David Horsager:
Welcome to the trusted leader show. It’s David Horsager and I have a very special guest, a friend. She is a hall of fame speaker. She’s an entrepreneur, she’s an author of a couple books and she’s an amazing lady. We’re gonna talk about some of her expertise and before we do that, Christine Cashen welcome to the show.

Christine Cashen:
Hello. Hi, David. Great to see you.

David Horsager:
Hey, tell us a little bit about maybe something we don’t know about you. I know you got two really cool kids, amazing husband living down in Texas, but what what’s something about Christine before we get into the, into the work?

Christine Cashen:
Oh wow. I, some people might not know that I grew up in a town without a stoplight in Michigan.

David Horsager:
Wow. That’s interesting. That’s close. That’s actually, I guess that’s the same as I grew up, you know, of course I grew up eight miles from there on a, you know, a 1500 acre bean farm or 1200 acre bean farm. But I guess that’s true. No stoplight in bedale Minnesota, 500 people. How many people in your, what was your hometown?

Christine Cashen:
There was, it’s called Pinkney Michigan. Okay. It’s near Ann Arbor. And it, even though it was a small town, it was a bigger community. So like our high school was pretty average sized because it was all these little towns together. In fact, the joke is the town next to us was called hell . And when I worked, I worked in radio and people would always call to see when hell froze over. It was like a big deal.

David Horsager:
oh my goodness.

Christine Cashen:
I know.

David Horsager:
Well, Christine, you’re speaking all over the world. I’ve, you know, I know your client’s list, Walmart and United and general mills and at, and C and all these other places, and we’ve gotten the incredible privilege. I’ve had the incredible privilege to be on the same stage with you at a, at some events around the world. But let’s dive in here. You, you have this expertise around really energy and positivity and working with people and building teams. And so let let’s, you know, let’s start actually, and then move from there quickly because of the, we don’t keep going back to the pandemic, but we’ve got people right now that are still overwhelmed, frozen challenged. They’re some are having to come back, live work, some are virtual, some are alone. What do, what do we do? We have some tips for people as, as we move out of this kind of collective, just time.

Christine Cashen:
Right? Right. That is a good question. And I think I have the answer. I am on a mission and I hope you and your listeners will join me as we stop global whining.

David Horsager:
Let’s do it

Christine Cashen:
Things. Aren’t gonna go back to the way they were BC before COVID we just need to embrace it and look forward. I’m tired of looking back. I am looking both on both eyes are forward and you know what? There’s a lot of things you can’t change, but there’s a lot of things you can so stop focusing on the things you have no control over. My mom called me yesterday. She said, oh my gosh, did you see the monkey PS? I’m like, oh, for the love of all, that’s holy, I can’t, I can’t control that. I’m gonna still wash my hands, do my best and live my life. Right. I can’t worry about all the things I have no control over. I can just control me. Right. So that, so I think that’s the first step is looking at ways that you can have power to change your situation.

David Horsager:
So focus on what you can control. Now someone’s on there. Someone’s listening right now. They’re critical. They’re like, well, yeah, but if I don’t complain or want the squeaky wheel gets the da da, then I need, you know, I’m, I’m not gonna get the attention I need or the thing that I need, unless I am that person. What say you?

Christine Cashen:
Yeah. You know, I thought people were gonna come out of this last two years. Kinder in gentler. No people are ready to fight. I think they’ve been under control for so long that they now wanna over exert their control over everything. But again, there’s so many things you do have power over. So I know I’ve been complaining about the pandemic. I gained a little bit of weight over this baking bread time. but it’s like, yeah, you can vent once, but what are you gonna do about it? When are you gonna make your health a priority? I have control over that. I have control over it. Stop drinking as much wine, drink, more water, all that kind of stuff. They’re just our choices that we make every single day. And so for people to complain about things, well, unless you have total control, you’re wasting your energy, put it towards something you can. If you’re miserable, where you are, find another place to be.

