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Keywords: Emily Elrod, Sheldon Primus, Safety FM, Corporate Culture, Body Chemistry, NLP, Neurolinguistic Programming, Edward Deci, Richard Ryan, Self-Determination Theory, SDT, Abraham Maslow, Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Motivation, WELCOA, Wellness Council of America, B.F. Skinner, ANTs, Automatic Negative Thoughts, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT, Mindfulness, Meditation, Pattern Interrupt, Reframing, Meta-Molding, Serotonin, Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Noradrenaline, Endorphins, Cortisol, Oxytocin, Adrenaline, Estrogen, Progesterone, Neuropeptides, Cytokines, Incentive Programs, Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Celtics, Sports Coaching, Mindset Coaching, Human Performance, Goal Setting, Action Planning, Team Building, Assessments, Continuous Learning, Risk Assessment, Team Dynamics, physiology, psychology, sociology, ChatGPT, AI, AI Ethics, Ethics, Spirituality, Faith-based, Consulting, EHS, BBS, Behavioral Based Safety, Human and Organizational Performance, HOP, Wearable Technology
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This episode is powered by Safety FM.
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Welcome to the Safety Consultant Podcast. I'm your host, Sheldon Primus. It's the podcast where I teach you the business of being a safety consultant. I talk about some OSHA compliance.
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Talk.
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About, a whole.
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Bunch of stuff, safety and health related, even mindset. Also, we spoke about mindfulness. I got a whole bunch of stuff.
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We talked about.
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How to find clients, all that stuff. Come on. All right, let's come on. Thank you. I want to welcome everybody that's been listening to the podcast. Thank you so much. I just noticed something. I got to be honest with you all. I used to say weekly podcast. I don't say that anymore because it's been more biweekly. That's okay because I still want to give you guys some information and you know that I'm still an active consultant and a trainer as well. I am giving you the information as I can and I hope it's valuable enough for you to share with your friends and family and those that are in the safety and health field, even if they're not consultants now, but they're thinking about being a consultant later, just a way to do it. Right now, they're probably the consultant for their safety and health organization. Maybe you're not safety and health organization to probably the consultant for their job. That's probably the way I should say it more often than not, right? Just thank you. Thank you for listening and sharing. I could see some of that in the ranks. Let me tell you about the Apple podcast ranks.
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Today, we've got a wonderful guest. Before we get there, let's thank everybody that's listened to us. Great Britain, you got me at 2:25. Saudi Arabia, I'm 1:13. I'm in the government category, that's me. South Africa, wow. 2:19. Turkey, 14 now. 14, Turkey. You guys rock. I'm like, My goodness, there's like... All of you, rock, for listening to me. Thank you so, so, so much. All right, let's keep going. Chile, I am 77. I am 23. Wow, awesome. Those are the Apple podcast rankings for a charitable. This is where I'm getting the information from. On the charitable ranking, I am, let's give you the good ones, globally, 212 in their reach category, in their government reach category, and 178 in the US. Wow, that is awesome. I'm so glad to be part of that. For those of you that want to hear your specific country, here's my coming from Becast. It says, US is the top listeners, followed by France, Thailand, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, Bahrain, UK, Germany, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, Austria, Malaysia, Italy, Belgium, Chesneya, Cambodia, Kenya, Australia, Saudi, Arabia, Korea, Hungary, Qatar, Hong Kong, Algeria, Rwanda, China, New Zealand, UAE, Uganda, Greece, Norway, Japan, Egypt, Sweden, Taiwan, Israel.
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It looks like I've got one more there. Where was that? Mauritania. I probably butchered that in my bad people. But thank you so much, everybody, for listening. You guys truly, truly, truly make the show go around. I am so, so grateful. Thank you so much for everyone. I'm not trying to work my board, but goodness, I can't figure out anything. Here we go. Thank you.
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All right.
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In this episode, I've got a remarkable episode lined up for you. In this episode, it's a long one because you guys really need to hear this one. We just delve into a fascinating journey of a multi-talented individual who brings a unique blend of engineering, physiology, psychology, and a profound passion for safety consulting in the Forefront. Not really, it's client relationship is probably the better way to say it. But I will introduce you guys to Emily Elrod. Her story is just nothing short of inspiring. She shares her experience over younger years working alongside her father in the field of engineering, who gave her her job in engineering and the title really, really young, which is amazing. It touched me because I got a close relationship with my daughter and my son as well. But I'm one of those, I guess I think they call it like a girl dad or something like that. But me and my daughter got a great relationship and she's actually helping me out with my business. That's why it touched me even more because she's my virtual assistant. I loved hearing her story and her relationship with her father. It just blessed my dad hard.
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As you hear it, you're going to see as her journey, she earned her degree in physiology, and she really got truly deepened the approach of how to do human performance better.
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She's really.
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Incredible as you listen to her. But hold on, that's not all. She also imparts some of these invaluable tips for building trust and just faith in your business as your clients feel like they could trust you, have faith to put their people into your hands and you could help mold their people. Then also she talks about using technology such as ChatGPT.
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Which I gave.
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You guys a couple of episodes on already. We geeked out on that one, talked a little bit on how to use it with integrity and use it as a tool. That's really what we were talking about. If you're a seasoned safety consultant looking to expand your horizon or you're just someone starting the safety journey, you will just definitely enjoy listening to Emily Elrod. Great inspiration and she's enlightened and empowered and she passes that to her people in very unique ways. You're going to hear about her faith, which is a strong rudder to guiding her career. And she gives a lot of faith, just a message as you're listening to her. That's important. You guys heard me talk about that before. It doesn't have to be religious. It's just what your belief system is. You really want to incorporate some of that into your job, especially since we're doing safety and health, right? Because with safety and health, we actually are doing something that we're nurturing individuals. We're helping them stay safe. We're giving them and their families the gift of keeping them safe so that they could pass on not only their knowledge and experience, but then also the love that they have for their family would still be there because their presence will still be there in the entirety of who that being is.
