Ep. 49 Create & Install a Leadership Mindset (or ANY mindset) w/ Penny Chiasson

I am thrilled to bring this episode of lead from the inside out podcast, because it talks about one of the great topics that I'm so interested in, and I think you are too, and that is mindset and specifically Leadership Mindset. And as you know, one of my pillars of the method, Transformational Leadership Method is Leadership Mindset combined with positive influence of others,

And also this minimal viable effort, MVE so doing the most, you can with the least amount of effort. And I've brought an amazing guest today to talk about mindset because, you know, Penny and I were just talking off, off camera about the, the word mindset is, is really, really, I don't want to say overused, but it's used a lot,

So instead of me going into a diatribe and, and talking about the story of Penny, Penny, if you wouldn't mind ... enlightening the, the viewers and the listeners, how did you get into that seat that you're in right now, because I want to understand your Anesthesiologist and all sorts of other things, so maybe you who, who is Penny? Well, Daryl, thank you for having me here today.

I'm excited to talk about something I'm so passionate about, which is the power of our mind, And, you know, I started out just wanting to help people, I started out in my career as I spent years in nursing and went on to Nurse Anesthesia training, and as a part of that process in New England, I became exposed to people that do mind,

Body work in conjunction with their healing, and I saw how it affected them, they took less anesthesia, less pain medication there, just their general outlook and outcomes and expectations of themselves were different, So it piqued this curiosity within me and a few, maybe a year or two later, I did a course that I wrote for nurses around pain management, because I learned a lot in Nurse Anesthesia Training that I did not learn as a nurse,

And I'm like, wow, if you knew these little things that would make such a difference for patients and we wouldn't have to give them as much pain medicine, and when I did the research for that training, I came across this whole body of evidence for hypnosis. So then my curiosity was up to notch, and several years later I came across a course that got me anesthesia credits.

And again, I took the course out of curiosity. If you had asked me in 2012, Oh, are you going to open up a hypnosis practice next year in 2013, I would have been like, what are you crazy? Like I'm perfectly happy where I am, this is perfect. And there's something called glove analgesia, and this demonstrates how powerful our mind is.

The instructor called me up in front of everyone in the class to do this demonstration, and I knew what demonstration he was going to do, I had seen the video on his website and basically he used suggestion to completely numb my hand and he clamped a surgical clamp shut on the back of it, and I knew it was touching my skin, but I felt nothing in,

In that moment, I knew, I knew in the journey since then has been a lot of trial and error picking up and moving halfway across country and taking a face-to-face practice and turning it to a virtual practice where I can impact a lot more people, and I'm still figuring out exactly how that's going to work out, but I got to leave anesthesia last year.

Not that I disliked anesthesia, but this is my thing, this is what lights me up. Oh, I love it, I love it, and interestingly enough ... I took my Emergency Medical Technician many moons ago, and ... we actually studied, yeah, I hadn't thought of it until just now we had studied self hypnosis and, and,

And little bit later, we'll talk about inner voice, but avoiding words, like pain with patients and using words like discomfort or you know, when, when you approach a patient, particularly after a traumatic accident, tell them what, you know, the worst is over now, we're here, we'll take it from here, you know, and so words really,

Really matter and I hadn't thought of that until you had just mentioned it, So ... you know, so, so even when you get into that, is that something that's, it sounds like that's a legitimate kind of approach to interacting with patients or, or anybody. It is ... I actually really changed how I practiced as an Anesthetist when I realized this because I,

One of the things I had observed, and I didn't really know the correlation announced more important than ever is in the mid-nineties, the joint commission really jumped on this bandwagon of like every three to four hours, you have to ask patients about pain and you have to use pain scales, well, pain is a four letter word, it's like telling you to not think of a pink elephant.

You got to think of it before you cannot think of it, and I observed a pattern with my patients where I could take them to the recovery room and they're completely comfortable at peace, and about the third time the recovery room nurse asked them are you in pain? Are you in pain? Well, they're taking their attention to where they had surgery, and they noticed they're uncomfortable.

So of course now they're in pain, so our words really do create it doesn't matter where we are, what we're, if we're focusing, and this comes back to, you know, you're talking about your audiences, leadership comes back to focusing on the solution and not the problem. Hmm, and, and that's actually a really good segue because ...

