August 28, 2025 • 37 mins
What if the biggest obstacle to your leadership isn’t strategy… but your nervous system? In this thought-provoking episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, host David W. Carr sits down with Claire Hayek, speaker, author, and certified neurocoach, for a raw and revealing conversation about the science of leadership, trauma, and personal transformation. Claire shares her journey from clinical burnout to full nervous system recovery and how understanding the biology of the brain completely changed her capacity to lead, connect, and build lasting influence. They explore how neuroleadership can help entrepreneurs and professionals break free from survival patterns, rewire limiting beliefs, and reclaim the clarity needed to lead with grounded confidence. This isn’t about mindset hacks—it’s about real inner work backed by neuroscience. 🧠 What You'll Learn:
Claire is a certified neurocoach, trauma-informed facilitator, and author of Enough Was Enough. She guides leaders through the internal rewiring necessary to heal, grow, and lead from a place of self-awareness, integrity, and wholeness. Her work blends neuroscience, somatic integration, and real-world leadership development. 🔗 https://clairehayek.com
🔗 https://linkedin.com/in/clairehayek 🎙️ Hosted by David W. Carr
David W. Carr is the founder of Steward Your Business, a leadership and growth consultancy helping values-driven businesses scale sustainably. Through coaching, strategy, and team development, he helps leaders align purpose, people, and process to build legacy-driven businesses. 🌐 https://stewardyourbusiness.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
- The brain’s role in leadership: fight/flight vs. presence and power
- How unresolved trauma shows up in your business and relationships
- The connection between nervous system regulation and executive function
- What “identity shifts” really look like in high-level leadership
- Why emotional suppression kills creativity, clarity, and trust
- A better way to lead: from regulation, not reaction
Claire is a certified neurocoach, trauma-informed facilitator, and author of Enough Was Enough. She guides leaders through the internal rewiring necessary to heal, grow, and lead from a place of self-awareness, integrity, and wholeness. Her work blends neuroscience, somatic integration, and real-world leadership development. 🔗 https://clairehayek.com
🔗 https://linkedin.com/in/clairehayek 🎙️ Hosted by David W. Carr
David W. Carr is the founder of Steward Your Business, a leadership and growth consultancy helping values-driven businesses scale sustainably. Through coaching, strategy, and team development, he helps leaders align purpose, people, and process to build legacy-driven businesses. 🌐 https://stewardyourbusiness.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Hello everybody, and welcome to the Business Roundtable podcast. I'm
your host, David Carr, founder of Stewart Your Business. Grateful
to have you here once again. Or we have a
brand new guest on the podcast. I'm super excited to
have Claire Yak on here. Claire, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah. Absolutely uh.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Claire and I have met you might have heard in
past episodes through one of our networking group, Success Champions Network,
which has brought some amazing people into my world. And
I've been really grateful to have Claire on here. She
has got such a great background and we share a
lot of passion in leadership and team development. And so Claire,
before we get into what I call the meat of
(01:12):
the meat of the podcast, tell me a little bit
about and tell our audience, because I've gotten to meet
you and talk with you.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But what got you to becoming you know yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
You're a neuro leadership expert and we'll share, but what
got you to this point where you're like, no, I
want to focus on this part of the brain and
how we're showing up and take us a little bit
about your journey as now you're the owner and founder
of your business and leading yourself well and leading those
that you're working.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah, I'll try to keep this short. So I basically
I'm an engineer and a musician, and I've had these
two careers pretty much for I mean, I'm no longer
practicing engineering, but I worked as an engineer first managed
a lot of teams. I've gone through every single possible
(02:03):
scenario when it comes to leadership and teams, and I've
really learned a lot because I was out.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
There doing it right.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
And that This is when I decided to start my
own company, because I wanted to marry the whole leadership
corporate everything that we do every day with music, the
power of music, the arts, and this is combined with
the left brain and the right brain when we talk
about creativity and analytic. So I kin't always have those
both sides developed. It just happened to be that way,
(02:32):
and I wanted to bring them both into the corporate
world and see how we could learn from that, how
we can combine that and really play at a whole
different level the level that we should be playing at.
Really think we're playing big, but we're playing small. We're
not even tapping into you know, ten percent of our potential.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
So this became kind of my passion.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
And when I started my company, my sold purpose team
building was really to bring this, not only from my
employer because I was in engineering, is to bring it
to the world and the people who need it, the
people that were at that point in their career and
they're thinking, how how do I find my own voice?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
How do I how do I be and.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Become that version of me that is thriving, that is happy,
that is healthy, that is successful, that is everything I
want to have in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Obviously, this was linked to neuroscience. The scientists and.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Me, you know you can, you can pull that out,
and and I stumbled on upon neuroscience because it just
fascinated me. The whole like science behind leadership and human behavior.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
Uh, it makes way too much sense now and kind
of helped me connect the dot in my life and
my career and we transform my life and my career
and my business.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
So I'm not preaching to preach. I'm literally preaching what
I lived experience and I was still experiencing is an
everyday thing. And leadership, you know, this is what we're
talking about here. It takes the leadership the leader himself
or herself to be anchored and be that version that
(04:20):
they want to be before they even ready to lead.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So there's a lot of work.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And I know, David, I know you you.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Agree on this absolutely.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, Well, I mean you and I again come the
reason why I have in the podcast player number one
because I think you and I share a lot of passions.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I don't know if I've even told you this.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I have a music background too, But I think the
brain works differently, like you said, right in left brain right,
and you're engineering them in biological sciences things like that
and right, and so we saw I think both of
us saw the challenge where if you're only thinking one way,
it's like trying to access the whole list of our
brain right. And that's why I like wanted on here
because I feel like there's a different angle that people
(05:00):
may not have heard or.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Thought about before and.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Of how neuros about about neuroscience and maybe they've heard
that word, but maybe it's kind of new to them.
And when you dig into it, like you're saying and Claire,
it's like how you can show up with better mental fitness,
better team alignment. And that's that's why you created MSP
for example, and I love that because I love collaborating
with folks like you, Claire, and I want folks to
(05:25):
hear listening today with Claire about how she's been able
to do successfully working with you.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
And really developing transformation.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And I think that to me, that word is really
meaningful because it's not just because I'm not just that's
exacting being transformed, right, And so you've been transformed, you're saying, Claire,
through your own journey, and I'm continuing to be transformed
as well.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
And so this, you know, coupled with this neuroscigns of.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Resilience and how you've been able to strategically sign and
align teams player, I think it's fantastic and I'm super
excited for our audience to hear more about that today. So,
so walk us through a little bit, Claire about your
focus with ms and building and like you know, you
talked about your personal journey if you will, but like
(06:16):
you have done all these things. You've been a trained engineer,
now you're certified neuroscience leadership coach. You're doing this, but
talk about where you've seen this, you know, from project
teams to boardrooms, how you helped remove some blind spots.
We'll break it down on the podcast or build those
those teams and do it without burning out, like or
just like pushing so hard, right they're grinding how they've done.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
It, maybe in a more sustainable way.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's so many ways to
achieve that result. One of which that I'm always you
know working with clients is the mindfulness.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's the core.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
If you're not anchored, if you're not grounded, if you're
not self aware, not self conscious now right, self aware mindset,
your thoughts, your words, your behavior, your emotions. If the
whole machine is just chaotic and working in a fight
or flight, how do you want to inspire, lead, motivate, perform.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Just be happy? Period?
