September 17, 2025 • 21 mins
Princess Castleberry began her career in risk management in financial services, and the biggest risk she sees today is that “leaders are in a capacity crisis.” Work experience, education and professional networks are undermined by this lack of capacity driven by emotional triggers, she says, which are in turn compounded by a massive wave of societal, economic and technological change.
Now an instructional design expert and leadership speaker, Castleberry discusses how leaders can understand and manage triggers to enhance their capacity to lead with empathy. Castleberry will also be discussing these and other topics — including how to reduce “conflict waste” — at the ABA Annual Convention next month in Charlotte.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Princess Castleberry (00:02):
Nobody really takes a risk unless
they're trying to add more value.
Even the people that skydiveare trying to add more joy and
excitement to their own lives, right?
So they're taking a risk, they're riskingsomething that has an extreme amount
of value, but in pursuit of somethingthat they think is gonna add more
value to life or community or business.
Evan Sparks (00:23):
From the American Bankers Association, this is the
A BA Banking Journal podcast.
Welcome back.
I'm Evan Sparks and I'm delightedto be bringing you conversations on
banking, on leadership, on the world andenvironment in which we're operating and
here to illuminate some of those aspectsfor us today is Princess Castleberry.
Princess is a global speaker on a varietyof leadership topics, and she's also
(00:46):
going to be speaking at ABAs annualconvention next month in Charlotte.
We're really excited to have herthere, but first we're really excited
to have her here and on the podcast.
So Princess, welcome to the show.
Princess Castleberry (00:56):
Thank you so much for having me, Evan.
Evan Sparks (00:58):
So princess, can you start out by just telling me a little bit
about your background and you know,your, your pro professional journey?
Thus far.
Princess Castleberry (01:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I love, I love talking about thisbecause everybody sees that today
I'm a speaker and they think that'samazing and, and they forget that
I had a whole career before that.
Right.
That led to all these great stories.
So for 22 years before becoming a, aprofessional speaker, I was actually an
enterprise risk manager, and I workedfor several Fortune 500 companies
(01:29):
across the insurance brokerage industry.
Us housing constructionand the staffing industry.
And then I've, within all of that context,I've had clients and, and customers that
ran the gamut in, in terms of industries.
But I was a professional problem solver.
I did everything from.
(01:49):
Working on global insurance programs toleading business continuity, disaster
response planning, cybersecurity,you name the challenge and the, you
know, you name, you name the chaos.
I was probably in the middle of it.
Just trying to help solvechallenges from the inside out.
Evan Sparks (02:06):
What was the, what was the impetus to take that background
in enterprise risk and translate thatto the, to the stage as as someone
who's educating others on the, onthese challenges associated with
leading in today's today's environment.
Princess Castleberry (02:20):
Yeah, so I took a little bit of a non-traditional path.
Even, even as a risk manager.
Most risk managers if you know 'em, willpursue an MBA route, right when we think
about graduate school advanced education.
But I always saw the world a littlebit different because I saw the
complexity and the decisions that weall had to make as business leaders.
And I realized very early on.
(02:41):
That there's some thingsthat are very critical, that
plague decision making, right?
And those two things are how leadersand adults learn and how they behave
when they're under pressure, right?
So whether they're well or unwell.
So instead of pursuing the MBA route.
I actually pursued a master's degreein instructional design training and
(03:02):
development, and I learned how toteach adults really, really well.
And then I also pursued a certificatein wellness counseling, not with
the intent of ever becoming atherapist or a counselor in that way.
But I wanted everything that I spokeabout, everything that I taught, even
as a leader in my own right, to beinformed by those two schools of thought.
(03:23):
How do people learn and retain informationand what makes them well and unwell?
And you know, when you think aboutthe complexity of decisions that
are made across any enterpriseit, it, it just gets heavy, right?
People are constantly balancingoperational priorities.
Personal priorities, what's triggeredinside of their own minds and bodies.
And all of that weighs on aperson's ability to make decisions
(03:47):
while managing their stress.
Right?
And all of that we knowimpacts the bottom line.
And so when I thought aboutwhat risk management really was.
That's how I saw it.
Right?
And, and so pursuing it thatway and doing it that way, also
satisfied my own creative needs.
I am very much of a rightbrain and left brain person.
(04:11):
I am, you know, like wildly creativeand can get into everything from
makeup artistry and graphic design.
And I'm also wildly technical andcan get into everything from ai.
Into very complex insurance terms andall of that stuff is fascinating to me,
but the through line to all of it isexactly like I said, how people learn
(04:33):
and what makes them well and unwell.
