What does it mean to create a warrior psychology? Today I’m joined by Elizabeth Louis to dive deep into this topic. Elizabeth is an executive performance coach that works with high achievers all over the world and I’m thrilled to have her join us on the podcast.

We had an incredible time geeking out over so many topics that will help you develop the psychology needed to elevate yourself to the success you are capable of achieving!

Discover Elizabeth here: https://elizabethlouis.com/

Learn more at https://www.adamliette.com

Discover how to work with me: https://www.adamliette.com/work-with-me

Transcript

Adam Liette
What does it mean, to really create a warrior psychology and become a champion, and all these great things that we can do inside of us are these mindset, tools and tactics that we can use to really be the person that we need to be for our audience for ourselves or our family, for everyone that we come in contact with? That's what we're going to be exploring today on smooth operator, thank you so much for joining me hope you've had a great week. As you always know, it's Friday. What does that mean? It's interview day, where I bring in some of the best people on meeting on the internet. And I got a special, special treat for you guys. Today, I'm joined by Elisabeth Lewis, we're going to dive deep into the idea of a warrior psychology and what that really means. So Elizabeth is an executive performance coach that works with high achievers all over the world. We've been geeking out already for about 25 minutes before we hit record. And because you meet these amazing people, and when you meet that, it's like, I want to know more about you. Because that's the fun part about what we're doing, right. It's all about these connections we're making and the wonderful people we're meeting. So I'm so thrilled to have Elizabeth on the podcast. Thank you for joining us, Elizabeth, how are you?

Elizabeth Louis
Thank you so much. I don't mean your energy. I just love it. It's been so much fun geeking out with you. But I'm good. How are you?

Adam Liette
I'm fantastic. Well, the opposite comes out on Friday. But here's a little insider secret guys, doesn't mean we recorded on Fridays. So you can record your podcast well ahead of time, but that's a whole nother training that we can do on actually producing a podcast. But anyway, yeah, it's been a fantastic week, and just, I'm full of energy and our night today. So it's gonna be, it's gonna be a good day. So love to hear more about your origin. I was looking on your website, but how did you come to be this amazing performance coach that that is inspiring people all around.

Elizabeth Louis
Thank you. It was a fluke, it was not intentional. I actually was my backgrounds in television producing, I have about 10 years of experience being in front of and behind the camera. And I had a really messed up screwed up childhood, like, a lot of people. I mean, 70% of Americans have experienced trauma on some level. For me, my brother tried killing me my whole life to be completely honest. I mean, when I say my whole life, like until I finally moved out at 16, because I was like, this is just ridiculous type of deal. And a lot of my family died too. So by the time I was like, 15, I've gotten to over 25, funerals all pretty close family, with the first one being my dad who died, my mom and my brother with the exception of the family members who didn't die. And so long story short, I just was really tired of the mental torture that I was experiencing. By the time I was 26, I was diagnosed with complex PTSD, and I kept going to therapists after therapists, and I was like, Cool, great, I get it. My childhood was hard, don't need that validation. Just want to know how the heck to get out of this thought process, get out of this trauma, and move the heck on with my life. And no one could give me those answers. So I was like, well, maybe they don't know what they're talking about. And I know that sounds really self righteous, I don't mean it that way. I just was desperate. So I went and got my first graduate degree in positive psychology with a subspecialty in coaching psychology. And that's where I fell in love with neuroscience and neuro psychotherapy. And I really learned some of the technical stuff in the psycho education, which is what I needed to like, even understand what the heck was going on for me to change. And to make the story even shorter, I ended up just being really good at coaching. So my professors gave me their overflow clients. And then the rest kind of became history and I'm finishing up my second graduate degree so I can be legally called a therapist and do that type of work and learn the secrets to transformation walked out of complex PTSD walked out of an autoimmune disease walked out of having no immune system. So that's kind of my origin in a nutshell.

Adam Liette
That's so fascinating. And I love that. I think all of us that find ourselves in this space, like none of us really sought to be this person that we become, but like, this is what the world tutus up, spit us out. And this is what we came came into. So it was this evolution and, and, like, continuous learning cycle of figuring out who we are and so often, it's it's that self discovery I'm trying to figure out our own shit. That allows us the opportunity to really find things out so we can then serve each other people at a much higher level.

Elizabeth Louis
I would agree, you know, it's looking at those curses in your past and a more open minded perspective, because I believe everything is redeemable and everything plays into your purpose at the end of the day, but you have to really get out of that subjective woe is me self pity thinking to see this.

Adam Liette
Also, self pity doesn't Okay, okay. Yeah, just, nevermind.

Elizabeth Louis
You would think that self pity would make your life feel amazing.

Adam Liette
Right? And the cool thing is, like, whatever we come from, in our origin, you were a television producer. For those of you don't know, I was a classical trumpet player when this whole journey started. So that's my origin, go figure classical trumpet to army to what I am now. I mean, how does that happen? Because that's what life does, and but we still take with us what we originally trained on that person we were, we just went through our cycles to become the people we are today. And this is not an a finished product by any means necessary. And it shouldn't be right. What fun would that be saying? Alright, I'm done. No,

Elizabeth Louis
no, you know, as long as you're still breathing, you have a purpose. And I think people forget that your purpose is always evolving. It's not like, Well, you did it. Now you no longer have a purpose. You have fulfilled it. We don't need like, no, that's not how it works. Like, and your purpose is so much bigger than your bank account.

