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The Top 5% Method®
Emotional Leadership: Why We’re Feeling Machines (Not Thinking Ones)
00:37:27
In this episode, we chat with Christy Pretzinger, the author of Your CULTURAL BALANCE Sheet: Keys to Creating an Environment Where People Can Thrive. We explore the neuroscience behind decision-making and why great leaders understand that people are “feeling machines,” not thinking ones. From vulnerability in difficult conversations to the fine line between vision and delusion, this conversation dives into what actually drives influence, culture, and growth.
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- [00:00]
A
Emotions are the driver of our behavior. There's a neuroscientist who said that humans are feeling machines, not thinking machines. And we believe we are the opposite of that. We all think that we are rational and we aren't. All of our decisions are based on emotions.
- [00:23]
B
Hello, Driving Impact crew. I'm so excited today to welcome Christy Predzinger to to the pod. Welcome, Christy.
- [00:30]
A
Thank you so much for having Kathleen. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
- [00:33]
B
Me too. And I've had a lot of time and I enjoyed my time like chipping away at your book, the Cultural Balance Sheet. But I want to hear more about, like, tell me about yourself.
- [00:45]
A
Well, let's see. Let's not go too far back. I'm old, it would take forever. So I'll just talk about recent things that I am an author, as you mentioned. I've recently published a book called you'd Cultural Balance Sheet. Keys to Creating an Environment where People Can Thrive. And I am the CEO of a company called called WG Content and I have been for about 20 some years. And what I realized as I was building that company and actually looking more in hindsight, that my true passion is about creating environments where people can thrive. And to that end I have started another business called the Better Leader Project, which is designed to teach Gen Z how to be the movers and shakers, creating those environments for themselves and the generations to come.
- [01:27]
B
That's amazing. I think it's so important. Like I've spent 20 years in corporate America at multiple companies, and being a good leader, oftentimes there's no onboarding. When you become a people manager, first line, second line, or manager of managers, there's no onboarding. So I do think that the work that you're doing is important. So I want to hear a little bit more. So I read your book and but I want to make sure that everybody understands what is the better quotient. Like, what is that framework?
- [01:53]
A
Okay. So as I was working on the Better Leader Project, which is, as I mentioned, designed, targeted towards Gen Z and helping. I have to give you a little background, helping Gen Z, who as everybody knows, they're entering the workplace and they are largely Covid people and as a result they are uniquely unskilled in things that they yearn for. For example, they yearn for authenticity, they yearn for community, they yearn for connection, they're opting out of management, but not leadership. And so these are all things that I have almost 40 years of expertise in. And I thought, well, why don't I go ahead and help these people do that. So as I was talking about how to frame it, I realized that what I was talking about really was another moniker like you have the iq, your intelligence quotient, eq, your emotional quotient. And so now you have bq, your better quotient, which is the capacity we all have to become better. And what BQ really does is build on eq. So EQ is about recognizing, naming, and managing your emotions. BQ is adding your own conscious integrity on top of that, choosing the better response. Once you have been able to recognize and name your emotion, you use your bq, your capacity to become better, to choose the better choice.
- [03:10]
B
It's interesting. So does everybody have an ability to become better? Or how do you measure someone's ability to become better?
- [03:18]
A
You know, it's a little more subjective than eq, although I do. I have a little quiz that I'd be happy to send to you and you can put it in the show notes. It's just a short quiz to kind of. It's rather subjective in some ways at this point in time, it's really more about seeing the results of your behavior. So I personally believe we all have the capacity to become better. Whether we choose to access that capacity is an individual choice.
- [03:40]
B
So what are you saying is basically that some people. So we all have the capacity and some people will not want to become better.
- [03:46]
A
True.
- [03:47]
B
Yeah, it's kind of. I don't know, I'm like a personal development freak. So I'm like, why would people not want to become better? And that's so you can have eq, you can have iq, but it doesn't mean that you have bq, because you have it.
