07: Pull Up Your Chair with Cicely Simpson

Welcome to my podcast called you'd Must Be out of youf Mind. My name is Dr. Don Wood. Everyone has experienced some trauma at times during their life. These traumatic events and experiences create a significant impact on how your mind works on a day to day basis. At the same time creates long term effects on your emotional and physical health. It will interfere with your ability to stay present and in the moment. After years of research, I use my knowledge of neuroscience to create what I call a memory reset. This memory reset reduces and eliminates the impact of the trauma and allows you to experience peace and clarity. My podcast will share many stories of people experiencing similar symptoms to you and how their lives have been positively impacted by our TIP program. I can't wait to share with you how the impossible is possible and why you must be out of your mind. And there it is.

Well, welcome to another podcast of youf Must Be out of youf mind. I'm Dr. Don Wood. I'm your host. And as I said, I always bring in really exciting guests who have some great insight into areas that sort of tie into what we do. And my guest today is Cicely Simpson. And so I want to talk to Cicely about what you do and then I want to share with you what we do and see how we can combine and talk together. So, Cicely, welcome to the you Must be Out of your mind podcast.

Dr. Wood, thank you for the invitation. And I just love the title of this podcast. It's going to be a great conversation.

It was the title of my first book and it was about the whole program, how I developed the program. And I just said, we've got to get people out of their minds. They're stuck. You know, we all get. We all get stuck. And generally it's coming from. If you've listened to the podcast, it's from trauma. A lot of times we get stuck in trauma. And you're in Washington. I'll bet you there's a lot of trauma in Washington.

Sometimes by the hour.

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about what you do. I've read all your stuff, so I sort of know. But it would be easier if you can sort of explain what you do to the audience.

Absolutely. Well, Dr. Wood, again, thank you for having me on. And as you just said, I spent part of my time in Washington, D.C. for the past 25 years. I have been in the legal field, business and politics. And I have taken the lessons, leadership lessons, but also career lessons that I've learned in those fields. And I've written A book called pull up your chair, five strategies to change the trajectory of your career. That's based on a famous quote by the first African American congresswoman. If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair so we can talk about that. Kind of get out of your. Get out of your own way as well. But also pull up your chair is my way of giving back to people in their career, helping them transform their careers. Because when you transform their careers, they. You're also transforming their lives as well.

Absolutely. No, I love the title. That's fantastic. It's so true. It's just like, just take the initiative, right, and do it. And that's what good leaders do. As you know, they. They don't sit back and wait for an invitation. They just sort of go ahead and take it.

Absolutely.

One of the things that I loved when I was reading your stuff was about finding your voice, which is something that I talk about a lot with people, because when they've had trauma, they end up finding, like they've lost their voice. They can't speak up. I had one particular lady who, she said to me, she's, well, I really haven't had, you know, a lot of trauma in my life. I can't think of any kind of big T kind of trauma. I wrote my second book I called emotional concussions because sometimes that's what happens to us. And so anyway, I took her through the program. It was actually a great group of executives that work together. And so I usually do a demonstration. So I had her up and she's telling me I have no trauma. And I'm like, okay, great. So anyway, she said, I said, can you think about an event in your lifetime that was maybe disturbing or, you know, when you think about it, you feel an emotion. And so she thought about it and she says, oh, yeah, okay. She goes, when she goes, I was about six years old, she goes, I was in church and I can see her eyes starting to water up. And she says, and I was talking, do you know? And my grandmother took the hairbrush out of her purse and hit me on the head and said, stop talking, you're in church. And she just started to sob and she goes, I lost my voice that day. I just realized that she stopped talking because a six year old doesn't have enough life experience to understand what her grandmother meant. Now, her grandmother wasn't trying to do that for sure, right? But it's, you know, where a six year old's coming from. That's what she heard so when, when you're working with leaders, I'm sure you hear those kinds of things all the time. So what is finding your voice mean to you and what are you teaching about that?