Adam Liette
For sure. Fantastic. All right. So you mentioned one of those key words in there that I'd love, and neuroscience. And I think it's a term that gets thrown around a lot. And to be perfectly honest, I'm gonna hate on some people right now gets thrown a lot by people that don't know what the hell they're talking about. So when we talk about neuroscience, like what does that mean for you? Can you break that down? In a nutshell?

Elizabeth Louis
Yeah, neuroscience is just the science of Neurology at the end of the day, but not in the neurological aspects. So it's kind of like how the brain works. It's interesting. Years ago, I gave my neurologist a lecture in neuroscience. And I was just like, do you not learn these things? Like, I just like, I don't know. And he's just like, No, we learn more about the anatomy of the brain and prescriptions. And I was just like, oh, that's terrifying. Like, you should like learn how thoughts change our neurology, you should learn how the limbic system and constant rumination connect. And it's just interesting to me that, you know, there's so much knowledge and information out there, I guess it'd be unfair for one person to know everything about everything. And there's so many different theories, but it just puts so much in perspective, because school can only teach you so much go and find that person who is an avid learner and continues to research and hunt.

Adam Liette
Right? For sure. Fantastic. Well, I'm gonna have some more reading ahead, because I have a couple of books on the subject, and I haven't read them all in a while. So it's time to refresh those because I always read books at least three times before I get them. Anyway. Why don't we go ahead?

Elizabeth Louis
No, I was gonna say, I guess I should also say that it's also the it's a, it takes into account like neuro chemistry and experimental psychology. And it also focuses on the nervous system and the brain. I forgot to include that in the neuroscience definition, because I don't want people to be like, Oh, you kind of explained more neurology there, but just wanted to clarify that really quickly.

Adam Liette
Absolutely. And, and these, these organs we have on top of our heads are amazing. And the more we learn about them, the more we learn these different triggers. I've worked with a coach who helps people get over their own musical, like roadblocks that they put in front of their, in front of their minds. And it's once you overcome that you can play anything. It's really crazy how quickly he gets people to do it. And it is mindset, but it's also mindset with an application, I think, and that's

Elizabeth Louis
Thank you. Sorry, in the coaching space, like anyone can just become a coach in today's world, right? Like there's no regulation. And so I appreciate that. You're like saying, No, it's not just mindset because we have all these like popular words. Get there's no substance to them from a lot of these coaches. And so and so experts, so appreciate that. You're saying it's an application. There's an application part here, there's some steps, there's an approach it's not just whatever the heck you wanted to find it. I was on a call earlier today and everyone went around explaining mindset and growth mindset. And then their viewpoints and I'm like, Wow, interesting. Nobody is fully agreeing on anything right now.

Adam Liette
And I have no action steps to take from this because everyone stayed up here and in the clouds and woowoo land without giving me something to do.

Elizabeth Louis
Right? Like, I'm all about learning and growth, like, Give me something useful. Like, I don't mean to be mean or rude. But sometimes I don't care about people's opinions, like, just tell me a scientific aspect or a tangible viewpoint or give me something objective, something tangible. But that's one reason my clients love me because you get that clear cut action plan of these are the steps you need, if you want transformation, but I work for linear thinkers, we like we like knowledge.

Adam Liette
Yes, absolutely. Well, let's get into some of that knowledge. I feel I feel like well, we'll stay on this geeking phase for a while before we get to our tangible stuff. So let's let's dive into that. Um, one of the things we talked about when we were getting ready for this interview was talking about the warrior psychology. And so I immediately made me immediately latch on to that, partially because I spent a good part of my life as a warrior. You know, real life warrior, bang, bang. And now I'm trying to, like, take that energy, and that thing that I know is still up there and apply it into my business like and really? Yeah, become a warrior business mentor, so I don't know. Yeah, literally, I literally just made that up, guys. So don't judge me. By time it would be out in a Facebook out, it'd be much better, you'll see something really refined.

Elizabeth Louis
But you are doing so amazing. If listeners don't like it, you know, they have the option to stop listening. But I think this is awesome.

Adam Liette
Well, don't stop listening just yet. We're getting anyway. When we start when we talk about warrior psychology, what does that what does that mean for you? Like, how do you create a warrior's psychology?

Elizabeth Louis
Well, it's really clarifying the framework. And from there bringing in that person's unique personality, their unique skills, their strengths, even their weaknesses. So I can only really share the framework not having that unique person. But it is really important to remember to personalize the things that I say here, because you can only do so much like, it's so important to have that objective truth. And then you add your Subjective Truth into it to really personalize it make it more authentic, because when it's more of your idea, it's going to stick with you longer than when it's like my idea or Adam's idea. But the framework is having a healthy self confidence. Now for you to have that healthy self confidence, you've got to have good self esteem, self efficacy, self worth. It's having humility. So it's staying humble, it's having the right type of focus, which is going to be really about living in the present moment, and not the outcome or the future, which is what a lot of civilians do at the end of the day. And I'm sure you could probably talk to that talk about that. It's being an advocate. It's having an learning how to implement tactical empathy. It's being determined, resilient, clear on your purpose, having that healthy, objective mindset. So you've done the work to pull out your toxic thinking, your thinking traps, you're aware of those and big picture. It's being a tough minded optimists. So it's having this successful mindset. You could say, my computer's about to freak out here, it feels like but it's, it's, it's having this successful mindset. And that's having your thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and emotions, all need to converge into this, like champion psychology of where you have this big expectation in life that you're going to win and that you're going to do all right. And within that breakdown, what people forget is 1% improvement is still improvement. And so it's really having a healthy relationship with quote, unquote, failure, and seeing it in an appropriate perspective, versus like discounting the positives or being ridiculously hard on yourself, if that makes sense.

