Humanizing Leadership – Building Authentic Presence with Katherine Lazaruk

Brad Minus: [00:00:00] And welcome back to another episode of life changing challengers. As always, I am your host, Brad minus, and I am super lucky to have Catherine Lazarik with us today. She is a professional presence expert, an executive coach. And the author of executive being humanizing business one leader at a time. Hey, Catherine, how are you doing today?

I'm well, thanks. How are you? I am excellent and much better that I'm speaking with you. I'm excited. But the first question, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood, where you grew up, what was the complement of your family and what was it like to be Catherine as a kid?

Katherine Lazaruk: I would be happy to share that. I grew up in a small town in northern BC called Prince George, which has about 85, 000 people. And I grew up in my immediate family with my mother and my father and my brother. My family is really, really good at [00:01:00] the basics. They're super great at food, housing, education, extracurricular activities.

They're really great at all that stuff. They have a great sense of humor. They're super gritty. They're very smart people and so I got the experience of like learning how to read really early so I could read by the time I was age four. My mother's a teacher, dad's a boiler maker, a welder, and he traveled a lot for work.

So we had my mom at home quite a lot and he was away a lot for work. Brother played hockey. And I sang in a choir when I was growing up in a competitive children's choir in Prince George, which is kind of a, it seems a bit odd to have a high level competitive choir in a small city like that. But I just happened to luck into a choir director that had high standards.

So that was really great. And it was interesting because what my family didn't get is they didn't really understand how to [00:02:00] manage emotional things. So lots of feelings, but they didn't really understand kind of what to do, like I'm a person who has a really big emotional range and they didn't really know what to do with feelings, like they didn't really feel their own feelings.

They didn't really know what to do with mine and turns out that that's actually kind of a bedrock of my personality. So I kind of missed that part in terms of coaching and development. So I've been spending the last number of years. Working on it and figuring out how to harness the power of that and how to stay regulated and how to surf the waves so that then my frontal cortex can come back online and I can make decisions clearly with all of the information that the emotional wave gives me.

And then move forward. 

Brad Minus: Well, that's interesting. So your brother played hockey and you live in Canada. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Dad coached. I had to learn about hockey and self defense cause it wasn't really my thing, we spent a lot of time at the rink.

Brad Minus: So do you never got on the skates? 

Katherine Lazaruk: No, I [00:03:00] mean, I did figure skating because that's the thing, you know, you do figure skating, you do swimming, you do all the different sportsy type things, but I never really did team sports. My brother and father played golf, so they golfed quite a bit. And so I would be on the golf course tagging along, but yeah, I'm not much of a sportsy person and I'm not really sure why.

I think I just went artsy. 

Brad Minus: So you were in the choir. That's great. So were you in the choir all the way through high school? 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah, I started when I was 10 and went all the way through till I graduated high school at the age of 17. And it was interesting because when I first started, my mother and Sandra Meister, who was the director, they sat beside each other at a teacher's workshop and that's how my mother found out about the choir.

And she said, Oh, I have a daughter who loves to sing, but I could not sing. I was like loud and I couldn't sing more than about, I don't know, five. My range was really limited and I couldn't sing in tune for very long. So it was interesting that I managed to get into this choir. And then that, of course, Transformed my ability [00:04:00] dramatically.

And when I left school, I actually went to university for opera and then sang professionally for a short time after graduating. 

Brad Minus: Really? Yeah. That's fantastic. So this is some things that I have not shared with on this podcast is that, when I was in high school, I wasn't good at sports, but I liked sports.

So I was on the sporting side, but I love musical theater. So I used to go to wrestling practice and put on my Dance gear and then go to dance class for two hours, three hours. So, and then of course, I mean, I had a vocal coach as well.

And then I went to school, when I went to university, one of them, the majors was fine arts, acting, directing. So yeah, so I've been there, done that. And, I loved it. Absolutely loved it. So I get it. I totally get it. And I love the arts. 

Katherine Lazaruk: You have the perfect mix of training for, like, being a star in the WWE.[00:05:00] 

I know that's not real wrestling, obviously, but 

Brad Minus: What? Of course it's real. 

Katherine Lazaruk: I said that out loud. That was my inside voice. It's entertainment. It's great. I grew up watching wrestling George the animal and Hulk Hogan and the whole, I grew up watching those guys.

So okay, brother. 

Brad Minus: Well, you're right. Yeah. So, so university, so is that your, what about your major was, was opera was, yeah, that was my first 

Katherine Lazaruk: degree. And then my parents said, get a real job. So then I did a degree in education, and that's what funneled me into singing professionally and then teaching music in the elementary school system 

Brad Minus: oh, nice. I love it. I went to a, what you at the time it was, it was a educational college. So it was a teaching college. And now I thought about it, but I was like, I don't want to do that. But my parents said the exact same thing, you know, you get a real job. I have a communications degree and I have a master's in [00:06:00] business.

So, that happened. I'm right there with you. Performing, wanted to perform, kept performing and then, got into other things like endurance sports. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: That's all right. 

We're here to talk about you. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Come on. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. So you, finished up school. Did you do anything else while you were in school? Were you part of any other, extracurricular activities? 

Katherine Lazaruk: It was just music was, is pretty all consuming when you're in the program because you're doing rehearsals, you're, you know, long days, you're in class.

In the summers, I would go back to Prince George and work as a telephone operator for the phone company. And then when I graduated my education degree in 95, then I worked as a telephone operator for the phone company in Vancouver.

And then I just stayed down here in Vancouver for the rest of, now I've lived here longer than I lived in Prince George. 

Brad Minus: That's nice. That's our stop to go to Alaska, at least from here. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah, it's true. I've always loved Vancouver. So even when I was a kid, my mother grew up here in Burnaby, which is a suburb of Vancouver, like it's [00:07:00] just basically one street away.

From Vancouver. It's just literally it's all city, right? So it's just the next municipality over and she grew up in Burnaby. So we would come down every summer and visit my Baba and my Guido and my cousins and aunt and uncle and I have always loved Vancouver. So I was when it was a choice of university to go to Edmonton or Vancouver.

The choice was pretty easy for me to get to go to Vancouver instead. Weather is much nicer. 

Brad Minus: It is. 

Katherine Lazaruk: If you love snow, you would love Edmonton. But it's not that I don't love snow, but I love Vancouver. 

Brad Minus: I live in Tampa, Florida for a reason. I grew up in Chicago. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Chicago's great city. 

Brad Minus: Oh, not the moment, but growing up there, it was nice, from April till November. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Mm hmm. 

Brad Minus: From December till March was not so nice. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Cold. 

Brad Minus: Super cold. Yeah. So I didn't mind the snow, but the cold is really what, what bothered me. So, so yeah, that led me down here to Tampa.[00:08:00] 

Katherine Lazaruk: I know. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. And I totally like slap myself because, here in Tampa, for some reason, 50 degrees Fahrenheit. It feels much colder than 50 degrees in Chicago because of the humidity and like slap myself. I'm like, minus you're from fricking Chicago.

