Madelaine Weiss 0:03

And honestly, when I look back on that, I think you go girl, how did you do that? You know, I was grieving, my whole world was pulled out from under me. I had no idea about anything. And somehow, and this is a message for everybody, we underestimate what's in there. Somehow there was guidance in me that moved me, in that direction, and I'm so grateful to that little girl for doing that.

Speaker 2 0:42

Have you ever looked back at a moment when you had every reason to stop and realized something in you kept moving anyway? Madelaine Weiss has built an entire body of work around that inner compass, the one most of us are too busy, too loud, or too scared to hear. This conversation is an invitation to quiet down and listen. This is the Your Next Success podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Caroline Sangal, I'm a life first career coach and strategist on a mission to normalize questioning your career because I believe each of us is made on purpose for a purpose only we can fulfill. The longer we live out of alignment with who we are, what we do best, and why we are here, the more we miss out. And the more the world misses out on what only we can give. The Your Next Success Podcast is where we explore how to build a career that truly fuels your life. We talk about self-discovery, smart job, search strategies, professional growth, and you'll hear stories from people who have navigated big career transitions themselves, so you can create a life, first career and become your own version of authentic success. Madelaine Claire Weiss is a Harvard-trained licensed psychotherapist, mindset expert, and board-certified executive career and life coach whose path from lab technician to therapist to author is in itself a masterclass in following your own signal. She is the author of Getting to Great: A Five-Step Strategy for Work and Life, co-author of the Handbook of Stressful Transitions Across the Lifespan, and has launched a personal development workbook for kids called What's Your Story? Her work centers on one belief, that a great life begins with a great fit between who you truly are and the world in which you truly live.

Caroline 2:44

Welcome to Next Success, Madelaine. I'm so thrilled to be talking with you today.

Madelaine Weiss 2:48

Thank you for having me.

Caroline 2:50

We're gonna get to all of the wonderful things that you do. You're an author of multiple books, including this one, Getting to Great. We'll get to that. We'll get to the wonderful work that you do to help people through life or career transitions, and I'd love to start way back with your story. Can you help us understand where were you born? What was life like for the very youngest Madelaine.

Madelaine Weiss 3:12

I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. where I stayed till I was around 21.

Caroline 3:24

Okay.

Madelaine Weiss 3:24

I was born and raised there. I was a, very feisty little girl for better and for worse. In my book, I think I wrote about how, my recollection is I spent most of my childhood grounded and that's when I started writing to entertain myself. I would make these books out of construction paper and sew them up the middle with yarn and color

Caroline 3:56

That's awesome.

Madelaine Weiss 3:57

color, the cover and all that kind of stuff.

Caroline 4:00

So this, desire to be an author and to have amazing books with awesome covers has been ingrained in you from a very early age. Now, I also spent quite a bit of time, being grounded or restricted,

Madelaine Weiss 4:13

thought I was the only one.

Caroline 4:17

No, no, no. Not the only one.

Madelaine Weiss 4:17

I wonder if it was, well, you're not of the same generation that I am, but I just wonder if back in the day, that kind of discipline, you know, like there's this gentle parenting now. It wasn't as gentle and I, I don't know what it was like for the other kids and their parents, although I spent a lot of time with my friend's parents. They were always very warm and welcoming to me if and when I was ever allowed out. But there was, there was this, sense of importance I think in my father's mind about disciplining me well and in my later years now when I think back on him I think that he was keeping me safe. I think that I was such a, ball on fire that he was keeping me. Like, like if I went out there, God knows what would happen. So, so,

Caroline 5:32

Yeah. Does it,

Madelaine Weiss 5:34

So I've pivoted 'cause I know you're interested in pivoting. I've pivoted over the years to this other point of view

Caroline 5:42

now, what did he do for work?

Madelaine Weiss 5:44

So my grandfather, my father's intention was to go to law school, but the depression happened and his mother died early in her life of a heart attack. And the story goes that on her deathbed, he made a promise to her to take care of his father and the family business. And the family business was in the garment industry. So he used to take me sometimes to New York with him and I'd be allowed to pick out stuff. I had a red patent leather wrap skirt once. So yeah,

Caroline 6:37

Very interesting. And did your mom, work outside the home?

Madelaine Weiss 6:41

So my mother was the bookkeeper for my father's business.

Caroline 6:47

Gotcha.

Madelaine Weiss 6:49

She would, they didn't have, calculators or computers or any of that then, so she didn't have an Excel spreadsheet. So she would sit there with, her pen and go, it's,

Caroline 7:04

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 7:04

In her head.

Caroline 7:06

Interesting. She didn't even have like the calculator jink thing with the like roll fig coming up.

Madelaine Weiss 7:10

I don't remember anything.

