Episode 134:
134. Love as an Ego Management Strategy with Christie Garcia
Christie Garcia works with leaders every day on building authentic confidence. Many of us may have some preconceived notions about “ego”, and in this episode, Christie breaks down what our egos really are and how we can begin to understand and address them better.
Transcript
Hide TranscriptChristie Garcia
I think for me, the ego is the simplest term of it's your unconscious brain. Every single one of us has it. We all are usually driven by it. You know, it's the unconscious habits mindsets and beliefs that we don't realize are making our decisions and sabotaging our good intentions every single day 95% of the time
Jeff Ma
Hello, and welcome to love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business, but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And as always, I'm here to have conversations and hear stories about how real people and real businesses operate. My guest today is Christy Garcia. Christie is an ego management expert. She's a speaker facilitator. She's contributed to Forbes coaches Council, and she's the founder of the mindful choice Leadership Academy. She has 19 years of experience in sales, recruiting and leadership development for the last decade. She's worked with current and upcoming leaders from fast growing orgs like Airbnb, Twitter, movement for life Sunrun, and Oakley. Christie builds programs that help individuals and teams maximize their impact through self awareness, ownership, communication, alignment, and accountability. Some of my favorite words, one of Christy's superpowers, is helping her clients identify and manage their ego in real time, she helps her clients build authentic confidence so they can communicate more effectively and maximize their impact within their professional teams and personal relationships. So Christie, in love with your bio already, so many things, but welcome to the show. How are you? How you doing?
Christie Garcia
Thanks, Jeff, I'm fantastic. I'm super excited about your show. And just talking with you and your listeners and seeing where the conversation takes us today.
Jeff Ma
Absolutely. And just just the way that your, your, you know, when I first heard ego, you know, that can go a lot different directions and all these things, but hearing a little bit more about how you focus on it. I'm just so excited to dive into that. And it's like, it's like speaking my language, but a new way. And I always love that. But before before we dive into that, I do want to just kind of start with you as a person as a human. What brought you to today? What is your path to this this ego management expertise?
Christie Garcia
Such a great question. You know, I think there were several things like in life, there's always a path that leads us to where we're at. But I think the really obvious one was, um, I guess, Gosh, 12 years ago, now, I have a 30 foot fall. And that was kind of eye opening moment that shed light on my ego and really showed me where my ego was making me just believe that life was so fulfilling and so great and so full, I think I was happy, I think I was satisfied. But it was from a very small lens and a short term perspective. And so, you know, being able to go through that form have to be have to slow down for a couple of weeks, it really shed light to where I was, I realized that just my relationships weren't as meaningful. I was living his really great life, but I knew I wanted more. And that really should be got me curious, I'd already started kind of training as a coach, and going through the life coaching side of things, learning how to transition into business, and this was kind of that Whoa, aha moment. This is how the ego sabotages our life. This is how ego drives us to focus so much on our career and so much on our success, that we forget what really is important until something happens. And it's usually a crisis, right? Whether it's a death in your family, whether it's an illness, whether it's a family member, you know, getting sick, there's, there's something that always gets us to that moment of aha, and this was mine. And, you know, I feel like I had to build this business to hopefully catch people before that day comes because either one, you miss out on so many great things on the life side of your world. Or two, you just sabotage your career. So you work so much harder than you actually have to because the ego is just constantly driving you and telling you're not doing a good enough job. So that's kind of where, you know, high level quick, short, short story of how we got here and how I started building the ego Management Leadership Academy.
Jeff Ma
Several follow up questions. That was a loaded statement. So let me Let me peel back start Let's start with the word ego I guess let me let me start there. Because when people when I hear ego, I can go anywhere from simply pride all the way to a one of the super villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So when you say ego, what, what are you? Can you define that for us little bit?
Christie Garcia
Yeah, I think for me, the ego is the simplest term of it's your unconscious brain, every single one of us has it, we all are usually driven by it, you know, it's the unconscious habits mindsets and beliefs that we don't realize are making our decisions and sabotaging our good intentions every single day. 95% of the time. So I use it as there's three egos, the complier, the protector and the controller, and breaking them down to where it really is just normalizing the human behaviors, the human habits that show up that really sabotage our leadership, our relationships, and how we show up in the world.
Jeff Ma
So when you work in ego, are you working to adjust these these mindsets? Just make self create self awareness around them? Or what is the what is the approach specifically?
Christie Garcia
Yeah, all of the above, you know, I think self awareness and ownership is step one, you have to be self aware, in order to even recognize that there's an ego involved. And then step two is the ownership part of it. Once you know it's there, now you have to own it, because a lot of us will say, Oh, yeah, I'm aware that I do that. But I'm a jerk. It's just, you know, it's just me Take it or leave it? Well, that's not really a true statement. That's someone that doesn't know exactly what to do with that information, right? And so being able to not just become aware of it, but deeply understand the why behind it, why do I do this, because once you understand why you do something, it's very easy to change. And if you don't understand why it's just the thing you do, and you don't really understand the motivators, or once we understand how the Eagles are showing up, there's very specific motivators for each one. And everything kind of starts to make sense, you know, all the confrontations that you have, or conflicts that you have arise in your days, like, Oh, I get it now that that ego is driving me there, or, you know, being able to recognize when you are struggling, you know, feeling like you're out of control. And so you're over controlling everything, or maybe you don't feel like you're in control of anything. And so you just proactively shut down and go passive and just kind of go with the flow, because it's easier than stirring, rocking the boat or stirring up any emotions for anybody else. And so again, recognizing the why behind what we do,
Jeff Ma
I love that. And that's something I subscribe to very much myself. And I think that self awareness for and you know, in our context, let's just talk about, you know, leaders or, or people in business that are, you know, of course, this applies to someone's entire life, but in work itself, I think self awareness, we're very much blind to so many of our own shortcomings and things like that. What is there anything you can say about egos, in particular, I think ego to me, from your early definition, it feels like ego is something that's even more hard to find, maybe even harder to be vulnerable admit to, for yourself even.
