Do you, did you have a wonderful time?
Well, her and Diana, her, they've been better.
Um, you know, the director of open the eyes and, and Laura are getting
together and talking and stuff.
So that's, you know, the green goat isn't even getting away with that.
That's fair.
That's legit.
Yeah.
So Diana's excited and talking to her and, and, uh, yeah, it's just been a,
it's been an awesome few weeks and a lot of the awesomeness of the last few weeks
is thanks to you.
Oh, there we go.
I'm like, what the heck?
My finger is wake up, wake up finger.
Uh, anyway, sorry.
Um, so, uh, Kare Jean Wilson, um, we're going to be talking about
neurodivergent entrepreneurs, uh, leadership development.
Um, how do you define a neurodivergent entrepreneur?
So I define them as neuro spicy only because divergence shows that they are
different or somehow divergent from normal.
And, uh, the only constant that I know of in life is that there is no constant.
So this idea of normal doesn't really work for me.
Uh, but I, I was confused because I don't, I am neuro spicy and I don't know
that I ever, I don't feel like I know neuro typical, like I don't know that I
know anybody who falls in that category.
So started asking therapists about it.
And I was like, please explain this to me because I need to, I need to understand,
right?
They're like, well, imagine humanity is a beautiful rainbow, right?
So neuro typical is like the three people standing at the very top of the
rainbow and from there it gets spicier.
And I thought, Oh, well, that feels very validating.
Thank you very much.
So why do we build so much of our culture and our communities around
this neuro typical concept?
And the idea is because the neuro typical brain continues to be
different, continues along processes.
It's really good at just getting up and doing the same thing every day.
Those of us who are spicy who consistencies an entire learning curve.
You know?
Yeah.
Um, so we have to build our society around people who can consistently do
things.
So the rest of us can run around like crazy people innovating.
I love that.
Um, you know, when there's the atypical and then there's those who are trying
so hard to conform, you know, to that.
I was that guy for years that was so scared of my natural self, that I buried it.
I didn't really know how to access it.
I didn't want to accept it.
I wanted to just fit in.
And I wasn't getting very great results in life.
I wasn't feeling very good.
And I couldn't really understand why.
I thought it was because I wasn't enough, I wasn't conformed enough.
So I love what you're doing.
So leadership development for neuro-version entrepreneurs.
We're going to dive into that even further after we dive into your vision.
Real quick, what are three books or resources that you'd recommend for visionaries?
I absolutely encourage you to read The Oz Principle.
It's fantastic.
It's all about accountability.
And it puts it in the Wizard of Oz context, so way more fun than regular books.
Oddly enough, I would encourage you to read Alice in Wonderland, which technically is
not a leadership book.
But tell me- Off with your head.
She's good.
Never mind.
Let's go.
Tell me that doesn't sound like Bosses, you know, where everybody plays so well behaved
around them.
And then as soon as they're gone, they're like this person.
Yeah, there's so many points in that book.
And a third one.
Okay, so a pattern language.
Again, also not a leadership book specifically.
It is actually a book about building and construction, but it is the pattern of human development
over the last 3000 years, the compositive study.
And it will really just help you understand human being better.
Wow.
Good.
Well, I think everybody listening just now just got three brand new books on their list
that haven't been recommended by their entrepreneur leader.
So I love it.
Very cool.
And I'm going to add one more that you probably haven't had on your list, which is, oh, the
places you'll go while Dr. Seuss.
Another leadership book.
So with that said, we're going to dive into the break and we will be right back and dive
right into Karrie Jean Wilson's vision.
All right.
Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host.
We will be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
Hey what's up and welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of First Class Business.
And I'm so excited to have Cara Jean Wilson on stage today.
It's going to be fun.
I'm going to reserve a little bit of her bio for when I bring her on stage because she's
actually become a dear friend over the last month.
And don't get me wrong.
I like the people who come on our show.
In fact, I tend to strive as hard as I can to love everybody in life.
That can make it hard for people to appreciate my referral sometimes because I see greatness
in everybody.
But like Cara Jean Wilson takes it to another, another, another level.
Her ability to listen, her ability to intentionally care for what you're up to, her ability to
connect you to the right people.
Like visionaries, if there's one like real resource that you want over all other things,
it's people.
People get things done.
People help you build people that like the right, the good people.
She's the good people.
So she's the type of person that you absolutely want to get to know.
She's always going to come to bat for you.
So I've already seen that many, many times over the course of a month.
And with how, you know, how productive we both are, how many things we have going on.
It's just, it's such a blessing to have her in my life already.
