Laurie Hill:
Having the opportunity to stay with NASA was more than just a safety blanket. It was a huge aha because it gave me the chance to heal some of the things that I realized I'm not really angry, I'm just uncomfortable.
Kristiana Corona:
Ever feel like everyone else has leadership figured out, and you're just making it up as you go? I've been there. I spent two decades leading design and technology teams at Fortune 500 companies. And for years, I looked like I had everything pulled together on the outside. But on the inside, I felt burned out, overwhelmed, and unworthy of the title leader. Then, a surprise encounter with executive coaching changed my life and dramatically improved my leadership style and my results.
Now, I help others make that same shift in their leadership. This podcast is where we do the work, building the mindset, the coaching skills, and the confidence to lead with clarity and authenticity, and to finally feel worthy to lead from the inside out. Welcome back to the Worthy to Lead podcast. I'm your host, Kristiana Corona.
Thanks for joining us today. Today's conversation is about navigating change, especially the kind that asks you to reinvent who you are. My guest is Laurie Hall, and she has lived that journey in a powerful way. Laurie is a certified facilitator, a certified coach, and a seasoned speaker, and she calls herself a proud recovering engineer.
She spent years working in highly technical environments with NASA and Lockheed Martin, supporting initiatives in outer space. And after a life-changing event that we'll talk about a little bit more later, she went on to found New Horizon Strategies in twenty eleven, building a company dedicated to helping leaders navigate change with clarity and confidence.
Today, she leads a global team of expert coaches and facilitators, supporting clients across healthcare, government, higher education, banking, and technical services. She partners with everyone from national agencies to Fortune five hundred organizations. And here's what really stands out about Lori's work.
She doesn't just help leaders get better skills; she helps them to move through complex transitions in a way that creates sustainable human-centered transformation, which is my love language. Her journey from NASA engineer to business owner and CEO is a story of reinvention, resilience, and courage. A proof that technical expertise, when paired with people-focused leadership, can create powerful transformation.
So today, we're diving into her personal story and what it takes to be authentic and live fully as you navigate change. I can't wait for you to meet my friend Laurie. Let's dive in. So Laurie Hall, welcome to the Worthy to Lead podcast. We're so glad to have you here.
Laurie Hill:
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you very much.
Kristiana Corona:
So I'm sure that probably half of your conversations in life start with this question, but I feel like I need to ask, too. So you started your career in chemical engineering and aerospace. You got to work for Lockheed Martin, you got to work for NASA, you got to work with a team on the International Space Station.
This is literally the stuff of dreams. This is what kids talk about when they're little. So I'm very curious to know, how was it actually having a career in this space?
Laurie Hill:
Aw. In this space. I love it. Um, Kristiana, you're so fun. Thank you very much. Well, it was my dream to somehow be affiliated with NASA when I first graduated with my bioprocess engineering degree.
Nobody knew what that was when I graduated. Um, except for NASA. That was the one place that was actually looking for somebody with my degree qualifications, and that was the one place I really wanted to work. And when I first started, I'm from Kansas originally. Uh, when I first started, I had a woman take me in under her wing.
She called me her Kansas kid, and I called her my Texas mom. And she said, "Laurie, you're gonna love it here, but the NASA red tape and politics will drive you crazy." And I was like, "Oh, my gosh," you know, "Okay, I'll keep my eyes peeled. I'm at NASA. I can't believe I made it." And it was amazing. You know, everything was so amazing.
It's everything that you hope it's gonna be. And then I think like most of us in our careers, maybe around like the, you know, five, 10, 15-year mark, we hit that kind of plateau where we go, "Is this it? Is this the way that it's gonna be?" And I still loved what I was doing, but I felt what my Texas mom was talking about.
I felt that red tape and bureaucracy. So as much as I loved it, I like to tell people I'm the recovering NASA engineer now.
Meant to be funny, you know. Uh, because I have a whole lot more breadth and color, um, as opposed to just trying to make sure that I get the right answer. But I thank NASA for everything, including the level of discomfort to go do something else and realize that area where I felt like my... You know, we've all been there probably too, where I felt like my heart, my values, my light, the direction that that was actually shining in, as opposed to what I just, you know, thought I was supposed to be doing.
What do you think? Does that resonate? That resonate for you?
Kristiana Corona:
There are so many conversations that I'm having on a daily basis about this very topic, and how you can come back to that knowing of who it is you are and what you're meant to be doing. Because- We all are sort of chasing this idea of success that we've seen around us, right?
And what people tell us it will be, maybe what our parents have modeled for us, maybe what we've dreamed about since we were kids, like this must be it. And then at some point you're hitting these friction points where you're like, "Is that truly what I want? Is that truly what I'm supposed to be doing?"
Before we jump into kinda your pivot from there, I am curious, though, what are some of the interesting space initiatives that people would recognize that you've worked on?