- [04:04]
A
You have bq, but do you choose to use it? Because I think the thing is there, the, the whole reason that I called it the Better leader project as opposed to the better human project, is because there's a whole cadre of people in the world who already think of themselves as better humans. All evidence to the contrary. So that's why we went with a better leader, because I wanted to focus on the workplace. But I think there's also a. A certain amount of people. I'm hoping it's a minor. My own experience, it's a minority of people who already think they don't need to learn anything more, that they already know everything. There's a staggering amount of arrogance in something like that. But I think we've all run into staggeringly arrogant people before. So that's what I mean by that.
- [04:44]
B
Okay, I get it. So for me, what I translated into there's a growth mindset and I don't know how close or how far it is like to better quotient is that if somebody doesn't have the growth mindset, they're going to think that they're already perfect and there's nothing to learn. And the better quotient is how much you're willing to grow, learn and transform as a human being. But as a leader, which is so
- [05:04]
A
important, it's very much the growth mindset that you said, Kathleen, that just I'm fine tuning it a bit and building it, piling it on top of EQ and giving people another way to, to really further develop. Because I think you know this and I personally, my own experience know that self awareness cannot be underestimated in importance to effective leadership. And so this is a further tool help people really hone their, their skill at becoming a better leader through the tools of self awareness, which includes EQ, but includes more than just that.
- [05:38]
B
I think that's amazing because you talk about. Because I think it's so important. I spent so much time in corporate and I think there's so many leaders who want. Some people want to develop but they don't know how and some people don't necessarily want to develop. And some people are being coached by peers that might not have the best advice. And I've seen it times and times again. So you have to find your coach. You have to find the right person who's going to help you. And what's the aha moment that led you to create this concept of a better coaching?
- [06:04]
A
You know, I think for me it's not, I have these epiphanies, but it's usually a whole bunch of things that are kind of moving around in my head and then all of a sudden it's that moment. So for me there was, there was a number of things thinking about some of the things that have been impactful in my life and in my leadership. I think we talked about this before that I'm a member of Entrepreneurs Organization, which is a global organ made up of entrepreneurs. And one of the skills that I learned that is employed in that organization is experience sharing. No advice giving. And I've been doing that for about 10 years now. And so when I hear people give advice, I have an automatic kind of jolt because most people don't like advice. But what is helpful is to be able to share experiences. If someone talks about something, you can say that happened to me as well or I felt that emotion in a different circumstance and this was how I handled it. That becomes actionable and helpful and has some foundation in experiential learning. So that's, that's, that has always been important to me. So I started thinking about that and thinking, well, what the whole thing about the better leader project was about being better, not perfect. And so when I drilled back from better not perfect, I thought it's almost like there's a bq, like a better quotient. It's this thing that's missing that, that, you know, perfection is the enemy of good, Right. It's also the enemy better. It's the enemy of a lot of things.
- [07:31]
B
Yeah.
- [07:31]
A
And in the world in which we live now, especially with social media and the speed of things, there's this very false premise that we're supposed to be perfect.
- [07:39]
B
And the perfect morning routine, the perfect this, the perfect that, right?
- [07:43]
A
Yeah.
- [07:44]
B
Perfect family photo shoot.
- [07:46]
A
And nobody is perfect, you know, who even wants to be. But it's a, it's an unreasonable expectation. So like I said, I was started thinking about it and thought about, well, you know, the whole goal is to be better. To your point, a growth mindset, better not perfect moment. Can I make the better choice in the next moment based on my personal conscious integrity, which includes my why, what I'm trying to achieve in whatever moment when I'm trying to be better and
- [08:12]
B
can I, can we do like a simulation? Because I think it's so powerful because I've had so many managers in my life and they always gave advice. Most of them, except the ones who are more curious, would ask a lot of questions. So let's say I'm a frontline manager and I come to you, you're my coach and I ask you, okay, I'm struggling with one of my reports. She's always frustrated and we go in circles and the meeting is not my or one on ones are not productive. So how would you coach some. A manager, right, A first line manager who would come to you with this specific problem?
