The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unlimiting Your Beliefs: 7 Keys to Greater Success in Your Personal and Professional Life; Told Through My Journey to the Toughest Race in the World by Karen Brown

Episode Date: June 3, 2023

Unlimiting Your Beliefs: 7 Keys to Greater Success in Your Personal and Professional Life; Told Through My Journey to the Toughest Race in the World by Karen Brown https://amzn.to/3qo3baD Yourexponentialresults.com Unlimiting Your Beliefs: 7 Keys to Greater Success in Your Personal and Professional Life Reviewed by Brian Tracy, Author of Eat that Frog! "This fast-moving, enjoyable book shows you how to overcome every obstacle and achieve any goal you can set for yourself." Karen Brown is an expert on transforming beliefs to achieve goals and dreams. She identified the 7 keys of achievement, through the process of accomplishing her own goal - finishing the toughest race in the world, the IRONMAN World Championship and overcoming her own limiting beliefs. Karen is CEO of a business psychology coaching company, a best-selling author, keynote speaker and ultra-athlete.Synopsis:What fears and limiting beliefs keep you from achieving the life you want? Everyone suffers inaction from limiting beliefs: "I can't possibly do that" or "I don't have enough (money, time, ability) to do that." Unlimiting Your Beliefs is the key to conquering those negative voices you're holding onto. Karen Brown, business psychology coach, speaker and ultra-athlete, shares proven strategies to transform your limiting beliefs and achieve any goal or dream. Unlimiting Your Beliefs is a success manual that puts the 7 powerful keys to achievement right at your fingertips so you can make any dream possible for yourself. You already possess the power to achieve anything you desire; unlimit your beliefs to tap into it. After struggling with her own limiting beliefs and fears, Karen discovered her true potential by finishing the most difficult race in the world, the IRONMAN World Championship, accomplishing a goal she'd held for 28 years.

You wanted the best? You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, this is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends.

We really appreciate you guys coming by. Thanks for being here and tuning in. As always, you guys are the most amazing audience in the world. So brilliant, so smart. That's because you've been listening to The Chris Voss Show for 14 years and 1,400 episodes. And we're putting out two to three new podcast episodes a day. We're just getting flooded with all the big publishing companies and everything we're doing.

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because we're old, man, and TikTok doesn't get us. They're just like, who are you people? What are you doing? We've got some amazing thinking and mind. Notice I only used the word one mind because we all know all the smart guests on the show are the brilliant ones, and I'm just the dumb one. But Karen Brown joins us on the show today.

She is the brilliant mind. Notice there's only one. It's not plural. Who's going to be joining us on the show today? She is the CEO of Exponential Results. She is the founder and CEO of the company, and she draws on over 30 years of experience as a corporate executive with over 20,000 hours of senior executive coaching experience.

Her coaching methods are based on neuroscience, which I could probably use some neuroscience now, allowing her to reach the subconscious and unsubconscious. That's what it was getting me there. Let's go with that, unsubconscious to say unsubconscious that's what that was getting me there let's go with that unsubconscious the unsubconscious did i just invent a new word apparently you did i don't know my psychologist says i need to work on my unsubconscious and get a frontal lobotomy but that's another story for another time uh and the unconscious mind of her clients where negative patterns are formed clearly i have i have some of those and where real change can occur she is a focused athlete having completed as an amateur in the iron man world championships in hawaii and numerous endurance events around the world karen is the author of unlimiting your beliefs seven Keys to Greater Success in Your Personal and Professional Life.

Welcome to the show, Karen. How are you? I am fabulous. Thank you. Fabulous, darling. Fabulous. Wonderful to have you on the show. We're having some fun with that with the old BBC there.

So give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs please yourexponentialresults.com that's spelled y-o-u-r like you yourexponentialresults.com there you go and your book was entitled Unlimiting Your Beliefs Seven Keys to Greater Success Your Personal and Professional Life Told Through My Journey to the Toughest Race in the world that's my as in yours not my as in mine uh january 9th 2018 uh so welcome to the show uh tell us a little bit about uh like your origin story what what got you here and got you into doing all these hard events like uh you know doing uh doing doing these tough events. Like, what did you do?

You're just like, hey, I really want to go. Yeah, doing these tough events just for fun. Yeah. Wait, you don't get paid for this? Oh, no, my friend. I got to pay money to do them. Yeah. You accepted that? You like went, hey, this seems like a good idea at the time.

So what motivated you to want to do all that? It's actually a great story. So when I was 14 years of age, I was flipping through the channels on the TV, and I saw the coverage of the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. And I didn't know what an Ironman was. I didn't even know what a triathlon was. And I was stopped dead in my tracks because of the drama that I saw unfolding. This was the year of Julie Moss and Kathleen McCartney, which is a famous rivalry.

And it truly was a big drama that unfolded. And right before my eyes was sort of this train wreck that I could not look away from. I literally couldn't tear myself away from it. And I wondered why, because I literally didn't know what was going on. And I sat down on the couch. And over the next few minutes, these big emotions began to well up inside me. And I started to tear up. Wow. me and I started to tear up. And what I realized was I started looking at that and comparing

myself to it and thinking, what if I have inside me what it takes to do that? And I'm not tapping into it. I'm just living this small, safe life. That's exactly what I was doing. Even though I was really successful, I had all the outer trappings of success, but I knew in my heart of hearts that I was only doing things that I knew I could achieve. Now, all of a sudden, here was this behemoth, monster, humongous thing that caused me to want to vomit anytime I thought about it, because I didn't have any earthy idea how anyone could do it. Keep in mind, so Ironman World Championships is a 2.4 mile swim in the ocean, 112 mile road bike, followed by a 26.2 mile marathon you have 17 hours to complete the race and it's in really difficult conditions uh high heat humidity crosswinds you have everything against you and i

can't do this in my uh in my at my gym or in the living room with the uh walking thing whatever the treadmill yeah you tell i don't exercise but the thing was uh you i had up to this point i had never run a marathon i was primarily a recreational runner and i had never even ridden a road bike. I was a mountain biker. Oh, wow. But I, all of a sudden from watching this and connecting to it in the deep way that I did, I wanted to do it because I felt this innate sense of, okay, I have to do that to see what I'm capable of.