Again, as we were talking about off camera here ... both of us are graduates. I suppose. Our alumni have a pretty ... pretty amazing program called Transformational Coaching Program by Jim Fortin, and ... I expect 25 cents from Jim for mentioning this that's 25 cents a American, which is like $10 Canadian. So this'll be good. This'll be awesome.

But, ... and, and the notion of identity, and that's an area I'd really like to dive into because we talk a lot about, you know, changing behaviors and what kind of person who I want to be and all of those other things. But I think we, we do ourselves a disservice because we don't really know what identity is, where it comes from and how to change it.

So I'm going to dive into that a little bit. So in terms of an identity, you know what, let's back up a little bit. How about, let's talk about the conscious and subconscious then that will lead us into, so can, in your words, what is the difference between conscious and subconscious? Cause we hear that all of the time,

But from your expertise, your, your expertise there, what, what does that, what are those two things conscious and subconscious? Yeah. So our conscious is our present focus and attention. It's what we are looking at and bringing conscious, conscious. I can't really describe it without saying the word conscious, what we're bringing into our awareness, what we're choosing to focus our attention on,

Whereas the subconscious is a record of everything that's ever happened in our life and our subconscious mind works to thrive or survive, and so your subconscious mind is constantly processing information that you're taking in that you're not even aware of, and it's comparing it to the patterns of your past to determine if it needs to make adjustments to, to keep you safe. So it's constantly determining your state of wellbeing as compared to your past experiences.

So, for example, as I'm sitting here talking to you, if my peripheral vision saw something move in, so I, I have an electrical cord over here, so, you know, say I moved my chair, and it bumped it, and that cord moved, even though I'm not consciously aware of it, my subconscious mind through peripheral vision could see something move, and I don't like snakes,

And I could probably jump three feet out of my chair, so that's an example of how your subconscious is always absorbing and taking in information, and then when it brings it into your conscious awareness, you jump, you look and you're like, Oh, it's just a cord. And, and so what I'm hearing you say then is so subconscious is constantly surveilling or observing,

It's hearing it, so it's listening, it's viewing, smelling like it's, it's processing all of these inputs, the fact that you're not registering it cognitively doesn't really matter because it's happening without any conscious thought, so maybe, or let's say that, that cord had a spark sparked up It's not that your subconscious is looking for sparks specifically, but it's looking for something that's out of the ordinary,

And then once it does, then it pops it into the conscious. Would that be another way of putting it? Yes, yes. And you were talking about the Transformational Coaching Program, one of the, one of the, principles that were taught and there are actually multiple studies cause you know, a good study is, can be replicated and they will be replicated and tested for their results.

The study out of the Max Planck Institute has been replicated, and what they found is that when you're given a set of two choices that your subconscious mind has made the decision anywhere from seven to eleven seconds, depending on the study you look at before it comes into your conscious awareness. So you may think that you wanted a cup of coffee, but your subconscious mind decided that for you long before.

... And I know that seems a little out there, but it's just like people who out of habit ... reach for a cigarette or an alcoholic beverage, they just like all of a sudden like, Ooh, I want this well, the subconscious mind had processed it, and if you're not aware of your thoughts and what's driving you, you could just absentmindedly go for that alcoholic beverage or that diet Coke or whatever it is that you're picking up,

But if you, you have a split second to catch yourself when you're about to reach for it or actually follow through, and you can say, you know what, I really don't need that, I was just getting it for, I don't know why I wanted it, but I don't need that, and you can turn and walk away in every single thing that we do through our day,

We have that ability to insert our consciousness before we follow through on that subconscious habit. And, and I don't think that, that can be overstated, and one of the examples I often use in programs is if you test drive a vehicle, for example, and it happens to be a blue truck, let's say Ford, ... and as soon as you drive off the lot,

What do you see on the road? Nothing but blue Ford trucks. When previously you thought, man, this is unique, no one else drives one, and then it's like, what the heck's going on here? Did Ford dump all these trucks onto the road where I'm driving? And I think that that's a really good example of either, I, I think the technical term is reticular activation,

But, but the other point that you brought up too, that can't be overstated, is the fact that by the time it reaches our cognitive mind, our conscious mind, it's already been filtered, it's gone through are, are the filters of growing up the safety, it's our experiences, all these other things. And, and that's good, and it's bad because it's good provided that that filter is serving you well,