David Horsager:
So I think one of our challenges is people are tired and it’s very hard to move or do something different when you’re tired, because he was like, well, I wanna start this new habit. I want to change this thing. I want to get rid of these pounds, but I’m just totally worn out. Somebody could say, emotionally, physically, you have something. I think you even say, I quote you here. How, how to stay inspired when you’re tired, how do we do that with ourselves? How do I, how do I get inspired when I’m tired?

Christine Cashen:
Okay. I have the best tip. I hope everyone’s listening. When you go to bed at night, go to sleep. You gotta go to sleep. So too many people take their phones. They start the scrolling mm-hmm right. Cause that’s their way to calm down. And you know, you have a problem. If you’ve ever dropped your phone on your face. if any of you out there, if you’ve dropped a phone on your face, you have a problem. Okay? And don’t be smug cuz you lay on your side and the screen bounces back and forth. You gotta get that. You gotta get that phone out of your bedroom because too many of us spend an hour or so scrolling. Your partner is two. You wake up. The first thing you do is you grab your phone. You start looking at your emails you’re behind. Before you even get out of bed with one eye open you’re feeling those stress, the stress hormones mm-hmm . And it’s like if people would just wean from the screen the last half hour of your day, the first half an hour of your day, start with 10 minutes. Maybe no phone front, no screen, a television included at night. And in the morning, in fact, I developed these little they’re called cell phone, sleeping bags and people put, I, when we’re out to dinner, when we’re out with people, I bring bunch of sleeping bags. We put our phones to, to rest because they work really hard. They need a nap. So ,

David Horsager:
By the way, you can get those sleeping bags@christinecashin.com. You’ll put all this in the show notes. I know that. Any other tips, by the way, this is a, this is a massive problem for everybody. Any other tips or ways to build this habit in essence to wean from the screen, we know there’s places that screen, we need it. We can use it. We, we, you know, get our Delta tickets on it. We get our, you know, whatever. But how, how, what else can I actually do? It’s cuz it’s one thing to say it and then like, oh, but this time, let me just, you know, what do I do?

Christine Cashen:
It’s that? It’s so tempting, right? Yeah. So you’ve gotta set some boundaries. Like our family is like no phones at the table, period. The end, cuz at one point we’re all eating. I look and everyone’s heads down. I thought, are they saying a prayer? No, the phone is underneath the table and they’re sending texts to their friends or whatever. And it’s like, no, no, no. So that’s a rule. Yep. Whenever I go out to people for when we go out to dinner, everybody needs to put it away. In fact a friend of mine has a cell phone. She calls it a tech tower. Everybody puts their phones in a pile. Have you seen this?

David Horsager:
No. First

Christine Cashen:
Per first person to check pays the check.

David Horsager:
Oh there you go. That’s a motivator. I like it. Great. What else? You know, I’m gonna keep going with this a little bit. You can jump anywhere you want, because I think it’s very interesting for those of us that have teenagers or kids, younger, whatever, what I mean, this is I, I told I, my, my parents, my dad is gonna be 93 this year. Okay. So, and, and I’m actually proud of how they’ve kept up with technology, but not too much, you know, like they they’re, they’re in the world, they’re learning all continued learning, but I told them, you know, they were down this weekend and I, I just said, I’m a, I could, I’m a good parent without phones. Like I could have been a really good parent 40 years ago, 30 years ago, like this phone thing. And we were like the, the LA we were the last ones to give our kids phones in the class. We were the, all these things and still it’s, it’s, it’s challenging any tip for, for parents as much as we have leaders of companies and everything else on this you know, a lot of ’em have kids. What do we do?

Christine Cashen:
Yes. I there’s one rule and that’s no one brings their phone into their bedroom at night. I think it’s giving your kid a loaded gun to give them their phone at night where they can scroll post pictures, do whatever, and you need to do a check. So when I get those phones at night, we just, everybody, you know, charges in the kitchen and all, every once in a while go through and I start, I start looking, I start looking at the pic, well, that’s an invasion of your privacy. Are you kidding me? I, you have to do it. You have to look what invasion of your privacy to see if someone’s getting bullied. What kind of pictures are being sent? What they’re looking at. And for me, it wasn’t what my kids were sending. It was what they were receiving. Mm-Hmm

