Well, welcome back to inside personal growth.

This is Greg Voisen, the

host of inside personal growth.

And Luis, you want to hold up your book?

We're going to tell the listeners that they're

going to be in for a treat today. There you go.

Hold the book up the other side. There we go.

We're going to be talking about ordinary resilience,

rethinking how effective leaders adapt and thrive.

Luis Velazquez, and hopefully I said that right.

If I didn't, I apologize.

But Luis is joining us from where this morning.

I am.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

So Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley.

Well, that is for all of my listeners.

You can go to valliscoaching.com, that's

valascoaching.com to learn more about Luis.

But the book is fantastic.

I'm going to tell them a bit about you.

He's an entrepreneur.

He's a fitness enthusiast.

He's the co founder of Peninsula Fitness Ventures, currently

a leading crossfit gym in San Carlos, California.

He's a recovering scientist.

He was the visiting professor of fungal genetics

at Michigan State University and a post doctoral

fellow in plant genomics at Rice University.

Born and raised in Guatemala, Central America.

As a younger man, he had a brain tumor.

Survival and average endurance athlete.

He's competed in over 100 marathons and

ultra marathons, some in the 100 miles

range and nine Ironman triathlons.

He is currently, as we said,

we're talking about his book.

The book is now out.

He and his wife and their children,

Alexis and Nathan, live in Redwood City.

And when not coaching or spending time with

his family, you can find him on the

trail, running or facilitating one of the most

ionic classics at Stanford University Grad School of

Business interpersonal Dynamics, also known as Touchy Feely.

He is also a contributor to HBR

Ascent and the chief learning officer magazine.

Well, you've got quite a bio, my friend.

And you are definitely a very active gentleman.

And I think that history with your

brain tumor and you getting involved in

athlete made you extremely resilient.

We're going to be talking about resilience today.

And you know, in the book you describe ordinary Israel

more than in more than the book, but it's a

transformational guide for leaders is what you say.

So that's what this book is designed.

So every leader out there today, I want you to realize

that he's written a book that will help you transform.

So what key experiences in your life?

We mentioned a few of them, obviously the brain

tumor and the triathlons and the hundred mile runs,

which are incredible to do, inspired you to create

the framework for this book and for resilience.

Greg, I think that the key here is,

you know, thank you for the introduction.

I really appreciate it. Yes.

You know, so I had a brain tumor.

I came to the United States as a

young man, you know, no English at all.

On the scholarship, I went to school.

I learned so many things in order to get what I

wanted to do with little resources, let's put it that way.

And back in the day, when I was growing

up in Guatemala, my dad was a truck driver.

He had a horrible, horrible, horrible accident.

We were really poor.

I grew up really poor.

And when he came back from this, from the

surgery, when he came back, he was disabled.

He said to himself, and he said to us,

I am going to build my own business.

I am going to do this.

I am going to send you the university and buy a house.

My mom and I were thinking, how

are you going to do that?

You couldnt do it when you were healthy.

When I was undergoing my own experience as a brain

tumor survivor, you know, when I went through the brain

tumor and I had that experience from my dad that

served me as some sort of level of inspiration.

But here is what happened is that over time, people

will tell me, oh, my God, you're so strong.

How do you do it?

Oh, my God, you're so strong.

How do you do it?

So this book started as a journal to understand the experience

of my dad and myself that even though we went through

really hard times, you know, we came on the other side

much, much, much better than we went into.

Not this, not despite of the

difficulties, but because of the difficulties.

So that's the story of the book.

And I didn't connect it to resilience.

You know, to me, it was like, what is it

that we did or what is it that I did

that allow us to, you know, to overcome this situation?

And it wasn't until I read the book by

Adam Grant and Cheryl Sander, plan B, that that

book is talking about, you know, the not resilience

in the terms of survival, but resilience in terms

of thriving and adapting and then thriving.

You know, it's like how people actually not only

just bounce back, but get better as a result

of the situations that they went through.

And I said to myself, that's what happens to me.

This is it.

So that's when I made the connection.

Yeah.