You know, your subconscious is moving you to where you need to go, but I think I heard you say some behaviors that maybe aren't so awesome, like smoking ... alcoholism and, and, you know, laziness, all of those other things, and so that's a great segue ... Penny in terms of the Leadership Mindset and, and my audience is very much about the Leadership Mindset,

And so one of the things we talk a lot about is what kind of leader do you want to be? Or what kind of person, what kind of parent, what kind of coach do you want to be? So what role does the subconscious have with regard to, to, you know, reinforcing that? Because we've all said, man, you know,

I would sure like to be more patient or I would sure like to be insert, you know positive attribute here, but it's so difficult to, to get there, and it's not an issue of willpower because we want to change, but we can't, so can you speak to what role the subconscious has with regard to the, you know, identity and,

And those sorts of things? Yeah. Well, everything that we do is habit, and most people think of going from point A to point B, you know, what do I have to do to get there? And the concept of identity works in reverse. Do you think to yourself, if this is what I want to be, so, you know,

I want to be a leader, you know, in my industry, what does a leader in my industry look like? If someone who is confident in presenting a message, they're clear communicator ... maybe they have compassion in their disciplined, you know, to reach that status of leader. So what does discipline mean? What does compassion look like? What does clear speaking and communication look like?

And then you, once you have in your mind, what it looks like, you just declare, this is who and what I am, and then you begin to embody those characteristics. When we think I'm going to be, I want to be, that's always in the future, you have to change that to I am, I am compassionate, I am clear spoken,

I am disciplined, therefore I am a leader in my industry. Wow. That rewind that everybody that is so, so critical because when we say things like I am going to be, that is a recognition that I'm not that right now, and, and then that becomes part of our vernacular where I am going to be, or I will be, and you will never get there.

And I think that an exercise, so many people go through in business and entrepreneurship, or at least should, is the vision, you know, where do we want to be? And that is really drilled into Corporations and Management styles and all those things, but we don't apply that to our own personal lives, and so, you know, we could take the word leader and substitute with parent or coach or teammate or partner or any of those other things,

And so why is it so difficult though? You know, because I, if I declare it, so ... you know, my, my three things are, I am committed, I am focused, and I am courageous, so it's not, I want to be committed and so on and so forth, but is it good enough for me to say that?

And then I'm going to now be that, like what, what happens in between there? I'm so glad that you asked that because you know people talk about manifestation and working from who you are, and while we don't want to get bogged down in the doing, we still have to take action, and some of your audience may be saying, but wait a minute,

Taking action is doing well, we can take action from a place of identity versus just being stuck and going through the motions in it's a very fine line. It's all about where your mind is ... to be focused on being disciplined, being disciplined may be okay, I have to do A, B and C as long as I am taking these three small actions each day.

I know I'm moving my ball forward and I don't have to work myself to death, trying to make it happen, and that's the fine line between being stuck in the doing and taking action, as you begin to take action, you build these habits, and the idea is that I think is so critical is to not be locked into this idea of perfectionism,

Because you did not build the habits that you're replacing overnight, they've been reinforced year after year after year of your life. So this is a daily practice, I've, I've been through five rounds of gyms TCP now in just this morning. This whole thing came back in my face, I think it was a message prior to discussion today that like, you know,

Hey, what are you? What, what are, what are you doing? I was getting ready to come in and to record this with you, and I was just doing what I do, and I was not paying attention to where my thoughts are and my mind started going, Oh, well you have a two-hour gap, take your laptop, you have these videos to work on and you can do this and you can do that,

And Oh, by the way, and like this flood of not ideas or vision, but task started coming to me and I was like, stop it, like you have two interviews today, that's a great day, you don't need to do anything else, and then I move my attention and I went to get my cup of coffee, It's like, Oh,

Well, you know, maybe you should do this, and I just had to bring myself back three or four times and say stop it, you're not in the startup phase of your business anymore, It's time to relax, enjoy and bring focus, presence and joy to what it is that you're doing, those things will not serve you in what you're doing, so I literally,

My hamster was trying to get on the wheel, had to take the wheel away. So that's the difference between being caught up in that doing, because our thinking can be a habit. My mind was trying to create overwhelm when it was completely unnecessary, so that was my experience this morning, I apologize for that hijacking your train of thought. Oh no,

