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Advocate for the C-Suite: Leading People Driving Profit | The Crude Truth Ep. 139 ft. Keri Laine

Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Rey Treviño III [00:00:00] As you continue to run your successful organizations, is it better to build from the bottom up or from the top down? We talked to an expert on this episode of The Crude Truth.

Narrator [00:00:11] In 1901, at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, the future of Texas changed dramatically, as, like a fountain of fortune, thousands of barrels of oil burst from the earth towards the sky. Soon Detroit would be cranking out Model Ts by the millions, and America was on the move, thanks to the black gold being produced in Texas. Now more than a century later, the vehicles are different, but nothing else has truly change. Sure, there may be many other alternative energy sources like wind and solar and electric. But let’s be honest, America depends on oil and entrepreneurs, and if the USA is truly going to be independent, it has to know the crude truth.

Narrator [00:00:54] This episode is brought to you by LFS Chemistry. We are committed to being good stewards of the environment. We are providing the tools so you can be too. NAPE Expo, Where deals happen. Air Compressor Solutions. When everything is on the line, Air Compressor Solutions is the dependable choice to keep commercial business powered up. Sandstone Group. Exec Crue. Elevate your network, elevate your knowledge. Texas Star Alliance, Pecos Country Operating, fueling our future.

Rey Treviño III [00:01:29] Well, thank you as always for tuning in to another episode of The Crude Truth. As we are now halfway through the year, I know that there are so many businesses out there already looking at things that have gone right for the year. Things that are on pace and things that they’re already saying. What can they do better? Uh, another thing that people are always asking in what you always hear organizational leaders say is it starts at the bottom and you work way up. Or some people say, It takes the top smart individuals to really make a company thrive. Well, I brought on an expert today that successfully does this on a very daily basis and works with these C-suite individuals to come and give those executive solutions that allows these Fortune 500 companies only continue to be successful and thrive even higher. My guest today is Keri Laine. Keri, how are you? I’m doing so wonderful.

Keri Laine [00:02:25] Thank you, thank you for having me.

Rey Treviño III [00:02:27] Well no, thank you so much for coming and thank you for making the time because you are on a whirlwind trip and so I just cannot thank you so much coming in to talk about everything that you guys are doing.

Keri Laine [00:02:38] Yeah, absolutely. It’s great to be here.

Rey Treviño III [00:02:40] Well, tell me, Kerry, you know, at first, I reached out, I was like, Kerry you’ve got such a successful model that you come in, you help businesses out. You almost like, I compare it like the funny movie, The Office, you’re those two guys that come in and all of a sudden just start analyzing everybody. But that’s really not what y’all do. You know, Kerry who are you and what do y’ all do?

Keri Laine [00:03:04] I’m Keri Laine, and I’m going to parlay on the point that you made about the office. One of the things that I think is interesting about what we do that you don’t put in promo material or sales pitches is we’re really advocates for the C-suite. What that means is we partner with them to be able to figure out what’s working, what’s not working, what their derailers are, what’s getting in their way, what historic patterns they have had that we need to identify and figure out how to unlock so that they can really propel forward and move their company forward. But that also starts with them. So a lot of our model begins with self, which is what is your authentic leadership story? And are you owning your true self in that? And then how do we take that to impact others, which is the team and the company that works for them and their mission in whatever they do. But then what’s the impact? So it’s self, others, impact. And when you’re talking about impact, it’s what’s market impact? What’s the legacy impact that you’re trying to leave? And so that’s where we try to draw people through this, I’d say, timeline, but it really starts with who they are. And so we’re allies in trying to develop these relationships, nurture trust, and kind of be the horse whisperer, if you will, of what they’re trying to do and who they’re trying to be and what they are trying to accomplish.

Rey Treviño III [00:04:12] Wow. You know, when you mentioned self others, impact, impact. What made you want to jump into this and you have truly made such an impact in this arena that I don’t think a lot of people really think about, especially when they have large multimillion dollar company.