- [08:49]
A
Well, I mean I will get to the experience, share part of it, but the first thing I would do is ask a lot of questions. I would always, if they said, you know, we go round and round, I'd have to say my favorite is tell me more and then stop talking because I need to know. I would need to know more framework around. What do you mean you go round and round? What, what exactly are you saying? What do those conversations consist of? Who's talking the most and what are you talking about, because one of the especially. Tell me more.
- [09:14]
B
Right.
- [09:15]
A
Two ears, one mouth. Use them accordingly. And so, so that's always, you know, that's. That's step one. So once I would hear that and was able to have a little more context for the frustration, I would then say something along the lines of, had that experience in the past. And what I had to do for myself was really think about, what are we both here to do? Where's our commonality? And so in my experience, what I did was I found somewhere that we approached things very differently, but we both wanted the same end result. And so we talked about how we could get there and how we could agree that we might get there differently. And so that would be an example of experience sharing.
- [09:56]
B
I love it. Because then the person can go and figure out what they're going to do. You haven't told them what to do. You have told. You have shared your experience, and from what your experience, they can decide how they want to approach you. So it's kind of like you're giving the power back to the person.
- [10:09]
A
Yes. And I think, I think in my own experience again, of growing my business, the reason that I built it the way that I did is because I wanted it to be a place where I wanted to work, which meant, you know, our values ended up being, we are empowered, curious, kind, and fun. I wanted people to feel like they already had the tools within them, that they have the authority to conduct their lives, that they don't have to ask permission to live their life. Like going to the doctor, picking up kids from school, things like that. Like you should have to ask permission to live your life. And so that's part of all of that. So when it comes to experience sharing, understanding that I don't know, your lived experience, you can share it with me. I'm going to ask questions before I would ever share any of my experience back to make sure that it's as relevant as possible.
- [10:51]
B
That's amazing. I think it's so, like, it's so needed right now and in corporate America, but also in the world.
- [10:58]
A
Yeah.
- [10:58]
B
And so tell me something. You focus on three concepts. You talk about empathy, vulnerability, and then emotional accessibility. So what, why these three?
- [11:08]
A
Well, I really. I know the way you've said them. I understand. That's why I talk about them too. But emotional access really is the first one because we know from neuroscience and all research that emotions are the driver of our behavior, and we tend to think it's. There's a neuroscientist who said that humans are feeling machines, not thinking machines. And we believe we are the opposite of that. We all think that we are rational and we aren't. We all of our decisions are based on emotions. And the problem is that most of us don't have the language of emotions. Brene Brown says that people say mad, sad, glad, that's all they know. If that's all you know, then that is your experience of the world through the lens of those three words. So really understanding how rich your life really is through emotional access through there's, there's something I'm not sure you might be familiar, Kathleen, with the feelings wheel that I use it as a tool all the time and, and for your audience it's just a visual wheel that will have like let's say mad, sad, glad in the middle and then outside of mad would go into frustrated, irritated, annoyed, you know, all the different things to help you drill out to what you're actually feeling to become more facile, for lack of a better word, with the language of emotions. Because then you can name them and once you can name them, then you can go further and feel. See the effect that those emotions may have if you do not manage them effectively.
- [12:33]
B
No, I think this is like emotional accept on its own. I think it's such a powerful concept. And I was, I have a five year old kid, so at school, I'm very lucky. It's a charter school, they have the emotion wheel. And I also bought it online because I thought, I don't know if I've learned that. Not in the old school curriculum, but in the new school curriculum. They show that to kids and I love it because kids sometimes, if they have all these emotions and they don't know how to name them, they don't even have the words. And the fact that now teachers have the emotional wheel, then they can identify I'm tired and they talk about it every single week. So I think that's powerful. There's something you said about emotional access that's important as well is you say that not everybody has emotional access to their own emotions. So I want to talk about emotional, about access to their own emotion and then the emotions of others. So can you talk about like how can someone have more access to their own emotions?
