Embark on a journey with Carice Anderson as she unfolds her life story, from her humble beginnings in Huey Town, Alabama, to her days as a global wanderer and scribe. Her narrative is a tapestry woven with the threads of family values, spiritual richness, melodious tunes, and scholarly pursuits. Your ears will be treated to tales of her South African adventures, where cultural revelations broadened not just her horizons but her very essence. As a bonus, Carice generously offers a beacon of guidance for the fledgling professionals among us, sharing the wisdom gleaned from her own slip-ups with the written word as her wand.
This session is a treasure trove for anyone seeking to polish their leadership luster or amplify their success signals. We unravel the enigma of self-leadership and the craft of mindset sculpting, leading to the epiphany that our perceptions are the architects of our reality. Carice and I muse over the myth of the solitary victor and celebrate the symphony of collaboration, emphasizing how embracing our weaknesses can open doors for others' strengths to flourish. As you soak in these words, you'll discover the groundwork for a thriving, collective ecosystem where authenticity and fellowship reign supreme.
Embark on a journey with Carice Anderson as she unfolds her life story, from her humble beginnings in Huey Town, Alabama, to her days as a global wanderer and scribe. Her narrative is a tapestry woven with the threads of family values, spiritual richness, melodious tunes, and scholarly pursuits. Your ears will be treated to tales of her South African adventures, where cultural revelations broadened not just her horizons but her very essence. As a bonus, Carice generously offers a beacon of guidance for the fledgling professionals among us, sharing the wisdom gleaned from her own slip-ups with the written word as her wand.
This session is a treasure trove for anyone seeking to polish their leadership luster or amplify their success signals. We unravel the enigma of self-leadership and the craft of mindset sculpting, leading to the epiphany that our perceptions are the architects of our reality. Carice and I muse over the myth of the solitary victor and celebrate the symphony of collaboration, emphasizing how embracing our weaknesses can open doors for others' strengths to flourish. As you soak in these words, you'll discover the groundwork for a thriving, collective ecosystem where authenticity and fellowship reign supreme.
Welcome to the SJ Child Show, where a little bit of knowledge can turn fear into understanding. Enjoy the show. Well, hello and good day. I was going to say evening because it's evening for me, but anybody might be listening to this at any time of the day, but thank you so much for being here and being a guest. And today I have Kareese Anderson and I'm so excited to talk about a book that she has right now and some really big things kind of in leadership and how we can learn to look within ourselves, be honest and authentic all the time, and that's when our best selves can be really procured. So, without further ado, hello. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. I'm super excited about our conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. And why don't we just start at the beginning, the introduction? Let us know a little bit about yourself, and then we'll jump into the book.
Speaker 2:Well, as you said, my name is Kareese Anderson. I am from the booming metropolis of Huey Town, Alabama, population 16,000. You're like Huey Town. That does not sound like a living metropolis.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I grew up there, you know, went to Catholic school from kindergarten through 12th grade, you know, grew up in a family very close knit, you know, I think always say kind of the four themes of my life growing up the first 18 years were family, spirituality, music and education. Those four kind of ruled my life for those first 18 years. I went to University of Alabama for undergrad major in marketing, had no real clue what I was doing and I often say that, you know, my career kind of happened in, I would say, three phases. I think the first phase was, you know, before I went to business school. Second phase, after business school and then the third phase is when I moved to South Africa and lived there for 10 years and I just moved back to the US last year and I guess began the fourth phase of my career. So that's you know a little. A little short intro on me.
Speaker 1:I love that and that gives you so much when you travel around the world like that I mean other than you know, being from a small town, I mean, how was that to just kind of get outside of your own space and see all of the things that were happening? It opened your eyes to so much, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, and I, you know, I don't I didn't leave the country for the first time until I was I think I was 23 years old, and you know. So to go from that to living outside of the country for 10 years was just a huge leap, because a lot of people I know don't even have passports, you know, or have never really left, you know, like North America.
Speaker 1:Exactly Right. I mean, I think when I went to Mexico you still didn't need a passport, Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly, are you going to the Caribbean, right? I mean, they're very welcoming places, right. They want you to come there. When you go to, you know just a real foreign country. It's just like you know who are you Exactly. Oh my God, you know. You just got to. You got to fit in, you got to figure it out. So it's. It was a huge learning curve for me, but one that I'm so glad I took the leap and made.
