.

Starting point is 00:23:59 There's a reason why, I mean, I'm 54 years old. There's a reason why it took me, however many years, to write the story and put it in public about being raped when I was 19. So there's a lot of healing that happened in between. I hope that by sharing that story that it has touched lives. And I think the best magic part of the story that I share is that I talk about how I took what happened to me, and I learned to look at it and claim it as part of who I was, instead of rejecting it, instead claiming it, and saying, what did I get from this experience?

Starting point is 00:24:38 And how can I use that to propel me to greatness? And changing my viewpoint, instead of looking at something that had been done to me and had harmed me and do something that was now part of me and part of the fabric of who I was. I mean, I couldn't deny that. It's true. Instead looking at the work that I've done and saying, how can I use what happened to me? What did I get from this? How can I use it to move me forward and propel me forward? And that is probably the most important aspect of that story,

Starting point is 00:25:15 is that I was successful doing that, but I used the example of others that were to, so people can see how others have also taken these horrible things that have happened to them and used them to propel them forward. Yeah well I love the quote by Brené Brown that he used in the book where it says owning your story and loving ourselves through all that process is the bravest thing we can do and I think that's what you just covered. Yeah absolutely. A great way to open up chapter one, where you kind of lay out this story. And I was going to continue this story for the listener. So you end up convincing your parents to move from Washington State University to attend the University of Texas. You successfully

Starting point is 00:26:00 get your undergraduate degree and decide you want to go to law school. And now you think, I have finally gotten the golden ticket. I finally got in my chance. Your parents have agreed to send you to law school. You get into Tulane. You're probably on one of the highest clouds you've ever been on. And then what happens? Yeah, I get there and I'm like, wow, this is, and my thing encouraged me to go to Tulane. Yes, sure, turn. We got this go to Tulane. I'm like, it's

Starting point is 00:26:32 expensive. Go, go. We got this. I get there. It was probably the first semester. They said, you know what? We changed our mind. We're tired of paying for you kids. You're on your own. I said, what? I'm sorry, what? They were still claiming me on their income tax. I could not qualify for any needs-based loans. And because I was so late in the game, the only thing I could get was these credit-based loans that were like 10 or 12%. I mean, we don't even pay that. I mean, on your mortgage today, right? I mean, that's in seniority. And so here I was set up to fail,

Starting point is 00:27:16 feeling totally abandoned. I mean, it was just kind of like, yeah, I will change your mind. You're on your own. To the point that I was grocery shopping, I was working for a professor getting loans, trying to make ends meet, and I still was having trouble finding the money to eat. Because I wasn't getting enough money

Starting point is 00:27:36 because of the obstacles I had to getting it. So I was in the grocery line, and the person in front of me had food stamps and They had the conveyor belt covered pork chops and potatoes and cakes and bread and you name it It was lots of food and I was behind this person and I had a powder can of slim fast and a gallon of milk and I had determined that if I combined those two, it was less than $5 a week. And I would get all my vitamins and nutrients in

Starting point is 00:28:12 from the slim fast to add it to the milk. And that would be my meals for the week. And I walked outside and I called my father in the parking lot and I said, Dad, the person in front of me has food stamps and they have way more food than I and I have. And I was crying. I'm like, I'm working in going to law school.

Starting point is 00:28:30 And he's like, I hadn't thought of that. You should apply for food stamps. How does that even compute? I mean, I have a sister at USC, a brother at Stanford, and I should be on food stamps. Why didn't they get that? You should apply for food stamps. I'm like, Dad, I'm not applying for food stamps. And the kicker of that too is he loved

Starting point is 00:28:53 you criticize people who are on welfare. He, that was one of his favorite things was to criticize those kinds of people. And yet he was telling his own daughter. I went hungry a lot. And again, the silver lining from that was, I have such a heart for people who are hungry. I mean, one of my favorite charities

Starting point is 00:29:11 is the capillary food bank here in Austin, because I really get what it's like to be hungry. I've been there where I had really nothing to eat. So I understand that. nothing to eat. So I understand that. Well then you end up persevering throughout all of this. You end up meeting a romantic partner along the way of this journey. Maybe for some of the reasons that you brought up before that they were really one of the first people who was accepting you and was being the one sympathetic year that you had never had throughout this whole journey.

