Turning Life's Hardships Into a Competitive Edge with The Unbreakable Advantage Institute's Misty Carson

Josh Elledge (00:00): With us right now, it's Misty Carson. Misty, you're the founder and CEO of the Unbreakable Advantage Institute. You're found on the web at unbreakableadvantage.com. And you're a podcaster. Your podcast is The Unbreakable Advantage with Misty Carson. You can just search in your podcast app right now. And of course we've got that linked up. Well, Misty, it's great to have you.

Misty Carson (00:21): Thank you, Josh. I'm so excited to be here.

Josh Elledge (00:23): Yeah. As always on this show, you always love hearing just a little bit of insights on, you know, what leaders do for fun when they're not at work. And so you are here in the Sunshine State with me in Florida. And like me, August comes around, September comes around, and it's still blazing hot summer. So a lot of us like to get out of here. By then, if we haven't already in June or July or May or April or any of the other summer months that we have here. But Misty, so you and I also have children in Colorado, or a child in Colorado. So that's someplace you've been to. So tell me about your travels.

Misty Carson (01:09): Yeah. So really traveling a lot to Denver, Colorado area. My son moved there about a year ago. He's getting married actually there in October. So super excited. They're getting married in this really old mansion called the Highlands Ranch, and it's overlooking a horse farm. It's gonna be fabulous. I'm super excited about that. And I've also been spending quite a bit of time in Tacoma, Washington. So my daughter, son-in-law, and my two granddaughters moved out there in June. My son-in-law graduated from med school and got his emergency medicine residency at the JBLM base. And I have never been to the Pacific Northwest, but it is gorgeous.

Josh Elledge (01:46): Oh, gorgeous, isn't it? Yes, my wife and I just went, so we just had our 30th wedding anniversary last year, and we went out there, the whole Seattle-Tacoma, went to all the national parks. And you're absolutely right. So for us here in Florida, it's pretty much flat as far as the eye can see. You know, you can pretty much see the ocean from anywhere in the state. I'm just joking, but it's, you know, but it's so nice to get where there's elevation. So both of those locales have plenty of elevation. For folks like you and I who love to get up in the, you know, do some hiking in the trees and trails and that sort of thing. What have you done in either of those places that you're like, oh, this was just divine? Any kind of slice of heaven locations that you've been to?

Misty Carson (02:36): Yeah, so I can't remember the name of the waterfall nature park we went to in Tacoma, but it was... well, it was outside of Tacoma, but it was so beautiful. There were waterfalls everywhere. You could walk around all the red rocks. The water is so crystal clear because it's so clean. It was incredible just listening to all the birds. The trees are even way larger.

Josh Elledge (03:00): Way bigger.

Misty Carson (03:01): It was so interesting, just being there. I grew up in rural Michigan. I know we talked about...

Josh Elledge (03:08): Yeah, yeah, me too. That's crazy.

Misty Carson (03:10): I love nature. I just love being outside. And while it's beautiful here, to your point, it's very much the same everywhere you go. So it's been just a nice respite from the heat for sure.

Josh Elledge (03:23): Yeah. Well, I am so excited to talk about The Unbreakable Advantage. I'm really compelled by your title on the front page of your website I'm looking at right now, You Are Not Broken, You Were Built. So Misty, tell us about the work that you do with Unbreakable Advantage?

Misty Carson (03:41): Yes. So I believe that leadership is really about when pressure shows up. So it's really easy to lead a company, lead a team, lead people when things are going well and everything's clicking on all cylinders. But the way that you respond when the pressure hits really decides if you're going to be able to lead your team well or not. And I believe that a lot of that comes from patterns that we had when we were children. So those of us who have been through adversity, difficult times, and had to figure life out really quickly and create a life for themselves without a roadmap are uniquely positioned to be really good leaders if they understand how to look at what they've been through, through a new lens. So I do a lot of leadership workshops, a lot of training, and some online courses I built to help businesses understand what adversity built in their team, and then how to unlock that adversity to their competitive advantage.