- [13:28]
A
I think that having access to your own emotion, again, it has to be a conscious, intentional practice. I think it's, I'm the, the irony that I am building a business founded on emotional principles and the fact that I spent the first 50 some years of my life denying that I had emotions. That's not lost on me. So I've learned about this. And so. So we all obviously have emotions, but some of us, well, I think it's great. Back to your child, that that child and these children are able to learn how to name and claim their emotions at a young age and have some sophistication around that, even at five years old. So that it's like, I'm not just mad. I'm actually tired or I'm hungry or, you know, I'm upset, whatever. That language around that is so important. So I think that having the access to it is, you know, do we all. We all have access to it. But I, again, I can only speak about my own experience. That we don't want to look inside the world that we live in, doesn't encourage it, at least, certainly not in the United States. It doesn't really encourage introspective, deep introspective thinking. And if you start to do that kind of work, people are afraid that there's something icky down there, like, I don't want to know. There's something scary down there. And so being able to access your emotions and realize, oh, okay, I'm not the only one that feels this way. These emotions, you know, are. People have these emotions. Which is why part of the Better Leader project is communities, small communities, so you can practice exactly that, like your kids are doing in school is practicing your access to your emotions, your vulnerability and your empathy in community so that you have the experiential learning of letting those things become part of your DNA in practice.
- [15:13]
B
So how does the Better Leader. I like the concept of community. I believe that it's better to build with community such that you feel maybe less alone or you can solve. You bring more people to the table to solve your problem. So how does the Better Leader Project work in terms of learning and community?
- [15:30]
A
Well, the premise of it is it came from a lot of different things that aren't worth going into now. But basically what I have come through my own experience to learn is that we can read all of the books we want about things like emotional access, empathy, vulnerability, all of those. But until you experience them or you. You practice them, you don't really know what they feel like. And you need to know what they feel like because the word vulnerability to most people is frightening. And so until you can practice it and the way with the Better Leader, it's a community about eight people, you stay with that same community. And it's a very formalized practice. It's not communication. It's not just a back and forth. There's a way that we have a topic that we discuss that I facilitate a topic on and then people have, have the next meeting, they reflect on the topic that we discussed and they say how did it show up for me since the last meeting? But the way they have to talk about it is what was the feeling? So if we were talking about accountability with empathy and then the next meeting said okay, how did that show up for you? Could have been at work, could have been personal, whatever. I'll give the example of one that I talked about myself was that I wanted to be more conscious of my eating habits because I can eat a lot of sugar and not eat the vegetables. So I was like okay, I'm going to do that. So my accountability with empathy towards myself was the better, not perfect. I was like, okay, well I was more cognizant of it and I made some better choices. I still probably ate more sugar than I needed, but I was better. And so there was that empathy for myself and said you had M&M's. You are bad, you've messed it up, you should just eat the cake now, you know. And so there was that, that, that, that piece of it. So for me in my update with that, I would start with the way that that showed up for me was I was surprised, I was pleased and encouraged. So if I said that then the next thing I would say is I was very empathetic with myself when holding myself accountable in my eating habits. That's just the headline. And then it'd be the significance. My background with things like this, my own experience in this has been a lot of self flagellating, beating myself up about things like that. And so it was, it was, it required attention for me not to do because my default is to beat myself up. And so through the practice of the accountability with empathy and thinking about it, I applied that to myself and I was really pleased and encouraged that I could do it, which made me think I could continue to get better at that. So that's how you take that, pull that thread through the experience, the experience share and the emotion and all of that.
- [18:09]
B
And I think it's so essential because I mean just like you, I was, I was, I don't know how you grew up, but I grew up with my very demanding parents and. And then I would punish myself if I was not perfect.
- [18:22]
A
Yeah.
- [18:23]
B
And versus now I practice a lot of self compassion and listen, I didn't like I haven't worked since I moved I haven't been working out as much. And then the first thing I do is because I lost my system. So I text my trainer, I'm like, I need to see you.
- [18:36]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [18:38]
B
Like I text him this morning, I'm like, it's getting out of control.
- [18:41]
A
But this is a problem.
