My Top 11 Takeaways from 11 Speakers at the 2020 San Diego Women’s Week Leadership Conference

Leadership

Last week, I attended the 11th Annual San Diego Women’s Week Leadership Conference. Since 2009, the full-day conference has capped off a week of events hosted by the North San Diego Business Chamber designed to inspire, empower and connect women of all ages and professions in honor of Women’s History Month. This year, the conference was moved from March to August and from in-person to online. I still found several highlights and “aha” moments of value. I share them in this post in hopes that you, too, will find some inspiring nuggets.

1. Amy Trask is the former CEO of the Oakland Raiders, and current football analyst for CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network. During her nearly 30-year career with the Raiders, Trask was the highest-ranking female executive in the NFL.

Topic: Leadership Vulnerabilities

Key Takeaway: You can’t be an effective leader if you try to pretend to be something you’re not. Don’t be afraid to say, “Here’s what I’m not comfortable doing,” or “Here’s where I need help.” Being a leader who shares her vulnerabilities gives the space for others to share theirs with her.

2. Linda Cureton, the former CIO of NASA, certainly knows a bit about inclusion and what types of leadership behaviors help to foster an inclusive environment. Working and succeeding in a male-dominated industry, Linda has been credited as a respected leader by her colleagues at NASA.

Topic: Leading in a Tough Environment

Key Takeaway: I experienced microaggressions many times during my career. Many of those came in the form of questions like, “Who do you think you are?” and “You were the CIO of NASA?” Sometimes, microaggressions require a macro response, but most often if you lead with anger, you’re not able to show up as your authentic self.

3. Daymond John is an entrepreneur in every sense of the word. His marketing firm The Shark Group offers advice on how to effectively communicate to consumers through innovative means and connects brands with the world’s top celebrities for everything from endorsements to product extensions. John is also an author of four best-selling books and released his most recent book, Powershift, in March of 2020.

Topic: Powershift: Transform Any Situation, Close Any Deal, and Achieve Any Outcome

Key Takeaway: Our why is all-important. Understanding your why is the first step to move the needle on your life and career in a meaningful way. If you don’t have a compass, you’re not going to be able to find your north star, or where you should go next.

4. Natasha Watley’s story is a powerful one about starting over. After a lifetime focused on the singular goal of winning an Olympic gold medal, Natasha was lost when she realized that the Olympic Committee provided no guidance or support. She had no idea what her “next” would be. A powerful and inspirational story about starting over and doing good. 

Topic: Powershift: Reinventing Yourself – What’s Next?

Key Takeaway: Where do you begin if you’re faced with a time in life when you have to start over? Find your gold. Nothing we do in life is wasted. All that you have experienced is valuable.

5. Ed Smart, the father of Elizabeth Smart, believes he has experienced two miracles in his life. The first, he said, was when his daughter Elizabeth was found alive nine months after she was kidnapped in Utah in 2002. The second miracle is that, when he decided to come out as gay at the age of 64, he was warmly accepted by his neighbors, friends and family.

Topic: Two Miracles and Forgiveness

Key Takeaway: Come to terms with yourself. When we don’t accept who we are, own the impact that our decisions have on ourselves and others, and forgive ourselves, we’re holding ourselves back from being who we might have become. Being consumed by fear, guilt, and blame is like carrying a bag of stones on your back. Live your life without the baggage.

6. Tina Hay is the founder of Napkin Finance, a visual guide to money management. A strong believer in financial literacy, Tina created a platform for users of all ages to learn finance in a simple and engaging way. The company is committed to helping individuals make smart financial decisions at different life stages by providing unique visual learning tools and resources.

Topic: Napkin Finance: Build Your Wealth in 30 Seconds or Less

Key Takeaway: An unprecedented amount of assets will shift into the hands of U.S. women over the next three to five years, representing a $30 trillion opportunity by the end of the decade. Yet, wealth planning and management is a male-dominated endeavor. Start participating in the Board Room of your life by focusing on the top one or two things that worry you the most about your financial future. Then get educated, stay engaged, and take action.

7. Patti Perez is founder and CEO of PersuasionPoint Inc., a consulting firm dedicated to teaching leaders and teams how to create and sustain healthy, inclusive, and profitable workplace cultures. Patti is the best-selling, award-winning author of “The Drama-Free Workplace” (Wiley 2019) and uses the concepts from her book to lead interactive, action-oriented workshops, provide consulting services, and deliver keynote addresses.

Topic: The Drama-Free Leader

Key Takeaway: Workplace drama has the potential to derail business goals, including goals related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Drama-free leaders set their north stars in values and live them in true authenticity and love. Move from allyship to kinship. Be a leader who people can have faith in. Base your management style on compassion, rather than fear.

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8. Peggy Johnson currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Magic Leap, a spatial computing company building augmented reality to bring the physical and digital world together. Prior to joining Magic Leap, she held the position of Executive Vice President of Business Development at Microsoft where she was known as the company’s chief dealmaker.

Topic: Leadership With a Changing Mindset

Key Takeaway: Not fitting into the pattern of the who came before you might just be what your organization needs to reach the next level. Don’t be afraid to point out when the system is skewed when you don’t see yourself fitting it. If you’re working with the right leader who sees your potential, you might just open doors for yourself and for others to follow you.

9. Romi Neustadt is a former corporate executive who traded in the billable hour to become an entrepreneur. She draws on her own experience and the wisdom to share the tools and mindset a woman needs to figure out what to focus on, what to let go of (and why), and how to live the life she really wants to live and become the person she really wants to be.

Topic: You Can Have it All, Just Not at the Same Damn Time

Key Takeaway: Women especially deal with unrealistic expectations about who we should be, what we should accomplish, and how to look in the process. Stop putting the power of your life in the hands of others, and create a roadmap to guide where you should focus your time and attention. Shift from “doing it all” to “defining your all” by relentlessly editing your life and doing what really matters most.

