Carrie Rickett, tell me about your vision.
Okay, so my vision is to help people who have been through some kind of trauma
to
feel less isolated and
more connected with people and to provide a little bit of
hope
that things can get better. Tell me more about that.
Sure, so
about 11 years ago, I was in a very bad car accident and
almost died and
as a result of that accident, I had a traumatic brain injury as well as a whole bunch of other injuries and
while my acute care was so absolutely amazing
and I mean they saved my life,
what I realized when I came out of the hospital was that I really did not have a
roadmap for
what to do next and
so I come from a management consulting background. I have worked with hundreds of companies and
part of the thing that I do with those companies is
organizational assessment. So I understand what my clients needs are and then figure out what the resources are
to
meet those needs and kind of put that puzzle all together and
when I got out of the hospital, there was no roadmap. There was no,
there was like, okay, you're good now. Go ahead.
And I wasn't, I wasn't good. I had no idea how to reinvent my life.
Whether or not I should be jumping right back into work or if I needed to
spend more time recovering and how all of this works
with my new life, right? I had just no clue and
so I started cobbling together
kind of my own way of
figuring all of this out and as I continued to do this, it became really important to me to
be able to share this information with other people and that is part of the reason that I wrote my book,
Trauma is a Catalyst,
so that I really could
make people feel less alone in their
recovery from trauma
and honestly, it doesn't matter what the trauma is
because all of us feel somewhat isolated when we have experienced trauma.
Because no one has experienced a trauma exactly like
another person.
But there are tools and resources available to help lots of people and if
those resources are readily available and
you know, advertised, if you will, then people can use those resources and feel less alone.
They can feel more connected in their stories and then feel hopeful about the future.
What would you say, Carrie, is your why of your vision? Why do you get out of bed and do this every day?
Because ultimately, I want people to have a different experience than I have.
I want people to feel
like they aren't alone.
I was so uniquely supported by my family and friends
throughout my recovery and yet I still felt alone because no one had experienced something like I did.
If I had known the resources were out there and available to me, like the Brain Injury Associations of America
and all the chapters that are throughout the states in the country or the trauma survivor networks
or
specialized trauma therapy or alternative therapies.
I mean, for me personally, acupuncture and meditation have done enormous amounts of good for me.
And so, my why is really sharing so that other people don't struggle as much as I did.
I can get behind that. Then how did you get started into all this? After your accident and injury,
what was the catalyst that launched you towards this direction?
Sure. So, when I got out of the hospital, I thought, oh, I should be able to just jump right back in.
I had been working for a management consulting firm at the time and I went back to work for about two weeks.
Then I realized that I actually could not do that. I couldn't physically manage.
I didn't have the same capacity right then as I had before.
So, what I had to do was figure out how to make my life work for me.
So, I started writing to process things and that writing turned into my book.
I started doing my own podcast, Transformational Trauma and Trauma and Trauma and Trauma and Trauma.
I started doing my own podcast, Transformational Trauma and Healing.
That it was so that I could bring either practitioners or other trauma survivors and share stories and resources for other people.
I kind of changed my approach to management consulting and made it a little more people-centered as opposed to business and process-centered.
Because every person that I interact with has their own story and has their own challenges that are impacted by those stories.
So, what can I do to give people a safe space to share that and not feel judged or alone in their story but to feel supported.
And to know that there is hope and there is a way forward.
It just may not be what you had pictured in your mind.
That's awesome.
To get to the more depth of what you do, if you have someone who is struggling with trauma or they are struggling with something in their life that they can't get out of,
what tips would you have for those leaders, what tips would you have for those people who are like, I don't know what the next step is or maybe there was something traumatic they had.
Yes. So, I would suggest one, talk to someone. And if that is not someone who is directly related to you, and I don't mean like blood related, but I mean like somebody who is a friend or family member or coworker or boss or whatever,
talk to someone who has experienced some kind of trauma. There are fabulous resources out there. Like I said, the Trauma Survivor Networks, they have all kinds of things available.
So, reach out to those networks and find someone or find a therapist that is trauma informed. Because really, to be able to formulate a new version of your life, you have to talk about what's working and what isn't working.
So, for me, in my experience, I would meet with clients and spend a half a day in meetings and then I would be so wiped out that I would need like two days of recovery.
Now that brain fatigue has gotten less over time, but in that very first beginning when I was trying to figure out like, how do I go back to work?
How do I manage my capabilities and manage my responsibilities to the best of my ability, knowing that I don't feel like I'm up to par.
You know, I'm not recovered in the way that I thought that I should be. So, kind of setting that expectation, what does recovery look like for you?
What does, and if you are leading somebody who has gone through something traumatic, be that person they can talk to.
What does recovery look like for you? Be open to, okay, so maybe we have to do things in a different way to set you up for success in this new version.
I think that so often people can feel overlooked or like their life is going on around them and they are not as connected to it as they used to be.
And that's a scary place to be. So, being the person that someone can talk to and come to and be honest with when and not be met with judgment or like, oh, you're not going to work out for this company anymore.
Is really important and any traumatic experience gives a new perspective for anyone who's experienced it, right?
And sometimes those new perspectives can be so important in business. It can make a light go on and say, hey, you know what?
Maybe we should do this a little bit differently. Have we thought about doing it this way?
I know this would be easier for me. Maybe this would be easier for the rest of the team if we tried this. Would you be open to doing that?
So, having that safe space for conversation, I think, is the biggest tip for leaders, whether they are going through something themselves or one of their team members is going through something.
Yeah, I think that space can most times, I think, should create a lot of great things that can happen and people can come out of their shell or whatever they're struggling with.
So, thank you for that. I have one more question for you, Kerry.
Sure.
I want to make it a good one.
Okay.
What is success to you, Kerry?
That is a good one because I have had to redefine success.
I have always been an incredibly high achiever. In high school, success looked like straight A's.
In college, success looked like straight A's and getting the internships and getting a job right out of college.
Work-wise, in my management consulting career, it has always been helping my clients grow.
Success to me has taken on more of a holistic approach now. So, how do I make a positive impact on the people, on the clients, on the businesses around me, on my family and my friends without sacrificing myself and my health?
So, a successful life for me is creating peace and joy while doing the things that I find valuable and other people find valuable, but not doing it to such an extent that I burn myself out because burnout isn't success.
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.