Adam Liette
Yeah, it does. Especially like, right, right, you hit that right on the end. I'm taking notes as fast as I can. You said your relationships with failure, and I think I'd like to dive if you have any more can we start diving into the particulars?

Elizabeth Louis
Let's go well, first, I want to know, because you're the warrior here. Like, would you agree, would you disagree? Would you add something? Let's make this conversational?

Adam Liette
I don't know if I could add anymore. That was that was a lot. I think when we started talking about being an optimist, and I do agree. I think I might temper that with being a realistic optimist. Like we recognize the potential

Elizabeth Louis
for pessimist because realism and pessimism connects you much but if you study the science of optimism, true optimism is using things for your for the benefit, right so it's like like a lot of people see negative emotions as bad. Well, anger is one of the most motivating emotions we can have. So it's seeing The things that are going right. And seeing that perspective and shifting. It's interesting. And what was also interesting and optimism and if you do the research is depressed people actually have a have more realistic perspective of life, unfortunately. Isn't that terrifying? Hmm. They ain't doing so well, mentally.

Adam Liette
I am learning things about myself right now.

Elizabeth Louis
But I think I mean, you have to be realistic and the thing, you can't have toxic positivity or optimism, which unfortunately, I think a lot of pessimists have created. Because, look, if you're super happy all the time, and always think best case scenario is going to happen. Like those people are way more enjoyable than pessimist or even the negative realist,

Adam Liette
which is, absolutely. And I think, I think my comment, my reframing of that might be partially related to the fact that I've spent the last several years now in this online space with all of these YouTube guys, Facebook ad guys saying you can make $10 million next month if you just follow my system. And I'm like, Yeah, maybe. But really, I mean, so maybe I'm a bit jaded on that. I think, if you're in this space, like, we've we've all experienced that. So that's I think that's why I tempered it back a little bit. But

Elizabeth Louis
that's fair. That's when you hear these people and then you do the research on their business. And I'm like, No, you were actually business for many, many, many years before you made your million. So religion.

Adam Liette
Yes, exactly. Oh, so cool. And I think that directly relates to something that I thought about, as you were talking was our relationship with failure, and the 1% improvements. So how can we have a better optimistic positive relationships with with the fact that failure is not? It's inevitable, like you're going to fail and things that you do? And so how can we have that better relationship with failure?

Elizabeth Louis
Great question. So, it a lot of people who struggle with failure, in the sense, like they have an unhealthy relationship, or like they fear it. Usually perfectionism is somewhere in the midst of that. And you have to be really careful with perfectionism. Because this is gonna sound potentially, like insane when I verbalize it. But we can break it down if need be. But when you have perfectionism, whether you're aware of it or not, you really believe your God. Ultimately, you're telling me that you can, you know, everything, you can be everywhere at once, and you can do all the things that God can do. It's not true, right? Like, when you put it out there verbally, you're like, Oh, of course, I can't. But yeah, this is kind of the expectation. And perfectionism is usually brewed from some sort of rejection. So as a kid, you experienced rejection, or you saw mom and dad be perfect, perfect, or what have you. And so perfectionist, they can't stand failure because it's, it's, it's all or nothing thinking, which is a toxic thought process. Cognitive behavior therapy says this is a thinking trap. It's a cognitive distortion that all or nothing thinking. And so big picture, you have to see failure as feedback failure is one of the best things to learn from, I mean, think about when we were like, babies learning how to walk, whether we're aware or not, like when we fell on our butts trying to walk like we learned from that. And we did things differently. Just like when you play darts, like if you keep missing the board or not getting the number you want, you don't keep throwing the way you've been throwing, you start to play around and experiment with your throws. So failure at the end of the day is feedback, take that feedback in, recalibrate it and use that data to try again, with more efficient data in your in your plane, you keep doing that people forget that business is all trial and error. At the end of the day. Nobody really knows what they're doing in business. A business plan is like an idea. I mean, I don't have a magic wand. I don't have a crystal ball. Like I don't have anything to guarantee these things. So with failure, it's shifting your perspective, right. It's not something grim. It's not something terrifying, terrifying. It's actually something that provides you so much information that will help you get ahead. And one thing too, that you have to think about with failure as well. Like maybe you didn't get the expectation you wanted, right, which be mindful of expectations, they lead to frustration if they're unfulfilled. But maybe you didn't get what you wanted. Maybe you you were trying to do something. But if you move forward, just 1% that's still growth. Right? To me real failures when you just sit there paralyzed, unable to do anything. Or when you give up and you don't you just stop trying. Like I learned really on that I love being an entrepreneur. I love learning. I love researching. So even if like I'm never successful, I'm just going to continue to do this for the rest of my My life because I enjoy it. So maybe one person will watch me great, if not whatever, I'm going to grow, and I'm going to learn and just better myself. And so it's shifting that perspective. You know, failure and performance anxiety kind of work together at the end of the day. And a lot of times with performance, anxiety and failure before you've actually truly failed with just more of the fear of failure, you're really catastrophizing, you're projecting into the future, what you don't want to see and you're focusing on the outcome, versus the present moment is really all you can be in and do. That's the only thing you have right now is the present moment and in the present moment are opportunities that you can miss if you are not focused.

