My first guest for our special podcast series Rising Resilient is Dr. Carmen Morrison, talking about the ultimate resilience brain reset. Dr. Morrison has been licensed as a psychologist for almost two decades and also set up an online dimension under the umbrella brand of Alli.health to reach more people who are ‘stuck’ and looking for the Ultimate Brain Reset – the so-called magic wand.
About Carmen
Specialises in: Parenting, Brain Health, Relationships, Mind-Body Nutrition
Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, M.A. in Theology, M.A. in Education
Certified Integrative Mental Health Practitioner
In her interview, when you hear how she speaks about resilience and the neuroscience underneath it, bear in mind, she and her husband also run a significant non-profit operation working in developing countries afflicted by trauma. Her work is far-reaching, and highly impactful.
PREVIOUS ARTICLEÂ and PODCAST EPISODE – Rising Resilient Overview – Principles and Practices for Building Entrepreneurial Resilience
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INTRODUCTION
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Getting to know both Carmen and Bob as their business coach, I often wonder how they sustain such in-depth and demanding work. So was very keen to get her on the show to talk about it with you.
What I love about her mission – is that she LOVES coaching – maybe less so all the marketing and sales part of growing the business, but as her husband Bob often remarks in our business development sessions, Carmen comes alive and does her best work when she gets to come alongside you and help you discover ways to get unstuck. And that, for her, is one of the most thrilling things. On their website alli.health – where you can find out more about the work – she explains this brilliantly:
I love to take things that seem really complex and break them down into small pieces. I’m a certified brain health professional in addition to being a licensed psychologist.  At Alli, I want to help people who don’t really need therapy, but just need help knowing how to take the next step.Â
As a non-profit and health care therapist, and as an entrepreneur, Carmen has made significant strides in her business, through resources, courses, and coaching, especially in creating user-friendly digital interfaces to complement and extend her clinic work. Her resilience is evident in her ability to navigate the highly competitive health industry while juggling the demands of a high potential non-profit in third-world countries.
In my interview with Carmen for Rising Resilient, you’ll want to listen in to her insights on how the brain works. She talks about resilience in a way you might never have thought about before. She explains how options, action, and talking, all help enable and empower us.
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INTERVIEW
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JAY: Hello, Carmen. Hi, how good to see you and welcome to the Leverage Business podcast. It’s really great to have you here as my guest. You’re the first one in this series that we’re doing.
What comes up really frequently is this, this sense of resilience in the people that I work with, you know, what keeps them going, what gets them up when they fall down, how do they work through problems and stuff. And obviously, Carmen, your work’s a lot to do with the ultimate brain reset and like really getting into the mindset piece of how we tackle challenges and changes in our lives. So, words like confidence, self compassion, particularly, and courage came up quite a lot.
So let me start with this first question. What part of that theme when I invited you to this speaks to you the most and why?
CARMEN: Well, actually it the word resilience because I love Thinking about what makes us resilient. Life is just hard in so many ways and very rarely is anything just a linear start here, get there kind of a process.
And so, especially as I work in different places around the world, it’s not. It’s really clear to me that it’s not about life being a certain way or needing things to be a certain way in order for you to be okay. It really is about what you can do in spite of how circumstances are moment to moment.
And so that, that word for me is just really important. It’s what enables us to thrive and not just be bound to circumstances. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s thrive, not just survive. That comes up Right, exactly. As well. And that’s what we’re all wanting is not just to get through the week, but to actually feel that we have done something worthwhile, that we feel joyful, that we feel fulfillment, et cetera, et cetera.
JAY: Tell us, a little bit about the clients that you support. And I know you’ve got several sort of strings to your bow and, and different kind of businesses going on, but In the context of what you’ve just said about resilience, tell us a little bit about your business, your clients, your non profit work.
CARMEN: So business wise, I have two different businesses. So I have a, private practice, that I work in as a psychologist and run. And then I also have a coaching business where People know how to work with their brain, which is all about resilience, and work to help their brain wire in a way that serves them, for the long haul throughout the different things that they go through in their lives or, have to face.
