IAM1142- CEO Leads Gen-Xers on their Path of Rediscovery

Lori Saitz is the CEO of Zen Rabbit and host of the podcast “FINE is a 4-Letter Word.” She’s an award-winning writer and broadcaster, and a nationally recognized expert in using gratitude and meditation to manifest your goals faster. Through her transformational Fine to Fantastic program, she leads Gen-Xers on their path of rediscovering what lights them up and gets them excited to get out of bed in the morning. When she's not working, you can find Lori in the weight room at the gym, because she also loves baking and eating.

• CEO Hack: Guided meditations using Insight Timer
• CEO Nugget: Have some peer support group
• CEO Defined: Freedom to run my business and life the way I want it

Website: https://zenrabbit.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorisaitz/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZenRabbit or https://www.facebook.com/LoriSaitz/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zen_rabbit/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/zenrabbitvideo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZenRabbit

On Clubhouse: @lorisaitz

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Transcription

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00:00 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:24 – Lori Saitz

Make sure that you have a support system that as an entrepreneur, even not an entrepreneur, but especially entrepreneurs, you have a peer strategy group, a mastermind group, some kind of peer support group, and this isn't necessarily friends. They could be friends if they are business people.

00:52 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Grash from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Lori Seitz of Zen Rabbit. Lori, it's great to have you on the show.

01:00 – Lori Saitz

Thanks for having me, Grash. I'm so excited to be here.

01:03 – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on as well. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Lori so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Lori is the CEO of Zen Rabbit and host of the podcast, Fine is a four-letter word. She's an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and a nationally recognized expert in using gratitude and meditation to manifest your goals faster.

Through her transformational, the fuck being fine experience, she leads Gen Xers on their path of rediscovering what lights them up and gets them excited to get out of bed in the morning. And when she's not working, you can find Lori in the weight room at the gym because she loves baking and eating. Who doesn't love that? And Lori's super excited to have you on, having another podcaster on. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:46 – Lori Saitz

Let's do this.

01:47 – Gresham Harkless

Glad to make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit. Here is a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:54 – Lori Saitz

How I got started being an entrepreneur and becoming a CEO. You know, I had my dad as a role model, even though I never really realized it until many years later. But he, he always had what we would call now as a side gig. He always had something going on, even when he was working full-time for someone else. He had this entrepreneurial thing, whatever it was, he had an engraving business, he had like several different ones.

Yeah, so I saw that as a kid and didn't formally recognize that I was, you know, but somehow that was those beliefs, those that, that spirit was ingrained in me. And then, you know, I graduated college, went and got jobs, worked for someone else for many years until, until I started my first business. And I'm on like the third or fourth iteration of that now. So.

02:53 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So I want to hear more about your program as well. So you can just take us through a little bit more about that and what we can find.

02:59 – Lori Saitz

Yeah, yeah. So one of the other things that came out of my pandemic isolation is the Find to Fantastic podcast. So the people I'm interviewing are giving hope or not hope, role models to other women who are listening to the fact that you can move off of fine. You don't have to be stuck there. There's nothing wrong with you for one thing, because a lot of times we as women, men, all of us, feel like, all right, everything is fine, but I'm not happy. Why can't I be happy with all of this amazing that I have?

There must be something wrong with me. And there is nothing wrong. It's that your soul is crying out for greater expression. And so that led into this fuck being fine experience, the program, the coaching program, And I've resisted calling it coaching for a long time, but that's what people relate to. It's a guidance, it is somewhat coaching. But to create that, I mean, really, how much time do you have? Nobody knows. And how much time do you wanna stay stuck being in fine? Do you wanna live the next 20 years of your life the same way you've lived the last 20? And what are you going to do differently? And that requires courage to move.

04:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And it's so funny that you used the word fine and stuck 'cause I thought of it like that, kind of synonyms to some degree and almost like autopilot where, how are you doing going fine? Cause it's just like something, a knee-jerk reaction that you always say, but like, if you really look at it, like what is fine? Like, what are you like really like picking it up as if you would something and looking at the bottom at the top and seeing and looking at that and then making those decisions if you aren't where you want to be how you can get to where you want to be.

