From Constant Urgency to Strategic Calm: A CEO's Transformation

This show is powered by others over self. Hit that subscribe button to keep training your brain. You have to say no because you have stuff that you have to prepare for those things. And you are no longer wanting to be stressed knowing that and tired. And you want to look fresh and you want to look good and you want to feel good and you don't want to show up. I. I don't want to. You know what I'm saying? Because I've got too much. It's like say no.

From others over self. It's hardcore and at ease. A show about people who are keeping their edge without going over the edge. I'm host Shelley Rood. What happens when a military police officer who carried an M16 for 23 years discovers her most powerful weapon is learning to say no. Today's guest is Laverne Santangelo, who retired from the army as a major and then built a thriving therapy practice, helping leaders through career pivots and grief recovery. We explore her transformation from constant urgency to strategic calm and how making yourself a priority actually improves your service to others. This is hardcore and at ease. Here's what I want you to picture. You're in back to back meetings. Your phone is buzzing, urgent texts. Everything's always urgent, right? There's three fires that only you can put out, and someone just asked you, hey, man, you got five minutes? Because I gotta talk about something really quick. Your calendar. It looks like a game of Tetris trying to move all those little pieces around. If you're like me, your to do list has a to do list. And somewhere in the back of your mind there is this nagging thought, man, if I take a break, everything's gonna break. Does that sound familiar? You're delivering results from a constant state of urgency. You're the person everyone comes to when they need something done right. You're probably thinking, yeah, well, at least I'm getting things done. And you're right, you probably are. But here's the question that's been haunting high achievers like us for the past few years. At what cost? A few years back, I was honored to give consulting advice to a particular business owner. On the outside, man, he looked like he had it all. He was in it with two smart business partners. They got along really well. They had over 30 employees and they were turning profit year after year. But then legislative change happened and they were unable to make payroll for two full months in a row. Not being able to pay your people really dug at him. Deep inside, he was mentally and spiritually Feeling crushed. Now, the more we talked, the more he realized that he was actually in a really good place to sell his portion of the business. And when he did that, he knew that he would feel confident that whatever happened after his exit, man, that whole mess, it would be in the hands of people that he trusted. So he shifted his strategy and he got his life back. Doesn't that sound nice? I've been working with ambitious leaders across corporate, military and entrepreneurial environments for well over a decade. And I keep seeing the same pattern. The most driven, capable, the most mission focused people are burning themselves out. And it's not because we can't handle the work, but because we can't handle the. The constant urgency that comes with being the person that everyone depends on. And here's what's really frustrating. Most of the advice out there completely misses the mark. You've got people telling you just to slow down. Find that work, life balance. My personal favorite, just delegate, right? Just, just give it to one of your team members. But none of that addresses the real problem, which is this. You don't want to slow down, do you? You want to go faster. You want to do all the things, but without feeling like you're constantly fighting yourself. So how do we do this? What you actually want is to keep your edge without going over the edge. It sounds simple, but this is what I call the hardcore and at ease paradox. You can be absolutely ruthless about excellence, hardcore in your pursuit of results, while simultaneously being at ease in your authentic self. But most leaders think that these two things are mutually exclusive. They think that intensity has to equal stress, that high standards equal burnout. Just comes with the territory, man. That caring deeply about outcomes means that you have to sacrifice your peace of mind. It's not just wrong, that's backwards. The leaders who seem to be always winning, the ones who look like they're running downhill when everyone else is battling up the hill, they have figured it out. They figured out something crucial. Strategic calm isn't the absence of intensity. It's intensity from the right foundation. Now think about it this way. In my military intelligence background, we had a saying. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. The operators who moved better with precision under pressure. They weren't the ones freaking out and rushing around. They were the ones who had done the foundational work. They knew exactly who they were and what they stood for. And they could make split second decisions from a place of unshakable confidence. When your team is experiencing chaos, I want you to look around the room. Look for the person who's genuinely centered. That's your leader. Even if they don't have a title. There's a time and a place for putting out fires. I get it. But unless you're a fireman man, that should not be how you operate daily. The same principle applies in civilian leadership. But here's where it gets interesting. The foundational work, it's not just tactical, it's personal. And maybe that's why we don't do it. It's what I call hitting your tactical center in the hardcore and at ease framework. If you want to recap on tactical center, that lesson is back in episode three. It's about knowing your authentic values, your