Oh, wow. All of us have enormous infinite potential. And this will be my way to tap into that and to really learn what I'm capable of. Was there something in your past or did you just kind of realize that maybe you need to push your boundaries to a new level. Yeah. I would say massively expanding my comfort zone is what we're talking about. Yeah. Because like I said, I was just doing things that I knew I could, I was calling them challenges to other people, but I knew I could accomplish them, whether they were in my personal life or at work or athletically or whatever. Yeah. And so what I really did need was something this huge to break me out of my comfort zone,

do something completely new and different that also caused me to open up in a big way to see what else I might be capable of. Wow. And definitely explore, you know, maybe some self-limiting beliefs or something you were self-limiting in your life? Yeah. So limiting beliefs are a real thing. They're scientifically proven.

And about 30 years after I saw the World Championships on TV, because I still hadn't pursued training for it yet. I was in a class and we were studying neuroscience and specifically how our brains establish limiting beliefs. And it really just is a leftover sort of bug in our operating system from caveman times, which is our subconscious mind trying to keep us safe and alive. So when we're faced with anything new, different, maybe even scary, maybe even dangerous, our subconscious mind jumps in immediately and goes,

no, no, no, you're not going to be able to do that. You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't be doing that. Stop doing that. There you go. Right. And believe me, there were plenty of people later that said, no, no, no, Karen, you should not be doing that. Stop doing it. There you go. And believe me, there were plenty of people later that said, no,

no, no, Karen, you should not be doing the Ironman. So, and imagine there's a lot of training that has to go in for that, right? A shit ton,

man. Like I just couldn't get up and do it, you know, right? Oh no. I trained for two years to be able to do it. Yeah. About 25 hours a week over two years and how much you get paid

for this again no i'm just kidding uh zero yeah remember i got to pay for the privilege of doing it wow i need to charge i need to figure out i need to start something called uh iron man potato chips or something yeah and uh she doesn't beer or something i don't know so uh had you started your own company, your consulting firm at that time? Were you just looking to branch out? Or was this something that maybe took you out of your corporate world and made you want to start your own company? Yes and yes. So actually, no and yes. I had not started my company at that time. And it definitely did cause me to want to pioneer what I learned in this endeavor and my

previous years in corporate leadership and also then executive leadership coaching to bring it all together and to work with clients on developing their leadership through the use of neuroscience and specifically behavioral patterns. Because remember, limiting beliefs is nothing more than a behavioral pattern. There you go. There you go. So when you work with executives and stuff, what do you find the biggest thing that's tripping them up? What do you find is the biggest thing that they're usually challenged by?

Behavioral blind spots. Ah, scotomas, I think some people call them. Is that right? Yeah, glaucoma, scotomas. I can't remember who came up with that term. I think it might have been Tony Robbins or something, but scotomas, blind spots, where you can't see because of your belief systems, right?

Correct, Yes. Yeah. So blind spots are unrecognized weaknesses or threats that can hinder you. And so when we work with executive leaders, what we're doing is simply shining a light on their behavioral patterns that are blind spots, those behavioral patterns that they blind spots, those behavioral patterns that they aren't aware of consciously. But they've been running over years, usually, because at one point, it caused them to rise to success. And that's the way a lot of blind spots or behavioral patterns work. They work for a long time, and they help propel you up to a

certain level, but they won't propel you to levels above that, like reaching higher, elevating. They won't get you there. So you literally have to come into contact with them, see them for what they are, look at what the results you're getting from them is, and then establish new ones and run those instead if you want to elevate your performance. There you go. And, you know, it's interesting to me with Skatomas, with my business, I was always worried about the one thing that we hadn't identified or looked for. You know, it's the lines sneaking up to you from behind you. And since you believe that, well, you know, things work this way, you know, business is constantly changing too as well.

So you've got to adapt for that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the types of leadership that worked 10 years ago even is ineffective today. And dare I say that executive leaders that aren't looking at their blind spots or their behavioral blind spots, working in their behavioral patterns, they're not going to make it. They're not going to be able to adapt quickly enough to stay ahead of the market. Yeah. What are some classic ones that you find that executives engage in that they need to overcome? Is there any consistent ones that maybe they're not paying attention to new trends or new changes in the market?

No, those would be more conscious or strategic blind spots, Chris. What we're talking about is behavioral blind spots. So the big easy ones to identify, although every executive leader has their own unique ones, because even though all of our brains work exactly the same way, no two people have the same exact blind spots oh wow okay yeah uh so some quick easy examples are not showing appreciation uh not admitting when you're wrong wait i'm supposed to admit when i'm wrong what you're never wrong i'm never wrong wait is that ironic? Right. Not truly listening to people. What?

