Season 3. Episode 8. Leadership Coach Karen Ann Bulluck asks Are you living your values? If not, why not?

Hello, and welcome to the Storied Human. I'm Lynne Thompson. And I'm really excited today to have somebody with me to talk about her really cool business, I just was lucky enough to hear her speak at a local networking group. She's one of the people that I actually know in real life. And I love what she does for a living. I love how she gave a talk about how to give a talk. That was really cool. And I'm really impressed with her background and what she does now. So I'm we're going to peel the onion a little and find out more about Karen and Bullock. Welcome. Thanks, Lynne, I am really excited to be here. I can't wait for this conversation. I've been looking forward to it. I think it's so cool that we finally got together. So I just want to say a little bit more about you because I love your background. You're a leadership coach, and you found it daring to transcend. So you partner with women leaders to help them push beyond the limits of their leadership, career and life. So they can make a bigger impact in their work and beyond. And you have a proprietary transcendence methodology, you work with leaders to explore what matters and integrate the whole self and flourish in new dimensions. I think that's wonderful that you actually work with leaders in industry because, you know, business people get a little short sighted, and it's really good. When you've been there you were the first woman promoted to executive vice president at am best company. I didn't know that before. That's so cool. And your career was marked by taking risks to make cross disciplinary changes and have an impact in a wide variety of people and processes. And you're an ardent traveler, you love to explore new cultures, new ideas and new ideas, new ways of doing things while learning from and valuing the wisdom of the past and present. I just have to admit, I'm prejudiced towards people who love to travel. Well, then we're gonna get along great travel, there's just something about what it does to your, I always say I travel somewhere, I enjoy the place. But I also turn around and look at my life differently from and I just, I just got back from a completely life changing, you know, trip of a lifetime. So we can talk about that too. I would love to I could do a whole podcast on travel. It's so funny, I keep talking to people. And I was talking to my friend, she's a life coach. And she said, we could do a whole podcast on that. Like, if you just start talking to people. There's podcasts everywhere, potential podcast. So I can I can attest to the fact that Karen is an engaging and inspiring speaker and a contributing author of three international best selling anthologies. I'm so excited for you, because your latest novel discovering power, will be released on May 24 2023. I'm going to sign up for that after the podcast. I'm really I'm really excited about where you are. But I would love to hear a little bit about how you got here. Like how did it start? Like I knew you were no you were a trainer and I am best I was to try this. That's where I started today invest. I started as a trainer. And it's really funny. And I think I think I told you this the story the other day, but I remember when I applied for that job. I you know, when I got out of college, I was an English major in college. So when I got to college, I did a couple a few years in retail, which was great, great experience here Retail Management, which was great experience. And then but you know, I didn't want to stay in retail forever. So I was applying for jobs. And I applied for the job and and best. And my I called my dad because he worked in the insurance industry and a investors an insurance agency. And I said what do you know about AMS tell me about this company? And he said, Well, they have a magazine. I love their magazine. I read it every month. Are you going to be writing for the magazine? You're thinking English major radio for magazine? Yes. And I said no, I'm, I'm applying for a training job. I'm going to teach people how to use software. And he goes well, that means you have to stand up in front of people and talk and I said yeah, well you don't want to do that. And I just laughed and I mean, that's just one of my favorite stories about my dad. But I you know, I did obviously get the job but I am biased. I love to being a trainer. I think being a teacher is is is one of my passions, although I've never formally done that, but I've obviously taught people in a lot of situations and I'm doing that now and what I'm doing. But it's funny that the training really changed my life. Because I think when I started my job there, I planned to probably, you know, I was married at the time I was planning to, you know, work for a few years have kids and probably stay at home with the kids. And it was really seeing the impact that I could make, by training, by what I was doing at work that made me think, well, you know, maybe I don't want to, I know that I didn't want to have kids, although I never did have kids. But maybe I don't want to quit working, though, maybe I want to use more of these skills that I'm learning and this passion that I have for training and teaching and do something more with it than just staying at home with kids, which is not by any way, shape or form. Saying that it's bad to stay home with kids. I really admire women that do that. And men that do that, because that's a tough job. But for me personally, my success as a trainer, changed the way