- [18:45]
B
So, but I think it's, I like the idea of like, like empathy to, to oneself, like self empathy because instead of being like, oh, I'm bad, I haven't been working out, it's like, no, I want to, I want to empathize and I want to rebuild my system that I lost when I relocated.
- [18:59]
A
One of the things I'm sure you've experienced too when it comes to empathy is that most of us say things to ourselves that we would never dream of saying to someone, even our worst enemy. We would not speak that way to other people. And so thinking about what would you tell a friend, you know, if it was a friend in my instance who ate a handful of M&MS. But also had a salad, you know, what would I say to that friend? I would say good job. You never eat salad. You ate a salad. Good for you. And so I try to treat myself as I would treat my friends. And for me that is kindness, that's self empathy and recognition. Also vulnerability of recognizing that, gee, I can, can, I can be really, you know, not very bright when it comes to some of these things around my own behavior within my own life with, on myself, you know.
- [19:51]
B
Yeah, we're not like the internal voice. I think it's, I think it's so powerful because our thoughts dictate our reality as Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about. And I think that's important. So I just want to go back into your concept of community. So somebody like, let's say I was a Gen Z. I'm not a Gen Z.
- [20:06]
A
Me neither.
- [20:08]
B
I was a Gen Z and I know that I want to work on my emotional regulation or my empathy or my better quotient. I would sign up for your program, for example, and then I would be in a cohort of people and then we would have guided conversations about topics that are going to help foster and develop self awareness that I understand exactly right.
- [20:29]
A
Yes.
- [20:30]
B
For how long? How long does it take to transform?
- [20:32]
A
Well, you know, what I've done so far is a beta test and I've now moved it into working with universities because looking at young students, so finding, finding recent graduates as well as like seniors in the program because obviously when you're in school you have a Lot of connections. Once you get out into the workplace, that's when you're like, oh, I don't know that I have the skill set for this. So I'm working with that group for the next beta test to get more information from them to make sure I'm targeting Gen Z appropriately. But what happened in the beta test I did first time, it was six months long that we did this. And what we did is we had a session that was an hour and a half long and we did it once a month. These were all professionals in the field of, they all worked in hospital marketing. So there was one vp, the rest were directors and the intention was to teach them how to lead with these skill sets. So what happened is for an hour and a half we'd have a meeting. I would facilitate a topic like, you know, accountability with empathy, share some videos or whatever and then we would have a facilitated conversation. And then the next month come in as I just shared and have your, your reflection on the previous topic. And so when someone would reflect, then I would make sure that the responses were, let's say that I shared that, that, you know, I, I discovered that I could be empathetic to myself and I was encouraged that I could actually improve. So let's say that your response that would be like, oh my gosh, that's the same for me. You'd say, I had that same feeling. I don't know that I would have called it encouragement. I thought I was calling it congratulatory, but I get it. And mine was about this for myself that I noticed I could make myself exercise more. And when I did, you know, something like that said, so you're just experiencing, you're reflecting back to each other. I see you, I hear what you're saying and I've had that emotion or that experience as well. So that was what the program was. So what we did after three months, we did, you know, just kind of a recap and said, what do you think? Start, stop, continue, what do you like? And to a person it was interesting because when we started, when I taught them experience sharing, they're like, this is kind of performative and the same thing in the way that the meetings work because it's not, it's not a free form conversation. They were kind of like, but they were willing to go along with it. At the end of three months, every single one of the seven people said it had changed their lives because it changed the way they worked and with the people that they work with. But for all of them, it also changed their personal lives, the way that they parented, the way they were with their partners. And in an example of talking about vulnerability and practicing vulnerability in this small group, one of the people said that she was in a hospital that was going through like they all are reorganizations and she had a team and she was really struggling with the reorganization and she had not shared that with her boss because that's vulnerable. You're struggling, everything's not perfect. And she said, you know, after practicing in this group, I decided I was going to share that with my boss. And she said, and I did. And he was very receptive and very appreciative. It resulted in an in depth conversation and deepened our professional relationship. And she said, I realized through practicing vulnerability that it's actually a superpower power.
