NLP

058: Lynn Hawkins: It not only impacted me, it hurt

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience, break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligent practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Okay, Fast Leader Legion today I am excited to introduce this guest to you because I met her on a conversation on Facebook from a previous guest that we had on the show Judith Glaser. Lynn Hawkins grew up on the outskirts of the inner city of Baltimore Maryland where she was your typical vibrant, little girl until everything shifted in her life. It was the day when her father, a man revered in the circles, he travel, fraternity, church, brotherhood, with a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Johns Hopkins University of French and Spanish teacher of one of the most prestigious all boys high schools in the inner city, named City College, a concert violinist, the father of two with another child on the way, dropped dead from a heart attack at the young age of 29 at that time Lynn was only seven. This cause Lynn to continually feel like everything she loved and worked hard to maintaining her family, her corporate career and initially in her entrepreneurial journey could be taken away at any moment’s notice. 

One day as adult she realized that it didn’t have to be that way and that’s when in 2012 as a single parent, mother of two amazing kids, grandmother of two beautiful grandsons to her youngest child, father of her two amazing grandsons was killed suddenly. Lynn now finds herself in a very vital role of helping to raise her grandsons. Lynn believes that nothing just happens and that everything happens for a reason. Each challenge and every season of Lynn’s life experiences have put her on the journey to her true purpose and path. Now she teaches what she’s learned, to live the legacy her dad and her only son left to her—a legacy of love. She does that as the CEO of P3 Academy of Social Entrepreneurship. Today Lynn enjoys her work, her involvement in the community and serving while leaving her legacy. She says, “To leave a meaningful legacy you have to live a legacy.” Lynn currently resides in Lilburn, Georgia just outside of Atlanta near Stone Mountain. Lynn Hawkins, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Lynn Hawkins:    I am ready, Jim. Good morning and thanks for having me on the show, I’m so excited to be here.

Jim Rembach:    And I’m glad to have you. I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us what you current passion is so that we can get to know even better?

Lynn Hawkins:    I am as you stated in the bio, by the way thank you for that that was so, so great. I’m living my legacy. I am doing in my business and my life what I would like to leave to my family and the world. And what I’ve learned in my journey about who it is that I am, about what it is that I was born to do, while here on this earthly clay, and I’m just excited to be doing that and sharing that and helping—especially women entrepreneurs—to bring themselves into the place of purpose and passion and power in their own lives and in their own businesses, learning how to be the CEO of a six, seven, eight figure business, and that’s my personal journey and that’s the journey that I’d love to travel with some other amazing women who are on the path. 

Jim Rembach:    As you’re talking Lynn, thanks for sharing that, I started thinking about something that happened or conversation that I had a while back about something that we perceive but yet in fact is something that alludes us, and that is this thought of control. And when you think about it from a marketing perspective and what people resonate with especially when you start talking about in today’s worlds, “I have to take control of my life. I have to take control of my future. I have to take control, control, control, and the fact is that the more and more that we in fact tried to control the less that we do control.” And so when you start talking about your journey and some of the things that you’ve had to go through and overcome and the humps you’ve had to get over is that and right where you are now and what it sounds like is that, you do have control but it wasn’t from the taking piece, how you think you really got to the point to where you are today to have that sense of control?

Lynn Hawkins:    That is such a great question because I believe that it’s in the living of life and the things that you learned along the way that help you to find out who you are, figure out who you are, where you stand. I know for me—I’ll tell you a short story, my career was in commercial real estate and I remember I love commercial real estate, I saw it as God gifted me with the vision to see the commercial real estate was really going to be able to provide for me. I was a single parent having a job in commercial real estate, meaning a lucrative income a multiple six figures over the course of time, it really did do that which I had envision it would. However, it also put me in the space of identifying myself as this corporate person and I remember the day that I decided I was going to go from the administrative area and managing teams and building high performance dynamic teams and give in to more of a sales role. 