Well, that story, Dr. Wood, is so powerful. Wow. I. That, that's amazing. Not unlike the client and situation you just talked about. When I coach professionals and there are folks who come to me from students who are in there, you know, getting ready to enter their careers to CEOs and everybody in between, it's a very similar experience in terms of they don't know how to find their voice. So one, they don't know how to find it, and then two, they don't know how to articulate it once they do. So that piece to your point often comes if you're a young professional, very different, because you haven't been in the workforce yet, but you still come from a place of fear. Most career professionals who've been in their career for a while, or even some of the CEOs who I coach very much come at this from your point. There has been a situation or something has happened in their career that has caused them to withdraw. And they've always been told, don't talk about yourself. This is not about you. This is about the team. And while all those, the team mentality is true, the first thing I coach in my program, the first thing I talk about the book is you have to find your voice and your differentiator. So what do you bring to the table that no one else can? That is a real deep self reflection of who your voice is and what that voice entails. But so many people, Dr. Wood, the minute I say, what's your value or what do you bring to the table that no one else can? They give me their sales numbers. They give me, you know, I accomplished this last year and I accomplished that. And I say, no, no, no, hang on a second. It's not about take every take. Those are all great accomplishments. Take those away. Tell me about you. What's your, what's your. What's your greatest point of personal value that you offer? Debt, Silence. Yeah. And it takes some time to really break, to break through those barriers that you're talking about that I see in my clients as well. But once they find their voice. I just got an email on Friday, so, Cicely, you changed my life. I, you know, and that's, that's in six months. So the power of helping someone find their voice, the power is real. But you've got to break down the barriers. And the fear the trauma to get them to that point. So that was a longer answer than you probably wanted. But. But I get so passionate about these topics.

No, that was actually perfect. Exactly. What, you know, we talk about is if you don't reach down because everybody will give you those surface added, you know, remarks, right? Because they don't look deep. And if they really found out, you know, what their true talent is. And that's what I talk about. The reason I called the program a performance program and not trauma therapy is, is because I said everybody has another gear.

That's right.

What's interfering with you reaching that next gear? And a lot of times it's those traumas or those events and experiences that are interfering with it. And they come from a lot of times fear. And, you know, it can happen very easily. Do you have any, like, kind of examples of people that you've worked with that you've helped them? Like you just said, this person who you changed their life. I love hearing those kinds of stories because that's what we are doing. We're changing people's lives. Because I always say, why does Tiger woods have a coach? He's better than his coach. Right? But without the coach, he can't see that. He changes his swing at the very top a little bit, you know, opens the club a little bit, changes the face of it. He can't feel or see that, but somebody else can easier. So. So do you have some really good, you know, a story of somebody that you've seen a life changing event by doing something like that?

Absolutely. And I, you're right. A coach makes you better. A coach can see things in you you cannot see in yourself. And so even my very first client that I coached and someone that I kind of tell people, Dr. Wood, I'm like, I'm kind of like a bad habit. Once you get me, you're kind of stuck. So folks that I've worked with, you know, initially are still clients and we still work together, you know, because obviously we're on a journey here. It's not a one and done, but the journey is ongoing. But one particular person had been in their career for 20 years, 20 years, had never been promoted, had not been really considered for any leadership roles. But the person had always been told they're valuable, respected, part of the team, had always gotten all the accolades and compliments, but it never went further than that. So when that person came to me, they said, what am I missing? I'm great. I've been told I'm valued, but everything I've ever tried to do in terms of leadership or moving up in my career, feeling like I need to reach the next level. To your point that next year, why can I not get over that hurdle? And it very much started with the conversation that you and I are having about, okay, well, we got to peel back some of those layers, because what you're telling me is one piece of the equation. But my guess, there's a lot more going on, both in terms of yourself and. But also the folks you're working with. So once we kind of dug in and really got deep into that person's value, what their voice is, what is the impact they're trying to have. And then I'm Dr. Wood, I'm very big on. When I coach clients help not only help them with the breakthrough, but the language they need. So help them actually find that tangible voice and the language they should be using to articulate that. And so once we did that, that person came to me and said, okay, I have my moment. There's an opening for a manager role. I want to apply for it. Like, I feel like you've helped me find my voice. I want to go for this role. So we did a quick phone call. You know, what are you going to say? How are you going to position yourself? You have your value statements. I call them your you list. You have your you list ready. You're ready to go forward. And that person came back to me and they articulated their value, had the conversation with the. With the hiring manager, and they got the job the very next day. And all of that happened in the. In the. In the span of about 2 months, 2 to 3 months. So that, to me, was one of those breakthroughs. I mean, I could tell you many other stories, but that was one of those breakthrough moments where they took the coaching, but they were also willing to do the hard work. And you know, Dr. Wood, I'm going to sort of open up a can of worms here. There are some folks who come and say, I'm stuck in my career. I don't know what's next for me. And then we kind of roll up our sleeves and start to peel back the layers, and then they stop because they don't want to do the work. And that's where the fear sets in. And they want to know what's next, but they want me to tell them they don't want to do the introspection and work themselves. And that's when we start to kind of hit a healthy tension there of, I need you to be all in and bought into your future success and potential. But I can't. I can give you the how. I can't give you the who, the what, or the why.