David Horsager:
that was I’m on the same page. We, we, they, they put our, their phones actually in our, in, in our in our room every night. So it’s the right at the door. There’s a place to plug in charging, whatever. Yep, exactly. Mm-Hmm and, and in our heart’s case, and this might, people might think too strong, but they sign a contract with us because we, now, if they break their phone and everything, they can make the money to buy it and whatever, but we own their phone. We own the phone until they’re 18. So this is our ownership. We own it. That means we can own everything about it. you know, same. So anyway, it’s, it’s part of what we’re

Christine Cashen:
Trying. Exactly, exactly the same. And I had, I bought this thing. We haven’t used it much lately. But it’s called the circle. It’s by Disney. Yeah. And everyone’s phones got connected to it. And then I could, they had a certain amount of time online. You’re shaking your head. Like, you know what? This is?

David Horsager:
Yep. We absolutely,

Christine Cashen:
The internet turns off for them when they’ve reached their time limit. Yep. And then if they wanted more time, they had to do some chores to get more time. But it, I don’t think people realize how, how much time is spent. And this was a great indicator. I put myself on it too, because you just, if you’re on the tickety talk time just goes by and you wake up. You’re like two hours later. What happened in my life? What are you doing?

David Horsager:
Yes. Yep. People don’t know that absolutely screen time measures it. We use echo in our home. We have a wall on or whatever they call it. But anyway, I think this is really interesting. You, you know, I wanna jump to something else that’s very relevant today and we’ll, you know, we’re gonna get into it here. We talk a lot about getting along. Like you talk a lot about helping people that are opposing get along. I mean, we’ve got a polar world, as you know, all of our workers around building trust. How do we, Hey, let’s jump in. How do we get Democrats and Republicans to get along? you are,

Christine Cashen:
We can solve that problem, David, if we would be king and queen of the universe,

David Horsager:
Right. How do we just, well, but okay. Let’s just take take it easier. Somebody on our team, it’s like, I don’t agree. This is a pain. How are we gonna, because we know teams get things done. We need to be able to get along in some way. Doesn’t mean we always have to agree. What can we do?

Christine Cashen:
I think it’s trying to find that common ground. And I wish that the politic politicians out there could do that. But it’s finding those things that you can agree on first maybe. And a lot of it is the language that we use. Right. I call them wise words. Hmm. So for instance, instead of saying the word, unfortunately, I like to use the word as it turns out

Christine Cashen:
Right. So someone says, oh, we need you for a speech. I’m like, oh, unfortunately I’m busy. No, no. Unfortunately I’d say Uhuh, as it turns out, I have, you know, when I’m asking my family to do things, I don’t say you haven’t, you know, you never feed the dog. I say you have yet to, if you have someone who owes your report, like I haven’t seen that report. You need to go, I have yet to see the report, leaving them open to doing it. Instead of saying, I disagree with you using the words, I see things differently. I feel like we’re not using the right words. And it’s inflaming people on the, you know, not on purpose, it’s just happening. And then if you get a, an email from someone that makes you wanna lick your fingers and, you know, tap out your response, that’s not the thing to do. You gotta pick up the phone face to face so much miscommunication occurs through email, through text. I mean, it’s just, I couldn’t make anyone’s email sound like they’re being mean by the tone of my voice. Look at what he wrote. Good warning. Happy to work with you on this. Yeah. Right?

David Horsager:
Yeah. absolutely.

Christine Cashen:
So if you get a, especially when it’s a, a sensitive or hot topic, like always, always pick up the phone, don’t, don’t hide behind to the keyboard.

David Horsager:
Love it. What about you know, you had some other tips I’ve heard and I, I think brilliant. I, by the way, I love what you just said about words, all this, these using the right words. It can, it can

Christine Cashen:
Words matter.