You know, it is interesting because it's like anything in

life, people just use the gym as an example you're

an athlete, so you can relate to this.

The more weights you lift and the more

reps you lift, the stronger you can become.

And it's been proven that, you know,

whether it's running or it's weightlifting or

it's cycling, it's any of those events.

You know, I'm an avid cyclist, so I know the more

miles you can put in, the better you can get.

And so the reality is, how does this shift

in perspective that you and your father took?

Your father did actually move here.

He helped you get an education. He did.

He grew that business.

How does that shift in perspective

help leaders who are out there

today, listening, navigate adversity more effectively?

Because we see the Sig sigma and we see

all these things where people are lean and they're

trying to run these businesses, and yet they're dealing

with so many complexities that they feel an overwhelm.

And many people don't feel resilient.

They feel, like, really beat up and burnt out.

What would you tell them about the beat up

and burnt out that could help them change?

Well, so I think that, you know, if we go back

to a few thousand years ago, you know, when we used

to live in caves, you know, even when we were walking

in for, you know, in our forest, you know, we are

the most resilient species in the world.

You know, we are here because we're resilient.

The fact that you're sitting there and the fact that

everybody is doing about their business, if you ask them,

you know, can you describe some, some issues that you

had in the past that you survived?

You know, you thought that you

were not going to make it.

Everybody has a story.

So we already have resilience ingrained within us.

The key here is that how do we unlock that resilience?

And that is the purpose of the book.

You know, what is the foundation?

You call it the foundation of resilience,

and you outline the core elements that

form a foundation of resilience.

And I think this is important, right?

Because the leaders listening, anybody listening, can begin

to identify their own resilience gaps, as you

call it, and work on strengthening them.

What would you tell them about looking at

resilience gaps in the core foundation of resilience?

So let's just start from the premise.

And the premise is that you're already resilient.

You already have everything that you

need to take the first step.

That's. That's number one. You know? That's number one.

The base.

The key here is that you embrace your own

awesomeness and your own resilient self that you're.

It lives within you.

So now, the things that I have found, you know,

with my dad and with myself, but also with the

coaches that I, with the people that I coach and

the research that I've done is that there are five

things that we need to do.

And number one is to.

Number one is to embrace the challenge,

is to accept where we are.

You see what I'm saying?

But as a temporary component.

So if you are in a situation that you don't

like, you need to accept that, yes, this is where

I am, but this is not where I want to

stay for two years, three years or whatever, is it?

And I think that that is a lot of

times the issue with many people is that they

feel that they don't have a choice, that where

they are is where it's a place of endurance.

Well, in the book, you call

that embracing the suck, right?

It's the first failure.

So if somebody is in that spot right now, how can

they train themselves to not just accept that challenge, but actively

seek to grow to, you know, out of it, right.

Because it's one thing to be there, right.

Except where you are. I get that.

And the other thing you say in the book is that

one of the points is optimism is a key driver. Right.

And I think people find it difficult, Luis, to

find optimism when they're depressed and they're down and

they're in those situations like you had a brain

tumor, you know, you went through it, but you

had to rise above it.

What do you think were the key

things for you and your dad?

Rising above all that.

I think that for me and for my

dad and for the people that I.

That I approach is to make a commitment to get better.

It's to make a commitment to do something else

is to make a commitment to get out of

the situation that when you run, and I use

commitment because commitment has an emotional attachment to it.

It's not a decision.

Decision is in the head.

You know, commitment is like, involves your head,

but also involves your, you know, your. Your heart.

You know, I'm going to make a

commitment to get out of this situation.

So that's number one, you know?

Now, when you think about that, you know, sometimes, you know,

making a commitment to get out of the situation where we

are doesn't show where do we want to go.

And that's where the optimism comes in.

You know, like that.

My goal I call in the book, I call it

my aspirational goal, my moonshot, you know, my moonshot.

Like for me, for instance, I can tell you

when I was in the darkest time of my

life, you know, I actually was contemplating suicide.

And then all of a sudden, you know, an

image of my, an image appeared in my head

and it was the image of my mother.

And I realized, I cannot do this to her.

If I do this to her, she will

suffer for the rest of her life.

