Hi, welcome to the Champions of RISK podcast. You know, this podcast is meant to explore the many ways risk shows up in our lives and how we respond to it, and how we make uncertain actions a little more palatable. So when in the grips of fear when everything is riding on the line, what enables us to take the big leap, what breaks us from fear and propels us forward, even when we don't know what the outcome will be? Fear is a very real presence in all of our lives, especially in unprecedented situations, which is kind of like today's environment. We've never gone through this before. So let's get real. Let's talk about how we're going to rise, rebuild, reimagine, and reset so that we come out of this and any other situation that we have in life where fear is kind of gripping us and do so with more courage and resilience. So my guest today is Jaime Taets who also has a podcast called SuperPower Success, be sure to check that out. But her day job is that she is the CEO of Keystone Group International, which guides businesses, leaders, and teams to become more focused and aligned. She's very aware of the need to push past fear, both as a business owner and in the ways that she helps her clients. So Jaime, welcome.

Thanks for having me. That's, I'm inspired just by your introduction to it.

Thanks. Well, I know it's gonna be a great conversation with you, I always enjoy chatting with you. And I want to kick things off just because we are in these unprecedented times. What are some of the ways that you have been leading your team through the pandemic? And what are some of the themes that you're seeing with your clients?

Yeah, so while fears, fears real, and I just did a presentation on this yesterday, speaking to a group of women about, you know, our job is not to avoid fear or eliminate fear, right, it's to manage it is to use it as a catalyst to say, if I feel fearful, there must be something there, right, that's putting that fear in my place. So let's examine that and set the paying attention to the fear. And so I see that applying to where we're at right now, both with you know, I've got four middle schools, high school aged kids that are dealing with it, just like I have employees, and I have clients and when it comes to fear, and what we're going through right now is everybody looks at it from a different perspective, everyone's bringing different life experience, different life situations into it. And so fear is not common, it doesn't look the same for all of us at the same time. And so for our team, the biggest thing that we've been focusing on from a business standpoint is that on the other side of something like what we're experiencing is always an opportunity, right? It's unknown, but there you look through history, and some of the biggest, scariest things that have happened, have come out the other side, and there's been an opportunity, and there's been growth in a lot of people. And so that's kind of the cautious optimism that we're taking right now is that you know, everything we want is on the other side of this. So we only have one option, right? It's not to sit here in the fetal position, it's to go through it. And so every day, we're going through it and every day is a little different, right, and we're having to adjust. But I think people who can see past the mountain, we have to climb and know, there's something on the other side is what gets you through, at least for us. That's what's getting us through right now.

Yeah, that's, that's great. And it's a very optimistic, very entrepreneurial way of thinking and approaching two things. And, you know, one of the guideposts I know that I use with my clients around fears as you said, it's different for everybody, we all see something different in it. And so I was wondering if you were familiar with this kind of framework, around fear, because we have three types of fear. So we have that loss pain that is caused, right, you know, Oh, I'm going to lose something. If I take this, if I push through this fear and get something, I'm going to lose something in return, or we have the process pain, which is this is going to be so painful to go through that I can't even possibly do it. Right. And then we have the outcome pain, which is that the grass is always greener, have. Okay, I might go through all of this, but will it be worth it? And I was wondering if you have had similar types of conversations with your clients around things like that.