And that's how I broughteverything together.
And honestly, I'm a talker if you couldn'ttell that right off the, off the riff.
I'm a talker and it just.
It just became a way for me to makesense of everything that I loved
was to get it, you know, get onstage and share these ideas and see
(04:54):
what they sparked in other people.
Evan Sparks (04:56):
Well, it's so fascinating to hear you talk about, you know, that
side of risk management, of understandingthe, the stress and the way that you,
you in, in working to manage risk inthis enterprise environment are also
having to manage your own wellbeing.
That's right.
And that's something that I. We have hugenumbers of risk managers in our industry.
(05:18):
Right.
You know, it's like, it's, and,and really, I, I, the way I think
about the entire business ofbanking is a, is a business of
managing, managing mitigating risks.
That's life in pursuit growth.
Right.
And so That's
Princess Castleberry (05:30):
right.
That's right.
What,
Evan Sparks (05:31):
you know, but we think of risk management as such a as such a
quantitative, discipline is it, it's,is something that's, you know, you're
just looking at spreadsheets mm-hmm.
And making and, and looking at your,you know, three lines of defense and
your frameworks and your flow charts.
And I, there's more to it than that.
Princess Castleberry (05:49):
There's so much more I, but I like to immediately
demystify it for people and give adefinition that I've used for over 20
years, which is a risk is the possibilityof harm or loss to something of value
in pursuit of adding more value.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
Nobody really takes a risk unlessthey're trying to add more value.
(06:10):
Even the people that skydiveare trying to add more joy and
excitement to their own lives, right?
So they're taking a risk, they're riskingsomething that has an extreme amount
of value, but in pursuit of somethingthat they think is gonna add more
value to life or community or business.
And so when you think about risk as beingvalue centered, that is how, it doesn't
(06:32):
matter what audience I'm talking to, Ican be talking to an audience full of
K 12 educators and by the, you know,end of the first five minutes, I have
everybody touting I am a risk manager.
Because when you realize it's justthe possibility of harm or loss as
things that you value, as soon as youcan identify something that you value
and the fact that you put systemsin place, you put decision making in
(06:55):
place, you put all kinds of resourcesin place to protect what you value.
You are a risk manager, and that'show I make it, you know, you
know, accessible to everybody.
Mm-hmm.
Now, you know, I will admit, youknow, we know risk management
is exceptionally complex.
It can get very complex with thespreadsheets and the models and, and
depending on the aspect of it, but this.
(07:16):
To me, democratizes it and makes itaccessible to everybody because I don't
even care if you, I have children,I have sons that are 12 and 14 years
old, and I have a kid that's about togo to high school for the first time.
I want him to be the best riskmanager he can possibly be.
And if he thought that that was,you know, risk was spreadsheets and
algorithms and complex decision making.
(07:38):
He wouldn't wanna indulge in that, butbecause I've been teaching him since he
was a little boy, what, you know, that isa very simple thing when you think of it.
He is a risk manager.
He knows that.
He actually says that all the time.
And that's what I do for,you know, for every audience.
I, I think the biggest risk in, intalking about risk, the biggest risk
I see in organizations today is thatleaders are in a capacity crisis.
(08:04):
And I, I think that leadersare very well trained.
They've been to schools, they have hadall kinds of work experiences, they have
relationships, but the thing that drained.
All of that is this lack of capacity.
And that capacity drain happenswhen people get triggered and
they don't know what to do withthose feelings and emotions, and
(08:26):
it takes them off their square andthey can't make those decisions.
They can't execute those plans, andthat to me is the biggest challenge,
especially after the pandemic.
Evan Sparks (08:36):
So it's just too much on our list.
What are the dynamics of thiscapacity of, of our lack of
capacity in leadership today?
Princess Castleberry (08:43):
Yeah.
I, I personally believe it'sbecause our central nervous
systems are very disrupted.
When we look at there's a. Oneof the graphics that I show in a
lot of my talks is this timelineof just the last 24 years, right?
And I try to anchor peopleto what the last 24 years in
the United States look like.
(09:05):
All the major events thathave happened since nine 11.
Right, and I, and I group them intothese really big six categories.
And so when people see that, theythink, yeah, six really huge things
happen from nine 11 to, you know, thepandemic and the age of ai, right?
If we had two big anchors.
But what they don't realize is so many.
(09:29):
What I call mega triggers happened inbetween and as I've counted them, we've
had about 30 massive changes in society.
I mean, huge shifts.
And, and, and I'd have to showyou the graphic to get you
to really appreciate it, but.