So that’s, that’s one context. And then the other context in my nonprofit work is working in urban poor and urban slum communities and developing world to bring self led, grassroots. Facilitated programs that take kind of the cutting edge of neuroscience and trauma healing and put it in the hands of people that don’t have any resources so that they can be resilient, so that they can rise above, the, the things of their circumstances and environments.
And so really, the way it comes up is varied for all of us. Like, I don’t know that you could ever just say that it’s always this way for for everybody. But the struggles really with resilience come up when, when we feel like our circumstances overwhelm our resources or what we’re facing overwhelms capacity that we have to respond to that.
And just that fact, kind of at a brain level, just the fact that I feel like there’s a demand on me that I cannot face, puts us into a sense of a danger mode. And so resilience comes from a sense that I have resources I can tap into, or I know where to find resources, because that keeps me from feeling that overwhelm, helplessness, impotence, which is so disabling.
And that doesn’t matter, it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re in New York City, London, or, you know, a slum in New Delhi. It doesn’t make any difference. It’s what do we have the resources for, and whether or not we feel those resources are sufficient or if they’re overwhelmed for us at a given point in time.
JAY: So if I’m hearing correctly, in a sense, it’s going from that feeling of being out of control or overwhelmed by the circumstance to feeling more empowered and tapping into resources that can help you get back into control. It’s probably oversimplifying it.
CARMEN: Yeah, I’m not even sure I would use the word control as much. It’s more that, that I have options.
JAY: OKAY …
CARMEN: So that there’s some sense of autonomy, that I’m not stuck.
Stuck is like the worst thing for us as human beings. It really undoes us at every level of our being and particularly in our neurology. And so when something happens that makes us feel stuck, helpless, that there’s no options, nothing I can do, that, that perception of a situation is the one that undoes us the most.
So it’s less about control, and more about having actionable things that I can do. Some place of action that I can direct myself into is much more Important than being a feeling because we really have very little control over things in life I mean, I am very fond of saying the only thing we really have control over is ourselves and even that’s a tough job. So yeah outside of ourselves.
It’s really pretty impossible to control what happens or what people do, but when I have different avenues that I can take, or different ways that I can think about it, or different things that I can try, then I’m not stuck.
So I would see it more as a factor of being stuck versus not stuck, where I have something I can do rather than control.
JAY: Yeah, it’s another way of looking at it, which is great. I mean, I’ve had other people kind of talk about control. So I wanted to get your perspective on it. And I know that you’re a lot about kind of getting unstuck. And that word in itself is, is when people, they don’t know what action to take.
So, how do you help people with that? I mean, we do it in business coaching, but how do you do it in your practice or in your non profit working with those people where they’re not sure, they need some guidance on what action to take, and what’s the neurology that you help them to use, to tap into?
CARMEN: Yeah, so I I focus less on what action to take and more on how do you find actions that can be taken – how do you develop those. Because If you need me to tell you what action to take, then you’re always going to need me to tell you what action to take. But if I can help you LEARN to think about the fact that there ARE actions, and how do I explore those, and how do I connect with the possibilities then you’ll find the actions and you can kind of process those and learn how to choose which action you want to try first, much more so than telling you which actions to take.
So, at a brain level one of the things I like to talk about is how you get your brain ready to do something new, to do something different.
The fact of the matter is, there are probably 10 different things that you can do that are all equally effective at a neurobiological level. So, it doesn’t really matter which one you do. Find the one that works for you. Find one that fits for you, and just do that.
And even psychologically, we know that if you do anything, even if it’s an ineffective thing in the short term…doing something is always going to be better than doing nothing, because doing nothing leaves you stuck and helpless. And like I said, that just undoes us. So just, just being mobilized in any way to try something is going to get us moving.
And then as we do that, if we have that have developed, the foundational capacities, which I can talk about, then as we’re in motion, we can learn from that. And that’s a huge part of resilience is being able to learn from our experiences to see even setbacks or failures as gifts, as things that teach us something, as things that have something to tell us.
