Amy Vaughan:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our weekly Power Lounge. This is your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughan, and I am the owner and Chief Empowerment Officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital and choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. You can join the movement@togetherindigital.com and today’s guest is someone who has made it her mission to help leaders see, stop grinding and start leading from a place of genuine strength. Alicia Couri is the founder and CEO of Audacious Concepts, Inc. A boutique leadership firm that helps organize organizations, boost performance by aligning action with instinct. A Kobe certified consultant, Productive index consultant, and TEDx speaker, Alicia works with leaders across industries to reduce stress, build resilience, and lead with clarity. Clarity through the lens of cognitive strengths.
Amy Vaughan:
She’s also the founder of Red Carpet CEO, where she channels her passion for digital media and content creation. And today she is here to talk about how we can ditch the hustle mentality, avoid burnout, and lead with what she calls audacious confidence. Welcome to the Power Lounge, Alicia. So glad to have you here.
Alicia Couri:
Yay, we’ve made it. I know it’s been. It’s been a journey to get here. So we’re here.
Amy Vaughan:
It has been, yeah. Some technical difficulties and life things and everything.
Alicia Couri:
Scheduling and all the things. But that’s life.
Amy Vaughan:
That is life. And I’m so, so glad you’re here. I mean, it’s going to tie in nicely with the conversation today. Right? You built Audacious Concepts around the idea of aligning action with instinct. And before we go into your frameworks and your methodologies, I would love for you to share a moment of your experience that made you realize that most, most leaders are operating actually out of alignment.
Alicia Couri:
That’s a great question to start off with because there was no specific moment that I can pinpoint except in conversations with people when actions don’t meet expectations or results. That’s misalignment. You know, when you’re. You’re. The words you’re saying or the things that you’re trying to do don’t meet the results that you’re getting. So somewhere along the line, there’s misalignment.
Amy Vaughan:
What does that actually feel like in your body? I’m kind of curious because you’re talking about instinct and, like, gut feeling. So I’m just kind of curious, what does that feel like? And what are those feelings that we often tend to ignore?
Alicia Couri:
Well, I’m going to just clarify something for a second. The instinct that we are referring to when I’m with the framework and the work that we do, it’s not a gut instinct, it’s actually a performance instinct. It’s how your brain was wired to make decisions, problem solve and act when you’re not given specific directions. So it’s your natural innate wiring that is like pre, pre wired into your brain at birth of how you, how you solve problems. That’s the instinct we’re talking about. Not necessarily like a lizard brain instinct. Right. When danger comes, we run. It’s not that kind of instinct, not that kind of gut. It’s more of an instinct. It’s the default wine.
Amy Vaughan:
Well, let’s dig into that more because my next question is: You talk a lot about the third part of the mind, connotation, which most of us haven’t really heard of or talked about. So could you break that down, what the connotation is and why it is the missing piece that so many are talking about.
Alicia Couri:
Yeah. So conation is the conative part of the mind. So when you look at how the mind operates, there are three main functions for decision making, problem solving. It’s the cognitive part, which everybody understands. It’s your thinking mind. And when we think, when we define the thinking mind, it is your IQ, your skills, your reasoning abilities, your knowledge, experience and your education. That’s the cognitive piece. And then we have the affective piece which is around emotional intelligence.
Alicia Couri:
That’s the feeling in my mind. So again, that goes back to that gut that you were talking about before. That’s the feeling in my mind. That is where your personality, your preferences, your desires, motivations and, and emotions and your values. That’s where that part of the. And that’s in the limbic system of the brain. That’s that emotional part of your mind. And then that cognitive piece is really that instinct that drives that necessity, your mental energy. It’s your innate force for taking action and doing things. And we measure it in four different ways, which I can get into later on. But there are four specific actions that we’re measuring. So you can look at it this way. You can think about a problem, you can feel about a problem. This is how you’re actually going to do the solution for the problem. That’s a conation.
Amy Vaughan:
Very interesting. And I kept saying connotation, but connotation, that’s awesome. I love that. That’s fascinating. So the Cobie assessment, that’s central to the work that you do as well.
Alicia Couri:
Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
How does understanding someone’s Kobe results actually change what they do and the way they lead on a day to day basis. And honestly, to like, for those who aren’t familiar with it, maybe a little bit of context about that first.