I mean, yeah, right. We all know those people that you can tell they're not really listening to what you're saying. They're just waiting for you to finish so that they can give you their solution, their answer. Right? So not truly listening. That sounds like my whole podcast. No, I'm just kidding. Let me do that. Yeah. truly listening that sounds like my whole podcast no i'm just kidding i've been doing it uh yeah and then behavior is the thing that really uh develops us and and leadership is is is so complicated i mean there's a lot that goes into it people are just

like i don't know they give me a title and i just uh and i just rule everybody now it's like no it's a little more complicated that isn't, it's a little bit more complicated that, isn't it? It's a lot more complicated, complex, I would say than that. But the good news is leaders are not born. They are made. Leaders are not born. They are made. And as long as you apply enough aptitude and you really learn and do the work you can be a great leader yeah but even then you can you can have behaviors like you say that that you don't see or that maybe you're hindering you you know like i remember one i don't know if this counts as a behavior but i know that uh mario kumo when he got uh when he you know got some sexual harassment charges there,

we found out he was going around hugging everybody and being a little too handshaky. And I was like, dude, after me too, you're running around hugging people still? Like what the hell is going on? I'm not sure if that counts for what you're talking about. It absolutely does. That's a great example, an extreme example of a behavioral blind spot.

You're like, what are you doing? Some of the CEOs that I see, I'm just shocked. We used to write people up for sexual harassment for our companies in the 90s. And yet you see, I think the CEO of CNN has an affair with somebody at the office mcdonald's had one of those and i think there was somebody else recently in another place you're just like what are you guys doing hey like uh have you you know there's different ways of dealing with stuff and i think a lot of leaders uh maybe these days especially have to focus a little bit more on empathy it seems like the workplace has really kind of changed and, you know, there's microaggressions now and diversity things. And so you've really got to take a look at a lot of your behavior or maybe some of your biases.

Yeah. You know what this really points to, which is the number one factor in what we call authentic leadership, which is the most effective form, current form, modern form of leadership. And that points to the number one element or factor that you have to have to be a great authentic leader, which is self-awareness. I have to be self-aware too. I just can't wander around doing whatever I want. Right? Well, the examples that you just gave show that those people are not self-aware. Yeah. Because self-awareness says that you are aware of your own behavior and the impact on others.

Well, those people are blind. They have no awareness of their behavior the impact on others. Well, those people are blind. They have no awareness of their behavior and impact on others. Yeah, or just, I don't know, sometimes they just think maybe they're above the law or above whatever the constraint is. There's like a narcissistic sort of, I'm above the law, you know, South Park. Is that maybe some of it that plays into it?

Sure. They could be in a powerful, prestigious position where they feel like they're beyond reproach. Sure. That could be it too. But when you boil it all down to its simplest form, it is a lack of self-awareness. There you go. Yeah. And I can see how that can be a huge blind spot because you're just kind of operating on autopilot.

Maybe what you've done, you've always done, but society changes, rules in offices change. We've seen a lot of growth of the diversity stuff. There's a lot of different issues of being more empathetic towards race, diversity, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, every now and then you'll see some executives stick their foot in their mouth and say something on TV or something. And it's like, well, there goes that job. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, the other thing that it has to do with is relational transparency. What you were just talking about, DEI, hello, how you're in relationship with other people, other groups, right?

What we work on for the behavioral patterns that deal with that is something called relationship intelligence quotient. So think EQ, the next evolution of it, and the acronym is RQ for short. Okay. So tell us more about the relationship thing. Help me understand that because I have a blind spot on that. Let me just say, I'm relieved that you're still on this show and that you haven't been shown the door because you know, you felt somebody up or something like that. I would never do that.

Relationally transparent. No, like I said, I, I, I was doing the sexual harassment write-ups for employees in the nineties, man. When that,

when that thing hit, I, you know, I was the CEO. It's like, uh, uh, Hey,

we gotta, you know, you gotta deal with this stuff or else it gets out of hand but uh so i don't know man i i i would never do that i mean i i don't even hug people i don't even touch people i'm gonna get near them i'm like stay over there employees and stay away from me so but but eq now that's not emotional quotient, right? Or is it? EQ is emotional intelligence quotient. So RQ is relational intelligence quotient. And what relational transparency is, is understanding how you interact with others and the dynamics that ensue. And let's think about this in a work context, okay?

You're a leader. You're trying to get things done. You and your team are trying to get things done. Well, everybody goes about getting things done in a slightly different way. This is called your motivational value system. I thought those were all my bad employees. Well, that could be too. Good and bad

and everybody in between. Wait, there's good employees? Yeah. Don't you have any? No. I've seen them all and they've seen me. Well, that's a different kind of problem. That's probably, yeah. That's another show. That's probably still my problem. Okay. so how this works is, we are able to scientifically map out every team member's relationship interaction patterns. So how if you and I and three other people were on a team, we would map out and put this up on the wall, how we all interact with each other when we're trying to get things done at work. Oh, really? Yeah. This is truly revolutionary, even though the science on this has been around for 32 years. But the reason it's revolutionary is because every time we put this in front of an executive team, they literally sit back in their chair and they go, holy shit, this is exactly what goes on. How did you know this?

And we go, it's easy. All we did was inventory your behavior, how you guys interact. It's actually very, very simple. Yeah. And then we help them to see their behavioral blind spots, how to interact, collaborate, and even engage in healthy debate and productive conflict.

Better. There you go. So this is kind of like a individual business love language, maybe. Right. Oh, that's a great way to put it. Did I?

