Unlocking Human Potential and Leadership with Dr. Sharon Spano

[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Dr. Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions or to access some of our resources at resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started.

[00:00:32] Hi and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled and I'm delighted to be joined today by Sharon Spano, who is sitting in front of a little poster saying the other side of potential with Dr. Sharon Spano. So no doubt we're going to have a fascinating conversation about all sorts of different things. I'm a great believer in potential, always interested to find out more. But let's first of all welcome you and say hi, how are you? I am great today, Russell, and thank you so much for having me on board. I'm excited to have this conversation. Absolute pleasure. And where in the world are you?

[00:01:01] I am right now in a town called Heathrow, right outside of Orlando, Florida. I'm about 30 minutes north of downtown Orlando. And then I live part of the year up in North Carolina, about 30 minutes north of Asheville. So I'm very blessed to remove myself from the summer heat here. I feel very lucky to be able to do that and be up in the mountains through the summer months. Yeah, we had a road trip, was it last year? I think it was. And we did Nashville. And Asheville is a beautiful town, isn't it?

[00:01:30] It's just so good for the spirit to be in that sort of atmosphere. It's absolutely lovely. We've done the geography. We've done our introductions. Maybe you should introduce yourself and tell the audience all about yourself. All about would take us too long because it's been a long and wonderful career. But what I will say is my doctorate, as I mentioned to you, is on human and organizational systems with emphasis on human development. All of my work is trauma informed. And there's a lot that I could say there.

[00:01:56] Right now, the work has evolved from being more of a corporate consultant by choice. I am now working more one-on-one with high impact leaders who often just really need some help to uncover things that might be holding them back. They've achieved a lot. Maybe they have all the toys and the great company and the employees and whatnot, but there's something missing for them. Or they might be going through some kind of a change, a life change. Maybe the business has changed. They've gone through a divorce.

[00:02:23] There's a variety of reasons. But most of the time, there's some level of what I call the emptiness of success. And so they come to me to figure out what's going on in my life and what's next. And it's very rewarding work. I feel very blessed to work with these leaders. And then, of course, I am also the host of the Other Side of Potential podcast, where we dig into some of these craggy issues along those same lines. You know, what are the things that leaders are facing in today's complex world?

[00:02:51] Yeah. Interesting. You've given me a lot to go out there. And I think in the sort of time-honored fashion, I suppose I should really ask you what you mean by organizational systems and development. Because people can sometimes mean different things. If we could just bottom that up first. My work started out in organizational behavior. So I was really looking at organizations, group dynamics, all of those kind of things. And then the operational systems that we need to be effective in corporate environments.

[00:03:17] So that was the early part of my career. But then the human systems are where I've landed of late. I'm much more interested in those human dynamics. And I also do something called constellation work, which is grounded in family systems work and 70 years of research, where we can really dig very deep and see what is happening. We literally map out what is happening in either the organizational system or the human dynamics,

[00:03:44] the energy and all the messiness that often we find occurs within just interactions and relationships, whether it be our business relationships or our personal relationships. So I don't know if that answers it. There's a lot to be said about it. But it's really looking at the patterns in either of those systems and then what needs to shift in order for us to feel either fulfilled in our life or our work or to scale and grow the business. I've always been in a fan of IFS in a word session.

[00:04:12] I don't think we talk enough about relationships and dynamics in the workplace. But the other thing that you said in your intro, just let me unpack that a little bit. You said your work was trauma informed. So can we just understand a bit more about that? Yes. Thank you for asking that. When I started, when I got involved in the constellation work and I started working with high leader, high level leaders in that area, I very quickly saw, and it was surprising to me that many high achievers are catapulted to achieve due to trauma in their background.

