The Leadership Habit

Full Transcript Below Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And in this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit, I sat down with Dr. Romie Mushtaq, and here’s what we talked about. Or maybe a little teaser. Do you have trouble focusing on your to-do list? Are thoughts are racing through your mind when you try to fall asleep? I know mine do! Have the usual stress management techniques stopped working for you? These are all signs that you have a Busy Brain. Dr. Romie, Mushtaq is here with the cure for your Busy Brain called Brain Shift. Dr. Romie is a triple board-certified physician award-winning speaker and national media expert. She mixes her unique authority in neurology, integrative medicine, and mindfulness to transform cultures in teams. Dr. Romie currently serves as chief wellness officer at evolution hospitality. Where she has scaled a mindfulness and wellness program for over 7,000 employees, these days, her most underutilized pre-pandemic talent is running through airports and high heels. Let’s get ready to Brain Shift with The Leadership Habit community. Meet Dr. Romie Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit, I am so thrilled to sit down with Dr. Romie. Mushtaq. I know you just heard that bio, and you’re likely thinking, wow. She is going to have some powerful things to say, Dr. Romie. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. We are so grateful to have you. Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Jenn. Thank you. It’s great to be here and meet all your leaders through their earbuds. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. My first question, you know, cause I know that you’re in a much different place. Our audience likely can hear that in the bio, you dedicated your entire youth to becoming a doctor, and then you left medicine. Why did you make that pivot? Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Oh wow. So, you know, I was raised with this one success mantra. I am a daughter of immigrants, and English is my second language, and I’m a product, a proud product of the public school system in a small town in Illinois. And my parents had one mantra for me growing up, we have one daughter, and you will become a doctor. And a, you know, I’m old enough to remember cassette tapes and eight tracks. And so in those days, I was a chatty little girl and always curious. And so when I think my mom needed a pause from my chatter and endless questions and curiosity, she would send me to go read the encyclopedia and reward me when I would come back and tell her what I learned— with chocolate. So that was my entire youth. Always curious, always reading, and you fast forward. And I enjoyed every moment of medical school and had this predilection for neuroscience and neurology. And remember, this was in the 1990s before talking neuroscience and neuropsychology was sexy. I was kind of more the odd bird out. And I entered neurology at a time when less than 5% of brain doctors in the United States were women. So I, you know, I think as a budding leader, as a researcher, and as a doctor, I was challenged at every, I think, area of my career to stay calm and stay focused. And I knew, okay, keep your head down, keep your heels high and stay laser-focused. But the truth of the matter was, I’ll be honest, I’m a brain doctor, and I didn’t know how to manage my own stress. Here I was like working 80 to 120 hour work weeks between seeing patients getting called into the emergency room and my free time doing research, teaching medical students. And I started to have chest pain. And you know, initially, what does every doctor tell you? I was in my young thirties at the time. They’re like, Oh honey, you’re like every other type, a success-driven doctor that’s coming in here. Junior faculty, you’re stressed, you have acid reflux. You know, you need to stop the chocolate,  try antacids, and try probiotics. And I’m just like, Oh good Lord. So I’m listening. I was a good patient. It didn’t work. So I just stopped the antacids and restarted the chocolate. Jenn, I ain’t gonna lie. Jenn DeWall: You didn’t follow the doctor’s orders?! Burnout in the Pandemic and Beyond Dr. Romie Mushtaq: I tried and didn’t work, and there was something deeper going on. And I think opening up because we are recording this during a global pandemic, and I work with teams now virtually all over the world. There’s this phenomenon. I can sometimes even see it on a virtual call. Like we’re having, it’s like the lights are on and nobody’s home. If you looked at me, that bubbly chatty Romie had disappeared, you know, back then, they didn’t have a term for burnout. Basically, it was male colleagues kind of seeing that I was getting sick, not knowing what was going on thinking, Oh, this is what happens when you let a woman into the Academy, right? And it turns out it wasn’t just acid reflux. I was so sleep-deprived and stressed and on this burn and churn cycle, right? Burn through the day, keep churning. And I was burning myself out, and it turns out I have achalasia, a rare medical disorder, but my stress was so bad that it kind of fast-forwarded and made the disease so bad that by the time they properly diagnosed what I had, I had precancerous lesions. And about 11 years ago, I went through life-saving surgery. And it was at that time, remember cassette tapes that I remember going home to my small town in Illinois, where I grew up, and my parents and my elders and our community and our in our family were like, you know what happened to that little Romie. She used to laugh and be happy all the time. I don’t even recognize you anymore. And I think that was my aha moment. And I can’t remember— it was some auntie— hands, me, a guided meditation cassette tape. And I’m like, okay, this is whack, y’all. Now you need to remember; this is before there were meditation apps that were ubiquitous and yoga studios everywhere. Like no everybody’s favorite medical school. Youtube was not online. Like none of that existed. And this is weird for a very analytical brain doctor. And I found my path to meditation, and here was the thing my post-operative chest pain started to get better. I didn’t need all those toxic pain meds, but more importantly, I started to kind of lift up out of that feeling of overwhelm and gloom and darkness. And I knew there was something to this, Jenn and I thought this was just healing for me. I started to travel the world because the cassette tapes weren’t cutting it. I was reading books. They didn’t quite make sense. And I ended up traveling to Eastern Asia, South Asia, South America to work with these mindfulness teachers, these meditation teachers, these healers, to learn from them. And somewhere along in those few years in the journey, that aha moment hits like, Oh my gosh, you’re supposed to bring this back to your brain and mental health patients. Like there is a different way to heal. You bring Eastern and Western medicine together. So in 2013, I went back and studied even more and got my board certification in integrative medicine, which is the science of wellness. And I started to see patients, probably like everybody listening to this podcast. They get to me at that last stage of burnout when they’ve been to every doctor, and they feel like nothing else can be done. And we’re going to talk about it. They’re in that Busy Brain state. And I thought like, I can either see patients one-on-one like a traditional doctor, but I’m not going to be able to scale this mission. And I had this boneheaded idea, a doctor without an MBA saying— I’m going to start a business. And I’m going to knock on corporate America’s door and say, Hey, y’all, you’re missing the point. You need to be thinking about the brain and mental health of your employees. And Jenn, you have to know— like before the pandemic— this was insane. I have spoken at some of the biggest conferences globally, and C-suite executives are scratching their heads every time. Like what? We have a brain doctor here talking about stress and mindfulness. And now look at this here we are, in a pandemic, and the conversations are finally happening that I was personally facing 10, 11 years ago. And so that is my humble journey and why this mission is so personal to me. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Your journey is an incredible one. I love that you, you know, really opened the door for other females in medicine to practice neurology. That is yes, absolutely. I want to acknowledge that. Yeah. And that’s so inspiring. And I know there’s someone listening, but also because I think there was a period of time. I, it is really interesting now to hear mental health be a phrase at work when so long, it was never, it was very separate. It was, you keep your personal life or whatever is going on out there. We don’t want it here. So I love that you even acknowledge it, that when you were experiencing burnout, that was something that, you know, no one else really observed. And I’m curious, what did, what was it called then? It was just like, Oh, you’re tired? Dr. Romie Mushtaq: I felt like I felt so alone, Jenn. And I felt like I was the only one going through it, and there wasn’t a name for it. It was basically like she can’t cut it. And the sad thing is now is I meet leaders who are in similar toxic environments. And the one common denominator of this global pandemic is that it has made every leader face their own health, their own mortality. And to think about how do I keep my employees healthy, both physically and mentally. And that’s where we are. So yeah, back then, there wasn’t a name for it. Now, you know, maybe five years ago, when I gave my Ted talk, the headline started to erupt about the physician burnout crisis, the burnout crisis, and outside of healthcare, yet we weren’t really talking about solutions. And that’s where I wanted to bring my, you know, over 20 years of authority now in neurology, integrative medicine, and mindfulness together and say, how do you create programs where we can create impact in the workplace and why it’s so important in the workplace? Because before the pandemic, Jenn, we knew in here in the United States, I know we have a global audience, but in the US, the Center for Disease Control was saying 90% of all outpatient visits are due to stress. So, people who are going to the doctor going to their chiropractor, it’s a stress-related illness, just like you heard mine was. And, and the number one cause before the economic downturn was our jobs, our jobs were literally killing us, and nobody was doing anything about it. I don’t want to say nobody. I was working with a few cutting-edge companies that got it right away and, you know, had me in as a consultant. And we’ll talk about that in a second. But for the most part, like you said, you know, this was something you quietly went to HR, and God forbid, you got sick, and you went on family medical leave. There was just a lot of whispering in the office. Right. and so I’m really thankful for how far we’ve come and that we can have these crucial conversations and more openness and honesty to say, you know, if you don’t include wellness as a part of your culture, forget engagement, and that all is going to touch your bottom line in multiple ways, if your business, regardless of the industry The Busy Brain and The Path to Wellness Jenn DeWall: You are doing such important work. I think of even in the last six to eight weeks, how many friends, students that I’ve just heard listened to their stories and experiencing burnout, even experiencing symptoms like stomach pains, or I had talked to someone about, you know, how she had gotten Bell’s Palsy from stress, and I love that you called this a crucial conversation because it’s one that I think we, we allowed ourselves to not have. We just assumed maybe it would fix itself. Maybe they would do something outside of it, but now the burden kind of does come into the workforce. And that’s part of the work that you do. You go into organizations, and I’m curious, how do you initially educate them to help them understand the importance of the work that you’re doing and why we need to have that wellness program? Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Well, thank you, Jenn, for asking that. You know, I think operations, as for many organizations, have shifted for us in the pandemic. I was traveling 150,000, 200,000 domestic US miles a year as a keynote speaker prior to this. And then companies would bring me on to largely work with our executive leadership team, with my programs to, you know you know, deal with the stress-related illnesses and help with mindful leadership. So that’s initially what I was doing. And now here came the pandemic and we carefully spent the last year now virtually working with over 120 teams. And I went back and thought a traditional neuropsychology test that’s validated, which we call the Busy Brain test, will give you a link to include your audience. And we looked at the data like what was happening now during the pandemic. And the results are shocking! Over 82% of people on average that take our tests have not only high levels of stress. We call it “brain strain” on the risk of burnout. So that now your stress levels are so high that it’s correlating with poor memory, poor mood, and poor physical symptoms. And people just think, well, isn’t everybody stressed in the pandemic, but I’m here to say the Brain Shift protocol- what we’ve developed is the solution. And so now teams are calling us and working virtually, we typically introduce the program and talk about stress-related illness and solutions and the Busy Brain, you know, virtually just like you, and I are doing on a virtual keynote or a virtual workshop. And then we have a six to eight-week virtual live wellness program where people are going through it with me as if you just came to the doctor’s office and I’m giving you personalized attention, but it’s all happening virtually and with our robust technology platform. So that’s how, in a nutshell, we have changed operations because I can’t wait for the country’s borders to open up, office buildings, open up, you know, as you and I record this, every country where you have listeners is in various stages of lockdown, various stages of vaccination rates here in the US it’s really variable that people will go back to the office this year, or maybe a hybrid model. So we have to meet people where they are, and that’s what we’re doing. We are delivering the Brain Shift protocol virtually now. Anxiety, Insomnia, Attention Disorder and the Busy Brain Jenn DeWall: Can you tell me a little bit more about the Brain Shift protocol? What, how do you help the organizations? Because I definitely want to hear more and help our audience recognize that there are solutions out there that you can start doing right now. You don’t have to wait, you know, they can be virtual. And so can you tell me a little bit more about the Brain Shift protocol? Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Yeah. The Brain Shift protocol was developed as the cure for the Busy Brain. So I’m going to back up, and can I explain the Busy Brain to you? Let me tell you, the target people I love working with Jenn are people just like you and me. We are unapologetic success-driven professionals, right? You don’t want to be told to slow down, or you’re going to run over me. And that’s true, right? What we find at Busy Brain, and my now last five years of working with teams all over the world is this phenomenon that I boldly will say after researching that neurology and psychiatry have gone wrong. Anxiety or feeling anxious, ADHD, and insomnia are not three separate diseases. They’re all the same side of the one coin. They all have the same mechanism in the brain rooted in a specific pattern of inflammation. So what does that mean? You wake up kind of like, Ooh, girl, don’t even talk to me until I get some caffeine. And I’m going to tell Dr. Romie, it was a cup of coffee, but really it was three energy drinks, right? Yes. And you’re already scrolling and trolling on your phone before you even get out of bed. Right. And then you kind of get to your workday. And you’re like, and there are all these browser windows open, my to-do list is multiplying. There’s this low-level anxiety building. So you keep caffeinating, and you really can’t focus. There’s like this multimedia world. I mean, look at you and I recording this. I’ve got three devices open right now. Like this is normal work from home life. And so you’re in front of these screens all day and all this low-level anxiety of this, and you’re wired, and you’re tired. And you’re like, finally, when I can finally shut it down at night, I’m going to take a glass of wine or craft beer to take the edge off. I’ll fall asleep, and you go to try to fall asleep. And there is an insane marathon of conversations running in your mind, arguing with one another. And you think you’ve just done, like lost your mind. And it’s not. It’s all the same thing. And I call that the Busy Brain, and that’s not normal. And there’s a way to undo that. And instead, restore sanity, be focused, and sleep. And most of all, with a team, when we’re virtual have a sense of connection. And that’s what the Brain Shift protocol is. It gets at the root cause Jenn of your, and my Busy Brain. So even though I’m working with hundreds of executives or employees virtually at a time, our system of the Brain Shift protocol takes you through, you know, a battery that assesses your stress. And week by week, we do these Brain Shifts that you and I can talk about in a second, that over time, these small changes result in amazing transformations in six to eight weeks. And we stop the Busy Brain. And that’s what’s been so exciting to watch. We’ve taken several teams through it. And it’s just really humbling to watch. And, you know, I, I basically call Brain Shift is the cure to like, you don’t want another next level, basic advice like, Oh, Jenn, just have some berries and breathe. Everything’s gonna be fine. Like, nobody wants to hear that. I’m guessing everybody listening to this podcast is already pretty healthy. You have a few cheat days. The last thing you need as a brain doctor, all up in here going have some salmon, Oh, deep breaths. Like we’ve been there, we’re in a pandemic. My brain is on fire. Put it out. Where’s the extinguisher? I don’t need no more berries. Jenn DeWall: That’s exactly it. And if you feel like you need to eat right. I’m like, okay, because I feel like you saw inside my brain. And I imagine you saw inside to other people’s experiences of that Busy Brain. And I forget the third one. So is anxiety, insomnia, and what was the third one? ADD- attention deficit disorder or difficulty focusing. Screen-induced ADD. And so, yeah, that’s, that’s what the Busy Brain is. And that’s not normal. Most people I meet are in their late thirties, forties, fifties, mostly forties and fifties, a little older than you, Jenn. I’m aging myself. Now, like one of my elders, but you know, they think it’s just, Oh, Romie. My brain is aging. I’m not as sharp as I used to be when I was in college or graduate school. But I’m here to say, like when I follow my own advice and do the Brain Shift protocol regularly. I’m cognitively sharper today in my mid-forties than I was when I graduated medical school in my early twenties. Wow. And that is the impact. So can we talk about what a Brain Shift is? What is a Brain Shift? Jenn DeWall: Yes, And can I just make one comment on that? I love what you’re sharing because it makes you feel like this is something that we can control. I know that sometimes for me, and we talked about this briefly, but like I have multiple sclerosis. So when I forget something, I’m like, okay, maybe that’s just the MS. But yet I, what I don’t take into consideration is the fact that I am overly scheduled. I’ve got way too many methods of communication I have and suffer from the Busy Brain. And so I think it’s always easy. And maybe there’s someone else listening too, that likes to attribute it to something else that maybe is beyond their control to some extent. But I love that you’re, you’re giving me power and hope in the sense that like, I can control this, so yes, let’s talk about it, but thank you for that. Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Absolutely Jenn, so just in case somebody with MS is listening and they’re gonna be like, wait, Dr. Romie is Brain Shift for me? Well, maybe kinda, sorta not really. MS is a neurodegenerative disorder. And thank you for sharing. And I hold the intention that you’re on your healing path. There are other underlying root causes of inflammation that we tackle in our MS patients and integrative medicine protocols to help people be well. There’s a different pathology or something different happening in the cells in the brain when someone has MS. When we’re talking about Busy Brain, there is an entirely different system of chemicals that are just having an angry fraternity party in your brain. Yes, and so that’s what brings, but Brain Shift was this. I was like, okay, the last thing people want, I’m going to get on their nerves. Right? We said we’re not going to do berries and breathe. But I was like, what am I going to do? A Brain Shift is a micro habit. It’s a small change you make that creates this big shift in the perspective of your mood, your memory, and your physical health. So it’s a program that builds upon itself and micro habits that are tailored for every individual. And the results are amazing. We, I serve as chief wellness officer, and we’ll talk about this at evolution hospitality. And we just took a few hundred of their top executives through the program. And it’s, it’s humbling. You know, somebody who had gained 30 pounds in the pandemic over the last year, he turned around and on the live call said, I’ve already lost 10 pounds. And the weight is dropping off, and I don’t have to give up comfort food. Other people were like, well, I was doing it. I wasn’t sure it was working. But then, all of a sudden, I was like, Oh yeah, I’m not anxious anymore. And my spouse is now saying, Oh, you’re much more tolerable working from home, you know? And the results have been amazing. I think the most common thing is people say they’re sleeping soundly and they’re waking up feeling in control of their day, rather than letting a mobile phone control you. Yeah. And I think that has been the biggest benefit. So it’s just tiny little micro habits that we adapt to. The first part of it looks at restoration, restoring your sanity, restoring your sleep. The second part is about energy, how we’re fueling our brains and our bodies, and focusing. And then the last part is fostering a sense of connection because, gosh, we want to feel engaged and feel like a team. And I think the several teams that we’ve taken through it already said, Oh, wow. Like I have never felt so close to my team members, even though we were all sitting in our own living rooms, you know, or bedrooms doing this. And so that’s the three components you feel restored, you feel vitality or energy and a sense of connection with your team members that are on the call with you. I feel really honored to be doing this. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. I feel like I want in. What are some signs? What are some signs that you would say to maybe an executive or a leader to be able to say, I think your team is very much on the verge of the brink of burnout? What are the things that you look for? Leaders Need to Listen For The Stories Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Yeah. So when we go in to do an assessment, and I sit down and talk with leadership teams, this used to be in person, and now it’s virtually. One of the things we do is administer the Busy Brain Test. That’s for free on my website. People can go to it and take it. When they see that the majority of their employees have high-stress levels, which is above a 30, but most of them are in that brain strain burnout category already. That’s a validated neuropsychology test. You know, you have a problem. Then the second thing they tell me is, well, we’ve been giving out the EAP number, employee assistance program, which many companies in the US have some global companies as well, or we got a mindfulness app, but you know, we’ve had less than 10% engagement on it. And then the third thing is you start hearing stories you never heard before. My biggest advice to any leader is to listen for the stories. These are the stories that someone who you barely knew in the company, or maybe you knew, and you thought they had it all pulled together like Dr. Romie walking in her stilettos underneath a white coat, all of a sudden, the stories start to come out. Hmm. I think something is wrong with me. A family member just died of COVID. I think I might be getting a divorce. I haven’t been sleeping. I am failing my children with virtual schooling. My teenager stopped talking to me. When you start hearing the stories, it’s already to the point of beyond just saying, we’re going to institute a wellness program. It’s time for a cultural movement. And I’d like to say Brain Shift is a great example. We don’t just deliver engaging programs. We are here to push a cultural movement based on wellness that tackles your cognition, which is your brainpower, your mental health, and your physical wellbeing. And we want to do it together because we want those stories to transform. Jenn DeWall: I appreciate that. The work that you do is more— I would say— accessible. I think I’ve been a part of, as an employee, part of many different wellness initiatives at various companies. And some, I think it worked better than others, but really none of them stuck. I feel the, you know, maybe if you got an incentive of paying for a gym membership, you were like, okay, I’m going to do that, but you didn’t necessarily go to the gym, but you had the membership or, you know, I’m trying to think of, I’ve also had the apps too, that I just, you know, never use. So I appreciate that you talk about micro habits like this. Something like, how can we start slowly? Because we know it’s easy to go back into our old ways. And I appreciate that you really focus on taking a slower pace. And I appreciate you also bringing up to all the leaders here, start to listen to your stories. Because at that point in time, if you’re missing these stories, you might not be able to assist, or you may miss an opportunity to assess someone or your organization. And therefore, you might have more burnout or turnover. Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Less engagement. I mean, you don’t want to lose employees. You know, you, you don’t want something devastating to happen because it’s no longer about your work or personal life. Jenn, for most people, isn’t it for folks that work from home, those boundaries were long ago broken, and your brain needs boundaries. My brain needs boundaries. Your brain is not a bulletin board, and you just can’t keep throwing stuff at it all day between virtual schooling, your children, all the screens open, and all the different methods of communication. You try to sneak in family time or a walk around the neighborhood. And then, all of a sudden, after dinner, if you put your kids to bed or you’re caring for elderly relatives, now you open up your screen, and you’re working until you drop from exhaustion, your brain needs boundaries. And once we put those boundaries in place with the Brain Shift protocol in your brain, everything else around you starts to shift. Your health, the health of your relationships. And most of all, like the bottom line and in a company. Like nobody wants to lose their workforce right now. Jenn DeWall: Right. And it’s, it’s easy, I mean, I know if I have a friend that just left the job because of burnout, it was unsustainable. And they were the same ones that went to the doctor because they noticed these symptoms of stomach pains that all came from stress, and they lost him. And then, on that same day, they also lost another person. And so that was their entire department. And both of them left for the exact same reason because they were burnt out. And now that organization is left to say. We have to quickly get someone on. And I’m sure that that onboarding experience is going to be that much more strenuous because they will have a higher expectation of this work that has been missing. Dr. Romie Mushtaq: It is. But here’s the thing is, you know, everybody is in crisis mode right now. So you’re having to replace employees. And then you’re just in that burn and churn cycle again, churning it a day out, day in until they burn out again. And you’re in that same cycle. We need to get down to the root cause of it. And that’s a Busy Brain, and nobody is immune. I mean, I’m a brain doctor and went through it. I mean, Jenn, really, nobody is immune in this pandemic, you know, from your frontline worker and our hourly wage workers, that evolution hospitality all up to the C-suite. We are all suffering in different ways, and I want to provide hope and that sense of connection again. Busy Brain Can Affect Workers at All Levels Jenn DeWall: That is really important. That’s a really important piece to note. I think that sometimes we when we think about burnout, or we think about who would be the most exposed, we might incorrectly just place that burden on the people that might have more senior leadership roles. So I appreciate you also talking about that. It happens at all levels. You can’t look at it as, Oh, they have that title of VP, or they’re the COO. So they’re the ones that are justified in their burnout, and the frontline employees, well, they’re probably fine because of their stress levels. They don’t have to report to shareholders or to the board, or something like that. So I appreciate you really talking about that. This is an organizational-wide effort. This is something at every single level. It’s not just something for your higher-level C-Suite. It’s for everyone. Dr. Romie Mushtaq: It is, you know, there used to be this, never let them see you sweat mentality in academic medicine and certainly in the C-suite you leave your personal life at home. You said that at the top of the podcast, right? And that no longer exists. It’s if you’re going to be listening for the stories of your colleagues and your employees, there’s a level of vulnerability and authenticity that needs to show up and that gritting your teeth and saying everything’s just fine. No longer serves as a leader. You’re failing as a leader when you’re not showing up authentically when your brain is on fire. And you’re trying to present icy, calm, and cold, and there is a disconnect, and people can feel it from you. You’re trying to be calm and cool. But your brain’s on fire. Trust me, everybody knows. Don’t try to hide it anymore. And guess what, Jenn, it can show through the video camera too. Jenn DeWall: Why is it that people think you can’t? Cause I still think people are like, I’ve got it. You got it. Well, first, my comment is I love your comment, because when I was 20- 20 something, the feedback that I got is Jenn, never let them see you sweat. Dr. Romie Mushtaq: And they say that to women a lot more, right? Because we’re entering a man’s world. Never let them see you, sweat. That was the way you survive medical school and internship and residency and two fellowships now three, right? Never let them see you sweat. And that’s where mindfulness has played a role that when I can calm my mind, then I can be in tune, and being mindful, by the way, is not just throwing pixie dust on the problem. I think, remember I said, this ain’t about berries and breathing. You know, being authentic can be like, Hey Jenn, leading right up to our interview. I was a little frazzled. There were multiple emails coming in from one of my team members, and something needed to be handled. Like that’s authentic to say, Oh, at this moment, I’m feeling frazzled and what you all didn’t get to see before we hit the record button is I showed up frazzled. Jenn was a little, we went through a mindfulness exercise that took under three minutes, and we’re both just focused and present here. Right? And so it’s okay to have moments where, Oh my God, my brain is on fire. I’m like, you know, Busy Brain Level 10 hell. You know? So we got it. We got it. And it’s okay. The Busy Brain and Brain Shift Protocol Jenn DeWall: Thank you for even acknowledging that for people to say, I appreciate that you used it with the word authenticity. Like if you want to truly connect with people, be honest when you have the Busy Brain, and maybe this is a good segue into those right now that are like, I have the Busy Brain. What do I do? Please get to something to, you know, get to serenity now! Dr. Romie Mushtaq: So here’s the number one rule. You’re talking to a brain doctor. I, Jenn, and I have labeled a bunch of symptoms. And if any of those are like, Oh my God, guilty, guilty. You’re leaning into this podcast. Or you may be in denial. Just don’t throw your phone across the room at the wall as you listen to us. That’s a symptom of a Busy Brain— anger boils up sometimes when your brain is on fire, don’t do that. Here’s my rule is we assess, we don’t guess our stress levels. So, assess, don’t guess. Guessing is going to Google and saying help. What do I do about, and you can, we all just talk about the AI algorithms of Google. Jenn, let me tell you what if, if I put in stress relief in my Google search right now, we would either end up with ads for high heel shoes or where dark chocolate is sold. What would your algorithm show? Right. Okay. The Jaguar dealership, you know, the latest, beautiful blouses on sale. I mean, no, no, no. Google is not your friend in this situation. No offense to Google. We’ve introduced Brain Shift at Google, but you know, the idea is as assess, don’t guess your stress. So we have a free, Busy Brain test on my website. We will include the link in the show notes here for you all, where we give you the same test that we give our corporate clients. When they hire me to speak or consult with their teams, we give you a number. And then, based on that number, Jenn, I give you a recommendation of where to start, but how do you start? No, I ain’t handing you no app or no gym membership, and none of that bougie stuff that you said didn’t work anyway, right? We know what we’re giving you is these Brain Shifts to do. And either could you give me three minutes during the daytime or 30 minutes at night? And we break down what we want you to start doing. And we give you as a gift. The first seven days of our Brain Shift protocol-free on my website, I’m committed. Right? And I want to be mindful that not everybody works in a large company that can afford to hire my team and myself. So whatever we can do to give back, we are in a pandemic. We are building out the resources as you and I do this interview. Don’t Wear Stress like a Badge of Honor Jenn DeWall: My gosh, I appreciate that you’re offering that to our audience, and it will be in our show notes and our bumpers. They’ll have to stay listening to the end to get the information on how to access that because I think we need it right now. I just want to hug everyone, and they may not realize, you know, I think again, what would you say to someone that might be not able to label it? I guess what advice do you have for people that might be—not blissfully unaware, they’re not blissfully unaware— but the people that have a hard time sensing it? To be able to say like, I don’t know. This is just the way the world’s supposed to be. This is just what busy work is. Dr. Romie Mushtaq: And I would just say this, Jenn, my brothers, and my sisters, I get it. I used to wear it as a badge of honor too, I thought this is the way the world works, you know, succeed at all costs, but there is a way to come off that stress and success cycle. And it’s not a badge of honor to where your stress, but I would almost say a, you know, a dishonor to your brainpower, to your mood, to your body, to your relationships. And it’s okay. Like you’re not alone. I, for me, Jenn, I think most of it is, is that the intelligent, success-driven professionals I work with just have that mentality of power-through. I’m taking care of my family. I’m taking care of hundreds of thousands of employees. Like I don’t get to stop and give my brain a break. And I’m here to offer you a solution. I think most of it, having been there myself, it’s a lonely feeling. And now, on top of it, we’re in a pandemic where people are physically distanced and socially isolated, and that adds another level to it. And so my message to you is I’ve been there personally, and you’re not alone. And if any of the symptoms I said to resonate with you, or you think you see it in your team, reach out, like I want to be of service. I didn’t make it out of that eight-and-a-half-hour surgery with the cardiothoracic surgery team at the University of Washington, Seattle, not to come and be of service and help other people in need. And if you can hear it from a triple board-certified doctor who serves as the chief wellness officer now, as none of us are immune to a Busy Brain. And there is hope. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh, Dr. Rami, thank you so much for just joining us on the podcast. And thank you for also leaving us with a message of hope that you know. What I took away from your closing message is that you’re not alone, and you don’t have to struggle alone either, that there is hope that you can live life differently. You do not have to wear stress as a badge of honor, and there are options. And we’re going to give you one of the links to be able to get started. But I just appreciate the message of hope because if I think of where I was two weeks ago, I needed that I needed to hear, and I still am coming down from a massive burnout thing. And I need to hear hope because I think it’s hard to feel like you can even start to manage it, and you give an intentional offering in a way that we can develop micro habits to make this a sustainable behavior change. Dr. Romie, thank you so much for being on the show! Dr. Romie Mushtaq: It’s an honor to be here, and everybody, let’s start to Brain Shift. We can get through this together. Jenn DeWall: I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode with Dr. Romie. It was so for me. Just great to hear that there are solutions out there solutions that can help us manage burnout. And as she said many times throughout the podcast, you can get her Busy Brain test for free. All you to do is go to Dr.Romie.Com\test, or you can find the link in our show notes. If you enjoy today’s podcast, or if you know someone that could benefit from hearing this message, maybe they’re struggling from burnout, or they have an increase in anxiety or insomnia. These all could be things that maybe you could help a friend with just by sharing this podcast. And of course, if you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service. Until next time.   The post Managing Your Busy Brain with Chief Wellness Officer, Dr. Romie Mushtaq, MD, ABIHM appeared first on Crestcom International.