So anyway, I got, I got to move into these sponsors though, and to bring her on stage
for time at the vision.
So sponsors, these are also two people who are extremely great givers and great leaders.
The Law Spot with Melissa Gray.
I was so worried about bringing a lawyer on the show because I don't, I don't like how
contentious lawyers can be.
Here comes Melissa with Law Doesn't Have to be Complicated.
Okay.
She's nice enough.
She's not just nice enough.
She's like the nicest.
And she's also very good at the lawyer thing, you know, like being direct and making sure
that you understand what it is that you need.
And she's going to go to bat for you.
I'm going to stop there and just say, if you're, if you don't have legal counsel, it's time
to interview somebody, make sure that you have your wise stewardship in place.
You got somebody to protect you.
Don't go through the $20,000 trademark battle that I went through when I was at Restaurant
Connect.
Don't just let Apple patent your software and not do anything about it.
Again, been there.
You know, you get a hot, you get a demand letter for somebody who owes you $18,000.
Don't just walk away from it.
Nevermind.
You know, like, like get somebody to help.
Directional advisors.
Franklin Parker of Directional Advisors has been so awesome to work with.
It's kind of funny.
So most of these are clients, by the way.
And I used to tell myself, I'm not going to work with lawyers and I'm not going to work
with financial advisors.
Those are my two, like, no, like those people, they tend to just, yeah.
Franklin Parker and Melissa Gray have been absolutely phenomenal leaders with our team.
And what that does is that shows me that they do have the capacity to scale because of how
well they care for the people who are in their circles.
You know, if you want to find somebody who's going to scale, you got to find somebody who's
an amazing leader.
Franklin's just that.
He's also wrote books on the topics of financial advisors.
He's also won awards for it.
I'm not going to spoil those.
You can find those on his website as we continue to build out his brand.
But he's also been selected to be one of two potential candidates for the, excuse me, for
the CFA Institute, which is kind of like the hall of fame for financial advisors.
I'm pretty certain he's going to get it.
They have 685,000 followers on LinkedIn.
And if that doesn't tell you a lot about how good he is at what he does, just know that
he was also managing finances for Abiliter.
So we'll diverge to the Water Project at this point.
The Water Project.
I won't rock this mic without talking about a cause that I care about in this world because
that's really what this is all about.
There's 8 billion people to help in this world.
I love how the Water Project is dedicating their time and their resources to show us
who doesn't even have access to clean drinking water so that we can contribute to that.
And you get to see the outcome of these projects when you do contribute.
So you get to see if they build a sand dam or borehole well.
It works a lot like Kickstarter.
So if you're not in a position to give financially to one of these resources, then my request
is to just share this with somebody.
Somebody who might be able to.
When we have so many wonderful things in life, I'm just not a big fan of burying our head
in the sand.
You know, you don't know.
When you share this with somebody, they might give $10,000 to something like this.
And no, you can't take direct credit for giving the $10,000, but you should take direct credit
for taking time to share it.
It should be a good feeling for you and I appreciate you.
If you have any cause that you'd like us to support, just drop that cause in the comments.
Give us the opportunity to support what you found in the world.
Something that draws your attention and excites you to be more than just whatever your role
is in society.
So without further ado, I'm gonna bring Kara Jean Wilson on stage.
Kara, welcome in.
Thank you so much for being here today.
I am so excited.
I love everything you were just saying.
I specifically caught on Never Say Never.
Oh, yes.
I'm never gonna work with lawyers.
I'm never gonna work with Never Say Never.
That is one lesson I am learning over and over and over.
Correct.
I also, I'm not a big fan of language that boxes me in.
I found myself and I was like, well, one, I don't work with lawyers because man, they
could roast me in a herpy, you know, like if they don't like what I'm doing, you know.
And so anyway, back to you.
You're the only brand I know of that is your brand is all about you, yet not.
That is so cool, right?
Taking care of business and you just, but you, I've met so many people.
Okay.
Tony Robbins does a good job of being there for people.
But most, most individuals who have created a brand around their own name and their own
identity also tend to talk all about themselves and do things all about themselves.
And you've done this awesome job of honoring who you are while learning how to just show
up for people holistically.
Like you are here for people.
How do you do that?
Because I've been there, I guess is the easiest.
So much failure, so much failure.
What is my unique and magical skills?
I'm neuro spicy and I've gone through, I'm a failure expert.
I'm just really good at it.
That's awesome.
I appreciate everybody else's failures.
Yes.
I love that.
You know, it's so hard to work and, and accept the greatness of success when you're trying
to maneuver through avoiding your failures and not talking about those, you know, it's
like a room of lasers and you're getting your team to go through them and you won't really
talk about it.
