Adam Torres and Carolyn Warren discuss mindset.
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Show Notes:
What strategies can be used to guide individuals in actively pursuing their personal and professional development? In this episode, Adam Torres and Carolyn Warren, CEO at Destined For Success Coaching, explore Carolyn’s journey and how she is helping her clients succeed.
About Carolyn Warren
Carolyn Warren is a leadership coach and CEO of Destined for Success Coaching and Leadership Development. She helps leaders and organizations develop high-performing teams, improve communication, resolve conflicts, and unlock the true potential of team members.
Carolyn is a certified Maxwell Leadership Coach, DISC Behavioral Analysis Trainer, and Consultant with over 20 years of business experience, non-profit leadership, and training. She aims to help every leader and team member bring their best to the workplace to reach the organization’s goals.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right, so today’s guest is Carolyn Warren, and she’s CEO over at Destin for Success Coaching.
Carolyn, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. I am so excited to be here. And I’ve listened to a couple of your podcasts and have really been inspired by the work that you do. So thank you for having me today. Oh, my pleasure. Happy to have you. And I know that you’re going to be participating in the SRQ Women’s Expo that’s coming up that Juliana and her team are having.
So I guess just to get us kicked off here, like, tell us a little bit about the conference. Are you excited? I’m excited. I am excited. And the interesting thing is, is that I’ve met Juliana at a chamber meeting. So this is my first time attending. And we sort of meshed , and had similar goals. And so I found out about the conference and decided that I wanted to participate.
So I’m really, really excited about it. I have a love for empowering women. , I’m an executive coach and, and help and coach. Anybody male, female or whatever. But I have three daughters and so I’ve always been very concerned about empowering women. And so I’m excited about what’s going to take place at the conference the end of the month rather.
Mm hmm. And you’re I believe you’re going to be on a panel or speaking too, is that right? Yes, and I’m excited about that. I have several books that I’ve published, and I’ve done women’s focus groups, and women’s groups on a monthly basis, and empowerment groups, and so, I’m just really excited about being able to share some of those tools and some of those insights that I have.
new to the area. Well, I still say I’m new. We’ve been here two and a half years, but just really getting acquainted and learning the area and making connections. And so I’m just thrilled to be able to make the connection with the, with a group that is. Focused on empowering women and helping them to be better leaders and entrepreneurs.
And so I’m really looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be a great time. I believe there’s, 400 or so women who should be coming through for the, I’ll have a display. Play there. And then there’ll also be a lunch and a fashion show. So it should be an awesome time. So I would encourage any lady that is listening today to make sure that you go to their website.
Mm-Hmm, , and sign up and be there on the 26th and the 27th of this month. Amazing. I want to switch topics a bit here as we get further into the discussion. So overall, I definitely want to get into your coaching and the importance of mindset and performance and relationships and really just overall wellbeing.
But to get us kicked off, Destined for Success Coaching. I love the name of your company. Where’d that come from? It’s amazing. Well, I have always loved in motivating and inspiring people. And I believe that’s one of the gifts that I carry. And I just, , happen to believe that every individual is destined for success when they embrace their gifts.
And their talents and then use them to make a significant impact. I just believe that everybody brings a special unique strength and ability to whatever it is that they are doing. And when the individual fully. Realizes it and harnesses it and nurtures it that it can drive extraordinary success and really fulfillment, which is, I believe, the ultimate goal that we all have.
So, I help leaders discover. And embrace those inherent gifts and allowing them to reach their full potential and make a significant contribution to whatever organization or community or groups that they belong to. And I do that through my coaching. I provide assessments and that sort of helps individuals narrow, zero in on what is it that I bring to the table?
What happens when I walk into the room? What is it that I do better than anyone else? And I came to this I bring , to coaching my own experience. I realize that no matter what. Title, or what role, or what I was doing, what I really brought to those roles or those interactions, those relationships, was that I’m a motivator.
So now that it’s simplified things for me, I know now that whatever room I walk into, there is someone that I am to motivate and inspire to be the very best that they can be. So it sort of takes the focus off of what. I am what I do, and it puts it on, those that I am called to serve and I believe that everybody has something.