Alicia Couri:
Absolutely. So Colby, Kathy Colby. So Colby’s after her name. Kathy Colby, about 50 years ago, started doing some research in this conative part of the mind. She had read about Aristotle and played Aristotle, and there’s another philosopher from way back then, and she had read something about volition, that every human has this volition. And she’s like, what is this volition? So she started doing a lot of research into that. And that’s where conation came from. And interestingly enough, her father was the founder of the Wonderlic cognitive assessment.
Amy Vaughan:
Okay.
Alicia Couri:
And she felt like there was another intelligence that people operated under and he told her to go find it, so she did. And it’s this conation that’s been written about for over 400 years, but it’s not well known because people lean more into that cognitive piece. They all think that this intelligence is the highest form of intelligence that we have, and it really isn’t. Our mind is the three parts working together as one. And so when a leader understands their own cognitive design, how they were designed to function, when again, when solving problems, making decisions and taking action, they stop following advice not meant for them, that’s what leads to burnout. Like when they’re following this advice that is not meant for how their brain actually operates. Because when we look at mental energy in conjunction, that mental energy is finite. And when you’re operating outside of that mental energy, it burns a lot faster.
Alicia Couri:
So when you can look at fuel, if you had like little kindling sticks, when you’re trying to build a fire, you need the kindling to start. But once the fire roars, that kindling burns up really quickly. And you need like wooden blocks to start, you know, keeping that fire going. You need solid wood to keep that fire going. Now if you look at your conative mind, if you’re operating outside of that, it’s like kindling. It burns up quickly. But if, if you’re operating in it, it’s like that solid wood that takes a long time to burn, but it keeps the fuel going.
Amy Vaughan:
Okay, interesting. How do you, how do you measure it? Like, how is it measured?
Alicia Couri:
So there’s an assessment, so there’s a six, a 36 question assessment that you take. And when you, once you take the assessment, you get a result in those four different action modes that we said we measure. So it’s your, your need for how you gather and share information. We call that fact finding. You see patterns and processes and systems. That is to follow through. It’s how you look at risk, uncertainty and change. And that’s your quick start and implementation is your 3D space. How do you interact with your 3D space and tangible objects like tangible things? So those are the four things that we measure and it’s on a continuum from 1 to 10 in three separate zones. So we give you a full picture of what your strengths are in those different areas and how to operate best in those strengths to get the work that you need to get done. Done.
Amy Vaughan:
Very cool. Does this ever change or is it Once it’s set, it’s set.
Alicia Couri:
Once it’s set, it’s set. They’ve done over the last 50 years a test retest and this is one of the most validated, stable assessments that you can take if you get a wrong reason. Like if you take it and it’s, it’s completely different. Sometimes people take it in, let’s say they take it thinking, oh, what do I do every day? Or what, oh, how am I supposed to do this? And so they take it from that perspective and not how I am, how would I do it? Because I like to tell people, if you were the ruler of the universe and you could do it any way you want, if you were free to do it however you did it, how would you answer these questions? So that’s the perspective we have to come from and that unlocks that conative part. But if you answer it as how you’re supposed to do it, then you’ll get a completely different result.
Amy Vaughan:
Awesome. That’s really interesting. Okay, so I know we have our live listeners with us today. Thank you for your patience as we had a bit of a start. But also I want to remind you, you can ask questions in the chat because all of this is really fascinating and obviously I have my list of questions for Alicia, but I’m sure you have your questions as well. These are the kinds of things our members thrive on. We love learning. We love learning about ourselves, understanding how our minds work and everything.
Amy Vaughan:
So I can only imagine there’ll be a lot of chatter after this episode where our members are trying to get this assessment, understand it, check it out. Let’s talk about it in the context of burnout. Earlier you were saying, like when you’re misaligned, you know, know it does tend to create more of a toll. Like your Kindling example was great. It burns up fast. And we know that there’s basically this whole epidemic of burnout happening all around us. How does conative misalignment contribute to burnout? And why is this cussle culture that we’re all living being forced and sometimes it feels like we have to contribute. How does it make it worse?
Alicia Couri:
So Colby did some brain scans. So this is, this is the evidence of how this is operating. And they showed someone working within their natural strengths. And then the brain scan showed someone working against that nature. That is their natural strength. And what it showed was when they were rested after working within their natural strengths, just the prefrontal cortex was lit up, which is where that conative. It’s in that executive functioning with your cognitive. When they were working against their natural strengths, more than half the brain was lit up. And this is after resting. So if you live day after day after day where more than half your brain is experiencing that level of stress and you might not be feeling stressed. Remember we talked about cognitive, affective and cognitive. So you might not be feeling stress doing it. Because a lot of us feel, oh, I can do that, I can do that. We have this can-do attitude. I can do that. I was working with a client and I was doing a read back with her and her boss, and she kept saying, yes, but I can do it, I can do it.
