Think of like athletes. They create routines that maximize speed and agility and strength.
And as business people especially, I'm an entrepreneur and a working parents and
a leader, all three of those things. I need a routine every day
that's going to unlock my highest quality thinking. And here's where we mess up.
You're listening to Carrie Lets's Financial Survival Network, where you get valuable information
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Well, I'm your host, Carrie Lets. You know, we're always looking
for ways to help you become great, to help you raise elevate your game,
to help you become the person that you should become. And a lot
of the time it sounds like spiritualism and gobbledegook. But every now and then
somebody comes along and writes a book that's actually based on fact and experience,
proving to you that you two can do it. And that person today is
Christina Curtis Christina. It is great to have you on the show. Your
book Choosing Greatness, an evidence based approach to achieving exceptional outcomes. And hey,
so success is no accident. In other words, right, success is
no accident. There's a lot of science around how to actually achieve the level
of success you want personally, professionally from a wealth and well being standpoint,
and that's what we talk about in the book. All right, so what
are the three most important factors in judging whether somebody will eventually become a success
or not? Hm, that's an interesting question, you know. The first
thing is whether they can get comfortable being uncomfortable. I think it's really important
carry because success, I mean what a success means. It's different for each
person, but regardless, it is something that they have not yet attained.
It is out in the future somewhere where they have to create a tension between
where they are now and where they want to go and get there and guess
what it means choosing new patterns of behavior, new thoughts, new actions,
new approaches, and when you try something new, the brain's response is often
to say, hey, hold the phone, I don't want to do anything
new. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. It's
working just mine, thank you very much. The brain is an economical organ
It does not want to burn mental calories. It doesn't need to, so
anytime you try change, you get discomfort. I mean, I think of
it this way. If you're on a treadmill and you hit moment three.
For me, maybe for other people it's later, but you hit moment three
and you're like, I don't really want to be doing this anymore. Your
brain will rationalize why you can slow down, get off, or do other
things because it doesn't want to. It doesn't want to grow, it doesn't
want to push through to that next layer. So getting comfortable with being uncomfortable
is critically important. And the people I work with who are at the tightens
of their industry, at the top of their game, they are every year
building up a higher and higher tolerance to manage discomfort, which means they can
scale, which means they can grow, which means they can take on things
they're not capable of achieving yet. But they're going to lean in and figure
out how and build the teams that will get them there. I think that's
really important. That's the first one does that resonate when you carry absolutely And
I once read that successful leaders are able to manage ambiguity, meaning that there's
two conflicting thoughts or events taking place, the average person will just throw up
their hands and they'll just choose one, but that a leader can keep those
two conflicting thoughts in their mind and move ahead in spite of it, and
actually a chain results. And maybe both these thoughts that appear to be conflicting
really aren't. They might fit together. But I don't know what your thoughts
are about that. It's a little out there, But what do you know?
It's not out there, it's right down the middle, it's right on
the fairway. If you think about the second one, which is objectivity in
a balanced approach, it means don't just react, don't just react. We
actually operate on autopilot forty two percent of the day, Kerrie. So we
wake up and we do what we've done before again to conserve mental energy and
stay safe. We've already done it. We're safe now, So I guess
if I repeated, it's all good. The challenge is we become very binary
in our thinking. Should I do this or that? Should I choose this
or that should I engage this way or that way? And the reality is
between one answer and another, there's whole rainbow of options that could also be
true. And cognitively we tend like I say to you, did you like
the movie Barrett Forrest Gump? You may say yes or no, very binary.
It's quick, you don't enough to think about the answer. But if
I said, what was your favorite part of the movie and why, You've
got to slow down and think. It's not yes or no answer. And
so you have to be balanced and objective to slow down and say, based
on this vantage point, based on this person asking what do I want to
share? That's breaking a pattern. That's breaking a pattern and causing you to
open a new part of your brain that's focused on critical thinking. And the
executives who I work with, who are exceptionally strong leaders and who are have
very padded wallets, who evade a lot of money, are not just reacting,
they're responding. So they're really pausing. They're elbowing their way in that
space between an event and their reaction to it to say, what's my long
term goal here? And how do I need how do I need to show
up degenerate that versus just here's how I'm going to react. Here's the emotion
that shows up in my body, so I'm going to roll with that.
