Business Leaders Shift all the time. to adjust to changing market conditions, internal and external challenges and with the right approach business leaders can shift to the positive and drive improved results and higher satisfaction for themselves, employees, and customers.

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Transcript from Business Leaders Shift to the Positive

Dr. Lori Baker-Schena 0:03
Are you thinking about what’s going on in the world wondering where you’re at, and thinking about the shifts you have to make today we’re going to talk about the shift to the positive and your personal and professional life. We have Dr. Laurie Baker Center with us, she’s going to deliver some practical leadership advice. And it’s gonna be a fun entertaining way. We want you to laugh, we want you to think, but most of all, we want you to come away with new strategies for moving forward in your career. So with that, I’m Tim Kubiak. I’m your host of bow ties in business. If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe. And as always, you can find us on our socials bow ties in business on Facebook and Instagram, and bow ties and bi z on Twitter. And as for me, you can find me at Tim Kubiak just about everywhere. Twitter, LinkedIn, the website, etc. So at the end of this, and we’ll have the website in the show notes, you can go to Laurie Baker shana.com slash contact if you have questions about positivity and leadership, if you want to explore one on one leadership, or her life coaching, or even need a guest speaker for your next professional events. Dr. Laurie, thank you for being here.

Ma’am. How are you? It’s so good to see you. And it’s so good to be here. And I want to say a special shout out to your audience. Hello, everybody who’s listening. So appreciate you and so appreciate your interest in these really important times in business topics.

Thank you for being here. Um, you know, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Because I’ve obviously done a bit of reading, this is really the third phase of your career if I’m not mistaken.

Absolutely. I’m, I’m old enough to have three phases. I’m kidding. You started when you were

two, it’s okay. That the rest of us? Yeah,

absolutely. You know, I I’m firm believer that you can’t have one career, your whole life, especially if you’re blessed to have a really long life. So I have marked my, my life in basically three phases. And the first phase was starting as a marketing and public relations consultant with my own business for health care, concern. So hospitals and doctors, and actually, I’m still running that, weirdly enough, I still have some clients, but so it’s been 33 years since I started that company. So I really feel great in the entrepreneurial space. And I learned a lot about medicine. And then when I was 32, I got a call from my former University Cal State Northridge and they needed an emergency hire to teach a news writing class I was a journalism graduate, I’m, I’m a writer by trade. And him I’d never taught anything and never taught a class, but they needed someone to do it. I said, Okay, I’ll give it a shot. Which is kind of scary when you think of college professors that they really do not need any kind of credential to be a college professor. So when you have, you know, the really good professors and not so good, you know, there’s never been any training and how to do that. So anyway, I said, I’ll give it a shot, because that’s who I am. I’ll give it everything a shot that I can, you know, physically do as opposed to like flying a plane, but I’ll give it a shot. So I actually had my first class and I was so nervous, Tim, I was so nervous that first day that I had to sit down to take role, I was just crazy nervous. But long story short, they liked me. And I ended up being a part time professor for several years. And then I became a full time university professor, as well. And then my third career was when I was 55. I was diagnosed with non Hodgkins lymphoma. And I was it was a cancer that you can treat, but you know, there’s you kind of have a time limit on it. And so I thought, you know, what, I’ve always wanted to be a motivational speaker and a leadership coach, I thought this is a great time to do that. So my third career then is, you know, being a professional speaker and a leadership coach. And I was able to get my doctorate in organizational leadership. So that really helps me work with business people and leaders on how to run your business effectively. But also that motivational spin, how to be happy while you’re running your business. my MBA is kind of the business arm of that, and my doctorate in organizational leadership is teamwork, and how to have fun, you know, when you’re working to find your passion. So all that together, here I am, and and i still dabble in everything, you know, but I really, really am very happy where I am right now.

That’s amazing. And I love you know, I love stories and people who have continued to evolve and change. And their education is certainly part of that, because I think they’re the most interesting people.

And yet, education is crucial to it doesn’t have to be formal, either. But absolutely,

yeah. And you know, it just gives perspective. Right. And that’s the other thing that I think I appreciate more as I’ve aged, is, the more things I’ve done, the more diverse things I’ve done, the better perspective I have, and frankly the better am for everybody else for it.