Christie Garcia
Absolutely, a lot of time that you go, it's sneaky, it's, you know, it is unconscious. So until you become bring a consciousness around it, there are habits and behaviors that we usually are ashamed of. Right, it's the ones that we wouldn't, we'd be embarrassed to have to admit that we do that it's the mean side of all of us, it's the one that's too busy to slow down for the people or it's the one that, you know, puts people before yourself. And so you get taken advantage of all the time and you become the victim of your life or circumstance. And so it's again, it's it's something that emotionally can make us feel ashamed, I think that's the ultimate thing people go through, when they start to identify the ego. Going back to the word pride, you know, the pride that we all have to show up with our mask on to show that we've got it all put together or to show that, you know, we're this, you know, image of perfection, whatever that is for us, and being able to just say, hey, actually, I'm not perfect, I have these flaws. And these are my brilliant fails. And this is how I got here. And I'm still okay. You know, I think that's the genuine ego management and we like to get to is a place of just authentic confidence. It's the good, bad and ugly, and we get to accept it all because we're all human. And as leaders, the beauty of it is it actually makes you a more powerful leader. Because too many leaders become unrelatable. You know, that ego wants to isolate us, wants to put us on an island and wants to make people wrong. It wants to judge people it wants to criticize people accuse, you know, assume bad intentions. It does all the yucky things that humans do to each other. And when we can just recognize that that that's an ego attack. That's an unconscious behavior. So When you or someone else is doing that, it's not a conscious behavior, even if we feel like we're super conscious in the moment, your best self is not present when that's happening. And I think that's the real power of being able to recognize how that ego showing up. You know, it's both our strengths and our weaknesses. It's not, it's not all bad. And I think a lot of times people think, oh, you know, how do we get rid of the ego? The ego is not going anywhere. It's how do you get to manage the ego and use it in your favor to use it, so it serves you and everybody around you, versus it unconsciously sabotaging? The success, the good intentions and the relationships that you're having?
Jeff Ma
So you broke ego down to three types, I believe, or elements, I believe? Is that fundamental to the, to the work and the teaching? Or do people have more of one than the other? Or can you can you break that down a little bit more?
Christie Garcia
Absolutely. So there's three, three ego types that we use in mindful choice, the complier, the protector and the controller, we all have one to two dominant egos, naturally, they start to show up when we're age two, to three, you know, our childhood experiences, our parenting, our parents, parenting style, our siblings, you know, line up, any traumas or crises that we go through, that all dictates how we show up in the world. And it starts to create these egos. The egos was once designed to protect us. So as a kid, it's, you know, the protector egos there, hey, that's dangerous, back away, do this for safety, right? So if it's a shy child, maybe they learn that, hey, if I, if I'm in the, you know, if I stay in the shadows, no one will notice me and I won't get picked on it. Or, you know, and how that translates as you get older, right now you're at a board tech room. And if I don't speak up, no one will question whether or not I should be here. And so that's a good word that ego as it grows with us, it starts to sabotage us. Maybe it was the athlete, as a child, you've learned that if you're really good at sports, or you're straight A's in your class, then you get praised, and everybody will love you. And so again, that's that's how the ego wants served us. Once we start to get into our 20s we start to have more relationships, where it becomes more of a little bit of a we that is involved. And so as you get into, you know, partnerships, personally, friendships that are you know, more meaningful than maybe some childhood really shifts, you start getting get into leadership roles. It's no longer about me, and the ego is very driven on how do I be liked? How do I make sure I'm right, how do I make sure I'm, I win, and I'm the best. And there's a evolution here where now we have to shift to we, if you're the only one at the finish line, you really don't win when you're an adult. And so making sure that you shift with the three types, the controller is motivated by being the best and winning. So it's the results first people second, this is where success is our driver, we thrive on challenges and hard things and we're constantly you know, striving for the next big thing. Unfortunately, with this comes micromanagement over controlling perfectionism, all those things that can drive us to push people away. The protector is all about high integrity, authenticity, speaking truth, strong value system. Unfortunately, with that also comes stubborn, black and white thinking my way or the highway, there motivators I have to have, I have to be right in order to have value or to be worthwhile. And so you can see how that could definitely create some insecurities or some issues when you're talking about collaboration or growing as a leader, then you have your complier, who is motivated by being liked, warm, inviting, super caring, lots of compassion, unfortunately, that can lead to struggles to make hard decisions, can't have the difficult conversations or give feedback because they're scared of the the emotional responses or creating conflict or rocking the boat. And so they tend to be more passive and kind of goes along to get along, versus speaking up and holding results. So you know, that's, that's where you can see all of them have strengths, all of them have weaknesses. The idea is great leaders use all three, you can pull from the complier to get the empathy, that compassion people, you know, bring the people along, you've got the protector which speaks truth, it's no longer about me, it's about the greater we and this is what's good for everybody. And then you've got the controller who is results oriented. Let's do it this way. Let's get to the finish line. Let's make sure we get the results because outcomes matter too. Right? None of us would be here if there wasn't a paycheck at the end of the day. And so you know, making sure it's a full package versus leaning one way or the other.
Jeff Ma
This is really really insightful. I'm I'm literally processing myself right now as you go so it's amazing. But where do you draw the line? or at least help people see kind of the divide between, let's say, quote, I am who I am, or that's just how I am. And these elements of ego within them, like a lot of a lot of things, a lot of the things you just said feel like ways that people almost define themselves pride themselves in maybe have worked to even develop in that way. Absolutely. How how do you kind of balance that that out for people?
Christie Garcia
There's a very clear, when people start to recognize their ego, there becomes a very clear visceral awareness, then you can start to see, is this my best self? Or is this a belief or something I've told myself, and I think the reality of ego management is, you know, when people when typically when people say, Why am who I am just deal with it. If you were to really start digging into that thought, just from a coaching, you know, psychological mindset, you can break that down pretty quickly, because that's an insecure driver. That's something like that's, that's a safety comment. When you start saying, Well, tell me more about that. Why are you that way? What is your motivation behind that? Most people can't answer that, right, because that's an ego statement. And I think when you start to get curious, and you really are wanting to understand, you know, your bigger motivators and wanting to approve, then those, those statements don't last for too long. Now, where that statement is powerful, because again, every every strength has a weakness, every weakness has a strength, I think there's strength and saying, This is who I am, take it or leave it, right. When you get to a place of ego management, you know, when that statement is real, you know, when you get to say, Hey, this is my best self. And this is just, you know, this is the line I draw. And I'm going to stand here because I know this is right. And I'll be able look myself in the eye at the end of the day and say I did the right thing. So there is a point where we want that ego to hold us strong. But again, it's an intentional ego action versus the unconscious. That's typically driven by insecurity. Does that make sense?
