1017: Navigating Life with Purpose with Kerry Mensior

Robert Plank 0:06 Hey, and welcome back to the podcast. Carrie Messier is here and he is a 30 year law enforcement veteran, and he is the face of change, and how first responders and K through 12 educators communicate with the people they serve. Now, how is that? Well, Carrie has curated a revolutionary set of tools that allow you to quickly develop rapport effectively communicate, de escalate, and negotiate with people in all situations, including people in emotional crisis. So Carrie, glad to be speaking with you.

Speaker 1 0:37 Robert, I'm glad to be here. And it's an honor to spend some time with you. You have, you and I have worked together remotely, we've never even met in person. That's the funny thing we've never met in person, yet. I've enjoyed working with you through the years. So it's good to be with you.

Robert Plank 0:54 Likewise, it and it goes both ways. And it's so fun, because that whole idea of that radio DJ that you always listened to, or that that talk show host that you see every night for years. And it's that kind of that that weird, like middle ground where like, you feel like you know them just as much as some people, you know, in real life. And so that's seems way more commonplace now with the internet and YouTube and podcasting. So I feel like I know you as well and excited to jump into what you've accomplished. So So tell us about you like we gave you a little bit of an intro a little bit of a warm up. But what is Mr. Carey, all about? What's the elevator pitch? What is your passion and focus?

Speaker 1 1:32 I think it can be summed up in public service, I've been every first responder that there is a started out. In when I was 17 years old, I ran off join the Navy spent nine years nuclear powered submarines, punching holes in the ocean, did eight deployments. After that I became a firefighter, I still am an emergency medical technician been one for 35 years. And then I did 30 years in the police department. And now what I do is through all of those experiences, being a trainer for over 40 years, I'm a college professor here in San Diego, with with all of that, ultimately, the common through line that I found was communication. And we see such a breakdown in communication. In so many different areas. I mean, shoot, you go into the grocery store parking lot to pick up a gallon of milk. And there's somebody in conflict over a parking spot or over the self checkout line. And so ultimately, what I do is I help people communicate better. And that focuses mainly on the schools and first responders because that's been my life. At the same time, there's a lot of businesses that come to idea, the International deescalation association that I run as a 501, c three nonprofit, they come to us because they're like, Hey, we see the correlation between how a cop has to deal with somebody under stress, and how we have to deal either internally, our team under stress, because we're under a deadline, or we're under KPIs that we need to meet, we got to get to get these metrics. Whether it's a promotion, or just keeping our job or making their shareholders happy, whatever the situation is, there's a correlation there. And they see that through line. And the through line also extends to marketing. Because if you don't connect with your client, they're not going to buy from it. In fact, Jelly group did a study 82% of people will not buy from someone that they don't feel a connection with. And so what we do is, is we focus on the schools and the and the first responders because I truly believe the people that are out there serving the public need that help the most. And so that's where we direct our efforts, we also help out some business owners as well.

Robert Plank 4:01 Okay, well, you take in these kind of lifelong skills that you picked up and all these different steps and just kind of transfer them to the next project to the next bigger and better thing. And so you and you mentioned this idea about communicating, like two things come to mind. The first is that there's like a limited number of ways for a conversation to go well, and like almost an infinite number of ways for it to go bad. It's like when you deal with a cop, if you're you're nervous. And you're like what if I say or do just the wrong thing. And then next thing you know, I might be going to jail despite by messing up. And it seems like it's so true. Even when we're trying to get our point across trying to communicate with someone. There's like, it's so easy to do the wrong thing and for the conversation to go south, and there's maybe not just one path to success, but just like a few of those paths to success. And then the other thing that comes to mind, as far as communication is I've been thinking maybe the past like two or three years. I'm just whenever I'm awake I consciously tell myself that I need to just like push like 20 or 30% more positive than my caveman brain wants to be like, my caveman brain wants to be yelling about that parking space or wants to be angry, or, and I just tell myself like, like, be positive, and slow down your thinking and be more deliberate and just try to be like a calmer, more enlightened individual. And in the moment, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. But then looking back on, we've all had situations where we reacted poorly. And it kind of I think it's like the minds me of like that show cops it used to be on where like, you'd see a situation you're like, how is this about to go bad. So that's just what comes to mind as far as this communication thing that it's it's kind of delicate, and it's something we all need to be paying attention to?