But the foundational things that we have to have to draw from so that we don’t feel overwhelmed or stuck, really start first of all with our attachments or connections with others and whether we have that personal resource, whether we have somebody who can just sort of pat us on the shoulder and say, they’re there and it’s all going to be all right.
We all need those places [where we can] just kind of “fall apart”. And I put that in quotes because we’re not really falling apart. We’re just feeling the frustration of a moment or the setback of a moment and have somebody who just kind of soothes that just a little bit so that we can get back up, dust ourselves off and keep going.
And what we know from research – like super solid, repeated place of research – is that:
when we have those secure connections with others, that’s the number one thing for resilience around the world.
Doesn’t matter what culture you come from. If you have somebody that you can kind of fall apart with and they can say they’re there, we’re going to be far more resilient. In spite of the circumstances or how difficult things are or what part of the world we live in, resilience comes from those connections first and foremost.
So that’s the number one thing. Do we have somebody that we let ourselves do that with? A lot of times in Western cultures, we have these notions that we’re supposed to just do it ourselves.
And that actually can work against, work against the built-in resilience that our bodies have.
JAY: Yeah, particularly in, the typical British thing is like, stiff upper lip, keep on going, that kind of thing.
CARMEN: It’s interesting. Well, yeah, in the U. S. it’s more pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, right? Yeah, yeah. There’s something more, more noble and valuable about doing it yourself. Then about doing it with others and yet that works so against everything of how we are wired and how we’re, how we’re designed. And just, just knowing that and, and accepting that is actually a real load off. Huge, all by itself.
JAY: Yeah, and yet still people do it. I was struck by what you said, the number one thing around the world. Is that, you know, that attachment That’s amazing. And I’m also joining up the “not being stuck” with the “mobilizing” that you’re talking about, taking some kind of action. I mean typical phrases you can’t, you can’t steer a parked car.
CARMEN: It’s also something about that, and the lessons in “falling over” as well. If you’re falling apart, it’s also okay to fall over sort of thing. But yeah, just keeping going.
JAY: What about when people feel that, well, let me, let me ask this a different way….
There’s two things that have been coming up with people. One is that a lot of people have got this sort of hidden trauma, and you know, we’re triggered by a lot of things, and then all of a sudden, like, we have this stress, we can’t cope, we feel stuck, you know, and then at the other times, it’s like a slower uneasiness, restlessness, so they’re feeling a little bit lost in life.
From a neurology, a psychology point of view, how do you know what’s going on in those kind of two different scenarios?
CARMEN: Well, when you have some kind of a trauma, so we’re talking about something that at a previous point in time has overwhelmed my resources, and that is kind of the standard definition of trauma is an event. That overwhelms my resources that I perceive as dangerous or threatening. That’s kind of a classic definition of trauma. And so, when I have had that experience and there was nothing that resolved that and that gets triggered, what happens in the brain is, it’s really kind of fascinating because those kinds of traumas are perceived as.
Existence-related, meaning, you know, my survival depends on this, which, by the way, not having Safe, secure people in my life is a trauma all by itself, and we know that neurologically. It does the same thing to the brain as somebody bursting into the room with a gun in their hands does. Like the brain does the exact same thing.
So when we have those moments that are these survival kinds of moments, the brain hardwires that in instantaneously. It’s like a one trial learning situation. And we also know that it never lets that wiring go. Because it figures, it’s not sentient by itself, but if we gave it sentience, the brain sort of figures, you, you needed this once to survive, I better hang on to it just in case you needed another point in your life.
And so what happens then as we’re going through life is we hit a circumstance that has features of whatever that was and the brain goes ‘Ooh, I know what this is about. Hey, I got something. It’ll help you’. And it pulls out that whole trauma response and it puts us into survival mode. Not necessarily because the moment in the present tense requires that, but it’s just because that’s the wiring that we have that was put in place.
So when we get triggered, when we talk about being triggered, that’s what’s happening to us. And when we know that that’s what’s happening to us, we can actually give that a different meaning that we can just go, Oh, brain, thank you so much for reminding me that we have that back there in the file.
I actually don’t need that quite so much right now, but I appreciate that you have that on hand just in case. Like if I know where it’s coming from, I know that it doesn’t mean I am in danger. I just feel like I’m in danger because my brain is recognizing something about this situation that links up with the previous one.