Adam Liette
Wow, all we that's a second time I've heard that today, there must be something to that. Like all we have is today, all we have is the present moment. And that needs to be all of our attention is on that for for right now. And there's so much we can do. I mean, it kind of ties into everything when we're thinking about our optimism in the moment having the successful mindset of being in the moment, and what can we do now? Exactly right here today.

Elizabeth Louis
It's the only place you exist. I mean, like, yeah, yeah, like, let's take sports games, right? Like when you're playing a game, obviously, you want to win, but you can't like, make this the time of the game go faster to get to the end result. No, it's all of those seconds that lead up to the last second of the game are imperative for you to get your outcome. But if you if you don't stay focused in the present moment, you might miss plays, if you're worried about the future, because you can't think on two things at once. You can't think about the present moment and the future simultaneously, one becomes more prevalent. Multitasking is a lie, guys, it's a lie. Yes, it's just switching between tabs. Like if you were on Chrome, or Safari or some or some internet browser, that's all it is. It's just switching tabs.

Adam Liette
And it's so frustrating to when you when you actually look at your own performance when you I'm going to be efficient and multitask, no, stop it.

Elizabeth Louis
Usually someone to or like make a mistake. I'm like, I'm sorry, or like send something to the right person, like I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to send you

Adam Liette
I have a little trick I've used to employ to get myself out of that. Because when I ran, I had this huge monitor, right, because I like when I'm running my teams. When I'm working on I like I like to see everything all at once. Which is like the worst thing possible when I need to write some copy, or I need to create some content for my courses or something. So I will leave my big desk, go to this little desk, I got it on the side, and I'll just use my iPad. Oh my gosh, only keep one thing open.

Elizabeth Louis
Wow, I have a 49 inch curved monitor. And I love it. It makes life so much easier that I can't leave my office sometimes because I like the size of my monitor. So good discipline, what I have to do is I just like I've been practicing my on my focus for three years. I mean it, it's a skill, you've got to you've got to practice your present moment and focus. No one's great at it in the beginning. So that's important to know. But I just have to practice. And I think grad school helped me because of writing all of the papers. I think that probably helped me. But I just get in the zone and I get in flow and like I just remove all obstacles and all distractions. But then like sometimes I go back and forth just to check for a quick break. But then I'm very, I've learned to grow my discipline in my integrity be like, Okay, you get three seconds, then you get to go back right now. And so it's been helpful, but I also keep my phone on silent so nobody can distract me. And like all notifications are turned off like no control all variables, people that you can, which is usually yourself, only yourself.

Adam Liette
Yes, indeed. And there's one of the thing I wanted to kind of mention a very tactical application of all of this is what we talked about, you're never going to be perfect the first time you do something, life is about failure, learning from it, failure learning from it. When you see Tom Brady throw a touchdown pass, it's because he threw that pass 1005 times before the game, you know, going back to my time in the army. By the time I got boots on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan, I had already shot like 10,000 rounds from my weapon. So yeah, I was I was really good. But just because, yes.

Elizabeth Louis
I mean, that's so important. And that's what you're saying is so important. And I think people outside of the army and professional sports sometimes suck at this, which is practice and practice how you would do it in the real thing because conditioned responses real like my my boyfriend was a sergeant major and Delta Force and he does a lot of gun trainings for people and like, look, I'm speaking language I'm on 100% understand right now, so I'm going to just lead with that for a second. But he was oh my gosh, I'm losing the word. Okay. Don't judge me guys. Like going to be vulnerable here. I cannot what is the thing that holds the bullets in the game gun? Well, What is that called? Mercy mag Oh my God came through right as I asked. So this guy wanted to pick up his magazine in a in a shooting training or whatever and my boyfriend went to him I was like, No, are you kidding me You're dead now, like cuz you're gonna pick it up in a real fight when who cares about your mag, I don't care if you paid for it. I'll give two craps like right now we have a lot of bullets, dude, conditioned response, you are going to muscle memory train your body to pick that up in the middle of a shootout, you're going to be dead. And it's so important, like practice the way you're going to show up on the real thing. So important, but it's hard.

Adam Liette
It is especially, especially when we're dealing with people like most of us, we're running a business we're working, I don't care what business you're in, you're in the people business, like period, you have to deal with people, all the positives, negatives, good stuff, bad stuff, shitty days, like everything, like we are complex creatures that lead really fun lives. But because of that, like your words matter, your performance matters. And so what I do, you know, we talked about wanting to make it practical, I got this, I got my voice recorder app on my phone. I will if I know I have to deliver a brief or if I have to do a sales call. I don't care what it is. If I need to perform and be at my best. I'm going to fail 35 times on this phone before I hit go. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Elizabeth Louis
So how do you practice?

