Carmen Cruz Of Lead by Passion On An Inside Look at the Benefits and Impact Of Working With an Executive Coach
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Resilience is much more than a buzz word — Like a lot of us, I had always associated the word “resilient” with words like “tough”, or concepts like having the capacity to withstand adversity, to push through challenges. But if you ask me today, I will first say that I realized I didn’t fully understand its meaning and the reasons why is considered a very crucial pillar of effective Leadership, especially nowadays in a world of constant rapid change.
The competitive edge in business often comes down to a combination of strategy, foresight, and professional development. For executives looking to level up their skills, an executive coach can be their biggest asset. In this feature, we talk to business leaders who heavily invest in personal and professional development opportunities, coaching, and leadership programs. They’ll share why they invest so much and the impact it has on their life. Today, I had the privilege of speaking with Carmen Cruz, Lead by Passion.
Carmen is the Founder & ICO of Lead By Passion, a holistic executive coaching and hospitality advisory firm integrating business excellence with human well-being and evolution. Using a scientific and holistic approach to transformational leadership development, she bridges the gap between creating exponential & sustained business growth and the need for authentic human connection and personal fulfillment.
Thanks for being part of this series. Let’s jump in and focus on your early years. First off, can you give us a snapshot of your life before you started your career?
A deep curiosity for understanding the true essence and depth of our human condition has always been at the core of who I am. Seeking answers to the big life questions of Who we are and Why we are here also served as the catalyst that started my own journey of self discovery.
Since a very early age, growing up in Barcelona, you could find me feeding my curiosity for people, different cultural thoughts and their impact on our ways of being, initially, mostly through reading books: from the Spanish classics, like “Don Qixote”, “Fortunata y Jacinta” or “La Regenta” to greek mythology like “The Odyssey”, the works of Aristotle and Plato or the life of inspirational and powerful historical women figures like Joan D’Arc or Maria Antoinette. Writing, drawing, learning foreign languages, exploring other cultures through the world of travel and connecting with people from all walks of life were also an important part of my young adulthood.
So, I guess when the time came to choose a career path, although I pondered over other people driven professions, there was not really a big surprise when I decided to start my career in the world of hospitality.
With a clear passion for people, what had happened in my personal life transition over my professional one. I very soon found myself being the person that my peers sought advice and guidance from. Pairing that with an innate predisposition for taking charge, a quick mind and ease at thinking outside the box, finding smart solutions when challenges appeared, put me organically in leadership roles fairly quickly. My leadership career in hotels never stopped growing, first in Europe and then here in the US in senior executive positions.
Today I can say, without a doubt, that my success has always been due to my focus on developing myself first. Consistently evolving, trying to become the best version I can be of myself has allowed me to provide the best avenue for the growth of my teams, which has been the essential aspect that has positively impacted operations and increased bottom lines in a big way, consistently.
Deciding to open Lead By Passion a few years ago was, yet again, another avenue for personal and professional growth, one that allows me to keep fostering my passion for people as well as to increase the impact I can have in the development and growth of other leaders and organizations.
What was it about personal and professional development that attracted you to start investing in yourself? Also, can you share when you started and what your first investment was?
I guess in my case I have always invested in my personal development, even when I was not fully aware of it because the curiosity of seeking knowledge. Looking at my library shelves though, you could really see how there was a big inner transformation taking place as the self-development books occupied more and more space as the years passed.
By the time I assumed my first executive leadership role in my mid-twenties, the understanding that personal and professional development meant the same thing for me fueled my determination of seeking higher forms of investing in myself.
You see, I define leadership not as a conditional behavior but “as the expression and result of Who you are, intrinsic to the deepest essence of your humanity”. For that, I don’t see it as a skill that can be “checked in and out” of work. To me, “Leadership is an extension of You, rooted in the most sacred Truth of Who you are”.
With that understanding and belief, I already knew that I had a lot of areas that needed improvement in myself. I also had a clear sense that I would need outside assistance to get me where I needed to be. Trying to reach my highest potential would not only be for my own benefit but for the future benefit of the teams I would oversee.
It was that drive what got me here to California where I made my first big investment enrolling in a business and leadership development program in Berkeley and, in turn, my life would be forever changed.
Can you think back and share one of the biggest blind spots you had that someone helped you see and something specific about what you learned and how it showed up in your life?
I can think of a lot of them, especially in my first years as a young leader, but here is the one that I think had the biggest positive impact increasing my self awareness and, consequently, producing the biggest immediate results at work.