Speaker 4 (07:23):
I mean you're just literally surviving every single second of
the day. So we really start with the core, which
is the leader and the team, and talk about our
behaviors as human beings.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
We're not perfect.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
We all have some all sabotage, we're all, you know,
have these fear thoughts and fear based ideas.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
And that's really where.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
I bring in the neuroscience and I explain the science
behind this is like, what's really happening in your brain.
And I teach people to be in their prefront or cortex,
which is really where you're making decisions, where this is
the CEO of your life. And you know this the
CEO of the brain in a way, which is the
CEO of your life. Because if you're if your prefrontal
cortex is lighting up and managing and really being present, then.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Everything is just flowing in your body. So we talked about.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
While being health, being completely present, uh, emotionally intelligent, positive intelligence,
all these things. I mean, this really goes when you're
not being managed by your emotions.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
So example, when you know the.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Fear based basically center of the brain, which is the amygdala,
if you're reacting as opposed to you know, being self
aware and like okay this is a trigger, you know,
and being able to manage that, then you're you're literally
just go go straight to the Amygdalah.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Now you're managing with your emotion. You're actually not managing anything.
The CEO is bypassed. It's like it's them right now.
You probably will blow up, maybe you'll you'll shut down,
maybe you'll just leave.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It's just chaotic. So more often than than than not.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
We see unfortunately, a lot of leaders, a lot of
teams are operating in fight or flight.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So just being aware of this, applying.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
It day to day, giving examples doing that workshop is
really understanding what each team member savageurs, how they're savoteg
sabotaging themselves, how that affects other how they're communicating. Uh,
you know, what really motivates them, what really gets them
into their emotion, into their amygdala and vice versa, what
(09:35):
brain wave they're in. Are they really just bombarded with
negative thoughts most of the time. They're because they're anxious,
they're you know, they're there's stress, they're judging themselves, others,
are they or they're really just looking at the positive
side of things. Even if it's a challenge, they're more
curious about how they can resolve it. So it's all
(09:55):
about you know, they call it mindset, but it's way
beyond that. It's really just understanding how the machine works
and being able you have your brain work for you and.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Not against you.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Mm hm.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
I teach that it's like, how do you get your brain,
which is brilliant, this amazing magical thing to work for
you so you can be wow, you can perform at.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
An elite level.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
As opposed to just be completely oblivious of what's happening
and just.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Well you're I want to get it, Yeah, because you're
bringing up so before we can rewire to get it
to the maximum performs or improve the important performance. Like
you're saying, is what you give the number of examples
of blind spots where we're just unaware, unconscious, perhaps asleep,
if you will, right to this in our life and
(10:50):
you speak a little bit more, because I think this
is important for both folks to realize, because I've done
some more research this, but I want to hear more
from you there as to our brain doesn't want to
you know, right, doesn't want to do more energy than
it has to. So kind of like even if these
are bad situations, not good things, we've kind of normalized
(11:10):
right in our brain, like so we kind of don't
even see it anymore.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Is that how you're seeing it?
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, it's exactly that. So you know it's whether brain
talk or not. Okay, you've all noticed that when you know,
we have each one of us have a certain behavior.
We've been doing it for I don't know how many years,
or we've taken on certain patterns excefter, we all have
like a pattern of some sort, and typically these patterns
we take them on when we're really young because as
(11:39):
a child, at two three years old, we just want
to survive. You know that the brain this job is
to keep you alive.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yes, absolutely right, it's gonna it's.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Gonna focus on your strengths, like what are you naturally
strong with?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
So it's going to use these tools to help you
survive and navigate this world that you have no idea
what's going on. These people talking to you, don't understand
the language. You're trying to survive literally, right. But the
thing is so, so this is where we our pattern
starts forming.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So when I say pattern, I go like this with
my hands.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Is because our neurons are you will fire and wire
the more we do a certain thing. So then so
imagine we're firing and wiring certain behaviors for survival since
we're two three years old, subconsciously, unconsciously, and this is
the stuff that we drag on into our adulthood and
now automatically it's like yeah, but I'm like that, no, yeah,
(12:35):
because we've been like.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
That maybe for a long time, and it doesn't mean
you cannot.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Unwire, yes, and unfire these things and create new neurons
that will fire and wire together into a new pattern,
which is called this is like playing at your full potential.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You know why.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
This is how we rewire the brain you break you
first of all, just being aware of.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
What's firing and wiring and why. Maybe you don't.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Understand why, because it's sometimes in the child, and sometimes
you know, you don't know, you don't remember, and sometimes
you don't want to go there, you know, and you're
gonna be respectful of that. So it doesn't matter. Just
as long as you're observing, you already know. It's like, okay,
I'm doing it. Okay, I'm wiring and firing and wiring.
That's great. But if you don't want that behavior, then
you can consciously, this is the power of the human
(13:21):
ring can consciously say Okay, I'm gonna I'm not gonna
do that.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I'm not gonna be triggered.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
I'm just gonna breathe, just like instead of reacting, I
really want to react and bite somebody's head off right now,
let's say yes, it's like no, I'm not going straight
to Miam mcdilla I'm gonna be reasonable, I'm gonna calm down.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
But you need tools, you just don't, you.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Know, right, And if you've created Claire, if you've and
if you've created like you said, those naps over years
and years, decades possibly and we're going to get to
this because I want to get to the you wiring.
But it's it's like walking a path, you know, you
walk that past so many times. It's so born down, right,
(14:02):
I don't know this right? Or or I've gone on
the path. Or you were driving somewhere and you're not
wanting to go there, but you're just like as a pattern,
you just start driving.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Where am I going? I didn't want to go there?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Completely automatic?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Automatic, right, I mean our.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Whole body, our whole brain is operating, uh automatically basically
want to drink You just took a sip of water, water,
coffee or you know, how.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Did it really go down your throat?
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Which muscle muscles had to contract contract in order to
let the water. Cells are working to break it, break
it down, hydrate your your.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yes, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
The conscious of I'm going to tell the cell to right,
you know. But but when.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
We are able to you know, activate the prefront with
cortex and our behaviors in our day to day so
we can we can be mindful of our energy where
we're putting our attention and our focus, because that will
create your life, That will create experience if you're positive
and always take a challenge like, ah, what is the
gift here?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
How could I do this better? Okay?
Speaker 4 (15:08):
You know I learned something instead of beating yourself up
for a year over this thing and being you know,
being you know, filled with regret, anxiety.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Stress, just judging yourself and why you can just you know,
it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
That's like, if you do that, that's really bad and
you're totally drowning yourself and sorrow, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
But you could choose to say, Okay, well it's happened.
I know better.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Now, how can I take this as a gift for
me to you know, how how do I find the
gift this challenge in order to turn things around and say,
you know, maybe I needed to go through this and
my brain kind of told me, you know, bad, but
because you know what, but not that I did that.
Now I learned something. I'm like, oh my god, I
can do this in then, and you know that taught
(15:53):
me not to do it because that will drain my
energy and my well being and da da da. You know,
we see that a lot with people that unfortunately get
to the point where they get really sick or have
an accident and they're almost lose their life and now
they wake up. So what I'm the only thing I'm
saying is please don't wait for an accident to happen.
Please don't wait for your body to yell at you
(16:16):
with cancer or disease of some sort, so you can
change and rewire your habit so you can really be
and thrive at the level you should be, like every
human being should. So that really it's as simple as that.
You know, let's not wait for the drama. You know,
do we really need to get to go there? We
have that power to do it, you just.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yes, absolutely, And I mentioned you before we record the podcast.