So I made a commitment.

I need to get better. I need to get better.

But here is the thing.

I wasn't doing it just for myself.

I was doing it for my mom, too, to avoid that pain.

And I think that a lot of times we

feel that we need to do this for ourselves.

And that is a lot of times when we need to

realize that we need to have some purpose and significance as

a way to motivate ourselves to go through the pain that

we have to go through, because there is a purpose and

a significance on what we're trying to do.

So, Louise, how did your running in athletics look?

You did 100 miles events, you did triathlons,

you were avid athlete in that respect.

That what I have found, as somebody who's a cyclist,

it always brings me out of states of depression as

a result of the releases of the chemical reactions of

the endorphins and oxytocins and all the rest of it.

Did you use or team up with those events as

a way for you to get through, through the pain?

And if you did, did you find it to be one of

the best ways you could work yourself out of the pain?

My wife tells me, go exercise because

you're a better husband when you're tired.

Right?

You know, and I think that resilience has several

components, and one of them is emotional resilience.

You know, a physical resilience is one.

And what does happen with the physical resilience

is it completely changes your, your, your chemistry.

You know, generally what you said earlier, you know,

you get some level of hormones that makes you

happy and makes you much more fulfilled and makes

you feeling that you, that you're making progress.

So now, how did I do that?

I didn't do it because of that.

What I tried to do was to get better.

As I mentioned, you know, when I, when I, when

I made a commitment, I need to get better.

And for me, getting better was getting my health back.

So what I needed to do is I needed to

start exercising and running to get better my health.

And what happened is that I

started getting better at it.

And that is the component of resilience, is that resilience

is about the small changes and the small progress that

you made that will lead you to big results.

So when I started doing it, I mean,

I can barely run, like, five k.

You know, I never thought that I was going

to run a, you know, 100 miles races.

But as I get better, I can

push myself more and more and more.

And that is the key with, you know, with a lot

of, you know, people that, you know, they put things.

I want to lose ten pounds, you know, and

when you lose the ten pounds, I'm done.

That's not right.

You know, you need to keep moving forward in order

to get better at what you're trying to do.

Well, I think there's a lot of

theories out there that if you're not

in discomfort, you're not actually growing.

You got to have some level of discomfort.

Now, obviously, running a hundred mile

event, you're in plenty of discomfort.

Even finishing 105 miles bike ride, there's

plenty of discomfort along the way.

And I want to ask this question around,

facing fears, you know, before people start a

lot of this, there's a lot of fear.

A fear, oh, I can't ride 100 miles.

Oh, I can't run 100 miles.

Oh, I can't run 26 miles. Right.

And that's one kind of fear.

But there's also fears that we're faced

with every day in business, right?

It's like, hey, are we going to have enough money?

Can we make the payroll?

Are we going to be able to do this?

You talked about your dad being a truck driver.

How can leaders differentiate between the fears that protect

them and the fears that hold them back from

taking the necessary risks like you have? Right.

They need to differentiate.

They need to understand what is the difference between a

fear that goes, oh, no, I'm not going to make

that investment because I'm afraid of losing my money versus,

oh, I'm going to make the investment because I have

now pulled myself out of that fear, and I see

that this is a good way to go.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, so, you know, I think that there is,

unfortunately, a lot of the fears that are holding us.

The most prominent fears are the

ones that hold us back.

You know, these stories that we make

in ourselves, about ourselves and about others.

You know, so.

So that put apart the other type of

fear that you mentioned is, you know, I

mean, should I make that investment? Should I not?

Yeah, I think that that fear is granted.

But the key here is two things.

It's like, I don't want. I.

I never wanted to be fearless.

Because fearless sometimes becomes careless.

But I wanted to fear less, you said.

I'm saying I wanted to fear less.

And the only way to fear less is if you make

a small contribution to displace that fear and get some courage

to move forward or ask about from other people.

What do you think about this? Should I do it?

Should I not do it?

Because the more information you get, the more you

will be able to make a sound decision.

So that's for the fears that.

That hurt us.

But the other type of fear that you mentioned

about the idea of the living, our head.

