ep143 – Dr Karen Duling

Show Notes

Welcome to another episode of Headcases! You’re going to love today’s guest. She is a passionate educator and leadership coach with advanced degrees from Wichita State University and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Kansas State University. Throughout her career, she has served as a classroom teacher, principal, school district leader, and university professor, always guided by one mission: to help people reach their full potential. She has been Teacher of the Year and she was selected for the U.S. Naval Air Force’s Distinguished Leader Program. She has earned countless accolades, but she’ll tell you her greatest reward is in the lives she has impacted. She brings warmth, wisdom, and humor to everything she does, along with the firm belief that learning never stops. So let’s get into this week’s Headcase with Dr Karen Duling

8:09 Transition from Education to Beauty Industry

20:14 Leadership and Communication in Education

24:19 Impact of Teaching

Chris Baran 0:00
How great would it be to get up close and personal with the beauty industry heroes we love and admire, and to ask them how did you learn to do what you do? I’m Chris Baran, a hairstylist and educator for 40 plus years, and I’m inviting all our heroes to chat and share the secrets of their success. Well, welcome to another episode of Head Cases, and you’re gonna love today’s guest. She’s a passionate educator and leadership coach. She holds advanced degrees from Wichita State University as well as Kansas State University, where she earned a doctorate in educational leadership, she’s worn the hats of a classroom teacher, a principal, a school district leader, and a professor. In every role, her focus has always been the same: people, purpose, and possibility, and being named Teacher of the Year and being a part of the U.S. Naval Air Force’s Distinguished Leader Program are a testament to her dedication. But she’ll tell you the real reward is in the relationships she’s built and the students that she’s impacted. And I promise you that she brings warmth, humor, and a belief that learning should never stop. So let’s get into this week’s head case, Doctor Karen Duling. Karen, it is a pleasure to have you on head cases, and welcome. I am so excited about this call. So, welcome to Headcases. Great to have you on.

Dr Karen Duling 1:46
Thank you, Chris. It’s so good to see you again. I enjoyed our last visit, and certainly became one of your fans after the Spec Conference in Tampa, and watched the way the the crowd just absolutely adored you, and the way you had us in the palm of your hand. So now every conversation I have with you is one I look forward

Chris Baran 2:07
to. You know what? Well, thank you. I pay all of those people the the, but no, thank you, and I don’t mean to thank you for the compliment. But you know, and just so the people watching and listening right now, you know, as you probably heard from the bio, teacher. You know, as Karen is doctor. Karen is is a teacher first and foremost. Not really involved in our business, and I want to get into that in a second. But just to give her creds, that I was at a convention just a while back, and Karen was speaking there, and everybody raved about the class that you did, and I want people to understand that going in that you’re not a part of the industry. But the you know at at first blush, and I loved one of your belief system is that you always got to keep learning, and and and I really believe that. On if you look at it on a higher level, probably a lot of people listening and watching might say, “Well, everybody heard that from a lot of people. You got to keep learning. But on a deeper level, that’s really when you’re constantly learning. I mean, quite frankly, it stops you from aging mentally. Number two is it keeps you growing. Number number three is that you’re always evolving, and I like to throw in a curve. And Jay, it makes you successful. So, and that’s where I really want to go. And when to people to understand, that’s why I thought it was so critical to have you on head cases, and and to understand that belief system that you have, and how that’s how that help can affect us all when we learn more about that. But before we jump into that, I really want to let people know about your hair story. So, how did your your educator, your you’ve been teacher of the year? You, how did you get involved with with we hairdressers?

Dr Karen Duling 4:00
I’m so glad you asked that question because when I had my first opportunity to work with cosmetologists, which incidentally was through a friendship with a with someone who’s like a brand, but also a quality human being here in the Wichita, Kansas area, my good friend Eric Fisher. So when Eric gave me the opportunity to dip my toe into the cosmetology industry by working with beauty school educators. My first sort of feeling, overall feeling, was intimidation because here I’m, you know, been K 12 teacher and principal my entire career, and I don’t know if you remember teachers from the 1990s, which is my era. But we would wear like denim jumpers with little applique apples on them. We were far from stylish, and the idea of working in a banquet room full of beautiful. Creative, edgy, professional-you know-people in the beauty industry scared me to death. And as I dipped my toe in, what I learned about your industry is like some of my very, very favorite new friends work in beauty because they are so warm and so welcoming, and at the end of the day, what I found out is that beauty school teachers are the same as K 12 classroom teachers. They want to do right by their students. They want to turn out graduates who are confident and skilled and ready for the world. And and maybe the most wonderful thing of all that I learned is that people in the beauty industry will accept you for who you are if you show up as authentically who you are. So I was able to walk into a room and you know not be edgy or stylish or you know beautiful biceps with colorful tattoos, you know, I walk in and I am who my who I am, kind of a coastal grandma type, and they were lovely. So every time I’ve worked with a roomful of cosmetologists, most specifically beauty school educators, I have felt warmly welcomed. I have felt valued, and what I love is that these teachers look to me and say, “What else you got? You got more, because they’re hungry for that very thing you were talking about, which is they’re hungry to be lifelong learners. They’re hungry to improve at their craft, and and as I said, they just want to get it right for their students.