Speaker 1 5:48 Well, you bring up a couple of really good points and examples. Let me take the first one. First, the paths, the different paths a conversation can go. I'm going to greatly simplify it. Because when we break it down, we keep it simple than it's when we're under especially when we're under stress, or we're not sure what to do in that, that little voice inside of us that that is the CEO of your self doubt company. And you got one inside Yeah, you got to self doubt company that just it's Boy, I tell you what, it's a it's a it's a mega conglomerate, sometimes that during those times, we got to keep it simple. So that the first thing is on communication. If we simply do one thing, if we're marketing, if we're talking to the grocery store clerk when we're picking up that gallon of milk, if we're talking to our loved ones inside our home, if all we do is one thing it can it can shift everything. And that one thing is I wonder what their perspective is. I'm curious what their perspective is. That grocery store clerk, you can make somebody's day. With a simple comment, you can ruin it, too. But you can make it just by acknowledging what their perspective is. I stopped in the store last night, literally, I picked up while I picked up a half gallon of milk on the way home. And I the I was only the second person in line, they weren't that busy. And I asked the clerk, I said, How's your day been? And not in an elevator, bus bench conversation, but a genuine your day bed? She brightened up. She's like, you know, it's not been bad. And I said, Show it's been good if it's not been bad. And she goes, yeah. Entire countenance changed. From being just I'm scanning stuff I'm not even really paying much attention to while I actually engage with somebody, that conversation cost me absolutely nothing out of pocket. Made me feel good one, I walked away and made her feel good one. She did the rest of her shift. If you're thinking about what you're gonna say to a loved one positive promo, your kid comes up to you goes, Dad, I'm bored. And you're like, oh my god, go do your chores, and go outside and play find something to do watch a video, all the typical things that parent might say. If you look at it, from their perspective, why are they saying they're bored? Well, the quick answer is, they're speaking Czechoslovakia and you didn't know this, because you don't recognize when somebody speaking Czechoslovakia into you. But that that's what it is. And so I happened to be a professional Czechoslovakia and translators. So I'll translate that dad on board. What it really what they're really saying is that my brains not working, and I need your help. I want you to think about that for just a moment. What's your reaction to that? As opposed to dead on board? It's a completely different reaction. And that is the truth. That's what's going on. Because what happens is, your brain can only be in one of two states. It can be an executive, state or can be in survival. So you talked about your caveman brain, love that use that analogy, because that's exactly what it is. Our reptilian brain, our lizard brain. Technically, it's called her hindbrain. Whatever type of brain label you want to throw on it, that's what's working. That's what's causing you to rage to be unhappy with that guy that cut you off or speeding, cutting through traffic. And if you just go, curious what they got going on in their life that they're having to last through traffic. It completely shifts your brain because you cannot be an executive state and be curious. At the same time, your brain doesn't allow it. You also cannot be in gratitude and And in survival state at the same time, your brain doesn't allow it. So when you look at the other person's perspective, when you look at your child's perspective and go, Oh, because what your child is there, they're in survival state. Boredom is survival. So it's a negative emotional state. If you're experiencing negative emotions, you're in survival state. If you're experiencing positive emotions, you're an executive state. And literally a part of your brain, a major party brain is called the PFC, the prefrontal cortex, if you put your hand on your forehead, like you're feeling if you have a fever, not that your PFC, your PFC is literally shut off electrically. This is proven through scientific research that we teach about. And so your child is saying, Dad, my PFC, it's so offline, and I'm too young to figure out what to do. See, Robert, you have figured out what to do. You maybe didn't know the science behind it. But you figured it out. That if I take a step back from a caveman actions, and I get a little bit of gratitude, I try and be a better person. Well, what you're doing is you're forcing your PFC to be back online, your whole brain is now working, and you are a better person. So kudos to you for figuring all that out. So I hope that kind of addresses that. And last thing I'll say about this is because this is about marketing, your podcast in your highlight people about marketing, what we teach is how to reach inside your clients head, flip a switch, they don't even know that you did it. But you shift them out of survival state into executive state, through your languaging, through your actions through your choice of words, and you build trust with them. Because what's happening is if you're trying to sell to them, they will immediately go into survival state because it's a fear response. You're trying to take money from me, you're trying to cheat me Will I get what I'm paying for? Will this actually be worth my time, effort and money. So we teach how to bypass sets the neuroscience of selling.

Robert Plank 11:58 And that's a lot of fun to think about. And I can tell that you enjoy this, like, you're just you're playing around with some of these ideas of that. So there's the survival state, and there's the executive state, and you're saying that maybe an initial key to us navigating life and situations a lot better is to have this sort of curious empathy. And that, but that doesn't mean that empathy doesn't mean projecting what we feel on to someone else. It's, it's the opposite, right? It's like reaching in and just kind of being thinking about, well, what are they going through what is their situation, and, and for some reason, the, I don't know, the pathways in my brain, the branches here are kind of going into this area of when I'm in like a stressful situation, something that that helped me and again, I'm thinking about maybe like it all these lessons took way too long in life for me to figure out, but there's this idea of maybe like, like sorting out the situations, right. And there's some times when most of the time in a situation, you don't need to react, you don't need to decide you don't need to do anything different, just kind of take it for what it is, and maybe change your perception of it. And there's the other There's me with a much smaller times when that survival mode maybe isn't necessary, temporarily. But But I think that an adjustment I had to make at some point was the use of thing, like 80 90% of the situations required me to act and decide and to react and all those things. But really, it's more like 20% It's kind of like when when, like your wife or your girlfriend comes to you with a problem. And here we are saying like, Oh, do this, and then we suggest solutions. And maybe they just want to empathize with you. So that's kind of where we're at where my mind is going when listening to you about like these two states that like sometimes you do want to solve the problem. But other times you just want to just maybe like understand and empathize and take it in.