My own perfectionism and focus on consistently achieving outstanding results had me totally blind to a lack of flexibility I was putting myself and others through, a by-product of not being consciously aware of the need I had to control my environment at all costs.
These subconscious behaviors were really my way to protect myself from being seen and potentially hurt by others. They stem from the great loss I had experienced at age 11. My life had changed completely, I had to grow up overnight and, as kids can be very cruel with their words and lack of empathy sometimes, I had buried the softer sides of myself and resorted to mostly use some of the stronger outer layers of my extroverted but strong personality to keep people at bay: a witty mind, a gift for words, and a strong will to accomplish my goals.
Although that strategy had sustained me well through my teens and early twenties, it all had to come crashing down at some point as my responsibilities at work kept growing. In a candid conversation with my manager, he made me aware that although the results I was producing were great, he thought I could have some opportunities for growth integrating others’ points of views and accepting other ways to reach the same, or extremely similar, results as mine.
My controlling ways were not producing great benefits for me either. Lesson learned — when you keep thinking for others, locking your decisions before they can offer suggestions and not having too much flexibility on how things are to be done, you will end up overworking. People will lose the confidence in themselves and in a very short time, they will end up needing you for every single decision they need to make, big or small, as they will stop thinking. I am positive this is not what we intend to create; certainly, it was not my intention either.
So, becoming aware of my opportunity so soon in my career, being open to change for the benefit of my team, becoming curious and going deeper on my self-awareness journey for my own benefit, and understanding my Why, was a game changer. Almost immediately my team confidence, focus and productivity increased tremendously, and we accomplished our best results yet. As I uncovered the real reasons I was acting that way, I cleared up the attached emotions and behaviors and my life opened up for the better, including lowering my work load and the hours spent at work. Win- win for all!
My manager, which would later become my mentor for many years to come, was totally right. I will always be very grateful for the time he spent and the care he had for me and my leadership development. That experience was also pivotal in deepening my awareness and focus on the importance of learning and exploring all aspects of my emotional intelligence.
How long have you had an executive coach and how would you describe your relationship? *For this, describe if you’ve had a coach or mentor and how they inspired you to become a coach.
Throughout my life I’ve had several coaches and a couple of mentors that have remained a part of my life for several decades now.
My baseline relationship for both, coach or mentor, have always been one that is based on a profound trust to the honesty of their feedback, a total respect for the knowledge they provide and a commitment to the process to achieve the results we intend to create together.
When it comes to my coaches, I understand that they provide me with an avenue for growth but it’s my consistency on doing the work that will get me to the next level.
Now that I am also a coach myself, I cannot see the relationship with my clients any other way. When it comes to that relationship, I see it as a partnership and a total co-creation.
The work I did for a year with my last coach is what brought me to become a certified HeartMath® Building Personal Resilience Mentor and a certified HeartMath® Stress & Wellbeing assessment provider.
If I was sitting down with your coach, and asked “what’s the one thing your client needs to work on more than anything else in the world” what would I hear them say about you? *You can make this about your clients and the importance of resilience and emotional intelligence in leadership.
To keep working on the improvements I’ve made saying something like: “I am not available now, but we can schedule you later, look at my calendar and feel free to book yourself with me accordingly”. Which is another way to remind me to be Ok prioritizing me, my time, and my well-being needs when at work a bit more. I do matter as much as my teams and my clients.
Although I have become far better at it, I can still have the tendency at work to always be available for anybody that needs me, at the precise time they think they need me. That often results in my schedule being derailed, having to work longer hours or not having a break or eating at all to realize afterwards that I was not really needed at that time. Although it was definitely convenient for the person, they could have scheduled themselves in a way that would have worked much better for me as well… and I could also have said so.
Getting accustomed to understanding my needs, and being able to establish boundaries that protect my wellbeing and promote my healthy state of being continue to be a fundamental part of my daily practices. They help me increase and maintain my resilience and, in turn, I become a much better and productive leader all around.
I’ve shared this personal example as I find it to be a very common one among my female clients as we start our work together. We have been taught for so long that a big part of our value is based on the capacity to take care of others’ needs first that, consciously or unconsciously, we tend to not allow ourselves to receive love and care as equally as we give it. More often than not, we can end up overextending ourselves, not paying attention to our needs as much and as soon as we should before burnout or disease occur.