04:56 – Lori Saitz

Right, right. Oftentimes we are living to somebody else's expectations and it's time now, regardless of what your age is, but it's time now to live for your own truth, to stop compromising who you are, and live your dreams. Because I truly believe that you would not have the idea for something you would not have a dream. If it was not possible to make it real.

05:29 – Gresham Harkless

That's extremely powerful and I think that as you mentioned, you know use the word courage as well too. And I think so many times, I believe, you know, we are giving gifts and, and, you know, talents and things that we do and as you said, dreams so well. I think so many times if we're not sure how to get from A to D or A to Z or whatever it is, so many times we push those visions, those dreams away, but in reality, we have to lean more into that. So I love that you're creating an opportunity for people to manifest those dreams and to kind of see their talents and their gifts, the things that they've been given to make the world a better place come to fruition.

06:02 – Lori Saitz

Yeah, yeah, and you know really sometimes, a lot of times, people need somebody to hold their hand and push them off the cliff at the same time, and that's exactly what I do in this program. So it's really hard to do it yourself. So having that, and it's, right now, I'm building the group for it. So it's not an individual experience, it could be, but I think the group experience is even more enriching because you have a community, you're part of a community that will hold you up and celebrate your wins and push you and hold you accountable and push you off the cliff. All those things need to happen.

06:48 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. It's so much fun. I don't know if that's a word so much funner to jump off a cliff. Yeah, jump off a cliff with friends and people who are supporting you and doing the same thing. So I love that you've been able to build a community and create that environment so that people can flourish. Yeah. Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself personally, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

07:15 – Lori Saitz

Well, everybody has their own unique. I mean, it's what I, it's who I am. So what makes me unique? My enthusiasm, my ability to see the good, and to find gratitude. So going back to gratitude, life is a life. There are situations that can be seen as positive or negative, whether they are or not, how you interpret them.

I'm always the 1 who's going to find the positive in any situation, regardless of how bad it looks. Yeah, it could be a horrible experience and I will pull out that one little nugget for you of, oh, well, at least this thing happened or at least this good, I can find the good everywhere. And I'm not saying like, don't be sad or angry if the situation if that's how you feel, but I'm just saying, let's also find the gratitude in it.

08:10 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, and that's huge. And I think so many times people don't realize and forget and, you know, I myself and one of them as well too, that you're able to kind of flex or work out those gratitude muscles, so to speak, and that there isn't, there is even an alternative feeling to have. For if something quote-unquote bad or less than ideal happens, Sometimes we don't realize that we can use those muscles and look at it and find the gratitude, find the thing to be appreciative of in a situation where it may not seem like it's there, but it's by flexing those muscles, working them out, that you start to be able to realize that.

08:44 – Lori Saitz

Grash, I love that you just brought that up because people are not necessarily naturally grateful. I wasn't either. And you can learn how to be more grateful through practicing it.

08:59 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think part of practicing it is also like we've been talking about having that environment around you to be able to realize that. And I think that it's also very inspiring and empowering, I think, to know that you can, you know, flex those muscles. You can work out those muscles to be, you know, more in alignment with gratitude, you know, so that you can start to see the good or at least as close to the good as possible in all situations.

09:24 – Lori Saitz

Exactly, exactly.

09:26 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:38 – Lori Saitz

We've already touched on it and it is meditation.

09:40 – Gresham Harkless

There we go.

09:41 – Lori Saitz

Sets up your whole day. I mean, you can meditate at any point during the day. It's useful. Personally, I do it in the morning before I get into my day and how to set the mood set the intention for the day I typically do a guided typically a guided meditation not necessarily my own than the ones that I create for people but which I also have for myself course but no I mean I listen to guide meditations that that app that I use most frequently is called Insight Timer and it's free. They have, I don't know, 95, 000, I think, Meditations on all kinds of topics, all different lengths of time. That's my, that's my hack. Yeah, get yourself into a place. Yeah, you are open.