Get to Know the Featured Speakers for Day 2 of Crestcom’s Upcoming Virtual Leadership Summit! Jenn DeWall:  Hi everyone! It’s Jenn DeWall. And if you’re tuning in with us each week, we know that you’ve invested in yourself and furthering your leadership journey. At Crestcom, we believe great leaders aren’t born, they’re made! They turn skill into habit and habit into instinct. Continue your growth journey and learn to make leadership instinctual by joining us for a complimentary Leadership Summit around the theme: Connected. Connected is a two-day virtual leadership event where we’ll discuss what it means to be connected, whether that’s creating meaningful connections with customers, building connected teams and inclusive cultures, having the courage to innovate, leading with compassion, or becoming more authentic in our professional and personal relationships. We have a packed lineup of speakers ready to help you build authentic and strong connections. Save your seat now and get connected with like-minded individuals on April 28th and April 29th. That’s this week from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern, you can register at Crestcom.com. Now on today’s episode, it’s a mashup— you’re going to hear from three of the speakers that will be appearing on April 29th, Tamara Ghandour, Tyrone Holmes, and Nora Burns. Here’s a clip of a recent episode that I did with innovation thought leader and expert and founder of gotolaunchstreet.com, Tamara Ghandour.  Clip From: Everyday Innovation with Tamara Ghandour Intro:  Hi everyone, Jenn DeWall here, and on today’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sit down with author, speaker, and founder and president of Launch Street, Tamara Ghandour. Tamara shares her insight as an innovation expert on the four traps of certainty that leaders and organizations fall into that jeopardize innovation efforts. I’ve found a lot of value in Tamara’s episode and I hope that you do too. Jenn DeWall:  Hi everyone and thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. It’s Jenn DeWall and today I am so excited to introduce you to innovation thought leader, the creator of the IQE assessment,, and the president and founder of launch street Tamara Ghandour tomorrow. Thank you so much for joining us today. So it’s so great to have you. I’m- look, I just like love everything about you and I’m just was so excited for our interview. Tamara Ghandour:  Well thank you for having me and we have so much to talk about. I’m just don’t know where to start because it’s going to be so good. Jenn DeWall:  I know. Well, first we have to talk, we have to go to the basics because I have gotten to know a lot about you and what you do, but could you just tell us a little bit about what you do, what Launch Street is and how you play in the innovation space for those that may not have heard of you yet? Tamara Ghandour:  Yeah. I love how you said that. Play in the innovation space too. So my company— Launch Street. What we do is help individuals and teams gain a competitive advantage through the power of innovation and what we really do as the human side of innovation. We, we’d like to think of it as we unlock the “I” in innovation. So you can think about innovation in the sense of what’s the process you use or what’s the culture we want to create. But all of that is really built on the foundation of how do you, individuals, how do your teams, how do they innovate as humans? How do we bring that to the forefront? Because the reality is we can invest in all the processes and tools and flavor of the month technology we want. But if our people aren’t being innovative, none of that actually works anyway. So companies will work with us, really come to us because they say, Hey, we know people are our best asset. So we want to get them to be more innovative both as individuals and then as high-performing teams so that we can build a culture we’re looking for. So that’s, that’s ultimately what we do. And I have to say, Jenn, it is, it’s so rewarding because we get to see transformations, not just at the company and bottom-line level. That’s super exciting. But where it starts, which is that the people inside the organization, Jenn DeWall:  Well and I think what’s so inspiring about what you do is you gave people the everyday person that may not be, or even think of themselves as innovative. You give them the opportunity to identify as someone that is an innovator. And I think knowing the importance of innovation, it’s so important that we give people that power. And I love that you, you take it down to that human-level or you have the eye-level because it is so essential and everyone should be innovative. Discouraging Innovation Starts Early Tamara Ghandour:  Well, and I think, you know, we could go and on about why innovation is so important if we want to. I mean we, a lot of us know that the times are changing. The competitive landscape is fiercer than ever before. The rate of change is faster than ever. The pressures are bigger. Like all that is true. But at the end of the day to, to win in this marketplace, the company has to be innovative across all the departments, right? All the people. And that means not just the cool people, but it means all of us. And I love the way you said that. We call them everyday innovators because that’s what we all are. We’re all innovators in some way. And I think for a lot of us, we just trained ourselves out of it over time. In fact. So there was a super cool study that I found that, uh, it’s so fascinating. So in schools with teachers, they asked them to rank what are the most important skills for your students. And of course, creativity was at the top. Then they asked them to rank their students on who, which ones were the most creative. Then they asked them to rank how much they like those students. And sure enough, the T, the kids that were ranked highest, and creativity were ranked lowest in terms of teachers liking them. And don’t get me wrong, this is not about teachers being bad. If 30 kids, 35 kids in a classroom, they’re just trying to like manage to the test these days. That’s a system issue, which we can talk about another time. But what was fascinating to me is it’s because when you’re being innovative as a kid, you’re being disruptive. You’re not following the rules. You are thinking differently. You require different learning styles. So at a very early age, most of us are taught to fit within that little box and to not be innovative. There’s consequences for being innovative. Yet it’s our greatest competitive advantage. So over years, and I hear it all the time. People go, Tamara, you know, Jenn’s innovative, you know, with her cool outfits and stuff, but not me. Like I’m not the innovative one. I’m just in engineering and I just do my job. But it’s because we’ve been trained over time to think that. But it’s actually all our research has actually shown that that’s not true at all. We all have it and it’s our greatest competitive advantage, not just for performing at our peak. So that’s one part of it, but also for having a stronger voice in the world because when we innovate, that’s how we actually contribute. Jenn DeWall: In our next clip Tyrone Holmes will talk about our role as leaders in diversity and inclusion.  Clip From: Diversity and Inclusion with Dr. Tyrone Holmes  Intro: Thanks for listening to The Leadership Habit Podcast. This week, our host Jenn DeWall talks to Dr. Tyrone Holmes. Dr. Holmes is a professional speaker consultant and author of making diversity, a competitive advantage. Enjoy this great conversation about being aware of unconscious bias and leadership and how to make diversity a competitive advantage in your organization. Jenn DeWall:  Hi everyone. it is Jenn DeWall, and I am so excited to interview Dr. Tyrone Holmes, Tyrone, thank you so much for joining us today on the leadership habit. We are so happy to have you. It Dr. Tyrone Holmes:  Is my great pleasure. Thank you for having me. What is Diversity and Inclusion? Jenn DeWall:  So today we’re going to, we’re going to talk about the topic of diversity and inclusion, right? This is something that I think we see more and more in the news. We know that it’s an area of importance, but for those people that may not be familiar with diversity and inclusion, they may be outside of our space of where we live in play. How do you describe what diversity and inclusion is, Tyrone? Dr. Tyrone Holmes:  That’s a great question. And if you ask different quote, unquote diversity, experts, they might give you some different answers, but I want to focus on one. That’s grounded in our ability to connect with each other as human beings. And when I think of diversity, I think of it on a Broadway. I think of the ways that we can be different and we can be different in a lot of ways. We could be different based on a position we hold in an organization, we can be different based on our hierarchy in that organization. We can be different based on our race. We could be different based on our gender. We can be different based on our age. We can be different based on our socioeconomic status. We can be different based on our physical appearance or physical characteristics. We can be different based on physical abilities or disabilities. And when I think about diversity, I think about creating opportunities for people, with those differences to come together in ways that will allow the individual and your organization to be successful and, and allow people to be effective in what it is that they’re doing. Uh, whatever it may be that they’re doing in their jobs. And so I tend to think of diversity inclusion as steps that we take that create opportunities for people who are both culturally similar, as well as those who are culturally different, to connect with one another, to build powerful relationships, to build powerful connections, to engage each other in ways that will be of benefit to both the people, as well as the organization, and to do anything we can to create the situation and circumstances that will allow that to happen. Jenn DeWall:  That’s I love the purpose of diversity and inclusion to connect, to unite people into have them come together, to be able to maybe seek, to understand, seek, to learn, seek, to connect, and just see each other, despite our differences. Why do diversity and inclusion matter for an organization? Why does it matter to have diversity? I know that that sounds like probably a silly question that seems obvious, but why does it matter? Diversity is a Competitive Advantage Dr. Tyrone Holmes:  The first thing I would say is that diversity isn’t necessarily a goal, but it’s there already in most organizations, particularly if you think about diversity in a broad way, looking at some of the dimensions that I mentioned a moment ago, the reality is that we have diverse organizations. We have organizations that are, have different genders and have people of different sexual orientations that have people of different races and ethnicities and religions and political affiliations and things of that nature. And so we’re already diverse. The potential problem is we don’t always engage each other as effectively as possible. We don’t always connect as effectively as possible. We don’t always interact as effectively as possible. And diversity and inclusion become important for at least one reason that being that we need to create the opportunities that people or we need to create opportunities for people to engage each other and to interact with each other and to connect with each other and to operate effectively in teams and workgroups in ways that allow them to be successful in ways that allow them to do their work efficiently, to do it effectively, to allow teams to work together for suddenly and effectively. And when we do that, when we facilitate the circumstances that allow that diversity, that is always already inherent in our organization to come together effectively, the organization is going to function more effectively. It’s going to, I’m going to operate, uh, with a higher level of efficiency and productivity. And so there are a number of reasons that, that we could talk about in terms of why diversity inclusion and why do we have a focus on it. But I really like to emphasize because we’re already diverse and because we need to make sure we utilize that diversity in ways that are going to be a benefit and that we get a competitive advantage out of that diversity that we already have, that’s inherent to our organizations Jenn DeWall:  In our final clip, Nora Burns shares with us how to overcome bias in the hiring process. Clip From: How to Overcome Bias in the Hiring Process with Leadership Expert, Nora Burns  Jenn DeWall:  On this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit, I sat down with Nora Burns. And let me just tell you a little bit about why this is going to be such a great episode, because we’re going to be talking about bias and hiring, but here’s why you need to listen to Nora. Think about it. What would you learn about leadership and workplace culture? If you step onto the front lines and mop the floors, stock the shelves, or made the deliveries. Nora Burns a leading expert in leadership and workplace culture did just that. And as a Fortune 200 Executive, Nora Burns witnessed the phenomenon of disconnection between the boardroom and the break room and its cost to the organizations. She became obsessed with understanding this disconnect in bridging the gap between titled and informal leaders while remaining in touch with all levels of the organization. In the years, she invested in analyzing leaders and working as the undercover employee for big brands, Nora uncovered some truly remarkable stories and enjoy as she shares with us, multiple examples and stories of how we can un-bias our hiring process. Jenn DeWall:  Hi everyone. It’s been a while. And this week, I am sitting down with leadership thought leader, Nora Burns, and we are talking about the ever-important topic of bias in our hiring practices. Nora, thank you so much for sitting down on Crestcom’s Leadership Habit podcast. We are so happy to have you here with us today. Nora Burns:  Of course, I’m delighted, you know, I’m a total geek on this topic, so this might be the longest podcast. Oh no, you’ve got a hard stop. Never mind. Okay. Seven-day podcast episode. Jenn DeWall:  Yeah, we’ll just do the longest one ever. Let’s just talk a little bit about your background, what you do, because I know that you work with clients all over and you help them in a variety of capacities, but I’d rather hear you talk about it than me trying to fumble through. Because I, you know, I’m not always great in that capacity, but no worries. Just go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience. I know that you, Hey, we talked to you back, I believe. Oh my gosh, the pandemic, you know, 2020, this is your second episode. Nora Burns:  17 years ago. I think it was about 17 years ago that we left. Jenn DeWall:  But Nora, yeah. Tell us what you do. Meet Nora Burns and The Leadership Experts Nora Burns:  Yeah, so, well, my name is Nora Burns and my business name is The Leadership Experts. And I have this passion for how we lead effectively to ensure that the echos that we put out into the universe, both as leaders, as well as, as team members have a positive return. Right? So, so that’s kind of my passion. Everything I do is filmed around, focused around. How do you look from a different perspective? How do you shift your perspective to see this experience differently in order to improve it? So we’ve talked before in your previous podcast about the fact that I’m the undercover candidate and that I’ve been on over 250 job interviews, not as myself. Just looking for some things in the hiring process there to help organizations redesign theirs and I’m the undercover employee. So I worked for 15 months on the front lines of five different Fortune 500 organizations where they didn’t know that I’m an expert in leadership and workplace culture. And they saw me as the cashier and the warehouse employee and the person who cleaned the bathrooms a lot. So some of the things we’ll talk about today when we talk about bias. And the impact that bias has is informed not only by my own study, by doing a lot of reading and research, but also about my own experience during those research projects and what I saw and what I played with then and what kind of showed up. So, so that’s, that’s who I am and I’m based in Denver, Colorado. Jenn DeWall:  So your experience, Nora, as you know, I think it really, it blows anyone else out of the water. To know that many people in leadership positions maybe have never even experienced some of the things in their organization, whether it’s the experience of frontline staff or even what their specific hiring process looks like. They may only have experienced at the time they got hired, but they don’t see the consistency as they onboard new people. So I’m excited to be able to draw from all of this information and knowledge that you have to share with our viewers. Thank you again so much for sitting down with us. So what like so hiring, I mean, we, how we even came about, like we need to do another podcast was just a really interesting conversation that you initiated just around, you know, the unconscious bias. But the question to start with then is why do people with good intentions still accidentally discriminate? Because we know that it happens. You’ve seen it happen more firsthand than I ever have. So why does it still happen? People, you know, why are we still discriminating? Nora Burns:  Well, it’s interesting because there is the spectrum, right? So there’s the spectrum of people who are purposefully willfully, discriminating, people who are like, I absolutely acknowledge the fact that I will not hire a woman or a man or somebody who is of a different color or race, religion. There are people who will still willfully discriminate. We’re not going to talk about those today. That’s the whole, that whole bucket over here that are those people who are purposefully willfully discriminating. And then there’s the spectrum across to the people who have just stumbled into it and are accidentally discriminating because of their own bias because we all have bias. Bias on its face, right? Is not- bias is really a preference for one thing or the other. Right? I prefer the mountains to the ocean, which is why I live by the mountains. Right. Still love the ocean, but my preference is for the mountains, right? So that’s, that’s a bias that I have towards where I live. That’s not a discriminatory bias in terms of the hiring thing, but it’s a bias. So I want to make sure that when we say bias, we’re not attaching it as like the word on its own on its face is bad. Right? Jenn DeWall:  Yeah. Because I think that is a misconception. I know that I’ve seen it in my space where people, you know, it can feel like a label that people just don’t want. Like, I don’t want to say that I have bias, but we all have it. We can’t get away from it. We All Have Bias Nora Burns:  And we all have bias. And it’s based on all of our filters, all of our own experiences and it is living in our brains. So it’s really neuroscientists who are at the leading edge of the studies on how bias impacts all of our decisions on a daily basis. But really it’s a matter of us reclaiming that decision-making control and not letting biases make the decision, but having us purposefully, willfully making the right decisions. But the people who are unwilling to acknowledge bias are the people who will most often let their biases take control. So it’s when people say, Oh no, I don’t have any bias. Like, you know, don’t attach any of the ISTs to me essentially. Right? I don’t have any bias. I am. I am always looking at everything completely clear. And what have you, and that is the most dangerous person to have as your hiring manager, because we all have bias. And we have a society that doesn’t really allow us to talk about it. We often get shamed when we talk about it, but within our organizations, we need to be able to say, I know that I have my own biases. And so I want to make sure that when I’m hiring, I’m taking that into consideration so that I’m not tilting the scales. I don’t have, you know, the fingers on the scale of one side of that. And it’s small, they’re little things. They’re little things. Our brains are incredible. Okay. So like today I’m drinking a hot coffee. I love coffee. So I’m drinking a hot coffee. If I were interviewing you for a job while I’m drinking this hot coffee. And then in the next hour, I interview an equally qualified candidate, someone who face on the face of your resumes and your work experience and your job samples, it would be difficult to discern, which of you is actually the stronger candidate and I’m interviewing them next. And I’m finished with my coffee and I go and pour myself nice cold ice water. My bias is going to give the preference to you because I was drinking a hot beverage and I, my unconscious bias, there’s just something about her that was just warmer. It’s just really warmer than that other person. Jenn DeWall:  Wait, what!? That is mind-blowing to think that even some, a beverage choice, which I think, you know, I know you’re talking about accidental, you know, accidental bias, but I had no idea to even think that what I would have were a beverage could potentially play into how I perceive someone in an interview. Nora Burns:  Yeah. So now let’s add asking different questions in a different room at a different time of day, or like all of the other things that change in a shift during a hiring process. And then we’re, and then when we get to the end of the hiring process, if we haven’t used a data-driven process, standard hiring questions in a data-driven process, oftentimes hiring managers will say, I don’t know, my gut just says to go with this person. I don’t know why. I don’t know why. As soon as, as soon as you use the expression, “I don’t know why I prefer them over the other one,” bias is at work. That’s your cue. You know, there is bias at work when you say that. Join us to hear from all these speakers at Crestcom’s Leadership Summit Jenn DeWall:  I hope you enjoyed this Mini-sode— this mashup of these great speakers. Don’t forget to register for this event at Crestcom.com. I hope to see you on April 28th and April 29th. Again, that’s this week at Crestcom’s Leadership Summit.       The post Minisode: Get Connected with Tamara Ghandour, Tyrone Holmes and Nora Burns, Featured Speakers at Crestcom’s Virtual Leadership Summit appeared first on Crestcom International.

Get to know Heather R Younger and Debra Fine, Featured Speakers at Crestcom’s Upcoming Virtual Leadership Summit Jenn DeWall: Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And if you’re tuning in with us each week, we know you’re invested in yourself and furthering your leadership journey. At Crestcom, we believe great leaders aren’t born; they’re made. They turn skill into habit and habit into instinct. Continue your growth journey and learn to make leadership instinctual by joining us for a complimentary leadership summit around the theme: Connected: Compassion + Culture + Courage. Connected is a two-day virtual leadership event where we’ll discuss what it means to be connected, whether that’s creating meaningful connections with customers, building connected teams and inclusive cultures, having the courage to innovate, leading with compassion, or becoming more authentic in our professional and personal relationships. We have a packed lineup of speakers ready to help you build authentic and strong connections. So save your seat now and get connected with like-minded individuals on April 28th and 29th from 11 to 1 Eastern. You can register at Crestcom.com. And on this week’s episode, you are going to hear from two of the speakers that will be appearing on April 28th, Debra Fine and Heather R Younger. Get Connected with Heather R Younger Our first clip is a recent episode with Employee Loyalty and Leadership Expert Heather R Younger, called Developing Resilience in Yourself and Your Team from July 20th, 2020. Heather R. Younger – Developing Resilience in Yourself and Your Team Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall, and on today’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, we are interviewing Heather Younger. Heather is the bestselling author of The 7 Intuitive Laws of Employee Loyalty and the founder and CEO of Customer Fanatix. She is essentially an employee loyalty and leadership evangelist. And today, we are talking to her all about how we as leaders can be more resilient as well as how we can help others become more resilient, which is so important right now, given that the constraints or challenges that many of us may be seeing. I know that I got a lot from this podcast interview. It definitely inspired me, and I hope that it does the same for you. Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone! We’re here on The Leadership Habit Podcast. This week, we are interviewing Heather Younger. Now, for those that don’t know Heather, she is an employee loyalty and leadership evangelist. Heather, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. I really appreciate having you, and. Heather Younger: I’m excited to be here just sitting in the parking lot, and it’s, it’s like, awkward. And I feel like I’ve just parked crazily, and this lady has no choice but to squish in. And I’m sorry, this is on the call now, but that’s what’s happening. I’m excited. Jenn DeWall: Hey, that’s real life. I’m sure many leaders can believe that we sometimes have to do things, whether it’s in our car, whether it’s in our office, we just have to get it done. I mean, that’s commitment. That’s passion. That, you know, and we’re going to be talking about resilience today and how we can be more resilient, which is obviously so important. Given the climate with the pandemic, given the impact of the protests here in the U.S., We’re talking about resilience, how to build a workforce that can overcome adversity to hopefully achieve your strategic goals and just help your organization. So Heather, for those that haven’t met you yet, please just tell, tell our listeners a little bit about you. Heather Younger: So I, I run an organization called Customer Fanatix. We focus on helping organizations create a list, a better listening culture for their employees. And that focus ends up being on, you know, helping them with employee culture teams and employee resource groups and things like that in employee communication. And, and then I also am a keynote speaker and author on loyalty and leadership. And then I’m a podcast host too on leadership. Leadership with heart specifically. So I do a lot of things, and then I have four kiddos. So it’s interesting. Jenn DeWall: Yeah, yes, that is a busy life, but I love it. You have to be probably the favorite person who comes into an organization because every employee I’m guessing would love to love their job and love their organization. And you’re the one that actually helps organizations create a better culture or a place for people to work. So they’ve got to love you. Heather Younger: And I think that he is that they love me. I love them. And when the feeling is mutual, I think we get a lot more done together. I feel blessed that way. Jenn DeWall:  Good. Well, we’re going to be talking about resilience. I know for those that don’t know, Heather, Heather actually did a TEDx talk all about how we can overcome adversity, and that’s really going to be our focus for this podcast episode is how can we build a stronger workforce? How can, what do they do? So even right now, I know that the perfect starting point is how are you seeing organizations need to adapt given the pandemic and the, I guess, unforeseen consequences that have happened as a result of the pandemic? Heather Younger: I mean, I think, I think the biggest thing is it’s listening. What happens often with leaders is especially in an executive-level leader. But even just that even the mid-level leader, they are thinking they have to solve problems by themselves and they feel like they kind of have to do it alone. They have to stay strong. And, and so I think in this moment, I think what’s needed most is to show you a level of vulnerability and strength combined. So compassion, vulnerability, and strength, all balanced out. It’s kind of the most critical thing that leaders need to focus on. As far as building, you know, building resilience inside of their team, you cannot give what you do not have. And so you have to assess whether you are resilient first, because there’s no way for you to help others do that. And, and so that’s, that would be the first thing is to assess where you are as a leader. And do you feel like you are kind of adaptable to change and more open to the possibilities of what things could be and what they could look like in order to be able to pivot right now? Jenn DeWall: Gosh, I love that expression. I’ve never heard that before, but it makes total sense. You cannot give what you do not have. So if you are thinking that you can just create a resilient team, but you’re inside, maybe, you know, freaking out you’re nervous or you’re just not feeling confident, then how are you going to be able to inspire people to buckle up, hold on and still stay committed? Heather Younger: Yes, but I want to be clear that, you know, for those who are listening, that all of those emotions you just mentioned are 100% natural and I don’t expect anybody not to have those emotions. So we that’s part of building resilience is first recognizing how we currently feel. So there’s this level of emotional intelligence or self-awareness about how we feel in our shoes, given our circumstances. And then it’s deciding, you know, from there now I feel these how long I’m gonna allow myself to fill this, what am I going to stop myself from feeling this? And, and then what, how do I get myself out of the place where I’m feeling this, or at least minimizing it so I can move forward. So that’s kind of the, I just want to make sure I put that as a foundation. I don’t expect you to be non-human or don’t show emotion or have, because that would be just silly of me. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. You know the one thing that I love about this pandemic, I’m sorry. I know that’s probably a weird thing to say. You love it, but I do feel like it’s brought this unique opportunity for us to finally be real, to recognize that we all have this shared experience and you can’t hide and pretend that emotions don’t exist anymore. The pandemic is showing you that people are afraid. They’re nervous for their jobs. They’re nervous for their families. Emotions are there. You can’t just avoid them and say, well, this sucks and kind of seems awkward. So let’s just focus on this Monday morning meeting because it’s a part of it now. Heather Younger: It is, exactly. Jenn DeWall:  And I think, you know, you talked about vulnerability and strength, you know, what does vulnerability look like as a resilient leader? What does that look like? Heather Younger:  Well, I think vulnerability looks like what vulnerability looked like all the time, which is, you know, being open about kind of where you might stand. It may not be a hundred percent open. So I, you know, it’s not like you’re just going to stand and sit there with your team members and just start to break out into tears and start to go like crazy and nuts. All the things that you’re feeling inside, not every bit of that needs to be released, but some of that does, number one, you will gain more respect and trust and loyalty from those people right now, in this moment, when you show them that you need them and that you cannot do this alone. And at the same time, you will also get that same loyalty by showing in spite of those things that there’s a level of strength that you’re exhibiting and that you want to be there to help them to, to get through it. Get Connected with Debra Fine Jenn DeWall:  Our next clip is from a recent episode that we did in January of this year. We sat down with bestselling author and speaker Debra Fine to discuss The Fine Art of Small Talk. The Fine Art of Small Talk with Best Selling Author, Debra Fine Jenn DeWall:  Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Debra Fine. Who is she? Well, a former engineer, Debra Fine, is the author of bestselling books. The Fine Art of Small Talk: How to Start a Conversation, Keep It Going, Build Networking Skills- and Leave a Positive Impression; as well as The Fine Art of Big Talk; along with her just-released third book in the “Fine Art” series, Beyond Texting: the Fine Art of Face-to-Face Communication for Teenagers. All of these books are translated and published in two dozen countries across the globe. So, Debra is a 25-year member of the National Speakers Association, and she presents on stage and virtually as a keynote speaker and trainer to hundreds of audiences around the world that include the National Electrical Contractors Association, Google, Amazon, and so many more. Now you can find her as a regular Huffington Post blogger. Her recent media appearances include the TODAY Show, NPR Morning Edition, Fox Business News, the New York Times, and CNN. I am so excited to welcome Debra Fine to the show as we talk about The Fine Art of Small Talk. Jenn DeWall:  Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall, and in today’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I am sitting down with public speaker author, and some might consider her the dominant driving force behind the art of small talk, Mrs. Debra Fine. Debra, how are you doing today? Debra Fine: Jenn DeWall. It’s a bleary day, but I feel sunny because I feel sunny for many different reasons. The new year ahead, a vaccine in my sights, and my health and your health, too, Jenn DeWall, more than anything. At heart, I’m feeling great! Jenn DeWall: Well, I’m having you on because you’ve written multiple books on the art of small talk. So, but my audience doesn’t know you yet. So, could you just go ahead and introduce yourself and talk about who you are and what you do. Debra Fine: Thank you for asking Jenn. I’m excited to say that I used to be an engineer. That’s what my education is. That was my background. And that’s what led me to where I am today is that I did not choose engineering because I was an engineer at heart. I chose engineering because I was great at math, and I did not want to really talk to anybody. I thought it was the perfect profession. Seriously. If I had wanted to chat with people, Jenn, I would have chosen your profession. I would have been in an interviewer, or I would have been a host. I would have been a leader. I would have been in sales. I would have been a teacher, but I was not born with the gift of gab. As your audience can tell you were- I was not born with it. And I used to think, wow, you know, how is it that people are so charismatic? But I knew that I wasn’t born with a gift of gab. So I gave up right away. It was just like, I knew I didn’t have that talent. I had other talents, obviously. And that was just how it was. So I plotted along and another key ingredient to why I started a business talking about small talk, which, trust me, most engineers think is a waste of saliva. And my guess is your audience might’ve thought that when they originally started listening as well. Because if you’re in leadership, you just think, you know, I have projects to lead. I have people to manage. I have tasks to get done. We think small talk is like talking about the Denver Broncos or talking about the weather, but there is so much more involved. And I didn’t know that either. I had a very bad attitude about small talk. So with that in my life, I thought, how are people like Jenn DeWall doing it? What are they doing that makes them so good with people? How is it that they seem to hit it off with everybody, that there is chemistry? What, what are they doing? So I spent a year’s worth of time on research. Honest to goodness, only an engineer would do this. And so, how do you launch conversations? How do you get through those awkward moments? Sometimes in the good old days before the pandemic, when there would be a table of eight of us sitting there at some sponsorship table, everybody would go around the table, say their name, say who they worked for, what they did. And then sort of everybody would bow their heads and start to play with their food. Unless, of course, you brought your spouse or your girlfriend or your buddy, and then you automatically turn to each other and sort of used your crutch. They were your conversation crux to talk to. I mean, how do you get through those moments? I researched listening skills, body language. I even researched exit lines, Jenn, so that you never again, in order to get away from me, do one of these numbers. Debra gotta go, gotta call the babysitter. And five minutes later, I find out from a colleague that you don’t have kids. I mean, there are ways to get away from people without lying to them, but ways to get away from people. So they can’t hold us, hostage for one more moment. So, you know, I really, I just thought, how are people doing it? I did the research. I created a program. And I learned something really important. I used to think it was just me that struggled. And I was just thinking I was dorky people. So I’m, I’m truthfully a dork. You know, I’ve obviously put on red today. I put on lipstick. I’m trying not to look dorky, but I am a dork, but I learned that other people besides engineers, so dorky. Do you know that CPAs can be dorky? Lawyers can be dorky, fourth-grade teachers can be great at being teachers, but then they have to talk to parents at back-to-school night, and it becomes awkward. I learned that all kinds of professions. What’s it like, you know, when we go back to get our hair styled, and we sit in the chair of someone who may be a marvelous hairstylist, but they’re awkward with the chitchat. It feels uncomfortable. We don’t want to go back, even though they did a great job. I mean, unless we can, you know, I have learned to say, how about I’m just exhausted. I’m out of saliva. How about there’s no talking unless you can go in that route. If it’s awkward, you don’t want to go back there. The same as a ski instructor up in Vail. So that’s my background. I created a business where I was a keynote speaker, which I still am today, and a trainer. Some of my clients include Google and Amazon and Lockheed Martin and NASA and Duke Power, and even Van Cleef & Arpels. Now I don’t have their jewelry because I still can’t afford it, but they’ve trained all their salespeople in The Fine Art of Small Talk. So but so have they done it, Lockheed Martin, at Cisco systems. If you would like to be a director level or above at Cisco, you need to take The Fine Art of Small Talk because even if you’re an introvert, you have to behave like an extrovert in order to meet their expectations of what leadership looks like. That may not be your expectation. Those of you who are viewing this today, but it is Cisco’s, and it is at Google as well. And that’s why they’ve used me. So I also, as you mentioned, Jenn, thank you very much have written books, and The Fine Art of Small Talk is published and translated in two dozen countries. A few more actually, and has been on the bestseller list for many, many years. I won’t tell you because then you’ll guess my age, Jenn DeWall: Can I say, well, first and foremost, congratulations on that level of professional accomplishment. That is, yeah. That’s a big deal. And to know that yes, there is a place for small talk. And I think you hit it when we opened this, recognizing that initially, people look at small talk as this begrudging tasks that we have to do that takes us away from our other bigger responsibilities. It’s almost annoying. I mean that for probably someone like me, that’s more- I do have more of that expressive or extroverted personality, but I know that some people might see me coming on a Monday morning, and they’re like, how do I get away from Jenn? Right. Like, I know I absolutely get that. But the thing that I also want to call out too is that you came from what I would say, a stereotypical engineer or a stereotypical industry where people just assume, well, they’re an engineer. Jenn DeWall: They don’t, they don’t really talk. They don’t like talking. My husband’s an engineer. He’ll even tell you that. Like I love going to and like networking events with him because it is funny. I know that I can at least, hopefully, if anything, just make them laugh because they’re like, who is this bananas person? But you know, it’s an industry that often gets pegged of individuals that don’t do that. And maybe part of the reason that they don’t just because there is a label there or because we just don’t know how, and that’s what I’m hoping to be able to just really walk through today. What, like, so why is small talk so important? Debra Fine: It’s the appetizer for any relationship, Jenn? I mean, you mentioned that you’re married. I have no idea how you met, but you met one of two ways. Here’s my guess. You either met randomly and via small talk. It developed into a romantic relationship. So that’s the appetizers, the small talk. Then it developed into a relationship, or it’s possible someone fixed you up used an internet site. Okay. So that’s where you meet somebody, and then you have to revert to small talk in order to build the relationship. So the same holds for business. By the way, we can have a negotiation with someone. We can sell a widget to someone. We can provide a service to someone, but unless we integrate small talk into that appetizer, we won’t develop a business friendship with them. And all things being equal. People do business with their friends. The same thing goes for social. I can meet you randomly, right? And if small talk ensues, it builds into a friendship, but it starts with small talk. And so that’s why I think it’s important. It now, you know, you made a wonderful reference to yourself. You know, Monday morning, here comes Jenn DeWall and people like me are thinking, Oh my gosh, first of all, I have a list of everything I have to do. Secondly, oh no, I don’t have time for 15 minutes of small talk. Okay. But here’s the other thing about that’s up to me to exit her conversation, her small talk, but the thing about Jenn DeWall that you can, you, you just feel it, even over this virtual thing that we’re doing, you feel warm, you feel charisma, you feel, and that’s what we all need to be able to project in our own authentic way. Get Connected! Join us on April 28th and 29th for our Virtual Leadership Summit! We  hope you enjoyed this Mini-Sode Mashup. Don’t forget to register for the free leadership event at Crestcom.com. I hope to see you on April 28th and April 29th at Crestcom’s Leadership Summit.   The post Minisode: Get Connected with Heather R Younger and Debra Fine, Featured Speakers at Crestcom’s Virtual Leadership Summit appeared first on Crestcom International.

