Communication, Connection, Community: The Podcasters' Podcast

Mastering Communication: Breaking Free from Negative Patterns with Katherine McCord

• Carl Richards • Season 6 • Episode 149

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Discover the art of firing your resume and revolutionize your communication strategies with our special guest, Katherine McCord! Katherine, a trailblazer in people operations and neurodiversity advocacy, introduces her groundbreaking ideas alongside her work with the Neuroverse organization. Learn about the "ego mechanism" and how our brain’s defensive responses can impact everyday interactions, from heated family debates to workplace disagreements. Katherine offers invaluable insights on managing this mechanism for healthier, more effective communication.

Are you addicted to negative communication? You’re not alone. This episode sheds light on the brain's reaction to stress, leading to cycles of confrontation or avoidance that affect our well-being. We dive deep into the physiological and psychological impacts of constant stress, with actionable techniques to manage these responses. By recognizing the initial physical signs of stress and using grounding exercises, you can train your brain to respond more calmly and healthily in stressful situations.

Katherine is the Founder and President of the People Operations Consulting firm Titan Management, an international speaker, and the Founder of The Neuroverse, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to neurodiversity. She developed the first ever anti-bias Applicant Tracking System and created the "Make Accommodations Standard" process and campaign. She loves to stay busy and further her three missions: integrity, inclusion, and innovation.
With Katherine, it's all about expanding humanity.

Connect with Katherine:

Website
https://www.titanmanagementusa.com/

Socials
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDH88heZK21pHbo_aYt-sgA
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-mccord-093bb343/

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Carl Richards:

Welcome to Communication Connection Community the podcaster's podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. So strap in, it's going to be one amazing ride.

Carl Richards:

Let's dive into today's episode and just as we get started, don't forget, if podcasting is something that you are curious about, we can satisfy your curiosities. Here at Podcast Solutions Made Simple, we have many opportunities for you as a real estate professional, coach, consultant or, hey, you know what. If you have an idea for a podcast and you're not sure if it's going to fly, reach out to us. We'll make sure all that information is in the show notes so you can connect with us. So you know not only what it is that we do, but the benefits and effectiveness of having your own show or even guesting on other shows too, which I've had the opportunity to be a guest on some amazing shows, and we've had some great guests on the show. Today is no exception. We have another amazing guest. We're going to talk about a lot of things, I'm sure, including neurodiversity and breaking the ego mechanism. What is that? Well, let's find out.

Carl Richards:

My guest today is Katherine McCord. She's the founder and president of the people operations consulting firm Titan Management and the chief people officer for Previewed, an innovative job board that fires the resume. Fires the resume. Never heard that expression before, an international speaker which is near and dear to my heart and the founder of the Neuroverse, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to neurodiversity. She loves to stay busy and further her three missions integrity, inclusion and innovation and we are so blessed she is here today because, with Katherine, it's all about expanding humanity and I'm glad we have a human on the show today. Katherine, welcome to the podcast.

Katherine McCord:

Thank you so very much for having me. I'm very excited to be here and, by the way I coined the phrase fire the resume, I actually have a whole speech that I give around it. I've done whole educational programs and products actually around this concept, and so it's just something I firmly believe in. Resumes stink and they need to go away forever. So there you go fire the resume.

Carl Richards:

It's not an expression you hear, obviously because you coined it right. So when I saw it, I'm like fire the. What is that? So, anyways, we're not going to talk about that necessarily today, but I know we have so many things that we want to discuss. Oh, and, by the way, we forgot to mention that Katherine is also a fellow podcaster.

Katherine McCord:

I am. I have a show called Career Launch Live.

Carl Richards:

We'll make sure those notes for the show are in our show notes so you can check out her show. But I wanted to jump into the conversation and get a little bit more direction on this concept of ego mechanism. I spent 25 years in the radio broadcasting world a very ego-driven business. I know we talked about this off mic a little bit, but I've never heard this term the ego mechanism.

Katherine McCord:

So what exactly is this thing? The ego mechanism? So it's something that nobody should be ashamed about, because literally everybody has. It is a built-in defense mechanism in our brains as human beings and it's part of the brains need to be correct, because correct equals safe to our brain, and so whenever something says is contrary to us, or says that we're wrong, anything like that, our brain automatically throws up defenses and says no, I'm right because, and so kind of the exaggerated example of this is when you see somebody on like social media who is arguing beyond all reason and won't even acknowledge that a good point has been made by the other side, and they're just going no, no, no, no, no.