I mean, the best thing to do that is to

start thinking about, is this a fear that I have

that lives in my head, or is this something real?

And if you challenge that, then I guarantee you

that you will come to the conclusion that this

is a fear that I have in my head.

I need to move forward with this.

I like what you're saying.

Yeah.

And I think one of the authors that I interviewed some

time ago was a woman by the name of Byron Cady.

You may not know her or not, but

she always would tell people to ask questions.

Is it real?

Is it really real, or is it really true? Right.

Because we make stories up, then we begin to believe them,

and then we live out the story that we made up. That.

But in essence, it's making shit up.

That's what happens. We do that.

We do it a lot.

Now, look, you've got these five pillars.

One of the pillars is finding your inner strength.

And you've been talking about it

a bit, finding your inner strength.

But in asking leaders to look inward, how

can leaders discover and rely on personal values

during times of extreme external pressure?

Because I think when you have your values

defined and what you stand for, it can

make a huge difference about you either crumbling

or not crumbling under a lot of pressure.

What would you want to say to that?

Well, I think that a lot of times, like, you know, going

back to where I was, the darkest moments of my journey, I

was equating my identity with what I used to do.

I was a professor.

I was married to a beautiful woman.

I had a house, all of those things.

That was my identity.

The minute those things disappear, my

self worth went down the brain.

Until I decided, until I started

thinking about, who am I? Who is Luis?

And then I realized there are

three things that are defined me.

I am persistent.

I am committed and optimistic.

And those three things can be applicable to anywhere.

I can use those three things in anywhere.

So how that translates to leaders.

One day, I was talking to a particular leader.

And then he was so tied to his

startup, but the product that he was producing.

So he was, you know, like, oh, my gosh, you

know, like, I mean, if this fails, I fail.

And then I said, no, who are you? And we came to the

conclusion, you know, several conversations.

I said, I'm an entrepreneur. I said, great.

So if you're an entrepreneur, that should not

be tied to the product that you're selling.

You're an entrepreneur, and you can be

entrepreneur by selling this, selling next, selling

whatever you want to do.

So I think that the key here is

about embracing your values, but also your identity

and apply that where you are today.

I would agree.

And,You have these five pillars.

Do you believe that leaders tend to overlook the

most, and which one is it, and why?

And how can they ensure they are strengthening each

pillar equally for a more balanced approach to resilience?

The reality is that we spend a lot of

time solving problems when we should be mimicking solutions.

Because whatever situation you're in, whatever.

Whatever challenge you have, I guarantee you that you

look in your closest or among your closest friends,

you will find someone that has gone through something

similar or already solved that problem.

And we don't do that enough. You see what I'm saying?

We don't do that enough.

I'm saying we don't do that because I.

Why do you think, Luis, that people miss that one?

It seems so obvious that I think

you're looking for the old word rolodex.

But anymore, it's CRM, our database, where we have

all these names on our phone, our contact list,

to actually just pick up the phone and dial

it and talk to somebody about your issue, somebody

that you love and respect, you care, a fellow

leader, another person, another family member.

Why is it that you think people have to go it alone?

I think that there are a couple of things.

But the one that I have seen

the most is the pure shame.

It's like, oh, my God, if I.

That I am having this problem that they feel.

Oh, my gosh.

They feel that they might think that I'm not

doing enough or I am dummy or whatever.

These stories people haven't read is

the finishing is the one.

They're embarrassed.

They're embarrassed.

And I think that there are three things that there is.

One thing that people don't want to

do is they want to lose face.

And that is the fear of losing face, of asking

for help, is what, a lot of times deter us

from actually picking up the phone and be courageous enough

to admit that you don't know everything.

It also helps you build resilience.

Think about it.

Reality is you learn from other people.

My show's been on the air

17 years helping people build resilience. Right.

It's been helping them learn

about their own personal growth.

And, you know, you provide several real

world examples of leaders who have successfully

implemented resilience strategies in the book.

And I think it's great that you did

do that because it gives people an idea.

Can you share one of the most impactful stories from the

book and what key lessons leaders can take from it?