Absolutely, and which is why I really love speaking to young people because if they can skip some of the stuff that I had to learn if they can really absorb it, they can be right by the time there are, you know my age, they can be way ahead of the pack and have let go of a lot of crap they don’t need and learn and focus on things they do need. And if someone had told me this 20 years ago, I certainly would be even, you know, farther ahead than I am now. But, you know, that’s why young people don’t need, you know, a president that they can be good learners and and understand all this, they can capture a lot.

They can I want to you didn’t talk about your leadership program. Can you talk about that in

a little bit? Absolutely. So one of the things that I did as an offshoot of my speaking is that I’ve noticed that women in the business space, have lots of challenges being leaders, we are promoted, based on the content, like we’re good at finance, we’re good nurses, or we’re good at something. So let’s promote you into a supervisor, job, and then you don’t get the training to be a supervisor. And so you get a place at the table, but you don’t learn how to stay at the table. And a lot of people flame out and get very frustrated and miserable. And that’s because they’re not taught leadership skills. So I started a company, especially for women, to help them learn the leadership skills, they need to be leaders in their fields. And I’m talking, Tim, I’m talking conflict management, how to run an effective team, how to communicate up and communicate down, these things are never really taught like in a business setting. And it’s so frustrating to see people so miserable, and your employees are miserable, because the supervisor doesn’t have the skills and the supervisors miserable because they don’t know how to motivate their employees or not to be a micromanager or they haven’t found themselves. So we started leadership consortium to do that we go into companies and, and help women specifically, kind of let go of a lot of that guilt and all that stuff that a lot of layers have, I have to say it women have you know about self doubt, and really step up to the plate and become the lead hers that they need to be. And we usually have an annual conference, but we had to cancel district because of COVID. So we’re probably going to get it back up and running. I like it in person, which is why we decided not to have a virtual one. Because that imperson thing is what really makes it special.

There’s connections you get in person that no matter how good zoom or your platform of choice is. Right? You’ll never get that same level. Yeah, virtually.

Exactly. And so, and there’s a lot you can gain virtually, I’ve been speaking virtually all year. But I’ll tell you, when it comes to our conferences, it’s really very a network and a lot of hugs and a lot of support. And it just can’t do that on zoom. You can drive, you

can try, you can try. Yeah, polls have gotten better, they’re still not quite a hug.

Everybody wants to be so funny. Everybody wants to do a poll, like I’m doing. I do a lot of presentations on zoom. And they’re all very positive and energetic. Should we do a poll? Well, doing a poll online, it sounds like you’re engaging the audience, but you’re just taking them away from your message. And usually they’re irrelevant to what you’re talking about. So it’s just not the same thing. I can see why some of it would be good, but especially for doing a workshop type of presentation, but of keynote speech, or and that kind of speech. Does polls just crack me up?

Yeah, and then then my favorite sub shoot off of that is, let’s gamify the presentation. Oh.

Oh, my goodness, you are so right. And there’s a time and a place for games. Tim? There really is some my presentations not so much. Yeah.

I agree. You know, I work with hardcore sales numbers. So you know, if you’re laughing It’s because you don’t want to cry in my case.

Exactly, exactly.

So in the opening, we teased it we’re gonna talk about positing to the pivot, or pivoting to the positive and personal and professional lives. There’s an old saying it’s lonely at the top is that something

you agree with for leaders app, so lately, it’s super lonely at the top because at that point, you have to really be able to chart your own course and do the things and you and your relationships with your employees change, and also the people who you partner with if you’re reporting to a board of directors, or that sort of thing. Everything continues to change. So I’m a firm believer that you have to pivot to the positive and it’s never been more important than this past year. And it sounds so trite and people are saying it, but it’s really true to him because if you cannot at all be a negative person and be a leader, you cannot be negative and be a good salesperson, you cannot be negative and lead any kind of company you cannot be a good friend, a good family member and be negative because negative negativity never pushes you forward. So then the question becomes, okay, how do you be positive And weirdly enough, I’ve created some steps on how to be positive because you can’t be positive even in the face of, of illness that’s challenging or things that are tough, there’s always a positive nugget, because going to the negative again, will never get you anywhere. And you know, you ask any business person, any salesperson, they’ll tell you that.