No. You know, and, and that's so interesting because people listening or watching ... something that, that you have to recognize, is neurologically what we're talking, you've heard the saying, ... you know, neurons that fire together, wire together, so when we're talking about habits and we're talking about monkey mind in the hamster wheel and, and the doing and all of those things,

It's not hoity, toity abstract thought here, we're actually talking neurology where you're, you're creating highways in your brain and you're, you're creating connections and, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the more times you, you drive on that highway, the stronger that highway gets, it's like, okay, we need another layer of asphalt on that, and,

Oh shoot, we should probably maintain this a bit more often, we should paint lines on it, and then we're going to forget that other road, which will always be there, but we're not going to be taken as good care of it, and hopefully the highway that we're building is a lot faster and more stable and more advantageous for us, and so in terms of the neurology,

Would that be somewhat accurate without going into a neurology conversation? Yeah, it's very accurate, that's where the thriving of the brain comes from your brain thrives by burning the fewest amount of calories to burn the fewest amount of calories, It travels the well-traveled road and the most commonly traveled road because it takes zero effort, you've done it so many times, you can do it without being present and thinking about it. Well,

And and herein lies the rub because it doesn't care where that road leads to. It doesn't care that it leads to obesity or failed relationships or alcoholism or ... you know, stress or anything like that, that's a key point as well, It's just going to build the network, It's going to build the roadways, but ultimately it's up to us to decide,

Is that highway leading to something that serves us, or is it something that maybe doesn't serve us? And so in terms of, of this identity in this mindset, so, you know, we, we wake up when we say I am insert, you know, I am committed, how do we go about reinforcing that? Because it doesn't sound like if we want to really create that,

That, that, that roadway, that highway or the interstate in the state's example, how do we go about building that thing up and, and making it to the point where I'm no longer going on that, that back road, I'm using this new one that serves me better, where, how, where do we go, how do we, how do we even start this?

So this may seem a little out there, but Albert Einstein used what he called creative daydreaming, which is basically your imagination, which is basically ... light, self hypnosis, so once you begin to build these blocks, so you decide what it looks like to be committed, and as you take those small steps, you celebrate every time that you've been committed,

When you so many times, like we will do something that, you know, is a step towards our goal, and we look at it through the lens of, yeah, that's what I expected of myself, instead of, yes, I'm doing it, think of yourself, is that little kid playing T-ball and the ball is on the little thing, like all he hasn't,

Nobody's pitching the ball to him, all he's gotta do is whack the ball off the stand, and everybody's like, yeah, yeah, run, run, we have to do that, sometimes to our subconscious mind, we have to celebrate our little wins because motivation and momentum comes from recognition of success, that's what gets, that's what begins to push us when,

When I became a runner for a little while in the thing that got me going was in the beginning, I really had to struggle to go, but once I got started, I'm like, Oh my gosh, look, I can run three and four miles at a pop, and then I actually looked forward to it because I had already accomplished now the visualization piece,

Like you can, you can download self hypnosis audios, you could go see a hypnotist, but if you can just take two or three nice deep breaths and close your eyes and just pretend you're a kid and, you know, the imaginary playmate or whatever, and just visualize yourself, having that success, doing those committed steps with the feeling and emotion of the success at the end,

That's really, all you need to do is use your imagination. So and do it several times a day. Right. Right. And, okay, so just so I can summarize where we've, ... to the point where we are now. So first and foremost, you have to decide what, where you're trying to go ... but also what characteristics does that have?

So, for example, I'm big on respect influence, so respect in leadership, so if I want to be ... a leader that ... is, is respected, or I, I use respect leadership, I have to decide, okay, well, I'm going to be respectful, I'm going to be compassionate, I'm going to be empathetic, for example.

So I decide kind of the end state, I decide what characteristics or attributes go into that, and then once I've arrived at that, the one, one to three, let's say, attributes or characteristics, now I visualize call it, you know, creative daydreaming and Einstein of all people, creative games, day streaming really is, you know, it seems like a big disconnect,

But I've heard that many times as well. So then we go about visualizing it or imagining it, but along the way, it's important for us to recognize the wins, so that could be as simple as I just had a, a conversation with a teammate and I was respectful for them to them, and that's, that's kind of a win, and then what that probably does is creates that positive feedback loop in the brain that says,

Hey, that's actually really good, let's do more of that, and let's continue using this, this kind of neural pathway, is that kind of the summary? Yeah, it's just that positive reinforcement, and if it's something that feels really good to you, that you've done, that it generates emotion in the brain and emotion is what places importance on things in the subconscious.