Keri Laine [00:04:28] I started out, I was very fortunate to start at a young age in HR, and I know that can sometimes be a trigger, bad word, we’re not talking like police or did you wear flip-flops on Friday. We’re talking like, how does the organization structure its talent capital for growth and scalability? So I started my career out on the front lines of HR but then grew into leadership roles with companies that were massively scaling. Industry disruptive companies, I’m talking construction companies, technology companies, manufacturing companies. And back then, I’m not gonna date myself, but 20 or so years ago, the idea that you could take one company, one team and create an infrastructure that was very people-centric. And that could be your leading edge for how you gain capital, how you gained greater customer share, how you’ve gained greater employee loyalty. That became a key differentiator for each of the companies that I had worked for. So it became a wash, rinse, repeat. I’d go in, I’d work with the leadership team on how to create structure to scale. And I had to have some prowess around finances and operations to be able to tie it all together. Also to get that seat at the table so that I wasn’t just considered an HR talking head. And so I had go through my own uphill credibility battles, we’ll call it. But ultimately, when you’ve seen companies go from 100 employees to 4,000, which is. One of the first organizations I worked for. We did that in under four years. We were bought by Hewlett Packard. And if you think about the ability to take a company that was disrupting the mortgage related industry after the housing crash, grow in the way that we did at the speed and the scale that we didn’t, I realized that for me, it felt like a playground. It was so fun.

Rey Treviño III [00:06:10] Okay.

Keri Laine [00:06:10] And it was dynamic and there were multiple things that you could do at the same time to be able to figure out how this company could really get their clicks going to where the CEO at one point said that they always knew that they were out for something big, but they didn’t realize that it would be related to the talent and leadership aspect that was what made it the most successful for them. And I think that’s what we find a lot. I feel like I’m on a mission to be able to help organizations see that that talent factor is one of the most important and most overlooked aspects of growth in an organization. But it’s how you structure to scale. I mean, we’re not like singing kumbaya around a campfire, trying to create happy people. Yeah, that leads to productivity, but it’s more about the business application of how you structured human capital talent to scale

Rey Treviño III [00:06:53] I’m glad you mentioned seeing Camp Fire and being around it, because that is, I think, a lot of times when people are trying to connect, or when people hear that they’re trying to connect the C-suite with the lower. I want to jump on this. You went from, you said they went from $500 to $4,000 in a four-year. $100, $100. I

Keri Laine [00:07:13] I think I was in place.

Rey Treviño III [00:07:16] And in four years, they grew, that’s like a thousand people a year. What was something that you could share to where, like I see some companies that, especially when we guess that like, hey, we’re about to add 50 people come, I’m like, what? Like really? Like how? You know, what was it something that differentiated y’all and allowed that to…

Keri Laine [00:07:37] One of the things that we were most known for at the time was actually featured in the Wall Street Journal. It was a program called Fastlane. And so we reached an impact area where we couldn’t recruit anymore. We were recruiting senior level underwriters. And again, after the housing crash, the clients and customers that we had were big bank logos. They had to be able to have the credibility and the underwriters, so it had to very senior. There’s only so many senior underwrites out there. So we’re either going to start scraping from bottom of the barrel talent, B-level talent, which wasn’t an option for us. And so we created this Fastlane program, but what essentially it was, was taking the job task of what that senior underwriter would do and broke it out. And if you can picture like a conveyor system, we went to the local colleges and universities and we got graduates in certain degrees that would be able to do that lower level conveyor belt work. And the co-signing and the authorization happened from the senior level, but it gained them greater capacity and productivity. And they were able to then hire in order to serve the needs of all the projects that were there. So we had to take the recruiting model that was very typical in the industry and flip it on its head. And then we had through pilot circumstances be able to prove out that the new underwriter support employees that we were bringing in ran circles around the veterans. And then there was a cultural implication because the senior team thought that they knew what they were doing the whole time. And the ones that we brought in thought that they were better. And in some cases they were, their productivity numbers and measures were higher, but ultimately it created this cultural balance of now how do we make sure that they integrate very well so that they stick, they stay, they work well together. And so we had to create a lot of additional bolt-on programs to ensure that would happen, but that specific program made it to the Wall Street Journal for disrupting the way the entire mortgage industry staffed.

Rey Treviño III [00:09:26] Whoa. Yeah. So, and I think the fact that y’all were able to jump on that and create something so quickly, all I can think of in this maybe a terrible example is they talk about in the book and in the movie the Wolf of Wall Street where the dude gets on and all of a sudden it’s like, I want to come work for you. I think you probably did it a little bit more organized than he did, especially to grow in such a high capacity but you were a disruptor. Yeah. But in a positive way and you didn’t come off as a disruptor. Is that correct?