I think responding very methodically by being balanced, no high, ike's, no
no lows, to say here's what I need to do in order to move
us forward is really important. So I completely agree ambiguity. You often move
to how do I create certainty fast? And if you slow down, you'll
realize, I'm certainty is not so bad if we could just find our best
next step and start exploring other options and learn and learn. So cognitive dissonance
that will set in oftentimes, especially when you're trying to do something new,
the average person just shuts down and goes to a a auto response. Like
you mentioned, They're just a default response without looking ahead critically. So leader's
got to measure, got to learn to manage cognitive dissonance in a positive way
well, and be aware of what your patterns are. One of the greatest
things that we do when it comes to executive coaching is pausing to say what
patterns in your day are helping you in which ones are roting your results and
your relationships, which I'm even thinking about it. I'll use a really easy
example, which is food. Right. If I'm walking my airport, I
travel a time for work and I see a bag of salt and vinegar chips,
it doesn't matter if it's nine am or midnight. I'm like, and
I'm just going to stop and buy that bag of chips. And if my
goal is to get fit this year, that choice is not in alignment with
what I want to create. But I have such a pull it's automatic.
I don't even think about it. Frankly, sometimes I don't even enjoy the
brand of chip. I just get it. So that's an example of an
automatic pattern. If I pass the chip stand, I immediately feel discomfort.
Oh would have been good, would have been great to have it. So
you feel this pull back to your regular behavioral patterns, and that's where cognitive
dissonance comes in. I can rationalize my way at a giving up on anything.
I can rationalize my way on going back to the way I've always done
it in a heartbeat. But if you just recognize that's just a neurological pattern,
a risk barometer saying, and let's just stick to what's safe. Let's
stick to what's comfortable, you can say I don't want to choose at this
time, hold the discomfort and choose change anyway. Right, So the people
you talk to do they do meditation, relaxation, dance their main ways of
a coping with stress, and be keeping their thought waves open if you will,
yeah, well totally in addition to getting comfortable, being uncomfortable, and
really responding versus reacting. The third point around success is setting a regiment up
that brings out your best think of like athletes, they create routines that maximize
speed and agility and strength, and as business people especially, I'm an entrepreneur
and a working parents and a leader, all three of those things. I
need a routine every day that's going to unlock my highest quality thinking. And
here's where we mess up. We tend to think the more I pack into
my calendar, the more productive and efficient I'm going to be. The problem
is what I've really learned again from people who are bringing in the billions,
not just the millions, is you need space or your body and your brain
have a micro break so it can recharge. Because we actually only have about
two hundred and forty minutes of high octane thinking in a day that's available to
us. So if you just run from one meeting to one meeting to one
meeting, come home and do one shore to the next shore, to the
next shore, you are moving yourself back into these habitual patterns that come barreling
down your well holed neural pathways rather than creating space. And what does that
look like It maybe meditation. I've got a timer on my desk and I
do two minute breaks three times a day with just sitting still and breathing,
and it allows me to move from any risk of distress back into healthy stress.
I work with a lot of executives who will move their body rather than
sit still, and so they may walk one block and just listen to music,
not be on a call, not multitask, but just walk one block.
The goal is to get away from hyper focused intensity a couple times a
day and creating a regimen that will bring that forwards so you can recharge,
renew and be running as fast at five o'clock as you were at eight am.
Right, So that concept that you're not biring on all cylinders throughout the
day. They're ups and downs. So I mean it's a little off the
beaten path here, but the stuff that they call food nowadays really doesn't,
you know, like the junk food you're referred to, yea linegar, chips
or whatever. Yeah, they're all processed foods. They really don't optimize your
performance. Have you found that high ranking executives have a certain nutritional program that
also aids their higher thought program? I do. And that's part of the
regiment, right, that's their weekly How am I What am I putting into
my body that will allow my brain to come up with high quality insights?