I had another gentleman on our podcast, if You're a Suruna.
We were talking about that from a medical perspective, why
people delay it instead of like, hey, if you know
this will actually improve your body, help you be better,
have a greater longevity, why not why wait?
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Like like it's Uh, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
There's sometimes there may be some some that's what the
reasons maybe in some particular reasons, you're going through a
medical crisis something I can't I've got literally I'm bleeding
and I need to deal with that. I get that,
But you know there's but like you're saying, Claire, I
like to use the car analogy, meaning you could you
could go you don't have to change the oil every
(17:21):
three or five thousand miles.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
You can go longer.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
You can go longer under retires and there, but there's
going to be a breakdown at some point, something's going
to wear. Why do we want to wait tether the
blow out of a complete breakdown versus stepping back being
prevented like you're saying, Claire, and start the rewiring process
like you were saying, right, yeah, don't.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Wait exactly and and and the thing is what's hard
about it, And this is the you know, the catch
twenty two is that your brain always did a certain
thing and wired the same neurons and has the same
neural neural pathways in your brain for years. So now
you're gonna come and say, well, you know what, We're
(18:05):
not gonna do it this way.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
We're gonna do it that way. What is your brain
gonna do? It's going to resist. I mean it's very smart.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
I mean it's just it's biology. It's science. It's wire
a certain thing. This is how it that's what it knows.
Now you're telling you, no, unlearned all this and we're
gonna learn something else.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
So this is why it is difficult and hard to
change a pattern or you know, remember, like we all
go through this.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
I still go through it, you know, and I'm a
bit more aware of it now. But January in shape.
We're gonna go to the gym every day. I'm going
to be active, I'm gonna eat better, you know, all
these things. It's great the trigger is January or December
twa first. But the thing is you cannot unwire and
rewire without some tools.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
You know, you need to help yourself do that.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
You can have the intention, you make the decision, but
then there's a bit of work to do. But it's
doable because the brain is neuro plastic and it will
go you can teach it.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yes, I love I love.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
That it's not like you're stuck with certain habits. And
I love what people say, Oh we're all like this
in the family. It's always been that way. It's genetics,
yes and no, and it has been proven through research
it you can you can literally turn off certain genes.
And I'm a big fan of doctor Jo Despanza. I
really encourage a lot of people to to to watch
(19:30):
his videos or read his books. I read all the books.
And you can literally by your behavior and by changing
your energy and your focus where you put your attention
and be mindful of your thoughts, you can switch off
certain genes. You don't have to get go down to burnout.
You don't oh yeah, you know cancer because you have
(19:53):
cancer cells in your family. These genes probably will not
be activated if you completely change your your diet, if
you if you change your behavior, if you know, like
there's a lot of smoking in your family, like you
stop smoking.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It's easy to say and explain, but harder to do.
But it's doable. I mean, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, And this is where why I want to have
you on the on the podcast, Claire, because uh and
you are both coaches and guiding folks and helping trying
to help them. What I found is like people might
get motivated, like you said early on, like Hey, I'll
go to the gym, I'll read a book, I'll watch
a video, I'll do a meditation. And we know you
and I know that that's not enough just a one
(20:34):
time deal. It's you're creating a habit and a lifestyle
and a way of doing this, and you've got a
certain tool set and resources you bring that's unique, which
I I appreciate. And I want to have different voices
here on the podcast so that people can hear and say, oh, man,
Claire's reaching me. She understands where I'm coming and is
my person? Is that person that I feel like I
(20:55):
can align with. We all have different people and is
what whatever can help get you to along the journey
for fantastic right?
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Like you said, so many tools, so.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Many pols, and you know, sometimes speak to some people
some tools, won't. More of us out there talking about
this and bringing forward ways to help and share our
story or share our experience and knowing that we succeed
if I.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Can do it, I mean, geez, you can do it,
trust me.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
But it depends every person will will will you know,
will be attracted towards a certain tool.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's not not everybody's got the perfect solution for everyone, right.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
But you know, I believe that, you know, the simpler,
more attainable, easier to apply is you know, easy, easiest
to apply on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
When we bring the focus back.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
To leadership, you know, leaders they even have time. I
mean all the objections, I've heard all of them.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
M hmm.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
But you know the certain tools you can do. I'm
literally being mindful now. I'm mindfulness and I'm not closing
my eyes and meditating for the past twenty two what
is it twenty two minutes now we're on this podcast.
I'm not doing that. I'm not I'm fully present, but
I'm not in fight or flight. I'm breathing every now
and again. I'm focusing on your background, your your eyeglasses.
(22:16):
I'm being mindful. I'm here, I'm present, I'm already charging up.
I'm already in, you know, basically lighting up my prefrontal cortex.
So I'm able to be mindful and build that energy
and charge recharge while I'm doing something as easy as
(22:37):
a podcast, just being online talking to you.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Now, I don't have to stop everything.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Yeah and take thirty minutes like no, who has time?
I know this is our life now, But the more
you do that, the more you will take time. You
will make time because you see the benefits. You see
that it's changing your life. You see it's changing your energy.
You see that people around you are asking questions, going
what are you doing? What bill are you taking or
(23:05):
what's happening?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
You know, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Give me the secret.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
You know your energy, your or your your the way
you show up. Uh, it just basically lights up the room.
And it's it's not it's not a surprise. And certain leaders,
you know, they walk in the room they have this
thing and you're like, damn you know, I mean, you
know these people like gone through things and worked on
(23:32):
themselves and applied and worked hard to become be again,
be who they are right now, who they become.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Became y being authentically who they are. And I let
you get to a little bit of that on the
podcast here, Claire, because.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
You know, we're breaking down the euro.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Based science that you're talking about leadership between you rewire
our brains. But then that leads into your help as
I was we would talk previously, but to help designs
and as you're making frameworks have clarity and all of
this and speak a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
About how you do what you do at MS in guiding.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So when people come to you and now, okay, like
you said, maybe we're starting to open the mindset in
the past day is to walk walk through the process
of what it looks like along this journey and they're
working with.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
It's a great question and so many ways to answer
it because I mean, we have eighty five plus.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
School all these things.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Yeah, So what I always say is that I'm a
true believer that you always build a box around what
the client needs. There's no specific formula, there's a way,
there's knowledge, of course, there's experience, et cetera. But for instance,
I'll give you one example, how a team come to
me about a month ago, and we just finished the
training a couple of weeks ago, and it's a new
(24:52):
team and they wanted to really stop working in silos.
They really want to communicate better. They want to understand
each other's behavior and be a bit more mindful and
be more efficient and collaborative moving forward, because I mean
they're going through something big growth, et cetera. And and simply,
but I mean it had to be virtual, so it
was limited a little bit. But we we talked about Basically,
(25:14):
we got them to do a lot of assessments. Those
assessments are like three minutes, so we got to find
out what are the main ways each team.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Member sabotages themselves.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Some of them are controllers, some of them were pleasers,
some of them were hyper rational, some were We all
have different ways.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
And we all have savatories, by the way.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
So understanding their behavior and how they're reacting it already
took a huge chunk of stress off of their shoulder
because everybody now was talking openly about, hey, we're not
all perfect. This is how I react, and when you
come and tell me this, this is how I'm going
to react, because that's I've been doing this all my life.