Full Transcript Below: Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone, It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Vanessa Parker, who also is known as a Chief Chaos Organizer. Vanessa is a serial entrepreneur, wife, and mother currently holding an executive director position. She is a walking billboard for women across the world that either own their own business, work nine to five jobs, or even both! Together, she and her husband, Paul, founded and ran several globally-recognized businesses, including Pink Boss and Divas in Defense. Under the Pink Boss imprint, Vanessa has elevated hundreds of women through digital resource workshops and speaking engagements. For Divas in Defense, she serves as the VP of Operations and Training, onboarding the company’s new self-defense licensees and operation of their international division. Her audience has seen her on the stage at Georgia Tech, Clayton State University, General Assembly, at Tom Joyner Foundation Fantastic Voyage Cruise, Tom Joyner Foundation Family Reunion, Black Enterprise’s Walker’s Legacy, 100 Female Entrepreneurs, and in Kuwait, partnering with Balsam International Training, and speaking to over 1400 women from 65 nationalities. As a wife and mother, Vanessa dedicates her time outside of the office to spending time with her blended family. I’d like you to welcome Vanessa to the podcast. We are going to be talking all about how we can show up and lead with confidence. Meet Vanessa Parker, Chief Chaos Organizer Jenn DeWall: Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and I am so excited about this week’s episode. We are talking about one of my favorite topics, confidence and leading with confidence! And here to do that— I am sitting down with Chief Chaos Officer Vanessa Parker. First and foremost, welcome to the show, but please tell me what Chaos Officer means or Organizer- a Chief Chaos Organizer. Vanessa Parker: Thank you so much for having me. So honestly, it’s a title I’ve given myself because I run so many different things. I wear a lot of hats, from mom to wife to career. I have a nine to five as an executive director- and to my freelance businesses. And so, but everything that I touch is usually chaotic. I believe that my skillset is being able to look at something complex and creating processes around them. So I find myself in all these areas. So I said, you know what? I’m a Chief Chaos Organizer. And so that’s the title that I’ve given myself. Jenn DeWall: I love that. And you do wear a lot of hats and what the audience didn’t hear too is just, I mean, I want to give another acknowledgment to everyone. Like when you wear a lot of hats, it’s amazing. But yes, we also can be burnt out, which can impact our confidence. How do you stay? Like how do you stay confident? And I heard you say systems. How do you stay confident in the chaos? Because sometimes for me when it’s chaos, Oh, then I start to get overwhelmed. I am maybe more stressed out. I know I’m not responding or talking to people in the way. That’s my best self. How do you kind of keep showing up as a leader with confidence when you’re in or when you’re in chaos? Vanessa Parker: Ooh. So this took some years of training. So whatever I’m getting ready to tell you is like my secret sauce now, right? One thing is looking from like a 10,000-foot level. What is really, really important, what things are chaotic, and then at what systems can I put in place, right? And then narrowing down onto the different roles. And Another thing I do is I do a lot of time blocking and day blocking because the things that I do a lot are usually flexible. So meaning I can do them on certain days, certain times. And so, for me, I do time blocking, which means that I literally have focused time where I focus on these few tasks. Day blocking is on certain days I focus on different businesses or in my career. Right? And so Monday, Wednesday, Friday is where I really focus on my nine to five. That doesn’t mean I don’t do work those other days, right. But those are my truly important days. I do admin work. I respond to emails. I follow up. I do all those things that are time-consuming. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days I focus, focus on my freelance stuff. And so, for me, that time blocking and day blocking allows me to have focus. Cause I’ve learned over the years, I’m not good at multitasking. And I think that I can juggle all the hats, but I can’t juggle them all on the same day. So I’ve got to make sure that I create those. And my last thing is before I go to bed, I tell myself that the day is complete because when you wear a lot of hats, your to-do list is never going to be done. And as someone like myself, that’s a project manager. I’m a Capricorn who really loves organization. If I can check off all the boxes, I don’t feel confident in myself. I don’t, I feel like a failure sometimes, but for me, I have to know that I did my best. If I give excellence every day and I try to conquer what I can do. When I go to bed, I say, my day is complete. Whatever I didn’t complete today, whatever I didn’t accomplish today, I can accomplish tomorrow. And those simple words have been such a reliever for me because I’ve given myself grace and permission to let the day close. I’ve done what I can do. Jenn DeWall: The day is complete. I love, Oh, just calming down the Sunday Scaries or the anxiety that kicks up. No, my day is complete. I love that. But I thought we didn’t. I didn’t even touch on this. Can you just share with our audience a little bit more about who you are? What are those hats that you’re wearing? Tell us a little bit more about what you do. Vanessa Parker: And so main hat. I am the executive director for a non-profit here in Atlanta, Georgia. We manage over 25 urban gardens. And so those are community gardens that we grow to give. We grow all the food, and we give to local food banks due to the pandemic. Food needs- the need for food has increased by over 400%. And so we have been meeting that need and making sure that food pantries have fresh produce. So that’s kind of the main hat that I wear. The other hat is my husband, and I have a business called Divas in Defense. We teach women and girls self-defense. We do that internationally corporate-wise, and then we license our program out. Things have kind of been on hold due to the current situation we are in. So we’re slowly ramping back up. And then the other thing I have is my Pink Boss business. That’s where I do all my group training, speaking engagements, all the confidence courses that I offer. I do it through that company. Then, I’m a mom, a wife, and all those other hats. Right? And so sounds all over the place, but I have learned to kind of keep it all in the right lane. Why is Confidence so Important? Jenn DeWall: Yeah. I mean, it’s, you have to, but I love that. You don’t just say I have to be one thing. I allow myself to focus on what I enjoy too. Either whether it’s a mom, whether it’s running your business, whether you know, whatever that is, you don’t limit yourself by saying, well, you can only do one, like you can do it. You just have to be intentional as to what you shared, but day-blocking, which I love and need to probably do more of, and remind myself the day is complete. So how did you come to kind of be attracted to talking about the topic of confidence because you and I connected? I heard you speak at a different event. You gave us such amazing insights. And so I knew that we needed to talk about this. How or what was your journey to really wanting to focus on the subject area? Vanessa Parker: Years ago, my husband and I had a business called Corporate LLC where we help small businesses start-up getting their LLC set up. We did the website design, all of that stuff. Then transitioned to, you know, got rid of that company, transitioned into Divas in Defense. I used to coach women in business, all of these things that I’ve done, even managing a team at the core of what holds people back, I noticed it was confidence. And I kept getting pulled in the direction of coaching or empowering people that were challenged with confidence. And I really think it’s not that I’m just an expert. I think that because I’m allowed, I feel I allow myself to be vulnerable enough to share my own struggles and then the things that I’ve worked on to overcome them and then share that information with other people who have tried some of the things and then giving me feedback. And so imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and confidence have really been tugging at me the last few years because I believe that that is the core piece that holds most people back. Confidence and Imposter Syndrome Jenn DeWall: Absolutely. And it’s so funny. And I know we touched on this- imposter syndrome is, has been around for a while, but for some reason, it is just taking center stage. And I’m curious, why do you think it’s grown to its popularity today? What are you like? Why do you think it is that we’re finally talking about the fact that we all struggle with confidence? Like why it’s just so funny. It feels like there was a switch flipped, and now everyone wants to talk about it. Vanessa Parker: I know! And it’s so funny. Because I hear such, I’m hearing both sides of people who don’t think it exists and people that think it exists. I definitely think it exists. It has been around since 1970, the 1970s. Two scientists, well, two psychologists here in Atlanta, coined the term imposter phenomenon. They didn’t want to call it a syndrome because I felt like that made it a disease, but the buzzword has really taken off in the last, I would say, four years. I think it’s because one, we have the power of social media where people are transparent, taking the veil off. Celebrities that we looked up to are now admitting or owning up to what imposter syndrome is. Studies show that 70% of Americans have dealt with it before. So I think when you mention it, and you have a platform where you’re talking about it, so many people resonate with it, then you’ve got the blog posts, the podcasts, all the things that are creating the buzz around it. And so I’m excited about it. I have some people who have said, Oh my God, you’ve been talking about this for the past five years. How do you feel that it’s kind of gone viral? I’m happy because I believe that imposter syndrome and self-doubt thrive in isolation. And if we don’t talk about it, then we suffer from it. Right. And I think suppression breeds depression. Right. And I think that having the different conversations about it, having people that look like you talk like you, that are saying I’m dealing with it, then allows us to identify and then create tools around how to combat it. What does it mean to lead with confidence? Jenn DeWall: My gosh, can I just give you- first of all, I loved everything you just said, but second, thank you so much for acknowledging its role in the connection between imposter syndrome and mental health. That super-like suppression can equal depression. And as someone that struggles with mental health, that’s absolutely sometimes very, very true for me where I, you know, you struggle alone. You struggle in silence. And then that struggle just gets to be a bigger burden that kind of, again, diminishes your confidence, your energy, whatever that is like overall, your emotional health declines. So I think it’s so important to talk about that in terms of, you know when we don’t show up as our authentic selves, and we don’t give ourselves the grace that we actually could be, you know, really compromising ourselves in terms of a mental health standpoint. Thank you for bringing that up because, you know, it’s another thing that we need to keep plugging. Like mental health is so important, and yet we, we avoid that topic for some reason. I don’t know why, but it impacts everything that we do. What does, in your experience, what does leading with confidence mean? Vanessa Parker: I believe that leading with confidence means leading your authentic self. Sometimes people say that as a buzzword, but it’s true to who you are, what your values are, what you know, empowering those whom you lead, and being able to lift them up. I think true leaders are not so focused on their own personal development but the development of the people that they lead. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. And they’re secure enough. So they’re not saying, Oh, if I develop you, then you’re somehow going to rise above me. They say, no, if we all develop each other, then we get better. So leading with confidence is also then how do you think, what does that look like if you make a mistake? Because I think that some leaders still put the expectation that we can’t own our mistakes or we can’t share, you know, we still try to pretend like everything’s fine, even though we might be that, you know, what’s the metaphor of the duck with the rapidly, like kicking legs underwater, you can’t see it, but they’re only showing you the top, which is not authentic and hard to build trust. But what, what does that mean? Or I guess my question again, in a long way, is like leading with confidence. Like what, how does that, how would that show up if you were going to, I guess, talk about a mistake that you made, because again, yeah, just leaders don’t own that sometimes because we’re afraid of being judged. And what, what does that look like when we actually do own our mistakes? And how can we use that as a positive? Vanessa Parker: I think vulnerability is the bridge to trust with your team. I’m not saying you got to tell all your business, right. But I think that there are pieces of yourself. That people need to know that you’re human. Being a robotic leader, it doesn’t work. I mean, we’ve had those leaders before. It just doesn’t work. Then you’ve got to put up this front that you’re perfect. Right? I think that so being vulnerable is super important for doing that with your team. I also think that we have to stop adopting the all-or-nothing mindset. And this is for leaders as well as employees. Right? Jenn DeWall: Tell me what you mean. What does that mean? It’s Normal to Make Mistakes Vanessa Parker: So, if I make a mistake, it does not mean I’m a failure. So like if I make a stake in my job, that doesn’t mean I’m a failure across the board. I’m not a failure at being a mother, right? Like I think that we take on these things that were all or nothing. If I make a mistake at work and it could be a big mistake, I’m not negating any, you know, the stakes, right, but I’m saying I’m making a mistake. It doesn’t mean I’m a failure at my job. It doesn’t negate all the years of success that I had at the employer, I made a mistake, and that mistake could possibly just be a silo. Right. And I just think that sometimes we put ourselves in these boxes where we’re all or nothing, you’re going to have bad days. You’re going to make mistakes in your personal life and in your career. So I think that being able to or identifying, knowing this is a mistake area that I have I’ve made. It doesn’t mean I’m like that all over. As a leader, I think acknowledging that and saying that to your employee or someone that you lead, Hey, I noticed that mistake. Here’s the immediate feedback. That’s the other thing, giving immediate feedback when there is a mistake done because what happens is if you avoid it because you don’t want to deal with the conflict, right? You don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. If you avoid correcting the mistake of giving them immediate feedback needed, then that mistake may happen again. Then as a leader, you might be resentful to that person. You may think you’re not acting differently to that person, but you probably are. Right? And so identifying and knowing, Hey, my employee made a mistake, acknowledging it course-correcting it and knowing, and confirming, affirming them, knowing that this doesn’t mean that you’re a mistake in the whole company like you, made this one mistake. What Happens if Leaders Don’t Have Confidence? Jenn DeWall: I love the all or nothing just, and you brought up a really great reminder that this is a natural way to think. I know myself. I, I mean, I try to be candid on the podcast because I just want to share stories, but I am incredibly hard on myself. Like, you know, talk about just listening. All it takes is one mistake. And that I have to very much train my brain or just remind myself, like, don’t go there. It’s not productive. But sometimes I absolutely go there, and it sucks. It drains your confidence. It makes you not even want to try again because you’re like, Oh, I guess I really goofed up. But I love that you talk about having the all-or-nothing conversation with your team because we’re going to do it as leaders to ourselves. We likely will. That’s probably part of also what, you know, maybe even helped us be successful is that urgency that we have to prove it is all or nothing, but reminding your team that they’re going to have it and showing empathy for that. I love that having the conversation, Hey, you might have a tendency to maybe focus on this mistake, and that’s going to cloud all of your sense of accomplishment. Here’s what I want you to do, even though you’re going there. I just love that, Vanessa. I think that it’s so valuable that have the conversation with your team started having these types of convos. Don’t, you know, don’t just suffer in silence, like start also showing your team that it’s okay. What does it like? What’s the cost of not leading with confidence? Vanessa Parker: Ooh— not leading with confidence. It can create an environment where your team does not trust you. It can create an environment where your team does not show up in excellence because you’re not providing excellence. I think that leaders that are not confident are micromanagers. I think that sometimes they withhold information from a team. So they’re not best at communication. I think that they are they don’t know how to praise their team members or the people that they lead, which also may feel from an employee that I’m not getting the credit I deserve. I’m not seen. So I think that when you do not lead with confidence, you create and breed this environment. That is not a healthy workplace. Yes. Does Confidence Come Naturally to Some People? Jenn DeWall: I like that. You know, just talking and reminding ourselves, like it shows up in how we communicate to people and they can sense it. Right. They can sense whether or not you’re like feeling confident in a decision, whether or not you’re even feeling confident in maybe a strategy or a task that you’re asking them to do. Like, we are very, I mean, I don’t know. Do you just notice? I feel confident. You can just tell when someone walks in the room, or you meet them, whether or not they have it. Like, do you feel, and I think I even had this as a later question. Like, do you think that confidence— I’m gonna move this up—Oh, I guess it’s the next one. Is confidence something that can be built? Or is it something that’s natural? Vanessa Parker: I think that in doing imposter syndrome research and talking to people who swear, they don’t have it. I think that there is a small percentage of people that may not have issues with confidence. I applaud them, but those people do have to check their ego and have guardrails in place or people in place that can help them when they’re a little high on their horse. Right. And so the ego can be a hard thing. Or arrogance can be a hard thing. If it’s something that you don’t lack in confidence. Right. But the majority of the world, I believe, does lack confidence. And so it may not. It doesn’t seem like second nature. It doesn’t come naturally. I think it’s work that you have to do. And you can do that work by listening to this podcast, right, or listening to getting a coach or reading confidence or leadership books, finding a mentor that you believe is a great leader. So you can peel back and learn how, where they’ve gotten someone older, someone, who’s a little bit more experienced. So to answer your question, I do believe that there’s a small percentage of people that it may come second nature for the rest of us. I do not think so. I think you get as something it’s like a muscle. I think it is something that has to be worked on. You mentioned earlier talking to yourself when you have that trigger. I think that those are tools that you learn over time. If that triggers your confidence that your lack of confidence that you can turn on and that’s the work that you have to do, I don’t think it’s a one-size-fits-all. I give a lot of different strategies, but I think that you’ve got to try a bunch of things out to see what actually works for you. A Message from Crestcom: Hi, it’s Jenn. And if you’re tuning in with us each week, we know that you’ve invested in yourself and furthering your leadership journey. At Crestcom, we believe great leaders aren’t born; they’re made. They turn skill into habit and habit into instinct. Continue your growth journey and learn to make leadership instinctual by joining us for our complimentary leadership summit around the theme, Connected: Compassion + Culture + Courage. Connected is a two-day virtual leadership event where we’ll discuss what it means to be connected. Whether that’s creating meaningful connections with customers, building connected teams and inclusive cultures, having the courage to innovate, leading with compassion, or becoming more authentic in our professional and personal relationships, we need to continue to find new ways to stay bonded while the majority of the workforce is still working at home. Join us to learn more about building connections with both your customers and coworkers. We have a packed lineup of speakers ready to help you build authentic and strong connections. Save your seat now and get connected with like-minded individuals on April 28th and 29th from 11:00 AM To 1:00 PM Eastern. You can register on Crestcom.com. Hope to see you there. What If I Think I’m Already Confident Enough? Jenn DeWall: I want to ask personally about this because you and I are both coaches. Like I know that I, you know, work within leadership. I work within a career, right? Like they’ll come, a client might come with a specific issue, and they never think that it’s confidence. I don’t. I just think it’s so funny that you have that same experience where people are like, no, no, no, I’m a confident person. And then you’re like, no, but it’s actually confidence you are feeling. Because I think people also don’t understand. We can get confidence in different ways. We can get it from being really good at our jobs. We can use it obviously from our self-talk. There are more things. I love the book, The Confidence Code for that. Just to talk about that. But I, I just love that. Like so many people resist because it’s so bad to be labeled as not confident, but yet if we don’t own it, how the heck can we actually resolve, like getting rid of that stuff? I just, I love that you shared that experience because it just shows, again— people stop lying to yourselves! You might actually have an opportunity to check your confidence. And when you own that, it’s just a great place to start developing or do something different. I don’t know. What do you say to your clients when they’re like, I don’t have an issue with this because it’s, again, we don’t want to be called or labeled as not confident. Vanessa Parker: I have a friend who supports me. She will attend to all my imposter syndrome stuff. She has on me about writing a book about it, all of those great things. But she swears she does not deal with imposter syndrome or lack of confidence. Now, all I do is still remind her of situations. She says something to me, I’m like, sounds a little bit about confidence, right? But no judgment. It’s interesting because it wasn’t until recently, she is now in a doctoral program. And she said for the first time she did not feel confident. And so, in our discussion, we realized she didn’t have a lack of confidence because she typically didn’t put herself in places where she was not the smartest in the room. She didn’t challenge herself in certain areas. Right. And so to your point, confidence is not just at my career confidence. If you don’t, if you feel great and super confident and free, you may not as a parent, or you may not as a wife. Right. And so confidence isn’t this blanket thing. It affects different areas of your life. It may not affect your career, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t lack in other areas. Jenn DeWall: Yes. And it’s so important that it can. It pivots. It can go up down throughout the day, depending on that. And then yes, they love your point that if you are feeling, you know, overly confident, or if you feel like you don’t have a confidence issue, maybe it is an opportunity to check in with yourself and say, Hey, do you want to learn something new? Like how could you put yourself into a more vulnerable, like, you know, a risk, a situation that could help you like trying to develop a new skill, applying for a new job, you know, just to see? Because I know that everything that you want is on the other side of fear, and you need to have the confidence to overcome fear. And if you don’t have confidence, you’re not going anywhere. You’re just going to stay there because confidence is that beautiful thing that we control. Comparing Ourselves to Others Kills Confidence Jenn DeWall: I love that it’s us. Right? We can’t. That’s the one thing you cannot go to a store for. And it is invaluable when you have it and are developing it, but it’s still hard. I do the work, and I can tell you it’s still a struggle with it. It’s, and I think it’s because, and I’m sure you have this too. Is that the second you’ve kind of mastered something, then you’re like you somehow find your hand in another situation that you don’t have experience with? And you’re like, Oh gosh, why did I sign myself up for this? Can I do this? What is wrong with me? But each time, it’s building your resilience, and you know, you talk about it as a muscle. I also like to think about it as, you know, just even thinking we’re trained from birth to just comparing ourselves to people, you know, like, how are you doing? Check-in. Are you in alignment with your peers? Are you in alignment with your friends? And so every single person, I really think we do compare ourselves often to people like, am I getting it right? Am I good enough? And the piece of what confidence is it? That is the most— I guess not helpful— way to look at it because we can’t limit ourselves by looking at someone else’s middle and being at our own beginning. And I see that a lot in like a speaking program that I run, like some of our newer speakers, just, they might see someone that’s more established and then they don’t step into their confidence. Even though they’re fantastic speakers, they’re just new. I don’t know. Do you see that? Like, I just want to hug everyone when they feel that I’m like, don’t compare yourself. Vanessa Parker: I think that we are not okay with being new at something. We are not okay with saying, I don’t know. It’s so funny. This non-profit that I work for now, I just recently got this role in December, and we are urban gardeners. We manage urban gardens. I know nothing about gardening. Like I have, I have a plant. That’s all I had to go meet an older gentleman. That’s a farmer, been a farmer for years to pick up some plant donations for us. And when I arrived, he started asking me things and talking about things. And I kept saying, Oh no, sir, I don’t know that term, sir. I don’t. I don’t know. And at the end? He said, what do you know? Aren’t you an executive director for this non-profit? And it’s funny because, in my twenties, I may have taken that as offensive. But for me, I said, no, I actually didn’t get hired because I’m a gardener. I got hired because I can grow this non-profit, and I can create systems around it and get us the funding we need. Jenn DeWall: Yes. For that response- it’s confidence in action! Vanessa Parker: Lean on our team members that are actually gardeners. I’m not. And so you do have those people who will put you and make you feel that way. That’s what happens when you compare yourself to others. But knowing that I am so confident with saying, I don’t know. I don’t know like I’m learning, but I don’t know everything yet. And I am not supposed to know everything. I don’t believe that we’re here on this earth to just if I know everything about everything, I wouldn’t need anyone. And I just don’t think that we are. We’re created for that. I think we’re created to work with each other, and we’re communal, right? And so I’m okay with it. But I have learned over the years, that’s the confidence that I have built. Good Leaders Build Their Team’s Confidence Jenn DeWall: Yes. I love that. Give yourself an a, because again, that’s something that a lot of leaders do. We put this pressure because we have that title that we somehow have to show up as a perfect person, doesn’t make mistakes. And then also that pressure, I have to know all the answers. And I love that. Even with what you shared, you can go back to your team as an Executive Director. You’re like, and this is a great opportunity to lean on my team. I don’t have to, even though you’re the Executive Director. No, absolutely. You don’t have to be everything, but you can leverage your skills at growing that business, putting those systems in place. That was such an amazing example of what leadership looks like. We can be confident in what we have, but then also recognize the value and be confident with someone else. Vanessa Parker: And a good leader will put people in place and give them the right tasks for them to succeed. I believe a good leader looks at their team to know what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are so that they can give them wins. Right? If you know your team member, for example, my lead gardener is amazing and knowledgeable in the garden, but throw her in presentations and business meetings where she has to fundraise, she’s probably going to fail. And so if I need her to get there, then I’ve got to put the things in place to get her to there or recognize that may she may never get there because that is not her skill set. And it will be unfair to put her in that role. And so I think leaders, we have to look at not just confidence, skillset, and strengths. And if that is a skill set that they need on your team, then how do you build that up over time? Because it does, it’s not a flip of the switch, right? Or is that something that they will never be able to fulfill? And how do you either hire for that role or fill that gap? Jenn DeWall: Yes. I love that. Focus on those strengths, like just making sure that they feel confident, and I love checking in. I, you know, my task would be like challenging. Does every organization do every person that does well have to become a leader? Because I know we are leaders. We’re, this is a leadership podcast. I love leadership, but it’s also not a small job. And then you hire that top performer that’s not a great leader that becomes a liability for you. So why can’t we start to look at their strengths and be like, you know what, they’re a great performer? Probably not the best on our people management side, but they’re really great at these tactical efforts. Let’s praise and reward them for that. Instead of being like, well, you’ll only way to move up here is to, you know, do something and then, and then they hate it. The employees hate it, but this happens everywhere. I feel like this happens everywhere. Why?! Vanessa Parker: This happens in sales all the time. Just because you have great numbers, you’re promoted to a leader, and they don’t give them any personal development training. They don’t make sure. And how many people leave jobs because of that middle manager. And I feel so sorry for the middle manager, right? Because they get promoted based on performance, which is great, but then they get no training on leadership. They get no training on dealing with your team and knowing that leadership is really 60% people work. And so we promote these people and then get mad at the horrible bosses, but we’ve never prepared them. Yes. Jenn DeWall: What the heck? Like, why can’t we stop this one? This is a glaring problem that I even bought someone listening is like, yeah, there’s really some not great leaders that they were great team members. They’re really great at what they did, but why in the heck is that the only option? And you’re setting up everyone to fail. It’s not fair. I want to also give a shout out too, quickly. Because we were talking about imposter syndrome. I’m going back here. So if you heard and you thought about imposter syndrome, maybe your first thing was just like you, like you, you know, I don’t know how you move to the Executive Director role, but thinking you see the job and you’re like, I don’t have any gardening experience. I guess I’m not going to go for it. Whereas you were like, but this is the experience I do have. I can learn other things, or I can depend on my team. Jenn DeWall: That is such a stellar example of confidence and not letting that voice or the pressure to be perfect, to stifle your ability to grow and find these next opportunities. I just want to praise you for that because that’s a really big deal. And I think that’s a great inspiration for our audience. If they’re looking at something and telling themselves they’re not good enough, or they don’t have X, what do you have? So let’s, I know we’re going to talk about tools. Like maybe we can talk and just give some quick examples of what decreases our confidence. And then we’ll go into talking about some tools on how we can rebuild. What are the things I know we talked about a few of them already, like comparison, right? Vanessa Parker: Yes! Comparison, right? And I will say unfollow people that make you feel some kind of way. Right? Because we also can control our social media feed. Just like looking at your confidence. So comparison. Not knowing all the answers, we talked about that. Right. I think that holds us back because we’re afraid to say we don’t know or to seek the answers. We’re afraid that in leadership if I said, I don’t know now, I’m a doctor. And I walk into your office, and the doctor says, I don’t know, that might be a problem, right? But I’m not performing heart surgery. So like being able to be comfortable saying we don’t know. We talked about imposter syndrome, the all-or-nothing mindset. Right? I think you lack confidence when you think I missed. I make a mistake in this area that that mistake is transferred onto all areas of your life. It’s Ok To Make Mistakes But Remember to Course-Correct Vanessa Parker: I think that’s it. I think another thing that decreases confidence is when you continue to make mistakes and don’t course correct? Because