Yeah, that's great insight because it's true a lot of people, but the number one fear for the human mind is uncertainty.

Indeed.

And so when uncertainty pops up, that scares them because they like that certainty, they like the predictability. And that's why we get into habits and behaviors, because it creates predictability. We don't have to think about it, we just do it. Even if the habit behavior is not healthy, is not good for us. And so it's one of the things that we work on. So essentially what I talk to them about first is we have two memory systems. Humans have two memory systems. We have explicit memory. The way we store all the details about events and experiences. We have to get that cleared up first, because if there's traumatic memory, then that's going to continue to loop. That activates the nervous system on a constant basis, which affects health. And so we. We work on that first. And then the second thing, which is what you were just talking about, is now they have to do some work to change the habits and behaviors. And so I give them a series of audios that are focusing on making changes. Because people, that's the biggest problem people have is they get comfortable, even though it makes no sense. Right. And they consciously know it doesn't make any sense. But. But the subconscious mind likes that certainty. And so when you say, okay, you got to make some changes, it's tough for them to get into that. So they have to listen to the audios to make the changes. So one of the ways that I do that is I say, I want you to start making inconsequential changes because you're training the mind to start learning how to make changes. And so brush your teeth with your left hand if you're right handed, right. Pour your coffee, use your coffee cup in your other hand. All the little things that you can start doing, starts reinforcing that change is okay. And then once they start making some changes, then the bigger one doesn't seem as monumental.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Intentionality.

Yep, yep. And they. And they have to become intentional if they want to make the changes. So, you know, so I work with professional golfers, and these people are the, you know, supremely disciplined athletes. I mean, just to get, you know, you watch these guys, these professionals play, and you go, oh, how they miss that putt.

Right?

They're so good. I mean, they're just so incredible. But they have spent so much time learning that. And then when they have to make a change, that's really tough to make.

Wow.

Because they. And then when they get under pressure, all of a sudden the mind goes, well, let's go back to the old swing, because we know that that works for us. And then the new swing is risky.

That's right.

So I had an example of. I. I had a friend of mine who I play golf with all the time, and I got a new set of clubs. And so the pro said, well, I'll give you a lesson with the clubs. And I went, sure, why not? So I took the lesson. And so he videotaped me. And he said, you know, he says, I've got one little change that I would make. He says, do you want to hear what I would suggest changing? And I said, okay, that's fine. Give me the change. So he told me what the change was, and I said, okay. I know that I'm gonna have to repeat this a lot in order to get it to become a part of my program. So I was playing that weekend with my friend, and I said to him, I'm not keeping score. You can keep your score, but don't keep my score, because I want to practice this swing, right? So I'm playing, and I notice that about the third hole, he's written down my scores. I said, no, no, I don't want you to write my score. I don't want to be thinking about my score. And he's going, oh, well, I'm just keeping it for mine. I said, don't do it. Stop keeping my score. We get to the ninth hole, and I see him secretly. Right. He wanted to beat me, right? So he's still writing my scores down. I said, what you don't understand is if you tell my mind I'm in danger, that I'm going to lose, it's going to want to go back to what it knows, how to work. I said, I want that out of my mind. I don't want to be. That's why. Get out of your mind. Right. I don't want to think about that.