Speaker 1:That sounds incredible. Tell us about what got you started in writing. Did you have you always liked to write? Where did you begin that love of writing?
Speaker 2:You know it's funny, sarah, right, I know right. When I was a little kid, I loved to read and write. I was a huge, you know, reader. I used to read a lot of mystery books, like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys yeah, what was that part and I read a lot of biographies too. I've always loved learning from the lives of other people and I used to, you know, write. I'd write stories and poems and but then, you know, as a lot of us do, right, people tell you, do something where you can pay your own bills, and that was not reading and writing.
Speaker 2:You know at least, that's not what was sort of communicated to me, and so I majored in business, and you know, I've got two degrees in business my undergrad, and then I also have an MBA. And you know, once I moved to South Africa, I started working at McKinsey and Company, thanks, and I just you know, I was coming across a lot of young professionals there and other places, and I saw that they were extremely frustrated and extremely, you know, lost a lot like I was 14 years earlier. I think why I was surprised at that, though, was because I was like well, you kids have the internet. You know I'm dating myself now. When I came out of undergrad, the internet was five pages long, and you could get through it in About seven minutes, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah so it was not really a resource. But then I'm thinking, I'm looking at these young people. I'm like you all have the internet, you have online courses, you have audio books. You just have a wealth of knowledge out here. How do you all Not know some of these things? You know, but I realized sometimes you don't know what you don't know and you don't even know the questions that you should be asking. So there could be this treasure trove of information, but if you don't know you should be looking for it. It's pretty much useless to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so I thought I would write a book that basically says here are the things you need to be looking for, here Are the questions that you need to be asking. Here are some of the mistakes that I made early in my career, because there is no sense in other people repeating the exact same mistakes that I made in 1998. Go make new mistakes, right. You know I can't keep you from being human and making mistakes, but I can keep you from making the same ones I made, and so that's really what the book is. It's just literally a brain dump of what I wish somebody had told me when I was, you know, 22, 25, 2731, you know?
Speaker 1:No, isn't that the truth? And our education system I mean the blister hunt is just.
Speaker 2:I know, not for real life, it is totally. But you know, if you think about it, a lot of professors are Purely academics. They, a lot of them, have not worked in the corporate world and you know they're. We Appreciate what they bring to the table, but I think it's, it's incomplete. You know, and that's one of my, you know, ultimate dreams is I would love to make this a college course or, you know, create an online course so that more people could have access to it, because that was the other thing for me, sarah.
Speaker 2:You know I've worked at really large blue chip companies and I think about all the hoops I had to jump through to get into those companies. I had to do well in high school and I had to do well in university. I did well in grad school. I just don't believe everybody should have to jump through all of those hoops to get access to this information. So I really wanted to democratize the access to those unwritten rules of success in high performing environments. So you know, I often joke. You know I paid over a hundred thousand dollars to go to Harvard Business School, but I'm giving you this book for $18.95. So I think it's a great deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's look at it. Show us the book. I think it's a.
Speaker 2:I think it's a steal. So my face is on the front. One of my friends keeps telling me he's like kary, you know you're gonna age and your face is not gonna look like.
Speaker 1:That's okay. That's when it was passion right. That's when it was needed to be there.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:I agree, oh, that's fantastic. So tell us about intelligence isn't enough. Like, what was the thought? I mean obviously kind of gave us an idea of that. You know info dump on that, right. What can people expect when they go into that to find, um, how to process that?
Speaker 2:yeah, I often say that the framework for my book is know yourself, no others know your environment. Then integrate the knowledge of those three to build a personal brand and a communication style that allows you to have maximum impact, and so my book is all about impact. I really don't just want people to buy my book, even though I appreciate that I don't want you to just read it. That's not even enough for me. I really want you to pick out three to five things that you could do tomorrow, in 60, 90 days, in a year that could really make a difference in how you feel about yourself, the quality of your relationships at work, your understanding of the environment you're working in and, ultimately, your personal brand and how you communicate. I really just you know, I feel like we spend so much time at work.