... I know that you were an Emergency Management, you know, emotion can really imprint something within the mind, be it positive or negative. So, yeah. Yeah. And, and, and that's really, really important too, because if I look back through my own life ... I don't remember every moment, but I certainly remember the moments that I was most,

... emotional and in a lot of our programs, we talk about key events like 9/11 or certain events. You just know where you were or a space shuttle challenger, not to age myself or Columbia, and I remember what challenger, Grade 8, Grade 8 Language Arts ... Mrs. ... Basserap came in and like, that was, it was a year or two ago,

Penny, and, ... I remember it like it was yesterday, but I don't know what happened two days ago, so I think that's a really important point, so when you're celebrating the wins, what you're doing is you're adding some positive emotion to it, which again, I think tells the subconscious that, Oh, okay, this is something I need to pay attention to.

And that will further reinforce that, that roadway now something, ... but you know, that's all fine and dandy too to reinforce that, and you're saying two or three times a day, but a lot of times, you know, instead of celebrating, we actually say, Oh, here we go, you know, here's a, an example of why it doesn't work,

Or I'm not a leader, or I can't be, so that gets us into the realm of limiting beliefs, and, oh, we could spend days on this topic, but one of the challenges around limiting beliefs and tied into the subconscious is, ... we don't even know what we have in terms of beliefs and limiting beliefs, so can you speak to what is a limiting belief in terms of with your,

Your expertise and your background? So this is a really, this one could go a lot of different directions, the first place that I want to go is the negative thought could be habit, it may not be a belief at all, think of someone who has been very successful in their lives, and then all of a sudden they have one failed launch or one bad business decision,

And then they're asking themselves what happened, and they begin to examine what happened in their thinking shifts to one of, I must have made a mistake. I must have, ... done something to cause this, and if you hear the noise outside, I apologize where apparently we're having the downpour outside and I can hear it on the roo ... the mic may be picking it up, anyway.

... So we can get into, we can create a habit of negative thinking, what we need to do at that point is to reframe, like, do I have evidence that I have ever done this successfully and begin to turn our thinking back around? I mean, it's okay to assess, we always need to assess where we are and what got us to where we are,

Whatever the end result was, so that we can adjust and adapt and move forward in the direction that we want to go, but if you find yourself saying, has it always been this way and you're hearing this voice, you know, you've always been a screw up every time things got tough, you gave up, you know, you always give it 99%,

Never 100%. Then, then you have to, you know, begin to deeply reflect, like, is there a belief underneath there, somewhere in the majority of the time, in my experience with all of the clients that I've served, the majority of negative beliefs or self-limiting beliefs are based in misperception, we've misinterpreted something in the past and we've made it about our abilities instead of what the situation actually was,

And maybe we've had other events that mildly back that up and the brain says, Oh, we have a pattern here, this must be the way it is, and all of our thoughts are generated based on our past perceptions and beliefs everything's perception. So, you know, as you're speaking, one of the things that, that I've heard and talked about many times is we don't give ourselves the same grace,

We give others, so I always visualize, and this is really interesting because where my mind went with it, because I, I visualize, you know, I'm talking to my buddy and maybe he's going through a divorce or something like that, or, you know, whatever the case may be, I use different language and I have a different perception of his situation,

... that I don't have for myself, so, for example, I'm totally objective ... with, for me, Hey man, you, you know what you've done the best he can, you've ... you know, you weren't traveling whatever it is, so I'm able to really detach myself, but, and yet at the same time, if we apply that same situation to our own lives,

We don't give ourselves same grace, we don't use the same language, and so what I'm hearing you say is a lot of times that's basically habit, and so we almost have to treat ourselves separately, right? Like kind of like the outside looking in. And how do we go about doing that? Well, I think I heard you say, ask yourself the questions around,