So, yeah, there were several in there.

There's a lot there.

But let me think about which

one will be the most impactful.

I was coaching this particular leader, and then

she, this particular individual was overwhelmed, and she

felt that she had no choice on the

matter, that she was burnt out.

You know, it was incredible the amount

of work that she was under.

And as we start talking, the realization came to her

that what she was doing is that she had a

trouble saying no to people, not to people.

So that's number one.

And at the same time, we're talking.

And I said, I think that what you need to

do is to find a place where you can recharge.

You know, recharge.

And because you need to have some emotional time,

your emotional time and your positivity time has to

be full in order for you to keep going

in this situation that you're in.

And she decided, you know what?

I am going to form a group of.

I know three other, four other people in

the organization that are going through the same

thing that I am going through.

And so she formed a small question circle

to help each other to come out to

deal with the same things that we're dealing.

You will think that she was already

overwhelmed, yet she took on something else.

But what happened to that is that that completely recharged

her because there was an emotional component to that, and

she felt that she was actually having an impact on

people that allow her to not only do the things

that she was planning to do for herself with others,

but then use that as multiple space to practice the

things that she needed to do outside of that group.

So it's like self nurture.

It's a self nurturing and care.

I mean, you know, look, we all talk about this.

The question is, what are we doing?

I know people say, well, for you, it might be running.

That's part of your self nurturing

and care for other people. It might be yoga.

Maybe it's meditation.

Maybe it's a walk along the beach.

It's a ride on their bicycle.

But the reality is she formed a group.

Maybe it's a group meeting, and we all sit around and

talk about our issues so we can help one another.

I think there's so many ways where you said relationship

because people forget to reach out and speak with somebody

who they care about and who cares about them.

You know, I also know that from, from sales and

marketing, and this is an old, old statement, but I've

said this many times, people don't care how much, you

know until they know how much you care. Right.

And that is such a true statement even today.

I mean, it was Zig Ziglar who came up with it.

But the reality is, it's so true.

If you care, others will care.

And if you're compassionate,

others will be compassionate.

And regardless, you need to be compassionate to

yourself first and then to others, because then

you can go on and, you know, you

end the book with implementation strategies.

What advice do you have for business struggling

to put these tactics into action effectively?

You know, it doesn't matter if I'm a company

like Adobe with Teams or Microsoft or Google, I've

got all these people working in here.

And from a resilience standpoint, we have

to help make more resilient leaders.

What advice would you give them

to kind of implement these strategies?

You know, I think that the number one thing

that anybody, any leader can actually do to help

a team is to model the way. Model the way.

That's number one.

Number two is to provide a

space where people can experiment.

And what I mean by that is a lot

of times, you know, I mean, the amount of

people that I have talked to, that they're afraid

of making mistakes and fail, you know, and that

is against, you know, resilience, because resilience is about

experimenting and trying and trying new things.

And then at work, you know, they cannot

do that because they're so afraid of failing.

So those two things, I think that I will be.

That will be the most amazing thing that people

can do for their teams, is modeling the way

and allowing people to experiment and help them to,

you know, to make better decisions.

That's great.

I think being a good model and a good role model

is always an important thing, and it also means that you

have to change if you want others to change.

I know that I've talked on this show many

times, and most recently, there's been all these topics

about time and meetings and how much time is

wasted in meetings and so on.

And the CEO of Pfizer was telling people, look,

you don't have to go to those meetings because

we're spending way too much time in meetings.

And then what was happening is these meetings kept

going on, they were happening, and blah, blah, blah.

And then somebody said, well, I've told

you guys, you don't have to.

And then somebody said to him, but

look, you're the one that's creating all

those meetings, so we're still coming.

You weren't the role model.

In other words, you didn't stop going to the meeting.

So we didn't stop going to the meetings.

So the thing is, is it's really simple stuff like that.

Right, Louise?

That people have to get.

And whether it's a meeting or whether it's how

you organize the team or how you get along

in the team, as long as you're a good

role model, as long as you're open, as long

as you have good communication, as long as you're

compassionate, as long as there's inclusion and understanding.

And you taught all this in the university.

