Conviction confusion and connection Kristine Olsta

Episode #43

Conviction, Confusion, and Connection with Kristine Olsta

My guest this week is a little bit different with an interesting and varied career history, and she’s here to discuss conviction, confusion, and how those two things interface with connection. This is something we can’t have too much of in our lives.

Today, I’m joined by mission-critical IT expert, business consultant, and the COO of Virtuosa Vitamins, Kristine Olsta. I’ve known Kristine my whole life because she’s my sister, but we’ve also been involved with some business ventures together. She has some skill sets I deeply admire, and she’s here to share her wisdom with everyone listening.

Tune in this week to discover how leaning into confusion is the key to creating connection. Even if you don’t agree with something, trying to understand it can give you a level of respect you wouldn’t otherwise have had, and Kristine shares how to be courageous in creating connection through confusion on a larger scale.

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER

Why conviction, confusion, and connection are all related.
Kristine's gifts in business and how she complements my skill set as an entrepreneur.
How we think of it as courageous to ground ourselves in our convictions.
Why real courage is exploring something you don't understand.
How Kristine has moved through conviction and confusion and got closer to connection.
What you can do to take this idea of confusion creating connection out into the wider world.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW

Kristine Olsta: LinkedIn

TRANSCRIPT

We talk about how courageous it is to be convicted, but I'm going to challenge you that the real courage is in being confused. It's in the confusion and not understanding something and having the courage to explore it. To reach out and see a different perspective, to understand a different way, a different view. That's where the real courage comes in.

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa the podcast with Dr. Susan Crockett. You are listening to episode number 43: Conviction, Confusion, and Connection, an interview with mission critical IT expert, business consultant, and the COO of Virtuosa Vitamins, Kristine Olsta.

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast that encourages you to become your best virtuosa self. Each week Dr. Susan Crockett goes where the scalpel can't reach, exploring conversations about how to be, heal, love, give, grow, pray, and attune. For the first time ever, she's bringing the personal one on one teaching that she shares with individual patients to you on this broader platform. A weekly source of inspiration and encouragement designed to empower you.

By evolving ourselves as individuals. We influence and transform the world around us. Please help me welcome board certified OB-GYN specializing in minimally invasive GYN surgery, internationally in the top 1% of all GYN robotic surgeons, a certified life coach, and US News top doctor, your host Susan A. Crockett, MD.

Dr. Crockett: Today I have a really special guest with me. I say they're all special. They are all special, but this one I've literally known from.

Kristine: Don't say it.

Dr. Crockett: No?

Kristine: All my life. We don't have to say how long that is.

Dr. Crockett: I'm not saying that.

Kristine: I didn't know.

Dr. Crockett: I was gonna say from like the first day you were born.

Kristine: That's true.

Dr. Crockett: Please welcome my younger sister. My younger, beautiful talented sister Kristine Olsta.

Kristine: Thanks.

Dr. Crockett: You're welcome.

Kristine: I'm so glad to be here.

Dr. Crockett: It's kind of fun, right? We've done some crazy things together in our lives. This may top the list. I don't know.

Kristine: You've done some crazy things in your life.

Dr. Crockett: You jumped off that dock with me.

Kristine: True. I remember that.

Dr. Crockett: Yes, yes. That's a story for another show. Okay, so today.

Kristine: Today, what are we going to do?

Dr. Crockett: Well, the cool thing about why we're here even is because not only are we sisters, but we've also done some business ventures together. The really cool thing is that you have some skill sets that I don’t. So you have this background in operations, and you're very detailed. You're actually going to be running our vitamin shop for us when we launch. So I wanted to start off just by framing how we work together, and the differences are between us and kind of what your business background is. You want to tell us a little bit about that?

Kristine: I'll try. So I'm logical. I'm very pragmatic, analytical. I was trained in all of those things. My last career was in a visionary integrator relationship role where I was the integrator, imagine that? Yeah. So that complements you who are more creative visionaries.