real voice and your actual mission in life. Your purpose, if you will. Because when you know exactly who you are and what you stand for, urgency transforms. It moves from panic into precision. Now here's what I've learned from working across all these different environments. Most leaders skip this step. They try to build excellent organizations out of a foundation of personal uncertainty. They try to create strategic calm, which is what we want. But they don't first establish authentic alignment and then they're left wondering why they feel like we're just constantly fighting ourselves. I see this with executives who can make million dollar decisions for their company, but they can't decide what to say no to on their personal calendar. I see it with entrepreneurs. They might have this crystal clear vision for their business, but then complete confusion about their own personal boundaries. And I've even seen it with military leaders who can command troops in combat, but man that struggle to command their own energy off the clock because they don't ever feel like they're off the clock. This missing piece, it's not tactical, it's authentic. And it's what happens when you align your hardcore drive with your at ease foundation. Now, I want to be clear about something. When I talk about being at ease, I'm not talking about being laid back or totally relaxed or just going with the flow. I'm talking about operating from your authentic center with such confidence that external pressure doesn't shake your internal foundation. It's the difference between reactive intensity and responsive intensity. Reactive intensity is what happens when you're constantly in crisis mode, always fighting that next urgent thing. Going from fire to fire, feeling like you're the only one who cares about doing excellent work. On the other hand, response responsive intensity is what happens when you're crystal clear on your mission, you're really confident in your capabilities, and you're strategic about where you invest your energy. It's getting the most out of you. The leaders who've been able to make this transition from constant urgency to strategic calm, they've figured out something that sounds like it doesn't make sense. The more grounded you are in your authentic self, the more powerful your impact becomes. It's what I call the others over self advantage. Because when you're operating from authentic alignment in yourself, your pursuit of excellence naturally serves something bigger than yourself. And this creates what I can only describe as exponential impact. It's like how a nuclear bomb works. When you have two nuclear bombs, they ricochet off of each other in close proximity. And it's not just one plus one equals the power of two. It's an exponential impact. It's amazing. So instead of just grinding out results through sheer force of will, wouldn't it be amazing if you started attracting other nuclear bombs, other excellent people who want to work alongside you? Instead of feeling like you just have to push everyone around you to care about quality, what if you could create an environment where excellence becomes contagious? People want to be around you. They can't help but want to be around you. But here's the part that most leadership advice gets wrong. This transition, it's not about changing what you do. It's about changing where you're doing it from. Today's guest understands this in a way that most people never will. She spent 23 years in the military police carrying around an M16 nearly every day. And it was done in service to others. She knows what it means to operate under real pressure and to make decisions that matter. To be responsible for outcomes that affect people's lives, not just the bottom line. But after retiring from the army and building a successful therapy practice, she hit a wall that's very familiar to every ambitious leader. Listening to this, she was saying yes to everything. Overbooked to the point of resentment. Feeling like she could not take time out for herself without everything falling apart. Does that sound familiar? The transformation that she made from this constant urgency to what she calls strategic calm. That's not theory. That's not something that she read in a book or learned at a conference. That's something that she lived through while building a business that now serves hundreds of clients. And here's what makes her perspective so valuable. She combines her warrior discipline with this healer wisdom. She understands both that hardcore drive for excellence and the at ease foundation of authentic self care. She's figured out how to serve others at that highest level while also making herself a priority. And it's not because she's selfish. It's because she's strategic and most importantly, she's learned the power of saying no. Not saying no because you don't care, but saying no because you care so much that you refuse to show up as anything less than your best. This is going to be a conversation about precision under pressure, about the difference between being busy and strategic and why the leaders who seem to be at ease the most are the ones who are often handling the most challenging situations under that beautiful, beautiful view. So if you're tired of feeling like you're the only one who actually cares about doing exceptional work and if you're delivering results, but you're also wondering why it has to feel so hard all the time, if you've been thinking that there's a better way to channel your ambition without burning out, this conversation is for you. Let's dive into what it actually looks like to move from constant urgency to strategic calm without losing that edge that makes you excellence. Today's guest understands this in a way that most people never will. Retired Major Laverne Santangelo, thank you so much for joining us today.

You are so welcome. You're so welcome. Happy to be here.

