145. Unveiling the Dark Drivers of Leadership with Cynthia Corsetti

💭 What shapes your leadership abilities?

When faced with this daunting question, we often overlook the shadows of our past. Yet, it is exactly these hidden influences that executive coach Cynthia Corsetti expertly brings to light. She helps leaders and top performers to resolve things from their past that are preventing them from being successful in their present and their future.

Cynthia opens up about her own experiences, drawing parallels between them and the leadership challenges many of us face. We dissect the subtle yet powerful impact of nonverbal communication, the ripple effects of leaders' behaviors on team dynamics, and the critical role empathy plays in creating a supportive work environment.

Journey with us as we unpack how early societal conditioning and deep-rooted traumas can become the 'dark drivers' behind our decisions, steering us down paths we unconsciously follow. If you're poised to challenge the status quo of your personal development and leadership style, this episode is an essential listen.

🌐 Connect with Cynthia:
• Website: https://www.cynthiacorsetti.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiacorsetti/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cynthiacorsetti/
• Preorder her book, Dark Drivers: https://darkdrivers.presale.manuscripts.com/registration/select

Book Mentioned:
Buddha's Brian Book by Rick Hanson

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:26

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by a very interesting guest, Cynthia Corsetti is an executive coach with a difference, and the title of her upcoming book is going to really drive this home for us. She's writing a book right now that's in pre-launch, and by the time this episode goes to air, it'll be weeks away from hitting the bookstores and being able to be available for sale, and it's called Dark Drivers. So Cynthia, as an executive coach helps leaders and top performers to resolve things from their past that are preventing them from being successful in their present and in their future. So this is going to be a really interesting conversation. Most executive coaches work on the present and the future. Not everyone delves into the past on some of these dark drivers that Cynthia talks about. So I'm excited about today's conversation, I have to admit a little nervous because it might end up being in a therapy session just for me that I'm gonna then publish for everyone. But as I'm an open books, I'm looking forward to today's discussion, and I look forward to sharing with you all so Cynthia, without any further ado, I would love to know what about your background, and what drove you to be focused on this very specific area?

Cynthia Corsetti: 1:49

Well, my background is actually what drove me to be focused on this very specific area. I kind of had a unique growing up experience where I was taught that my job was to be pretty and to get married. And I did that at 19 years old, and you know, thought I had all my ducks in a row and realized how much that that mental processing was stuck in my brain and there's a lot more to it than just that but it impacted every decision I made it impacted when I got married, it impacted who I married, it impacted not going to college right away, they impacted everything, and so my career kind of was on the like a really late start, you know, trying to figure all this stuff out. So that's kind of when I finally did get into my executive roles and my leadership roles. It was like a really tumultuous journey to get there. And when I started working with executives, I had, like I knew I could understand when I saw their behaviors and their actions. I'm like, that's like not you, that's not authentically who you are. That's like the five year old, or the six year old, who's still dealing with the processes that we're dealing with. And I learned that through my own experience.

Mick Spiers: 3:01

Yeah, that's really interesting, Cynthia, I'd love to get right into that. And the question that popped into my mind as you're talking is when you say you are taught that you should grow up and marry and all of these things. Are you talking societal expectation or are you talking about a very explicit instruction, let's say?

Cynthia Corsetti: 3:21

So I don't know if I should give talk to all this in my book. But so what happened for one of my first earliest memories as a child with, you know, like parents read to their children, and we read them stories or read them books. Well, the very first time my father read me a story, it was probably maybe four, and he used to sit in this big reclining chair, smoking his pipe. And he called me over and said, Come here, Cynthia, I want to read something to you. And so I got all excited, my Dad is gonna read me a story, and I sat on his lap, and he reached down beside this chair, and he pulled out a Playboy magazine. And he started thumbing through the pages of a Playboy magazine with me and his heart believed that what he was doing at that time, was preparing his little girl for how to be successful in life. And like looking back, like I was sucking it all in, oh, so when you are fed that like very early, that's what you're supposed to be. That's who you're supposed to be. That's your place in the world, it's really hard to break out of that, and you don't realize that small, there are multiple things, but like that was one of the small things. So I talk a lot about, you know, past traumas, and past experiences and past memories. And I use the word trauma, not a psychological word, like doesn't have to be like abuse, or, you know, you saw somebody murdered to be a trauma, it's something that impacts you and your life moving forward, even if you're completely unaware that it's impacting you. And that scenario is one of many in my early childhood and upbringing that created this path that I was on, that was extremely self destructive for a really long time.

Mick Spiers: 5:03

So I definitely want to unpack that word trauma a little bit later. What I'm kind of hearing there is it feels like it's an element of social conditioning, but then immediately and directly reinforced by your father at that moment, and as you set a path, so it sounds like a pattern, then emerging of reinforcing behaviors that hey, this is what girls do, Cynthia, this is is what they do. This is what women do. And if you want to be successful, the interesting thing that I also picked up there, it feels like you're resolved that your father was doing that with good intentions. Was that always the case? That it always? Or was there a moment in time where you realize, well hang on a second, No, that was not appropriate?