Dr. Crockett: Let’s do this.

Kristine: And benefits, at times, from having a little bit of guidance about focus and details.

Dr. Crockett: The details. Yeah. Then professionally, you are in a career where you are very detail oriented.

Kristine: Very much so.

Dr. Crockett: Tell us a little bit about that.

Kristine: Ah, well, I started my career in IT. I carried a tool bag and serviced equipment, mission critical equipment. So I had to be precise and exact.

Dr. Crockett: All of those things.

Kristine: All of those things. That progressed into more of a management role as I worked my way through the ranks, if you will.

Dr. Crockett: As it happens, yeah.

Kristine: Yeah. Got more into the business elements of running the platform.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah, it was a hardware platform that you were helping manage.

Kristine: Correct. Contracts, vendors, products, all that of stuff.

Dr. Crockett: All of that kind of stuff.

Kristine: Budget.

Dr. Crockett: So it's been interesting to me, as I've built my business, particularly my practice over the last 10 years, you've brought in some really practical resources about how to do team building and teamwork and all of that. I want to tell the story about when we went on vacation together. I was trying to figure out why I could drop my blood pressure medicine in two days when I went on vacation and how I can bring that back home. Do you remember that trip?

Kristine: I do.

Dr. Crockett: Because that was about three or four years ago, and we'd kind of figured out well we eat healthier where we are because it’s all natural. There's no fast food when we go to that beach. Then we exercise a lot. We're in the water a lot and walking a lot. We get good sleep, and the stupid cell phone's not going off. All of those things are stress reduction. I remember one morning, I got up and you said, “Okay, pull out your laptop. Do a spreadsheet.” I'm like I'm not doing a spreadsheet. I'm on vacation, what the heck?

Kristine: I don't remember that, but I kind of do. What was the purpose?

Dr. Crockett: You made me write out every hour of my day, what I did when we were at that beach versus what I do at home.

Kristine: It sounds like a really good idea.

Dr. Crockett: It was because we found two things out of that experiment that we didn't know. One of them was that I conk out at 3:00 every day. So I took that information, that data that you helped me get and started modifying my days so that I wasn't trying to push through the 3:00 to 5:00 hours so much. I've just bumped everything up and condensed my lunch hour. So that was cool.

But the other really exciting thing that I didn't really expect but that's been validated by data now is what we do in the evenings when we're on vacation there, which is we all gather at the restaurant with friends or at a house with friends, and we socialize and laugh – sorry, laugh our tails off. Can I say that?

Kristine: It's your show.

Dr. Crockett: It's my show. I can say it.

Kristine: You can laugh your ass off. We have a good time.

Dr. Crockett: We have a great time. But we're around friends, and we socialize and laugh and have a great time too. So.

Kristine: It's not always about what are you producing? What goals are you hitting? What do have you have left to do?

Dr. Crockett: Yeah.

Kristine: It's hey, this was a really great day because I saw this or I did this or I…

Dr. Crockett: Yeah. Connecting. So yeah, I wanted to just mention how grateful I am for that. I give that example a whole lot about the difference in how our minds work and what you bring to the table as a business person. So I know that's not what you wanted to talk about today.

Kristine: It's okay today. I can roll with it today. It's your show.

Dr. Crockett: It's my show. So today, we're going to talk a little bit about conviction.

Kristine: Yes.

Dr. Crockett: Confusion.

Kristine: Yes.

Dr. Crockett: How that interfaces with connection, which is that social thing, our interpersonal connection with people. So tell me a little bit about what you've been learning and discovering and why these three things go together and how they fit together.

Kristine: So it was really a rediscovery recently of an article that I was introduced to in school. I recently reread it and was like that was a really life changing discussion that I had. It starts out talking about convictions and how we ground ourselves in our convictions, whether it's family traditions, religious values, belief systems. That we're trained that convictions are really important to hold on to so that you can be a good person.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah, convictions, traditions kind of fall into that. Clannism kind of partisanship.