Like, yeah, no, that's, that's so cool.
You just hit it and address it head on.
So what's your vision for those that you serve?
My ultimate vision is to unwrite hustle culture or rewrite what I call the Kara culture, right?
Following the Kara method.
Think about how popular lean and scrum and assessments like disk and bank have been.
And the thing that sets them so magically apart from everyone else is that like lean
is positive productivity.
How can you eliminate things from people's workload rather than giving them more?
Scrum is all about positive product management, project management, right?
Instead of focusing on what they're not doing, let's work on what they are doing.
Disk and bank are all positive personality assessments.
Hey, did you know this about yourself?
Did you know you could change other things?
Positivity.
We know, we know that hustle culture kills.
We have the wellness statistics to show it.
We have the suicide rates to show it.
We have the men's health notes to show it.
We have the women's health notes to show it.
The BIPOC community, the minorities, hustle culture where you just work to work so you
look like you're working.
I'm over it.
Yeah.
It doesn't work.
The non-nurturing quote that I'm a big fan of for that is busy as broke.
You know, and on the flip side of that, so I'm reading Tribal Leadership right now.
Phenomenal, phenomenal book.
And in it, they're right now where I'm at now, they're talking about how they designed
the school systems based on the factory systems because the kids were in the factories and
working.
Right?
And so they designed a system where ding the bell rings, you do this.
Ding the bell rings, you do this.
And then it created this society of people who are people pleasing, that they want to
be the ones who are considered the good ones, that don't mess up, that conform.
And I'm like, oh man, this book is starting to hurt more and more as you read it.
But it's important to address because if something like that hurts, you're starting to feel like,
hey, you're talking about me and nothing feels good.
And maybe there's something below the surface and he's dressed.
Yeah.
And that's first class businesses.
The world class, the first class businesses put people first.
Not just in words, but they actively look for ways to imply it.
And that's what I'm looking for, for my clients, whether it's an individual as a leader, so
they can have that alignment in their life.
I don't talk about work-life balance because that's not a real thing, but alignment is
real.
And so we can do alignment for individuals.
We can also work on alignment for entire companies.
It's amazing if you stop and listen, how much your team will innovate your business for
you.
I love that.
So we're going to take a little healthy debate on that.
The work-life balance aspects.
I think sometimes people assume balance means equal.
And just like first class business, some people, oh, he wants to be better than everybody else.
No, I used to want to.
I used to have that super strong gross addiction where I was stuck, but not strong to my best
self.
I want to provide the best type of service to others.
That's what first class business is all about.
So I'm glad you caught that.
The work-life balance, I love the analogy of plate spinners because with the plate spinners,
you might have 20 plates going, you have one persistent plate that needs more attention
than the others.
Like a kid who's going through a drug addiction or maybe your marriage is starting to fall
apart and you just spend more time on that.
And so I would call that process of prioritizing what's most important.
I'd still call work-life balance in my humble opinion, but feel free to divert from that.
What do you see on that?
I love bringing that awareness in.
So a hundred percent balance is not equal.
Balance is leveling things so that you don't fall over.
That's the definition, right?
But when we talk about work-life balance, we are talking about making sure you have
enough of each.
And if your work is going to take up eight hours of your day, then ideally you have eight
hours for your life and eight hours to sleep, right?
Conceptually, that is a balance.
So you don't fall over.
You still rest.
You still have fun.
You still have play.
You still have work.
Work-life expands to 10 hours a day, 16.
I've had coaches that say, give me, I'll let you have four hours with your family and
you can give me the rest of your time so we can make you successful.
That's not balanced.
Right.
Not balanced.
So I talk about alignment because the converse trying to balance grains of sand against an
entire beach, well, it's never going to work, but you can align those.
You can align your work within your life.
And then when it changes, when it innovates, when it adapts, you don't have to rebalance.
You just follow the alignment.
Right.
I love that.
And sometimes in life we have an opportunity to run a marathon, right?
But if you're running marathons daily, right?
Like you got to listen to your body, you know, your heart, your mind.
And you got to know you well enough to know what's appropriate for your stage of life
in my opinion.
Now you talk about the unhustle.
I love that.
I like that exact quote.
Let's see who you said.
Unwriting the hustle culture.
You know, it's so hard with Instagram, right?
And with Facebook and the highlight reels and it looks like go, go, go, or it looks
like everybody's always winning.
You know, I think that's one of the greatest contributors to that feeling like, oh my gosh,
like I got to do what everybody else is doing.
You know, maybe I'm wrong on that being one of the greater contributors.