I thought that was going to be a sexual harassment thing. So I think once we use the word love, yeah. Yeah, you probably don't want to use that word on that one, but it's a good analogy. So you understand, you know, I learned a long time ago that you can't treat all your employees the same. There's different people that can produce better or produce differently, and you've got to approach them better, motivate them different. You know, you can't motivate everybody the same way just giving up getting up to your raw speeches um you know i we were talking on the show recently um and i need to come up with a better word for it because obviously things have changed but i i used to use the i used to use a calling touching

employees when we're talking about remote work and boy that just sounds bad when i say it but but to me i gotta i gotta find a better word for it because things have changed since the 90s yeah but uh when we had our major companies i i uh to me going around a meeting with each individual employee and motivating them and touching base with them. That's really what the touching is. Touching base with them, checking in with them and going, hey, man, how's it going today? Making them feel like a human being, making them feel like I cared because I didn't. And just having that interaction thing. And I think we were having this conversation a couple weeks ago with an author over remote work and how hard it is for leadership to be able to touch base with employees across the Zoom meeting.

Because, you know, it's harder to kind of affect people with your enthusiasm, your motivation, and being able to get them jived up to work hard. And, of course, sharing vision, selling vision to people. And so I used to like that because I'd have to go around with my salespeople, and my salespeople would have different issues. Sometimes maybe they're getting divorced, and they've got some sort of home thing that's going on. It's screwing up their sales, and they need me to play psychologist and it out but that's one thing i used to like is it before remote work was being able to touch base

with employees and basically i call it a personalized touch but obviously i can't use that word anymore i'm going to come up with something better do you have any ideas wow wow uh yeah so Yeah, so the modern term is connecting. Connecting. Connecting. Not to take anything away from touching and infecting. Were STIs a part of your organization at some point? This is the 90s, eh? I mean, we just had alcohol, cocaine, and

I don't know, whatever else the hell was going on in the office. But it was pretty much like, what was that movie, The Wolf of Wall Street? That's kind of how it was. It was a sales game. Oh, yeah. With some touching and infecting added in. You know what? There was something going on between the better looking employees, but they're on the copy or whatever. I don't know what? There was something going on between the better looking employees, but they're on the copy or whatever. I don't know what that means. Okay.

So it is connecting. It's connecting. And this circles back around to authentic leadership. You are able to... And I'm not even going to make any jokes about circling back around. HR is sending me a beep right now. Oh, I'm sure. So are some others probably probably

uh okay so authentic leadership and i'm gonna get this out before i crack up because it's absolutely true authentic leadership is sharing yourself in whole and authentically with team members is that when i come to the office somewhere over half naked wearing shorts? That's why I had to get it out with a straight face first. You knew you were setting me up for that. Exactly. I get it. I was lobbing that in for you. There you go. We should be a team going the road with a comedy bit. No, these are important because like I said, I kind of have a little skitoma there. I don't even know what the hell to call it. But I do know to stay the hell away from them. Although,

I don't know, you know, being able to give someone a pat on the back or high five every now and then is cool, but I don't think that's even legal in corporate world anymore. I think it's, you have to keep a six foot distance and just poke them with a stick or something. Even that sounds bad. Well, how about doing all of those things, connecting with them through your words? Oh, words. You are being authentic about yourself with them and you're inviting them to do the same with you. Because one thing I learned about a leader is if people feel you care about them, if

you have their best interests at heart, if you're trying to help them achieve their goals, and it's not so much about like, well, you need to make the company achieve their goals. People are like, what does that do for me lately? And so what are some of the other things you help corporate executives accomplish. Well, hold on. Let's finish that thought. So, when you care enough about team members and employees that you will examine your own behavior, you will get to know and understand your own behavior and your skitomas, your blind spots, and you will ask others for feedback, and you will learn their behavior, and you will actively give them helpful feedback that you're in it together. Yeah. I learned some people's behavior and fired them too.

So there's that. Well, yeah, there's that. There's that. They were stealing or, you know, talking on the phone too much or something. Yeah. But that means you're in relationship with them, right? Relationship, transparency, relationship transparency relationship intelligence quotient this is kind of interesting because i never really thought about being in a relationship with my employees uh because uh well i think hr said it

was a bad thing last time i did that um but i mean, I never ever thought of that, that, and it's more of a long-term commitment sort of thing. And I'm not sure I'm up for that sort of commitment. Well, hold on. Take the commitment out of it. Oh, okay. Because what it really is, is think about how you get things done at work. We're supposed to get things done here? Well, yeah, sometimes. Hey, get to work over there

unless you are a one-man band a one-person show you have to get things done through others yeah and it's the relationship you have with them that enables or dictates the level of work that you're going to be able to get done together. There you go. So tell us a little bit more about what you talk about in your book. Let's get a good plug in here for the book and some of the stuff you talk about. I know she got Brian Tracy, I think, to put a bit of her endorsement on there. Brian Tracy's a friend. I didn't get him to do it. Okay. Well, I was going to give a relationship quotient with him or something. A relationship intelligence quotient with him. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So the premise of the book is that we all still struggle with limiting beliefs. Because like I said at the top of the show, limiting beliefs are nothing more than a leftover bug in our operating system, which is called our brain. Okay, they don't they don't really serve us anymore. They just hold us back from doing things that are new or different, or sometimes even dangerous, but not not that often. And so the book, which is told through my journey to the Ironman, which is one of the toughest races in the world, probably back then it was, that I sort of use my own story and myself as an example and a guinea pig, right? Because I am a super nothing, not talented athlete. I have no natural incredible ability in that

department. I have to work my ass off for everything I do. So I felt like I was a good sort of case study. And doing something humongous like that, you run into limiting beliefs. Oh, I can't possibly compete against professional athletes. I'm just a recreational athlete. I haven't ever run a marathon before. I haven't ridden a road bike before. Those are all limiting beliefs, right? So in the book, I teach you three steps. It's just as easy as that. Three steps on how to unlimit your beliefs. And you can do it with any limiting beliefs. Works every single time. It's super easy because you know what? Our brains, what I often call our brains, is this very powerful yet simplistic machine. It'll do anything that you tell it it can do.