Speaker 1 13:49 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You are you're dead on and everything that you just said, you know, the thing that that I teach in particular, first responders, because we deal with people in trauma, so much school teachers deal with people in trauma, so much kids come in from, from abused homes, from poor living situations in their in their classroom, and literally that's their escape, that's their safe zone. And so what we what we do is really have the teachers set that safe area for the child. So whatever they're dealing with, at home, they can't control the teacher can but they can control what goes on in that classroom. And, and, and for us, if we're if we're marketing or we're doing just dealing with ourselves trying to get ourselves through the day. You're absolutely right in that. How much of it really requires us to be in a fear situation. And how much time do we just react that way? We end up saying and doing things that we feel sorry about later, we have to apologize for and that's that's the whole basis of what idea does is it helps people I'm not saying do those things that they have to feel bad about or apologize for later.

Robert Plank 15:06 And that's where you will want to be right. Like, I mean, if you mess up, apologizing is good. But wouldn't it be more ideal if you just did not mess up and not have to apologize? No one said you had to be perfect. But if you find yourself you keep messing up, you look back at a later date. And you say, I don't, I don't like myself, I didn't like the way that I reacted, maybe find out find these techniques, find these ways to dial that down. And so with all of these of these things that you've done, right, all these these travels, all this training and educating with first responders and with the teachers, etc. Has anything in your journey surprised you? Is there anything that just kind of made you just rethink who you are and what you do?

Speaker 1 15:48 Hmm, you know, I, I'll say that I'm always on a self discovery, Mission slash process. I'm in that process on a regular basis. In fact, I'll share something from from one of my most recent podcasts where he talked about evening and morning routines. And I shared about journaling. And so I journal at night and I journal in the morning and in both of those are there for different purposes. And I break it down in the the evening, I described a process of using what's called we lags W L ag wins, losses, a Ha's and goals are my wins for the day, celebrate it. Part of that is to get into executive state. Because you can't be celebrating something good can't be celebrating win and be in survival state at the same time. Once again, bring doesn't allow it your losses, acknowledging Okay, what did not go well as it could have today. Maybe it wasn't a monetary loss or a physical loss. Maybe it was something I said or did that I I don't want to repeat. The AHA is what did I realize, and they might be tied to those wins and losses, but they're still they're still separate. And then goals. What do we want to accomplish tomorrow? What do we want to accomplish this week? What do I want to accomplish in this, this? Well, I do three week sprints. I don't do quarters, you know that you've probably heard of that 90 day year, I do 21 day sprints. And I just think about that for a second. Because if I'm doing 90 day years, which I subscribed to that for a while and I'm kind of practice that I'm like, okay, that that works. It gives me fourscore for course, correction opportunities and year 21 day sprints, number one to your brain feels a whole lot more manageable, a lot more doable. And it gives me seven tene different course corrections through the year, not just for. So that journaling helps me through that self discovery. And in the mornings, I'm journaling about what does my day look like ahead? What do I get to do get to do not have to do? Because I choose to live my life by design, not by default? And that's the answer ultimately, to your question is what what has been surprising to me is, there's so much in my life that I thought I had to do. I've got all these responsibilities, I've got got this nonprofit to run, I've got these people to serve, I gotta be there for this, I have to do that. That's a suck, suck sucky way to live life. But when I get to be there for my family, when I get to babysit my grandkids, when I get to run this nonprofit, I get to help people get to spend time with Robert. Life becomes so much better at that point, as probably my biggest surprise is that just that simple shift of living life by design, rather than by default. That's

Robert Plank 18:50 wonderful. And it ties back to gratitude, right? That if you're, if you're a fireman, and you're running into burning buildings, or you're running after a gang banger with a gun, who's shooting back at you, you're choosing to do that. And if you don't like where your life is, or what you've what you've done, then sure in the moment, you might not be able to do anything about it. But strategically with the milestones with what you do, you can write the ship and there is some amount of lag time but I love what your message here is that we're in control of so many things and way more things than we give ourselves credit for. But we do need to be more organized and figure out what works for us like what you have with the the morning and the evening journaling and you try the night a year and you gave it a shot. You said Well, let me let me just kind of reconfigure this and say 21 days works better. And the W lags the win losses a Ha's and goals and just to have some of the these tools in place. Because if we don't have tools in place, and it's chaos, and the caveman brain returns and all that behavior and you look at the difference between Present day versus you to 10,000 years ago, well, we have more rules now. And sometimes you think like rules are constricting, but if rules are there in place to to help you and to kind of not repeat the mistakes and to achieve your hopes and goals and dreams, and that's what we want. And so you've mentioned some of these things that have gone on, right? You've mentioned, the association, the nonprofit and the podcast. So if someone here is just really intrigued by some of your ideas, and what you have going on, and they want to know more, they say, I want to pursue this path. Because even just a few of the discussion points kind of were beneficial to me, and I want more of what is good for me, then what's the next step with you? Like, what is your nonprofit all about? And the podcast and anything else we should know?