Speaker 2:We either are at work, we're thinking about work, we're driving to work, we're getting dressed to go to work, we need to enjoy this experience, yeah, and I just want people to have more fun and have more impact at work, and so my book you know, the last chapter of my book is all about how do you bring all these concepts that I've shared, you know, into action, because I ultimately want you to do something with it.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I will say that I think also makes my book unique is that, you know, obviously I'm bringing experiences from my time working in the US and working in South Africa.
Speaker 2:So I had the opportunity to work for a multinational consulting firm, and so I got a chance to coach and facilitate people in North America and Europe and in Africa, and because of that, my network is quite extensive, and so I interviewed 30 successful leaders and I have sprinkled their quotes throughout the book, and so I wanted to really share not just this isn't just my opinion, but also I'm bringing their opinions, because I didn't want this book to be an American book.
Speaker 2:I don't want it to be a South African book or a European. I wanted to be like a global book that shares universal success principles, and so the people that I've interviewed, you know they worked in financial services and private equity and nonprofits and health care in the beauty industry. So I really tried to get a wide range of people as well, and they've worked, lived, been educated in Africa, north America and Europe and so I just wanted you know, anybody to be able to pick up this book and get a lot out of it and see, like I said, there are some things that are just universal, no matter what the industry is, no matter the geography, the culture. There are just some things that honestly just work.
Speaker 2:And I will say, because I don't know if I'm preempting a question you might ask but, one of the themes that came through two things I would say is people, you know, really talked about taking ownership, but also relax, you know, like do your best but don't just like freak yourself out, like oh my gosh, you know, if I make a wrong choice, my life is over and I'm destined to a lifetime of failure and despair. It's like no, it's okay to make mistakes, that's part of the process. Don't be so eager to get everything now, because there's a reason why things take time, you know, and just giving yourself that time too. So it's really nice to hear from successful people like relax, you're okay, yeah, you don't hear that enough, I'm sure that that's something that you know self care, relaxation things that people say, oh you're being lazy?
Speaker 2:You're not. You're being selfish.
Speaker 1:You're being, you know, with all of those things, then you're not going to be working at top notch when you don't have care for yourself. Absolutely, absolutely. Is there kind of a defining, like um idea that everybody has, like what's the best way to be a good business person?
Speaker 2:Like is there.
Speaker 1:is there kind of an idea that you got from all of those people, Maybe one thing they all had in common?
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to cheat and say three.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you, that's better I'm going to give you two extra. That's great.
Speaker 2:I think the first one is knowing your story and managing your mindset. Everything starts with just understanding yourself, because I think a lot of times when we think about leadership, we immediately go to other people and leading other people, but the first person you have to lead is right here, and this is the hardest person you will ever have to lead and the most important, right? So, really understanding yourself and managing your own mindset, because different situations will pop up and I promise you the difference, you know, I'm sure you've seen this in your life right? You see, two people go through a very similar situation and they have very different reactions to it. A lot of that is mindset. How do they? You know, glass half empty, glass half full. You know what do they say?
Speaker 2:Life is 10% of what happens to you, 90% of how you respond to it, right? Yeah, so it's. It's that mindset, and I think when your mindset's in the right place, you can conquer anything. Yeah, and I think that sort of you know leads to the second one, which is you know, take ownership. You know, take ownership of how you deliver at work, how you show up, how you communicate, how you dress your social media profiles. Like, be intentional and be deliberate. And I would say the third thing is that success requires collaboration and inclusion.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I think sometimes when you think about the advice that we've gotten about our careers, you know, work hard and put your head down and you know you'll be chosen as the, as the, the, the knighted one. Right, you'll be knighted as the, as the chosen one, and I think we have to acknowledge that, that a lot of that advice does not feature other people. So you can get it in your head Like I'm just going to be successful by myself, but if you talk to anybody who's successful, they've all had somebody to help them.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Whether it was an entrepreneur, who somebody let them sleep on their couch while they were riding their business plan or read their business plan or invested in them or gave them advice. You know what I mean. You need other people and I think if we recognize that, then I think we'll be more deliberate about learning how to get along with other people and how to collaborate and how to resolve conflict, Because I feel like those are the differentiators, you know, from people that I see that are. You know, because I've seen a lot of really smart people but they're not as successful as they could be because they don't know how to get along with other people.