Chris Baran 6:43
Yeah, Karen, thank you. I mean, so firstly, I have to say that I I lied because when you said if you can remember ’90s educators, and I went, oh yeah, yeah, and I went, I’ll let no. I I graduated out of out of school in the ’60s, so it’s it’s I don’t remember what they were like in the ’90s, but I do remember what my what teachers were like when I went to school, and I want to talk about about that later about the ones that inspired you, and probably had a big piece of what you who you are today because of that one person. Even though you might not even, you might have to fight to remember their name right now. But we want to talk about that later. So, and first of all, Eric is a great friend of mine as well. So I mean, and I, I’m glad that he introduced you into our business. And Aaron Rodgers, who also is part of Eric’s team, you know, he just sings your praises, and he he was part of the the the the group that that when they heard you talk, they wanted at at our convention as well. But tell us a give us a little bit more about because now what your your you you you and I were talking a little bit about education, and and I think that’s where there is such a similarity between hairdressers and teachers because even though most educate most most hairdressers or people in the beauty industry don’t really think of themselves as teachers, but they really are because they’re you know whether you have that title or not you’re still teaching people how to do their hair you’re still teaching them how to look after your nails how do you looking after your skin you know all of those things that they know and and it’s one of the things that you said is when the when the when those educators say give me more give me give more I want to want some more. Is because you’re teaching them how to teach. You know. Let me even rephrase that. You’re teaching people how to engage. Because I mean, I think people think teaching is teaching. I tell at people, and that’s the farthest thing from the truth. It’s communicating.

Speaker 1 8:56
That’s

Chris Baran 8:57
where that. That’s where that intersect. Where the two of us live, as in educators, you know your background is all education and became involved with hairdressers and the people in beauty industry. And my whole life was beauty industry, and only over the last 20 years has it been in education. So I’d like to give us a little bit of of a vibe of your background, like in teaching, and particularly when you were telling us what I loved is the story you told us about the about the U.S. Navy and how they seek people to educate, et cetera. Tell us that. Give us a little bit of that story.

Dr Karen Duling 9:33
Okay. Well, first of all, I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that the that teaching and the beauty industry intersect, and in my opinion, the place that we really intersect is is communication and trust, right? Because nobody’s going to learn from a teacher they they don’t trust. One thing we know about teaching and learning is that when fear goes up or anxiety goes up, performance goes down.

Chris Baran 10:00
Yes,

Dr Karen Duling 10:00
and so as a teacher, our number one job, especially at the beginning of a session or that you know when we’re first getting to know our students, our number one job is to lower their fear, lower their their anxiety, and let them know that they’re safe. And in in the cosmetology industry, isn’t that exactly the same? A guest walks through your door and comes to sit in your chair. If they’re feeling anxious, if they’re feeling afraid, it’s going to be really hard to continue to work to continue working together. And so, while I while I I see that technical skill in beauty matters, I feel like the foundation of what keeps guests returning and coming back is the trust, is the relationship. When I sit in this chair, or when I lay on this spa table, or or whatever the case may be, will I be listened to?

Chris Baran 10:54
Yeah, yeah. Actively heard. Yeah,

Dr Karen Duling 10:57
active. Yes, yes. Yeah. And can I can I put my faith in this person? And it’s that relationship that I believe keeps people coming back.

Chris Baran 11:08
And and you know it’s like in in our industry they they talk about about the consultation is a soft skill and the technical skill is a hard skill, but really there is there you can’t you have to be able to communicate, and that’s the soft skill that sometimes people are so much missing right now. Because they’re they’re if you don’t know how to communicate, you’re never going to have a relationship with with your with your guest. With your if you can’t communicate, you’re going. It’s going to have hardships at home. It’s going to have hardships with your friends, with your family, and the more you know, a lot of what I loved that you and I talked about were life skills, as much about teaching skills.

Dr Karen Duling 11:49
Yes,

Chris Baran 11:49
and so before we move on to that, I just thought it was so cool when tell us that story about when the Navy approached you and had you come to speak.

Dr Karen Duling 12:00
Okay, well, in in 2019, I didn’t actually speak, but in 2019, so this was right before COVID. The Navy had a program, and I I believe they still have it today, but it shut down for a while during the the COVID COVID time, and for the years directly after that. But the program was for leaders, and it’s a recruiting tool for the Navy. So they they look across the country for leaders that they can invite to be part of this program called Leaders to See, and they really like education leaders because we have influence over young people who may be trying to make decisions about their future, and for whom maybe the Navy would be a good choice. So, because of that, I was invited to come to San Diego to the Nazny Naval Base, and a group of 16 or 18 of us met there, had an opportunity to climb onto a cod, an airplane that would make a trap landing on a working aircraft carrier. So, this is an experience that very few people get to do. It’s not an experience I could have paid for and bought, but I landed on a carrier, spent about 18 hours, including one overnight, with the crew of the U.S. Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, learning about naval operations, learning a lot about leadership, and. and getting to be within-I don’t know. Oh gosh! From from here to my backyard of working fighter jets landing and taking off from this carrier. So just a phenomenal experience. And then there’s nothing quite like the takeoff from a carrier as well, like you have a brief moment of weightlessness, which is something that I’m sure I’ll never get to experience again. But one of the highlights of my career and and highlights of my life, honestly, probably in my top five.