10. Christine Van Loo is a professional aerialist, co-founder of Airborne Arts Retreat Center in Costa Rica, founder and CEO of Van Loo Productions and of VisionAerialist, LLC. She contributed to the mega-bestseller Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Topic: Transcendence: How to Rise Above Your Limiting Beliefs

Key Takeaway: How do you believe in yourself when you don’t? First, if you feel that you’re an imposter, you’re in good company. Four out of five people have low self-esteem. No amount of success will prevent you from having self-doubt. Break your dream down into its basic components and tackle one at a time. Create a launch team of people who believe in you more than you believe in yourself. Expect your dreams to make you prove yourself to them. And fly!

11. Mallika Chopra was the founder of Intent and co-founder of The Chopra Well with her brother, Gotham Chopra, and father, Deepak Chopra. She is an American author, meditation teacher, motivational speaker, and businesswoman. She is the author of four books, and the founder of Intent.com, a website focused on personal, social and global wellness.

Topic: Stress, Anxiety, & Mindfulness in the Age of COVID-19

Key Takeaway: Use simple tools that are available to you every day to connect with yourself and find strength for the next season of life. Do this by sticking to the basics: maintain regular routines throughout the day, maintain regular sleep routines, and make healthy eating and drinking choices. Daily intentions have the remarkable power to shape the journey from stress, fear, doubt and procrastination into a life of happiness and self-acceptance. 

Question: If you attended an event honoring Women’s History Month this year, what messages resonated with you?

Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!

Triggered? Try These 3 Easy Steps To Rewire Your Brain

Leadership

Power causes brain damage.

If you’ve ever had a former friend get promoted then develop a case of colleague amnesia, you know this to be true. Or, if you saw the sorry, not sorry, congressional hearing of now-former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf for failing to stop some 5,000 employees from setting up phony accounts for customers, you’ve seen it in living color.

At times like these, you may wonder, “What was going through his head?” Research suggests that the better question may be: “What wasn’t going through it?” Historian Henry Adams described power as “a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.” According to research by Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, that’s not far from the truth.

My friend and CEE Co-Founder, Dr. Tony Baron, and I flew to Berkeley in the fall of 2016 to pay a visit to Professor Keltner, who had just published a book called The Power Paradox. Using MRIs to study the brain, Keltner and his students found that when a person experiences power, the brain gets a little surge of dopamine — the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, love, addiction, and psychotic behavior.

The paradox, Keltner found, is that dopamine can also suppress our ability to empathize. That’s not good news for the people we’re supposed to be leading. (Read more about Professor Keltner’s findings here.)

Dr. Baron and I also reviewed what Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, refers to as the “amygdala hijack”. If you’ve ever experience road rage, you’re familiar with this phenomenon. Here’s a breakdown of why it happens.

Our brains are made up of three parts. The first and oldest is the brain stem. It’s responsible for the body’s basic operating functions like breathing and heartbeat. Next, comes the limbic system where the amygdalae are located. The amygdalae activate during times of stress. They are responsible for “fight or flight” responses that have kept us alive since the days that cavemen crossed paths with saber-toothed tigers. Over the limbic system is the neocortex, which is responsible for logic and reason.

When the amygdalae are triggered by stress, they race into action. First, they signal the brain stem to release adrenaline and cortisol through the body. The heart beats faster, blood pressure rises, and breathing accelerates. Next, the amygdalae shut down the flow of blood to the neocortex, because using logic and reasoning could cause you to delay jumping into immediate action.

That’s the amygdala hijack. And though we’ve evolved from living in caves to condos, our brains don’t know the difference between a saber-tooth and a distracted driver. When someone cuts us off in traffic, we can lose the ability to reason. Our focus narrows, and all we can think is “I’m right and she’s wrong!”

We get triggered the same way when we are in a stressful meeting, or even when we replay memories of stressful events. Adrenaline and cortisol flood the body. What’s worse is that these stress hormones can stay in the body for up to 4 hours, which is why we may stay amped up long after the stressful situation has passed. There’s a term for that effect too – the amygdala hangover.

So, is there anything that we can do to avoid an amygdala hijack? Fortunately, yes.

1. Recognize when you are triggered. 

If you get easily triggered at work, especially when you’re in meetings with the same people each week, this is an excellent opportunity to practice. You might start by going to the meeting, getting upset, staying upset for a day or two before you realize that you were triggered. The next week, you go to the meeting, get upset, and stay that way until you get home that evening before you recognize that you’ve been triggered. The next week, you’re in the meeting and you start to feel your chest tighten and your blood pressure rise just before you get upset. You still get upset, but you notice what’s happening in your body in the moment. Progress!

2. Fire up your neocortex. 

Once you can recognize that you are being triggered in the moment, you can move to Step 2. Thomas Jefferson once said that if you get mad, count to 10. If you get really mad, count to 100. This sounds simplistic, but it actually has the effect that you need to counter an amygdala hijack. When you count, you re-engage the neocortex that was shut off just seconds ago. Counting will give you the ability to re-access logic and will build the distance you need to see things more clearly.

3. Switch your attention. 

Take long, intentional breaths. Again, this sounds simplistic, but when you bring your attention repeatedly to each breath as you have it, you activate the parasympathetic system. That’s the part of your nervous system responsible for “rest and digest.” Taking deep, mindful breaths will have the net result of bringing you back into a calm state.

Recognize when you are triggered, reconnect with your neocortex, and take slow, deep breaths to find the path back to a calm state. Doing so over time will form new neural pathways to re-take control of your brain.

Question: When was the last time you got upset? Did you blame others for your response, or did you recognize that you were triggered?

Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!