Katherine Lazaruk: Once you get, it's the same in Vancouver that it's very damp cold. So once you get down here, minus 10 Celsius feels like minus 20. In a drier climate, it's not the same. 

Brad Minus: No, I hear you. So you went and you kept on this with this, telephone operator, which I'm assuming was more digital than, I mean, you weren't pulling things out and putting things back 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yes. Yes, I was because I started out as a radio operator. So they still had the plug, the cord board, the plugin, the manual time clock. Yeah. The pb believe it or not, in the nineties we still had the [00:09:00] plugin cord board. And I was for like super remote places in the world, so, or like in bc.

So I would be on graveyard shift and I'd get the call at 3:00 AM from Kit Kala or some like place out, like some of the logging camps. It has lots of marriage proposals. You know, that kind of thing. It was fun. 

Brad Minus: Did you plug your nose sometimes when you like, when you talked? Did you like, Oh, hello.

Okay. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Never did.

Brad Minus: How can I direct your call? 

Katherine Lazaruk: No, we never did that. We know the most, the most trouble we got into is sometimes have like fights with the courts, cause then you could shock each other. At the time, there's a bunch of college students goofing around.

What are you going to do? Right? 

Brad Minus: , I hear you, so what were you, so, you had graduated with a teaching degree. 

Katherine Lazaruk: I did. Well, so that was my summer job. So then I got into teaching. I actually, because I had a music specialty, it was easy for me to get.

I started out as a sub and then I got a part time contract and then I got in the following year. So I was quite lucky. The [00:10:00] first year I was out on the job, I substituted at a school. They needed someone for like this strange little part time gig that was just every afternoon with nine grade ones because it was a kindergarten grade one split and the kindergartens would go home.

And so my teaching partner taught the kindergarten grade one in the morning and I taught the grade ones in the afternoon. And then the next year, like what happens up in Vancouver is you get. You get a temporary contract and then you get let go and then you get another temporary contract. So you move around quite a bit when you're first starting out.

So I did that first year and then I went to another small school and did different job shares. And yeah, I think I went to three or four different schools 

Brad Minus: in the course of the first four years. Did you remain in that elementary grade level or did you actually move around? Different ones? 

Katherine Lazaruk: No, I stayed.

No. And my last postings were all music. So I taught music from kindergarten to grade four. 

Brad Minus: Did you enjoy it? 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yes. Okay. There were parts of it that I enjoyed, but mostly I enjoyed ditching the curriculum [00:11:00] altogether and thinking to myself, okay, what do these kids need to be musically literate at an age appropriate level by grade four?

And that's what I taught them. So I was a bit of a, I get my laughs, swear, bit of a shit disturber like, okay, I'm not doing this. This doesn't make any sense to me. I tend to follow common sense quite a lot. And so in this case, I was thinking, this is. Like, why am I teaching all these things when I could be teaching them practical skills?

Brad Minus: Right. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Dual musical development, as opposed to play, I mean, yes, you want to teach things through gamification, but I'm playing games is lovely. It's not in my opinion, an active musical education. 

Brad Minus: I get it. 

Katherine Lazaruk: But it's not education. 

Brad Minus: I mean, there's some math that goes on. I try not to, I'm trying to stay away from my own thing, but I don't tell a lot of people this stuff. I went through from third grade till my senior year in high school. I played, clarinet all the way through. And then I, you know, in the band and then I played, saxophone [00:12:00] once I got to high school, and I think it was E flat clarinet and bassoon once, because of the fingering is pretty much the same.

All you had to do is get the armature. So I understand it, but that's amazing. And we need good teachers, so you're not doing it now, but we definitely, at least here in the States, we are starving for good teachers. 

Katherine Lazaruk: It's interesting because I did think about getting like applying for a green card and coming to work in the states because of course the Opportunities for singing are greater in California than they are here.

But when I found out that teachers were so poorly paid They couldn't live so I'm like, well, what's the point of that? I might as well just stay in Canada and try to travel and see what else I can do and work up here cuz up Here teachers they aren't super well paid, but they're certainly paid better than teachers throughout the states 

Brad Minus: And there are some states that, pay better than others.

My state of Illinois paid much better. We, I, I knew a gym teacher that, that, and retired, after 25 years and his retirement was almost double what he actually was being paid as a [00:13:00] salary because the way that the investments were working in the pension. So, yeah. So, and then of course he was a gym teacher and he was like, yeah, it was the easiest job in the world.

I sat down and read the paper. Told, told him how to shoot and, and, and dribble and said, go play. And then I sat and then, and he is like, I sat in the bleachers and I read my paper. I was like, that was it. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Okay. That is one of the things that drove me out of the system because in our system also, you could be the best teacher or you could be the one who reads the paper all day and you still get paid the same.

Right. And there's no opportunity for merit, there's no opportunity for, change for following the students in the same way. At least when I was there. And maybe things have changed, but from my perspective, this is, you know, we know so much more about how kids learn and the system hasn't changed really in 100 years, 

Brad Minus: you know, you're right.

Katherine Lazaruk: Leave me crazy. I was like, this is nuts. 

Brad Minus: How people learn. We are just starting to get out of this standardized testing rut. For years and years and years, it was teach to pass the test, [00:14:00] right? Cause they weren't, people weren't learning. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Not really learning. And you're not teaching how to think you're not teaching them how to look 

Brad Minus: yes. Yes. Yes. But it is a good conversation for all the moms and dads out there to be thinking about this stuff. So it gives it a little bit of an insight. You know, when you're talking about that, especially into a different system, that, you know, that's much different than ours.

Katherine Lazaruk: I think it's important to advocate though, like from the direction of some of your party officials and maybe up here as well are going towards, closing the department of education and shutting down public schools. I think that would be a huge mistake.

Because I think well funded, if you fund your public schools appropriately and you pay your teachers appropriately, you're going to get a much better educated populace. And with the level of civic responsibility that you have in the States, You can't really afford to have a populace that is not educated in its civil responsibilities as well.

And school is a part of that. 

Brad Minus: So the plan was when the, the people that were advocating for getting rid of the Department of Education at the federal [00:15:00] level, mm-Hmm. , was to scale it back way, way, way back to where maintain federal guidelines. But then was able to funnel that money back to the states, then the states would have their own education, education system, but it would save 80 million.

So the 80 million, like 80, 80 billion, I'm sorry, it was 80 billion that they can then use for vouchers and schools and, you know, charter, charter schools and wait for calling school choice, which is what the Republicans are talking about now. But let's get away from politics. No politics today. No politics today.

So, so you, how long did you end up teaching for? 

Katherine Lazaruk: I taught for 12 years, part time. I never worked full time. The largest job I had was four days a week teaching music. So I taught Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, had Wednesday off. And it, by all descriptions, that's a dream job for anybody who wants to be a music teacher.