Keri Laine [00:09:58] Oh, they knew that we were doing something different. And I think what was really interesting, back to the C-suite leadership mentality, they had to have the resilience and the ability to stand up to the clients and the big banks to be able to say, we know what we’re doing. You have to trust us. We’re willing to prove it out because they were told this was impossible all along. And if they had listened and they hadn’t had the belief in the faith in themselves and in what we were creating, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere. And at the end, like that was their mentality and their ability to stay open-minded to change and to doing something differently is what led the industry to see the entire hiring process differently. And to your point, that’s where we did become known as the disruptor over time, so. Right.

Rey Treviño III [00:10:40] Right. But it was over time. It wasn’t just like overnight going, Hey, I’m here. I’m the disruptor. Right. Um, I want to stick with the C-suite and talk about self cause it’s self others impact. So CEO calls you up, you know, what is it about the self? And again, you, you you already mentioned these guys and how they, they, they stuck for their guns, but how confident are most C-Suite individuals when it comes to that kind of

Keri Laine [00:11:04] What’s amazing, I had this conversation with a client the other day, what’s amazing is that every time that somebody arrives, and it doesn’t matter what level, and doesn’t matter even if you’re already the CEO, but you reach the next pinnacle point, you never feel like you belong there. And you never feel like deserve to be there. And imposter syndrome could be a trigger word, it’s real, but ultimately, if you haven’t been where you haven’t before, you don’t really know what that’s supposed to feel like, and if feels different. And that makes them question themselves and it makes them wonder, why did I really do this? Am I doing it for the right reasons? Am I as happy as I thought doing it? Am I leading people the right way? And they take this burden of responsibility that becomes this heavy pack that instead of being uplifting like a rocket booster, it becomes like a pack of you’re hiking Mount Everest, like it just the waste them down. And so I think what’s interesting is that these points, we’ll call them the punctuated equilibrium, like they reach these highs and then they sort of pause. And it’s amazing how insecure, and I don’t mean secure in a bad way, but I mean how much they question reality themselves, what they’ve built, if they’re the right one. And that has been the most interesting thing to me is that you’ve got these major powerful people that you think have it all together. And ultimately when they close the door and they’re with their family or they lay their head down at night or they get on the phone with me, like. They’re really cracking in some ways inside. But I also believe that the cracks are where the light comes through, right? So those are the opportune moments for us to figure out what does this mean for you and what can you do with this fear and all that. So I don’t know if that answers your question, but.

Rey Treviño III [00:12:38] Wow, I do like that metaphor about, you know, the cracks is where the light comes through. I will say that because that’s a positive spin on the cracks. Yeah. Because I know you don’t want to crack under pressure. Yeah. And so I do, I like that as a positive metaphor right there. OK, so you work with these guys, and they’ve now got their self-taking care of. What about others? What is it about that that they’re doing to make things better?

Keri Laine [00:13:06] I think once they recognize their true authentic leadership style and what they’re comfortable with and not, and they start to own that, and start to really get solidified in what that is, and that really resonates from here. If you’re not aligned with the decisions you’re making or the way you handle conflict or triggers that you have when other people approach you, if you’re aligned in serving who you are to your core values, then you’re always going to be a little wayward flailing, but. If you get that part, that authentic self part, you then lead differently. And so that’s where we go from self to others, which it could be your immediate team, it could your entire company. But ultimately, what is the way in which you lead forward? How do you support people? Is it servant leadership related? Are you accessible? Are you leading through others? And every company at every stage has a different leadership need, which also is really difficult because they can’t be the same person throughout the entire journey of their company’s growth. They have to evolve always. And so as the company evolves, their leadership style needs to change. And so how is it that they’re serving others in the process in order to make the company most profitable, make the biggest impact, get the greatest market share and all things they set out to do, so.

Rey Treviño III [00:14:16] And you really kind of, I think, just answered unless you want to go into more detail, but then it’s like, how does that make an impact? And you’ve said it now twice, really. It’s like hey, with the C-suite, understanding what the others need, that impact in the market really allows them to grow that market space. Is that correct?

