-
- Welcome to Balancing Life's Issues, the podcast.
Uh, my name is Kai, your host,
and I'm here with CEO of BLI,
Wendy Woolner. How are you today?
- I'm great. Excited for today's conversation, Kai.
- Yeah. You know, it's gonna be a fun one
because I know you've been on webinars,
you've been traveling, delivering this topic, living
and leading in uncertain times.
Can you just like, give us a little bit of the,
why do you think people have been requesting
this for you to speak on this topic? Yeah,
- I mean, I, I just, I think it's literally every day we
turn on, and it's not just that we see a new protest
or unfortunately, wars that are not ending hostages
that are, are, are still not safe, um,
and horrible exiles, like it's literally every day.
Right? Um, so I think that,
and part of it is that it just seems, it's coming fast
and furiously, number one,
but number two, I, I, I think why I'm so passionate
to be here today is we are looking for leadership
and we're ousting the
ones that don't know what they're doing.
So we need some real tips on how do we lead
during the times when we don't even know what's gonna happen
by four o'clock in a day.
- Has the talk been well received by most, do you feel?
- Yeah, it's interesting. We, uh,
we did our largest one the other day.
We tapped over 7,000,
- Oh my gosh.
7,000 people tuned into Wendy Warner
- Talk.
And, and interesting enough,
we had just about 1800 questions.
Wow. So I think that shows the engagement,
which I always think is really interesting.
It's not just listen only mode. Mm-Hmm. .
It's, it's, it's really, um, okay. I understand.
I, I need a new skillset now. Right?
- Yeah. And, and that's the perfect segue
because what we did is we went through the chat history of,
of some of those, um, webinars,
and we polled the most frequently asked questions.
So I was gonna catch you off guard here,
and I was gonna ask you some of those questions.
Does that sound okay? Yeah.
- I love it because you're living in uncertain times,
Kai. We're practicing it.
- That's right. . We really are. Uh, okay.
So what are the best tools
to utilize when an uninspected world event occurs?
- So, first of all, why that question is
so brilliant is the answers in it.
So we aren't winging it. We need tools. Mm-Hmm.
. Um, and I'm gonna, I I, I, I love it
because I often use you as an example.
Um, you recently,
still pretty recently had this new person come into the
world and we've been lucky enough to, to talk about, um,
baby Kai without using his name Baby
Kai, to come into the world. And his
- Name's Miles.
That's okay. . Alright, baby
- Miles.
So, if I said to you, you know, Kai, just wing it.
You don't need to prepare.
- Oh - God, ni will just come right in. You'll be good.
Right? Nope. No, you don't need a crib
and you don't need any equipment.
You're, you're fine. Right?
- Yeah, yeah. No, we, we were,
we basically built a doomsday bunker in
the backyard, . That's how prepared
- We were.
And, and, and, and everybody would laugh
and say, oh my gosh, of course they need.
So I lead an organization and,
and the first thing I do every morning is to say, what needs
to go in my toolbox today?
And I have to say, um, for me, of course, well, not
of course, but one of the pivotal moments was
September 11th, because I wasn't prepared with a toolbox.
I didn't understand how life changed on a dime at nine
10 on a Tuesday morning.
And when the phone calls happen, what should I do?
Um, you have a nanosecond to have a tool.
So we've been through, for me, we've been through
horrible things and we know what tools.
So what are tools? Number one, we have to be very educated.
We can no longer ever be an ostrich.
So yes, I get up in the morning
and my responsibility is to get as many news sources and,
and I mean as many mm-Hmm.
, if you're a Fox News, you watch CNN.
If you're a CNN, you watch Fox.
I mean, you, if you are an NPR, I mean, you just continue
to grow Warren Buffett, 60 books a year in resources,
shoot high, become smart,
learn what's going on in the world, on the local level
and on a global level, tip number one.
- Yeah. And, you know, just to follow up there a little bit,
the idea of going to so many places is
because you're exposing yourself to other ideas,
other thoughts and misinformation,
which we all know is rampant. Oh,
- Yeah.
I mean, there's a, you know, example was,
I was teaching in Times Square, uh, a few years ago,
and I got a frantic call saying, oh my gosh,
there's a huge protest going on.
Be careful. I was like, really?
And I went out at lunch and there are two people in the
corner with a po, you know, a a a sign.
Yeah. And so yeah, you wanna get accurate information,
but the way you get accurate information is to glean, right.
The, the farmers glean. Yeah.
So you glean, glean, glean until you become the trusted
resource, till you become the person that says, yes,
this is what I do know. Yeah.
- I remember getting some texts from back home when we were
living in Brooklyn during the social justice, uh, protests,
uh, the summer of 2020, I believe.
Yeah. Um, and people checking like, are you on fire?