Laurie Hill:
Fun. The... This is where I'm careful because sometimes I'll get started and then I realize somewhere along the way people's eyes glazed over.
Like that was it up. Yeah, so it is cool. It is cool. When I first started, I worked on a bioregenerative life support systems project. Essentially how do we put the Earth in a little box so we can take it somewhere else? And that was called the Bio Plex back in, uh, 1999. You know, um, started working on, um, how do we...
That, that is what will sustain long-term, uh, missions, you know? When it's not a physical, chemical, um, life support system or some of the other systems too, but life support for sure. If we're gonna take the squishy things into space on long voyages, it complicates the mission by, like, at least tenfold because now we have to bring all this extra stuff, you know?
If you draw a box around a human being, like what's the stuff that goes into that box, and what's the stuff that comes out of that box? And what are the things that need to be held consistent, like temperature and pressure, you know, around that box? And anyway, that was just fascinating to figure out what it might be like to put the Earth in a little box so we could take it somewhere else.
Kinda the idea of Biosphere 2 in Tucson, Arizona. They said Biosphere 2 'cause we're on Biosphere 1 right now, so you know. So that was one of my favorite things, but that's also when I had the kinda aha moment of, yeah, not all of those amazing pie in the sky things ultimately end up coming to fruition. We called it birth to flight, the process of birth to flight.
Sometimes it's birth and then the funding runs out, or it'll come back up at another time, but the last project- Yeah ... that I had an opportunity to work on in space was where I met my husband, love him so much, and that was actually the mission that just happened. The Artemis 2 mission, um, had the Orion vehicle, which is what the crew was in.
When I was working on it for a couple years, 18 years ago, I was in charge of the pressure control system, the potable water system, and then the wastewater system, the potty at the time. And that's when we were in a lot of requirements development, but that's where my husband and I met, working on the pressure control system.
Kristiana Corona:
I can't even imagine things with timelines like that That long, right? Like that much preparation, that much testing. For you as an individual contributor or someone who's physically working on these projects, like how was it that you stayed motivated when you didn't get to see the outcome of some of these things for decades?
Laurie Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, I didn't, you know? Honestly, I think maybe I'm not a pyramid builder. That all happened, that phase of that huge program happened at a time where I was going through a pretty significant transition in my own life. I unfortunately lost my sibling to suicide right at the time that I was like, "Is this it?"
You know? Um, kind of when I feel like the meatball, uh, the NASA logo, sometimes we call it the meatball, like sort of fell off the pedestal for me of like, I-- it's got to be more, you know? And so that transition that was happening in my life at the same time, my soul needed to see the difference that I was making in other people's lives more directly.
And that's what makes... You know, you said a lot of your clients are, are asking some of these same questions. And same, you know, I feel like this is a conversation that comes up, whether it's coaches talking to each other, or coaches supporting clients, or leaders just supporting their staff, their employees, is when we get surprised because we have a values mismatch all of a sudden.
The living, breathing values inside my heart are different than the living, breathing values of maybe the team or the organization that I'm supporting. And so it doesn't mean that my organization is wrong or that I'm wrong or that, you know, there's something wrong, 'cause honestly I tried to figure it out.
What's wrong with me? Why don't I still like it here? But I, uh, I can see now that it's just sometimes values can do this, you know? And then we get so far apart that we may still have a very strong skills and interests overlap, but without that common values connection to kinda close the loop, we will be able to survive in that environment, but we won't thrive.
And I love Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, where essentially the top, that tiny little triangle at the top, the self-actualization, like aha, transcendent life purpose. You know, that's what we all want. We wanna be swimming in that. We wanna be essentially doing the thing that gives back, that makes the biggest difference to us in the world, which often makes the biggest difference ultimately in the world. But one other comment on that, it's not always just the values externally with our own values.
I mean, let's be honest, how many of us have even taken a values assessment recently so that we have, like, a little bit of a compass? That's what's great about working with coaches. We know each other. But it's not only the external- We're self-aware. Yes, exactly. I bet you do a values assessment all the time.
It's the internal ones, though, you know? It... I'm, I'm grateful NASA gave me an opportunity to work part-time while I opened my own business. Um, but we have some internal values that will fight with each other, like loyalty or maybe even purpose. Like, gosh, I thought this is what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life with...
Mm, the one that was just screaming at me when I was going through it was authenticity. You know, like, who am I really? And am I letting that light shine? You know? Like, you can feel it when you can really step into your values.
Kristiana Corona:
You mentioned several things that I wanna dig into, but one of the first things you mentioned was the red tape aspect of this role, and I know you kind of, you s- you were, like, an individual contributor for a while, being an engineer, but then you started moving up in leadership and starting to kind of work through that path, right?
And you took over... I'm gonna just paraphrase, so please correct me. You started doing more project management or program management, and operations work. You got into Six Sigma, became a black belt in Six Sigma. All the, all of those things that, that people in the industry are, you know, looking up to. But that, that must have been, like, a pretty big shift in and of itself to go from being an individual contributor to then becoming a leader, and I know a lot of people that I talk to are hesitant to make those kinds of changes, right?
