Christy Soukhamneut, Chief Lending Officer at UFCU: The Power of Intentional Flow

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hi! I'm Shannon, Lucas.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: And I'm Tracy Lovejoy. We're the co-ceos of catalyst constellations which is dedicated to empowering catalyst to create bold, powerful change in the world.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: This is our podcast move, fast, break, shit, burn out where we speak with catalyst executives about ways to successfully lead transformation and large organizations.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and we are thrilled today to have time with Christy Sukamna. Christy has more than 30 years of experience in mortgage and banking, with deep knowledge of data, analytics, strategic planning sales, enablement and digital innovation. She currently serves as the chief lending officer at University Federal Credit Union. Prior to her time at Ufcu she led top performing sales teams for a mid-sized imb.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Christy has led 1 billion dollar acquisitions and is a cycle tested financial executive that brings an operating perspective to the table. She currently sits on the boards of trained and halcyon. While also serving on Resbog. I had to ask how to pronounce that for Mba, and on the Credit Union Advisory Board for Franny Mack. Welcome, Christy.

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Christy Souk: Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here to have this conversation with you ladies.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Thank you. So we shared a little bit about some of the amazing things that you have done and are doing with your career. But we'd love to just sort of take a step back and hear about your catalytic journey. Maybe you can share a few highlights that you're most proud of that helps us see your catalytic nature.

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Christy Souk: You know, it's interesting that you asked that question, and I think about you know, we talked in this little pre-session about being a Yoga teacher, and it's it's kind of a little bit of a different thing than you would would think. I mean. Everybody has hobbies, but not everybody talks about them. And one of the things they talk about in Yoga. Is that how you show up on your mat is how you show up everywhere.

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Christy Souk: and I think this is very true just in life, how we start life, how we, how we fall into things. And sometimes that's very planned. If you're like my son, who's an engineer, you know. He has had his life planned out since he was in 6th grade. But that's who and how he shows up in the world.

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Christy Souk: and I think about that from being a catalyst for how I got in the industry that I'm in. I started when I was 15, and it was because somebody showed up at my school who was a friend who had a part-time job, and he was moving, and he said, Hey, my boss would love me to find somebody else. I think you'd be a good fit, want a part-time job.

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Christy Souk: And so I took a part-time job working for an appraisal firm

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Christy Souk: and did that throughout high school and college. And then, when I graduated from college, my dad had had a horrendous experience with his mortgage and with the process of building my mom her dream house.

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Christy Souk: And he said, You know what I think we should open a mortgage company.

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Christy Souk: So at 20 years old. I had just graduated from college. I had just gotten married and went into business with my dad owning a mortgage company, so I'm literally less than 6 months past my 20th birthday. I have owned a house for about 5 weeks.

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Christy Souk: and have been married for less than 2 months. When I opened my 1st mortgage company, and I think that's who I am and how I show up in the world that what's the what's the challenge? What's the obstacle? And how are we going to do it? It doesn't matter if I have the right experience. It doesn't matter if it's it's whatever we have such an opportunity to learn.

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Christy Souk: And when we show up authentically, and we just bring curiosity to the table. It's amazing what can happen like. I never would have planned this career I never would have picked the chair that I'm sitting in today like it wasn't this lifelong dream like my son from from 6th grade.

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Christy Souk: It's a seeing what happens in looking at where I can create impact and value.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It's such a great illustration and way to give insight into the leaning, into the uncertainty and ambiguity, not without fear necessarily, but just sort of like moving in fast.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'm wondering how you relate to the concept of catalyst. You kind of illustrated it. But maybe also, how would you explain to others what a catalyst executive is.

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Christy Souk: The way I would think about it is, think about how water moves through the world.

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Christy Souk: and water is going to continue to move, no matter what

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Christy Souk: you can either help create the way the water moves, you can can step into it. You can create dams, you can create guardrails, and either you're part of that change or the change just washes over you and happens.