Alicia Couri:
And. And I said to her, yes, but should you be doing it? Yeah, that’s the question we need to ask ourselves. Yes, you can. We can do a lot of things, but should we? And he’s like, yeah, we want to optimize what you’re doing and not burn you out at the end of the day for you not to feel exhausted at the end of the day. So when we look at that data and we look at those brain scans, we know it’s impacting the brain. And I’m going to ask a question. Have you ever spent your day doing something and at the end of the day you just feel totally wiped? Like. Like you ran a marathon. It’s like, why am I so exhausted? I can’t even make a decision about dinner. I don’t. I don’t even know up from down, left from right. And then there are some days you come home and you’re just, like, energized. It’s just like, man, I had the best day.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
If you look back at what you actually did that day, you can track back to, huh. I was probably doing stuff that was against how my conative design is. And I call that swimming against a rip current.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
Right. You’re swimming against a rip current and you’re, you’re tiring yourself out, but you’re not really getting anywhere. That happens for me, when I have to do a lot of deep research, my brain gets exhausted. And I never understood that until I took this assessment. And now I understand what drains me and what energizes me.
Amy Vaughan:
Me. I love it. We talk about that a lot. But it’s so fascinating to think about the science behind it. Right. Because we do like energy audits. When we do like our goal getters for Together Digital, we talk about strength finders. And to me, this is like the science behind strength finders. Right. Focusing on your strengths. And then I even think about, like the big leap where they talk about, in the book, they talk about your, your zone of genius versus your zone of competence. Right. This is you, you being stuck in your zone of competence and just doing what you know you’re effective at doing. But it’. It’s depleting you. It is totally burning you out.
Alicia Couri:
Yes.
Amy Vaughan:
So, yeah, all of it. That’s so fun. Oh, my gosh. I’m gonna.
Alicia Couri:
I love strength finders. I love Strength finder. Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Trying to go down such a rabbit hole after this, Alicia. Oh, my gosh. Because I love all this stuff like Enneagram Myers.
Alicia Couri:
Yes, me too.
Amy Vaughan:
Great ways to learn to understand how we think as individuals and how others think.
Alicia Couri:
Correct. Because self awareness is the greatest leadership tool that you can have. The more you know about yourself, the more you can operate in audacious confidence. As we talked about earlier, the more you can operate in confidence.
Amy Vaughan:
Absolutely. That’s great advice. And on that note, we have a lot of members who are listening, who often lead teams that, you know, are leading teams, but also manage up to maybe two executives. How can someone use their cognitive strengths to navigate those demands without burning out?
Alicia Couri:
That is incredible in that question. Because there are these misnomers about certain strengths belonging to certain roles.
Amy Vaughan:
Right.
Alicia Couri:
Because I get this question, this particular question a lot about. Well, especially from entrepreneurs. Well, I’m not a blank, so how can I be successful in that? It doesn’t matter the strength that you have. It’s how you utilize that strength in the role. You need to understand how you’re utilizing those strengths. So a role that is designed so that you can design the role around you instead of trying to fit yourself into a role. So if the role requires a lot of, like, if I wanted to go into a role and it required a lot of fact Finding, which I probably wouldn’t go into that role anyway because I didn’t know that it would require a lot of fact finding. I would make sure the people, the team around me that I have surrounding me have that strength, have that deep fact finding strength. My strength is in simplifying. The way that I gather and share information is to give me the bullet points, give me the high level. If I need more, I’ll ask for more.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
Someone else might need a lot more detail than I do. So if I know I was going into a role that required getting a lot of that detail, I will surround myself with people that will get that detail. And I can stay in my zone of genius in the simplifying. That’s what. That’s it. That’s the advice I would give.
Amy Vaughan:
I love that and I like that kind of looking at it as like breaking out of the mold and the lanes of, like, this is your rule, this is your title. These should be the strength that you leverage. It’s more in like, how. Understanding the role and how you leverage those strengths for it specifically. But it doesn’t mean it’s assigned to one or the other.
Alicia Couri:
Right.