Speaker 1:Right, you know you're limited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're limited in how much you can achieve just by yourself, but I mean your impact can be infinite If you, if you can try to achieve those results with, through and for other people.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. It reminded me. A friend of mine just posted a quote that said something about, while you guys were arguing if the glass was half empty or half full, I drank it the opportunist, and I just love that.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious. I love that. Yeah, that is cute.
Speaker 1:Take a hold of your opportunities and make the best of them, and if they don't work, try something different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I always look at, bless my parents' hearts. They're steadfast, determination to stay in one job for 50 years and you know like wow, I couldn't have ever done that. So honor to them, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Luckily they were both jobs where they were very busy helping lots of different people, so it wasn't ever anything that was just like typing or so you know, at a desk or something. But it still amazes me that commitment, that accountability to do those that kind of hard work. But it does.
Speaker 2:It does start with that mindset and learning how to react appropriately, especially and, like you said, get along with people, so important I know right Because I'll be honest, sarah, like the way I felt coming out of undergrad was I was like, well, I'm smart and I've got this piece of paper, and then I went and got another really expensive piece of paper. I was like I'm set for life. I never I wasn't really thinking about the role that other people would play in my career and in my ability to have impact, and so it's it's. You know, if you think about school, it is this very like singular solo exercise, exactly.
Speaker 2:And people think you're just going to care and I'm like that is not work, that that is not going to work in the working world, you know, and I think that's sort of a maybe a shortcoming of our educational system, like you were saying earlier, 100%.
Speaker 1:No, I agree 100% that. I was just reading something that said the same thing. It said you test alone, you learn, you know you're on, you've graded alone, you do all of these things alone, alone, like you're. Oh, it's not a working together environments kind of process.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:How can we expect our kids, teens, young adults to go out and to know how to conflict resolute right Mm-hmm Number one so important, but then we don't know how to treat people, and so then we turn into having office bullies, which is a horrible thing, and you know just the whole process of how do we get ourselves with the right tribe, right yeah, the vibe of the two tribes yeah yeah, yeah. How do we set ourselves up for that kind of what are some steps for success? You would tell people.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest things I say is just to know your strengths but to also know your areas of development. Mm-hmm, you know. Because I think when you know your strengths right, I know what I bring to the table, but then I also know I don't bring everything to the table, mm-hmm. So then I'm able to create the space for other people who bring things that I don't bring and I think it's I also. I need to have, I need to place value on those areas. It's not like, oh well, I can't do these things, let me bring, you know, sarah over here to do it. It's like, wow, sarah does the thing well, that I don't do.
Speaker 2:I want to bring Sarah in, I want to hear Sarah's perspective, I want to leverage Sarah's strengths for whatever it is we're trying to achieve. So for me, when people have a balanced sense of self, it ideally should create space at the table for other people. You know, because, if you think about it, when people are arrogant, that is, it repels people, it does not engage people, it does not make people want to lean in, you know. But I think when you are confident, you know your strengths but you know your areas of development, I think it creates that space. And I think for me that's that's one of the number one things.
Speaker 2:I think, kind of going back, you know, a little bit to what we were saying earlier is just knowing, just knowing myself, you know, and constantly working on my character, that for me is a huge one. You know, I was listening to this minister speak and he was saying you can I'm going to paraphrase, he was quoting somebody else, I'm going to butcher what he quoted, but it was basically like you can't build anything bigger than yourself. You can only build something to the level of your own development. And so if you and I've seen it, I've I actually worked for what I affectionately call a start down, and I think part of the reason that organization didn't didn't really, you know, live up to its potential is because of the character of the leaders you know you can have the best idea.
Speaker 2:I mean, and we? We see what's happening in the world today with some of our leaders.
Speaker 1:We won't even name their names but we can see what's happening in the world today.
Speaker 2:See what is that? Yeah, bless their hearts. Like you can be brilliant. But if you're operating from a place of fear and insecurity and dominance and aggression, you know, and feeling like you can run this whole entire business without other people, it doesn't work. You know what I mean. And so I think we have to know ourselves to know, like, okay, I'm operating from a place of fear right now. What can I do to get out of that, so that I'm not leading from that, from that space, Cause you don't make good decisions when you're operating from fear and you're operating from insecurity, right? So I think you know having people around you too that can kind of check you on that, that you that you trust, that you can be vulnerable with, that can coach you, that can sort of make you rise to a higher version of yourself. I think that's really important. And so those are really my next thoughts, sorry.