I don’t believe that anyone was left out , when those gifts and talents. Were distributed, everybody got something. So I believe that it’s very important for individuals in order for them to live authentically and get out of this comparison game and feeling that, , I don’t have worth is to find out what it is that is in on the inside of you and then figure out a way to give it away.
I like to use that word calling. I’m a big believer in calling , and that idea that we’re, there’s certain things that , we’re definitely maybe destined even to do you, do you remember when you first kind of realized your calling and was, and if so, like, what was it like to start to like walk that path for you?
Well, I came to this realization probably about 20 years ago. And I think that we all at one point in time in our lives suffer from self doubt , we look at what other people are doing and it’s like, okay, I want to be like that person. I want to be like that person. But then I realized that.
There are certain things that I do, and if I listen to the feedback that I get from the people that I interact with, they walk away, always saying. I just feel so much better about myself now. Oh, I never saw that I had this gift or this talent or this ability. And it wasn’t about my title. It wasn’t about how much money I made.
And it wasn’t about where I lived. It wasn’t about my zip code. It was about what I did or , how I impacted their lives while I was with them. And so, you know, I believe that all of us have that same ability , and the world sort of distorts our perception of how to live life. And we think that it’s being a carbon copy of somebody else, but really that’s not being authentic.
there are certain things that I cannot do , and when I realized that, then I’m no longer chasing, I, I love watching sports, but I was always the last person pick 14 in phys ed or whatever, because that’s just not what I do. And I really admire those people that have that skill set.
So I think when., we get to the point where we understand, okay , I believe that most individuals want to live an authentic life. They want to develop their own sense of identity and some of the lack of self worth that self esteem. That many times people are experiencing is because they’re looking out and saying, I don’t look like that person instead of looking in and saying, this is who I am.
And because of that, I bring something unique to the table that that person, that other person may not even have the capacity to do. Yeah I want to get a little bit further into , your coaching itself. Like, can you maybe talk, especially for those that have never maybe had a coach before or have been curious about , what that looks like or that type of relationship?
Maybe, can you talk a little bit about the strategies you use and just, and just your process? Okay, well, think that one of the things that I would like to say to most people who are not familiar with coaching as a profession is that all of us, almost 100 percent of the time have been coached by someone.
It was your, your mother teaching you how to set the table or your father, , coming alongside of you and helping you learn how to ride your bike without any training wheels. It’s sort of progressed and it’s become glorified as a profession. But the thing that a coach does is that they come alongside of you.
And if I can use that analogy , of the taking the training wheels of , the tricycle and in teaching you how to ride that bike with confidence, that’s what a coach does , I am a executive coach. So, which means that I’m more concerned about developing leaders. And helping them to get to the place where they excel in whatever profession they happen to be in.
and some of the strategies that I use with my client is, there are a lot of different coaching protocols, but there are four principles that I use that sort of sets the foundation and helps them move towards whatever goal they are concerned about achieving.
And the first one is to prepare for success , and for me, that means keep the future in mind. This principle is about mindset. It’s about the foundation that we are endeavoring to lay, because sometimes we look at the mistake we made and we forget, okay, I’m on a journey. I’m going somewhere. And along the way, I’m going to fall off the bike.
I’m going to miss it. I’m going to make a mistake. So we need to understand that life is about preparing for success. And that if we stay focused, if we stay and intentionally learn from those experiences that we find ourselves in then it ultimately will take us where we want to go. So I encourage.
My clients to be constantly be asking themselves, what can I learn from this situation? It may be positive. It may be negative, but the goal is to find the gift in the situation. What is the situation trying to teach me that is going to help me be better tomorrow? The day after and the day after. So it’s a seeing life and as a progression it’s not like I’ve made it today, but yeah, , you’ve made some strides today, but the ultimate is to get to the place where you are living your best life in every aspect of your life.