Adam Liette
I will memorize what I want to do enough that I don't need the PowerPoint slide anymore. I don't need my cheat sheet. And I will walk around my office just pacing talking, huh? That's powerful.

Elizabeth Louis
I will take any sales call when I was first starting to take any sales call. And I didn't care if I passed or failed or got it or whatever it was just normalized, normalized, normalized, normalized, normalized, normalized experience, figure out what works experiment, try again. And by the way, one thing I guess to consider, this is what I tell my clients who really struggle with perfectionism is put on the experiment hat. Sometimes we have to like create a new framework of how we're going to show up to make it easier. So if you struggle with failure, one of the best things you can do is like, well, let's just experiment right now because that means you're just trying to prove your hypothesis, or give enough information to say, hey, I need to change my hypothesis.

Adam Liette
Hmm. Love that. I'm stealing that one. Please do.

Elizabeth Louis
Please do. And you said something that was really, really powerful, which was like life is about fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. Here's the thing. If you're an entrepreneur, and you hate failure, don't become an entrepreneur until you like failure, because that is literal, literally, which is the wrong way of using that word. But that is what the entrepreneur journey is. Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. I mean, most of the really successful entrepreneurs have failed so many times. I remember when I got my first coach, he was like, sounds like you have fear of failure. I'm like, No, I got fear of success. Man. I'm good with failure. I'm comfortable failure, let's fail. I do not mind making making myself look like a fool. I'm that type of person who's super bold and assertive. Like, I'll go ask anybody anything. It's like when you catch the dang thing that you're after, like a credit note. Now what I do, I'm used to the failing partner.

Adam Liette
Does that mean we have to flip our relationship with with success then too?

Elizabeth Louis
Yeah, yeah, I did. I did. I had to figure out like, what is it about, but for me, like, I didn't want to lose my humility, because success changes people, especially when it's financial success. And for me, one of the most important things is to love unconditionally, and anyone I'm with like that love just kind of oozes out of my pores, because I want everyone to feel validated worthy and important in my space. Because I just think that's really important. And I don't think we have enough of that in today's world, because you don't you don't ever know what someone's going through. You have no idea, you have no idea if someone's considering killing themselves. I don't want to be a thorn in somebody's butt. I mean, you can be loving and firm simultaneously. So I don't let people walk all over me. But you can be loving and confrontational and own your your crap, if you will, and, you know, put the balls back on their court if they're really projecting on to you.

Adam Liette
So how do we do that? Because I get what you're saying. And I know I've done it. I can't possibly explain how I do it. But like how do we love unconditionally? Be supportive but firm?

Elizabeth Louis
That's a great question. So one thing that I it's a process, I don't think you can necessarily get there overnight type of deal. It depends on where you are, obviously with your your mindsets right now. The first thing you have to do is really have a strong sense of security. A lot of humans struggle with something I call fear of man and that's where you look at humanity to affirm your worth versus looking to God. I have to affirm you. So when you struggle with fear of man, ultimately you see every human being as you are judged in that like divine aspect, which I don't care if you believe in God or not, we've proven every single human being on planet Earth has thought of God. So there's something called neuro theology, which has shown that our brains are wired for a spiritual source. And so this becomes dangerous. Because if humans always have power over you, then you're going to constantly mold yourself, you're going to do people pleasing stuff, at the end of the day, people pleasing fear, man, same thing, same thing, thing. And so you've got to get really secure with who you are, your values, your beliefs, and, and really learn how to have objective thinking that's kind of like that foundation at the end of the day practicing mindfulness and acceptance. But then you can start to leverage empathy. And this is tactical empathy. I like to tell people and so label, you know, when somebody gets upset, say, you know, it seems like you're a little upset right now. Or they're, you know, it's really labeling what you're seeing. So it's remaining having that eagle eye view of the conversation. This is what I like to tell like lawyers do this, like in litigation, lawyers are keeping that eagle eye perspective. They're telling the everyone that big picture of you versus sometimes when we get in conversations and confrontation, we're like eye to eye, like, how dare you just hurt me? How dare you just and we start to go back and forth, when it's just like, what sounds like you're really upset by what I just said. And then they can expand it. And what we're finding is when you label negative emotions, you actually start to defuse the person a little bit faster, you really start to see that in their amygdala, where the negative emotions of the amygdala would show up in a functional MRI. But likewise, is also acknowledging or labeling the positive emotion, like if you're on a phone call with customer support, one of the best things you can say is, you know, thank you for being so gracious to me today. Right? You know, and so it's, it's labeling what the other person is doing from that big picture perspective. But that takes a very objective, secure way of thinking. Because if you always think that you're being attacked, if that's like a core belief of yours, that everyone's against me, then that that core belief is going to create a barrier. It's also understanding like, what are you going to tolerate? What are you not going to tolerate? Like me, personally, I don't allow certain toxicities in my space, I just don't want it. And so it's like, Hey, if you want to be in my space, this is unfortunately, one of my conditions, accept it, don't accept it, don't really care. I'm not responsible for your happiness. I mean, you're married, you can't make your wife happy. At the end of the day, if she's not already happy. And all it's going to be impossible to make her that way. And vice versa, right doesn't matter. And so that loving and firming, it is also speaking in a way in making sure your tone is very inclusive, monotone, really neutral, calm, be slow. But then sometimes it's also important to mirror people, you know, say the last four or five words that they said, do it strategically, because that can help people feel feel connected. One thing I also say when I start to see people getting upset, especially if I know them, so this is usually when a relationship has already been created. I'll say what did you just hear? Because communication is what the listener perceived, not what you said. And we all distort things when we hear them. And so sometimes it's just nice to just check in on what did they hear, but at the end of the day, like, you can't make someone feel a certain way. That's their stuff. So they won't own it. Sometimes you just gotta like, step to the side to let the ball pass you and be like, Okay, sorry about that. You know, it's so it's really leading with that, you know, everyone wants to be loved everybody. Yeah. And just validating them so forth. You don't have to agree with their life perspective. You don't have to agree with what's pissing them off. But validate it, acknowledge it, let them know you heard it, or feel that way. And then they'll correct you if you got it wrong. Trust me. Yeah, yeah,

