1:12:16 - Phil Rose
Good day. The ego? That's one of the questions I talk with Christie, my guest on this week's Sparks by Ignium podcast. I say, what is the ego? Because we talk about a number of different egos. Christie talks about her views on the three different egos that get in the way and support us in equal measures. I love this conversation, not just because it was the first of 2024, but mostly because it was a flowing conversation where we just talked about some things where some of the elements that she talks to really resonate for me as an individual.

1:13:01 - Phil Rose
From a coaching perspective, I talk with people regularly about the things that get in the way, the things that are stopping them. And often it comes back down to ego. And I think what Christie picks up on here is how we can use our ego for the best, because our ego is there to protect us and support us. It gets in the way when we overplay some of those things. Well, I think what she uses here is words around, how do we best use our ego to really drive a benefit for ourselves? And we transform it from an I to a we conversation.

1:13:32 - Phil Rose
So enjoy the show. And as I always say, I can't hold you to account for your actions, but I'm willing to talk to you. Give us a convers give us a call, give us a conversation. What is it you need support with? It's the beginning of 2024 as I put this out. So from our perspective, we've got a whole year ahead of us to make changes. But we know no changes happen straight away. It's about incremental improvement. And Christie talks about some of that as well. So how can we best support you with your incremental improvement?

1:13:59 - Phil Rose
We can't hold you to account directly, but what we can do is be there to give you the coaching you need to support you through these podcasts. So who else do you know that we should be getting on this show? Who else do you know that should be listening to this show? Because we're hoping that by one person more listening to it, 1% every day, we'll get more people to understand more about themselves. And by doing that, we'll slowly change the world to be a better place for us all to build purpose into what we do.

1:14:23 - Phil Rose
Enjoy the show. Let me know what you think. Thank you.

Welcome back to the Sparks by Ignium podcast. I am Phil Rose, the host. And today I'm delighted to be joined by my first guest of 2024. Christie calls herself the ego management expert. And for one minute about ego, we're gonna have a great conversation. Christie runs the Mindful Choice Leadership Academy. She works with leaders who want to maximize success. And primarily, she helps teams who want to have more alignment get that alignment.

14:26 - Phil Rose
So I know there's lots of topics we can talk about, but one I want to pick up and start with, Christie, is when you call yourself the ego management expert, what does that really mean?

14:35 - Christie Garcia
It's such a fun word, or a statement, I guess. You know, I started calling myself the eco-management expert a few years ago. One, because it's catchy, but two, I think most importantly, that's really what I do. The work that I love to do within organizations is help A whole entire team of leaders come together and find out which ego is on the team. Which egos are showing up?

14:58 - Christie Garcia
How do they maximize? How are they creating great success? And how are they holding this team back from maximizing their success? And the word ego, a lot of us think of the loud, arrogant person in the room. Really the ego to me is just the unconscious brain. It is the unconscious habits, mindsets, beliefs that create how we interact with humans, how we communicate, how we respond to stress, how we manage, how we delegate, how we coach, how we train. Um, and if we're not aware of our ego, we don't realize how much it impacts our leadership, how much it impacts, how we communicate the impact we're creating.

15:32 - Christie Garcia
Are you intentionally creating your impact or you unconsciously going through the motions and hoping for a positive impact, which is what we do 90% of the time. So, you know, that's where the ego came from Management, if we learn to manage our ego, we learn to control our own mind, so someone or something else doesn't. And that really is the power of great intentional leadership.

15:52 - Phil Rose
Yeah, I love that. And it's interesting to say about that unconscious, because, you know, when I learned my NLP skills many years ago, we need to talk about the difference between unconscious and subconscious. And interesting, actually, when I think about that unconscious, it's that thing that just, you know, controls the way we do things. And often we don't know it's happening,

16:10 - Phil Rose
But other people see it and feel it and sense it before we walk in the room, they know who we are, they know what we are.

16:16 - Christie Garcia
One. Hundred. Percent.

16:16 - Phil Rose
So. S. Yeah, you said about, you know, that we see egos, that loud, brash thing, but we all have an ego at some level. We. Have. An Ego.

16:23 - Christie Garcia
Absolutely. And The Quiet. Pass one, the quiet passive one is just as terrible as the loud aggressive one, right? Like they both are sabotaging tactics that don't lead us to great success. So you're absolutely right.

16:37 - Phil Rose
And it's interesting, isn't it? Because when people talk about ego, you say about the unconscious there. We often, you know, check your ego, leave your ego at the door or go in there and just be egoless. Is it possible to be egoless unless you are Buddha sitting under the tree meditating?

16:55 - Christie Garcia
And even Buddha, he's just learned to manage his own ego. Our egos are both our strengths and our weakness. So I always tell people, our ego is not bad. What is bad is when we unintentionally use it and we're overusing the gifts that it provides us. You know, our. Our ego, again, is just our brain.

17:10 - Phil Rose
Si.

17:12 - Christie Garcia
And when we aren't controlling our own brain, then that unconscious part is, and it was trained from childhood. It was trained to teach us to protect ourselves, to make sure we win, to make sure, or I shouldn't say we, make sure I win, make sure I am like, make sure I am right. Make sure I am okay. That was what it was designed from like age two, you know, depending on what your childhood was like, how much did you have to protect yourself? How much did people hurt you? Where did your grief and your sorrow come from The ego shows up in those moments.

17:40 - Christie Garcia
You know, if you're the kid that was shy on the, uh, on the playground, it learned to be in the shadows or, you know, not be seen. So you didn't get picked on. And so as an adult, you're now the, probably the person sitting in the boardroom saying, Ooh, don't share your ideas because there really doesn't matter. Or they're going to, you know, you're going to sound like an idiot. Um, don't speak up because they don't really care what you think. And so, you know, recognizing where, where are these unconscious behaviors, habits, and beliefs coming from that are just holding you back from being your best self from showing up and making an impact, um, at work and home, you know, your relationships at home are getting your ego as well.

18:16 - Christie Garcia
Unfortunately, they usually get our worst part of our ego because the people we love always get our worst self as well. Um, But, you know, what I love the most is when people come to the Academy, typically I hear more often than not, I'm pretty aware, you know, one of the first questions I asked people is on a rank or scale of one to 10, how self-aware do you think you are? Majority of people rank themselves pretty high, eight, nine, 10. And the irony is when they start this work about week one, they start to say, wow, I'm really at a three.