I thought about myself and basically changed the whole trajectory of my life. That's so cool. And I have to tell you, having just witnessed a live training by you. And, and also I do training, and I'm a tech writer, so I really am pretty critical. When somebody stands up to give a talk, you were so fun, you could just tell that you have a great background, you were so focused, you were so organized, I got so much out of it. There's just a real difference when somebody prepares in that way. So you're really good at what you do. I learned so much. And I got a lot of good ideas about if I have to give a talk myself, which I haven't done in years. So yeah, I can attest to the fact that you're very good at what you do. So I'm intrigued that you felt this excitement about sharing yourself in that way. Right. And you saw maybe down the road, it could be more or deeper, because that's the feeling I'm getting? Well, you know, it's funny, because I think at first I thought it was going to be more and bigger at at AMS, you know, at the company, which it was right, you know, I'd stayed there for a long time. And I did move up, you know, through the ranks I when I left, I was an executive vice president start. So you know, I climbed, you know, I climbed to the club. That's impressive. That is not easy to do. No, I climbed the corporate ladder. And I was really enjoying that. And I enjoyed working in different departments and getting to know to your point different people learning about what different groups did, helping them maybe improve what they did, you know, and those kinds of things. But at some point, I just started realizing that, that I was still feeling like there was something missing. For me, even even with the impact that I was having, at am best. I felt like there was a maybe a bigger impact or a different impact that I wanted to have. And and I wanted to use some of the skills that I had, but wasn't really using in my corporate role, like doing more teaching, doing more writing, because I didn't go back. I mean, obviously, as an executive, you read a lot you reports and stuff like that. But you do, I always thought that I would write a book. And so I wanted, you know, I felt like I wanted to do that. So I wanted to say okay, with this next part of my life, I want to change that. And I looked around and I saw so many other women and we know this, we see so many women that are leaving corporate these days, right? That are feeling like I can't do this anymore, or it's not worth it, or I'm not making the impact that I want to make. I'm not making the contribution and and I wanted not only to change that for myself, but I wanted to change to help change that for other women. And that doesn't mean I'm saying that I encourage everyone to get out of corporate. I don't you know, a lot of my clients have success stories staying in corporate. But yeah, because there's both right, there's both but it's really about helping helping women take the risks that they need to get what they need to get what they want and need out of life because so often we put ourselves last right? We take care of everyone else, but there comes a point in your life where it's like no, I have all these talents and skills and gifts that that are inside me and I want to share them I want to bring them out in the world and I want to do something with them. And I love to help people. Figure out what those things are and and help them bring them out in the world. That it that's what I love have about you that excites you, like really helping others excites you. And so, to me, that means you found your happy place. You know, that just is such a wonderful thing. It's wonderful to discover, you know what we might be doing and how maybe we can make a bigger impact. But then to help others do that, I think that just is like icing on the cake. That's what makes life very sweet. Because you can tell you just get a big kick out of doing that. I do. I absolutely do. I love it. It's definitely your thing. So how did you get from A to B? Like, I love the whole, I love the word transcend. To me that's very deep, you know, the transcending of from one plane to another? Think of it, how did you come to that? And how did you make your way from where you were? Well, that that was a very, you know, long story in and of itself. But to kind of boil it down to a nutshell. One of one of my other passions is really reading and learning about the world spiritual traditions. And it's, it's, for me, there's so much wisdom in them. There's so much depth, and knowledge that we can use to help apply. And they taught most of the traditions talk about transcending in one shape or way shape or form. But it's it's really doesn't have to be a religious thing, right? It it can be for some people, a spiritual thing, but it doesn't even have to be religious or spiritual at all. What what it really is, and I love the way Maslow talked about it when he talked about hierarchy of needs. Yes. So we all learned about that five step hierarchy of needs when we were in school, or many of us did. But what a lot of people don't know is he actually added a sixth triangle at the top of it. Later in his life, it was called transcendence or self transcendence. I love that, which is one of the one of the one of the ways I got that word. And he talks about being connected to the highest level of consciousness available to humans. Right, that's what that is. That's so that's not necessarily spiritual. Yeah, it's so that's not necessarily spiritual, although it can be and it for me