Kristine: Then all of a sudden, the article flipped it on its ear and said we talk about how courageous it is to be convicted, but I'm going to challenge you that the real courage is in being confused. It's in the confusion, and not understanding something. Having the courage to explore it, to reach out and see a different perspective, to understand a different way, a different view. That's where the real courage comes in as well as a whole bunch of other things that are positive that fall behind it. But that's the premise of this, I’ll call it life changing learning.

Dr. Crockett: It's uncomfortable.

Kristine: Yeah.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah. Especially at first to have that curiosity to even think of how to enter into that space.

Kristine: So we like comfort. We like familiar.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah, yeah. So tell me a little bit about how you've moved through that process into connection. You got any good stories? You’ve got a million good stories.

Kristine: Yeah, I've got a few good stories, but kind of the progression is, when you open yourself up to being confused, you open yourself up to exploring the why. The why that you don't understand. The why is such a tremendous force of understanding. When we understand more, we connect better. We connect more. You may not agree or adopt a different value structure. But if you understand it, you can at least have a maybe a respect for it. Or it would limit perhaps your knee jerk reaction to combat it.

Dr. Crockett: Like that story that you were telling at lunch today.

Kristine: So I got a random text message that said is your vehicle still available? I don't have a vehicle listed anywhere. So I just said no, it's not. I got a barrage, like three angry text messages back at me.

Dr. Crockett: Like boom, boom, boom. Like Facebook style.

Kristine: Yeah, and called me a bitch.

Dr. Crockett: Oh my gosh.

Kristine: Like you people in Texas are crazy, and you need to get your S together.

Dr. Crockett: Wow.

Kristine: You know, how dare you kind of? So we'll just stop right there. That person was met with confusion. It was something they didn't understand. Instead of digging into the why, they just fought. They didn't embrace that confusion.

Dr. Crockett: There was a reaction right away. There was no ability to sit and have a reasonable.

Kristine: Yeah, they were offended because they didn't get the answer they expected or that they thought was reasonable. So they just were like I'm going to be combative with you.

Dr. Crockett: So they thought you had listed a vehicle and then had sold it and had not taken down the listing and then wasted their time and gotten their hopes up and all of that, and they were reacting to all that disappointment.

Kristine: They were.

Dr. Crockett: Micro grief.

Kristine: Micro grief.

Dr. Crockett: I just made that up. Is that a thing? Micro grief, I don't even know.

Kristine: I don't know. But it's the immediate reaction of, again, it goes back to when there's something that we don't understand. You can do one of two things. You can either go homicide I don't understand that and explore it with a why, or you can say I don't understand that and boom, hit it in the face. Fight it, have an angry response. So I got those messages. I'm like oh, this could be fun. What do I do with this?

Dr. Crockett: Yes because that's my sister. You're not going to mess with this one.

Kristine: So out of my character somewhat, I crafted a couple of responses that match this person's language and cadence.

Dr. Crockett: Energy.

Kristine: Yeah, energy. I said, you know.

Dr. Crockett: Oh my gosh.

Kristine: No, it wasn’t me. It's not me. It's not my mistake. I don't have anything listed. The lister wrongly put my phone number. But I kind of had fun with it because I…

Dr. Crockett: You used a little bit colorful language.

Kristine: I did. I did. I got back the nicest reply.

Dr. Crockett: Really?

Kristine: Yes. It was oh sister, you must be going through hell. I'm so sorry. You’ve got to figure out how to get that taken down. I was like okay. Isn't that interesting?

Dr. Crockett: That's a fascinating story. What a good experiment that is.

Kristine: So I was able to break through the, got to some understanding. Kind of broke up the confusion. But imagine if that person's response would have been different to begin with. Instead of combative, if they would have said well that doesn't make sense. Why is that?