Josh Elledge (04:35): What would be an example? Tell me about adversity that... and you're talking about adversity that impacts the organization or the group or the company or the individual? I mean, obviously individual would be a natural step of that. But also I'm curious about, you know, which we'll get into, but, you know, individual stress or burnout or, you know, the founders like, listen, it's hard. This is really, really hard kind of thing. So I don't know if there's a particular... and I think just based on your background, it's probably a little bit more organizational?

Misty Carson (05:11): Yes, it's definitely organizational. Businesses don't lead themselves, right? People lead businesses. So the adversity that I'm talking about is their own adversity, whether it's in the moment, things that they're going through. So many of us have people who are ill in our families. They have divorces. They have children who have challenges. You know, those are things that are today and now. But how we show up was built way before the way that we were conditioned as children. The circumstances that we had, the way that we were taught to respond, the way that we were either encouraged or discouraged or completely left alone to our own devices. And understanding those patterns, because leadership so often wants to tell you what to do, but they don't show you why you show up the way you do in the first place. And once you can understand the why, which I have an entire pressure assessment and all of the things that help you figure that out, then we can start to create new patterns, new behaviors that will get your business where it needs to be, really closing those bottlenecks.

Josh Elledge (06:15): What normally goes into an assessment, or like, what are you looking for? What questions are you asking in order to get to the heart of what needs to be looked at?

Misty Carson (06:28): Yeah, great question. So everything I build is around the idea of pressure because I believe that, again, pressure really reveals whether you're a good leader, a true leader, a leader who needs some work or some refinement, or somebody that people are naturally going to follow. Because people don't follow somebody who has the right answer all the time. They follow somebody that they trust. And trust is built on consistency. And consistency doesn't mean always getting it right. So a lot of the questions that I ask, I want to know if you're a Diverter, a Charger or a Delayer. And so those are people who are either going to go full force at you when things hit, and there's good qualities in all of those things, or they're going to avoid. They're going to find 10,000 other things to do that are going to keep them from the main thing at hand, or they're going to keep putting off the decision until they feel like they have enough information to make the decision. All of those things have really great qualities, and all of those things present their own challenges. So if you just understand how you show up, then we can fill the gaps in around that to get people to naturally follow you to a good conclusion.

Josh Elledge (07:36): Give us maybe a few examples or a couple of examples that might help us identify those three kind of, I don't know what you call them, traits or personality types or organizational, how we show up. Which help us identify what bucket we might find or what personality we might find ourselves in. So I think I'm a Charger, but maybe not.

Misty Carson (07:58): A lot of people are Chargers, interestingly enough. And so I have had some people taking the assessment, just so everyone who's listening knows, they can go to my website and take the pressure assessment, and you'll get it emailed to you what you are, and then some ideas of what that can look like. But one of the questions I would ask is, when things are really, really difficult, do you find yourself disappearing into your office or answering emails? Is there a conversation that you know you need to have that you are putting off until, you know, a week from now, two weeks from now? Another question is when a room gets really contentious, you're having a meeting and the room gets really contentious, do you find yourself being quiet or do you find yourself taking control? You know, obviously that's a Charger trait. So I have an online course I built called Leading Under Pressure that goes into this, six modules, and that'll come out in September. This is just a mini assessment to give people an idea of what that would look like leading into the course. So you should definitely take it. I'll be curious to see if you are a Charger.

Josh Elledge (09:02): Well, what do we do with that information?

Misty Carson (09:04): The biggest thing to do is once you know that you have the information, then I give you a toolbox. So I want you to look at evidence over emotion. So a lot of times we have a lot of feelings about how we're supposed to behave or how people are receiving us, but we're only doing it through our own lens. So I want you to get rid of all the emotion. I want you to get rid of your preconceived notions about somebody's body language, and I want you to just focus on the facts. So I go back to, you know, Joe Friday, just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. So I want you to then collect the evidence and make a choice based on the evidence and not your feelings or what you're worried other people's feelings are going to be about that decision.