personally, it's, it's a spiritual I, I see it in a spiritual context. I work with people that that aren't really spiritual, but it's still accessing that higher level of consciousness that we have inside of us. And that inner wisdom that gets shut off. It's buried, you know, which is why transmitting transcend rise above is such a good word. Because that saw so often that wisdom that we have gets buried under all of our obligations, and all of our stress, and all of our trying to meet other people's needs, and all of that stuff. So for me, transcend is rising above, you know, all the crap in our lives. And, and getting to a place where we can see things more clearly, we can make decisions from a place of wisdom. And we can really bring our gifts into the world. I love that. And I hear a lot about that I have friends that are, I have a friend that does a podcast called inner peace to go. And she talks so much about the kinds of things you're saying that get sort of bunched up on our real selves, inside our stillness. If we if we meditate, if we find our inner peace, or just be still for a moment, then we don't react to just, you know, a quick reaction to what's happening to us. But we act out of that quieter place that we're kind of taught to cover up, right, where none of us are raised with this tradition. Oh, we are we are Yeah. So I love that you're bringing it back to people because they didn't know they weren't raised that way. But you're, I love that I love when people find a way to guide people back to themselves. You know, it's like, this is how it should be. You can trust your inner wisdom. I like that so much. Right. And I use a framework as part as part of my work with clients called Positive Intelligence. And it's really a very scientifically based system to shift out of what what they call the saboteurs. The all the things all those voices in our heads that like the judge and crested eater and all these voices in our heads that get in our way and tap into our sage aid and so it's it's a process of, of what in the Positive Intelligence context called mental mental fitness is really working on retraining your brain. I just love that you're helping people retrain All right. Yeah, the the podcasts I mentioned, she only talks about science backed methods. That's what I love about what you're saying is there's there's real research to back what you're talking about. And you're and yeah, and there's real research to better use it, what? Yeah, how to use it when I'm doing and it combines things like positive psychology it, it's done with research, it's done with factor analysis to really boil it down to the back to the barest minimums. It's it's relatively easy to implement. It makes all the difference in the world, because people have shown studies have shown that you need to have three positive thoughts for every negative thought, in order to be on the positive spectrum. And people that are on the positive spectrum are more productive, happier, you know, all of those positive things. But it takes a lot. I mean, because you think about your thoughts. I mean, how many of our thoughts we go to that are all negative, right? We were judging things as negative, we're hearing negative news. I tested to stick the other day that blew my mind, it said that basically, listening to three minutes of negative news reduces your productivity by 27%. Out, or something like I believe, numbers, but it's, it's close to that it has an impact does. So it's really important. You know, that's a lot of the work that I you know, a really fundamental part of the work that I do with people is to change and keep, get into a more positive mindset, because that changes everything. And, personally, for myself, I was gonna say, like, how did you find that out about yourself? Like, how did you apply that to yourself? Well, I was lucky enough to have a coach. Because, of course, as a coach, I hire coaches to Mark Yeah. And I hired a coach that actually helped me start down that process with being a positive, you know, she called it let's be a 10 all the time. And I loved her process and what she did, but then I discovered Positive Intelligence, which your point is very scientifically backed, and is and is very, I love the context of it. So I'm in that process, you know, I'm training as a positive as a Positive Intelligence coach, so that I can officially incorporate all that into my, into my practice for my clients. Because I would imagine that system, it's easier to sell that I think it's easier for people to get that if they're in business, and they're very serious. And they're, they don't do woowoo if you say, but I have research that backs this up. I mean, this is just plain old how your brain works, how consciousness work with it, right? It's not, it's not woowoo at all, it is very scientifically based. And I think you're gonna really well, reasonable. Yeah, I think you're going to reach more people with that. And that's why Sandy does only science back because she works with stressed out women in corporate America, and they want to hear you know, they're, they're powerful, successful women with hardly any time and they're stressed out and they, but they want to hear something that's science back, I should definitely send you to her and her to you, because you remind me of her. But anyway, people need this really badly. So it must feel so good to be doing something that's needed. It does, it does. And, you know, I knew I needed it when I was in corporate. You know, I wish I had had some I wish I had some of the things that I