Now, Laverne, I have known you for a few years now and one of the most interesting pieces of life trivia is that you have a special passion for a certain type of yoga in your life. Would you share with our listeners what that is?

Absolutely. I have been teaching yoga for a few years. I'm actually started off getting trained in what they call the 26 and 2 hot yoga. And then I moved from that to Greece yoga, which is a big part of my private practice because I have so many clients that struggle with grief. And I stumbled upon that because, because I was looking for postures and meditation to kind of help clients process that grief because we carry so much of it in our body. And I came across grief yoga and they started, you know, I started learning all different types of postures and breathing techniques to help people least some of the heaviness of grief. And now here we are in terms of students later, clients later, and in.

Such an important and not well known topic, the topic of grief. Now, it is vastly different from your time in the military. Will you tell me a little bit about what you did in the military and how that's transitioned over into this beautiful private practice that you've been running now?

Absolutely. So I did 23 years in the Michigan Army National Guard. I was an MP unit. In an MP unit. And I was retired military police. Yep. Sorry. Military police so you carried, you carried.

A nine mil around, right?

Yes, I did. And sometimes the M16, sometimes both.

Right.

During training. And so when I retired, which has now been, oh goodness, about 15 years ago, I was like, what am I going to do with myself? And I had been a stay at home mom during my time that I was in the guard. And you know, that was very helpful for me, you know, being able to do that. And it was just like, what's next for me? So I decided to go back and get a master's degree in mental health counseling. I had some GI Bill Silver from my time and I was like, I need to use that.

They will pay for you to have some higher education.

Absolutely, absolutely. So I got my master's degree and started working in mental health. Became kind of burnt out during the pandemic. And I just said, hey, something I've always wanted to do was be an entrepreneur, so why not go into private practice? And that's what I did during the middle of the pandemic. You know, it was quite challenging.

And here you are on the other side of it now. You know, it's one thing to just go into private practice as a therapist, it's another thing to focus in on grief. Where did that desire come from?

Can I tell you if we go back years and years ago, years ago, when I was young, I'm still young, even younger, I must say, I experienced anxiety, depression, worthlessness, hopelessness, all kinds of things that didn't really understand. I. They were happening. I decided to go for some therapy and I was talking to the therapist, you know, he asked me what were some of the things that I regretted in life. And at that point I had experienced a termination, I had experienced abortion. And he said, you know, that's grief. I had no idea that's what all of the mental health challenges that I had been experiencing was all about. And so I started to dive in a little deeper and just kind of started understanding grief a lot more from that, from that, you know, from that experience. And sudden, you know, when I decided to go into private practice a few years ago, a lot of grief was showing up in my private practice. And I just, okay, I know how I felt. Let me look at all the other types of grief.

You were able to see that because you had personally walked through that.

Exactly, from my own personal experience. So I just. Has just become the specialty. And it wasn't just grief of loss of grief is not always, you know, just always related to the loss of a person. Right. I had experienced a lot of grief in other areas of my life. My husband worked in the mortgage industry and that's very up and down. A lot of times, you know, banks and things like that would close up, lay off without any no list. So, you know, we would have to go through, you know, him losing a job and everything that came with it and then also had to, you know, kind of pivot at the same time. I have experienced grief in that sense too. Loss of income, loss of finance, you know, everything that comes along with that.

Laverne There's a lot of our listeners that have these dreams and these ambitions to go into private practice or launch their own businesses, be an entrepreneur. And you're someone who, how long have you been out on your own now as private?

Four or five years.

Four or five years. So coming up on the five year mark, right. Which is the make or break for a new business, right?

Yes.

Are you making it or breaking it? That's the first question.

I am going to say that I'm making it very much so just added I call a mobile wellness state then to my private practice. So I'm, I think I'm very much making it. I'm doing okay.

Let's look back at the time when you felt like you were sort of maybe losing yourself in your ambitions, you know, and you just, you constantly running from event to event to event or, you know, back to back clients with no time in between to even reset or get a drink of water. Talk to me about that transition. What does it take to, to get from that place to the beautiful place of where you are now?