[00:04:42] And, you know, because we typically think, you know, people who have trauma maybe don't do so well in society. But I found that to be, you know, not absolutely true in many instances. And so I knew immediately, like, I need to know more about this. So I have, gosh, I've lost track, several certifications. I'm not a licensed psychologist. That was not something I ever wanted to do because I want really to help people move forward. But we do look backward. We look at the genealogy of the family. We look backward, as I like to say to my clients,

[00:05:12] just long enough to understand and make meaning from it, because that's what developmental growth is all about, is how we make meaning of the things that have happened in our lives. So we look back, but we don't stare at the page too long, is what I like to say. And so I have several ways that we do that. And so I have a lot of training and development myself in the context of trauma, but I don't deal with complex trauma. Most of my, again, they're high achievers. They're people who have enjoyed a lot of success,

[00:05:40] but it's not often until they hit a wall, whatever that wall is, that they realize something else is going on. And then when they come to me, we unravel that. I can give an example. For instance, I had a gentleman I was working with for over a year that had issues with anger, not in every element, but with a specific business colleague in his life that was causing him some concern. And then when we got into the deeper work, we realized very quickly that the anger was linked to embarrassment.

[00:06:09] And that embarrassment came from being immigrated to the United States at a very young age. And not knowing the language, not eating the right food and kids making fun of him. So he was carrying this internal anger as a young boy. And then if he was embarrassed or insulted by this particular individual in a meeting, he would react to that. So that's the kind of thing that sometimes will come up. Some of them are more advanced in terms of the trauma, maybe an abusive parent. I've had even incest and things of that nature.

[00:06:38] So I feel very comfortable and capable of dealing with those kinds of things. But I'm not working with people who may be psychotic or whatever, because I believe there is a time and place for therapy. And those individuals, I think, benefit more from that than they would the level of work that I do. And it's interesting, as you're saying, that's the difference between coaching and counseling, isn't it? Therapeutic work, because it's the level of ambiguity, sorry, level of complexity that you get into there. I'm interested in that phrase you talked about there. And it's something I believe in myself as well. There are a lot of people who thrive because of trauma.

[00:07:08] And there are a lot of people who don't succeed because of trauma, because the trauma defines them rather than being part of what you think about your own past and the learning that you draw from it. It's not the trauma itself is the issue, is it? It's what you do next. And I think that mindset is quite a useful thing to you. It's very useful in terms of resilience. But I just wondered what your take was on that. I think, yeah, I think I totally agree with you, because it has to do, obviously, with the age that the trauma was inflicted upon the individual.

[00:07:37] And then also the nature of the trauma. And then the level, just the makeup of the person, the child. Some people are more, to use the theme of your show, excuse me, more resilient than others. So a divorce for one child could be absolutely devastating and traumatic if they're three or four or six or seven. Or for another child, they just move on and adapt. So I think that's what I love about my work is everything is customized. We're looking at individuals. We're not, I don't have a box.

[00:08:07] I have structures that I use. But everything is really adapted to what is going on with that individual. And then, of course, in the developmental shifts that I'm interested in, we know, and I'm sure you know with your background, people can get stuck developmentally based on trauma at an early age. And I run into that quite a bit. And they may not be stuck across the board, obviously, if they're high achievers, but maybe they are socially inept. Those kinds of things. Because we look at the lines of development as well.

[00:08:37] And so they may be very high cognitively, but their interpersonal skills are stunted because of developmental trauma. Yeah, and it's interesting, isn't it? Because there's a sort of theory in human development that everybody has to be pretty good at everything or not necessarily ending out being good at everything. What ends up happening is those cognitive skills are sacrificed at the altar of making sure that everybody's good at everything.

[00:09:05] And I sometimes wonder if we concentrate on our own personal potential, which is our strengths, turning us into superpowers and actually bringing in people around you using good family systems to actually enhance and grow something. Because there's a sort of risk in trying to be all things to all people, I wonder. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think that part of the work that I do is we have an assessment that we administer to help people really zone in on their strengths and their preferences. It's called the Harrison Assessment.

[00:09:34] It's not something I created, but I like it a lot because it's different than a personality or an IQ assessment. It helps people really hone in on the things that they really and truly are interested in and are good at. And it's based on Dr. Harrison's paradox theory, believing that if you bring two elements together that are seemingly opposed to one another in layman's terms, he believes if you are good in both of those to a certain degree, you have what he calls balanced versatility.