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Christy Souk: And as a catalyst leader, I think you have to be part of that creation process. And you have to say, I want to do more than just have it happen to me.

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Christy Souk: I want to create how this shows up in the world.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It's an interesting metaphor. Tracy usually has this one that I really love, because this catalyst we can sort of sometimes also get caught in the river. If you think of the flow of the business, and, like, you know, we can get wrapped up in it, and as a catalyst sort of what you're saying is having the perspective to like, stand on the banks and make some decisions instead of just sort of like being swept away by the current.

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Christy Souk: Absolutely.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Tracy.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: I'd love to tap directly into your wisdom as a catalyst leader and name attention

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: that so many catalytic executives face. And so it's such a joy to talk to you in the industry you sit. Given the times, we're in right. The financial industry, the homeownership world mortgage industry is facing a lot of disruption as we're talking to you right now, we're in the middle of the fires happening across Southern California. We've seen the devastating impact

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: of hurricanes on the east coast. We are seeing skyrocketing, insurance premiums, cancellations within whole States like there is a strain for homeowners, for lenders, for the mortgage industry.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: and so, as a catalytic executive, you get to represent for us.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: You help organizations with goals that they've set. They have a strategy in motion.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: and you're sitting in an industry that has so much disruption happening that can't be ignored.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: And so can you talk to us about how you negotiate those 2 realities simultaneously for an organization.

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Christy Souk: You know, Tracy, I'm so glad that you asked this question because we people don't think about how change happens to us. You know

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Christy Souk: you hear Gurus and leaders, and I'm sure you bring this to your clients, too, that you say, well, you've got to create disruption in your organization or disruption is going to happen. Well, sometimes the disruption is happening, not because somebody else is being more innovative, but because the world around you just changes, and in the case of financial services in particular, you know, we can talk about mortgage, but it's in the case of overall financial services.

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Christy Souk: This is not something that people need on a daily basis like they don't. They don't buy a car every day. They don't buy a house every day. And so the process really didn't shift or change a lot in my entire career until Covid and in Covid so many things accelerated for the way that we operate in the world, not just in financial services, but across all things

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Christy Souk: and consumers, became disenchanted with just saying, Well, getting a mortgage is like going to the dentist. I don't want to do it, but I'm going to have to, and it's just going to be painful.

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Christy Souk: They started pushing back and expecting more and better, and that is what really started forcing the industry to think about how we show up and the change that we have to have happen because consumers were like, I don't want it to be as painful as going to a dentist. Why can't this be easier in every facet of how they interacted with us?

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Christy Souk: And that started the push. And then you go into well, what happened because of the economics with Covid, with people losing their jobs with interest rates going to historic lows that we will, in case anybody wants to get their crystal ball out. We are not going back to that in my lifetime unless we have another pandemic type episode, or at least in my working lifetime.

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Christy Souk: we're we're not going back to that. So there's a level set of what the rates look like, but that created an incredible amount of volatility in the industry itself.

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Christy Souk: with how much business is done, and the lock, in effect, which has an impact on housing affordability throw on top of that the insurance concerns that you mentioned, and they're going to be additional insurance concerns that come after the wildfires in California, because many homes aren't covered by insurance at all. Many are only covered by the fair plan, which acts and operates very differently than traditional insurance, and regardless of if you have insurance today that those premiums are going to go up. But let's talk about the impact that happens.

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Christy Souk: Post the crisis.

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Christy Souk: Post crisis. You've got to figure out how to where you're going to live, how you're going to rebuild. How do you pay those additional living expenses. And so there's a long tail to these cycles. I mean, you still have people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene, that still have no place to live.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: That's right.

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Christy Souk: And like, I have a friend who literally just moved back in her house yesterday from Helene.

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Christy Souk: and I still have friends who aren't in their homes that are that are in California. So there's a long chain. And I think this is an opportunity for the industry to say, well, we've been focused a lot on the upfront piece.

