Ep 240: Kate Rouch of Coinbase - "The Grounded Leader"

What triggers you?

Kate Rouch is the Chief Marketing Officer at Coinbase.

October was Mental Health Month.

But the truth is, every month should be.

And when you’re the leader, every month is.

Leadership, at its best, is a selfless act. A desire to help others reach a future that is better than the present.

Many, many things can get in the way. Most of them we know about before we start. A few others show up along the way.

But the one that we all carry with us, often unrecognized or worse, ignored, is our mental health.

We focus on the challenges and outcomes, the trials and the tasks, believing what we’ve been told, that anything is possible. If you want it badly enough, and work for it hard enough, you can will that future into existence, so the story goes.

Except the story leaves out a crucial part - our neurobiology. The completely, utterly, entirely unique programming that makes us who we are.

Why does that music make you cry? Why do these words make you angry? Why does that response scare you, intrigue you, excite you? What is making you afraid?

The programming might come from this lifetime. A father that left, a sister that died, a dog that never left your side.

Or, as the evidence increasingly suggests, it might have been passed down to you from generations before, hard-wired into your DNA before birth, created by events you did not experience and pain you did not know firsthand.

And yet, we drive ourselves forward, determined to succeed, carrying baggage and burdens that would stun a herd of bison. Ignoring the fact that our programming controls us, causing our body to react and our mind to contract. During those few moments when we are triggered, we are out of control of our feelings. That’s not a lack of discipline or determination. It’s biology.

So, try this instead. Acknowledge your feelings. Find comfort in the absolute truth that you are not broken or inadequate or alone. Find confidence in the knowledge that with the right help, we have the ability to rewire our brains, if we want to.

So start to pay attention to what you feel and when.

It’s the beginning of the journey that matters most. Self discovery.

And from there, all things are possible.