Absolutely. Wow. Yeah. I need some golf lessons from you guys.

Golf is the hardest game. It really is. And one of the things that I work with. You'll probably love this, and this is. Probably applies to a lot of the CEOs and people that you work with as well, is I'll ask the golfer, I say, do you think you need to be confident to play good golf? Oh. And they'll all tell me the same thing. Yes, I think I need to be confident. And I said, what if I told you you don't need to be confident to play good golf? They said, I don't. And I said, no, you have a skill. You're amongst the most skilled athletes in the world. In your sport, there's nothing you can't do. Confidence is a byproduct of your skill. It's what happens after you execute your skill. If you put it in front of your skill, I'll guarantee you your confidence is going to leave you at times, and then you're going to be worried about getting your confidence back instead of just relying on your skill.

Wow.

Interesting, right?

Indeed. Absolutely. See, that's my way. Yeah, you and I will have to have a conversation about that offline, because that's. That's always the conversation I have about. About confidence in golf as well. So, yeah, I totally get that.

Yeah. And then what I say to him, I said, there's nothing you can't execute on a golf course. I says, you can hit a shot in between two trees six inches apart. I said, the average golfer can't do that. I said, you could literally walk in there, and you're not worried about doing that. You know you can do it. And I said, so what is around a golf course that we could. That could create any fear for you? Bunkers aren't a problem for you. A penalty shot is just. You can still make a par after making a penalty shot. And I said, so there's nothing you can't do. But I said, if you start thinking about confidence, then I guarantee you it's going to leave you at times. So I played with one young guy. It was really fascinating. He went through our program and then three days later, went to the very first tournament he played in. After three days, he was winning. He was ahead. He was leading by five strokes after three days. And on the final, final day, the very first hole, first tee shot, he hit his ball out of bounds, and his caddy looks at him and he goes, he says, are you really smiling right now? And he goes, yeah. He says, I just heard Dr. Wood in my head say, your ball and your confidence just went out of bounds.

And I said, he just striped the next ball down the middle. I said, he's not going to do that twice unless he starts thinking about his confidence.

Indeed. Indeed. Wow. I love that.

Yep. So, you know, I'm sure a lot of the coaching that you do with executives, they come in and they've lost their Confidence. Right. And.

So I always say, focus on your skill.

The confidence will come back. That's exactly right.

Yeah. Because they. They didn't get to that position because they were handing out free jobs.

Right.

They got there because they have a competence and a skill. But when we start to, you know, make a few mistakes or something goes wrong, then all of a sudden we start thinking about it too much. As opposed to just trusting our skill.

Exactly. No, you're exactly right. I see a very similar experience, Dr. Wood, sometimes after people lose their jobs. So right now we find ourselves in some economic uncertainty and anxiety, some trauma to our earlier point. Sometimes that confidence is shaken and. Or lost by virtue of some event in the workplace, whether that's job loss or somebody's on a performance improvement plan or whatever that may look like. And so you're right. It's kind of knowing that it's still there. It's just been shaken. So how do you restore that confidence but lean on that skill to keep moving forward while you're bringing it, Rebuilding the confidence and bringing it back so very much. I see the very same thing. It manifests itself in different ways. The same premise. Indeed.

Yeah. And it can happen so easily. And that's why I always say to them, don't rely on it. Always remember that you have skill and your skill will. Your skill doesn't go anywhere. You didn't lose your skill.

Right.

You can lose your confidence, but you don't lose your skill. And it really changes the way they look at it. And it's especially. Are you a golfer? Sound like you're a golfer.

I'm going to admit something. I live on a golf course. I don't play golf.

And you live on a golf course.