I am glad to see though that, although slowly coming, we are moving into the right direction. We are finally realizing the importance that habitual self-care routines have in all of us. And that, not only includes holistic daily rituals that help us bring coherence alignment to our mind, body and spirit but also integrating the world of wellness and wellbeing into our workplaces.
Learning about emotional intelligence, building personal resilience, effective stress management or understanding the pillars of wellbeing are some of the ways we can instill and promote healthier environments for all.
If you were questioned about your “ROI” (return on investment), is there anything you can point to that justifies how much you spend on being coached? If not, how do you justify it?
I find this answer to be so subjective that I think the best way I can respond is by leaving you and your readers with a couple of questions and one of my favorite coaching quotes. The latter represents very well the impact that coaching and personal development has had for me, and now serves as my inspiration for the work I intend to do as a coach and leader every day.
I hope I spark some personal thought and reflection, and bring the kind of clarity and answers that this inquiry deserves to all of you:
Does reaching your full potential have a prize to you? If so, how much do you think you are worth?
“A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life.”
John Wooden
Let’s dive into specifics. What are the top 5 things you’ve either gained or learned about yourself, where you specifically made changes, and have seen positive results. Be specific and feel free to give us either the background or story about each. *can be client focused, not about you specifically.
- Self-awareness stands at the core of great Leadership-Although I’ve already mentioned it before and gave an example of how self-awareness was a catalyst for my own leadership development and personal growth, I had to add it here as my top choice due to the pivotal role that plays in effective leadership. For me, self-awareness has been at the beginning, the middle and the end of any self-growth, knowledge and wisdom I have attained, not only in my leadership career but also my life experiences. It opened the door to my emotional intelligence. Is also one of the essential aspects I’ve used when building my resilience and has played a crucial role understanding how to engage and enhance my own potential. Self-awareness helped me start uncovering the true essence of who I am: why do I think, feel, act and behave a certain way? that knowledge has helped me bring forward great improvements in both my personal and professional life. Nowadays, I practice self-awareness techniques daily as part of my self-care routines, I find it very helpful to keep me focused on becoming a better version of myself so I can continue being of great service to others. It has deepened my understanding about how my thoughts, feelings and behaviors are a response to my emotions, conscious or unconscious, and how these interact and affect my relationships, my personality and, therefore, my personal reality in a positive or negative way. Gaining this valuable knowledge since an early age has provided me with a greater ownership of my actions and has also helped me when facing adversity or had to make very difficult business decisions thorough my career. As I continue my development, self-awareness also helps me maintain a curious mind to avoid and mitigate judgement as I seek to keep understanding myself and others, promoting healthy and fulfilling interactions and continued enrichment my life.
- Resilience is much more than a buzz word — Like a lot of us, I had always associated the word “resilient” with words like “tough”, or concepts like having the capacity to withstand adversity, to push through challenges. But if you ask me today, I will first say that I realized I didn’t fully understand its meaning and the reasons why is considered a very crucial pillar of effective Leadership, especially nowadays in a world of constant rapid change. Today I would give you the definition that the HeartMath® institute gives: “Resilience is the capacity to prepare for, recover from and adapt in the face of stress, challenges or adversity”. The key word being capacity. The work I have done through immersing myself in the institute’s science based teachings and techniques on this area have strengthen my leadership skills and overall well-being. Improved energy lowered my stress levels, increased clarity of thinking, more creativity and higher performance are some of direct benefits I have experienced myself. I can say Resilience has really changed my life, so much that I have become a HeartMath® Building Personal Resilience mentor myself.
- When in doubt, follow your Passion and your Purpose will find you- I couldn’t give you my top 5 learnings without talking about Passion. Since I can remember, from work to friends or family, people have always used the word Passion to describe myself, is in the name of my company “Lead By Passion” and has been the guiding force in my life. For that, I will be brief but I feel the need to share here how I describe it, in hopes that my words can help others the same way they’ve helped me. In moments of transition or turmoil, if you are feeling a bit lost or are wondering what your purpose is, it’s my experience that living and acting on your Passion will always steer you in the direction of the reality you prefer and wish to create for yourself. “Passion is an Energy on its own, is that incredible force that: ignites strength and determination, creates purpose, opens up infinite possibilities, and provides ultimate happiness and fulfillment”.