18:49 - Christie Garcia
Because that again, 95% of the time we're unconsciously going through the motions and our brain is just doing. We aren't intentionally thinking about what we do. We're just doing what we do because that's what we've always done. Absolutely.

19:01 - Phil Rose
That's always a problem. You mentioned that Mindful Choose Leadership Academy, because I think this is a key thing. And that word mindful choice, So when we talk about choice, a lot of people say, well, I have no choice. I'm stuck in that way of doing things.

19:15 - Phil Rose
You and I as coaches, we always use that word choice as saying everyone has a choice about everything they do. And people push back on that, saying, no, I have no choice.

19:24 - Christie Garcia
I love that statement. I have a whole chapter in Mindful in the Academy around choice and power and intention, because really what it comes down to is If you think you don't have a choice, if you feel trapped, that's an ego's tactic. The ego wants to tell you there's a right way and a wrong way, or there's one way and it's not a good way, but you're stuck here and this is just what you have to deal with and you have to settle for it because this is just what's been handed to you and you're not in charge.

19:50 - Christie Garcia
And so when you feel trapped or when you feel like you're in a battle, there are egos in the room. And so when you can stop and say, you know what, we're battling here, especially business partners, or, you know, you're sitting in a room of, Uh in the boardroom trying to create a strategy for the year and you start doing this It's because somebody or multiple people are attached to their own idea because their ego has said this is the right way And if we can stop and say, you know what?

20:16 - Christie Garcia
We've got two ideas. Let's go to the board and write up 15 or seven Like always tell people you don't have a minimum of seven options. You are an egomaniac Um mindset if you can get yourself to five to seven options They don't all have to be good options, but they're options and options give us power When we feel like we have choices, we feel in control again. We feel like we are empowered to make a choice. And that's really what this work is about. Ego management is about finding the power of what you can control.

20:47 - Christie Garcia
We can't control a lot of things in the world, but we can control our actions, our decisions, and we can control our mindset and our beliefs to then be able to make a choice that feels empowered in that moment.

21:00 - Phil Rose
Yeah, I think that's really powerful, actually. So I want to take a step back and I want to go forward again. So how did you get into this as well? Because I think that's an interesting story. And I'd like to come fast forward to where you are today. But let's go back in time a little bit. What brought you to this place of understanding about the mindful choice, the words you're using here? Because, you know, I look at my life as a coach. I started coaching in 2008, but I've been coaching before that.

21:25 - Phil Rose
But before that, I was an engineer and I didn't know what this world was all about. So what brought you here?

21:32 - Christie Garcia
Well, I will have to say it was kind of the same thing. I had no idea what coaching was. I was in medical cells for about seven years. And did recruiting and then.

21:41 - Christie Garcia
Sales from there. And I really loved my job actually, but I had this entrepreneur spirit, thanks to my dad, you know, he bred that into me. And I had tried out real estate and I tried out travel agencies and all kinds of stuff. I always had a plan. And my boss at the time, who I had been traveling to different organizations with, he knew this about me. And so he's like, oh, you know, you should check out life coaching. And I'm like, That sounds really hokey. Okay. I don't think so. Not for me.

22:10 - Christie Garcia
I lived in San Francisco at the time, so it was pretty woo-woo. And so I started looking into it. I'm like, okay, but I am into personal development. Maybe this is something interesting I could at least use myself. And so I started looking into it. I started, you know, just jumped in and did a certification because that's kind of what I did at the time. And I started to see it as a growth for me.

22:31 - Phil Rose
Okay.

22:32 - Christie Garcia
I couldn't quite see how it would apply to a business for me, but I went to Toronto for my third course in this certification just to get that East Coast vibe. I like to travel and that's when it kind of all made sense. It's like, wow, you know, you get that East Coast vibe that has a little more of that Black and white energy, a little more, you know, business oriented mindset. And I'm like, okay, we can bring life coaching into the business. And this is bringing humans back to business.

22:59 - Christie Garcia
And that's really what I struggled with at the time. I was at a point in my career, I was either going to get into leadership or, you know, training or something of that sort. And I just didn't like the options for many different reasons. But the biggest reason there wasn't a lot of support once you got there, you know, you see a lot of really successful sales rep get promoted and then they kind of just fell flat for a while for two or three years. It was hard. They weren't getting recognized anymore.

23:24 - Christie Garcia
They were kind of stressed out. And a lot of times it was because they didn't know how to shift from I win to we win.

23:30 - Christie Garcia
And so it got really curious about that. Before I learned about egos specifically, I actually had my own fall and I fell 30 feet.

23:41 - Christie Garcia
From my fire escape.

23:43 - Christie Garcia
Yep. A literal fall, not a hypothetical one. And it was one of those moments I realized I had a really big ego. I was walking my dog. It was 9 o'clock in the morning, right before the holidays. And I locked myself out. Our building did this often. But what happened was I got my neighbor to watch my dog. And she's like, well, let's go out my bedroom window. Our bedroom just shared the fire escape. Usually we would go to the top of the roof and crawl down and into our window. Again, not smart. I don't advise this for people to do.

24:18 - Christie Garcia
But at the time it made sense. And so we went out her bedroom window instead. Well, I guess most people when they're on a high platform, they look down. I do not. Not sure if that's a gift or a curse. But I ended up walking into the two by two manhole and fell. Straight through. Straight through. And you know, it was one of those times where it just wasn't my time to go. I somehow made it through all three floors. They all had that two by two square.

24:48 - Christie Garcia
Somehow I made it all the way down. Yep, straight through. And it was just really kind of a wild moment. I remember it feeling like a Wile E. Coyote moment. Do you guys know Roadrunner, right? And he like, he walks into the black hole and you just hear him go. That's like the one description I can tell you. I remember having that thought like this is happening. Um,

25:12 - Phil Rose
And,

25:13 - Christie Garcia
I had already been doing this mindful work for about a year. And I remember telling myself, if I freak out and try to control this moment, I am going to get way more injured. And so I just took a breath and all of a sudden I knocked myself out and did my little somersaults through these holes.

25:29 - Christie Garcia
And I remember waking up, um, being a medical and also having a controller ego. I was like, okay, I'm awake. Mole your fingers, wiggle your toes. All is good. And, um, It turned into just a moment of, okay, I'm good. I've got a party to get to. We can't do this. Well, I was knocked out for a couple of minutes. And by the time the paramedics came, they told me they had to take me to the farthest hospital. I'm like, nope. I knew all these hospitals. I'm like, no, I want to go to this one. They're like, you can't, you're, you know, level one trauma.