Amy Vaughan:
Which is fantastic. I love that. Let’s talk a little bit too about the predictive index consulting that you do. A little bit about what PI is and maybe how that and the Cobie assessment kind of complement each other. And how do you use them to build stronger teams?
Alicia Couri:
Yes. Predictive index measures. It measures needs, drives, and behaviors, and it’s great for the workplace. So when I look at Colby, Colby is overall life. Like, how do you operate in your life overall? PI is more focused and centered in the work environment. PI measures four things as well. PI measures someone’s dry need. Sorry, someone’s need for extroversion, their need for dominance, their need for stability, their need for. For. For details as well, but in a different way. And so when we pair them, we’re now looking at the affective behavior of someone and their cognitive needs as well. So I like using them together, but if I was using them separately, they can stand on their own as well. So if we’re looking at how we build a really great culture, I would use PI to help see how people interact with each other. Who’s collaborative, who’s dominant, who. Who needs sociability, who needs to work more on their own, who needs to drive fast and. And like, push things ahead while someone else needs stability, who needs more structure, who needs more flexibility. So this is again, working within the work environment that’s where PI shines really well.
Amy Vaughan:
That’s fantastic. And do you often find that the best teams are like, a balance or quantity of these certain things, or is it like a lot of the same?
Alicia Couri:
No, depending on what it is that you need. For instance, if I had a sales team and I needed them all to be, like, this particular conative strength, I would be cloning everybody into this strength. If I needed to. If I’m working on, like, a leadership team where we need diversity in strength, where we can hit all 12 of those strength points, then I’m looking for a team that has all those different strengths for diversity so that we’re not all group thinking, we’re not all moving in the same direction, and nobody is. Is pushing against how we’re moving. So it depends on the situation, how I would structure that team. Because a sales team operates individually.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
We don’t necessarily always operate together, right? Yeah. And sometimes they’re competing against each other. So it just depends on what it is, the type of team that you have and what you need to do. To thrive in that team.
Amy Vaughan:
Very cool. I have a bonus question. Like, how apropos are, like, leadership teams to taking these tests, learning them about themselves? Like, how do teams receive this information normally? Like, I’m kind of curious. Do you have any, like, stories about what that process has looked like and felt like for teams?
Alicia Couri:
Yes, actually, I’m going through it right now. Some teams were. And I like to say assessment, not test, because when people hear tests, some people freeze up because they think it’s right or wrong. And if I. If I get it wrong and. And they. They tend to come from it, from a place of anxiety if they don’t. Test taker. It’s an assessment. Right. It’s a tool. And some people don’t have a problem with taking it. They’ll take. Because we have several, especially in the Colby, we have the A, B and C, which measure different things. So we’re asking them to take these 36 questions over and over again. Some people absolutely hate it and resist it, and they don’t want to do it.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
And some people embrace it, and those that hate it don’t want to do it. When they get the result and we start going over it, they are loving it. They’re like, oh, my gosh. You know, I had this, and I felt either they felt bad about a certain strength that they have because it was misrepresented or mis. Miscommunicated, or they. They were told they weren’t supposed to be that way. And so now we’ve given them the freedom to embrace it and use it as a strength instead of what it was, a perceived weakness. Right. And so there’s a lot of breakthroughs that happen when, when we start unpacking this with people and they’re realizing the power of it and how they can operate and be, and be free to be who they are and not feel this obligation to be something or someone else.
Amy Vaughan:
That’s so true. And that’s really what a lot of people are facing right now. Right. There is a lot of burnout, misalignment, not feeling like they’re in the right role, doing the right things. But a lot of times it is just a shift of mindset and understanding them and their motivations a little bit more clear. Clearly that then makes them a better team player all around. And you know, I’ve definitely heard and seen similar stories with, you know, implementations of other assessments, but I can only imagine this one, with the additional neuroscience behind it, how much more impactful that probably is. And again, as we were saying, so many of us who are listening right now, and you, myself included, very much, you know, assessment junkies.
Alicia Couri:
We are assessment junkies, right? Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
And I do believe that self awareness is what leads to confidence. Right. Because when you know yourself, you know yourself and you don’t have to pretend. Right?
Alicia Couri:
Yes. And I’ll also say with PI, the beauty in PI, and I love using it for hiring, both tools are really good for hiring. They’re amazing for hiring PI. It’s two questions, take you five minutes to do. And I love using that in the hiring process because again, you’re not asking your candidates to fill out a 36 question survey that they’re answering two questions. And the science behind that is even so remarkable as well, how accurate that is in those two questions that you ask.