Chris Baran 13:56
I love it. I love that. I I can only imagine the exhilaration when those because and we all see them when the you see it from the side when that that that aircraft takes off and they have those those whatever it is hooks that are hooked into the aircraft to give them the head start and they’re actually smoking by the time that they’re taking off and get onto the air in that short runway that they have. So I want to jump back into this again because you know we’ve just onto the education side, and I want people, whether you’re watching or listening, to think about this right now. That that we we tend to think in labels, and and we think that if somebody’s an educator or teacher or whatever, we give them a label. But all of us are kind of lumped together in this thing we call society and culture. So I know that we’ve always had people that have teachers that have inspired us along the way, and whether they can think of their name or not, right now they’ve helped us grow. And and regarding that of having a title that you don’t see yourself as a as a a leader or a an educator or a mentor or a teacher, unless somebody bestowed and blessed you and gave you that title, they don’t see themselves as that. So, tell me what your take on that? And and if so, what do you does that inhibit us? Does that help us? What’s your take?

Dr Karen Duling 15:28
Well, the fact of the matter is that leadership has very little to do with titles or formal positions, and I’m of the opinion. I think you share this opinion with me, Chris, is that anyone who is in a position to have influence, you know, with with peers or young people, or even even like sometimes we lead up by modeling for those who are maybe in supervisory positions to us. Anybody who’s in a position to influence is a leader, and leadership is really about service, being in the service of others. And so, if I’m working with a group of teachers and I ask them if they see themselves as leaders, you know, I ask them to think about: Are you in a position to develop a relationship with the young people? To have to have with a young person, excuse me, to have a relationship with a young person that can, you know, make a difference, that can have a positive influence. It’s a little lofty to think about. Can we change the trajectory of a young person’s life? Maybe we’re thinking of it too big, but sometimes in the little moments of building trust, of lowering anxiety, for helping a student to feel more comfortable in our presence, we actually are changing the trajectory.

Chris Baran 16:49
Yes,

Dr Karen Duling 16:49
and it’s and it’s all leadership. You know, I think I learned a lot of skills for teaching throughout my teaching career and in my administrative career, and it took me a while before I realized. Now, hey, wait a minute. These skills aren’t just making me a better teacher. Watch me. I’m becoming a better mom too. I’m becoming a better wife. I’m becoming a better neighbor. I’m becoming a better human. And so it’s all the same thing. It all comes down to, at the end of the day, communication and trust and building relationships. And when we engage in a conversation, is that conversation life-giving? And if so, we’re all leaders.

Chris Baran 17:33
You know, you really struck a chord with me there because number one, we do share that philosophy: is that you know it just it just made you become a better person the more that you understand you know and if you just would replace leadership skills with life skills and about positivity and mindset and so on I had it’s funny I you know just I had a I just got my I’m now as of what what is it now maybe a week I’m now a U.S. U.S. citizen, and I went had to go in for the oath ceremony, and the and the and the the people ask for three volunteers to to say something, and and I I my wife did it got her citizenship before I did, so I know I knew what was coming, and they asked for three volunteers, and I said, “There’s no way I’m volunteering, and two people volunteered, nobody would. So I then okay, I the pressure, and I went up there, and and my point being is that I did talk about my career and how being and living in the U.S. helped me as an educator and so on, and the point that I actually I’m embarrassed that I missed it because you know beforehand I’m thinking about what am I going to say what am I going to say? What am I going to say? And I was thinking at the end of the day, what my point was is that we’re all humans. We all got to live together in this culture and society that we call the U.S. now, and we might not have the same opinion on everything, but we can still be kind to one another, and we can still reflect our our opinions to vote for who we want to, but but still be kind and respectful people around us. Just because you have a different belief or a different system, and I I think that you know what I love about our industry, about the hairdressing industry, and I think that shares with with with teachers is that I think we’ve learned acceptance, you know, is a part of accepting the person for who they are. Amen. That forward and and and I want to just tweak into that what you said about servant leadership and and the difference of being a leader is you. You can have a title, and and John Maxwell always talks about that. You might have the title, but they must. Do you want it where they must follow you, or they want to follow you? And I think that’s the biggest key: is if if you can be kind and respectful and build trust, and and just be like I loved how you said be authentically yourself-that’s where the trust comes from, and people will trust you, and and and then they will want to follow, as opposed to have to follow.

Dr Karen Duling 20:34
Yes, yes, and if I may go back, first of all, congratulations on your citizenship. Thank

Chris Baran 20:40
you.

Dr Karen Duling 20:40
That that’s really cool, and I also want to go back to what you said about I didn’t really want to speak, but only two people did, and so I ended up going up. And then you said there were some things I wanted to say, but I forgot to say something like that. Yes, exactly

Chris Baran 20:57
what it was.

Dr Karen Duling 20:58
All right, perfect illustration of what I mentioned earlier about you know what we know about learning is that when our fear or anxiety go up, our performance go down goes down. And so when I’m working with teachers, one of the things that I often do is I’ll ask a room full of people for a volunteer. Hey, I just need somebody to come up here and give a speech, and it could be a really quick speech, like just two minutes. But I want you to come up, and I just want you to talk about why the the cosmetology industry is the most important industry in the world. Anybody willing to do that? And I look around the room, and what do you think I see?

Chris Baran 21:35
People looking down, checking their phones, looking 100% Like don’t make eye contact.