What has happened to us is that ourcentral nervous systems and our way
of life and our way of thinking andplaying and engaging has shifted so
(09:54):
much so fast in just 24 years, andthe reason I anchor to 24 years.
Selfishly is becausethat's my, my adulthood.
I've been an, I've been an adultfor about 24, 25 years, right?
As as one would define adulthood.
Right?
And when I look at those 24 years of myown life and I look at everything that
(10:16):
was going on in the United States, Irealized I've never really recovered.
That if I layer my life into whatwas happening on a national level,
not even global, just national.
We've never had a moment of reprieve.
We've never really had amoment to stabilize ourselves.
(10:37):
We've been going fasterand faster and faster.
We've been dealing with morestresses and demands, and our
bodies are not made that way.
The body is not made to processthat amount of information,
that amount of chaos.
And I believe that we've, you know,we look at humans in a lot of ways.
We look at people in terms oftheir demographics and their
(10:58):
psychographics, but we seldom lookat people's behavior profiles.
And I believe that we areescalating up, up what I call the
cuted chaos curve really fast.
It's natural to be triggered.
That's 100% natural to have anexperience and to be triggered by
it and have some type of thoughtand some actions that follow.
(11:20):
What's not natural is that we becomeso triggered and our triggers you know,
accumulate so much over time that we neverget a chance to get back to a state of
relaxation or true recovery and calm, sothat when things happen in the future,
as we know, they will, we escalate.
We go from cue.
(11:40):
To being concerned, to being in crisis andthen into chaos, and we just go too fast.
That's the natural progressionof behavior, right?
Yeah.
So that's not rocket science.
That's not even the worldaccording to Princess.
But what is the world according toPrincess, is that we are constantly
being yanked up that curve by thingsthat don't deserve that amount of time.
(12:06):
And attention out of us, like,like tweets, like emails or,
you know, sensational headlines.
We don't, we don't process anymore.
We just go up the curve and it impacts usmentally, physically, and in some cases
spiritually and even financially, right?
It impacts our decision making.
(12:26):
And I just think that we haven't had atime to recover as a society, and I think
that if we are ever going to recover.
We have to take ownership not justas individuals, but as leaders in
the companies that we serve, inthe communities, in our families.
We have to take control over thatcue to chaos curve, and we have
to embed recovery and we have toembed lots of things we have to do.
(12:52):
But at at, at the basic level,there's some, there's some strategies
that we can embed to start to.
Continuously re restorepeople to calm, right?
Yeah.
That escalation is natural.
We never quite bringpeople back to a real calm.
Evan Sparks (13:09):
Well, and one, one thing that I, you know, I, I think about,
you know, the, kind of, the bestleaders are, are folks who do sort of
have this sort of external point ofcontrol where they can say, "oh, I'm,
you know, everything is happening.
I'm still focused on this goal.
Yeah.
I'm able to stay, I'm able tonot let the tweets and the, and
(13:33):
the email alerts and everything.
Yeah.
Grab, grab me and take me out of that,outta that focus." But I ha you, you
know, that's one of the reasons youmay be a very senior leader, right?
Because you, you've been able tolike, to rise above these challenges,
but you're, you're probably leadinga team that has people who are
(13:53):
experiencing these challenges?
Yes, sir. In terms of how do you as theleader in the, in an organization say,
no, we're not gonna be, we're not gonnalet ourselves be thrown off course by
every single little thing that happens.
We're gonna stay focused on what'sreally important about this,
whether it's this organizationor whatever thing you're doing.
(14:14):
How do you stay focused?
How do, how does a leader help otherpeople manage this this inability
to kind of get over this cycle ofgoing to chaos every time, right?
Princess Castleberry (14:25):
Yeah.
So the first, the first thing thatI always anchor people to, and this
ironically, coincidentally, is thetitle of my very first book that
comes out later this year, which isthe truth is in the Trigger, right?
If you can get people into the practice ofidentifying and being honest and truthful
(14:45):
about what triggers them, that is.
Like a big part of the way, youknow, you're a big part of the way
if you just identify the truth.
And one of the examples I love togive people, I, you know, I work, I
was working with a client literallyjust last week where I was speaking
with a, a leader in the organization.
She's a leader in thein finance, ironically.
(15:06):
And she's a younger leader.
She's more of an emerging leader,but she's in a really important role.
And she said to me, "Princess, I feel likethe people in my organization disrespect
finance because because I'm a youngerleader." And so I asked her to tell me
more about it, and I probed into it to tryto understand what the real triggers were.