26:01 - Christie Garcia
You really have to go here. Yeah. And so by the time I got there, I was just super annoyed. Like this isn't, this is taking time away from my day. I'm fine. I got to the ER, you have all these, it was like the Grey's Anatomy moment where you have all these interns, you know, just like, yes, the crushed girl is walking through the door right now. And so I'm walking in. I'm just this annoyed, grumpy girl. Get me, get me scanned. I got a party to plan. Get me out of here. And they're like, this is the girl.

26:29 - Christie Garcia
Um, so anyway,

26:31 - Christie Garcia
Long story short, I was there for about three hours. I had five stitches. I,

26:35 - Christie Garcia
I was it, I somehow walked away and I was like, okay, this is God's sign. I had talked about starting my coaching visions for about a year. Um, at that point, I just needed to do it.

26:44 - Christie Garcia
You know, I was in my comfort zone, but the point of that story is. About three weeks later, I didn't have any emotion around it. And three weeks later, I was talking to my coach and she asked me how I was doing. I'm good. I'm fine. You know, it was just a crazy experience. We're all past it. I'm a little annoyed. I can't, you know, fully take care of myself. I had a couple of wrist issues and, um, She asked again, how are you doing? And I said, I'm good. Don't ask me that again. You know, she asked one more time, Christie, how are you doing?

27:13 - Christie Garcia
And I just lost it. It was about a 15 minute cry. I call it the most expensive cry of my life, but the most life-changing one. And I just realized in that moment, what is this? You know, it actually scared me. I have, I was pretty, you know, hyper-rational, lack of emotion. And I had no idea why I was crying. And the more curious I got, the more I realized I had all these amazing friends in my life. I lived in kind of, you know, the penthouse apartment and I was traveling the world and life was good.

27:42 - Christie Garcia
On paper. But I never stopped long enough to realize that I was lonely. You know, even though I had all these friends, I wasn't emotionally available. So I wasn't giving to these friendships to let people into my life. We just had fun together. And so from then on, you know, it took me about a month and a half to really realize what was going on. And I started to get super curious. Okay. How do I be emotionally available? How do I, what, what is this thing inside my head that makes me, you know, make the, keep up the image, make everybody think I'm good.

28:11 - Christie Garcia
And no one ever asked me how I was because I was always good. I was always fine. And it was really fascinating, a reality check. And so I started getting curious. I came across the tool leadership circle.

28:21 - Phil Rose
Okay.

28:22 - Christie Garcia
And it really started to identify, you know, those unconscious reactive behaviors that we all have. And I personified a lot of it and turned it into these egos that it's like, wow, we all do this stuff. This is real. It breaks up families. You know, we walked through when I was walking through the hospitals in my career, I would see all these people in there by themselves dying. That is the saddest thing to me. Why? Why are these people here alone? And most of them at that time were, you know, middle aged men.

28:54 - Christie Garcia
And so I started getting curious. Why are you in here by yourself? What's going on? And the story was always the same. I worked a lot when I was younger to take care of my family, to provide for them. And they were gone by the time I retired. You know, I just, I wasn't around. I missed all the good stuff. And that really hit home for me. One, I think because unconsciously I knew I was living that life and I was building that into play. But in that moment, I realized I was turning into that person.

29:21 - Christie Garcia
If I didn't change my life, I was turning 30. I hadn't been dating. You know, I was all career focused and I realized, wow, it's not going to just be men anymore. It's going to be women sitting in that hospital by them because that's what we're doing. We're not building the personal success. We're building the professional success.

29:39 - Phil Rose
It's. Really. Interesting when I hear that story there,

29:39 - Christie Garcia
And It is.

29:42 - Phil Rose
I think it just, it resonates so much, doesn't it? And the story there on health and mental health, and there are some words you used just now, when your coach said to you, how are you? And you said, I'm good, I'm fine. Because we hear that so often, I'm fine. But we're not,

29:57 - Phil Rose
We're just blanking that out and blocking the real words from what's really going, because we're deceiving ourselves. And it sounds like you were on that self-deception effectively, because your ego was there to make sure you were at that pinnacle of wherever you were.

30:10 - Christie Garcia
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I learned that, you know, that word fine is a very strong ego tactic as well, right? I'm fine. I should do that. Those are signs your ego is making your decisions. Yeah.

30:25 - Phil Rose
Let's think about change. I want to come on, you mentioned that you talk about ego. So let's come back to that in a minute. But that thing around, you realize you are hyper rational, unemotional, unattached effectively, mentally and emotionally as well. So what had to happen for you to, apart from the fall, what had to happen to you to make that shift? Because, you know, we can all say, hey, we know we should be doing something. And you said, yeah, I should do that. But what was it for you when you walked to the hospital and you saw those people, you realized there was something going wrong with you?

30:54 - Phil Rose
What was the real trigger that says, Christie, I need to make a change?

30:58 - Christie Garcia
Well, I think it was that fall. You know, I think I'd already connected the dots for these other people and it was so sad for them. Like, so sad for them. You're living a really great life. Why would you do that? And it was always someone else, right? The ego reflects and judges other people's decisions, especially when we're making the same unconsciously. And so I was exceptionally upset for these people. And, you know, I never understood why I just wrote it off as, oh, I come from a big family.

31:23 - Christie Garcia
We would never die alone. Which isn't necessarily true, but in my head, that was the story I told. And when I sat there and I cried for 15 minutes, I like, wow, I will die alone if I don't change my ways.

31:37 - Christie Garcia
And not for any other reason. I had people that loved me. But I didn't let them in. I didn't even want to call my parents to tell them that I fell until I knew I was okay. Right. So it was like just those little things. The first text I sent out to my friends, because I was having a big party that night. Holiday party. And I sent him, Hey guys, I'm in the hospital, super annoying. They won't let me leave yet. Um, uh, don't worry though. I have no internal bleeding. Like that was my, my rational thought that that was like the best message to send people.

32:07 - Christie Garcia
Right. Cause I was so emotionally unattached to the world. Um, yeah. And so, you know, it was just, again, I think the thing that made me come to was, That deep in-your-face self-awareness. That's what we teach in the academy. We can teach you skills all day. We can teach you competencies all day. You can do your goals and your resolutions all day. If you don't know your ego, it will sabotage those things every single moment of every single day. And that's where we jump in with real harsh self-awareness.