Caroline 7:12

Wow. The pad.

Madelaine Weiss 7:14

the numbers.

Caroline 7:14

Interesting. And so now, if that's the family business for generations, you remember her doing that, so it must have been a little bit hard for them to separate family life from work life. It just all was wrapped up.

Madelaine Weiss 7:29

Well she, that's, that's not all she did. She, was the president of the local chapter of the City of Hope, which I think was Leukemia maybe, or,

Caroline 7:41

Interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 7:42

And our local temple. And she was pretty active.

Caroline 7:47

So she was giving back to the community, helping out with greater causes and helping your father's business and raising you, and I think you had a sibling as well.

Madelaine Weiss 7:59

I have an older brother. My mother was not very domesticated, so she did all those things more than I think she actually mothered.

Caroline 8:12

Aha.

Madelaine Weiss 8:13

Uhhuh. I think that I have vastly improved on her as a mother on purpose,

Caroline 8:21

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 8:22

I think my daughter has even taken it up a notch.

Caroline 8:26

Oh wow. That's awesome.

Madelaine Weiss 8:28

Wonderful mother. So,

Caroline 8:29

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 8:30

Yeah.

Caroline 8:31

That's what I mean, we kind of want that. Right. 'Cause it's either gonna be, well just gonna fall into the same old, same old. Or the heck if I'm gonna be like that. So I'm gonna try to do a 180 on how all that went down. Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 8:43

Yeah. So I think we've found nice balances in the corrections and improvements over the generations, and I love seeing that because I'm all into growth and development anyway,

Caroline 8:58

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 8:59

it's good to see it in my own family.

Caroline 9:01

Now, how about in school? Were there any particular, like let's say, elementary, middle, high school, any particular subjects you enjoyed more than others were there activities outside of school you enjoyed more than others?

Madelaine Weiss 9:13

I enjoyed talking on a telephone to my friends because that's all I really had. Since I wasn't allowed out. So that contact was really important to me. And I remember my mother saying, you're much smarter than your brother, but you must never tell anyone I said that. So no one expected very much from me academically, and I didn't expect anything very much from myself academically. and so I have a, lovely young granddaughter. Well, I have a few of them and I am, very out there with them on how much I wished I had taken my studies more seriously. Because now I can't get enough history and philosophy and all that stuff. And when I say that to other adults, they say they weren't really teaching us that stuff anyway. So some of it, some of it they were,

Caroline 10:23

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 10:24

I just wish I had known then how much love for all of that lived inside of me that wasn't being addressed or acknowledged but it is now.

Caroline 10:36

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And even in your book, I loved, you have so many like references to other works and other things,

Madelaine Weiss 10:42

Thank you.

Caroline 10:43

I appreciated that very, very, I come from a hard science background, chemistry and polymers like rubber and plastic. So I was like, oh yes, there's citations. I love it. It's not just random thoughts, it's random thoughts linking back to other people's studies and I loved it all.

Madelaine Weiss 11:00

I actually got in trouble for that when I was in business school.

Caroline 11:04

Really.

Madelaine Weiss 11:05

The professor said he felt like he was being attacked with references. he said, in the next paper you write, I just wanna know what you think.

Caroline 11:18

Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 11:21

He felt like I was arming myself, like making my arguments bulletproof because this one said this and this one found that. And I had all these references and he thought I was doing that to protect myself and my own thoughts and my own view of the world. And he said he wanted just that.

Caroline 11:41

Interesting. It, very interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 11:44

Right.

Caroline 11:44

I can kind of see a part of that, like, okay, well what you were, in my opinion, trying to present is the thoughts that you have are also well backed up by these things that these other people have found as well through a bunch of literature studies. So therefore, this is now your, you're a adapting that information into your viewpoint. Oh, what's wrong with that? That's better than just a whim. Anyway.

Madelaine Weiss 12:07

While I was being raised, I think I was seen as an airhead, and this slew of references might be related to that.

Caroline 12:19

To combat to make sure everybody knows.

Madelaine Weiss 12:23

I teach a decision making segment and it's all science backed. Like everything I say, I like that book.

Caroline 12:34

Yeah,

Madelaine Weiss 12:34

So it's probably my armor, but I love reading it, you know.

Caroline 12:39

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 12:40

And when I was studying Advaita Vedanta that's that pre Hindu tradition, which I studied for like 25 years. I used to, every time they would say something, the tutors, I would have a study I'd bring it up and they would say, well, I'm glad they're finally catching up with us. The science was so consistent the ancient Eastern philosophy and I was always wanting to say, yeah, I just read a study, blah, blah, blah. And they didn't appreciate it that much either, but I'm glad you do.