know now when I was still in corporate. Because I've learned so much. You know, this, this journey from, you know, working in corporate to having my own business and what that's gonna look like and who I'm serving and all of that, that big journey is, is such, it's such a journey of self growth to self discovery. And, and I love that, you know, I love that about it, too, because I can grow and the more I grow, the more I can help other people to see. I just think that's the Win win there. Yeah, really. So I would love to know, just a little bit more about your method. Like how would someone start with you if they were going to if they wanted a session with you if they wanted you to coach them? Um, well, there's, there's a couple of ways. First of all, if somebody was interested, you know, I would certainly be happy to have a conversation with people to, you know, define, you know, to find out if it's a good fit either way, right. But I offer group programs. I'm going to be starting another one this spring. I don't have a definite date on it yet. But that's one and then I also do one on one coaching. So So you do both. Yeah, that sounds great. Some people are more comfortable with and they play off of each Other Yeah. And well, you know, one of the neat things about group dynamics is that you do learn from one another, it's just learning from from me or learning your, you know, from yourself, you're learning with other people too. So that's usually a 12 week program, and that does incorporate the Positive Intelligence module, six week module, so that's really cool. Like I said, I'm probably gonna start one of those in late April or May. So I'm, I'm looking forward to that, too. And then I have one on one clients too, but it's and and I offer one off sessions for people who just want to, you know, have a deep dive into one one thing and see what the coaching is like to so you know, the method coaching is really a lot about asking questions. It has a lot, a lot in common with podcasting. But it's really, it really is a lot about asking questions, and helping people, you know, challenging people's beliefs. Right. Challenging, you know, when somebody says, I don't know, you know, I know, for me, that's one of my favorite dodges is to say, I don't know, a lot of us, I think, yeah, we do that we say, I don't know, when we really do know, but sometimes we just don't want to face the, we don't want to go there. Yeah, we don't want to go there. And so we hide behind that. So a lot of times, you know, coaching is, is really helping people see what they're hiding behind. Yeah, and pulling that out. And really, it gets it, especially as women, we're often taught to suppress our needs, and then depress what we want. And that's so dangerous. And it's so it's so detrimental not only to us, but but to all the people that we can be helping or service doing. So I think your gifts doesn't help anybody. It doesn't help anybody. But so often we're taught to do that. So, you know, one, one of the things that I do is ask questions, and help people uncover what really matters to them. What's really important with at the end of the day, what what do you value most in your life? And are you living that value? Are you living those values? And if you're not, why not? And how can you get into alignment, you help them connect the dots, these are things that some some of us just get so busy with our lives. We never think about those things. And it's really good. You don't only ask questions, but you listen well. I can tell you know, like, you're listening probably better than most people listen to them. So it's a great chance to really connect those dots. Yeah, and that was a big part of my coach training is Marnie. Listen, not everybody listens. They don't they don't listen. So there's basically three core parts of my my process. One is that clarity, getting clarity on what's important. And the other is looking at your beliefs and your conditioning. What do you believe about yourself? And is it really true? That's how a lot of stuff we believe about ourselves isn't really true. I love that. And I say that with this with the stories I say that all the time, I say, you might be telling yourself stories that come from a long time ago that someone told you when you were young that no longer serve you. It's good to look at those. I think it's it's important to look at stories you believe about yourself. But also, like you said, paying attention to your thoughts. That's like, revolutionary. I've been hearing that a lot lately. And the more I do it, the better. I feel just my my one friend years and years ago said when a thought came up, she was taught I think in a creative writing class. She was taught to say, Who is speaking, like in her head, like who is speaking? And she said, it's amazing. I always get an answer. And it's usually it was usually her mom. Yeah. And it's fine if her mom is speaking, but it's not her thought. You know, it's so cool to unravel that. Absolutely. And that's one of the things that positive and totally the Positive Intelligence practices help you to to is identify your thoughts and where they're, where they're coming from. And you know, the third pillar of my methodology is trust, learning how to trust yourself, and learning how to trust in the unknown. Oh, that's hard. And that is really hard. But that's where the possibilities are. Oh, I like that. Yeah, like that saying, they say boats. Boats float just fine in a harbor, but that's not what they're made for. Right. Right. They're made to be sailed out