And if you're subliminally telling it that it can't do something, then it's going to prove you right. It's going to go, yeah, we can't do that. And it's going to stop you. Sounds like half my life. Can you tease out the three things? Oh, yeah. Or do we want to, you got to buy the book.

Well, yeah, she got to buy the book. Yeah, you got to buy the book, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's three simple steps, steps honestly anybody and everybody can do it uh you're basically becoming aware of it right we talked about awareness uh-huh the first step is admitting you have a issue right they tell me down at the methadone methadone clinic. Exactly. Skitomas, methadone, you're throwing them out today. We got them all.

We got them all. It's a full, we had cocaine in there earlier. Yeah. So, you know, we got a full buffet. Well, don't forget the touching and the infecting. Touching and infecting. It's a full contact show. It's a full contact show. It is. infecting touching and affecting it's a full contact show it's a full contact show it is you're taught you mentioned earlier about about you know can i compete and beat uh you know uh professional athletes and i was like you know how to do that you just stick a stick

between their legs or trip of me you stick a stick in their spokes yeah yeah yeah so now that i've interrupted you enough uh how about how about uh can we get those three things there? I think you got the first one, right? So first one is become aware of the limiting beliefs that you're running. You do that by thinking about whatever it is you want to pursue. Iron man, infecting people, whatever it is and make a list of all of the limiting thoughts that come up to you up in your head just off the top of your head onto the page i can't compete uh i'm not a road biker i've never run a marathon i'm a terrible swimmer those those were some of mine. So just jot those down, left-hand margin on a page. I like that, writing those down so that you have them, you can look at them. I mean, trying to add them in your head is, especially when you have eight personalities

like I do, is hard, but I like that. Yeah. So become aware of them, jot them down. And be aware that there's probably going to be more than one. There might be a leading one, but then stay with it and keep asking yourself that question and diving into pursuing whatever it is you're thinking of and more will come out. Okay. And it's important, like you said, to get them all out of your head onto the page. Okay. So you can see them then take each one and write the opposite of the limiting belief. So for me, uh,

my limiting belief was I can't possibly compete against pro athletes and the Ironman. The opposite of that is the unlimiting belief, which for me was, I will compete in the Ironman World Championships. Yeah. Mine would have been, I'll just trip them. Right.

Okay. So write out the opposite Unlimiting Belief for each one. Ah, so you changed the paradigm. Yep. Then carry this with you. Take a picture of it on your phone, carry it with you, whatever you have to do. Then when you notice yourself thinking that limiting belief, interrupt it and then say out loud the unlimiting version of that belief. So literally I would stop myself during the day.

I was a CEO of a major real estate office at the time. Yes, I got some funny looks. It's okay. I would stop myself, dead in my tracks and go, all right, stop. And then I go, I will compete in the Ironman World Championships. And then I would go on. So I would do this multiple times a day. And two short years later, after I started pursuing this dream, I crossed the finish line in Hawaii. Wow. That is awesome. And remember, I'm nothing special.

Yeah. Well, I mean, you are, actually. I mean, everyone's a special person in their own right. My mom said I was special, and she put me in the short bus when I was a kid, but that's a different joke. But how many hours did you say the Ironman takes? Well, they give you 17 to finish, and it took me 15 hours and 45 minutes. Wow.

That is crazy. That's basically exercising for 14 hours? 16. Thank you. 16 hours. 16. Yeah. That's a lot of exercise.

I'm usually tired on the treadmill after like five minutes. Yeah. That's a lot of exercise. Like I'm usually tired on the treadmill after like five minutes. Yeah. So I probably need to train a little bit more if I'm going to do the Ironman. So how did it feel? Tell us about how it felt for people that maybe are interested in trying to expand their limits and their boundaries and stuff. What did it feel when you find, you know, you work so hard, you go through two years of blood, sweat, and tears, you get to the moment, you meet the moment. What's it like when you come out the other side of that, you know,

after all the puking and bloodletting and spitting up stuff and stuff? You're like, I can't feel my legs! You know, what's it like mentally when you finally like, I can't feel my legs. You know, what's it like mentally when you finally go, I reached the pinnacle and I did it? First of all, it was the most magnificent day ever. Even though I was swimming, biking, and running, exercising for 16 hours straight, which you're probably thinking,

how the hell could that be magnificent? But it was. It was the realization of this humongous dream. And so that whole day, every minute of it, even though I was toiling, was filled with enormous joy and just epiphany after epiphany that everything that it took to get there, all of the connections that I made along the way, everything I learned, uh, and that, that crossing the finish line, which I actually jumped over the finish line. Really? Oh yeah. Now I'm a white girl with no hops, but I leapt over the finish line like jump four feet in the air and this is after 16 hours of

exercising wow yeah that's how exuberant and filled with joy I was I couldn't stop smiling I was crying running down Ali'i Drive from happiness that is awesome yeah it it was the immediate and enormous realization of my potential and that i had tapped into it do you advise uh different executives to to maybe do or just anybody in their life to try and push their boundaries their limits uh train it does does it have to be a really over-the-top goal or jumping on airplanes or something? Or can I just, I don't know, eat an extra handful of Doritos today or something?

Well, I don't think an extra handful of Doritos is going to be challenging enough to get you there. It's hard. You have to reach over, and then sometimes you have to go to the place for the bag and stuff. Go to the store. I know. Oh there it's hard you have to reach over and then sometimes you have to go to the place for the bag and stuff go to the store i know oh it's tough uh yeah uh so uh what what i suggest i'm not making iron man it's really easy to get off track on this show yeah what i suggest is do something big enough uh or take on something big enough that you really don't know how you're

going to do it. There you go. And maybe it makes you feel like you're going to vomit, break out in a cold sweat. That is good. That is a good sign because if none of those things happen, the dream probably isn't big enough. Maybe you need to be self-aware that you kind of feel yourself freaking out a little bit. Like, whoa, this is like too big for us. And I think sometimes in psychology or maybe motivational books, this is called stretching, where you're kind of stretching yourself, right?