Caroline 13:20

I do. I totally do. But, okay, so let's dig into, there's something happened in your teen years that very much influenced your perspective on the world and work and life can you help us understand what that experience was and how that,

Madelaine Weiss 13:42

Are you meaning my father died.

Caroline 13:44

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 13:45

When I was 15 suddenly, and nobody ever knew what to do with me, and they certainly didn't know what to do with me after that happened. So you can kind of imagine maybe that and, I don't know how I did this, but somehow I got myself the University of Pennsylvania. Graduate hospital, school of technology, medical technology. And I honestly, when I look back on that, I think you go girl, you go, how did you do that? You know, I was grieving, my whole world was pulled out from under me. I had no idea, I had no idea about anything. And somehow, and this is a message for everybody, we underestimate what's in there. Somehow there was guidance in me that moved me, or I used to move in that direction, and I'm like so grateful to that little girl for doing that.

Caroline 15:04

Yeah. How did you decide that you wanted to go there?

Madelaine Weiss 15:11

I don't think anybody thought I was college material, which might explain why I kept getting this degree, that degree, that degree. Eventually. And I knew of other people, other kids who were going to these kinds of programs, but they weren't going to that one. And I don't know what it was because I remember that I was practically flunking, physics and chemistry. And the teachers we had moved to, which you're not supposed to do when there's a death in the family. You're not supposed to pick the kids up and move. But we did to, somewhere where it was a whole new school, very different kind of school, and I didn't know anybody, but the teachers were so attentive and loving.

Caroline 15:58

Oh.

Madelaine Weiss 15:58

meet with me separately help me pass courses like physics and chemistry. Maybe it was their, I think they would call it scaffolding the way these teachers held me. That helped me to believe that I was fit for this school,

Caroline 16:22

Yeah,

Madelaine Weiss 16:23

Those schools. It's remarkable to me when I look back on it. I don't know how I did that, but I did it.

Caroline 16:30

That's awesome also that those teachers, so you moved schools, brand new community, brand new everything, and these teachers wanted to take extra time and attention to try to support you however they could and likely meeting with you not just during class time, but inviting you to,

Madelaine Weiss 16:50

It was

Caroline 16:51

to come and taking special. Yeah. That's awesome.

Madelaine Weiss 16:54

Actually think I was invited to dinner, at their home.

Caroline 16:59

Wow.

Madelaine Weiss 17:00

I think,

Caroline 17:00

That.

Madelaine Weiss 17:01

Really felt sorry for me.

Caroline 17:03

Well, but they also saw something in you. Right? And so they have this fresh perspective and they're seeing this spunky, creative, articulate.

Madelaine Weiss 17:13

Well, we

Caroline 17:14

Beautiful.

Madelaine Weiss 17:14

Articulate, but

Caroline 17:16

I, I, let's say that you were, they, they're sitting. Why?

Madelaine Weiss 17:20

There's,

Caroline 17:21

Have to do that. They didn't have to. They wanted to.

Madelaine Weiss 17:24

in the yearbook

Caroline 17:25

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 17:26

and it's like this, and the caption is, Madelaine's eternal questions.

Caroline 17:34

Aw,

Madelaine Weiss 17:34

So I

Caroline 17:35

Curious,

Madelaine Weiss 17:36

you Yeah,

Caroline 17:37

Inquisitive. Yeah. Wanting to know why. Wanting to how. That's awesome.

Madelaine Weiss 17:41

Just being annoying. Yeah.

Caroline 17:45

I wouldn't say there's a, it's a both end world, right. Yeah. I asked a lot of questions as well, and my kids do too. And yes, maybe that doesn't allow other people to ask questions, but it sure as heck seemed like they weren't trying to ask anything, so,

Madelaine Weiss 17:59

Well actually the kids were very nice to me also. They nominated me right off the bat for Snow Queen and I was first runner up because they had a lovely foreign exchange student, and she was the Snow Queen.

Caroline 18:17

Interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 18:18

That they included me like that every,

Caroline 18:21

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 18:22

It was, so if anyone listening ever wonders what the value of a smile or

Caroline 18:31

Hmm.

Madelaine Weiss 18:31

just being present, like the gift of attention that we say, you know, it's the most beautiful and important gift there is. And as I am listening to myself tell this story today, that's what I'm seeing. How one hand and another reaching out with a little bit of touch made such a difference. It like saved a life, you know?

Caroline 19:03

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 19:04

Yeah.

Caroline 19:05

That's beautiful. And at any age, any stage that welcoming acceptance, wanting to get to know somebody new, trying to do what you can to help their day be a little bit better. I think we can all be reminded of that in any circumstance, whether it's school.