onto on those wild seas. And sometimes I think as women we we play it safe. Very much. So yeah. And maybe that's okay for a little while, but I think maybe it gets suffocating. You know, as you get older and you want to try things but you're playing it safe all the time. Yeah, and I think most women Many women get to a point in their lives and they're like, you know, no, I have more to give. I want to make a big impact. And and when people get to that point, yeah, that's when I, you're there. Yeah, that's what I love to work with them. I just, I think your work is great. I love the whole idea of helping people find out what their more is, you know, they have more in there. And I'm really intrigued by your book, I love the title, tell me more about it, because I'm dying to read it now. So discovering power is about a female executive. And it executive which is where I spent most of my career, but she is not me. Although, you know, she does draw in some of my experiences and, and experiences of my friends and my husband and you know, other people, it's so one of the reasons I wrote my book infection. It's about leadership. But I wrote it in fiction, because I wanted to be able to tell a lot of different stories, not just my stories, and I wanted to be able to put them together in a way that was really interesting and fun. So what happens with Cheryl is, there's some new board members on at her company, and they're doing cost cutting, and there's layoffs. And she doesn't like the way they're handled, and she's upset, her staff is upset, and she start, you know, she is trying to walk that fine line, which a lot of us do. And in management, where she's in management, she doesn't necessarily agree with how the people above her are handling things. But at the same time, she's got to represent those people, you know, represent those policies to her staff. And she's very concerned about her staff, and she wants to help them. And so the book is really about how she juggles that imbalance of not being aligned, you know, her company not being aligned with her values, her concern for her employees, her trying to figure out where she can make an impact and how she can make an impact how she can make a difference in people's lives. And, you know, the journey she goes on about that. So that's really great. I think it's also super applicable to today, I really do many of those things. I mean, I've lived them, you know, getting laid off and I was laid off. And the person I was working for I had worked for 25 years before, and he couldn't tell me and it was so uncomfortable. But then we were such good friends. And he's friends with my husband that he did tell me like a little bit before. So I knew the day and nobody else really knew. And I never told anybody and I just really super appreciated it because I was able to clean up my desk. And because we all knew it was coming. It was one of those situations where we were doing, you know, the building of a Administration Center. And then we all knew we all knew a lot of us were older that were hired, we all knew that when it was time for just the maintenance, a bunch of us would have to go, but it happened sooner than we were told. And he was told something different to like we had, we had some partners, we had a company that had 25% stake, and they were dictating when it should happen. And nobody could say so I just really relate to what your book is about. Because those are so it's such a complicated position to be in. It's a it's a very complicated position. And it's complicated. And one of the things that, you know, I do, you know, explore in the book through the different characters is just how complicated it is. You know, it's and it's not always straightforward. Just the blame somebody else. Yeah. And you know, and it's also partly as, as Cheryl, who's the name of the character, as she explores things and make decisions, then there's also how other people in her life react to that, because we all know, you know, when we make changes when we do things, people in our lives react and not only just maybe not only just the people in our work life, but the people in our personal life, too. So it gets a little bit into into how some of that stuff impacts for personal life. And there's ripples. Yeah, and it's the first book in a trilogy. So it's just the first book The second book is coming out in September. At the end of September, that's mostly done and that goes so great. That goes a little bit further in exploring her the impact of her work on her personal life. And, and I won't give away secrets but it's it's, it's it's really fun to so I'm very excited about that. And the third one I haven't written yet, but I need to kind of know where it I have some. I know because I'm one I'm not one of those writers that write you know, has an outline and fall asleep. lining knows exactly what's going to happen. I, I'm almost as surprised by what happens in the book. No, I think that's the way to go. Your characters tell you? Yes. Yeah, my character, like, I'll wake up and I'll say, Wait a minute. Sure, unless you do that, like, really? Really? Are you struggling? She said yes. And she said, Yes. It's like, oh, this goes, I think that's a cool energy to put into the books. Now, how did you get your idea, because it's a great idea. It's very full. Um, when I, when I left my corporate job, my goal was to read a book and started writing a book that was nonfiction and, and you know, writing a book about leadership. And it wasn't, it wasn't going well. It just it was I was really