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Christy Souk: How do we make this long tail process easier? And how can that impact the the program from beginning to end, because the life cycle for a mortgage product

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Christy Souk: is really not just the time that they start thinking about buying a new home and close on that. Or they come in and refinance. It goes all the way through the next 30 years, payments to us, or until they pay that loan off and go somewhere else. So there's a long cycle, and we have the opportunity to say, How do we interact better with partners? You know a mortgage is one of the most complex financial products that exists. There's so many pieces that go into the back end, and so much communication you could be paying your mortgage to.

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Christy Souk: You know I'm going to call them ABC. Mortgage Company, but that company may just be your servicer. They may not be the ones who actually own your loan.

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Christy Souk: And so you're talking to them. But they have 0 decision making authority, or very limited decision-making authority, because they have to go back to the owner of the loan itself.

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Christy Souk: and most people don't. Don't think about that as a part of the process. And why and why should they? It's always just worked

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Christy Souk: until it doesn't.

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Christy Souk: And we're at a point today where we're saying it doesn't. The regulatory environment is changing.

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Christy Souk: And I know that I haven't answered the question yet of how do you manage these 2 things? But I think that there's a merger that happens between them, because, as I'm thinking about, how do I help somebody who's lost everything in a fire? Who's having to figure out a temporary living situation whose job may be disrupted because they can't go to work every day. And now they have a period of their earnings being lower, and that impacts their qualifications.

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Christy Souk: So how do we care for this entire lifecycle? And how do we use what we learn from helping folks that are impacted into making the entire process better.

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Christy Souk: And I think when we challenge ourselves in that way to say, we're not just solving this one thing in in a contained environment.

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Christy Souk: how do we take that learning and look at any other place that we can fill in gaps and improve the process overall? And we have to start thinking that way.

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Christy Souk: If we don't, we're only going to solve minute things which will end up being Band-aids.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: As someone in your position. Right? It is a a c-level officer.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: I love this idea that you're helping really think through from my world right? The end user journey in the experience of the offerings that you're putting in the world in such a a way of compassion. And there's lending that's already in process, right? And so, as you think about the folks that you're managing, how are you helping to keep the train moving on the tracks that exist right now, while you're exploring.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: If we should even have a train right like you're looking at new models of how do we serve? And maybe it's new tracks. Maybe it's you're serving with an airplane like, how do you balance? Not overly disrupting what is as you deal with the disruption? As you said, that's happening to you.

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Christy Souk: You know, change management is a key piece of anything that we do when we when we think about driving innovation.

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Christy Souk: And a big piece of change management to me is getting stakeholders involved early and often, and having them be part of that brainstorming process. The best ideas don't come from, you know the glass house and the corporate tower. They come from people that are in the field, and if you're not engaging those folks. You're going to make harmful decisions. You may come up with some disruption and some change, but it won't be. It won't be positive, or at least it won't be as positive as it could be when you take the time to sit in the seat

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Christy Souk: of

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Christy Souk: the person who's doing the day-to-day job and ask the curiosity questions. Don't just expect them to be curious about what the organization needs, or even just curious about what in our case the member needs, and others call clients or borrowers

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Christy Souk: and ask about that person doing the the job needs, you know, one of the most impactful things that I get to do. And one of the most exciting things that I get to do is I go Job, share with people on the team.

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Christy Souk: I want it now. They don't actually let me do the keys or anything, but I get to sit next to them for a half a day or a couple of hours and understand what they do on a day to day basis. And that gives us an opportunity to engage with how I'm thinking strategically how they're thinking about improving just this one thing that's a real pain, or even empowering them to bring that up. So it's important as we as we do this.