Madelaine Weiss 19:22

Table at lunch, or

Caroline 19:23

Yeah. 'Cause otherwise, where do you go? Okay, so you get into this school and then did you go and like, I'm not sure how far that was from where you were living. Did you go live there or was that a commuter school? Like,

Madelaine Weiss 19:39

I was living, on the outskirts well, not even outskirts. I was not living in Center City, Philadelphia.

Caroline 19:48

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 19:49

And the school were in Center City, Philadelphia. I was a little further out,

Caroline 19:55

Interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 19:56

I would, there was a train across the street

Caroline 19:59

Okay.

Madelaine Weiss 19:59

moved to, so I would take the train back and forth and then I would do night call. I would never allow anyone I love to do what I did, back then we weren't that mindful about safety

Caroline 20:14

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 20:15

So yeah, I was back and forth at odd hours.

Caroline 20:19

Interesting. And then what degree did you end up getting from that school?

Madelaine Weiss 20:24

I think it was a certification in laboratory technology

Caroline 20:28

and then what happened?

Madelaine Weiss 20:31

And then what? So I worked in that for a period of time in a number of different venues. So I worked in a hospital chem lab

Caroline 20:42

Interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 20:43

I work in, group practice laboratories and I worked for the USDA biological control lab. So

Caroline 20:51

Interesting. Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 20:52

I got to the point, here comes the pivot where I realize I was spending my days with bugs and other things I wanted to mention and, and I wanted to be with people, not bugs. So I went to social work school.

Caroline 21:14

That's awesome. And how was that? Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 21:17

I skipped a whole school. I went to get a bachelor's, so I cried my way into school.

Caroline 21:28

What does that mean? Tell me more.

Madelaine Weiss 21:31

Well, I, I, I was living in Massachusetts and UMass was building a new school near where I lived, so their primary campus was in Amherst. And I wanted to go there because it would be inexpensive for me as a resident. And so I applied I was transferring students. I had lived for three years in Columbia, Missouri, I was taking courses while I was raising my baby. So I was taking courses on the side and I was trying to transfer them over and they rejected me. And I remember my husband and I were going on a Windjammer cruise after that happened. And I was kind of distraught, and I think I mentioned to people on the cruise I had gotten rejected. And I said, well, you just go back there and you tell them, no, they can't. So I did. I wrote to the dean and I have no idea what I said, but here I go again. I went to the dean. He actually agreed to meet with me. I walked in, I sat down, I started crying and he said, okay, fine, fine, fine. And they accepted me. And then I told myself have to get a 4.0 here that, to live up to the favor letting me in after,

Caroline 23:09

Oh wow.

Madelaine Weiss 23:11

So, so I did.

Caroline 23:13

And you also had a young kid at home and you're married as well. Were you also working at the same time.

Madelaine Weiss 23:21

No,

Caroline 23:22

Okay. Thank goodness.

Madelaine Weiss 23:23

But, when I went to business school,

Caroline 23:27

Yeah. Let's catch up to that part. Let's, yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 23:33

I was working for a group practice after social work school. I was working for a group and the owners were using office among other offices as their cash cow, and they overextended. So they had too many offices not enough money because our office was making all the money and supporting everything else. So one day we show up to work and there's nothing in the office but a typewriter. Everything was cleared out. So I had my seven sisters who were in the practice also, and we just got together and we said, so we have a typewriter. Now we need an office manager an accountant. And this goes back to my mother, the bookkeeper.

Caroline 24:37

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 24:37

And they were dishing out who was going to do what. And I was pregnant with my son, like very pregnant and also building a new house. I had my feet up because, you know, for the swelling and all of that. And I said, well, I don't know. My mother was a bookkeeper. They said, okay, great. You are I said, okay, but what do I do? 'cause I don't know what to do.

Caroline 25:08

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 25:08

Said, get a brown bag, put all the money in the bag and take it home and figure it out.

Caroline 25:18

Interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 25:20

And so I did. Which is another example. I have actually many examples in my life where you would never know what's inside of you human being until you need it. I also, I don't know if I mentioned I had flesh eating disease, like who gets that? there are many examples from that experience as well where I had to endure and the decisions that I had to make, I would've never thought I was, capable of. And yet when you're called upon if you can get centered enough to hear what's inside. Follow that trust, that miracles.

Caroline 26:18

And in a world where there's so much competing for our attention, there's so much noise, how does one actually listen to that inner voice?

Madelaine Weiss 26:30

Okay, so not everybody's a big fan of meditation, but that's certainly one avenue. On my website, maybe you've seen, there's a little tab that says power breathe or something like that.

Caroline 26:46

Nice. Yep.