And I remember having done sales for a few months, the boss, the sales manager calls me in and we had this conversation, I’m thinking he’s going to be telling me all this great stuff about all the great stuff that I have been doing and he says, “Why, you’re not just cut out for sales. You’re too nice.” And I thought, “Wow,” that really—it not only impacted me, it hurt, the impact was, hurt. And I thought, “Gosh, am I doing this wrong?” And I felt it right and I was having success, I was having repeat customers and referrals I was doing what salespeople wish to do yet I thought, “Okay, let me find a sales training opportunity and learn some of these techniques that he’s talking about. Maybe I am missing something, maybe I could do more by having this [6:55 inaudible] as well. It was great, I enrolled in the Sandler’s Sales Training and learn from the diamond perspective all these great information, a lot of techniques I do, and in fact years in today’s work and what I teach my clients and customers now. However, what I realized was that I was different. I was working from the heart which is not something that typical sales people, especially—look at me I’m not your typical sales guy. And what I realize was that there were certain people who resonated with me and how I moved in the world, the energy that I was projecting and there were some that didn’t. 

I was successful because I was me, and I had this this additional skills I decided to take that and really correlate that into something that I was able to speak to me from me, from the heart and do for those who needed me. In my career I worked with the business owner who had retail and offices and were owners of commercial real estate. And I able to—especially when they started expressing, “I can’t make my mortgage payment” I was able to help them to look at some things that might be able to do to shift some things in their own spaces, most of them guys, but the few that I did run across to who were women had a special connection I had a special connection with them, they had a special connection with me, we were women moving in this space trying to—also along with deriving income, revenue, make a difference in the world. And so when I was able to step on this path of entrepreneurship and begin to do my purposed work, I wanted to help women entrepreneurs. There’s a men entrepreneurs who were in there who fit perfectly because they are the balanced energy but I have to tell you that it has been, in what I’ve learned in the journey that brought me to the space of this epiphanies, that not only was I okay but I was better than okay. Now that I knew this and knew from whence I was working from the space in my heart that was opening because up until that point really very left-brained or considered myself to be, very left-brain, very analytical, very linear and then I had to relate to the Hawkin in me, and my dad and the artistic side that was a part of my DNA, and I learn that that is the place where it all merged. 

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that, I think there’s a couple of things that  stood out to me and one of the primary component is that you have a resiliency as well as a thick skin component to you that has allowed you to persevere and get where you are today. And a lot of those things that help us come out and reinforce that, we get through others and on the show we focus on quotes, it’s huge for us, because it does that it helps us reinforce on the things we already know. Like for example you were talking about your behaviors and the way that you went about, commercial real estate and then you went to Sander’s Sales Training, as far as what I know about Sandler’s Sales Training it probably reinforced what you already were doing because that is about the relationship building pieces, reborn building piece it’s the setting an expectation piece and looking for mutual gain, serving others, that’s the Sandler system.

Lynn Hawkins:    Yes. And that’s what I resonated with and that’s the confirmation that I took away with me. Then I started really focusing on sales and the relationships that I garnered and how I could move into doing more and doing bigger because I learned a lot through that. 

Jim Rembach:    As far as the quotes go, I know you probably have a ton because you’re such an inspirational giver as well as someone who seeks it. Is there a quote or two you can share with us that kind of give you that [11:12 inaudible]?

Lynn Hawkins:    Well, Jim there is. This is Grifols leaders and there are many great teachers out who are teaching leadership philosophy. I have a mentor who thought me something about leadership that colored it in a living color for me. It put it into musical terms that I could see, hear, feel, taste, smell the whole mind yards and I also call myself a maestro leading an orchestra to create ten X businesses. Here’s the thing, my mentor Rick Justus, author of The Grand Challenge, one of my greatest teacher and friend told me and thought me that there are two jobs of a leader. I said, “Only two?” He said, “Yes and remember them.” He said, “The first job of a leader is to be the architect of the future.” He said, “And the second job of a leader is to be guardian of the mood.” Now, Jim, that really struck me, architect of the future and guardian of the mood as it relates to leadership. 