So you get this.

You're like the number one.

I'm speaking to the choir here.

But in the conclusion to your book, you invite

the readers to rethink traditional notations of leadership.

Okay.

What do you hope is the most significant mindset shift?

And I'm going to underline mindset

shift that the readers experience after

engaging with your book, ordinary resilience.

I think that the biggest thing that I

hope that people realize is that there are

more options than that we think of.

There is only one.

A lot of times we think of

the world in black and white.

A lot of leaders believe that

their way is the only way.

A lot of leaders believe that they have reached

certain level of power or influence, and they don't.

They stop learning, you know, and now they rely

on what they learned before, when the reality is

that we live in a world that is constantly

changing and it is impossible to know everything.

So I think that what I wanted people to

see in the book is that in order for

us to act differently, we need to think differently.

And in order to think differently,

we need to see differently.

And what I hope that the book can do

is to challenge the way they see things so

they can think differently and they can act differently

for themselves and for the team.

What I would say is that I hope after

this podcast interview, most of you realize that you're

looking through the front windshield of the car, not

in the mirror for the rear of the cardinal,

so that you're looking forward.

I remember reading McGrath talking about connecting the dots, and I

know how important it is as a leader to be able

to look at all these nuances and be able to connect

the dots, to try, and I won't say predict the future,

but at least have some idea as maybe what the future

might hold in store, because the more you do that, the

more you use the tools that are available.

I know there was just a special that Oprah did around AI,

and you know how this is going to change the world.

And Bill Gates came on, and the guy that

started chat, GBT, came on from Silicon Valley, and

he said to his name was Adam, I think. Is that right?

You probably know him better than I do.

And he was really interesting.

And I watched him answer the question that she asked.

And one of the questions is, well, do

you think, because this is a typical question

about how fast we're moving, that the world

is changing and people are afraid of AI. Afraid.

And I was thinking, why would you be afraid?

I get that it's a new technology, but if

you go back in history, people were afraid of

electricity when it came out, too, right?

And the reality is we've had

lots of inventions that people.

All I would tell people here today is, I hope

that Louise actually got you to think about not being

so fearful and about looking out the front of the

window of the car, not the rear, to see what's

coming behind you and for you to keep moving forward,

because resilience is really about taking a next step.

A next step, a next step forward.

And Louise, you're a shining example

in your dad, I've continued.

And mom, to take a next step, coming

here and immigrating from Guatemala, you with your

brain tumor, your dad with a bad truck

accident, making a new world for you guys.

You're a great example.

And I really, really appreciate you being on the show.

Any final words?

You know, thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate you for having me.

My wish is for people to see that we

all have the ability to get better, that we

don't know everything that we should know. We don't.

We can't.

It's impossible.

But we need to rely on each other and ask for

feedback and ask for advice in order to move forward.

And I think that the minute we start thinking

about being so committed to get better, then we'll

try to find ways of actually finding the data

that we need for ourselves to get better.

And we need others to know ourselves.

That's what I was trying to get,

that we need others to know ourselves.

Well, I think most important is I kind

of look at the way we form relationships.

Like you mentioned earlier, relationships.

There's a tapestry, you know, it's a tapestry of life.

And when somebody weaves something all together and you get

to see all these weave points, like a person weaving

a blanket and all of those threads, and you look

at the threads in your life and how they've moved

through and how many people have influenced you positively through

the course of your life.

It's way more than the people

who have influenced you negatively.

And so I really want to thank you,

Louise, for being on inside personal growth.

Namaste to you.

You want to hold the book back up.

Over to the.

Over to the right over here.

There we go.

It's called ordinary resilience, rethinking how

effective leaders adapt and thrive.

And you're going to go to the

website, which is Valsco aching.com Belize coaching,

and there you can learn about him.

You can work with Louise.

He's got coaching services.

More about the book, the blog, the

team again, definitely check out his website,

join his newsletter to learn more.

He is an exceptional leader himself and an exceptional

author and someone that you should get to know.

Luis, thanks for being on inside personal growth.

Thank you, Greg.

I really appreciate you having me. It's an honor.