[00:10:04] And I find that to be true that my clients often, and I know you see this a lot, when we're good at something, we often either take it for granted or don't acknowledge it at all because it's easy for us. But when we can hone in on not only our traits and what we prefer, we're going to be better at those things and we're going to be more likely to be on the right seat on the right bus. Because I also run into mid-level management who are unhappy and discontented, and they're often just in the wrong place.

[00:10:32] And they don't even know what they're passionate about because maybe they got steered towards engineering or something because their father was an engineer, and then they got married and had kids, and now they realize I'm miserable. But it's because they're in the wrong profession. So we do a lot of work with those types of individuals to help them reinvent themselves. Sometimes it is a stage development thing. Sometimes it's a stage of life, meaning certain ages. And then sometimes it literally is,

[00:10:59] I just need to re-evaluate what my purpose is and where I really want to be. And in this day and age, what's so wonderful about that, Russell, is you don't have to be in the same career for 30 years. You can move and change and do different things. We have so many more options today, which is what's exciting. Yeah. And it's also the thing which you alluded to right at the beginning, which is there are a lot of poor leaders out there. Let's be really honest. And often you may be in the right company at the right time

[00:11:27] with all the right skills and the right passion, for example, those are the things you mentioned. But just having a poor leader. And my experience is that there are very few good leaders in the world. Depending on how you define leadership, I don't want to get into that now because that's one of the sterile debates. But just whoever your boss or manager or leader is, I've met very few in my life. Very few. Probably on the fingers of possibly one finger, to be honest. Yeah. You're absolutely right because a lot of times, especially in the United States,

[00:11:56] I don't know if it's like this in the UK, but we promote people for a variety of reasons. But often it's because they've been loyal or they've been in the company or whatever and they get promoted, but they don't get... I did leadership development for many years across corporate America. And that was really what was the catapult for my getting more into human development because I was amazed at the level of poor leadership out there. And they were often managers that were put in leadership roles, but they weren't equipped to lead. They didn't even understand leadership. And when you think about it,

[00:12:26] we've only really had a literature on leadership in the last 100 years or so. It's still a new entity for us. So we're learning. And I think we're looking now around the world. We're moving into globally, more autocratic forms of leadership that like we've never seen before, certainly here in the United States. So it's an interesting time. And when I was traveling the country, I mean, literally every day, I would have somebody up at my... by 10 o'clock crying about something horrific that a boss had done or said to them.

[00:12:54] So I started doing leadership development again because I just felt the need was so great because a poor leader can really do a lot of damage in a corporate or business environment. And I think when you can teach them more about themselves and how to be more self-aware and how to engage in developmental shifts, you're helping a lot of people, not just that one leader. It is interesting. I remember a wise person once said to me that the best way to generate a really highly effective team

[00:13:23] is to have a very poor leader because actually the team coalesces around their dislike or distrust or whatever it is about the leader. And I also heard someone say to me, which is interesting in your view, it's always good to have a very poor leader because actually it tests your ability to build your own character. And I thought that was quite interesting. And because it's that thing about sometimes we find a poor leader as someone that we actually can't deal with. And therefore a poor leader, I start sometimes saying, is the challenge you have to face

[00:13:53] to be able to move on yourself. And just sitting there and complaining about having a poor leader isn't necessarily the way of operating the leader. That doesn't change your mindset. It doesn't build your resilience. It doesn't build accountability. And I just wonder whether sometimes, just to argue with myself for a second, that actually it's a really good thing to have a poor leader from time to time. Yeah, I don't know. I guess my instinct based on what I've seen and the damage I've seen, my gut says, oh gosh, no. But because I think a good leader

[00:14:22] can also pull a team together in very powerful and effective ways. I've seen that happen a lot when people really know how to lead. But I think for me, it's all about raising consciousness and self-awareness about who I am, no matter what my role is in the corporate environment or the personal systems in which I engage. Because when I have that awareness of awareness, even if I have a poor leader, I have the capacity to influence or perhaps change that dynamic.

