Four Words That Shattered My Perfect-on-Paper Life | Christina Langdon

Christina Langdon: [00:00:00] When we think about success, many people automatically go to things or money or titles. The Cambridge Institute of Technology did a research, study that said success was made up of three components and they were a skill environment.

And, psychology. And can you guess which is the most powerful component to creating success?

Sadaf Beynon: Welcome to Conversations That Grow, where we explore how meaningful conversations shape business, leadership, and the way we see the world. I'm Sadaf Beynon, and today I'm joined by the brilliant Christina Langdon. Christina spent three decades climbing the corporate ladder, 20 of those years at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and later as CRO at Fast Company.

On paper it looked like success, but behind the scenes. Burnout, misalignment and eventually a life changing health diagnosis. [00:01:00] That moment flipped the, flipped the script, and led her to redefine what success really means. I. Today through her coaching and consulting business, Kite, Christina helps leaders tap into their most overlooked superpowers, awareness and imagination, or as she calls it, human AI.

Christina, welcome to the show. Hi there. It's so good to be here. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. Christina, can you take me back to a conversation that changed something for you? Maybe how you lead, how you grow, or maybe even how you see success?

Christina Langdon: Yes. Um, one conversation that sticks out among a lot of them is, um, a conversation I had at a lunch with a group of incredibly talented and inspiring women.

I was asked to join the lunch 'cause somebody had dropped out. And one of my mentors was [00:02:00] there. Now, she wasn't an official mentor, she was just someone I admired quite a bit, uh, and wanted to emulate. And this was after I had left working for Martha Stewart Living Omnimed. I was there for nearly 20 years and I left when I, soon after not getting the top position, the top role there.

After, as I said, nearly 19 years, and somebody offered a prompt that we all had to answer at the lunch, and I think it was around what was, what is, what do you see as one of your biggest failures? And at the lunch, my biggest failure was I didn't get the role and my mentor who was sitting at the opposite end of the table, she looked me right in the eyes and she said, you didn't ask for it.

And I woo, what I, I, I [00:03:00] immediately wanted to, to defend myself. I really wanna say, well, I'd worked so hard. I'd been there for 19 years. There was nobody qualified better than me for that role. I had been preparing for it for nearly 20 years. But upon reflection. Which was immediate, but also took some time.

I realized I didn't ask for it. I thought I deserved it. I thought it would naturally come. And so I believe that each of us are the biggest influencers in our life. And it's up to us to write the scripts of our life. It's up to us to define what success, um, is to us. And it's up to us to intentionally create it, to have the agency to live a [00:04:00] very intentional life, not a life from entitlement, not a life from expectation, but a life that is.

And I. Have abbreviated it. I call it IDC. It's intentional, it's deliberate, and it's consistent. And still to this day, I can go right back to that restaurant, that table, and the look in my, um, mentor's eyes when she shared that with me. And I was really, I'm in hindsight, I'm really, I was so appreciative of it, even though it hit me like a knife in my heart.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Christina Langdon: I was so appreciative that she felt open enough with me to be able to share what was a really difficult, uh, comment.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm. Wow. I know. It's, um, it is a big thing, isn't it? When someone is that open with you. It's, it's, it's not something that's normal.

Christina Langdon: Well, and I think like [00:05:00] we are who we surround ourselves with.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: And we have to, like, there is a saying that says if you are the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room. I like that. And in that moment, I was really in a room of inspiring women who. We're really lifting me up to be better. There's research out there, uh, with the science of people, I think it's called the, the science of people.

Mm-hmm. That shares that when you are around high performers, when you sit near high performers, your performance goes up by 15%. Wow. So energy is contagious. And in that moment, I needed that contagious energy to not only reflect, but to become much more aware of who I was and who I wanted to be. Mm-hmm. So that I could take action on it.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. So what, what do you think, um, shifted in you in through that comment? [00:06:00]

Christina Langdon: Well, my mother would say, uh, you write your own life script.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm. And.

Christina Langdon: I think it was my time, like I had been powering through. Powering through is an energy that for me was intense. It was stressful, it was urgent. Um, it was, you know, highly focused and our energy is really our vibe and our energy comes from emotions.

And so when I think about the vibe I was setting off, it was probably coming from emotions that were fear doubt. I mean, as every high achiever, right? We are, we still have the fears, we still have the doubts, and we still have those feelings that can oftentimes, uh, produce negative energy. And when there's negative energy, you are putting out a negative vibe.