So one of the things, I think, just general perception, and we’ll take it out of the labor suite for a minute, and just to the general employee, right, majority of the folks out there, leaders have to deliver puff messages. It’s not always rainbows and unicorns, as my friend Carol says, right? Sometimes you have to do and say hard things. How can a leader do that in a way that’s not perceived as negative? That is such a great question.

And it’s so important. First of all, you can’t can’t be in a void a vacuum void, you hopefully have a company that has a culture of excellence and positivity. So when you have negative news, you can put it in the light of the lens of your company culture, and the positivity. So that’s really important too. And that’s just a real, you know, foundation that you lay. But whenever you’re delivering Bad, bad news, you have to say the why. Like, why is this happening? Now, what do I need from you? And how can this positively impact you. So those three things are crucial when you deliver bad news, you can’t deliver bad news in a vacuum and just let it go, you have to say why this is happening. What we’re what we are, as a company are doing to, to have a solution. And how this solution can benefit you, even though it’s going to be difficult right now, what we see as your pathway in the future. So that hope thing that that exponential, the why these are the three things that can keep you positive, because if you can, Tim, if you say like, we have to, you know, cut, cut your, you know, you have to work extra hours or whatever, or cut your pay or whatever, and it sucks and we’re sorry, that negative, you know, just it sucks. It’s not going to be helpful to get your employees on board. But if you have to, you know, we have to, like a lot of my, a lot of my friends who are in the corporate world had their pay cut 10% i COVID. They just did like, like there was no rhyme or reason, let’s just do it, right. But the way you say we’re in a difficult situation right now, and we’re going to have to pull back on bonuses and pull back on salary. But we are hoping that these steps will allow us to move forward, keep our company viable, keep our customers happy. And eventually we’ll get through this tunnel of darkness and into a place of light. And when you present it that way, it’s much easier than saying, you know, sorry.

So one of the things that I personally think is leaders are being taxed in new ways, right, especially at the very top. So people who might have been strong operational leaders have to be a little bit more communicative, and in a way visionary. Now, not completely disruptive. Whoo, I reinvented the wheel visionary. But they have to paint a more solid picture, is that something you’ve seen leaders challenge with even coming from different dynamics?

Absolutely. That is such a great point. Because the soft skills that many leaders have never needed, they’re really good at obser operations are really good at finance. This in this day and age, the need for softer, more communicative skills is crucial, especially 10 when you have a workforce working from home, which is a whole nother layer. So so to communicate, you have to motivate you are leaders of today have to be motivators. And they have to be communicators, because you cannot send your workforce out into the your homes, and expect them to have understand the company culture or where you’re heading or why they’re there. So leaders now have to step up become become more transparent, better communicators, and more of a coach dynamic than they’ve ever had before, even if that is out of their comfort zone. Because otherwise you’re going to get a workforce that’s not motivated and confused because they don’t understand direction. And there’s not enough communication coming from them to understand where they’re going. So it’s even though we know it’s so funny, too. We have so many different ways to communicate. Now, you know, you before we decide, you know, a horse and carriage type of thing. We have all sorts of things. Yet our communication from our leaders isn’t as there’s not enough of it. And we we need more and we need it to be meaningful and motivating those two things.

Do you feel that there’s so many meanings terms of communication messenger email, stand ups, town halls, zooms, you know, that sometimes the message is watered down, because it’s just being spread too many places. Absolutely. So

you really have to have a focused, focused plan a communications plan. But also I tell my CEOs and my CCI executives pick up the phone. And and and make it a point to call your call somebody and check in and see and not have an agenda, just check in See, how are you doing? And the greatest line you can say is, what can I do to help you be more successful, and you just pick up the phone, that human touch is so crucial, especially now, and people aren’t expecting it. And then if this, you know, the CEO can’t get to their 100,000, you know, or put employees, but they’re the managers have that kind of communication, touching base, and being sure that everybody feels like they’re part of an organization, even though they’re a part. But that I think, you know, I think that personal touch that phone call, not a text, but a phone call from a supervisor or a top dog is really important.

Yeah, is it important to jump levels and take yourself out of the executive suite echo chamber?