Keri Laine [00:14:35] Yeah, and I think the peripheral changes. So again, if you imagine like you’re climbing a mountain, your view of how everything looks on the ground elevates, right? And so you start to see things differently. You can see more, you can see farther. And what I see happen to leaders that really get it is they start to understand their impact in the market, but they start thinking about prosperity and legacy. And prosperity and legacy is no longer just your own company. It’s how are we shifting the industry? How are we industry leaders? How are evolving ourselves to stay not only ahead of our customers. Needs, but also our competitors needs. But how are we bringing the industry along? And you start to see this impact that generates far more of a ripple effect than just their own company brand and their own companies logo. Those are the people that ultimately end up, I think, actualized in the leadership realm. They join boards. They are now leading other CEOs in the industry because they’ve been there, done that. And that peripheral continues to climb to a higher peak. Which is I think really leads to that legacy work and what prosperity ultimately means, right? So.

Rey Treviño III [00:15:36] Man, when you talk about the impact, the industry leaders, and then once you jump on these boards, I really like the way you’re sharing this. Like, hey, you do have to work around those people. It almost goes back to what your five, your circle of five, right? Who’s in that and how are you getting better? And also how are learning from those individuals? And the way that you’re saying, hey, with that impact, that is really Very fascinating and I think it really says a lot and it’s like if you’ve got CEOs that are truly taking that time, how good can that business be and what level can it go to?

Keri Laine [00:16:16] And you can see many examples out there, but when I think of a prosperous leader that’s leaving a legacy, it’s not a CEO that’s grown a great brand or has a solid name. It’s a CEO, that’s thinking of future generations and thinking of how does the economic global impact tie into the work that we do, tie into bigger picture, you know, social politics, like all of these things, like how does all that connect and how are we serving that? And when they start thinking at that level, you realize that there is true legacy work that leads forward to the next generation. And we don’t know what the next generation is going to be doing. It’s gonna be very different than, you know, when we were kids and what our parents were doing. So the world continues to evolve, especially with the pace of technology. But ultimately, the essence of being able to think at that levels is one of the differentiators that I see through CEOs or very senior executive leaders that really know how to make a big difference. So.

Rey Treviño III [00:17:11] Now Kerry, for those out there that are just so interested, how can they get in contact with your company?

Keri Laine [00:17:15] They can find me on LinkedIn. That’s probably the biggest point. So under Keri Laine, our website is kles.pro But yeah

Rey Treviño III [00:17:25] Um, you know, one thing you mentioned, I want to come back to the self part is you mentioned the, not like once you get to a level with like, am I supposed to be, um, do you ever feel like there’s certain times like, like when you get that next level, it’s almost like you’re given that opportunity again. Like, yeah, you’ve made it here. Now it’s, almost like it’s the same style of opportunity, but you’ve got another chance to, yeah. Chance to do it. Even though you’ve stair stepped, but it’s like, okay, what do I do with this? I’ve do is that is that a thing like to feel that way?

Keri Laine [00:17:59] But what I find so interesting is they, leaders in this situation almost become desensitized to the traumas and triggers or fears that they had at the last phase. So they attack it with more confidence, they approach it with greater resilience, and they’re able to think more clearly. The first time you go through something, anything, whether it’s positive and it’s a big capital inflection, say you’ve raised a ton of money, the way that feels the first time is not the same way it feels the second, third, fourth, and fifth time, even if you might be raising larger rounds, right? But ultimately you become wiser in how to deal with the emotions around it, how to lead your team around it. How to create that, you know, greater impact. But ultimately that is where I think it’s interesting that you’re, you’re given these opportunities and these experiences, but through each one of them, you evolve. You can’t help, but evolve. And in the, in the trauma times or the catastrophic times that might come, whether it’s, it’s restructuring or major layoffs or market kind of crash your plans for the next year. That the first time that happens it feels like this huge weight and it’s very overwhelming you can’t see through it you don’t know what The other side looks like once you get through that one time It’s gonna happen again and to your point every single inflection point of their growth. It ultimately helps them Figure out what they’re capable of it goes back to that self, right? They know what they can do They know What they’ve seen before and so they do what worked again and they learn more quickly how to avoid or how to work Through what didn’t work. So well the first times so

Rey Treviño III [00:19:29] Wow, I do like the way that does make sense. It’s like, hey, if you’ve got another opportunity, you’re just a little bit more smarter than you were last time. And I guess the real question is, what do you do with it, right? Yeah. And I also guess it also comes back to logic. You know, it’s like is this the smartest choice? Yeah. Or what is the smart choice to make here? So ideally, your ideal client, somebody that you see, you’re like, oh my gosh, that person I can help. Yeah. If that’s okay, what would be that person, you know?

