#123: The Unconscious Mind: The Key To Elevated Growth And Success with Karen Brown

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So, please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and sitting here this morning feeling very blessed, feeling excited, in fact, that I've got a great guest to share with you today and somebody that I think has an incredible pivot. She's got several amazing pivot stories. She is what I would probably call an extreme athlete, among other things, and an author and many, many other accolades that I'll actually read part of her bio in just a couple of seconds. But before we do, I'd love it if whatever you're doing right now that you give yourself even 10 seconds of presence. So what does that mean? Well, I think maybe it's obvious, but just to take 10 seconds to breathe more consciously, to be more in your body. To be more aware of how blessed you are in this moment, how blessed we all are in this moment to be breathing and to be alive and to be able to do what we're doing. I mean, think about it. This is incredible that you have access to this technology, that you're able to make the time in your life and your day to listen, to watch even, and absorb some new information and to be given access to things that many people in the world just don't have access to and don't have an opportunity to do what it is that you're doing right now. So, I don't want to take that for granted. So, it's a great reminder for me as I get to remind you that's a real blessing. And I'm so excited that we get to spend this time together. So, Karen Brown is my guest today. I want to share a little bit about her and then we're going to get right into it. Karen Brown is an unconscious mind expert. I love that phrase. I love the that we're going to get to dig into what that is exactly. In the field of leadership and professional performance, world-class ultra-endurance athlete, successful corporate executive, professionally certified executive coach, keynote speaker, and bestselling author, Karen tackles critical topics in today's business environment. Man, there's tons of those. She utilizes the powerful mechanism of the unconscious mind where all learning behaviors and growth happens. After many years of coaching leaders, Karen discovered that the unconscious mind is the scientific key to elevated levels of success with greater velocity and ease. That's an interesting dichotomy of things, velocity and ease. We'll dig into that as well. This inspired her to found Velocity Leadership Consulting to bring this difference-making model and tools of success to all leaders. We certainly need more leadership in the world. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here with us today, Karen. Thank you.

Thank you, Adam. Thrilled to be here.

Well, that's a lot. I mean, you've done a lot of things and we're going to dig into some more of the things that you've done in your life. But what's not written in that bio, in that introduction? What's not written? What's in between the lines, I should say, that you'd love for people to know about you?

What's not written in that bio is that I'm just like everybody else listening right now. I am not a naturally talented athlete. Nothing comes easily to me. And in fact, I have to work my tail off. In one of the journeys, the pivots that we're going to talk about, I didn't even begin that until age 44. And I wasn't a triathlete. I hadn't even completed a marathon. I had never ridden a road bike. I mean, you could say that It could be argued that I was the least likely to accomplish what I did. And I often joke with those that know me that I'm like Thomas Edison. I am the one that finds the 999 ways that something will not work before I discover the one that does.

I think there's a lot of people going, hmm, I never thought of myself as Thomas Edison before, but now Now I realize how much we have in common, right? That old expression about people who are overnight successes that are 15 years in the making kind of thing. I always loved that one. It hasn't gotten too worn out for me because it's so true. There's a lot of backstory, let's call it, between the time that a person has an inspiration to do something in their life, in their business, and the time when they find some quote, success at doing that thing. Has that been true for you?

Yeah, 28 years. For 28 years, yes, before I had this conscious pivot, right? Because for 28 years before, it was all unconscious. And it wasn't until I realized it consciously that then I was able to make that pivot and have the awakening and step through the gateway To what I was really meant to do, my purpose, and start living my mission.

Well, you know what? Let's dig back. Let's go back in time then, I suppose, to that, the unconscious, what was going on for you then and what, if any, signs there were that that way of being wasn't working for you. Can you take us back to that time? I guess it's sort of 28 years ago at this point, right?

Actually, 30. 5 years ago, I started because I'm a little older now.

Those folks that are watching this on YouTube, then everybody's looking going, what? No way. Not a chance.

Oh, my makeup artist is a genius.

Sure. Sure. That's the case. Beautiful.

All right. So I was outwardly successful. I was a rapidly ascending leader and was a high achiever, very good at what I was doing.

In the corporate space? Just the details a little bit there.

Yes. I was in commercial real estate.

Ah, okay.

Yeah. And back then, this was the '80s. And so this was a male-dominated field, right? I was in the shark tank, like the real shark tank.

Right.