Like there's some trepidation there. You're kind of questioning, like, am I worthy to be a leader? How do I know what I'm doing? So, can you talk a little bit just about that moment as well, that transition from being an individual contributor to essentially becoming a leader, and how that felt for you?
Laurie Hill:
Awesome. Thank you. And right back at ya, I love the name of the podcast, Worthy to Lead. You know, because I think deep down we might not say it out loud like that, but I think a lot of us feel like, am I worthy to do this? I think some people feel like it's just the next step in the ladder, you know, like, oh, I'm supposed to do this, and then the, and then they just essentially translate like, here's what I did as an individual contributor that was fantastic, and I'll just continue to do that as a leader.
And we've all had leaders like that, and they're doing the best they can, and it's not what the people actually needed, you know? Be it, who was it? S- um, his name will come to me later in the podcast, I'm sure. Be efficient with things, be effective with people. Two totally different skill sets. But to answer your question, when I was even in college, I realized that I loved to be the person pulling people together.
I don't know why. In fact, I used to beat myself up about that, like, Laurie, focus on your studies, you know? Try to get A's in all your courses. I didn't get A's in all my courses because I was doing all the social stuff. I was the membership chair, the social chair. I was an RA in the dorms in coll- you know what I mean?
And I was like, you have gotta focus. But I wish somebody would've told me, like that's actually, in many cases, unless you wanna stay just a, a subject matter expert, that's the larger part of our development, is the people side of things. So right away, when I got into kind of like system engineering, project engineering, system level management, I felt like it w- it was always about being influential with the people that I was working with, whether I had actual authority with them or not.
But I do remember when I was having a conversation with one of the gentlemen that I worked with when we were on the International Space Station, um, work, and we were talking about some different things, and a wonderful contractor. He came in, and he sat down in my office and, and he said, "Lori, I just feel like I know what the answer is, like I know what we need to do." And he's like, "Gosh darn it, you know, I wish we would just do that." And I go, I won't use his name, you know, but I said, "You know that's not our job, though. Our job isn't to have the answer. Our job is to bring like the 15 different parties together to figure out what the answer is between us all."
What's the answer that we have going forward? So I, I feel like that's when I, I kind of like, "Oh, I think I'm getting this leadership thing. I've, I've sort of arrived." But for me, maybe it was a little bit more natural. I think I also have, um, on the DISC, you know, all these different personality assessments or MBTI, I'm the extroversion preference.
I don't know if you can tell. I'm the, I'm the I, you know, with D, like right there. Like, like, "Well, let's do it. Let's get something done, though."
Kristiana Corona:
So, so- You have a lot of, like, self-monitoring- ... it sounds like. Like I'm hearing- Well- ... parts of yourself, like, "Go crazy" and then this one's like, "No, no, buckle down."
Laurie Hill:
That's right. Yeah. You're hearing what used to be kind of like self-flogging that's a much more healthy approach now. A much more healthy balance.
Kristiana Corona:
Yeah. But what I love about what you just said, that example with the person who was coming and saying, "Hey, I think I have all the answers," was I feel like your response to that is, in a nutshell, what you do now.
Like, it's what you do with everyone, right? Is appreciate and understand the role of the leader and how it isn't to have all the answers, but how it is to be a facilitator of the right conversations and to make the right kind of space so that you arrive at the outcome that you need, and guiding that process and how you do it and what tools you have and the right questions to ask and the way you coach, right?
Like, what a nice, poignant example of how you have taken that inner knowing or that inner value that you always had and then cultivated it and developed it over time. I think that's amazing.
Laurie Hill:
Thank you. And clearly you work with leaders, because you know too. Um- Yeah. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona:
It's really fun to see when people... when the, the light switch turns on. Yeah. Right?
Laurie Hill:
Yeah.
Kristiana Corona:
And they stop beating their head against the wall, like, "Why is this not working? Why am I not effective?" And I think for me, it was interesting because I started with the opposite approach, which was I was a really great individual contributor, had very high standards for myself, got pulled into a leadership role, had no idea how to direct other people or hold them to high standards.
It was so foreign. Yeah. And I had to learn the hard way, and then eventually found coaching and was like, "Oh, I get it." But you know, like, not everyone has that ease of the journey along the way, and they hit these obstacles, and then they question, and they think, "Well, maybe I'm not meant for this. I, I just must not be the kind of person who can lead."
So when you run into those people, uh, what do you say to them?
Laurie Hill:
Awesome. I love it. Well, I would... And, uh, I think this is the, the baiting, you know? But to tweak it a little bit, the obstacles are actually on purpose. There are three, three words that I, I'm... huge red flags word as a coach: should, ought to, supposed to, because that's normally somebody else's voice that maybe, uh, was planted 25 years ago, and w- maybe even with great intentions, right?