I mean, I had great kids. [00:16:00] It was a big school. I basically did what I wanted in terms of curriculum. And like I said, I would spend one day each quarter and plan everything out and then I would, you know, come in at 8 30 and leave at 3 30. So I was. Just ran everything really efficiently, but it was still really tough because it's a very, that and opera, both of those careers have very narrow parameters and I'm not a very good small box person.

Brad Minus: Well, that makes sense 

Katherine Lazaruk: yeah, but it took me 12 years to figure it out. 

Brad Minus: I was about to ask you, my next question was, so why did you leave teaching? 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah, I was miserable for one thing and I'm very good at getting what I wish for and I was so miserable that I used to wish something would kill me.

Wow. It was bad. I would stand on the SkyTrain platform and be like, Oh, if I could just trip or somebody would trip and push me, I would die and I could be free. It was bad for me and not bad for [00:17:00] other people that love the kind of structure that that kind of system provides.

But for me, it was bad. I didn't really want to be there. I didn't like the system. I wasn't enjoying a lot of my work. One of my colleagues, when I was retiring from teaching, she said to me, one thing I really admire about you, she says, I know how unhappy you are here, but it never affected the quality of your work.

And I was like, okay, so I've got some resilience and some grit in there. But anyway, when I was diagnosed with a lung tumor, I was like, okay, this is a wake up call. And my husband said, yeah. You need to find something different to do. Like these jobs, opera teaching, it's suffocating you and you need to find something else to do.

And I didn't know what I was going to do. I had tenure. I would have to kill somebody to get fired, basically a guaranteed job for life. And I just knew I couldn't do it anymore. So I went on medical leave and then I just resigned. I had no plan. I didn't know what I was going to do. And I was so [00:18:00] miserable.

Luckily, I'm well resourced. So I had a really good counselor at the time. She really helped me because she said, I was like, okay, what am I going to do? What other job am I going to have? I got to deal with this health situation. I was kind of in a panic about it. And she said, think about the qualities you want your work to have, not the title, not the industry.

Not the job, but what are the qualities you want your work to have? So one of the first things I did before I got to that was just wrote down everything I hated. Just wrote it all out. Big list. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. And then I just looked at what's the exact inverse of that.

Because before I find this ideal job that has all the qualities that I want, I need something to pay the bills. So I can't just go on leave forever. And so I just flipped the inverse. And then six months later, after the diagnosis and after leaving teaching, six months later, I had a job doing corporate training at PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is one of the big five professional services firms like accounting and tax [00:19:00] audit.

The lung tumor was gone. So that's how it worked out for me. 

Brad Minus: All right. Well, we need to step back here for a second. So let's talk about that real quick. So, you know, this is about overcoming adversity and everything else. So tell me about what led you to go to the doctor that ended up coming up with this, with, with the diagnosis.

Katherine Lazaruk: Well, first of all, it was anxiety and depression, and then I couldn't really breathe and I kept coughing and I was sick and I was like, what's happening here? And that was when I went for chest x rays and they're like, oh, okay, there's something here. And then I did the biopsy and the MRI, like, all the tests, and they didn't know what it was exactly.

It was about a ping pong ball sized tumor and it was in the lower left lobe of my lung and they didn't know and my mother had some theories, I guess there's a lung disease in Arizona because they are part time in Arizona, they're snowbirds, and I had gone to visit them and she, apparently there's a disease down there that causes some kind of benign tumors and she was sure that that's what it was, but they didn't [00:20:00] know, so they said, okay, we need to just observe and see what's happening here because the data is inconclusive.

So they said, we'll just watch it and then I came in for my follow up and they're like, okay, well, it's shrinking. So we're just going to, we're just going to watch it some more. 

Brad Minus: And 

Katherine Lazaruk: then the next time I came in, it was gone, 

Brad Minus: no 

Katherine Lazaruk: not in the traditional way, but I also have a really strong belief in the mind body connection.

And when the diagnosis came up, I'm like, Oh, okay. I know what this is. I wanted something to kill me. Oh, here it is. And now I'm free and I don't need to die in order to be free. So I did a lot of visualization. I even stood in front of a mirror and wrote perfectly healthy, like in dry erase pen right over where that part of my body was over my lung.

I would did a lot of visualization. I did a lot of rest. I had a lot of rest, of course. And I did, you know, I did conventional things like, Watching my nutrition, taking better care of myself. So I wasn't completely like out to just [00:21:00] out on the mind body connection, but it's my belief that that was what caused it.

And so that is what cured it. 

Brad Minus: So you got a biopsy. So they, so they literally diagnosed you as a benign, as a malignant tuner. They, 

Katherine Lazaruk: no, it wasn't, they couldn't, they didn't know. 

Brad Minus: So it 

Katherine Lazaruk: wasn't whatever they were looking at. They're like, we don't know. Okay. It does. It's not presenting as traditional malignant.

It's not. We don't know if it's fully benign. We don't know. It was, it was complete. They didn't know. So that you can imagine that was a little bit freaky. I don't know. So where do you go from there? Yeah, it was a wait and see. And the wait and see was really interesting. It's an interesting time. 

Brad Minus: How so?

Katherine Lazaruk: Well, imagine like you've been, you have, you've been told that you have a tumor and you're told that they don't know what it is. And then they're like, okay, we just got to wait and see if it shrinks or see what happens to it. And you're like, okay, great. Well, it could grow. It could metastasize. [00:22:00] I don't know.

And so being in a wait and see period in limbo can be really difficult because it's scary. It's uncertain. It's unknown. There's anxiety around that. So that's what I mean by interesting time. It's like, Hmm. Okay. 

Brad Minus: I get it. Yeah. That part is I, I mean, I can imagine, but I really wanted to hear it from you, from you, right from you.

So, but that's amazing that you were able to, that you really felt like. You know, you took care of this yourself, you know, it wasn't about going to get this poison, um, that is basically put into people for chemo. Right. And don't get me wrong. It's got it's it's there for a reason. 100%. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yes. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, 

Katherine Lazaruk: I fully do Western medical stuff as well.

Like, it's both. So anyway, now we're talking and I'm cutting you off. Yeah, 

Brad Minus: no, no, no, it's okay. I, um, yeah, no, I do a lot of work with some with, with, with cancer. I've been growing up in the, in that kind of, uh, Health field for a [00:23:00] little bit for a little while. I am a regular donator and I do fundraising for the Children's Cancer Center.

So I've been around it. And um, so yeah, so I see these kids going through and literally they're taking this poison to like strip their body of everything. And of course it takes some of the good stuff too. Right. So they got to build that pack later. Um, but it does its job. So, but the sometimes, sometimes the side effects are, are absolutely horrible.