(15:30):
And what she went on to explain tome was a series of processes and
protocols within their organizationthat people simply weren't following.
But I wanted, I took her downthat path and I said, well.
What, how does, how isthat connected to your age?
Because she was bringing up ageismas the culprit here and as she
(15:51):
started to talk and be vulnerablewith me quite frankly, she started
to share that in her childhood.
She was constantly diminished.
We talked about like wherethis originally began.
And she said that in her home shewas constantly trying to raise
ideas or concerns with her parents,and she wasn't being listened to
(16:16):
and she wasn't taken seriously.
So she was the youngestsibling in her family.
And so this theme of ageismhas plagued her along the way.
And so when I got her to really tellthe truth though, Evan, like really
get deep into what was happening atwork, as it turns out, there were not
this, there wasn't this whole slew ofprocesses that weren't being followed.
(16:38):
There were two PO related processesthat weren't being followed.
There was, I love Zoom in the emojis,two processes that weren't being followed
and they weren't being followed by twoparticular people in the organization.
And so because of her triggers and howshe interprets it, she had conflated.
(16:59):
It, this whole story that finance wasbeing disrespected because of her age,
and so we were able to talk that throughand get her on a more proper path.
But I wanted to give that example becausethat's a classic example of how our
professional and our workplace triggersare tied to what I call global triggers.
(17:20):
Think about all the isms and phobias inthe world, and then those things are more
intimately tied to our personal triggers.
And if you, if more people would slowdown to think through that, through
line that exists between what theyexperience at work and what has
happened in other parts of their lives.
They can find the truth.
And I, and I know, you know, I'm tryingto explain that to you here in, you
(17:42):
know, two minutes, but I, I try toreally demystify that whole process that
I follow and been following for a longtime, because that is the beginning of
how we identify the truth in our triggers.
And then beyond that, I thinkthat there's, you know, there
are, you know, five particularthings that leaders need to do.
(18:04):
Going back to your earlier question, butthe, the triggers are the foundation, but
I, I think the first thing is that leadershave to acknowledge what's working first.
For them.
You always have to acknowledge what'sworking first, because when things
start getting chaotic and things startchanging, you have to anchor people
to what's not going to change, right?
Whether that's your mission,your vision and values.
(18:26):
If there's key processes, youstill have to tell people.
Even if, as you know, executive ordersare coming out every day, we still have
to go back and ground ourselves to what'snot changing, and we have to leverage
what's working first and use it up.
Before it becomes obsolete, right?
Because we know times change.
And then that second part, I, Ithink the second step that leaders
(18:49):
could take is that they have tolearn how to flatten their own curve.
Everybody has acute to chaos curve.
And if a, as a leader, if you'renot demonstrating how you calm, if
people can't see that and feel that.
Yeah, there's noconvincing a team to do it.
And the, and then the last one thatI'll bring up here is that we have to
(19:12):
base our timelines when, when we do seepeople escalating or we are in those
circumstances, we have to start to baseour timelines and our communication
on people's emotional capacity.
But that takes a lot of groundwork.
That means you have to knowwho you're working with.
Right.
And you have to understand therisks of your organization.
You have to understandwhat's likely to occur.
(19:36):
But this is all, this is not,you know, this isn't stuff
that just snaps into place.
Leaders have to invest that timeand energy into capacity building.
And that's what I've done with myselfand my teams, whether I was in corporate
or now working in my own business.
And this is what I do in my home.
We, we work on capacitybuilding and there's just no
(19:57):
shortcuts around that stuff.
I wish I could microwave it somedays, but no, you gotta build this.
You have to build, just likehave you have have, you have to
build emotional intelligence.
You have to build the capacity to lead.
Evan Sparks (20:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We gotta put it in the slowcooker, not the Instant Pot.
Princess Castleberry (20:13):
So there you go.
Evan Sparks (20:14):
Yeah,
Princess Castleberry (20:15):
there
Evan Sparks (20:15):
you go.
Princess, this, you know, this isfantastic, fantastic preview of
some of the of some of insights thatyou have to share with with folks.
And I know you're also gonna be,when you're, when you come to the
a BA annual convention, I believeyou're gonna be talking about like.
Conflict waste and man, eliminatingthat, which I'm excited to
hear about there in Charlotte.
Yes.
That's a teaser for, for those who willbe joining us in, in Charlotte next month.
(20:38):
You can learn more about the going to theABA annual convention at aba.com/annual
and be sure to go ahead and registerand get yourself all, all signed up
for your, for your trip to Charlotte.