You know, but we've, we've gotten really good at that being our own internal voice now of here's what I should do, here's what I'm supposed to do, here's what I ought to do, and to try to meet somebody else's expectations. But the experiences that we have, especially the ones that sometimes bring us to our knees, are not wrong, they're necessary.
That was necessary for me to make the decision, you know, almost like this indicator of like, uh, I don't want any more of this. It didn't work out, and I d- and I actually don't like it. Or it didn't work out, but oh my gosh, I love it, and it keeps me up at night 'cause I keep trying to figure out, like, what would've made that better.
And you know, what's really happening is, like, deep down you care so much that you're still thinking about it in your off time. So, you care deeply. So the, the... all these things that happen along the way. You know, when I have folks that are questioning, like, "Oh, maybe I should have, maybe I was supposed to, maybe I ought ha- to have," I think that's a, a big thing that comes up is to appreciate that that was something that was necessary that happened, even if it's a very ugly baby, you know, that shows up.
It was just necessary on our paths. So that's, that's how I help people a lot of times in coaching to just sort of reframe and understand that, oh gosh, there's a learning there, and we're all human. None of us have done this before. We all try to make it look like we have, but there's no map. There, uh, especially once I went from employee, if you will, to entrepreneur, that, there's no map.
It's the biggest faith journey I've ever been on in my life. There's a lot of people that will try to sell you a map, you know, and then somewhere along the way, again, all good intentions, but we pop off the map 'cause we were like, "No, that's not right. That doesn't feel right. That's not my business. That's not how I do things."
And, um, so even as an employee, it feels like there's certainty. It feels like there's a map. It feels like there's the supposed to, should, or ought to. But there isn't. There's just what feels right with the information that we have at the time. Um, of course we wanna do the thing that makes sense, too, you know, but hopefully there's a balance between these two. That's when we get to show up authentically.
Kristiana Corona:
So when you talk about that knowing, that, that moment of knowing you needed something different, first of all, how did you make that decision? 'Cause this was a really big career pivot away from aerospace, essentially. Well, I know you still work with different clients, but from the one being the doer doing this work to Coaching, which is radically different type of lifestyle, entrepreneurship, which is very different, that's a lot of discomfort.
So first of all, how did you make that decision? And second of all, how did you handle the discomfort of that total shift in identity?
Laurie Hill:
I love it. I love it. Um, I'd love to tell you that like, "Oh, I just figured it out," you know, and then it's like, "Oh, we'll build, put everything in place," and everything was perfect.
It took me five years. Um, NASA, I don't know that they would do this for anybody else. Um, I think everything in life works out like it's supposed to, and we often have a lot of grace, you know, that, that we just can be thankful for and hope for more of. But, um, NASA gave me an opportunity to work part-time for the first five years when I started my business.
So that what felt like a hard right, you know, a hard 90 from like, um, technical professional, even though I was always the people, you know, uh, organizer to, uh, entrepreneur/coach and facilitator. It took me at least two years to swallow what that branding actually meant to me. You know? So I think sometimes when people make big shifts like that, we just assume, you know, we'll hang that shingle and then everybody will understand what we do.
Not only does everyone else not understand what, what we do because they've seen us in a certain way for so long, we don't understand what we do. And so it's really hard for us to share that. So I, I am so grateful for that, um, safety blanket to still work part-time while I was starting my own business and not have that hungry tiger look.
It also helped me process through... I love Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. I'm a, I'm a tool model junkie, you know, but Elisabeth Kubler Ross' five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. She was very clear while she was still alive that, that you don't have to have all these stages. You can maybe do them in a different order.
You can spend more time in one versus the other. But she just noticed that that tended to be the stages that most people went through. And I was angry for a long time because I didn't understand everything that I understand now. It's so easy to talk about what it was back then, but when I was in it, it just felt cloudy and foggy and frustrating and overwhelming and depressing.
And so actually having the opportunity to stay with NASA was more than just a safety blanket. It was a huge aha because it gave me the chance to heal some of the things that I realized I'm not really angry. I'm just uncomfortable You know, and then for me, that depression step was I actually do need to leave.
I wanna do something that actually makes m- my soul sing. I wanna do something that makes me feel like I'm, I have purpose. You know that Blue Zones show on Netflix? I don't know how many of you... You were, "I love it too." They're like, "Well, why do all these places..." She, she said, "I just, I just marked it on the map with a blue highlighter.
That's why we call them the blue zones," you know? But why are all these people living to more than 100 years old? This is statistically unique, let me say that. And most of it's because they had community and they had purpose. So I feel like it was a five-year street fight, maybe a little bit of like, I have no idea what I'm doing.
I'm just trying to do the best that I can. Try to have faith with it, do a lot of healing, go out and try to sell stuff, to make a total fool of myself, learn a whole lot, try it again the next day. And then eventually you get it. You start to figure it out.