Dr Karen Duling 21:41
Don’t make eye contact. Don’t make eye contact. If I ask people what they’re feeling, they’ll say, you know, like while my neck got hot or my palms started sweating. And if I take it a step further and just pick somebody, say, Chris, come on up. You know, first of all, the rest of the room.

Chris Baran 21:57
Well, yeah, that’s right. They’re

Dr Karen Duling 21:59
so relieved. But the second thing is, they’re like, “Oh, poor Chris. So I would never actually make somebody come up on the spot and give a two-minute speech, but I love to do that exercise as a social experiment to say, “How did you feel? What happened in your body? Did you have a physical response? Because this is what we do to kids in school every day.

Chris Baran 22:23
Yeah, yeah.

Dr Karen Duling 22:24
In every beauty school in America, in every K 12 school in America, there’s some student who’s going through these things. Their necks are turning red. Their palms are sweating. Just to illustrate again that yes, we can ask kids to do hard things. As a matter of fact, I believe we should be asking kids to do hard things, but they’ve got to know it’s a safe place to do it. That mistakes are welcomed, and you know one of the ways we do that is by being vulnerable, vulnerable ourselves as the teachers. So first of all, acknowledging our own mistakes, thinking out loud about our own mistakes, about our own learning, but this one, and I think this is really critical, especially for today, is we have to model for young people how to seek feedback. I’m asking for feedback. I’m going to do something with that feedback. I’m gonna. I’m gonna use it to grow to get better, and I’m not gonna get defensive. And so sometimes, as the teacher in the classroom, we’ve got to model this first. You know, maybe it’s as simple as saying, “What’s one thing I could change to help you learn better in my classroom? What’s one thing I could add? What’s one thing I could do differently? And then actually listen. Let your students tell you, and maybe you’re not going to make the exact change they suggest, but you can still say thank you for giving me some things to think about, because I I feel, and this is not an indictment on young people today, and it’s certainly a it’s it’s kind of a blanket statement that isn’t fair. But but nonetheless, we see this, and I talk to teachers who tell me all the time that they see this. We have many young people who are struggling with receiving feedback. They don’t they don’t want to receive it. If they get it, they feel like they’re being picked on, and so I feel like a it’s a human skill, not just a teaching and and learning skill, not just a leadership skill. It’s a human skill. But can we model for people that we spend time with how to ask for feedback, how to do something with that feedback, how to appreciate feedback, and how to not get defensive, and maybe it starts by just practicing saying thank you.

Chris Baran 24:49
Wow, that was a mouthful, you know. And and I, you know, that’s why. And just just so you know, it probably sounds like we’ve been friends. For years, we didn’t even get a chance to really meet at the convention. But you and I had the most amazing conversation, what a few days a week ago, and and I said you’re you’re going to become one of my best friends, whether you want to or not. But and I say that just because we have so much in common when we the way we think, and I know the way that a lot of other people we we’re not just the only ones that think this way. However, the part that just at at the risk of being a little negative, I think what’s kind of messed up in our society. Let me rephrase that in our culture is that mistakes are frowned upon. You know, is that and then we know that’s the only way we grow, but when we look at people in our society, if they make a mistake, they’re seen as lower, and if they if they don’t make mistakes, we view them as higher, and we always go to the person that’s making fewer mistakes when the other person, they’ve already that person already made the mistakes and they don’t have to worry about them. The person that hasn’t had them done before is viewed because they’re not measuring to that person, and I think that’s kind of what is in our society. And I think of those kids you talked about right now, whether it’s the young kid in school, whether it’s a a kid that is in in a beauty school and and being taught by the teacher, or whether it’s a young kid going in to get their hair, nail, skin worked upon, and and they say they feel they can’t say something for for fear of saying something wrong. Not that the teacher won’t. This is the part that I want to get to. That I think if more people would understand, it’s not generally what the teacher is going to say; it’s what their peers are going to think. And why I why I I have such great and fond and still in therapy over some of the memories that I had from grade school was you know being ostracized at at at recess for I don’t even know if you call them recess anymore, but when you had your breaks and people would laugh at you and you made a mistake in school, it just you know the way we all were. I probably did it too, but if we could all learn just to be a little bit more, I don’t even know what the word I’m saying whether it’s forgiving or accepting or lenient or whatever to when somebody says something wrong for the fear of what that does to that person’s mindset, because then they shut off and they won’t they won’t participate. They won’t play, and that’s why even you do it. And you said, “Who wants to come up here and and play. I have a good friend of mine. I can remember being doing a training in Italy and waiting for this person to you know who wants to come up and present. And this this kid in the front row. I didn’t even have it out of my mouth. And he jumped up on stage and he bound out. Name was Chris Moody, who is now one of my one of my my mentees and mentors, and and he, I asked him after. I said, “Why did you bound up on stage like that? He says, “I’m only going to get this chance once, and I was going to be up in there. I was going to be up in there to take that chance to get the coaching and to grow before somebody else took it and I didn’t get a chance. So, if we could all just be a little bit more of that, when we are from a peer, from whatever that might be, and I apologize if I went on to a little tirade there, but it’s what I find is a little kind of messed up in our in our society right now as we view people in a negative way when they make a mistake, and we shouldn’t. It’s just a growth growth opportunity.