Cynthia Corsetti: 5:44

Well, there are definitely time when I realized it was not appropriate. But it was much later in life. So that thing I'm picking up there, Cynthia, I'd love to hear Like when I was very young, like that was normal, right, I didn't know any better. And what I've learned it because I didn't just like come up with this theory and say, well, this is what it must have been like, I researched it like relentlessly and studied how memories are formed and how we process things. So for example, if you are a three year old, and you your thoughts on this is essentially an element of walk into your parents room at 5am, and your parents are like, please go back to sleep, just go back to sleep, all they mean is let me have five more minutes of rest, because I have a toddler and I want to sleep. But to that toddler, they could very easily process that they assign meaning to that is Oh, my parents don't want me or I'm not lovable, or I'm not good enough. And it gets subconscious confirmation bias that something in your past in their subconscious. And then they go about their life, but it's still in their subconscious. So then in second grade, when a kid doesn't want to play with them, or in you know, when they don't make the cheerleading squad, the subconscious is just validating that memory. It's just it grows. It's like the seed that's growing within you. So we so unconsciously look for validation of things that we believe, and we're not even aware we're doing it. So it's a gap. That's more data that's still in that little place in my subconscious that I'm not loving, I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough, or I'm not pretty enough or strong enough for whatever we do, they're there. could even be a suppressed memory that is not, let's say, at the front of your mind, but it's something that's happened in your past that started to form a view, and then you start seeing things in everyday life that confirm that view. And before you know it, it just gets compounded. It just gets compounded. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes, and it's not just the event, it's the meaning we assigned to an event, because there's so much research out there that says that our memory isn't even reliable. So that's another reason why I can't I can't look at my parents and say, like you guys were, you know, complete jerks who screwed up my life. And you did this because I only know what I remember, as a four year old or a five year old, I know that I experienced that and assigned a meaning to that, in my perspective, if you have siblings, and you ask your siblings about growing up, it's like a grew up on different planets. It's like seriously, like, is that what you remember? Like, I don't remember that. And like totally different experiences and siblings, because we might all be going through very similar things, yet we assign different meanings to them. So our memories not really reliable. So I can remember that day, like it was yesterday, but I have no valid proof that it ever happened. I mean, I just the human memories and fallible. Oh, yeah, I mean fallible.

Mick Spiers: 8:31

Yeah, it's fallible, it is so fallible and I'm absolutely certain of this, and we always see court cases all the time that show that memory is fallible, but it's very real for that person, right. And this is what you're saying. And it's then the meaning that's being assigned. It's not even the event itself, per se, it's the meaning that being assigned to that which is really interesting. A thought popped into my mind when you're saying that, Cynthia, is that these things could be positive, too. They could be negative reinforcement, or they could be positive reinforcement. And the image that popped into my mind was I'm going to use girls sport, if you don't mind on this one. But this could have applied to a young boy, etc. It's not really gender specific. But let's say that your young child whose parents tell you every day, Oh, you're so good at sports. You're really good at any bald spot. Oh, well look at my daughter, she can catch a ball and she's only two and all this kind of stuff turns into a confirmation bias a knock on effect that are this person grows up to become a world class footballer, let's say or even if not a world class but learns to love sport versus a young daughter who gets told oh, no, girls don't play sport. Oh, be careful of the bowl, darling. Oh, like that parental reaction, which I'll unpack a little bit more in a moment, then sets the course of is someone going to grow up to love sport, or are they going to grow up to be the one that shiz away from the ball when the ball gets kicked towards them? How does that sit with you?

Cynthia Corsetti: 10:04

Yeah, it's absolutely accurate. We do that and those are confirmation bias, right. We hear that when we teach our kids that and we repeat it like you know my parents repeated what they learned, they repeated what they believed and then I kind of when my children were younger child like you know kind of have the some of the same screw ups because I got married so young and I kids so young. So it was, you know, wasn't until you start to see the impact now mine, some of those were negative, and you're right, they can be positive. And I still call them dark drivers, even when they have a positive effect. And there's a couple reasons for that. One is because they are buried so deep within our subconscious, that they are, you know, kind of hidden from the light. So there dark drivers. Another one is I see a lot of really high level executives, who will tell me and I probably had in my career, at least 30 of them say to me, the reason I am so successful is because I am terrified to fail. Because when I grew up, you know, I was told I will be a success, I will be that. So that, although it's positive, is still in driving them and they're getting great results because of it. It's not they're not totally fulfilled on what they're doing. And they're still struggling with the same crap I was struggling with only in a different way.

Mick Spiers: 11:17

Yeah, that's really interesting. I like that you put out that it could be a Dark Driver still. And I was thinking about, once again, that confirmation bias and that societal expectation. Now let's say let's go with the sports analogy one more time. And it could turn into I'm failure if I don't become an elite sportsman. And it started out as Oh, isn't it great that you're good at sports. But all of a sudden, it became this snowballing effect that I'm going to be a failure if I don't become a professional sports person, and or, let's say successful in any field that we go in. And we're not talking here, I don't believe since I could get as bad as this. But we're not talking about, you know, the Williams sisters with a dominant father who are almost kind of, I don't know what I'm trying to say here. But that stereotypical sports parent that then tries to get their children to live out their dream, we're not talking about that extreme, it could be just the almost seemingly innocent reinforcing behavior that drives the person to think their failure even when they're not.

Cynthia Corsetti: 12:19

And what can happen is, even if this child, the parents are very innocently just trying to be encouraging, you're good at sports, and this child believes this, and they keep looking for it. And then they get in high school, and they're doing pretty well. And they make the team, when they go to college, maybe they're no longer the big fish in a small pond. Now this small fish, and it's very large pond, and they're not as good. And that reality hits them as like, crap, maybe I'm not as good as I thought. And then that's a whole other thing they've got to deal with. I think my daughter is kind of an example, in a way of academics, she was brilliantly smart. And she was reading, you know, really, really early. And all we don't hold her is how smart she is her entire life. And she was a valedictorian of her high school class. And then when she went to college, she was in like an honors program. So she's gone mom, she goes, I think I peaked in high school. There's some really smart people here. And that's something I mean, she's so smart. But that realization that like the world is bigger. So maybe you are a great athlete, maybe you are super academic. But maybe you've got to get this reality check of what the rest of the world, what else is out there.