Kristiana Corona:
You know, I appreciate the vulnerability of that share because a lot of people don't wanna talk about that messy middle part.
They just wanna make it look like, "I always knew what I was doing, and here's my 10-step process to fame and success." But it's never that way, is it? I was looking at your LinkedIn page because I noticed that you had this really fun quote, and I wanted to grab it for this conversation 'cause I think it illustrates what you're talking about right now super well, which is the Howard Thurman quote, "Don't ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." That gave me goosebumps when I read it.
Laurie Hill:
Yeah. That was like a mantra to me in, in my own journey. Uh, and some- sometimes people say, and maybe you've had this experience too, you know, when people go, "Well, what was the hardest part?"
And when I was first thinking about doing all this, I, you know, you do what feels right, and so I just started reaching out to a whole bunch of people that were already doing it, and like, "Hey, would you try to design my marketing system," or, "Following up with somebody that didn't pay their invoice," or, "I got maybe lawsuits." You know, like we've got sued for something, oh my goodness, and now we're enmeshed in this messy stuff, and nobody said that. Uh, the most common answer was making the decision to do it in the first place, you know?
And so when I talk to people now, and I wonder if this is your experience as well, I have never felt more alive in my life. Uh, than when I decided to take ownership of my entire career and job, and, you know, like, and that point lands right on me. Sometimes it's super scary and overwhelming, but you know what?
We figure it out. We make it work. Uh, and I'm grateful that we're in an environment where, um, we do have opportunities in the United States, where if I needed to, I could probably go get a job, and I could do the skills interest overlap and maybe not have the values connection for a little while 'cause I need to survive, you know, but I really wanna try to thrive.
Kristiana Corona:
It's interesting that as you talk about that process, because I felt like I left the corporate environment kicking and screaming. Like, I didn't wanna... I did not think that this was where I was going to land, to be honest. I really liked the rhythm of it. I really liked kind of the certainty of how things work, knowing the system, how the system works.
There's a sense of mastery in understanding how the system works and then being able to work within that, right? And helping other people work within that, and building amazing teams, and getting to work on really incredible projects around the globe. Like, there's just something really great when it's working, until it's not.
And then, you know, for me, it was much more about I keep having these things in life that are turning up the volume and pulling me in a different direction, and every time I kind of face that with resistance, and I think, "Oh, no, I can figure it out. I'm just gonna keep going forward," it's like it just kept tugging at me over and over again and pl- you know, turning up the volume a little bit louder, a little bit louder, a little bit louder until it's like okay, I'm clearly not getting the message here.
Like, I need to make a, a pretty radical change, and I don't necessarily feel ready for that. Like, yes, am I a saver? Yes, am I a safety net person? Absolutely. But it wasn't necessarily in my big design or in my plan for life, this is how it's gonna go. Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches of what you're given and make the best decision you can, right?
And that's kind of where I ended up. And so it's interesting kind of entering that from a standpoint of I probably could have stayed in the corporate world for 10, 20 more years easily and felt like that was a natural path for me. But now that I'm here, working on fully owning that and saying, "Well, if this is the life that I'm supposed to lead, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the best job I can," you know?
I'm gonna meet all of these people. I'm gonna take advantage of the flexibility and the fact that now I can lean into that. Like, in the blue zones, they talk about the ikigai, right? The purpose in Japan, and we do those exercises with people because a lot of times you aren't aware of what is it that you love that the world needs that you also get paid for, all of those dimensions of what it looks like.
And so I'm still figuring that out too as we're going through that, but we can go through that together. And so it's allowing me to live that experience with other people now fully without the distraction, without the noise, without the constant tug of, "Am I meant to be here or not?" Like, I'm meant to be here right now, so what are we gonna do with this time?
Laurie Hill:
It's a new level of certainty in that sense. You know? I totally agree with you. I think there's so many layers, right? We try to do the best that we can. We try to, you know, especially like pretty much zero to 20 and maybe even 20 to 30, like, oh, I should and then I do and then I accomplish and then the next step and...
That's critical because in our formative years and our formation of, like, who we are as a person, developing a strong work ethic, uh, developing an understanding of ourselves, we're really not successful at anything we do if we don't have both of those. So grateful for all of that. And when we begin to realize that, uh, you know, the army came out with that term VUCA, the VUCA environment.
It's volatile, it's uncertain, it's, um, what is it? Constant change and ambiguous. You know, this VUCA, it was essentially a risk mitigation strategy that the US military was like, "This is what's happening." And I think it was in the '80s they came out with that, but I think most people can resonate with that now.
Like, oh my, stop with the constant change. It's not gonna stop. To be alive is to be in a constant state of change. Our cells are literally re- replenishing. We have a whole new body pretty regularly. How do we find our calm and our center and our certainty, if you will, amidst the chaos, amidst the constant change?