Yeah. With plenty of men who did not want to work with me. Yeah. And I was just green and stupid enough to not know any different than, you know what? I'm going to get in there and this is what I love and I'm going to make this work. And that's what I did. I was very successful. I rose rapidly in the ranks of leadership and really took to it like a duck to water. I was really good at coaching my team members, although at that time we didn't call it that. We called it team building or something like that. And I had all the outward trappings of success, right? All the outward signs. And the thing was, unconsciously this was going on. I had a nagging deep inside me that I felt I was capable of doing more and that I wasn't tapping into that capability, that I was living this safe, shallow, small life. And so what unconsciously was going on is I was thinking of a personal dream that I had From the time I was 14 years old, which was competing in the Ironman World Championships. Now, the Ironman World Championships is, some say, the toughest race in the world, and it's mostly reserved for the best of the best athletes across the world and professional athletes.

Those that might not be entirely sane.

Yeah.

Oh

yeah. And we'll get into that later because I— later I went fully off the rails, totally, Absolutely insane.

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All right. Well, hey,

as do

I. Plenty here.

I know I do. Yeah. Good.

Yeah. So when I thought about the Ironman World Championships, it was such a gargantuan thing. And like I said, I wasn't even a triathlete or a marathon runner. I was a horrible swimmer. I mean, I'm surprised I could even Keep from drowning. But it was something about the Ironman that caused this tsunami of emotions to well up inside me. And they were all related to this unconscious thing that was going on, this feeling that I was capable of a whole lot more than I was doing. And what I finally learned after 28 years of holding myself back from even pursuing That dream was that what was stopping me is a scientifically proven concept called limiting beliefs. This is a very simple concept, but we all struggle with it, which is also why I wrote my book. It goes like this: when we think or say, I don't have enough time, talent, skill, money, support to achieve X— just fill in your blank, right? And for me, I thought, well, they're elite athletes that compete in the Ironman, and I'm this recreational athlete. They're way up here and I am down here. Who do I think I am that I could ever compete there? And then poof, all at once, that dream would evaporate. I would talk myself out of it. Now, all this happens within seconds, and it happens in our unconscious mind. I wasn't ever consciously aware of it. All I knew was that I had this inkling, this nagging, this feeling that I might want to do it. And then other side of that was, nope, not going to be able to.

What was the side that said you could do it? What was that all about? Was it you trying to prove yourself in a world that you felt was dominated by men? Or did you ever get to the root of what was the proving piece of it?

Yeah. And this is the cool part because this is true for all of us. All human beings are wired the same way. All right? And we can dive more into the detail and the science of this, but our minds, our brains are actually wired to be able to accomplish anything we can dream up. Anything we can think up, we are capable of accomplishing. And I mean, there's plenty of proof out there, plenty of evidence from iconic people in business to, you know, Iron Cowboy and these crazy, unbelievable acts of physical endurance that have been achieved over time and how people keep pushing the envelope in every direction. So that's really what was going on, that I was feeling that, that was that nagging feeling inside me that every year would grow bigger until frankly, I just got so disgusted with it. I was doing other races like 10Ks and half marathons and I ran the Pikes Peak Ascent one year. And so I was doing things that I knew I could do.

Mm-hmm.

I wasn't doing anything that I was unsure about though. And that's where the Ironman came in. And you know what? That same pattern of just doing things I was sure about was showing up everywhere else in my life, in my professional life and in my personal life.

Right.

So I was doing a lot of great things, but nothing that caused me to blow up my comfort zone.

Right. The root of that was, was safety. Is that fair?

Yeah. Yeah. So the unconscious mind was really one of its primary directives. And think about this in terms of caveman time. Primary directive was to keep us alive another day, right? So that we could procreate and populate the world and do what we're supposed to do. And so immediately our unconscious mind had to size up something that we were faced with. Is this friend, food, or foe? And get us to take action immediately. Well, the same wiring still exists today, only there's no lion chasing us for lunch, right? So we're still making those judgments through our unconscious mind, but the problem is it always errs on the side of protecting us from something that it views as dangerous or new or something we haven't done before. Because, oh gosh, that might be dangerous, that might get us in trouble, that might be painful, or worse, that might kill us.