I do. I just. I just. I just moved last year and I live on a golf course and I don't know, 15th hole or something. Someone told me. And I don't play golf because I'm too. And you're going to coach me after this. Over. But it's all about my competitive spirit. And I. I have a softball swing, Dr. Wood. So the golf swing. I've had a couple of pros give up on me because of my swing.

Oh, my gosh. But you can learn the swing.

See, I need. I need therapy and trauma session as well. See, the pros have left me. Have left me alone because I can't get rid of my swing. So you can. You can already tell where I'm going with this story.

Well, I love the famous. I don't know if you ever Heard this, the Ben Hogan statement. He was playing with an amateur and one of the Pro Ams, and the amateur was not very good. And so he said to Ben Hogan, he goes. He says, do you have any advice for me? And Ben Hogan says, I do. He says, take two weeks off and then quit.

Guilty. That would be the advice for me as well.

But golf is by far the hardest sport in precision, and it is very difficult. That's why when you see these guys and how good they are, they're just phenomenal athletes to be able to do what they can do. And we look at it and we go, oh, you know, it looks like the average golfer, but it's not. They're playing golf courses that are way tougher than we play. You know, the rough is hard, is longer, the greens are harder. Right. They do all kinds of things to trick out those golf courses. For those pros, they still can demolish a golf course. It's incredible.

Mindset plus skill, right?

Yep.

Yep.

And that's why I love working with athletes, because what I do is basically a performance program, and we have a great way to measure it, you know, so I work with. With people, and then they immediately start getting results. So I've worked with, you know, athletes, you know, who will run and they'll improve their time, like, instantly. But because what I believe also happens, that trauma affects the ATP, the actual energy in the cells. So when we release trauma, we actually release energy, and so they can run faster. So. Marco Chisetto is a runner, marathon runner from Kenya. I don't know if you saw his story. It's a fascinating story, but he lost both his legs below the knee to a suicide attempt that he had. And then he had to learn how to run again, walk again on prosthetics, and then run again on blades. And he goes through our program, and they said he had plateaued. They said he's not really improving, no matter how much more training he's getting. We think it's in his mind now. So we took him through the program, and then nine days later, he takes 15 seconds per mile off his time, and then a few weeks later, runs in the Boston Marathon and breaks the world record.

Exactly. That's where I first first heard this. First heard his story.

Yeah. Fascinating guy. And. And again, just all the talent in the world. What I said to him, I said, marco, I didn't make you a faster runner. You were always that fast. Right. There was nothing ever wrong with you, and there's nothing ever wrong with your mind. Right. I Say that to everybody. Our minds are doing everything for a reason, is why is our mind doing what it's doing? So people come in and say, you know, I have really bad anxiety. I say, well, that's a symptom. So let's figure out why is your mind anxious? Right. Or I have depression. Why is your mind depressed? There's a reason why that's right. And Sicily, one of the things I always talk about too, which is I say. People say I sabotage myself. I say, it's impossible. The brain is not capable of sabotage. It's totally survival based. Everything is about survival. Why is it doing this particular thing? Because there's a fear of pain. Right. Or something going to happen. So it'll take you in another direction to try to avoid that pain. So when you're coaching, I mean, how many people do you see? Right. That will tell you, you know, oh, I sabotaged myself. Right. Have you ever heard them say that?

Absolutely. And you're right. It's getting to the root cause, you know, not the root of it, but getting to the root cause of what's going on.

Yep. And when you do, then they can see it for what it is.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And then address it. And so that's what we sort of do in our program is why, or, you know, why is your mind doing what it's doing? There's nothing wrong with your mind. If my mind, if I was you and you were me and I lived your life, I'd be doing exactly the same thing you did. Right. It's just the way our minds work. They're survival based.

That's powerful.

Wow.

Yep. Very much so.

Working in Washington, that's got to be a pretty interesting. I mean, this country is so divided right now. Right. What are you seeing? What, what are you noticing with everything that you do well?

