IAM2941 – Business Coach Believes in Service as a Way of Life

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Transcription:

Keren Eldad 00:00
What I tell everyone on the suicide hotline at the end of every call, and every one of my CEOs who has told me that they suffer from panic and anxiety attacks, which I have to tell you is much more common than you think. Be easy on yourself. You are doing extremely well.

Keren Eldad 00:44
Hello.

Gresham Harkless 00:44
Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Karen O’Dodd of karenododd.com. Karen, it’s awesome to have you on the show.

Keren Eldad 00:52
Hey, Gresh, it’s so much fun to be here.

Gresham Harkless 00:54
Yeah, absolutely. We’re definitely going to have some fun, but before we got started, I wanted to read a little bit more about Karen so you can hear about all the awesome things that she’s doing. When it comes to choosing a coach or a speaker, there are loads of contenders. vendors that talk a good game, but Karen O’Dodd, a former C-level executive at a billion-dollar company herself, actually knows what you need. As a business coach and speaker, Coach Karen is a trusted advisor to industry-leading executives and superstar entrepreneurs working with premier business organizations, including Luxottica, JP Morgan, LVMH, YPO, and many more. Having served in the Israeli Army and emerged into coaching from suicide counseling, Karen believes in service as a way of life, and comes in focused on adding value and making things better and easier in yours. Karen, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Keren Eldad 01:38
I sure am. And I’m very, very touched by that very moving introduction.

Gresham Harkless 01:43
Thank you. Yes, absolutely. Well, you’re doing some phenomenal things. So I wanted to hear from the very beginning. I wanted to hear about your CEO story, what led everything to get started with all the awesome things you’re doing right now.

Keren Eldad 01:51
Sure. Can I ask you a question first?

Gresham Harkless 01:53
Absolutely.

Keren Eldad 01:54
Can I use a profanity?

Gresham Harkless 01:55
Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 01:55
Go for it. Let them fly.

Keren Eldad 01:57
So the only reason I am the CEO of my own company today and started it was because My life went down in a giant shitstorm in my mid-30s after having done everything quote unquote right in my life. The right school, the right marriage. You know, I was married to a tall guy. Everybody knows that you marry a tall guy. That’s like the standard.

Gresham Harkless 02:16
And tall guys are 5’9, by the way.

Keren Eldad 02:18
Well, you know, as long as it’s taller than me, I was okay with that. That was my holy grail. And who always had the right job. The right job, of course, led me to become a C-suite executive at a billion-dollar company. at a very early age, at 31, everything started to collapse system after system after system. It wasn’t working. It’s not just that it wasn’t working. I was blowing it up myself. There was a divorce. I knew the career was good. Like I knew that I was good and it was solid, but it was never anything that fulfilled me and made me feel like I was living all my potential. It always felt like I was doing what I was supposed to do and not what I really truly wanted to do. And I didn’t go for what I truly wanted to do because I thought, and I’m, I’m being very honest here. That it wasn’t going to be profitable. I wasn’t going to make money speaking for a living. I had to marry somebody who was technically rich because how can a little girl like me make money by herself? And so any of these beliefs just stood in my way. Luckily, God sent me what I like to call that shitstorm. And after, of course, by the way, all of my stuff also burned to the ground. So I literally lost all my things in a fire.

Gresham Harkless 03:21
Oh, wow.

Keren Eldad 03:21
I lost my job. I was, um, unemployed for 5 months and for a person who was used to a very high spend level. I also went broke very, very quickly. Luckily, when all of those systems collapsed around me, I got to ask some really big questions like, what do I really want to do? And that’s how I created With Enthusiasm Coaching, found this to be the devotion of my life through suicide counseling. And here we are. Here we are.

Gresham Harkless 03:45
Here we are. Well, I’m super obviously sorry to hear that, but I think sometimes when those bad things happen, I always say a lot of times in order for you to know dawn, for you to experience great things, sometimes you have to fear, you have to hit rock bottom and experience those really horrible things, but a lot of times that shows who we are. It gives us that opportunity to kind of rise like the phoenix, I guess.