So we're talking about fear. I mean, there's a lot of ways to sort of point To where this starts, but there's a fear that something we do will result in our demise ultimately. Mm-hmm. So here you are, you're sort of playing life at a level of safety, which you could call being responsible, you could call being wise or adult-like or whatever it is. I mean, there's a lot of ways to look at that in a positive, in a positive light as well. But something inside of you wasn't filtering that information and saying, look at me, I'm I'm moving forward. I'm progressing at some healthy pace. I'm accomplishing a lot of things that a lot of people aren't accomplishing. Your wiring was a bit different. The messages you were receiving internally were, I'm not doing all I could be doing. I'm not fulfilled. I'm not feeling like if I died tomorrow that this would be the epitaph that I'd feel great about. Things like that. Is there more of dialogue that I'm missing? Like leading on to, or is that about right?

Yeah, I think that was an unconscious feeling as well. Believe me, I think you're giving me too much credit that those are my conscious thoughts about looking at my trajectory and where is this going to end up and is that really where I want to be. Honestly, I couldn't think any bigger at the time than having a highly paid, successful corporate job, and the Ironman was the biggest physical endeavor. I could wrap my head around.

Right.

That was as big as I could think. And it was really all about the feeling, which is how our unconscious mind often shows up.

Yes.

It is a feeling.

Right.

Yeah.

In your experience now, both your own personal experience and having worked with so many people and written a book on this topic, do you feel like most people are ignoring those feelings? And that's part of the reason why there's so much mediocrity or That people feel like they're leading lives of quiet desperation, as Henry David Thoreau once said?

Yes. I think people get glimpses of it. And it's, do you pay attention to it and want to understand it when you get that glimpse of it? Yeah. And I think there are a lot of zombies walking around out there. I see them every day.

Even in beautiful Denver, Colorado, you see zombies walking around?

Oh, now we could get into that whole

thing.

Yes. And I see zombies walking around Denver, Colorado for a couple of reasons, one of which we're talking about right now.

Yes, exactly. All right. So what's the catalyst then? Let's go back to that point in time where you yourself are a zombie. And by that, I mean, you're sort of running on autopilot, this sort of unconscious state where we're doing what we are on some level genetically programmed to do. All the things that we're here to do, to procreate, as you said, to perpetuate the species and to survive and to keep ourselves safe and all those kind of things we do on an unconscious level. It's like we're a fish. I mean, zombie is sort of a negative thing and I think people get why we're calling it that way and pointing out the sort of the pain point. But in a less sort of pejorative way, we could say it's like a fish. You know, a fish doesn't know a fish is in water. They're just in water. Fish doesn't know it's in water until you take it out of water and it's flopping around going, I'm about to die, right? But for a lot of people, they're just kind of going through their life and not aware, let's say, that they're even in this fishbowl, so to speak. So, what was the catalyst for you that said, okay, there's a much bigger opportunity available for me?

The catalyst was once a year, every year, I would just happen And I say happen in air quotes, to catch the coverage of the Ironman on TV. And there are no accidents in this life, right? And so I would immediately stop whatever I was doing and I would look at it. And again, all these emotions would show up. And I didn't understand why that was at the time. I thought, well, why am I crying watching this race on TV? And that's what was happening, right? And I mean, this started when I was 14 years old and saw one of the first television— televised coverage of the Ironman. Didn't know what it was. It scared me to death. And that is something I think that we all have in common, that what I call an opening, right? There's got to be some sort of opening. Maybe it's a pain point. Maybe it's us coming face to face. Finally, with what this could mean for us, what doing it could mean for us, or not doing it might mean for us, where we're going to end up if we don't do something differently. And for me, that was the Ironman. It always brought up all of those things. And so the opener finally was that I had continued to progress, achieving higher levels of success, mostly professionally. But I had a great life too, until I seemed to be bumping up against a ceiling, right? And then I took a class, and that's where I learned about limiting beliefs and the science behind it. And once the instructor explained it, this huge light bulb went on above my head, and I literally just felt this enormous opening. And immediately the Ironman World Championships popped into my head. And I thought, this is it. This is what I've been doing. This is how I've been stopping myself from pursuing this all this time for 28 years. And luckily, right on the heels of that, the instructor taught us how to conquer and transform limiting beliefs. So I did it right then. And I kept doing it because it's not a one and done. I give everybody this tool. when I'm on a show and it's in my book and I have videos about how to do it and it worked. So just a few short weeks later, I decide, okay, and I see this very clearly, nobody is stopping me from pursuing the Ironman other than me and I'm done with that, right? I finally gotten so disgusted that all of this stuff culminated in me deciding, okay. I'm gonna do this. So I did something else that I had never done. I hired a coach, an athletic coach, one that I paid, and I had to beg her to take me on because I was a super no one, right, as I explained earlier. And I said this, I said, you know what, I will be your most committed athlete. I said, this is my lifelong dream and I will not give up. Until I get there, I will do everything you tell me. I will be your most committed athlete, and that was true. So then fast forward, I jumped squarely into the power of the unconscious mind because once I learned about limiting beliefs, I thought, okay, there's more to this. I could feel it, and the more research I did and the more techniques that I used in my journey to get to the Ironman, the more effective. I became and the better I got and the bigger the transformation and the more quickly I transformed. So I thought, okay, this is the missing key, right, to human behavior and elevated levels of success. And once I did that and I stayed the course, I crossed the finish line in Hawaii 2 years later.