I always thought of a leader, especially being CEO of your business, the CEO’s main function, main responsibility is to drive revenue into and grew the business. And yet the CEO if they are not values-driven, heart-centered person they’re not going to get the whole leadership thing. That’s how company have some CEO’s who allow the economy to influence how it is their company is going to manage to lose certain times. But thinking about architect of the future it’s the leader’s responsibility to see the vision, to purposefully move and influence towards that vision through their conversation. 

That’s why conversational IQ is so important to me because it really is the worst that you use the energy and the inflection and the words that allow you to influence through conversation to enable the dream or the dreams to become reality. And in that guardian of the mood piece, great leaders really have to be individuals of influence in order to create, sustain and move others towards the vision. Because the mood is the culture and the environment and the ecosystem that the business is built in and is built to move forward through. You’ve got team, you’ve got customers who are impacted by the mood of your organization. And so that is the quote that really just stuck with me. It’s something that I teach because I think it’s something that people have not really identify in terms of leadership.

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that. To me there’s just so much depth and so many different ways that you can look at both of those pieces of that quote. And I know for the conversations that we’d had which has been brief and I definitely look forward to the future and having an ongoing relationship with you because you help me see things that I otherwise don’t have in views, so thank you. We’ve talked about, even in your bio, we’ve talked about the commercial real estate hump and having that leader piece, I know that you probably hold them back on a really good story that I please want you to share with us about a hump you had to get over. Can you please tell it to us?

Lynn Hawkins:    I go back to the real estate story because that scenario has happened to me a few times. For me when it comes to what I’ve learned, the hump that I got over was really and identifying who it is that I am, and who it is that I’m choosing to be. I realize I’m a heart-centered person who does life while creating meaningful relationship, who thrives when working with other heart-centered people. And when I stood in that space and I stood in the past and the space of questioning that, I’ve seen myself outside of the flow of abundance and prosperity and profits in my business. It’s in that flow of light of love, of abundance and everything working successfully that I finally dot over the hump and I saw it in the space of who do I identify as me. And the corporate environment, I was the Corporate Senior Vice-President, I was the person who people came to for answers, I have the answers, if I didn’t have the answers I knew how to research and engage the team to do the research so that we could come to the real answer and yet on the outside of that, in my own space as entrepreneur,  I saw myself as entrepreneur but I wasn’t taking on the identity of CEO of my business and standing in the strength and power that I had with the knowledge that I’d garnered over the time that I was in school and through business. I started at the bottom in my career and I worked my way to the senior executive level. I’ve supported people, I’ve been the person that others have supported so I knew I had a good framework, yet in my entrepreneurial space I questioned it all and it wasn’t until I really got back to that hump that you’re talking about was the hump of identifying who it is that I was choosing to be because I knew who I was. 

Jim Rembach:    There’s an opportunity for everybody to learn when I listen to what you’re saying and this has been a lifelong journey as well as humps that you’ve got to get over about this particular issue is something that comes to mind is the word relatedness. So, when we start thinking about that feeling inside that we can’t quite connect with no, why am I doing this? Why am I here? Why am I in this relationship at this job? The relatedness is really the piece. We lose sight of what our relatedness is and it talk about congruency in life—Hey, I’m worried about my health yet I’m driving to the fast through lane every single morning and getting my chacalato, macchiato thingy, why do you have the disconnect? It’s all about the relatedness piece. When you start referring to that relatedness and had to find it, but is there a piece of advice that you can give to somebody to help them connect with that relatedness to or with faster? 

Lynn Hawkins:    Absolutely. I just want to stay in this space of identity. You mentioned it whether your job is the CEO of your business, you’re and entrepreneur but you don’t yet see yourself as the CEO of your business. Business is nothing without the person, and I asked often, what’s your definition of business? Webster’s defines it, Wikipedia defines it as a something, I contend that business is a someone without the person who have the idea to start this company that, whether it’s a mega-billion dollar company or a mom and pop shop, a small entrepreneurial venture it is the ‘someone’ that is business. It’s the someone that has relationship with another someone that they’re doing joint ventures and strategic alliances and building businesses in ways that would not otherwise happen, I would say to someone first and foremost, who what is your identity. Who are you? And when I realized that that in fact was probably the biggest thing holding me back from being my best in my own entrepreneurial venture, I know that human capital is the only capital that makes the world go round.