Boy well, I didn't reach the point where I landed in the hospital or anything like that from it. But I can definitely tell you I was feeling it emotionally and starting to feel a little resentful and tired and not understanding that even in business you can say no to certain things and way too many clients. And I think I had a lot of other commitments, too many other commitments also, because when you work in the mental wellness field, there is a tendency to want to serve everyone. And you can't always do that. You know, you can't say yes to everything. You'll take care of yourself. Was that I would say when I wasn't getting enough time to do the things that I wanted to do, just create things that I wanted to continue to do in my business, create different things in my business. I wasn't having time to do that, didn't have time to go and work out the way I wanted to. Just realizing I had to say no. And again, in the last couple of years, I've experienced some significant loss. I lost my father in law last year, the year before that. Two years ago. I lost a very, very dear friend. I've been friends with my friend Karen. I had been friends with her since we were 14 years old. And she passed away two years ago. And so grief kind of kicked in again for me. And that just kind of like, hey, you know, you. You gotta take care of yourself. Life is short. She was, what, 56?

We always say, who's going to take care of the leaders? Who's going to check in on the leaders? And here you have a yoga grief professional experiencing groove, Laverne, who's checking in on you.

Right?

And that kind of goes into this question of how do you stay at ease? How do you choose to keep one foot firmly planted in the mission and rocking out your business and moving forward, but at the same time not lose yourself in personal bouts with grief?

And you really have to make yourself a priority. You seriously do. And you have to say no. And you have to really weigh what's in alignment with what you have going on. You have to look at everything when you're. I mean, I. I hate to bring up money. You have to look at all of that. What things are working, what things are income, what things, you know will push you forward. You have to look at all those things, make decisions on them, you know, and also, I think realizing, too, you have to delegate. Okay, you still. That is still something that's very much ongoing. I found, you know, I have found in the civilian world, it's okay to delegate. It's all right. You have to admit there are things you're not good at, and you have to hire the people to do those things so that you have time to do the things that you're good at and take care of you. And so that is been my focus this last few months, making, definitely making myself a priority now. Getting the right amount of sleep. Yeah, getting it. Seriously, getting the right amount of sleep, eating better, making sure I'm getting that movement in. And sometimes I can't make all the graduation, baby shower, wedding showers, parties. I just can't. I've learned to just kind of be okay with that.

Well, you coined to me this idea of having a strategic calm, and I love to see that you are living out this moment of strategic calm in your life and in your business.

Yes. Yeah. And, you know, it's just something to be said, you know, I don't want people to ever think of Course, obviously, I care about people. Look at the profession that I'm in.

Right.

And what I'm doing. But when I don't show up, it's not because of dislike or love or anything. It's like I had to really say yes to myself in this season of life.

And what I'm hearing you say is that when you are the constant, when you are committed and you are professional and people can count on you, then you are allowed those moments to dip out and take time for yourself. And your clients respect you for that because they realize, like, oh, no, Laverne's got to live out what she preaches.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that is what I do. That is what I do now. I cannot. It really. It really was really good. It really felt good to me to say no to things these last few months that I know. It's like, you got clients to prepare for. You have an event that's coming up. You have to say no. You have just added a mobile wellness van. You have to say no because you have stuff that you have to prepare for those things. And you are no longer wanting to be stressed knowing that and tired. And you want to look fresh and you want to look good, and you want to feel good, and you don't want to show up iron. I don't want to. You know what I'm saying? Because I've got too much. It's like, say no. You know, and that's what I did. And guess what? The world is still turning, and those people are all still here.

And you deliver a better product because salute with that.

Absolutely. Then you're. You're at your best, and you're showing up. You're showing up at your best.

Hi, I'm Doug Slocum, the author of the book Violent Positivity. I was Blessed to spend 35 years in the US military, the Air Force, working with some of the most amazing men and women you'd ever want to meet. Well, throughout my life, throughout my career, I learned lessons. I developed this leadership style that I like to call violent positivity. And this book was my opportunity to tell that story, but also put forth those principles. Violentpositivity.com More information on how to order the book. You're listening to Hardcore and at ease with certified business and life coach Shelly Rood.