So from that moment, So, sort of the moment of self-disgust, so to speak, right? 2 years later, you crossed the finish line in Hawaii having completed— I don't know how many people have ever seen on TV or heard about this thing called the Ironman. It is brutal. I mean, it is to me. I'm a swimmer and swam in high school and a little bit in college and stuff. And so, even just the idea of the first leg of this thing, which happens to be— I think it's a 2-mile open ocean swim. Is that correct? Am I right about that distance? Yeah.

2.4 miles.

Yes, 2.4 miles in the ocean is enough to like— literally, that by itself is an insane task for a lot of people. I mean, you're talking about open ocean water, Hawaii waves, currents. People drown in that water all the time. 2.5 miles is a long distance.

Oh

yeah, you get out of that and dust yourself off and hop on a bike, right? And then a mere 112 miles on a bike. Again, I don't know what island it was on, but most of those islands were formed by volcanoes, which means they're not flat, just in case you're curious. Never been to Hawaii.

Yeah. And with crosswinds that can knock you down.

Oh my goodness. Yeah.

And blazing heat of the sun. Yeah. It feels like the surface of the sun when you're there.

You get off the bike, you finished 112 miles of that. Again, dry off because you're going to start to run now.

Yes.

And what's that?

I used to run a marathon.

A full marathon?

Yeah.

Okay. So just like a mere bag of shells, just really, really easy task. So you complete this thing 2 years later. That's utterly remarkable. And Looking back right there and then, you understood that you could have done it 20 years earlier, right? I mean, that's the hard, cold fact of it. Great you did it. Amazing you did it. No time like the present, so it's not a regret thing, but just to debrief it a bit, you could have done it earlier and it wasn't a physical thing that stopped you from doing it. It wasn't some— you weren't in prison of a sort. But you didn't do it because you were in your own way. I mean, that seems to be the theme here, right?

Yes, absolutely. Here's the thing that I learned among many, but this was the most poignant after that 2-year journey. I entered into that journey thinking that it was going to be 90% physical and 10% mental. And I came away understanding that it's really the exact opposite.

Yep.

That 90% was mental, only 10% was physical.

Yes.

Yeah.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different, something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about, and it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. So you mentioned a tool earlier that was part of your training and understanding what limiting beliefs are and how to hack them or how to use them, leverage them. I'd love to hear what that tool is. I know people are waiting for that as well. They'd love to know. Yeah.

So it's a 3-step technique and all of work that I do, all the techniques that I provide are from the neurosciences. So this is not just something that like my trademark system that is effective for me and maybe no one else. No. Then this is not something that I dreamt up or came up with. No. This is all proven stuff from the neurosciences. That goes back to Einstein and even before him.

It's also from the metaphysicians as well. I mean, so without bringing sort of spiritual belief into it, this has been around for a while.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a 3-step technique that number one, first of all, is about awareness. Starts with a question. What's stopping me from achieving X? And fill in your X. It's your dream, your big audacious, hairy, scary, ridiculous, outrageous goal. Whatever that is. So that's step number 1, awareness. That unlocks or unearths your limiting belief. Because here's the thing, we have limiting beliefs rattling around in our unconscious mind every day. And like me, I was not consciously aware of what they were. So when I did this, I unearthed my first limiting belief, which was, I can't compete. in the Ironman World Championships being a recreational athlete. Okay? What I discovered after taking that first step is that I had a whole—

Physically, you can't compete. That was your first—

Yeah.