- [23:35]
B
This is so powerful because like I think sometimes people think that because you're a leader, because you're a senior person that you're gonna hide or your high performer that you're gonna hide that you're struggling. But actually you become more of a real person, a real human when you share your struggle even with your VP or some superior because then they can see how they can support you. And also you just look like a real human.
- [23:56]
A
I think that's exactly what Gen Z is looking for. You know, the people who are their superiors or their leaders, whatever, need to be real people. You know, Gen Z has seen their go into the workplace and being told, leave everything else at the door. This is professional, that's personal. These are not the same things. And they're like, but I'm not that. I'm this whole person and I want to bring my whole self and I want you as my boss to show me your whole self. We're not talking about ridiculous vulnerability. We're talking about sharing in an appropriate manner that like, yeah, you know what, I find that hard too. You know, I find it hard to reprimand somebody. I have a hard time, you know, making those difficult decisions, whatever it happens to be, so that we can find a point of commonality and then we can both grow from that.
- [24:41]
B
This is, I have. So I, I'm taking notes because this, I have so many comments of what you just said. So there was an article that talked about the fact that like not co. But since the massive, the massive layoffs and with AI now leaders are less vulnerable and less empathetic at work. So this whole wave of like Covid brought a lot of vulnerability and empathy. And now the, this mass wave of leaders payoffs is bringing the Opposite. Because now a lot of organizations are looking at how can I reduce a portion of my population of employees and how can I leverage AI to be able to do that? So it does not encourage vulnerability at all. So what is. What are your thoughts on that?
- [25:22]
A
Well, I think that there are very few things in the American workplace that encourage vulnerability. I mean, let's be honest, you've worked in corporate America much more than I have, and there's not a lot of encouragement or structure or tools to build that skill of vulnerability. And I think it's a normal human response to become protective when you feel frightened, when your company is undergoing layoffs and people being let go, your first inclination and be like, oh, my gosh, open up and be this kind of thing. It's like, I gotta be protective. I gotta make sure that I keep this. I need this job. And so you shut down instead of opening up. Up. But we. My company, I had to go through layoffs at the end of June, and I've never done that in my 40 years of working. I've never laid people off. It was. It was shocking, alarming, horrible, seismic. It was awful. But one of the things, at least that I did as a leader is I shared how painful it was. You know, I shared with the people that remain that this was one of the worst days of my life, that I felt responsible, that I understand the importance of a job, and I was reluctant to make that decision because I didn't want those people to be without work, and that I hope I made the right decision and that I wanted to make sure everybody still reached out to these people. Nobody had done anything wrong. They are still our friends, people that we worked with for years. So I was very open about that because I think anybody who's done layoffs who has a heart knows that it's terrible. And so I had to share that with him. Like, this was bad. This was really bad. It's like a cut into our culture.
- [26:57]
B
Yeah. Yeah. I've operated two rounds of layoffs, and at my level was I was a managing director. I didn't know exactly who was going to be laid off, but I knew what the criteria would have been. And then the layoffs happened. And I've. I've been hired to speak to teams right after. Week after or the week of the layoff. And they were, like, down. And they felt like half of them, half of the heart was gone. And my message to them, it's like, listen, and it's going to sound very selfish, but for those who stayed, it's you're still here. You can't, like, pretend like, you know, sometimes you have a partner who dies, and then you stop living. And I said, you have a job and you have a, you have a paycheck, so you want to show up. Like, you do have a paycheck, and there's a lot of opportunities. And the other thing I shared is that some people that I know were laid off. They found better jobs, more senior jobs, and, and, and with more power, what they were looking for. But there's a phenomenon that's happening right now, Christy, and it's like job hugging, and people are, like, so afraid and so, like, they're holding on to their job, even if sometimes it doesn't serve them. And I know because I talk to a lot of people who are like, there's no more promotions. We're not going ahead. So I think there's a lot of things that are happening right now in, in America, in the world, that I think a lot of emotional intelligence is going to be necessary, but I think, think also better portion is going to be important, because if you've lost your job, are you able to keep evolving and developing new skill sets to get a new job or pivot your career?