What else is contributing to our need to feel like we have to run faster than we're able?
I think that there are so many contributing factors, epigenetics, you know, you know,
but how you can get this.
Sorry.
Yeah.
You're good.
That's like Tourette's with me.
I just, since I started learning about epigenetics, now it comes up everywhere.
But it really, epigenetics is, it's, you know, we know our nature, how we came, right?
There are natural traits, but what you nurture changes things.
So that's what epigenetics is.
It's not what you come with.
It's what you do with.
And I think that we came with this hustle culture baked in for a while now and we find
ways to validate things in our life.
Our brains are just really good at that, whether it's good things or bad things.
You kind of have to control which one you're validating because your brain's just really
good at it.
And what I do know is that.
So one of the things that my clients say regularly is everyone is noticing how much I'm doing.
Why do I feel like I'm not doing so much?
And I said, well, that's the difference when you're productive versus busy.
Everyone can tell that you're being productive, but productive doesn't mean that you are hustling.
Doesn't mean you were rushing.
Hustling means that you're working with people and leaders hashtag leadership math, right?
If I work with you, we can do twice as much in the same amount of time, literally.
Yes, I love that.
And you said people can tell when you're productive.
The best clients can also tell when you're busy.
Like they can also tell when you're trying too hard and it's a repellent from what's
going on.
You know, like they know, like, oh my gosh, like I don't even subconsciously.
That will tell them no.
He's too busy.
I can't reach out to him.
I don't want to stress him or her.
I get to play a color commentator in this.
And it's fun because sometimes you sound like the smarter one.
She's a smarter one.
Like this is so easy to see.
You said control what you validate.
And I was like, oh, what you mean by that is master, right?
Master, become a master of what you validate.
One area of visionaries where I see so many visionaries fall short on this and it's kind
of it can be scary to address though is when you're when you're trying to validate how
valuable your product is and somebody gives you negative feedback.
There's so many entrepreneurs who go, oh, we are the first person we've heard that from,
you know, and you defend it.
You're like, oh, no, that's the first time I've ever heard that.
Or, you know, oh, nobody else ever felt that way before.
You know, how everybody felt?
No, no, you don't.
You know, Harvard Business Review on Yelp for every one negative review got 26 people
didn't speak up.
That was before COVID.
Oh, but everybody put a mask on.
But your earphones in.
Now nobody tells you, you know, like, like what's going on.
You have to be willing to look at it.
And that's that to me is one of the greatest areas of of, you know, we don't need to get
scared of any type of feedback that we have.
Not a for centred on who we are.
How can leaders develop that skill set, Karygene, where they can they can have enough self-confidence
to be able to or whatever else they need and part of that formula to be able to receive
feedback and know that it's going to drive better results from them rather than hide
from it.
Simple answer practice.
I mean, simple answer.
Not so easy.
How do you practice that?
So emotional, so I would lean into emotional intelligence and asking for feedback.
Get OK.
I say it this way.
So in emotional intelligence, one of the greatest things, one of the greatest human hacks you
learn is that it's really not about you.
Now, we've heard that in multiple places everywhere.
But when you realize that each person is almost exactly the same, except that our experiences
are so completely different that that changes how it's like flavors in a soup, a small change
in the seasoning changes the entire soup.
Right.
So what is right for somebody else when they are giving you feedback is one hundred percent
right and valid for them.
Period.
That is it.
Done.
But just because they're right does not mean that you are wrong.
It's not how it works, because what that just because it's right for them does not mean
that it's right for me.
So when someone gives you feedback, here's the best thing to practice.
Thank you so much for letting me know that.
Say it with me, friends.
Thank you.
Literally.
And then pro tip, if you want to take it so that this becomes something that gets more
in your life and easier, you say thank you, say more, ask a few questions, get some specifics,
figure out one thing in everything that they said that you genuinely feel you could, in
fact, impact or work on because they literally just gave you the keys to the kingdom, all
the things that they want you to do to make their life easier.
If you can pick one and say thank you so much for all of that feedback.
You know, I heard you say that I'm just not communicating as quickly as you would like.
So you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure that I'm getting back to you
within 24 hours.
Is that enough time?
Excellent.
If I don't, I encourage you to remind me that I made this commitment to you.
Thank you so much for letting me know.
I love that.
I love that to add to that framework just a tiny bit.
When you're asking for feedback, one of the things that you can also add to that is making
sure to say, you know, one, I'm going to love the feedback that you give.
I promise because people are scared to give it.
They don't want to get attacked.
They want to hurt you.
And two, tell me more about that.
That question of actually like digging deeper.