Yeah. And, and we also in addition to that, and that's a great model, you know, the thing that I say, and I've even said this to my kids is you have survived 100% of your bad days, 100% of your failures, right? 100% of those moments where you're in total fear, right? And you're in grief, and yet we've survived them all. So what evidence do you have that you won't survive this thing, whatever this thing is today, this moment, this week, you have none because you've made it through everything. And so I think resetting people's relationship with fear is what's important because a lot of us have unproductive relationships with that fear feeling, right? And how we look at it. And so our biggest thing is diagnosing and recognizing fear as the rut of all of the things that are holding us back. So for example, right, we I and I deal with this, I think most successful people do is imposter syndrome, right? When we're going to do something new, when I'm going to be on your podcast as an expert in fear, okay, well, am I an expert? Like, I've just lived through it, right? And I have a philosophy about it. But so we all go through this in our head, this imposter syndrome, is someone gonna find me out? Do I deserve that promotion? Whatever it is, well, that's just fear at its roots, we call it something else. It's fear. Yeah, right. Comparison, right? A lot of people are dealing with comparison issues right now. Right? We're our self-confidence is down because we're seeing other people's success. You know, all of the comparisons is the thief of joy. It's fear. It's rooted in fear. And so what we try to get people to understand is that when you peel the layers back on any of these things you're feeling, or things that you deal with, it's all rooted in fear. And if we can just acknowledge it for what it is, you know, my goal is always to get people to walk towards it. So for example, right now with our clients, so many of them wanted to say, you know, we don't want to do the strategy work right now we just have to survive. And my conversation with them was leadership in times of peace, the right vision, and strategy in times of peace is easy. leadership and vision and strategy. And in, you know, overcoming fear in times of war is an absolute necessity. And so now is not the time to curl up in a ball, right? And say, we just have to get through each day now is the time for us to be thinking long term and just push the fear side, we know it's there. We just don't want to control us, right? So we don't pretend like it's not there. We just look past it instead of staring at it. And for a lot of companies that's been cathartic for them. A lot of business clients right now are, you know, they go into the discussion with me in the last two months. And I want to talk about three years from now. And they're like, how in the world would I talk about three years from now, like, I don't even know what three months from now looks like. But when we talk about three years from now, we turn the light on at the end of the tunnel again. So we still have to deal with three days from now, three weeks from now, three months from now. But we don't have to turn the light off on where we're going and where we want to be. And so I think that's the biggest mental gap for a lot of people right now is that they're having trouble seeing out further. And what I would tell you is, that's where your sanity is right now. That's where your hope is, and your faith, right to be able to get through this. And so I think for most of us, we have to balance that and we still have to look further out and then know that we have to deal with what's right in front of us. That's real.

Yeah, that's such a great point. And it is, it does seem that more than ever, it's so important to have there are these near-term things that need to be done. Absolutely. But you have to go to that future place to be able to, you know, prepare to win. Who didn't, you know, if you're a business owner, you didn't come here to play small, nobody came here to play small. But I love that getting them out of that fear mindset and breaking them free to the future can help them then decide what kind of actions they're going to take in the present that will impact those outcomes, right?

It provides a level of clarity, right, right now, when everything feels a little foggy, is the analogy I gave where you're like, Okay, we think we're making progress. But we're in this deep fog. And we're not quite sure if we're making progress or if we're moving side to side. But what that does is looking far out provides a little bit of clarity to say, okay, right, as the fog starts to clear, right, we know what we want to do at that point.

Yes. Yeah. And people inherently Do we know what we want to see happen and achieve. When we're all in that muck of fear and we're spinning, spinning, spinning, we can't remember or we can't access it even. And so that clarity piece is critical. I love how you are telling people like go to a moment like you've survived all your worst days. Yeah, it's such an important message right now.

Yeah, I you know, the thing that resonates with me, and I think about it every single day, is just a quote, and I don't even know who it's by. But faith is an act of courage. And right now, I think, you know, faith is always important. And people would say, Yeah, I need to have faith and but I don't think we've ever looked at it as faith is mentally that act of courage that's going to keep us moving forward right now, no matter who we are. We have to deal with that because it's hard some days, hey, based on what we're hearing and what's happening around us and in our businesses.

I'm curious to know If you think that the difference between courage and confidence and which one comes first.

That's a good question. I think Well, first off my philosophy on confidence is confidence is something you always you're never done, right building it. And the moment you think you're done something else kind of rocks you right with what we're dealing with now, or is that you have to build it back up again. And so I think when you look at courage, courage is something, courage is you stepping into the unknown, with confidence that you'll figure it out. Confidence is knowing the next step you need to take. So I think they go hand in hand if I need to know the next step. But courage tells me I'll be able to figure out the next 10. So but I only need to know one right now. So I just need the confidence. I just need to learn, I need to read I need to, you know, figure out my plan. For the next step knowing I figured it out 100% of the time before I'll figure it out this time.

Yeah, that's great. Because it's very actionable. I have kind of wrestled with this saying that you can have courage without confidence. But you can't have confidence without courage.

Right? Yeah, I agree.