And the vibe I was likely putting out, ooh, pretty high. And your vibe. Your energy is your value, right? That's the value I bring. So [00:07:00] I've learned to become much more aware of what is the vibe I wanna be putting out there? What is the energy I wanna be putting out there? What does it mean to be successful?

What are the feelings of success? For me, it's joy, ease, and impact. I define success as being successful. FULL, I've added it out. And it's being full of joy, ease, and impact, and having to find it. Now I have the ability to make decisions based on those feelings. Mm-hmm. Will it be joyful? Will I have impact?

I'm here today in hopes of creating impact. Impact, and if I create impact, when I create impact, it makes me feel joyful. Right? So. It goes back to being really, really intentional. And when we think about success, um, you know, many people [00:08:00] automatically go to things or money or titles. Mm-hmm. And the Cambridge Institute of Technology did a research, um, study that said success was a component, um, was made up of three components and they were a skill environment.

And, uh, psychology. And can you guess which is the most powerful component to creating success? Psychology. Yeah. You're talking to the coach here. Yes. It's psychology. And psychology is mindset. And when you read further down in the research, they attribute success. To, uh, 85% driven by psychology. So I wish I'd known it earlier.

I wish I'd known it in junior high school. In high school, in college. Like if we [00:09:00] know that success is really a major factor driven by our mindset, then we know how important it is to manage our mindset. And I'm not managing mindset. I'm not speaking to the general public here in a woo woo kind of a way.

I am pretty, I'm a, I'm a high achiever. I'm a high performer, but I do have a practice where I am managing my mindset to create, to intentionally create what I want to have agency in what I want. Every single day. I ask myself, in a simple practice of reflection, what happened yesterday? What worked, what didn't work?

What do I wanna be doing differently? And I ask myself like, what are the feelings that I wanna have today? One of the things I see that, uh, trips, uh, high achievers and leaders and CEOs up a lot is they are stressed for time, right. And they're moving [00:10:00] through things, uh, all week long. They have not, uh, factored in super think time.

You call it whatever you want. I call it super think time. Some people call it stra strategy time. Uh, some people just call it me time where they're spending time. I recommend two hours at a clip, really working on what they wanna create in their future because your present is better when your future is bigger.

But if we don't spend time thinking about our future, then we're not making our present better. We're living more on default of the day. So I also find that because of the calendars and because of how busy people are, oftentimes they don't. Think about the outcomes that they're trying to create. So I've got a difficult conversation.

Uh, a client will say to me, I've got a difficult conversation coming up, or, mm, I have to let somebody go. It's gonna be a tough conversation. And I [00:11:00] always ask them, what is the outcome that they want from that conversation? Leading ourselves first and leading with impact is really leading from the outcomes that we're trying to create.

So let's say we are unfortunately having to let somebody go from our team. Do we want the outcome to be, um, a graceful unwind? Okay. If we wanna gracefully unwind from a team member, what would it look like for that to be the outcome of that conversation and then reverse engineering from there. Mm-hmm.

Outcomes are super important. If I had reversed engineered the outcome from me wanting to get that, that top dog role at Martha Stewart. I would've said to myself, okay, if I want the job, what do I need to do to intentionally create it? Where are, where do I have an agency in this? I am not like, my [00:12:00] life isn't driven by the circumstances, it's driven by the choices I make.

Right? So I had so many choices that I could have made to create the outcome, but instead I thought it would just come to me.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Yeah. So these mind, this mindset that you're talking about came after, um, that lunch that you were at and, um, your mentor spoke into your life. What, um, what was the, the contrast I.

Between this mindset and what was actually going on in the workplace before that or at that time. Do you know what I mean?

Christina Langdon: Yes. That's a very good question. So the mindset, it kind of goes back to what I was saying a little bit earlier, the mindset of my career. Let's say my corporate career was, all I have to do is work hard.

All I have to do is power through. I [00:13:00] will be recognized if I. Just excel if I work towards becoming, um, exceptional. So when we are in hustle and grind, oh, it can take a toll on our mental energy. Um, and it did for me, I said, as, as you said in the opening, like I, I was perfect on paper. Like I had all these incredible titles that were,

Sadaf Beynon: were

Christina Langdon: rising up the ladder.

Um, yet I was perfectly miserable because I wasn't living in alignment of what I wanted to create. So I first had to see, I first had to become aware. And understanding and learning that the hustle and the powering through wasn't ultimately serving me. And, and when we're younger in our career, we can do so much hustle, we can do so much performance.