Katherine McCord:

That's an exaggerated form of the ego mechanism, but we do it every day, even in terms of processing how somebody else's response to something is incorrect. That's, who are we to tell them that it's incorrect? That's our ego. Saying this is different than what I do do not like, because it makes our brain feel unsafe, and so that is the ego mechanism. It's actually part of the fight flight or freeze response.

Katherine McCord:

And it releases stress chemicals, it releases adrenaline and sometimes incorrect amounts of dopamine, and it creates a very unhealthy body chemistry inside of you, and so it's a very unhealthy process once you get older, into adulthood.

Carl Richards:

This sounds like my Thanksgiving dinner table, when there's so many different opinions coming out and get it wrong, and it's just the way you've described it. It certainly got popped into my head because it's and I have a family that'll fight to the death, not literally but figuratively speaking, that their point is the right way, and I think every family has one or two people in it that will do that. But I didn't realize that it's unhealthy, that because of, as you said it's, there's that chemical reaction or or however you described it, that really can have an adverse effect on our health.

Katherine McCord:

But how, how and even you can get addicted to it. You can get it literally addicted to doing this. That's where you get like the Facebook trolls and stuff like that the ones that aren't bots anyway, it's legitimately. People become addicted to this. They wake up obsessed with getting into fights. It's actually a thing, or your brain also reads that as a bad thing, and then you become completely averse. That's where you also see people become completely averse to confrontation. It stresses them out. They don't like it. Their brain is reading is incorrect, but then they just withdraw. So that's flight, right?

Carl Richards:

So if this can become an addiction, how deep does this go as far as the effect it has on our health and well-being?

Katherine McCord:

It's very deep, oh, as far as the effect it has on our health and well-being, it's very deep. So releasing these stress chemicals actually does alter your ability to digest properly. It affects your heart. It can actually affect your allergy response to different things. It's very deep running, not to mention our mental health, right?

Katherine McCord:

I mean, if you're just stressed out all the time because so many things are coming at you that are wrong and or that you process is wrong and or that stress you out, it's, it's not a healthy way of being because you're constantly climbing down the Maslow's hierarchy pyramid. And for anybody listening that doesn't know Maslow's hierarchy, it's a long standing psychological principle and it has five different layers of human need and the bottom is physiological needs that you have safety and security. Then it goes. You know it goes. It goes up from there. Then love and belonging and self esteem and self actualization, and you want to go up the pyramid, not down it. But this, this response, makes you slide down it and go back into a more primitive state, which means that you can't work as well. You're going to be less productive at work, you're going to be less productive in your relationships, you're not going to be able to get that closeness and that intimacy. So a lot of times when people are fighting very hard for intimacy and just you know they just keep hitting walls, it's because someone or both people in a relationship are stuck further down the pyramid for whatever reason, and this can be one of the reasons. So, and I love that you started off the podcast talking about curiosity, because that's exactly the solution to this and how to actually break the eco mechanism, because you can't, you can tell it no, thank you, and teach yourself to not activate that response, but instead to ask questions and to respond in a healthy way.

Carl Richards:

I think that, like you say, because it's an addiction, and humans love to do the easier thing as opposed to the more difficult thing. That's why, in business, for example, people will want to do the easy tasks, not the hard ones, and we're also resilient, reticent to change, because change is hard. So you say that this can be cured or managed. Is it easy, though, to manage it, or is it? Do we fall back into those Like even listening to podcasts? I'm sure there are individuals who listen to podcasts that they know get them riled up, and it's it's it's their narcotic that they have to listen to that podcast.

Carl Richards:

That gets them riled up, even though it's affecting them deeply, and that's why I'm saying this, that's why I'm saying podcasts, because there are a lot of them out there. That's all they do.

Katherine McCord:

That's what they're geared Well, actually, it's very simple to learn to manage this. And here's the thing Once you learn to manage it, you don't need to say no Now. It's never smart to live in something that stresses you out for extended periods, but you get to the point where you can very easily come up to these situations and they don't stress you out anymore. You can decompress, absorb it, figure out your response and then move on in a healthy way. So you start by learning to identify it. What does that feel like? And for me personally and everybody kind of has their own response the second, that something hits me wrong. You know, let's just say I do a lot of dog rescue and so when somebody tells me that they feel like Michael Vick served his time, initial response is murder. But that's not the correct response. So the very first place I feel it is right here above the nape of my neck and my nerves start to inflame and those chemicals start to flow.