And it's interesting because people usually say to me, wait, you're career coaching? And I say, yes. They're like, but aren't you the political person? And I'm like, well, when you spend 25 years in Washington and you very quickly, you learn a lot of lessons, leadership and otherwise, that you can share. You know, Dr. Wood, I'll just say it's. When I got there 20 years ago. It's a fundamentally different place now, both in terms of relationships, collegiality, but also just being there for the right reasons. And that is incredibly cynical and that is incredibly kind of honest for me to say. But, you know, when I got there 20 years ago and I listen, this, this was not part of my plan. I was going to be a prosecutor and, you know, go after the bad guys. So ending up in Washington and politics was. Has been an awesome blessing. But when I got there 20 years ago, you just didn't have all the antics. And I'm gonna do this to make you look bad, and I'm gonna do this to show you up. It just. It was. People were there for the right reasons, and that was to help people. People. And now it's more about the sound bite, and it's more about the tweet, and it's more about how much attention can I get? And so that evolution over the past 20 years has been stark, but it's also very real. Now people say to me, why are you still there? Because I can make a difference. I know I can make a difference. I know, you know, that's one of the ways I help people. I'm a strategist, you know, on that side of my life, I'm a strategist for, you know, career strategist as well. So I kind of bring my passion of strategy to the table for both. But I'm going to be honest with you. It's challenging there right now, and I think it's going to continue to be challenging for the foreseeable future.

It certainly looks like it is very, very divided. You know, it's like you can't seem to get anybody to agree on anything, which exactly is really a shame.

Exactly.

Why do you think it is?

What.

What's the change? What happened in those 20 years that. That you. You're right in the heart of it, so you probably see it better. The same thing is like, you're the. You're the coach that can see things that everybody else can't. We're on the outside looking in, right? Trying to make assumptions as what's happening, but you see it every day. What do you think happened?

You know, it's kind of that incentive structure, you know, you would probably talk about with your athletes. I would talk about with my clients. When people see something that works, they want to do more of it. And so the incentive structure over the past, you know, 15, 20 years, maybe even 10 or 10 or so less than that has been. People have. When you're divisive and you kind of throw it out there and you're like, well, I wonder if this is going to work. Well, of course it worked. Your base liked it. Your base wants more of it. Be more divisive. Hey, call those guys out. Tell them they're wrong. The base of Both parties has kind of fed this narrative of do more. So I said somebody the other day, because I was on a political podcast, and they said, you know, I said, look, I used to work for the middle, the left, the right. No, let's, let's. The centrist, let's get, let's get stuff done for the country and put your ideological beliefs aside. Those are the guys I always worked for. That's why I was there. The middle's gone now. There's no incentive to work together. There's no incentive to be there for the right reasons, to get things done, because the base of the left is saying, hey, do more, do more, do more. Base of the right is put Democrats on the spot and continue to be divisive. And so the incentive structure, there's no incentive to work together anymore. The incentive is to retreat to your base and stay there and hope that's how you win elections. Not coming together in the middle to get stuff done. So, I mean, you can literally watch the curve has just switched from one side to the other, and it's just palpable over the past few years. But I think it's incentive structure at the base of the parties.

Yeah. And like you said, divisive.

Yeah.

And. And I always used to think, why are people so divisive? And it's the same answer I give when people say to me, why do people use drugs and alcohol? And I said, because it works.

That's right. That's right.

And the problem is, as long as it works, people keep going to it.

Yeah. There's no pit, no one has penalized them yet for. So they just, it's, it's like you do more, you become more, you. You lean in harder. That's exactly right.

Yeah. I have a friend of mine, good friend of mine, great family, great people, this guy's a super nice guy, and he's running for Florida seat, Congressman, and, and he's in the district I live in. And I'm getting these ads for him, just blasting them, telling what a terrible person is. You don't want this guy in, in Congress. And I'm like, wow, that is so sad, because that's not true.

Wow.