So we humanize you know, everything and the situations, and
(25:57):
it's it.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
It becomes lighter.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
So the idea is to create that psychological safety as
a facilitator and get people to be self aware of
what's happening so they can develop empathy and be a
bit more emmercial intelligence so we can communicate, collaborate, work
together and break down those silos.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Now that's like I really touched.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
A little bit on the how I mean, obviously I'll
need ours, but yes, one other.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Thing we did.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
We did like we finished with an activity called the
team Totem that we do and where it's all about
self recognizing each other's strength.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
So it's really your colleagues.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Selecting your totem, meaning your animal totem and your quality totem.
And what that does is you're literally telling your colleagues
I see you as a leader, I see you as courageous,
or I see you as And it's a plainful way
and people need it really helped them a lot. And
we have post workshop sessions as well coming up. So
(26:56):
because at the end of the day, which is great,
now everybody's like, okay, we know we need to do.
We're good, we're equipped with the tools, but now what
you need to reaccess? How did how did we shift?
How was our you know, a level of awareness go up.
So I talk a lot about positive intelligence with the
ability of the brain to work for you and not
(27:18):
against you, and we want to bring that positive it's
a PQ quotient like it's positive intelligent coachient iq.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
EQ, same thing. We want to bring it up to
a certain level.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
So because once it's at a higher level, that means
our brain is working for us seventy five percent of
the time or more than less right, So we don't
circle back down, spiral back down. So the idea is
to build that, build the EQ, build the PQ, build all.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
The cues besides the IQ.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
We can build it and that by doing these post sessions,
we regroup, we're reinforced. We keep building, and we measure
and see how how we as well as see what
are our challenges and we don't know how to deal
with this thing, so then we can all talk about it.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I can give some tools.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
It's all about hands on because theory is great, but
if you're not applying it in your day to day
and in a specific situation with the client, then you
know it's useful to a certain extent. And one last
thing quickly, one of the most popular workshops that I
love doing. One is with music. We really help people
(28:29):
find their voice, find their voice as a team called
innovation that rhymes again no time to go in detail.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And the other one is Lego lego serious play.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
So at MS speak building, we really try to bring
in very creative ways to learn and grow because the
creative side of the brain, the right side of the brain,
is really where we thrive, and of course we're so
much in our analytical brain or left brain that most
of the time we're not really tapping into that full
(28:59):
potential by ballot and seeing both. So the idea is
really to be able to not only be in our
analytical brain, but balance both by doing certain ways and
bringing certain workshops to open it up, open up the
conversation and find and understand.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
There's way so many tools.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Out there to help us navigate this thing called getting
along at work.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Right, absolutely well, I mean, and that's again, Claire, why
I wanted to have you here because you bring a
different perspective, and I think it's so important is if
you're a business owner or even a leader or a
department manager and you're like, man, I don't know where
to go here to get you're listening to the podcast,
you're listening to player. And by the way, again, you
guys can connect with Claire on LinkedIn where we're connected
(29:44):
there as well. We'll put all the links to MSP
and whatnot in our show notes. But you know, I
want folks to be able to hear other voices and saying, oh,
I didn't even know that was a possibility. I didn't
even know that you could do this workshop or create
this space. And I love collaborating with folks player because
I know I don't have all the answers, I don't
have all the tools. I love to be able to
(30:05):
bring in folks like yourself, even if I'm working with
the minor company and saying, hey, Claire has got a
unique perspective in a way that has worked and unlocked.
And I liked how you said this on your LinkedIn.
You're saying, we build in building. We're being very proactive
and building. Maybe that's you're engineering coming in there, but
how we do right, yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
And you know what, David, I really appreciate what you
just said because I'm a true believer of that turn.
That's why we just clicked. I knew you that I've
always looked for collaborators. I've always looked for other people
to do what I do, but differently, you cannot do
something exactly like the other person.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I'm possible, right, all different, And I love that because
that's exactly how I work.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
If I find that my client needs you know, I
have the base what I do, but I'm like, yeah,
but you need you need an expert in this that's
done this with a specific situation like I would love
to reach out to somebody like you, David or somebody
else like in our partners Yes, because why because that's
that's what my client needs right, the client first, because
(31:11):
we're here to help. And if we're not bringing in
the right method, like we said earlier, you know so
many ways to do things, but maybe that's not the
right way. Maybe this this will will will will appeal
better to a certain person. And this is where the
strength is of a network, especially with coaches, leadership, experts,
(31:33):
and we all need the help that.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
We can get right.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Absolutely, absolutely, no, absolutely, Claire, And I hope as you're
listening to this, because sometimes I feel like you might
try to do this within your organ maybe speak.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
To this a little bit clear.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Sometimes people say I've learned, I watched a video or
read something, and they try to do it on their
own with limited success in the organization for different reasons.
It's not speak to as your god as an objective
third party. Clayer, a little bit about that relationship with
your clients, because you have a different interest, if you will,
but maybe some others do.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And how you how you work with with clients.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Mm hmmm, yeah, I mean, you know, it's like I said,
we don't always have all the solutions, you know, and
sometimes you know what I find, David, I find sometimes
that maybe what I offer is wow for certain people,
but for others, like I don't understand what you're saying,
you know, I mean, in so many ways, they're just
(32:33):
not ready. They're not ready because it's pretty you know,
you need to be at a certain level where you're
really looking for something, searching and wanting to transform or
wanting to change one being so.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Fed up of being that person that is not serving
you anymore.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Yes, that you know, your brain now is open to
that opportunity because it's.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Looking for it. And we call the rs. It's you know,
that red car.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
That you find everywhere when you decide I want a
red car, that's your r S. It's going to filter
the information. The data is out there. So if your brain,
your r S, is not filtering the right data and
this is not what you're looking for, you have to
look for it.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
This is why I said, it starts with.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
The decision, you know, then it will just be presented
to you, Yes, Chack, But that's the brain doing its thing.
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I know we're getting into the podcast here, Claire, but
you you've hit on so many great points. I hope
people that are listening maybe you know you've been looking
or leaning now you said this is your red car moment.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
You're like, oh my goodness, here it is again. You know.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Now you know, here's Claire. I know, Claire, you're based
in Canada, but you're all all over the all over
the flat help so many Yeah, where we have.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Our company in the US and we're also in Canada,
and yeah, I mean virtually.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Obviously, like yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
But yeah, we have teams across Canada. We have teams
of the US. We serve for both territories.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, so so don't But you know, I wanted to
say that because I wanted people to know that, hey,
when you go connect with Claire, she's helping.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
People all over the world. Really, uh.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
In this podcast is another way we can reach hopefully
more of you, Claire. As we're wrapping it up here,
and we've shared a lot of different ideas and thoughts.
So if somebody is leaning into this, they haven't fit
their toe fully, but like, okay, I'm maybe you got
me in This mindfulness thing got me thinking a little
bit more.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
What would you say?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
What would you encourage our listeners a step that they
could do today or consider.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Based on our conversation. I know there's so much.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah this is I'm not going to hold you this
an ultimate one, but just like something that comes to
mind for you.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Yeah, you know, maybe if I could give one tip,
I challenge the listeners to take maybe for one day
or maybe take thirty minutes, just be mindful of their thoughts.
If that's one thing you can do, right, these thoughts
that just keep coming back, and maybe just write it
down on a piece of paper and just observe these thoughts.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I'm like, okay, my god, I'm always telling myself I'm
so tired. I'm so tired, I'm so tired. I don't know. Example,
then say okay, is this really serving me? Is this
really how I feel?