Mm-hmm. Um, but over time it's just not scalable. Right. And oftentimes when people [00:14:00] get up higher in their career and even in midlife, people start questioning, is this it?

Sadaf Beynon: Because this

Christina Langdon: doesn't feel good, and it's because that hustle and grind energy isn't sustainable. So I first had to become really aware of it.

I had to learn what mindset was. I had to learn what it was to build awareness. So when you ask people, are you self aware in research studies, you ask them, are you self-aware? 87% report that they're self-aware.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm,

Christina Langdon: but the 85%, excuse me, report that they are self-aware. Hmm. But the actual research is 17%.

Wow. That's huge difference. Right. So. In the work that I've done to redefine, reimagine success, not only for myself, but also for how can I apply what I've learned in creating my own success into organizations? [00:15:00] Mm-hmm. So that what as an organization is rising, so are its people. So mindset begins with awareness, knowing what it is.

Yeah, seeing, becoming more aware of our day-to-day thoughts and what we want to generate every single day. Having a reflection process every single day. It's a practice. Yeah. I don't do it every single day. That's like inhuman. I do it most days. Right.

Sadaf Beynon: And how long do you spend doing that? Is that part like your workday or is that first thing in the morning?

What does that look like?

Christina Langdon: People do it. You have to do it when it's most comfortable. I think your mind is freshest in the morning, but some people like to do it at the end of the day as sort of a summary for the day. You really have to pick out what works for you. And for some people it's journaling. For some people it's taking a walk with no, um, headphones in just a silent walk where you are listening and [00:16:00] thinking and reflecting in your head.

Some people do voice journaling where they talk into their phone and record themselves and listen to themselves back. So there's a lot of different ways to do it. Um, the practice that's right for you is the practice that you make, right for you. So there's no right way. There's just the way that you make, right.

But it has to become a practice, which means, uh, being intentional, deliberate, and consistent. Mm-hmm. With

Sadaf Beynon: the

Christina Langdon: practice, doing it as many times as possible. Um. Because when we become aware, here's, here's the thing. So with awareness, and when I was, when I was talking earlier about the intensity and the focus and the drive that I had for all those years, um, I equate it to like the picture of Wonder Woman.

When she's got her hands crossed in front of her with the gold cuffs.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: Every single day we are at work and we are like taking those cuffs and we are fighting [00:17:00] off, uh, unhappy clients, disappointed bosses, um, uh, people that we're trying to manage. We are all, we enter our workday already in fight mode.

When we are in that fight mode, when we are in that defense mode, so no game is won on defense. It's won on offense. And when we show up to work on defense every single day, that means we're in the smallest part of our brain. That means that we're in that primitive brain, and when we are, we're not in the prefrontal cortex.

We're not in the brain where imagination exists. So when we are in fear flight or freeze, I. It's very difficult for us to imagine and breakthrough success, happiness, joy, all of this comes through our critical thinking. It comes through imagination. And by imagination, I'm not necessarily saying [00:18:00] I'm not.

I'm suggesting anybody be creative like an artist. Imagination is simply asking what if? It's asking what's possible in pursuit of getting to why not? So awareness and the reflective process. What's working, what's not working? What will I do differently today?

Sadaf Beynon: Mm.

Christina Langdon: Is a practice of becoming more aware so that we can start asking ourselves question, what's questions around what's possible.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: For today, what's possible for this week? What's possible for the, uh, conversation around a layoff? I have to, I have to do with somebody. What's possible? Is it possible for us to gracefully unwind? Right, awareness and imagination, and I've trademarked it. Human ai, I believe it's the first, it's the original and it's the most profound AI that we have.

And it sits in all of us. It's awareness [00:19:00] and imagination. And when you apply that to an organization, when an organization is more aware of its strengths, capabilities. Capacities and capabilities, it has a greater opportunity to imagine, to evolve into an organization that has more breakthroughs. So the thing with leadership development is it's a billion dollar industry, yet 80.

More than 80% of employees say that they're disengaged at work. And we've heard about, uh, quiet quitting and resignation network.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: Um, and that would suggest that leadership development's not working. Yeah, and I really think it's, it's, we're poised to disrupt leadership development Right now, human AI allows [00:20:00] organizations to converge.

Leadership development with strategic planning. Mm-hmm. Typically, they've been in on different tracks, different initiatives, very separate.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: But when you combine them together into one. Process. One practice, the organization grows, and as it grows, so does it pe its people because an organization that understands that its pe, its people are its greatest, most valuable assets, invests in those assets and is rising with the individual players.