Tell me more about that is not a question, but is one of the most important statements
to support any question that you ever ask somebody.
So when you're diving deeper, now they know they have permission to go into the real depths
of what they may have wanted to say.
We had a branding specialist that told us that she hated the hero concept of our brand
and that we needed to move on from it.
It was almost her words.
It was very much her direction with the branding idea.
Sometimes advisors give us feedback that isn't aligned with what we do, even though they
are the expert.
And granted, she is.
She's very good at branding.
The key, I could have been better though at validating the great things that she did come
up with in that process.
The diplomacy skills, what you said, like being able to validate what she did give to
us while honoring and standing for the brand that we knew that part of our brand wasn't
going anywhere and it wasn't going away.
That's also something that I love at least in the beginning.
It's practice, practice, practice, practice.
We've got to do that.
Well said.
What's your vision for you, Cara Jean?
I have an audacious goal, which I love to talk about.
So my husband, Sun and I are welcome to Wham.
This is our Wilson Adventure Mobile and we plan to tour the US to do research and development
on eco villages because we want to buy land and build our own community.
We want to build an entire eco village around a STEAM university.
So science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, and medicine.
You got the magic school bus.
Yes.
I love this.
We want to build a physical magical school bus at a site.
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
That is so cool.
It fits with the hair.
You get the trophy.
Yes, you get.
Oh my goodness.
That's amazing.
Okay.
So when, when do I get on?
The original plan.
Well, so interestingly enough, we're about two years ahead of schedule.
So when we first started planning this, my husband and I prior to having a kid, we thought,
you know, 2025, we're going to get a trailer in 2025.
We ought to be just about done with potty training about then, and then we'll launch.
So we're actually looking at either this summer or next summer.
Okay.
Ms. Frizzle will call me when this happens.
Okay.
Oh, it'll be all over.
Just start watching y'all for Wham social media, because we're going to share the entire
audacious experience with you.
Yes.
That is so cool.
You get to see the mess in all.
I love it.
We're going to dive from one of the most magical statements I've ever heard on the show into
the darkest of questions that I ask.
And so, so yeah, jarring move.
I don't even know how to make this transition.
So I'll just own that segue.
There you go.
Oh, segue.
Right.
So what is the worst leadership experience you've ever witnessed, seen or had or done?
Hmm.
Golly, there's just so many to choose from.
Is that a terrible thing to say?
Well, you're in leadership development here.
Nobody's shocked here.
Okay.
Nobody.
Probably.
You live in the world.
Facts.
Humaning.
Hmm.
Man.
So for me, the worst thing to see is the snowball effect.
So you know when you are working in a company and you start to notice something's going
sideways.
You know, you're in operations, you're doing the things you're like, ah, this isn't coming
from us.
This is a fall down problem and I can even pinpoint where, right?
So we're growing and our top is not and if we don't have executive presidents at operations,
we're going to lose some brand.
Right?
And so you mention it.
So you actually get up the courage to go to somebody and be like, hey, so you said that
it's really important for you to be connected with your operations and you're not.
I think we ought to deal with this.
And they go, I don't think it's really that big of a problem.
It's your business.
You do you.
Right.
And then you follow along for a few years and you start to see those Swiss cheese holes
get bigger and bigger.
And you're like, OK, no, but I have to say it again.
OK, but no, really, really.
So if we want a foundation of trust, we're really going to need to build that trust.
And executive presence is huge for that.
So if you're not available, we're going to have to find a way to make someone who can
have that clout available so that we can go help people.
Right.
We need to.
It's hard.
And then we had a pandemic and they said, no, I really don't think that that's necessary
at all.
And you can watch as a company with absolutely the right people, the right intent, the right
framework, the right everything starts to no longer want just alignment.
They start looking for agreement because we just got to get through.
We just got to get through.
And once we get through, then how many of us as entrepreneurs or leaders or human beings
have said when I have, then I can't.
Rather than just canning now.
And when I when you watch that unfold over years with a corporation, it's heartbreaking
because you absolutely love the people involved.
You know, their intent is one hundred and twenty percent the right intent.
But our intent and our behaviors, if we don't align those whole things, those sideburns
so fast.
You know, everybody is listening.
Tribal Leadership is one of the absolute most well researched books on the planet.
I get it is that it is that good and it is that amazing.
And you just dissected one of those again, one of those sections I was listening to last
night about people who say when I have, then I can versus the tribal shift.
You know, the next magical level of growth and leadership and success comes when you
say now, right.
Now I can write you.
It's not based on an external contingent.
It's based on the average.