Speaker 1 20:43 Well, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna give your listeners a free gift. And sometimes when people hear that they're like, yeah, right, it's a frickin lead magnet, just call it a checklist, or is called lead magnet for crying out loud. We're all in the marketing world. Now, this is honestly a free gift. And if they follow through on on signing up for this free gift, it's, I guarantee you 100% And there's not many guarantees in life. So this is right up there with death and taxes except his a whole lot better. And this free gift will make your life better. All you have to do is go to our website, the idea dot world. The idea that well is not.com.org I know you're used to those kinds of extensions is dot world like global because we're international deescalation Association, the idea ide a dot world, forward slash calm, super simple to remember Ford slash calm. Boy, I just screwed that up. It's Ford slash, intro. It's for the calm, it's an introductory course introduction how to calm an angry person in seconds. So it's Ford slash intro, your coupon code, this is the the gift, the coupon code is calm. 100, as in 100% off, it's a $300 course, we're gonna give it to your listeners for free. So go to the idea dot world forward slash intro, coupon code, comm 100, calm 100. If you do that, you're gonna get access to this course, it's meant to be done over five days, you have a couple of really short videos, and then you have a mission each day for five days, you can do it all at once you can just power through. But if you if you follow the process, each day, you're going to be learning about what you just heard in the videos. And you're going to be putting it into action. This is a very action oriented, implementation oriented course. And it's free for your folks, it's going to help them a lot, it's gonna help them in marketing, it's going to help them in their day to day lives. Wonderful.

Robert Plank 22:46 And as you've been saying, in our conversation, it's all connected, right? You figure out a way to communicate better, and it affects your marketing and vice versa and affects your emotional state. And it's just always a good idea to be being self aware. And I see that a lot of what you do. And even the way that you communicate some of these things where there's the idea of kind of like thinking about what you want to say and what your message is and what your purpose is. And just like revisiting it and going through those repetitions. So that way, you can maybe poke holes in it and say, you know, I know that you've heard this, but this is different. And I know that when I say this, then your immediate reaction is that and we kind of are good about like adding the humor and adding the jokes. And just you hear a lot about this when you have like teachers talking to troubled kids and things like that right when the kids are jaded, or they come to assumptions. And it just I can I just somehow I'm just I'm picking up on this kind of the playfulness that you have of just like reexamining the ideas and knowing what the initial knee jerk objections would be. And just like having a little fun with it, and that's kind of a marketing lesson that I get from that. And so one more time, what was a few steps in that call to action. So what's the URL and the coupon code just to make sure we get it.

Speaker 1 24:06 Thank you for for clarifying. And making sure we got that. It's the idea that world forward slash intro. And the coupon code is calm. 100

Robert Plank 24:20 Wonderful. And we're both a couple of marketers and podcasters and we know the power of repetition, especially when it's your call to action he tell people to go there right now. And as we're wrapping up our conversation you hear Carrie I want to make sure that we just get a really good send off a really good kind of life lesson. I like to put my guests on the spot and ask about a favorite quote or lesson but it's helped them out so much. You've already given us so much but as far as just for for show ending purposes, a quote or less than what comes to mind.

Speaker 1 24:52 I'm going to paraphrase one of my favorite quotes and that is if we don't bring the unconscious to their conscious, our life will go off the rolls, the rails, and we'll call it fate. If we don't bring the unconscious to conscious, our life will go off the rails, we'll call it fate. Live your life by design, not by default. That is

Robert Plank 25:19 deep and it ties back into your duality and almost like the yin yang of it right that you do take a little bit of the subconscious and wake it up and take some of that conscious put it back. That's, that's beautiful. It's wonderful to think about, and everyone should go right now to that URL and apply that coupon code and claim that $300 course that way you can tap into some of these de escalation sort of ideas that way you're communicating and your marketing and your business and your life will all improve care. It's been wonderful speaking with you.

Speaker 1 25:49 Hey, thanks for having me on the show. I really appreciate it.

Robert Plank 25:56 Thank you for tuning in to the marketer of the day podcast. marketer of the day is managed by de FY podcast, clean your 12 podcast boosters at Def Why podcast.com/free