10:27 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, I really appreciate you saying getting yourself into that place and, I don't know if you feel the same way at least the way I always heard you know meditation to find is you know being present in that place and not being ahead or being behind or we can get lost in those things that we sometimes forget the the gift in the present.

10:46 – Lori Saitz

Yeah yeah exactly and for me it's just helped me stay grounded no matter what's happening around me throughout the day.

10:57 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And of course, during these interesting times, there's been no greater need to be able to kind of be present, to be those muscles as we've been talked about.

11:09 – Lori Saitz

Yeah. And, and I mean, it physically, emotionally. There's so much research talking about these interests in our immune system to be as strong as possible and meditation helps contribute to that too.

11:27 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. We don't realize that. And I think it's becoming a little bit more aware of the I think so many times we think there's silos and different aspects that rely spiritually, mentally, emotionally, just all of those aspects but they really overlap. So that's why I love you mentioned that meditation and how it can affect your immune system, how it can improve your immune system because the way that you are, you know, emotionally or mentally can impact, you know, your overall well-being.

11:53 – Lori Saitz

Yeah, and it all ties into gratitude. When you feel more gratitude, when you are more grateful, that comes from being more present, and meditation helps you with that, and it all ties together. So gratitude also strengthens the immune system altogether.

12:10 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. It's definitely a cycle. So I love that you're able to help empower people to be able to do that. And so I want to ask you now for what I call SEO nuggets. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business. So.

12:26 – Lori Saitz

Yeah, make sure that you have a support system that as an entrepreneur, even non-entrepreneur, but especially entrepreneurs you have a peer strategy group, a mastermind group, some kind of peer or support group, and this isn't necessarily friends. It could be friends if they are business people, but your friends and family, when you're running a business, don't necessarily understand where you're coming from.

So you have a hard day, they and they're immediately going to try to talk you into getting a job. You should quit then, you should get a job. You need people who are going to be there to support you through those difficult times, which they're going to be, they're going to exist and to celebrate your wins.

13:17 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And so I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Lori, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:28 – Lori Saitz

It means freedom. It's freedom to do… So freedom to do… Run my business the way I want to run it, to run my life the way I want to run it. So I don't have anybody necessarily telling me You have to be here from 9 to 5 and you can only make this amount of money because this is what this job pays you So it but it's time freedom. It's money freedom. It's just It's mental freedom even more.

So I mentioned but when I shut down the baking company before I started the other company, I was doing some consulting and I was working for a company almost full-time, but as a consultant and he wanted to hire me as an employee and I said no, because I knew that mentally that would mess me up. And so once I got a taste of entrepreneur, no, no, no, no employee thing. So yes, it means freedom.

14:29 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, Once you get a taste of it, it's hard to go back. And I think, as you said, I think so many times we talked about gratitude and not even realizing that there's another way to feel sometimes in situations. I think the same thing, in being a CEO, being an entrepreneur, or wherever it's harder we might give, We don't sometimes realize the impact that we can have, but once we get that feeling and we start to experience that freedom, you start to see that you can create your own path, you can change things, you can be an impact changer, whatever it is, then it's hard to kind of go back from that.

15:00 – Lori Saitz

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm a visionary so I need the freedom to make this vision real.

15:09 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely well Lori truly appreciates that definition and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic so to speak just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get a whole view and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

15:24 – Lori Saitz

Sure yeah, we covered a lot today so I invite anybody who wants to talk more about anything we talked about today, to get in touch with me. ZenRabbit.com is my website, the name of my company, and my website, ZenRabbit. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. I hang out on LinkedIn a lot. So you can definitely connect with me there. Podcast again is fine, is a 4 letter word. That's wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find it there.

15:58 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And to make it even easier, we will have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. But truly appreciate you, Lori, for taking some time out and being on the show. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:12 – Outro