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Christy Souk: to get all the right stakeholders in the room, and that includes that those frontline team members.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: What I love is is in many of the years, in, in innovation for me and technology, as it was like, we kind of pull away and think the big thoughts, and then you kind of tap people. And so what I hear you saying is, you know, disruptions happening. It's not like they don't know what's happening in the industry. And so having those conversations happen

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: at the same time, while they're doing the job that they're doing every day as opposed to seeing these, these as separate streams of work like, Hey everyone, this is happening. And we need to tap everyone's wisdom to have conversations, to understand how we should deal with it like it may not change what you're doing today, but it's going to change it soon. And so then it just becomes back to the water analogy, a flow that is seamless as opposed to a like. Oh, and now we're different surprise.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: That's so lovely. And I love that it's not just finding the right people, but including all the people.

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Christy Souk: And to Shannon's Point. Some people are going to raise their hands, and

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Christy Souk: they are going to want to be more engaged. And that's okay, we don't need 300 people. In fact, I don't know how we would operate if all 300 people wanted to to raise their hand and voice their opinion, we'd figure it out, because how exciting would that be if we had 300 catalysts!

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Christy Souk: But people are going to be more or less engaged. And you know, Shannon, you said, figuring out how to to find those diamonds in the rough that really can continue to move stuff forward like I want to get better at that like. That's what I want to learn from you ladies. How do you get better at finding those people inside your organization that

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Christy Souk: that are working on the front lines that have the capacity to continue to grow and do that. How do you find those people.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: We could talk all day about that. We love that conversation because that's our jam. I mean, like we, we have IP that helps organizations sift even between because people broadly can be change agents.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Some people will have a more positive relationship with change. But what we love finding are the people who can't stop themselves from moving into change, and it doesn't mean that they're always good at it. And to your point we want to be clear. We are never advocating for having 300 catalysts in a thousand person organization, or whatever that size is right. But most organizations do have them, and if they don't know who they are. They're missing 2 opportunities. One

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: they're likely being we get called being troublemaker. You know.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: we don't always get the positive. That's the nice bit on it. Sometimes we're just the disruptor or the troublemaker. Right? And so if organizations don't find these people, they can be actually causing more negative things with good intention. But then the other thing is like, there are these people who are excited about it, and so, if you can bring them into the fold and identify them and then help them activate. Like is the thing that they're doing. Help them activate like you were saying, bringing everyone along. It's just it supercharges

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: organization. But I'm gonna end on. It's a pivot to a question that I have for you, because one of the one of the challenges that catalyst have

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: is the fact that often we are at the beginning of things.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And so when the impact is realized, we're usually already on to the next thing.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and so it can be hard to articulate our value. Like, I'm the dot connector. I'm the starter. I'm the activator that thing that you couldn't. You said you were never going to get done, or couldn't even say that word. I helped the organization embrace it right? So I want to turn this back to you like with your catalyst executive hat on? How did how would you talk to others about what the Roi of having hopefully the sort of less disruptive. The positive troublemaker catalyst in your organization.

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Christy Souk: I love that phrase, positive troublemaker. I'm now going to adopt that as like a mantra like maybe that'll be. Maybe I should get that tattooed on.

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Christy Souk: I don't know, but I love that. I'm a positive troublemaker, because oftentimes we get as when you are an innovator, you often get labeled as like a china, you know a bull in a china shop, or to your point, a troublemaker.

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Christy Souk: It can be difficult if you don't harness that energy and flow in the right direction. It's also hard to articulate your value if you don't stay engaged all the way, and even if you're on to the next project. You've got to have the discipline of going back and saying, this is the actual impact that what I started created

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Christy Souk: and helping organizations understand? I do think that over my career I have seen a shift in in the way organizations look at, look at talent.

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Christy Souk: and they say, we know we need people at these different levels. And there's all these assessments that you can do. And people are looking at their executive teams. And they're looking at their leadership teams that aren't yet executives, but they're looking at them and saying, We know that we need people. And you know these 4 types of people, do we have the right skill sets. And so in a lot of cases, organizations are looking for people that

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Christy Souk: that can see around corners that can put the dots together, and they're saying, we know that we need somebody like that to bring in that perspective. But I still have to be able to articulate if I started a project and then moved on to the next one. I need to know how that project ended. And did the vision get implemented? And what were those Kpis and the change metrics, and I need to be able to articulate that and say, this is where my value is.