32:41 - Christie Garcia
And then the next level is his ownership. It's not just the self-awareness component, right? A lot of us hear things, but then we blow it off again. The ego is like, eh, they just said that because they were mad or, and they were a jerk first. Oh, it doesn't really matter. I don't really care what they think. And so again, that ego is always working against us. So when we can then,

32:59 - Christie Garcia
Sorry, go ahead.

33:00 - Phil Rose
You carry on.

33:00 - Phil Rose
Yeah. I'll just say it's interesting when you say that, you know, self-awareness to ownership, that's the real key thing to this as well. So you said that ego is always.

33:06 - Phil Rose
Working against us. Tell me more about that.

33:09 - Christie Garcia
So it's always working against us. It wants to sabotage our success. It wants to sabotage our happiness because at the end of the day, if we're intentionally choosing our life, the ego has no place, right? We silence it. Um and we start to manage it so then we just know how to use it for its gifts and I think that's really the value but we have to own it um I think that's the the biggest part when we when we start this program a lot of people will start to see the self-awareness And where the real changes though are at that three to four week mark when it's like, whoa, I didn't just.

33:42 - Christie Garcia
Become aware of that. Now I own it and I recognized it in real time and I seen it happen and I connected the dots to the impact that it created. That's the full ownership component. Cause otherwise it's like, oh, you were kind of aggressive in that meeting. Oh man. Okay. I'll do better next time. Right. And we kind of just blow it off. Or when you are fully aware and now you're ready to take ownership, you see, wow, I was aggressive in that meeting and I really shut down Sally. I didn't even let her talk.

34:08 - Christie Garcia
Oh, wow. Yeah. I didn't even ask if anybody had questions. I just told him what to do. And you start to see not just what you're doing, but how it's actually impacting or holding other people back from bringing their best self to the table as well.

34:21 - Phil Rose
I think it's really interesting, isn't it? Because that thing about best self, because actually it's not us bringing, sorry, we're not bringing our own best self to the table as well. So there's something there, you know, we're not showing up as our best self. 100%.

34:32 - Phil Rose
You said earlier about the fact that when people show up originally on a scale of one to 10, they go, hey, I'm pretty good at this. And then they slowly realize, actually, I'm a three. What's that realization for them though? Because we can all look at books, we can read, we can hear, but what has to switch in them for them to make that realization? I'm not here, I'm over here. What's the thing that you do or say or enact for them?

34:54 - Christie Garcia
And foremost, again, we dump into self-awareness. So there's an assessment tool we use and we get really serious feedback. Feedback that we can't deny. It's in black and white, you know, which is one of the reasons I use the Leadership Circle tool is because it's a visual, right? Our brains like to see something in black and white to make it real. Even though that doesn't like solidify it, you now can say, instead of someone just giving you feedback, we kind of go unconscious when people give us feedback.

35:23 - Christie Garcia
Like think about when you go to the doctor and they tell you something and you're like, oh yeah, I was fine. But then you forgot that he said, I need to take these three or four pills because my heart's, you know. Irregular or whatever. And so recognizing that just because someone tells us feedback or, you know, sometimes we get defensive when we hear feedback and we start to make excuses of why someone says we're doing something that's not ideal or our best self. Because the ego gets defensive and shuts down.

35:49 - Christie Garcia
And so when we can start to see it in black and white, again, there's still usually a fight like, yeah, yeah, I know I do that. Or they go into a place of, wow, I do that. And I really feel bad about it. And their best self kicks in. But now their ego wants to actually beat them up. Um, you know, it either justifies the behavior or it goes to a place of super guilt. Like, Oh my gosh, I'm such a jerk. I can't believe I would act like that. And they go into a place of, um, deprivation. Right. And so being able to, then it's like a full cycle.

36:20 - Christie Garcia
This isn't, this isn't work you do overnight. This isn't life going on or ongoing journey that is throughout your life, but this Academy is designed to help you through that journey and fast forward it. So, you know, you get the feedback, you now get to sit with it. Now you get to see it apply in real time and you start to see it when you're talking to your kids, you start to see it when you're with your team members or your staff, you start to see it when you're talking to your business partner.

36:46 - Christie Garcia
And you start to recognize it. So now you can start to sit back. The whole thing is know your best self and know your worst self. Have a good image of both. So you can see those behaviors in real time. And then just stop and say, wow, I'm not going to judge my worst self. I'm just saying I'm doing it. And I can apologize now. Where most of us, when we recognize our worst self in public, it's unconscious recognition. And we start to just, again, beat ourself up or get angry.

37:11 - Christie Garcia
Yes, exactly.

37:12 - Phil Rose
So it's interesting. I want to come back. You mentioned about Leadership Circle. So you said there, you take the Leadership Circle, and you've mentioned that twice there. So tell me about Leadership Circle. What's that about in that case?

37:25 - Christie Garcia
So the Leadership Circle is a great tool. I've been using it forever. Again, I use it mostly for the visual. Most people need to see something in black and white. And it's just good third-party feedback. What I love about the Leadership Circle is it's a full 360. You But it's not just a competency test. It's not just a personality test or an EQ test. It's actually a very well-rounded one. It was started at the MBA program at Notre Dame.

37:55 - Christie Garcia
A lot of research has been put behind it. They use it across the globe. Oh gosh, 40 years now. And, um, you know, what they found though, is that they took over 650 different assessments, uh, your Myers-Briggs,

38:09 - Christie Garcia
Your colors, everything else out there. And they consolidated into one, what, what is each one saying? And they put it into one thing. So this tool tells you what you do, why you do it and then how to fix it. Um, and so it's a really thorough, um, assessment. It gives you your unconscious behaviors, um, and reactive tendencies, you know? Again, it kind of aligns with the ego talk and the personas that I've created to really just help solidify the whole story.

38:35 - Phil Rose
Yeah, okay. Now that's fascinating. I'll go look up there and I'll put links in the show notes so people can read up about that as well in that case and check it out. We get that understanding of ourselves, we bring that awareness and then we get that ownership. What comes next? Because obviously ownership is one thing. Where do you go next with this to embed it? Because effectively, this is a habit we've got to change and it's ingrained habits where the ego is protecting ourselves in the past.

39:00 - Phil Rose
So what do you need to do to embed this for longevity and sustainability?