David Horsager:
Yes. It, it can deescalate. It can open up. It can. So it’s so motivating. You and I both know Phil Jones who was on the, on the podcast not too long ago. That’s and is, you know, think had us thinking a lot differently about words, but as far as, you know, a lot of what you’re talking about, it’s so fun to see you on the platform and you bring this fun and you bring this energy and you bring this customization and connection. And you’ve been on the stage with presence of countries, including ours and others. But what, what about this? How can we bring, you know, some, some of the things I’ve heard you talk about is less stress and more productivity. How can we be more productive? Because we turns out we still need to get things done. There’s a lot of focus and for good reason on mental health and taking this day and take that. But I run a company and I actually still need people to work. I actually still need people to get things done. So how do we motivate this kinda less stress environment, but we actually, we still need to be productive. What do we do?

Christine Cashen:
Yeah, that’s a really good question. And I, I think the answer is, is in each person finding out where their strengths are, what, what, when’s your biggest productivity time? Is it in the morning? Is it the afternoon? Some people don’t get going until like 11 o’clock for other people. They’re like, oh, it’s lunch and home. They’re mentally gone because they’ve been up working, you know, first thing straight away. So know when your high productive, high energy time is and capitalize on that, you know, do the things you don’t wanna do first. A lot of times you get that out of the way you’ve been putting it off for three days. Well, finally, you did it. And it was much easier than anticipated. And then if you can do your tasks some blocks of time. So you know, I will try to power through my email. Then I turn it off and go to something else, a project that I needed to do or whatever. But the problem is we’re always distracted. Right?

David Horsager:
How do we get rid of that distractions? Yeah. How do we get rid of the, yeah.

Christine Cashen:
Turn off your notifications. Hmm. Turn off your notifications. So you can actually focus. I take everything off my desk that I’m not working on because I find myself going, Ooh, I don’t know if anyone like me has that, you know, attention span issue, where you’re like squirrel over here and you never, I start 10 things and never finish anything. So really just getting your groove on. And if you need help, please ask for it. And the thing is today, everyone’s really mad because they can’t get what they want when they want it. Well, due to whether it’s supply chain or lack of employees being honest about what’s going on, what the holdup is. Communication is the key. I think people would be a lot less angry if they knew what was going on rather than just making them wait and wonder if they’ve been ghosted.

David Horsager:
Absolutely. What about you? You’ve got, you’ve got this business. You’ve started 26, 27, 8 years ago. What? You’ve been speaking, you’ve been you, you know, you’ve come through we’ve, we’ve come through some challenging, different times and business for you. You did used to do a lot of live, live events. What have you learned? As far as pivoting? I talk about this, you know, some there there’s people that like consultants that want to know, like, be absolute, well, it’s always this, or it’s always that, you know, it’s always this way. It’s always that it’s always oh, be patient, but the early bird gets the worm. Well, what should I be this time? Or it’s it’s oh, you gotta low end to pivot. You gotta know when to pivot, but well, this one won just because they persevered in through. So should I persevere? Should I pivot? How did you manage well, in this time of knowing when to pivot, knowing when to persevere, how to, you know, what did you learn?

Christine Cashen:
I just learned, I, I am actually really good at this because I’m super flexible. You know, it’s like when I started to do virtual, everybody was buying all the equipment and all this stuff. And I was making hand drawn signs that I was holding up in front of the camera and throwing ’em over my head because I didn’t wanna mess with the technology part. I just wanted to have fun. So I just realized that I didn’t have to follow the rules that everyone else had set forth. Like you have to have this, this special thing for your screen to flip and all that stuff. I just wanted to bring who I was. And I feel like through all of this, I just realized we all have the same issues. We all struggle, you know? And the more I can be authentically myself and relatable to the audience. And I think that’s always been my secret sauce is that people see themselves in me rather than, oh, she’s so much better. She’s got it all together. You know, I’m not a hot mess. I’m a spicy disaster. , I’ve learned to embrace that.

David Horsager:
What are you learning today? What are you curious about today? You keep learning and growing. What, what do you learning these days?

Christine Cashen:
Oh, that is a really good question. I I am learning, I really wanna start doing a little micro habiting. So in other words you know, it’s like, oh, I should go work out, but you know what I’m gonna do today? I’m gonna drink more water. Like, I’m just gonna start small. I, when I get overwhelmed by get big goals, I do nothing, but it’s all the little baby steps that make me feel like I’m, I’m being productive. So I’ve been trying to focus more on the little goals and having some quiet time for my brain, because I don’t think a lot of us have, and probably your listeners are the same. We don’t leave room for any quiet.