Starting point is 00:29:49 But you end up graduating from law school and practicing law for a bit. What caused you to stop practicing and to go into recruiting? I didn't have the easiest legal experience, I guess. I graduated in a year where there were basically no jobs, and I had tons of debt. I was a lucky one. I did get a job, but it didn't pay very much. And the environment that I worked in was quite toxic. I worked for a retired Texas Supreme Court justice,

Starting point is 00:30:21 who was notorious for his sexual harassment. And the firm was like, well, who are we going to stand by? The Supreme Court Justice or this baby lawyer. And of course, they chose Kim. And so I was told, if you don't like it, you can change jobs. And so I reached out to a client and asked for a reference and they said wherever you're going, we're going and ended up starting my own firm. Basically, I learned through this process. There are a lot of kind of fun stories in my early career, but what I took away from it

Starting point is 00:30:58 was, well, I enjoyed working with lawyers. I didn't really enjoy the actual practice of law. It's really hard work. And I didn't have much of a social life, and that's a very big part of who I am. And my strengths really lie in developing relationships and understanding people as opposed to being stuck in minutia. So yeah, I made the leap to get into head hunting and that the best decision I ever made. It's been a wonderful career for me.

Starting point is 00:31:33 Yeah, and what type of law did you practice? I did property tax litigation. It'll drive me to get heading faster than anything. Yeah anything. Yeah, I went to law school to avoid numbers and working in property tax. So the good part of that was our clients for Fortune 500 companies. The bad part of that was it was property tax. I have so many friends who are attorneys who no longer practice law and the number just seems to keep growing. I remember when my first cousin was looking at law school or going to an MBA, he came to me and said,

Starting point is 00:32:12 what do you think about me becoming a lawyer or getting my MBA? And I go, it's a very easy decision. Do you want to be an attorney or not? Because if you're uncertain about that question, then I would push you towards the NBA. If you are very much set on and have a passion for being an attorney, then go to law school.

Starting point is 00:32:33 A lot of people that I've seen, and additionally in the corporate world, kind of go that route without truly understanding, as you were saying, some of the arduous components of it. When it's interesting, I have a husband and wife, friend of mine, who own up a law practice and she's the one who actually does all the practicing of the law and he does more of the business development arm. He will do some court visit. He was a prosecutor before, but it's interesting how I guess in any business you each have your role. Yeah, but you're right about that. I mean, it's good advice that you're giving. I discourage a lot of people. I say don't go to law school because it's a huge

Starting point is 00:33:18 amount of debt, unless you 100% know that's something that you want to do. And honestly, if you're not in the top 10 or 15 percent of your class after the first year, you might want to rethink that because the likelihood of you reaching the kind of compensation levels that you would like are suddenly much slimmer. There's no other career where grades matter more than the practice of law. Yes, one, it's interesting. I mentioned a number of my friends had become attorneys and then shifted directions. Two of my most recent guests on the podcast are the same thing.

Starting point is 00:33:54 Gretchen Rubin goes to Yale Law School, becomes Sandra Day O'Connor's one of the justices for clerks. And during the time she was her clerk, comes to realization that she doesn't want to practice law, and it's really writing that she wants to pursue. And then Susan Cain spent six to seven years in a law firm trying to make it up the latter, finally gets to this point where she's up for partner,

Starting point is 00:34:22 and they deny her. And she ends up leaving the legal profession, and for for both of them now they're 10 times more successful doing what they're doing as writers and they would have been before but it's not for everyone. And if a lawyer is listening to this and they want to pursue something else, I mean, I think we both given some great examples that you're not stuck and you can apply this in different directions. Well, one of the interesting things and one of the reasons I love what I do, because now I'm a headhunter basically for lawyers is I like to say my job is like a box of chocolates, because anyone who goes to law school usually has had a previous career before they go. They have an undergraduate degree in something else. And what's fun about interviewing lawyers is that an interview thousands of them