And I'm like, I, I really feel like calling them up and just saying, why do you want to do this? Right. They're not going to make you out to be a good guy. Right. Some people will. It's like being a referee in hockey Right. After, crowd likes you, half the crowd hates you.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Election year. So even the divisiveness becomes even exact, you know, more exacerbated, you know, this year. And then people will kind of retreat and go back. And then we start, you know, we start the presidential in January or February. I mean, it's a constant cycle that's being fed that narrative of the incentive structure. So it just never stopped. It's just constant.

Well, you sound very much like me. You're an optimist. Because I loved what you said when you just said you feel you can make a difference. That's why you're there. So what are you doing? What are the kinds of things that you feel are important to do? What can you do to make a difference there in Washington or anywhere? So what's important to you and making a difference in people's lives? I mean, Washington as well, if you want.

Well, and that's kind of where I even started, Dr. Wood, in my legal career, was why do you want to do this? Why I want to make a difference? And people say, well, that's. Everybody says that. But when you can tangibly see, I mean, even years ago, when I first got to D.C. one of the very first things we worked on were saving historically back colleges and universities because they were cratering from financial ruin. Well, when you can work on a bill for a couple of months and you can actually get it passed and signed into law, and I thankfully had bill signed into law by each of the four presidents, you actually see the tangible results, that now you're making a difference in people's lives. And that's honestly equating that to kind of career coaching and walking alongside people on their career journey. It's the same thing. You see those aha moments, you see that breakthrough that you talked about and I talked about in terms of when they've done the work, when they break through the trauma, when they see that they have absolutely. They're amazing. And I tell people, I can see potential in you. You can't see yourself. I believe in you. My job is to help you believe in yourself and reach whatever that goal is. So I very much come at this. And each job I've ever had, kind of things I get involved with, even my. Even my board volunteer work that I do, I believe in a cause, and I have to get behind a cause and work to help people reach that logical conclusion, whatever that may be for them. And so that's where I really find my inspiration, is waking up knowing that, yeah, it's incremental progress every day, but it's progress Nonetheless, well, you've been there.

A long time in Washington and you've got this great attitude. I just love your personality. I can see why people are attracted to you, to work with you. I mean, you just bring that out. I can see it. And I'm really happy to have met you. And I'm sure we can probably do a lot of things together.

I hope so. And listen, thank you for this conversation. Those are very kind words, by the way. As you can tell, I get very energetic about the.

Washington, but also the blessing of a lifetime that I have now to be able to coach people in their careers. Dr. Wood, I've been blessed with a lot of opportunities. I've switched careers and industries multiple times. To be able to bring that forward now, to help someone on their journey so they're not walking it alone is an absolute, like I said, blessing of a lifetime. And I'm loving every minute of it.

And that's what I love, what I do. We just see people's lives totally change, you know, from some of the biggest, you know, traumatic events from Boston Marathon, the Vegas shooting. You know, people like that who their lives have completely changed. You know, after going through the program, you know, it's, it's incredible to watch and the transformation and just the healing and our, our whole program is basically pretty quick. It's a four hour process that they take them through. And basically what we're doing is resetting. Where it's all coming down to cicely, is memory. It's memories creating glitches and error messages. And what I found was, is that they're not really treating it the right way. They're teaching people to live and manage and cope with these memory issues or, or, you know, what they'll call post traumatic stress. And what I'm saying is the reason you're having post traumatic stress is because your mind is looping through the trauma and it's activating your nervous system on a regular basis. So the key in what I do is I'm able to get that memory that has been stored in high definition, very bright and intense, to reset. And so the way I explain it is we're going to do the opposite of what they did with the wizard of Oz where they take it from black and white to color. We're going to take it from color to black and white, and then the mind stops responding to it. So this glitch in error message that I'm talking about is happening because the mind is calling for an action. And so what I always explain to Somebody is. If you want to know if trauma is having an effect on you, I said, if you think about something that happened to you one year, five year, ten years ago, and you feel an emotion.

Right.

Your mind is calling for an action. The purpose of fear is to escape a threat. The purpose of anger is to attack a threat. So if you get scared when you think about something that happened to you when you were a child, that means it's active. The mind is trying to get you to do something, to get out of danger, but it's not possible. So if your mind keeps calling for an action that isn't possible, you can see how that's going to have a major effect on somebody's life. And they get.