I thought you were describing marriage for a while while you're talking about that, the
the challenges, right.
Relationships are all exactly the same, but different.
Yep.
Relationships.
That's right.
So I'm grateful for that.
And yeah, we've you know, if you've been lucky enough to work in a great culture, you know,
with people who you care about and love a lot of times it comes down to our ability
or inability rather to communicate, right.
To listen, to understand people that deteriorates far too many great relationships on the flip
side, if you're stuck in an environment where that is the cultural norm and desired standard
and you don't have the tribal leadership book skills of languages of transitioning those,
which I did not when I was in such a culture, you're you know, it's sometimes best to change
environments completely and realize you got to find people who understand the value of
we can now and start fresh with with those types of people.
So do you want to talk about that a little bit further?
Do you want to dive into the best leadership experience?
Well, so just a little because I love that.
I love and that's part of it really ties in everything we were saying before, right.
So this hustle culture, it used to be we had this hustle culture.
And if people cared about people, the staff really appreciate that.
They were like, wow, this is a great place to work.
The new workforce expects it.
They're coming in with some emotional intelligence.
And if you have less than them, they're like, I'll go somewhere else.
But as a neuro spicy, we need it.
We need that safety so that we can innovate and the neuro spicy will they will come up,
they will make connections that you're like, I never.
But now that you have to create that space to get that result.
Oh, well said.
Oh, my gosh.
Let's end it right there.
So now let's keep going.
I'm going to binge drink out of your fountain.
So what's your best leadership experience look like?
There's also a lot of really good ones of those two.
OK, so shameless plug, go to empathy circle.com.
You're welcome.
The empathy circle facilitator training is currently free.
And here is a community that has Edwin Rush has been building this community for decades.
And he is relentless in his desire to get empathy and empathetic skills into the hands
of the of the world.
In this, yes, in this, it recently there has been an explosion within the community.
So he him and his brother purchased an old seminary college in Santa Barbara, California,
and they are renovating it to make it a physical center of empathy.
And y'all I'm talking like hooking up the trees so they sing permaculture for the land
discussions about what does empathy look like in furniture, in paint, in quiet rooms and
loud rooms and art.
And it's incredible.
And it's exploded the movement.
And when you have these massive scaling experiences, and I know any business person out there who
has ever scaled knows this experience, it can be really hard to stay on top of that
wave and not get turned up into the middle of it, to really direct it and write it where
you want it to go.
And because Edwin has baked empathy and his empathy practice into his community as a way
of handling problems, it is scaling beautifully and people feel that they are part of a movement
rather than making a movement or lifting a movement or working for a movement.
They're a part of it.
And it's an and that kind of leadership where even when you are exhausted and tired and
absolutely overworked, the people around you still feel that they are a part of it and
they want more.
They want to help more.
They want to take more off your plate.
Oh, I just want to hug those leaders, period.
That's hard to do.
We all get hangry.
We all have moments and we're sleep deprived or we're hangry.
And those are truly the true tests of character as a leader.
It's definitely still something that I struggle with and want to champion to get better.
That's big and important to me.
What would you what are some of the frameworks or things that somebody can do to step into
their best leadership and their worst moments?
When they know that training that is the same as you mentioned shameless plug.
Teach me about that.
What's the connection?
So I am absolutely one of the volunteers who support I help.
I help them with the summits that they're running right now.
I like to just support in general.
I am excited to get to go down and be on the site and do another training.
I'm certified as a facilitator myself and I'm shameless in promoting them because the
skill what I learned, the best thing for me that I learned that I literally use every
day and twice on Saturdays with my toddler.
No joke.
If you're a parent, run faster to that site and sign up yesterday.
But if you're in leadership and you can train yourself to reflect what somebody says to
you rather than reacting, rather than responding, rather than asking before any of that, if
you can train yourself simply to say, so what I heard you say is this.
It changes everything in every conversation.
It allows you to meet them where they are.
You get to experience what they are saying from your own mouth.
And if they say something that irritates you, because that happens a lot, it buys you time
to process your own emotions and be like, okay, settle, settle, let the spiciness cool
down and then respond after you've reflected.
That one skill has elevated my ability to lead people exponentially.
I love that.
I would add one layer in between there.
I love it.
You start reacting like an animal, responding like a human and just quickly saying, oh,
I heard you.
Let me tell you what I feel.
The one before the reflection, to buy yourself even more time is still that statement for
me of tell me more about that.
Can you help me understand what you mean by that?
That can also be helpful, but the reflection game is a game actually in therapy.
They call it passing the ball.
That passing the ball is once somebody has said what they need to say, they give you
the ball and then you take that and you say, now here's what I heard.