Speaker 2:Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Coaching Exactly Like absolutely. That's so great for for people that are. You know, trying to build something big is to get the best ideas from people who have done it, people who may be in the same thing as you are now, and then somebody maybe who's on their journey, so that you can be a voice for them too, to kind of be like mentor, mentored, mentee, right, yeah, that's a culture, though it's art words, but yeah.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely.
Speaker 1:When you can kind of create that kind of team or mindset like you said, then you can build your.
Speaker 2:And I just want to add one thing. I think that's one of the things sometimes I see, you know, incorporates that people who might be at the top or who are more senior might not necessarily acknowledge. There are things I can learn from people that are younger, you know. They can keep me hip and on trend. They might be able to teach me things about technology. They might have more emotional intelligence than I do. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So, recognizing that everybody has something to teach me I don't care who. It is Right and they and the perspective that they bring is something that is important and could help us have the next breakthrough idea. You know, that's why you got to invite people to the table who are different than you, because you're not going to get innovative Ideas from the people who think the same and look the same and have the same background. But you know what I mean. You're gonna get. You're gonna get the breakthrough ideas from mixing a bunch of people who are different together and See things from a totally different perspective, and that's that's why I think that's so important. But you got to be a confident person to be willing to open up your space and invite those people to the table.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. Where can we go find the book? Is it available online Hardback at the stores when it is?
Speaker 2:It's everywhere, sarah, everywhere you get your books, go, go on Amazon. You can go to Barnes, noble, great, you can. And I want to say too, I narrated my audiobooks, if you want to listen to me, oh talk for nine hours and 44 minutes in a non-descript American accent. I Tone down my southern, my southerness. I just wanted to be, you know, an American from somewhere in America. Yeah, so yeah so there's a paperback, e-book and audiobook Fantastic.
Speaker 1:I love that and it's so. It's gonna be so good for people who read it. Take it forward. Do you have like places in the book people can write notes or anything, or do you? Recommend that to people like highlight this or hi.
Speaker 2:Mark it up. I literally people have I mean, I don't I think they may have mentioned this to you, but my book was initially published in South Africa, in the UK, last year, so I have so many people that you know sent me messages on LinkedIn and and you know who've just talked about on different social media platforms about how they've gone back to my book when they get into different scenarios or situations at work.
Speaker 2:So that warms my heart, because I did not want this to be a book that you read and then it just collects dust. I wanted it to almost be like a manual, you know, or a guidebook that you refer back to often Whenever you get into different situations. So that's, that's a that warms my heart.
Speaker 1:I love that. No, I love to get feedback to it's yeah. Great to get feedback from your community, showing that you are bringing value to those individuals, families, businesses all across the board for sure, absolutely. Is there any Social media that you want to, if anybody wants to talk to you or reach out about.
Speaker 2:I love to connect with people.
Speaker 1:Let us know on websites anything you have.
Speaker 2:Yes, my website is carries Andersoncom. It's very original, I'm sure you know, yeah. And then you can find me on LinkedIn, facebook, twitter and Instagram at carries Anderson, just under my name super Well, that's.
Speaker 1:That's easy to find you that I'll make sure that we're connected on all those. Yes, absolutely already, so let's do that. Well, it's been so great having you on. Thank you so much for Um being patient in the scheduling process while we were absolutely out and it was so nice to have you here. I look forward to hearing Do you have any second books in in the making or any ideas that you might have got lots of ideas.
Speaker 2:I gotta sit, I gotta sell this first one, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, so you can put all the rest into fruition. Right, exactly, I get that. Well, please go check out her book. Show us that book one more time, one more time Is look for my face, guys. Intelligent Isn't enough. By Carice Anderson. Um, it's so, so nice to have you. Thank you again for your time and the value that you're sharing with us through these experiences.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, sarah, and thanks for listening to whoever listens.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. Great listeners. Thank you, listeners, have a great day.