Got it.

Yeah. Then what I discovered is not only did I have that limiting belief or limiting belief, I had a whole page of them. I had all these other limiting beliefs stopping me. And that's what everybody listening will discover.

Sure. I don't have the time. It'll interfere with every other aspect of my life and on and on and on.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's what the technique will walk you through as well, unearthing all of them. Okay? Then it's the transformative piece, which is step 2. Then you, once you see them written out on paper, then you write down the opposite, which is the unlimited version of that belief. So for me, I wrote down, I will compete in the Ironman World Championships. So I did that for each one of them.

So this is the replacement belief?

Correct.

Beautiful.

Yeah. This is how we're rewiring that limiting belief. Then step 3 is to actively make the change when you have that thought. And that's where the fun begins. Because that involves stopping what you're doing when you have that thought, and then verbalizing The new version of the belief, the unlimited belief. So picture this, I was CEO of a professional real estate office, 100 and some employees in Denver Metro, and I would stop in the middle of what I was doing and say out loud, I will compete in the Ironman World Championships. So needless to say, I got some looks.

Exactly. Everybody's having a conversation about the lunch, about the lunch they're eating, and then all of a sudden you declare out loud, I will compete. You're like, hmm, well, we know where your mind is, right? Yeah.

Wow, Karen's hearing voices.

Maybe we should

be concerned.

Right.

Yeah. Well, here's the cool thing. You can have fun with this, okay? There's nothing that says you can't have fun with this, right? And play with people. And bring them along at the same time.

They could be your greatest supporters, can't they?

Yeah, absolutely. And once they came over and said, what are you doing? I would explain and then they would go, oh, interesting. And then I would take that opportunity and say, so what's your big personal dream? And everybody has one. Everybody. I've not talked to one person on this planet that doesn't have one. Now, they may not have admitted it to themselves or anybody else, but everybody has one. And so they answer and I go, okay, well, this is what I'm doing. This is my big dream. And I was holding myself back through limiting beliefs. And so I am changing that now. I am unlimiting my beliefs so that I can achieve this dream.

Yes.

So always a day later they'd come back and say, Hey, I came in touch with my dream and this is what I'm gonna do and this is my unlimiting belief. And I say, great, lay it on me. Yeah. And what you were saying earlier really struck a chord with me because I believe that we're all on this earth to help each other, right? And this is a way that we can really help each other progress and to be fulfilled and happy and To live our purpose, to come in contact with our purpose and live it every day. So I was happy if I disrupted people and they were like, what are you doing? Because I could bring them along and help them. So that's the 3rd step. And what the cool part is, your unconscious mind in step 2, you're literally telling it, here's what I want, help me get it. And then in step 3, it starts To, because you're rewiring it, it starts to see you, that identity, right? So it just goes, oh, okay, we're an Ironman. That's who we are. And then your reticular activation system gets turned on, which is like radar. And then you start seeing all these resources that are available to you to help you in your journey that you never saw before. That's why velocity and ease.

A lot of people think that their identity is something they were born with. And it really is something that changes throughout our lives. Our identity when we're younger is different when we're older. It's, it's different before we're married and after and before we have our parents and after and every other thing we can think of. Our identity is constantly changing. So it's very interesting, I think, to know that you have the choice at any given moment To use this tool, for example, to change your identity. So if you don't see yourself as an athlete or as a super athlete or any other thing or as a CEO or as an entrepreneur or as a ballerina or as a pianist or anything, that in the moment that you decide that that is who you are by what you say, by the beliefs that you begin to create because now you're taking a limiting belief like I'm not this and then turning it literally on its end. And saying, I am that, your identity changes in an instant. It doesn't mean that you instantly have a gold medal hanging around your neck for something. And I think that's the part where I want to spend a little bit of time with you because I think people can get that piece of it and buy into that piece and even test it out, try it on for size for themselves. I find that a lot of folks who've even done that have been through some mindset training or have some familiarity, have done some reading on this topic. will still run aground because they don't understand that there's a distance between that first action, like your first action being, I am this Ironman athlete, and the time when you competed and finished that race was 2 years. So there's a physical distance that was 2 years, but there's a greater landscape. As you say, 90/10, 90% mental, 10% physical. So the physical distance was 2 years for you, but the mental distance was probably light years because how many times along the way, Karen, did you think to yourself, this is nuts. I can't do this. I have no time for this. This is costing too much, in any number of ways? How many different moments to have stopped that journey, to have quit, to have gotten to your senses, so to speak, and to have created yet another identity like, no, it's not necessary. For me to be an Ironman athlete, right? That could be another new identity. You just turn around and go, it's 8 months later and 5 o'clock in the morning is when you're set to do your runs to start getting prepared for that aspect of the race because you've got to be in the office at 8 or whatever it is. So you've got to do your running at 5 AM and now it's 4:30 and your alarm is going off. You're going, you know what? I don't really think I am. I don't need to be. It's not required. I don't need to prove anything. There's all that other identity that can come into play and you've got to be incredibly resilient. And so I want to talk a little bit about what resilience means to you and what it meant in those moments that only you know intimately, where you considered the possibility that maybe this isn't who you are or what your destiny is. So what does resilience mean to you and how did you use it and how did you develop it or cultivate it? So that you could get from that moment where you said, yes, I am this, and 2 years later, you literally were exactly what you said?