You say, you said all of our money is going to my business and taxes.
You give the ball back and they say, no, it's not what I said at all.
I said, I just want to go out with my friends once in a while.
Then you can take it again.
It's a really interesting game and I haven't used it in a while because my diplomacy is
taken off to new levels where we don't need it as much, but it is one of those systems
that I use to train my entrepreneurs on, okay, wait, here's where the misconstruing is happening
between you and such and such a team member.
I love that reflection aspect though.
That is very much passing the ball.
It's a new way to look at it that's not as childish, which can be good for people who
are less into, oh, I don't have a kid that's 12, 10, eight and three.
If you do have a toddler and I know if you do, you know how they get, and let's be honest,
let's be of teammates and they get that idea fixated in their head and they're like, I
want this thing.
I want this thing.
And you're like, Hey, I hear you want this thing.
They're like, yeah, I want this thing.
You're like, what's your favorite thing about that thing?
And they're like, Oh, I love this part of you.
Like, Oh, I heard that you love this part of it.
They're like, yeah.
What else do you love about it?
Oh, I love this thing.
And by the third or fourth, what else?
They've already moved on to something else.
Yes.
That's so cool.
I'm using that.
I needed that the other day.
It took me about five minutes longer than it should have.
And it was great.
I mean, I feel like a grandpa this time, you know, fourth child, like, you know, you kind
of learn some things for first children, you know, but that, but it took me a while.
That would have been that much faster.
That's so cool.
So yeah, I'm using that.
Well done.
Solve the problems in my life.
So all in one session.
But speaking of, if this was the absolute last time that we had the opportunity to share
a powerful lesson, there's no other chance after this, Kara.
What powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your experience?
Try and do these without getting too emotional, but I get kind of emotional as I go into this
space.
I appreciate that.
You matter.
Your choices matter more than you're even aware.
And the things that you've been told make you broken or damaged or divergent are in
fact superpowers that you can leverage to do your best.
And if there are things that you don't like about yourself, you can change because while
the past shaped you, it does not get to define you.
And you've already survived 100% of your worst days and thrived 100% of your best days.
And there are more best days coming.
I'm going to make you dive deeper.
Where does the emotion come from on this?
I'm not going to make you, but I would like to.
No, I love to share the story.
So warning to everyone watching suicide.
We're going to talk about suicide.
Yeah.
So a big part of what put me on my path.
Now I was already on my path sort of at that time, but the thing that dropped the gauntlet
in my life was my brother's suicide.
And it is the story of hustle culture that we all know.
Such a beautiful, happy human being masked, right?
That presents is so happy and joyful all of the time struggling with unseen demons like
anxiety and depression and neuro spicy divergences.
In a position of power and growing through success within companies, getting more and
more leadership put into their lap because they're so good at it.
But also that comes with chronic stressors and chronic stressors on top of invisible
diseases can make you feel completely uncapable.
And it can cost lives.
We know this from the statistics around suicide.
My brother is one, it's not even a drop in a bucket full of these experiences.
And if people really knew, if they really knew how much they mattered, how connected
they in fact were to everyone around them and how they didn't have to hurt all of the
time, my world would be better.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
All of our worlds would be better if we could also make, you know, more leaders can make
space for shining light on darkness, not falling into it.
So I honor that.
I'm grateful for you for being, being willing to dive into the, you know, the depth of what
you mean by that.
And that is one of those elements of life that if there are too many people out there
who don't know that they matter, that don't know that they belong.
And when we can activate those people, in fact, I hope you, have you met Andrew Sosin
or did you connect me by chance to him?
Why do I know that name?
Recovery Unplugged.
He's got a program that, and it's three of his executives out of his 400 plus team members,
they have been through his addiction recovery program.
Right.
And they've gotten to the point where, you know, they're now very functional, high functioning
executives that are, have families, you know, that are crushing it in life.
And his program's absolutely genius.
I will connect you to.
Yes, I already have two connections that I need to connect him to.
So yes, please, absolutely.
Okay, great.
That's exciting because what happens when that occurs, everybody, the visionaries who
are listening, when you take a chance on somebody because you're in a leadership capacity to
help transform their life by being a guide, by asking the right questions, by helping
them become a visionary of what they do.
What happens is you end up creating a very good monster.
You end up creating somebody who can produce results that does, that has everything to
gain because of how much they've lost.
And they usually have a trajectory, you know, in life that's just like a rocket ship.
So my other invitation and challenge to all you visionaries is instead of trying to hire,
you know, the picture perfect marketing and brander from Nike, no offense to you guys
who are crushing it in life, you know, but don't let the external factors be the guides
of who you need on your team and why you should bring people into your organization.