Amy Vaughan:
So that’s fantastic. I love it. Well, so with that self knowing comes confidence. Right. Like, so you talk a lot about audacious confidence. Obviously that phrase carries a lot of weight. What does it actually mean to you? And how is it different from this whole kind of fake it till you make it mentality that honestly a lot of businesses and professionals try to carry.
Alicia Couri:
Yes. So audacious confidence, it is that self assurance that, that, that moving before doing, knowing, moving before knowing. It’s about becoming, say, I am not here yet, but I am becoming this. And I’m going to move into that space because I know that I know who I am and even though I’m not there yet I know who I am and I will get there. So it’s in that place. Fake it till you make it is more of, I’m going to trick myself into feeling that, into doing this because I don’t really believe that I am. So there’s a whole different mindset of belief about audacious confidence versus the fake it till you make it.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. It’s a different kind of self talk, right?
Alicia Couri:
Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Okay. I’m not perfect, I’m not there yet. But I am making the strides, I am making the steps. And so it’s like, you know, you do TEDx speaking. It’s like the first time you step on stage. Yeah, no, it’s going to be scary the first time because you’ve never done it before, but you are on that stage and it’s going to get easier every time you do it. And so instead of saying I’m just going to get up there and fake it, you’re not faking it. I love that you are actually, actually doing it.
Alicia Couri:
You’re doing it and becoming it. Yes.
Amy Vaughan:
I love that mentality. I think that’s such a good mindset shift. So friends, listeners, I hope you wrote that one down. That was a good one. On the note of your TEDx talks, you center around overcoming body shame and advocating for your own cancer treatment. Personally, how did that deeply personal experience, and I love that you got vulnerable and shared that shape your approach to leadership and how to help others step into their power. Because sometimes the most painful points in our life become the power we have to give to others. So what was that like?
Alicia Couri:
Well, first of all, I was not expecting to have to talk about my breasts on the stage
Amy Vaughan:
and I was
Alicia Couri:
like, woo, let’s go, let’s go. So the, the, the journey itself again, stepping into audacious confidence. If I had not done the work that I did to build myself up when I was diagnosed, I would have had a completely different experience because I would have just done whatever the doctors told me to do. I was very much a people pleaser, very much someone that didn’t have a lot of self confidence and really hidden from me, from the world. I hid myself and going through the transformation that I did, believing in my own confidence, doing some of these assessments, knowing who I am, that when faced with a doctor telling me that the mastectomy is the only route for me to go and this is where my gut, you talked about gut, but beyond my gut, my faith, my belief, you know, I have a strong faith in God. I have a strong belief. I listened to that voice, and that voice connected to my inner voice and said no. And I had the courage to step forward and say no. I think there’s another way. There. There is another way. And. And advocated for myself to find that other way. And I’m not saying that this is what everyone needs to do.
Amy Vaughan:
Right.
Alicia Couri:
The stage that my cancer was in, the type of cancer that I had gave me the confidence to make that decision. Some people might be in a different stage with a different type of cancer that doesn’t afford them the luxury of making the kinds of decisions I made. So I’m not giving anyone medical advice. I am telling you, though, if you feel something inside, if that still small voice inside is like, I’m not sure. Push.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
Ask questions. Don’t just do everything they tell you to do, because remember, this is medical practice. They’re still practicing, they’re still finding out, they’re still researching. And so you can ask.
Amy Vaughan:
You.
Alicia Couri:
You can ask questions. This is your body, this is your. Your life, and you can ask questions. And so on. If I look at that through the lens of leadership, it’s the same thing. Ask questions, be curious, push back.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
You know, those are the things that we have within our control. And the worst thing someone could tell you is no.
Amy Vaughan:
Exactly.
Alicia Couri:
So why not?
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
So I chose that route. That felt most aligned to what I wanted the outcome to be and not what the doctors.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
What they wanted their outcome to be.
Amy Vaughan:
That is amazing and good for you. I think, you know, that could be a one with our podcast recording is just women advocating for themselves within health care. It’s such an uphill battle with the limited amount of research we have on women’s bodies and understanding women’s bodies in general and medicine. So you really do have to. And I think you’re right that knowing I’m. I’m definitely starting to learn over the last maybe a few months even how much our. Our subconscious and our body know before our conscious mind does.