Is this a fact, like think objectively, move it into your conscious mind and think objectively, is this a fact? And yeah. And what about the exercise of even writing things down and then that sort of thing, penny is that I I'm, I'm a mixed bag on journaling. I, I, I don't teach people to journal, but I do believe that we need to be mindful of how we do it,

Like we can ask ourselves the questions of, you know, what causes me to feel, you know, I contributed to this, or I caused this, how do I know that? Do I have evidence to the contrary? As long as we follow it up with how can I move forward? What is the solution? It's okay to unpack it. If we don't ruminate in it,

If you're journaling for the sake of just, I'm so frustrated this happened again, I can't believe it happened again, if you're going down that road, you are reinforcing, you're putting another layer of pavement on that highway, so I tend to discourage people from journaling unless they understand how to do, I call it intelligent journaling, I guess it could be mindful journaling or solution journaling,

We could come up with a lot of names for it, but it depends on where the attention is, and when it comes to talking to ourselves, imagine if you had a small child, you know, you, you were a father or mother to a little boy or a little girl, would you say to that little boy or a little girl, what you're saying to yourself?

Because I take my clients through this process, I give them the opportunity to tell their inner child the things that they always wish they had heard, if there were things they didn't hear, or if there are beliefs or things about themselves that they want to always remember and never forget, I give them that opportunity, and then I, I get them in the end because I'm like,

Now I want you to always remember whenever you talk to yourself, you're talking to that little one inside of you. That is so, so powerful because it also speaks to the fact that when we talk about beliefs, we talk about identity, and we talk about our models of the world, they're not being built as a 30-year-old or 35-year-old,

They're being created through the lens of a kid, and yet that becomes our default programming, our default neurology and wow, and I think then that's why it's often so difficult to change is because those, those neural pathways, the, the beliefs that we have, the identity that we have were created so long ago, which speaks to why it's so freaking hard to change that.

And so in terms of development of our beliefs in our identity, would that, is that accurate in terms of, you know, it goes way back. Absolutely, and not that those things cause what you experience now ... it depends on the repetitive nature of, you know, what happens in one's life, but we can have something called resonance where,

What we experience right now, the emotion resonates with an emotion experienced in the past, so that can trigger the subconscious mind to say, I felt this before it's uncomfortable, I don't like it, so that, that tends to be how prior beliefs or prior misperceptions can impact us today, and you said that it's hard to change if you're working to change a belief from the conscious aspect of the mind,

That is absolutely true because we have a protective part of our mind, our beliefs, or what our subconscious mind uses to keep us safe, even if those beliefs drive us to do and engage in things that aren't healthy for us are our subconscious mind use those beliefs as a structure to keep us safe, so there is a protective mechanism, you cannot easily change a belief from the conscious perspective,

You have to do it from the subconscious, and then it becomes easy, and, you know, sometimes it's as simple as using that creative daydreaming to slip into a light state of hypnosis and to see yourself being happy, comfortable, and at ease taking on these new leadership qualities or whatever it is that you may be trying to do. And so, and that,

That's a, that's a critical point because when we're talking about, I am committed, I am courageous, I am focused ... if I was to approach that from cognitive and just use the words, it won't have any impact, so what I'm hearing you say is through that daydreaming through self hypnosis, which ... as, you know, TCP and,

And a whole bunch of other programs are huge ... advocates of, and, and I, ... use self hypnosis or subconscious reprogramming multiple times a day, but if you're doing that, so what's the difference between doing it in a daydreaming kind of state, you talked about this relaxed versus I'm at my desk, I'm in between meetings and I'm like,

Okay, I am committed ... I am courageous, I am focused, What's the difference between that because aren't, I imagining that versus me sitting relaxed in a chair or, or, you know, in, in a good state, maybe right before, right before sleep or when I wake up, what's the difference there? So when you're, when you're thinking,

When you're using it as an affirmation, you're making a conscious effort to create new thought habits, Okay, think of it like this, when something happens in our life, so say someone slammed a door down the hall consciously, I'm aware of it, I give it meaning, okay, somebody slammed the door, subconsciously, maybe it has that same meaning, my mind says,

Okay, we don't need to put any potent emotion on a motion on that, you know. Maybe it startled you a little, but it's just a shutting of the door in the behavior I engage in as I continue doing what I'm doing, now, if my conscious is engaged, I'm speaking with you, I'm intent, I'm focused I'm present in a door,

Slams really loud and without thinking. Okay, so we're bypassing the conscious mind. Maybe the subconscious immediately goes to, Oh, that sounded like a gunshot or a firecracker or whatever. Why? You know, because my conscious is engaged, I don't process it in the subconscious meaning placed on it as its possible danger, so it off a startle response, I feel startled.