struggling with it. And one day, I actually went out for a walk, I went out, you know, just to take a walk, get some exercise, get some fresh air was listening to music kind of be bopping along. And you know, enjoying a beautiful, it was a beautiful day. And all of a sudden, the prologue of the story started coming into my head, and I'm thinking, Okay, this is interesting. And so, you know, Cheryl basically started telling me her story. And I love that. You trust that oh, and I started writing it down. It's like, okay, this is this is this is interesting. So it just kind of came to me. So that's sometimes that's how it comes. You have to trust that Yeah, yeah. That's cool. And to your point, you know, back about trust being an important part of my process with people is you we do have to trust that we do have to trust things that sometimes don't make sense. Yeah, that's really good. I've had other people tell me that I've interviewed tell me, you, you have to embrace the unknown. You have to you have to embrace that you don't know. And it's such a counterintuitive thing. But what you're talking about is that's where the surprise and the power and the you know, the magic is not natural at first, right? For most of us, we want everything all our ducks in a row. And we want to like control things and nowhere but that's not life. It is no I did. I ran in January, I ran a four day challenge on on empowering, empowered through uncertainty, talking about exactly that. And I'm going to run that challenge again. Probably before I started my group program, and I loved that challenge. The people that were in it were so much fun, and they they were completely blown away, because they're like, I didn't even think about it that way. But the reality is, is Life is uncertain. Uncertainty is is more certain than anything else, right? I mean, we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. We think we do we plan as if we do we act as if we do. But the reality is we don't we don't? Yeah. And trusting in uncertainty is. That's where the past, that's where the magic is, for me. Yeah, that's where the magic is. And you, you know, conversely, you're going to be miserable. If you try all the time to resist, and to change, you know, to change the course of things or to control too much we all know, as women, you know, many of us have tried to control Oh, we all know I'm guilty. It doesn't work, it doesn't work. I was thinking too, if you're if you have children, it really, it hoodwinked you into thinking you are in control, because when they're tiny, you control everything about them, you know, and it's like this false kind of period of control in your life. And then they get a little older and blow that out of the water. You know, it's like there is no control. You know, it's an illusion of control. Yeah, it is an illusion. That's exactly right. It is an illusion that we have control. I mean, now, of course, we can't think about that all the time, because we've dropped ourselves crazy crazy. So we can't, you know, we there's a coping mechanism. And it's a good one, we have to act as if we there's certain things we can plan. But the reality is if you're open to that uncertainty, yeah. And you're open to letting go of that control. Like writing the book, I was trying to control it when I opened up to listening to what the characters were saying. It was magic. Yeah. And you know, I love the book. I'm really excited about it. So. So it was meant to be, I think it was, yeah, it was meant to be. Well, this is just so good. I just want to take your course I want to read your book. It's really exciting what you do, and I'm so glad that you shared more of the details. Is there anything else that you want us to know my listeners have something to leave us with? Well, if you want To sign up for the book launch, I'm probably going to be doing some events around the book launch. I'm not sure exactly what those are going to look like right now. But I'm putting them together. So if you want to sign up for that you can go to the series is called ascending ladders, it's the ascending ladders series. So if you go to ascending ladders.com, that'll take you to my author page on my website, where there's a form, you can sign up to get on the waitlist for the book, get, you know, get the first you know, the email the day it goes on sale, and also updates about what other activities that are going on about the book plus to the shownotes. I'll make sure I put that with your other contexts. Good. Yeah. And I also have a weekly newsletter, if you sign up, well, semi, it's mostly weekly. Okay, we've got a lot going on there. And so when you sign up for the book launch, you'll get the newsletter too. And that's just really a newsletter. It's I tried to make it thought provoking about ways to look at leadership and life from different perspectives. It sounds great. Thank you for sharing yourself. I just really enjoyed knowing more about you and hearing about what you do. And I'm so excited for you with the book. And, and everything you do is just it's very uplifting to talk to you. Well, thank you. It's been really fun talking to you. I've enjoyed getting to know you a little better today, too. And yeah, I appreciate you making the time and I know people will love hearing this and I know they'll get a lot out of it. So thank you again. Thank you for having me when I've really enjoyed it was really good. Yeah. If anybody wants to reach out to me, LinkedIn is the easiest way to find me and I'd love to have a conversation. That sounds good to me.