Absolutely, I’m a big one on, you know, this was like 20 years ago, you know, you know, leading by walking around. But it really, if you want to know what’s going on in your company, you need to speak to everybody at every level, and every age group that who’s working for you, because the generational differences are so intense, you know, from z to millennials, to X to boomers, and they’re all in the workplace, and they all have different needs. And if you don’t recognize that, if you push it under the rug, you’re gonna have a lot of interpersonal issues with conflict, and you’re not going to be as productive as if you can get everybody. So how do you get everybody on the same page, and that’s really an art, but it’s an art that leaders must do. And they must allow people to understand why they’re working for the company, and the benefit the company brings to everybody, whether you’re a concrete company, or a, you know, a car company, whatever you’re doing, you bring value to the community, how does that work? And bringing those kinds of statements really can bring, you know, multi generations together?

I’m going to shift from the leaders and and their business relationships to their personal circles, if that’s okay with you.

Absolutely.

You talk about it’s lonely at the top, when you get there from a professional perspective, right? How do you see leaders manage their personal relationships and their social relationships, as they’ve gone up the ladder, so to speak?

Well, it’s really important for leaders to really start connecting with people outside of this sounds really weird, but outside of their company, to have friendships, I mean, real friendship, because it’s very difficult to be super good friends with someone who’s reporting to you, nor is it desirable. But as you move up in many people who have actually started, you know, at the lower levels and risen through the ranks, it’s the most difficult for them, because all of a sudden, your friends all sudden, you’re leading them. And so those are incredible, important discussions to have. And some people can keep that, you know, level where, you know, we’re, you know, we’re friends out at home, but at work, we’re business, so just but it’s very difficult. So to to counter that loneliness, I really encourage CEOs to join SEO, networking groups, and also managers to join managing networking groups, but people who speak your language in different industries who are facing the same challenges, and then you can make the personal relationships from there, it’s really, it’s really important to maintain that, that that kind of connection with people, I don’t, it’s hard, because once you you know, no one, no one’s going to like you all the time, no one’s going to be 100% happy with your decisions. You need to be able to move forward with your vision, take all the input that you can from all the places you can, and then make those decisions.

So if you find yourself in that negative place, is it self talk? Is it exposure, how do you move forward from that?

So So Kim, can you give me an example like what are you thinking? And I’d love to give you an a specific.

So I’ll give you an example. I’ll use myself as an example. Right? I openly admit that with the exception of my business partners, all of my friends are not where I am. Right now. There’s people I’ve stayed in touch with throughout my career. There’s customers and people that have gone off into other industries that I’ve stayed close with. But all of my friends I woke up one day and all of my friends are VPS and C suite people because we’ve all been doing it long enough that The ones that have stayed in touch seem to have risen there. But to have a social interaction is actually a really strange thing because they’re scattered literally all over the world. So how do you go from? You know if these are, I used to have a circle of friends and I joke, I used to throw a Cinco de toga party where I would have a toga party with a Cinco de Mayo theme at my house, right. And it got to the point where I had raised grown up into the organization, I couldn’t do that anymore, right? I couldn’t, and all of my friends had become scattered. So if you’re in that place, how do you outside of that networking group actually maintain a normal kind of social life that isn’t just business,

though, you have to, I think one of the things you have to do is figure out your hobbies and interests. And I know that sounds that sounds crazy. But it really is wonderful to get involved in something that’s not businessy. So for example, we’re into bluegrass music. So we we go to different bluegrass festivals and we meet people in the bluegrass thing. We’re in Los Angeles, not too much, too many bluegrass about that. But but but we go to Nashville quite a bit and and we love going to the Ryman so we, but the through that, you know, we have met wonderful people we travel and when you travel, you meet people like on cruises or usted. This is all you know, in the before times, but you know, you go on a cruise, you go on it, you go on a trip, and you meet people with similar interests, and then you stay in touch with them. So getting water getting out of your business zone and into something that’s fun, you know, or taking a local cooking class or going to, you know, sporting events, finding people with your, you know, have nothing to do with your business, it’s really healthy. And they don’t, you know, a lot of my friends never asked me what I’m doing. They, you know, we’re friends, I met friends with to the kids. And my business is like, the secondary to what’s going on in the world, you know, and what our what our interests are so that, again, it’s very intentional. Tim, which brings me to the fact that when you are thinking about you have to be very intentional and mindful of continuing to create new networks, and being and being in those kind of friends and that kind of relationships. Because if not, you’re gonna be consumed with work. And you will never ever have time, or the energy to get that it’s connections. And those connections are what fuel you. So it’s very mindful about how can I meet people who are really would like that would like me and have my same interests. So that’s, it’s, it’s a mindful thing. And then your business associates, you know, or your business. And then when you have your network, you can do your telco parties, again, because you have nothing to do with them in terms of business.