And because that's your greatest competitive advantage in today's economy, how can I have
a differential thought? How can I create the environment where those ideas come to
life? What we do know is junk food actually decreases your productivity every day
by twenty percent. By twenty percent. I mean, think about that.
If I woke up and I'm like, I'm going to work hard today,
but I'll give up twenty percent just so I can have that bag of chips.
If someone framed it that way to me and be like, I'm good,
I want to skip the chips. But it's really interesting. If you
eat healthy food, your brain obviously is clearer, it's sharper, it operates
more effectively. And so absolutely, the way that you can replan your week
around nutrition and just exercise, even if it's just walking, will have a
direct correlation to your performance at work. That is not me saying it.
That is an avalanche full of research that demonstrates the brain and the body are
directly connected. Your brain is your asset for your career. Let's set up
an environment each week so it can perfect form, it can shine. And
I didn't get to exercise, but you brought it up. So for me,
exercise been a part of my life for the past forty plus years on
with a few minor exceptions, you know, life transformations where you just kind
of get out of the habit. But now at this point, I'll never
stop doing it till they bury me. But I assume that most of these
high power executives all have an exercise regiment, if not to strengthen their bodies
and their minds, to at least keep them at their current optimal level.
Yeah, and part of the exercise element is not just so that you can
look good, right. I think that's the eighties and nineties mentality of we're
in the bathing suits on the beach and I just have a vision of the
eighties that popped in my head for some reason. Now we know there's healthy
stress, which we call you stress. There's a level of stress that actually
it gets you too sharper thinking. And if you're not moving your body and
moving that stress around, it turns into distress. It gets it's a feeling
of overwhelmed people talk about. And once you are in distress, you're connon
of functioning. Your ability to think great thoughts decreases. So the prefrontal cortex
where critical thinking happens, actually turns down and other parts of your brain turn
on because you've moved into a state of distress. It is now self protection
over goal directed behavior. So you need exercise, if only if it's a
walk around the block they say for eleven minutes, to allow you to not
only improve your cardiovascular help and decrease your risk of stroke, but also to
be your best at work. And I mean that by when you use the
word success, to be successful in results in relationship. We have to let
go of this belief that the brain and body are not connected. They are
one and the same. They are one and the same. And I will
tell you I did not take care of my body in my thirties, and
I sprinted really fast and hard at work, and I had long term implications
and I feel really slow down my career because what I thought was the top
of my game. When I was bringing in six figures, I was like,
this is it, this is the top. Keeps printing. And when
I finally learned how to create a regiment that allowed me to bring out my
best I realized, oh, that's nowhere near the top. I've got a
lot more horsepower. I've just been draining it ineffectively every day. That was
a real wake up call for me. So there's some trends like in Silicon
Valley. Some are a little disturbing, like micro dosing LSD to become where
I'm not advocating by any stretch. I think you're messing with your body,
your brain chemistry. Same. But one thing that of recent years that's come
to light is fasting. And yeah, le have started a fasting regime in
the past year, and I find that mental acuity, mental clarity, energy.
You think, oh, you don't eat, you're going to wither,
but actually the opposite's true, because your body shifts into fat burning load and
your clarity, and your ability to focus goes way way up, and you're
actually burn ten percent more energy when you're fasting than when you're not. So
I don't know if you've had any experience with it, he's ever told you
about it, but share your thoughts. Yeah, fasting and been a cash
really in the past five years, I've seen an explosion around this way to
make sure you're optimizing your mental acuty to your point, and also the way
your body is physically responding. And it's not for everyone. Actually can have
negative effects for some people depending on their body makeup, so it's worth talking
to a doctor about it. However, there's another element to what you're talking
about, which is priming your body for performance so that your brain is performing
and it's best. That's your greatest competitive advantage, right, And one thing
we don't think a lot about that's directly correlated this is confidence. When you
don't feel good when you wake up and you feel sluggish because you had a
glass two glasses of wine the night before, or you pushed through on a
project and you went to bed at midnight and you didn't get it off sleep,
or you're burning candle on both ends and just sprinting, sprinting, sprinting,
and it feels like there's no and in sight. The other thing it
gets hit is your confidence. And confidence is a skill, not a trait,
which means you build it. You build it. You got to choose
it every day and say I'm going to lean in and build this muscle.