Starting point is 00:35:10 is that I'll interview one guy, and he was in the NBA before he went to law school. I interviewed another guy who was in the NFL before he went to law school. Another one was an electrical engineer before they went to law school. I mean, you never know that could be a doctor before they go to law school. Another one was an electrical engineer before they went to law school. I mean, you never know that could be a doctor before they go to law school. I mean, it's sort of the second career choice. And for some people, it's also that sort of like, I don't know what else I want to do. And so I never know what I'm going to get when I interview somebody, but there's always

Starting point is 00:35:43 something interesting and some story underlying that decision to go law school. And so that's why one of the reasons that I love what I do. Yeah, it's a funny story. I'm kind of laughing because one of my college roommates ended up being our valedictorian. He was a Rhodes scholar, becomes a Navy SEAL. Unfortunately, some things happened while he was a seal and he left the Navy to become an attorney. I was telling this story to my dad,

Starting point is 00:36:11 he was a veteran the other day, he goes, okay, so that's the backup plan to being a seal. You become an attorney. Yeah, I mean, it's a backup plan for a lot of people. It may not, I mean, and for some people, it works out to be a great backup plan. But for others, it doesn't. And so I think that my word of caution with going to law school is about the debt having really lived that experience. It's people need to go in with their eyes wide open when they make that decision.

Starting point is 00:36:37 Well, I'm going to do a segue here and it's kind of on these same lines, but in chapter 18, you make a statement that you were lost in the wilderness. What did you mean by this? And do you think everyone goes through periods like this? What is your advice for people who might find themselves stuck in this wilderness? One of the things I joke about my book is there's something in there for everyone

Starting point is 00:37:00 because I go from everything from being right, to being sexually harassed, to you know, my career journey, to losing my mother, to losing my best friend, the cancer, and then I was badly burned. I mean, there's just a lot that I've gone through. There's something in there that somebody can relate to. For me, I reached a point where you get so caught up in trying to please everyone and live the story that other people have in their mind for you. And I was just so unhappy. Every time I would try to fit in and do it, I felt like I was supposed to do to make other people happy. I just became more miserable. And when I was burned, it was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life by far, it was really, really horrible. That was doing a laser treatment,

Starting point is 00:37:53 correct? Yes, on my face, neck, declite, and shoulders. And I don't know if you can see, but there's like all these white spots. I had tons of subsequent procedures to get me back to where I can even show my face. It's about a year of not being out in public. Through that experience, I like to compare being burned to be like a forest fire, with a forest fire from the charmer mains comes new growth. And for me, when I was burned, I was taken down to nothing. Like, again, my job is about being out there in public. I lost my means for creating an income.

Starting point is 00:38:34 I lost my friendship circle. I was too busy hiding out and shame of like how I appeared. This whole thing about me being pretty. Boy, this thing, when it happened happened to me really got to me because of that deep wound that's so wound from childhood, here I was, I looked like a monster at this point truly, I'm not saying that, I looked like a monster and so taking me down to nothing, everything fell away and I suddenly had the freedom to just be me and not care about what everyone else thought because I was really just putting one foot in front of the other,

Starting point is 00:39:16 trying to pull my head, my neck above water and do that process, all that just stuff from my past fell away. And I realized what was really, really important. And to change the focus of my life, the purpose of my life, I realized that all that really mattered were these core relationships with my kids and certain friends and family. And that every day, even if I couldn't be seen out in public, my whole purpose was to touch other people's lives. If that was sending an email that paid them a compliment

Starting point is 00:39:53 or sending a prayer, giving a blessing, and some way interacting with people, always leaving them better off. Little by little, I finally dug myself out from there, but I came away free. I mean all the stuff that I used such a gift, because it has changed my life in such a positive direction, I'm grateful that it happened because it's improved my life dramatically. I think that's a great explanation for anyone on the show to hear us add sometimes when those things happen. It's one of the most clarifying moments

Starting point is 00:40:46 you can have. And I'm doing a podcast that I'm releasing later this week on how we all have to embrace pain in our lives. And to me, it's how you choose to deal with that pain that decides the outcome you're going to have. Because you can choose to do unhealthy or harmful things, such as numbing yourself or doing self-inflicted things to yourself that will only magnify in the end the pain that you're feeling or you can choose to really sit with it, be vulnerable with yourself about the pain you're feeling, and learn how to deal with it, be vulnerable with yourself about the pain you were feeling, and learn how to deal with it.