Sadaf Beynon: I really, I really, Understand what you're saying about the whole awareness side of things. I think that self-awareness and that self-reflection is so key to life in, in general, not just for business, like how you, um, if you have that self-awareness, you are able to, um, have so much more control over [00:21:00] what you are, what you're putting out there and what you're allowing in.

And that's really important. Um, um, Christina, I would love to know how it all started. Hmm,

Christina Langdon: that's a good question. So, um, I have been a sort of fan of personal development and un trying to understand myself better for years. So I mentioned earlier that I worked for Martha Stewart for quite a bit at a long time, and I was an early manager, very young when I was given management responsibility.

Mm-hmm. And as we were rapidly growing, there wasn't a ton of HR support. I wasn't, I was new to leadership, didn't know how to lead. So I often say that on any given lunch hour, you could find me in the Barnes and Noble on 46th Street in, in New York City, on Madison Avenue, in the self-help and personal development and leadership aisles.

And so I was a big fan, always in search of what can I [00:22:00] do to inspire my team, lead my team, influence my team, and so. Later on when I was CRO at, uh, fast Company, somebody, um, somebody who reported to me who was actually out on medical leave for quite a bit of time, she called me and suggested, um, to me that I had changed her life, both professionally and personally and why wasn't I a coach?

And it was a little bit the permission I needed to give myself. Time to consider it, to really explore it. And I decided I was gonna sort of do it on the, on the, uh, down low. And I got eight women together in a room and invited them to come into, uh, the Living Your Extraordinary Life Workshop, a half day workshop.

And when I was giving it, like I knew I'd come home, I knew [00:23:00] that this, it felt right, my heart. Was beating outta my chest and I was so incredibly happy to do be doing it, and to be helping women and to be making a difference, and I felt the impact I was making. Yet at the same time, I didn't feel well. And that afternoon I went to the doctor and actually took a blood test.

And in, in about a, a day later, I was, um, asked to come back in and take another blood test. And by the time I got home, I'm, I'm about a mile from the doctor's office. By the time I got home, before I even put my purse on the kitchen table, my. Um, cell phone rang and it was the doctor and he said, you have to come back, right back.

And it was four 30 in the afternoon. Who's wor what doctor works at 4:30 AM He said, you have to come back. It's much more serious than we thought. Mm-hmm. So they, um, had me return and I was given my first bone marrow biopsy as he told me, um, [00:24:00] that I had, um, acute myeloid leukemia.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Christina Langdon: And my first question was like, what is acute?

And he says, fast moving. And so you need to be admitted into the hospital no later than tomorrow.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm. Oh

Christina Langdon: wow. And you will be in the hospital for an extended stay. So my first, um, stint in the hospital was about 36 days. Hmm. And I remember, um, going into the emergency room at Memorial Sloan Kettering and there was a series of doctors and nurses coming in asking me a lot of questions about my blood tests.

And at that point I was, I was near critical at that point. I was definitely critical and, um. They were asking for me for my symptoms and how I was feeling. But when Dr. Park came in, he, um, asked me some of the same questions and then he said, you don't come to MSK to be uh, treated. You come to MSK to be cured.

And it really was a life-saving thought, and it was a thought at that moment. Now, this was part [00:25:00] of a survival tactic as well for me, but in that moment, I looked at my family and I was like, game on. And I had just given that workshop, so I knew I was gonna be in the hospital for a long time and a good bit of it.

I wasn't feeling well enough to do anything. But when I was feeling well enough to do something, I put myself, um, in school and enrolled in a coaching certification. I did a lot of reading on the coach. I wanted to become and lead and learning about the practices, and I started writing my own book that I published soon, a couple years after.

It's called For Success Sake, simple Steps for Extraordinary, um, future Sim. Oh, so I'm sorry. Simple Steps for Extraordinary Possibilities in Leadership and Life. And it's a little bit the story that I went through to become who I am as a coach today, having, um, understood the power of [00:26:00] awareness and imagination and how it plays such a significant role in intentionally leading the life you wanna lead.

And I did a lot of that work and launched my coaching practice. Um, in part, in large part because it was a survival tactic. Because when nothing was at risk, everything was at risk. I. Wait, I think I said it backwards and everything was at risk. Yeah, nothing was at risk. Mm-hmm. A lot of what I do is work with CEOs to help them see possibilities.