And I think that's what coaches help with. Coaches help us to see that. In the all-knowing Facebook, I just read a quote a couple days ago and it said, "The butterfly can't see its own wings." Some biologists might be like, "Hey, yeah, it can." I don't know. But the butterfly can't see its own wings. It can't appreciate the beauty of- Mm
what it looks like, you know? And certainly, the backside of the wings, I'm sure the butterfly can't see those. Like, I'm thinking of that beautiful, brilliant blue one. You know the luna, huh?
Yes. Oh. It can't see its own wings. Everyone else can see that. Yeah. And j- you know, I just feel like that becomes our journey after a while is to appreciate the things that feel like second nature to me are probably the ones that I can define my whole purpose around.
Mm-hmm. And in some cases, create a business and a lifestyle. Towards coaching isn't a job or a career, it's a... I feel like, for really good coaches, it's a lifestyle. I've changed my life to try to incorporate these things that we are potentially bringing up as topics that may or may not resonate with our clients.
You know, the steering wheel's always in our client's hands, but, uh, I wanna live what I'm speaking, not just speak it.
Kristiana Corona:
There's something really powerful about the fact that you get to focus on that energy every day. When a lot of people, they only get it for an hour or two every couple weeks in spending that time with you or a coach, you get to be in that lifestyle of being in that space all the time, which is really incredible.
It's an incredible opportunity. And I think about all the people out there right now who are dealing with the grief of layoffs and AI potentially taking their jobs, or having to make a really significant shift and losing their identity because their identity was really tied up in a title or a role.
And you had kind of talked a little bit about, like, the five stages of grief, like the tools you use to help people through these massive life changes, through the VUCA of life. And I know you also had mentioned to me another tool that you like to use, which I think you call the lifeline exercise, to help people really see the bigger picture.
Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Laurie Hill:
You are delightful. Thank you so much for bringing up the things that just make my light shine. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So early on, uh, right, we all, we all get these thoughts, we get these ideas, and, um, in my journey, even when I was still at NASA, I remember thinking at one point, gosh, you know, if I could create almost like a graph...
I'm such a recovering engineer. I'm always in recovery. But if I could create something like a graph of, uh, time, certainly on the X axis, and then the Y axis is sort of like, I don't know, just experience maybe. I've, I've had people say maybe that's a level of fulfillment. You know, but to almost be able to, to show, gosh, from birth, you know, when everything is, like, maybe even black and white, and then some grays start to blend in, and then maybe we start to get some colors, and then we get textures, and then we start to get patterns, and then we start to get pictures and shapes and experiences and, um, and then we get these North Star things, like, oh, that's what success is.
That's what I'm gonna go for. Wouldn't that be amazing to graph out our lifeline in that way? And maybe even make an art project of it. So I started researching it. There's a book on... It's called Lifeline Therapy, and I was like, "What is this?" Which is also fascinating, if you get a chance to read it. It, it was not at all what I was thinking it sounds like it, but I still really enjoyed it. Um, but what I think helps leaders And then also helps their teams. But even if we take out, like, the organizational thing, and we don't just say, like, leaders or teams or whatever, sometimes that's an easy way for us to be like, "Oh, I'll spend the time to work on that 'cause it's for work."
It's a little bit more courageous for us to say, "I'll spend the time on that because I think that just sounds fun to do as a human being, and I wanna work on myself." So whatever gets you into it, take a sheet of paper and write out the significant emotional experiences you've had in your life. You know, maybe that's personal, maybe it's professional.
I encourage people to mix it all together. Maybe it's a college graduation. Maybe it was a marriage. Maybe it was a child. Maybe it was a divorce. Uh, maybe it was a death. Maybe it was a move. Maybe it was a career shift. Maybe it was a layoff. Uh, maybe it was starting your own business. Maybe it was, you know, getting the dogs.
I don't know. There's all these things, there's all these things, and sometimes it may not even seem like it was that important, but when we think about it, it hits in our soul so, so powerfully. Write that stuff down. So now you have this list of all these major life experiences, and then try to put them with about when they happened in your life.
And then one final thing, if you use a scale of one to 10, whatever works best for you, what level would you give that with respect to the experience? One being like, "Ouch," 10 being like, "Oh, wow, that was amazing." And then you can create that graph. You can create that lifeline, if you will. And we facilitated that in an organization that I had an opportunity to work with at one of, the largest chemical company in the world.
We facilitated the lifeline activity, and it j- it gets real quiet. You know, of course, we don't ask people to share, um, that with each other 'cause that gets very personal. But everybody kinda hopes that their graph's gonna look like this. You know, like it got better and better and better and better and better and better.
Um, nobody's looks like that. You know? It's this sawtooth. It's just this beautiful, painful thing called life that we experience, and the moments that we are taken to our knees, like when I lost my sister, those are the moments when we rebuild ourselves, and we gain so much more than we ever did in, like, the little jumps along the way.