Starting point is 00:41:27 I'm not sure if that's something you've gone through, it sounds like you have. That's nice. Well, I love, there's a story in the book that I tell about a trip to Vegas that I took. And I went with a girlfriend, the blogio had just opened, the big thing was the blogio of mountains.

Starting point is 00:41:44 We went to this restaurant that had an outdoor seating area overlooking the mountains. We had just finished dinner and I was getting it from the table. She was still sitting under the umbrella. And I stood up and at that precise moment, a gust of wind hit the mountains. And it was like a tidal wave over me out of nowhere. Oh my gosh.

Starting point is 00:42:06 I was a deluge. I mean, they literally had like a little thing around the edge of the patio. And so we there were probably about five inches of water of this patio. There was so much water. We had spent a couple hours getting ready. That's how girls used to do when we were younger. And so my girlfriend looked to be like. What is going to happen here? Like, is

Starting point is 00:42:26 our night ruined? Like, is it going to take her forever to get ready? I mean, I never forget the look of expectation on her face. Just like, what's going to happen? And I realized in that split second that I had a decision to make. How is I going to view this event? Because the story that I told myself, how I chose to view an event that in and of itself was neither good nor bad would determine how the evening would go. And so I said, what are the odds of this happening? Has anybody ever been hit by a fountain before? And they're like, no, this is the first time this has ever happened. I'm like, I have been baptized by the holy water. We are going to win tonight. And so I use that moment to embrace the fact that this was such a rare event. And we got out of there quickly and got quickly dried off. My friend was like, well, they should conquer me and I'll live in them.

Starting point is 00:43:28 No, no, like forget about the drama of the event. Let's just run with this. Random stairs got dried off and went out. And what I've learned is anytime there's an experience in life, you have a choice. How did you it? And the story you tell yourself. and that determines the outcome of the events that happen to you.

Starting point is 00:43:50 And I think that so many people choose to embrace drama and trauma as opposed to viewing something differently and saying, wow, there's a positive outcome here. How can I use this? And it's those daily micro decisions. So you stub your toe. I mean, whatever it is, you have a flat tire. What are you gonna do with that?

Starting point is 00:44:16 And it's how you use those events positively that changes your life. I just had a guest on the podcast and released her episode a couple weeks ago. It's Dr. Marcel Seeger. She's a behavioral scientist at the University of Michigan. And she just released a book called The Joy Choice. And one of the things she found in it is that we are basically conditioned by society in many different ways.

Starting point is 00:44:43 But one of them is our behaviors were taught to start and stop but not sustain. And she said the same thing. You did that throughout all her research. And she concentrates her on kind of exercise and well-being. But what she has found is if you want sustainable behavioral change, it all has to do with micro choices that you make now and now and now and now and now throughout every single day, that influence the long-term impacts that you're going to have. You can easily see that on eating or going to the gym because if you go to the gym once a month,

Starting point is 00:45:23 it's not going to have the same effect, it's going four to five times a week. But the same thing on other elements of our life that we want to improve. If you got a drinking problem and you want to quit, you can't just do it one day a week. Right. Yeah, it's also that with positivity, with choosing joy, like you're saying. I mean, it's every moment, what am I gonna do with this? I mean, choosing kindness over anger, choosing empathy. It's choosing humor. That's one of the most it for me. I always try to choose humor. I can find humor in anything, if it may be a little twisted,

Starting point is 00:46:01 but it's been a great tool for me when something really sucks. If I can make it funny, it's so much better. It just helps, right? At least when you're going through it. And sometimes we don't know in that moment that this is going to be a positive. It just sucks in that moment. And I'm not, I really want people to know, if you're going through something that's horrible, you know what, feel it, embrace it, don't suppress it, but also deal with it, don't wait in it.

Starting point is 00:46:37 So I think that's kind of what I preached, so to speak, is I really believe there's two types of people. I mean, we all have crap that happens to us. There are people who love to wait in it and just like stir it up and cause drama and you're like all about what's been done to them and all these horrible things that have happened to them. And there are those of us who take what's happened to us and find the positive in it. We see how we can claim what we learn from that experience, the traits that make us stronger and use it to move us forward. I really kind of believe there's two different groups of people

Starting point is 00:47:15 and it comes down to mindset and those micro choices. I think this is a great way to introduce this next topic I wanted to get in with you. And you mentioned in the book about the different stages in our life and finding meaning throughout each. Why should we begin with the end in mind and what did Deepak Chopra teach you? Well, he taught me about purpose.