39:06 - Christie Garcia
It's such a good question. You know, I think self-awareness and ownership are the first part and then really once you start to get to that place of being intentional and being present. It's really hard to turn back. That's what I love about it is, you know, we're really teaching people how to go from 95% of the time unconsciously showing up to ninety percent eighty five percent seventy five percent of consciously being present in their day. And the more present you are, the more you see these behaviors throughout the day and you can stop yourself.

39:35 - Christie Garcia
You can check yourself. And so, you know, the, the tools that we always recommend for, we call them ego management is, you know, after you recognize you're reacting, you learn the visceral feelings, you learn the behaviors, you learn the mindsets and the beliefs that go behind them. You can actually stop and say, hmm, I just did this. Why did I do this? This was the impact I created. Wasn't my intention. Right. And it's just kind of becomes this intentional conscious questioning of yourself.

40:02 - Christie Garcia
And that allows you to just slow down, slow down, be present and choose intentionally what your next action thought or might. So it's going to be instead of letting the ego just react in that split second and move forward for you.

40:18 - Phil Rose
And I love that about that slow down and be present and react. It always reminds me of the Viktor Frankl phrase about between stimulus and response as a pause or a gap. And I think that's the thing that a lot of people forget. They're just instantly reacting.

40:30 - Phil Rose
Out of ego. So here we've got something that's really enabling us to slow down, be present.

40:36 - Phil Rose
And I guess that's, you know, when I think about the title, you said about mindful choice. To me, this is about making that mindful choice in the first place. Understanding that.

40:44 - Christie Garcia
Yes. Absolutely. And you know, I think What I want people to remember too, is you're not perfect just like the rest of us. And that is okay, right? The ego wants us to be perfect. The ego wants us to be better than everyone else. The ego says we should have done this, or we should have known this, or we should have said this. And then we start to beat ourselves up. And in those moments where ego management works is when you start to hear yourself do that, you just stop and say, hmm, that wasn't the impact I wanted, that wasn't my intention.

41:18 - Christie Garcia
How often do you hear people say, oh, that wasn't my intention though, especially during miscommunication. Well, of course it wasn't your intention, that's okay. But in those moments, accept and own that that wasn't your intention, but you can apologize or take ownership for something that wasn't what you intended to create, right? And when we can catch ourselves, no one is going to do this work perfectly. I've been doing this ego management for the last 13, 15 years now. And, um, I still, my ego shows up daily because that's, that makes us human.

41:49 - Christie Garcia
And so being able to just recognize, do you catch your ego? 30 seconds after do you do it 30 minutes after you do it, or is it 30 days after you do it? Right. And that really is the question of it's okay. If your ego shows up,

42:04 - Christie Garcia
Just, just acknowledge it, accept it. Apologize for it and then choose a better way so people can build trust and know that they can count on you because you have vulnerability and you have integrity and you're doing what's right.

42:19 - Phil Rose
And I suppose that's the thing, isn't it? You reminded me of NLP training there, you know, one of the tenets of NLP is the meaning of your communication is the response you get. And effectively, if you are, if you're aware of that, every piece of communication you take responsibility for, and what I'm hearing from you there is actually being aware of our communication, what we're saying,

42:42 - Phil Rose
Helps us really understand how do we get the message across in the most appropriate way to watch what's going on and notice and understand how the other person is receiving that message from you. It's such a powerful piece. So I wonder, taking that to the next stage in that case, thinking about communication itself, what happens when you've got teams that some people have been through this and others haven't because you've then got this mismatch when other people get it and I always say as well it's a bit like a horse you can't you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

43:11 - Christie Garcia
And

43:12 - Phil Rose
What's the issue you face when you've got different people in the business some who are open to coaching and open to this mindful approach and others who are resistant what happens then?

43:22 - Christie Garcia
You know, I think that does make it difficult. What I love about ego management, though, is again, we all take ownership of our part. And when you start to recognize your own stuff, you stop judging other people's stuff, right? The ego We all don't think, you know, have some level of we don't think we're worthy. We don't think we're good enough. We don't think we're smart enough. And so when you can start to learn about the ego, you actually become more empathetic towards not just yourself, but towards other people.

43:50 - Christie Garcia
And so you start to recognize, you know what, when someone's defensive, their ego's being stepped on. So we learn to just get curious. Instead of battling them and trying to continue to power over them and prove yourself, you learn to step back and say, hmm, this isn't personal. What's going on with them? And instead of fighting them, you get curious and say, hey, I noticed we're not aligning. We're on the same team. What's actually going on? And you change the conversation. You know, one of the biggest things we preach in mindful choices, you cannot change other people, but you can change your own approach, which can change how other people show up.

44:26 - Christie Garcia
And that really is the power again of ego management, because if you can manage your own ego, it can help manage everybody else's ego. When one ego shows up, many egos want to follow. And so you just need one person in the room to have a conscious, intentional brain that can catch their own ego and start to change the conversation to manage everybody else's. And that that's the power of a team. Now, will you always be able to get every ego out of the room? Absolutely not. But again, being able to recognize that that's not my job.

44:57 - Christie Garcia
I'm not in control of them. It's not personal. All I can do is provide the tools, the resources to them. And then if they're not the right fit for the team or the culture, we get to make a decision from there. Too often people fire people because of their egos. When most of the time someone's managing or leading from their ego, because they don't like this ego, and now they're firing someone because they didn't really give them, they didn't bring their best leadership to the table either, right?

45:22 - Christie Garcia
And so I always tell my client, if you're going to fire someone, I get it. They're not right for the team, get rid of them as quickly as possible. And make sure you can look yourself in the eye and say, I was my best self. I was a conscious leader. I brought the issues to the table. They understood real genuine feedback. I gave them tools on how to improve and grow, and they chose not to use them. That's when you can walk away and say, I was a good leader. I was an intentional leader. I did my part, right?

45:52 - Christie Garcia
And I. Think. 90% of the time, managers and leaders can't say that when they fire people.

45:52 - Phil Rose
I think. That's. Kind. I think that's really interesting isn't it that thing about I was my best self and actually did you do all you could or was there a clash of egos effectively and therefore you are at has 50 percent responsible as well for the for the problems you've created. I think that's.

46:10 - Christie Garcia
Well and the absolutely sorry for cutting you off go ahead.