Stretching your ability. And when you find that you stretch, you find that you have a wider aperture of what you can achieve, accomplish, and maybe an expanding of your mind. Yes, that's exactly it. Yes. I call it expanding your comfort zone. There you go. And in the book, I opened with an analogy that often we think we have to get outside of our comfort zone to do really big things. Well, I disagree with that. I don't think there's really any scientific proof

that shows how we can get outside our comfort zone to do big things. It's in expanding our comfort zone that we do big things and that your comfort zone is actually like an infinitely expandable rubber band that never snaps back. It just keeps expanding bigger and bigger and bigger. Is there ever a point where you can not have any blind spots as an executive or as a human being? Is there a way you can master it all?

Or is the world just going to constantly change, or you're going to constantly change, or business environment's going to constantly change, where you just have to keep trying to adapt and move with it? That's a great question, Chris. The truth is, yes, you'll always have blind spots. But as you grow and expand and elevate, there are fewer of them and they're less pronounced. There you go. Because I'm tired of trying to work to be a leader.

I just like to get it over with. I just want to ride and be like, okay, I know everything now. Which is, I mean, I've thought I've known everything for the past 55 years. And clearly the more I know, the more I don't know, which is, yeah, that's always disturbing. Leadership is such a big challenge for people. And I think a lot of people don't understand that they're leaders sometimes no matter where they are. You know, I've had some people say, well, I'm not, I'm just a manager here. I'm not the real leader.

The leader is the CEO guy. I just kind of hang out here and move the papers around. And people don't realize there's all sorts of different places where you can be a leader. A parent is a leader. At least they are until the kids are teenagers. And then that switches on the game. But in my estimation, in my viewpoint, everyone is leading themselves. There you go. I like that yeah so whether

you're a parent you're a child you're a student you're a manager you're a bank teller doesn't matter you are leading yourself right so you just own it and roll with it are there people that aren't leading themselves i think i've seen seen them. Are they politicians? No, I'm just kidding. Oh, boy. Threw some shade there at the politician. Oh, yeah. They're an easy crowd to pick on. Sure.

There are plenty of people who are not leading themselves. And the way I like to look at that is that they're just not self-aware. They're not. They're asleep. So we come back to the whole self-awareness thing and then yeah that does explain some of the people they see in life that kind of sleepwalk through life and they they you know they accept whatever social norms are given in or several social programming uh and uh you know so how do you know if you're self-aware or not? See what I did there?

Oh, that's great. I would ask for feedback. There you go. From people that work with you a lot. Ask them for unvarnished, honest feedback. Yeah. And then have a neutral third party like us look at that feedback with you. Maybe we'll even do a relational or an RQ inventory of your behavior because another cool application for that is that we

can literally pinpoint the behavior that you feel like you exhibit versus the behavior that others experience from you. Ah. Yeah. That shows the blind spots. Do you have to do like an anonymous survey sort of thing so that, you know, I can't fire those people? Retaliatory firing, that's one of my favorite things. Oh, right. Yeah.

It goes, it goes right along with touching and infecting. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, we,

we did one of those surveys once to my employees and it was basically a description of my behavior was lots of four letter words and he smells bad. That's the most interesting, interesting 360 I've ever heard of. Have you ever had that? Have you ever had somebody come back and go, hey, the boss smells bad. He needs some cologne and maybe bathe once in a while. It is a version of a 360, but it is anonymous.

There you go. There you go. Yeah. There you go. And I imagine it is hard for executives or CEOs to get that kind of feedback or. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Because of what you just talked about.

Everybody fears their job. Oh, if I tell you, you smell. If I tell you, you suck. Well, you're probably going to fire me. Yeah. Well, the nice thing is I know I smell. So it's like when the people comment on YouTube and they go, you're fat. I'm like, oh, thanks for telling me something I didn't know.

Thanks, buddy. Thanks for being the epiphany angel in my life. But, you know, I think this is important. One of the things I talked about in my book, beacons of leadership i i put forth that the a leader is like a lighthouse and he sends forth a beacon and there's a communication of what you're talking about through your behavior and how you how you communicate with people and basically what sort of light you send forth that people interpret and look to as a leader and go uh you know do i want to follow this idiot or not uh but being able to understand what

that what that behavior is and being able to have that self-awareness and feedback i think is really important because if you don't i mean you're just you're just you know and a lot of leaders do that you know they're just narcissistically pr-ing into the wind like one of the examples i love to use is you know he he's maybe stealing from the company and in the meantime he's telling everybody we should be a trustworthy corporation and honest and you know they send out these pr notices and people reading the pr notice that employees or vendors or whatever and're like, uh, you don't live your values. Hey, you're like totally in conflict,

but you're full of shit. As I would say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the other,

the other way that we do that, uh, cause your point is, is right on, on the spot, right on target. Um, the other way that we get at that is,

uh, sometimes we'll do the interviewing one-on-one to garner the feedback for the CEO. And we have to say to the team members, hey, we are not going to share any of the specifics that you share with us about the CEO. So you can say he's a total a-hole. We're not going to use that with him. We're just going to distill everything that's given to us down to the behavioral blind spots that they equate to. There you go. There you go. Yeah. You know, getting feedback is a challenging thing and it can be, you know, you're like, well, you think to yourself, well, they say really bad stuff about me or they really don't like something.