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All right, that's me enough quantificating.
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Let's go ahead.
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And let's start the episode and you guys will get a chance to listen to Emily L. Rodd from Workspee.
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Ms. Emily L. Rodd on the show. I'm so happy that we are connected and going to have you here telling us about your wonderful business and what you do. Since my audience is mostly people who are in the consulting field, we wanted to hear about your what's in the special sauce.
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Love it. I'm excited about it.
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Yeah. You've got so many awards and just the stuff that you do. Your client list is ridiculous, and.
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That.
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Is so awesome. So tell us how it got started.
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I have a weird background. I actually was an engineer and I design. I did not go to school for it, what I always prefaced. My dad invented a lot of the stuff that makes carpet. And so at age six, I was working at his company. And then from there, I was auto-cadding by 13, 14, and then building out RES systems from there. And then just kept growing and loving. I loved it, but my dad was smart and he told me one day. He goes, Emily, you're really good at what you do, but you're not in love with it. And he's like, go do what you love. And I have a master's in physiology. So at the time, I was an ergonomical engineer, meaning that I would help design a lot of the stuff with health in mind and making sure lifting and secondary injuries and working on that as well within the design process. And so I went back or I quit that job as a VP and took a secretary job to work my way up to be a wellness coordinator to do wellness programming. And from there, I just kept going up the ranks.
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And I'm a person of faith. So I will say I have to put a major caveat into all that. And so each year God gives me a word, and he gave me the word patience. This particular year, whenever it was like I was so frustrated. I just found like it was for every so many people I found a million dollar savings. It was like 310 people. I found a million dollar savings. And so in total, it was like a four to five million dollar savings. I'm like, okay, can we use this? It was just like this barrier after barrier after barrier. I'm like, okay, this is so many barriers being in the corporate world. I want to see what I can do differently. God finally gave me the word go. I went to the CEO and COO, and I was like, hey, I'm going to start my own business. I'm going to do what I'm doing here. I want you to be my first client, and I'm going to take... I actually had a Fortune 500 that I brought in to that company, and I was like, I'm going to take them with me. And both of them were like, You're going to do great.
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Go do it. Oh, wow. And I'm like, Huh. That's what I always say. It's like it's only God thing for me. And that's what I did. That's how I started my business is in the wellness space and really looking at the design. One of the leading things that drives me is that work is a fifth leading cause of death, and that should not happen. And the stress and the strains and all this stuff that happens because of people going to work. Just getting to watch that whenever we were, me and my team, we were running a chronic care facility as well. Just watching that just was... It was hard. And so basically, I still do engineering, but I engineer environments, understanding how humans are designed. I have a team that helps me with organizational psychologist, psychotherapist, and then I do a lot of the physiology and the process side of it.
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Wow. Hey, the thought came to me since your background is what it is. What's your relationship with wearable technology for people? Because you've got the physiology side. I hope you said that right? Then you've got the side with the actual going through and thinking about how the performance side of people are. Do they go hand in hand for you or do they give you like a mixed feeling?
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No. So wearable technology I'm big on, like whoop is my number one. If I'm going to put it on my athletes or if I'm going to put it on my coaches or even anybody that I specifically coach as well, my executives, I like to see that. But moreover, I do like to train people so that they don't have to use technology as well. There's a common thing where people say control the controllables. And if you actually knew how difficult it was to control things, physiologically, it's really hard. So if you see a train wreck, control your breathing. Yeah, right. Those are the things like, sometimes we don't know what's happening. So example, I had one of my D1 coaches, he's like, I just can't get my heart rate down. It was stress, it was stress induced. He's like, I don't know what. And I had to teach him a reset. But we learned it from his whoop that his heart rate variability was it kept staying up. And so those are some of the things they can be very beneficial, especially if you don't know why or you just you feel off and you can't see it.
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You can explore back through the wearables. So yeah, big fan. But as long as you don't get, I say tech is a resource, not the source, as long as you don't get addicted to it or stuck with it. If it can die and you can still live with it being dead and it's not like an attachment to you, then it's okay.
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Yeah, that's a great answer because I wasn't sure because I know with a performance, sometimes the idea isn't to be like you're just seeing a crutch with the technology, but it's data. You're getting data. You got to work with all the training that you're given so you know exactly how to set this one client in the right way because everyone's going to be different, right?
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Yep.
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Exactly. The other thing that I was thinking in this, this may be a way off base, but if you're going to go through the performance side and you're going to have to tell that one person you see the heart rate spike, are you teaching them a form of meditation? Are you teaching them mindfulness? What do you... So that they're aware. Well, how do you get that wording into a business setting?
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It depends on what it is. If I'm overthinking, I got to figure out if they're overthinking or overdoing and in between. A thought leads to a feeling, which over times will be an action or action, and then over time will become a habit. So thought, feeling, action, habit. We always will have the feeling. So if they're overreacting and they just can't get the form no matter what, I have them do a thought reset. So feel the feeling, then get to the thought reset so that we can reset the cycle. If they are overthinking, I have them do an action reset. So in this case, this guy kept overthinking and he was stuck in his head. And so there's two... Thanks for him. I had him look at a billboard. Just reset, look at the billboard. And so some of the other ones while he was coaching, the other ones like I'll teach to athletes, touch your shoe. Whatever it is that you have, you decide on what works for you and just try it. But that's the biggest thing what the crutch people will do is if they're over thinking, if I'm thinking, man, I can't do this.