Number two is choosing a value system to guide you. I believe that. We get misguided when we are looking at other people and then trying to make decisions about how am I going to live. Each of us has to come up with a a system of what is going to choose those non negotiables, what’s going to guide me, what’s going to keep me on the straight and narrow.
And sometimes we think that , we just need those, value system when things go wrong, but you need a value system when things go right. What, how are you going to respond if your growth path leads you to a place where now you have a million dollars and you’ve never had a million dollars before?
How are you going to spend that money? Are you going to go out and buy, , a couple of gold chains and, or are you going to think, okay, , what power or authority does this money now allow me to implement? Are there lives that can be changed? How can I become a better person? Because now I , have access to something that I’ve never had access before.
The third thing is believing it’s possible. We all have moments of self doubt, and I don’t care how successful you are, how many, , accolades, how many books , how many pats on the back, we all have moments when we look in the mirror and say, you know what, I don’t care. I don’t believe you can do this.
Well, this principle focuses on having the confidence in yourself and believing in your abilities. And I like to caution people that this is not about being in a place where you become prideful, but it’s about recognizing that you have an ability that can add value. So I want to believe in myself and to be the very best that I can because then I have value and I have the ability to really impact my community or impact the organization that I work with, or even my family.
So and because, I’m a person of faith, I believe that my relationship with God sort of helps shape what’s possible. And at the end of the day, I’m not. Doing this all by myself, but ultimately believing it’s possible adds a deeper dimension to the coaching conversation so that the individual is, or the client is coming from their internal perspective, whatever it may happen to be.
And then the fourth principle that I like to share with my clients is to maximize the moment. Too often we are waiting for that big moment, , for the fireworks , and for , this moment in time where,, you meet the president or, whoever the movie star is, whoever, you know.
But it’s not, it is. Maximizing the moment means you need to take action, and it’s a reminder that there is no perfect time to start working towards whatever your goal happens to be. So, I like to tell people, start where you are, what you have to get to where you want to go. And today, your influence may impact one person, but if you keep.
Moving forward, your impact is going to grow, and your ability to influence more people is also going to grow and expand. So it’s not about having, waiting for the perfect moment, but it’s about taking those small steps that give you the momentum to keep moving. And as you keep moving, you see things differently.
You have a perspective that you didn’t have yesterday. So that’s why it’s important to just take those small steps and before you know it, you’ll end up in, an environment, a situation and you’re saying, gosh, how did I get here? You got here by taking those small steps one at a time.
So these are, for the principles that I believe can really catapult a leader, help them to stay grounded. Help them to be intentional, help them to also see the Importance of serving and getting outside of ourselves, because at the end of the day, you can be in the C suite. You can have all the money in the world.
You can, have houses all over the world. But if. That’s all you have. And nobody wakes up tomorrow morning and saying, you know what, I just had a conversation with Carol, and she really changed my perspective. That’s what, you want somebody to say, , if it had not been for them, I would not be where I am today, or if I had not had this conversation, or if they hadn’t invented whatever, my life would, , would not be where it is today.
And so, , I think that sometimes we can become so self absorbed and so self focused. That we forget that there’s a whole world out there that we can change. Amazing. Well, Carolyn first off, it has been great having you on the show today. I do want to give you the opportunity to leave some information for our audience , I know you’ve written Four books.
And then I’m sure that, you’re on social media and otherwise, how do people follow up? How do they grab your books? How do they get further into teaching? How do they work with you? Well, they can go to my website which is www. carolynawarren. com. And on my website, you’ll have access to purchase my books, all of my social links, and I’m on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
So if they’ll go to my website, they’ll get all the information they need. Amazing. And for the audience, just so you know, we’ll put those links in the show notes so that you can just click on the link and head right on over and check out Carolyn’s work. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, Hit that subscribe or follow button.
I mean, we have many more mission based individuals coming up on the line and I don’t want you to miss a thing. So again, hit that subscribe button so you’ll get that notification because we got another episode coming your way tomorrow. And Carolyn, again, thank you so much and good luck at the expo. expo. .
I’m sure it’s going to be amazing. Thank you so much, Adam. This has been so much fun.