Unknown Speaker 22:47
That’s great. I’d like to fly out. So

Tim Kubiak 22:50
you’re Yeah, you’re invited. person as

Dr. Lori Baker-Schena 22:53
soon as we can. I’m out and there.

You went into motivational speaking, right? So what is the key messages you’d like to deliver?

You know, I am the queen of positivity, and the queen of joy. And my tagline is, every day is a gift. And you don’t have to cheat death to realize how precious life is those of us who are in your audience who are cancer survivors, COVID, survivors, any kind of things or accident survivors, they know what it’s like to basically be on the edge, and then come back. And so what do you do with that, and even then, you have a choice. Every morning, when you wake up, this is my main message, you have a choice. When you woke up this morning, Tim, you could say you know what, it’s going to be a lousy day. Or you can say you know what, it’s going to be a great day. Even if you have five horrible meetings in front of you, you can decide to be to be joyful about that. And be happy that you can have a meeting, that you are smart enough to be in a meeting, that you are alive to be at a meeting. And you’ll actually that will actually elevate your experience. So choosing joy is crucial. And also be sure that you understand gratitude. That’s the fact that you are that we I am so grateful that we’re speaking to him. I’m grateful for the technology. I’m grateful that we met, I’m grateful I can talk to your to the people that you’re who’s listening right now. I live in gratitude the whole time. And that just brings me so much joy because the opposite is not waking up. And, and the fact the matter is I woke up and once you just say oh, I woke up everything else. Everything else happens. And a subset of that is you have to realize deeply what you can control and what you cannot control. Because there’s so much in this world that we have absolutely no control of this whole COVID thing. It’s I mean, no control. If my internet all of a sudden took a dump right now and we stop talking now Control, you know, so So what do I need to worry about? And what do I not? So with COVID, I had to pivot all of my in person speaking I had seven gigs in April and May alone. I had those were cancelled, I there was no even pivoting. And then I’ve had to figure out in those downtimes, how am I going to really become a great virtual speaker. And so I had to change my slide presentations, I had to change my energy levels, everything changed. And all of a sudden, I started catching business again. So I had no control over the COVID virus. Even when I got it, I had no control over that. But I had control of how I was going to react to it. And I’m not going to react negatively, I’m going to react positively, what can I do that this will work for me? And with COVID I you know what I did? I was at Christmas time, I was actually just took two weeks off. And I did I just like did nothing, which is very unusual for me. And luckily, I feel good now. But just I didn’t see it as a detriment. It’s like, okay, here it is, what am I going to do? And that’s the same thing. When I found out I had cancer, okay, here it is, what can I do? So I got the best cancer care. And I figured out what possibly I needed to do health wise and everything. And I took control over that I didn’t have control over the fact that I got cancer. But I certainly took control once I could. So knowing those two things, two, actually three. So waking up with in waking up choosing joy every day, keeping in gratitude that you’re just lucky to be here. And we’re so lucky to be here. And number three is to really figure out how to what you can control and what you can’t control and focus on what you can control. Those are the three things that I always have. Those are my, what I talk about in all of my motivational speeches. And I have to confess it, even when I do my business speeches were you know how to work as a team, how to manage conflict, how to up your sales, I always slip in a motivational message at the end. And it’s just it’s kind of my my trademark. And I let everybody go with a real positive, positive outlook with no matter what because of that, because I feel it. It’s my authentic self. It’s my leadership brand. It’s how I how I show up every day. And it’s a free thing, because that’s truly how I feel.

So I’m gonna drill a little bit into each of those with the next couple of questions, if that’s okay, absolutely. So let’s start with control and what you can and can’t control. Okay, right, because I think that’s a big one. For a lot of people. Right? Now, I’ll admit, I’m a planner. And then I get to a point where I’m a grip and rip it kind of guy and just let it go. And what happens happens and you adjust, but a lot of people get very anxious about knowing what’s next and understanding and kind of controlling their destiny or trying to and your point on the internet, right? If it goes down now, great. We’ve rejoined, it’s no big deal. How do you get people to realize that they can’t control everything. And, frankly, it’s not the end of the world sometimes?