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I'm awful. Then I say like, I got this. I can do this all. Your brain will then be like, no, I can't. I can't do this. I have to get them out of their head and into their body versus independent. That's how we put it back and forth is to have the resets.
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It sounds to me like neurolinguistic programming, like a form of NLP.
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Basically.
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Okay. You do something to deviate them from their state so that you could get them anchored with another reality, if you would, to get them to stop their story that they've been telling themselves over and over again. Then from there, that new anchor could lead to an awareness and then the action will go to a different behavior.
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Yep, and it's what we say it's well within Basebots, it's home state before home plate. Before you step up to home play or before you throw over a home plate pitcher or hitter, where are you at? And it's really on just like knowing yourself and having that awareness because I always tell the story of one of my best friends in college who was a D1 athlete. He was a D1 athlete and he was pitching. Then he had a girlfriend, but he also had a chick on the side and they sat near each other and his performance was not good.
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I can imagine.
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Those are the things that we talk about. A lot of people think sleep, food, mood and movement, those matter. But what is in the environment that is really impacting you? Hopefully people do not have side chicks. I even hate to say it like that, but have another woman that is something like that. But what do you have in the stands? What is in proverbial, even at work, if you have that one human that you cannot stand, that is over your shoulder, you got to work next to them? How does that impact your environment? Those are the things that we look at. It's like what looks and can really make you go off of that performance that you want to. And we know that what we say is sleep, food, mood and movement is protective factors for environment because we know that environment has a 70 % impact on our overall wellbeing and our performance.
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Wow. And I noticed that you started your thoughts, feelings, and then that becomes your actions. Is there trigger before thoughts? Or is it just in your experience have you seen like a trigger leads to a thought, leads to a behavior?
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Well, what we talk about is that thoughts are we omits thoughts. It's images or it's emotions. It's an acronym. Emotions, memories, images, thoughts, sensations. So that is what a thought is. So it's one of those. I'm a weird human, and I didn't know about this until probably two years ago or three years ago, and it's escaping me what it's called. But I can't see pictures in my brain, so I don't have images. And so I always ask whenever I do these things, or even you, Sheldon, Can you see an apple in your brain? Right now? Okay, can you spin the apple and do all what normal? You can probably see it. It's a color. I can't do that.
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Yeah, give it color, taste, everything.
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I got nothing. And so the first time whenever I found that out, I was reading a book. It was on acceptance and commitment theory. They were talking about that is like, if your person can't see images, make sure you do this. That's the reason why I don't do mindfulness stuff because I, the whole time, just thought people were like, woo-hoo. It never worked for me. I didn't know why. Then I called my mom and I was like, Mom, can you see an apple in your brain? She's like, What are you talking about? I'm like, Can you see an apple in your brain? She's like, No, Emily, we can't do this. I'm like, I don't know. Then I asked my husband at the time, he's my ex now. I was like, Can you see an apple? Can you spin an apple? He's like, Yes, Emily, everybody can do this. I'm like, Okay, I can't do it. Mama can't do it. Those are some of the things that we teach a lot about is neurodiversity. So whenever I'm training, I also have dyslexia, what's like dyslexia, where things will get switched back and forth on me. And so it's like in performance too.
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What are the other environmental factors or what are the things that we don't know about? And just uncovering these cool learnings about how and why we do what we do and how it all impacts and plays into our story.
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So does that lead to... I know in reading some of the things that I saw about your theories, you've got the self-determination theory. I teach people a lot on Maslow. In the early form of this, when you're just thinking about someone's needs got to get met, and before they could even have the brain space for something else, then they're seeking that, they have to get it, it's a need. Then with self-determination, as I'm understanding it, it's more of you're focusing on the intrinsic, trying to get the intrinsic motivation. Not like the BF Skinner version where you're trying to reward and all that, but it seems like you're trying to get an environment where the person gets the intrinsic motivation by creating the right environment for them. Is that safe to say or is there more to this?
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There's more to that. We call it the CAR method. It's Comxy Autonomy Relatedness. Here's the irony of it, is that it is very hard to be intrinsically motivated. This is something that somebody rocked my brain with whenever I did a Y Summit last year. That was his whole thing is like to really get intrinsically motivated. That means that it is only about you. It has no... Even me doing a good job, still saying this podcast, I'm intrinsically motivated in theory to do a good job for this. But actually, there's extrinsic because I want to do good for you and I want it to show out for your audience. So it's not just me. So to have true intrinsic is very difficult. There's always that actual extrinsic factor that comes in. Watching Hallmark movies is the most intrinsic thing that I can do. I don't give a care in the world anybody thinks. That's me. That's just where I'm at. That's pure bliss on mine. With in regards to the self-determination theory, it is curating the environment where there's competency. You know what you need to know. Autonomy, you have the freedom of choice to do it, and then it's relatable to you.
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We call it the card of success because the acronym that goes with it, so CAR. Whenever we design environments, those are the things that we focus on. These are what we say is the basic human needs. They want to have knowledge, they want to have autonomy. Then the related is a lot around belonging. It connects in with four major chemicals that all of our stuff is engineered and designed around. The two that I think will probably hit with your audience the most is, we call it the safety cop of the body, serotonin. A lot of people think it's produced in the brain, but actually 90 % of it's in your gut. And so we talk about gut reactions. Having knowledge of when do you have gut reactions? When is your body doing things? And then the other one is oxytocin, which is if anybody that listens is a female that had to be induced or they saw their partner be induced, that is pertosisin, is artificial oxytocin. And it's for our bodies to create belonging, but it's also for our bodies whenever we have babies, that we actually love our children and we don't reject them.