- Our potential Is unlimited- My interest in Human potential was always a core driving force in my decision to choose leadership as a career path. I have devoted over 2 decades to explore and learn about new ways to expand our capabilities for growth and well-being. As part of that learning, I’ve also had the opportunity to being exposed to the latest scientific discoveries that are helping us keep expanding ourselves. After that, I can say with total certainty that human potential has become a total passion of mine. Nowadays, neuroscience, quantum physics, Intelligent energy management systems and heart intelligence techniques have become an important component of my leadership and coaching skills. I believe that science can be considered a modern language for mysticism as can help some of us better understand holistic concepts. Having that scientific data is also a great way that can assist us in believing that we, too, can achieve the same results. For those reasons, my approach is both scientific and holistic. Applying all this learning into my life is a daily ritual for me that has brought me great benefits: increased cognitive abilities, deepened emotional intelligence, greater creativity and increased resilience and adaptability to sustain change.
- “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken” — Following that advice, spending time to uncover my True Authentic Self and acting in alignment and integrity with the essence of Who I am has been the most important aspect of any success that I have had in my career. I wish the same for You. Now more than ever, in a world where there is a great insistence in making us become someone else we are not, Please, be You! Spend the time to learn about and to find You… and go Be it!
What advice would you give other entrepreneurs who don’t think it’s worth investing in a coach or spending money to join a leadership program?
I would seek to understand their reasoning first but I think that, being a holistic leadership coach, I might suggest they consider the following: Everything created in this world is created by a human being and it’s intended to serve another human being, so doesn’t make sense to spend time learning and mastering us and our “inner technology” as we cannot take the human out of the equation?
Another way I would approach this is by reminding them that if they haven’t already learned it, they will find out very soon that Business is really the art of understanding the human condition. And that includes themselves, EQ and SQ are no longer optional.
But at the end of the day, I guess I would just say that entrepreneurship can be very lonely and isolating, especially initially, and will really test anything and everything you thought you knew about yourself. Scaling your business will also bring very high demands your way, you don’t really get a break. Having a support system, accountable neutral partner that can help you not only set or keep you on track on your business goals, but most importantly, maintain your mental and emotional resilience at a high peak performance has proven to be extremely valuable… if still in doubt,
Don’t take it from me, just ask Bill Gates:
“Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player. We all need people who gives us feedback. That’s how we improve”
Do you have any examples of how being coached had an impact on others who work around you? How has it spilled over to your team or your family?
Being in the hospitality world, where in addition to having big teams, our product is also people, any work and time that I have spent investing in myself has had a gradual and immediate impact on my teams.
Our working environments are extremely fast paced and unpredictable, as people are, especially when we are working in big hotels. To give you some context, think about over 1900 rooms yielding teams of over 500 people.
Being in that high stress environment for close to a decade, the work I had to do to increase my patience — with an emphasis on Self-patience that is — clarity of thinking to improve my discernment, inner ease and calmness were crucial. Not only they helped me improve my well-being gradually, as I was learning techniques to lower my stress levels, but also were noticeable by my teams.
A quick example I can give was my self-patience. As I started allowing more flexibility to myself and decreasing my perfectionism, I noticed I was able to be a lot more patient and flexible with others. Soon enough, I started to hear comments from my team mentioning how, regardless of the high-business day they knew we were going to have, when I was on shift they felt “all will be well”. That was my marker, I started to understand how our personality creates our personal reality. I also started to notice how my energy was influencing their energy and how their moods and behaviors were directly affected by it.
There is a reason why we say that we cannot give to others what we don’t give to ourselves. Or as I like to say “As Within so Without”.
Those same positive effects were spilling over with my family and have continued to this date.
There are so many executive coaches out there. How did you go about selecting the right one for you?
I first became very clear in what was the intention I had, what did I want to explore or improve upon (i.e. scientific aspects like neuroscience or quantum physics or deepen my holistic practices methods on well-being) and what were my personal and professional goals.
I also took the time to research their background and had an initial exploratory call where we discussed expectations and potential timelines for accomplishing my goals.
On some occasions I ended up becoming a student of their work as there were different options I could use to learn, individual coaching sessions, group learning classes, workshops and longer development programs.
The most important aspect to me, is to be clear in your intention and on your coach modality, so you can benefit the most on the investment you are making for your growth.
Lastly, where can our audience go to follow your journey and perhaps get inspired to make their own investment in coaching?
I look forward to having the opportunity to hear from and engage with your audience!
I can be reached directly through my website: www.leadbypassion.com
or connecting with me via LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/carmen-cruz/28/643/9ba
Thank you so much for joining us! We wish you only success.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
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