Mick Spiers: 13:26

I'm also wondering at this point, peeking on this point about being smart, whether it can then accidentally reinforce behaviors that are not the ones that we want, right. So not just the expectation now. So you know, you've read my book. So you know, one of the things that I talk about is one of the leaders, one of the mistakes that many leaders make is always trying to be the smartest person in the room. So I think about this behavior that you're talking about, if you're a child that has always been told how smart you are, you get in the workplace, and every day you try to prove how smart you are. And we know that great leaders actually have the ability to learn to be the last to speak and to sit back and let other people step forward with their ideas and flourish so that you don't become that point of dependency. Alright. Oh, and all of for many reasons, you don't want to always be the smartest person in the room. How does that sit with you that it could actually not just the I have the pressure of all, I've got to be the smartest person in the room. Now the behavior presents itself, as always trying to prove myself to be the smartest person in the room with unintended negative consequences.

Cynthia Corsetti: 14:29

Interestingly enough, one of the examples my book covers stories of real leaders going through their dark dryers, and one of them is actually a genius is very much like that. But a similar one was a gentleman who's also a PhD, very, very brilliant, very successful in his career. And no one wanted to work with him. Like they called me and because they're gone, like we need him because he's really smart. And he's got great talent, figure out how we can keep them because everyone hates working with them. And as we delved into it, we discovered that what people were saying is he's obnoxious, always has to have the last word. He doesn't listen to other people. He's got to speak up, whatever, even an email. There could be this email chat, he'd have to have last one. It was like this diatribe of long email, right. So as we uncovered and peel back that onion, realized he was the youngest of seven siblings, and in order to be heard in his entire growing up, he had to be obnoxious. He had to kind of just be in their face. And he kind of learned that and as, as he made that connection between how he's behaving in a meaning and how he felt when he was a child feeling left out or ignored, he got to the point where he goes, honestly, Cynthia, he goes, I will leave a meeting, I'll excuse myself, I'll walk in the hall out in the hall. And I'll say, Okay, Sam, that's the seven year old, let's go back in as the adult, and he could actually make that conscious decision. And that's what this book aims to do is to help you make that connection so that you are able to just navigate that they're not going to go anywhere, like those dark drivers are not just going to pick up and leave, they're part of who you are.

Mick Spiers: 16:07

What I'm loving, there is the awareness. So many things there, Cynthia, the first one that people could see that person's gift, but they also didn't want to work with him, right, so that the fact that they had that awareness to be able to go, Hey, I wonder what we can do about this. And then for the individual to have the awareness that the dark driver exists, doesn't, like you said, doesn't mean it goes away. But that awareness then is like a deep level of emotional intelligence right now. motional intelligence is not about not being emotional, it's about noticing and naming your emotions so that you can then let's say, manage your emotions in the optimal way, is not even to suppress the emotion. It's to notice a namely emotion, and then to work out how am I going to use that emotion to optimal effect and make sure it doesn't, let's say do damage, or have some kind of negative consequences, if possible, even turn it into a motivation, but all starting with awareness. How does that sit with you?

Cynthia Corsetti: 17:06

Yeah, it's exactly what happens instead of where, and then they'll start to see the connections between personal and professional. So the same behaviors that I'm doing at work, I'm doing them a little bit differently at home, but I'm still doing them. And they still stem back to the same same things.

Mick Spiers: 17:21

Yeah, really interesting. There's so many things that are coming into my mind during this episode. Cynthia is really wonderful. I want to test something with you now about reflective learning. I was touching on this before, and I said I'd come back to it. So one of the things about these reinforcing behaviors is they don't need to be explicit, right. So I'll tell a story. And then I want to hear your views on this and how it starts forming these dark drivers and these behaviors. So I'm sure this is a story that will resonate with many, and it's about a child's first swimming lesson, righ, so when your child or someone that could be your niece, it could be your grandchild, or whatever the case might be, when they go to that first swimming lesson. There's a huge moment in their life at that time. As they start going into the water. They take sideways glances at the person that took them to the swimming lesson, the person that they trust, and they are looking for verbal and nonverbal communication of Is this safe? Is this good? Should I be having fun? Should I be scared. And that moment, it's not even the things that are said it can be the look on the parents face or the grandparents face, everything about it, then start setting in the thought of is this person going to love the water or not love the water? So one of the things I want to ask here about the social conditioning of the people around you that it's not always going to be just the explicit, but it can be everything that's going on in that moment. Tell me more about your thoughts on this.

Cynthia Corsetti: 18:51

I agree wholeheartedly on that whole concept, because the brain is taking in information on so many different levels, that we're not even aware that what they say we use, like an ounce of, of our brain's capacity is what we're actually aware of and using. So everything that's happening around us the sights, the sounds, the smells, they're all processing, and they're processing to whatever meaning we're assigning to them at that time, unconsciously. And you're exactly right. So if this child looks around, she sees somebody freaking out over there. She sees the mother in the background, like over anxious, and I'm told that I get so much anxiety as a parent when my kids were little. Now we've been told that I make my dog anxious, because that's like, say, I said that Mahesh calms my anxious dog. Like because that's what we do is just our demeanor. And we do send those messages to other people unintentionally. So it doesn't have to be this big explicit sit on my lap. And let me read you this. Pornography can be that simple. Let's go into the water and the mother yelling the waters do cold. Make sure she has on too much sunblock. All those things.