Katherine Lazaruk: And 

Brad Minus: sometimes for kids, they're minimal, which is interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Just have 

Katherine Lazaruk: some resilience in there somewhere. 

Brad Minus: Exactly. And exactly. And that's why the mortality rate for kids is so much better than it is for, for adults. So I 

Katherine Lazaruk: wonder if it's a little component of ignorance is bliss. They don't know enough about cancer, so they can't ruminate on how bad it is and therefore kill their chances of getting better.

Brad Minus: Yeah, but I don't know. But you manifested [00:24:00] yourself. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: Healthy again. 

Katherine Lazaruk: I did. I did. And actually that's the first time I did it and I did it again for a vocal injury. Actually, just a few, just, I don't know, I guess that was six years, six or seven years ago. I was, so I do still sing. And at that time I was singing, fronting a vintage jazz band, like an 18 piece.

Jazz, big band Jazz and singing big band jazz. And we were doing a rehearsal and I hit a high note the wrong way and was like, Oh, I could feel like this pop. And I'm like, that's not good. And so I went to an ENT and they're like, yeah, you have like, basically it looks like a blood blister on the vocal fold.

Like it's. It's, it's basically blew out one of your cords and they said, okay, it's complete vocal rest for three months. And I'm like, well, that doesn't make any, that can't be the only, that can't be true. And so I started Googling around for other options and I found a speech pathologist here in Surrey, which is [00:25:00] another suburb of Vancouver.

And she had a different, different camera, like a different imaging technology. So I went to see her and she took a really clear image of it and she's like, okay, I need to send these films to the voice doctor. the surgeon and he'll get into surgery right away because these things don't heal without surgery.

Just not possible. And I'm like, okay, all right. So took the images. She gave me some vocal exercises to do and I spent like for my business, I spent, I don't know, a month or month and a half doing networking with flashcards. I used my phone and a Bluetooth keyboard with my clients because I wasn't talking, but I was doing these exercises.

And about a month later, month and a half later, okay. Maybe two months later, I finally got an appointment with this doctor and it turns out he had not received the images she had sent him. And when I got to his office two months later, she happened to be there that day. And I said, Hey Sherry, listen to me talking.

And she's like, listen to you talking. What is going on? I said, well, I did your exercises and I, I, I visualized, cause again, I could see cause I had [00:26:00] an image, a literal camera image of healthy vocal cord on one side and the injured vocal cord on the other side. And I just consistently continue to imagine healthy vocal cords.

Did the exercises and so when I got into the, the surgeon's chair, he's like, Oh, you're totally fine. They took another image completely healed. And he said, if I had seen those images, I have had you in surgery the next week. We have never seen this injury heal without surgery.

Brad Minus: What a great case study for the secret, 

Katherine Lazaruk: right? 

Brad Minus: Amazing. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Totally. So, but now have good medical data. Because now they're like, Oh, someone else used these vocal exercises and was able to heal. So then maybe they wouldn't rush to surgery for singers either. Right. Maybe they'd be like, okay, we can try this other protocol first and see if that works better.

Brad Minus: Unbelievable. I, I, I just, I love that aspect of getting people without, you know, [00:27:00] healthy without being cut. And just because I w I worked for a surgeon for four years and you know, it was like, thing was to get them to surgery because that was where the money was like, we need people in the surgery center.

That's where all the cash is made and I just, I, man, I could not stand it in the back of my head. That's all I'm thinking about is, Oh, let's find a way. Let's find a way to get them into surgery for the smallest thing or the biggest thing. Um, so the idea that there are other ways and you're living proof I've, I've heard about it.

Never actually known or spoken to someone that said they did it that actually, you know, I've seen it for emotional stuff I've done it for people have talked about their careers and and professional lives, but I've never anybody talked to me about it as an actual Um, call it for, let's call it a cure, um, for some certain things by using the mind body connection and along with obviously, you know, exercises and things like that, but that's fantastic.

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah. It didn't just happen on its [00:28:00] own, but even, even if you're talking about secret, the secret doesn't do that either. The secret's like, while you pray, move your feet. Actually, I think that's an African proverb, right? Visualize and hope that it happens. It's like visualize and take steps at the same time.

Brad Minus: Yes, yes, yes. So that definitely is there. So, uh, yeah, so you mentioned you were already coaching. So when, um, so, all right, let's step back. You listed all the stuff that you hated, you inversed it, you figured out what you liked. What was the next step there? 

Katherine Lazaruk: So then I had the job doing corporate training.

But so, and that was the inverse of the school in many ways, right? I'm working with adults. I get to go downtown to a nice building. I go up to my office in an elevator. I wear nice clothes all the time. I don't have to worry about getting dirty. I get to eat lunch out, like those kinds of things, right? It was inverse in that way, even though it was still teaching.

But in between that period, I had been working with a coach and he [00:29:00] literally asked me one day, well, what are you going to be when you grow up little lady? Because I was in this transition and I had a vision, it was super weird, but I literally had this vision of the first company name and the first tagline I ever used.

And it was ICU in a circle, Times New Roman font, silver lettering, purple background, image consulting underneath it. And then the first tagline I ever used was intensive care for your image. And I just started to laugh. I'm like, that's not even a real job. Who does that job? And he said, it's a real job.

You could do that job. And because there's no regulation in the industry at all, like you could literally hang your shingle out tomorrow and say, I'm an image consultant and nobody would blink. I thought, okay, I look, all right, I've read some books. I will get a website and some business cards and start practicing.

So that's what I did. And I built my business up around my corporate job. And when I was divinely ejected from my corporate job in the middle of the recession in 2009, thought this is great. I can go to Toronto and I can go [00:30:00] get my training and image consulting and actually get my certifications and then I'll just do this full time.

And so that's what I did after that. 

Brad Minus: More freaking manifestation. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Right. It was so weird. And actually going back to the qualities you want your work to have that question that the counselor asked me a long time ago, I did come up with my five qualities. And my five qualities were freedom, needed to have a lot of flexibility, a lot of autonomy in my work.

Um, beauty and not just physical beauty, but soul beauty. Like I just want, I want my world to be beautiful, beautiful, needed beauty. I needed joy. I wanted to feel joyful in my work and I wanted to have generosity, like an element of give back in my work, uh, legacy and then ease of spirit so that whatever I was doing at any given time, I would have the sense of I'm in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.

But if you had told me that that list of qualities would be met by a job called image consulting, I would have laughed my butt off like, [00:31:00] I'm not that interested in fashion. I don't really like shopping. What are you talking about? Like, this is, this makes me a bit of an outlier in that particular industry because what I'm really interested in is Using image as a vehicle for your self expression and self evolution.

So you can leverage the things about your body, like my belief is whatever container you came here to the planet in is the perfect container to do whatever you're meant to do on the planet. So the sooner you make friends with your container, the easier your life is going to roll. So your container can inform what you're going to do.