Starting point is 00:47:40 I think there's a great quote in the book about purpose. What that is, what I learned about beginning with great quote in the book about purpose, what that is. What I learned about beginning with the end in mind is, like many people, I mean, I got, and I went to law school, I kind of stumbled in my first job, and I kind of like another pivot, there was never any goal or path, it was just like to get a good job, make money. There was no long-term end in mind. And through all the work that I've done through therapy, through reading, through self-help books, through all of that, I have learned that the best way to conduct yourself in life is to begin with the end in mind. And to create and write out the greatest life I could ever imagine is, is that's like a prompt and write very specifically what that would look like. For me, I talk about what my mate would look like, the kind of traits they would have. I talk about how my kids love to

Starting point is 00:48:39 see me, to can't wait to spend time with me, the kind of impact I have on this planet, what I leave behind. So when I wrote my story, as I started making changes in life, I started to use that as a roadmap so that when I was given an opportunity, I would ask myself, is this going to get me where I want to go? Is this going to let me spend more time with my kids to develop that relationship? I mean, they're about to go off to college. It's like, this time is so precious. Well, if it's gonna suck all my time right now,

Starting point is 00:49:12 that's not gonna get me that relationship I need to build right now. So I'm gonna say no to that project. Maybe later, but right now it's a no because it doesn't fit where I'm trying to go. And having that beautiful detailed idea of where I want to end up has made life decisions so much easier and given me true direction.

Starting point is 00:49:33 And I think the thing is, you really have to make it personal to you because I really believe that a lot of depression comes from having too many choices. I think that if you look at the countries where people are the happiest, if countries where they're basically born and told you're going to be a driver, or you're going to be a banker, or whatever that role was in society that they familiarly kind of were designated to have, so they just be the best one they can be. We don't have the plethora of choices.

Starting point is 00:50:06 One of the reasons that the Western world is so much more unhappy than the less developed world, I really believe is because we have too many choices. So we are constantly re-evaluating, maybe I should have done something differently, or maybe I should do what he's doing, or she's doing because I could do that, and might do that. And those things are sources of unhappiness. But when you really sit still and meditate and reflect and spend time with who you are and what's important to you and where you wanna end up, and you write that out and make that your journey

Starting point is 00:50:38 and use that to direct what you're gonna do, suddenly you're so happy because you are not paying attention to all the noise around you. You're not distracted by the bright shiny objects. You're living with the end in mind with what you want to leave behind on this planet, how you want to touch people's lives, the relationships you want to have, the things that really matter. And you make decisions that will get you there. It's just a better way to live life. and you make decisions that will get you there. It's just a better way to live life. Well, I think you just did a great job

Starting point is 00:51:08 of describing the whole purpose that we have here on the podcast, just teaching people how to live intentionally. And I think one of the best first steps a person can take is you can call it a bucket list, you can call it a contract with yourself, you can call it many different things, but it's orient the way that you can call it many different things, but it's orient the way that you want your life to look. Because I'm a huge believer that whether it's

Starting point is 00:51:31 saying gratitude or other things, the way you imagine and the result that you want to have, you can make happen, but you've got to do it intentionally. And I believe you can have all the grit and perseverance in the world, but if that's not intentionally focused, then you could be running down the wrong rabbit hole and just going around circles instead of reaching the outcome that you want to achieve. Exactly. I totally agree with you. Well, Kerry, if the audience wants to know more about you, and obviously I'm going to put links to the book and your social tabs in the show notes, what are some ways that they can do that. Sure. So my book website is careingtonhythensmith.com. All my social is at careington ATX.

Starting point is 00:52:23 that Carrington ATX. And my LinkedIn, if you're interested in the legal head on our aspect is actually a North Carrie Smith Tribue. But yeah, I would love to hear from your listeners. And I hope that they will consider purchasing the book on Amazon.com. It's also available on Audible. They want to listen to it.