Dr Karen Duling 28:44
Well, the good news about that is that we we know that groups can grow, just like people can grow. If you look at you know Maslow’s hierarchy or any of those things, we know people can grow. But what we’ve learned is that groups can also grow, and there are things leaders or teachers can do. So, a leader in an organization or a teacher in a classroom, there are things we can do intentionally to help grow the groups, and the things aren’t that hard. You know, it comes down to clarity, having clarity and expectations, modeling. It’s having. some kind of a agreed upon contract. We we can mutually agree in our organization or in our classroom how we’re going to treat each other in here. And once we’ve agreed to that, then any time we see a violation of that, we’re holding ourselves and we’re holding one another accountable. And what happens if leaders or teachers are really intentional about doing these things that aren’t that hard, but they the group starts to grow, and then that feels so good to the group that the group wants to protect it.

Chris Baran 29:55
Yes, and so

Dr Karen Duling 29:56
you get you do some hard work in the beginning, but over time. It becomes a like a self managing classroom or a self managing organization because people are protective of what we’ve grown. And if you look at workplaces where everybody wants to be, or schools or classrooms where everybody wants to go, and you probably remember this from your own schooling, you know that teacher who everybody wanted to take their class. It’s because they’ve built that. They’ve created a place where nobody’s going to be ridiculed, and they know it. They’ve created a place where it’s okay to make mistakes and learn and grow, and we can also laugh together and have fun together. But then we get down to business and we work hard too, and so it’s doable. It just takes a little intentionality.

Chris Baran 30:42
I bet we have something in common. I have this love-hate relationship. I hate paying for something that I’m not using. I hate working in a small, cramped box. Yet, I love working in a cool salon that impresses my clients, and I love the culture and synergy of a team while enjoying the freedom of being my own boss, you too. What if all that was available to you at the salon you rent from? Meet Artist on Go, a game-changing way to rent salon space. With Artist on Go, you only pay for the time you’re behind the chair. You can choose a salon that fits your vibe, location, and amenities with Artist on Go. You’re a part of a stylist community, not hustling alone. Plus, you get to enjoy perks like clean towels and back bar supplies. Check out Artist On Go, built for stylists serious about their clients and growing their brand without the hassles of managing a space. Here’s the kicker: you can save more than 50% on your rent. To find out more, go to bit.ly/artistongocb. That’s b i t.ly/ l y slash artist on go c b yeah you know I love I love one of my teachers Blair Singer He introduced to well anybody who is in his classes he teaches for everybody from those of us as hairdressers to Fortune 500 companies, etc. and and he has that same thing, which is contract. But his contract is like I love that he says without rules there’s chaos, and so your contract that he creates called a code of honor. We have it in our family. Any any part of businesses that I’m ever in, I insist that there’s a code of honor of how we, how we play together, how we interact together, and and it’s and I love that he called it a code of honor because he said that’s like and you’re in the military, there’s a code of honor, there’s a way that you do deal with one another, so that you follow the rules and so that you know like he calls it, you leave no person behind.

Dr Karen Duling 32:58
Yes,

Chris Baran 32:58
and and I and I love that, and I love that he’s brought that into our industry, and a lot of our schools and a lot of our salons. I know the ones that we go to do trainings with do them as well. And the biggest thing, as long as everybody plays along with it, as long as everybody agrees, you know, and we have one rule that we call “call or be called, meaning that if somebody breaks the rule, everybody doesn’t matter whether you know if you’ve just started or whether you’re the boss or you’re the boss doing it. Everybody can call each other on their stuff. Yeah,

Dr Karen Duling 33:31
that’s so good, Chris. That’s so, and that’s that’s what makes a high performing organization. And you see this consistently. I I visit the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs sometimes, and it’s you know like one of the longest running five star four diamond or four star five diamond. I can’t remember which it goes which way it goes, but so you know clearly an award winning hotel for many years, and they have something like this code of honor that you’re talking about. And every employee who comes to work there knows if I come to work here, I’m agreeing to this too. And we have another example. If you ever just do drive through a Chick Fil A drive through, and you know, doesn’t really matter if you like Chick Fil A or you don’t like Chick Fil A. I think most people will agree they have transformed the fast food industry where it comes to customer service. And if you break that down, if you I’ve never studied it, but just as a customer driving through, and I travel now for my work, so I go to a lot of them. It looks to me like they’re doing a handful of things that aren’t hard.

Chris Baran 34:34
Yeah,

Dr Karen Duling 34:34
they’re smiling when they greet people. They’re hustling. They’re a lot of times they ask your name.

Chris Baran 34:43
Yeah.

Dr Karen Duling 34:43
If if my food is ready before I get to the pickup window, somebody’s running it out to me, and if I say thank you, they say it’s a pleasure. Right. So,

Chris Baran 34:53
and you know what I love about that they do is, you know, you you go into some places. I won’t say names or whatever. It can be into a salon. It could be into a fast food, but there’s a difference between when something is said to you that sounds scripted versus when it sounds authentic.

Dr Karen Duling 35:11
Yes,

Chris Baran 35:12
you know, and I think that’s a key part.

Dr Karen Duling 35:14
That’s important. Yes, as soon as you go so far in a script that you lose authenticity, it’s over.