My heart rate might tick up a little bit, and then my conscious mind goes, Oh, it's not anything, when we go to say, have a conversation with a colleague ... you know, we get an email and it says, Hey, we need to have a chat, you know, consciously we're thinking, okay, so, and so wants to have a chat,

And then all of a sudden we get this voice. It's like, Hmm, wonder what that chats about, Ooh, maybe this isn't going to be pleasant, and then we get this emotion of maybe it's something bad, and we get this feeling in the pit of our stomach, and now we have this dread and that's because the subconscious placed a different meaning on it than the conscious,

Based on past experiences we may have had with that person or dealing with a colleague in the workplace. Oh, you know what, and that's a really critical distinction because what you're talking about there is that reinforces the notion that the subconscious is already assigning meaning to it before it even hits the conscious, and, you know, to take that one step further as human beings,

We're hard-wired with your specific example to fear the unknown, because the unknown represents danger, so no matter what cognitively we say, you know, Oh, let's have a chat, and so you go through in your cognitive mind, okay, hold on, what could it be? Okay, now I know I haven't pissed them off over the last two weeks.

You know, like there's nothing that they would be mad at me about, and yet we are still going in there with sweaty palms or at least a tiny fraction of trepidation, and so what I'm understanding is that's because your subconscious is, is kind of running the show and it just reinforces that. Yeah. Yes. Your subconscious is always running the show,

Even when you think you're running the show, it's running the show, that's why you can approach something and be like, yes, I'm confident, I'm excited, I'm prepared, I'm ready to do this, and then the moment before you're about to push record or step on stage or walk into a board meeting, all of a sudden the palm starts sweating,

You get a little jittery in it's because your subconscious mind has a different idea about the meaning of what you're about to do. And, and it's, it's meaning that we've assigned to it somewhere along the line, that's what I find so interesting, and so when we talk about, so that kind of loops us back into this conversation around changing the meaning to it as well,

Or reframing, I think was the word that you use, so how do we, can you just maybe go back to, how do we reframe something more effectively, so we've talked about how we visualize more effectively, so we want to assign some sort of an emotion to it, because then it really seats in and we want to reinforce that emotion and that visual all of the time,

But with regard to, you know, the, the, the meanings and reframe, how do we reframe that, and does that go back into the, talking about looking at it objectively and saying, is this a fact all of the time, or, or how do we effectively reframe an experience? So give me an example of an experience, something that you wish you could have thought more positively about in the moment, or something that you commonly come across and some of the travel? That's a good question.

... A situation might be ... it took us an extra two days to bring evacuees home from, ... you know, back into their home after evacuating them under in an emergency, right, so that's like, man, man, I wish we could have done that sooner, we should have been able to do that sooner. Okay. So looking at that,

You know, I would go back and look at it and say, you know what? It would have been nice to have gotten them home today, sooner, but with the resources that we had available to us, we did the best that we could, and because they could have been displaced longer. Right, right. They could have been this place longer, we actually did pretty good because they could have been displaced longer.

Yeah. And, and so then that's so, so then the, now the cynic audience part of the audience says, well, so now you're just being unrealistic, you're being Pollyannaish, like the reality is, you know, if you guys didn't do a good job or, you know, something like that, so how do we, what's that balance between,

Are we being unrealistic and Pollyannaish, or are we being ... you know, are we reframing it effectively? So if you, if there is the reflection that something could have been tightened up, you can reframe it such as well, we could have gotten them home two days sooner and we didn't, but we learn these lessons so that we can be more effective next time.