Princess, thank you so muchfor being on the show today.
Princess Castleberry (20:51):
Thank you
Evan Sparks (20:53):
for our listeners.
You can find this in previous episodesat aba.com/banking journal podcast.
You can also find us on any of yourfavorite podcast apps or platforms.
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll be back with you again very soon.
Nobody really takes a risk unless
they're trying to add more value.
Even the people that skydiveare trying to add more joy and
excitement to their own lives, right?
So they're taking a risk, they're riskingsomething that has an extreme amount
of value, but in pursuit of somethingthat they think is gonna add more
value to life or community or business.
Evan Sparks (00:23):
From the American Bankers Association, this is the
A BA Banking Journal podcast.
Welcome back.
I'm Evan Sparks and I'm delightedto be bringing you conversations on
banking, on leadership, on the world andenvironment in which we're operating and
here to illuminate some of those aspectsfor us today is Princess Castleberry.
Princess is a global speaker on a varietyof leadership topics, and she's also
(00:46):
going to be speaking at ABAs annualconvention next month in Charlotte.
We're really excited to have herthere, but first we're really excited
to have her here and on the podcast.
So Princess, welcome to the show.
Princess Castleberry (00:56):
Thank you so much for having me, Evan.
Evan Sparks (00:58):
So princess, can you start out by just telling me a little bit
about your background and you know,your, your pro professional journey?
Thus far.
Princess Castleberry (01:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I love, I love talking about thisbecause everybody sees that today
I'm a speaker and they think that'samazing and, and they forget that
I had a whole career before that.
Right.
That led to all these great stories.
So for 22 years before becoming a, aprofessional speaker, I was actually an
enterprise risk manager, and I workedfor several Fortune 500 companies
(01:29):
across the insurance brokerage industry.
Us housing constructionand the staffing industry.
And then I've, within all of that context,I've had clients and, and customers that
ran the gamut in, in terms of industries.
But I was a professional problem solver.
I did everything from.
(01:49):
Working on global insurance programs toleading business continuity, disaster
response planning, cybersecurity,you name the challenge and the, you
know, you name, you name the chaos.
I was probably in the middle of it.
Just trying to help solvechallenges from the inside out.
Evan Sparks (02:06):
What was the, what was the impetus to take that background
in enterprise risk and translate thatto the, to the stage as as someone
who's educating others on the, onthese challenges associated with
leading in today's today's environment.
Princess Castleberry (02:20):
Yeah, so I took a little bit of a non-traditional path.
Even, even as a risk manager.
Most risk managers if you know 'em, willpursue an MBA route, right when we think
about graduate school advanced education.
But I always saw the world a littlebit different because I saw the
complexity and the decisions that weall had to make as business leaders.
And I realized very early on.
(02:41):
That there's some thingsthat are very critical, that
plague decision making, right?
And those two things are how leadersand adults learn and how they behave
when they're under pressure, right?
So whether they're well or unwell.
So instead of pursuing the MBA route.
I actually pursued a master's degreein instructional design training and
(03:02):
development, and I learned how toteach adults really, really well.
And then I also pursued a certificatein wellness counseling, not with
the intent of ever becoming atherapist or a counselor in that way.
But I wanted everything that I spokeabout, everything that I taught, even
as a leader in my own right, to beinformed by those two schools of thought.
(03:23):
How do people learn and retain informationand what makes them well and unwell?
And you know, when you think aboutthe complexity of decisions that
are made across any enterpriseit, it, it just gets heavy, right?
People are constantly balancingoperational priorities.
Personal priorities, what's triggeredinside of their own minds and bodies.
And all of that weighs on aperson's ability to make decisions
(03:47):
while managing their stress.
Right?
And all of that we knowimpacts the bottom line.
And so when I thought aboutwhat risk management really was.
That's how I saw it.
Right?
And, and so pursuing it thatway and doing it that way, also
satisfied my own creative needs.
I am very much of a rightbrain and left brain person.
(04:11):
I am, you know, like wildly creativeand can get into everything from
makeup artistry and graphic design.
And I'm also wildly technical andcan get into everything from ai.
Into very complex insurance terms andall of that stuff is fascinating to me,
but the through line to all of it isexactly like I said, how people learn
(04:33):
and what makes them well and unwell.
And that's how I broughteverything together.
And honestly, I'm a talker if you couldn'ttell that right off the, off the riff.
I'm a talker and it just.
It just became a way for me to makesense of everything that I loved
was to get it, you know, get onstage and share these ideas and see
(04:54):
what they sparked in other people.