And, but I like your added steps there about it. They you know, and then our good friend, Bren Brown, right, you know, we all love Bren Brown and talking about vulnerability, and that you can't have that without courage.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And vulnerability, that's, it's a bit, it's you know, it's becoming a buzzword a little bit. But when you think about it, it is truly what drives us to be courageous and what drives us to grow. Because we can't grow unless we can accept the areas we need to grow. So for those of us who want to ignore that, that space that we're like, we need help, we need to get better growth doesn't happen. I just believe we move side to side unless we can be vulnerable and say, This is a gap for me, and I need to get better at it. Yeah. And pushing through fear in any way, shape, or form, personally, professionally, whatever is an act of growth, right, we all learn when we come through that other side of it, I know that you and I talked about how you're writing a book right now, which is very vulnerable. I am! The pandemic has been a bright spot, and I've had time to speed up the book. So I guess that's a silver lining for everything because I'm not traveling grade like client works getting pushed out a little bit. So the book has been fast and furious the last couple of months. And so hopefully by the end of 2020 is our goal right around there. It's quite a process. For those of you who have done it, you realize it's giving away years of your life. But it's very fulfilling at the same time.

That's great. Well, I'm already looking forward to reading it just knowing that you are going to touch on things like fear and mindset. Just a little taste, when you and I were talking. You mentioned something about the 87-cent moment. I would love for you to share what that represents.

Yeah. So it's just going to be part of the book. So I had a client entrepreneur that I was working with and, you know, just scrappy entrepreneur or startup, you know, not high revenue. Yeah, it's and he was talking about any partners in the business. And he was telling me this story, and he calls it his 87-cent moment. And it's been so impactful for me, it's I have it on my desk, I remind myself every day. But what he talked about was there was a point early on in his business where his wife called, and it was like a Wednesday and his wife called and said, there's 87 cents in our checking account, and I need to go to the grocery store, right? He has young kids, and he remembers that moment. I'm getting goosebumps just talking about it. Um, he remembers that moment. And he remembers thinking, you know, first off the holy crap moment of like, Okay, what are we going to do? They weren't taking distributions to like, the next week, because in a business, right, you don't know when you're going to make money. And they were trying to figure out what they were going to do right credit cards and, and he sat in his office, and he said, I'll never forget it. And he told himself, I'm never going to be here again. That's my commitment to myself. My wife and I are never going to have this conversation again. And so rock bottom right, a moment that most people would say not glorious, not a highlight reel. But what he did is he used it as a catalyst to say, I'm never going to feel this fear again, I'll feel other fears. But I'm never going to feel this fear again. And when he told me that story, I was like, I have an 87-cent moment. My 87-cent moment came six months after I started my business when I was in the midst of a divorce and moved out of my big beautiful home on a golf course over a weekend into this little town home. And it was the first night in the townhome and I'm sitting on the floor. This business owner right appeared successful to everybody else who had left their cushy corporate job with steady paycheck and I sat on the floor thinking this is not my life. This is not what is supposed to be happening right now. And I at that moment was like, This is it, I'll never feel this way again, I'm never going to be in this place again. And I used it right to hustle, right to just drive that grit that you need. And I truly believe that moment needed to happen. Because if I was in a comfortable place, I don't believe my business would have grown the way that it did, because I had no choice. And so when we those 87 cent moments are those moments where we're like, it doesn't get lower than this. Like, I'm not, I'm not accepting that, like, I'm fine with where this is right now. But I'm not going to be here again. And I'm not going to go lower than where I'm at right now. And we have control over that we have control to make that decision at that moment to say, I'm only going up from here, and what are the things I need to do? And it flipped our mindset. And in that moment, I could have sat there and feared, everybody would have excused me, they would have said, It's okay, you just need to be in this place. Right? They've everyone would have felt sorry for me and been okay with the fact that I wasn't moving forward, and I was curled up in the fetal position who would have been okay, but it wasn't to me. And I think that's that moment. And we all have that moment. For some of us. It's a friend of mine. It's a cancer diagnosis, right? I'm very grateful mine was not that traumatic, right? Or it's the death of someone that you love, or it's something more dramatic than that. But every single one of us has an 87-cent moment. And I think when we think back on it and use it, and go back there, not because we want to relive the pain and the fear but go back there to stimulate and to give us that catalyst to say Oh, yeah, alright. I made it through that. Okay. Coronavirus, like I think I got this like, right? Like, it's just it switches your mindset when you can focus and use that moment for good.