Starting point is 00:52:42 So. Well, that's great. And I didn't get to cover nearly everything in the book. So there's a lot for you to digest. I would just tell the listener that a great component of the book talks about the different relationships that Kerry has had along the way and the journey and the ups and downs. I'll just lead you to this one aspect. You kind of profile a couple of different dates that you were going to go on and you use their titles. And I remember one of them, I think the details

Starting point is 00:53:13 where it was happening right around Mother's Day and you were waiting at this restaurant and you were really looking forward to the state. Person doesn't show up, doesn't call, doesn't do anything. Later on, you find that they had a legitimate reason for not doing it, but still you've kind of set your boundaries that you had established. And maybe we'll just end on you talking a little bit about that from the relationship standpoint. I had a guys that were supposed to meet on a date on Mother's Day and he stood me up.

Starting point is 00:53:45 A couple things. One the boundary said is I don't let anybody stand me up now. It's like if you do that, you're done. But the beautiful thing that came out of that was I sat there. I had had a babysitter come over an hour early so I could get ready because my kids were

Starting point is 00:54:01 really young. When you spend money on a new outfit, you're paying this babysitter, and then he stands you up. And it was Mother's Day. And all I could think of was, this was my Mother's Day. I mean, when you're a single mom, there's no one there getting you a spa day

Starting point is 00:54:17 or taking you for Mother's Day brunch. I was paying a babysitter thinking I might have a nice day. And my heart just went out to all the single moms. I thought, I'm so lucky. I am blessed. I can afford a babysitter. There are so many people who have no family and no relief and cannot afford a babysitter. The hardest working moms are the ones you don't get any celebration or accolades because they never get a break. And so one of the beautiful things that came out of that experience was I started a foundation called the Blooming Foundation and it's focused on helping single moms

Starting point is 00:54:57 and giving them a a hand up or a day off because my heart just really goes out to people who have had those experiences and really just don't have that safety net. And so that's the beautiful thing that came out of that experience. Well, thank you for sharing that and thank you for being so vulnerable with your story, and I'm sure for you the way you talk about it, it's end up being a great therapeutic thing for you as well to get over all these hardships that you go through in the book and we just touched on a few of them. Yeah. Well, Kerry, thank you so much for joining the podcast today and sharing your words of wisdom with our audience. Thank you so much for having on. This has been great. I really appreciate it. I love we had all these things in common. I had no idea. So this has been fun to learn more about you as well. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Carrie and wanted to thank her so much for being a guest on the show and all things Carrie will be in the show notes on the

Starting point is 00:55:52 passionstruck.com website. Please use our website links if you buy any of the books from the guests on the show. Any of those proceeds go to support the show and make it free for our listeners. Videos from the show are posted on YouTube and you can find them at our station at JohnRMiles. Please go there and subscribe. Advertisers, deals, and discount codes are conveniently located in one place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please support those who support the show. I'm at JohnRMiles, both at Twitter and Instagram, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. If you want to know how I book all these amazing guests, it's because of my network. Go out there and build those relationships before you need them. And most of the guests on the show actually subscribe and provide their input on guests and topics that we have here on the program. Come join us. You'll be in great company. You're about to hear

Starting point is 00:56:39 a preview of the Passion Start podcast with Jean Olwen, who is the president and founding CEO of Virgin Unite, an author of the newly released book, Partner in Forge, Deep Connections that make great things happen. Love was at the center of all of these companies, and I think John, we're taught to think that we can have love in a company. We have to just focus on the goal. It has to be transactional. And I think that's such a mistake. Because when you build

Starting point is 00:57:05 love and deep connection at the center of a company, of a partnership, of movement to change the world, that's what's going to keep that bond strong. And that's what's going to bring really light and joy into our lives. Are these deep connections that we build as one another? The fee for the show is that you share it with friends and family members. If you find something useful or interesting, if you know someone who's dealing with mental issues or overcoming family instability like Carrington, please share this episode with them.

Starting point is 00:57:35 The greatest compliment that you can give us here on the show is to share these episodes with those you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. Live Life Hashin Strut.

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Carrington Smith on Why We All Have Moments That Define Us EP 162

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