Madelaine Weiss 26:47

And

Caroline 26:47

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 26:48

and there's a one page instruction for what I call a 32nd mindset reset. And I call a power breathing 'cause I think it's powerful if you're not gonna do like a full blown meditation and it's based on, maybe you've heard of polyvagal breathing, where you feel the stomach instead of the lungs, and it,

Caroline 27:13

Yep.

Madelaine Weiss 27:14

The polyvagal nerve, which, sends a calming focused kind of signal up to your brain. And so anybody can do that anywhere, anytime for any reason. It's free, to breathe. And that's another way when we're feeling frenetic to just,

Caroline 27:37

Center.

Madelaine Weiss 27:38

Centered. Just

Caroline 27:40

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 27:41

Because nobody should be making decisions from their chaos.

Caroline 28:29

How did you get interested in that? Like, 'cause we've heard so you have so many,

Madelaine Weiss 28:34

I know it's crazy.

Caroline 28:35

I think now some of the kids are saying it's multipotentialite or it's a generalist, or it's like whatever it is you have had such a variety from like doing lab chemistry to, being a treasurer, to serving in a variety of, but

Madelaine Weiss 28:52

Right.

Caroline 28:53

Did you get in and then now, you know, pre Hindu, philosophy, like,

Madelaine Weiss 28:58

Okay,

Caroline 28:58

How did you get introduced to these things? Madelaine?

Madelaine Weiss 29:03

Again, somebody reached out and touched me. I was going through a very hard time in my life and there was, this very kind elder gentleman who was part of this school of philosophy, he and his lovely wife. And he kept inviting me for lunch or coffee, to make sure that I was okay. Kind of like those teachers. one day he said to me, you know, Alice said I would really like the school. I said, I don't really think that's of my alley. I said, I don't really think that's my thing. And he said, well, they have some very interesting courses and you will like this. One of them was science and reality. And I said, well, I have no idea what reality is at this point. That's clear. So what the heck? I'll try it. And you know, I went to them sort of intellectual stimulation and I like to say they kind of healed my heart when I wasn't looking,

Caroline 30:20

Wow. Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 30:22

Like they got me in there, but then, there was a lot of meditation tutorial. But even interesting for me was about how the mind and the tricks we play on ourselves the hard times that we give ourselves. And learning how to stand outside of ourself and watch the way the mind works. So at some point I said, I think I was working at Harvard Medical School at that point in another capacity, but I thought none of these people are going to that school. And this stuff is so simple, everyone should know it and they're not gonna know it.

Caroline 31:13

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 31:13

So I decided

Caroline 31:15

I

Madelaine Weiss 31:15

was going to bring it to them. So I went to learning and development at Harvard Medical School. I said, I have an idea for a four week course. you, would you let me do it? And they did. And they even paid me, which was nice. And, they said that the course was the only course they had ever run that, grew over time. Usually there's attrition, they,

Caroline 31:46

Yeah. Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 31:46

People were banging down the door to get into this course because the concepts things like. We cannot be that which we observe for then who is doing the observing stuff like that, that helps us like not take ourselves quite as seriously as we do and not believe the stories we tell ourselves are much more than stories.

Caroline 32:16

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 32:16

So all that learning, people just loved it.

Caroline 32:20

Oh, that's, how long, and did you, did you keep teaching that course or did it get passed?

Madelaine Weiss 32:25

I,

Caroline 32:26

What was the title of that course?

Madelaine Weiss 32:28

I think at the time I was calling it managing Your Mind

Caroline 32:32

Huh.

Madelaine Weiss 32:32

Over the years I changed it to mastering. 'Cause I thought, don't know.

Caroline 32:40

Yeah. Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 32:41

I,

Caroline 32:42

Very interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 32:43

Yeah. Yeah.

Caroline 32:45

Well, maybe, so there's all this like, Kung fu Master and Martial Arts Master and you know, maybe some of those kind of, who knows?

Madelaine Weiss 32:54

I have a version of it on Udemy.

Caroline 32:57

Well, that's cool.

Madelaine Weiss 32:57

I do have a couple courses there and that might be one of them.

Caroline 33:01

Okay, so you learn, something really intriguing, exciting that's helpful for you, that you then want to go and make sure is available for others as well. The learning doesn't just stop. You. don't just suck it up and take it in and enjoy your own life a little bit better. You also then have this great desire to let it go through you and impact many, many other lives as well. So,

Madelaine Weiss 33:29

So Mahjong is a big thing right now,

Caroline 33:32

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 33:33

And, there's a game in my building.

Caroline 33:36

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 33:37

And I practice what I preach in my decision making materials,

Caroline 33:45

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 33:46

And so win. enough. And I tell them, I tell everybody what I'm doing to practice.

Caroline 34:02

That's cool.