Then it actually enables us to have insight into the situation and enables us to think through with my resources today that I probably didn’t have when that ‘Whatever got triggered’ happened. What resources do I have differently now that I can use to respond to the situation that I didn’t have when I was 8, 10, 12, whatever the circumstance was.
So that’s, in the triggering sense, that’s what’s going on. When we are in that place where, I think the words you used were like, restless, or what were some of the other words you had? Uneasiness, or just feeling lost. Uneasiness. Yeah. So one of the things that I like to, to help people think about is the fact that…
Emotions are just messengers.
They tell us not something about outside reality, they tell us about how we’re being affected by the things that are happening around us. So they’re really important messengers with information about yourself.
So for example, let me give you an example of that. If I, feel overwhelmed, which happens very frequently to me, cause I do way more than a human being should be attempting to do at any given moment in time.
So overwhelm is just part of that, right? So you have those moments where you’re just like, Oh my goodness, no way this can ever be done. I can’t do this. What was I thinking? And this is all going to fall apart if I don’t. You get in those moments. If I listen to that, if I pull back and I go, okay, Carmen, what is this saying to me about me?
Well, what it’s saying to me is that right here and now, there’s, there’s some options: either A, I’ve taken on more right now than was sensible or wise and I need to make some decisions and prioritize and put some things off to the side and focus on things so that I can feel, that I have more capacity for what I’m undertaking.
So that might be one thing it’s saying to me, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just saying you’re doing too much, pick and choose, and focus in on what’s most important.
Two, it might be saying that I’m lacking resources. So when I step back and reflect on that, I might go, you know what? It’s not that I’m trying to do too much, it’s just that I don’t have this piece that I really need. Where can I find that piece?
When I hear those emotions as information, it’ll start helping me tune into what is it that I’m really needing right now so that I can take action, which you’ll hear as a theme.
If we don’t take action, nothing happens in the brain.
So we take it then into a place of action. And now we’re out of that stress. We’re out of the overwhelm of that because we’re mobilized.
So really one of the key things I help people do is to think about what are these emotions telling me about me? And then what does that inform about what I want to do or could choose to do right now that takes me in a different direction?
JAY: I love that. I’m scribbling notes like crazy because this is actually really, really helpful for coaching generally as well.
But I think there’s a sort of a third category perhaps than what you’ve just described. So we’ve talked about the sort of the trauma and the triggers and the kind of sudden fight-flight situation, and then kind of talking yourself off the ledge, category one.
Category two feels more like, I’m overwhelmed, too much to do. You know, I’m not coping. Maybe you tell yourself like some bad things about yourself, about how you’re not very good, et cetera. And then you kind of go into like, how, how do I unpick this? How do I make it more manageable?
But this category three, which I think is a little bit more by stealth, is where I was coming from on the feeling lost and it’s kind of a like midlife crisis kind of thing that often hits us. So I’ll give you an example from like an entrepreneur type of journey. Say you’ve got someone that’s been in a career for a long time, maybe they’re in a corner, they’ve got a label, a professional identity, like an accountant or a doctor or whatever. And then something happens and they change, and they decide they’re going to start their own business.
Now I have a lot of clients like that, that’s how they get started. And so then they’ve got a huge learning curve. They’re massively experienced in their technical field, massively under experienced in business and marketing particularly. And somehow they kind of make a go of it and they, they’re pushing forward and everything.
And then maybe in life as well, there’s some change of circumstances. Maybe they’re going through a breakup or they’ve got a problem with their kid or something like that. There’s something else going on and they’re always thinking, is this it? You know, is this my lot? It’s like, I’ve got all of this.
I’ve been so successful. I’m building a business, and they just get to that point where something starts nagging away in the back of their mind. We come across clients like that where, it’s not an event, it’s not a circumstance, it’s a kind of a build up of a slow stealth type of uneasiness.
I think we do see this a lot with people. And that’s a different kind of resilience or a different kind of solution in terms of applying resilience to that, to get yourself out of that stuck spot.