I spoke to a friend who watches the show regularly and he made some fun comments of a guest we had on. And I think I saw how maybe the guest could have done a better job. So I reached out to him and I said, hey, what did you think of that show? What do you think of that guest? And I remember thinking in my brain seeing himself worry a little at least in this space um and i i thought in my brain i'm like god what if he tells me this show is complete garbage and uh you know maybe maybe it's me who's the problem and and whatever whatever and you know but i had that thought that went to my brain but i still sat down with him and he had some he had some great tips and he actually i think they liked the guest more than maybe uh i

thought how the interview went um and so it's it's scary it's scary to do that and get that feedback but this is the only way you can improve right it's kind of like what you did with the iron man thing you you know it's scary to go up against that big goal and all that stuff. And sometimes you can dread it, but you just got to go for it. And that's the only way you can really learn and improve is to get that feedback. Exactly. Yeah. You just keep walking around blind, then you're going to get the same results you always got.

Yeah, exactly. You're not going to grow. You're not going to improve because you're not going to ever uh you know be um shown anything new yeah what's that old line doing the same thing over and over again expecting the same results is is insanity is insanity yeah which my psychiatrist says i'm from what what have we touched on that you guys do at your company and how you help people what haven't we touched on yeah see i use that touch word again what the hell right touching and infecting i love that i'm taking that away from this show what are we whatever you never

mind i'm not throwing out of your company uh so so uh anything more you want to tease out about how you guys do it and what you do over there? Yeah. Well, we actually can touch and infect everyone. So the way that works is we do enterprise-wide leadership development programs that are comprehensive. Soup to nuts. They include training and coaching and teamwork and RQ interviews that we talked about, 360s, and all of it is customized. Because no two companies are the same. As I said before, no two people or leaders have the same unique behavioral patterns or behavioral blind spots, right? So we've got to take all of

that into account and meet the company where they're at and then produce programs that will fit what they have going on. There you go. There you go. I like that. You know, leaders are everywhere and a company has to develop their leaders because you've got to, you know, as the people rise to the ranks, these are your future CEOs, your future vice presidents, future people you're going to fire, and future people you're going to touch and affect. People, HR is in my ear right now. But, you know, you've got to develop them because they're your replacement, especially if you're a CEO. I mean, that was one thing I learned early on as a CEO is, you know, you eventually got to start turning things over to people.

You got to start delegating. And maybe you don't want to be the CEO of your company. You want to move to some other things that you want to do. But you need to put somebody who's in a good leadership position who could lead well. And I've certainly, you know, been guilty of putting in people that I thought would make great managers, usually good salespeople, that we hadn't developed to be good leaders and they made horrible managers. And salespeople and managers kind of are two different sort of animals. I'm not sure if you can fully convert them. You'd know better than I would. But it was always a challenge because they're just, I think they're just two

different modalities. But if you don't have good people, you can put in different positions and let them lead. And I think a lot of people have leadership potential. Do they? Or am I delusional? Do I have a good time? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people do have leadership potential.

Remember what I said earlier. Leadership is learned, not innate. That's right. That's right that's right but it it it has a direct correlation to how much how effective of a leader are you going to be directly correlates to how much self-awareness you're willing to cultivate and then how much work you're willing to do to change your behavioral patterns yeah let me ask you this does that but those behavioral patterns. Yeah. Let me ask you this. Does that, but those behavioral patterns include communication? Yes.

Like one of the things I was always trying to be self-aware and was always struggling to was making sure that what I was communicating people understanding. So like if you're telling somebody just a simple example, you know how to operate a piece of machinery. Okay. You go beep, beep,

beep, boop, boop. And that's how you, how you make that work. example, you know, how to operate a piece of machinery. Okay. You go beep, beep, beep, boop, boop. And that's how you, how you make that work. And, you know, sometimes an employee would screw something up and I'd say, you know, Hey, what happened? They'd be like, well, you told me to do this. And I'm like, I did. And, you know, you'd have to try and figure out the best way to communicate, to make sure that, you know, am I communicating my vision correctly? Am I instructing people correctly? Am I motivating correctly? So here I just thought I was paranoid at this time, but I guess I was trying to be self-aware. Oh, yeah. So what you're talking

about there is a couple of different things. First of all, managers manage things. Managers manage tasks. Leaders lead people. Ah, I love this. Yeah. So when you're telling, say, a manager how to run a machine, you are telling them how to do something. You're telling them how to manage tasks, right? When you're a leader leading people, what you're doing is setting expectations of the end result that you're looking for. There you go. And then saying, okay, that's the end result. Now figure out how to get it done. There you go. Doesn't matter to me how you get it done. I just want this to be the end result.

And painting a good vision for them is really important as well. You have to set clear expectations. And that's something that we do find a lot as a behavioral blind spot that either no expectations are set at all. It's just you go from a meeting where everybody says, oh, yeah, that's what we need to do. And somebody is going to do it, but they don't know who it is. They don't know who it is. They don't know by when,

much less anything more detailed about the expectations on what needs to be done or what the end result is, or they're very vague. Very vague. Or we just need to have more meetings. Yeah, we just need 20% growth. Okay, 20% growth in what by when measured how yeah right give them some more detail and then truly step out other way have some milestone check-in meetings ask what the trajectory is maybe maybe measure some data track some results see if you're on trajectory, if you're on course.