David Horsager:
When do you have, when do you take, when does margin work for you? When do you have margin or quiet?

Christine Cashen:
When I feel like I’ll, I’ll notice my shoulders are up around my ears, especially these last couple of weeks. Yeah. Because with everything going on the month of mentalness mental health awareness, mental. I think I said it correctly the first time. Right? Cause that’s kinda what it is. Although it’s funny. I, the moment I feel like all of a sudden, I, I’m not breathing. Yesterday I stepped outside. I put my feet in the grass and I did some grounding. I’m just like deep breaths. Feel the earth under my feet, just get grounded for just five minutes, three minutes just looked around, took it all in. And when I came back in, I just felt like I had gone on vacation. I felt so much better. I know people meditate. I have trouble with that. I know I’m try. I’d like to learn more about it. Mm-Hmm I just, my brain sits there and starts worrying even faster. Did you know, did I take the sheets out of the dryer? You know, all that kind of stuff, but when I take a minute, even if it’s a quick break outside, breathe, breathe. I put my bare feet into the grass. I’m I know that sounds like very

David Horsager:
Sounds very Minnesota in January. Just go

Christine Cashen:
Out in Minnesota in January, go. Do you still could put on your boots, get outside and breathe. The cold absolutely

David Horsager:
Lost air. That’s funny. You know, when we had the I remember our, our first kiddo of the four, she would, you know, was crying, crying, crying, and we learned something. All you have to do is go outside, just open the door and go outside and they get a different perspective. They get the wind in their face. They got it. Just change. You talk about even in a six month old, right. They just, oh, okay. And sometimes we act like six month olds or need a little wisdom there probably too. So.

Christine Cashen:
Well, I have another good. I have another good tip. Well,

David Horsager:
Please give us a couple more tips. And then I’ll this is so good.

Christine Cashen:
When, when you’re feeling kind of down and out of it, I find that there is a huge gift in the lift. And what I recommend is called the 10 coin challenge. And what it is is you wake up and you put 10 coins in your pocket, make ’em the smallest coin you have. I know you have people listening all over the world. So something smaller, maybe it’s a small bead, something as a remind, 10 of them, then you look for things that are going right. Someone you can appreciate someone you can compliment. And when you do that, you get to move a coin or bead from one pocket to the other pocket. What this does is most of us put on our gotcha goggles. Who’s screwing up as a leader. Who’s not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and yes, you need that. But this helps you also put on grateful goggles. Who can you appreciate and why can you appreciate them? And some days you really have to look hard. Mm-Hmm , but it’s there. You will lift others. You will feel lifted and you want all 10 coins to be one pocket to the other by the end of the day, and start with your family.

David Horsager:
Great idea. Start your

Christine Cashen:
Family. And this is like a physical reminder of all right. I’m dishing out the criticism. Let me also be a good supporter and person as well.

David Horsager:
Just shout out the dish out the gratitude. Yes. That’s a, that’s a huge habit. Hey, any other habits you have? You know, we, at least when I’ve seen leaders that I trust and follow I’m, I see leaders that are doing something to lead themselves. Well, what are you, you, you influence all these people on the platform, all these huge companies and everything else. What are you doing to lead yourself? Whether it’s you know, physical, mental input, emotional, your family, what other habits do you have?

Christine Cashen:
I try to be a really good connector. I think it’s really important to check in with people on a personal level, as opposed to just the professional level. So, you know, I try every week to reach out to some people that I don’t see or talk to all the time and just say, I’m thinking of you. No need to write back. I just wanna let you know I’m here. I think a lot of people are dealing with a lot of things right now. And I, I that’s most important to me that I’m a good friend and a good human being. Mm-Hmm , you know, not only for my friends, but for my community, like, I’m the one that has the neighborhood get together at the end of school, you know, I just love,

David Horsager:
And you had a beautiful get together that I had the opportunity to be at in your beautiful home. But

Christine Cashen:
I just love bringing people together. Yeah,

David Horsager:
Fantastic.