It can inform what you're good at. Uh, and if you are really aligned. On the inside and the outside and you make sense to people when they meet you, it's easier to do business. It's easier to communicate. It's easier to have relationships. Life is easier. 

Brad Minus: Interesting. Well, because I would have said, I would have thought the, the difference, I mean, the first [00:32:00] three tenants of what you said, like joy, freedom and beauty right there.

I mean, that seems to align with, with, with what you, you know, what you're doing. Um, so yeah, so that's, that's the first thing I thought, you know, when you said image consulting, but then when you said that you didn't think that that, that would be something that would align with it. And I was like, Oh, I don't know.

I don't think about it. But 

Katherine Lazaruk: this is the beauty of that exercise because then it frees you. To be inspired or to be, you know, given a download or given the answer. If you're not so attached to the title or the job or the industry, I didn't even know that this industry existed because it is still quite young.

Like, it's only about, you know, 25, 35 years old as an industry. And like, even our certifying body is only 25 years old. The Association of Image Consultants, Image Consultants International is only 25. Well, we had our 25th anniversary, so it's young. Like the industry is young. The standards are young. Um, it's evolving as we go.[00:33:00] 

Brad Minus: So you mentioned that you're not really a shopper. You're not really crazy about the whole fashion thing. So then what are you doing as an outlier to separate yourself? 

Katherine Lazaruk: I think it's primarily the way that I approach image work. So the other thing that happened in my career is I was just going along doing my image consulting thing, the way that I did it.

And it was really about who are you as a person? What is your true authentic self? How are you going to show that to the world? How are you going to be comfortable in your own skin? How are you going to figure out what it is you really want? And in fact, one of my very first clients, as we were working together, she had this moment in the middle of our work and she's like, Oh my God, I'm in the wrong job.

And I'm like, You're in the wrong industry, you're in the wrong job, like you're, this isn't where you belong. So then our process shifted a little bit to figure out, okay, let's do some work and parse out where it might be, where you might need to go that's a better [00:34:00] fit for you. And then she ended up getting this great job that she loved and that was totally fine.

But it's this idea of doing more than just looking at somebody's clothes. And it's a very intimate process. It's a very, um, high trust, um, very psychological thing. Thank you. To work with somebody's image, and so as I was doing it, what would happen is my clients would go up the chain at their companies, they would, they would say, we want you to come and work with our executive teams, but we're tired of explaining to the people that write the checks that you're not really an image consultant.

That you're doing more than that. So, we need you to change your business. And I'm like, okay, sure. Okay. So, I took, uh, from ICU image consulting, I went to just Lazaret Consulting. Just straight up my name, consulting, and now I can do what I like. Again, freedom, right? I'm not bound by leadership, or whatever the buzzword is.

I'm not bound by that. I can just do what I like. 

Brad Minus: Nice. Yeah. Cause I've seen that you're not only [00:35:00] do the image consulting, but you're also doing business coaching and executive coaching, corporate team coaching. Uh, so yeah. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Really, I don't really do business coaching per se. I sometimes, I sometimes am working with clients on their approach to business.

But I have like, I've helped a couple of smaller entrepreneurs get started just because I've done it. So it's like, I can help you do that, but it's not really my jam. I tend to refer clients that are looking for business coaching to some of the really great business coaches that I know that are fully focused on that.

For me, it's more about looking at all the different areas that you're, that touch your life. Like, we might start with your image, but like, for example, I had a client who was working on her career progression and we're working on her image because of that. And then she got diagnosed with stage four cancer and all of a sudden we had to pivot and say, okay, what do you need to apply to your life now from the work that we've been doing in order for you to get healthy [00:36:00] and you to heal?

And so we talked a lot about some of the principles that I used, visualizations, like, you know, Things looking at what are the bare minimums that you need to do, like, what are the, what are the things that you need to do to maintain your mindset, to maintain your body, to encourage yourself to be healthy.

So it touches a lot of different areas. Like I've ended up talking to clients about things that are happening in their relationship because I happen to have been married for a really long time and I kind of get how that works. Like, so, so the thing that I really love about my work is clients usually come expecting.

One thing and they end up getting way more than they expected, which is always fun. It's the surprise factor that I love, like, Oh, we're going to go here. Okay, let's go. Oh, we're going to go there. Okay, let's go. Okay. Is that outside my wheelhouse? Here's three counselors I can refer you to. Here's three business coaches I can refer you to.

Here's a couples therapist. You might need to go and see,

but I've got a fair [00:37:00] amount of agility. When it comes to helping people with life. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, obviously you've got a network of people that you can, that, that you can refer people to. So I'm, I'm the same way, the same way. My first, my, the first company, when I started coaching, well, I shouldn't say the first company.

I still have the same company, but I changed the name. Um, I actually called it, it's funny. I called it Iron Goof. My 

Katherine Lazaruk: real name is last. I love it. Iron goof is 

Brad Minus: good. Iron goof running, uh, run and try coaching. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Okay. 

Brad Minus: Try and run coaching. So I was trying to like try and run and run T R I. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Oh, 

Brad Minus: ha ha. And run. Did there.

Yeah. Right. So try and run coaching. That was the first one. And the reason that came about was, um, so I did the Chicago marathon. Wow. And I had a team of 20 people, uh, that we were doing, we're doing for charity and one of the, one of the, one of the ladies at the time [00:38:00] was 53 and she had just done her first, her first marathon like six months earlier and she did it in France.

So, um, so when we were training, I saw that she could give some more. So I was like, I know that she's got more in her and I just kind of felt it and I hadn't started coaching yet, but I'd run quite a few races. Um, but the thing was, is this was in October in November. I was doing my first Ironman triathlon.

So, uh, I crossed, uh, we crossed together. I like, I brought her with me and I'm like, I'm like, Karen. You're with me. We're going to run this together. Cause I wasn't going to run all out because I had this big race in three weeks. Sure. Um, so I was just going to go as my legs took me. So I'm like, Karen, you're with me.

So she ran in France. She ran it in five 25. We crossed at 432 hand in hand in Chicago. So, cause I knew that she had it in her and she was with me. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Um, her 

Brad Minus: best friend, her best friend comes by and [00:39:00] she says, you know what, you should really coach. And I was like, I don't have any credits to coach. You know, I'm not, I'm not a runner that or a competitor that gets on the podium.

Right. And she's like, yeah, but next month you will. You'll have a credit because that is whether you when do you just finished or not? 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah, 

Brad Minus: so I got through that and then the very next January we've got down here in Disney Um, we've got a set of races and they call it marathon weekend and they, I think, called the goofy challenge, which was a half marathon on Saturday and a full marathon on Sunday.

So I ended up doing that the very following January. So one of, one of my, one of the clients and she ended up being a client later, um, be like, yeah, you're such an iron goof. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Oh, nice. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. Or she said, iron goofy, I think, you know? And I was like, Oh. That sounds pretty good. So that's how I, so I kind of came up with it as that started and then it started getting a negative connotation.