Josh Elledge (09:48): Misty, in 2026, I don't know, you obviously have been doing this for quite some time. Are there any trends that you're observing? Like something, I'm seeing so much more of this lately. Anything come to mind?

Misty Carson (10:07): It really depends. It's so interesting. Society and our culture has changed so much in the last few decades. A lot of that coming from technology and just the sheer access to one another that we didn't have, like when you and I were growing up. I mean, the internet was invented when I was in high school. So I find that a lot of people in their 40s, 50s, 60s are more often charged up if they're men, because they grew up in a culture where they were the leader of the house, the one who was supposed to fix everything. And then the younger generations, I find that a lot of them, especially the Gen Zers who didn't get to have a lot of experiences that we normally would have, graduating high school together, being together in communities, because of COVID. A lot of them are Diverters because they're used to being like kept away. So there's definitely a match with society and just how culture has changed over time. It doesn't always fit that way, but that tends to be what I see.

Josh Elledge (11:07): Well, Misty, tell us a little bit about your podcast. What do you talk about on The Unbreakable Advantage?

Misty Carson (11:14): Yeah, so The Unbreakable Advantage podcast, I interview three interviews a month. I interview somebody who has been through something extremely difficult. I had a woman on there who was sex trafficked by her mom. And then what she built after. I had a three-time world kickboxing champion who had been sexually abused by his mom's boyfriend. He had a terrible car accident who was young, but then he became a world kickboxing champion. He's now an Olympic coach. So I had people on there who have experienced extreme adversity in their childhood, and then we talk about how difficult that was for them, but then also what they built and how they know what they've been through is now a unique gift and strength. And then I have a solo episode every single month as well, where I talk about the loudest liar in the room is our own mind, that, you know, our past trains us that we don't belong certain places because we've been labeled by society as damaged or broken or impoverished, and how to overcome those things and still build the life that you know deep inside you were called to build.

Josh Elledge (12:20): Yeah, let's give our friend that's listening right now something to do this week, maybe a challenge or just something that you recommend to all leaders. You know, maybe it could be something to be a little bit more introspective about themselves or their organization, but anything come to mind that you're like, yeah, do this thing?

Misty Carson (12:41): Yes. So I talk about this a lot on the podcast. A few different things come up. The first thing is take five minutes and sit with yourself, and just think about what naturally comes up. Because a lot of times we have something that is like nagging at us inside. I call it the whisper, that we're not following it for one reason or another. Another thing I ask people to do is take inventory of their circle. Are the people in your circle projecting their inability to grow onto you, and you are allowing their circumstances to become your cage? It's really important for you to pay attention to who you surround yourself with, because if nothing is more true in this universe, you become the product of the people you spend the most time with. And a lot of times it's difficult to let go of something, even when you know that it's maybe not serving you or what you want to do or be, because you're too afraid of what's on the other side. So my big question or challenge to everybody is, will you belong or will you become? And that's definitely a choice you have to make for yourself, but you can't do both.

Josh Elledge (13:44): Misty Carson, and your website, unbreakableadvantage.com. I know you have some resources there, including the pressure assessment. So yeah, I guess, you know, for our friend that's listening, let's share some next steps.

Misty Carson (13:59): Yeah, the next step would definitely be take the pressure assessment, see if it feels congruent to how you believe you show up. There's some tools and resources after that, but you can always reach out to me. I love to work with the C-suite and help them find the bottlenecks, especially if they have a sales team or they have some B2B sales. I work really well in that capacity. I'd love to hear from you, get your thoughts, and see if I can help you increase your revenue and unlock some potential that you have in your organization you didn't know existed.

Josh Elledge (14:30): I love it. Unbreakableadvantage.com. The podcast is called The Unbreakable Advantage with Misty Carson, who we've been conversing with right now. Misty, thank you so much for joining us.

Misty Carson (14:42): Thank you. I appreciate this. This is wonderful.