Madelaine Weiss 34:03

Instead of keeping it my little secret of I have this special way that I do it, that not a lot of people do it this way, but I think it's a really powerful way to do it. So I share it with everyone. So just to be nice and to be fair.

Caroline 34:20

how many people actually do the practicing? Right? So many people want to know the information. They want the shortcut, but they might not want to take the steps to actually make improvements.

Madelaine Weiss 34:32

When they see me winning, they listen. I'm also because of the decision making much faster than most people, because of the things I teach about decision making that when you're in your mind, and I see people at the table doing this, going back forth and back and forth and doing and churning and thinking, thinking, thinking, and thinking, that the more you think about it, the better the decision will be. You're frying your brain. It's like draining energy, muddling

Caroline 35:10

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 35:11

your brain's decision making clarity and ability. So I go fast and they're all sitting there trying to make the best decision.

Caroline 35:21

So you like to just take the leap and make a decision?

Madelaine Weiss 35:26

Well, it isn't like, I don't think, but I'm a fan of not overthinking and a lot of people overthink, and people overthink because they think when they're overthinking that they're actually doing something that's beneficial.

Caroline 35:41

Interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 35:42

Not everyone knows that there's a sweet spot. There's a point beyond which you are just frying your brain.

Caroline 35:50

Do you think it has anything to do with how you're wired or your natural ability or inductive or deductive reasoning or it's something else?

Madelaine Weiss 35:59

Well, I think, and I imagine you agree that we all have habits of the brain,

Caroline 36:06

Yes,

Madelaine Weiss 36:07

We now know that we can change them.

Caroline 36:10

absolutely.

Madelaine Weiss 36:10

So I like to think of it as a garden and we can plant this new garden

Caroline 36:17

Yeah. Yep.

Madelaine Weiss 36:17

and let the old

Caroline 36:19

Yep.

Madelaine Weiss 36:19

go to seed. Let it just wither 'cause you're not watering it. know that's that fable about the wolves

Caroline 36:27

Yes, yes, yes. But go ahead and tell it for those that don't know.

Madelaine Weiss 36:31

Okay, so the young boy says to his grandfather, if I botch this, please correct me.

Caroline 36:38

Okay.

Madelaine Weiss 36:38

To his grandfather, there are two wolves and they're fighting. And I don't know which one's gonna win. Am I right?

Caroline 36:52

It's like there's something and I think it could be wolves, it could be dragons, it's been told time and time and time again, among generations and cultures. But it's the theory of there's some positive force and some negative force. And now whether that's a dragon, whether that's a wve and they're constantly battling and who's gonna win type of thing. And the reality is the one that's gonna win is the one that you feed.

Madelaine Weiss 37:14

Right, right.

Caroline 37:17

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 37:17

In this course, kind of like a group that I'm facilitating,

Caroline 37:23

Yeah,

Madelaine Weiss 37:23

To you that's called Calm in the Chaos, I talk to them about the marble and the groove. So like the habits of the mind are like a groove,

Caroline 37:34

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 37:35

How your brain has groove. So it's like if you could picture, it's like a groove and the marble has nowhere else to go except into the groove.

Caroline 37:44

Yep.

Madelaine Weiss 37:45

So this planting the new garden, building new neural connections is what it really.

Caroline 37:51

Yep.

Madelaine Weiss 37:51

But if you think of it as carving out a new groove, the marble can go there and the more it goes there, the old one kind of smooths over,

Caroline 38:03

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Madelaine Weiss 38:04

So you don't have to be, I don't think. tell me whether you're, if you don't agree, I don't think we have to be very aggressive about eradicating our bad habits. I think a better shot to just build new ones and let those old ones do what they need to do, which is rest.

Caroline 38:26

Yes. And now the one, the framework that I really loved that was the most, profound of what I had found was, this approach, Positive Intelligence by, Shirzad Chamine is a Stanford professor, and the very front of this book says, why only 20% of teams and individuals ever achieve their true potential and how you can achieve yours? And I was like, I mean, you had me at the cover, buddy, right? So

Madelaine Weiss 38:49

Yeah.