Speaker 4 (35:17):
I'm actually not that tired, or you know, and then
just reverse it, change it to what you want to
happen in your life.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
So change it into the positive thing.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
So bring bring up your brainwave to the positive level
and change it. And then every time you have that thought,
try to be mindful and just switch it around and
repeat it. You literally with one thought can change a
lot in your day to day.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
So hopefully that serves you.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
And that's a really really great hands on sold that
I do like I should stop saying, you know, I procrastinate,
you know, so it's ridiculous. So again, focus on your
thoughts and be mindful of your thoughts because you're thoughts
is basically what you're feeding your brain, and what your
brain is being fed is what's gonna basically filter the
(36:08):
data that is around you and make your life exactly
what you're telling you to do.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
So you want that red car, it's going to bring
you the red card.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
So make sure that what you're asking for is really
what's serving you and not actually doing harm.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
So watch those thoughts for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Thank you so much Claire the podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
You're welcome everybody.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Hopefully you've got a lot of value at this Why
Claire this year with you?
Speaker 3 (36:36):
That's gold of course you love comments.
Speaker 7 (36:41):
Get that all along, team, Uh subscribe, Well come back an,
let's go next the podcast. Be well mentally, most physically
all of us, yourself, ende, everybody,
Hello everybody, and welcome to the Business Roundtable podcast. I'm
your host, David Carr, founder of Stewart Your Business. Grateful
to have you here once again. Or we have a
brand new guest on the podcast. I'm super excited to
have Claire Yak on here. Claire, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah. Absolutely uh.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Claire and I have met you might have heard in
past episodes through one of our networking group, Success Champions Network,
which has brought some amazing people into my world. And
I've been really grateful to have Claire on here. She
has got such a great background and we share a
lot of passion in leadership and team development. And so Claire,
before we get into what I call the meat of
(01:12):
the meat of the podcast, tell me a little bit
about and tell our audience, because I've gotten to meet
you and talk with you.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But what got you to becoming you know yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
You're a neuro leadership expert and we'll share, but what
got you to this point where you're like, no, I
want to focus on this part of the brain and
how we're showing up and take us a little bit
about your journey as now you're the owner and founder
of your business and leading yourself well and leading those
that you're working.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah, I'll try to keep this short. So I basically
I'm an engineer and a musician, and I've had these
two careers pretty much for I mean, I'm no longer
practicing engineering, but I worked as an engineer first managed
a lot of teams. I've gone through every single possible
(02:03):
scenario when it comes to leadership and teams, and I've
really learned a lot because I was out.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
There doing it right.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
And that This is when I decided to start my
own company, because I wanted to marry the whole leadership
corporate everything that we do every day with music, the
power of music, the arts, and this is combined with
the left brain and the right brain when we talk
about creativity and analytic. So I kin't always have those
both sides developed. It just happened to be that way,
(02:32):
and I wanted to bring them both into the corporate
world and see how we could learn from that, how
we can combine that and really play at a whole
different level the level that we should be playing at.
Really think we're playing big, but we're playing small. We're
not even tapping into you know, ten percent of our potential.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
So this became kind of my passion.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
And when I started my company, my sold purpose team
building was really to bring this, not only from my
employer because I was in engineering, is to bring it
to the world and the people who need it, the
people that were at that point in their career and
they're thinking, how how do I find my own voice?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
How do I how do I be and.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Become that version of me that is thriving, that is happy,
that is healthy, that is successful, that is everything I
want to have in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Obviously, this was linked to neuroscience. The scientists and.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Me, you know you can, you can pull that out,
and and I stumbled on upon neuroscience because it just
fascinated me. The whole like science behind leadership and human behavior.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
Uh, it makes way too much sense now and kind
of helped me connect the dot in my life and
my career and we transform my life and my career
and my business.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
So I'm not preaching to preach. I'm literally preaching what
I lived experience and I was still experiencing is an
everyday thing. And leadership, you know, this is what we're
talking about here. It takes the leadership the leader himself
or herself to be anchored and be that version that
(04:20):
they want to be before they even ready to lead.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So there's a lot of work.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And I know, David, I know you you.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Agree on this absolutely.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, Well, I mean you and I again come the
reason why I have in the podcast player number one
because I think you and I share a lot of passions.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I don't know if I've even told you this.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I have a music background too, But I think the
brain works differently, like you said, right in left brain right,
and you're engineering them in biological sciences things like that
and right, and so we saw I think both of
us saw the challenge where if you're only thinking one way,
it's like trying to access the whole list of our
brain right. And that's why I like wanted on here
because I feel like there's a different angle that people
(05:00):
may not have heard or.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Thought about before and.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Of how neuros about about neuroscience and maybe they've heard
that word, but maybe it's kind of new to them.
And when you dig into it, like you're saying and Claire,
it's like how you can show up with better mental fitness,
better team alignment. And that's that's why you created MSP
for example, and I love that because I love collaborating
with folks like you, Claire, and I want folks to
(05:25):
hear listening today with Claire about how she's been able
to do successfully working with you.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
And really developing transformation.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And I think that to me, that word is really
meaningful because it's not just because I'm not just that's
exacting being transformed, right, And so you've been transformed, you're saying, Claire,
through your own journey, and I'm continuing to be transformed
as well.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
And so this, you know, coupled with this neuroscigns of.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Resilience and how you've been able to strategically sign and
align teams player, I think it's fantastic and I'm super
excited for our audience to hear more about that today. So,
so walk us through a little bit, Claire about your
focus with ms and building and like you know, you
talked about your personal journey if you will, but like
(06:16):
you have done all these things. You've been a trained engineer,
now you're certified neuroscience leadership coach. You're doing this, but
talk about where you've seen this, you know, from project
teams to boardrooms, how you helped remove some blind spots.
We'll break it down on the podcast or build those
those teams and do it without burning out, like or
just like pushing so hard, right they're grinding how they've done.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
It, maybe in a more sustainable way.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's so many ways to
achieve that result. One of which that I'm always you
know working with clients is the mindfulness.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's the core.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
If you're not anchored, if you're not grounded, if you're
not self aware, not self conscious now right, self aware mindset,
your thoughts, your words, your behavior, your emotions. If the
whole machine is just chaotic and working in a fight
or flight, how do you want to inspire, lead, motivate, perform.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Just be happy? Period?
Speaker 4 (07:23):
I mean you're just literally surviving every single second of
the day. So we really start with the core, which
is the leader and the team, and talk about our
behaviors as human beings.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
We're not perfect.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
We all have some all sabotage, we're all, you know,
have these fear thoughts and fear based ideas.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
And that's really where.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
I bring in the neuroscience and I explain the science
behind this is like, what's really happening in your brain.
And I teach people to be in their prefront or cortex,
which is really where you're making decisions, where this is
the CEO of your life. And you know this the
CEO of the brain in a way, which is the
CEO of your life. Because if you're if your prefrontal
cortex is lighting up and managing and really being present, then.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Everything is just flowing in your body. So we talked about.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
While being health, being completely present, uh, emotionally intelligent, positive intelligence,
all these things. I mean, this really goes when you're
not being managed by your emotions.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
So example, when you know the.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Fear based basically center of the brain, which is the amygdala,
if you're reacting as opposed to you know, being self
aware and like okay this is a trigger, you know,
and being able to manage that, then you're you're literally
just go go straight to the Amygdalah.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Now you're managing with your emotion. You're actually not managing anything.
The CEO is bypassed. It's like it's them right now.