I'm so glad you brought this up because it's absolutely true. So first of all, this is not the secret. This is not like, oh, put it out to the universe and it'll manifest and it'll show right up. No, believe me. No, that is not how this works. What you're really doing is rewiring your unconscious mind so that it's aligned with what you want to achieve and you're making it easier. And you got to do the work, right? I mean, I went from being a gym rat, like 5 days a week for an hour doing either cardio or weights, to training for the Ironman, which at the pinnacle is 24 hours a week. 2 and 3 workouts a day, 6 days a week. Yeah. And by the way, Adam, my alarm was going off at 3:30.

3:30. Yeah.

3:30.

Sorry, I gave you an extra hour.

You did. Yeah.

You would have loved it then.

Oh yeah. Yeah. And I was going to bed at 8 o'clock at night. I changed virtually everything about my life and my schedule. So you got to do the work. You know, this isn't magic. Okay? But it will make doing the work easier because then in that shift in your identity, that provides the motivation to keep going. Because yeah, you know what? You're going to run into challenges and obstacles. And there were plenty of times when I was so tempted to give up. It would have been so much easier to give up, right? And here's the other thing. Other people put their limiting beliefs about your capability upon you. So, and this is all in my book.

Shocking.

Oh yeah.

Right? Nobody knows anything about that.

Oh, right, right. Well, a lot of times we interpret these things, again, in our unconscious mind, and it happens in a split second. We interpret these things as fact. And I often joke with people and say, hey, don't get stuck with the F word. Don't let that trip you up because they're not fact. They're just limiting beliefs or other people putting their limiting beliefs on you. I mean, my own husband did at the time and said, you will never make it. You don't have what it takes. And you don't just roll out of bed one morning and decide to do the Ironman. Who do you think you are? Right? Yeah. Until I stuck with it and I worked through all those times when things didn't go like I thought they would, or I felt like I had failed, and I had to very quickly reassess and figure out what to do and then retool, recalibrate, and move forward in a different way, take a new approach and use what I learned.

Is that your definition then, or what part of that is it? is included in your definition of what it meant to be resilient in the face of even your husband saying, hey, listen, I love you, so I'm going to tell you the truth.

Yeah.

Right? Isn't that the way it always comes out? I love you. And I'm not saying he didn't, of course. People love us and yet what they end up doing is reflecting a lot of their own limiting beliefs about themselves onto us.

Yeah.

Yeah. In the process of them loving us and of course, not wanting to see us get hurt. Or do something foolish, right?

Right. But in fact, they hurt us worse by loving us enough to tell us the truth. Yeah.

A little bit. Yeah. At times, for sure.

Yeah. My definition then of resilience is continuing to get up when you get knocked down. And all you have to do is get up one more time than you get knocked down. And you can do what you want, really. And you might have to get up 50 times.

But when your husband said that to you, I'm not pushing back on that. I think that's an acceptable, certainly for me, it's an acceptable definition. It's part of it. And we've heard that before too. So what is it about when your husband, because I don't think there's anything that's more poignant than somebody you're in that level of intimate relationship with and they look at you and go, who do you think you are? I mean, a buddy of mine, Keith Leon, wrote a book called Who Do You Think You Are? And I thought it was a great title for a book. So that's got to hurt. I mean, and it's got to cause doubt. And more fear and doubt than even the ones you already had. What did you do then? What was your strategy then?