Chris Baran 35:20
Yeah, it

Dr Karen Duling 35:21
doesn’t work. But what I like about these systems that I can see examples of in places I go is not so much what the things are, the list. It’s the fact that the organization has it. Yeah, these are our things that we’ve we’ve made a commitment to. So there’s some kind of collective commitment. If I’m going to be a part of this organization, I’m going to do it. And I think this is critical for classroom teachers, for beauty school instructors, for salon owners. The magic happens when the list, whatever the list is, happens every day with every customer who walks in and every store, yeah, right. That the magic is the consistency, the ritual of the thing, because rituals create safety. Yep, we know this. This is this is proven scientifically, and and I believe part of the magic is that it’s the collective commitment.

Chris Baran 36:19
Yeah, and you know it’s one thing you you mentioned that word ritual, because it’s it’s it’s kind of it’s interesting when you have rituals that you do, and somebody from the outside of that culture comes in and sees it. They get, and I think you you you mentioned that when your husband was at at our conference, and and we have a ritual that, but you know, we called it the highest energy wins. And so, rather than everybody starting off in the morning when they’re maybe either a a little bit hung, well, had too much coffee, I’ll put it to that way, or or or they’re just tired, or you know they their mind was in a certain place before they came in, maybe they had a bad phone call, or maybe their pet’s sick, or whatever. You know, maybe they’re away from home and missing their child. And we all know that whether you know you have a you know states that people are in, you’re either in a physical, a mental, or an emotional state at some point, and the physical one is the easiest one to change, and so the way we start all our conferences is everybody gets out of their chair and everybody starts. We do some silly, stupid things, get everybody clapping, and so on. It’s just a part of our culture, and I’ve seen it where people come in, and you know we everybody is up on stage, music comes up, and we start clapping, and so on. It’s part of our culture, and you can see some of the people that are around, and they’re going. Should I be standing up? What’s going on here? Are they going to start, you know, having spirits come out in the thing? You know, what’s part of this? And and then you see them by the end of the second day that the music starts, and they’re jumping up because they want to be a part of the culture as well. So it it it can be as a ritual can be as silly as not silly as as physical as like that, something that your individual group does, or and and it could be something as as as as deep as having a code of honor and calling somebody on it. So, I think rituals are a really important part of any culture, and as a matter of fact, it is one of the three things to make a culture: is the rituals you have.

Dr Karen Duling 38:25
Yes, and there’s brain science to support that.

Chris Baran 38:27
Yeah, if

Dr Karen Duling 38:28
you look at professional football team, for example, they have a warm up ritual, and that warm up ritual probably has some physical benefits, but also they’ve looked at the at the brains of these athletes that are in sync like that, and they can see a similar release of oxytocin. So there, there’s much science to say that rituals matter, and rituals create safety. They bring us together.

Chris Baran 38:58
Yeah, that’s amazing. I wow. May

Dr Karen Duling 39:04
I may I just share with your audience what happened with my husband at the spec conference?

Chris Baran 39:09
Oh, sure, sure. Go ahead. Okay,

Dr Karen Duling 39:11
so I’ve been married 40 years to a really good man who comes from the construction industry, recently retired, and he’s this was the first time he’s been able to attend a conference with me. So all my life, I’ve been tending attending teacher conferences where we do, you know, some hype up stuff in the mornings too. And we walk into the spec ballroom, and Chris comes onto the stage. The music is wild. The lights are fun, and and everyone is locked in on Chris Baran, and he’s doing this clapping around in circles. He’s moving around the stage, and the room is rocking. And out of the corner of my eye, I didn’t even want to turn and look because I didn’t want to ruin the magic. But I can see that here’s my husband, straight out of the construction industry, where this is. I mean, he might as well have stepped onto another planet, but I look at him and he’s standing and he’s smiling and he’s clapping and he’s following Chris. And I thought, this is a guy who is. I mean, you bring life to a room, and the admiration that we could see from everyone around us made us just automatically love you too.

Chris Baran 40:23
Ah, thank you. Well, you know, and I have to give credit where credit’s due. There, I mean, I somebody laughed at me the other day when I said I’m a bit of an introvert, and but I am a bit of an introvert. But all of those are skills. That’s just a skill that you learned. I think the only thing that you don’t, a skill that you don’t learn is authenticity. And I just always try to be just me when I’m on my stake. And and I feel that as a teacher, as a presenter, as a human being, I’m also willing to make myself look ridiculous if I have to in order to get people involved or to do things. And I think that’s the the vulnerability that you were talking about earlier. That if we would all learn just to be a bit more vulnerable, people would accept you that much more readily. Just by and and one of the easiest ways to be vulnerable is just tell somebody how you screwed up because you know they they immediately say oh oh thank God! Because I’ve done that too. So if you can acknowledge that first, they go, “Oh, that person, you know, I’m like Karen, so I can therefore I can relate to Karen. I’ll I’ll I’ll start the trust wheel moving.

Dr Karen Duling 41:37
Yes, and it also speaks to your heart for service. So if in the beginning you weren’t feeling comfortable getting up on stage and doing the ritual, but you said this is what the room needs. This is what what we need to do in order for this conference to to get started with the right energy. And so here I go. I’m going to do it. That’s leadership.

Chris Baran 41:59
Yeah. Thank you. Firstly, great story. I tell me if there’s something that being as how has what’s the things that I know it’s been about authenticity and so on, but is there things from being a teacher that’s filtered back into your home life, you’re with with friends or whatever. The things that you’ve learned from there. Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that made what’s what am I trying to say here? That things that have have made your relationships with other people better from things that you learned from your teaching career,

Dr Karen Duling 42:42
yes, and this, and I learned this specifically from one of my mentors, Flip Flipping. He wrote a book called The Flip Side, and he and his wife run a company.