Keren Eldad 04:02
You know, that’s my experience, but I also say that the truth is that’s usually how most of us change. For most people, I just read Stephen Schwarzman’s book, which is called What It Takes, obviously. Uh, that’s a very Stephen Schwarzman title. And he says, uh, he makes 2 very good points in it. The first point is that, uh, has nothing to do with what we’re talking about, but you’re gonna like it. It’s just easy to build a big company as it is to build a small company. So you might as well expend that energy in the big direction. But the second great point that he makes, and that really kind of validates what I’m saying here, is when things are good, when things are solid and stable and comfortable, people don’t want to make a change. It is exactly in that moment, he says, that they should be as flexible and as innovative as possible. Unfortunately, most of us are not. And therefore, we get sent shitstorms. And that, that’s why I do agree with you. You’re, we actually are very, very lucky.

Gresham Harkless 04:54
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and, well, definitely, do you feel like, and sometimes I say this, you know, in shitstorms that I’ve had where a lot of times I knew what to do and I didn’t do ’em. I got those small signs. It was just a little bit of shit. And then when I didn’t kind of do what I was supposed to do, it blew up. Exactly.

Keren Eldad 05:10
It blows up. It has to blow up. And you should start to, you get very fine-tuned to it after a while. You just start to understand this is about to unravel. Why is it unraveling? And of course, by the time you’re quite coached and certainly have been a CEO for a long time, you always see that as a sign of grace rather than as a big problem.

Gresham Harkless 05:27
Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely a sign and it’s, and it can be a blessing as well too, especially if you’re able to see it. And even if you don’t see it, you have to go through it. If you look at it as a blessing, then it can be that opportunity to bounce back even stronger and better. So I know you touched on it a little bit and I touched on it when I read your bio. I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you work with clients. Can you take us through that process and some of the things that you do?

Keren Eldad 05:47
Sure. So there are really 2 things that I do. The first is private coaching. I offer private coaching for usually executives, and I like to call them the most intense personalities on the planet. Truth is, it’s not because they’re very talkative like me or have that energy. A lot of very intense personalities are very quiet, but it is in their focus, the sharpness of their focus, the clarity of their vision, and people who basically understand that what got me here is not getting me there. I need to get to the next level. And we work in a 14-week program to really change the way they look at things, to work on their mindset game and up the ante and create a much larger vision as a result of that. The second way I work with people is group coaching or motivational speaking, which is really speaking and workshops for groups. And that is exactly what it sounds like.

Gresham Harkless 06:30
Awesome. Yeah, that makes so much sense. And do you find like there’s some, um, I guess, is it noticing, you know, a little bit of that shit that we talked about earlier that is coming up? That is a sign for somebody to, you know, call you or, or to start working with you? Is that usually what starts everything or is it just kind of happens?

Keren Eldad 06:46
Well, usually people do call you when they’re in the midst of a problem. And that’s an interesting thing because I believe that coaching is not for people who are going through a problem. They’re for people who are ready to go to the next level. And you can be ready to go to the next level when you’re already a superstar. All Olympic champions, and I had the privilege of coaching 3 Olympic champions, All Olympic champions know this. Coaches are there to hold you to your vision, to show you your blind spots, and to get you farther ahead. So actually, the ideal coaching client is doing quite well, and I’m very lucky in that sense because a lot of my clients are doing quite well. But there are very common reasons that are not going so well for which clients will reach out. The first one is time management, productivity. The problem is overwhelm. Overwhelm, stress, I’m not properly maximizing my time. I am experiencing as a result anxiety. And the second most common issue is a lack of meaning. And that’s again, usually caused by the force with which superstars live. Such force and such attention to detail that you get disconnected from the big picture. You don’t ask the big questions. And as a result, you’re living life by default. You’re living a life that doesn’t feel good to you.

Gresham Harkless 07:58
Right.