Alicia Couri:
Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
And learning about things like neuroception and all these different things that I’m. It’s. It’s blowing my mind to know. And so it’s making me definitely slow down and be more intentional about listening. Like you said to that inner voice, albeit yourself, I’ll be at God, whatever. Like, I think that’s something that we, as women, need to ignore. We do. We’ve been taught to ignore it. And we’re. Our time, our energy, our money, our health, even our lives in some instances. Right. Because we just are going to be like, I’ll just go with whatever the doctor says and not trust what my body is telling me. And like you said, not necessarily medical advice, obviously, do your research, listen to your experts, but also like, you have choice, you have agency. Right?
Alicia Couri:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. You do love it.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. Well, good on you for getting up and talking, getting up on stage and talking about rest. It’s all good. That’s all, I mean, yeah. It’s a part of life. We got to.
Alicia Couri:
It is. And I, you know, we. You talked about faking it till you make it earlier. It’s. I realized that through this work of audacious confidence that who I am is not broken as I used to believe it was, and that my voice matters, my experiences matter. And if I don’t step up and say something or do something for the next woman, then her voice is shut down too. So it’s our responsibility, each and every one of us have a responsibility to share our stories, to share ourselves, to, to step out and talk to each other about our experiences. Our mothers, well, I’m from the generation, I’m Gen X. Our mothers didn’t talk to us. They didn’t talk to us and share anything with us. Right. So it’s our responsibility. I have two daughters and a son and my two girls. I make sure to talk to them about doing their breast self exams. Don’t wait for the doctor till you go there. Do it for yourself. Understand what it feels like. So that when something doesn’t feel right, you know. Yep. Right. So yeah, we have to be our best advocates 100%.
Amy Vaughan:
And I think modeling that for your kids is tremendous. It’s like, it’s such an amazing gift. And I agree with you that I have kids that are 9 and 12, so they’re a little bit younger. But I mean, honestly, like, we try to make all this stuff such a big deal, but it is a part of who we are as humans, as lives. We have bodies, things happen. It’s like. And if you try to treat it any other way, it’s like it doesn’t need to be taboo because it’s going to likely happen to, you know, one out of three of us or one out of five of us or half of us, you know what, you know, depending on whatever that is. And so the more we can open up that door and be open and honest about it and share that experience, you know, the better our kids can navigate for themselves as well. So I love that you’re doing that for them. And it’s like, you know, if you’re struggling as a woman to find a reason to do it for yourself. There you go. Do it for those around you.
Alicia Couri:
Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
But ultimately. All right, so I love this next question because I feel like a lot of us still work very hard, like fast paced digital marketing, advertising agencies, companies, startups. Like we were talking about the hustle culture earlier and it feels like even within just life right now, because life has been life and for a lot of us, I feel like, and it feels like we’re just constantly in reaction mode instead of leading. Where does she start to find her flow? Will some of these assessments and understandings help her? And in what fashion?
Alicia Couri:
Absolutely. You have to understand what energizes you, what drains you, what things interest you and what things you’re not interested in. And get put the resources around you to support you. So by doing some of these assessments, you absolutely will understand how your brain functions, how it operates, how you feel about things. Motivation, desires and motivations are the strongest, are the strongest drivers for us. If we’re not motivated, if we’re not, if we don’t desire to do something, we’re just not going to be into it. We’re like a dry piece of cardboard. So lean into the things that you desire, the things that you’re motivated. Understand how your brain operates because sometimes our motivation drives us down the wrong path. We’ll be all motivated, we’ll jump in and then realize, I don’t have the energy to complete this. So make sure that you put the right resources around you so that you can carry things to the finish line.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. I think that’s another common phrase we throw around here is like we end up shooting all over ourselves. Like, I should do this, I should do that. Like, this is definitely one of those ways to get out of shooting yourself. Correct?
Alicia Couri:
Correct. Absolutely.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. I love it. And I would also say as someone who’s very high functioning, overachieving as well, it’s like, but do, does this need to be the thing that I chase and that I do? Is it in alignment? Am I really going to get to the top of the summit and be all like, happy? This is my moment, this is where I was meant to be. Or am I going to be like, eh, okay, next, you know.
Alicia Couri:
Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Why did I work so hard for that? Yeah.