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That's what skin to skin contact is. There's other ways that we teach people on how to put oxytocin in your environment. High fives, handshakes. It was fun during COVID to do that one. I had to do handwritten notes is another one that will release as well, or vulnerable conversations. Those are the things that will allow us to have that relatedness, is that safety and that trust and that love. That's what oxytocin and serotonin do together. I wish it was like this simple thing, but there's a lot of, why does our bodies do what they do? It's because of these chemicals. What I always explain out is like, you wouldn't get in a car and not understand the basics of how it runs. I hope people don't do that. I also had a dad that I grew up rebuilding cars with him. I have a love for it. That's awesome.
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Within regards- You're getting customer at the moment.
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Love it. It's my engineering happiness. I wouldn't get in a car and not know how it runs. I wouldn't get in a car and not want to know what a gas mileage is. I wouldn't want to know if things ring something that's going to go wrong with it. I want to know it's right to get in. That's what I also want people to know with their bodies. Do you know, and then also the environment. Do you know what the speed limit is? Do you know what will be healthy for you? There's a lot of factors that come into it, and it's cool. It's just nerdy on understanding why, does your... Why do you do what you do? But then also, whenever I put you in a group, group effect is so big. Why is it some people like they want to do good or they want to do things, but then they just can't sometimes? And so what are those factors that are impacting it? Yeah.
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Awesome. So what I'm hearing is the traditional safety and health reward system and punishment system is triggering a whole bunch of dopamine and cortisol. You switch everybody to serotonin and oxytocin.
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Amen, brother. That is actually it. If you want to get nerdy all day, that is what we do. I actually call the dopamine the teenage cheerleader of the body. I even actually just wrote something not too long ago, we haven't posted it yet, but it was on dopamine. I'm sick of recognition and rewards. We're like, these are dopamine quick hits. What we talk about is like, if you get to oxytocin, think about somebody that you love and care for. I don't need to be constantly validated by them because I'm secure and I know where that is. I know that I'm loved. I know where I'm at. But they do do things to then validate me and to let me know the good, bad and ugly of what I do in life and to hold me accountable. And so that's the part that we get, is that psychological safety. We know its impact. And those are the things I switch from because one of the biggest things that first time I pissed off some safety people was whenever there's that thing called stop and think. I hate it with a passion because what I talk about is like, you can stop, but you literally cannot think.
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Cortisone in our brain, like cortisol, shuts off our learning centers of our brain. So you literally can't think. If a bear is coming at me, I don't want to think or I put it in sports. If a baseball is flying at me at 100 miles an hour, I don't want to think. I'm going on baseline habits. And so a lot of things that we talk about is what are your baseline habits? How do you get reps in the roles? How do you get to practice this stuff in a uncomfortable, we say we want you to stay between nausea and excitement, but in a safe enough environment that you can fail and it won't kill anybody. And so those are the things that we do a lot around our work, is finding what stresses people out, creating systems around it, building things out from it. But then also just really looking at how can we build that psychological safety? How do we grow people and keep it sustainable too? Because I guess one other thing that I always say with the work that I do, all of our contracts at minimum are 18 months. Good plan.
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Why do we do that? Because it takes about nine months just to build connection with people. And what we're seeing in the world that we're in right now is that people are just not connected. I've got to know where all the ugliness is hidden in these groups. I need to know the good, bad and ugly, and they have to trust me. It's nine months of building trust, nine months of really then just teaching them how do they create these habits once I get that done. Those are some of the big things that within our processes that we do that's a... You want to talk about that secret sauce from the beginning. That's one of our secret sauce. All right.
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Good. So secret sauce for Worker's B. How's that? Do they do it?
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Nope, it's Work's B. Credit my eight year old child named my company. It was actually after I'd been named top 10 in the nation at what I do, specifically within wellness programming. And we were talking about Pokemon and other things, and then we got onto life about like, Mama, you're always working. And he's like, What if you could be a human worker or a human being and not a human always working? I'm like, Damn it, kid. I hate whenever they give you the those profound things. And then we just talked about, Okay, so what would that look like? If I had a company, what would that be? And he's like, and he said it's a works thing. And we were going to take like, We're going to take like you can be a human worker, but you can be a human being. And that's why the Z goes back and forth. So we take human workers in that space, we teach them how to be human beings, but human beings actually want to work and they want to have purpose. And so I believe everybody has a purpose on this Earth. And it's not just to sit and twiddle thumbs that they actually, but we have to design environments for them to see that and to breathe life and put joy in them.
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Wow. Do you know the whole time I've been saying works be, and then I was like, It's got to be something that's more catchy and tricky and I'm missing it. I overthink that. The whole thing I overthink it. It's all good. Wow. And we've done the coaching. I overthink.
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There we go. I'll tell you, most people just call me Wise. Our acronym for the stuff that we do is WISE. It's Well, Intelligent, Safe, and Empowered. That's the four main areas that we look at within our work models. It's just work-wise. I'm like, okay, I'll just take it. I just renamed myself.