Now back to the show. All right, now you understand what Laverne's transformation looked like from the inside, and I want to connect her journey to the hardcore and Addie's framework, because her story is actually a masterclass in how this framework works in real life. Let's start with her tactical center, that yellow bullseye at the very center of the target. When Laverne told us what makes her hardcore, that commitment and passion to serve that she learned from watching her parents face adversity in the south, that's not abstract motivation. That's authentic foundation. She didn't develop her drive for excellence because someone told her that she should. She developed it because she witnessed resilience in action from the people who mattered the most to her. And this is what I mean when I talk about your operational bullseye. Laverne's wasn't theoretical. It wasn't. It was forged through watching real people overcome real challenges. And here's what's so powerful about that. When your tactical center comes from authentic experience, not from these external expectations, you can build sustainable excellence on this foundation because it's actually yours. You're never faking it. Now moving out to the red ring of the target. Aligning ambition. This might not mean what your first instinct is telling you. Laverne's commitment to serving others, that yellow center that she developed watching her parents face adversity, that stayed constant when she was dealing with military bureaucracy, healthcare administration, or building her own practice. The environments changed dramatically sometimes. But her core mission, it never did. And this is what I mean by ambition alignment. In the hardcore and Addie's framework, it's not about fitting into whatever organization you're a part of. You're going to go out into the world, and there's going to be so many incredible opportunities for you, Whether it's a job or a family or a career or a nonprofit. This is about staying aligned with your authentic foundation, regardless of where life sends you. Laverne faced challenges in every environment. Military, politics, corporate burnout, pandemic, uncertainty. But she never lost sight of who she was and what she stood for. Whether she was carrying an M16, building a therapy practice, it didn't matter, because the thread to her was always the same. Using her strength to serve others. These external circumstances, yeah, they keep shifting. That's just life. It's the roller coaster that we're all on. But if you can figure out how to make that internal compass always stay true, that is ambition alignment. It's not bending yourself to fit into some environment. And it's not killing yourself trying to make an environment fit to your values. It's bringing your authentic mission into whatever environment you're in. Now, let's talk about the blue ring, resourceful action. Think about what Laverne did during the pandemic. Instead of waiting for some perfect conditions, complaining about the challenges, she went ahead and launched. She launched a business. Who does that in the middle of a pandemic? Quite a few of us, actually. And it was during one of the most uncertain times in recent history. That is not reckless optimism. That's resourceful action. She took what she had. Her training, her experience, her understanding of grief, and she built something that could serve people exactly when they needed it the most. She didn't need an elaborate business plan. She didn't need perfect timing. There were no ideal circumstances. She just had a clear mission and really, really smart Action was taken with the resources that were available. And notice what happened next. As her practice grew, she didn't just expand randomly. She added grief yoga because she understood something that a lot of therapists might miss. We carry trauma in our bodies, not just in our minds. And then she went ahead and added this mobile wellness fan because she realized that accessibility matters. Each expansion that Laverne has done has been resourceful, building on what worked while addressing the real needs of what she was seeing. She could have just sat back and complained that people weren't coming to the yoga studio, but she didn't. She was able to resource a better solution. Each expansion that she made was resourceful. It built on the needs that she was seeing with the resources that she had. She could have just complained that her numbers were low at the yoga studio, but instead, she went out and got a van and started bringing yoga to the people. This is exactly what we're talking about when we talk about resourceful action. And once we're making the most out of our resources, then it's time for fun. Then we get to start generating momentum. And generate momentum is that second blue ring on the target. Here's where Laverne's military background becomes really relevant in a way that most people don't expect. In the military, you learn that momentum isn't about individual heroics. It's about systems that work even when you're not there. You always prepare the battlefield for when the general can't be there anymore or the commander can't be there anymore, or the lieutenant, something happens to them. Laverne has applied this same principle to her civilian leadership. When she talked about learning to delegate, to hire people for things that she's not good at, that is not just time management. That's collaborative momentum. She realized that trying to do everything herself, it wasn't serving her clients better. It was actually limiting what she could offer them. So she built systems that multiplied her impact instead of just extending her own hours, moving to the outer black ring of the target, expect excellence. Laverne didn't lower