Mick Spiers: 19:57

Yeah, right. Yeah, very good. Now, I want to convert that into a leadership lesson because that happens in the workplace too, right, so we spoke before about, you know, great leaders learn to be the last to speak and they let their team flourish and all this kind of stuff. But people in the workplace do the same thing. They're doing a presentation to the group or whatever. They'll be doing those little sideways glances towards the boss to see whether the boss is engaged whether the boss is happy whether the bosses upset etc, etc. Now hate to say it to everyone listening to this leadership is a responsibility. And that moment is a moment of responsibility. And you can choose to have reinforcing behaviors right there. Or you can have the moment that you're going to impact what's going to come out of that person's mouth. Next, whether you like it or not, how does that sit with you?

Cynthia Corsetti: 20:46

So let me back up because I got a little confused when you said that is a responsibility. Now, were you talking about the leader sitting in the room or the person presenting?

Mick Spiers: 20:56

The leaders responsibility that even the way that they're sitting on their chair can impact the way the person's confidence, their ability to continue the presentation, where they're going to take the presentation, those little sideways glances, they can have a huge impact.

Cynthia Corsetti: 21:12

They absolutely can, and we perceive what we like, if you consider the fact that everyone in that room has their own dark drivers that have their own things that they brought into that. So if I'm already presenting, and I'm already feeling a little bit insecure, you might do something completely, innocently, I'm gonna perceive it differently. And that's why that responsibility is so critical. And that's where empathy, I say, this book kind of puts empathy on steroids. Because now if I understand that the person had presenting to me isn't just this, you know, this person from the marketing department is doing the first presentation, it's this person from the marketing department who's standing around me with about 100, little beach balls just hidden just right underneath the word water, all around them willing to come up and smack them in the face, if they get triggered by something, and I don't want to be that trigger. So it does help you see people differently.

Mick Spiers: 22:06

That's also helping me circle back to something else that you said really, interestingly earlier was that it's about the impact of them, not the impact to you. So and the meaning that they're attaching to that event, and what's going on, it's not about you, it's about the impact to them. And that it's very individual to them. And like you just said, it could be an innocent thing, but they're going to interpret it in a completely different way to the way that you intended or the way other people in the room might be interpreting that event. So I want to unpack that a little bit more you said before, it's about impact to them. And the individual and the impact for them might be very different to the impact to the next person. Tell me more about that individuality.

Cynthia Corsetti: 22:48

Well, an example I can give you is when I was my job, at the time was the President of the Chamber of Commerce, and it was a small office, maybe four employees. And I had been at a breakfast meeting outside of the office. So it came in a little bit late. When I walked in the staff, we had new offices. So the staff had stacked all these brochures and stuff up on the countertops, and they were super excited about it. I walked in and I just came in from breakfast meeting I walked in, I said, Hey guys, this little clutter to clean this up. I just went back to my office, I came back out like 10 minutes later, and one of the women was like in tears, crying, sobbing I'm like, What is wrong with you? Like what happened? And she was like, You didn't respect what we did. You didn't like what we did. You know, you think we're terrible, you think but like, and honestly, I never even thought about it. It was just like a stupid statement that came out of my mouth with no thought, bad on my part, yes. But that perception how she perceived and how the other people in the office perceived it, they didn't care, this one was devastated by it. So we have that responsibility as leaders to be aware of our actions to be aware that our words matter. position, power is so much more a thing than we give it credit for. And most leaders think I have an open door policy people can come to me and talk to me anytime. I don't realize that most people won't.

Mick Spiers: 24:08

The interesting one there and we're in in this area of trauma again, what I'm interested about here almost worried about it is the example you just gave was something that became out in the open, it became explicit, and you could address it. What I'm worried about is how many people in the workplace are walking around now with those traumatic events. And that is an example of trauma for that individual, but it's unresolved. And when I say unresolved, not even in the open. They're carrying this big white around their neck, or whatever the case might be. And they're around the office going, the boss hates me, the boss hates me, the boss hates me, the boss didn't like what I did today, etc, etc. But they're not talking about it. And if they're not talking about it, it can't be resolved.

Cynthia Corsetti: 24:54

Well, I think that one of the things that people do is ruminate and worry about what that boss is thinking when I tried to convince the executives that I work with and vice presidents on their way to the C suite. The other person is usually not thinking about it anymore. Like you are spending all this effort ruminating about what they think and ruminating about it. And that's where I try to say like What proof do you have and like, you know, I try to teach people and clients to start like let's deal with what we know and what we can control and stop ruminating about that. Stop, because you're right, like this woman that started to cry, if she didn't start to cry, I never would have known and she would have been dealing with that on her own. But I, as a leader, I have no control over that. So I think that it's important as leaders to be as open as you can be as authentic as you can. But as people, I think it's our responsibility to to not think everybody's thinking about us all the time. They're not obsessing about what we just did, we might have done something really stupid in a meeting, and the boss might have yelled at us. And chances are when the boss was done yelling at us and went down the hall, they were over it. Us on the other hand, we're not over. We're gonna obsess about it for days.

Mick Spiers: 26:03

Yeah, I think that's true in almost any relationship, it can be in your romantic relationship as well. Some seemingly innocent, and we shouldn't, shouldn't play too much on that. But let's say seemingly innocent comment from one partner in the relationship, the other person's thinking about it for the next three days. And the other person's thinking about what they can have for breakfast. They've moved on, but you haven't?

Cynthia Corsetti: 26:25

Absolutely, It's an every situation. It's just, you know, kids on the soccer field, they miss their shot. And you know, they're obsessed about it for the next three weeks, when all their teammates went home and completely, probably forgot about it .

Mick Spiers: 26:38

Had ice cream and whatever yeah,

Cynthia Corsetti: 26:41

Yeah. How about their life, they're gonna watch TV.

Mick Spiers: 26:44

Yeah, good example. So one thing I want to test here is about the role of assumptions, right? So the lady that you're talking about the breaks down in tears in the workplace here, she made an assumption about what you were thinking, what role does assumptions play in all of this?