Like it wasn't [00:40:00] serious, which is, 

Katherine Lazaruk: that was 

Brad Minus: what the, the iron was for serious. The goof was for fun. Yeah. So I ended up doing, going to, uh, my company that was called Inner Fire Endurance Sports. Um, also because I move, you know, I've, I. I've got delve deeper into the endurance side, but yeah, so, um, yeah, it's something we can probably talk about as far as, you know, um, but yeah, so I, I get it how you came up with, you know, certain things and then the professional presence expert.

That's like, I 

Katherine Lazaruk: know. 

Brad Minus: Perfect. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Right. It's just one way to talk about something that is sometimes inexplicable. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Right. Like I think when I think about it with clients and I wrote about it in my book as well, I talked about the, the three C's. So the, but it always starts with your character. Who are you at the core?

Who are you when nobody's looking? Who do you want to be? How do you want to show up character? And then you go to congruence, which is the piece I talked about earlier about your insides and [00:41:00] outsides matching. Part of that is looking at your industry and looking at your city and looking at your country and looking at.

All the external factors around you and then the third C is choice. You get to choose. So for example, if you're a lawyer, you get to choose how much of the expected norm do I want to meet or not meet and why, right? If I am, if you're a Reiki practitioner, are you going to wear a three piece suit to your sessions?

Probably not because then you'll have to spend a lot of time explaining to clients why you look the way you do, which is not the most effective use of your healing session time. Okay. So you get to make those choices and decide because you can exert a pretty stunning amount of control over how people perceive you simply by the way that you show up.

Tons of science to back it. Early, early, early on, they were doing studies and they're like, okay, 15 percent of your skill set is what gets you promoted. 85 percent is your presence, the way that you are [00:42:00] being with people, not necessarily what you're doing with people. So that's why. When I was titling my book, I was calling it Executive Being as opposed to Executive Presence or anything else, because honestly, when I was doing research, the books that are being written now about Executive Presence are basically the same books that were being written 30 years ago with all the same kind of dusty rules.

I'm like, that's not really how the world is now, right? Finally, the Executive Presence world is starting to catch up with what I've been saying all along, which is you need to be who you really are and show up as that person and challenge the status quo, because otherwise we're never going to get anything different.

Then we've had all along, and I'm not sure that our choices and leadership have really led us down great paths. I think we could do a little better. 

Brad Minus: I get that. Um, I've been in the fortune 500, uh, you know, situations for a long time. And yeah, I, um, I work on contracts. So my, my day job is I'm an it project manager, uh, program manager type of thing.

So, um, and I've been doing it, uh, you know, I did it [00:43:00] for 20 years, um, 21 years. Um, and, um, yeah, and then that's exactly right. The minute there's been times when the minute you kind of go against the status quo, you get one of two things. One, you get fired, 

Katherine Lazaruk: you 

Brad Minus: get booted because you're going against the norm or two, you get praised and given a little bit of reigns.

Katherine Lazaruk: Yes, it's the, I really believe it's the way that you do it. So for me as a challenger, I'm, I'm, I'm a challenger. That's just my nature. I'm going to challenge people. And I remember one of my first business consultants saying to me, okay, well, you, if you're going to be a challenger, you can't be upset when people chat, people push back.

Like if you get, you can't be upset. And I'm like, Oh yeah, that makes sense. But so for me, I aim to be like, 10 percent over the line. Like just a little over the line enough to like make people go, but not so far over the line that I'm totally alienating or polarizing people, which, you know, sometimes if you're going to be [00:44:00] your real self.

People are going to love you. They're not going to like you. They're going to, you know, 

Brad Minus: it's going 

Katherine Lazaruk: to happen. But I like that phrase where it says, why do you want everybody to like you? You don't like everybody. 

Brad Minus: That's a great phrase. That's a great phrase. Yeah. Yeah. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Realistic expectation. That's just unrealistic.

You're not going to connect with everybody. 

Brad Minus: And the one thing that you did mention about, you know, how you're going to showing up, how you're being is. That you really have to do that now because a lot of our meetings are like this. 

Katherine Lazaruk: That's right. It's harder. It's harder on zoom to actually really connect with people.

You have to really, I think, be even more present because you're not getting the same level of data that you would if you were meeting somebody in person. 

Brad Minus: Absolutely. I get that. You're not really 

Katherine Lazaruk: seeing a real person. You're seeing them filtered through a video screen. You're seeing them filtered through cold technology.

So in order to get a human connection, you have to be really good at looking [00:45:00] at the camera, for example, or you have to make sure your lighting is okay and your framing is good in order to create a warmer impression and a warmer connection with somebody that it would be really easy to do in person, much easier to do in person than it is to do through Zoom.

Brad Minus: I agree a hundred percent. Um, I was on a, uh, interviewing for a new project last week. It was the first, second interview. And I always thought I'm old. I'm really old school. You know what I mean? Like if I, when I went out for my first interviews, when we had to leave, you know, no suit tie, you know, the whole bit.

Right. So of course, the only thing I'm thinking about is, all right, if I'm showing up. I need to show up as if I would going to thing. And you know what the guy said? Yeah, you're overdressed for this. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah. Cause you're on video and you're at home. 

Brad Minus: Like, right. It doesn't 

Katherine Lazaruk: make sense. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. So I got a laugh out of it, you know?

Well, I told him it was, I basically said, I said, I says, he said, you're overdressed. And I says, [00:46:00] well, there's a reason I'm not standing up because 

Katherine Lazaruk: that's a beautiful way to 

Brad Minus: totally discount what you just said. Yeah. Yeah. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah, I've got pajamas on underneath. 

Brad Minus: I had shorts on, but yeah, but no, it's like, Oh, you're overdressed.

Cause I had a, I had a shirt and tie on. Sure. That's how I would have shown up. That's how I would have shown up to the 

Katherine Lazaruk: thing. 

Brad Minus: So 

Katherine Lazaruk: everything is contextual because I have like my husband recently switched careers. So he was working at PricewaterhouseCoopers for 19 years in operations and he is a film editor.

And so finally, I was like, okay, look, you've, you've gone and you've upgraded yours because when he did his training, this is like 20 years ago. So, of course, things have changed quite a lot. The technology has changed industry. So he went to BCIT, which is a technology, technology school here, upgraded his technical skills, and then he has to go out and start.

Meeting people in order to get work because Vancouver I mean many cities are like this But Vancouver in particular is very in very insular and it's it's a lot [00:47:00] about who you know, and who knows you So when he was going to meet people He wore a vest and a tie and a shirt because that's what he wore to work for many years So he just wore his but like casual like, you know, tie isn't too tight or anything best to tie and shirt And then when he started to work, even though he's working night shift and no one's really seeing him, like maybe one or two people might see him vest and tie and shirt, vest and tie and shirt, vest and tie and shirt.