Talk me through your take on all of that…
CARMEN: Yeah, for me, it really does go back though to that second scenario, which is what is this telling me? It really is that same kind of a question. It’s telling you something. So I’ll just take kind of the scenario that you described with somebody midlife, starting a business, parents, children, maybe throw in a little health thing on the side, or, you know, all of the different challenges that you face.
At the end of the day, we only have finite resources as human beings. We’re not infinite. We can only do so much in a 24 hour period. And we are limited to that. And so sometimes it’s about being able to step back and go: ‘I do need to maybe set some things aside or prioritize some things’.
So it does come back to what is it telling me? In other circumstances, it might be telling me again, using your scenario, which is one that is how we met, which is I’m trying to do something that I don’t have the knowledge or the skills for. So what do I need to do about that? Well, I hire a coach. I hire somebody who does have knowledge of skills or I find somebody in my life who maybe has something to contribute because I’m lacking that, or my favorite thing to do is buy a book, right?
I’ll read a book about something, if I’m lacking knowledge or skills, I can go get knowledge and training, but I have to ask that question first. So what is it that I’m lacking or what is it that I’m needing?
One of, I think, the hardest things in that scenario is when you’re at a moment of stepping out into something new, and at a brain level, the unknown always feels dangerous.
So uncertainty or unfamiliarity, the reason we experience those as discomforts is because the brain goes on alert. Goes on alert for two things. One is a very positive thing, which is it goes on alert, ready for new connections and new learning and new possibilities. But it also goes on alert in the limbic system of the brain for the possibility of danger.
So it’s on alert for everything, good and bad. And so that’s why we feel that discomfort when we’re doing something new. So if I’m at a point in my life where I’m starting something new, switching careers, or changing direction in a big way. That’s where my brain is at, it’s like, ooh, this is exciting and fun and ooh, this is terrifying and scary because I don’t know which way it’s going to go.
And so being able to, to know that is important because if at that time something else happens, like a divorce or an illness or. Problems with a child in my family. Now you have another circumstance that adds to the dangerousness. I’m thinking neurologically here, the dangerousness of my circumstance.
Now there’s something else that is threatening. And so it shifts the brain out of that: Ooh, this is exciting. Let’s learn something new place and much more into that: No, let’s hunker down and just. survive. We’ve just got to get through this. And so it really does become in that kind of a scenario. It comes, of what, especially when we feel threat or danger, right?
That sort of a feeling. It’s being able to step back and say, What is what are the actual threats that I am experiencing right now, not just the uncertainty of something new, but actual things that are threatening to me. And that can help focus in on taking actions that, that put us back into an unstuck place, right?
I mean, maybe my spouse was just diagnosed with cancer. I can’t do anything about that, but if I have actions that I can take, if I mobilize, I’m not going to feel that same danger, be in that stuck place. So I think that would be, even in that scenario, it would come back to first of all, what is this telling me about me, so that I can think about what, what do I need to do?
Do I need to embrace this because it’s just the feeling of doing something new or are there things adding to a sense of threat or uncertainty or dangerousness that I need to look for options about so that I can be mobilized to take action in those areas.
JAY: It sounds very grown up 😀 Right?
CARMEN: I mean, I suppose that’s one way to look at it.
JAY: Well, no, I think one of the difficulties is like the child in us comes out a little bit of like, you know, tell me what to do. But what I’m also hearing is like there’s a consciousness and a subconsciousness that kind of comes at you. In terms of the analysis, it’s like the subconscious is like working behind the scenes based on all your past experience and traumas and all the rest of it, and then there’s a consciousness that you can bring to ask those questions, where you can start to look at well what are the actual things going on what’s the actual emotion where is it coming from what are the what are the actual threats. That’s the word, the phrase you used, rather than just this sort of sense of overarching uncertainty. Is that what you’re saying?
CARMEN: Sort of, because if there’s a perceived threat, it is an actual threat at a brain level. The brain doesn’t make any distinction between them, you know, we’ve seen somebody in a movie getting killed or being in a situation where I’m going to, you know the brain doesn’t make any difference.