Well, it’s really, really literally sitting down, Tim and writing down what you have control over and what you don’t. And in parenting, I learned that, you know, I used to be the queen of being on time. And then I had my little boy, who always managed to poop diapers before we went anywhere. I mean, I remember this, he’s 26. Now, I don’t even appreciate I’m talking about this. But you all sudden, you realize that when you have kids that you have no control, and then how and as much as you want them to grow up to be outstanding citizens, you know, they’re gonna, they’re gonna get in trouble. You know, they’re, you’re gonna get that call from the principal, when you start at six years old, you know, with my kid, but so that what you have control over and what you don’t. And I think if you dig deeper, that control is a is a thing about people wanting to be perfect, which is a thing about how you want to show up in the world. And also a fear that what happens if you lose control? Or what are people gonna think of you if something bad happens? So a good example for me is when you when I give a speech and up to a tool, I asked a live audience because you’re live right now, Tim, but we’re not. So in person versus virtual, but in person in person that talk, you know, I can give it my all and I do give it my all, but I have learned and then I can control. I can control how good I present. I show up. I have my slides. Sometimes my slides don’t work. I mean stuff happens, but I can control me. But I can’t control the people in the audience and how they’re going to react to me, because they might be having a bad day. They might have arrived at this conference and they just had a fight with their spouse. They had a flat tire. They just had a bad something with this. Money. So they’re gonna show up to my conference. And they’re just going to hate my presentation. And I learned that early on in my career when I gave this massive talk to like 500 people about leadership branding, which is a one of my favorite up uplifting topics, and I got into the and they always evaluate you, I always get evaluated after these talks, which just cracks me up. So you have to really let go of that too. Except if they’re really constructive, I’ve learned so much about how to improve myself from these things. But so one guy in the evaluation route, this is the worst presentation I’ve ever been to give me a zero. And then on the opposite end, another person wrote, this presentation changed my life. I will I’ve learned so much from this, okay, and, and, Tim, this is the same presentation. So you learn that I have no control over how an audience is going to react to me, I can just have control of how I show up. So in our day, in our lives, we have to show up and do our best, but how people are going to react to us, we don’t really have control over that. And understanding that is really gives you a sense of peace, because you you really turn inward and what I can do better, how can I improve? versus how can I make someone else happy, because you have no control over that. You know, perfectionism is another thing. You know, everyone wants to be perfect, but I gotta tell you perfect is boring. I don’t want to go out. Someday, I do want to go to a bar and drink again, Tim. But if I, but I don’t want to go to a bar with a person and have a drink with somebody who has the perfect marriage, the perfect job, the perfect family, the perfect house, the perfect parents, I would just I’d love to leave in five minutes and say I had a stomachache. I want someone who has challenges, who’s messy, who’s learning who’s growing. Because I’ll tell you perfect, people don’t learn failures, what moves you forward, and we have to stop shaming failure. So all of these things, have that whole thing with control and controlling what you can and realizing so much that you can’t. And that failure is okay, because we have to learn from it. So those are the things that that really you go deep with people who really need it, because I’ve worked a lot a lot with so many people who want to be perfect and who are always beating themselves up and reward super planners. Because you know what? life throws stuff at you every day, you cannot live like that you have to instead shift instead of worrying about it. How can I be a solution oriented person? What’s the solution? And that’s how planners, you can still plan. I’m a huge planner. But I also understand that things can shift in a heartbeat. And what so I want to be that person who can shift with it, who can change and who can be that solution oriented person.

Tim Kubiak 32:51
I got good advice. early in life I played I started playing out in bars when I was 14 years old. And somebody told me don’t worry about playing a wrong note. Just learn to play it like you meant it.

Dr. Lori Baker-Schena 33:01
Mm hmm. Exactly. Uh, people aren’t that obsessed with you. I hate to say it, you know, it’s like, oh, you know, they don’t care.

Unknown Speaker 33:08
They don’t care.

Unknown Speaker 33:09
They don’t care.

Dr. Lori Baker-Schena 33:10
So let’s talk about joy. What are some things that you help people do to bring joy into their lives?

So I’m sorry, could you repeat that question?

Yeah. What are some things that you teach that helps people bring joy into their lives? So if people need to find more joy, you know, whether they’re part of the way there are none of the way there because there’s always the people that are kinda like ER and Winnie the Pooh, right? What is right, right, what are just a couple of things that they could easily start to do that might shift their mindset, if you will.