And he has been working steadily. He's not even two years in, and he's been working steadily since he started because people would be like, Oh yeah, David Lazarek. And they're like, who's that? The vest and tie guy. Oh, that guy, 

Brad Minus: the vest and tie guy. I 

Katherine Lazaruk: like it. Right? So it's all contextual. Absolutely. 100 percent contextual.

I kind of, well I don't, nobody loved the pandemic obviously, but I, what I like about one of the after effects of that is the humanization of people. We get to see people's dogs and their cats and their messes and you can't avoid life. Right. [00:48:00] When you're meeting each other in your homes. And so it gave us a real opportunity to see that everybody is human.

Everybody has a messy drawer somewhere. Right. Everybody's got pajama bottoms on. It's been an interesting time in helping people really be comfortable with just being who they are. On screen 

Brad Minus: and it's and that's hard. I gotta, I gotta admit, you know what I mean? And, um, it's funny cause we can even, we can even look at this episode right here that we're just talking about, you know, when I come on, I'm always like, Hey, and welcome back to life changing challengers.

And then as we start to talk, I settle into really who I am. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: So, um, so it's interesting that you, that you mentioned that, but that's exactly right. You know, and we could see that we could see this progression as the trust is built, as you start realizing that, Hey, you know what, it's okay for me to be as authentic as I possibly can.

Right. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Totally. And I think it's really important that people who are in the leadership space really [00:49:00] understand how much of a responsibility And how much of an effect they have, responsibility for and effect they have on the room that they're in to make this place safe for people or unsafe for people.

And historically, people, I think, would rely a little bit on keeping people on their toes and making it not safe so that they would think people would try harder or, you know, perform better. But nobody performs well under stress. Your cortisol levels are jacked up. You can't even think straight. It's not good.

Everything, everything is better with love. 

Brad Minus: I agree to a point. Um, Oh, maybe it's 

Katherine Lazaruk: different. 

Brad Minus: There's got to, well, there's gotta be a little level of competitiveness in order to strive for, um, evolution, right. To keep moving forward. I think so. It doesn't, but it can be, but when I say competitiveness, I don't even actually mean with another person.

Katherine Lazaruk: There could be 

Brad Minus: a competitive, for me, I'm a, I'm a project manager, right? So we have to, we [00:50:00] compete against the clock. We've got a certain deadline that we've got to meet, right? So we compete against the clock. That's, you know, we move forward that way. And then it's, then it's how efficiently can we move forward?

Can we make, can we, can we come up with a 10 percent efficiency and then we can attempt, we can either be done 10 percent more, we get done 10 percent faster, or we can put 10 percent more, more work into it. Right. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Okay. But I challenged that is you say there's a deadline we have to meet and I automatically go, but is there, and why?

Okay. Unless you're a brain surgeon or like a heart surgeon, like somebody really racing against life or death, paramedic, nothing else in this world is that critical. So when people say there's a deadline we have to meet, there's this thing, we have to improve this, we have to do this, I'm like, do we? At what cost?

Brad Minus: Well, then there's the other way around, right? So in my work, we have a, we have a three point pyramid, time, cost and quality, right? [00:51:00] So we have a finite budget and, you know, we have a certain quality. Yes. Well, yes, 

Katherine Lazaruk: yes, you supposed 

Brad Minus: to go, you're supposed to stay in your budget. So don't, 

Katherine Lazaruk: but how many times have you been on a project and someone said, this is the budget and then you get into it and then all of a sudden, Oh no, okay.

We need more money that. And the budget is not the budget. 

Brad Minus: Um, 

Katherine Lazaruk: like never, 

Brad Minus: that never happens in your world. It happens, but not for what you think. It's not, we get into the project and then all of a sudden we need more money because something happened. It's happened once or twice. Most of the time what happens is somebody and it rolls downhill.

Somebody gives me scope creep. In other words, they want more, 

Katherine Lazaruk: they 

Brad Minus: want more into the project than we originally budgeted for. That's how the budget moves. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Right. But then, so the, then the budget is not finite.

It's not really finite. I mean, it might, it's finite based on these parameters, maybe, but then there's wiggle room. This is my point, [00:52:00] is I'm always, I always want it, once people say, this is how it is, I'm like, but is it though? Is it? Does it have to be like that? Is there some other way? Are there other factors that we're not taking into consideration, that we might need to take into consideration in order to make it even better?

Like, could this be like 10 percent more pleasurable, as opposed to 10 percent more efficient? 

Brad Minus: Usually, efficiency kind of makes it pleasurable. 

Katherine Lazaruk: This is my point. This is like the dominant paradigm, right? 

Brad Minus: 10 percent more 

Katherine Lazaruk: efficiency is a way to go. But nobody's looking at, could it be 10 percent more pleasurable?

Could it be more fun? Could we have a better experience while we're achieving more? And that, to me, is the point about humanizing business, is that, um, for so long it's been efficiency and money. And title and corner office and promotions as the, as the prize, what happens when the prize isn't the prize anymore?

People are like, well, I don't necessarily [00:53:00] want that title or I don't. You know, I want to have some space in my life. I wanna enjoy my coworkers. I wanna actually make a meaningful difference, or I wanna contribute differently to this work. So this is this cognitive dissonance that a lot of leaders are having right now.

When I, they're like, oh, they don't wanna work. I'm like, they just don't wanna work for you. Yeah, 

Brad Minus: I get it. Um, right. Yeah, I get it. That's asking 

Katherine Lazaruk: like, is it though, ? 

Brad Minus: So, yeah, that's a stupid, 

Katherine Lazaruk: right? 

Brad Minus: Yeah. I don't. I, we can go down a rabbit hole here. So I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to cut that off because you know, it's, you could sit there and say, does it, and then they're like, they're like, so what is this going to cost me?

Right , what is this gonna cost me? You know, for every hour I have another contractor working is more money. So if I've got a, if I've got a change tactic, now I gotta, now I gotta pay this person to change, to learn how to change the tactic, which means it's gonna be more [00:54:00] money. And then I've got, 

Katherine Lazaruk: I have a concrete example okay to share with you.

So I got called in to do an email workshop for a company. They're like, Oh, we're wasting so much time doing emails. We need to do an email etiquette workshop. And I'm like, okay, sure. So I get into the company and what I realize is, Oh, it's not the email. That's the problem. Your org chart is unclear and your chain of command is unclear and people don't know who they're supposed to be talking to and when or why.

And that was the underlying issue. So we did the whole psychological safety thing. We got everybody on board. We talked about connecting as a team and connecting to the mission of the company. And this is two days, two day workshop. And the estimated savings, when I followed up with him to say, okay, how's it going?

What are you doing? They saved about a quarter of a million dollars. In the first quarter after that. On email, but it wasn't about the email and it made the whole, I'm like, this is clearly not working. What is the more pleasurable experience we could be having? It would be great if have to be included on this because I don't think I need [00:55:00] it here.