Keri Laine [00:20:00] We love teams and individuals that are reaching a massive change, whether it’s in their own personal career or in their company trajectory or in the market, right? AI is doing that for a lot of companies right now. So we’re seeing a lot of change points where people don’t know what they don’t, know but then how do you adopt through that change curve? That’s one area that I get really excited about when I see a company going through something like that. Conflict. People don’t like conflict. We love to help people work through conflict. So whether it’s founders arguing, a new CEO that’s not used to a board that they’re reporting to, there’s conflict there. Really, how do we align and assimilate the relationships at the top to be able to help them execute better and faster than they would on their own? So whether its change, conflict, whether it new hires, new C-level hires are a really big deal that have a significant ripple effect. The assimilation for the team, for the board, and for the people that work for them creates… You can take 18 months to onboard and have somebody productive in that level of a role, or through assimilation, some of our work, you can do it in six, and where are they more profitable, right? They can get more profitable if they’re able to adapt to their team and their surroundings and their culture and their people a lot better, a lot faster that way. So those are the kind of things that we look for is those change inflection. Another one is capital inflection…

Rey Treviño III [00:21:17] Capital Influx.

Keri Laine [00:21:18] So you’re raising money, you’re looking to go public, you are looking for an exit, those are all factors that indicate change is coming, conflict is coming and that’s where we are able to come in and help.

Rey Treviño III [00:21:29] Oh, wow. Okay. So I mean, the word I heard a lot there was conflict. One of my favorite one of my quotes I enjoy is from Abraham Lincoln, where he always says, I don’t like that, man. I need to get to know him better. Yes. Is that kind of true in which I’ll do is like just having people understand more or you know, how do y’all really dive into the conflict.

Keri Laine [00:21:51] That’s a great question. I think it’s actually about understanding and I am gonna go back to self because I really believe this is the root Of where it starts if you have conflict it does it is about understanding the other person better But it’s also about understanding yourself better. Why are you triggered by it? Why aren’t you disassociated from an outcome? Why are you holding on to something that you think you need to hold on to and Does it require boundaries in order to be able to execute effectively? And so I think all of those things are the wars that I see within people they either don’t know how to establish the boundary, which creates conflict. They don’t how to accept a boundary, which creates a conflict, or they haven’t figured out yet what bothers them about this person or this situation. And so the way I describe it is, imagine if you’re a fighter in a ring. Yeah. If you’re in the ring, you’re ready to Duke. Like you’re going toe to toe. Yeah. Right? You’re getting ready to go at it. So your adrenaline’s going, there’s a lot of cortisol happening, there’s all the stress hormones, you are in it. But if you take a step back and remember that you own the ring, you see it from above. And when you see from above, you don’t have the same perspective. You see it form a place of, but we’re putting on the entire event. I’m not in the ring fighting with you. I’m putting on this event because I’m the leader. I’m one that’s running this. And so then you start to see people differently instead of seeing yourself in that ring with them toe to toe.

Rey Treviño III [00:23:12] That’s that’s deep like that changes a lot like just in my own perspective and certain things It’s like because I always kind of use that with like jerry jones or other people going. Hey He owns the daesk house. He can do what he wants. I mean, it doesn’t matter what my what I say about, you know um, but And that’s probably how he looks at it. Um, it’s like I don’t just i’m not just in the ring. I own the ring

Keri Laine [00:23:37] and you see the bigger picture and you see it for many things of what it is and you kind of get out of your own way. And I think that’s where I see people get stuck. 30 railers are, they purposefully, subconsciously, but put themselves into battles that they actually don’t really need to be in. They waste a lot of time, a lot of mental energy, a lots of emotional energy and just if they can rise above from that perspective, they see it, that’s how you create that leadership. But there’s different decision making, different relationship building, different support. That’s the other’s part of the leadership journey, so.

Rey Treviño III [00:24:06] So let me ask you this, when you finally have a CSU executive that just saws like, oh, big picture, is it the little things that they got to stress about? Some people believe don’t sweat the small things. Other people believe if you take care of the small thing, there’s never a big problem. Where do you lie into that?