Caroline 38:50

several years ago I was thinking like, oh, that sounds so great. And then I realized there was a coaching program, and I'm like, well, heck yeah, I wanna get into that. And there was a coaching grant that they were offering at that time, and I'm like, well, absolutely. It'll be so great for my clients. And so this kind of broke down a lot of neuroscience, cognitive behavioral psychology, all sorts of things that went into this approach. And it kind of was like, in our minds we have 10 negative and five positive kind of forces, whether it's in the positive or negative region of your brain. So of the negative ones. It can be judge, judge of circumstance, judge of self, judge of others. And there's also accomplice, they'll call those saboteurs. So you got sage as positive, saboteurs as negative, and like it could be high achieving hyper achiever, hypervigilant, victim pleaser, avoider, et cetera. The positive ones are like innovation, creativity, all of those things. So I liked this approach 'cause first it was two assessments. One kind of roughly said in the past 24 to 48 hours, what percent of the time were you operating in positive versus negative regions of your brain? Like, oh, okay, cool. Second was now of the favorite flavors that you could sabotage your thoughts, what ones were the most flavorful for you, type of deal. Of course. Now that's not the terms that he would say however. So it was like, first I started with an assessment, then there was a seven week program. Little by little introducing you over the weekend, here's an hour long module you're gonna watch to kind of bring you, and then every day was like 15 minutes of practice to build up your. They say there's IQ, EQ, they now say PQ. PQ is positive intelligence quotient. And through those are gonna be like guided meditations that are bringing somehow into it, some of the five senses. So it could be a, you know, breathe, pay attention to the feeling of the air entering your nose and out through your mouth. So, but kind of just guiding you over time to notice things you haven't noticed. Then from there, you're now observing, oh, there's my hyper achiever again. Oh, there's the victim. So it provided. For me, a clearer framework and something to intentionally do and focus on that little by little, you don't even realize it, it's like compound interest with pennies. But then after that seven or eight weeks initial start, it's almost like you've downloaded a new mental operating system where you're starting to make new grooves and kind of, observations. And then over time, because you've practiced and commanded your mind to focus in those things, regardless of the things going on, then when you do hit a more challenging circumstance, has happened several times now since doing it. It's an amazing how my mind will just drop into those things that I intentionally practice. So instead of reacting, I can respond.

Madelaine Weiss 41:51

Yeah.

Caroline 41:51

I enjoyed that approach. But I hadn't had 20 years to research into, and I'm sure his is based on so many other of the things that came before him. And they even had done FMRI studies on people's brains pre and post to see how it was.

Madelaine Weiss 42:09

Well,

Caroline 42:09

It was like they had me at all of that. Yes, exactly. We both do.

Madelaine Weiss 42:14

I wanna tell you, first of all, whatever works.

Caroline 42:18

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 42:19

I don't think in positive and negative,

Caroline 42:23

Okay.

Madelaine Weiss 42:23

I think more in evolutionary terms.

Caroline 42:28

Okay. What are, what do you say.

Madelaine Weiss 42:29

Everything that's in there. It was pretty much in there for a reason. The first book that I read years ago on evolutionary psychiatry, all the major psychiatric syndromes into a framework of how they benefited us as a species.

Caroline 42:53

Interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 42:55

A feature run amuck.

Caroline 42:59

Interesting, interesting.

Madelaine Weiss 43:01

So like OCD, paying attention to detail. That's a pretty good thing if you're trying to stay alive.

Caroline 43:10

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 43:10

There's something called the negativity bias where people are constantly looking for the negative. And some do that more than others, and some do that too much. And then you have a condition. But the fact that it's there at all was positive.

Caroline 43:33

Mm-hmm.

Madelaine Weiss 43:34

It helped us to be able to survive, to be here to even talk about it. So I frame everything that. So if people are judging or procrastinating or whatever they're doing some people might say is negative, I wanna know how is that serving you so Robert Wright wrote The Moral Animal, and that was one of the early books I read on evolutionary psychology also. And he talks about knobs and tunings. And he says that we all have, we humans all have the same knobs, capacities for cooperation, competition, love, jealousy, whatever.

Caroline 44:21

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 44:22

Same features, the same knobs, but we have different tunings, because we have higher developed brains,

Caroline 44:31

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 44:32

The lizard, we can get our hands on those knobs and turn things up and down.

Caroline 44:40

Yes.

Madelaine Weiss 44:40

So the knobs, to me, there's no positive or negative. There's just a more functional tuning

Caroline 44:48

Correct.

Madelaine Weiss 44:49

a happier, healthier, productive life. So, yeah.

Caroline 44:54

I like that. Yeah. 'cause that's like, underneath each thing can be a good intention and that, and this kind of goes into that as well of like, how has this effect been on your performance, your relationships, and your wellbeing? And if you're good and it's good, then fine. But if it's high, if it's extra, highly tuned and now that's causing you to have,

Madelaine Weiss 45:14

So,

Caroline 45:15

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 45:16

There's this wording that I've learned that I think does this. It's what would be even better. So you're not calling anything bad,

Caroline 45:29

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 45:29

What would be even better? Like, how could you tweak something to make it even better? Because, people are walking around feeling pretty bad about themselves already to some extent.

Caroline 45:43

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 45:44

Like the story with the wolves or the dragons, we don't wanna feed that.

Caroline 45:49

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 45:51

So it's what could be better.