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Whenever I coach people starting their safety consulting business, I always tell them you got to start with a good name. What I usually say is that you got to get the name and it has to be some... It's easier if it's recognizable to people that are going to be potential clients. That's usually what I coached them on. Then I've been challenged on that lately, just personally, just thinking about it as you could always brand, and you do some amazing branding. I mean, amazing. What's like? Long-form messages you add and include the family, because I love the one you did a post a little while ago with your chickens that weren't laying the eggs in the right place, and your daughter was picking them up and she gave you all the eggs, and you gave an idea of if it was traditional safety, you punished a chicken and it's a good producer. Why do you want to do that? I love the way that you incorporate the things that you do in your messaging. The long form, I think I might switch some of that. How would you coach somebody who's getting into consulting and they have to be a marketer, they have to be a web designer, social media expert, all this stuff.
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That's secret sauce? Tell me about that.
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First thought that's coming in my brain is progression, not perfection, and then just no regressions coming in there. Within this is like the first time I started doing social media. I was like, Oh, it's got to be perfect. It's like I can't post if it's not. Now I've done it so much. It's funny too. A lot of my stuff, I want to be efficient with my time, so I use a thing called Recur Post. This is my secret sauce. I tell everybody in the background. Within regard to Recur Post, what it is it will redo my content because the content I have is what I found is usually ahead by like three years. And so what I do is I'll post it one time and it gets nothing. I repost it another year and it gets something. And the next year it's like, bam, it flew out of. So it's just interesting on that content aspect of it. But within regards to whatever you post, my intention of posting is for my children, to be honest. And so if I die today, my kids will see my thought patterns. That is the reason I post this stuff too.
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It is so works to me. So mission statement is to create a space for accountability, connection and life impacting results, not from here now, but for seven generations to come. And so I want my kids to know at a young age they've been a part of the story. But then also if it connects to me, it may connect to somebody else. I just pray that it goes at the right time for the right person. And so that's what I would say within writing things out, just see if it hits your soul. If it doesn't, tell a story. Stories stick. I was taught this. If you even take Jesus out of it, who has the most followers all time. And how did he get to his messaging? And what he did is he told stories. And so that's my method of it is just, hey, I'm just going to tell stories. And then I'm going to do a random connect here or there. And once you get in the habit of it, it's just been great. It's been really fun to see my kids. They love it. They think it's cool that they get posted about and whatnot.
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Yeah, I bet you those pitchers, they probably are looking at them saying, Hey, that's me, mom, look.
[00:36:51.350]
Yep, they absolutely love it. And I'll tell you something I started doing lately too is sometimes you can overthink post. I use ChatGPT on a lot of my posts now. So what I'll do is I'll tell the whole story, blessed chat, GPT's heart. I will say that AI feature is the best thing.
[00:37:10.060]
That is so southern right there.
[00:37:11.760]
That.
[00:37:12.590]
Is the most southern thing I've heard. I love it. Just blessed.
[00:37:16.560]
Chat, GPT's heart. We're blessing its heart here because what it is, is like I'll be like, okay, I have a picture of a goat, and I want to use this goat, connect it back to following and connect it in with a self-determination theory and add in I want to talk about centralize down our reliability within the goat. And it helps me. It just really helps me. And I'm like, write it for LinkedIn content and then add practical steps, and then I'll add my stuff in it. But it gives me a good template to be able to not overthink. And so that's the other thing I love about Recur Post is what I will do is I can make content. I will one day I sit about, I'm getting more condition to do it, but probably about once a quarter. It was about twice a year I was doing it. I'll just pump out 30 to 40 posts. I'll just go through all my pictures and I'll write. I'll spend two days and I'll just mark them all out while I'm in a major flow state. You don't have to... Don't think that you got to...
[00:38:31.460]
It's good to post every day, but I use recurpost. That's what I do. That makes my time and I'm more efficient to that. I can sit down and just knock it all out. But whatever works for you. That's just what I tell people experiment, figure out. There's no right answer and there's no magic formula. You're going to get pissed at LinkedIn because if you post on there because the algorithm changes all the time. That's the reason I don't do it for the post. I don't do it for the likes. That's actuallythe oxygen, or that's dopamine. That is what dopamine is not the reward, it's the pursuit of the reward. And so it's that pursuing those likes and those hits and all those things. That's not me. But doing it for my kids, not that's long-lasting. And that's oxygen.
[00:39:17.080]
That's.
[00:39:17.410]
Long-lasting.
[00:39:18.170]
Wow. Well, let me first thank you about the ChatGPT, because right now everybody's truly thinking about ethics on end. And literally last week I taught my management students, I said, I use it. I showed them, we actually had an essay that they needed to do to create their own integrated disability management system, and then was also to create an incentive program. I said, All right, you're going to do it here. I showed them my screen and I said, I'm going to do the same thing with ChatGPT, and I have to train it like you always have to do and tell it you're the expert in this. Then you start your conversation so that just hitting the one thing that you want at the end, you want to build it. I ended up coming up with almost the exact same thing that they had. Obviously, you don't want to just blindly post this stuff, guys, so everybody listening to this, stop it. Don't think that. Stop it. Right now, you don't want to blindly post that stuff. That stuff is just to spark a memory or to spark some interest. Then you still have to do your research and you still have to get things right and clean it up.
[00:40:31.370]
But the output that they give you is really valuable. The way that they format things and bullet points and numbers and all that, that's the value.
[00:40:40.970]
Yeah, it's the template. It gives you a template, so you don't have to overthink it. That's a lot of the time as people just getting started. It's beautiful. It's freaky. I would tell you it's freaky too. That's the only other word I have for it. When people were like... And it knows my language and it knows how I speak, and I've curated it to do that. But it does great work. It really is a very good system to be able to expedite and be more effective and efficient. Again, it is a resource, it's not the source. So if you do not put your brain into it, it's useless. I see that sometimes on LinkedIn. Basically, how you know if it's done, ChatGPT is typically there is like a Moticon or emoji, and then it has like a line and then it has another emoji. That's how I've learned to now find and say, I use ChatGPT, you use it da da da. There's some things- Yeah, I do too.