[00:14:51] And that's the place that I stand on is let's not blame, let's not point fingers, but let's look at what do I have control over and how do I develop myself such that I can influence the world around me and the people in the multiple places in which I live, work and play. Because that's really where you feel empowered when you can do that. You're not feeling like you're subject to the whims of the other. Yeah, interesting, isn't it? And I know we could probably, I often introduce these subjects so when people look at your website,

[00:15:21] they can find more information about your approach to these things. I'm fascinated what you're drinking at that cup. That's a very interesting looking cup. There's a strange animal on the side of it. Oh, this is from Positano, Italy, if anyone can see it. Oh, yeah, Positano, yeah. Ginger tea because of my throat. I'm constantly, I think I spend way too much time on Zoom talking and the throat is saying enough. You know how that goes. You talked earlier about being trauma-informed and I know you alluded to this earlier, perhaps that your own life has been trauma-informed as well.

[00:15:50] So how has that been part of your journey moving forward? You don't need to go into too much about the detail because that's your own business. But I just wonder how you've built on that trauma for yourself. Yeah, it's such a great question because it really is, we teach that which we need to learn as they say sometimes. I had just the short version. I had a son born with a very rare metabolic disorder. He was our first and only child. So that was the beginning of it, quite a shocking thing that we didn't expect this.

[00:16:19] So we were expecting a healthy baby and had anything. But my son was supposed to live to the age of two. He wound up being wheelchair-bound as a result of the metabolic disorder. And then he passed away in 2008. So we had a very rich, amazing life with him. But I learned a lot on that journey because it was very joyful, but a lot of pressure dealing with, that's really where I learned to think and observe systems.

[00:16:47] I was a solid advocate for many years for people with disabilities around the country and was able to go in and out of multiple complex systems at governmental and educational levels and saw the challenges of what people had to deal with. And it really informed my ability to go in and out of corporate, you know, later when I became a consultant. And then certainly the trauma of losing my son when going through that whole grieving process. And I have certifications

[00:17:16] in something called integral coaching. I never set out to be a coach. You know, I got a PhD. And then, I mean, everything evolved as a result of my trying to make meaning from the experience of my son. And the resiliency comes from moving through all of that grief. And what I had to do really to learn to just keep him going and give him the quality of life. My husband and I both worked very hard to give him a very meaningful life. And then having to rebuild and reinvent ourselves

[00:17:46] after he was gone was quite interesting because he was the center of everything. And I guess that part of something happening like that in an early stage in your life, especially something so horrendous, it gives you perspective, doesn't it? And I think sometimes we live in very insular, self-orientated worlds. And we don't have that sense of perspective, do we? We don't have that difficult side of the human experience. And I suppose that gives you a different way

[00:18:15] of looking at the world, perhaps. It's given me tremendous insight and empathy and ability to see when someone is hurting, even if they haven't told me the story yet. And I can tell you when I was on the road again, speaking, I spoke many years in about 152 cities a year. And when I was doing leadership development, I was in and out of all these companies. And one day I had a woman in Memphis, I'll never forget, who came up on the break and told me that her two sons were murdered in her living room.

[00:18:44] And she later found out that it was her best friend's boys who had killed her boys, her best friend's son, because they were trying to get them in a gang and her boys refused to be in the gang. And there was a lot more to the story. But I never forgot that woman because for years, and I still teach it, is we go into an office setting and we hold a grudge against somebody because maybe they were 10 minutes late for a meeting or they disagreed with us in a meeting. And I thought about that woman who got up a week

[00:19:13] after burying her two boys and went back to work. And we don't know what people are bringing to work every day. We don't know about their marriage issues or their teen who might be on drugs or their mother that's dying of cancer. And people are coming in every day because they have to and they're carrying these heavy burdens. And I hear about these burdens every day in my work with clients. So I have great empathy and compassion, but I don't know that I would have had the depth of it had I not been through

[00:19:42] my own level of trauma and had to make meaning from it and do the work to develop and grow to the next stages myself. That's really insightful. That's really interesting. I thought of about 33 questions when he was talking about that and then I got lost in the last bit of what you're saying. I told you that I answered 10 questions at once. Yeah, that's good. You're answering questions I haven't asked you yet, which is really brilliant. I want to pick away at that a little bit, but maybe I'll come back when I've got a better, I've got a poor question in my head and I probably have a better question waiting.