Chris Baran 42:52
The name of the book was what called what?

Dr Karen Duling 42:54
The Flip Side. The Flip Side. Can I kid you not? His name is Flip Flipping, F L I P P E N, flip flipping, a great mentor of mine, and something he taught me that changed me as a an educator, but also as a a human and a made me a much better mother. Honestly, it’s something called the Excel model, and I’ll tell you why I needed it, and because I think this is going to speak to many people, and then I’ll tell you how simple it is. The reason I needed it, and the reason I believe a lot of us need it, is because we we do hard work during the day. We are, you know, committed to our career path, whatever that may be. And in my case, with teaching, I think the beauty industry is the same. It can be a grind, and so I was bringing all of my energy, my entire bucket of what everything I had to that work. I was a busy principal during the years that my kids were teenagers; they were high school kids themselves, and so I would pour and pour and pour into other people’s kids all day, and I’d get home, and my kids would be there. And you know what I would say? Who stuffs all over the kitchen counter? And who thought that was a good place to leave their shoes? And come on, guys, you know, just immediately bring the worst of myself home to the people I cherish the absolute most.

Chris Baran 44:26
Yeah, yeah.

Dr Karen Duling 44:27
And so, what I learned from Flip is just a little tool to help you bring the best of yourself, you know, home too, not just to work. And the Excel, the letters stand for engage, explore, communicate, empower, and launch. But the the important thing is the first two: engaging and exploring. You always have to do those first. So it’s E and X before C. Engage and explore before you communicate. So if the thing I need to. Communicate with my kids is, I’m frustrated that the kitchen looks like such a wreck, and I need to help have you help me clear this place off so we can make supper and figure out who has sports tonight and who’s going where and all of that. If I would just E and X first before I communicate the the thing, which usually turned into grumpiness, it makes all the difference in the world. So here’s what it looks like: engaging is just meeting and greeting and checking on people, right? So it’s like, hi guys, how’s everybody doing? Yeah, it’s a smile, it’s a warmth, it’s a connection that can take five seconds, it can take five minutes, but in either case, it’s not going to take long, and the X explore explore the people’s needs. So, how was your day? Who’s got sports tonight? Everybody feeling all right? Like we’re just going to get into reconnecting before we jump into the communicating of oh my goodness, this kitchen’s a wreck. And so when I started e and xing before I seed, it changed everything, and I realized this is going to sound really silly, but I hope somebody can connect with this. I was e and xing before c every single time with my dog. Think about how we walk in the house,

Speaker 2 46:21
yeah.

Dr Karen Duling 46:22
Our our little lucky girl, our little lucky dog. I’d say, “Oh, hi, lucky. How’s my girl? How’s my puppy doing? But but I wasn’t doing that with the people I cherish the most most in my life. So let’s engage and explore with people before we communicate, and it can make all the difference.

Chris Baran 46:41
Wow. You know, you’re you’re making me going back to even when with our kids. You know, when like come home from work and you had a bad day and you either didn’t say anything or the things that you were short tempered and all those things that you when you came home and would say and reminds me of, and I think you and I might have even had a bit of this conversation one other time. But the thing that I’ve learned along the way is is is modeling. Like you talk about the Excel model tells it gives you a memory, a way to remember the things that you do in the order you should do them. And I’m constantly doing that with the people that I teach or train. And yet, when I come home, I I don’t do that. Or I have to tell you a funny story. I was I came home the one time, and I was in train the trainer mode, and my my lovely lady Rita, my wife, was talking, and she was, she was into a mode where she was ranting, and I went into a mode of, and well, I’ll call it what it was. I went okay. Well, I mean, this is where I’m going to use my debriefing skills, and try to bring the the. And she looked at me, and I won’t use the word she used, but she just looked at me because she knows that model, and and she looked at me and said, “Don’t you effing debrief me? So I went, “All right, yes, sir.

Dr Karen Duling 48:11
Had your number, yeah, yeah, and she wanted authenticity.

Chris Baran 48:15
Yeah, yeah. Well, and it like I I tell people that it took me 40 years. We’ve been married now for going on 56 years, but it took me 40 years to figure out whether I should just listen. You know, I and I have to say now, am I supposed to do something about this, or am I just supposed to listen? Just listen, okay, dear. So, anyway, Karen, this has been. I mean, we. I think I have to have you on again because there’s so many nuggets that we have inside here,

Dr Karen Duling 48:43
we could talk shop all day.

Chris Baran 48:45
I’ll tell you, that’s that’s what it is. And I, but what I loved is the fact that everything you relate to is as much on the human side. So whether you’re just in our in our business as a you know as a brand new person, maybe you’re an independent stylist, or an owner, or a student, a teacher, etc. There was something in there for everybody. So, I just want to say thank you, and I want to run you by just some of our rapid fire. Oh gosh!

Dr Karen Duling 49:14
Okay, here we go.

Chris Baran 49:15
Yeah, and just the first thing that comes to your brain, a couple of words doesn’t have to doesn’t have to be long statements. I won’t push on anything,

Dr Karen Duling 49:22
okay?

Chris Baran 49:22
Because we know that you know, in whether it’s hairdressing or or teaching, there’s got there’s a creative process to what you do and coming up with classes, etc. But what turns you on when you’re in creative mode?