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Christy Souk: This is where I step out because I'm going to go start the next thing. But we're going to make sure that it gets across the finish line. And here's the person in the organization that takes that on. And this is a shared responsibility.

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Christy Souk: You can't.

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Christy Souk: You can't be a positive influencer

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Christy Souk: if you never get anything across the finish line if you're always on to the next thing, you really haven't added value, you've created more confusion than anything else.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Spot on, and it's a place where I think a lot of catalysts can do some pretty basic skill building to level up here and also just be thinking about, am I? Is the impact I'm talking the 0 to one, or is it the one to 10? Or is it the 10 to 100, right? And because all of those are valid. And so it doesn't mean that the the smaller number is bad. It just means that that was the stage that you're at. But you still need to be able to talk to that impact

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: when we don't talk about, even when we're really sitting in our power, we have a tendency to overcommit. So this was the the share on social that I loved of yours about the accountability or like accountability to myself to say no to the things with discipline that aren't going to serve the different things that you're looking at in your life. So like, even when we're really sitting in our power, we can tend to burn out.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: But earlier in career. And if we're not articulating our value and all of that stuff. It can be even harder, because you're just causing friction all over, making it worse literally. So I'm wondering you have your yoga practice. I'm wondering if you have as a catalyst executive who's wearing so many hats and has a family like, what's your advice for catalyst about maintaining your energy?

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Christy Souk: I think understanding where you draw your energy from is important, and how you in particular rejuvenate, because I have friends who rejuvenate by being around. Others like they need that, that social energy and I love being around people. But I renew my energy

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Christy Souk: when I'm sitting on a beach reading a book and growing. I love to meditate. I love to be on my yoga mat. The consistency and all those things is a little bit of solitary right. I need that piece where there aren't people around me. One of the other things that I've been working on for the last couple of years, because I think this is an always an ever evolving area of improvement for me is, how do I focus?

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Christy Souk: I think a lot of catalysts are the people who

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Christy Souk: are able to. I don't want to use the word multitask, but the people who are able to get things quickly they move from step one to step 10 really quickly, and everybody else is still on. Step 2 or 3, and they're not good at bringing folks along, or while folks are moving through those phases

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Christy Souk: they're on to something different. Maybe not a new project. Maybe this is where they're multitasking. I'll tell them myself. Sometimes I will see that everybody else is still playing catch up. And I'm like, Okay, now, I need to go do something else, even in the same meeting. So now I'm checking my email or doing something else.

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Christy Souk: But that's disrespectful.

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Christy Souk: And I recognize that

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Christy Souk: and say, Okay, how do I be more present and create the space and psychological safety? If that's my role in the room, how do I do that?

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Christy Souk: Because some people may not understand that. Yeah, I'm at step 10. So now I'm taking a break and doing something else. While you guys catch up. I need to be engaged with them while they're continuing to do that and other times. Then it you just it becomes a trap right? Other times you may not be on step 10. You may be at step 3 with them, but your brain is used to multitasking or doing something else. And so you just start doing it like this is a failure to me like. And I'm like, I said, I'm telling

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Christy Souk: myself this is my own failure that I am working on, and I continue to try to be better

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Christy Souk: at at doing that. So I do ask for some grace when I screw it up.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So okay, if you can't see, I think I'm blushing because it's like landing so powerfully with me. And it's such an Achilles heel. And we have to. When we do our class, which has some of this foundational skill building things. It's not necessarily like learning how to build a prototype. It's like active listening

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: as a catalyst.

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Christy Souk: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And it can be so hard. And it's just like it's a great reminder. Thank you. Thank you so much. And the grace.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: And the grace, all the grace given Christy, and would love to build on that. Obviously, that's a key challenge that you're sharing. Are there other challenges that you personally have experienced as a catalyst executive, that you think would be helpful for our audience to name and advice you have in helping overcome it, just like with this one like.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: do the work to find your presence and grounding right? Are there other things that you've learned that have been personal challenges that you've overcome.