[00:20:10] Yeah, I think what was going through my head was as you were chatting is all this has been going on with that person and yet you have to have, you seem to have so few workplace protections. How many people the whole time with this ability to be fired almost, as we say at the moment, at the behest of one person? But it seems to be such a precarious way of existing. It's no surprise that your workplace is in need for different types of leadership.

[00:20:40] They're very different to our own. So say in the Scandinavian countries and Germany, we have massive workplace protections. You can do self-awareness and self-protection and all these different things because actually you've got time. I just wonder how, it's almost like in your country you're only as good as your last success and your last success could be transitory and someone might come along and ask you to identify your five triumphs this weekend and if you can't, you're gone. So what's that to be in a place where you might have all this trauma, you might have all this insecurity,

[00:21:10] but then you've fundamentally got workplace insecurity as well. How does that play out? Yeah, I think we are headed for just a huge crisis in this country. I am seeing, and I know most of us in this field would agree, we're seeing a heightened increase in anxiety, depression. It's no secret that we have these mass shootings. Those were things that never occurred in the United States when I was growing up and we don't have the capabilities to address these issues

[00:21:39] and that's why I think leadership development is so important because you don't want to be the leader that sets off somebody who's carrying a burden like that. But I think we need to do a better job of how we help people. I think, I don't know if this is true in Europe, but I know in the United States our answer to everything is just another pharmaceutical and I personally believe we're over-medicating people without looking at brain chemistry which we now have the technology to do but most of your traditional

[00:22:08] therapists and doctors do not do that because it's just not the norm. We are a country who is more, we're not preventative in terms of our health care particularly our mental health care. We deal with it once it's in crises and I think until we have a shift in that we are going to continue to see more mass shootings and we're going to continue to see not only the breakdown of our employees across the country in these corporate environments but of the family structure and that's why I'm so passionate

[00:22:38] and why I'm still working. People always say to me when are you going to retire? I won't ever retire as long as I'm capable and there's a need out there because I believe that until we can rebuild the family structure and help individuals be leaders in their own homes that's why I say I work with high-impact leaders to be better leaders for themselves, their businesses or companies and their families because that's where the mental health issues begin. They begin in the family. That first family structure

[00:23:07] of that one mother, that one father which is now very ambiguous across the United States and probably the world. If that is not intact then you never know where you belong and you never have the security that you need unless you have help to build that within yourself. So I think it's a big question and I know I'm going in a lot of directions with you but it is a great concern to me in this country because we don't have the workplace protections and we don't have more and more companies are offering therapeutic measures

[00:23:37] and things of that nature but we have a long way to go I think before we really help our workforce be as healthy as it can be. And you seem to have on one side the political divide pharma which is big pharma and such medication and now you seem to have on the other side of the aisle huge numbers of uninformed people who are selling supplements and such which are creating their own problems and it seems to be what's missing in this world is that sort of objective advice that people can depend on a source

[00:24:06] like the sort of true north and for me leadership is part of that process isn't it? It's not buying into fads and such like it is actually about having a degree of surety and consistency in the world so people know where they stand and know where they stand with you and I think you know maybe I'm conflating two different ideas and for the sake of effect but I just wonder if I wonder if we think enough about those things leadership's become very famous how many fads have you listened to over the course of the last 30 years in leadership from one thing to another they're all the same

[00:24:36] and nothing's really about leadership in a way it's all about how you are as a leader and you forget that you're not a leader and yes you're interacting with other people yeah I think it's called the vampire leader isn't it? Just going on leadership development and all you ever do is talk about yourself and you're pointless without someone around you that's why I like your idea it's very African idea this idea of putting the family at the sort of at the sort of the conundrum as well but look I've been sitting looking at you now for 30 minutes and you've got a sign next to you which is driving me nuts