Jeff Ma
It does. Yes. And that brings me to kind of thinking about this. From the self awareness perspective, again, it feels like these l these these egos within us? They are they're defined by how we engage with others. Would that be accurate? To some extent? Absolutely. So a lot of what you're saying is very introspective, it's very looking within yourself and asking why which I'm a big, big fan of. But I also feel like self awareness has a second kind of piece to it, right? It's it's a, it's a bit of a gap between how you think you're perceived or interacting with others, and how you're actually interacting with others. So where do people gain that other data point? From? How do we? How do we actually understand our realities of our ego? Is it something we can find within ourselves holistically? Or do we need help?
Christie Garcia
Um, personally, I think it's a combination of both. You know, you only know what you're willing to see, right. And I think that's the one thing that we're the egos really smart, and it can tell you all day, every day that you're doing a great job, or you're not doing a good enough job. And it's probably telling you a combination of both, depending on what the situation is. Where I think when you can truly gain self awareness, there has to be a level of external feedback, being able to ask people, you know, what, how did that land? What did what did that feel like for you? Or even just being able to observe that and then get curious when you obviously know that something didn't land, right. Most of us know, when our intentions didn't land, right, the room gets quiet, someone starts to kick back, everybody's getting triggered, even you might be getting triggered. So depending on your ego type, if you're more on the control of protector side, you're gonna get more of that fiery like combative. I need to fight and you know, get on my soapbox and tell them why I'm right. Or it could be on the people side where all of a sudden you're like, Whoa, this is getting too heated. I'm super uncomfortable, and I'm gonna start shutting down and playing small. And so again, knowing when when does that intentional impact, not land and you can start to actually get curious in those moments. But I think realistically, in order to truly understand your ego, you have to be willing to go external. Otherwise your ego will make up all the stories and tell you what you want to hear and you'll continue to buy your own press.
Jeff Ma
As I process I see myself in all three of these egos quite a bit. So so here I am, I'm seeing that I'm taking some first steps to really recognizing and becoming a little more self aware. What do I do about it? What do I do from here tangibly?
Christie Garcia
Yeah, that's a great question. And the reality is, is we do all have all three ego types. Now again, what, typically, we have one to two dominant ones that show up more regularly. But certain people trigger different ego types, egos are driven by emotion. And so you know, let's say, personally, in your personal life, you might be more of a complier protector, but in your professional life, you've come across as more of a protector controller. That's all very normal stuff. Now, where you want to take that level of several words, once you start to recognize, okay, I have these egos, these are the motivators behind them. Now it's recognizing in real time, okay, we got to take full ownership of right now just say I know them, and I'm aware of them. But actually recognizing when they show up, we have a tool that actually gives you very specific behaviors of how these egos show up, for example, again, the ego of the complier shows up as not speaking up, holding back your truth, I'm fine, is a really big statement of the complier. Everything's good, I'm fine. Don't worry about me, I'm okay. Right. Those are things that start to show up regularly. And once you start noticing the cues, or the behaviors, it's very easy to identify them in real time. And then you can actually catch yourself because then you can say, Oh, wow, I'm doing it right now. Now I can get curious. So one, you have to take self awareness to there's got to be ownership, once you take ownership of your ego. Now you can actually start to ego manage, which means you got to slow down, the ego moves fast things fast and acts fast. And so slow it down. And get curious, you know, ask first tell second, when you start to feel, let's say the burning in your chest, or your ears get hotter, you get your cheeks, you know, get all fiery, whatever your symptom is, of when your ego shows up, recognizing that, and the sooner you, the more aware you become of it, the sooner you can catch it, and the egos never gonna go away. So you're going to always have this as a lifelong journey. But you know, some people don't catch it for five days, some people don't catch it for five months, if you can catch it, you know, sooner than five days or sooner than five months, you're now already more more aware of your ego, right. And that's always what I tell you just be 1% better every day, if you can catch your ego five minutes earlier, you can actually start ego management and damage control five minutes earlier. And so that's really the power of this, nothing technically has to change. It's just allowing you to be aware of your actions, and making sure that your good intentions are actually what's landing going back to that perception. Perception is not always truth, but it is reality. And when you can share, catch yourself in that reality where the perception is not meeting what you want it to be doing. That's when you can actually start to shift it in real time. Just by being curious, you know, why does this matter to me? Why does it matter to them? What's what's triggering me in this moment? And how can I? How can I make a stronger impact and a more impactful impact not to win, not to be right not to be the best not to be liked. But just because it's the right thing to do. And this is my best self coming out.
Jeff Ma
Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense that different people bring different types of ego out. Would you say the same is true in terms of like the shift in our lives, changing our dominant egos, for instance, I can see a lot more, let's say entry level employees being driven more as a complier. But as they move up, shifting more to protect your controller, is that something you see?
Christie Garcia
I'm not necessarily, I guess what happens a lot of times it in our 20s, you know, we start to build our career, we start to build our confidence. Naturally, if you're going to see leaders, there's got to be some level of controller because you don't climb, you don't get success if there's not some level controller in that behavior, or in that person's personality. Now, with that being said, the controller can be driven by their compliers. So they don't have to be a controller ego in order to have perfections tactics, their motivator could be i, if I'm like, I'll get promoted. In order to be promoted, I need to be the best. So if I'm the best, I'll be liked and I'll be promoted. Right? And so So I think it's not necessarily saying all you know, leaders have control or protector in them. It could be their secondary or even their third unconscious ego that's been driven by the need to be liked. So yeah, I think that's where we have to get really curious and the egos will outsmart us. So we might think, you know, we've gotten this taken care of so a lot of times when people start to ego manage, let's say they are a complier and they know they need to bring in more controlling tactics in order to win balance out that at the complier ego. With that being said, a lot of times people will start to overuse the controller and under User complier. And so we have to make sure we're balancing it all that sweet spot is about 33%. If we can use the complier, controller and protector all about 33%, we're really intentionally choosing the strengths of each one. And that's where our best self really lives. That's the sweet spot. We can all kind of identify with as like, This feels good. This feels right, I can look myself in the eye and say I did the right thing.
Jeff Ma
That makes a ton of sense. And now that I understand all the concepts better. I'm curious to go back to your original story of, of taking a fall. I'm curious if you could elaborate on how that fall led to this realization.