[00:41:44.190]
Yeah, I do too. And I haven't been doing posting with it as much. I'm going to. And there's just so many talk about the ethic of it. And that's why, unapologetically, as you like to say with some other stuff, you unapologetically actually put it out there, which is wonderful because I was telling my students the same thing. If you are going to use this as your knowledge base and you're going to put where you yourself are the words that are coming from it, that's unethical. Yes. But if you're adding or you're using this to start a conversation or you're using it for formatting, and it's still your material from formatting and all the other stuff that you're adding to it, then that's a resource.
[00:42:31.140]
Exactly.
[00:42:31.740]
Am I getting it right? Okay, it sounds like it's required.
[00:42:35.550]
Yeah, you're definitely. It makes me think of my son. He's a bless your heart sometimes too. And that the fact is this kid, in first grade, he was doing fifth grade math. This kid is stupid smart. It's a blessing and a curse to raise a nerdy kid. I'm nerdy, but this kid is like nerd level, times a million. Next level nerd. Next level nerd. He is a next level nerd. That is true. I should get him a shirt that says that now. I'm writing that down because he will love that. Write it down.
[00:43:12.760]
That's a Christmas gift right there. Next level nerd. That is.
[00:43:19.040]
But within regards to him, he got in trouble this year because he had Grammarly on his computer, and he was supposed to write something, and he typed the first sentence in. The teacher saw that first sentence, and then she went around the room and then came back. He had a five-paragraph essay. Come to find out, he used AI from Grammarly, and he got in trouble and they actually removed Grammarly from all the computers from the middle school after he did this. But that's the thing that I told him. I was like, buddy. I was like, one, you can't. Let's be smart with all this stuff. It's obvious. But two, it's a template. You need to use it as a template and telling the difference is if I'm just using it to... And that's the thing is what's the purpose of it? Is it to get things done and just to check a box? Or is it to give something that is actually yours, authentic and can be a nerdy resource, really, on top of it? That just triggered in my brain about my kid. Again, he's a bless your heart on that one. But that's whenever I talk about ChatGPT or any of the AIs, you can't use it to cheat, but it is a cheat code, and there's two different things.
[00:44:41.300]
Yeah, I completely agree I'm on there. I don't know, maybe we should start at Ethics for Safety and EH and as people get a joint blog or something going because honestly, I think it's a valuable resource. I actually used it to see, I said, What are the hazards? I'm a compliance guy. You're on the other side where I hand them off usually to do someone whose performance, and I do performance as well. But generally speaking, insurance companies and other entities call me for compliance. I always tell them, You got to start with compliance just so you get legally okay. But this isn't where you want to end. You got to go beyond compliance for your organization to be healthy. It's not just safety and health because literally, I believe you shouldn't have safety culture, organizational culture. There's no need for those two things to be separated. It has to be one. I know that's the next level. I usually start out with the compliance-minded people. Honestly, I've put in what is the hazards of oil and gas extraction. I wanted to see what it said. Honestly, I picked just about everything. I added stuff to it, and I went back and checked to make sure everything was right.
[00:46:03.970]
But honestly, I believe that it's a start that that genie is out of the bottle and we got to embrace it.
[00:46:11.140]
Oh, yeah. And the first person that taught me about it was Evan, I'm pierce with the Boston Celtics. And he came from Apple and went over and he's like, Sorry, are you using ChatGPT? I'm like, Not yet. This is probably what, beginning of the year and I'm like, Okay, I'm doing it. Then I was like, I'd tell him like, You're right. Any other ideas that you have due early? Give them to me.
[00:46:40.840]
When.
[00:46:42.940]
You know you have the right people that already have did all the, found the top tech. I'm like, Okay, tell me. I'm all ears now.
[00:46:53.520]
Yeah, absolutely. Now tell me something. I know you've got this exhausted list of clients we love it, and my listeners are going to be feeling, How do I get the next big client or what will make them attracted to me? I know the way that you do business is definitely different than what most people are taught in textbook. Again, going for the secret sauce analogy, what would be some of the tips you would give someone who they're getting clients piecemeal, either safety or, as you say, just business as well, just owning your own business? What would you say as far as your mindset as to gaining clients?
[00:47:43.170]
Again, going back to faith. I actually talked to my coworker the other day on this, and at year five, I am now like, God's going to give it to me. That's just how it's been. Why do I say that too? I've had stories where after the pandemic hit, I thought I was going to lose everything. Then I had a client. Well, she wasn't a client at the time. I actually hadn't talked to her in months. She came to me and she's like, God told me to give you this, and she gave me a check for $800. She goes, I'm going to continue to pay you $800. I just know I need to do this. It was like she had no clue I had been praying for this. That was the exact amount of money that I needed to continue my business to not go to debt. That was the early thing that starting my business. I know that it's only but God's story and then continuing into this. I have to say, from the very get go, My secret sauce is my faith and my Lord. It's crazy. It is absolutely ridiculous. The rooms I get in and I don't even know how.