Yeah, it's such a great testament to the power of the mind. And I know you talked about mindset, and you will in your book, but the things when everything else feels out of control the things that we can always control our mind, our thoughts, and our action. And if anything else, being able to go back to a moment where maybe you didn't feel like you are gonna survive, or you were questioning how in the world am I ever going to get through this? and remembering that moment? And then all the things that came after it, and not all of them were easy, right, Jaime? I mean, like, there wasn't just all-

It was not. Yeah. But where you are today, you know, would you agree like you couldn't be where you are today if you hadn't had- you if you hadn't broken through that moment of uncertainty moving on the floor? And so the for the people that are listening to this, and maybe it's not that dramatic, but that is in those moments right now that are job loss, right or losing their business, right? They're scared of how they're going to keep the doors open, or what I'll tell you is you've been through tough things before, right? The universe has, not to get all... but the universe has a plan. And if you know what you're good at, you'll figure it out. And so when you talk about mindset, and not to get too deep into this the way I described mindset is your brain is like a Google search engine. And so think about Yeah, all of your experience, all of your history is like files, right? That it's gonna go search through when you have a thought, or you're fearful. And so if I'm fearful of Oh, my gosh, how are we going to make cash flow this next month? Or right? How am I going to get through this thing? When I asked that question, my brain goes, Okay, search. And it goes back and finds evidence of where I haven't I've struggled with that in the past. But if I asked myself, What is something that I can do today, what's an action that I can take to help move myself forward, my brain goes and looks for what you did last time to get through that issue and produces that result. So a lot of it is the questions, the thoughts, right, that we're asking ourselves and rewiring that do not search for the evidence of crap. Now I search for the evidence of the sucky times, search for the evidence of what happened from that, right, and having gratitude for, again, I have so much gratitude for that moment. Because I know, if I was still married, I was in a comfortable financial position, right, I would have just slowly grown my business and kind of done it on the side. I just know what else because I wasn't pushed and because I had that I am now where I'm at today. So if we look back over our lives, there are so many you have those moments too, I'm sure where you're like if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have met this person, I wouldn't have been motivated to do this thing. So I think we have to lean on that we have to live our lives forward right with faith, but we have to understand backward and we have to use that resilience that we've had in the past to get us through that. Next thing that we need to get through.

Yeah,, we had a guest on a couple of weeks ago, Jenny Evans, who's an expert around resiliency, and she has all the scientific pieces about it. But you know, we talked a lot about how we can all build our resilience, like it's a muscle, we can improve on it. And it's almost like the things that used to scare us before that we did push through now are, you know, on lots of levels, not even in consideration, we now have bigger, much bigger, we're able to handle them, you know because we've gone through these life experiences because we do have evidence. After all, we do have, we have found ways to build that resiliency muscle.

And I love it, I talk about that a lot with the muscle idea because I think it resonates with people. And that's it, I just wrote this part in the book about, you know, exercising these muscles is the same as exercising and working out, right? If I start with five pounds, and I'm doing a certain exercise, the more I do that, the more apt I am to then be able to pick up eight pounds or 10 pounds at some point. And it's not because it's gotten easier, the weight hasn't gotten any less, right, like doesn't get easier you get stronger. Such it's a chapter in the book is I truly believe. And it's just like the muscles that you exercise, resilience doesn't get easier, you just get stronger in dealing with it. And then you have other things you need to deal with, right that you have to get strong around. That's what life's all about. And I think if we look at it from that perspective, get makes it feel like less of a mountain we have to climb. And it just makes it feel like a consistency, right, and a commitment that we need to make to exercise that muscle regularly. And you know, getting into that uncomfortable space. So we can be resilient.

Yes, yeah, that is great. It's almost like being grateful for the fear. Because we can, you know, have, as you said, the faith, that that's a sign that something big is gonna happen that a big change is going to take place, and then it can be for the better. So if you are, you know, our audience out here, lots of people are going through different things, as business owners, certainly, maybe they're leading teams, as people are companies are thinking about bringing teams back. Maybe this pandemic has brought up some personal, you know, fears that people need to address what are just a couple and you gave us some great tips, Jaime, but it doesn't ever hurt to repeat me, you know, what advice would you give to someone who maybe is in that paralyzed first phase of fear and helping them to move forward.