Christie Garcia
Yeah, so the fall was 9am. In the morning, I was walking my dog, it was raining, and that the apartment complex that I was living in, come naturally lock the door, and I locked myself out. So I got into my neighbor. And we did this all the time. It was looking back, it's really stupid. But you know, we would go through each other's apartment, or we go to the roof and crawl down the fire escape and into our kitchen window super unsafe. But it made sense, because it always works. And you're locked out. So what else do you do? So anyways, that morning, I had my dog it was raining. So I went to my neighbor. And she said, Yeah, or ask her if she could help me because I was decorating for a holiday party I was having that night and had Christmas trees in the window or whatever. So I said, Can you cuddle, you know, let my dog stay in your apartment. And you hold these Christmas trees wild crawl through my apartment window? Well, needless to say, we went out her bedroom window which shared the fire escape deck. And that's when I fell through. But I realized there was an ego problem not necessarily consciously, but in that moment, I had already been doing some personal development around self awareness and you know, trusting the process and all that good stuff. But when I hit the ground and the ambulance came, you know, I was in medical cells. And so I was like, okay, you know, can I wiggle my toes? Can I wiggle my fingers? Like, am I good? I'm good. Okay, so I rolled over, I was unconscious for a couple minutes. But so by the time paramedics came, I was just like, Go mode, adrenaline kicked out. And I'm like, I don't have time for this. I want to go to this hospital. Like, let's just do this, because I got a party to get back to and a paramedic thought it was a complete lunatic. He's like, Yeah, ma'am. That's not happening. So they had to take me to the farthest hospital because the only trauma based hospital and by the time I get there, it was just, it was all good. I had tons of tests, but I was out of there in three hours. And that's really when it kind of all hit me that I was well actually, it was probably two weeks later when it like the identity of the ego hit me. But in this moment, I'm thinking, I can't cancel my party. Like we've got friends coming over. We're gonna have a good time. It's all good. It's about noon now. Well, of course, the reality is no one wants to come to a party after a girl just fell 30 feet. So we we end up canceling. Two weeks go by. And I hadn't really had any emotion around it. And I talked to my coach at the time. And she said, Tracy, how are you doing? And so I tell her like, oh, it's been a crazy two weeks, you know, I've had this fall, we had Thanksgiving. It's been really annoying, because I can't, you know, really take care of myself right now. And she's like, Excuse me What? I'm like, Yeah, it's really annoying. It's just slowing me down. It's all good. I'm almost I'm almost back to normal. And so she says, um, how are you doing? I'm great. I'm good. I'm just, you know, bored and annoyed. She's like, Okay, well, how are you doing? And again, I did the whole upgrade. I'm just annoyed or getting through this. And so then she asked one more time, Christy, how are you doing? And I probably had the most expensive crime in my life. I just lost it for about 15 minutes. I could not control my crying had no idea what it was going coming from. And it actually terrified me, because I was not a crier. I was. The only time I cried is I'm going to watch sappy movies. And that was an intentional, like, I'm gonna go have a moment. And it was weird. And so that's when I really started to get curious. What does this mean? This was a December, bout January, I started learning. I started having a ton of awareness where I'm like, What is this, this is the unconscious brain and eventually started putting some language to it recognized that I was just controller ego, and it is manipulating my life. The irony is that when I was in medical sales, I would walk the halls and I was really trying, you know, I see all these people in the hospital by themselves and it broke my heart didn't really understand why are they here dying by themselves. And so I wouldn't sell rooms, I would talk to them on my lunch break. And the most common things I heard were, I worked so hard I you know, I missed out on all the things that were important or I've worked For my family to make things happen, but they were gone by the time I retired, whatever it was, the story was very similar all the way across. I wasn't there as basically what happened or I didn't prioritize my personal life. And it hit me in that moment that I was going to create that life for myself, I was going to be alone in a hospital room, the thing I feared the most was the thing I was unconsciously creating, I was almost 30, I hadn't dated in 10 years, I wasn't, you know, building space to buy a home to have a family, any of the things that I said I wanted. And now here I am 30, super unconscious about it. And so that's really what kind of the the big change of perspective was for me, Wow, this is how this happens. Life flies by we make choices, and we're driven by our careers. And I think what really hit me was, it's no longer going to be just men in this hospital rooms, it's going to be women, too. So now we have broken families, from many different angles and or no families at all right? We're having this reality that people aren't having kids, because they're so involved with their career that, before they know it, it's too late. Right. And so, you know, I think that that just really hit home for me. And I started to build out programs started to look at things and really say, Okay, how do I how do I help change this really successful people? You know, a lot of times at this time, coaching was just really for the problem childs in the businesses. And, you know, it was like, No, this needs to be a proactive thing, we've got to get ahead of this, people are not aware of what they're actually doing. And, you know, that's on the personal side. But really, it impacts every relationship at work as well, you know, we, we lead so hard, we think that being the driver, being the controller, or being the friend, is how we're supposed to get ahead. And unfortunately, those all sabotage our success, it's not necessarily getting everybody to the finish line, you might be getting a few ego types to the finish line with you might be some simple people on your team. But the higher up you go, the harder those tactics are, and they don't work as well, when you start getting into higher level leadership.
Jeff Ma
I really appreciate you sharing that. That personal story, but an inspirational story, I think that's a really great story to hear for myself. And I know the listeners, because it really puts a lot into perspective helps us really appreciate a lot more, and maybe take pause and look at our own lives and egos and other potentially hidden drivers in our life. So I really appreciate you for sharing that with us.
Christie Garcia
Absolutely. It's it's a it's my big purpose help people recognize Are you really happy? And are you building success in every category? Because it doesn't have to just be one, one category.
Jeff Ma
Well, Christy, I really appreciate you joining me today this conversation. It's it's been it's been really informative, but also very motivational and and kind of inspiring to share this space with you. So thank you, thank you for taking the time and sharing your wisdom.
Christie Garcia
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure visiting with you. I love the conversations you're having and the wisdom you bringing to people. It's really insightful and motivating as well.
Jeff Ma
Absolutely. I appreciate that. And I appreciate our listeners who hopefully have already read the book, but if you haven't, please check it out. Always a shameless plug for that at the end of every episode. So love as a business strategy. And if you haven't, please subscribe rate podcast, all the good things help us out. And we hope you're appreciating it enjoying all this. I know, you know, talks with people like Christie are kind of what keeps me going every day. So hopefully, it's helping somebody out there as well and that would be worth it. So with that, thank you so much and hope everybody has a wonderful week and we'll see you next time.