Keri Laine [00:24:28] I think if you have the right people around you and they’re looking after the small things, it’s like they’re, they’re looking after your blind spots. They’re looking, it’s like having a Sherpa when you climb Mount Everest, right? Like they’re looking for all the ways that you could be in danger or hurt for the whole company, for the leadership team and for the person that’s leading it. And so I think if you’re going on that treacherous journey of building an epic business, it’ really hard. Having those people take care of that allows you to stay looking up at the top and saying, well what’s the weather like up there? Are clouds coming, are they coming faster than we thought? And if they do, what’s our decision? And that’s where your Sherpa can like create some kind of recommendation. Maybe we go down, maybe we pause, maybe set up camp. But as the leader, your ultimate accountability is to protect the organization and be able to make those decisions. And you can’t make those solid decisions if you’re not looking 10 steps ahead. And so that’s why I think that the true leaders that again, going back to shining and making the greater impact. They’re the ones that are able to see that, but they can’t do that if they’re clouded by different judgment in what I call the thrash or the miscellaneous random things that are creating conflict. You need a strong team around you to be able to get to that point, which is where the team is incredibly important. Who you have with you is very important on that journey. Yeah. But I think the ones that are looking broader. They’re the ones that are able to see those headwinds coming faster and make the pivots faster than anybody else. And that’s how they stay ahead from a competitive advantage. Thanks for watching!

Rey Treviño III [00:25:54] It’s all about having the right people surround you. Uh, and I would say knowing and using the, the group around you in the best way possible are knowing their needs and characteristics and how that can help you grow. Is that a way to put it?

Keri Laine [00:26:07] Yeah, absolutely. And everybody has a different individualized style. So knowing what that is, where I see some CEOs have significant downfalls is when they think their way is the way. That’s not saying you’re wrong. It’s just saying somebody else might think differently. And what do you do with that? Do you force your way and expect that they follow without being able to raise their hand and offer any additional insight or suggestions or support, or do you just imagine that? You are the one that holds the power. And so you’re the one that controls everything. And I think that that’s where they go wayward is that it’s very egotistical point, like a way of leading. And the ego, if you think about when we were, I’m gonna go off on a tangent here for a second, but if you’re under the age of seven years old, you live in a very egocentric state. People are there to feed you, serve you, make sure you stay alive. As an adult that’s running a large organization. You are not a six year old that’s living in a subconscious state. People are not there to feed you, make sure you stay alive, right? Like you evolve to a conscious state where you have your own decisions, your own feelings, your own vernacular about that. Use that as a way to disseminate some of the leadership power around you instead of thinking it’s, you know, rises, starts and falls with you. So it’s not a control power thing. It’s more of a how do we disseminate it and empower others.

Rey Treviño III [00:27:29] That’s a, that’s a lot. Wow. Wow, that, that I can see that it’s something, especially as someone in a leadership role that you’ve got to be open. I do think experience comes into play, especially in the oil and gas place. It was like, well, we’ve seen this before. Let’s, let’s do this. Or also the other thing is about being an oil and gas, it’s that old school, ah, we been, you know, everybody’s done it this way for a hundred years. We’re going to keep going. And then that’s when you’re like, Hey, but here’s, let’s try this. Let’s see what we can do. And I think being a leader that has that open mind that you’re talking about, I think is a way to continue to grow. And it’s not a sign of weakness. Is that correct?

Keri Laine [00:28:12] Not at all. No, I think it’s a sign of massive courage. And so to your point, using the word weakness, what’s the opposite of that? Many people think strength. Right. Well, where does bravery and courage fall in that you can be weak, but still have courage, right? You can be strong and lack courage. So I think the ones that make the most courageous moves that are very brave, even if they’re not, but they can pretend to be brave until they get there. Those are the ones that are going to be able to disrupt industries and carry. The ecosystem around them further than others. So we’re all flawed, we all have weaknesses. So that’s there. What do you do with it and how do you lead through it?

Rey Treviño III [00:28:50] Now is there a difference between a weakness and a vice? Just totally random.

Keri Laine [00:28:53] I think a vice is probably akin to a coping mechanism that’s generated from a trigger. Oh, man, okay, I like it. So a trigger is something that subconsciously or consciously irks you, right? It’s like stepping on a rock in your shoe. And then your vice is like, how do you solve that pain? Yeah. Resolution is take off the shoe and get the rock out, right. But people will go for miles with the rock in their shoe trying to figure out how to cope. And they’ll use vices, like take Tylenol, you won’t feel the rock. I don’t know, like, whatever. But ultimately, the vice is being able to take something to help you ignore what’s actually going on. Generated by triggers that you don’t always consciously realize are the root of what your issues are.