Like, are you okay?
It's, and it's like, yeah, everything's fine over here,
, you know, so again, like getting information from
much resources as possible.
Okay. Tip number two. So tip
- Number two is, you know, now we're,
we're learned, we're knowledgeable.
Tip number two is, and I'm not saying they have to go linear
because I think it's a neutral bullet.
We put them in a neutral bullet
and not to shut out NutriBullet or, you know, something,
- Hey, hashtag NutriBullet.
Yeah. You go, let's get that advertising revenue.
- But the next thing is we have
to really build our confidence.
Um, I I, you know, um, Mm-Hmm.
, I, no one is born feeling like I've got this,
um, during times of uns, you know, the first time
that Miles gets sick again, go back to the baby example,
and you're bringing him, uh, you know,
to the pediatrician, you're learning.
Um, and so the confidence, yeah.
Piece of being a, a leader is, um,
how do I learn to be confident?
And it would be subtitles about, you know,
what's the imposter syndrome
and is there a gender conversation?
There? Are men more confident than women?
Well, we know, you know, men talk, you know, many, many,
many percent more than women.
So women don't even get a chance necessarily to talk.
So I would ask, what are you doing to build your confidence?
What role has confidence played in your life?
Is it something about affirmations,
which works for many, many people?
Mm-Hmm. , is it journaling which works
for many, many other people?
Or is it, I use a DIG file? Um,
- DIG - Darn, um, good file
- . Um,
- I need my booster shots.
Uh, yeah. Yeah. I need read back things
that I've done in my life that people have said,
thank you, Wendy, for this.
Yeah. And I remind myself like, you know,
it's been a really challenging time,
but this is the impact my leadership has made.
So my DIG file,
my darn I good file goes back to my first speech.
- Yeah. And I feel like there's an element of, uh,
I don't know if bravery is the word,
but willingness to live, live experience
and learn from that experience.
Right. Um, it, it does. That's
- Number, that's three.
Did I segue us? You did segue. Nice.
Um, and that is have an opinion. Okay.
You know, you, you don't have to be right or wrong,
but leadership is influencing
and inspiring people to turn right?
Mm-Hmm. . And in my situation,
I focus on the best of humanity and how I define that.
Um, and so if I looked at an example
of being critical about every word that comes out
of our trainers, our facilitator's, mouse, um,
tip number three is having, you know,
it's a combination, right?
I, I, I know the topic well.
Um, I'm confident to be able to give advice,
but I also have a very strong opinion.
Mm-Hmm. . Um, there's no wishy-washy. Right.
You know, uh, let me do a shout out to Ronald Reagan.
When the Challenger blew up that night, he said, um,
all, everyone remember was one of the worst.
We'd watched people die, including,
of course, the teacher in space.
And at the end of eight minutes, Ronald Reagan says,
there will be more explorations.
Mm-Hmm. . And I was like, wow.
That is a courageous thing to say
after we just watched people die.
Right. We're, we're having a discussion about leadership.
We're not talking about managers,
and we're not talking about worker bees.
We're talking about true leadership.
And leadership is the ability to inspire people to turn
around, um, and to,
and to inspire people to say, I, I, I didn't think
that was possible, but now I, I can see Wendy's vision.
I understand that. I get it.
And because of that,
because of that ability to see something,
I'm gonna make a right turn.
Right. Um, and there's so many examples of politicians
that have been able to inspire people to do things that,
you know, they never thought they could do.
- Yeah. All right. So is there a tip for
- Yes.
So I think tip four has gotten, um, messed up.
Um, and I, I, I know that, um, it's gonna be a little bit
of the more like Hmm.
Tip, but we also are looking for leadership that knows how
to take it down a notch.
So we're not perfect, we're perfectly imperfect,
but what we're not perfect on is the, is the stuff
that doesn't matter as much.
And some people I know can be a little perfectionist,
you know, anyone who fits that role.
- Yeah. And it's me. That's me.
- Yes. Perfection. And I can imagine, um,
for those listening, how many hours go into editing,
and I've been coaching and coaching and mentoring
and pleading and inspiring Kai to create podcasts
that the message is really good, right?
The words are good, but maybe the pauses and the ugh.
Uh, maybe we'll leave those in once in a while.
- Yeah. May maybe it's okay. Yeah.
- Nothing is okay. Absolutely.
I think it's what we want to inspire people to do.
And so I really think tip number four is
to absolutely be perfectly imperfect.
- All right. I love it. All right.
Are we going on to tip five? We're
- Doing one more.
Okay. So one thing that's very important, um,
and I put it last
because I do think many of us just instinctively do it,
but I think it's, it, it comes up
and that is leaders are very competent,
so they're reliable, they show up.
- Yeah. - You don't have to worry about it.