Cynthia Corsetti: 27:01

It plays a huge role. I deal frequently with people that are upset or offended that there's a department meeting or a meeting that first they complain when there's too many meetings, but when there's a meeting that they're not invited to, they make a lot of assumptions about that. Why was I invited? Why don't they want my value? Why don't they care about what I have to say, or they're talking about me, and I'm gonna get fired. Like, it just goes on this vortex, because they're making assumptions. And chances are, it just had nothing to do with you. And they don't want to waste your time. But we as humans tend to, like catastrophize.

Mick Spiers: 27:35

Yeah, catastrophize is a good word. And I think that's exactly what we do. What does it mean to you catastrophize? Tell me more about that.

Cynthia Corsetti: 27:42

The one thing that I wish I knew way earlier in my career was to stop thinking about worrying about what everyone else thinks about you, because they're probably not thinking about you. And I think that is the biggest because earlier in my career, I would obsess about everything and ruminate about everything and be paranoid about everything. And it caused stress and anxiety and couldn't sleep at night, I would leave jobs because I was afraid that if I didn't leave, I would get fired. And these all cycle back to that imposter syndrome to the you're not good enough. It's all these dark drivers are in there. And so we look for problems before they're there. And we try to protect ourselves so much from letting that happen. And we're not even aware of it. Like I had no idea that I was leaving jobs. Because I was afraid of getting fired. I was able to rationalize in my brain wasn't until I connected all the dots of all my dark drivers said, Oh my gosh, that's exactly what I was doing. And that's when it made sense. And so that when I say catastrophizing, that's what I mean, we're gonna get fired. And I see clients do it all the time, the board's gonna be so upset this and you know, if I said this, I had this one slide right on my slide deck, and you know, the board's gonna interview someone else, like people do that.

Mick Spiers: 28:52

Yeah, It's really interesting. I love the way that you are able to process that and connect the dots. And we do see it in the workplace a lot, we'll see someone that and it can almost come across as self centered, by the way, but it's about how they processing the event, people that there's an email that gets sent around and they will always assume that the email is about them. Or in a meeting if someone brings up a team, we really need to get better at topic X. They'll be thinking the whole time or was that me? Did I did I start this? It's that kind of internalization all the time of it's about me one. It's not always about you.

Cynthia Corsetti: 29:28

And departments. I had a situation once in coaching, where an EVP an executive vice president sent an email to three different department heads. And it was one email to three people. And it was like two sentences long and it was something like something to the effect of I don't think the messaging was right on that. Maybe we need to make a change. And I was like, that's simple. That quick, she was busy. She threw something out there. These three different department heads got it. The one department had took it pretty much the way she managed the other department head who was already a little insecure about her job, thought that that was like this passive aggressive dig at her. So she completely changed the direction of our entire team and got them moving in a different direction. And the third one just pretty much ignored the message entirely because he thought she didn't understand what she does. Anyway. So it was this really bizarre way that three people three leaders took two sentences from the same person and one email and they all went in different directions which is a whole nother munication problem that we had to deal with the meaning that we assign to things that the one that took it and changed her team's direction. I mean, it was like two weeks down the road where she had them completely shifting focus on what they were working on. And that came from her dark drivers, her inferiority complex, her paranoia about what this boss thought about her and the boss suddenly was busy. There was nothing, brigands, Eve, nothing passive aggressive, she was just busy. So that's like what we do. So not all of us, but I mean, it happens.

Mick Spiers: 30:57

No, I think it's natural that people are doing this. And I think if everyone listening to this right now stops and reflects, I'm sure you can think of examples where you've done it where your team have done it where people around you have done it. So I want to unpack this a little bit further. So two sentences, three people, three people assigned different meanings to the same two sentences. What I'd love to know, Cynthia is, what practical tips can you give people in? I'm going to say both of those positions, right? So if I'm the leader that wrote those two sentences, what do I do to let's say, arrest this pattern of people going off and taking three different meanings from the two sentences, and then from the recipient? How do I stop myself from being the runaway train that goes, Oh, my God, the boss hates me, those two sentences, they were about me, the boss hates me.

Cynthia Corsetti: 31:48

Well, that situation is one of the reasons that I created my own Care to Lead system when I go into organizations, the C in Care is Clarity. So I teach the leaders to communicate with clarity. First of all, be clear about what the heck you want for yourself first, before you even try to communicate it to someone else. So that leader, if she's trying to work with clarity, she would ask yourself, alright, what is the real outcome I want, when I send this email, that's her responsibility. She's got to be clear with herself and then clear in how she communicates it. And then when people get an email, if they're not clear about it, they need to be able to ask for more clarity, ask for more questions. Don't assume don't write your own meaning because you're going to be wrong. So why would you put yourself through that ask for clarity, and that clarity starts within, it absolutely starts then.

Mick Spiers: 32:38

Yeah, I love it. I think that's the key, right, so if you're starting to put too much meaning into anything, ask for clarity and communicate with clarity. That's a really great tip. Tell me more about Care to Lead, right, so you've given us one you've teased us with C is clarity, tell us more about Care to Lead.