I help them see what they can't see, and I help them see what they can see more clearly. And my goal is to help them before they struggle with a health challenge or burnout. I wanna get, I wanna help them get ahead of it because. We can manage ourselves much more even in crisis than, uh, we know we are so much more, we are so capable of so much [00:27:00] more than we give ourselves credit for.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm. Uh, Christine, I've got so many questions that came out of that from what you said, but first of all, what, how is your health now?

Christina Langdon: So I was diagnosed on April Fool's Day 2019. It was no joke, right? Not a joke. Oh my gosh. It's coming up, um, next week. Mm-hmm. Um, so I am five years, um, from diagnosis and, uh, at that point you have a 2%, uh, recurrence rate.

Okay. So I am really good and the doctors are joyful and happy, and I am blessed to,

Sadaf Beynon: um, to be here talking to you today. Mm-hmm. That's fantastic. That's really great news. I'm pleased to hear that. Thank you. Um, something you said at the beginning when you first started telling me about how you got to this place.

You said you started, um, your, someone said to you about, you know, why don't you become a coach? And it's like they were giving you permission to explore that and to, to run with it. Um, you said you started [00:28:00] on the down low. Was that because you were not feeling well? Because I know it quickly led into you having a hospital visit, or were you unsure about your abilities?

Christina Langdon: Oh my goodness. That's such a, that's a good catch on you. Um, yeah, I was doing it on the down low. I had a lot of judgment. About, um, whether I wanted to be a coach, the expectation for me was to stay in the media business and stay building brands and running revenue. And I even had that expectation for myself.

So it was really about, um, being open to a new possibility for a new path forward. And I was recently giving a, um. Workshop to help a group of individuals challenge assumptions, um, around how they were running their business and who they were serving. And, you know, in the PowerPoints that you're giving, when you give, when [00:29:00] you get to the slide, where you go through your credibility slide, which is all of the things that you've done, um, to make you.

Credible enough to stand up in front of the organization. Mm-hmm. Well, what I did in terms of helping them see how assumptions are so pervasive in our life is I went through my credibility slide and I took it apart. Mm-hmm. So, I, uh, worked for Martha Stewart, as we said for about 19 years. When I went to work, I took my first job as a marketing manager, and I had to take an 18% pay cut.

To take that job now, I wanted to run pretty, uh, quickly away from the job I was in. I was not happy with the job and where I was. But if I had believed that I couldn't live on less money, if I had believed that it wasn't possible for me to take a pay cut, I mean, at the time I was probably making less than $40,000 a year.

So it was very [00:30:00] significant. But I decided I was gonna believe in my future and invest in my future through this new job, which. Led me to great places, but if I believed in my assumptions, I wouldn't have been on the trajectory that I went on. Mm. So when I wrote the book, I didn't believe I had, could create, uh, 10 hours in my work week to write the book, which was really what was required to get it out within a year.

Um, but if I had believed that I couldn't find 10 hours and that my business would implode, um, I wouldn't have written the book. And the book has been a new chapter for me. It's created even another new identity for myself.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Christina Langdon: So every step of the way, and you asked about the down low, so I wasn't sure, um, I could make as much money as a coach as I.

As I was making in corporate. Mm-hmm. So that was holding me back as well. And again, [00:31:00] I had to believe and invest in my, in the future that I wanted to create for myself. Not in the assumptions where there, the only evidence was the thought in my mind.

Sadaf Beynon: How do you figure out whether you're believing in something or pushing towards something that actually, um, doesn't have the longevity that you want it to have?

Christina Langdon: That's right. Really, really good question. Another really good question. So belief is something I work on a lot 'cause I really struggle with belief.

Mm-hmm. Which is why I know how important it is to creating the future that you want. You know, when you think about like a Jeff Bezos or a Elon Musk, or a Sarah Blakely or an Oprah, these were people that had outrageous goals, impossible possibilities. When Jeff Bezos started the Everything store, people told him it was an impossible [00:32:00] dream.

People told him it wasn't gonna work along the way, and he got into belief. He took action from belief. He did not quit. Before he saw results, he just kept taking action. So when it comes to belief, it's about really taking massive action and not quitting before we see results. Belief is also about finding the evidence that possibility exists.

So on page 17 in the book, for Success Sake. There is the TENS exercise and the tens exercise is an exercise in building belief. And Jeff Bezos, uh, excuse me, um, uh, Steve Jobs in his stance. Stanford, uh, commencement address said we cannot connect the dots. Looking forward, we can only [00:33:00] connect the dots looking backwards.