I love that. And what I've found, the, the quote unquote effective leaders ... in my experience are the ones that data or data is just data, like a circumstance is just a circumstance it's neither good, nor is it bad? It's, it's a circumstance, and then that next step that thought that meaning we assigned to it is where you,

The effective leader say, it just is like, it's not good or it's bad, but let's just deal with it, and the ones that maybe start to go down a rabbit hole ... and I'm curious to hear your thoughts are the ones that assign negative meaning, but it becomes a habit, right? Like, I, I, I haven't come across too many people in my experience that are both positive and negative,

They're kind of one or the other. What is that? Is that accurate? Or am I just completely out to lunch? No, I, I think you're probably correct, and I think we tend, notice the extremes as well, we're more likely to notice the extremes, but ... I think that we can, all, at some point have some negativity in our lives,

It's our ability to turn it into something positive that moves us forward rather than staying stuck. That makes a difference. And I think then that ties also into the identity whereby if you, if you have an identity or belief system that the world is Effin you over, or, you know, you can't get ahead, then every experience that you have will be viewed through that subconscious lens that see,

This just reinforces it, but I guess, conversely, if we have a positive ID or identity that looks at things positively, then that's a good thing, because now we're looking at it through the lens of positivity. And, um, and that's an important point, but man, a man that sounds like such an uphill battle, but the tools or the techniques that you've talked about,

The reframing is really, really important, the discussion around looking at it objectively, is this a fact that, you know, nothing ever goes right, for me, this always happens to me for me when I hear the word always it's like, Hmmm, is that, is that actually true? True. Yeah. In the degree of negativity is a filter that I use when I'm choosing who's an ideal client to work with because when someone is locked into that victim mode,

It takes a lot of effort to get them on board with creating the new habits of thinking positively, because they seem to be unable to believe that their thinking has contributed to wherever they are, whatever it is, I mean, it really doesn't matter, and we have to be able to adjust and adapt, so whether good things or bad things happen, it's

It's all about that, and sometimes we just have to trust ourselves through that process of adaptation and moving forward to get where to get where we're going to move beyond. And I think to tie a bow on this, it takes us back to our original conversation around identity and really deciding who you want to be, what kind of person do you want to be?

Because if you don't know the end state, then you don't know, It's like, it's like any other journey, if you don't know ... if you don't know where you're going, then you don't know what direction to head into, you don't know whether you're making progress or you're not, but so again, being very, very conscious of who you want to be,

Not the, not the actions you want to take, but, but who you want to be, and then reinforcing that through creative daydreaming or self hypnosis, or just consistently, you know, thinking that, celebrating it along the way, even if it's a micro celebration, we're not talking about pop the champagne and Hey everyone, I was respectful, come on into my office, 

We're going to high five this thing, but ... but it all starts with who do you want to be, what kind of identity do you want to have, because if you don't go, if you're, if you're not there, then, ... you're going to be a ship without a rudder, essentially. And then you'll, you'll finish a journey and you'll look back and be like,

Man, oh man that, that didn't turn out the way I wanted to wanted it to, so I think it's really important that, that through neuro-plasticity and, and, and human choice and behavior and all those things, we can change, that's the, that's the beauty of this, and if we do the right things in the right order,

We can change, and the old adage about you can't teach an old dog new tricks, that used to be an old thought, but we now know through science and, and ... anecdotal evidence and all of those other things that we can change, and I think that's really, really empowering, and so, Penny, that's probably a good place for us to end.

And I would like to, so where can, where can the viewers and the listeners find you in terms of your website and podcast is sort of a fellow podcaster, which I'm super excited about, so where, where can people find you? And I'll include information in the episode description as well. Yeah. So my website is pennychaseon.com, and the podcast is design your destiny,

Leveraging your subconscious for success. Okay. Is that not just, just so we know, I knew it was something along those lines, but I wasn't sure it was like totally nailing it like we had just talked about. Wow, that is fantastic, and so Penny, thank you very, very much of being very gracious of your time, Thank you for being gracious with your commitment to,

You know, fellow alumni of ... of various programs and Facebook groups and all of those other things, and with Penny's help and those like her ... you can change no matter how old you are, and you just have to make the decision that you're going to and just get the right roadmap, just get the right steps, don't meander,

Don't don't guess at this, reach out to professional, reach out and do your homework because you can change, and ... and I think you'll be glad you did, so penny, thank you very, very much for your time, and ... we are going to be doing this again, just so you know, cause as you were talking,

I'm like, all these synapses are firing off, Oh, no pump the brakes, Daryl, we only have like a certain amount of time, so thank you very much for your time, Penny and my people will talk to your people. Alright. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. It was good.<inaudible>.