Cynthia Corsetti: 32:54

So Care to Lead, I developed it as a system

Mick Spiers: 32:56

I love it. First of all, very easy to remember because I saw patterns and leaders, right. And there's just clarity is critical in every organization didn't matter what kind of organization it could be a group of restaurant to a tech acronym care. And I'm going to put the challenge out to the company Clarity is missing all across and they'll start with their mission, their vision, they're having trouble communications is not going through clarity, Authenticity, is that trust and that how do we show up then the R is responsibility, I am a believer that fingerpointing and organizations has to stop, you know, well, marketing didn't do it. It didn't get their part done. So we couldn't do in product sales, what marketing sales were product can't create. And there's like all these finger pointing and like, what can you do, because you're giving up your power. When you point fingers, you're completely a victim, you're a victim of marketing didn't do it. So you're gonna suck at your job for the next five years? Because marketing doesn't do it. Like what can you do? How do you become a better person a better leader in your own respect? So this responsibility? And then Engagement is not just about how do you keep your team engaged? How do you remain engaged with the job that you're doing? audience right now. So if you're listening to this, have a think about it. In your own leadership, do I communicate with clarity? Do I show up as my authentic self? Do I take my responsibility as a leader seriously? And do I engage my team and if you can just think about care today, use that as your little self reflection moment, you're gonna grow as a leader. I really love it. Cynthia, I want to come back now to something else you said earlier, which is repeated patterns. So you were mentioning about parents and parents that grow up to be similar to their parents who are similar to their parents, etc, etc. Want to know more about this kind of how we get in this situation where we're gonna say sometimes healthy, sometimes very unhealthy patterns of behavior become learned behavior that repeat from generation to generation.

Cynthia Corsetti: 34:49

I think a lot of those are often in the more unhealthy things like scarcity mindset, fear of money, fears, we pass fears along shame. You know, parents feel shame. Those are the things we tend to I think I'm not a psychologist. So but what my experience has been research and studying I've done is we tend to pass along the things that were more or negative because we're trying to protect ourselves and our children. So it's a matter of, you know, another one of the things I talked about in my book was that like, my mom was very afraid that my dad would leave us so she kept telling Man, he's going to leave us he's going to leave us for some young, pretty chicken the magazine, right? So he's always going to leave it, she had this fear. And she would tell me that to protect me, like have to be good because your dad leaves us, we're in trouble. So the conditioning she was inadvertently teaching me came from her own fears, like she was terrified that that was going to happen to her, she didn't deliberately put that fear into me, but I got it, I heard it. So relationships, I'm bailing before someone else on me, I'm always gonna have a plan B, because I don't trust this guy. So I'm just gonna be out for something else. And so I always was insecure in relationships because of that, and wasn't intentional. And then I'm sure I pass along some crap to my own kids. But we keep so many therapists in business as parents, no good in that way we give dollars to therapists, because we make mistakes as parents,

Mick Spiers: 36:15

it's really interesting what you say, because we are somewhat hardwired to avoid loss. So fear is a huge driver, and we know that like, so that's been proven many times that we're more scared of loss than we are of the possibility of gain, right. And then what I'm hearing from you is that conditioning, which could be implicit or explicit from the behaviors of our parents before us relating to driving to what becomes our values. So you brought up even things like money, my relationship with money is a reflection of what I saw as I grew up, and it becomes almost a self fulfilling prophecy based on what I've seen as I grow. And unless I do something to intentionally to break the chain, my kind of values towards money, relationships, love all of these things, even down to things like public displays of affection. If my parents showed public displays of affection, I'm highly likely to continue that pattern. If my parents say no, no, no, no, You never do that. There's a good chance that I will never do it. Yeah. So yeah, there's the fear of loss, for sure, and then there's that continuance of values. How does that sit with you?

Cynthia Corsetti: 37:20

Absolutely, even even things as simple as when kids start driving, you know, how we as parents respond to them when they're going out on the road for the first time, where they set them up for this terrifying white knuckle experience, that's going to be hard for them to let go up, or we're going to have confidence in them, and you know.

Mick Spiers: 37:39

All right. So this has been really interesting, Cynthia, and I think we've really unpacked a lot of interesting things about how these dark drivers then perpetuate and shape who we become. What I'm interested now is what your sessions look like. So you help top performers and leaders and executives to address their dark drivers. What does that even look like? How do you start?

Cynthia Corsetti: 38:01

Well, I do end up doing that, but that's not like what my specialties, or anything like that. It just started happening naturally. So for example, the guy that I told you about the youngest of seven siblings, we use neuro linguistic programming. So I want to be really, really clear here and the difference between therapy and coaching, because you hit it right in the beginning, you say coaching hits where we are now and how we move forward. So I will help a client like is basically once that trust is developed, I partner with my client. So there's an enormous amount of trust. If you don't trust someone, you can do this. So if you have a really strong trust level, and then it'll just be let's back up like once the first time you remember that, let's go back further, when do you remember it before that, and we can go all the way back until the very first time they remember, it's like, you can see it click oh my gosh, that's when it started. I remember, you know, I remember that moment. So I kind of just walked them back through that. Now if you walk somebody back through that, and something really traumatic, like they were sexually abused or something like that comes up like that needs healed, that needs healing that needs a therapist, that is out of my realm of expertise. But if it comes up that yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna noxious jerk now because I was the youngest of seven kids. And I learned that I had to be an obnoxious jerk in order to survive, that I can help you with as an executive coach, and it's like, Alright, how is this playing out in your day to day? How do we live with this and move forward?

Mick Spiers: 39:22

Yeah, that's a good example, and to unpack that a little bit more. So coaching works on what we call a heightening mindset and to take someone from where they are to into the art of the possible and therapy is a resolving mindset. So resolving things from your past that might be holding you back today. Really great advice there from Cynthia that if you're in that situation, where it's something deep and traumatic, that is where a psychiatrist and a trained psychologist and a therapist is your go to what Cynthia's talking about, there's nothing to stop anyone trained or untrained to still think about oh, yeah, or why do I do that? And I like your process of working backwards to find Was there some kind of trigger event or multiple trigger events that led you to the things that you do today? So the looking backwards and resolving things from your past? The thing that pops into my mind right now, Cynthia is the role then of limiting beliefs. So there's a saying that we say a lot, which is limiting beliefs kill more dreams than failure ever did. Right? And if we don't address those limiting beliefs that will hold us back. So how much of this resolving mindset for you is about eliminate have been limiting beliefs that show up today?