The first thing is to wake up and make a commitment to saying, I’m going to be happy today. And then I’m going to try, I’m going to try to be happy, I’m going to try to see the positive things in everything. And I teach them the solution shift, which is kind of my mantra. And I say to them, if you want to find joy, you’re going to have to get out yourself out of your problems, and work on trying to find the solution to everything. And when you find the solution to things, that’s going to bring you joy, because you’ve accomplished something and you figured out a way to get away from your problems and work on your solutions. So for example, if you’re feeling overwhelmed at work, and that’s bringing you down, if you can figure out some things that you know boundaries, you need to make some work life balance shifts that you have to do that is going to make you happy because and joyful. Normally because you have stopped feeling overwhelmed. Another thing that people do to find joy is you have to make time for joy. That means you have to make time for self care. You have to make time for exercise. You have to make time to be with your significant other and find that time to actually have fun And people say I’m too busy to have fun, you’re within this schedule it, you know, everyone should be having a date night, even if that means going into the other room, and lighting a candle and having dinner, little things that can bring you joy, be really mindful of that. So gratitude, making the commitment to find joy during that solution shift thing. And finally, I think another really important thing is to really focus on your strengths. And I’m a firm believer on really doing well with your self talk and realizing, complimenting yourself on what you did, right. And what I call this as a strengths journal, where every day you write down the five things that really went well for you, and what who, what characteristics what skills you brought to the table that allowed that to happen. And when you start building your strengths and your self esteem, that also will help you find joy, because you’ve got to stop beating yourself up for the things you did wrong, and start looking at the things you did, right. And those conscious shifts, you know, are really important. I’m also big on going to see a good therapist too. I’m not a psychotherapist. But that can really be helpful too. But those shifts, so shifts in thinking you can do them and I’m a person, there’s no excuse. When I’m when I’m doing coaching. There’s no excuse not to not to try to find joy not to try to find happiness. People who don’t do that I can’t coach because you have to first of all, and really want to find joy, people who some people don’t and then that their people not it’s not going to work for him.

Do you find people when they start to do that journaling, have their strengths, find strengths that they didn’t recognize?

Yes. Not only that, but I also encourage them to ask their peers what their strengths are, people are afraid to do that. But ask ask people in your life, your kids, your friends, your colleagues, what do I do? Well, and you can you know, if you embarrassed say that, you know, you’re doing it for like, you know, an assignment for a project or whatever, whatever it is, but ask them to, you know, and if you’re brutally brave, ask them what you don’t do? Well, because that’s a real good 360, you know, view, but ask what you do? Well, you’d be surprised. You’d be surprised what people think you do well, at? it’s extraordinarily eye opening. So I but that whole strike, how do you build yourself up? You know, how? And then where do you want to build yourself up more? You know, if you want to be a public speaker, what can I do better to to elevate my, my speaking or if you want to be a better writer, or if you want to be on time more, or you want to be a better leader, you know, that learning what you have is a strength and building on that is where it really where your joy is.

And then I want to bring up gratitude again, right? Yes,

my favorite thing. It’s one of those things that I don’t want to say there’s gratitude deniers out there. But I think there are people that hear it and go into mindset and don’t really realize the power of just basically being grateful for everyday things. thoughts.

Yeah, yeah, I am, I say, I live in gratitude. And I really do I am, you start by doing a gratitude journal to, you know, the five things that really you’re grateful for. And even if you’re depressed, and even if you’ve had a bad day, you can still find five things to be grateful for my go to is flush toilets. I am so grateful that we have flushed, you know, you’ve watched all these great shows on TV like bridgerton, which I loved, and all sorts of stuff, and all looks romantic and everything, but they didn’t have flush toilets. And to me, I’m really grateful for that. Another thing I love is my microwave. So flush toilets, and microwaves are really good too. But you know, I am grateful for the fact like I woke up this morning, it was kind of actually cold in LA, which is wild. And I was grateful that I had a heated home. You know, I’m always grateful that I have food on the table. I’m grateful that my kids are all doing well. There’s so much even and I’ve had a lot of loss in my life. My mother died when I was 12 my siblings are gone. You know, I’ve had incredible life’s challenges. But even amongst all that there’s something to be grateful for. So once you start really appreciating what you have, consciously, you know, I mean, I am holding a red pen. I love my red pen. It was what graded kids papers for 25 years and gave me a great rip. You know, I’m grateful for that. So and I’m really grateful to meet you, Tim. I mean, that’s going to be something that’s going to be written about tonight, someone who has opened my eyes who’s taught me something. When you live like that you when you start focusing on what you have versus what you don’t. It literally I think changes you I’m sure I’m sure there’s research on it really changes your brain how your brain functions.