Rey Treviño III [00:29:39] You know, when you talk about triggers and there’s also other type of trauma triggers or things, right? And, um, you know, as a C-suite, do you see that our, as someone that coat that, that, um comes in and assist with companies, do you see CEOs that have these types of old school traumas or triggers or so forth? Yes.

Keri Laine [00:30:01] As part of our engagements, one of the things that we start with is what I call the loop. And so back to that subconscious state of mind, have you ever been driving, you have highway hypnosis? Highway hypnosis. Yeah, you just sort of get where you got and you don’t remember how and you’re sort of in the zone and you sort of like, oh, I’ve arrived, you don t remember turning the left blinker at this one street and what happens under the age of about seven years old is we live in a subconscious state that’s also that egocentric state. After you graduate from seven to, say, like, 12. You start to learn vocabulary, and you realize that people aren’t all there to serve you. You now have teachers, you have neighbors, you start see the world in a different perspective, and you start being able to use your vocabulary to attach to feelings, whereas in the subconscious state under seven, you have these feelings, but you don’t exactly know what they are, right? You don’t know how to name them. So then you move from that standpoint to confidence. So we’ve moved from ego to self-esteem to confidence, and that’s where I think leadership really roots, the people that are stuck in an egocentric state. Are the ones that don’t evolve as fastly or as strongly as the other leaders that have healthily evolved through all those phases and what derails them, there’s some events that happen in our lives as young people. Think again, under the age of seven, if you’ve had a traumatic event and you had to tell yourself something to cope, whereas you couldn’t ask for help, you couldn’t say I’m scared, you couldn’t say I’m hungry, it’s a Maslow’s hierarchy kind of threat. And you had to figure out a way to cope through that yourself. And we’ve all had a moment like that. That loop stays in your subconscious until you can identify it, name it, and then use it for your superpower. So for example, like I have mine. I don’t know if you want me to share mine. Like I figured out what mine is. Ultimately, it was very early on. My parents were arguing, watching them argue in a window. My brother was trying to distract me and I was really hungry and I tired. And I remember looking. The deadly combination already.

Rey Treviño III [00:31:57] Right, it seems that way.

Keri Laine [00:31:59] But I remember looking in the window and I was like, if they love me enough, they just feed me like I’m hungry or do they not see me? But again, I’m living in that subconscious egocentric state. All that to say that am I enough loop stayed with me, which is where I have built a career on helping leaders believe they’re enough. Companies prove they’re Enough. But it’s also been some of my most insecure areas of life. I have picked project. I’ve picked people that don’t believe they’re enough and I have made it my journey to fix them because I don’t want them to feel what I felt. But once I was able to identify that my loop is like, am I enough, I dropped out of high school. Yeah. I don’t know if you knew that. I dropped outta high school before I went and got my master’s and did all of this. And it’s because I didn’t feel like I was enough. I didn’t feel like was good enough. And so that enough theme. In my life has been a driver in many cases and everybody has something like that in them that to your point at the most senior level, the pressure that’s put on you, the risk that’s been on you the weight that’s putting you for decisions and all these people whose families you feed that is a way to trigger.

Rey Treviño III [00:33:09] That last part that you’re responsible for feeding that that keeps me up. Yeah, that’s tense. Yeah Well, Keri, I I cannot thank you enough again for those out there that are ready to dive in and grow their business because again self Others and then with that you make that real impact that changes your business to grow. Yep Um, how can people get a hold of y’all?

Keri Laine [00:33:32] LinkedIn would be great. Keri Laine on LinkedIn. Our website, email is pretty easy. Keri, K-E-R-I, at KeriLaine, L-A-I-N-E.com. So email me too. That’s it, yeah.

Rey Treviño III [00:33:45] Oh my gosh. Well, Keri, again, just thank you so much for the time. And especially as you were coming through the DFW area, definitely, I think, kind of diving into even more on another time and picking some more topics, because God knows as the year continues on, only more and then everybody’s going to want to know what what to do next. Yes. Yes. So I cannot thank you enough. Thanks for having me on. It’s been fun. And to all our viewers and listeners out there, if you got any questions, please reach out or reach out to her and we’ll see you again on another episode of The Crude Truth.

Narrator [00:34:19] Again, the crude truth would like to thank today’s sponsors, LFS Chemistry, NAPE Expo, Air Compressor Solutions, Sandstone Group. Exec Crue, Texas Star Alliance, Pecos Country Operating, and Real News Communication Network.

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