Cynthia Corsetti: 40:29

Well, I think I'm a believer that these limiting beliefs all come from something right. And like I said, they're not going to go away. They're these dark drivers. So the way I describe this to my clients as I'm working with them is, is I want you to pretend for a moment, imagine that your life is a bus, and you step onto the bus and you look back in the best, and you see all the seats filled with people. And every single one of those people is a version of you. And one version is that little seven year old who didn't make the cheerleading squad and the other version is the one that got the scholarship, you know, all expenses paid the university and the other ones, the one who landed this job at any given time, when you're struggling with limiting beliefs, you have the power to decide who's driving that bus. So at the time, that limiting belief is there, it's this person who's afraid. And if that person's driving is gonna go right by the opportunity because they're afraid to stop. But if you can say, Ah, yeah, I get that thank you go have a seat on the back of the bus right now. Because I need the stronger version of me to drive because they're all with you all the time.

Mick Spiers: 41:31

Oh, I love this. I love the metaphor. And I love that thought and think about all the things that we've discussed today. Cynthia, the ones would be if you grew up thinking that you can't catch a ball, or you're to be afraid of balls, you'll never learn to catch a ball. But what is the different version of you that learn how to catch a ball and became a sports person, etc, etc. Let them drive the bus for a while. That's really interesting. I'm going to bring it to the workplace. If you think that you're terrible at presenting, that's just gonna perpetuate unless you let someone else drive the bus. How does that sit with you? Right? So that person that scared of public speaking, if they're letting that thought stick there? How do they get someone else driving the bus for a while so that they step forward out of their limiting belief and out of their comfort zone and just give it a read out go.

Cynthia Corsetti: 42:15

Well, I like to try to help people figure out when did you succeed at something like this? Just like we can go back and say when's the first time you had that negative experience? Let's talk about the first time you really did okay, speaking publicly remember your church group? Remember the Girl Scout leader thing that you did? You did okay at that, let's let her drive or let him drive.

Mick Spiers: 42:35

Yeah, I love it. All right, very good. I want to come back to one that I skipped over. Because I didn't want to lose this train was then about the repeated patterns. So we were speaking about the repeated patterns, parent parent, I want to bring that to the workplace. Right now. This is one that I have to admit, I stick up my own hand and find myself having done the very thing that I'm about to tell you about multiple times, we've all had Horrible Bosses at different times. And we've all attached meaning and had an impact and trauma associated with horrible boss, but what we see is repeated patterns. So we see someone that had that horrible boss that was telling people what to do when you know altra Alpha style and very directorial etcetera, etcetera. And then all of a sudden, five years from now they become the boss and they start doing the same things, even though they didn't like it themselves, when their previous boss did it, they've somehow condition themselves that that's what bosses do. How do we break those patterns, Cynthia?

Cynthia Corsetti: 43:32

With a good coach. You're right, we can repeat those patterns. The other side of that, that people do is they might leave the boss but the next job they go to they find themselves in a situation with the same type of boss, there's a reason we're allowing ourselves to be in a toxic work environment, there's a reason where we're drawn to certain kinds of things, and we remain there. And again, that goes back to ourselves and our responsibility. You know, that might be how the first job we got when we were 15 or 16 years old is a you know, a waiter lifeguard or whatever we were doing, but to have a boss yelling at us. And we learned that that's the boss's role. Some people take that and they said, I never want to be a boss. Because I don't want to be that person. They can't make that mental. Like, I don't have to be that person. But they think that's how it is. So that comes with just good training, leadership, training and development. But again, there's that other person who's going to seek that out by their own subconscious, they're going to be looking for that toxicity. And that's when people change jobs over and over and they find the same pattern there. It's like this honeymoon phase for a while and then reality sets in and there, they find they're the exact same miserable situation six months or a year into their new job as they were in their old job. Is it the job or is it you?.

Mick Spiers: 44:45

Yeah, this is really cool. So the word that's popping into my mind is the word intentionality, but it's also the word putting in the work, right? So if you find yourself in these patterns, put in the work, we'll find out what is it?

Cynthia Corsetti: 44:57

It's hard to see in ourselves. It's really hard to see self-destructive patterns. And it's so much easier just to say I have an older brother who's a pilot, and during his years of coming up through the ranks of pilot school, I think he got fired from like 3000 jobs. And I am exaggerating but he kept getting fired and every single time he got fired, he would say the guy was a hole and like after like, like six years, so there's almost no I said, like, Do you really think that like they're all could maybe be you a little bit? He's like Oh, I've never thought of that. And maybe I'm probably partly the blame. And that's, it's so hard for us to see our own flaws. And that's why like, as a coach, and I'm sure you've experienced this, too, it's really hard to say to someone, you know, you shouldn't hire an executive coach, because they're like, I don't need especially executives, there's a lot of ego involved. I want me to coach, well, I need a coach, it's remedial, like, we all have these things driving us, and we're completely unaware of them. And even if we're super, super successful, imagine how much more successful we could be if we didn't have these things that we're unaware of driving us.

Mick Spiers: 46:00

Yeah, the thing I always think about there, Cynthia, is that Tiger Woods, even at the height of ease, pro s had a coach, right. So any executive coach, yeah, multiple, right? So any executive out there saying, Oh, why do I need a coach, you will all benefit from having a coach. And then the second thing, if I think about what you're sharing about your brother is about getting off autopilot, right? So stop letting life happen to you and start taking back, I'm going to use your bus metaphor, get hold of that steering wheel starts driving your own life and do the work to go hang on a second, why does this pattern keep on repeating itself and do the work and get a coach to help you to do that work, I think that's a powerful takeaway.