Katherine McCord:

So what I did was when I started reading about this and learning about this, learning how to conquer it, which I did a lot of research in, like the National Institute of Health, national Library of Medicine, harvard, stanford, a bunch of different studies and things like that, to learn and learn how to take care of it. So what I did was I sat down in my desk chair and I put my hands on the arms, or I would tap my foot and I alternated these two actions. I would just tap my foot once, very lightly, and I taught myself that means I have food in the pantry. I can picture it. I have a roof over my head, I can see it. I, you know, nobody's attacking I can look around, nobody's attacking me, I am healthy, I have, you know, everything that I need. I have money in the bank.

Katherine McCord:

So I taught my brain this. It took me. It took me about five minutes of getting the pattern and about another 15 minutes of putting it into practice and learning. Okay, look at something that stresses me out. Do this thing, decompress. And that was the initial run. And then it took me another couple of months of practicing it in live situations to get really good at it.

Katherine McCord:

But in just that short time what happened was I can turn off those stress chemicals. I tell my brain no, thank you, we're okay, I got it, we're all right. But then the second part of that you still can't respond combatively because that's going to bring those chemicals right back. So instead you ask a question and prepare to fully absorb what is going to be said to you, even if you end up not agreeing with it, that's okay. You could still learn from this, you could still take from this Something can be gained from this interaction. And so when you go into it with that and you go into it with curiosity and asking questions and going in to understand, not to combat it completely changes how your brain functions and it completely actually changes the physiological makeup of your brain and expands it so that you have more information to make better decisions, and then those instances where the ego mechanism flare up become less and less.

Carl Richards:

I like this. My question is I have two actually, but my first question is because it is such an addiction, remind me I want to come back to this question piece because I have a question about questions, but because this is such an addiction, even if we're taking the steps to control it, do we go through, or have you found that people go through withdrawal and they feel the need to? I'm just going to especially with. I'm just going to open my Facebook and see what's happening on this one page, or my Twitter, or whatever we're calling it this week account.

Carl Richards:

So is it that do we go through the withdrawal?

Katherine McCord:

Yes, yeah, some people do not everybody, not everybody, but some people do. I did a little bit, not too bad, but again, I was addicted. I like that charge, I like that fight, right, I, my go-to is fight, and those are usually the. Those are usually the people that you see clinging to it, usually are the people whose go-to is fight. And so I did go through that a little bit. But what I started realizing is the more that I forced myself into the curiosity response, the healthier sort of feeling.

Katherine McCord:

What happens is, when you respond in curiosity, your body releases oxytocin and serotonin, which are healthy, happy chemicals that put our body in a better state, and then you become quote addicted to that, to feeling good, not bad. So the addiction slowly shifts to something healthy. It's like saying I'm addicted to water Good, that's a good addiction, that's not a bad thing. Yeah, I'm addicted to air. I just can't get enough of it. I can't get enough sunshine. Well, gee, what a terrible problem. It's along those lines, right? So it keeps you very healthy. Now, if you're a person who overproduces, you may need to talk to your doctor about balancing that out. But in general, this is a healthy, happy response and it's something that connects you more to the humans around you, and that's really the remarkable thing is that you start to.

Katherine McCord:

For all the people out there who feel like you don't get other humans right, which is a common thing with neurodiversity, which just means a medically visible or diagnosable difference in how a person processes information. So, like everything from like cerebral palsy over to autism and dyslexia, over to even the mental health spectrum, like obsessive compulsive disorder or bipolar, and even for folks like that, who feel so detached because they feel so different, doing this connects you to other humans and you're better able to find the commonality. You're better even when you don't have commonality. You're better able to understand them. You're better able to process what is happening around you because your brain has more information. It's not so limited, so it's not just jumping to crazy conclusions. You know. So we always say you know, don't assume. Yeah, this is the way to stop us, I. Yet this is the way to stop us.

Carl Richards:

I like it.

Katherine McCord:

I now, I now by deep, by default, do not assume, and it's almost annoying, like because my brain then constantly has 50 million questions in it, which I was kind of born that way. It kind of like took me back to that childlike state, but yeah, so what was your question about questions?

Carl Richards:

my question about questions. Yes, and thank you for clarifying that part. By the way, I just want to quickly talk about the sunshine addiction.

Carl Richards:

Uh, disclosure, katherine is in florida, so of course she's addicted to sunshine, which is not a bad addiction to have Like we've already said, my question about questions was and I don't want you to give away your best stuff, but when we're in this moment where we need to stop, take a step back and ask questions, can you give us some examples of what some of the questions, yeah, like, what are the?

Katherine McCord:

questions to say, yeah, what are the questions, yeah, sure.