You probably will blow up, maybe you'll you'll shut down,
maybe you'll just leave.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It's just chaotic. So more often than than than not.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
We see unfortunately, a lot of leaders, a lot of
teams are operating in fight or flight.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So just being aware of this, applying.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
It day to day, giving examples doing that workshop is
really understanding what each team member savageurs, how they're savoteg
sabotaging themselves, how that affects other how they're communicating. Uh,
you know, what really motivates them, what really gets them
into their emotion, into their amygdala and vice versa, what
(09:35):
brain wave they're in. Are they really just bombarded with
negative thoughts most of the time. They're because they're anxious,
they're you know, they're there's stress, they're judging themselves, others,
are they or they're really just looking at the positive
side of things. Even if it's a challenge, they're more
curious about how they can resolve it. So it's all
(09:55):
about you know, they call it mindset, but it's way
beyond that. It's really just understanding how the machine works
and being able you have your brain work for you and.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Not against you.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Mm hm.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
I teach that it's like, how do you get your brain,
which is brilliant, this amazing magical thing to work for
you so you can be wow, you can perform at.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
An elite level.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
As opposed to just be completely oblivious of what's happening
and just.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Well you're I want to get it, Yeah, because you're
bringing up so before we can rewire to get it
to the maximum performs or improve the important performance. Like
you're saying, is what you give the number of examples
of blind spots where we're just unaware, unconscious, perhaps asleep,
if you will, right to this in our life and
(10:50):
you speak a little bit more, because I think this
is important for both folks to realize, because I've done
some more research this, but I want to hear more
from you there as to our brain doesn't want to
you know, right, doesn't want to do more energy than
it has to. So kind of like even if these
are bad situations, not good things, we've kind of normalized
(11:10):
right in our brain, like so we kind of don't
even see it anymore.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Is that how you're seeing it?
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, it's exactly that. So you know it's whether brain
talk or not. Okay, you've all noticed that when you know,
we have each one of us have a certain behavior.
We've been doing it for I don't know how many years,
or we've taken on certain patterns excefter, we all have
like a pattern of some sort, and typically these patterns
we take them on when we're really young because as
(11:39):
a child, at two three years old, we just want
to survive. You know that the brain this job is
to keep you alive.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yes, absolutely right, it's gonna it's.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Gonna focus on your strengths, like what are you naturally
strong with?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
So it's going to use these tools to help you
survive and navigate this world that you have no idea
what's going on. These people talking to you, don't understand
the language. You're trying to survive literally, right. But the
thing is so, so this is where we our pattern
starts forming.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So when I say pattern, I go like this with
my hands.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Is because our neurons are you will fire and wire
the more we do a certain thing. So then so
imagine we're firing and wiring certain behaviors for survival since
we're two three years old, subconsciously, unconsciously, and this is
the stuff that we drag on into our adulthood and
now automatically it's like yeah, but I'm like that, no, yeah,
(12:35):
because we've been like.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
That maybe for a long time, and it doesn't mean
you cannot.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Unwire, yes, and unfire these things and create new neurons
that will fire and wire together into a new pattern,
which is called this is like playing at your full potential.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You know why.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
This is how we rewire the brain you break you
first of all, just being aware of.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
What's firing and wiring and why. Maybe you don't.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Understand why, because it's sometimes in the child, and sometimes
you know, you don't know, you don't remember, and sometimes
you don't want to go there, you know, and you're
gonna be respectful of that. So it doesn't matter. Just
as long as you're observing, you already know. It's like, okay,
I'm doing it. Okay, I'm wiring and firing and wiring.
That's great. But if you don't want that behavior, then
you can consciously, this is the power of the human
(13:21):
ring can consciously say Okay, I'm gonna I'm not gonna
do that.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I'm not gonna be triggered.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
I'm just gonna breathe, just like instead of reacting, I
really want to react and bite somebody's head off right now,
let's say yes, it's like no, I'm not going straight
to Miam mcdilla I'm gonna be reasonable, I'm gonna calm down.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
But you need tools, you just don't, you.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Know, right, And if you've created Claire, if you've and
if you've created like you said, those naps over years
and years, decades possibly and we're going to get to
this because I want to get to the you wiring.
But it's it's like walking a path, you know, you
walk that past so many times. It's so born down, right,
(14:02):
I don't know this right? Or or I've gone on
the path. Or you were driving somewhere and you're not
wanting to go there, but you're just like as a pattern,
you just start driving.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Where am I going? I didn't want to go there?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Completely automatic?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Automatic, right, I mean our.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Whole body, our whole brain is operating, uh automatically basically
want to drink You just took a sip of water, water,
coffee or you know, how.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Did it really go down your throat?
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Which muscle muscles had to contract contract in order to
let the water. Cells are working to break it, break
it down, hydrate your your.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yes, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
The conscious of I'm going to tell the cell to right,
you know. But but when.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
We are able to you know, activate the prefront with
cortex and our behaviors in our day to day so
we can we can be mindful of our energy where
we're putting our attention and our focus, because that will
create your life, That will create experience if you're positive
and always take a challenge like, ah, what is the
gift here?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
How could I do this better? Okay?
Speaker 4 (15:08):
You know I learned something instead of beating yourself up
for a year over this thing and being you know,
being you know, filled with regret, anxiety.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Stress, just judging yourself and why you can just you know,
it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
That's like, if you do that, that's really bad and
you're totally drowning yourself and sorrow, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
But you could choose to say, Okay, well it's happened.
I know better.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Now, how can I take this as a gift for
me to you know, how how do I find the
gift this challenge in order to turn things around and say,
you know, maybe I needed to go through this and
my brain kind of told me, you know, bad, but
because you know what, but not that I did that.
Now I learned something. I'm like, oh my god, I
can do this in then, and you know that taught
(15:53):
me not to do it because that will drain my
energy and my well being and da da da. You know,
we see that a lot with people that unfortunately get
to the point where they get really sick or have
an accident and they're almost lose their life and now
they wake up. So what I'm the only thing I'm
saying is please don't wait for an accident to happen.
Please don't wait for your body to yell at you
(16:16):
with cancer or disease of some sort, so you can
change and rewire your habit so you can really be
and thrive at the level you should be, like every
human being should. So that really it's as simple as that.
You know, let's not wait for the drama. You know,
do we really need to get to go there? We
have that power to do it, you just.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yes, absolutely, And I mentioned you before we record the podcast.
I had another gentleman on our podcast, if You're a Suruna.
We were talking about that from a medical perspective, why
people delay it instead of like, hey, if you know
this will actually improve your body, help you be better,
have a greater longevity, why not why wait?
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Like like it's Uh, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
There's sometimes there may be some some that's what the
reasons maybe in some particular reasons, you're going through a
medical crisis something I can't I've got literally I'm bleeding
and I need to deal with that. I get that,
But you know there's but like you're saying, Claire, I
like to use the car analogy, meaning you could you
could go you don't have to change the oil every
(17:21):
three or five thousand miles.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
You can go longer.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
You can go longer under retires and there, but there's
going to be a breakdown at some point, something's going
to wear. Why do we want to wait tether the
blow out of a complete breakdown versus stepping back being
prevented like you're saying, Claire, and start the rewiring process
like you were saying, right, yeah, don't.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Wait exactly and and and the thing is what's hard
about it, And this is the you know, the catch
twenty two is that your brain always did a certain
thing and wired the same neurons and has the same
neural neural pathways in your brain for years. So now
you're gonna come and say, well, you know what, We're
(18:05):
not gonna do it this way.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
We're gonna do it that way. What is your brain
gonna do? It's going to resist. I mean it's very smart.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
I mean it's just it's biology. It's science. It's wire
a certain thing. This is how it that's what it knows.