So when we look back on what we've created, what we've done, what we moments of joy, who we surrounded ourselves with, it's actually the clues to your success. So finding belief really begins with seeing how you've created impossible possibilities before. It's looking for evidence in your past where you've created, where you've delivered, where you've achieved before, to be able to use that evidence to help you build belief to a new future that you wanna create.

And, and it it, it takes work. Absolutely.

Sadaf Beynon: That's cool. I like that. I like what you said there. Something else you said earlier was, um, you want, you are wanting to help business leaders, CEOs before they get to that point of burnout and misalignment and [00:34:00] stress and all of those kinds of things. What are the signs of, um, burnout?

Christina Langdon: So Burnout really is a, it's all really based on feelings. How are we feeling? A lot of times CEOs will come to me and say they feel burnt out. They feel stressed.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: They feel lonely. That's the number one thing I hear. They feel all alone. They feel self-doubt. They feel a lack of confidence, and it's just not CEOs, it's leaders, and even high performers across organizations.

We are really more alike than we are different. So signs of. Being overstressed or signs of burnout are a calendar that is your organizing system. It's a calendar that's jam packed. It's a calendar that doesn't allow for breathing space. It's not [00:35:00] knowing the future that you're trying to create. It's not being really specific.

It's not having a definition for success for yourself.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: For your team, for the business. It is not surrounding yourself with people that are lifting you up, and it's not holding them accountable for, um, what you need in inside of your business. I,

Sadaf Beynon: that's, that's, um, makes a lot of sense. How do you find people. Um, before they get to that point, because it sounds like they come to you or they, when, when they're talking with you, they're saying they've got all the burnout signs that there are. How do you help them? How do you help those who are not there yet but are heading that way?

Christina Langdon: Well, we start with awareness. We have to become aware of what's holding us back. We have to become aware of the stories that we're telling ourselves that are simply just stories. [00:36:00] We have to become aware of all of our greatness. Like the hardest thing for people to do, even when they're working with a coach, is to celebrate all that they've done and all that they've achieved.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: Um, because the clues to our future success are back there. Success leaves clues along the way. So once we become a little bit more aware, we can then. Imagine, where do we wanna be? So oftentimes people have a, uh, very tumultuous relationship with their business. One of the things we work on is what is the relationship you want to have with your business?

Hmm. A lot of people have fear. I often have them write a letter from their fear. Write a letter from your fear, what would it say to you? And then I have them write a letter from their future. What do you [00:37:00] want your future self to tell you today?

You can also write a letter from Love If you're looking for the opposite. Write a letter from Fear and write a letter from the Loving you. Because oftentimes, you know, we are the least compassionate people to ourselves. Um, another thing that we work on, and this is actually early, I do this early on when I'm starting with people because it helps them understand intellectually, um, around something that's very emotional, right?

So we have 60,000 thoughts a day. In neuroscience research packs this, that's 60%, 85% are in our subconscious. And of those 85%, 90% are negative.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm. Wow.

Christina Langdon: So when we understand that we have story loops that go round and around, and [00:38:00] most of those loops are negative, or then we can see that we're all negative.

Right. And what's interesting about those thoughts though, is. All of those thoughts are about our past for the most part.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: So even when we think about going back to me and not intentionally creating and asking for the role, I don't know whether I would've gotten it, but by not asking for it. And not going for it.

You know, I sealed that deal, right. That was failing ahead of time. So. We have to be thinking about our future. We have to intentionally be creating it because the past isn't g, the past is not gonna create our future unless we allow it to. But that's just living more in the past. And even if I'm gonna switch to, um, the business side of things.

So it's the same thing with strategic planning. Strategic planning. I'm not necessarily gonna say there's not a role for it. There is, but it's planning from the past. [00:39:00] And doing what we've done before a little bit better. And it's incremental growth. It's linear growth. Is it 10%? Is it 20%, right?

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: So when we put the process of human AI on top of an organization, what it allows companies to do is say, okay, if I grew my business by 200%, what would be possible?

That's not gonna come from the past. Because your past, if it, if, if it could have happened, it would've. So that requires entirely new thinking. So helping people had a consult with a potential client yesterday and helping her see, um, that her future and the business she wants to double her business, um, isn't gonna be, isn't gonna come from doing more of what she's doing now.