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Christy Souk: I, you know.

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Christy Souk: I think about a conversation I had with with someone that was was helping mentor me earlier in my career, and one of the things he said was, when I 1st started working with you.

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Christy Souk: I was really worried about your work-life balance because I compared yours to mine.

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Christy Souk: and I could never work at the pace that you work. And he goes. And what I've realized over over the number of years that we've been been working together is, your pace is different than mine. He goes. If you tried to have as much downtime as I need.

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Christy Souk: you would be to use an official technical term bot shit crazy.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: And.

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Christy Souk: So helping to figure out for you what is that right balance?

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Christy Souk: And then how do you give grace to others whose work-life balance is different

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Christy Souk: where they need more time to rejuvenate, or they need less time to rejuvenate, you know, and I've worked in. I can remember the 1st time I worked with somebody who needed less time to regenerate than I did. And I was freaked out

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Christy Souk: because this this human who is an amazing lady, was sending me emails at 4 o'clock in the morning, and I was like, Oh, my God! 4 o'clock in the morning is my quiet time, is my this, and I'm not responding. Are they going to think I'm not working? And what it hit me was.

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Christy Souk: I wonder if that's how other people feel about me?

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Christy Souk: Because this is how I show up in the world. And I I had never been in a situation where somebody needed less downtime and less sleep than I did.

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Christy Souk: but I've certainly been in a situation where people needed more, and I always like from my own personal standpoint. I'm like I'm giving them grace, and and I understand this, and my expectation is not that they're on when I'm on.

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Christy Souk: But is that how they are? Is that how they're experiencing me?

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Christy Souk: And how do I better communicate that? And so I think that's something that if you're a catalyst leader, you've really got to think about how you show up in the world, and how you communicate that back to others. That hey? I'm sending this to you when it's convenient for me, and so I don't forget about it, because I do move on to the next thing

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Christy Souk: you can respond when it's good for you. And here's what the expectations are. But you've got to have really clear conversations, and I don't know that as a society that we're great at having those super, clear conversations

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Christy Souk: where people really feel that you're that you're being authentic, and you're telling them the truth

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Christy Souk: that they may say, oh, well, those are just words. You don't really mean that your expectation is.

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Christy Souk: And so how do? How do you navigate that when you're trying to create change, and that.

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Christy Souk: you know I don't want to go back to saying that fires like when you start a fire in your organization.

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Christy Souk: people are going to feel like they have to move faster. And in some cases that's good. And in other cases you've got to really level set what the pace and the expectations are.

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Christy Souk: and I think that can be a really difficult thing for for leaders to navigate a little bit of a tightrope, or dancing backwards in high heels.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It really is. And you know, the more senior I got in organizations the more I really struggled with that tension, because

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'm gonna be honest from my perspective. I don't think we expect early Stage 1st Level, you know, independent individual contributor to have the same work profile hours output as a C-suite exact like. That's just that's that's not a reasonable expectation. And so when you get to that level, though where it's like the demands, you have to do the board and your thing, your your 1st team first, st and run the organization like there's a lot.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And you want to set the expectation for the people below you that different pieces are okay.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: What we know statistically from you know, the research is by the time that people get to a certain level as a catalyst executive. They're more likely to have had some rejuvenation practices, because otherwise you've burnt out and you didn't get that far. But I'm wondering if you just have, because we have a lot of executive listeners like how do you? How do you navigate? And you get? It's just a specific double click on what you just said, like the realities of the demands of your job, plus your catalytic nature, and setting that pacing for the organization.

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Christy Souk: The like from a day to day standpoint. I think some of the small practices make the biggest difference, like every morning I get up, and the 1st thing that I do is my devotion and my quiet time.