46:14 - Phil Rose
Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, so often within businesses, you do get that, you know, someone you say they're not a cultural fit, they don't fit the team, but actually maybe that's an ego thing, it's just a difference there. And we as managers, we have leaders need to recognize and say, okay, what can I do? And what I'm hearing you say there is if you've given everyone all the tools, you've really worked there from your best self to help them progress, and they've not taken on, then there is an issue.

46:38 - Phil Rose
But if you're doing it and coming in it from an ego clash point of view, then you're not being your best self as well.

46:44 - Christie Garcia
Well, and you're just going to get the same ego probably coming back in because you like, again, egos have strengths and weaknesses. So let's say you're an engineer. Engineers typically are more black and white brained, which means they're typically more of a protector controller. They can be more aggressive. They can be more confrontational. They can be more direct. If you're a complier controller leader, you're going to feel that they are kind of a jerk and they're kind of mean, and they don't really listen to you and they don't respect you.

47:10 - Christie Garcia
And you're going to want to make them wrong. And the problem is now you're just doing this and you're not getting the benefits.

47:16 - Christie Garcia
So most likely you're going to hire another engineer that has the same brain and you become the problem. You're now going to have high turnover under your team and leadership because you haven't learned to communicate with the protector controller ego.

47:26 - Phil Rose
Yeah, that's really interesting, actually. So you mentioned about protected controller ego, and I know you've talked to me before about, you know, there's a number of different types of ego out there. So I wonder, what are the egos you say that are running people's lives? What, what are they, how would you describe them?

47:42 - Christie Garcia
So there's three different types of egos. There's the complier, The complier is your warm, inviting, caring person. You go along, you can get along, you're friendly, and you care about the people. You put people before tasks. Unfortunately, the complier, when they overuse these gifts, they start to, you know, they don't give feedback directly. They would tell people what they want to hear. Are they over sugar coat? You know what they're trying to say? Um, they struggled to make a decision because again, they don't want to upset anybody.

48:16 - Christie Garcia
They question on whether they are, you know, good enough. So they're always constantly seeking external feedback instead of just trusting that, you know what, you've got experience and knowledge too.

48:28 - Christie Garcia
They question if they speak up in a room of people that they're going to be looked at as like they're an idiot or they're a fool and they don't know what they're talking about. And that would make people not like them, right? And so they're motivated by being liked. Lots of authority. They liked hierarchy. They liked being told what to do in order to validate that they're doing the right thing. And then you've got the protector. The protector is our kind of grounding force. It is high integrity.

48:56 - Christie Garcia
Our values are based in our protector, our confidence, our self-worth, all that fun stuff, our authenticity. Unfortunately, what happens because those are very strong, deep seated, you know, beliefs in us, it can make us very black and white, very stubborn. I must be right in order to have value. If I mess up, I should have known better. I have no worth or value. I'm, you know, I should have known better. And so a lot of, a lot of uh, frustration and anger can come from this personality type.

49:26 - Christie Garcia
So they feel confrontational, even though in their head, they're not being competition. They actually love the hardest and the deepest, um, because it is the most authentic, but it's where we build our walls. So if we ever got hurt, if we got heartbreak, if we had anything happen to us that created, um, some level of tragedy, we started building up walls. And so the bigger your tragedies, the bigger your Fort Knox.

49:45 - Phil Rose
Is.

49:47 - Christie Garcia
Um, Exactly. And so that's the protector. And then you've got the controller. The controller is your, you know, I must win or be the best. And so they are ambitious and they strive for success. They're constantly learning. They're growing all the time. They chase, you know, different titles and corporate ladders and all that fun stuff. They want to get to the top. And the problem with the controller is they put tasks before people because they are so driven to win that they typically get to the finish line by themselves.

50:21 - Christie Garcia
A lot of times they are there because they're a freight chain, right? They'll run people, get on the train or get off. I'm going to run you over. And that energy is fun and ambitious or contagious. Like people want it. That's that motivation and that inspiring energy. But as soon as you leave the room, you take all that energy with you. And so a lot of times people are like, I don't even know what just happened or I don't like that plan. It was fun because we had a big cheerleader, but now she's gone and I don't I don't get it.

50:46 - Christie Garcia
And so, you know, recognizing where are these things serving you and where are they not?

50:50 - Phil Rose
Yeah it's really interesting isn't it when you say that because I was listening to you talking I think okay where am I where are people I know and you talk about control and I can I can picture someone who's in that mindset straight away and I it's a friend of mine who I've known for many years but that's who he is and I've also got someone I can put into a protector box there you know grounding high integrity definitely there and I also know people who are the complier box So it's really interesting how we can pigeonhole people straight away.

51:14 - Christie Garcia
So.

51:15 - Phil Rose
Knowing that, and you talked there about, you know, the shadow side of those as well, effectively, or whatever the words you would use around that, the negative force on it. And once we know that, what can we do with it? Because if we recognize ourselves as controller, or recognize ourselves as protector, or recognize ourselves as complier, what do we need to do to do something about shifting it?

51:34 - Christie Garcia
Yeah. So I think it goes back to those simple pillars. The self-awareness get really curious. Why are you doing these behaviors? You know, again, I don't like to call them shadows. I don't like to call them, you know, weaknesses. They're really just overused strengths. Where are you overusing your strengths,

51:49 - Christie Garcia
Right? When you think about our weaknesses, let's say, Let's say you're, I'm a controller. I'm an over communicator. That is a gift until it's not, ask my husband. You know, when I start to over communicate, I get on my soapbox. I tell people what they're supposed to do. I start to, you know, preach and no one wants that, right? That doesn't work. And so recognizing when are you overusing your strength.

52:15 - Christie Garcia
As a complier, you know, you care, you care about people, you want to take care of people, you, you know, you make sure everybody's happy in the room. Unfortunately, where that can be overused is you don't speak truth, you get passive aggressive, you can possibly you know, you tell people what they want to hear and telling them instead of telling them what they need to hear. And so, you know, again, it's recognizing where are we overusing our strength that's not serving people. And I think that's really the gift of, of recognizing not just your own ego.

52:44 - Christie Garcia
I think a lot of times what happens, people hear the generic terms of the ego and they're like, Oh yeah, I know this ego. And I know this, it's really hard to recognize our own ego until we start to do that deep self-awareness work. Um once you do it it's really hard to go back but I think that's that's the thing is don't get in the trap of identifying everybody else's ego stop and ask what your ego is because if you're recognizing it in someone else most likely you're recognizing it in yourself and just not owning it.