Great. How do we codify that? And it was just simply looking at the communication channels and figuring things out and it was huge savings, but it was based around they thought it was email. I'm like, it's not about the email. What's, what's the pleasure principle here? How do we make this 

Brad Minus: So there 

Katherine Lazaruk: are concrete savings in pleasure.

Brad Minus: I wish you, I wish I knew who you were at the time that working for. So I'll tell you about this. I was working for, um, Tampa general hospital, which is. Actually is one of the top hospitals in the country. It's actually us news world report the whole bit. Um, but I was put as a project manager for a culture change.

Within the whole hospital. You're talking about like 15, 000 employees. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Okay. 

Brad Minus: And so it started out as the, the, the structure we're using was Franklin Covey and it was, uh, Stephen Covey jr's book called the speed of trust and [00:56:00] the idea was to build more trust, which means that. We can, you know, people can do their jobs, nobody else's.

So the interesting part was, is usually they start with the staff and they go up. Well, this time we were starting with the C with the C suite and moving back. So while we were doing the, while I was sitting in on the, uh, on the workshop and they were going through, you know, and it turned out it was, the subject was meetings and they're like, all right, well, so how many people are in the And then that led to what.

What information do you need as a C suite or a director, vice president? Um, and it was like, Oh, you know, it started with wasting, you know, everything, 

Katherine Lazaruk: you know, 

Brad Minus: I'm like, so he started giving examples, you know, I started, well, do you really need to know that, um, nurse Shelby on the fifth floor, uh, is, uh, out for the day?

Do you need to know that? How is that going to help you in your work? You know, so we started drilling down. Um, [00:57:00] that came onto the subject of meetings. So we started, we started pulling up stats on all the meetings that were being, that were being held within the company and who was at it. And we started finding out that the meetings would be like three or four deep.

Katherine Lazaruk: Right. 

Brad Minus: So we literally quantified it. Okay, we quantified all of the unproductive meetings that people were, that were, that were, that people were hours, 

Katherine Lazaruk: hours. Oh, 

Brad Minus: oh, no, no, no, no, no. When we finally got done with it, we literally quantified it down to the freaking person down. We use the salaries, everything.

Katherine Lazaruk: Like, yeah, totally. You can quantify it. 

Brad Minus: 60 million dollars a year. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Right? Totally. And waste. And a waste of your time. And energy. 

Brad Minus: But we only brought 30 million down to the bottom, to the bottom line. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Okay. 

Brad Minus: So it was like, it was like a, a huge thing. And then all of a sudden the CEO was like, all right, first of all, no meeting [00:58:00] without an agenda.

Right. Um, and if you don't need to know the information firsthand, if you can get it from the person that's there, that was the trust factor, the trust factor. Right. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Right. 

Brad Minus: The SME is there. They will give you notes. They will tell you what happened in the meeting if you use the information you need and you discard all the other information.

Katherine Lazaruk: That's right. It's discernment. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, and it was, and it was working and I got, um, I got poached by another company. Um, but I was volunteering as a, uh, as a running coach for the fitness center. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Right. 

Brad Minus: Um, so I kept that, you know, and so I was. Some of the people that I was, you know, that I had been in a facilitated workshops with for this culture care, uh, were in my class, in my, in my classes.

Right. And I was like, Oh man, how's it going? You know, we got the cards. We did this. How's, how's it happen? She goes, [00:59:00] um, yeah, I'm in more meetings than I was before we started this. No. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Oh no. 

Brad Minus: I 

Katherine Lazaruk: wonder what happened. 

Brad Minus: It wasn't adopted. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Oh, well, of course. Yeah. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah. I know. I find that, you know what? I've had to learn to let go a lot.

Over the years. I'm like, okay, here's what's working and you can do it or not. It's up to you. You can choose. I can give you your misery back. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. Yeah. And I was sick after, after she said that, I was like all that work that we put into that and that was like, we finally had gotten it. We had, we, we had a method and the whole, it was horrible, but you know what?

But, but it's just goes to show, um, you know, that there are. Like you said, there's, it's not necessarily what they're asking you for it. This person, this was asking about email. You turned it turned on. It wasn't really email 

Katherine Lazaruk: about the email. 

Brad Minus: It's 

Katherine Lazaruk: like, it's like someone asked me, even at the beginning, when I was just doing straight image consulting, I'm like, there's always more in the closet than clothes.[01:00:00] 

It's never really about the clothes closet 

Brad Minus: and clothes. Yep. Very, very interesting. But anyway, so this has been, this has been a real eye opener. We've talked, we covered damn it here. This is amazing. Um, so let me, uh, let me just give us some talking about Catherine's, um, information. So she has, it's.

LZRKconsulting. com. And her book is Executive Being Humanizing Business One Leader at a Time. You go. And, um, 

Katherine Lazaruk: And it's not a traditional business book, so don't try to read it like one or you'll be annoyed. 

Brad Minus: And, um, You can pick it up on Amazon. There you go. 

Katherine Lazaruk: So 

Brad Minus: I will make sure that we have a link to her website and we will also have a link to the book.

Um, because I think you need to pick that up. If you're in a leadership position anywhere. Um, I, and even if you, if you're [01:01:00] planning on moving into a leadership position, I would say definitely pick this up and you could tell just by the nuggets of information that Catherine's given us today that it is definitely a worthwhile book to read.

Um, also, so are you. Are you, um, active on social media? 

Katherine Lazaruk: Yeah. You can find me on Instagram and on LinkedIn. Instagram 

Brad Minus: and LinkedIn. That seems to be where the, uh, where the leaders hang out.

That's 

Katherine Lazaruk: really what that is. That's where the old people are. 

Brad Minus: Instagram we say with, that's our professional lives and Instagram is where we go to have fun. So it's great. Yeah. And then of course, you know, you'll catch life changing challengers on both of those as well. Um, and that is, uh, what I got any parting, any parting words of wisdom there.

Katherine Lazaruk: Any parting words of wisdom. It's. Well, your [01:02:00] podcast is life changing challengers. And I think the one thing that I really want to impart to people is that it is never too late. If you're not dead, you're not done. So if you're thinking about making a change, I mean, my husband was in corporate for 20 years and he's made this change and he's, I've never seen him so happy at his work.

And you deserve a life that suits you. So go out and get it. 

Brad Minus: All right. With that being said, I appreciate your time today, Catherine. Thank you so much for joining us and giving us all that wisdom for the rest of you. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that like subscribe and then hit the notification bell.

So you never miss an episode. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please leave us a review. And even if you don't like it. Let me know, let me know why you don't like it. So I can make the evolution and, uh, making sure that you're getting all the information that you can to make your next step the best possible.

All so thank you again. Thank you for listening and we'll 

Katherine Lazaruk: see [01:03:00] you in next one.