Keren Eldad 07:58
And that’s something that’s really up to the individual. They have to get real honest to come up with that. You know, it’s not easy for any of us to admit, as I had to admit, this shit’s not working.

Gresham Harkless 08:08
Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 08:09
Yeah. That’s actually exactly what I was gonna say. And it kind of probably definitely helps. I, I don’t wanna definitely put words in your mouth, but I know sometimes it helps to go through an experience to be able to see it in somebody else, especially cuz it kind of sounds like the latter was definitely something that you went through where, you know, it, what you were hitting all the marks, you were super successful, but That fulfillment is really hard to kind of measure and be honest with unless you’re looking in the mirror and saying, hey, this is not actually fulfilling me.

Keren Eldad 08:32
Yeah. And you have to, and you have to get very honest. It’s actually about being willing to lose face and being willing to say, help me. And that was very hard for me to do. It’s going to be very hard for other people to do. I looked perfect on Instagram. Like in my marriage, we always dressed to match. And a lot of women would come up to me and tell me how lucky I was. And I was in a sham of a marriage, like Mm-hmm. Sexless, hateful, sleep in the library marriage. That’s— I knew what was really going on. You always know when you’re truly miserable. The money didn’t matter because I couldn’t spend it fast enough because again, I was constantly trying to cover up, cover up what I was really feeling. And again, while the job was satisfying, it was nowhere near this kind of satisfying. Doing what you love, waking up eager every day. That’s, that’s a different feeling. And I challenge everyone out there to, to at least accept that it is possible to live this way because when you do, you’re not going to be able to tolerate this for much longer.

Gresham Harkless 09:27
Yeah, absolutely. You know, once you, once you see all that light, it’s hard to kind of go back. And, and I think it kind of like along the lines of, you know, giving up the good for the great. So I think a lot of times when you have that good, you know that there’s a different level, but you have something that’s so good. Why would you want to take it to the next level? Because you could maybe not go back to the next level. Maybe you go backwards and it’s not as good as you thought it was. So it kind of leaves us in that same spot.

Keren Eldad 09:47
Both Marshall Goldsmith and of course the famous Jim Collins has spoken about that concept. Good is the enemy of great. And as Marshall Goldsmith always says, what got you here won’t get you there. One day you will wake up and say, this got me all this stuff and this isn’t what I want. I want to get to the next level, a spiritually happy level, a satisfied level, a level of contribution beyond myself. There’s gotta be more. And that’s when you start calling the coaches.

Gresham Harkless 10:13
There you go. That makes perfect sense. So, um, what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique, or is kind of like what I like to call your secret sauce?

Keren Eldad 10:20
Thanks for asking. Well, aside from this, uh, disposition, um, and I think, uh, a particular brand of humor or particular way of speaking, which of course speaks to other people, the 2 things that most of my clients find appealing is that I’m like them in 2 ways. The first is I’m kind of a giant nerd. I went to the same schools as they do, they went to. I read a lot. I am properly accredited. This is a very big deal. I’m a big behavioral assessment science nerd. And most people who would then, who would otherwise be deterred by personal development or self-help and disqualify it as snake oil or woo woo will see this as scientifically valid and sound when it’s coming from someone who they can relate to. And the second I really think is, uh, an unusual, uh, behavioral style, which is intense. and focused and in that response, in, in that universe, very responsive to other people who are intense and focused. I think that something that’s a little bit more wishy-washy and gentle and slow, and let’s talk about your mother for 3 sessions, is very different from the style that my clients respond to. And that’s where the secret sauce lies.

Gresham Harkless 11:25
I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what’s something that makes you super effective and efficient?

Keren Eldad 11:35
Okay, super. It’s the silliest hack in the world, but it’s changed my life. The secret to time management productivity is focus. The only way you focus is by prioritizing. The only way you prioritize is by learning what really matters and what doesn’t matter. And most of us cannot tell the difference. We just puke everything onto the to-do list, like everything matters, aka. But that is never, ever, ever the case. So the way I write my to-do list is absolutely breathtaking and was stolen. And that’s right. I am taking credit for a tip that is not mine from Abraham Hicks.