[00:25:06] and it says the other side of potential and I really must ask you about that I talk a lot about potential and so I'm very interested in talking about I'm assuming the potential is this is about where you've reached it and you've gone after it so you missed just would you mind unpacking what you mean by the other side I don't have it's the podcast name and I've told it that I don't know the exact descriptor that we use but basically what we're looking at is success you know the complexity that leaders go through when they're as I said I think I said earlier

[00:25:35] you know how are you running your business scaling your business running your life it's more than just the success factors as we typically think of them the other side of potential to me is being fulfilled and having a meaningful life a more robust life no matter the circumstances that you're in so we're looking at radical abundance and how do really successful leaders engage in that other side of potential besides the toys the houses the cars the money what is it

[00:26:04] that causes them to be fulfilled and have a prosperous sense of radical abundance as I like to refer to it yes I love talking to Americans because there seems to be a thing in the linguistics recently that you pick a word and you put the word radical in front of it radical abundance that's a new one I love that but you talked about something quite symbolic and maybe that's part of what you're saying earlier you talk about we've had a guest on here before talking about the emptiness of success and you made reference to that earlier I wonder if you could explore that a little bit for us yeah it's something

[00:26:34] that I started to see pre-covid because we have so many people rising into the millionaire plus category as a result of digital marketing and the opportunity on the internet and I know other countries are engaging in it as well but I think it's really prevalent here and what I was seeing because I was in the mix of a lot of these digital marketers and coaching many of them was they rose and they don't go through the typical

[00:27:04] ladder of success like people do incorporate it's I start this thing I work very hard I build a team and then boom I'm making all this money but their lives were imploding yes they were having marriage problems yeah and because there's no get working non-stop and then their kids are having problems and their marriages were imploding and that's when I started to think about there's an emptiness to this success because even though

[00:27:33] they were acquiring and achieving all the accolades and the money and whatnot they weren't happy and I had seen that in corporate throughout my career it's nothing new to me then it's that's that place where we can dive deeper and figure out what is pushing you what is driving you often it is some level of trauma in the background trying to prove themselves to somebody in the family history or whatnot and and then what can we do so that you can leave what I call a more integrated

[00:28:02] life I don't believe there is such a thing as work-life balance but I believe we can have a more integrated life that will give us a greater sense of purpose and focus and meaning but still allow us to have time for the people we love and do the things we want to be doing interesting yeah I would if that rapid onset of success is just a modern thing we've never because actually the sort of paradigm of the world is that you can be

[00:28:32] successful it's possible to be richer at 20 than you can be at 60 or 70 now the right and it's almost as if you're excluded from that world at 60 and 70 because you just don't have the right the faculties to deal with that perhaps not in all cases obviously but I just wonder that level or the desire yes that's a good point I was in several high-level masterminds and because I had things that I also too wanted to do online but I realized very quickly after I started

[00:29:01] to see this implosion if you will that I was not willing to sacrifice my life for that there's no need at this stage of my career I have a very nice life and what why I don't have children to leave all of this too as it is so I just I really had to go yeah it's not as easy as it's made the guys at the top of the food chain make it sound very easy but it's not and I wasn't willing to sacrifice my marriage or my life it was a gesture of intense sort of generosity I'm very happy

[00:29:31] to for you to adopt me and then you can leave all your money to me sorry I don't have a mansion but I have a good life we worked hard and we were comfortable and I think that's maybe that's the difference say that first half of life is all about achievement and driving and getting the accolades and the titles and all of that but then in the second half I feel like there's an opportunity for us to really look at what is meaningful in a different way and typically in the

[00:30:00] stages there's 12 stages of human development so the average American but I think we're now roughly 62% of the average American in the workforce is only at stage four or five so there's a lot of opportunity for growth there if you are willing to do the work and that to me is what's so amazing about the second half of life is that ideally we want to think that we've we've done the achiever stuff on the first half and now we get to contribute and hopefully are wiser

[00:30:29] and able to give more to the world I had when we redid my website last year I did some work with a colleague of mine Lindsay Lindsay Hotmeyer who takes you through a process and she asked me to pick pictures of what I wanted to be viewed as versus what I would not want to be viewed as and one of them I picked was this crazy looking woman and she said why did you choose her and I said I never want to be that irrelevant old gal if I ever get to the point