[00:48:54.590]
That is my secret sauce. The other thing that I will say is my dad taught me very young how you care for your people will be reflected in your bank account. I just love on my people, and I care and I'm not sure I do the oxytocin, serotonin. Just double down on those things and have that integrity. Whatever I'm teaching to other people, I'm actually learning it first. As soon as I learn something, I've learned to make systems. We either make a worksheet, we somehow incorporate it into our own design, like to experiment it out to see is this true, is this not? A big thing that we say is that we're not like, I can't stand the thing being like minded. I want to be like hearted. After having the thing where people don't see my brain. I'm like, we're not like minded because literally there's only like 3 % of the world that could do what I do and is my mom and come to find out it's hereditary. Those little things are like the big caveats that I will say that impact me business wise. Mine is just being in obedience. This week I'm going to California.
[00:50:11.620]
I don't know why. I just know it's in obedience and showing up. Even if nothing good comes from it, it's just staying in obedience. Then one big thing that I don't think is ever taught is when you're low, like I say, when you're low so. Whenever I am at a point, I've been going through an absolutely nasty divorce this year. It's been an awful year, to be honest. Within regards to that, I am double-downing on mentoring people. I am double-downing on giving back. I'm double-downing on joy and creating oxytocin moments. I'm double-downing on that. It's one, it helps just like I'm a farmer. I have goats, I have cattle, but then also just general farming. It's like whenever you plant a seed, you don't get the crop that day. That's just what I am, is just planting seeds. That's what you have to understand in consulting too. It usually takes. It can take 2-3 years to curate clients. You just have to- I can't say. Yeah, I've not seen it do any less than that. I really have not. You got to build it now and just understand, just cultivate it. Each quarter, I reach out to a select amount of people that I just want to keep in my network and whatnot and just say, hey, check in.
[00:51:32.780]
And it's one, yes, it's cultivating that crop, but it's also just to be like, hey, I care about you as a human. And the other thing is I've made more money off of chickens and bees. And what I mean by that? Whenever I talk safety talks or I go out, I just be real and authentic. I don't talk about my client base. I don't talk about all this stuff because it looks fake and phony at first. And it's like Itry to make sure you're too weird. You're not real enough. If I'm like, Oh, I work with the parrots and I do all this stuff with Fortune 500. Okay, but- It's not real. It's not real. But I tell you I got goats and they come in my meetings. They're still not real, but they're like, is that real? They'll actually ask and question that. I'm like, here's a picture. They're like, oh, my gosh, you have goats. I'm like, yes, I do. I just love I love to be outside. That is also to bring it back to that car method. Use that, that relatedness. Find what's relatable to the people. What we talk about is secret sauce is find out who you don't want your clients to be.
[00:52:45.790]
That's the number one thing for you, for anybody. I say is like, you got to know who you don't want. I have a no asshole policy. I learned that. Absolutely. Year one, I had somebody pay me bank and it was beautiful, but they were assholes and assholes. It's like now I'm so picky on my clients. I just am. I've learned I had to do that to keep my people too. My dad taught me that. My dad, he was very fire-friendly with business. He's like, If they treat my people bad, he'll fire them away. I'm like, Dad, but that's like half a million dollar project. He's like, I don't care. He's like, It's not worth it. I'm like, Damn. Dad. That's what I learned. I learned very quickly from that and having him as a great guide and mentor be like, Emily, you don't want that. It's not worth the stress. He's right. If you're a new consultant, I know there's this thing, feast, famine, famine. One, if you're a person of faith, lean into that faith and that prosperity mindset. If this is what you're supposed to do, it will happen. Just keep doingJust keep doing the small, disciplined efforts and it will come.
[00:54:04.490]
Even if you're not a person of faith, keep doing the small, disciplined effort. What do I do on most days is I make sure I start my day with focusing on my health and my wellbeing. I got to set myself up for success. I have literally a workbook that says write it out and make it plain. I look at it and it has a lot of Eisenhower matrix. I use a lot of that within... I try to stay in quadrant two, which is like relationship building 85 % of the time. I time block. I can always say I can make more money. I can never make more time. My time is precious, and I do not give it out freely. Those are things that you can look at and then just find people and just keep connecting. Be like, hey, I always do a thing like, Who's a nerdy person that I need to know next? Mention a few theories that you love to out on, and it's like- There you go. That's actually how I got to the Pirates. Actually, self-determination theory is what got me to the Pirates. Working with them is because I loved it, somebody else loved it, and then their boss loved it and then their whole design team is based...
[00:55:18.460]
The farm director, everything within it is based on self-determination theory. And it's like, We just had a good old time all around it.
[00:55:28.340]
Then it's not work, it becomes fun, right? Yeah. With the whole thing, you're like, Yeah, we agree, or you found your peeps. Exactly.
[00:55:37.560]
It's fun.
[00:55:39.660]
That's great. I know you got a whole bunch to do, and I do not want to rob your time, but let's ask you one more thing, if you don't mind. I'm combining this to two things, so bear with me. Okay. First is you mentioned your team. When did you make that decision to say, I need a team, and how did that go out finding to put those pieces together. I see on your website you got the three of you together. I don't know if there's more, but I know you mentioned your team. Then the other thing that was related to that is when you're thinking about adding a team member.
[00:56:17.470]
And.
[00:56:17.910]
Growing.
[00:56:19.780]
The process of doing that and developing a team, does.
[00:56:25.070]
That.
[00:56:25.580]
Take away from your own personal bottom line or anything? How do you get yourself into the mindset of it's better with many than just one?