Katherine McCord:

So let's say that somebody says something that you disagree with. Like they just just their stance on whatever is something with which you disagree, so say, okay, can you tell me a little bit more about that? I would like to learn more about what you're saying. And then receive it and then keep asking questions and it can be like okay, so that, okay, can you tell them what about this? How does that fit into that, you know, and just start really engaging them with the intent of getting to the bottom of it. The idea here is you're just going to dive down the rabbit hole, right? You're just going to dive down the rabbit hole, right, you're just going to go with them, and then what you'll see is people start to naturally reciprocate after a while. If you start it, they just can't help. But like, all right, so this is what we're doing, you're engaging with me, this is comfortable, so let's start talking about your thing. Now it just kind of becomes a pattern.

Katherine McCord:

Another one is let's say that someone has done something that you read in a way that negatively affected you, and this happens especially within an intimate relationship, whether it's your kid, your partner, parent, whatever. Let's say somebody did something that just really hit you wrong and you're like that was wrong, that hurt me. Was it a wrong action, though? Like yes, that you were hurt, but what? What was their intent? You're assuming, and you may assume intent like, oh they, they're doing that because they think X, y, z or they're doing that because blah, blah, blah. You don't actually know that. So, ask, say, hey, you did that and it kind of hit me wrong. Can you talk to me a little bit? Or maybe I don't even like to say it hit me wrong yet I just say, hey, you just did that and I'm not sure that I received it properly. Can you talk to me a little bit about your intent with that action? What were you intending?

Katherine McCord:

Because sometimes what you figure out and the same thing of like a statement was made to you, like somebody says something kind of it seems snarky to you or whatever. Okay, why are you saying that? And even if it was meant snarky, what you sometimes realize is all the things behind that that led up to that. I realized at one point that I had been doing something accidentally, completely accidentally, that was difficult for my husband and because of his different diversities, and all that made things very difficult for him and so he finally it just like he hit a wall. It was like God dang it, stop doing this. And that's why it came out snarky. Well, I didn't know I'd been causing all that pain. So by asking the question we were able to heal that and move on, and then I didn't feel offended anymore and he did say sorry I snapped or whatever.

Katherine McCord:

But it was the point of then understanding what's happening. So then it doesn't feel like an attack. So now, for instance, when people get kind of sideways with me, I don't see it. My brain no longer reads it as an attack. It's no longer puts me to fight or flight. Now my body's like oh okay, tell me what's going on here. Like my brain's default is okay, let's figure this out. It's okay, let's talk about this. We can do this, we can work through it. And now, the rare times that my brain does read something as an attack, I know something is really wrong.

Carl Richards:

The other thing that I've noticed is and maybe this is part of the cure or control is my brain processing it? Not as a I need to react or be upset about this. I need to put myself in the position of the other person, where they're coming from, so understand that they are in this particular geographic situation or in the example that you gave about things that might happen around your house with those that you love. There's a disconnect because of somebody had a bad day that you maybe haven't realized they've had a bad day, and there's things that are just askew that you don't quite understand unless you ask the right questions.

Carl Richards:

So yeah. So that way you're not always in that engagement mode like the Thanksgiving dinner table, where everybody's always got to engage, right, everybody's got to engage. Everyone's got an opinion.

Katherine McCord:

It's true and come to understand. It's not just about giving grace to the other person where they are, although that is part of it. It's also about you. It's a selfish thing, too. You want more information. The more information you have, the better decisions you make, the healthier you are and actually you're feeding the actual need that your brain has to be correct, because your brain needs to understand. So you're actually, instead of doing the wrong thing and just letting all the frustration out right, like letting your brain act like a toddler you're actually giving it what it needs and giving it the additional information.

Carl Richards:

I think we could talk about this till the cows come home, considering it's the work that you do. But I want to make sure we save enough time for finding out more about your podcast, I think the piece about diversity and disability. I think we're going to need to have another conversation down the line about that and do a real deep dive into that.

Katherine McCord:

If you're okay with that?

Carl Richards:

Yeah, let's do it, We'll come back because I think that there's some value in spending time on that. I think we spent a lot of time talking about this and understanding the ego mechanism and really how to how to nurture this and not let it overtake you and become the addiction that it quite often can be. But but I want to find out more about your podcast. So so tell me about your show and how long have you been podcasting.

Katherine McCord:

That's 2020, and it did not start as a podcast. It started as a, like a virtual event and then it worked its way to a podcast. So it's been oh my God, it's been four years, holy crud. It's called Career Launch Live. We have multiple seasons. Some of them are on Spotify, some of them are on, but all of them are on YouTube and LinkedIn and that type of thing, and it is live, as the name would indicate, and then it kind of will roll over to a podcast like State. It's a blast. We talk, all things work, everything from understanding payday law all the way to diversity and inclusion, to communication, to just different leadership aspects. All the things, all the things are in there and it's lots of fun and the journey for you.