It's, it's actually, it's necessary, even if I would never wish it, it's necessary for us to get the growth and the learning and the awareness and the self-compassion and understanding that we needed along the way.
Kristiana Corona:
It's interesting that you are connecting the dots between the things that are the worst and the things that are the best because I don't know that we naturally do that as humans.
We think avoid, avoid the worst It must be a mistake or it must... W- why did this happen to me? It shouldn't have happened to me. But what you're saying is there's a correlation there between the worst and the best, and the upswing after, that ability to recover, that ability to grow, and to pull yourself out of whatever that thing was, is the meaning, is the learning, is the thing that you're supposed to be taking away.
Laurie Hill:
It sounds, you know, people are like, "Oh, so you're just telling me to be happy after something really bad happens." No, not at all. Go through it, you know? But that's how we, that's how we build those very, very, very, very, very strong connective tissues, and sometimes slough off the things that used to be very important to us and just aren't anymore.
Uh, especially in coaching, whether it's proactive or reactive, sometimes when people get those aha moments, it's because we've got down that belief system level of, oh, I'm doing this because I feel like it's keeping me safe. But the truth is, it's actually getting in my way of being able to go out and be the person that I feel like I'm supposed to be, which is terrifying and liberating and all these things associated with it.
So yeah, like it's, it's just this whole journey and, and it's our battle wounds, it's our grooves, it's our aches and pains that make it better. I had, um, a wonderful gentleman who used to teach the, um, seminar on leadership at NASA, and he said... He said it in a way I'll always remember. He said, "It often takes a significant emotional experience for us to really see."
And it does, and that's how we learn and grow. And Maya Angelou, you know, "We must forgive ourselves for not knowing what we needed to know before we needed to know it," because the lesson appeared when we have needed it. I don't wanna even say when we were ready, but when we needed it.
Kristiana Corona:
I feel like everyone who is going through one of those periodic moments, you know, needs to be able to sit with someone like you, where you can hold that kind of thing, and you can allow it to unfold the way it's supposed to without judgment, without telling, without directing, "Here is how you get through this appropriately, step one through ten," because everyone creates a different line.
They jump to a different place next. It has a different meaning. And one of the things that I've really resonated most with in coaching is stop interpreting everything as good and bad that's happening to you, and just understand this is information that is telling you something important about what you value or, you know, what you care about, what you wanna spend your time doing, who you wanna spend your time with, the k- type of business you wanna have or be a part of.
Um, maybe, maybe that worst moment, that worst day was actually the best day because it opened your eyes to something that needed to change.
Laurie Hill:
Yep. That's right And our fear often, especially in organizations, of asking that question that we think we might already have the answer to, a- ask it, and then we're not making it up in our heads anymore.
I've noticed so many coaching sessions a lot of times get to this point of, I, I hope this resonates, I am living in the reality as if the thing that I was the most afraid of has already happened because I don't have the courage to actually go get the information. Maybe it's exactly as bad as we thought or as good as we thought, whatever, you know, take the judgment out of it.
Um, but without the information, a lot of times we, we just start to craft this, like, sheltered life. [00:42:00] And, uh, another quote, I have no idea who said it, but I absolutely love it: "Comfort has made more prisons than all the jails combined."
Kristiana Corona:
Ooh, that's a good one.
Laurie Hill:
Yeah. Comfort's great, and Brene Brown, you know, you can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you can't have both.
Beautiful. And I like to add like, well, right now, 'cause right now we're choosing courage. We're doing something we haven't done before. Hopefully, it resonates with a lot of amazing listeners for your podcast. Uh, but tonight about probably 9:30 or so, I'm gonna choose comfort on purpose to recharge my batteries.
But if I stay in comfort, especially out of that belief of am I safe, 'cause I think that's where almost all humans go is am I safe or not? Uh, and sometimes it's very appropriate. Sometimes we are, uh, physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually at that level one on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We all experienced it the year COVID came out, you know.
Gosh, am I gonna die 'cause somebody breathes on me or coughs on me? That took us all down from self-actualizing, but that's not where we're meant to stay. You know? That we're meant to thrive. What do we have? Like a century on the planet maybe if we're lucky, if we're in a blue zone. 100 years. That's it.
Kristiana Corona:
We move to that blue zone- Yeah and we live in our ikigai, and we do art projects with lifelines. Oh. And yeah. Maybe then we can hit 100. Oh, I'd be your neighbor. Do it. I'd bring you baked goods.
Laurie Hill:
That'd be awesome.
Kristiana Corona:
Oh. I, I think that's a great life plan. Uh, let's, let's move forward with that one. Yeah.
Laurie Hill:
Yeah. Um,
Kristiana Corona:
So now you work with organizations, and you do a lot of these different kinds of activities. Like, how does things like the lifeline activity and some of the things that we've talked about relate to the work that you now do? So you've been doing this, like, 15 years now, right?