her standards when she started saying no to things. She actually raised them. When she chooses what aligns with her current season of life, she's not being less committed. She's being more strategic about where to invest her commitment. And this is what expecting excellence actually looks like when you're operating from this hardcore and Addie's framework. And it's not about accepting every opportunity that comes your way. It's about being so clear on what excellent service looks like that you're willing to disappoint people in the short term because you know and they know that you're going to deliver exceptional value in the long term. And this connects directly to trust, the process. It's that final large ring on the outside of the target. Laverne mentioned. Meditation, prayer, working out, family support. These aren't just add ons to her professional life. This is the foundation that makes it possible to do her professional choice with excellence. And it's what keeps her choice of doing this professionally sustainable. So if you love what you're doing and you want to keep doing what you're doing, this is what we're talking about. Here's what most ambitious leaders get wrong about. Trust the process. They think that self care is selfish. When actually, for people like Laverne who are genuinely committed to serving others, self care is strategic. When you know that your energy, your clarity, your. Your emotional stability directly impacts your ability to serve your mission. And taking care of yourself becomes a professional responsibility, not a personal luxury. If I didn't show up with discipline to do these videos day after day, you would not have a podcast. It's about professional discipline. Laverne isn't making herself a priority because she's self centered. She's making herself a priority because she's mission centered and she understands that her clients deserve her at her best, not her most. Exhausted. Now here's what I want you to notice about the progression of Laverne's transformation and why the hardcore and Addie's framework, it works from the center out. She didn't just start in the outer black ring. The boundaries and the self care practices, you can go do those all day long. Doesn't mean that you have authentic alignment. She started with that yellow bullseye getting clear on her authentic mission. Remember when she left the military, as soon as she figured out where her voice really was in this world, that's when Things started happening for her, and then she moved through that red ring of alignment and those blue rings of action and momentum. And then she finally established the outer practices of excellence and process. Only after she had that foundation solid did she build these collaborative systems and these strategic boundaries that allowed her to maintain excellence without this constant state of urgency. And this is why so many leaders fail when they're trying to implement work life balance. These techniques don't work unless you do the foundational work first. You can't build sustainable practices on an unclear foundation. And I'm sure you can picture somebody that I'm talking about here. They're always working on themselves. They're always have a new guru or a new person that they're following. They've got a new self development book on their shelf every week. You know who they are. Their foundation is unclear. Find something, dig into something, love something, and execute it. The beauty of how the hardcore and Eddies framework works is that tactical center is the bullseye. And every single one of those rings is stacked behind the bullseye. So if you hit that bullseye every time, then you will always be able to have ambition, alignment. You will always be able to utilize resources and generate momentum. And you're going to live with excellence and you're going to have this sense of peace and you can trust the process. But if you miss that bullseye and if you focus on any one of those individual outer rings first, you're not going to have what Laverne has now, a thriving practice that serves hundreds of clients. She's making exponential impact. Don't you want to make exponential impact with a business that's growing strategically? The ability to say no to these good opportunities because you have to save yourself to be committed to the great ones. This is what the hardcore and Addie's framework looks like in practice. Laverne did not sacrifice her intensity for serving others by saying no. If anything, it's only gotten stronger because she's operating from a foundation that can sustain that intensity over the long term. And here's the part that's going to matter most for those of us listening who really are recognizing ourselves. In Laverne's story, this transformation is not about changing who you are. It's about actually becoming more of who you are, but with better systems to support you as a person. Laverne didn't become less committed to serving others. She became more strategic about how to serve them sustainably. She didn't lower her standards. She got more precise about where to apply them. She didn't reduce her impact, she's multiplying it by building collaborative momentum instead of relying solely on individual effort. This is what's possible when you stop trying to prove that you care by saying yes to everything, and instead, you show that you care by showing up as your best self to the things that matter most. Now, before we wrap up, I want to share something exciting with you. After hearing Laverne's story, I got curious about how other people would answer our two signature questions. So are you ready for this? I decided to take them to the street and ask, what makes you hardcore? And how do you stay at ease? And here's what I heard.