in imposter syndrome and self-doubt, sometimes there’s a silver lining of truth, right? There is a little piece of it that you feel like, Oh my God, I’m not equipped to apply for this job. I don’t have all the skillsets, right? And so if that’s the case and that keeps coming up for you, go get the skillset, like create an action list of things you can do. So you can combat that trigger when it comes. Right. So not being able to course correct when you keep seeing the same mistake, I think, is important. The other thing that I think decreases confidence is when we are not our authentic selves. Who are you? You’ve got to take some time to know who you are, what makes you tick the good, bad, and ugly. There are some things that we’re not going to be able to fix, but we can put guardrails or tools around to help us. I’m a procrastinator. With all the hats that I wear, procrastination is a thorn in my side! It is the hardest thing to overcome for me, but I have to push through and put tools and things in place. But it’s being able to know that about myself and accepting that it’s not going to go away. Right. But I can create some things that help me with it. Jenn DeWall: Okay. So we’re, you know, I love all of those ideas. Yes. Imposter syndrome, not knowing all the answers, what are the tools? How can we start to build it? I love it in the beginning. Just talking about confidence is absolutely something that can be built, do not give up on yourself. If you feel like you don’t have it, you don’t have it yet. And I love even your final example or your previous example of if you don’t have the skill and that mistake keeps coming up, just get the skill, give yourself permission to learn again. But what are other tips and techniques that you have to help develop leaders or an individual’s confidence? Doing the Work of Confidence-Building Vanessa Parker: To help them build confidence in themselves. We talked about some personal development, getting a coach or a mentor that can help you—getting to know yourself, taking some time to ask yourself key questions. What do you like? Where do you see yourself in the next few years? What do you think a confident person looks like, smells like, feels like, dresses like? If that image is not the image that you feel you put out into the world, change it. Like if it means you feel confident only when you’re in a suit, then those times when you need to pump up that confidence and wear a suit, whatever you’ve got to do if it’s red lipstick, I don’t care. But ask yourself, what does an ideal person for you look like that is confident, and how can you mimic those things? How can you be that person? Vanessa Parker: I think also getting feedback from people because we’re our worst critic asking people how they are asking your team if you’ve built enough trust that they can be honest. If you get back. Oh, you’re just so amazing. And you don’t really feel amazing. They’re probably not being honest with you. Right. Getting some feedback from friends or family, other people that you’ve led before, or groups with a volunteer or in your career. So you can get some feedback on it. I want to get some tips, though, about building confidence in your team. Is that cool? Jenn DeWall: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like the piece I love that you just said, like act as if, because I think about my journey as a speaker, I’m always thinking like, what would a multimillion-dollar speaker do? Newsflash, I’m not a multimillion-dollar speaker yet, but it’s always thinking, how would they dress? How would they schedule their time? Would they spend their time on their phone playing a game? Would they not? I just, I love that notion, and I think it’s super helpful to just see yourself in that role. But yes, let’s talk about how we can develop it on our teams because that’s just so important that we need team members to be able to be confident and see their value in every single role in the organization. Vanessa Parker: Right. And so I think that getting confidence for ourselves as leaders are super important, but sometimes we may not. I hate to see the term fake it till you make it. Right. But sometimes, building confidence is also building confidence in other people. And so really quickly, some tips on building your team is, ask yourself, do you really honor and respect the team that you work with? So the people who report to you, do you actually like them? What are the things you like about them? What are their strengths? Who are their children and their family? Like, get to know the people you work with. You don’t have to be best friends. I’m not saying hang out for a happy hour every night. I’m not saying those things, but you’ve got to truly honor the people that work for you. When you do that, I think you show up authentically, and you really do care. They said there are no emotions in business. I don’t agree with that. We are emotional people, men, and women! Emotions exist, politics at companies exist. And so breaking those barriers is by honoring them and really getting to know them, praising and building on the momentum of what they have accomplished and their strengths. So praising, if praising your teammates or people that you report to you is hard, then you need to work on that muscle a little bit. Praising them, making sure they feel seen and feel like they are in a position to win. I know leadership has a lot because you also have to work to do, but you’ve got to do the people’s work. The other thing is creating peer mentorship. So if you see that some teammates or people that report to you do not have as much confidence, pair them with someone who may have some confidence in their role or who has a different strength than them so that they can kind of coach each other because, or someone on your team that may not have as much confidence, and you see that, but they don’t see it. Pair them with someone and have them do coaching activities or confidence-building things with their teammates. Because I have learned, I heard this years ago, but I’ve learned over the years that in order to really conquer something is to teach it right. And so having someone who has a little bit less confidence teach something on confidence or lead a meeting about confidence will help them research it, understand it, know their own triggers and allow them to teach a little bit, gets them out of their culture or their comfort zone. And the last, yeah, last thing is to create a culture where you discourage imposter syndrome, you discourage self-doubt, right? And so that is to encourage them to take chances and getting all projects that make them stretch. A true leader because they know the strengths and weaknesses of their teammates or people who report to them. They can create stretch goals for them and allow them to fail at some things. And I’m not saying praise the failure, right. But understanding that mistakes aren’t all or nothing and say, Hey, we all made a mistake today. Here’s what happened. Here’s what we haven’t done. We used to do this at my last job. If, if a sale didn’t go through, we talked about it in the meeting and not in a drab way, but it was like, Hey, here’s why we didn’t close this sale. How can we be better next time? You know, things like that will help breed confidence in the people that you work with. How to Connect with Vanessa Parker Jenn DeWall: I love that example. Just normalizing it again. People don’t do it. Right? Someone’s listening, and they’re like, I’ve heard that before. Well, ask yourself, are you really doing that? Are you normalizing it? Or is there judgment around mistakes? So then people, you know, are more likely to feel imposter syndrome, or they’re maybe not going to be as authentic with you because they don’t want to be judged. I, I love that example, but that’s not what, how, how do people get in touch with you? I know we covered a lot today, and I love all of the, you know, just, I feel like you gave a lot of inspiration, not only for the individual leader but what really also the tasks that us as leaders, it’s our job to develop confident teams. And I love all the techniques that you shared. How can our audience get in touch with you Vanessa Parker: On LinkedIn, search for me, Vanessa Parker. I do respond to my inbox messages. So if you have any questions or want some activities on building confidence, I’m sure I can maybe share them there. And then on Instagram, The Pink Boss is all things, business, family, confidence-building. It is kind of my piece of the world where I share all of the things that I’ve learned over the years. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. I love it. To find her, find Vanessa Parker on LinkedIn there, go to The Pink Boss on Instagram, but Vanessa, thank you so much for taking your time. She is the Chief Chaos Organizer, and I hope that by sitting down and talking to her, you could hear all of the insights that you have from your many years as both a coach, a speaker, and just a leader. And thank you so much for just giving us tools, techniques and also normalizing that lacking confidence likely happens to all of us. We may not realize it, but it’s something that we can learn and something that we can develop. And you’re totally worthy! Vanessa, Thank you so much. We really appreciate you! Vanessa Parker: Thank you For having me. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for tuning into this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. I hope you feel inspired to go up and elevate that confidence. And remember that if there’s something you’re not confident about, maybe it’s just an opportunity to learn a new skill or to research something differently. Confidence is something that can be learned. If you want to connect more with Vanessa, you can find her on LinkedIn at Vanessa Parker, or you can follow her on Instagram at the Pink Boss. And if you enjoy this week’s episode, if you know a friend or a leader that’s struggling with confidence, please share this with them. So they do not struggle alone. And so they can have some tools that can help them improve their confidence. Of course, if you’re also interested in leadership development, please sign up for us. Come over to crestcom.com. We offer two-hour free leadership skills workshops. We would love to come into your organization and develop your team. And last please, you enjoyed this episode. Please leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service.   The post Building Confidence to Create Success with Chief Chaos Organizer, Vanessa Parker appeared first on Crestcom International.

Stress Management to Prevent Burnout with Speaker and Coach, Aditi Ramchandani Full Transcript Below Jenn DeWall: It’s Jenn DeWall. And in this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down and connected with burnout thought leader, Emotional Wellness Speaker and Coach, Aditi Ramchandani. And for those that might be new to Aditi, oh my gosh, you will love her. She gives working professionals the tools to prevent burnout and create the personal success and happiness that they desire. Aditi became an Emotional Wellness Speaker and a coach after years of battling with her own depression, burnout, and a half-paralyzed face at age 20 due to stress. It is her personal mission to equip others with the wellness tools that they were never taught in school. I hope you enjoy today’s podcast. Aditi sat down and shared tips and techniques for how we as leaders and overcome and manage burnout. Meet Aditi Ramchandani, Emotional Wellness Speaker Jenn DeWall: Hi Everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I am so excited to talk about the subject of burning or burning burnout. Maybe that should be a sign that I am burned out. I can’t even say the phrase, but we’re so excited to have Aditi with us today. She is someone that you may not know. So I’m going to have her introduce herself to you, but she’s an Emotional Wellness Speaker, and she’s a coach, and she is going to be giving us tips, techniques, and insights on how we can manage burnout, which is something that, Oh my gosh, I feel like so many of us are going through Aditi, Thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast, The Leadership Habit, please go ahead and tell our audience a little bit about you. Aditi Ramchandani: Awesome. Thank you, Jenn, so much for having me here. Hello everyone. My name is Aditi, and as Jenn mentioned, I’m an Emotional Wellness Speaker and Coach. Where my journey started was when I was 20 years old, I had a half-paralyzed face. You heard that right. Like literally the right side of my face was stopped working my eye, wasn’t blinking. I couldn’t use the right side of my nose, and my mouth could not even grasp around a glass of water to take a sip. I had to use a straw, and this happened while I was in college. So I went to the emergency room, and the doctors told me that this happened due to stress. That was the first time that I got to realize how our internal state can actually affect our outer state, whether that’s our body or our external circumstances in our life. And that’s really where my journey started. My journey started with starting to just some self-discovery. Like, what is stress? Why does it happen? How do we struggle with it? What can I do about it? I had taken my first stress management class in college after that. And I was laughing because I would have never taken that class if it wasn’t for this crisis. And that’s what I’m really passionate about is I don’t want people to have to wait until they’re in a crisis to start paying attention to their stress levels. So I love doing this work, and I got certified as a life coach, as a health coach. And now I’m doing my yoga teacher training. So really excited to be able to bring all of these fundamentals together. And another thing I love to do is I feel that the idea of stress management can kind of seem boring, right? It’s like, ah, another thing I got to learn, I got to go to school for stress that I have to learn about. It’s exactly like you put it— my clients are always like, I don’t have time for another thing on my to-do list. So I really strive to make it fun. Make it joyful, make it not this serious thing, but something that you’re a good thing that you’re adding to your life. So that is a little bit of my background story. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for sharing that. And it’s so important. I was even teaching or leading a webinar this morning, and I just asked the, you know, the random question, because the question, because we were talking about culture, I’m like, how many of you are burnt out right now in so many yeses dropped into the chat. And I think right now we again see it more than what we have typically been as a result, obviously of the pandemic, but I know we’ll go into it, and we’ll talk about that. But I want to start with one of the questions that you posed during our pre-talk, which wow. It just hit me and thinking, how do I want to show up? And I want you to pose that same question to our podcast audience. I don’t want to do the reveal because it’s not my question, but when you asked it to me, I was like, yeah, I probably need to manage my burnout in a different way. Analyzing Your Stress Levels Aditi Ramchandani: Yeah. So as you’re listening to this, I want you to think about the last 24 hours that you just experienced in your life. And I just want you to scan it. What were you doing? What were you feeling? What was going on for you in these last 24 hours? Were you stressed? Was stress a part of those 24 hours? And my question I pose to you is, do you want stress to be the last memory of your life? Do you want stress to be the last memory of your life? I asked myself this question when my cousin passed away a year ago on my birthday, and it was very unexpected. And a lot of you may have experienced some sort of loss in this past year, whether through someone you directly knew or through an acquaintance, and you start really thinking about man, what am I living for? Because oftentimes, we’re chasing after something, we’re going after some sort of goal or achievement, and we’re not really living our life right at this moment. And we find that you know, we don’t know when our time is. We don’t know when we leave this planet. And did you live these last 24 hours like you would have your last? That’s the question I started asking myself after my cousin had passed away because so many of us are looking towards the future of what we’re going to do later. But what about right now? How can we live in this moment? So I really want you to ask yourself that question and see, how did you live these last 24 hours? Were you stressed? And is that how you want your last 24 hours to be, my gosh? Jenn DeWall: The answer is always no! You know, it’s so funny. We know that, and you and I talked last week, and I just, that question is really powerful because I think it brings out a level of accountability where we have to recognize that the first place and really, you know, or one of the first places is it starts with us and saying, I don’t want that for my last 24 hours. I don’t want to show up. If I talk about myself personally, like when I’m burned out, I am not probably as fun in public. Because I’m just drained of the tasks that might be really simple, and any other time looks just so much more daunting and exhausting. I feel like I pick up my phone to intentionally just kinda zone out. And that’s the hard part, too, is feeling like, Oh my gosh, like I teach leadership, but I’m experiencing burnout because I thought I was supposed to have all the tools to get ahead of this. Yet you posed that question. Last week I was very intentional. Rah, rah, rah. And then this week, I’m really thinking about the last 24 hours, and dang it! Aditi Ramchandani: Look, me too. I teach this, and I have to continuously ask myself this question because it’s so easy to just get lost in the hustle and bustle of life. Especially when everyone around you is also doing that. So really looking at what you’re doing and what you want to do requires a level of courage for yourself. What is Burnout? Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. I need that courage, girl! That’s what we’re going to talk about today. Cause I’m sure there are listeners right now that are like, I am someone who used the word expired this morning. Like that’s a great way to identify burnout. I’m done. So Aditi, what, what is burnout? Like how do you define burnout maybe for someone that just doesn’t know how to identify it for themselves? Aditi Ramchandani: Absolutely. I think this is such an important question because I feel like the word burnout is thrown out a lot, and it’s almost become a little bit of that buzzword cliche, like, oh, I’m burnt out, and it’s almost become normal, right? Like, Oh, we’re just all burnt out. And what burnout really is, is when you have chronic stress. So chronic stress is essentially heavy stress that has been ongoing for a long time. So it becomes chronic stress. So you have chronic stress, and it’s not managed well. And that’s when it starts to become burnout. So everyone has stress, right? We can’t run away from it. We can’t avoid it. Stress is a part of the human experience, but when you continuously have stress over time, and you don’t do anything about it, you don’t manage it. That’s when it becomes burnout. For example, when I had Bell’s palsy, that’s what it was called. When I had the half-paralyzed face, I was very stressed out in my personal life, and I wasn’t doing anything about it. I was just hoping it would go away. And oftentimes, we do that. We just kind of hope, you know, time will heal. We hope if we put it under the rug, you know it’ll go away. But unfortunately, we’re seeing that many times it’s not going away. And it is really taking an impact on our health and our happiness. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Yes. And I relate to that. When I think about my own, my MS diagnosis came during probably one of the worst either. I mean, I will say like mental health, like in terms of challenging times of my life as a result of stress and not to say that that’s like the origin of it, but it’s so interesting. Cause I know that as having MS, I have to be very mindful of how I manage stress because it will have an impact on my body. Why do you think that burnout is so high right now? Why do you think people were throwing up yeses in the chatbox, throwing out words like I’ve expired. I’m tapped out. I don’t know. I can’t do it anymore. Why do you think it’s so high right now? We Need Tools for Stress Management Now Aditi Ramchandani: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. I found out through some research that I was doing that 76% of professionals are experiencing some level of burnout. Now, just think about that for a second. Literally, if stress is showing up in your life, that much it affects the way you show up in life. It shows it affects the way you take action. It affects the results that you get. So if 76% of the working population is burnt out, we’re producing from that space. So from a very depleted empty police is where we are producing life, creating results, creating programs, whatever that may be for you. And why is it so high right now? I truly believe it’s because we don’t have the tools to manage stress. We haven’t been taught them in school. We haven’t been taught them really at the workplace. Although now that’s starting to change, I truly believe that we don’t have the tools to manage stress. We don’t know how to do it or what to do, and we don’t want to learn another thing. So there are many layers to it. And I think with the pandemic and everything going on, we’ve had to wear multiple hats that we didn’t have to go to before. And it’s kind of this shock to the system where we don’t know how to manage these new responsibilities, right? Some people have kids at home. Some people have elderly. They have to care for now. There are just so many new things that we have to do that weren’t part of our schedule before the uncertainty, the fear, all of that, that is added onto it. The time pressures, a lot of people’s jobs have changed. And the overwhelming workload a lot of people are getting laid off, which is also putting a lot of pressure on the people who still have work to do. So. I just feel like the combination of all of these things is really contributing to people not being able to fully function at their highest capacity. And now that everyone’s working from home, there’s that blurred line, like when do you turn off, how do you turn off what is appropriate? Right? And it’s all these unanswered questions in itself that also creates more burnout. And the racing mind, the fear, the loss that’s happening, it’s just a lot to handle. So I think the burnout is so high right now is because we just have a lot of things we’re now needing to work with and just not having the tools on how to handle it. Jenn DeWall: I love that. And also, you know, from that perspective of just thinking of, no, I thought about this last year, a year ago when we were really forced to slow down and how unsettling that was in the beginning, I think because we were actually forced to kind of acknowledge the things that were working in our lives and weren’t working. And there is this almost pause that I think people had at the beginning of the pandemic where they’re really reflecting. But it’s really interesting to think about how a year later, we’re kind of right back in it. We’ve just adapted to it in a virtual sense of we’re overworking. Maybe we’re over-scheduling ourselves to avoid challenges; we’re maybe not talking about our mental health because we feel like, Oh, it’ll pass or all the, all the answers that you just said. But you know, we had this beautiful window a year ago that I think, again, I myself was like, this is perfect. Like I’m slowing down. And I feel like now I’m just as busy. It’s just all virtual. And why do I keep doing this to myself? Aditi Ramchandani: How did I get here again? Signs of Burnout— What to Look For Jenn DeWall: So Aditi, what are the signs of burnout? Aditi Ramchandani: So there are signs. It starts with stress which eventually moves into burnout. So even with stress, right, it’s exhaustion, it’s emotional exhaustion, as well as physical exhaustion. It can show up in your moods, feeling depressed, feeling anxious, feeling overwhelmed, feeling withdrawn, not really being engaged with your work, just feeling disinterested or even disengaged at home with family, just feeling withdrawn overall from life being irritable. That’s a common one. And definitely one I’ve been experiencing a lot lately. Feeling irritable and having a short temper. Feeling like passive-aggressive behavior. And this is all normal. This is all something that we all experienced as part of the human experience. So nothing to feel bad about. It’s just something to start paying attention to because I truly believe our bodies are messengers. Our bodies are here to tell us when we are stressed. So it’s important to pay attention to these kinds of symptoms to be like, Hey, there might be something going on here. And a lot of times, it shows up in our body aches, right? Having headaches, having digestion problems, people don’t actually realize digestion problems are also often related to stress breaking out. I sometimes find when I’m stressed out, I’ll start having pimples on my face—being unable to sleep. Sleep is often affected by stress and burnout and just feeling unmotivated, just not feeling alive. It’s almost like feeling dead inside. I think the word expired that someone had used earlier. It resonates because you’re, you’re kind of just checked out, and you’re like, I just can’t do this anymore. So yeah. Stress Management is Self-Compassion Jenn DeWall: Yeah. It feels that way. And I think, I wonder what role, you know, our own self-talk plays into that because I think on top of, you know, whether it’s, I guess if I go back to myself, it’s like bouncing from all of the different hats of like what I might be wearing and then constantly telling myself, like, you are never getting ahead, Jenn, like you are always behind and that’s just this tremendous pressure. And also these feelings of inadequacy of like, why can’t I just get ahead? Why can’t I, you know, or do it right. Or whatever that is. What’s wrong with me? Just like always the question. How did I get here? And you know, it’s, I wonder how I continue to keep myself there just by that self-talk of saying like, you’re just behind Jenn, you’re behind the guide and look at there is, you know, something else that you missed, or you dropped the ball on, and it’s hard to juggle a lot. Jenn DeWall: It really is. Oh my gosh. Okay. So you’re going to give me the remedy, right? We’re going to, and we’re going to talk through some strategies cause I’m excited. I am all ears to be able to hear this and adopt it. And I know again, many of our listeners are, and I really appreciate how you also, you know, normalize how you might show up. Right? We’re not necessarily showing up as our most radiant picture. Perfect style from we’re burnt out, and it’s okay. Like, yes, you might be a little bit shorter. And now when I say, okay, it’s not saying, Oh yeah, it’s totally fine to be a total jerk to people. No, but give yourself some grace and take responsibility for how you show up. You can still apologize, but I love that you normalize that, like they’re not, it’s not who you are. It’s the burnout. That’s also talking for you or responding on your behalf. Like you’re not a bad person, a bad leader, bad insert whatever, your title or rule or how you see yourself as it’s the result of the burnout. Aditi Ramchandani: Absolutely. I think a key as we’re moving into what do we do about it is self-compassion is total acceptance of where you are right now. And even if you can’t totally accept it, if you can just have compassion for yourself, I find that when I’m really struggling, even just talking to myself, like since we have that negative self-talk like, how can you talk to yourself in a way that’s nurturing in addition to it, like, I know you’re struggling right now. I know this is really hard for you right now. Putting your hand on your heart and just saying that to yourself can be so nurturing. Like it’s safe to feel this feeling right now because often we’re running away from that burnout because it feels uncomfortable. It feels horrible. Right? So to just be able to acknowledge that, you know, I know you’re really struggling right now, and I’m here for you to having that compassion for yourself because often we’re seeking it, maybe from the external, from outside, maybe even from, you know, popping an Advil or whatever might soothe our pain at that moment. But what I share is that these short-term fixes and solutions, right? Whether it’s eating or drinking or popping a pill, they are short-term solutions. They’re not going to last a long time. They’re not going to help you ultimately change your relationship with stress, which is what we want to do here because that’s what’s going to help you thrive in the long-term. Stress is not going away, but we can change our relationship with it. And my goal and desire are to help people actually have the natural way to cope with stress rather than relying on external circumstances. I was speaking to somebody who has lived in war zones, and she was talking about, you know, how do you do self-care there? There’s not a yoga studio around the corner. I can’t get a green smoothie down the street— what is self-care when you don’t have those external things. The Cure for Burnout is Deep Self-Care Aditi Ramchandani: And that’s what I really strive to talk about here. And what is the cure to burnout? I believe the cure is self-care, deep self-care, and not the kind of self-care where you’re getting your nails done and going to the spa or, you know, that kind of stuff that we typically think. And I think we think that is because of the marketing industry, right? They’re always trying to sell us something. Oh, you’ll feel better. This is your self-care. But I really want us to go deeper than that. That’s a surface level of self-care, but I want to help you create an integrated self-care practice. Cause I don’t want you to feel like, Oh, I have another thing to add to my list. Which many people feel initially right when we’re doing this work, but integrated self-care practice means that it’s a part of your life. It’s not this external thing, but it’s as normal as brushing your teeth, putting on your pajamas. That self-care is just a part of that routine that you have. Jenn DeWall: How do you start that? I love the idea of looking at this as not something that’s like, I’m going to get my nails done. And I feel like even right now I’m like that, then I just have to do it again. You know, it adds like another to do in terms of maintenance. If I would do that, but where do we start to build this? And I love that you call it deep, deep self-care. It’s not like that artificial. We’re getting your hair done, or nails did. It’s really looking within. So, where do we start? But yes, yes, yes. I love all of those things, by the way. I love all of that, but that’s also not the thing. That’s going to get me over my burnout right now. I can say that. I mean, it will make me feel bad. Like what you’d said, it’s gone. It’s that short-term, long-term fix and good, but it’s not necessarily a thing that’s going to pull me out of it to make sure I don’t find myself starting a podcast. How did I get back here again? I know that that won’t work. So, where do we start with that deep self-care practice? Effective Stress Management Requires Self-Discovery Aditi Ramchandani: So this is my favorite part because where it really starts is self-discovery. It’s really getting to know yourself because most people actually don’t know how they feel cared for. So you really want to start by discovering your own personal care style. So, you know, ask yourself what recharges me, what brings me joy? What rejuvenates me? What kind of environment do I thrive in? What kind of environment do I feel relaxed in? Do I feel calm in? So really thinking about what does that looks like for you? Because a lot of us are just really in a routine of our lives that I want you to kind of step out and look at it from above and really think about those moments. And if you don’t know, if you’re like, I have no idea, Aditi, like, I can’t even think of it. I want you to pay attention to your next seven days and see, just notice and observe, where are you doing something that feels relaxing? That feels nice. I found for myself that when I’m in the house all day, just going outside and just sitting under the sun for 10 minutes really rejuvenates me. So just paying attention to the kind of things that you’re already doing. Because you do, you might already have some things in your routine that are nurturing you, but you didn’t realize it because you can actually just amplify that more. Once you know, you can do it with more intention. So another thing I love to help you with this is the love languages test. Have you ever heard about the five love languages, Jenn? Jenn DeWall: Yes. But say to our audience that maybe I’m familiar with that. Aditi Ramchandani: So the five love languages. There’s a book. You can look it up. I forget the author’s name, but online, he has a free quiz on his website, which you can take. So you can take the five love languages, languages test and find out for yourself what your own love language is. So this can help you see what makes you feel loved. So, for example, my love language is physical touch, and I actually had no idea this was my love language. I thought it was gifts cause there’s another one that’s like giving and receiving gifts. And there’s one that’s acts of service. So funny enough, I actually have a blanket right here. It’s like a fuzzy blanket. So it’s one of my ways to feel comforted and safe. Because the physical touch makes me feel loved, and finding out those things for yourself can help you create that self-care practice, where you can do things and nurture yourself and find that out. So it’s really starting with that self-discovery for yourself. And I actually bought this blanket when I was going through a very stressful time, and I was like, I just want to be held by this blanket. And it really helped me in some really rough times. So what is that for you when you find out your own love language? It can just guide you a little bit too. Like if you love receiving gifts, how can you give yourself gifts? If you like quality time is another one. How can you spend more quality time with yourself? Do you know what your love language is? Jenn DeWall: I’m gifts, and my husband is acts of service. Yes. So it’s, I think about that, and yeah, they are beautiful way. I never even thought, you know, I think