- [28:26]
A
Well, everything you're saying is making me even think just about my own company and the people that we had to let people go. It's like we had 34 people, and we had to let eight people go. That's a pretty significant number. And so that was in the end of June. And everything you're saying, Kathleen, is making me think, gosh, I better make sure I'm touching base with these people. Because the thing I tried to communicate was that this was devastating. This was awful. Didn't want it to happen. And we shared, you know, some financial things with them so they could see why this decision happened. And also I, I was saying more probably in July and August. Like, look, the good news is that I am optimistic. We do have things to look forward to. We. We can adapt to this new world with AI being a company that generates content for hospitals. You know, where does AI play into that? It's like, how can we focus on our mission, which is building relationships one word at a time, which is uniquely human, and yet using the tools of AI to move us forward and trying to focus on the people that are here, saying, all of you are here because you have the skill sets for the work that we have yet to do and where we're going, and hoping that they see that, because I, I really Never want to have an organization where people are waiting for the next shoe to drop. Because as far as I'm concerned, that can't happen. But that doesn't mean that it never will. But it, you know, my intention is for that not to happen happen.
- [29:43]
B
It's not easy, it's not obvious. I can talk about tech because I know how I used to hire. We would hire based on the growth that we projected. So we projected 30 year over year, 40 year over year growth. And then some organizations, when I joined some organizations, I looked at the organization, I was like, this does not make any sense. This is not profitable. This is not structured. So when you're in a growth period and growth trajectory, you hire more people and then as you project that it's going to continue. But what, what happens when it's flat or what happens there's a decline because there's competition, condition, then that's also some of the root causes of the layoffs. Yeah. Now you've had a thriving career and I want to make sure that we can learn from your own experience. So if you had to talk to yourself like your 25 year old self, what would you say to your 25 year old self in terms of career advice?
- [30:33]
A
You know, it's funny because my son is 24 and he is in his third year of law school, so I can think about how I speak to him because you know, learning about experience, sharing changed the way I parented him. So I'm not an advice giver to him. I'm very much like, obviously I've never been a 24 year old young man, but I've been 24. And the thing that, that I have said to him and impressed upon him, and I think you'll get this from Joe Dispenza too, is that I've always said to him, reach for the feeling of what it is that you want. Reach for the feeling, what does it physically feel like in your body? And I want to share a quick story about how that worked for him. So he wanted to go to Georgetown Law School since he was like a sophomore in high school. And the year that he went, there were a lot of changes with U.S. news and world Report rankings and they were not letting people know about their admissions until like May. Usually people find out in January, February, he graduated in December from undergrad and then had this whole semester of not knowing what was going to happen. He was waitlisted and you know, it was like, what am I going to do? And I kept saying, okay, but reach for the feeling of getting that email. And he'd get real mad and be like, what if I don't? I'm like, well if you don't, you'll be disappointed. But, but reach for the feeling that feels better. Think about that. Okay, fast forward. He goes to Barcelona with a friend and it's in May and they're walking into the football stadium there for a tour. And they play the crowd noise when you walk in as if you're a football player. Right when he walked in, his email went ding. And the email said, congratulations, you have been accepted. And it was with the crowd. See thank about that feeling. Barcelona is now his favorite place in the world because the joy of that moment and I was like, reach for that. If I could have known that when I was that young, that instead of getting all caught up in all the other things. What does it feel like when you get whatever it is that your heart desires? What does it feel like when you get that job? What does it feel like when you find that perfect first house? What does it feel like when you find a partner that you're so happy with? You know, that would have been very important for me to know at a younger age. I wish I would have known that.
- [32:36]
B
That's such a great advice, Eyes, because like I'm a big believer in manifestation and I, I like to meditate every morning on Joe Dispenza because it always talks about like the feeling like believe that you're already there. See yourself, visualize yourself doing the things that you want to do. And then your body, your mind doesn't know what is real, what is not real. So if you're already in the feeling of success or the, the, the feeling of whatever you finding the dream partner, then you're going to be able to manifest and attract that in your life. Of course you have to work, you're not just going to sit there. Yeah. But I think focusing on that instead of the long list of things. Right, right. The long list of things you're going to get, you might get exactly what's on the list, but that might not give the feeling that you're yearning for. And that's, I think, so powerful.