Gresham Harkless 12:07
Okay.

Keren Eldad 12:07
It’s basically, I write my to-do list on 2 sides of my notebook. You know, my notebooks are notebooks that open up. So there’s one side and then there’s the other side. On one side, I write things I need to get done today. On the other side, I write things I need the universe to do for me today. Now I know that that sounds hokey and woo woo, but listen, once you start moving, all of the follow-ups that need to get done, all of the people you’re hearing from, little things like I need to order new cups for the office, nonsense stuff to need the universe to take care of, one of two things will happen. Either it will get done by itself, and this is remarkable how it happens, that nonsense, that email chain crap, that always resolves itself. And number two, the stuff that still needs to get done but is not the most important will still get done, but it’ll get done after you do what actually matters. And this is the easiest And most basic hack that will completely change everybody’s game.

Gresham Harkless 12:59
I love that hack. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Keren Eldad 13:08
What I tell everyone on the suicide hotline at the end of every call, and every one of my CEOs who has told me that they suffer from panic and anxiety attacks, which I have to tell you is much more common than you think. Be easy on yourself. You are doing extremely well.

Gresham Harkless 13:22
Well, I truly appreciate that as well. And so now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We’re hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on this show. So Karen, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Keren Eldad 13:33
I believe that a CEO is a person in charge of their own destiny whose ultimate power is in inspiring and uplifting others.

Gresham Harkless 13:40
Absolutely. Yeah. That brings everything, you know, back in, uh, back in alignment. And a lot of times we forget that everything we do is not just for ourselves. It’s for people that are watching us. It’s for our clients. It’s for our customers. And every time we do something, we are kind of building up our brand and inspiring others, we hope, or doing something on the opposite end. So we always want to make sure that we push towards that.

Keren Eldad 13:59
It’s true. And I’ll give you just one concrete example. I was working with a great CEO who was the nicest guy ever and told me that everybody in his organization was screwing up. And then I observed the company for a little while and realized that he just didn’t come to meetings on time. And he certainly wasn’t on the up and up when he did attend those meetings. You can’t expect anything around you to change until you look at yourself first. People are really living that way. When you live from that place, it’s not just your clients who are gonna get inspired, it’s children. Everyone around you will be lifted. And that’s the ultimate role of the CEO.

Gresham Harkless 14:31
Absolutely. And, and, and it’s, it’s such a great reminder cuz we can do that in so many different ways, uh, that we have in our lives cuz we can be the CEO in so many different aspects. And I think Gandhi said, you know, be the change you wish to see. So if we don’t start with ourselves and, and, and create that change, then we shouldn’t expect to see that from anybody else or the world around us.

Keren Eldad 14:47
Also, Gandhi was alluding to the fact that we are the only thing we can change.

Gresham Harkless 14:50
Absolutely. Control what you can control.

Keren Eldad 14:52
Wise man.

Gresham Harkless 14:54
Absolutely. Definitely a wise man. And you are a wise woman. So I appreciate you for jamming with us for a little bit. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there’s anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. Then of course, how best they can get ahold of you, find out about all the awesome things you’re working on.

Keren Eldad 15:07
Thank you. I really appreciate it. The only thing I’ll add to that is that, yeah, I’m always available on coachkaren.com. And I tour the country with my talks and do lots of corporate seminars. So I hope that everyone out there will get a chance to meet me at some point. But the most important thing that anybody can ever start with is by listening to podcasts like these, reading, and staying in that passionate enthusiasm that got them started in the first place.

Gresham Harkless 15:30
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much again, Karen. I truly appreciate it. We will have those links and information in the show notes. And thank you for reminding us as well too, to continue to sharpen the saw, to continue to be our best selves, to take in books and content. so that we can continue to be our best selves and live the life that we were basically put here to do. So appreciate that. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.