They return emails
and they almost always return an email the same business
day, even if it's just Mm-Hmm.
to say, Nope, no answer yet pending. Sure.
Um, but you never have
to worry about if the leader's gonna get back to you or not.
- Got - It. You never, it's a reliability
that is just like, they've got this Mm-Hmm.
. Um, and there's a running joke that,
you know, they sort of say, in my world,
if Wendy didn't return an email, they would,
that was the day I was in the hospital.
Like, they would have some thought
of there's something, something wrong.
Yeah. Sure. Um, so I think reliability, it, it, it kind
of goes without saying,
but I know we've seen some leaders
that have let it go a little bit.
- Yeah. - I think we need to bring it back.
- Okay. So what would you say though, about,
as a leader with that mindset?
Imprinting, uh, oh, water pump.
No, imperfections. Love it. We're gonna keep going. .
Good. Perfect. Uh, what would you say, you know, in terms
of imprinting your expectations around, you know, that kind
of, um, communication style onto an em an employee
or someone in a management position?
Like how do you, how do you balance that as a leader?
- You know, I, I think we're pretty good on being a
direct communicator, right?
This is what I need. Um, I, I think
we've seen tremendous improvement.
Most leaders are able to articulate what the needs are.
I think the, the next part of directness though is the part
that I'd like to see is more inspiration.
What, why am I doing this?
Like, what does it matter? Yeah. Um,
- Inspired to act Yeah. Versus told to
- Act.
I think that's the piece where we've got
to take the time, um, to stop.
And, and, and I really try to say, you know,
and as the team gets bigger,
I recognize it gets more challenging,
but, you know, are you okay?
What's going on? What else do you need?
Um, and it doesn't always work out.
It doesn't mean that a company can always give people
what they need or want,
but they can validate the fact that it matters.
I think the inspiration piece,
or I feel that the inspiration piece has gotten overlooked
in many situations.
Um, yeah. And the other thing I'll say is I think we need
to take a step back and, and really celebrate the wins.
- Yeah. Yeah. So as a leader in uncertain times, especially
checking in just on empathetic level, uh, could,
could pay off big time down the road when it comes
to things like communication and inspiration.
Yeah. All right.
Well, thank you for all that wonderful wisdom.
Um, but this is our last recording of 2023.
I just like, off the top of your head,
what did this year feel like to you,
and what do you feel like 2024 is looking like?
- You know, I think one thing I'd like
to say about 20 23, 1 do over that I learned from is
we went back to normal or back to work.
And I don't feel like we paused.
Um, I don't think anybody ever acknowledged
that, oh, we're back.
- Yeah. - Um,
and so I, I think what I'm gonna focus on
for 2024 is a little bit more exhaling.
Mm-Hmm. , um, a little bit
more like regrouping.
What do we wanna do? Let's do some more check-ins.
Um, because I do think that we thought we just would go back
and now what we're learning is
how much the pandemic affected our brains.
Right. And how truly exhausted, um, we are. Mm-Hmm.
. And yeah, I, I really,
I hope people use some time, whatever the time is
to validate.
Um, one of the things that I do when I,
when I was a therapist and,
and when I do coaching is I'll have people write down,
I know Kai, if you've ever done this,
but if you write down a typical day on one piece
and then you write down just events that you've been
through, I think we sometimes truly do forget
how incredibly awesome we are. I think we
- Resilient.
- Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'll sometimes write down
what I do in a day and I'm like, I did that
and that was way more than I realized.
So I think one of the things I wanna focus on is
that true sense of pride for 2024. Sure.
- I love that. And I'll, I'll, I'll piggyback on that too.
'cause I know it's, there are gonna be challenges, um,
you know, presidential election aside in 2024.
Mm-Hmm. . Um, but I think the more we can have
the humility to be better, um, to dig deep
for the best version of self
and to shake it off when literally moments before you
and I started recording, I'm walking up the stairs
with a cup of coffee and I slipped,
and that coffee went straight into my face, .
And what did I have to do? I couldn't sit there and pout.
I had to shake it off and uh, and get downstairs.
So maybe that's the metaphor for,
I think it's great for 2024. Think it's
- A great way to laugh it off.
Yeah. No, and you also did teams me need one minute please.
- That's because I was wiping coffee
off of my face and glasses.
Like my world was brown from coffee on my glasses.
I love it. It was absolutely silly.
All right, well thanks and happy
holidays, everybody out there.
Um, and, uh, we'll see you in 2024. Take care
- Again.
Bye everybody.
- This has been a production of balancing Life's issues
with your hosts, Kai Sorenson
and Wendy Wallner, produced by me Kai Rate.
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Got an idea for the show.
Email me, KI at balancing life's issues.com.
Anything to add? Miles.