Great question. So first of all, I cried like a baby all night. Yeah, it rocked me to my core. It really did. Then what I did was I asked for guidance. So I'm a believer. I pray a lot.

Yep.

I have a great relationship with God. And I just Said, please guide me here. Please lead me to what I am supposed to do here. I realized that why would God have put the Ironman in front of me for 28 years, given— instilled in me the ability to do it, if I wasn't supposed to? If that wasn't something like a big conscious pivot that was going to lead to something greater? And for me, what I applied was a gateway, big open gateway.

Yes.

And again, then I had a feeling, right? So oftentimes when we have conversations with, I'll just say the divine or whatever you believe in, we come away with a feeling. I mean, we also come away with words sometimes. For me, I get both, but I had this very clear feeling that when I thought about staying the course with the Ironman, sort of trying that on, right, as a solution, What if you just stay with this? This enormous sense of peace and knowing came over me. It was like this resounding yes. That's what you're supposed to do. That's what you're meant to do. Do it. I mean, I went back to my husband the next morning, all teary-eyed and looking a mess, and I said, "You know what? Here's the thing: I am not going to be." The person that I'm meant to if I don't pursue this.

Yeah. Well, you just got me all watered up. So thank you for that. Yeah, I think there's a term that it's a pretty esoteric term, I suppose. Maybe that's not fair, but somatic intelligence, this idea that our bodies house this wealth of truth. I personally don't believe our minds tell us the truth very often at all. It's a kind of a weird thing when the thing that is the thinking device. It's how we understand our identity is something that doesn't necessarily speak the truth. In fact, I suppose if it— if what was going on in our minds was the truth, most of us would be in jail based on the thoughts that we've entertained for a moment. So, but our bodies house all this intelligence, our feeling, our hearts, our souls, but our body, our physical bodies house all this intelligence, all this truth in so many ways. But we ignore it. When you're describing that feeling, it's just like you went home. You went to mother and father and everything else since, you know, to find the truth. And then you paid attention and followed it.

Yeah.

So you followed the guidance, which is—

You make a great point there. And let me put a fine period on it, Adam, which is conscious mind, which I think is what you were alluding to there at the beginning of what you said. Our conscious mind only is responsible for 0.8% of everything we think and do in a day. Our unconscious mind is responsible for 99.2% of everything we think and do in a day. And that's where you tap into the physical feelings of things, right? Because that's actually the gateway to the unconscious mind is your senses. So absolutely, we're fooling ourselves thinking that we're doing all this conscious thinking, we're making all these conscious decisions. No, we're not. That's why I said I discovered that this was the missing key to everything we want to achieve, everything we want to realize.

This is the zombie factor.

When you learn how to interpret it, to feel it and read it and go, oh yeah, wait a minute. This is what's going on here.

Isn't it, Karen? This is the zombie you talked about at the beginning because this is that unconscious creature.

Yeah.

We all are 90, however many percent of the time that we're walking around unconscious even as we're thinking and thinking that we're conscious beings, but so much is habit. So I want to ask you a question about a different type of habit because to me, I love the work of Stephen Covey and the 7 Habits. So habit, I'm not giving sort of a bad rap on habit. I just feel like habit is me picking up the toothbrush and without thinking about it, I brush it with a certain hand,

etc.

Ritual is a different word that means to me kind of a master habit or a consciously created habit.

And

it's a little different. Do you have rituals? Do you have things that you've created as rituals for your success? I really hope you're enjoying this episode. of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today.

Yes, absolutely. How long is your show?

I know, right? Let's share your favorite one. Because you're right, we all have so many.

I'll share 2 actually if I could really quickly.

Oh yeah, please.

All right. So, first favorite one is that I keep a pretty uniform schedule, which means I get up at roughly the same time every day. I don't use an alarm anymore, which means I also go to bed early. I don't watch the news. I killed my TV long ago. I have a hard stop for work. At 5 o'clock and I stop looking at my mobile device early in the night so that I can actually get a really good night's sleep. So that's number one, which is sleep and rest and rejuvenation. That's so important. And I think that is a foundation to everything else. And then that rolls into my morning, which is very ritualized. I'm very particular about getting up and I love my cold brew coffee. I think that's the best creation on the planet. Just pure, pure, pure black and strong and bold and yummy. And what I fill my mind with in the morning, right now I'm reading Richard Rohr, R-O-H-R. He's a Franciscan monk that is very radical in his ideas and teachings and says he can't even believe that he hasn't been thrown out of the Catholic Church yet for them. But check them out. They're all based on— in history and metaphysical science and even neuroscience and scripture. It's incredible. And then second thing, which is kind of fun and probably different than what most guests say, is my ritual is green smoothies.