I think for me, the ego is the simplest term of it's your unconscious brain. Every single one of us has it. We all are usually driven by it. You know, it's the unconscious habits mindsets and beliefs that we don't realize are making our decisions and sabotaging our good intentions every single day 95% of the time
Jeff Ma
Hello, and welcome to love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business, but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And as always, I'm here to have conversations and hear stories about how real people and real businesses operate. My guest today is Christy Garcia. Christie is an ego management expert. She's a speaker facilitator. She's contributed to Forbes coaches Council, and she's the founder of the mindful choice Leadership Academy. She has 19 years of experience in sales, recruiting and leadership development for the last decade. She's worked with current and upcoming leaders from fast growing orgs like Airbnb, Twitter, movement for life Sunrun, and Oakley. Christie builds programs that help individuals and teams maximize their impact through self awareness, ownership, communication, alignment, and accountability. Some of my favorite words, one of Christy's superpowers, is helping her clients identify and manage their ego in real time, she helps her clients build authentic confidence so they can communicate more effectively and maximize their impact within their professional teams and personal relationships. So Christie, in love with your bio already, so many things, but welcome to the show. How are you? How you doing?
Christie Garcia
Thanks, Jeff, I'm fantastic. I'm super excited about your show. And just talking with you and your listeners and seeing where the conversation takes us today.
Jeff Ma
Absolutely. And just just the way that your, your, you know, when I first heard ego, you know, that can go a lot different directions and all these things, but hearing a little bit more about how you focus on it. I'm just so excited to dive into that. And it's like, it's like speaking my language, but a new way. And I always love that. But before before we dive into that, I do want to just kind of start with you as a person as a human. What brought you to today? What is your path to this this ego management expertise?
Christie Garcia
Such a great question. You know, I think there were several things like in life, there's always a path that leads us to where we're at. But I think the really obvious one was, um, I guess, Gosh, 12 years ago, now, I have a 30 foot fall. And that was kind of eye opening moment that shed light on my ego and really showed me where my ego was making me just believe that life was so fulfilling and so great and so full, I think I was happy, I think I was satisfied. But it was from a very small lens and a short term perspective. And so, you know, being able to go through that form have to be have to slow down for a couple of weeks, it really shed light to where I was, I realized that just my relationships weren't as meaningful. I was living his really great life, but I knew I wanted more. And that really should be got me curious, I'd already started kind of training as a coach, and going through the life coaching side of things, learning how to transition into business, and this was kind of that Whoa, aha moment. This is how the ego sabotages our life. This is how ego drives us to focus so much on our career and so much on our success, that we forget what really is important until something happens. And it's usually a crisis, right? Whether it's a death in your family, whether it's an illness, whether it's a family member, you know, getting sick, there's, there's something that always gets us to that moment of aha, and this was mine. And, you know, I feel like I had to build this business to hopefully catch people before that day comes because either one, you miss out on so many great things on the life side of your world. Or two, you just sabotage your career. So you work so much harder than you actually have to because the ego is just constantly driving you and telling you're not doing a good enough job. So that's kind of where, you know, high level quick, short, short story of how we got here and how I started building the ego Management Leadership Academy.
Jeff Ma
Several follow up questions. That was a loaded statement. So let me Let me peel back start Let's start with the word ego I guess let me let me start there. Because when people when I hear ego, I can go anywhere from simply pride all the way to a one of the super villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So when you say ego, what, what are you? Can you define that for us little bit?
Christie Garcia
Yeah, I think for me, the ego is the simplest term of it's your unconscious brain, every single one of us has it, we all are usually driven by it, you know, it's the unconscious habits mindsets and beliefs that we don't realize are making our decisions and sabotaging our good intentions every single day. 95% of the time. So I use it as there's three egos, the complier, the protector and the controller, and breaking them down to where it really is just normalizing the human behaviors, the human habits that show up that really sabotage our leadership, our relationships, and how we show up in the world.
Jeff Ma
So when you work in ego, are you working to adjust these these mindsets? Just make self create self awareness around them? Or what is the what is the approach specifically?
Christie Garcia
Yeah, all of the above, you know, I think self awareness and ownership is step one, you have to be self aware, in order to even recognize that there's an ego involved. And then step two is the ownership part of it. Once you know it's there, now you have to own it, because a lot of us will say, Oh, yeah, I'm aware that I do that. But I'm a jerk. It's just, you know, it's just me Take it or leave it? Well, that's not really a true statement. That's someone that doesn't know exactly what to do with that information, right? And so being able to not just become aware of it, but deeply understand the why behind it, why do I do this, because once you understand why you do something, it's very easy to change. And if you don't understand why it's just the thing you do, and you don't really understand the motivators, or once we understand how the Eagles are showing up, there's very specific motivators for each one. And everything kind of starts to make sense, you know, all the confrontations that you have, or conflicts that you have arise in your days, like, Oh, I get it now that that ego is driving me there, or, you know, being able to recognize when you are struggling, you know, feeling like you're out of control. And so you're over controlling everything, or maybe you don't feel like you're in control of anything. And so you just proactively shut down and go passive and just kind of go with the flow, because it's easier than stirring, rocking the boat or stirring up any emotions for anybody else. And so again, recognizing the why behind what we do,
Jeff Ma
I love that. And that's something I subscribe to very much myself. And I think that self awareness for and you know, in our context, let's just talk about, you know, leaders or, or people in business that are, you know, of course, this applies to someone's entire life, but in work itself, I think self awareness, we're very much blind to so many of our own shortcomings and things like that. What is there anything you can say about egos, in particular, I think ego to me, from your early definition, it feels like ego is something that's even more hard to find, maybe even harder to be vulnerable admit to, for yourself even.