And when you're depleted and tired and feeling down, it spirals into a gosh,
I don't know if I can actually do this. Gosh, this feels
pretty big cash this weight. I'm not sure I really want to engage with
this amount of weight at work or at home right now. And that impacts
what you reach for and what you go for. So not only is a
performance of mental acuity, but self doubt can get pretty loud when you're feeling
burnt out. Confidence every effectively, or even if you're not feeling confidence.
So you've got to fake it, right, Yeah, well you have to
choose it. So the way I look at it is if I wake up
and self doubt is ring really loudly, I've got this like low grade buzz
anxiety that's with me in the more day. Either I can just allow that
to happen, or I can meet it. And what I mean by that
is there's accepting and believing that that's just you, and then there's realizing that's
just a safety security mechanism. That's saying something is off. So I'm going
to throw doubt here and slow you down. Because something is off, it's
okay to recognize Itself doubt turns on anytime you're going to step outside of your
comfort zone, anytime, because the brain's saying, hey, there's a risk
here. There's social risk here, there's financial risk here, there's career risk
here. Even if it's small, self doubt do doesn't calibrate. It's loud,
and the more we allow that to run, the louder it gets.
Versus there's fascinating research when they looked at the two thousand Sydney Olympics to say
who are those that made metals and who didn't. And what they found was
a common denominator in those who made metals or earned medals. I always say
made metals, but they didn't go into a shop and make them. They
earned the medal. Was how they engaged with self doubt, was how they
engaged with their inner talk tracks. And they didn't give it the mic and
say, have at it, rerun this day. I guess I don't know
confidence. They don't have the ability to do that because it's too taxing.
It causes you to slow down and play small. Instead, they engage and
say thanks, I'm good, I've got it, I'm all good, here's
what I need to adjust. Let's keep going. And that way, when
something goes wrong, they're not immediately internalizing that something's wrong with them. Right.
So what about the concept of visualizing success? Imagining success that's in a
lot of these success gururus. Yeah, but there's some validity to it because
athletes who've used visualization have excelled and have gotten as much, almost as much
benefit as physically doing the act that they're visualizing. You know what's so cool
about this one, which I talk about in the book Choosing Greatness, is
when you visualize a future event playing out well or not, it is created.
That visualization is created in the same part of the brain that stores previous
memories. So what I'm saying is you are making a memory of something that
hasn't even happened yet, which is really powerful because then when it comes to
that moment, it's almost probable. It's more probable that it will play out
that way because you've got a memory of it. You're like, I know
how this goes. Oh, I know this situation. I know when this
ends. It ends in a win versus. What we tend to do,
because we're primed to look at risk, is say, oh my god,
I got that speech in two weeks or that presentation. I'm going to flub
it. The CEO is going to wonder what the heck I'm doing. My
colleagues are going to think I'm not smart. I get more and more anxious,
and then guess what happens when I get there, I'm breaking out out.
And so making sure you are calm, balanced, objective, creating the
regiment for your brain and your body to be showing up at its best is
important. But so is visualizing what you want and leaning in confidently to go
for it. All right, I think we'll leave it at that. Now
you've made me want to go up and buy the book. I assume it's
available in Amazon and where her fine books used to be sold. It sure
is Barnes and Noble, you name it, Amazon, go for it.
And it's called choosing greatness, an evidence based approach to achieving exceptional results.
All right, and your website is Curtis Leadership dot com. I suggest everybody
go there. You can of course obtain the book there as well. Questions
for Christina and myself email address kl at Kerrylots dot com and we'll have a
link to Christina's site on Financial Survival Network dot com. So just go there,
click through and you'll be able to get the book. And while you're
there, sign up for your free newsletter. Christuda been an absolute pleasure.
Thanks so much for coming by. Thank you so much, have a good
one. Thanks for listening to Carrie Lenz's Financial Survival Network your solution to today's
trying times. For the latest, go to Financial Survival Network dot com.
Financial Survival Network now more than ever,