53:09 - Phil Rose
And it's really interesting actually because as you were saying that I was thinking okay where would I put myself and I I can see myself there as complier That's my natural style. Warm, inviting. You said about people before task, but often then the feedback becomes sugar-coated or overly sugar-coated. Sometimes you're doubting your abilities on things. I think it's really interesting.

53:29 - Phil Rose
You say that because you said there at the last thing is about being liked. And I think that's a really interesting thing, isn't it? Because I look at that and say, OK, that's me. But then I'm hearing you saying about being controller, you know, win or be the best, ambitious, going, learning, chasing titles. That sounds like that was you in your previous previous role in that sales role, effectively. So you've made some. Shifts.

53:50 - Christie Garcia
And It's still me. Yup, it's. Still. Me.

53:51 - Phil Rose
I. Say. Yeah, okay,

53:52 - Christie Garcia
Yep.

53:52 - Phil Rose
Yeah.

53:53 - Christie Garcia
Um that's the thing is we want to be all three egos. Our best self is learning how to manage them. If we use 33% of all three of them, we get the ambition and the drive. We get the high values and authenticity. We get the caring about people. When we use just one or two, which is what we typically do, we usually have a, you know, a dominant and then a subcategory one. And so when we forget to use that third one, we're out of whack. We're not balanced. And so that's the key. I'm a controller protector, so I naturally go, I have to win, and then I have to be right.

54:26 - Christie Garcia
And if not, I can get very intense and very direct and probably a little mean.

54:31 - Christie Garcia
And so being able to remember that I have to bring in my complier. So I always tell my workshop groups when I'm in front of the group, it's like, Okay. If I ever get too intense, just remind me to bring my sassy bitch. I'm a good sassy bitch. You can relate to me. I'm fun. You'll listen. When I get too intense, I'm just intense. And I'm probably just more on the bitch side. So, you know, I think that's where we get to start to laugh and find humor in our ego because it's part of us. It's not going to go away.

55:00 - Christie Garcia
So the more you can just embrace it and make it like not bad and just like, Hey, yeah, I can do that. And I, I don't like it when I do that. And so I want to apologize for it. But when we deny it or we act like it's bad, then we actually do it more because again, we're unconsciously ignoring it.

55:17 - Phil Rose
I think that's really interesting that unconsciously ignoring it and therefore we're choosing consciously to unconsciously ignore it effectively because we are aware of it. We're putting it in a box and saying, we'll deal with that later.

55:27 - Christie Garcia
Yes.

55:28 - Phil Rose
There's something there about that awareness there, isn't it? And, you know, the phrase I would use is awareness is the greatest agent for change. So when we are aware, we can do something about it. And I think that's probably the key bit there.

55:40 - Phil Rose
So I love this, you know, we've talked a lot about conversation and then we said we'd speak for 45 minutes now, but there's another hour of conversation here. So we might need to have another conversation. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's fascinating when you get into it in terms of recognising it for yourself, but also recognising it in the teams you work with, the individuals you work with. So here we are, we're at the start of 2024. There's a year ahead of us here. I wonder what would be your advice if you were, you know, some people make news resolutions or goals they're going to set themselves.

56:11 - Phil Rose
If you were talking to the audience out there today and say,

55:48 - Christie Garcia
Such a fun topic.

56:13 - Phil Rose
Hey, if there's two to three pieces of advice I could give you to think about ego management, ego control, what would they be?

56:25 - Christie Garcia
I think one, get feedback. Hardcore external feedback, not you saying, hey, tell me how I'm doing. You hire a third party or you send out an anonymous survey on your Google Forms. Get feedback and tell people, hey, I cannot be better as a parent, as a boss, as a friend, as a business partner, until I hear what my current impact is. Ask the hard questions and then listen to it. It's going to hurt. It's going to sting. But you'll be better for it. So I always say that's, that's number one, get the feedback.

56:59 - Christie Garcia
You cannot change if you do not know what you're currently doing. You know, impact or perception is not truth, but perception is reality. And if you don't recognize that how people perceive you is the reality of your impact, It doesn't matter what your intention is. If your impact is making a negative impression on people, that is the truth of your perception. And that's the truth of your reality in that moment. So the only way to change reality is to acknowledge what perception is currently and choose to change it.

57:36 - Christie Garcia
And so the only way to do that is through feedback. Two is once you hear it, now you have to own it. It's one thing hearing it. Don't ignore it. Don't throw it away. Don't file it away. Say, I'll deal with this another day because I'm too busy because that's what the ego wants to do and it wins. I would say, you know what, this work isn't about, you know, making massive changes tomorrow. The ego says, oh, I have to either magnify ego, or I just should wait to do the work. Be 1% better every day.

58:03 - Christie Garcia
You know, 1%. Choose one small thing you can do to be a better boss, friend, parents. Sibling, child who, whatever your hats are one small thing every single day, by the end of the week, you're 7% better by the end of the month, you're 30% better by the end of the year, you're three hundred sixty five percent better. You know, I think the ego wants to create very ambitious goals, either very ambitious or no ambition at all. And when you can just do simple things, simplify your life, you will be better and you'll be more intentional and you'll be more conscious just by asking yourself every single morning, how can I be 1% better today?

58:39 - Phil Rose
I love that. So, and I love that, you know, those three are really good lessons, aren't they really, you know, get feedback and listen to it, hear it and own it, and then be 1% better every day. You're making some conscious choice about what you can do to really help you develop. And I think those of those, you know, whether it's ego management or just generally improving yourself, I think there's three great things there actually.

59:01 - Phil Rose
So thank you for that. And I did put you on the spot for that. So well done for coming up with three things. To topping head. That's a as if we had prepared that really good. So there is probably another conversation I'm sure we could have here around lots of other questions I've got around, you know, building leadership, building confident leaders, embedding this in the teams, dealing with difficult situations, all those things like that. But I think we have to get you back on to do that again in terms of another conversation.

59:26 - Christie Garcia
I would love that.

59:27 - Phil Rose
It'd be great. If you're looking at, you know, you said you went to Toronto to do your learning. Where can other people go and find more information about what you're talking about here? Where can they connect with you? Where can they find out more? What's the advice you'd give?