Now you're telling you, no, unlearned all this and we're
gonna learn something else.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
So this is why it is difficult and hard to
change a pattern or you know, remember, like we all
go through this.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
I still go through it, you know, and I'm a
bit more aware of it now. But January in shape.
We're gonna go to the gym every day. I'm going
to be active, I'm gonna eat better, you know, all
these things. It's great the trigger is January or December
twa first. But the thing is you cannot unwire and
rewire without some tools.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
You know, you need to help yourself do that.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
You can have the intention, you make the decision, but
then there's a bit of work to do. But it's
doable because the brain is neuro plastic and it will
go you can teach it.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yes, I love I love.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
That it's not like you're stuck with certain habits. And
I love what people say, Oh we're all like this
in the family. It's always been that way. It's genetics,
yes and no, and it has been proven through research
it you can you can literally turn off certain genes.
And I'm a big fan of doctor Jo Despanza. I
really encourage a lot of people to to to watch
(19:30):
his videos or read his books. I read all the books.
And you can literally by your behavior and by changing
your energy and your focus where you put your attention
and be mindful of your thoughts, you can switch off
certain genes. You don't have to get go down to burnout.
You don't oh yeah, you know cancer because you have
(19:53):
cancer cells in your family. These genes probably will not
be activated if you completely change your your diet, if
you if you change your behavior, if you know, like
there's a lot of smoking in your family, like you
stop smoking.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It's easy to say and explain, but harder to do.
But it's doable. I mean, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, And this is where why I want to have
you on the on the podcast, Claire, because uh and
you are both coaches and guiding folks and helping trying
to help them. What I found is like people might
get motivated, like you said early on, like Hey, I'll
go to the gym, I'll read a book, I'll watch
a video, I'll do a meditation. And we know you
and I know that that's not enough just a one
(20:34):
time deal. It's you're creating a habit and a lifestyle
and a way of doing this, and you've got a
certain tool set and resources you bring that's unique, which
I I appreciate. And I want to have different voices
here on the podcast so that people can hear and say, oh, man,
Claire's reaching me. She understands where I'm coming and is
my person? Is that person that I feel like I
(20:55):
can align with. We all have different people and is
what whatever can help get you to along the journey
for fantastic right?
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Like you said, so many tools, so.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Many pols, and you know, sometimes speak to some people
some tools, won't. More of us out there talking about
this and bringing forward ways to help and share our
story or share our experience and knowing that we succeed
if I.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Can do it, I mean, geez, you can do it,
trust me.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
But it depends every person will will will you know,
will be attracted towards a certain tool.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's not not everybody's got the perfect solution for everyone, right.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
But you know, I believe that, you know, the simpler,
more attainable, easier to apply is you know, easy, easiest
to apply on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
When we bring the focus back.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
To leadership, you know, leaders they even have time. I
mean all the objections, I've heard all of them.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
M hmm.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
But you know the certain tools you can do. I'm
literally being mindful now. I'm mindfulness and I'm not closing
my eyes and meditating for the past twenty two what
is it twenty two minutes now we're on this podcast.
I'm not doing that. I'm not I'm fully present, but
I'm not in fight or flight. I'm breathing every now
and again. I'm focusing on your background, your your eyeglasses.
(22:16):
I'm being mindful. I'm here, I'm present, I'm already charging up.
I'm already in, you know, basically lighting up my prefrontal cortex.
So I'm able to be mindful and build that energy
and charge recharge while I'm doing something as easy as
(22:37):
a podcast, just being online talking to you.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Now, I don't have to stop everything.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Yeah and take thirty minutes like no, who has time?
I know this is our life now, But the more
you do that, the more you will take time. You
will make time because you see the benefits. You see
that it's changing your life. You see it's changing your energy.
You see that people around you are asking questions, going
what are you doing? What bill are you taking or
(23:05):
what's happening?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
You know, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Give me the secret.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
You know your energy, your or your your the way
you show up. Uh, it just basically lights up the room.
And it's it's not it's not a surprise. And certain leaders,
you know, they walk in the room they have this
thing and you're like, damn you know, I mean, you
know these people like gone through things and worked on
(23:32):
themselves and applied and worked hard to become be again,
be who they are right now, who they become.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Became y being authentically who they are. And I let
you get to a little bit of that on the
podcast here, Claire, because.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
You know, we're breaking down the euro.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Based science that you're talking about leadership between you rewire
our brains. But then that leads into your help as
I was we would talk previously, but to help designs
and as you're making frameworks have clarity and all of
this and speak a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
About how you do what you do at MS in guiding.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So when people come to you and now, okay, like
you said, maybe we're starting to open the mindset in
the past day is to walk walk through the process
of what it looks like along this journey and they're
working with.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
It's a great question and so many ways to answer
it because I mean, we have eighty five plus.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
School all these things.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Yeah, So what I always say is that I'm a
true believer that you always build a box around what
the client needs. There's no specific formula, there's a way,
there's knowledge, of course, there's experience, et cetera. But for instance,
I'll give you one example, how a team come to
me about a month ago, and we just finished the
training a couple of weeks ago, and it's a new
(24:52):
team and they wanted to really stop working in silos.
They really want to communicate better. They want to understand
each other's behavior and be a bit more mindful and
be more efficient and collaborative moving forward, because I mean
they're going through something big growth, et cetera. And and simply,
but I mean it had to be virtual, so it
was limited a little bit. But we we talked about Basically,
(25:14):
we got them to do a lot of assessments. Those
assessments are like three minutes, so we got to find
out what are the main ways each team.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Member sabotages themselves.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Some of them are controllers, some of them were pleasers,
some of them were hyper rational, some were We all
have different ways.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
And we all have savatories, by the way.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
So understanding their behavior and how they're reacting it already
took a huge chunk of stress off of their shoulder
because everybody now was talking openly about, hey, we're not
all perfect. This is how I react, and when you
come and tell me this, this is how I'm going
to react, because that's I've been doing this all my life.
So we humanize you know, everything and the situations, and
(25:57):
it's it.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
It becomes lighter.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
So the idea is to create that psychological safety as
a facilitator and get people to be self aware of
what's happening so they can develop empathy and be a
bit more emmercial intelligence so we can communicate, collaborate, work
together and break down those silos.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Now that's like I really touched.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
A little bit on the how I mean, obviously I'll
need ours, but yes, one other.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Thing we did.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
We did like we finished with an activity called the
team Totem that we do and where it's all about
self recognizing each other's strength.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
So it's really your colleagues.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Selecting your totem, meaning your animal totem and your quality totem.
And what that does is you're literally telling your colleagues
I see you as a leader, I see you as courageous,
or I see you as And it's a plainful way
and people need it really helped them a lot. And
we have post workshop sessions as well coming up. So
(26:56):
because at the end of the day, which is great,
now everybody's like, okay, we know we need to do.
We're good, we're equipped with the tools, but now what
you need to reaccess? How did how did we shift?
How was our you know, a level of awareness go up.