Christie Garcia
Absolutely, a lot of time that you go, it's sneaky, it's, you know, it is unconscious. So until you become bring a consciousness around it, there are habits and behaviors that we usually are ashamed of. Right, it's the ones that we wouldn't, we'd be embarrassed to have to admit that we do that it's the mean side of all of us, it's the one that's too busy to slow down for the people or it's the one that, you know, puts people before yourself. And so you get taken advantage of all the time and you become the victim of your life or circumstance. And so it's again, it's it's something that emotionally can make us feel ashamed, I think that's the ultimate thing people go through, when they start to identify the ego. Going back to the word pride, you know, the pride that we all have to show up with our mask on to show that we've got it all put together or to show that, you know, we're this, you know, image of perfection, whatever that is for us, and being able to just say, hey, actually, I'm not perfect, I have these flaws. And these are my brilliant fails. And this is how I got here. And I'm still okay. You know, I think that's the genuine ego management and we like to get to is a place of just authentic confidence. It's the good, bad and ugly, and we get to accept it all because we're all human. And as leaders, the beauty of it is it actually makes you a more powerful leader. Because too many leaders become unrelatable. You know, that ego wants to isolate us, wants to put us on an island and wants to make people wrong. It wants to judge people it wants to criticize people accuse, you know, assume bad intentions. It does all the yucky things that humans do to each other. And when we can just recognize that that that's an ego attack. That's an unconscious behavior. So When you or someone else is doing that, it's not a conscious behavior, even if we feel like we're super conscious in the moment, your best self is not present when that's happening. And I think that's the real power of being able to recognize how that ego showing up. You know, it's both our strengths and our weaknesses. It's not, it's not all bad. And I think a lot of times people think, oh, you know, how do we get rid of the ego? The ego is not going anywhere. It's how do you get to manage the ego and use it in your favor to use it, so it serves you and everybody around you, versus it unconsciously sabotaging? The success, the good intentions and the relationships that you're having?
Jeff Ma
So you broke ego down to three types, I believe, or elements, I believe? Is that fundamental to the, to the work and the teaching? Or do people have more of one than the other? Or can you can you break that down a little bit more?
Christie Garcia
Absolutely. So there's three, three ego types that we use in mindful choice, the complier, the protector and the controller, we all have one to two dominant egos, naturally, they start to show up when we're age two, to three, you know, our childhood experiences, our parenting, our parents, parenting style, our siblings, you know, line up, any traumas or crises that we go through, that all dictates how we show up in the world. And it starts to create these egos. The egos was once designed to protect us. So as a kid, it's, you know, the protector egos there, hey, that's dangerous, back away, do this for safety, right? So if it's a shy child, maybe they learn that, hey, if I, if I'm in the, you know, if I stay in the shadows, no one will notice me and I won't get picked on it. Or, you know, and how that translates as you get older, right now you're at a board tech room. And if I don't speak up, no one will question whether or not I should be here. And so that's a good word that ego as it grows with us, it starts to sabotage us. Maybe it was the athlete, as a child, you've learned that if you're really good at sports, or you're straight A's in your class, then you get praised, and everybody will love you. And so again, that's that's how the ego wants served us. Once we start to get into our 20s we start to have more relationships, where it becomes more of a little bit of a we that is involved. And so as you get into, you know, partnerships, personally, friendships that are you know, more meaningful than maybe some childhood really shifts, you start getting get into leadership roles. It's no longer about me, and the ego is very driven on how do I be liked? How do I make sure I'm right, how do I make sure I'm, I win, and I'm the best. And there's a evolution here where now we have to shift to we, if you're the only one at the finish line, you really don't win when you're an adult. And so making sure that you shift with the three types, the controller is motivated by being the best and winning. So it's the results first people second, this is where success is our driver, we thrive on challenges and hard things and we're constantly you know, striving for the next big thing. Unfortunately, with this comes micromanagement over controlling perfectionism, all those things that can drive us to push people away. The protector is all about high integrity, authenticity, speaking truth, strong value system. Unfortunately, with that also comes stubborn, black and white thinking my way or the highway, there motivators I have to have, I have to be right in order to have value or to be worthwhile. And so you can see how that could definitely create some insecurities or some issues when you're talking about collaboration or growing as a leader, then you have your complier, who is motivated by being liked, warm, inviting, super caring, lots of compassion, unfortunately, that can lead to struggles to make hard decisions, can't have the difficult conversations or give feedback because they're scared of the the emotional responses or creating conflict or rocking the boat. And so they tend to be more passive and kind of goes along to get along, versus speaking up and holding results. So you know, that's, that's where you can see all of them have strengths, all of them have weaknesses. The idea is great leaders use all three, you can pull from the complier to get the empathy, that compassion people, you know, bring the people along, you've got the protector which speaks truth, it's no longer about me, it's about the greater we and this is what's good for everybody. And then you've got the controller who is results oriented. Let's do it this way. Let's get to the finish line. Let's make sure we get the results because outcomes matter too. Right? None of us would be here if there wasn't a paycheck at the end of the day. And so you know, making sure it's a full package versus leaning one way or the other.
Jeff Ma
This is really really insightful. I'm I'm literally processing myself right now as you go so it's amazing. But where do you draw the line? or at least help people see kind of the divide between, let's say, quote, I am who I am, or that's just how I am. And these elements of ego within them, like a lot of a lot of things, a lot of the things you just said feel like ways that people almost define themselves pride themselves in maybe have worked to even develop in that way. Absolutely. How how do you kind of balance that that out for people?
Christie Garcia
There's a very clear, when people start to recognize their ego, there becomes a very clear visceral awareness, then you can start to see, is this my best self? Or is this a belief or something I've told myself, and I think the reality of ego management is, you know, when people when typically when people say, Why am who I am just deal with it. If you were to really start digging into that thought, just from a coaching, you know, psychological mindset, you can break that down pretty quickly, because that's an insecure driver. That's something like that's, that's a safety comment. When you start saying, Well, tell me more about that. Why are you that way? What is your motivation behind that? Most people can't answer that, right, because that's an ego statement. And I think when you start to get curious, and you really are wanting to understand, you know, your bigger motivators and wanting to approve, then those, those statements don't last for too long. Now, where that statement is powerful, because again, every every strength has a weakness, every weakness has a strength, I think there's strength and saying, This is who I am, take it or leave it, right. When you get to a place of ego management, you know, when that statement is real, you know, when you get to say, Hey, this is my best self. And this is just, you know, this is the line I draw. And I'm going to stand here because I know this is right. And I'll be able look myself in the eye at the end of the day and say I did the right thing. So there is a point where we want that ego to hold us strong. But again, it's an intentional ego action versus the unconscious. That's typically driven by insecurity. Does that make sense?