Dr. Crockett: Met it with curiosity instead of anger.

Kristine: Correct. We would have had a different exchange. Not everybody gets to that breakthrough point either. You think about all the exchanges we have with people.

Dr. Crockett: Thousands.

Kristine: The people that we say we don't really like or align with, it's probably mostly because we let ourselves have our feelings get hurt or we just don't take the time to understand where they come in from.

Dr. Crockett: Because it takes time. It takes effort.

Kristine: It does.

Dr. Crockett: In the society where we're like on to the next thing fast, fast, fast and make the judgment react and go on. That’s worth saying more than once that we need to take a minute and pause.

Kristine: Push pause.

Dr. Crockett: Push pause. Yeah, yeah. So you ended up with a connection with this person?

Kristine: Brief but yes. It ended positively for both of us.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah. Because you ended up in alignment after the confusion.

Kristine: Correct.

Dr. Crockett: Attuned. You were attuned to each other. You understood what was going on.

Kristine: Yeah.

Dr. Crockett: That’s so cool instead of just ignoring it, you know? So how do we bring this out to a broader societal scale. That's a really great micro example of a one on one interaction on something very small, but how do we expand this into our society and our community structures, politics? How do we bring that onto a broader scale?

Kristine: I don't know how we bring it onto a broader scale, but you can certainly multiply the impact of being convicted versus confused when you look at what's going on in our communities, in our state, in our country, in the world. You can multiply that as big or as little as you want.

Dr. Crockett: So this is interesting. I'm sorry to interrupt you. But when you talk about the conviction thing, I can hear a lot of our viewers going oh, I don't want to give up my convictions. I don't think that's what you're asking people to do here either.

Kristine: Not at all. I'm not asking anybody to give up their convictions.

Dr. Crockett: Or their values or anything like that.

Kristine: Core values are essential to guiding us through our decisions. However, challenge me on mine. If I don't have the courage to be confused about them and reevaluate them perhaps in a new light, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe you are too.

Dr. Crockett: Well, it takes a lot of humility.

Kristine: I don't know about that. I think it's being open to growth and change in perspective. You think about how our life begins in the big scheme of things. If we weren't confused, we would only know what we what we know in that little bitty space.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah.

Kristine: But once you begin to look at the world with some curiosity, approach it with some confusion, embracing the confusion of it. I don't understand that. That's new to me. Why would somebody go to a museum and look at these? I don't know. Well, let's go see.

Dr. Crockett: Let's go figure it out.

Kristine: Yeah. You can either appreciate it or not, but at least you've gone and opened yourself up to that experience. The same applies to your core values. I think if you can't be challenged in any aspect of your life, there's potential opportunities you're missing out on.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah, I agree. One of the sayings that we have as part of our show is love draws a bigger circle. I've used that for a long time. I've always joked that if I was ever going to get a tattoo, that's what I would get as I scroll around my wrist. It comes from that same kind of idea that we start with a circle this big, but through the process of loving each other, which essentially is what you're talking about here without using that word. You're attuning to others and trying to understand them and connect with them. You get a little bit bigger circle of understanding and then it just keeps expanding.

Kristine: Exactly.

Dr. Crockett: That's pretty fun.

Kristine: Yeah. I can connect with you and still not necessarily align with all of your belief systems, but I can connect with you because I have taken the time to understand you.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah. If we expand that to our governments and corporate structures and communities and religions, we can make the world a better place.

Kristine: Yeah, we could ultimately get along better and probably get some things done because we'll focus on the real change that needs to happen.

Dr. Crockett: Instead of being mad.

Kristine: Instead of being mad at each other and all my way or no way.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Becoming Virtuosa. To learn more, come visit us at DrCrockett.com, or find us on YouTube for the Dr. Crockett Show. If you found this episode helpful or think it might help someone else, please like, subscribe, and share. This is how we grow together. Thanks, and I'll see you next week. Love always, Sue.

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