Jim Rembach:    It’s  interesting what you’re saying what you’re saying right there Lynn and that’s a really important point because there’s a big movement in corporate America, it was a society as a whole. When you start talking about engagement, engagement doesn’t come from a thing it comes from that someone, like you’re talking about. It’s an entity having an identity and becoming more personal. We talk about people doing journey mapping but we want to flip that and go deeper and say, we want to do some empathy mapping in order to make it more human-eccentricity. So, what you say resonates in a lot of ways if we just change our mindset from thinking that this is a thing versus this is a person, even if it’s a group of people. 

Lynn Hawkins:    There’s another piece to that I would like to add and that is—it has to be the human capital operating from the heart. A lot of people don’t realize the power of the heart. The heart is the thing that actually is killing more people today than anything, most people think it’s cancer, while the heart is the first cell upon conception it is the first brain it is the cell that creates the cells that become the brain, it is the heart that actually emanates the energy of who we are. If we are in the quandary of identifying who we are, we’re going to be in the quandary as far as our energy out in the world. We’ve all heard, I’m a human having a spiritual experience or I’m a spiritual person having human experience however it is that you look at it, it comes together in the heart because it is the heart that decides what humans will do or not do.

Jim Rembach:    I know you have a lot of things going on. You have a lot of aspirations and hopes and dreams and you’re also being somebody who’s helping create some adults that are going to impact the world as well, I’m sure. If you have like one thing that you have as a goal that really excites you, what is it?

Lynn Hawkins:    That one thing—you know what, Jim that’s such a great question because there’s so many things I would love to do. However, I know that the human experience is a growth process and because of that whether you’re an entrepreneur, whether you’re in a job, whether you’re just in life one of the things that I know that assisted me in my journey was learning hypnosis. Learning NLP, learning EFT and I used that in the work that I do. I derive exercises and incorporate EFT hypnosis and NLP into it and I teach a skill called tapping, but it’s a derivative of tapping and I coined it the one tap solution. It is not one tap but it is one acupressure point on the body that you tap and go through series of statements and breathing and conscious realizations that allow for some growth and opportunity to not only happen within your physical self but in your energetic self. And if you know about energy and your energy is what impacts your circumstances in your outer work, it’s the inner work that leads to the best in your outer work. And so with that what I do in healing with hypnosis in business, it impacts leadership and influence and love and empowerment in overcoming and success. I would say that would be my choice. That would be the decision that I make to use this one tap solution to make the world a better place. 

Jim Rembach:    And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

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Alright, here we go Fast Leader Legion, it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Lynn the the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Lynn Hawkins, are you ready to hoedown?

Lynn Hawkins:    I’m ready to hoedown. 

Jim Rembach:    Alright. So what do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Lynn Hawkins:    Quick response. Being able to reach more. 

Jim Rembach:    What is the best leadership advice you have received?

Lynn Hawkins: Be the CEO of your business. 

Jim Rembach:    What is one your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Lynn Hawkins:    Being the CEO of my business and standing in that identity.

Jim Rembach:    What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life? 

Lynn Hawkins:    The one tap solution.

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book, from any genre, that you’d recommend to our listeners? 

Lynn Hawkins:    There’s a recent best seller that’s out there in the marketplace by my friend Teresa de Grosbois it’s called Mass Influence, the habits of the highly influential.

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion, you can find links to that and other bonus information from today show by going to fastleader.net/Lynn Hawkins. Okay Lynn this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Lynn Hawkins:    That is such a great question and I go back to something that has been miraculous in my life and the lives of my clients it would be the one tap solution. 

Jim Rembach:    Lynn Hawkins it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the Fast Leader listeners how they can connect with you?

Lynn Hawkins:    Beautiful, yes and I’m so honored. You can connect with me by going to p3academy.com

Jim Rembach:    Lynn Hawkins thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot! 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader Show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the www.fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

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