Caroline 45:55

That's kind of also what, one of the lines in the book that you had written, and you've written several books, but let's talk about this one for a moment, Getting to Great, this was a framework that you had a five step strategy for work in life, and you said this book is about is it possible to change the what is to what could become for each and every one of us? This is, that's what this was about. So this is kind of your thing of like, oh, well what could be next? Could it even be right? You wrote it. And your five step strategy was with the acronym of great, where G was grounding in the belief that a great life is possible through a great environmental fit. Please do tell us what the acronym of great means, Madelaine, starting from the beginning, so I could delete that other way. All right. Tell us what great means.

Madelaine Weiss 46:44

You beautifully stated what the G is, but the first line of the book is a great life depends on a great fit between who we are and the environment in which we work and live. So R was for recognizing who you are, not who someone else said you should be, or not even necessarily who you always thought you should be. So it's that deeper essence of you which comes bubbles up when we give it space and room to do that by being a little quieter to be able to hear that. And then the E is, once you have of who we are, can go exploring. And, you know, there's a great big world out there and I know how limited mine was growing up in terms of what I could, could or couldn't be. So getting beyond the idea of what somebody else thought you should do, or again, even what you might have thought you should be doing out there with your life, just to explore options that have maybe occurred to you before and you went, nah, I can't do that. Or maybe they never even occurred to you. But in any case, the exploration phase is, sort of like dreaming, dreaming of what else can be. What might be even better, but dreams don't make it happen without action. So William James said, action doesn't guarantee happiness, but there's no happiness without it. So there has to be action. and then the T was for the normal, natural, inherent, predictable to change. When you think you're gonna take action, there's a part of us that goes, where do you think you're going? Where'd you get that idea? What makes you think? I remember when I moved from Massachusetts to here and I was my job at Harvard Medical School and I was gonna set up a private practice here. I had a group of friends.

Caroline 49:05

And where is here?

Madelaine Weiss 49:07

Oh, I'm in Washington DC.

Caroline 49:09

Awesome. Okay.

Madelaine Weiss 49:11

So I had a group of colleague friends who were all social workers and they lovingly said to me, what do you think you're doing? You think you're going to move to DC and just hang out a shingle? They said, do you have any idea how many of you there are there? And I said, yeah, well, I'm just gonna try. And I did. So, yeah. It's getting past our ideas. That kind of makes sense. I mean, it wasn't, they were right about everything they said.

Caroline 49:51

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 49:51

But it doesn't have to be a reason not to try to see what's possible.

Caroline 50:00

I love it. And if you could, if one can treat it like an experiment.

Madelaine Weiss 50:05

Yes.

Caroline 50:06

Just see and explore and then just gather the data and then reiterate again and try another experiment, and then gather the data and reiterate again and try another experiment. If we could remove this, like judgment of it has to work right the first time within 30 seconds and just allow us to progress and keep becoming even more and more. That's what it's about I think.

Madelaine Weiss 50:31

Yes.

Caroline 50:32

Now,

Madelaine Weiss 50:32

Beautifully said. Thank you.

Caroline 50:34

Thank you. From your earliest days, did you have a vision or a version of what you thought it meant for someone to be successful?

Madelaine Weiss 50:46

No.

Caroline 50:47

How about now? What do you say is authentic success for you?

Madelaine Weiss 51:01

That it is authentically me. I'm pretty steadfast in being me no matter what.

Caroline 51:10

Yeah.

Madelaine Weiss 51:11

And somehow I find that I'm getting away with it better than I did when I was getting grounded for it all the time. So now that I think of it, I haven't really changed who I ever was. Like I'm still pretty feisty and I still counter a lot of common current day thinking 'cause I see things differently often. I'm not getting grounded for it anymore. So that's changed.

Caroline 51:47

It's beautiful. How do people find you? How does one work with you these days?

Madelaine Weiss 51:55

My website, everything is on my website Madelaineweiss.com. There's a button there the top people can, sign up for a free strategy session. a blog tab and, there are hundreds now of blog entries on just everyday things that we all go through. always, kind of reflect on what people have been talking with me about. And then as you can imagine I go to the science and come up with some science for the topic might be, like sleep or something like that. And there's that power breathing exercise, people can download and people can get it on mailing list so they get the blog posts and happy to hear from anyone,

Caroline 52:51

Madelaine, thank you so much for helping us understand a little bit more of your story, some of the pivots that you've had, some of the great, things that you're continuing to do and put out into the world and helping others. It's been such a pleasure to have this conversation. Thank you.

Madelaine Weiss 53:06

Me too. Thank you.

Speaker 53:08

Thanks for listening to Your Next Success with Dr. Caroline Sangal. Remember, authentic success is yours to define and includes aligning your career to support the life you want.