[00:30:58] where my work is no longer relevant or I'm no longer relevant then it's time to stop but in the meantime anyone that I can serve that comes my way I feel I feel it's a responsibility and an honor to serve in those ways. That's interesting so investors talked about success and often success is linked to prosperity and someone wise I had met once upon a time said that prosperity is a mindset it's a place to come from not a place to get to what do you think of that quote I say that about leadership as well

[00:31:28] I know it's on your website exactly but so when I wrote the book the pursuit of time and money I wrote there's pieces and I mean it's all tied to our developmental experience of time and money but I wrote about stewardship and then the radical abundance to me was exactly that prosperity is a mindset obviously we need you know going back to Maslow's hierarchy we need to meet our basic needs if we're in survival it's a different thing but I know so many people who are very happy

[00:31:57] and fulfilled who are not wealthy and I know many people who are wealthy who are not happy and fulfilled who are absolutely miserable so to me radical abundance is about that idea of prosperity knowing that I can experience prosperity in many ways it doesn't necessarily have to do with money regardless of the circumstances that I'm in it is a mindset and I really flesh that out more dearly when I was in or more closely I should say when I was in Costa Rica

[00:32:25] years ago and rummaging through the little villages and people are so poor and my my idea of poverty coming from Los Angeles originally is crime to me they're like oh I'm in a dangerous neighborhood kind of and then I quickly realized down there that even though they were poor there if you go on a Sunday in their little towns they're cooking outside and the families are all together and they seemingly were very happy even though they didn't have much there wasn't a Mercedes in the

[00:32:54] driveway but they were enjoying their children and their families and I thought it was like a big moment for me to realize that you don't have to have all the comforts Americans we like our comforts and our big houses and our fancy cars and I'm as guilty as any but that's not always as fulfilling as we want to believe it is so yeah in the first stages of life we we strive for that but I want to believe that there's an opportunity for all of us to have a

[00:33:24] different second half of life that's more meaningful and more radical in how we think about abundance that's a it's a very hopeful message I hope so because that's what my work is all based on yeah that's very good so people want to find out more about what you do you mentioned a book how can people find out more about you how can people get in touch with you that's pretty easy my website is Sharon Spano dot com I'm on all social media platforms including LinkedIn and

[00:33:53] we also have an instrument a quiz that it's not quite available yet but it's called the leader's edge where we're looking at the stages of human development if somebody wants to know where they are it's a simpler version because it's a complicated assessment that we would typically use but we're looking at the five major stages that most people are within the workforce it's in the design stages now but if anyone is interested in accessing that it's free they can just email info at Sharon Spano dot com and as soon as

[00:34:23] we have it up within the next few weeks we can send them the link for that and email Sharon at Sharon Spano dot com I'm pretty easy to find on the internet I'm pretty much everywhere so good to meet you that's been absolutely fascinating I'm going to take away a lot from this and I'm going to do some further research and let's wish you lots of luck remind us the name of your podcast again the other side of potential and the book is the pursuit of time and money on Amazon or it's even on my website it is Sharon it's been an absolute joy to to

[00:34:52] meet you today and to hear your radical candor as well as your radical abundance I think I've thoroughly enjoyed it and for both of us in our early 20s I think we've got lots to say to the rest of the world don't you I think it's we've got wisdom in front of our years let's just say that yes I like to think so I like to think I've worked with a lot of people in their 30s and they think so so that means a lot to me that they're learning from me and they're developing themselves as better leaders husbands wives

[00:35:22] whatever that's again the whole point so being it yes that's right I agree with thank you so much for spending time with us it's been an absolute joy you take care I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining if you want to support our work please go to resilienceunravel.com and you can become a member there as well you can also send us a question there and even apply to do a podcast you can also

[00:35:51] leave a review on Apple podcasts or any of the other podcast hosts of your choice as well as getting hold of some useful resources about resilience and a whole lot more join us next time on the next edition of resilience unravels