Evan Sparks (04:56):
Well, it's so fascinating to hear you talk about, you know, that
side of risk management, of understandingthe, the stress and the way that you,
you in, in working to manage risk inthis enterprise environment are also
having to manage your own wellbeing.
That's right.
And that's something that I. We have hugenumbers of risk managers in our industry.
(05:18):
Right.
You know, it's like, it's, and,and really, I, I, the way I think
about the entire business ofbanking is a, is a business of
managing, managing mitigating risks.
That's life in pursuit growth.
Right.
And so That's
Princess Castleberry (05:30):
right.
That's right.
What,
Evan Sparks (05:31):
you know, but we think of risk management as such a as such a
quantitative, discipline is it, it's,is something that's, you know, you're
just looking at spreadsheets mm-hmm.
And making and, and looking at your,you know, three lines of defense and
your frameworks and your flow charts.
And I, there's more to it than that.
Princess Castleberry (05:49):
There's so much more I, but I like to immediately
demystify it for people and give adefinition that I've used for over 20
years, which is a risk is the possibilityof harm or loss to something of value
in pursuit of adding more value.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
Nobody really takes a risk unlessthey're trying to add more value.
(06:10):
Even the people that skydiveare trying to add more joy and
excitement to their own lives, right?
So they're taking a risk, they're riskingsomething that has an extreme amount
of value, but in pursuit of somethingthat they think is gonna add more
value to life or community or business.
And so when you think about risk as beingvalue centered, that is how, it doesn't
(06:32):
matter what audience I'm talking to, Ican be talking to an audience full of
K 12 educators and by the, you know,end of the first five minutes, I have
everybody touting I am a risk manager.
Because when you realize it's justthe possibility of harm or loss as
things that you value, as soon as youcan identify something that you value
and the fact that you put systemsin place, you put decision making in
(06:55):
place, you put all kinds of resourcesin place to protect what you value.
You are a risk manager, and that'show I make it, you know, you
know, accessible to everybody.
Mm-hmm.
Now, you know, I will admit, youknow, we know risk management
is exceptionally complex.
It can get very complex with thespreadsheets and the models and, and
depending on the aspect of it, but this.
(07:16):
To me, democratizes it and makes itaccessible to everybody because I don't
even care if you, I have children,I have sons that are 12 and 14 years
old, and I have a kid that's about togo to high school for the first time.
I want him to be the best riskmanager he can possibly be.
And if he thought that that was,you know, risk was spreadsheets and
algorithms and complex decision making.
(07:38):
He wouldn't wanna indulge in that, butbecause I've been teaching him since he
was a little boy, what, you know, that isa very simple thing when you think of it.
He is a risk manager.
He knows that.
He actually says that all the time.
And that's what I do for,you know, for every audience.
I, I think the biggest risk in, intalking about risk, the biggest risk
I see in organizations today is thatleaders are in a capacity crisis.
(08:04):
And I, I think that leadersare very well trained.
They've been to schools, they have hadall kinds of work experiences, they have
relationships, but the thing that drained.
All of that is this lack of capacity.
And that capacity drain happenswhen people get triggered and
they don't know what to do withthose feelings and emotions, and
(08:26):
it takes them off their square andthey can't make those decisions.
They can't execute those plans, andthat to me is the biggest challenge,
especially after the pandemic.
Evan Sparks (08:36):
So it's just too much on our list.
What are the dynamics of thiscapacity of, of our lack of
capacity in leadership today?
Princess Castleberry (08:43):
Yeah.
I, I personally believe it'sbecause our central nervous
systems are very disrupted.
When we look at there's a. Oneof the graphics that I show in a
lot of my talks is this timelineof just the last 24 years, right?
And I try to anchor peopleto what the last 24 years in
the United States look like.
(09:05):
All the major events thathave happened since nine 11.
Right, and I, and I group them intothese really big six categories.
And so when people see that, theythink, yeah, six really huge things
happen from nine 11 to, you know, thepandemic and the age of ai, right?
If we had two big anchors.
But what they don't realize is so many.
(09:29):
What I call mega triggers happened inbetween and as I've counted them, we've
had about 30 massive changes in society.
I mean, huge shifts.
And, and, and I'd have to showyou the graphic to get you
to really appreciate it, but.
What has happened to us is that ourcentral nervous systems and our way
of life and our way of thinking andplaying and engaging has shifted so
(09:54):
much so fast in just 24 years, andthe reason I anchor to 24 years.
Selfishly is becausethat's my, my adulthood.