Cynthia Corsetti: 46:39

It's all a journey, it's a lot of work. I mean, it's a lot of work to do that, but you come out the other end so much more. So you can be successful. And you can be in a really good job that you love. And there can still be this feeling that like, I'm just not feeling fulfilled, there's just something missing from my life. And I don't know what it is I feel empty, and it can very well just be a dark driver, it could be something that you're completely unaware of. It's in your subconscious. And once you uncover it, you'll find out like how much happier you can be how much more fulfilled you can be.

Mick Spiers: 47:10

Yeah, I think it's staying curious in that process. Right. So not just thinking back to what happened, but what was it about it the meaning that you're attached? What was it about that job that I loved? What was it about that job that I didn't love? And see if there's patterns that started merging repeated patterns that might tell you something about yourself. Really interesting.

Cynthia Corsetti: 47:31

Yeah, this one little piece of my business, I have this, it started because I would find executives who would be transitioning into different jobs and always looking for something better, and they would get the next job and be miserable six months later, so I created another this little career transition program, I call it Re -three, and it's Reflect-Rebuild-Rebrand, and one of the things I have clients do as they go through this process, I make them go back and list every job they have, since they were 16 years old. And we look for patterns in those jobs. Tell me like you are a waitress, you are a this you were that you did this, you did that? What do they all have in common because whoever you were, then and whoever you were, when you chose this career, now the career that you're working in today doesn't exist anymore, because four years have gone by or 10 years have gone by the person you are today is completely different person than the was then though even the one that took this job. So we need to figure out who you used to be, what you liked, what appealed to you and what stuck through you as a pattern that still exists today, and still makes you kind of happy. And you kind of think Yeah, I kind of the all my jobs were about service, or all my jobs are a nonprofit, or all of my jobs are about helping people, all my jobs are about analytical stuff. So you know, you kept that part of you, but all these other parts of you just are kind of like they don't really exist, and you're not gonna be happy in a job that you're taking because of them. Makes sense.

Mick Spiers: 48:48

Yeah, it does. And it's that reflection, once again. So that's the call to action here today. I want you all to stop and reflect and think about what Cynthia is talking about here. And notice a name these things notice and name them just like emotions, notice a name these things from your past so that you can process them. And when you process them, you can make sense of them. And once you can make sense of them, you can then take the steering wheel of your boss and you can be the one that's driving it and going forward. How does that sit with you, Cynthia?

Cynthia Corsetti: 49:19

own busload of people. So when you're looking as a leader and you're you've got an employee in front of you who's struggling or who's passive aggressive or who's causing problems, whatever they're doing, have the empathy to understand that they might have a subconsciously be just take on their own pattern of self destruction. So just don't try to be their psychiatrist, but have empathy to understand them.

Mick Spiers: 49:52

Oh, that's really good advice as well, Cynthia, there's been so many great takeaways today, we've got our CARE acronym, we've got our three R's. We've got, you know, people really thinking and reflecting on things in their past positive and negative and the things that drive us to be who we are today. And then the empathy that everyone else has going through that as well. The thought of trauma and trauma is very individual about the meaning that someone is attaching to different events that may be very different to the meaning that you're applying to the very same event and that's where we can drive us through. I'll come back to the CARE acronym again. So that Clarity, that Authenticity, that Responsibility, and that ability to Engage people in your workplace. So many great takeaways today, Cynthia, I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I'm going to take us now to our Rapid Round the same questions that we ask all of our guests. So I'm curious to know, Cynthia, what's the one thing that you know, now that you wish you knew when you're 20?

Cynthia Corsetti: 50:49

I think I already hinted to that earlier, but it is to stop ruminating about what everyone else is thinking about you because they're probably not thinking about you.

Mick Spiers: 50:59

That was a big one for me. I've got to say when you said I had this instant self reflection going, oh yeah, do I do that? I think I do. Right? So for 36 hours, you're thinking about some event that everyone else has long forgotten, right? Really good. Okay. What's your favorite book?

Cynthia Corsetti: 51:13

It's a Rick Hansen book, and it's called Buddha's Brain. It's the practical neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom. And it's just a great book, Rick Hansen is that psychologists who I've read a lot of his stuff, and it was actually, as I was understanding dark drivers, like a lot of the psychology stuff that I read about came from him.

Mick Spiers: 51:33

Nice, I've not heard of that one. I'm going to look into it myself. What's your favorite quote?

Cynthia Corsetti: 51:38

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change, the Wayne Dyer quote.

Mick Spiers: 51:42

I love it. That's brilliant. And that really reflects on what we've been saying on today as well. That's really great. And finally, Cynthia, I'm sure that many people in the audience have been enthralled by what you've shared today. How do people find you and connect with you to know more about the book about you about your services? How do they find you?

Cynthia Corsetti: 52:02

It's simple. It's cynthia@cynthiacorsetti.com. I'm on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my happy place. I love LinkedIn. So I'm really active over there. I have Facebook and Instagram. It's all just under Cynthia Corsetti, I don't have any fancy names, my website cynthiacorsetti. They will be able to order the book from Amazon or from my website, and hopefully from every bookstore in the world, but right now I'm just like Amazon.

Mick Spiers: 52:25

Yeah, exactly, Cynthia. Absolutely brilliant, and I'm looking forward to getting a copy when you're done. For sure. I feel richer from having this conversation already. and I know I'll be even wiser once I've read your book and put some of these processes in action as well. Thank you so much for your time today. very enriching experience for me. and I know the audience would have gotten great value from this as well.

Cynthia Corsetti: 52:49

Thank you so much. It has been an honor and a pleasure, and thank you to all of your audience who's listening.