Alicia Couri:
CWe have something called a commitment clarifier that really looks at all three parts of your mind and lets you know, it’s kind of just A grid that tells you the things that you want to do and what aligns to it and whether or not this is a priority for me to do now and how can I get support around it? So it’s just. Sometimes when you put things out on paper and you look at it, you can see, oh, I really shouldn’t be doing this, because. So when you. When you complete that commitment clarifier, you can see what you really are. Where are you? Your commitment should lie and the things that you need to outsource.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah, I love it. All right, so my last question before we go into the power round. And listeners, if you have any questions, drop them into the chat. What does leading look like from instinct in practice, for someone who spent years kind of just being rewarded for the grind? Because it feels like right now, it’s sometimes all we get the acknowledgment for. How do you rewire that pattern when you.
Alicia Couri:
If you go ahead and you take the Colby assessment and you recognize where you’ve been grinding and hustling outside of your natural instinct and those natural strengths, you can start slowly shifting by understanding. You know what? Yes. When I do that, I do get tired. I am exhausted. I am a little chippy. I do get a little bit more, you know, frayed on edge. So maybe I pull back a little bit on that until I can find support to take that over completely. So you start to realign by the first question you asked me about how your body feels by going back into your own history and seeing. Huh? Yeah. When I. When I do this, this is what happens. And now I see why. This result here shows me why this happens. And then you can start making those changes yourself because it becomes. You build awareness around it.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. I love it. I love it. I’m so excited for all of this stuff. All right. For anyone who’s listening and is learning as hard as I am and wants to get started on these things, where do they begin and how do they find and connect with you?
Alicia Couri:
So they can go to alicia360.com , that’s my first name, 360, and they’ll find all my contact info there. They can WhatsApp me, they can email me, they can connect with me on all social media. It’s right there on that.
Amy Vaughan:
Fantastic. I’m sure you’ll be having some folks following up with you. All right, on to the power round, then. What is one thing high performers should stop doing immediately?
Alicia Couri:
The grind. They should stop all over themselves, that’s for sure. Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Huh? Yep. Just Halt. Slow it down.
Alicia Couri:
Slow it down. And. And learn a little bit more about how your brain is wired to operate.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. All right, Kobe PI or Gut Instinct? Which one do you check in first thing in the morning?
Alicia Couri:
I check in with my spirit first thing in the morning. Like, love it. That’s the first thing.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah, love it. I like that. Great answer. Finish this sentence. Audacious confidence is not about being fearless.
Alicia Couri:
It’s about being committed to your own growth and committed to. To yourself. Like, being yourself.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. It always throws me off when people are like our fearless leader. I get called that a lot, and I do appreciate it, but I always tell them, I’m like, guys, I’m not fearless. Like, I’m always afraid. I just do it anyway.
Alicia Couri:
You’re committed to becoming that.
Amy Vaughan:
Yes. Right, exactly.
Alicia Couri:
You’re committed to becoming more than you are today. And that. That’s audacious confidence.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. I love it. All right, my last one I’ve got for you is what is the boldest thing that you’ve done that your instincts told you was exactly right?
Alicia Couri:
There’s so many. Becoming an entrepreneur was one. And refusing certain medical treatments. I think that was the boldest thing I ever did. Telling my doctor no and finding a new doctor. Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Yes. Oh, my gosh. We’ve. We’ve preached that before here about firing doctors when you need to.
Alicia Couri:
Yeah, I think that’s probably the boldest thing I did since we talked about that.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. That’s fantastic. Well, Alicia, thank you so much for this conversation. This is exactly the kind of clarity and honesty that our community needs. It’s a good reminder that instinct isn’t a luxury, and that strategy is something to know. Our members will definitely be sitting with that long after today. If today’s conversation resonated with you listeners, this is what together digital is all about. It’s bringing your voices, frameworks that actually help you lead better, work smarter, and show up as your whole self.
Amy Vaughan:
If you’re not a member yet, we’d love to have you join us together in digital.com. We have loads of professional development opportunities, peer groups, which are actually happening at the first of May, so be sure to check that out. And a community of women who are just genuinely here for each other to lift you up, cheer you on through all of the ups and downs of work life, and all things digital. So, as always, it was wonderful to have you here. Alicia, thank you so much for this. It was so fun. Like I said, this is one more thing to go for. I want to nerd out hard so I know what I’m doing for lunch. Thank you.
Alicia Couri:
Okay, take care. Thank you so much.
Amy Vaughan:
See you all next time. Until then, keep asking, keep giving, and keep growing.