Well, I finished my green smoothie right before the show started. So you're in good company. I have been probably to the point where people are sick of it. But The green smoothie is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me other than marrying my wife. The green smoothie is the greatest thing that's happened. I mean, now I got to add my kids into that too. But yeah, it is absolutely breathtaking what that just making that smoothie does and then consuming it, how important it is for our bodies to put good things in. Like you say, put the good thoughts in to start the day, put the good— You know, whether it's other people's thoughts or it's your own thoughts or it's in some other form, but that you're filling up your cup with things that nurture and help you to recover.

Yeah.

Because in many ways, resilience— we talk about resilience, the studies are clear on this as well— it's less about endurance and it's more about recovery. Athletes know this better than anyone. You cannot exert yourself physically or in any other way without an appropriate amount of recovery built in. Otherwise, you just deplete yourself and ultimately you run out of gas, right? We, we can't go the distance unless our tank keeps getting refilled, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Unless you're rejuvenating, building new brain cells, you're rejuvenating muscles. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? We, we want to do our best thinking and live our best life every day, right? So that's really what it's about. What are you filling yourself with? Mind, body, spirit, all of it.

There's someplace in, I think it's in the Bible, that talks about the renewing of the mind, that transformation comes from the renewing of the mind. And there's something really beautiful about that. I've so enjoyed this conversation, Karen. Thank you for being a guest on the show.

I have too, Adam. What a delightful pleasure.

I will leave everyone with the ritual that has become the waking ritual for me for the last more than 10 years now, and that is that we all get to wake up. So, this is the basic of basic waking rituals that we wake up. And obviously, there's a metaphor that's baked into that that I love, the idea that we're— what does it mean to wake up? To be more aware. As you said, the first part, the first step in your tool is self-awareness. As leaders, leaders in our own lives and leaders of the people that are around us, by what we model, self-awareness is so key. So my prayer, my hope, my wish for everybody is that you get to wake up again tomorrow and be a little more awake, a little more aware, a little more conscious tomorrow than you even are today. So I hope everybody's agreeing to that first step, that you will wake up. And of course, when we're waking up physically tomorrow morning, as we all will, I think it's important to recognize that there are people in that moment A lot of people who will be taking their last breath and will be departing as we are starting, just like there will also be babies that are born all over the world that are taking their first breath of life then as well. So that moment isn't an ordinary moment at all. It might just be something we take for granted from time to time, but tomorrow I'd love for you to sit in that for a moment and recognize how sacred it is that you are taking that breath. This one other thing, it is simply to take 10 seconds, 10 seconds to start your day. And there's nobody I've ever met that doesn't have that time, 10 seconds to put their feet on the floor, to put your feet on the floor and feel that gratitude and appreciation for yourself, even self-love in that moment that you can declare something out loud to take a page out of Karen's playbook here. That we in many ways are creating our behaviors by what we consciously choose to believe. And you can choose to believe something about yourself through these words. I truly personally believe that our journey is about self-love, that that's where we're all kind of moving continuously toward unconditional self-love. And, and so what could you create in your life? What could you create in the world if you were willing to believe that about yourself, that you deserved and you were worthy of unconditional acceptance and unconditional self-love. And so, the words that can come out of your mouth to replace some of that old belief system would be to say, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. Karen, do you love your life?

I love my life.

Way cool. What a great, great opportunity for all of us today. So grateful to you again, Karen, for being a guest on the show. Everybody have a wonderful rest of your day. And of course, leave us a comment at adamarkel.com/podcast. You can leave a comment there about the show. There's full show notes. You can find out more about Karen. You can find out more about her book on Velocity Leadership. So you can check her out and get that book and find out more other ways that you might be able to work with her. We would love to get your thoughts. And of course, join our Facebook community at startmypivot.com or go straight to Facebook, which is Start My Pivot Community on Facebook. It's an incredible group of like-minded and like-hearted individuals who are pivoting in areas and creating great rituals for resilience in their life as well. It's been a pleasure. Ciao for now, everybody. Bye-bye.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.