Absolutely.

They get stuck in that loop.

And so we can fix.

Is. Yeah. And I. I very much share that. I tell people fear stands for face everything and run or face everything and rise. You actually have a choice.

That's true. Yeah. But a lot of times what happens is they get stuck in that loop, and until they can get out of that loop, it's very difficult. Right. To. To do it. And so that's. The loop keeps running, keeps activating their nervous system, which is then going to affect their health. And so that's really how I developed the program was because my daughter developed Crohn's and a. Which is autoimmune, and a second autoimmune called idiopathic pulmonary hemosiderosis, and where her lungs would start filling up with blood. And that was what's prompted me to start looking for answers. And the answer wasn't to manage it, because that's what they kept telling us. You know, manage your Crohn's, manage this hemocenterosis. And I said, why aren't we fixing it? I said, you know, if you went to your dentist and you're. You had a toothache, and your dentist just took out a needle and numbed it and then said, okay, here's a pamphlet on how to live with toothaches. Right. You'd find another dentist.

That's right.

So we want to.

Exactly.

Fix it.

So we want to fix it. Exactly. I love that.

Yeah. And we can. And that's what we're seeing. And then that changes their life, because now they can move forward without that loop running, and then that improves their health as well. And that's why, again, I transfer performance. Yep.

I love. Absolutely. Your. Your program is transformational in a lot of ways.

It is. And you're doing the same thing. So I'm. I'M glad we've had a chance to meet and talk and discuss.

I'm sure we'll probably have an opportunity to have you speak at something. I would love to have that happen as well. I think you've got great insight. I love your energy. It's so good, so positive.

Right.

As I said, I think, pardon me.

You and I will have to connect further.

Yes. Yeah, we'll give you a golf lesson. You got to come down to Florida and we'll give you a golf lesson.

You're going to regret that, but I will accept the invitation.

Very good. So let tell people how to get a hold of you or how to get in touch with you if they have an interest in talking or having you as their coach or bringing you in to speak.

Sure. Well, speaking engagements, coaching opportunities, the book, podcast, it's all on my website, cicely simpson.com or if folks just want to go ahead and get directly on my calendar for a call, they can reach me at Connect Dot. Cicely me but look like you. I'm on all the socials. People reach out to me all the time on Instagram and LinkedIn and different social platforms. So I'm readily available and able to be found on those as well. But my website's the easiest place. Cicely Simpson.com Awesome.

Well, I recommend anybody to certainly work with you. I think you could probably be benefit a lot of people. So great, great insight.

Thank you.

I really enjoyed speaking with you. I'm sure we'll speak again and maybe I'll be on your podcast. We can talk even more.

Hey, I, you. I was taking notebooks. That's exactly right. We're, we just finished season one, so we're getting ready to start season two and I'm making my list of guests for our, for our producers. So like I said, this is the beginning of a fast friendship here and I love, I love this conversation. I love seeing what we can do together going forward.

Beautiful. And I didn't get a chance to ask you about your Dunkin Donuts career, but I was just wondering if you can hook up a person, you know, for Dunkin Donuts stuff.

I'm still good. Yeah. Corporate career started at Dunkin. I'm still good for some Dunkin connections for coffee, ice cream and donuts. Absolutely. And there are plenty of Dunkin's in Florida. I spent a lot of time in Florida when I worked for Dunkin, so I know a lot of the locations there.

So.

So we will make our way to a Dunkin when you and I meet in person.

And I love Dunkin Donuts coffee. I do not like Starbucks coffee. It is way too strong. But Dunkin's coffee is really the best. It reminds me of Tim Horton coffee. I'm originally from Canada, and it's light Tim Horton coffee. That's why I can drink.

That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. Tim Hortons is a name I've come to know well.

Yep. Very good. Well, thank you so much, Cicely. I. I really appreciate you taking the time here today and. And thank everybody for listening to another episode of you must be out of your mind. And there it is.