So I talk a lot about positive intelligence with the
ability of the brain to work for you and not
(27:18):
against you, and we want to bring that positive it's
a PQ quotient like it's positive intelligent coachient iq.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
EQ, same thing. We want to bring it up to
a certain level.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
So because once it's at a higher level, that means
our brain is working for us seventy five percent of
the time or more than less right, So we don't
circle back down, spiral back down. So the idea is
to build that, build the EQ, build the PQ, build all.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
The cues besides the IQ.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
We can build it and that by doing these post sessions,
we regroup, we're reinforced. We keep building, and we measure
and see how how we as well as see what
are our challenges and we don't know how to deal
with this thing, so then we can all talk about it.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I can give some tools.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
It's all about hands on because theory is great, but
if you're not applying it in your day to day
and in a specific situation with the client, then you
know it's useful to a certain extent. And one last
thing quickly, one of the most popular workshops that I
love doing. One is with music. We really help people
(28:29):
find their voice, find their voice as a team called
innovation that rhymes again no time to go in detail.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And the other one is Lego lego serious play.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
So at MS speak building, we really try to bring
in very creative ways to learn and grow because the
creative side of the brain, the right side of the brain,
is really where we thrive, and of course we're so
much in our analytical brain or left brain that most
of the time we're not really tapping into that full
(28:59):
potential by ballot and seeing both. So the idea is
really to be able to not only be in our
analytical brain, but balance both by doing certain ways and
bringing certain workshops to open it up, open up the
conversation and find and understand.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
There's way so many tools.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Out there to help us navigate this thing called getting
along at work.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Right, absolutely well, I mean, and that's again, Claire, why
I wanted to have you here because you bring a
different perspective, and I think it's so important is if
you're a business owner or even a leader or a
department manager and you're like, man, I don't know where
to go here to get you're listening to the podcast,
you're listening to player. And by the way, again, you
guys can connect with Claire on LinkedIn where we're connected
(29:44):
there as well. We'll put all the links to MSP
and whatnot in our show notes. But you know, I
want folks to be able to hear other voices and saying, oh,
I didn't even know that was a possibility. I didn't
even know that you could do this workshop or create
this space. And I love collaborating with folks player because
I know I don't have all the answers, I don't
have all the tools. I love to be able to
(30:05):
bring in folks like yourself, even if I'm working with
the minor company and saying, hey, Claire has got a
unique perspective in a way that has worked and unlocked.
And I liked how you said this on your LinkedIn.
You're saying, we build in building. We're being very proactive
and building. Maybe that's you're engineering coming in there, but
how we do right, yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
And you know what, David, I really appreciate what you
just said because I'm a true believer of that turn.
That's why we just clicked. I knew you that I've
always looked for collaborators. I've always looked for other people
to do what I do, but differently, you cannot do
something exactly like the other person.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I'm possible, right, all different, And I love that because
that's exactly how I work.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
If I find that my client needs you know, I
have the base what I do, but I'm like, yeah,
but you need you need an expert in this that's
done this with a specific situation like I would love
to reach out to somebody like you, David or somebody
else like in our partners Yes, because why because that's
that's what my client needs right, the client first, because
(31:11):
we're here to help. And if we're not bringing in
the right method, like we said earlier, you know so
many ways to do things, but maybe that's not the
right way. Maybe this this will will will will appeal
better to a certain person. And this is where the
strength is of a network, especially with coaches, leadership, experts,
(31:33):
and we all need the help that.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
We can get right.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Absolutely, absolutely, no, absolutely, Claire, And I hope as you're
listening to this, because sometimes I feel like you might
try to do this within your organ maybe speak.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
To this a little bit clear.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Sometimes people say I've learned, I watched a video or
read something, and they try to do it on their
own with limited success in the organization for different reasons.
It's not speak to as your god as an objective
third party. Clayer, a little bit about that relationship with
your clients, because you have a different interest, if you will,
but maybe some others do.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And how you how you work with with clients.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Mm hmmm, yeah, I mean, you know, it's like I said,
we don't always have all the solutions, you know, and
sometimes you know what I find, David, I find sometimes
that maybe what I offer is wow for certain people,
but for others, like I don't understand what you're saying,
you know, I mean, in so many ways, they're just
(32:33):
not ready. They're not ready because it's pretty you know,
you need to be at a certain level where you're
really looking for something, searching and wanting to transform or
wanting to change one being so.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Fed up of being that person that is not serving
you anymore.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Yes, that you know, your brain now is open to
that opportunity because it's.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Looking for it. And we call the rs. It's you know,
that red car.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
That you find everywhere when you decide I want a
red car, that's your r S. It's going to filter
the information. The data is out there. So if your brain,
your r S, is not filtering the right data and
this is not what you're looking for, you have to
look for it.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
This is why I said, it starts with.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
The decision, you know, then it will just be presented
to you, Yes, Chack, But that's the brain doing its thing.
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I know we're getting into the podcast here, Claire, but
you you've hit on so many great points. I hope
people that are listening maybe you know you've been looking
or leaning now you said this is your red car moment.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
You're like, oh my goodness, here it is again. You know.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Now you know, here's Claire. I know, Claire, you're based
in Canada, but you're all all over the all over
the flat help so many Yeah, where we have.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Our company in the US and we're also in Canada,
and yeah, I mean virtually.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Obviously, like yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
But yeah, we have teams across Canada. We have teams
of the US. We serve for both territories.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, so so don't But you know, I wanted to
say that because I wanted people to know that, hey,
when you go connect with Claire, she's helping.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
People all over the world. Really, uh.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
In this podcast is another way we can reach hopefully
more of you, Claire. As we're wrapping it up here,
and we've shared a lot of different ideas and thoughts.
So if somebody is leaning into this, they haven't fit
their toe fully, but like, okay, I'm maybe you got
me in This mindfulness thing got me thinking a little
bit more.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
What would you say?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
What would you encourage our listeners a step that they
could do today or consider.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Based on our conversation. I know there's so much.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah this is I'm not going to hold you this
an ultimate one, but just like something that comes to
mind for you.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Yeah, you know, maybe if I could give one tip,
I challenge the listeners to take maybe for one day
or maybe take thirty minutes, just be mindful of their thoughts.
If that's one thing you can do, right, these thoughts
that just keep coming back, and maybe just write it
down on a piece of paper and just observe these thoughts.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I'm like, okay, my god, I'm always telling myself I'm
so tired. I'm so tired, I'm so tired. I don't know. Example,
then say okay, is this really serving me? Is this
really how I feel?
Speaker 4 (35:17):
I'm actually not that tired, or you know, and then
just reverse it, change it to what you want to
happen in your life.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
So change it into the positive thing.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
So bring bring up your brainwave to the positive level
and change it. And then every time you have that thought,
try to be mindful and just switch it around and
repeat it. You literally with one thought can change a
lot in your day to day.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
So hopefully that serves you.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
And that's a really really great hands on sold that
I do like I should stop saying, you know, I procrastinate,
you know, so it's ridiculous. So again, focus on your
thoughts and be mindful of your thoughts because you're thoughts
is basically what you're feeding your brain, and what your
brain is being fed is what's gonna basically filter the
(36:08):
data that is around you and make your life exactly
what you're telling you to do.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
So you want that red car, it's going to bring
you the red card.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
So make sure that what you're asking for is really
what's serving you and not actually doing harm.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
So watch those thoughts for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Thank you so much Claire the podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
You're welcome everybody.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Hopefully you've got a lot of value at this Why
Claire this year with you?
Speaker 3 (36:36):
That's gold of course you love comments.
Speaker 7 (36:41):
Get that all along, team, Uh subscribe, Well come back an,
let's go next the podcast. Be well mentally, most physically
all of us, yourself, ende, everybody,
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