Jeff Ma
It does. Yes. And that brings me to kind of thinking about this. From the self awareness perspective, again, it feels like these l these these egos within us? They are they're defined by how we engage with others. Would that be accurate? To some extent? Absolutely. So a lot of what you're saying is very introspective, it's very looking within yourself and asking why which I'm a big, big fan of. But I also feel like self awareness has a second kind of piece to it, right? It's it's a, it's a bit of a gap between how you think you're perceived or interacting with others, and how you're actually interacting with others. So where do people gain that other data point? From? How do we? How do we actually understand our realities of our ego? Is it something we can find within ourselves holistically? Or do we need help?
Christie Garcia
Um, personally, I think it's a combination of both. You know, you only know what you're willing to see, right. And I think that's the one thing that we're the egos really smart, and it can tell you all day, every day that you're doing a great job, or you're not doing a good enough job. And it's probably telling you a combination of both, depending on what the situation is. Where I think when you can truly gain self awareness, there has to be a level of external feedback, being able to ask people, you know, what, how did that land? What did what did that feel like for you? Or even just being able to observe that and then get curious when you obviously know that something didn't land, right. Most of us know, when our intentions didn't land, right, the room gets quiet, someone starts to kick back, everybody's getting triggered, even you might be getting triggered. So depending on your ego type, if you're more on the control of protector side, you're gonna get more of that fiery like combative. I need to fight and you know, get on my soapbox and tell them why I'm right. Or it could be on the people side where all of a sudden you're like, Whoa, this is getting too heated. I'm super uncomfortable, and I'm gonna start shutting down and playing small. And so again, knowing when when does that intentional impact, not land and you can start to actually get curious in those moments. But I think realistically, in order to truly understand your ego, you have to be willing to go external. Otherwise your ego will make up all the stories and tell you what you want to hear and you'll continue to buy your own press.
Jeff Ma
As I process I see myself in all three of these egos quite a bit. So so here I am, I'm seeing that I'm taking some first steps to really recognizing and becoming a little more self aware. What do I do about it? What do I do from here tangibly?
Christie Garcia
Yeah, that's a great question. And the reality is, is we do all have all three ego types. Now again, what, typically, we have one to two dominant ones that show up more regularly. But certain people trigger different ego types, egos are driven by emotion. And so you know, let's say, personally, in your personal life, you might be more of a complier protector, but in your professional life, you've come across as more of a protector controller. That's all very normal stuff. Now, where you want to take that level of several words, once you start to recognize, okay, I have these egos, these are the motivators behind them. Now it's recognizing in real time, okay, we got to take full ownership of right now just say I know them, and I'm aware of them. But actually recognizing when they show up, we have a tool that actually gives you very specific behaviors of how these egos show up, for example, again, the ego of the complier shows up as not speaking up, holding back your truth, I'm fine, is a really big statement of the complier. Everything's good, I'm fine. Don't worry about me, I'm okay. Right. Those are things that start to show up regularly. And once you start noticing the cues, or the behaviors, it's very easy to identify them in real time. And then you can actually catch yourself because then you can say, Oh, wow, I'm doing it right now. Now I can get curious. So one, you have to take self awareness to there's got to be ownership, once you take ownership of your ego. Now you can actually start to ego manage, which means you got to slow down, the ego moves fast things fast and acts fast. And so slow it down. And get curious, you know, ask first tell second, when you start to feel, let's say the burning in your chest, or your ears get hotter, you get your cheeks, you know, get all fiery, whatever your symptom is, of when your ego shows up, recognizing that, and the sooner you, the more aware you become of it, the sooner you can catch it, and the egos never gonna go away. So you're going to always have this as a lifelong journey. But you know, some people don't catch it for five days, some people don't catch it for five months, if you can catch it, you know, sooner than five days or sooner than five months, you're now already more more aware of your ego, right. And that's always what I tell you just be 1% better every day, if you can catch your ego five minutes earlier, you can actually start ego management and damage control five minutes earlier. And so that's really the power of this, nothing technically has to change. It's just allowing you to be aware of your actions, and making sure that your good intentions are actually what's landing going back to that perception. Perception is not always truth, but it is reality. And when you can share, catch yourself in that reality where the perception is not meeting what you want it to be doing. That's when you can actually start to shift it in real time. Just by being curious, you know, why does this matter to me? Why does it matter to them? What's what's triggering me in this moment? And how can I? How can I make a stronger impact and a more impactful impact not to win, not to be right not to be the best not to be liked. But just because it's the right thing to do. And this is my best self coming out.
Jeff Ma
Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense that different people bring different types of ego out. Would you say the same is true in terms of like the shift in our lives, changing our dominant egos, for instance, I can see a lot more, let's say entry level employees being driven more as a complier. But as they move up, shifting more to protect your controller, is that something you see?
Christie Garcia
I'm not necessarily, I guess what happens a lot of times it in our 20s, you know, we start to build our career, we start to build our confidence. Naturally, if you're going to see leaders, there's got to be some level of controller because you don't climb, you don't get success if there's not some level controller in that behavior, or in that person's personality. Now, with that being said, the controller can be driven by their compliers. So they don't have to be a controller ego in order to have perfections tactics, their motivator could be i, if I'm like, I'll get promoted. In order to be promoted, I need to be the best. So if I'm the best, I'll be liked and I'll be promoted. Right? And so So I think it's not necessarily saying all you know, leaders have control or protector in them. It could be their secondary or even their third unconscious ego that's been driven by the need to be liked. So yeah, I think that's where we have to get really curious and the egos will outsmart us. So we might think, you know, we've gotten this taken care of so a lot of times when people start to ego manage, let's say they are a complier and they know they need to bring in more controlling tactics in order to win balance out that at the complier ego. With that being said, a lot of times people will start to overuse the controller and under User complier. And so we have to make sure we're balancing it all that sweet spot is about 33%. If we can use the complier, controller and protector all about 33%, we're really intentionally choosing the strengths of each one. And that's where our best self really lives. That's the sweet spot. We can all kind of identify with as like, This feels good. This feels right, I can look myself in the eye and say I did the right thing.
Jeff Ma
That makes a ton of sense. And now that I understand all the concepts better. I'm curious to go back to your original story of, of taking a fall. I'm curious if you could elaborate on how that fall led to this realization.