Christine Cashen:
That’s that’s one of my favorite favorite things to do is to really reach out and you know, who, who has time. We don’t have time, but a little note card, a little note in the mail, I’ll see an article I’ll forward it to someone, a class client. I, I thought you might appreciate this. And I also try to maintain my sense of humor. I just think it’s not a lot to laugh about these days, but I find those things and just, you know, you bring the joy, Bluetooth phone, you know, I’ve got a I have all these toys and things that I just love making people laugh. And I think many leaders think that if they’re not serious all the time, they’re not taken seriously. But I feel like is the person that can evoke the laughter that can lighten up themselves. Other people that is an effective leader. Cuz everyone knows we’re the same underneath. We really are.

David Horsager:
They’re real. Give us a tip. How can I let’s just say we’ve got some people that are just like, oh, but how can I bring laughter, I’m not funny. I’m not this. And I wanna be more approachable as a leader. I wanna be more understood. Like what, what could I do?

Christine Cashen:
Okay. Well I think that, you know, a lot of us get irritated by people. ,

Christine Cashen:
You know we all, we all have rules for people that people don’t always follow. So hello. So start out with this. It’s called make up a story about people’s past. Now you don’t tell them the story it’s just for you. So let’s say you’re even driving to work. You’re getting irritated because nobody knows how to drive. Normally you’d get angry when someone pulled in front of you now you just think, ah, you know that person, that’s their first time driving. They’re a permit driver. oh, they’ve got, they didn’t use their turn signal because they have a broken arm. Like I just make up stories for people this way. I’m giving them a break and sometimes they’re suit. They’re very funny. Like my daughter, one time, this guy was bobbing and weaving through traffic. And I said to my daughter at the time, very young in the backseat, I said, look at that crazy driver. She said he must have to go potty

David Horsager:
and she’s got it.

Christine Cashen:
Yeah, you never know. So I just started having fun just with people. I called the reverse wishing. Well, like I wish them, well, I don’t use the wishes for me. I wish them well, good luck getting where you’re going. You’re walking so slow. You must have had a hip replacement recently. And I just find it makes me giggle makes me lighter because when I’m stressed out and angry inside, I find that that manifests itself being critical and angry with other people. Hmm. But when I’m lighter and having more fun just by myself, it just tends to come out and people feel it.

David Horsager:
Absolutely. Anybody that’s ever been around you feels that that’s

Christine Cashen:
You know, David, you can catch mood poisoning very easily. Yeah.

David Horsager:
no doubt about it.

Christine Cashen:
Point thing is a thing. Oh yeah.

David Horsager:
Yeah. Oh with that, I’ve got a final question for you, but before I do, where can people find out more about you? We’ve got it in the show notes. We’ve got it in the and we’ll put it there, but some people might be interested in couple of your books are the good stuff by Christine Cashin and it’s your business by Christine Cash. And you can even find the cell phone sleeping bags, but where is the number one or one in two spot to go?

Christine Cashen:
Yeah, the number one and only spot Christine cashin.com. Check the notes. Yeah.

David Horsager:
Christine cashin.com. We’ve got it spelled correctly below if you don’t know Christine yet. And we’ll we’ll, we’ll look there. So it’s the trusted leader show first. I just have to say thanks for being a friend that I trust and it’s a, it’s just a treat to be together, happy on the show, but it’s a trusted leader show who is a leader you trust and why?

Christine Cashen:
Hmm. I, I really look up to Brene brown. Mm-Hmm as a trusted leader and speaker, she just speaks the truth. She talks about vulnerability. I didn’t know if any of your listeners are familiar with her. Of course it should be. She’s like the next Oprah kind of. And I just, I feel like she’s not trying to put on an act. I feel like she’s the real deal and I, people can feel authenticity.

David Horsager:
Absolutely.

Christine Cashen:
And I can do that with her.

David Horsager:
And she’s one of your fellow Texans, so yes, there. Right? Isn’t that true? There’s that? Do you both? Yeah. All right. Well this has been a treat. Thank you so much. Lots of nuggets, lots of fun. And lots of good from Christine Cashen. It’s been the trusted leader show until next time stay trusted.