about them obviously for the marriage, but not necessarily for myself. And I feel like for me, like the gift right now would be, Oh my gosh, gift of time to like, not focus on anything, to not be responsible for anything. And to just be, instead of feeling like I need to be on a device or responding to an email or on a zoom call, it would be amazing to just have the gift of time. Whereas this piece, I don’t know if I’m thinking about what those gifts would be like. Maybe it’s an opportunity to go somewhere and sit in a salt cave or something where no, one’s really talking and I just they’re relaxing. That sounds nice. Aditi Ramchandani: What a nice gift for yourself. Jenn DeWall: So self-discovery, which again is so important. I know that it’s so funny. I, I don’t know if you feel this way, but the Type A in me, you know, like I know that the natural Type A in me is like, but wait, self-discovery no, like just tell me like this three-step process that I can do right now. I don’t have to do. I don’t know—time for reflection. And, but yet I, the coach in me, also knows we’ve got to start with, with it. It’s thinking that we can try those quick trick three-step things without looking at ourselves. That’s where we end up back where we are. So I get it, and I love that you’re like proposing to start with your own self-discovery. What makes you feel relaxed? What makes you feel good? Because we often want to skip that step, and every time we skip it, we’re going to be right back where we were before. Rest, Reset and Redirect for Better Stress Management Aditi Ramchandani: Yeah. And look, you know, if you do want to skip that step, I can actually give you what to do. If you want a one, two, three, like literally what our bodies need more than anything is rest. Because if we are in constant stress mode, our bodies are not able to be in rest and repair mode. And that’s where the healing happens. That’s where our immune system gets stronger. So just think about it. If you are in a chronic mode all the time, always anxious, always worried, always fearful, whatever that may be. You’re not giving your body that time for rest. So the first thing you want to do is add rest into your day in some way or some form, whether that means resting by basking in the sun for 10 minutes, whether that’s resting by laying down for 10 minutes or, and the rest means no distractions. Like you want to put your phone away, you want to be away from screens. You want to really truly just be with yourself. Being with nature is very resetting. And so rest is one thing you want to add to yourself here. And another thing is a reset activity. And a reset activity is really that rejuvenating activity. Nature is a great way to do that. Just going outside actually learned this yesterday. Even just putting your hand on a tree trunk actually lowers your blood pressure. Did you know that? Jenn DeWall: I did not know that. Aditi Ramchandani: It’s insane. And I was like, I’m going to go touch every tree that I see, you know, to just like it literally connects to your body and reduces stress, which is great news. Another reset activity like laughter if you love a comedy, like watching something funny reset activities are also like yoga meditation. That’s where all that kind of falls into that. And then the third thing you want to do is redirect. So it’s just paying attention, being observant of when you are getting into that stress mode, and then redirecting your focus and your energy. Gratitude is a great way to help you redirect. There are some mornings where I’m finding, you know when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and you’re just like in a bad mood, and it just goes with the rest of your day. So that’s an opportunity for you to redirect if you want to, like, sometimes you’re like, no, I just want to be grumpy. So honor that like, that’s just where you are right now, total acceptance. And you know, you’re just not in a place to move it, but if you’re ready to redirect it, gratitude is a great way— appreciation— tapping into your senses. Like just absorbing the environment around you, appreciating where you are and what you have, like the beautiful background behind you, like, I really appreciate this. Or, or even talking to your body like, Hey brain, I learned that your brain is what actually keeps you alive. So like, Hey brain, thank you so much for keeping me alive today. The celebration also helps shift your energy. Like what’s one thing that you want to celebrate right now. Even if these like five things like suck right now in your life, like what are five things that are amazing? Like just balancing it out can make a huge difference in your stress levels. I love. And even maybe we should give like a moment to people to think of what are those things in your life? I mean, the one that we all have, you’re listening to this, you’re on the right side of the ground. You are six feet above the ground, which means you’ve got choices. Jenn DeWall: I don’t know, you know, the full story, but there’s a blessing right there. Just being able to have the gift of life and starting with that gratitude. I mean, I have to remember, I’m, I’m lucky to even have the stress of yesterday. You know, if, if I really want to think about that and why is that so helpful? I wonder it probably just because we actually like, aren’t focusing on that problem anymore. We’re not focusing on living and being immersed in that stress. We actually see that there’s a life beyond it. Aditi Ramchandani: Perspective makes such a difference. Like it’s like when you’re lost in that tunnel vision, it’s painful because you’re like, this is my whole reality. But when you can have perspective and realize the tunnel is actually much bigger than where you are standing, and you thought it was, it just lightens up your mood and helps you feel more optimistic and hopeful. And just that shift in your focus can make such a big difference. Jenn DeWall: So the three that you said for that for our quick fix people here that want like an easy tool or solution, and I love this too, it was your three Rs. So rest, reset. So reset, like in activities that are an activity reset and then redirect, right? Yes. Awesome. I, you know, I love the redirect there’s, you know, I think it’s just great to get back in and remind ourselves that we’ve got so many gifts that are around us every single moment that we just don’t see that we’re blind to because of the stress or because of burnout and having all of those things. I love that reminder. What else, how else do you add that? So if you start with self-discovery, then what do you do? Schedule Your Self-Care (And Keep That Appointment!) Aditi Ramchandani: So after the self-discovery, what you want to do is actually schedule your self-care into your calendar, like commit to it. And I want you to really understand for yourself why you’re doing this because when you’re just doing it, because you know you have to, or you think you should, you’re most likely not going to do this. So think about for yourself, what will self-care actually do for you? What will it add to your life? And why is this important to you? So really coming back to you, so like scheduling your commitment into your life. I did a hundred days of walking last year, and that was my commitment to myself. And having that container just helps because sometimes, when you try to do a lifestyle change forever, it can feel overwhelming and daunting. So even if you were to just commit to something for 90 days where, you know, I’m just going to schedule once a week to care for myself, whatever that looks like for an hour, just once a week or even just 10 minutes, but scheduling that in actually allows you to commit to it. Because instead of thinking, it would just be nice to have, it’s a, oh, I’m committing to do this for myself. This is how I’m filling my own cup up. This is what I’m gifting to myself. You can say. And then after you’re scheduling it, this is going to be a funny one, actually, show up to your appointment! Because we’re so, we’re so good at being on time for like a doctor’s appointment, a dance class, or meeting up with a friend who we said we were going to, but what about showing up for yourself? We’re so good at showing up for others and for everyone else and other commitments. But what about showing up to your own appointment for yourself? So making that self-discovery, setting up those self-care appointments for yourself, and then actually showing up like you mean it for yourself. Jenn DeWall: I love the showing up. I have. I was thinking about my coach and how she really, you know—she put me on a “plan ban.” Like no more plans because you have the plan to resolve something like, Oh, I’ll take care of this. Like then, and it’ll all be fine, or like, you’ve just got to show up. You’ve got to stop making the plan because that’s really just trying to avoid something because then you give yourself that Pat on the back. Because I made a plan to talk about this. Aditi Ramchandani: It’s important, you know, I’m doing something important, but if you’re not showing up to your actual self-care appointment, all that planning goes out the window. Jenn DeWall: I think of, you know, now as I’m reflecting on my own like I used to have a really good self-care Saturday routine, and I would get up every Saturday and get a nice massage. I would that make plans with people, and I have not, you know, and then the pandemic hit and I, I haven’t had a massage since, but I used to always just do that to like work with my body and help manage stress. But then I realize I just don’t do it anymore. And I’ve got to get back to it again. It’s so easy to fall out of it. Even though I used to love those days, I would take a long time to get ready. And just for fun, not because I was dolling myself up or anything, I was just having fun, singing off my shower tunes that I did do that. I was just really living in the moment and not thinking about my to-do list. I was just like, no, these are Jenn’s days. Aditi Ramchandani: Exactly. And that’s why I really want to get us out of the idea that this is new, another to-do on our list, and how can we integrate it into our lives? You know, like once I did a hundred days of walking, it is now integrated into my life to the point where if I haven’t walked for three days, I like my body starts craving it. It’s like I have to do it. And it’s just a part of my routine. Now I wake up, and I either do my walk. I actually did my walk this morning before the podcast recording, or I do it like in the middle of the day as kind of a reset like in the afternoon, Jenn DeWall: What would you recommend? Like how can people maybe practice self-care or manage burnout at work? Like what are some of the things that they could do? Be Aware of Your Energy Levels Aditi Ramchandani: I think, again, it’s that self-discovery. You have to know yourself and what works for you because everybody works differently. It’s like some people can work a million hours and be fine. And for you, if you are finding your concentration dropping off after like three hours of focused work, pay attention to that and pay attention to your energy levels at work. Like where are your strongest energy levels? Is it in the morning? Is it in the afternoon? And you can actually adjust your work schedule to do your most important tasks or the things that require the most of your energy on your high energy peak times. I find that that makes a huge difference. And then creating these, I like to call them 10 minutes of intentional joy breaks in between those focus hours of work because that actually literally resets your system. So when you come back to work for the next focused amount of time, you’re just showing up more powerfully, you’re more focused, you’re more clear. You’re, you’re essentially doing better work. You’re performing at a higher level. So how can you add in 10 minutes of intentional joy breaks throughout your workday? And then I find that boundaries and communication are very, very important. Being clear with your team about what is working for you. And of course, sometimes, you know, it’s a group discussion, you have to find the right way to do it. And it’s not just, Oh, this is what I need, but really just having the eyes. Because especially like I find that, you know, this works really well for me. How does that work for you? And I find that the lack of communication actually causes more stress because people aren’t always aware of what their exact role is or what they’re really responsible for, or what times they’re supposed to be clocked in. So having that communication with your team or your mentor or your boss to know like, Hey, like what exactly, how can I show up in the best way to be the best in this role for you and for this company. And understanding what your company’s expectations are—and then being able to match that with what works for your highest performance because your company wants you to be healthy too. Your company is invested in that. So don’t be afraid to have those sometimes difficult conversations about what works for you. I remember when I was in consulting, there was this one manager, and she had this boundary that at 5:30, her laptop is closed, and she doesn’t respond to any emails until the next morning at 8:30. And I found that fascinating because she was probably the only manager who I actually saw doing that. And everybody else was kind of just going with the crowd. And so that’s why I find that courage is required to be able to have self-care for yourself. Everybody respected that. And I thought that was amazing. I was like, wow, you can actually do that? You know, and you never know until you ask, you know what I mean? So don’t be afraid to ask questions on how you can make your work-life balance better for yourself because that’s going to benefit everybody. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh, that is such a great reminder, too, that we have to have courage. And even the courage to say, is this healthy for me, for my team, for the organization? If we continue to ask for more or operate in these conditions, it’s likely not. And the courage to say it’s okay if we give up good enough. And I know this probably isn’t just—you give up “kind of good enough.” Cause that’s what you’re getting with a burnt-out workforce. You’re getting a “good enough” result. If you just give up good enough, you let go of some of those initiatives because you trust that by focusing all in on one strategy, you’re going to get that return. You give up good enough. And that’s when you go for great, but good enough has to come from not wanting to do every single strategy, just because it’s a strategy, assuming something is going to work, right? Aditi Ramchandani: That’s a good one. I’m giving up good enough for a great. I love it. Take 10 Minutes for Joy Jenn DeWall: And I think I love that. You talked about the 10 minutes of joy. There was an organization that I was a part of that they would even build in these. There are three different types of things that they did with the employees. So they either did 15 minutes of stretching. So where they would just come together as a team, whoever wanted to would go to one side of the building, and then they would do 15 minutes of stretching or, and that they like yoga stretch. Like that’s kind of how they looked at it. Or there was another room that, and they were all on different days like that. And you would go in and do a 10-minute meditation that would be guided someone else from the organization would volunteer to read it, and people would just go in and just meditate. And then, Oh, I love the last one. There is someone that taught just Zumba for fun for 10 minutes, I just put on music, and they went and danced and had fun. And you know, it’s so interesting in the beginning, you can see some people being like, well, I can take a break to go and do those silly things, but no! We’re doing it for your own good! You will be a much better performer, a much better leader, a much better colleague. If you give yourself joy opportunities, I love that perspective. Aditi Ramchandani: And it is going to feel weird and uncomfortable. Like you said, those silly activities. You’re totally going to feel all of those things. So just expect it, but know that anytime you’re doing something new, you’re going to have resistance. And, everything is changing now. Like people have thought these things are all silly, but now why are workplaces implementing them? Like there’s a reason there is the science that backs it up, that all of this stuff does rejuvenate you. It does heighten your immune system. It does contribute to your happiness and productivity. So yeah. Jenn DeWall: How do you want to feel? Aditi, what closing remarks would you like to share with our audience? I’ve just loved it today. And even just talking about your 10 minutes of joy, that’s your redirect opportunity. So you think it’s silly, that’s still your opportunity to redirect. So you can come back and look at maybe a problem in a new way. I, you know, I, I just have loved all the tips that you’ve offered because burnout is real. And again, just normalizing it that it’s very, very common right now. But what closing, maybe advice, or insights would you share with our audience, and also, how could they get in touch with you? Because you work with organizations on reducing stress and burnout, right? Connecting with Aditi Aditi Ramchandani: Yes. Yes. So I speak at organizations, I speak to groups, and I also do personal coaching. So I would love to talk to you guys about that. And closing remarks is, remember that self-care is actually filling your cup. Self-Care is not selfish because when you can show up fully as yourself, you’ll be able to give back and serve in the way you truly want to. So I find that self-care often people think it is a silly thing, or it is that thing. But I want you to remember that its self-care is essentially like, it’s like going to the gym for your body, but it’s actually going to the gym for your whole mind, body, and soul. And I find that self-care is often focused on only body care, but we really want to look at mind care and spiritual care as well. So a whole-body integration on how you’re caring for yourself. And I want you to remember that you matter. You deserve this. You deserve to take care of yourself and have that break. It will contribute to your success and happiness. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much, Aditi. I appreciate it so much. And you matter! Aditi Ramchandani: And you matter! Jenn DeWall: I love that. Those are powerful ways. I hope that you know everyone listening walks out feeling empowered to go and do something to put themselves first today because let’s ask your first question again to close it out. What’s that question? Aditi Ramchandani: That question is, do you want stress to be the last memory of your life? And you guys can find me on Instagram @aditicreative. And if you want to book a call with me, you can head over to aditicreative.com. Let’s thrive because you matter. Thank you, everyone! Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for tuning in for this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast with Aditi Ramchandani. It was such a great conversation. And if you want to connect with Aditi, you can find her on Instagram at @Aditicreative, and you can also grab her complimentary stress less guide at aditicreative. com\stressless. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, or if you know, a friend that is suffering from burnout, do not forget to share this with them. Burnout is actually a very, very real thing. And the more tools and resources that we can have to help reduce the impacts of stress the better and last. And most importantly, if you enjoyed this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast, streaming service.   The post Stress Management to Prevent Burnout with Aditi Ramchandani, Emotional Wellness Speaker and Coach appeared first on Crestcom International.

On this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, we did our first three-person interview! Host Jenn DeWall sat down with Hilary Blair and Dr. Robin Miller, who co-own the organization ARTiculate Real & Clear. They coach corporate teams and individuals to elevate presence, communication, and connection. ARTiculate clients include AWS, Lumen, the ACLU and MD Anderson. Join us as we talk all about receiving feedback. Full Transcript Below:  Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall – let me tell you a little bit about each of the individuals that we’re going to be talking to today. Hilary is a professional communication coach with years of experience as a voiceover artist and stage actor, she has been coaching training, and facilitating for 35 plus years. She guides and challenges others to communicate more powerfully. These include the enthusiastic and the reluctant alike and an interesting fact about Hilary Blair is that she once worked on a sheep ranch in Montana and binges on the show Heartland on Netflix. Now, let me tell you about our other guests, Dr. Robin Miller, who is an energized executive coach, whose primary purpose is to support others, to be more adaptable and embrace the shifts needed to connect to their teams and their clients. She has seen leaders make amazing shifts through difficult situations and by making intentional choices, her insight is that the most difficult leaders and employees usually have the hugest heart without the quote “know-how” of how to share it, drawing on their experiences in the performing arts, Hilary and Robin highlight the nuances of individual communication. So their clients will thrive while being seen and understood. And today the three of us are going to be sitting down and flipping the script on typical feedback conversations. We are going to be talking about what you can do to be a better receiver of feedback. Enjoy Meet the Co-Founders of ARTiculate Real & Clear Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit, I am so happy to sit down with the co-owners of ARTiculate. Now they are new to you, but they are not new to me. And I know today we are going to be talking all about feedback, but here’s the twist. It’s not just about how you give feedback. It’s how you receive it. And here, I want to introduce you for the first time in Crestcom history. We are actually going to be introduced, interviewing two people at once. So today on the show I have Hilary Blair and Dr. Robin Miller, could you please just both go ahead and introduce yourselves to the Crestcom Leadership Habit audience. Hilary Blair: Yes. Hello, Hilary here. And I am labeled as the CEO, when you co-own a business, you kind of trade skills back and forth the title CEO and co-founder, I am obsessed with people’s voices being literally and figuratively and as leaders. How do we make sure that we remain in relationship with the people, with whom we work and lead and how do we make sure that we understand that we need to listen as much as we speak the difference between being a coach and a leader and all of those different elements, making sure, basically that we know which role we’re playing when and when do we pause and allow for the other like Dr. Miller? Dr. Robin Miller: Hi, I’m Dr. Robin Miller. Then I also co-own ARTiculate Real & Clear. I spend my days being the COO for the business and CFO. And then I also spend the majority of my time doing executive coaching. So I’m the person that gets to sit with people who are delivering the feedback, as well as people who are being promoted up through companies who need to figure out how do I receive the feedback, and both sides learning, know what are the rules? What goes outside the box? What speaks to today’s environment and how do we make it so that when we’re trying to move our careers and individuals forward for people that were or managing or leading, what’s the most effective way to do that? Not just speak words into the air yet, have those words heard and help people learn from them. So it’s great to be here with you today. What does ARTiculate do? Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. I’m so happy. And just one of you, because I want our audience to know what you do with ARTiculate Real & Clear because you go into organizations and you help teams and leaders. Could you tell them what you guys do? Because I would love for our audience to know this is why we want to listen to both Dr. Robin Miller and Hilary Blair right now. What do you guys do at ARTiculate Real & Clear? Hilary Blair: We are committed to guiding inspiring launching people into the conversations that connect authentically. We use the discipline and the techniques of the performing arts. So ARTiculate- all of us come from professional performing arts backgrounds. And we are using that, that platform focus. And again, I will say the discipline, you see that I’m avoiding the words:  tips and tricks. Because we find that when people gather tips and tricks and even reading them without having them incorporated into their being and how that, that tip when it becomes a technique is influenced by the individual. And that’s what we learned in the performing arts. Everybody can play the same role. Let’s take a Shakespeare play, let’s take any contemporary role. We can all play that role. What is that individual energy spin focus, the impact that we bring to it? So that individuality super important. And we really, the big bucket is presence and presence is a verb, not a destination. So instead of it being a check box, do they have presence? We say, are we doing, are we stepping into, are we activating the elements that allow me to be present in my connecting to you with my voice? My words? Is the message organized in the correct way? What does it mean to be present? And then of course we have presence. We need to focus on the verb aspect, not the checkbox, they have presence or executive presence. And we even now are exploring the idea of executive presence is a term that carries with it, some weight of the past and some ideas and perhaps constrictions of the past that don’t allow for the nuances of our changing leadership and cohorts and organizations. So we are saying authentic leadership presence. Receiving Feedback Requires Boundaries Jenn DeWall: Yes. And I love that you help people with presence because receiving feedback- coming from a person that did not apply executive presence and a few rounds of feedback when I was in my twenties- it’s essential because our feedback that’s when someone is being meaningful with us and saying, I’m going to give you some feedback. Maybe, you know, maybe it’s coming from a place of love. Maybe it’s not, but if they’re still taking the time to give feedback, maybe we can turn our ear up and actually gain something. So let’s take it out because we’re talking again, we’re flipping the script on you. You might be thinking that we’re talking about how to give feedback. We’re not, we’re talking about how to receive feedback and you guys have used the phrase feedback from another angle. Like, so when we think about just beginning our journey and how we can be better receivers of feedback, what would be the starting place for that? Hilary Blair: So if I turn to you, Jenn, and I said, Hey, I have some feedback for you. What we would work with you on is you get to say, really? You want it now, do you want it later? Do you want one thing? What is the goal of it? So if I’m coming to you and saying, I have it, you get to establish some boundaries. And that presence means that you keep your tone and connection while saying, great. I love feedback. Can we do it tomorrow? Can we do it later today? What are you looking for the goal to be of the feedback? Really making sure that as the receiver, you set the boundaries with enthusiasm, right? The idea being that so often you’re like, Oh, okay, I’m ready. Go. And we shut down. We don’t remain in relationship. We tend to have a wall come down and we’re bracing ourselves. So if you come to me and say, you have feedback for me, I’m like, great. I want to hear it. But not great right now. And it can be having to do with where I am, how I’m feeling right now, other things going on, what happened yesterday. And the other element of it is that I get to come to you and say, Jenn, I would like some feedback. What I’m looking for is affirmation. Here’s what bup, bup, bup, bup, or Jenn, I’m looking for some feedback. I’d really like some input. Boom, boom, boom. So I am establishing first. Or I have Jenn, I would like some feedback on this. I really want a decision. I am setting the boundaries initially for what I want and what I’m looking for. And if you go wandering off and start giving me other things, how do I recognize that I get to have the power- maybe that word power can be too much for people. You simply get to own your space and what you’re receiving. So I get to establish my boundaries and go, “Great, Jenn. That feedback’s awesome. What I’m really looking for right now is this…” It can be hard, Robin. I know Robin, you have Robin’s ready. Robin is ready to jump in. Feedback or Feed-forward? Dr. Robin Miller: I think because we believe words create worlds. And as a coach, I would love to think that everything that was ever offered to me in feedback was really what I would call feed-forward. We’re giving someone some input so that as they move forward, they’re able to take that in and make a difference. And I think even if we use the word feed-forward to say, Hilary is my employee, and I say, I need to give you some feed-forward that opens her up to being able to hear it even more. And then she can say like, she was just doing, Oh, that feed forward’s great. I’m able to hear one or two things right now. And if there are others kind of like putting it in the meeting parking lot, can we revisit that later? But let’s just stick with these one or two things so I can process them. I think also with this feed-forward is that we often what I have found in my experience, coaching leaders- panic conversations are difficult and it usually involves this feed-forward and we will get into a meeting and we will waste the first 45 minutes of a meeting because we don’t feel comfortable providing the feed-forward. And then we dump it on you. And then it doesn’t give you the opportunity, which you should have of asking questions or having a dialogue or response. So you have the receiver of the feed-forward should anticipate that you get to have time to process it and discuss it and be with it. And we as leaders need to learn not to dump it at the last minute because it’s more difficult for us. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Oh my gosh. That’s a great perspective. And I can probably think of a few Leaders who might be thinking right now. Yeah. Do I delay my feedback because it’s uncomfortable? Absolutely. And I love the concept of feed-forward, whether, and I guess that would go for both, like thinking about is your feedback, helping them develop. And if you’re in that feedback chair, Hey, remembering, this is helping me grow. I love that. I’ve got a question. I know this wasn’t in our list of questions, but one of the things that, you know, you guys really emphasize is putting that power into that person that’s receiving the feedback. Like letting them know that, you know, Hilary, you had talked about checking in with yourself, is it the right time? How do you say that to your boss? If it’s not the right time, if you’re like, could I have some space? Like how do you do that? Because you might often feel like the boss is going to give me feedback. I’ve got to take it because they’re here. So how do you, what would, what advice would you give? Hilary Blair: First? You blame us, Jenn DeWall: Write down their names, blame them, Hilary Blair: Say, I was listening to this podcast which was suggesting that feedback becomes more active because it’s more received as more able to be absorbed when the receiver is in dialogue with the giver and setting up and establishing some of the boundaries. So I would love to suggest it probably it has to be before that moment when the boss suggests I need to give feedback. So in a meeting, maybe a team meeting, Hey, can we try this? That we really check in with ourselves? Is this the time? So it’s a, it’s a culture shift. It’s a request for trying something on and seeing if it works, if it’s right at the moment, you can still call on us. Hey, I’m having one of those days. I so want your feedback. I would never have thought to do this before I was listening to a podcast and they suggested, to be honest, Hey, I’m not quite in the place to receive it today. There are things on my mind, things going on, I want to hear it. Can we plan for an hour later? Can we do it tomorrow? That kind of thing. So establishing the boundaries with the understanding that it’s, self-awareness, that’s guiding it. Receive Feedback Like Performers- In a Group Hilary Blair: And Jenn, I wanted to add that the fascinating thing coming from the performance world to the business world. And we’ve been here a long time. Now, initially, what was fascinating was like, why are people so wacked out by feedback? What is going on feed-forward? Like why do we even have to call it feed-forward? Why don’t we just call it notes? Because as actors, we get notes, we get notes in order to work better as a team towards the show, like, what are we working on? Hey, Jan, I don’t know if you’ve learned your lines, but it doesn’t seem like it. What’s going on? Can you come in faster? The blocking we have there, isn’t working all kinds of things. I’m not sure we’ve figured out exactly what’s happening in that scene. Let’s take a moment and kind of step back and figure it out. None of that happens alone. It happens as a cast, as a team, as a group feed-forward, notes. Feedback is something that we all need to hear. So I know what you heard. And then we can extrapolate to the sports world, right? The teams get feedback generally altogether after I was going to say after rehearsal, after a practice or with actors after rehearsal and the idea being, I need to hear the different feedback that’s coming in. Somehow the business world has isolated it and we’ve done it more and more. Make sure you’re giving feedback in a safe environment where you’re alone, where no one else is hearing it like that idea. As the giver of feedback in the perfect world, I would love to invite teams to get feedback together. I have tried that it doesn’t work so well when you’re not working with non-theater or sportspeople because, the corporate and business world is so programmed that it’s private in what I’m working on. If other people are hearing that it doesn’t have that sense of team or safety at all. So I’m throwing that out as something in the world we live in the world, we want to live in. I think that the arts and sports world can really inform. That notes and feed-forward can be a group activity and a very supportive group activity. It will take a pretty major shift. So that’s something to think about. And coming from that world, I was startled by all the boundaries that were needed around feed-forward. So to Robin’s point, yes, feed-forward to both sides of it, training us as leaders or colleagues and how to give feed forward. And as the receiver, how to understand how we’re feeling about it, what we need, how much we can take in. And when might be the right time. Give and Receive More Positive Feedback Dr. Robin Miller: You make me think of two things in this discussion. What you were just talking about Hilary is that we in a corporate environment, and I worked in corporate as well. I have a music background, a Ph.D. in music, and a corporate background. We often set our metrics to performance or data as teams. Like you get bonuses because of how the team performed. And you met certain goals. We don’t often set metrics around how are we teaming? So we’re giving people feedback as individuals, saying either, well, first of all, we don’t celebrate enough. The feedback is never really ever positive feedback a lot, or because they say our brains can take in five times more thoughts than positive. We tend to go to the challenging or the negativity of information. So if we challenged ourselves as leaders and individuals with our teaming to say, how are we moving this forward as a team? We’re all part of the play. We’re all cast members. If someone’s not quite jelling, what is my responsibility? Not this putting everything as a leader on one person, but thinking, how are we moving this together in this environment to get the great outcome? The other thought is that we often leave our feedback until 360s or until performance reviews. I’m like, Oh, no, not feedback or feed-forward and performance review that happened six months ago. And I’ve worked it out already with someone. So why are you telling me this now? I’m finding more and more people are like, tell me at the moment, like let’s come to the table together at the moment so that we can work through it rather than holding it for a performance review six months from now. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do about that. Jenn DeWall: As you both said such, I mean, I love first and foremost, the like, why wait, absolutely. Why the heck are we waiting? Why are we pushing it off? Like, why aren’t we making that a priority? But I also love the challenge that I think you are both like suggesting and throwing out there. Why aren’t we able to start to hear feedback as a team process feedback as a team? Why does it always have to be so individual? And I guess I think about not that I had a professional career in athletics, but I did play sport. You know, I did play sports in high school and middle school. And I do think about that. We, you know, if we were in the middle of a game, they were giving us feedback as a team. They weren’t looking at us on our breaks and saying, okay, who can I talk to? Who can I talk to? And it didn’t matter if you were on the bench or if you were there, we all had to take that feedback into consideration. I love the way that you’re suggesting that. And you’re right, because there’s absolutely, I hear the word feedback and maybe it’s just like, Hey, can I give you some feedback? And in my head, I’m either like, Oh my gosh. Or like, you know, scared, annoyed, whatever that might be, right. Depending on who it’s coming from. And you’re right. I wish it could be something like, Hey, here’s some notes or here’s some consideration. So I love both of the things that you both just shared. Just there’s so much there of different ways. We can even start to look at how to view feedback or notes is just information. And I, again, love that performance piece that, you know, again, if you’re in the theater, you understand that you’re putting on a show and isn’t that what we’re all doing as a team anyways, like you’re, you’re so spot-on on that. Are You In a Good Place to Receive Feedback? Jenn DeWall: And I don’t hear enough people talk about that because we are so focused on that, of being, you know, just it’s the individual. And the last thing that I would add on the beginning of, you know, asking someone for feedback, how powerful to know, going back to presence that if you’re not in the mindset, like I’m an emotional person, right. So if I let’s say pour my heart into something, I don’t do as well with it. I already know that. And I’m not in an immediately ready place for feedback, I need to like calm myself down and go through the motions and then come back. So I really appreciate you, I guess, giving permission to ask for that, because I don’t want to show up in hysterics and crying in a feedback interview, which is what I do when I’m not prepared. And there might be someone else that does that too. And I’m sure that my boss or whoever’s giving that feedback is like, Oh my gosh, I can’t, how do I get out of this? So you can avoid the awkward conversations by giving someone permission. I love that! Hilary Blair: And sometimes we’re full. So emotional, yes. And also full. And if someone’s adding feed-forward and some information and our cup is full, it just spills over. And it seems like we’re not receiving it. And we aren’t, but probably not for the reason that is being assumed. It’s not that we don’t want it is that there’s no room for it. So making sure as a receiver that we have space for it, and some of the language that we use and that I’ve learned along my journey is to use the language of what worked, what worked and what do we need more of, less of or different. So what worked for me? Boom, boom, boom. And if we want this person to rock, we want this project to rock. What do we need more of, less of, or a different, that energy is different than what I liked, or this is what happened when this happened. Hilary Blair: Now I want them I’m into my mind, came that situation where someone is being pointed- it’s being pointed out to them that something went wrong. There are moments where you need to say, Whoa, this happened and we need to discuss this. Yes, we’re discussing more the idea of how do we create a culture of feed-forward. What’s working? What do we want more of, less of different. How do we have that be part of our process and our flow versus every six months, once a year. And it’s so far back that we’re not even sure. And we were different people. Then the world was different. I think the pandemic right now is giving us first-time data feedback on the fact that what we suggested a month ago wouldn’t even be what we suggested now. Like every time we turn around, everything is changing so much or not as, not in the way we thought. So the idea of getting feedback from six months ago, right now, you’re like, whatever. Sure. I’m sure I did that six months ago. Who knows? So what worked is a different language than what I liked. And it’s amazing how often we say I liked, I liked when you did that, that I liked that. And you’re like, cool. What was working? Jenn DeWall: I love that language around what works or like, here’s what happened. Let me tell you where you went around. Like, okay. Yeah. Barrett, lay into me for the next 60 minutes. Instead of saying like there’s a much different, more constructive and it feels collaborative. You know, one of the things that we had talked about earlier was in our pre-meeting was, are we creating bridges or walls? And I love that. Could you, could you explain what you, what you both meant by that? What are you doing if you’re creating bridges or walls and feedback, Is the Feedback Building Bridges or Putting Up Walls? Dr. Robin Miller: For me, bridges you know, there are a lot of different models out there when it comes to giving feedback. And it’s often one way that Hilary was talking about the situation, you know, when the situation happened, here’s what I observed. And here’s the impact that had on people. If we were to get curious with the person, rather than leading with our perspective, we create a bridge rather than saying, here’s the situation, that’s a wall. Because that’s your perspective. If you say, Hey Robin, the other day, something happened, I wonder what was going on with you. Talk, talk to me about what happened. Then you create a bridge for me to actually share my perspective and what was happening with me. It also opens up a world of understanding for you as my leader. And then you might have your own personal aha moments because we can’t know everything that’s going on in our team, and in everyone’s personal lives. And what’s happening between, you know, peers or with peers and clients. So getting really curious, great bridge rather than going, I’m going to use this thing that I’ve been taught because this gives me structure and it’s been proven over and over again. And yet we may find that because of those structures, it, it just closes people down, pure curiosity. Hilary Blair: It’s there are so many great tools out there. And how do we be aware of how we’re responding to them? So if we have that idea of, we have that structure, we come to the meeting, we’re connecting, we’re bonding. And then we drop the feedback, right at the end. We’re bridging, bridging, bridging, we’re connecting, we’re having a dialogue. And then we get nervous without even realizing it, like the Drawbridge book pulls up drought or drops it off Drawbridge, boom. And now it’s a wall. And, I want to make sure that we embrace the tools. It’s how we’re using the tools. And are we using them effectively to stay in dialogue, if not, as comfortable with the different feedback models or we’ve been told them as tips and tricks and not as- which tool is best for Jenn? So Jan, I have three different possibilities. The first thing I need to know is that Jenn is really invested, really cares. Then probably what I need to do first is I need to get her talking about the project. So that idea of getting her talking about it. Not talking about, Hey, how was your weekend, right? Not that kind of conversation, but a conversation about what we want to explore feedback around. Hey, so last week, tell me about your experience with the project. How did it go with the team? How do you feel the process flowed? What was your role in it? Then I’m opening Jenn up to share. If I come in and there are some other models that may suggest- I’m trying to think there are different alphabets for them, right? Different methods. I don’t, I don’t want to call out one in particular. There’s so many different ones, but that idea, this is a reaction I had. This is how I responded to something what’s yours. I can already set Jenn up for a wall because she hasn’t been invited into the conversation. Someone else might feel like, okay, great, thank you. I needed to know that before. So I know where you’re coming from. Jenn may want to be heard first before you hear where I’m coming from first. And so recognizing that the person on the other side of the feed-forward, and then if we’re talking about a team, that’s a different thing, right? If we’re going to that perfect world where you’re going to be giving feedback to your whole team at the same time, there’s a different energy explored. I think we have to be aware that the wall is not only on the person receiving the feedback, that it’s also on the giver and that you can so like communicate, communicate, and then wall, and then lob your feedback over the wall and drop it in the other person’s lap. So being aware that even if you started having- Hey, we totally, We did. We got connected. I connected with Jenn. I touched base. I see how she was going on. And then she didn’t take the feedback. Well, probably because you didn’t stay in dialogue, the bridge didn’t remain. And I have that little image coming and I’ve seen it happen. It was like, Hey, it’s good to see you. Good to see you wall when I like lob it over to her. And Jenn’s like, it just happened. I’m actually proud of The power of what works. Right? So bridging also is the power of what is working. We, so it’s hard to see what’s working. We tend to be really excellent at figuring out what’s wrong. And that as Robin mentioned, the brain goes to, what’s not working. And the analogy we use is if you’re at a concert- I don’t know if you remember that- we used to go to concerts. And if you’re at a concert and the lighting is excellent, you don’t think this lighting is excellent. You think, wow, the music, the whole show is wonderful. If one spotlight is off, if one lighting cue goes awry, like we are quick to notice the things going wrong, we need to practice noticing what’s working. Jenn DeWall: I love the bridge concept, especially as myself, again, as someone that, and when I joke about my crying and stuff, this was much more in my twenties. Now I feel like I have a different approach towards it, but I like even the power that, that gives me as like, how can I keep the bridge going in this? Because I want to work with that person giving me feedback. I want to have a great relationship with them. And there’s an accountability that it’s also up to me to keep that bridge, to like, to put the bridge down. I, if I’m putting walls up, I’m not doing anything and it’s not just their fault for how they’re packaging it. That there’s some responsibility for how I want to show up. I love that. Get Curious Instead of Getting Defensive Dr. Robin Miller: Yeah. you are empowered as a receiver to be able to get, get curious, rather than to get this constant dialogue that we’re inviting to get curious around what you’re hearing, to have someone clarify words that they’re using or perspective that they have. And I can’t imagine any leader or boss that wouldn’t want to invite a dialogue around my questions around something, right? And I want to normalize something. We are beings that have emotion. And I’ve heard many leaders say, I don’t know what to do when I’m in my office. And I’m giving feedback back when we were all in our offices, I’m getting feedback and this person starts crying. You know, it’s, it’s two-way. Again, if we’re someone that we hold our breath, as we’re receiving information, it will lead us to tears. And for leaders to know that all we have to do is invite people to breathe. And once you start breathing again, the tears dissipate. So they feel as comfortable with that. As we feel with someone getting upset, anxious, angry, when we’re delivering difficult information, for some reason, it’s easier for us to deal with that as leaders than it is to deal with the, Oh my goodness, what do I do when someone starts tearing up, you invite them to breathe. Jenn DeWall: I love that. Yeah. That’s I mean, that’s a great reminder too. Like, Oh, I’m emotionally flooded. I’m not there. I need to breathe. Like, that moves us I think perfectly into, you know, our next question, which is what prevents us from receiving feedback. What prevents us from doing that? Like, I know the breathing is there. If I’m so emotionally like disheveled, which sometimes I am, I’m not listening. Like, cause I’m just, or I have a tendency personally to go into shame spirals, right? Like, I can’t believe you did that. Like, can’t believe you did that. Jenn. You’re such an idiot, right? By beat the crap out of myself before the leader even says anything to me, I’m like, I’m already down that road. And then I can’t even hear the accolades that they might be giving me because I’m so far down the shame spiral. But I’m curious, like what other things do you notice? Yeah, Robin- Dr. Robin Miller: Is it something that connected to what we were talking about earlier? And I was working it through in my brain, as you all were talking, how do you find the perfect fit for your team and how does that team fit into your corporate culture or your nonprofit culture? How, how do, how do all those individuals fit together? Because when you say, how do we receive feedback? I know that in the past I have received feedback because I’m a very strong woman. That’s why I’m an executive coach. I’m a strong woman. I have opinions. And Hilary is like, yes. And I was in an environment in my past where feedback was used to keep people in their place to keep people sculpted to the specific culture. Then my brain has those stories stored, you know, in my limbic system and neocortex. So that now that I’ve moved to another company, maybe totally different culture, but now it’s still the same thing. Dr. Robin Miller: Someone wants to give me some feedback. My brain goes to that place in the past- that’s the neuroscience. And it starts connecting all of that energy to this moment. So we have to be aware of where have people been, what has been their experience? Do we ever take time to ask our teams that the thing, your experience in the past with how you’ve received feedback, how would you like to receive it? Like ask them how they’d like to receive it. You go that we start getting a sense of the individuality. The past story doesn’t have to be our present story. We get to rewrite it. And it also helps me as an individual let go of that paradigm and go, huh? Maybe I can breathe into this feedback. Maybe I can accept that as something that’s really positive and good. It gave me permission as a listener to look at again.   Jenn DeWall: And I think this is even more powerful recognizing that feedback that was set at one company doesn’t necessarily have to be true at that, you know, next company. And that there could have been things given. Like I think of a company that I worked for that even used to give people feedback on how they dressed, their weight. Yes. I know these are all things you’re not supposed to give feedback on, but they did, and you know, then you can easily go into the next job and be like, do I look the part, do I look this? Or, you know, we have that emotional baggage that comes sometimes from job to job when it comes to feedback. But I love that you gave the power back. Like, just because I had that feedback once does not mean I need to anticipate or armor up or wall up waiting for that feedback to come. And is this feedback in the past, even relevant to where I am today, those are powerful things to think about as a feedback recipient. I love that. I hope someone else is feeling like, yes, I can let go of that garbage feedback because it’s not relevant anymore. That’s just so powerful. Create Space for the Giver of Feedback Hilary Blair: Hey, with the receiving of it, I was thinking some feedback that someone gave me is making sure that I was creating space for the giver of the feedback. And I was like, what? Because I am so in my mind of trying to like, what did I do? How did I do wrong? How can I fix it? Okay. Yes. Yes, I’ll be better. I’ll be able, I’ll be better. And they were saying, there’s no room for me to give you some thoughts and have that dialogue. And I was like, wow. And that was from the performance world. Right. So it’s like, okay. I was so quick to let them know I was receiving it and I would switch it as fast as I could. And this is from being in the recording booth, right. I’m a voiceover actor. And I like, yeah, I got, I got it. Hilary Blair: So what happened was the producers would give me less feedback because I didn’t give them space for us to have that dialogue and move things forward. They got worried about me. So my attempt to appear like I was really taking and I was going to fix it, put up a wall, a different kind of wall versus that bridge. And recently I’ve been really working on the language around, yes. I want to take feedback. It matters to me. I want to be doing a better job. But if I beat myself up, who wants to give me feedback, right? That’s not constructive. And how do I instead go, huh? I’m going to find the treasure in it. What’s the treasure in the feedback, regardless of how it’s being given, how can I find the treasure versus beating myself up and then I can move it forward. And it’s definitely easier for the people around me. I think from what I’ve heard, it’s easier with that language. It’s like, ah, what’s the treasure in this versus I won’t do it again. Jenn DeWall: What’s the treasure in this. I love that giving you an opportunity to again, feed-forward or just look at the value. Like there are pieces of feedback that I even, I may not agree with how it was spoken, but when I sit back and reflect on it, I can agree with the sentiment, you know, and there’s, there’s a lot of value in feedback. And then sometimes there’s feedback where, you know, we have to just discard, you know, like there’s sometimes feedback that is just not relevant. And you know, I’m sure you guys get it too. Anytime you’re in a public-facing position, you’re going to get all the feedback from people. And some of it’s going to be super helpful. And some of it may not even be kind or relevant. Hilary Blair: And that can be the treasure. The treasure can be, you know what? I’m aware that, that doesn’t fit this situation and seeing it that way also acknowledges the person who sent the feedback that is not helpful or coming in the manner that was able to be heard, too. So it’s like, what’s the treasure and it tends to open an energy. And it’s connected to that idea of being vulnerable and available. Available allows me to set the boundaries for being present with it. Availability Vs. Vulnerability Jenn DeWall: Yeah, what’s the concept of availability versus vulnerability for someone that may not be aware of that expression. Hilary Blair: Vulnerable from the theater world and the performance world is a super important place to be, to be connected to the character, the other people on stage or in a film or musically, there’s an openness that we flow through. And that when we take that to the corporate or business world, the boundaries within a performance create a safer container for that vulnerability. And I think in that movement, out into the business world, we’ve missed that, that vulnerability is really about me exploring me and being vulnerable to myself. Like you saying that going into that shame place, right? So you looking at what you’re doing, it’s not for you to be vulnerable to me and let, I don’t have to know that. You’re looking at yourself and how can you be vulnerable with yourself and go, wow, look at that. How am I receiving this feedback? How can I move out of that shame spiral Brene Brown, the sociologist is really helped us use that word, bring that word into our vocabulary. You can- words are worlds- As Robin said- words are worlds. So we respond differently to words. So vulnerable may work for you perfectly. So use that. We have been introducing the term available because it tends to have inability for me to set boundaries around it and to allow me to remain in relationship, as you can see, Robin and I are often about how do we stay with the bridge in relationship in action with each other- vulnerable can be a lot about the person, not necessarily about the relationship. My vulnerability is, what am I sharing about me, me versus available. I’m going to have this much available. This is what I’m choosing in a world that’s demanding, that professional means we’re sharing a lot more. Being able to have boundaries is ironically super important. It’s like, okay. Yeah. So you, those two words, take it or leave it. We generally say that vulnerable has a sense of being about self and available has to do about the relationship, which is important. Jenn DeWall: I love that we don’t have to drop everything. We can intentionally choose. What’s going to be appropriate. And I think that also brings us as, you know, being relevant and having more honest conversations on the topic instead of going on tangents. Like we don’t need to go down another rabbit hole by just dumping everything that we’re feeling. We can be intentionally available. But what’s specific in the situation, I love that. Just like giving a little bit more structure around that. So how can we show up? So I know you guys have many too, like I’m not going to call them tips and tricks. I’m not calling them tips and tricks, but just ways that people can receive feedback. How can we show up as a feedback receiver that can align with that executive presence or the person that we want to be? You had a few different techniques or strategies. Maybe I’ll kick it over to Robin. What are some ways that we can show up as a receiver? Chew the Hay, But Spit Out the Sticks Dr. Robin Miller: I think the first and primary thing that brings us into this world and takes us out of this world and keeps us connected to ourselves and to others is when we are receiving feedback or we get, we’re getting ready to walk into a space or to a Zoom meeting. And we know something’s going to happen. We need to stay connected to our breath. Our breath is essential and we often hold it and cut it off, which has our thoughts leave us. We start the monkey-mind people call it the amygdala, hijack, the cortisol spikes. Our breath keeps us, keeps us calm. And that mindset of I can get something out of this conversation, whether I agree with it or not, there is something here. I once learned from someone that you, chew the hay and you spit out the sticks. If you can learn, as an Oklahoma girl- if you can learn, I’m going into this meeting and there’s going to be some hay and there’s probably going to be some sticks and I get to be intentional about what I receive and what I go. That was great. Thank you. And be done with it. Okay. And move forward. Yeah. But staying connected to your breath and getting really curious. Curiosity with questions that are, open-ended not yes or no, but open-ended not for the sake of having someone prove to you why they’re giving you this feedback, but curiosity and openness so that you can figure out where can this go? What does this need to be? How is this going to benefit the whole? Not only me, but the team, the client, the company? And use that mindset has as you approach it. Now I’m speaking as I am the worst person in the world receiving feedback. Okay. And I also am able to coach people because of that. Hey, let’s try this because I understand what you’re going through. I deal with it every day of my life. What am I going to chew and keep, what am I going to let go of? Jenn DeWall: I love that. Be Aware of Your Breath (And Your Lips!) Hilary Blair: I’m going to give you two tricks. Is it okay to give you a trick? Add onto what Robin’s saying. One is to keep your lips slightly parted so that you are receiving without your lips pursed, wait, it’s amazing. How often we start to receive feedback like this [puckers lips tightly]. Yeah. And we’re ready to kind of respond. Keeping our lips slightly parted is super helpful to remain in relationship. The other one is to find a word that lets us, we, we speak on the exhale. So find a word that lets us exhale and get back on our breath. One of the misunderstandings is that we inhale. What we want to do is exhale. Huh? Tell me more or something. Can you tell me more? Let me understand what that word means. A phrase or a word that allows you to exhale, to get back on your normal cadence of breath. When you’re holding your breath. We want to exhale, not inhale. Huh [exhale] More on that. And if you space out, which so happens, if you want to inhale through your nose, it’s an interesting feature. It’s a stage feature. But if Jenn you’re giving me feedback and my mind leaves completely because of one thing you said, and now I have no idea what you’re talking about. If I inhale through my nose, which we don’t tend to do when we’re speaking, we inhale through our mouth. It can bring me right back to the moment. And it’s totally a stage thing where you’ve lost focus. And you’re like, no, I’m not telling you to sniff someone. It’s one of our senses that we don’t use very much. And so it brings us right back to the moment. So lips, slightly parted, being aware that the exhale is important, and that to get back with someone, not the, not the cortisol heightened thing, but that like, if I’ve gone off to inhale through the nose to focus again, which brings us, those are tools. I was joking about tips and tricks- tools for what Robin was saying about remaining in that relationship. Jenn DeWall: I love that. And even having that word, I almost want to call it a processing word because that’s how it sounds for me is just like, huh? And then exhaling and giving yourself a beat to at least reflect on that, you know, again, reminding yourself, how do I want to respond to this feedback? Or what’s the treasure? Because you did give so many valuable insights. I love the process. The process pause. Huh. Exhale. Jenn DeWall: That’s what we can coin it as, yes, that’s powerful because then we’re not also responding. Our first word is, well, that wasn’t right. Like that’s not me or whatever the defensive words might be. And I think the ha is again, that curiosity word they get for it. So that’s why I really like that a lot. And the other things that they said, you know, throughout this podcast, I just want to reiterate like setting boundaries as a receiver, taking back your power, reminding yourself, is this a good time? And if not, when would be? I mean, that one, I think I just want to, that could have saved me. Where were you guys? 10 years ago, early on in my career, 15 years ago. I could’ve really benefited from that. Dr. Robin Miller: And you know, you, you brought up earlier, how do I use this with my boss and my manager and my leader at my board? It can be a lot of different things. And it’s the way that we, we enter into it. You know, if I say to you, Jenn, I really want to hear what you have to say and I need 30 minutes. Can we have that? Or I need to hear this tomorrow. Can we have that? So that you’re setting it up. You appreciate it. You’re open to it. You’re going to be available. And I need the space for it to happen Jenn DeWall: Because I, I love just thinking about putting it as later, because even if I go back to some jobs I’ve had, like, I might’ve done a really big meeting or project, whatever you want to say, but then I’m done with it. I have a half-hour and then I’m onto the next thing. And so if I really want to hear it, I can’t just take it in that half-hour because I’m already trying to think about what’s my next meeting gonna look like, what do I have to do before then? And so I’m not hearing it anyways or I’m half hearing it. And then chances are, I’m probably not hearing it in the appropriate way. That’s going to think about the bridge. Definitely not doing that. I think might be trying to either get it through. I might become more defensive because I’m just trying to get out of the feedback situation. So I love that point. Can you guys tell me how fun I was probably to give feedback to? Acknowledge That Life Before is Not Life Now Dr. Robin Miller: I want to also mention, But 15 years ago the culture was different. And to honor the habits we create were part of the time in which they were created. So we create habits to succeed, not sabotage ourselves. So honor yourself that at the time that might’ve been what worked then. It’s a different world now. And before, I don’t know if we were able to have a two-way conversation. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. And recommend recognizing that emotions exist. I just love this revolution. And the fact that we’re finally acknowledging that people can’t halfway walk into work without a part of themselves like emotions. Hilary and Robin, how do people get in touch with you? How can they work with the team at ARTiculate? Like how can they, you know, maybe use this to improve their own presence as a team? Maybe even hire you guys to talk about how they can start to receive team feedback, which again is one of my favorite things. And like, how could we create a team feedback culture, but how do people get in touch with you? How to Connect with Hillary and Robin Dr. Robin Miller: That they put it up on that you can see, we love to talk to people in this COVID environment, you’re over zoom or email, please call us and we’ll reach back. We can create a meeting (303) 868-3889. We would love to either coach you, your groups, or one-on-one we do both. And we also facilitate, so if you have teams that need to have some communication and you want to learn some new as we’re calling- it tips and tricks, discipline and techniques and learn new ways of being, as I say as again, yeah, we would love to support you in that. Hilary Blair: Definitely and link with us, we have our website, we have a newsletter, LinkedIn. Call us though. Robin loves to have the conversation. She’s really excellent at that discovery call for an individual or for teams to figure out what is needed, what would be helpful. So she’s wonderful to talk to about that and go on that journey. Jenn DeWall: Well, from my personal experience, I think what you provide is invaluable. Again, if I could have had someone because I do think part, part of my failures in my career was the inability to receive feedback and see it in a way that preserves the type of leader that I want to be seen as, the type of leader I want to show up as. And so I think the work that you’re doing is so valuable. You know, I, I especially see it around this topic just because I do think that how I received feedback really created in my first career. Like it, it created a lot of my bad moments, my perceived failures, and granted I’m very happy for those, but I wonder what my life would have looked like. Actually, if I had just been a better feedback receiver and you know, I think that’s so important. Dr. Robin Miller, Hilary Blair, thank you so much for giving us your time, your expertise. We really greatly appreciate it. And I hope that you guys connect with the team. You’re going to hear more on our bumper on how you can get in contact, but thank you so much. We really appreciate it. And I hope you have a fabulous day! Dr. Robin Miller: Thank you, Jenn. You rock. Thank you. Jenn DeWall: I hope you enjoy today’s podcast episode with Hilary Blair and Dr. Robin Miller. I know that I did, and I found a lot of new valuable insights for how I can look at the feedback and I love taking back the power. If you want to connect with them, you can give them a call for a consult, see how they can help your organization develop a better presence within your leaders, as well as communication. You can find them at articulaterc.com. In addition, if you want to find out more about Crestcom, head on over to crestcom.com, we would love to talk about how we can develop your leaders or even offer a free leadership skills workshop. And last, if you enjoyed today’s podcast episode, don’t forget to share this with your friends and leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service.   The post Receiving Feedback to Move Forward with Hilary Blair and Dr. Robin Miller, Co-Founders of ARTiculate Real and Clear appeared first on Crestcom International.