Laurie Hill:
Yeah. 15... Uh, this year's our 15th year in business. It's amazing how fast that went. Um, so while I was still at NASA working part-time, I started New Horizon Strategies to help leaders get bigger breakthrough fa- throughs faster but to also help the professional world come alive.
Because I felt like too many people were choosing comfort, and we were getting just this epidemic of sleepers out there. You know? And hopefully that doesn't resonate with a lot of your listeners. Hopefully, they're in environments where people are, like, fully alive and really enjoying everything that they do.
But oftentimes organizations, especially that have been in a parent-child culture for too long, are like, "Man, you pretty much told me to not bring my mind to work today, so I'm doing what I was told." Those are awful, and those are kind of soul-sucking. But we want everyone that we work with to experience a shift where they feel like they get to shine their light just a little bit brighter.
Just a little, you know? Because one person, one leader, one team, one company at a time has this massive ripple effect. So we provide coaching, consulting, and facilitation to help leaders get bigger breakthroughs faster, and for individuals to help come alive more on the inside. So a lot of times I think about our services as almost like, it's like putting the structure together, the process, like a food buffet.
Uh, you know, think of your Ch- favorite Chinese restaurant or, you know, any, any restaurant that's got a buffet. I can change out all the different food items in the buffet depending on what the clients bring, you know, as they're driving. But the process to help kind of, like, organize the chaos of growth is what we do at New Horizon Strategies, to help our clients feel just really nurtured along the way so that they can forget about the process and just show up and be completely themselves to get through whatever it is that they're trying to get through together.
Kristiana Corona:
So maybe just to wrap up this particular conversation, if you could leave leaders with, uh, one piece of advice, uh, what would that be?
Laurie Hill:
Thank you so much for this. I, I can already tell I would love to just talk to you. I'm really looking forward to being neighbors in the blue zones. Oh, I can't wait. I think leaders' greatest challenge in this century, now that we're a quarter in to this century, is to be as authentic as possible, and that normally feels very vulnerable, as Brene Brown says.
Also equally courageous, you know, for us to be completely ourselves at work and not always pretend like we have all the answers. Just be authentic. Uh, you know, "Here's my style. Here's what I'm working on. Here are some of the things that I'm worried about. Here's what I really care about." It creates the invitation for everyone else to show up authentically too.
It doesn't mean that people will accept that invitation. You may have to offer that invitation eight times or 80 times, and some people may never walk through that door. Maybe they've just had so much trauma in their past in organizations that they're like, "Absolutely not. I'm gonna show up and do whatever you tell me to do."
So that may be your employee, it may not be your employee, but to show up authentically, if we think about that, what does that really mean? It means I don't have to show up shielded. I don't have to show up guarded. I don't have to show up with, like, a face on. When COVID happened, and we all started working from home, and we started doing this virtual thing, I think that was a huge awakening for people to realize what really mattered to them and what didn't, and it kind of forced us to normalize the human condition.
So everybody got to a point where they were like, "I'm just trying to live. I'm just trying to make this work." I wish they wouldn't have called it the Great Resignation. I wish they would've called it the Great Resonation because it was a chance for all of us to go, "Wow, what really matters to me?" So that's that authenticity of I can't always give everybody everything they want.
The economy of scale means that I do have to put some bureaucracy in place, and I do still have to hold people accountable for things. But if I, if I shut that part down, and I don't tell people they can authentically bring their whole selves to work, then I'm only getting a portion of them, not just because they didn't bring their whole selves to work, but because they're wasting so much energy trying to hide that part of themselves that they feel like they're not supposed to bring.
And then the innovation and the collaboration and the communication and the relationships start to suffer because of it. So be authentic. Be yourself.
Kristiana Corona:
That is beautiful. I just wanna take that soundbite and have it on replay every single day 'cause that's what people need to hear. That's what they need to hear.
So Laurie, if people wanna find you and learn more from you or follow along with your journey, where can they find you?
Laurie Hill:
www.newhorizonstrategies.com That's how you find me. That's how you find us. Uh, we have a team of champions that all bring coaching, consulting, and facilitation to your organization so that we can have a bigger impact. Kristiana, this was so much fun. I feel like we could dance for a lot longer. Thank you so much for being my dance partner.
Kristiana Corona:
Well, thank you for making the time, and it's just been awesome to talk to you today. Thank you.
Laurie Hill:
Thank you, likewise.
Kristiana Corona: I'm so glad you got to meet my friend Lori. Isn't she great? I just love human beings who are authentic, who bring out the best in other people, and Lori is definitely one of those people.
You just feel better after being in conversation with her. So if you enjoyed this conversation and you want to hear more like it, consider subscribing to the Worthy to Lead podcast so you never miss a future episode. You can subscribe at worthytolead.co/subscribe. As always, keep showing up, keep doing the work that matters, and keep leading like you're worthy to lead, because you are. We'll see you next time.