Adam Liette
for sure. And I think that's what's so misunderstood with empathy, like empathy doesn't mean you're going to agree with them. And you're like, Oh, I see your point. You must be right. Right, like acknowledging that they have a thought, acknowledging that they have a feeling. Yeah. And I love that diffusing it may I'm gonna use that one. Like, just stating it. So obviously, and it's not even emotional at that point. It's like, it sounds like I really upset you.

Elizabeth Louis
Yeah, you have to grow your emotional self control traits to really do that. Because if you are not tough minded, if you don't have good contentment, control and composure and self confidence, like Whoa, it's gonna get heated fast.

Adam Liette
Yes. Because 90% of time someone's upset, and they're projecting like they're projecting their upsetness onto you. It's not actually personal. So like taking that step back and realizing, okay, this person is yelling at me. It's not actually me that's bothering them. Yeah, something else. So let me not be the personal one that's going to take it personally instead, that's a great tactic just to defuse it right away. And I love to tie things in full circle, because we talked about sports before. And like all the practice you do beforehand, what do people What does pro athletes do at the end of the game, they go watch the tape. So what I would recommend we all take a moment to do is think of the last encounter, the last moment we had, where it could have gone better. And we you all know those conversations that could have gone better. And I would challenge you to recreate that conversation in your mind. And how would you handle it better next time. It might not be a next time, hopefully, there's not. But the point is, you're building those faculties you're building that, that discipline in you. And when we say something out loud, when we do something physically, we're, we're building those neural connections off, or coming back to neuroscience, again, all those neural connections on our body remembers how to do things, our mind remembers how to do things. And we're creating those pathways.

Elizabeth Louis
Reflection and visualization is so freakin powerful. It's so powerful. It's just insane. There was a study done in University of Washington, I don't remember the date. But they took three when they were trying to improve their men's basketball free throw, percentage, that's what they were trying to do. So they had three groups, the first group could do whatever they wanted. The second group could only do free throw shots, the third group could only imagine free throws shots, so they couldn't even touch a basketball. And they studied them for 30 days. And what they found is the first group that could do whatever they wanted, didn't improve at all shocking, the second group who could only do free throws improved by 25%. And the third group who could only visualize doing free throws improved by 24%. That's a 1% difference. You go in the direction of your most dominant thoughts. So if you don't like your life, your thoughts got you there.

Adam Liette
What if we combine the two rights, we have our thoughts and the actual doing the practicing?

Elizabeth Louis
I don't have the data on that. But yes, I mean, the placebo effect is really what we should put all our money into Big Pharma has never grown allow that and probably the American government as well. I might just be cancelled for saying that, I don't know. But I'm just being honest. Because like, even in psychotherapy, like taking a depression, taking an antidepressant and talk therapy, or excuse me, an antidepressant pill and the placebo effect, the antidepressant was a half a unit more effective, half a unit half unit more effective. That's like, insane. And by the way, antidepressants, don't do anything for the long run. They just take you right back to square one when you get off.

Adam Liette
Right, just heads up. Yes. And I've had that with PTSD were like, oh, you should do this. You should do that. No, it was when I got all this, right. And when I establish really good habits, really good routines, really good ways of self talk, self confidence, reflection. And it was it wasn't like, Oh, it got a little bit better. It was gone.

Elizabeth Louis
Yeah, same with me for complex PTSD. When I learned the ways of how to a rewire my brain be how to effectively and appropriately process the trauma, which just because you're a therapist, or coach doesn't mean you know how to do that. I walked out of it really quickly as well. And it's, it's sad to me because like neuroplasticity is a huge word. I think it intimidates a lot of people. It's a very simple and basic process, though, at the end of the day. And it just frustrates me how like us humans sometimes want like more complicated answers when a lot of life's answers are very simple. Like you can change your psychology very quickly. My clients get transformation in two sessions. It's not hard to quickly get transformation, if you are good at finding the core issues, and then sharing the tech, the tactical, tangible action plan of how to get that change. And for some people, it's going to be a variation of things. But there's like, I don't know, like a snap on truck of tools we have here. Right now. Like if one doesn't work, we can do different things. But at the end of the day, neuroplasticity is going to require attention, focus and repetition. So how consistent are you at these tactics? Because, you know, consistency got you there no matter if it was positive or negative at the end of the day,

Adam Liette
right? It was especially in business one where we're dealing with complex things. We're we're constantly having to be evolving like neuroplasticity is a part of what we're doing. And if you got teams like people working for you, I think there's so much we can take away from these mindset things that we're trying to improve upon ourselves. What happens when you reflect that outwards to your team? What are you doing for your team? What are you doing for all the people around you? I think we just have we it's almost no, it's not almost it's our responsibility to make everyone that encounters us like, yeah, a feel loved, you improve in some way if by no other way than mirroring what we're doing. Paying attention.