Time to study out what, how do I recognize the signs of somebody who internally has it
all and just hasn't had the opportunity to unlock that, be the person who unlocks that
for people.
And it'll be amazing what types of results you can drive together.
Thoughts on that?
This is going to be our last topic.
I was trying not to cry again because yes, I mean, that's really it though.
It is, you can continue in the world to follow the hustle culture and try and manage people
and figure out how to push them to results where you can lead people and you can align
around values and you can co-create innovations that will change the world.
I just got a great story the other day.
Often we think we want to be first, right?
First class business.
We want to be the number one.
But there is a really, really wealthy patent specialist who says, oh, no, you don't.
You want to be number two.
Let number one invest, let them learn and try and adjust.
And when you feel like they're number one, go look at what they do, innovate it and patent
it.
Number two is, oh, well in that point of view.
But it really goes to breaking down these concepts of hierarchy.
Just because somebody is a boss does not mean that they are not also a giant hot mess.
Just because you're an articulate coach doesn't mean that you're not a hot mess also.
In fact, I would argue if you don't have a hot mess, you're probably not doing things.
I agree.
My mouse pad, I've got a new life trick is a book that I'm working on or using as a reference.
I reference this book all the time.
And Dr. Peter Drucker in the Effective Executive says that people with tremendous strengths
always come with tremendous weaknesses.
And if you hire people based on the resume, you're going to find people who are mediocre.
If you're the picture perfect person, the candidate that's politically correct.
But if you want to have extreme successful results, you've got to be willing to make
room for the weaknesses of that individual as well, way ahead of his time in terms of
writing that coming up with that reality.
And me and Karajene are like, go, go.
Yes, yes.
So all of you out there too.
Enjoy visionaries, enjoy the opportunity to connect with Karajene.
We're going to put her action steps on the landing page.
That way you know what are the best resources you might turn to based on what circumstance
you're in.
In addition to that, if you have a question, feel free to drop it in the comments.
If you thought of somebody during this that you're like, man, I really wish they could
hear this, tag them.
Use that little ad symbol.
Tag them in it so they can hear it for themselves.
And one little life hack to help people get what you know they need is to then put the
timestamp.
That way they don't have to listen to the full interview.
They can go right to the source of what they want.
Also, if you're a visionary and you want to share your vision on this stage, in the top
right corner is a button that says be our guest.
We would love to have your vision on this stage as long as it's holistic, as long as
it's helping others.
You don't have to be Peter Drucker.
You don't have to be, let's see here, who else is on my desk right now?
The Arbanger Institute with leadership and self-deception.
You can be on the brink of starting something amazing.
That's what vision is all about.
It's not necessarily come to fruition.
But if you are the Arbanger Institute, by all means, we'd love to have you too.
So with that said, Kara, is there any particular final message you want to leave with people
or where you want people, where people should turn to next to get your support?
Oh, come join me on Kara Corner and Facebook.
I offer a lot of complimentary support in that space.
I absolutely believe that coaching is worth tens of thousands of dollars because you're
going to get hundreds of thousands of dollars results.
I also know that we just ended a pandemic, y'all, and not everybody has tens of thousands
of dollars to drop on it, but we all have problems.
Yeah, we do.
So come meet other people who have the same problem.
If you are a STEM leader, a neuro spicy leader, if you work in the STEM industry, if you want
to are an entrepreneur, multi-passion entrepreneur and want to be around other people who get
it, who aren't going to shame you for growing and learning and developing and in fact are
going to celebrate and support the things that you share.
Come share what you do in our corner so that we can be in your corner.
But Kara, I already have a coach.
Now if that's that, if that's that belief that goes to your mind, that is called eliminating
belief and it's not something to be scared of.
It's a reality that you're dealing with.
And I would invite you to look at successful people in the world and think, I wonder how
many coaches LeBron James has for all the things that he does.
I wonder how many coaches Elon Musk's has for all the things that he's doing.
I wonder if it's smart to have my spiritual coach who's broke be my financial coach or
my financial coach to be my team leader coach when all he's worried about is risk assessment
for my own money and his own money.
Maybe not the best leadership guy.
I mean, to go towards depends on everybody's personality, of course, but my invitation
to you is use the plus sign in life.
This person and this person, right?
This company and this company, this opportunity and this opportunity.
When you find people that align with your heart and your mind, run towards it.
Run towards Kara Jean Wilson.
She's amazing.
And we look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
Everybody have a fantastic rest of your day.
Take care.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.