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Christy Souk: and then I get into like. And, by the way, during part of that period I'm trying to convince myself I should go to the gym, because I know it's the right thing to do, so I can't. I'm not one of those folks that can just roll out of the bed onto the floor and do 50 push-ups. It's like, okay, let me do my quiet time. Let me have a, you know, a nice big glass of water or tea. Get to the gym. Do some reading, you know. I like to do my reading before the day starts. It also keeps me from sending emails to people at 4 30 in the morning.

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Christy Souk: And

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Christy Souk: it's because that small practice and that commitment that it keeps me from overwhelming other people with with what my schedule looks like.

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Christy Souk: and also I have learned to use the set. Send send later.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I was thinking that, as you were saying that totally.

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Christy Souk: I wish I could do that for text messages, but

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Christy Souk: so if if somebody from Apple is on here listening like, please put that into your development roadmap. I need to schedule, send for my for my text messages as well as from my from my email box.

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Christy Souk: And so doing things also, when I think about when I ask my assistant to schedule meetings.

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Christy Souk: I have hours that are blocked so that it's like, Hey, I'm don't, please don't schedule meetings at lunch, unless somebody specifically says they want to do it over lunch or don't schedule them before, even though I'm going to be in the office at 7 Am. Don't schedule my 1st meeting until 9, unless there's somebody who specifically says, Hey, I know you're in the office. Can we meet at this this particular time. Same thing, for later in the day, hey? I may not leave the office until 7 or 8,

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Christy Souk: but and that's not every day. I don't want people to think that that I'm in the office all that time, but for days that I am

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Christy Souk: it's like, only if people ask, don't have the expectation that just because I'm here, somebody else is going to be here.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: A few small hacks is what I take away from this with intentionality and commitment can make such a difference. So thank you for sharing that because it can feel really I for me it can feel really overwhelming, like, oh, I have to do that perfectly, or I need to like this wholesale change in my life, and that's not reasonable. So I love the intentionality

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: as we wrap up. This has been an amazing conversation, and I want to keep picking your brain, but as we wrap up, I'd love to hear from you who is your favorite inspirational catalyst. And why.

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Christy Souk: Okay.

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Christy Souk: You know.

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Christy Souk: I live in a world of I like to have catalysts and people that are real. And I know that there are some folks who can look on the Internet, and they can see somebody that they don't know, and they can be be energized by that person. That's not me. I like the real life.

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Christy Souk: real life folks.

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Christy Souk: So I'm going to pick our friend Amy Reed.

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Christy Souk: And the reason that I pick Amy, if you guys don't know and follow Amy, and you're watching this. You should go and connect with her immediately. Read her book, do the things.

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Christy Souk: but she's so down to earth and practical.

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Christy Souk: and she lives what she talks about every day. This is not just what she says, because she thinks that somebody else should do it. This is what she has lived, these are her lived experiences. She has seen the value that it creates.

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Christy Souk: and she's kind of a quiet person.

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Christy Souk: yet she creates this outsized impact because she's so persistent and so knowledgeable that

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Christy Souk: it's the quiet person in the corner that you just want to pay attention to, because you know that there's going to be something good as soon as they say it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: We're so grateful to her, Amy, for connecting us. And also I just have to, plus one what you said, because she's also just so committed to helping bring the change makers and catalysts along behind her, and sharing her experience from this really humble and deeply authentic place. So I was kind of hoping you might say her actually. But I'm glad that you did. I didn't want to force it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Christy. This has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much. I know there's so much going on in your world. So thank you for taking the time to share your wisdom with our audience.

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Christy Souk: Thank you for having me. It's been such a pleasure today.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: To our listening audience. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to learn more about how to create bold, powerful change in the world or find your catalysts in your organization. Go ahead and reach out to us. You can check out our website at catalystconstellations.com.

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Tracey Lovejoy - Catalyst Constellations: If you enjoyed this episode as much as Shannon and I have getting to talk to Christy. Please take a few seconds to rate it. Wherever you listen to your podcast and definitely hit a share link so that you can share with all the catalysts in your life. Thanks. Again.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Thanks! Again.