Elizabeth Louis
That is, I'm so happy you said that. That is one of like, my big things that I like to tell people always leave people feeling worthy. Like, if you leave somebody and you made them feel unworthy, you're gonna need work on yourself. Right? Like, you can put somebody in their place quote, unquote, and still treat them like they are worthy. Right? Yes, it's just it's just sad. Like we've we have the saying, like, leave things better off than you found them. Well, why do we care more about things than people? People better off than we found them.

Adam Liette
Oh, my gosh, have you seen the movie? Don't look up. It's on Netflix.

Elizabeth Louis
No, but I want to see that movie. It was on my list is a good I'm so happy you said I'm gonna watch that tonight.

Adam Liette
It's great. It's It's It's, I mean, it's it's, uh, you know, everything falls apart by the end. But it's a great, it's, it's fun.

Elizabeth Louis
It's now I know, the ending. Just kidding.

Adam Liette
But there's this part where Jonah Hill. He's like the president's aide, and also her son. He's like, you know, everyone's out there praying for people. And I think that's really cool. But I think we should maybe pray for stuff. There's a lot of cool stuff out there, like cars and Gucci bags. And like, it's so absurd. But once he said that, I was like, You're right, we spend so much time worrying about crap. And the people are the all the it's all it matters, and especially when we're, we're leaders, right? If you're if you're adopting the warrior psychology, you're in business. Like, it's all about people. It really is.

Elizabeth Louis
You know, business is about people at the end of the day, like I personally like the more I study, it's funny, you know, 15 years ago, we didn't use the word mindset. We just said business and business strategy, and all of this stuff. And like within those business terms, we talked about the psychology in a more obscure manner than we do nowadays. But at the end of the day, if you do not understand human psychology, or human personality, or human behavior, like you are hindering yourself in business, you have to understand, like people are made out of business, or people make businesses like businesses and just this thing, like people make it at the end of the day, like learn how to treat people well, because people like to do business with people they like. And people will remember how you make them feel. They will really remember what you say, because our memory kind of sucks in the first place. But people remember how you how you make them feel. So make everyone feel like they're amazing. Because don't you like talking to those people who like make you feel good? And like want to hear about you and want to talk like and humans love to talk about themselves? If you're an introvert. Great, just listen. That's what they want. Anyways,

Adam Liette
introverts are great conversationalist, I'll tell you, they just

Elizabeth Louis
sometimes they can't be one on one. I mean, it's one of the groups that that kind of overwhelm introverts.

Adam Liette
Yes. I found out the other day, I'm I thought I was an introvert all these years, because I it takes me effort to do it. And I found out actually, I'm an extroverted introvert. I didn't know that was a thing till like last week.

Elizabeth Louis
Well, you have to take all of your personality traits into play like, I am an extrovert, but I have a high autonomy, which pushes me down to an ambivert. And so personality traits are never just one at play. They kind of cluster together. So you have to kind of look at the dichotomy of all the traits to figure out how they're enhanced. Like, it's amazing how, by strategically improving one psychometric trait, you can improve all of these others and vice versa, if you need to decrease it. It's interesting how we were complex. Yes.

Adam Liette
Oh, fantastic. Well, before we run out of time, I want to I just want to go, I want to go back to the beginning when he talked about self confidence. Because I find that's the dominant one, in my opinion. If we can be confident in ourselves, it gives us the ability to learn the rest of this stuff and to become that person we need to be. So if we're not self confident, well, even if we are self confident, we can always improve, like how can we further develop our self confidence?

Elizabeth Louis
Well, some of this is first. Okay, I pause because I find it a little difficult to have a good sense of self confidence if you have poor self esteem. Self esteem is kind of like that strong foundation that you're going to need now. So, with that being said, you can be very self confident, and have no self esteem. And you can have all of a self esteem, and not great self confidence because they're not necessarily they, they, they connect, and they don't at the end of the day. So Self confidence is like self esteem is like your opinion about yourself. And then Self confidence is the view of like what others think about you and what you know that they think you could kind of see it that way to a degree. I mean, that's a very simplistic definition. But my my first encouragement is really work on that self esteem and self esteem is two factors. So self efficacy is an expectation that one can perform a specific task and self worth. And this is really where they were like the core of self esteem is, isn't self worth. And that's that global feeling that one has the right to exist, and that one is basically good, and worthy to live. So in short, it's that self approval. And one thing I want you to just memorize and just make up your mind right now, your self worth is a constant, regardless of what you do, or you don't do you are worthy people in jail are worthy. People who do really messed up things are worthy, do they need to pay for their actions and take responsibility? Absolutely. That's, that's separating. Now, with self confidence, self confidence, you know, like, I'm going to use Tiger Woods for a second, just because of those sports. Analogies work really well, you know, he started practicing golf when he was two years old, I believe, and he would hit what 2000 golf balls a day. So by the time he was 20, he had tremendous self confidence with golf, because he had consistent positive experiences in his sport. And that's really what what, what confidence really comes into, it's believing in your ability, knowing that you can do whatever you need to do to to win. And so within confidence, I really tell people, like trust your effort, have confidence in your effort more than your ability, that's how we can kind of bring in that growth mindset. But it's really having the assurance in your ability or in that particular skill set. So a lot of times, like, let's take entrepreneurs like we sometimes wake up, and we're like, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur today. And we try, we get negative experience or negative feedback. So self confidence takes time to grow. So this is where you just have to be a little bit more tough minded and just stick with it and be consistent until you start to get those positive results. And then like, highlight them