It’s like the same thing. It’s our perception of that that shifts how dangerous that feels. And so it is an actual danger either way, but one is, it’s kind of perceived danger versus the danger of somebody bursting into the room with a machine gun. Like those are two different kinds of scenarios. And so it’s being able to look at whether the feeling, like in the first scenario I gave, where it’s that I’m in this new place, so there’s discomfort because my brain is all awake, ready for me to experience new things.
That’s actually not danger, it’s discomfort, but it’s not danger. And so if I know that, then I’m going to lean into that. But if it tips to that place where now everything just feels threatening and menacing and like I’m going to be undone by any one of these things, then it’s because I’m perceiving things or things actually are, that’s one of the distinctions to make, perceiving where things are. They’re too dangerous. There’s something I need to attend to there. And so that becomes really important and making that distinction is critical.
But to the first thing that you said about …..[the ability to kind of go from what’s going on subconsciously to kind of bring it into conscious mind] I wanted to respond to that because really all wellness is the ability to be conscious about our own selves and our own experience of things. And so when things are not conscious, we can’t do anything with it. And so they kind of drive us from behind.
That connects with what you said about, it kind of pushes us, right. It’s always being pushed, but that connects with the thing you were saying about being grown up and you know, that we have a child who wants someone to tell us what to do. I actually want to put that in a slightly different frame.
Because a resilient child – a child who has people to turn to, and this is where we know it comes from – a resilient child is going to function exactly like that. They’re going to do it.
I remember I came home from school one day and people had been picking on me because I was this redheaded, pancake freckled little girl in a brown skin, black haired culture and they’d been teasing me mercilessly, and I came home just crying and crying and crying. And I went in, my dad was there, and he picked me up and scooped me into his lap, and, and he said, Carmen, what happened? I told him my terrible tale, you know, whoa, of my day at school. I was, I think, seven or eight at the time. And he held me, and he dried my tears, and he said, well, honey, they’re just jealous of you.
Well, I stopped crying because I had no place to put this new concept. What do you mean? They’re just jealous of me. And, he said, well, you know, they’re jealous, they don’t match like you do. Like some of your friends have brown eyes and black hair or blue eyes and blonde hair, but you just match like everything, your skin and your eyes and your hair. It all just matches just beautifully.
And I just thought. I was a million bucks after that conversation with my dad. I went back to the school the next day. They started teasing me again and I just said, well, you’re just jealous because you don’t match. Never bothered me again after that. Like you could have said anything you wanted to about my freckles or my red hair, and it wouldn’t have bothered me.
So resilience, right? That comes, that child, that secure child likeness of being able to go, this is overwhelming, or this is upsetting. Who can I turn to? And then being strengthened by that to go back into that situation and take action, that’s resilience in a nutshell. And so I think if we, if there is that kind of child likeness, I don’t think we’re actually needing to be adults.
We’re actually just needing to be healthy, secure children that know who to turn to. I don’t think there’s that much difference there.
JAY: And is that comes back to your point before about having that supportive network of people who will kind of play back to you how awesome you are.
CARMEN: Cause it’s really hard to do that for yourself sometimes or just that you’re not alone. Like that’s one of those perceptions that if I’m in a hard circumstance and perceive myself as alone, it’s way more stressful than if I perceive myself as having support and resources.
JAY: One of the things that often comes up in our masterminds is people say, I didn’t necessarily get the answer to my question, but it’s really nice to know that other people were facing similar challenges.
CARMEN: Right, right.
JAY: I wanted to ask you about personality and how much that comes into everything you’ve just been saying about how the brain kind of works, because the brain is the brain, right? But how much does personality impact your ability to implement some of these notions?
CARMEN: Oh, I love it.
JAY: Or is that too big a topic?
CARMEN: No, it’s not too big, but like, I’ll just do a quick contrast of between personality and temperament.
So temperament is just sort of what we’re born into the world with. Anybody who’s had children knows that the way they come into the world is just who they are. We don’t pick that. But then personality sort of gets shaped, so it’s a temperament that’s shaped by nurturing and experiences over time.