So what Haven’t I asked you that I should have? What am I missing?

I don’t know. You’re an amazing interviewer. I think I think you’ve got it all. I think that everything I everything, I’ve looked at my notes and you’ve asked, you’ve answered all of my questions, I think it’s really important that we understand that things we are living in change like we are, we are really like people 2030 years, or 100 years from now are going to be looking back on this period of time. And they’re gonna say, Well, how do people count? How do people survive that, but we really need to step back and give ourselves a pat on the back. Because many of us were thrown into the home environment, which is very difficult to work in, if you’ve never done that before. Many of us have lost have lost people who’ve had COVID COVID themselves. We’ve had economic turmoil, we’ve had health turmoil, we’ve had political turmoil. And yet here we are all still standing. And I think we really need to give ourselves a pat, pat on the back and realize that there is no, they’ll never be a new normal anymore, it’s always going to be the next normal. So we need to figure out how we’re going to be flexible, moving forward and optimistic. And figuring out how to live a full life, even in times that are drastically changed.

I love that the next normal.

Yeah, it’s not the new normal, it’s the next normal because it’s going to be different a year from like a year from now I was planning my in person conference, I was I was I was going to North Carolina to see my client. And then if you had told me, Jim, that we’d be doing this on a zoom call. And that I’d be wearing masks, you know, everywhere and that. And the people, I wouldn’t have been able to see my family for six months, all this, I would have never believed you I wouldn’t have I just thought we thought you were out of your mind. And look, we’ve we’ve done it, we’ve lived it. And here we are. So it’s really important to really, really internalize that and use it as a roadmap moving forward, that we can be that flexible.

So if somebody is interested in learning more talking to you, how do they do that? What’s an engagement typically look like whether it’s your coaching and leadership or your speaking business?

Well, thank you, I you can reach me through Laurie Baker, Shana a.com. And there’s a contact thing I I really enjoy helping people with work where they have a gap between where they are and where they’re going. And I like to help them fill that gap of what what that looks like and up. But I also love speaking engagements if you have an association or a business who needs a speaker or trainer. And obviously I can go anywhere in the world because it’s going to be on zoom for right now. I would love that because I can bring business stuff, you know, like how to work in a team and conflict management. But I always sugarcoat it with those great motivational talks, which I think every employee in America needs.

Tim Kubiak 43:07
Yeah, now. Now more than usual. Yes. So last question for you favorite books at the moment?

Dr. Lori Baker-Schena 43:16
Well, I have to tell you that I just finished cooking for Picasso. And what I do, and I forgot, I forgot the name of the I forgot the name of the author. But what I tried to do is read non leadership books, because I got a ton of favorite leadership books. cooking for Picasso is about a woman. It’s kind of like this historical fiction, whose grandmother actually cooked for Picasso, and it’s very kind of erotic, it talks about cooking, and then it comes into present day stuff. And it’s just fun, and it’s escapism, and I’m big on using your free time for escapism, you know, I really strong an hour either doing something to escapism, you know, with books or with Netflix, but that I love that that book. So that’s what I’ve been reading.

Tim Kubiak 44:04
That’s awesome. I’ve not heard of that one. So that’s a new one for me to check out.

Dr. Lori Baker-Schena 44:07
Yeah, I wish I had that after but it’s easy cooking for Picasso. Perfect.

Tim Kubiak 44:11
So anything else you’d like to add?

Dr. Lori Baker-Schena 44:14
I just want to thank you. I’m so grateful for you. And I’m hoping that your audience just just you know, those of you listening out there really make a commitment to joy. Like you make a commitment to you know, a healthy lifestyle. It’s the same thing and you’ll find that you can bring happiness even to the hardest days.

That’s great parting advice. Thank you so much for being here, Laurie.

Tim Kubiak 44:36
My pleasure.