Adam Liette
in your mind. Sure. Yeah. That's fantastic. One little trick I use, I have a despite that we're all you know, this is an audio show anyway, for video. Here's my planner, it's physical. Because yes, I can't stand digital planners, I'd like to write things down because there is a neural connection between the pen and the paper that happens.

Elizabeth Louis
You're a leader start journaling, sorry. Yes, 100%.

Adam Liette
I end every day with two questions. The first question is, what am I grateful for? The second question is, where did I win today?

Elizabeth Louis
Two questions I share for people who want to develop the warrior or the champion psychology is how will I be a champion today? So that's what you asked in the morning, how was I a champion today is what you ask right before you go to bed.

Adam Liette
Oh, so I need to answer those two questions. In the future minded. What am I going to do to win today? How am I going to win today? And then answer it again at the end of the day? Because Oh, this is cool. Because what I found is when when you know you have to answer where you won today. You spend your whole day looking for wins. Yeah. If you're starting your day by saying where am I gonna win today? Your your book ending it?

Elizabeth Louis
Right. Right. I love how excited you get, by the way. So cool.

Adam Liette
Well, now I have to add to my planner, and it's not mine, I can't print this thing. That's okay. It's gonna go into my journals world problems. First world problems. Exactly. Oh, fantastic. Well, we could geek out all day long, but I know we both have appointments to get to. So we're gonna have to figure out a time where we're meeting offline or figuring or continuing to work together because I could talk with you all day, Elizabeth. This has been truly phenomenal. And yeah, where can our listeners find out more about you? Because I I just want to promote you like crazy, because

Elizabeth Louis
you're so sweet. You've been so much fun. I feel like I could talk to you all day too. You can go to Elizabeth Lewis ello UI s.com. I'm very popular. Not that I'm popular. But I'm meant to say spend a lot of my time on LinkedIn and YouTube as well. So you can find me on there and everything links and you can email me at Elizabeth Elizabeth lewis.com If you have any questions.

Adam Liette
Fantastic. And I just downloaded her PDF this morning. The psychometrics of A successful entrepreneur. It's a great read. If you haven't downloaded it yet, what are you waiting for? wait to the end of the show, then go download it. It's great. And continue this wonderful journey of making ourselves better. Because this is fun once you get hooked on it. It's it's a blast. It is it's it is because here's

Elizabeth Louis
the thing when you work on yourself, it's amazing how like money and opportunity just naturally comes to you. And you become less afraid to say yes to what just comes to you. Because sometimes like life comes in a way that you can never even plan it or dream it. And it's just so exciting. Because when you work on yourself, then you can always create. And money is not security job is not security. Sorry, if things don't exist.

Adam Liette
They don't want to end on a sour note. No, I'm kidding.

Elizabeth Louis
No, it's not a sour note. But so many people don't like my job and my money will keep me secure. I can't tell you how many clients I have. They're like, I want financial freedom, because I had a mentor. Then in 1986 or 87, whenever the first housing crash, whatever happened, he lost $10 million. He lost everything. Yeah, your money won't keep you safe. But working on yourself learning how to make money, learning how to work on your effort, learning how to work on your psychology, when you when you can do something once you can do it again.

Adam Liette
Oh, my gosh. And especially in the climate we're in right now. I think we need to remember that.

Elizabeth Louis
Recessions make millionaires. That's the most millionaires out of recessions. So hi, Fi things or low things. It's the medium price that that sucks. Seems like there's a team and getting rid of the middle class too. And that but I won't say anymore.

Adam Liette
That's a Well, that's what Dan Kennedy teaches is like there's there's you don't win by being the low price or there's no prize for being the second lowest price.

Elizabeth Louis
Yeah, yeah, it's the extremes at the end of the day. It's it's weird. Yeah.

Adam Liette
What's also super awesome, expensive things. That's better,

Elizabeth Louis
right in the recessions like Chanel is still gonna sell their $5,000 bag, or, you know, Tesla's still gonna sell all their cars. At the end of the day. It's the middle price that people will overlook. It's the extremes, the highs and the lows. It's crazy.

Adam Liette
I love it. Awesome. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. Like I said, we can go on all day, but we're gonna have to figure out a time to link back up because I've had just a heck of a fun time here. So thank you so much.

Elizabeth Louis
Thank you for having me. This was awesome.

Adam Liette
All right. Well, see you next episode. And yeah, be sure to go to check out Elizabeth and we'll be back here for more smooth operator podcast soon.