It's actually gonna be coming from something that's different and it's not gonna be coming by putting the numbers together, although [00:40:00] we'll do that. Yeah, it's gonna be coming from her. Her why and what she wants to create. And I had, I offered her a prompt and I said, what if you could create a movement behind your why?

And once I asked that question, all of a sudden, new possibilities came up. There was some resistance. And then when she let that go, all of a sudden she saw a different future. Like that is, that's where the magic happens.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. I can, I can imagine. What do the success clues look like? Because you said they're in the past.

Christina Langdon: Okay, so I'll talk about myself 'cause mm-hmm. I think it's, it's just an, it's easy example. So when I, when I mind my past for my success clues mm-hmm. And when you do the tens exercise in the book as well, on page 17, you're mining your past. So I looked at all the roles that I had. [00:41:00] Um, and my first job was 11.

I was a dishwasher at a local, um, pizzeria, and then I went on to sell Avon products when I was 13 years old. I went on to be the manager of a market research company at the, in, on the night shift, I was actually the, um, captain of one of the teams I was on. So you might look at. All of my, uh, roles, even leading up to the CRO and saying, oh, she's a leader.

But I knew that there was something more underneath that. I wanted to get a little bit more underneath that. And when I dug in deeper, I saw that really the clues were that I was trying to help people be better. I was trying, when I worked as the manager of that market research company, those women were working on commission.

I. So the more surveys that they could have people take over the phone. I'm dating myself and I tell you that, um, the more commission they would make, so even [00:42:00] running sales teams where people could make more commission, I was in pursuit of helping people better themselves. And when I understood that, it was a whole layer of.

New meaning about what lit me up. Yeah. What, what made me alive and really where I wanted to go with my next life leap.

Sadaf Beynon: Um, So is this similar to what you were saying, you were talking to your potential client about finding the why and the what and her.

Christina Langdon: And I asked her what were the greatest moments of success up to that date?

And there was a lot. I mean, she'd been in business 10 years. She'd grown her business by 5% annually. There were some wonderful things, but guess what it came down to is her ability to, um, um, help her clients understand that you're there living a life, not an [00:43:00] and or, or. There. It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be, uh, family or fitness.

It can be family and fitness. Helping people understand that is really her secret is really her superpower. Understanding that superpower, ooh, there's so many ways to play. Mm-hmm. And so that really was mining. For the things that lit her up, the things that made her happy, the things that she knew resonated

Sadaf Beynon: mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: Inside herself as well as with the people that she was, um, had been working with.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

That's fascinating.

Christina, um, I know a lot of your work is, um, is rooted in your personal experience. But you also spent time working with, with Martha, who's building her own personal brand, a powerful brand. Um, and you were talking about that book, so, um, for success [00:44:00] sake and in it, I remember when we were doing our pre-call, you said that you had a bonus chapter where you talked about the seven lessons.

Um, that you had learned from that time. I'd love to, um, I'd love for you to share a couple of those with us. You know, ones that I've like really stuck with you even today.

Christina Langdon: Yes, yes. So after 20 years, uh, the bulk of my career, I. Working for Martha Stewart and under the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia brand.

It was like a masterclass, um, in both personal branding and professional branding. Uh, it was really like, um, getting my MBA and I am so appreciative of the time I spent there and the learnings. And I've written about the seven lessons I learned from Martha Stewart. So. Early on, she told me something that stuck with me and still is a little bit of my own mantra today.[00:45:00]

She said, um, learn something new every day. Learn something new every day and go teach it to somebody else.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Christina Langdon: And so learning, I believe is the Fountain of youth learning is something that we are, um, responsible. For creating in our lives. And we must be learning to grow. We must be learning to be, uh, powerful, to be the professionals that we wanna be.

Learning is, um, energy. It's everything to me. So it's something that I, um, I'm driven and passionate about. Uh, she also said that average wasn't exceptional. Average wasn't acceptable. And when you think about it, when I was growing up, like a C on my report card was average, and now today a C is not average.

It's like getting a is expected. And so I oftentimes ask people, is this average. [00:46:00] Or do you want it to be exceptional? What would exceptional look like? Define exceptional for your brand, for your personal brand. Define exceptional for your business. And then you know, your brand is how you make people feel.

And Maya Angelo talks about it, but Martha Stewart actually delivered it when she would say it's a good thing. She wanted people to feel good. Hmm. She wanted people to take their passions and to turn them into profit. She wanted people to feel something from the photographs in the magazine. She wanted people to feel something when they read.