Dr Karen Duling 49:38
I call it the flow. You know, when you when you’re creating something and you lose all track of time.

Chris Baran 49:47
Yes, in life, in life in general, what do you love the most?

Dr Karen Duling 49:53
Connection.

Chris Baran 49:54
Love it. And what do you dislike the most?

Dr Karen Duling 49:58
Mean people.

Chris Baran 50:00
Oh, we can be friends. The person that you admire the most,

Dr Karen Duling 50:08
honestly, I think it’s that husband of mine. He he doesn’t necessarily see himself as a leader. He’s not a statesman. He’s he’s he’s like every man’s man. But you ask any member of our family who leads our family, and they’ll say it’s him. You ask any member of our friend group to describe him; they’re going to call him a leader. I’ve even heard some of our friends joke about the remember the old bracelets that used to say WWJD. What would Jesus do? Yeah, my husband. My husband’s name is David, and people will say when they have a decision to make, they ask themselves for real, “What would David do? And so he’s an absolute treasure.

Chris Baran 50:58
There you are, love it. And speaking of treasures, what’s your most prized possession?

Speaker 3 51:07
Oh,

Dr Karen Duling 51:10
my health.

Chris Baran 51:12
Person that you wish you could meet.

Dr Karen Duling 51:17
Bruce Springsteen.

Chris Baran 51:19
Something that people don’t know about you.

Dr Karen Duling 51:32
I have a a sort of a a fantasy that I don’t know if it’ll ever play out, but I really kind of want to be a travel agent in my next life.

Chris Baran 51:42
Ooh, see, you can. That’s that was one of my wife’s goals as well. A month off. Where would you go? What would you do? The

Dr Karen Duling 51:54
mountains, hiking. You know, maybe somewhere I can’t get too easily like from here. Colorado’s an easy drive, so maybe I’d go to the Canadian Rockies, or maybe I’d go to the, you know, maybe in the fjords of Norway, something like that.

Chris Baran 52:11
I’ve got to get. I’ve got. Excuse me. I’ve got to connect you with with Blair. Blair every year takes a group to what’s the tallest mountain that everybody, Kilimanjaro?

Dr Karen Duling 52:27
Oh yeah,

Chris Baran 52:27
he brings everybody up on a hike up onto well a trail up to the Killen Gerald. I got to hook the two of you up so you can do that. Me, he debriefs you on as you go up what you learned and so on. So it’d be a great train. A thing that terrifies you.

Dr Karen Duling 52:46
Am I scared of? I’m scared of. It terrifies me to think about breaking trust with people I love.

Chris Baran 52:55
Oh wow! Yeah. Okay. Ready for it? Favorite curse word?

Dr Karen Duling 53:00
Well, you know, I spent my career in mostly elementary education. You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but you can’t take the classroom out of the teacher. So, I’ll never tell.

Chris Baran 53:13
There you go. Favorite comfort food:

Dr Karen Duling 53:19
chips and salsa.

Chris Baran 53:20
Oh. Oh, if you had one one do over in life, what would that be?

Dr Karen Duling 53:29
One do over. You know, on one hand, I think I would trust myself more when I was younger, trust my instincts a little bit more. But on the other hand, I can think of times when I was young when I was overconfident and let ego get in the way. So I don’t know. Maybe at the end of the day, I what I really needed was more humility. Not sure. I think it changes. It changes in each season of life,

Chris Baran 54:01
I’m sure. I’m sure with us all. And tomorrow, if you couldn’t do what you do right now, I think you already travel. You already said this, but I’ll set you up for it again. If tomorrow, if you couldn’t do what you do now, what would you do? And would that you know? That was travel agent. Why?

Dr Karen Duling 54:21
Yeah. Well, I really am interested in a very specific demographic of traveler. I would like to plan travel and maybe even go on trips with women who either are you know my age or a little bit older who are fearing aging and and still want to prove to themselves that they’re they’re strong and they can do hard things, and the other demographic of women that my heart really wants to spend time with is young women who are buried in just survival mode. You know, women who are young moms and maybe maybe they’re working moms, maybe they’re. Stay home moms, but just getting them away and helping them do something that’s physically hard and exhilarating and beautiful to remember that you know that they are also some somebody outside of being just a mom or you know the manager of their home.

Chris Baran 55:17
I love it, Karen. I just wanted to say thank you so much for your time and your energy. And I knew, right from the first time that we talked, you were one of the perfect people to have on here. And I loved that you said when you talked earlier about that we can learn to grow as a group as long as we give it clarity and we model it and we have a contract about it. So I just want to say for everything that you’ve given us and shared, thank you. It’s been a pleasure having you on Head Cases.

Dr Karen Duling 55:48
Thanks, Chris, and thanks for inviting me to be a new best friend. I say yes.

Chris Baran 55:53
I say yes too. Thank you so much, and I know we’re going to have more conversations.

Dr Karen Duling 55:58
I hope so. I look forward

Chris Baran 56:01
to it. Thanks again for watching this episode, and if you liked what you heard, remember to smash that like or follow button, depending on your preferred platform, and make sure to share it with anyone you know that might be a fellow headcase. Headcases is produced by Cut Action Media with Marjorie Phillips doing the planning parts, Lee Baran on the video bits, and Adrian Taverner mixing the audio jazz.