59:42 - Christie Garcia
Yeah, if you're interested in learning about ego management, whether it's in coaching format or Leadership Academy for your team, you can go to my website, mindful choice academy dot com there you'll see a list of my services and the philosophy of our work. You can also reach out through LinkedIn, Christie, C I S T Ie garcia, or Mindful Choice Leadership Academy as well. And yeah, reach out. I love connecting with people, even if you're not interested in hiring me, just to have good conversations like we just had.

1:00:14 - Christie Garcia
This work is my passion. I believe that our world needs it more than ever right now. So the more we can bring this into organizations and bring humans back to business, especially, you know, working virtually or getting people back to the office, it creates a lot of ego traction. And so being able to just really help facilitate the human side of your business makes everybody more engaged, happier, more productive. And you start to get people who are showing up because they like what they do.

1:00:45 - Christie Garcia
That's one of the best things that I hear from the Academy. Like I, about halfway through, they're like, I really like my job again. You know, I think too many people can leave their work or leave a boss because their ego says, I'm not safe here. I don't like it here. This isn't for me, or I'm burnout. And again, if you can just get that ego out of the room, they'd re-engage. They would enjoy their work again. So there's just so much power on the human side of this work that really transforms not just organizations, but people's homes as well.

1:01:16 - Phil Rose
Yeah, I think that's amazing. I think, you know, at the end of the day, that transformation back at home, I think is the key, isn't it? There's a lot to be said for that. We look at business transformation and transform ourselves in the workplace, but actually it's in the home where the real work is done. I was listening to a TED talk, which actually I realised is seven years old this morning. I was listening to it first thing and it was talking about happiness. And it was the results of a Harvard study, which they'd been running for something like 78 years, looking at the graduating class 78 years ago, of which a number of them have passed away over that time.

1:01:48 - Phil Rose
They started working with 700 plus people originally. And what they found, you know,

1:01:54 - Phil Rose
They looked at, you know, what are the roots of happiness? And it comes back to the basic human fundamentals. It's not about money. It's not about wealth.

1:02:00 - Phil Rose
It's not about getting up to the top of the society. It's about bonds with each other, bonds with the family, bonds with friends. And I think there's something there we often forget about.

1:02:10 - Phil Rose
In that rush to get in to do business. Actually, we're humans having a human life and we need to do more of that. And I think when you say they're about making it, doing this stuff back at home, that's where the biggest impact can be had, I'm sure.

1:02:23 - Christie Garcia
Yeah, you know, I think it's just Again, teaching people how to be intentional. When you're present, you can be present at work and then you can go home and be present. And I think what happens right now, we have so much technology and everybody's so busy, right? The ego loves to be busy. And what happens is people leave work. They didn't get everything done. So at home, they're with their family, but all they do is think about work. And then they go to work and they know that they didn't connect with their family.

1:02:50 - Christie Garcia
So now they're at work and all they think about is their family. And it just becomes this evil cycle of disappointment. And when we can just learn how to keep our mind and our body present, we can categorize. When I'm at work, I'm 100% present and intentional. When I leave work, I am now with my friends or my family 100% and intentional. And you just start to feel Freedom. You know, I always tell people ego management's freedom. It's personal peace because you give yourself permission to show up in every Avenue with full permission, instead of just halfway showing up or guiltily showing up and you get to make boundaries and you just get to say, this is me, my good, bad and ugly.

1:03:32 - Christie Garcia
I'm here and I'm happy. And that's peace at its finest. Yeah.

1:03:36 - Phil Rose
I love that. So one final question for you in that case. If you could go back and give the young Christie, whatever age you were, some real advice with what you know now, what are you going to tell her?

1:03:51 - Christie Garcia
Hmm. I think I would tell her. To just slow down, you know, I think again, that controller moves fast things fast. It's fun energy. Don't get me wrong. I had the time of my life in my 20s. That's the thing. I don't even know if I would change anything. It got me here, right?

1:04:21 - Christie Garcia
Our lessons are what life's about. I think a lot of times. We want to try to avoid tragedy. We want to try to avoid chaos. And that's not avoidable. You know, the ego wants us to be frustrated when plan A doesn't work. Plan A is never going to work, right? Like very rarely does plan A ever work. And so learning to dance in the chaos, maybe that's the advice I would give. Like enjoy the chaos. Enjoy the journey. Identify the lessons, learn it and move on as quickly as possible. You know, too often we get so stuck on what didn't work or who didn't work or what broke our heart or who do we need to make love us or what job do we need to prove ourself for?

1:04:58 - Christie Garcia
And we get stuck on something that's just not, it's not the right hole. Like it's not the right path. The world is telling you avoid this path. And unfortunately we usually keep taking the wrong path over and over and over again before we learn the lesson. So learn the lesson, enjoy the lesson, find the joy in the process, and then move on from it.

1:05:16 - Phil Rose
Yeah, I love that. You said a whole load of things there, which really resonated. You start off with slow down, but I love the word you use there, dancing the chaos. I. That's a really interesting phrase,

1:05:23 - Christie Garcia
Think.

1:05:25 - Phil Rose
Isn't it? Because if we can learn or when we can learn to do that, and just accept chaos is around us, we can't control it. It's the ego that does try and control it, but just let it happen.

1:05:35 - Christie Garcia
Yes.

1:05:36 - Phil Rose
But my daughter often says, you know, the universe will conspire to help you in whatever way you want. You've just got to allow stuff to happen. I think there's a lot.

1:05:43 - Christie Garcia
Absolutely. Yes. Trust the process of life. It's going to go how it wants. So you can only control it so much.

1:05:50 - Phil Rose
No, I love that, Christie. Thank you. Such a great conversation. Cause I think, you know, we, we often get stuck in our own ways of thinking. And then for me, you know, just hearing you talk now at the beginning of this, this month gives me a refreshment in terms of, okay, let's just look at what I can do. And I come back to your three piece of advice, get feedback, hear it and own it, and be 1% better every day. I think that's a great thing. And I think if you put the circle around that of just dancing the chaos, I think you've got a great opportunity for 2024.

1:06:19 - Phil Rose
So thank you for that. And I look forward to maybe connecting again to have that second part of the conversation to go in more depth around some of these things. There's more we could uncover, I think. Wonderful.

1:06:20 - Christie Garcia
Thank you. It was a real pleasure being on here. Yes, please. That would be wonderful.

1:06:33 - Phil Rose
Christie, thank you.

1:06:35 - Christie Garcia
Thank you so much, Phil. It was a pleasure.