Um, uh, a recipe, right? So your brand is how you make people feel. And so I oftentimes, um, worked really, really hard to let my clients, um, understand how the [00:47:00] brand, the brand was in terms of feeling, but also how I felt about their brand.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Christina Langdon: So that was the another one. Another one is surround yourself with people that are better than you.

Mm-hmm. And I talked earlier about energy being contagious.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: And the research that your performance is enhanced when you're sitting near a high performer by like 15%. Martha, early on, hired exceptional people and those people hired people. Who were amazing, who hired people that were amazing. So every day I was surrounded by people that.

Believed that average wasn't acceptable. They believed that excellence was in the every day.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm. And

Christina Langdon: challenged me to be better. They challenged me to go back and do things over and over and over again. Sometimes tough, but yeah, always more [00:48:00] exceptional. Um. Another thing she taught me was that preparation is everything.

And um, Martha would come to a meeting with clients and while we had given her a brief, I. On the meeting, you always knew that she would do her own work. Mm-hmm. She would always look into people and she'd always find something that she could connect with them with people and she'd bring gifts. So if she found out that they were, uh, a gardener, she'd bring seeds from her garden.

There was always something extra special.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: And then the other thing was, and I think that this is sort of has driven everything for me, and that there's always a solution. So even when we created, um, when there was crisis or we had difficulty, or there was transformation in the media industry, the people I worked with were driven by.

In belief of that, there's always a [00:49:00] solution.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: So when I talk about creating possibility, and when CEOs come to me in burnout or right before burnout, it's. Getting them to understand what it looks like to live in possibility, because there is always a solution. Mm-hmm. When you think about going back to the pandemic and CEOs from around the country were told that they had to move their people home, hundreds, millions of people home in a matter of days, and that they didn't know when they were coming back into the office.

You can imagine that the first thought was. No way. And there was probably an ex expletive. Yeah, yeah. But everybody at that point had to get into new possibility. So there is a solution to almost everything if you're willing to get into possibility.

Sadaf Beynon: It's fascinating. I'm curious. You are, um, I think it was the second one where you said she, she said that average wasn't [00:50:00] acceptable.

And um, earlier on when we were talking. You were saying that you were quite driven, you wanted to power through Excel. Yes. Be exceptional. So do you think some of that had anything to do, or did it feed into that drive that you had?

Christina Langdon: Yes, yes, yes. And if I had understood. That mindset was 85% to success. I think about what I could have achieved and what I mean that it's not a achievement in a new title or more money.

I mean that I probably would've been balancing my life better. I would've understand that you live in the and not in the or that I could have a successful career and manage three young children as a single mother.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: Instead I [00:51:00] was fighting for both. Yeah. Now that I understand how to use my mind in pursuit of what I wanna create, I go to my days, um, with a plan.

I go to my days understanding that some days are gonna be tough and some days things are gonna fall apart. 'cause we're all human. But for the most part. If I'm living in the, and then I can create what I want instead. I was living in the powering through.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Christina Langdon: I was good at it, but it probably was taking a toll.

It wasn't probably, it took a toll. It took a toll on my health over, over, and over and over again, and it wasn't till the big crisis of leukemia that I said, I'm never doing that again.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm. Christina, thank you so much for sharing. This has been such fun. It's been a pleasure.

Christina Langdon: Thank you for the time and giving me the space and you're a terrific interviewer.

Oh, thank you.

Sadaf Beynon: That's very kind. Christina. Before we wrap up, where can our listeners [00:52:00] connect with you and learn more about Kite? Well, you

Christina Langdon: can always find me on, uh, LinkedIn, uh, Christina Langton. Um, you can find me on Instagram and it's christinalangdonbosslady. Um. kite-labs.com is our, um, website. I also have a website for myself.

That's christinalangton.com. Mm-hmm. And if you want more, um, you can sign up for my newsletter, which is called Sunday Sunshine. It's to beat the Sunday Scaries. I send it out on Sunday and it's a story or a new perspective or an exercise to help people launch the week, um, with a new thought. And you can sign up on my website, christinalangton.com.

Sadaf Beynon: Excellent. Thank you. And for those tuning in, you'll find all the links and details in the description. Well, that's it for today's episode, Christina, thanks again for your time and for bringing such value to the show. Thank you for having me, and here's to your success. Thank you. You're welcome. And to those listening, thanks for joining us.

If [00:53:00] you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe for more conversations that Open Doors, create opportunities and shape the way we think. So from Christina and for me, thanks for listening. Bye for now.