[00:56:35.480]
I'm a twin, so I joke. I have codependency issues. I started, again, that was another the God moment. He's like, go put out for hiring. I was like, okay, I'm going to do it. Then I found that... Well, let's put it this. I don't know how people do it alone. I don't. It is extremely difficult for me. I joke that Bonnie, she completes me. It's like that cheesy saying, but our brains. I am big picture. She just brains it back in. It's so fun to watch us do life together, and we know it. It's like the other day, we have a contract that we're trying to figure out if we want to continue with it. And she's like, December first, they get to December first. If they don't say anything, we're done with them. I'm like, okay, let's go. That's the thing is sometimes I don't want to walk away from easy money sometimes. And so knowing that and having this personally like, okay, we know our system, we know what works. So what I always say is you got to make a great foundation. And so if you can't afford somebody, at least find somebody do podcast so that you can nerd out with people and just gain knowledge.
[00:58:13.820]
Find ways that, and it doesn't have to be a perfect podcast. I used StreamYard starting out, and it was like $25 a month. So there are certain things that you can do to make sure that you just stay in community with nerds or people that love what you do. Then once you do financially be able to take someone on the one litmus test, my dad, again, going back to him, he's helped me a lot of things, can you support their family? When you bring somebody in, you're bringing in family members.
[00:58:50.950]
Yeah.
[00:58:52.130]
So that is one big thing for me is, can I financially afford these people? And the answer for me has been yes. I also take in their family. That's just how I see it. And the other thing is you don't have to pay them. This is one thing that always blows my mind, is people think that they have to pay an exorbitant amount of money. If you create the culture where they love what they do and they get freedom and my people, they get to work at any time. One's in Rhode Island, the other one's in Connecticut, and then the other one was in California. That freedom is- It's a lot. -it will cost, it will mean more money. It's worth more than money, I guess, is what you would say. Just be real. Put out there what you can and cannot afford. I will say for me, I always hated my dad growing up on making me listen to Dave Ramsey. I had to listen to damn Dave Ramsey in the car the whole, like all the time. And now I'm very grateful for Dave Ramsey. He annoyed me, but now I started my company with no debt.
[01:00:10.420]
If you can do that, that is the best thing ever. It gives me more freedom. That is one thing is I would say knock out your debt if you can, and then go look at acquiring people.
[01:00:30.190]
So that's it. That's a great advice. And Jay Allen, when he came on last to my show, Jay told me... He's a Ramsey instructor, if you didn't know that.
[01:00:40.300]
I didn't know that.
[01:00:42.240]
Yeah, he is. Jay is. I wanted him to tell me the mindset that I should have and teach my people about you're your own boss now, and you got to be financially sound because your hours isn't going to be just your hourly rate. You got everything involved in that, and it's you, it's your family, it's everything else. He came on and talked to us about the principles that he learned from the Ramsey school.
[01:01:08.440]
That's awesome because it is a game-changer, because one thing, it's actually cool within safety. If anybodys listening to this that likes to nerd out worker comp claims, look at overtime worked before Christmas holidays. So if you actually look at Q4, you're going to say typically increased injuries in worker comp claims because people are working more hours to make more money for Christmas or for holiday seasons to pay for things. And it's one of the fascinating things. And so that was an eye-opener too of how much money can impact your physical body and then also your mental stress. And then if you add sleep, like a sleep and all these other things that are coming into it. It's called Financial Peace University is what they do. It really is Financial Peace. And so if you can get to there, I would all day, it really makes a difference. It really does.
[01:02:12.940]
Wow, that is so awesome. Look at all the stuff I'm learning from you. You rock, Emily.
[01:02:17.680]
That's awesome. Well, thank you. Likewise.
[01:02:19.980]
With your shows with The Lifetime and all the other ones, I know how it ends. Boy meets girl. Girl likes boy, but doesn't feel like she could fit in. But Boyer doesn't want to tell the girl that he likes her. They get together with the last 10 minutes of the movie. They kiss and then it snows. Yep.
[01:02:46.960]
It's predictable. It's like Matlock. It's the other thing I watched growing up. Matlock. I always knew what time it was whenever he went to the courtroom, where he found the smoking gun. We have 10 minutes left.
[01:02:59.900]
That's great. Thank you so much. Tell us where we could reach you, how we could hire you, especially those that need high-performance coaching. Go ahead and tell us how we get to Ms. Emily Elrod.
[01:03:15.600]
So you can go... Linkedin is probably the easiest way to get to me, Emily Elrod on LinkedIn. Or you can always email me or shoot me a text message. And this is one thing I learned from a guy Bob Goff. He puts his phone number in all of his books. I'm like, I'm doing that. I don't have books yet. But text me or call me 706-581-2943. So reach out.
[01:03:45.590]
Wow, that's awesome. Well, hold on. I haven't done this whole episode. I'm hiding a soundboard over here. Thank you so much. For those you watching video, you can tell my video was all jacked. I don't know what happened. My camera gave up the ghost just a second ago. But Emily, I'm so grateful that you took the time out to talk to me and the audience. I'm just looking forward to just seeing your career. If you go back to podcasting, I'm there too. I want to get back on that track too and listen to you.
[01:04:29.290]
I appreciate it. I may do that. I actually talked to my team about it today, so.
[01:04:34.080]
We'll see. Yay, no more pressure. I know you got your own stuff going, but if you do, again, thank you so much for being part of the show.
[01:04:43.810]
You're welcome. Thank you. Have a blessed one. This episode has been powered by.
[01:04:52.030]
Safety FM. The views.
[01:04:54.050]
And opinions expressed on this podcast or broadcast are those of the host and its guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the company. Examples of analysis discussed within the past hour are only examples. They should not be utilized in the real world as the only solution available as they are based on very limited and dated open-source information. Assumptions made within this analysis are not reflective of the position of the company. No part of this podcast or broadcast may be reproduced, stored within a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the creator of the podcast or broadcast, Sheldon Primus.
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