I've been an, I've been an adultfor about 24, 25 years, right?
As as one would define adulthood.
Right?
And when I look at those 24 years of myown life and I look at everything that
(10:16):
was going on in the United States, Irealized I've never really recovered.
That if I layer my life into whatwas happening on a national level,
not even global, just national.
We've never had a moment of reprieve.
We've never really had amoment to stabilize ourselves.
(10:37):
We've been going fasterand faster and faster.
We've been dealing with morestresses and demands, and our
bodies are not made that way.
The body is not made to processthat amount of information,
that amount of chaos.
And I believe that we've, you know,we look at humans in a lot of ways.
We look at people in terms oftheir demographics and their
(10:58):
psychographics, but we seldom lookat people's behavior profiles.
And I believe that we areescalating up, up what I call the
cuted chaos curve really fast.
It's natural to be triggered.
That's 100% natural to have anexperience and to be triggered by
it and have some type of thoughtand some actions that follow.
(11:20):
What's not natural is that we becomeso triggered and our triggers you know,
accumulate so much over time that we neverget a chance to get back to a state of
relaxation or true recovery and calm, sothat when things happen in the future,
as we know, they will, we escalate.
We go from cue.
(11:40):
To being concerned, to being in crisis andthen into chaos, and we just go too fast.
That's the natural progressionof behavior, right?
Yeah.
So that's not rocket science.
That's not even the worldaccording to Princess.
But what is the world according toPrincess, is that we are constantly
being yanked up that curve by thingsthat don't deserve that amount of time.
(12:06):
And attention out of us, like,like tweets, like emails or,
you know, sensational headlines.
We don't, we don't process anymore.
We just go up the curve and it impacts usmentally, physically, and in some cases
spiritually and even financially, right?
It impacts our decision making.
(12:26):
And I just think that we haven't had atime to recover as a society, and I think
that if we are ever going to recover.
We have to take ownership not justas individuals, but as leaders in
the companies that we serve, inthe communities, in our families.
We have to take control over thatcue to chaos curve, and we have
to embed recovery and we have toembed lots of things we have to do.
(12:52):
But at at, at the basic level,there's some, there's some strategies
that we can embed to start to.
Continuously re restorepeople to calm, right?
Yeah.
That escalation is natural.
We never quite bringpeople back to a real calm.
Evan Sparks (13:09):
Well, and one, one thing that I, you know, I, I think about,
you know, the, kind of, the bestleaders are, are folks who do sort of
have this sort of external point ofcontrol where they can say, "oh, I'm,
you know, everything is happening.
I'm still focused on this goal.
Yeah.
I'm able to stay, I'm able tonot let the tweets and the, and
(13:33):
the email alerts and everything.
Yeah.
Grab, grab me and take me out of that,outta that focus." But I ha you, you
know, that's one of the reasons youmay be a very senior leader, right?
Because you, you've been able tolike, to rise above these challenges,
but you're, you're probably leadinga team that has people who are
(13:53):
experiencing these challenges?
Yes, sir. In terms of how do you as theleader in the, in an organization say,
no, we're not gonna be, we're not gonnalet ourselves be thrown off course by
every single little thing that happens.
We're gonna stay focused on what'sreally important about this,
whether it's this organizationor whatever thing you're doing.
(14:14):
How do you stay focused?
How do, how does a leader help otherpeople manage this this inability
to kind of get over this cycle ofgoing to chaos every time, right?
Princess Castleberry (14:25):
Yeah.
So the first, the first thing thatI always anchor people to, and this
ironically, coincidentally, is thetitle of my very first book that
comes out later this year, which isthe truth is in the Trigger, right?
If you can get people into the practice ofidentifying and being honest and truthful
(14:45):
about what triggers them, that is.
Like a big part of the way, youknow, you're a big part of the way
if you just identify the truth.
And one of the examples I love togive people, I, you know, I work, I
was working with a client literallyjust last week where I was speaking
with a, a leader in the organization.
She's a leader in thein finance, ironically.
(15:06):
And she's a younger leader.
She's more of an emerging leader,but she's in a really important role.
And she said to me, "Princess, I feel likethe people in my organization disrespect
finance because because I'm a youngerleader." And so I asked her to tell me
more about it, and I probed into it to tryto understand what the real triggers were.
(15:30):
And what she went on to explain tome was a series of processes and
protocols within their organizationthat people simply weren't following.
But I wanted, I took her downthat path and I said, well.
What, how does, how isthat connected to your age?
Because she was bringing up ageismas the culprit here and as she
(15:51):
started to talk and be vulnerablewith me quite frankly, she started
to share that in her childhood.