If not, this is called performance management. Ask some questions, right? Hey, tell me what's attributing to where we are versus where we wanted to be at this point. Let them talk. See, the thing about authentic leadership that I think gets just glossed over a lot of times is the incredibly powerful use of asking good questions rather than assuming and telling. Oh, well, you're off course because we're missing the mark. And tell me what's going wrong. Where are you falling short? What? No, that's not going to be real effective with anybody. So you've got to ask really good questions, stay out of assumptions, and then get them to tell you what's going on. And then just help facilitate solutions for it. That is also your role as a leader.

You are a facilitator. You do not need to be the smartest person in the room. You do not have to command and control, come up with every solution, every idea, and tell people what to do. That's the opposite of authentic leadership. Yeah. I love this because when I was, I'd read, I think it was called the fifth discipline back in the day. I'm an old 80s books reader and a lot of the Tom Peters. And I remember, I think it was the fifth discipline

and the book talked about trying to create a learning organization. And that was the thing I was always trying to do. And maybe the better language word is what you use, making a self-aware organization, because that way you kind of self-learn really. Yeah. Sound right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. As long as you give people the room to self-learnarn because guess what? That's going to include making mistakes and failing. Right.

But there isn't one person I can talk to that wouldn't say they learned the most through making mistakes or failures. There you go. That is the way we learn the biggest lessons. We don't really learn much by having successes in our subconscious brain. It's just like, oh, okay. Yeah, that worked well. All right. On to the next thing it doesn't it doesn't even register and then sometimes that just kind of reinforces sometimes maybe eschatoma or bad behavior because we're like well i'm succeeding i make more money they give me a bigger check this year clearly whatever i'm doing is working yeah and then and

then suddenly you've hugged people too much and and uh you're the governor cuomo and you leave them with an infection and you leave them with infection you gotta go yeah you gotta go well i mean let me say this let me say this the proof is in the pudding on all of this stuff um the uh several companies we've worked with uh doing you know full comprehensive enterprise-wide leadership development programs. They had, the years that we did that, they had the best financial performing years of their entire company history. Wow. I mean, we're talking very mature, tenured companies,

55, 60, 70-year-old companies. Wow. They were also voted some of the best places to work and that's important too especially now when you're fighting for employees because they're you know it's it's a battle now they're for employment well i don't know they're laying off people right now but but uh i think it still is a battle i mean our employment if you're in tech it's not so much of a battle, but other sectors, yeah. Yeah. It's pretty crazy what's going on right now.

But I can see how this could develop a learning organization. Do you ever, when you're doing this with companies, do you ever have, you know, maybe that one or two employer, a couple employers like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to learn anything. Has that ever happened? Sometimes, yes. You got to give them a little prod and go, go hey uh cattle prod works really well oh wow yeah electrified i was just doing touching and affecting you just went full cattle prod yeah exactly is that do we can we run that by hr and see if that's legal

i think i might actually consider that in the 90s no here's the really cool thing about how this actually works is people get curious, you know, those reticent ones, those resistant ones, they get curious, number one, because everybody around them is using it. Yeah, everybody around them is using it. They are looking inward, they are becoming more self-aware, they're working on themselves, and quite frankly, they don't want to be left behind. And second of all, the science interests them. And because they also know that they can hang their hat on it. It is scientific. It's not conjecture or just, you know, something that worked well for one person and probably won't work for everyone. But that's also why we started using science over 10 years ago.

That's why I pioneered this science into the executive leadership development space. Because in my Ironman journey and after being a corporate for so many years and then being an executive coach, the two did not go together back then. Nobody was doing this. I mean, there were no Brene Brown, Simon Sinek, Daniel Pink, Adam Grant on the scene. They didn't exist. So I thought, oh, the space is ripe for a game changer, for an exponential difference maker. And this is it because the speed and volume processing power of our unconscious mind is more like a rocket ship compared to that of our conscious mind, which is like a skateboard. There you go. So which would you rather ride, a rocket ship or

a skateboard? Well, it depends. Is there any Ironman working on this rocket ship ride? Ooh. No. Right? You know, and you're right. This is science. It's basic brain neurology. And our minds are kind of like little computers and how it works.

So would you say that it's better to do this or should we just have more pizza parties to get the employees motivated? Big LinkedIn joke there. You know, the fun one. Well, this has been a fun, insightful interview. And I've loved it because you've actually opened my mind to a few things, especially about how there's no more touching and affecting anymore. So I'm going to go face it, HR. But no, I always want to create a learning organization.

And now I have a better word for it. I have being self-aware. I'm now self-aware that I have a better word for it. Oh, awesome. So give me your.com so people can find you on the interwebs and learn more about your company and what you guys do there. All right. Go to your, Y-O-U-R, exponentialresults.com. You can get in touch with me there. You can read up on everything we do. You can book an appointment. Yeah, you can spend all day there if you want. Okay. Spend all day on the website. There you go. Reach out to you guys. And I imagine they can talk to you about different services you offer, et cetera, et cetera. It's been fun to have you on.

I've learned a lot. In fact, this is probably one of my best learning experiences when it comes to business in a while because it's actually made me think about a lot of things I did over the last 35 years, good and bad. So thank you very much for coming on. Thank you. This was a ball. There you go. And thanks to my audience for tuning in thank you this was a ball there you go and thanks

for tuning in we couldn't do it without you you guys are the smartest audience in the world and if you've listened this far you're damn far smarter than ever so now go shine forth sign up for the iron man uh if you want uh how much does the airman pay again anyway callback joke for the show. But learn to expand your minds and become more self-aware, really, because I'm tired of putting up with most of you who aren't. Quit sleepwalking through your life, eh? But thank you for coming by the show, everyone. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfast, youtube.com, 4chesschrisfast,

linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfast. This will be on the big linkedin newsletter and also uh tiktok we're trying to be cool and we're not because we're old but we're going to try and make it work thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time and that should have us out