So a couple of things that just popped into my mind. And again, I have a whole book full of this. So this is just I love talking about this, because I think it just helps reframe it for people is the first thing is kind of what I mentioned is to live your life forward and understand backward. So don't stay in the past of the pre-COVID-19. And right the way life was live your life forward, right, use that. But make sure you're thinking about the future, which we talked about. Another thing is we talk about is breaking the rules, is those rules that you grow up with that society puts on us that we believe because of our experience or upbringing, or whatever it is, they're just rules, we have the opportunity to break those rules and do something different. And I think a lot of the rules that we put on ourselves are based on fear and keep us small, right? They keep us safe. But safe isn't always necessarily a good thing, right? Because we get super, super comfortable. And then the other piece I would tell you is everything you want is in the unknown. Everything you've ever wanted has been in the unknown because if we already knew it, we wouldn't be working towards it. And so that's the last chapter in the book, as we talk about all these other concepts, the last chapter is Move Forward, right, you have no option but to move forward. Because everything you want is on the other side of that mountain that you need to climb, and you're in when you get to the other side of the mountain, there's going to be another mountain. So our life is not about comfort. Our life is not about eliminating fear. It's about moving forward, right with progress, not perfection, not waiting for everything to be aligned and the stars to be aligned and to be the perfect timing. Do you think there's ever a perfect time to leave a good corporate job and jump out on your own? There's never a perfect time. If you're waiting for that. It's never gonna happen. So that's okay. You'll just stay in the corporate job. Right? But we can't wait for those things to be perfect. We have to wait until we're ready. Right, we're prepared. And then we need to move. And so I think that's the piece of fear that holds the people in the back the most is, is that fear of moving forward when we don't know everything that could happen. And that's impossible, right? We're never going to know it. So I think it's timely during this time to is, We can't stop moving, we can't stop growing, we can't, you know, stop learning. Because COVID-19 happens, because we don't know what the falls gonna look like, that's not stopping me right now, the only thing I can control is the progress I choose to make on myself, my mindset, my business. So that's the advice I would give everybody right now is everyday make progress, small or big, it doesn't matter. But you have to make forward progress to be able to get through them and quiet the fear that's going to try to get in your way.

Yeah, I love that. That's very inspiring. You know, it gives people a place anybody out there that is either feeling that they're in the grips of fear right now, or maybe they will later this afternoon, or two weeks from now, right? Because of all of the above, right? It's kind of spiking in different areas, but just having that, that inspiration and faith, and if you can't find it in yourself, hearing stories of others who have been able to break through that and have gotten on the other side of fear and are still wrestling with it, but taking steps to go to work through it themselves. I want to thank you for being vulnerable enough to share your personal story, your own 87-cent moment, because that will inspire our audience. I know for sure. So thank you so much for taking the time, I would love for us to revisit this conversation after the book comes out where people can check out your podcast, which is Super Power Success, which is fabulous, I highly recommend it. How else can people find you, Jaime?

They can go to Keystone Group International is the company, www.keystonegroupin l.com. Follow us on LinkedIn. On Facebook, we put a ton of content out. We do a lot of inspiring blogs. Our goal is to have an impact. And so we do that in a lot of different ways. I'd also love to connect with people on LinkedIn and follow me so I'm Jaime Adam Taets. Instagram, @JaimeTates. So again, we're all about inspiring, just like what you're doing with his podcast is, is that's where we need to go. When we can't create the inspiration ourselves because of where we're at e need to go to podcasts like t is. We need to follow people that inspire us, right, and that put out content that makes us feel good. And so I think that the best advice for anybody And I appreciate you and my goal in putting this podcast out during this time too because people need this. They need to hear this conversation to ground them in some foundation right to be able to move forward when everything feels Rocky.

Well, thank you, Jaime,, I've learned an lot from all of the guests as an audience has too, so thanks, everybody, you know, the things t at Jaime and I talked about, w both our businesses help people move forward from that, t at-risk area and moving out of f ar and getting that clarity getting more productive. So Jaime shared the many ways that y u can connect with her. And s e does have a ton of great content, especially around culture too. I want to make sure that we mentioned that. And if y u are wrestling with what you want to be doing next, or how y u move forward and how you make your dreams come true. I am a so offering a free strategy coaching session which y u can find on michaelwkithcart.com, please feel free to go there. I know Jaime and I and or other peers out in the marketplace are very focused on helping people move forward right now more so than ever. So use the resources that are out there and tune in next time for the Champions of RISK podcast.