She was constantly diminished.
We talked about like wherethis originally began.
And she said that in her home shewas constantly trying to raise
ideas or concerns with her parents,and she wasn't being listened to
(16:16):
and she wasn't taken seriously.
So she was the youngestsibling in her family.
And so this theme of ageismhas plagued her along the way.
And so when I got her to really tellthe truth though, Evan, like really
get deep into what was happening atwork, as it turns out, there were not
this, there wasn't this whole slew ofprocesses that weren't being followed.
(16:38):
There were two PO related processesthat weren't being followed.
There was, I love Zoom in the emojis,two processes that weren't being followed
and they weren't being followed by twoparticular people in the organization.
And so because of her triggers and howshe interprets it, she had conflated.
(16:59):
It, this whole story that finance wasbeing disrespected because of her age,
and so we were able to talk that throughand get her on a more proper path.
But I wanted to give that example becausethat's a classic example of how our
professional and our workplace triggersare tied to what I call global triggers.
(17:20):
Think about all the isms and phobias inthe world, and then those things are more
intimately tied to our personal triggers.
And if you, if more people would slowdown to think through that, through
line that exists between what theyexperience at work and what has
happened in other parts of their lives.
They can find the truth.
And I, and I know, you know, I'm tryingto explain that to you here in, you
(17:42):
know, two minutes, but I, I try toreally demystify that whole process that
I follow and been following for a longtime, because that is the beginning of
how we identify the truth in our triggers.
And then beyond that, I thinkthat there's, you know, there
are, you know, five particularthings that leaders need to do.
(18:04):
Going back to your earlier question, butthe, the triggers are the foundation, but
I, I think the first thing is that leadershave to acknowledge what's working first.
For them.
You always have to acknowledge what'sworking first, because when things
start getting chaotic and things startchanging, you have to anchor people
to what's not going to change, right?
Whether that's your mission,your vision and values.
(18:26):
If there's key processes, youstill have to tell people.
Even if, as you know, executive ordersare coming out every day, we still have
to go back and ground ourselves to what'snot changing, and we have to leverage
what's working first and use it up.
Before it becomes obsolete, right?
Because we know times change.
And then that second part, I, Ithink the second step that leaders
(18:49):
could take is that they have tolearn how to flatten their own curve.
Everybody has acute to chaos curve.
And if a, as a leader, if you'renot demonstrating how you calm, if
people can't see that and feel that.
Yeah, there's noconvincing a team to do it.
And the, and then the last one thatI'll bring up here is that we have to
(19:12):
base our timelines when, when we do seepeople escalating or we are in those
circumstances, we have to start to baseour timelines and our communication
on people's emotional capacity.
But that takes a lot of groundwork.
That means you have to knowwho you're working with.
Right.
And you have to understand therisks of your organization.
You have to understandwhat's likely to occur.
(19:36):
But this is all, this is not,you know, this isn't stuff
that just snaps into place.
Leaders have to invest that timeand energy into capacity building.
And that's what I've done with myselfand my teams, whether I was in corporate
or now working in my own business.
And this is what I do in my home.
We, we work on capacitybuilding and there's just no
(19:57):
shortcuts around that stuff.
I wish I could microwave it somedays, but no, you gotta build this.
You have to build, just likehave you have have, you have to
build emotional intelligence.
You have to build the capacity to lead.
Evan Sparks (20:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We gotta put it in the slowcooker, not the Instant Pot.
Princess Castleberry (20:13):
So there you go.
Evan Sparks (20:14):
Yeah,
Princess Castleberry (20:15):
there
Evan Sparks (20:15):
you go.
Princess, this, you know, this isfantastic, fantastic preview of
some of the of some of insights thatyou have to share with with folks.
And I know you're also gonna be,when you're, when you come to the
a BA annual convention, I believeyou're gonna be talking about like.
Conflict waste and man, eliminatingthat, which I'm excited to
hear about there in Charlotte.
Yes.
That's a teaser for, for those who willbe joining us in, in Charlotte next month.
(20:38):
You can learn more about the going to theABA annual convention at aba.com/annual
and be sure to go ahead and registerand get yourself all, all signed up
for your, for your trip to Charlotte.
Princess, thank you so muchfor being on the show today.
Princess Castleberry (20:51):
Thank you
Evan Sparks (20:53):
for our listeners.
You can find this in previous episodesat aba.com/banking journal podcast.
You can also find us on any of yourfavorite podcast apps or platforms.
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll be back with you again very soon.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.