So what I think makes me hardcore is my resiliency, which everyone in the military like, they pound that into you, like, stay resilient, hunt the good things, be a master resilient trainer, and all that happy stuff. But I feel like I've really embraced it in two ways. One is staying true to myself and always being transparent in my own person, really, regardless of the circumstances. And then two, staying active in the veteran space. And what I mean by that is, even though I left the service.

Too.

Many years ago, I don't remember when now, I. I still felt that sense of commitment when. From when I was a leader, right? Of taking care of my guys. And I. I really missed that. And I wanted to get back into that. And, you know, I could totally understand why people are like, I'm done babysitting people. I'm done herding cats. I'm. I'm done with any of that. And now I went from taking care of, you know, soldiers that were on time, where they needed to be, to now. Helping individuals seek employment, it's basically the same thing, right? Making sure that you're in the same place where they need to be wearing the right thing. Right? But doing that, too. So they're not just while they're there for their contract, but for the rest of their life. What puts me at ease besides a bottle with a brown liquid, I would say is my family and hobbies, because those really remind me who I am and what my values are. Right. You know, my hobbies of doing things outside hunting remind me of just, like, what keeps me motivated, what I like to do, and my family reminds me of who I am, what values I have, and, you know, just obviously everyone needs that support.

What makes me hardcore is my passion for doing therapy dog work. I've been doing it for 22 years, and it brings so much joy to people, which makes me joyful. How do I Stay at ease. A lot has to do with Darby. She keeps me a little bit centered, but also my faith in Jesus Christ. That's how I stay at ease.

Yeah, But I love hearing how different people interpret these concepts. The one thing that is standard across the board is that they're really so solid on the answer to each of those questions. Clarity on both sides of the equation. Now, what makes this group of responses a little bit more meaningful is that these answers were recorded during a family day for the 127th Wing out at Selfridge Air National Guard base. And if you don't know what's happening right now in the world, let me. Let me just say that there's a lot of deployment movement happening around my part of the woods. That was Laverne Santangelo. What really hit me about our conversation was her answer. When I asked what makes her hardcore, she said it's her commitment and her passion to serve. It's something that she learned from watching her parents face adversity growing up in the South. I guess you can see why the military was a natural choice for her. Now, here's someone who spent 23 years carrying an M16 dedicated to serving others, who's discovered that her most powerful leadership tool was not another weapon. It was learning to say no. In my experience with mission driven leaders, we think saying no means that we don't care, when actually it means that we care enough to show up at our best. What I've learned from working across corporate, military, and entrepreneurial environments is that leaders who maintain strategic calm, they've actually figured out what Laverne calls choosing things that are in alignment with my current season of life. This is what hardcore and at ease looks like in practice. It's staying ruthlessly committed to your mission while being at ease with protecting your energy through support systems, meditation, prayer, and healthy movement. Man, instead of feeling guilty every time you say no to a good opportunity, you'll actually be able to make strategic decisions from this place of calm confidence. Now, what if you tried Laverne's approach? Asking yourself, is this in alignment with what I have going on right now? This question's become critical for me. It's how I make decisions. And honestly, it forces me to admit that I only have so much bandwidth, and it's humbling and it's very liberating also, because it means that I can show up for real when I want to. Now, I had to practice this just last week when a potential client wanted to schedule a discovery call during my son's championship Baseball game. It sounds like it's right out of a movie. And, you know, there were times growing my business where I would have said yes, and I would have just stood there on the sidelines watching the game on the phone. Instead, I actually was bold enough to give that potential client two times. That worked for us. And you know what the result was? A dedicated conversation. And I didn't miss watching my kid pitch. Sometimes the best business decision is the one that honors that you have dedicated capacity. Now, if you're struggling with this balance, I have an awesome tool recommendation for you. For the past six years, I've been using the same planner. Not the exact same one. I buy a new one every year. But yes, it's a hard copy book in addition to all my fancy tech solutions. And the company that makes this planner is called Action Day. And what I love about that is that I can see my week, the entire week, and the important time slots for every single day all at once. It's truly a game changer for me. It's how I got through seminary with a newborn. And I'll put the affiliate link in the show notes so you can check it out. If you're waiting for the new year or whatever for a new planner. Dude, just stop it. Order the planner now. These ones do sell out, so make sure that you just go ahead and snag yours, get the undated one and just start using it immediately. You won't be sorry. If you're tired of feeling like you have to say yes to everything just so that you can feel like you care, then I'm here for that conversation. The best place to stay connected is by joining our free online community. We created this just for you. Go to join.othersoverself.com and you can engage with me directly. And better than that, you can engage with with other leaders that are also figuring this all out. This week, I want you to sit with this strategic question. What would it look like for you to sit in strategic calm in whatever place you are in life and in business right now? What if you just gave yourself a little bit of dedication to strategic calm? Seriously, what would that look like? That's all for now. I'm Shelley Rude, and you can count on me returning next Tuesday with an episode on ambition alignment. What happens when your personal drive meets organizational reality? Because here's what Laverne's story reveals. You can have all the strategic calm in the world, but if your ambition is not lined up with where you actually are and where you're serving in the world, then you're still going to end up frustrated. Until then, stay hardcore, be at ease, and trust the process.

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