Carl Richards:

How does it feel now that you're four years deep? You know those first few episodes must have been and again you said they were live.

Katherine McCord:

That still must have been a little prickly and like, yeah, something live I grew up in theater so it wasn't that weird and like performing on stage, so it wasn't that weird, but it was uh, it was a different medium, so that bizarre Getting used to having to deal with all the tech stuff. Then the lady that originally was helping me with the backend stuff she got a job again, you know, post COVID. So then I didn't have her so I did it all myself and that was a journey, but honestly, now it's so it's just part of my week. Whenever I have a new season and I do it in seasons, because I do have travel seasons as well when I do seasons it's just part of my week. It's no big deal. We have the people on. It's very low stress and my guests have gotten to the point where they're like this is just so comfortable. It's just. I'm just talking to you.

Carl Richards:

We're just, it's just me and Kat having a conversation, and that's the way, in my opinion anyways, even a business podcast should sound just like a conversation. It shouldn't be all formal, it should literally, it should sound like what we've been doing this last I don't know 20, 25 minutes or so. I agree, you have some valuable resources that would be of great interest to your audience, so why don't you talk about that?

Katherine McCord:

Yeah, so number one you can find all kinds of resources on the Neuroverse website, which is jointheneuroverseorg, and neuroverse is spelled just neuro and verse, and there's all kinds of cool resources on there, including about communication. There's different coaches and all, especially if you fall into that neurodivergent category. And then also you can go to my speaker site and you can book me for podcasts. You can book me for different speeches, different classes, all the kind of fun things. Learn a little bit more about me. See pictures of my life kmccordspeakingcom.

Carl Richards:

Just book Kathy, do it, I'm pretty awesome Book, kathy, I'm pretty awesome, to be honest.

Katherine McCord:

We only have awesome people on this show.

Carl Richards:

Kathy McCord, it has been an absolute pleasure talking with you today. This is not the last time. This is not the last time. I guarantee we will be speaking again. And, by the way, I have to thank the lovely and talented like he doesn't get enough accolade already Alex Sanfilippo for joining us together through his lovely platform called Podmatch. I don't know if that gets me any extra bread at the dinner table.

Katherine McCord:

I feel like it should.

Carl Richards:

but yay, alex the number of times I've said his name in public and I think I should definitely be paid a royalty for that, for sure.

Katherine McCord:

But anyways Same. I have a few companies like that.

Carl Richards:

that I'm like guys seriously, come on, if I butter your bread anymore, I won't have any bread for me. But anyway, it's a pleasure because I have to admit that, catherine, you were my first guest through the pod match platform. I spent so much time guesting with pod match and now that all the plugins work the way they should.

Carl Richards:

Technology is a weird thing a fun thing and a weird thing when it doesn't work right. Work the way they should. Technology is a weird thing a fun thing and a weird thing when it doesn't work right Now I'm in the hosting chair as well, so thank you for being the first guest on Podmatch, guest on the show, so it's been a pleasure chatting with you. So, but before I turn you loose on the world to go either record another podcast or help people figure out the ego mechanism, what's your final thought?

Katherine McCord:

My final thought is learn to experience true intimacy through responding in curiosity. Because when you do that, when you engage and you break that ego mechanism and you respond in curiosity and you actually receive what people are telling you, it actually changes your neuropathways in your brain and the way that your brain functions, actually grows and expands. And what could possibly be more intimate than letting somebody change your own mind? So I encourage you to embrace true intimacy, to embrace responding and curiosity and to grow exponentially. It will change your life and it will change your career in all the right ways.

Carl Richards:

That's a great place to leave it. Katherine McCord, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Katherine McCord:

Thank you for having me.

Carl Richards:

And thank you for joining us today. Special thanks to our producer and production lead, Dom Carrillo, our music guru, Nathan Simon, and the person who works the arms all of our arms, actually my trusty assistant, Stephanie Gaffor. If you like what you heard today, leave us a comment and a review, and be sure to share it with your friends. If you don't like what you heard, please share it with your enemies. Oh, and if you have a suggestion of someone who you think would make an amazing guest on the show, let us know about it. Drop us an email. Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter as well. You'll find all those links in the show notes. Linkedin and Twitter as well. You'll find all those links in the show notes. And if you're ready to take the plunge and join the over 3 million people who have said yes to podcasting, let's have a conversation. We'll show you the simplest way to get into the podcasting space, because, after all, we're podcast solutions made simple. We'll catch you next time.