Christie Garcia
Yeah, so the fall was 9am. In the morning, I was walking my dog, it was raining, and that the apartment complex that I was living in, come naturally lock the door, and I locked myself out. So I got into my neighbor. And we did this all the time. It was looking back, it's really stupid. But you know, we would go through each other's apartment, or we go to the roof and crawl down the fire escape and into our kitchen window super unsafe. But it made sense, because it always works. And you're locked out. So what else do you do? So anyways, that morning, I had my dog it was raining. So I went to my neighbor. And she said, Yeah, or ask her if she could help me because I was decorating for a holiday party I was having that night and had Christmas trees in the window or whatever. So I said, Can you cuddle, you know, let my dog stay in your apartment. And you hold these Christmas trees wild crawl through my apartment window? Well, needless to say, we went out her bedroom window which shared the fire escape deck. And that's when I fell through. But I realized there was an ego problem not necessarily consciously, but in that moment, I had already been doing some personal development around self awareness and you know, trusting the process and all that good stuff. But when I hit the ground and the ambulance came, you know, I was in medical cells. And so I was like, okay, you know, can I wiggle my toes? Can I wiggle my fingers? Like, am I good? I'm good. Okay, so I rolled over, I was unconscious for a couple minutes. But so by the time paramedics came, I was just like, Go mode, adrenaline kicked out. And I'm like, I don't have time for this. I want to go to this hospital. Like, let's just do this, because I got a party to get back to and a paramedic thought it was a complete lunatic. He's like, Yeah, ma'am. That's not happening. So they had to take me to the farthest hospital because the only trauma based hospital and by the time I get there, it was just, it was all good. I had tons of tests, but I was out of there in three hours. And that's really when it kind of all hit me that I was well actually, it was probably two weeks later when it like the identity of the ego hit me. But in this moment, I'm thinking, I can't cancel my party. Like we've got friends coming over. We're gonna have a good time. It's all good. It's about noon now. Well, of course, the reality is no one wants to come to a party after a girl just fell 30 feet. So we we end up canceling. Two weeks go by. And I hadn't really had any emotion around it. And I talked to my coach at the time. And she said, Tracy, how are you doing? And so I tell her like, oh, it's been a crazy two weeks, you know, I've had this fall, we had Thanksgiving. It's been really annoying, because I can't, you know, really take care of myself right now. And she's like, Excuse me What? I'm like, Yeah, it's really annoying. It's just slowing me down. It's all good. I'm almost I'm almost back to normal. And so she says, um, how are you doing? I'm great. I'm good. I'm just, you know, bored and annoyed. She's like, Okay, well, how are you doing? And again, I did the whole upgrade. I'm just annoyed or getting through this. And so then she asked one more time, Christy, how are you doing? And I probably had the most expensive crime in my life. I just lost it for about 15 minutes. I could not control my crying had no idea what it was going coming from. And it actually terrified me, because I was not a crier. I was. The only time I cried is I'm going to watch sappy movies. And that was an intentional, like, I'm gonna go have a moment. And it was weird. And so that's when I really started to get curious. What does this mean? This was a December, bout January, I started learning. I started having a ton of awareness where I'm like, What is this, this is the unconscious brain and eventually started putting some language to it recognized that I was just controller ego, and it is manipulating my life. The irony is that when I was in medical sales, I would walk the halls and I was really trying, you know, I see all these people in the hospital by themselves and it broke my heart didn't really understand why are they here dying by themselves. And so I wouldn't sell rooms, I would talk to them on my lunch break. And the most common things I heard were, I worked so hard I you know, I missed out on all the things that were important or I've worked For my family to make things happen, but they were gone by the time I retired, whatever it was, the story was very similar all the way across. I wasn't there as basically what happened or I didn't prioritize my personal life. And it hit me in that moment that I was going to create that life for myself, I was going to be alone in a hospital room, the thing I feared the most was the thing I was unconsciously creating, I was almost 30, I hadn't dated in 10 years, I wasn't, you know, building space to buy a home to have a family, any of the things that I said I wanted. And now here I am 30, super unconscious about it. And so that's really what kind of the the big change of perspective was for me, Wow, this is how this happens. Life flies by we make choices, and we're driven by our careers. And I think what really hit me was, it's no longer going to be just men in this hospital rooms, it's going to be women, too. So now we have broken families, from many different angles and or no families at all right? We're having this reality that people aren't having kids, because they're so involved with their career that, before they know it, it's too late. Right. And so, you know, I think that that just really hit home for me. And I started to build out programs started to look at things and really say, Okay, how do I how do I help change this really successful people? You know, a lot of times at this time, coaching was just really for the problem childs in the businesses. And, you know, it was like, No, this needs to be a proactive thing, we've got to get ahead of this, people are not aware of what they're actually doing. And, you know, that's on the personal side. But really, it impacts every relationship at work as well, you know, we, we lead so hard, we think that being the driver, being the controller, or being the friend, is how we're supposed to get ahead. And unfortunately, those all sabotage our success, it's not necessarily getting everybody to the finish line, you might be getting a few ego types to the finish line with you might be some simple people on your team. But the higher up you go, the harder those tactics are, and they don't work as well, when you start getting into higher level leadership.
Jeff Ma
I really appreciate you sharing that. That personal story, but an inspirational story, I think that's a really great story to hear for myself. And I know the listeners, because it really puts a lot into perspective helps us really appreciate a lot more, and maybe take pause and look at our own lives and egos and other potentially hidden drivers in our life. So I really appreciate you for sharing that with us.
Christie Garcia
Absolutely. It's it's a it's my big purpose help people recognize Are you really happy? And are you building success in every category? Because it doesn't have to just be one, one category.
Jeff Ma
Well, Christy, I really appreciate you joining me today this conversation. It's it's been it's been really informative, but also very motivational and and kind of inspiring to share this space with you. So thank you, thank you for taking the time and sharing your wisdom.
Christie Garcia
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure visiting with you. I love the conversations you're having and the wisdom you bringing to people. It's really insightful and motivating as well.
Jeff Ma
Absolutely. I appreciate that. And I appreciate our listeners who hopefully have already read the book, but if you haven't, please check it out. Always a shameless plug for that at the end of every episode. So love as a business strategy. And if you haven't, please subscribe rate podcast, all the good things help us out. And we hope you're appreciating it enjoying all this. I know, you know, talks with people like Christie are kind of what keeps me going every day. So hopefully, it's helping somebody out there as well and that would be worth it. So with that, thank you so much and hope everybody has a wonderful week and we'll see you next time.