What we know when it comes to this stuff about attachment and resilience is that it has nothing to do with personality or temperament.
Yeah, it’s human. And so whether if I came into the world sort of as a slightly anxious child, and I had parents who helped me face my fears and who helped me feel like I could take those things on and that I was still going to be okay, then my temperament isn’t going to be what dictates where I go from there. It was with the help that I received.
If I came into the world as a perpetually happy, bouncy person who had no idea how to handle really, really difficult things, and I have somebody then who’s there in those moments where things are really difficult, the same thing happens.
So it’s really, do I have people that help me? In those moments, with what I need versus who I am or my personality, in a particular way.
JAY: Love that. I don’t know if that came out as clearly as I meant it to. No, it came out perfectly. Do I have people who will help me in those moments? I mean, that’s just classic, and of course it’s why people seek out, you know, a coach for business or a coach for life or a therapist. Or they go see a friend or their sister, someone they can talk to who knows them intimately, all of those things, isn’t it? It makes you realize, you know, talking it out .
And then I’m curious, is there a kind of a female-male sway on that, on be open to doing that?
CARMEN: No, that’s another fascinating thing, is that the need for that is no different between genders. It really is a human, universal, unifying thing is that we all need that same thing. Now that might look differently in different cultures, or it might look different, have a different face when we’re talking about genders, but the need for that kind of connection is where our resilience is going to come from always.
JAY: First and foremost, it’s back to what we were talking about earlier, though, about, like, you know, just get on with it. And I just, it’s kind of an interesting, it always catches up with us at some point. Oh, yeah. And that’s why I’m glad we at least touched on it. Because, you know, these misconceptions, I think, can keep people in their, in their own cave. When really it’s okay to reach out whatever you’re coming from.
Well, we’ve reached the end of our time so I’m just going to jump to my in a nutshell question: what would you say is your positive superpower for rising resilient for yourself as well as your clients.
CARMEN: I think it’s this. So there’s a I always like the Star Trek series in the Star Trek Next Generation series in particular. So the captain of the Starship, Jean Luc Picard, whenever there’d be like this crisis moment and there’d be incoming torpedoes and explosions happening all over and everybody’s getting thrown across the ship, right? He would take his chief staff, you know, all the whole the the the main leaders of the ship and they would go into his ready room and he would put his hands on the table and he would say, I want options.
Yes. And that image is my superpower right there because that’s what I do. It’s like, all right, everything’s falling apart. What are my options? They might not be great options, but as long as I have options, there’s something that I can do. And so that’s, I would have to say in my entire life, that was probably my resilient superpower.
JAY: That’s brilliant. I would probably be there with you as well, because I’ve always felt options give you, when I said control, it gives you a sense of, I’m able to take action.
CARMEN: Agency.
JAY: Yeah, absolutely. So I love that. And I’m a massive Star Trek fan also, so I definitely know what you’re talking about. I’d love to be able to run a business that way. Yes, but actually that’s what we did when we were first coaching together was like, okay, so let’s look at what are the options, you know, what are we solving for and all of those things to dive in. And I think that’s where it comes back to business as well.
We’ve talked a lot about life and about life experiences, but it’s the same in business. It’s like when you don’t know which way to turn, we say let’s identify the root cause, the situation, the constraints, and brainstorm the options and see which is the best one to take forward, the most likely of success, then go for it – mobilize.
CARMEN: Make it so, Number One.
JAY: Hey, it’s been an absolute pleasure. I’m so glad that I’m able to grab some of your time for this.
CARMEN: Thank you very much for inviting me.
JAY: You’re welcome. I enjoyed that conversation. I think we could probably spend another couple of hours diving into some of this. Such a wealth of knowledge and how it applies to entrepreneurship is great.
CARMEN: Cool. Well, thanks for including me. I feel very honored.
JAY: Well, I’m honored to have you.
CARMEN:  Thank you Jay
Carmen’s Ultimate Brain Reset course is available as a great starting point for rising resilient. Special offer $297
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Also mentioned:
- Reclaim Life Non-Profit
- Lifegrowth Psychological Services