- [33:20]
A
Exactly.
- [33:22]
B
Yeah.
- [33:22]
A
Well, and you know, I think based on, you know, what you've said, I'm sure that we're like minded and I've known that. I've believed in that ever since like the early, well, gosh, in the 80s. But like I read Deepak Chopra back in the 90s when he first started talking about epigenetics and Everyone acted like he was crazy. That you're behaviors could affect your literal DNA. Well now we know that it's true. And so I've always believed in you can create your own reality. And I didn't say it a lot because people would, it sounded woo woo. But now we have the fmris and we have neuroscientists writing books about the fact. What you just said is like if you can, if you can think of something you want. But the most important thing is what does it feel like? It's finding the reason it's important to you, which is a feeling. And then your brain, there's actual parts of your brain brain that will seek those things out. That's why if you're, you know, buying a new car and you're looking at blue cars, all of a sudden every car you see is blue. It's because you've put that in your brain and so now choose to put it in your brain. Choose to put whatever it is that you want in your brain and tie it to the feeling. And then it literally neuroscientifically, that's how we manifest.
- [34:24]
B
Yeah. And this is so powerful and there's very famous people who do it like Steve Jobs, we have the reality distortion feedback field and that's how he was able to like he was delusional. So you have to be a little bit Delulu as they say.
- [34:39]
A
Yeah, yeah. A genius and delulu but yes.
- [34:42]
B
And that's how like some of them achieve the biggest and the wildest dreams because they're living in their own little world and then it comes into their life. Of course you work, of course but then you find the way, you find the path. So for the Gen Z's and I know some of our audience is the Gen Z, except for the Gen Z's who are listening because sometimes they leave comments. So if, what if they want to develop and work with you at better quotient, how does it work? Where do they go? Why do you sign up? How much does it cost? I just, we are still.
- [35:10]
A
And it's still in the beta test for that part of it. They can go to KristyPretzinger.com and they can learn more about it. And there is a place and if there's not yet there will be after this Kathleen that they can put a name for if you're interested for more information so they can get more information as we develop it. Because what I'm going to do, because I am clearly not Gen Z, I think I know what they're looking for. But I want to work with some of them to make sure that I'm really meeting their needs, that the curriculum will be what they're looking for. I want to ask them about what do you think the price point should be, what should the cadence of the meetings be? So I want to get make sure that I'm really doing my fact finding before I put something out there so they can actually certainly read my book. But just go to christypretzinger.com and you can find everything that you need. Right.
- [35:55]
B
And the book again for people who are interested in, it's called your cultural
- [35:59]
A
balance sheet, keys to creating an environment where people can thrive. And it's written as you've seen, it's in little pieces because we all have the attention span of gnats now. So it's like you can just dip in and out and you don't. It's not like one long narrative.
- [36:13]
B
No, it's I like the culture keys. So basically you have for the audience that's not watching but listening. So basically you have culture keys and they're numbered. So for example, trust is a long game. Try not to give it short choice shrift. Try not to give it short shrift. And then you say even as we've grown, we've encouraged employees to be fully engaged in their lives and their work in that order. So you have like very bite sized lessons that can help you evolve and grow your cultural intelligence, which I think everybody in the world needs it. And then if you want to join, she's going to wait list you so you can join the wait list at Christy Predzinger. P R E T Z I N N G E R. Here we go.
- [36:54]
A
There you go.
- [36:56]
B
Well, thank you so much for coming to driving impact, the top 5% method. And at our pod where it's an audience of people who are passionate about self development, want to become better, want to reach the top 5 percenters in terms of behaviors, performance, thinking, lifestyle, health, mindset. So I think they're going to find it very, very useful. And I'll make sure to, to add all the links.