Full Transcript Below Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall, and on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, we are talking about a much trending topic, the topic of imposter syndrome. And it’s interesting. This is actually a topic that, you know, has been around for quite some time. It was actually coined in 1978, and people have been coaching on it, myself included, for many years. But I think as a result of much of the burnout that people are seeing or experiencing through COVID through all of these drastic organizational changes that we’re starting to see imposter syndrome take more of a center stage. People are starting to really relate to it. And we wanted to respond to the fact that there’s a lot of people that are really starting to resonate with this term. So this minisode is really just devoted to understanding what it is and also understanding what it may not be or what the root causes can be as well as how to overcome it, how you can do it as a leader, what you can look for on your team as well as what you can do in your organization. What is Imposter Syndrome? Jenn DeWall: So let’s start with a basic definition of what imposter syndrome is. It is, or it can be defined as a collection or a feeling of inadequacy that persists despite evident success. It, another way it could also be known as self-doubt. There was a speaker that we worked with. She’s an author as well, Maxie McCoy. And she would absolutely say stop telling people that there is something wrong with them, but it’s just bad self-doubt or your inner critic. But it happens very commonly within more high achieving people, maybe more Type A, or your perfectionist where they’ve worked, worked, worked, but they somehow feel like they’re never enough. Even though they’ve got all of this evidence, maybe they have the title or the promotion, or they work at a big organization, insert whatever we think that Cigna would be. It’s still not showing them that they are there. Another description for imposter syndrome can be described as feeling like a fraud feeling like, Oh my goodness, you’re in this job. Maybe you were promoted to a director, and you’re just walking on pins and needles, waiting for someone to expose you for not being that right person or the right fit for the role. Now, the important thing to note about imposter syndrome is that although the term itself was coined by researching women, it’s actually something that both men and women experience and it’s something that also transcends cultural borders. So we might find ourselves feeling— no matter whether we’re a woman or man— just feeling, Oh my gosh, am I really not enough? Am I fully capable of doing this? And let me just give you a little bit of context too. If you want to go and do your own research on understanding the origin, the imposter syndrome was actually coined by two psychologists, Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, in 1978. And they studied women and really found that these successful women just still felt like they were not able to, you know, really believe that they were successful. There was something where they were either feeling affirmed in the lines of, Oh my gosh, I’m still not there. But they also maybe didn’t study some of the things that would be really important to understand. There wasn’t a lot of diversity in terms of background in terms of race or class. And so that’s where people are starting to challenge a little bit of the notion of imposter syndrome, but in any event, go ahead, and I would encourage you to, you know, start to research more about this topic. Here’s how to know maybe if you’re experiencing something like imposter syndrome, again, imposter syndrome, being that collection or feeling of inadequacy, despite evidence of success. So what it can look like is, are you overworking and are you overworking so much because you feel that you have to prove yourself to someone, you have to show your value, show your worth. And while this might feel like it’s serving you in some capacity because it’s proving that you’re enough, it can often lead leaders into burnout, where then they become exhausted. They likely are not showing up as the person that they are capable, capable of being, which then only reinforces the imposter syndrome. Another sign of what it can look like is maybe you find that you don’t believe in your opinions or that you have anything valid to share. So it could result in you not speaking up. Maybe there’s a little bit of doubt around the value that you can provide, or maybe you’ve had a past experience where you’ve spoken up. It didn’t go as planned. And so then you just decided that to protect yourself, we’re not going to do it anymore. In addition, it can also look like not asking for help. Imposter syndrome can also or can lead us to feel like we have to do everything on our own. Because if we ask for help, they’ll see that we’re not deserving of our position, that we somehow are not perfect, and so on and so forth. I’m sure some of you can probably relate to that. We put a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves as leaders to have all of the answers, to be able to do everything. Even though if we truly expected that from our employees, we likely wouldn’t. But if we did, we would then know that we’re creating burnout. We’re setting unfair expectations, but again, we are our own worst critics. Another way that imposter syndrome can show up or what it can look like is a lack of confidence and an error in your own decisions. You might second guess yourself. You might feel like, I don’t know if I’m competent enough to make this decision, or you have that fear of being found out. Someone’s going to catch me soon, and they’re going to fire me, or they’re going to demote me, or what are the consequences that could come. And then also another sign of imposter syndrome could be risk avoidance. Maybe you try to go under the radar. Maybe you just try to take very small, easy steps into something, but you don’t really want to be in that vulnerable spot of doing something new or trying something big because you just don’t feel like you could do it. Even though, again, you might have this strong history of overcoming adversity, adding so much value, but yet we don’t even believe it. I mean, as a coach, I like to see it as, you know, if we thought about our resume and thought about all of our accomplishments, sometimes imposter syndrome can show up as half of a resume, meaning we might have all of this experience, but we completely forget about that. Bias Can Cause Imposter Syndrome Jenn DeWall: And we don’t even look at it to say, look at this proves how worthy, valuable, competent, capable I am. We forget about it. So one thing that’s worth noting, and it really came about pretty strong, I would say in a recently circulated Harvard Business Review article on imposter syndrome that was published this February, is that we need to note that the root causes of imposter syndrome can vary. And that it’s not as simple as just saying, Oh, you’ve had some really bad inner self-talk, that’s what it’s happened. There can also be cultural perspectives that can create imposter syndrome within people. There can be bias. And again, this is from that Harvard Business Review article and bias in the sense of racism, a feeling that if you belong to a particular race, that there are certain ways that you can and cannot show up. And so then it gives you a little bit more of that anxiety feeling of inadequacy.And so we do need to note that it’s not only just about that self-talk that there could be other external factors that are also perpetuating imposter syndrome. So above and beyond competence, I should say are above and beyond, you know, just feeling like you’re good enough. How Can We Address Imposter Syndrome? Jenn DeWall: So how do we address imposter syndrome? What do we possibly do to be able to navigate this very complex, inner working and feelings of inadequacy? Well, there are three ways that we can address it. We can start by looking at ourselves and first starting to think about some of the thoughts that you might be having now. Again, I don’t want to disregard that the fact that imposter syndrome can come as a result of bias discrimination, but we’re going to be talking right now about imposter syndrome in the form of self-talk. So imposter syndrome, if it’s showing up self-talk and you feel like maybe the self or the core thought is I’m not good enough to be a leader, then we have to challenge ourselves. # 1 – Is it THE Truth or Just Your Truth? Jenn DeWall: And so the first thing that we can do to address it as a leader is to ask ourselves if what we’re telling ourselves is our truth or the truth. Sometimes our thoughts, because we have likely reinforced them multiple times, have continued to validate them and build these stories. They become so true to us. It’s like, it’s the only thing that we actually believe, even though we may not actually have factual evidence that validates it. So one of the first ways to challenge imposter syndrome, for example, is if you’re saying that you’re not, you know, they somehow promoted you by accident and that you’re not worthy of being there. Is that your truth? That’s driven out of maybe a lack of competence or confidence, or is that the truth? And if it’s the truth, you need to find evidence to support it. If you don’t have evidence to support it, then it could be an opportunity to challenge that truth and rewrite a new story. #2 – Stop Looking for Perfection Jenn DeWall: The second thing that you can do to address imposter syndrome as a leader is to stop rewarding the idea of perfection and to stop setting perfection goals. Now we put a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves to be able to know everything, be everything. And sometimes, that does come from a culture that rewards people for maybe being perceived as doing all of the things right. And if we truly believe that perfection exists, we’re ultimately setting ourselves up our teams and our organizations to fail because that just means that we think there’s a finite road to our development and growth and likely the second that we believe that is when we stop using our creative skillset, we stop innovating. And so we have to stop rewarding the idea of perfection. I’m sure yourself, you could think of something that maybe you may have had a misstep or a failure, and it provided a valuable lesson to you. Maybe that is really your opportunity to say that perfection. It’s not really a relatable or realistic thing that we can do that. If I had been perfect and not made these mistakes, then I wouldn’t be where I am today. #3 – Act “As-If” Jenn DeWall: So number three, another way to combat imposter syndrome is to act “as if.” Now, maybe you’re about to go on stage, and you’ve never done it before. You’ve never presented to people. So what you could do is act as if you’ve already presented to, you know, hundreds of audiences, dozens of people, whatever that needs to look like for you. Act as if your success has already happened. So act as if it’s just embodying yourself in a visioning statement. So thinking about the vision of what success would look like, think about it, identify it, speak it in the present tense, and then act as if it’s already happening.I am a great leader. I am a great leader. And also, a practice that self-validation creates mantras for yourself that can, that you can use to guide you to build confidence. And that can help you overcome some of that anxiety that’s created as a result of poor self-talk or imposter syndrome. #4 – Watch out for GAILs Jenn DeWall: Number four, if you want to combat imposter as a leader, you have to understand your energy drainers as it comes to your thoughts. The coaching school that I went to was called IPAC. So the Institute for Professional Excellence and Coaching would call these GAILs. These are the things that are all in our heads. So these are the things that we control, but by listening to them, they drain our energy. And GAIL is actually an acronym, and it stands for gremlins, assumptions, interpretations, and limiting beliefs. Now let me talk about what a gremlin is. Gremlins A gremlin is that pesky monster that’s in your brain, also known as self-talk. It could be giving that loop that, by the way, Jen, you’re not good enough. You’re never smart enough. You always say the wrong thing. Now the gremlin, again, they’ve likely come about for a beautiful reason. If I continue to tell myself that I’m not good enough, it may help me work harder because I constantly need to prove myself. The challenge is there’s a point that those gremlins stop serving us in a positive way. And once that happens, we see burnout. We see stress, low competence. That’s what we need to recognize. Do we need to re-examine our thoughts? So what are the gremlins that you have? Who are those pesky thoughts, or what are those pesky thoughts that are draining your energy or draining your confidence? Assumptions The next part of the GAIL is the assumption. What assumptions about a situation about yourself, about an individual, are you making? So again, this comes down to understanding what is true versus or true to you versus the truth. Are you assuming that something is going to happen? Just because it happened once, that’s not necessarily true, unless you can somehow back up that it will. If not, you have an opportunity to change. You do not have to adhere to that assumption. Understand that it can always be discarded. Interpretations The “I” in GAIL stands for interpretations. We all see, see the world through our own lens of our own experiences. Our failures, our family upbringing insert all of the ways that we are incredibly diverse individuals. And with that being said, we then see the world’s situations and events and our own unique way. Now the beautiful thing about interpretations is again, and they can be changed because we have to really ask ourselves, is this the truth? So, for example, let’s say that you’re looking for a job and you apply for this job. You go through the interview process, and then you never hear from them again, which many people, their first response is to say, I must not have been enough. I must have bombed the interview. And that’s how we’ve interpreted the situation. And why it’s important to be mindful of that is that interpretation is likely draining our energy and draining our confidence. Another way that we could look at it, let’s say that employer never called you back. It could be that they had to cancel the position. They could no longer hire for it because they had to make cost cuts, or maybe there was someone that was internal that was already going to get the job. If you cannot get to a confirmed truth to substantiate that interpretation, that means you have the opportunity to change it. So I recommend you challenge it, especially if it’s not serving you. And it’s only making you feel less-than or adding on to that imposter syndrome. Limiting Beliefs Now the final piece of the GAIL is your limiting beliefs. These are beliefs that we have about something that might prevent us from doing something. I could put it in a very simple way. It could be that because I’m a woman, I’ll never get to this level of leadership or because I’m a man. I can never share my emotions in some way. These act as rules for how we navigate our lives, and these rules again, we think and adhere and buy into them because they’re keeping us safe, right? Why bother with applying for the job? If I know that I’m not going to get it might as well save myself the heartache. The problem is, is again, these aren’t necessarily true. These might be old rules that we’ve adhered to from early childhood, or we’ve learned these lessons, but I would encourage you to challenge them. What are beliefs that you have that are keeping you playing small, that are preventing you from taking that risk? These are, again, things that can keep you caught into imposter syndrome because we’re, we’re telling ourselves that maybe we’re not as capable. We’re not as strong as we could be. #5 – Self-Validation Jenn DeWall: The fifth way that you can address imposter syndrome as a leader is to validate your worth. Now, this is really important. I hear this often, and people can really struggle with trying to talk about their strengths and talk about what they’re good at. The challenge is, are you have to be able to believe in your worth. You have to be able to self validate to say. You know what? I am enough. I know that many times throughout our lives, we’ve been conditioned to externally validate meaning, relying on someone else to tell us whether or not that we’re getting a right. And while we do need to do that, we absolutely always will. It can’t be lopsided. We can’t always just look for external validation. We also need to know how to tell ourselves we are enough. So one way to validate your worth and to challenge that imposter syndrome is to write down all of your successes. Some people might call this writing down and creating your own win-wall of all the accomplishments or the points of pride that you have, or maybe it’s just creating a great list of all the things that you’ve achieved, but write them down. Think about it. How could you use that in a moment of maybe where you lack confidence? You could pull it out and remind yourself. I am actually more than capable and confident in my abilities. #6 – Find Your A-Team for Support Jenn DeWall: Six is to choose a team of support. Sometimes imposter syndrome can come up because we open ourselves up to feedback from everyone. The problem with that is that not everyone’s feedback should be treated equally. They may have a different experience. They may not have any experience. They may not even be someone that you trust or that you would admire, or they may just not be speaking from a place of love. And this is where it’s really important for you to choose your A-team of support who are the people that you want to maybe share these feelings with or share your missteps with. So then you can ask them, Hey, how did I handle this? And get feedback from them? Do not open yourself up to the feedback from everyone because they’re not all going to understand what you’re going through, nor is that feedback necessarily going to serve you. In some instances, that feedback can actually confuse you and leave you feeling more stuck than before. #7 – Give Yourself Permission Not to Know the Answer Jenn DeWall: The last piece about how to overcome imposter syndrome as a leader is to give yourself permission not to know the answers. If you want to be a great leader, someone that builds trust someone, that’s relatable, show people that you are human, and there is no possible way that you are going to know the answers to every single thing, especially if you are continuing to change, to grow, to take risks. And if you want to be that innovative person or the creative person, you’ve got to get comfortable in the discomfort. And so it’s giving ourselves permission to not know the answers, as well as giving ourselves permission to not be the experts. We could have someone else on our team that could be a huge asset in one particular area. Instead of feeling like you, as the leader, also needs to be the expert, praise that individual for their strengths and leverage them for support. It does not mean that you are not enough. What it does mean is that you recognize and can see the strengths in others. How Leaders Can Combat Imposter Syndrome Jenn DeWall: So how do you combat imposter syndrome on your team? Well, I just talked about the leader. You know, we have to talk about a few different things, but now we have to be able to identify it on our team. So the first thing is to have open conversations with your team, ask them what challenges do you have? What are your goals here? What motivates you and try to understand any perceived challenges or barriers that they’re having and actively listen to see if there’s any level of self-doubt, where they’re just not believing in themselves and see if there are opportunities where you can either coach them by asking open-ended questions or empowering questions, or that you can give them opportunities to prove it to themselves so they can see how great they are checking in with your team on impostor syndrome is important because if you want them to work, you know, the best that they can be, you want to remove any of that extra stress or mental clutter that could be clouding their judgment or reducing their productivity, or just adding to their overall stress. Rewards and Recognition Jenn DeWall: So another thing is always to make sure that you’re taking time to reward. If you want to work on imposter syndrome with your team, make sure that you see your team, identify their strengths, contributions, give them recognition. No, it doesn’t always need to be some big cash bonus or a vacation. It can be simple words of affirmation. I appreciate you. The work that you did on this project really helped deliver an optimal client experience. We couldn’t have done it without you. Make sure that you are slowing down to see your team. This is a great way. When we can understand that imposter syndrome shows up on our team, then we can take steps to reduce turnover and improve engagement as well as morale. Check-In With Your Workplace Culture Jenn DeWall: Now, the final thing is to check in with your culture. You know, as talked about earlier, you need to understand, there are biases that discriminate against people that create a cost, a culture where people do not feel included. You need to check in with that. So you can create an inclusive culture where different ideas, backgrounds, races, educational levels, skillsets, whatever that may be. Everyone should be able to have a seat at the table and feel valued. Jenn DeWall: And then the last piece for the organizational culture, if you want to reduce imposter syndrome, this is where listen up those with fear-based cultures, you really need to create a place of psychological safety. People can’t feel that if they make one mistake, they’re going to be fired. That’s only going to create a greater impact on imposter syndrome. You’ve got to create a culture that says we support you. We know that mistakes will happen. Here are the very specific ways that a mistake would lead to termination. It’s not just any mistake. We’re not that hardline, or maybe it’s looking at how you’re actually assessing your workforce. Instead of doing the bottom 10% are gone at the end of the year. That can be a culture that fosters imposter syndrome. And again, think about what that can create. It can create ethical challenges as people might cut corners because they don’t want to risk being at the bottom. And it can also stifle the growth of your organization because everyone is competing with each other. And you’re creating a lot more mental challenges, too, for people such as depression, anxiety, stress, so on and so forth. So this was our minisode. I know it was a little bit longer all about imposter syndrome, but I hope that if this is a challenge for you, that, you know, you take the time to really focus on the recommendations of being a leader, you know, checking in with yourself and doing that self-reflection and also understanding at a base level, you are absolutely enough and you are more than worthy, and you are incredibly capable of going after and achieving anything that you put your mind to. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. My name is Jenn DeWall. If you ever to connect with us about leadership training, would we love to serve you? We live and breathe leadership at Crestcom, and please reach out to us for a leadership skills workshop and find ways that we can support your organization. If you enjoyed this week’s minisode. Don’t forget to share it with your friends. Share it with someone that you might think is struggling with imposter syndrome, and last, but certainly not least. Please, please, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service. This is our way that we can reach more people and continue our journey to create and build better leaders.   The post Minisode: How to Handle Imposter Syndrome with Jenn DeWall appeared first on Crestcom International.

On this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, Jenn sat down with Steven Van Belleghem. Steven believes in a bright future where companies play the long-term game with their customers. His passion is spreading ideas about the future of customer experience. Steven believes in the combination of common sense, new technologies, an empathic human touch, playing the long-term game, and taking your social responsibility seriously to win the hearts and business of customers over and over again. Who doesn’t want to hear from someone talking about customer service in terms of social responsibility and empathy? Steven is the author of multiple international best-selling books, including The Conversation Manager, When Digital Becomes Human, Customers the Day After Tomorrow, The Offer You Can’t Refuse, and a technology thriller, Eternal. Join us for this exciting episode about how you can enhance your customer experience and avoid some common mistakes you might be making while serving your customer. Meet Steven Van Belleghem Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall. And on this episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I am sitting down with Steven Van Belleghem. He is here to talk all about customer service technology and how they can come together to create the customer experience. This is something that I think many people need to pay attention to and is maybe what Steven would say. Some people don’t necessarily realize it, but Steven, I want you to go ahead and just introduce yourself, say where you’re from. I know we had a great conversation talking about Bruges, but please go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience. Steven Van Belleghem: All right. Thank you, Jenn, for the wonderful introduction. Yeah, my, my passion is to create and share ideas about the future of customer experience. That’s what I’ve been doing my entire career for the last 20 years. I do a lot of research about that. I publish books. I’ve written five books on this topic. I shared a lot of content on social media, on my YouTube, on Instagram. And I give a lot of keynote presentations about that. I’m also an entrepreneur. I started two companies also in the field of customer experience. One is more like it’s called next works. And it’s an inspiration company where we take mainly European executives to an awful lot of places around the world. We take them to Silicon Valley like New York, Boston, Dubai, Singapore, China and do a little mind stretch with their look on innovation. Another company is snack bites. It’s a social media agency. But everything I do is focused on that one thing, trying to inspire companies to become more customer-centric and using all the latest tools that are available for that. Jenn DeWall: Steven, did you get inspired to pursue a career in customer service? Steven Van Belleghem: I think that it all started thanks to my parents, to be honest. My parents had a small photography store. I didn’t mention it in the introduction, but I’m from Belgium. You already know that I live close to Bruges and my parents had a, had a photography store in a small town near Bruges. And at that moment, I didn’t realize it, but today I understand, and I can see that my dad was extremely customer-centric. And, and he was always looking for innovative ways, how to, how to talk with his customers and to make sure that if there was an issue that it was solved in a proper way, but he was also the first one who had like a CRM database. And I’m talking about 1982 or something like that. Jenn DeWall: What does a CRM database look like in 1982? Steven Van Belleghem: Actually, I had to make it! So together. We were working in Microsoft Access, and then he had all these paper files with all the data from customers. And my job was to put all the data in that database. And I hated that! But he said, no, no, no, this is crucial for the future and the success of our company, because I will send out personal emails, snail mail back then. And because of that, people will come to our stores, and we’re going to make more money. And it’s going to be very important. You’re doing an important job here. So I was typing, typing, typing, and, but it was an extremely important asset that he created back in the eighties. He was already working with data and, and, and being very customer-centric. And I think that it, it started there for me. And that, that’s one side of the story. I think another side is that I’m very fortunate. I live in Belgium, but I have relatives in California. My dad’s sister, she married an American guy from close to San Francisco, and they’re still married. And I used to go there a lot when I was a teenager. I could spend my summers in California when I was studying here in Belgium. I came to California during the summer, and I took marketing classes at UC Berkeley. And by being so often in California, I think I got. I got injected there by the, you know, the innovative spirit of Silicon Valley and the optimism and the drive. And I think that combination of, of looking how my parents run their business in combination with, you know, having the opportunity as a Belgian guy to go to Silicon Valley. So often, I think that combination has actually led to the kind of job that I do today. A New Perspective on Customer Experience Jenn DeWall: I love that combination of knowing that you had these strong examples of what customer service could look like, how your parents delivered by supporting their shop, working on creating a CRM with them, using snail mail things that people don’t even really use that much today. And then going over to Silicon Valley, which we know has such a strong presence. Notability all on the edge of innovation and tech. So I love that you have both of those. And I just want to give one plug because you are from outside of Bruges. And if you have never been there, it is a beautiful place. That is my plug, but I don’t want to go too much into that, but let’s go ahead and talk a little bit more about your perspective in customer service. So I know that you have a little bit of a different perspective than some. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and how that came to be? Steven Van Belleghem: Yeah. I think that most organizations are too focused on the transactional kind and the transactional relationship with their customers. Of course, you need a good product. You need a good service. You need digital convenience today. People think that’s the most normal thing in the world. It’s if you have it fine, but if you don’t have it, you, you, you’re not successful anymore, but there’s still a lot of focus there. And, and a lot of companies try to, you know, be the best in that transactional part. I see that more as a minimum, and I think what the market really needs now is that organizations don’t just focus on the customer journey, but that they focus on the life journey where you try to help people to achieve their goals. It’s not about the goals of your company. It’s not about your sales objectives. It’s about asking yourself the question, how can we add value to the day-to-day life of our potential customers? How can we help them to, you know, have a life with less worries and a life where they can achieve their dreams and, and make it more concrete. You know, maybe it’s not about selling cars. Maybe it’s about bringing a mobility solution. Maybe it’s not about having a gym, but it’s about helping people to get a healthier lifestyle. And if you look at it from that perspective, you will do more than just try to sell your product. You will come up with services that go beyond the product. Your communication will be completely different. And if you succeed in that, now you have a more emotional relationship with your customers. And I think today that is exactly what you need to differentiate yourself from others because all the other elements like a good product, good price, digital convenience are just a commodity right now. So I always invite companies to look more or to invest more in that emotional relationship than just being stuck in the transactional relationship. Jenn DeWall: Gosh, I, I would love if every brand or organization that I worked with, invested in, bought services from, really focused on how could they serve, because it sounds like you’re putting the “serve” back in service, really thinking about how can I, how can we, how can this organization truly serve? And I can tell you that rarely have I heard someone in the customer service field talk about, I want to help my customers achieve their dreams. What you just said is also not common. I’m sure that there are some people that might be like, I’ve never heard the company that I invest in say that they cared about my dreams, unless it was something that maybe they did for more promotion, but it didn’t necessarily show up in their day-to-day. And that transactional feeling doesn’t feel great but can give me an example of what a transaction would look like for an organization. If you’re really looking at customer service, truly in that wrong way, through the lens of just transactional, what does that is that just here’s the product I’ll take your money we’re done, or what are examples of that and how that can come across to some? Moving Beyond Transactional Customer Relations Steven Van Belleghem: Yeah. And, and don’t get me wrong. That’s not bad. I think those are essential elements that you need to be successful today. Let, let’s take one of the most successful companies in the world right now is Amazon.com, and they are so successful because they are the experts in the world and saving the time of their customers. It’s the most efficient platform that there is in the world to buy stuff from. And they, you know, they deliver what they promise that they will do. And because of that, they’re extremely successful. But I hope that people from Amazon won’t be angry with me when I shared this, but it’s just a transactional relationship. I push a button, and they deliver. I don’t know anyone from Amazon. I don’t know what happens behind the scenes. There is they don’t add more value for me. I don’t know how that is happening for them, but they are the Kings of the world in the best possible transactional relationship. And the truth is the reason why no one is challenging them is that the other retailers, for instance, are just trying to copy/paste Amazon. They’re trying to do the same thing. They’re also trying to make a website where with one click, you can order. They’re also working together with Google home to have a voice assistant involved so that they can have an alternative for Alexa. They are running behind Amazon, and they will never catch them. I think the challenge for other retailers is to do something different and ask yourself, for instance, how can I be the most trustworthy partner in making sure that people have a healthy lifestyle? How can you do that as a retailer? Of course, you still need the transactional part, but you can put something on top of that. That can make a difference. Social Responsibility as Customer Service Steven Van Belleghem: And if you really want to push it to the next level, it’s not about becoming a partner in life for your customers. It’s also about how can I use that strength? How can I use the power that my organization has to maybe, you know, add value to society and be part of the solution to some of the global challenges that we have in the world? I’m not just talking about sustainability. I’m also talking about the social part of the world. They take Warby Parker. For instance, I love the idea and the concept that they have, where they say you buy a pair of glasses, we give a pair of glasses, because there’s still a lot of people out there that cannot afford a good pair of glasses. And if you’re a child and you cannot get good glasses, that just lowers your chances for a successful life because you cannot follow in, in school. So they try to solve that from, from within. And if you can combine that, being a partner in life for customers, with adding value to society, you create a unique kind of customer relationship where people don’t just want your product, but they, they to be part of the community and they want to be part of the story that you’re trying to sell. And then that, that bond between you, your organization, and the customer is so much stronger than when you just focus on being excellent in a convenient transaction. Jenn DeWall: I think that’s a really powerful example of, well, first and foremost, the distinction that don’t copy and paste Amazon. And I’m guessing that when needed when Bezos sat down and thought about Amazon, it wasn’t thinking, how can I be the next retailer like them? It was, how could I be something different? And so thinking about it in a different way, but I also really appreciate the social responsibility. And I think that’s one of the reasons that I still shop at Amazon, but sometimes hate hitting it from a packaging and that sustainability perspective, but shifting into what I see within my generation as a millennial, what I see in with gen Z is that I want to invest in organizations that give back. I want to invest in organizations that that care they’re an active partner in their community in the world. They understand that no one is independent. We all need someone. And if we want to have a stable or successful economy, if we want to have a great quality of life, we’ve got to all pitch in and do that to help everyone else rise. I think that’s so important. I’m curious from your perspective— do you feel like the younger generations wanting to invest in companies that are more socially responsible are kind of pushing companies to have to do that? Even if maybe they’re a little resistant, do you see that? Steven Van Belleghem: I see that. Absolutely. It’s very often the younger you are, the more important you value those, those qualities and, and not just from a customer point of view, it’s maybe even more important from a, a talent point of view. If you want to, you know, if you’re young and you’re ambitious, and you want to, you want to do something with your life and your professional life, young, talented people, they want to work for a company that makes a difference. They don’t just want to work for a company that has a certain revenue goal or a certain profit goal. Of course, that’s, that’s good to have, I’m not against that on the contrary, but you want to be part of something that adds value. You want to have an impact on something, and maybe some of the listeners are thinking, yeah, but my customers, they don’t really care. I would argue that I would like to challenge that. But when you think about your future employees, when you’re trying to attract talent, then it’s crucial to have that, you know, impact on society part in your story, because that’s the only way that you will attract the right talent these days. Jenn DeWall: Yes. The, Oh, I love that. It absolutely comes back to not only whether or not they’ll want to invest in buy your products, but whether or not they’ll actually want to work for you and how hard they’ll work for you. If they know your mission, if they know what you’re doing, and they can buy in or see that impact, who wouldn’t want to work to make that impact come to the realization of, I just love loving this conversation, Steven, how’s it going for you? One of the things that you talked about is that companies sometimes get brand in customer experience mixed up. Tell me about that. Yeah. Don’t Confuse Your Brand with Customer Experience Steven Van Belleghem: A couple of things. You know, one of the problems in an organization is that very often, the people who are really the frontline customer-facing people are people who have limited influence on the senior leadership and organization. Very often, the people that actually deal with your customers every single day are at the bottom of the hierarchy very often. And I don’t mean this disrespectful. That’s very often how it is. They’re often the lowest paid people, even in the organization. And we, we, we, they have a great responsibility, and that’s what some organizations call customer experience. And in those same organizations, you have a couple of people that are highly educated, very well paid, and they are responsible for the brand experience. So they’re working on advertising and brands and logos and all those kinds of things. And, for many senior leaders, it feels like brand experience and customer experience are two different things. And I think that’s, that’s completely wrong at the end of the day. For me, as a customer for you as a customer, there’s only one experience everything an organization does or says, or what, when we see that they are, you know, ruining the planet or when they’re, when they’re not treating their staff, right. Or when I have a fantastic phone call with someone from their call center, all of these elements are part of our customer experience and are part of our brand experience. It defines how we look at that organization, and it’s one experience. So, in my opinion, organizations should try to look at things from a customer point of view, and don’t split it up into different responsibilities because then you create a very complex disconnected kind of experience for an, for a customer. So the closer you can bring that all together to create that one experience for a customer in terms of activities, in terms of product, in terms of story, the better you will be. Like when I talk about the different components that in that a customer values, these days, I work with the four that I described earlier, good product price, digital convenience, the partner in life, and social responsibility. Those are four components that are being valued today by a customer. All four of them are customer experience and brand experience combined. And when I talk to big organizations, what I noticed is that usually, they are working on all four of those elements. They have someone responsible for the product. They have someone with digital working on a digital app, someone that tries to deepen the customer relation, and they have someone that works on sustainability and CSR, but they’re disconnected. There are different departments in an organization with different agendas, different KPIs. They don’t even talk with each other, which is crazy because, for a customer, they need to be connected. So the better you connect those four components that bring value to the customer, the more clear it becomes for the customer, and the more successful an organization can be. Jenn DeWall: You said a few things in there that really stuck out for you. You said a lot, but like a few things that stuck up for me in one being the disconnect, you know, that they see that even though all of them are working to serve the same goal that they aren’t connecting to actually make sure and holding themselves accountable to delivering on that goal, they’re doing it in a vacuum. And so the product might be great, but then the customer experience may not add up. So you might spend, you know, invest in something and then have a horrible experience. And the other thing I liked is that thinking about your brand that, you know, at Crestcom, one of the classes that we teach about talent management is that your company is your brand. And so when you think about the brand, if you think about word of mouth, the referrals, how people talk about that. If I hear a negative experience about someone working in an environment, I am less likely to actually want to buy and support that organization. And so I absolutely agree with you. I think that’s a really great distinction to make that your brand can be, I guess, created through other ways, even outside of that direct customer experience. And then that will impact your customer experience. How can you tell if your company has that mixed up? What are some indicators? So maybe they’re not making decisions together. They don’t have aligned KPIs. What are other ways that you can tell that they have it mixed up? Steven Van Belleghem: If, if the responsibilities are shared, you know, at a certain moment, you, you have people in the branding and marketing department that look at their communication and are over-focused on communication. So what they look at is we’re campaigning. What is the impact on sales? Because that’s their responsibility. They have to push sales through communication, and they’ll think about brand awareness and those kinds of things, but they don’t combine that with the data of the contact center, for instance. And I think those do need to be, need to be linked. At the contact center, very often, there’s a lot of information there of people who know what the worries are in the market and what the frequently asked questions are, but they don’t, they don’t send them through the marketing team so that those guys are missing out on the information to improve products. So if it’s really disconnected, if you have the feeling that there are two different worlds within your organization, then that’s something to look into. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. And that one is so- I’m sure every frontline employee right now is probably cheering as they listen to this to say, yes, we have exposure and access to such valuable information and data, but how can we get it up the chain? How can you get it up the chain? Do you have any advice for your clients or even, I know you work a lot with CEOs. Do you have any advice for them on how they can incorporate and get those viewpoints into the conversation? Everyone Needs Customer Feedback Steven Van Belleghem: Yeah. I think it’s crucial that you make sure that as many employees as possible have direct access to customer feedback. So to make it very pragmatic, everyone in an organization at a certain moment should be customer-facing. Not just contact centers, but if you have stores, just put everyone in the store now and then, and I felt that if you tell someone from the accounting team that they have to go to a store to help customers out, that they become a little bit worried. Like, will I be able to do that? What, you know, am I going to do a good job? So suddenly they feel how difficult it is, how much energy it requires to do a good job towards customers. And you cannot hide behind the computer anymore; you’re out there. So making sure that everyone is, is getting exposed to the direct feedback of customers is crucial. The comparison that I use is with soccer teams here in Europe, I don’t know how it is in, in Colorado, in the US right now, but we’re still not allowed to go to soccer games out here. So they’re still playing, and it’s being broadcasted on TV, but there are no fans in the stadium. And you can see that. You can see that when you look at the game, because those soccer players, they, you know, it’s a different kind of game these days. And I can understand that because they don’t have their direct customer feedback anymore. The audience used to bring direct customer feedback. If they did something great, they were like, woo. And great, fantastic. If they do something bad, they get booed up. And when they score a goal, it’s like an explosion of emotions. So they get instant feedback from the market. Now they don’t have that anymore. And you see that in their play. The same is true. In organizations, you have a number of people who get the oohs and aahs directly from the market. The others get them in PowerPoint sheets and graphs or from storytelling. But it’s not the same. It’s like when I would go to a soccer game, and I would come home and tell my wife, Oh, it was a great game. And you should’ve heard the atmosphere. It was amazing. It’s never the same as when you’ve been there. And this is how many organizations work; there’s a filter between the market and the management. And I think you need to remove that filter by bringing the people who make the decisions closer to the market. Jenn DeWall: Oh, again, they, this is where the frontline workers are cheering for you right now. They’re like, yes, yes, yes. Because this is such a great way to engage, to make sure that everyone feels involved in the success, execution, implementation, strategy, whatever you want to call it, that you have. And these people care. They’re your frontline employees. They’re the ones that are delivering. They want to do a good job. And who wouldn’t, as a frontline employee, want to say, if I have this reoccurring customer pain point, Oh my gosh, I would love to give that to someone and say, please fix this because I’m so sick of having customers yell at me or get frustrated with me. But then you feel like you don’t have anywhere to go with it. You just have to sit there and hope that they figure it out. Oh my gosh, that’s so valuable. And yeah, feedback is essential. How can we get that feedback? What a great example of, and you can call it football too. I know that it’s, it’s soccer for us, but it’s football for you. But to know that, yes, that think about that for everyone that’s sitting there, you just gave a beautiful way to understand customer service and feedback. If you were at a game, you would see that you would connect with it. You would know it, but if you’re just watching it on TV, you do not have that same experience. And it’s the same as a PowerPoint. I think that’s, you know, hopefully, people, especially in this digital age, think about more creative ways to bring that data to life. So they can experience that pain-point. And, you know, maybe not through yelling at them the way that a customer might yell at someone else, but just a way that brings it to light to say, this is the urgency of why we need to adapt or why we need to change. So the next question is, how can you make adding value for society part of your CX strategy? And I should back up and say this for those that are unfamiliar with the term “CX,” when did the term CX come about? Because it used to just be customer service. And then, all of a sudden, it went to CX, but I’m not an expert in that. I’m just an outsider saying, okay, it’s CX now. So CX is just customer experience for those that may not be familiar with that. And we’re just still talking about customer service and how we can craft that. But we want to, you know, Steven had brought up a great way to think about how we can enhance or add value for society as part of our CX or customer experience strategy. How can you do that, Steven? How can you make adding value to society? A part of that strategy Look for the Trade-Off and Solve It Steven Van Belleghem: Many organizations just don’t really know where to start. And then they do something that is, that is good for the climate, which is wonderful. But I think that everything that is related to sustainability will pretty soon become a minimum demand as well. If, if you don’t do, you know, the world expects from you, and you’re going to go out of business, and if you do, what’s needed to be done for the planet. We’re just going to see that as the most normal thing in the world. So I would invite the companies to, to start somewhere else. And I would invite them to look for the trade-off in their industry. Very often. As a customer, if you buy something, there’s a trade-off we, we, every day we make a trade-off between privacy and convenience, for instance, or when you, Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh, wait. Yes, we do. Every time I order something, I’m like, I’m just throwing my data at them. You can know everything about me. Yes, we do. Steven Van Belleghem: Or you buy, or you see a t-shirt, and it’s extremely cheap. You want to get it, but you know, secretly back in your mind, you’re little voice is telling you. It’s probably not produced in an ethical way as someone has to suffer from it. But Hey, I want to have this cheap T-Shirt, that’s a trade-off. And in many industries, there’s a trade-off, I like to travel, but it’s bad for the planet. I like to eat meat, but it’s not good for my personal health. And it’s not good for the planet. I like fireworks, but it makes animals aggressive. So you see there, in most industries, there’s a trade-off. And once you can identify that trade-off, you can start to look for ways how to reduce it and eventually eliminate it. And if you eliminate a trade-off in a certain industry, by definition, you have added value to society in a way that it’s close to your own industry. And that’s a methodology that I just love to use because it just gives you a different perspective on your market by doing that exercise. Jenn DeWall: If they want to, if someone wants to think about adding value, they’ve got to start with what’s the trade-off that maybe they’re making right now and how can they begin to minimize it and hopefully reduce it. So would an example be maybe what would be an example of that? I’m trying to think of one off the top of my head, but would it go back to Warby Parker and say, I don’t know what the trade-off for the customer would be because this isn’t my expertise, but the trade-off being, you know, that I then can share. I can then make sure that I’m giving back, or is that from Warby Parker’s perspective, we may be producing this, but if we produce more than our, I don’t know, where do I go with this? Steven Van Belleghem: I will take another example. I will take another example, Jenn, to make it clear. Let’s take the vegetarian example. Like I’m not a vegetarian, I like to eat meat. Even though I know it’s bad for my personal health and bad for the planet, I still eat it. That’s a trade-off. That is a situation that will be solved in the next couple of years because we have companies like beyond meat and impossible food, which make plant-based meat. They tried its synthetic meat made in a lab. They try to mimic the meat experience, and the audience that they want to reach are not vegetarians. They want to reach people like me that like to have meat. And for me, that’s a perfect alternative. Eventually, the taste will be pretty close to the meat experience today, and I can eat it, but I will not have the negative impact on my personal health and the negative impact on the planet. That’s an example, or take the fireworks that I mentioned. We love fireworks when we go to Disneyland at the end, over the castle, or on New Year’s Eve, you know how it goes. But the animals become aggressive by it. You can solve that now because we have these miniature drones that we can send up in the sky, thousands of them, and they can create this spectacle of light and sound that maybe even is better and more impressive than fireworks. And on top of that animals, don’t, don’t mind that we use drones. They’re not becoming aggressive, or they’re not afraid of that. So you solve that trade-off Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Okay. Thank you so much for giving it deeper detail of the trade-offs. And I had no idea that drones were replicating the fireworks experience. I had no idea. Steven Van Belleghem: They’ve been doing it in Disney World. And then we had it here in Bruges on New Year’s Eve, the drones instead of fireworks. And you should check that out on YouTube when you have the chance, but on New Year’s Eve, I don’t think this year, but the year before that in Shanghai, they had an amazing show with thousands and thousands of drones with music underneath it. It was just mind-blowing. Jenn DeWall: All right. When we talked about a lot today, we talked about our social responsibility, how we can add that really how companies can get brand and that customer experience mixed up, but they really need to be together. And that we really want to think that if we want to serve our customers, how can we make their life better? Which I just, I love that. Like, and again, it’s not, it’s not saying transactional natures of customer experiences are wrong, but it also thinks maybe there’s an opportunity to expand on that customer experience. What would be, you know, what are your greatest tips or advice that you give maybe leaders as they’re starting to approach- How can I make my customer experience better? So one of the ways they can start is with their trade-off. If they’re talking about social responsibility, but how do they begin to maybe turn the corner and change the culture of their customer service? Empathy is the Secret to a Great Customer Experience Steven Van Belleghem: I think the quality that they need to boost in the organization is empathy. Looking at things from a customer point of view, I recently heard an example that I really loved. It was from a pharmaceutical company that has medication for people that have trouble breathing, that have asthma. And a lot of people said, okay, we know what patients with asthma, what, what their worries are. And then someone said, I, I have it. I’m suffering; I’m a patient. I don’t think you understand. And they did this crazy exercise. Everyone in the organization had to jump up and down for like one minute jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. And then they had to breathe through a straw because that is exactly the experience that patients who suffer from asthma half when they have an attack or an asthma attack. And at that moment, everyone in the organization truly understood what it meant to be a patient. So you have to figure out, and I, that was extremely powerful at that example. So, you have to figure out ways to boost empathy, to put yourself really in the shoes of the customer, go through the process that customers go through. Like when someone is listening here, that is in a leadership function, in a, in a big bank, for instance, if you lose your credit card, ask yourself, how do I get a new one? Do I call one of my colleagues to get a new credit card? Or do I follow the process of the customer? And in many cases, you have your internal routes to get your own problem solved, so you don’t follow the customer’s process anymore. So my advice is to boost empathy by becoming what I call friction hunters. Look for friction that people have when they’re doing business with you, look for frictions that people have in their life, and list them. Just make a list. Very pragmatically, just make a list of frictions that people have, and then try to solve them one by one. And involve as many employees as possible in that process make as many people as possible friction hunters, and it will completely shift the culture and the mindset in an organization. Jenn DeWall: I love that phrase of friction hunters. I feel like I want to write to companies and say, this is my pain point with you. Please do something about it, especially when it feels like low-hanging fruit or an obvious solution. That’s even more frustrating as a customer when, or if you have, like, there are some banks that I bank with that I can do so much online. And then there’s another bank that I still have back home. And I can’t do anything online. And it drives me bananas, especially in the pandemic, because I can’t travel there. And so if I can’t use it online, it’s very difficult to get anything done or to be able to do the transactions I need to do. And I don’t understand why they can’t if every other bank can. So it’s those things too that are just frustrating, but yeah, become a friction hunter, but you also said it really, really powerful word, which I don’t know. Again, if I’ve heard people talk about it with customer service, we hear empathy talked about a lot within leadership. How can we be more empathetic leaders, listeners caring. And I think it is really important to think about how we can practice empathy with our customers. Our customers likely don’t want to be mad at you. They likely don’t want to change services because it’s more painful for them. But if you don’t have empathy with that, then you don’t see that friction that you’re creating that you could solve. Steven, how can our audience connect with you? Where can they reach you? I know that you do workshops. You have two businesses tell, like, tell our audience how they can connect with you after this podcast. Steven Van Belleghem: All right. I would invite them through to check out my social media. I share a lot of videos about these topics on my YouTube channel. It’s youtube.com/stevenvanbellingham. So my name, my Instagram accounts, I share a lot of content there as well. Linkedin people are more than welcome to follow. If they need my books or some background, they can go through Amazon or come to my own website. And if they are interested in joining me on a trip to an exact place, somewhere around the world, they can go to nextworks.com and see if there’s anything that, that they like. Jenn DeWall: Fantastic. I mean, I feel like I want to come on a little vacation to go to these innovative areas. Now, Steven, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for just sharing your insights and your point of view. I learned a lot today. I mean, one of the fun things was about the drum, but I really, I just loved the way that you approach customer service of looking at it as truly an opportunity to serve, to make life better. Not only for the customer but for the planet. Thank you so much, Steven. Steven Van Belleghem: Thanks for having me, Jenn. It was a real pleasure. I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Steven. If you want to connect with them, you can find his books on Amazon. You can go to his website, StevenVanBelleghem.com.  Or you can find that information in our show notes or feel free to connect with them on LinkedIn. If you enjoyed today’s episode or if you know someone that would really benefit from a different perspective on customer service, send this to them. And of course, if you enjoyed it, don’t forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service.   The post The Future of Customer Experience with International Best-Selling Author, Steven Van Belleghem appeared first on Crestcom International.

Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall with The Leadership Habit. And today, I’m talking about a very important issue and an issue that likely you may be experiencing yourself. And that topic is burnout. That’s right. We know that burnout was an issue prior to the pandemic, but that the pandemic has actually made it worse. And of course, we know there are a lot of reasons. There’s a lot of ways that our lives have changed. Our organizations have changed that have really caused us to have to do more with less, maybe absorb additional roles. And so we can see burnout, and it might look like having more mental health challenges. If you’re struggling from anxiety, that could be worse, feeling like maybe you can’t get out from the pile of work that’s on top of you or maybe depression because we’re isolated. We’re not having that return to normalcy, or we might just be exhausted. Or we might just be indifferent, right? We might be complacent. We may not feel that we have the energy anymore to keep going, to want to do it in the best way as if we would on our best days. And this is important to remember that if any of this is ringing true for you, or you’re starting to think, am I showing signs of burnout? Am showing signs of this? Start to recognize that if it’s you, it likely could also be your team, too. And the biggest challenge with burnout is we often just believe that it’s an individual problem instead of an organizational problem. What is Burnout? But what is burnout? The concept actually originated in the 1970s, but in 2019, the World Health Organization officially included burnout in its international classification of diseases. It is a global issue. It is not something that’s specific to one country. The consequences or the results of burnout may differ by each country, but every country has this challenge. Now what’s important to know is maybe a little bit of data to help you understand how this is showing up. Harvard Business Review did a survey, and what they’ve found— and this survey is from fall 2020— so this is very recent results. What they found is that 57% of employees felt that the pandemic had a large effect on or completely dominated their work. Now that’s not surprising again, as we may have had a lot of changes, maybe there were layoffs. Maybe we needed to change the way that we do business. So there was just a lot of change. People were being asked to adjust to new processes or learn things a new way, which can be very taxing. Here’s another statistic that they found from their survey that 56% said their job demands had increased. Is that true for you? Because if that’s true for you or have you notice that to be true of others in your organization, burnout may be an issue for your organization. And that get this one— and this one might be the biggest indicator of the fact that we need to be more empathetic, calm, and kind to understand that people are really suffering right now.  85% of the respondents—and again, these respondents are managers and above. This is also in your frontline workers— that 85% said that their wellbeing had declined—85%! We are working in environments where people don’t feel the same. They are challenged mentally. They’re challenged physically. Maybe they’re becoming teachers and having to practice or do virtual homeschooling with their kids. This number should be assigned that your organization needs to do something. What is the Cost of Burnout? Because what’s the cost? Let’s talk about the cost to your organization. If your staff is burnt out, of course, you’re going to have disengagement because they may not have the energy to adapt to a new change or try something new, or you might see conflict on the rise. People are very tired. They’re not mentally where they would typically be given different circumstances. And so they might be creating more conflict, or they might be more irritable and annoyed, or maybe they’re a little bit more resistant. What other problems does it cause? Productivity, right? We likely won’t have the faculties to be able to focus on many different things at once because we already have a million things going on in our brains. And then we’re looking at this and trying to do the task at hand, but then we’re clouded by our mind saying I’m just tired. I have so much to do. And so again, we’re not as focused as what we would want to be in, right? Not as productive. So we can talk about why we need to care as a leader is just to, again, paraphrase this, we need to care because it’s going to impact the organization’s engagement. It’s going to impact turnover. If people are feeling burnt out, pushed to the math, asking to do more with less, with no reprieve in sight, they might start to look for other jobs. And yes, this is true even in the global recession because there’s only so much that people can take. So we know that turnover is an issue, conflict communication. We may not be very intentional with our communication. We might slide in a few more, “well, per my last email,” because we’re exhausted, and we don’t want to go through the process of maybe explaining something to someone. So we’re not as empathetic or not as connected, being mindful of this as it may more or less be a sign of burnout and less of that person. So practice your own empathy to say, huh. And be a little curious about what’s going on. Especially if an employee or yourself is showing up in a way that you don’t typically do, instead of saying, well, Hey, John is really being, you know, not the best that he could be. He’s a little short right now. Well, maybe John could be experiencing burnout. What Causes Burnout in the Workplace? So what are the causes of burnout that we see right now in the pandemic? Well, for some, it’s Groundhog Day. It’s just that routine. That’s the same day after day. We don’t have stimulation in the same way. We’re not socializing. Maybe we’re not interacting or involving ourselves with our community. And we’re just fatigued with feeling like we’re just going through the motions. Or another cause of burnout is virtual homeschooling. A lot of people are, they never wanted to be teachers, but now they’re finding themselves to be teachers. And that is the hard job. Teachers do difficult work. And many parents are trying to do both their own job while also supporting and helping their children be as successful as they can be. And maybe there are just challenges in figuring that out in their schedule with wanting to actually regulate depending on the age of the child, you know, how they’re spending their time or feeling like you have to maybe invest more time and then go back to your work. So you’re also seeing this shift in the work schedule where parents may be waking up earlier before the children are up, and they’re working that way. So they actually ended up working longer days. There’s less sleep, less time for recovery, less time to focus on their own self-care—also, financial challenges. There are many people that were impacted by job loss and job loss, or it could even be medical bills or things like that. But job loss having to then think about how are we going to feed ourselves? How are we going to pay our mortgage? How are we going to support our children? Those come into the workplace. It’s not as if they can say, well, these worries that I have aside, I will button those up, and I will not bring them into work. No, those are absolutely concerns. And they are going to cause challenges. And we’re looking at our workload, also remote working. Now we know that this is a big challenge for burnout, and we see it in different ways. So remote working could be that we’re doing more with less. We don’t get the feedback. So we’re working harder to prove it and show that we’re doing a great job. Or we’re not setting proper boundaries. Meaning we see that laptop. It can come with us anywhere. And so more often than ever, we’re logging on, we are so connected to work, and we’re not taking the proper time to separate ourselves from it. It’s easy, right? When you have your home office there, you can just run up and do something. And I’m sure if any of you are like me, Oh, let’s just do this for 10 minutes. And all of a sudden, you’re up there for an hour. And again, you’re not focusing on feeling yourself. So you’re creating burnout by not separating yourself. In addition, our health, if someone is struggling because of the virus itself, maybe they have other health things going on outside of COVID. Maybe they are suffering long-term consequences from COVID. Those are things that are going to disrupt the way that we show up in our work. Or an unsustainable workload. Now this one I see more and more with organizations that maybe had to lay off, or maybe they had their sales completely disrupted. We are finding that organizations, you know, they’re trying to sustain. So then they’re asking more of their employees. But the challenge is that these employees are trying to keep up. They’re trying to drive those things again, assuming positive intent, but there’s no end in sight. They just keep being asked to perform at a hundred miles an hour. Here’s another cause of burnout. We’re not even giving people an incentive to do more with less. There are no rewards. This is what you can look forward to. This is the benefit that will actualize once you’ve completed this. Another cause of burnout is feeling powerless, feeling maybe more like a victim. And that we’re at the mercy of our situations like, Oh my gosh, I have so much going on. And I can’t even get out of it. Sometimes burnout can cloud our ability to see our solutions, and that’s totally normal. And of course, an ever COVID job that can create burnout is when we’re in the wrong job. Maybe we’re using skills that aren’t natural to us, skills that we don’t even enjoy. And trying to do that, or especially being asked to do something that’s outside of your expertise, because maybe there was someone that had to be, let go that can be more taxing, there’s a learning curve. There there’s a confidence gap there. So, work on being mindful of these things within yourself and your workforce. What Can We Do About It? So why do we need to care again? Because burnout is more than just an individual problem. And this is from Harvard Business Review- it is an organizational problem. We are going to see, you know, impacts productivity. You’re going to see more sick days, maybe less responsive communication. And you will see these things personally at your team level and organizational level. So how can we reduce burnout? One thing we can do as ourselves or individuals is adding joy into our life. Thinking if I am burnt out, maybe this is an opportunity to serve, an opportunity to give back, and an opportunity to share by being able to serve and help someone that may be struggling in a different way than we are. We can also practice gratitude, but we’re also giving back and helping someone else live their life better. Maybe put food on the table, whatever that may be. And the reward of that for yourself can help to offset that stress. So find opportunities to serve. And if it’s not outside of your organization, you can still think how could I potentially make someone’s day today at work? What could I do to just put a smile on someone’s face and fun fact, I said this on the past podcast with Brad Montgomery, the great thing about smiling with your mask on, for some of you that might feel more uncomfortable is that no one’s going to notice. They’re not going to think you’re bananas just because you’re smiling. So smile, that mask is a protective thing that people can’t see. So just smile. And you’ll notice that there’s a physical shift in your own energy and attitude. So find those opportunities—number one. Number two is to evaluate your own energy bank. Now, every single one of us has our own energy bank. And let’s say at the start of the day, it’s at 100% full. We’re well-rested, ready to seize the day. And then as maybe we’ve talked to people, maybe there are some people that actually drain our energy. So then our energy bank goes down. Or here’s the opposite. Then all of a sudden, we do a project that we really enjoy, and our energy bank goes up. Now, what you don’t want to find is that you have an energy bank that’s completely going to zero. Meaning you’re taking on too much or around the wrong people. You’re doing tasks that drain your energy or tasks that you feel like you can’t do. And if you find that your day is consistently full of energy drainers, this is an opportunity to think, what can I do to change this? Because you need to fuel yourself, you will never be your best self, your best leader, your best team member if you do not have the energy to do it. And you can’t keep running on empty. That is not sustainable. So think about all of the things that affect your energy. Put them in a category. What are the things that you do on any given day that are adding to your energy bank, making you excited and making you feel fulfilled, and the things that are taking away? And if you start to notice that there’s an imbalance, think about what are the things people, situations that I need to say no to that I need to stay away from, that are draining my energy, that I can control. Another thing that we can do to reduce burnout is to create a list of all the things that are causing stress or burnout. Many of us suffer and just have this running list, almost like a headline in our head. That’s saying, Oh my God, you have to do this. Oh, but did you think about that? You’ve got to email Jackie. You have to create that product. You have to do— insert whatever that is for you. The challenge, if it’s in our head, we can’t create a strategy around it. And it actually adds more stress. You can think about this feeling as just individual thorns in your side. Every stressor is just pushing in and making that burnout worse, and we need to pull it out. Create the list of all the things that are causing stress or burnout and put it on paper, and then ask yourself, what are these things on this list that I can control and start thinking if I can control that, what needs to happen? Now again, when we feel burnout, we often feel like the victim. We feel like we’re powerless in our situations. And so one way to combat it is to recognize the areas, opportunities, situations that we do have control over. Another way to reduce burnout, of course, is sleep. We know that sleep is so important, and yes, it may be very challenging with the responsibilities, the workload, whatever is going on in your life to prioritize that. But if there’s one thing above all else, maybe sleep is what you’re doing. It’s the one thing that can allow you to recharge. It’s the one thing that’s telling your brain –aah,  we can rest. And one last consideration on how to reduce burnout that I want to throw out there is to stop the celebration and praising of long hours. We know, and there’s much research out there that will say that your benefits of someone working longer than a 55 hour week drop. There’s not really a sustained benefit. People aren’t doing things to the best of their ability. Yet, we have created cultures in many organizations that say, wow, you did 80 hours of work this week. Holy cow, look at you!  No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And yes, I know that those people can do great things, and I don’t want to in any way imply that it’s not worth it. But at the end of the day, the thing that we need to consider is what our energy is like? Is it really sustainable? And chances are, it’s not sustainable. But if we keep rewarding it, you’re sending a message in your culture that says, yes, the expectation is that you work all the time, that you do not take breaks. So you can’t sit in a town hall meeting and encourage your employees to value their work-life balance or to just make sure they get that rest if you’re also rewarding people for working 80 hours. And you see that all the time, that there’s this behavior of obsessive work culture that you know, that is not necessarily broadly announced and celebrated, but it is celebrated. They may not be announcing it at their town hall, but it’s celebrated in the form of promotions in the form of, Hey, you did a really great job, way to work that much! No, you have to be the one that says that is not a healthy way, nor is it a sustainable way for our team to achieve our goals. So stop celebrating and praising long hours. We’ve got a life to live, and you know what? We weren’t born just to work. We were born to enjoy a variety of things in our life! Encourage your employees to get out there and also find those meaningful ways, so they can live a greater life that has more value. That’s not maybe only tied to work. How Can We Help Our Team? Jenn DeWall: So what can you do with your team? This is the last piece in closing because you might have seen yourself in many of these situations that I described, but I want you to think about your team. What can you do with your team? So the first thing I would do is to check-in. Now you might feel like it’s easier because of your time to do this in a group meeting. But if there’s not a lot of trust, or if you’re in a culture that rewards long hours, they may not feel comfortable saying that they’re burnt out. So be mindful of your own work culture and whether or not people are going to answer that question. Honestly, if you said, Hey, is anyone feeling burnt out here? Or how’s everyone feeling? Some people may or may not feel comfortable. So I would suggest having these conversations in one-on-one meetings so you can get to a better understanding of the challenge for them. You can identify opportunities for how you can potentially help and serve them. Or maybe you can find ways that you can support in the form of development and the form of delegating work. But you’ve got to have that one-on-one to talk with them and understand the root problem of their burnout. Encourage mental health breaks. Mental health breaks might just be getting up and walking around for 15 minutes, doing a walk outside, connecting with a friend, watching something that makes them laugh. But you’ve got to again be the leader of it. If you do not model that behavior, people may believe, even though you’ve never had the conversation that you don’t support people having breaks— that they have to keep going and going and going. There’s no time for fun here. So remember that if you don’t explicitly say it, you can’t just assume that people know it and just getting people to be more mindful. Take some breaks. Another thing is to set the work boundaries and set the email boundaries. If you truly want your staff to take a break, you need to make sure that you’re saying, I want you to work between the hours of nine and six. Anything that happens after six, you can address the next morning and the same with emails, stop weekend email exchanges. When you email someone on the weekend, you are telling them, I also expect you to be on email. Now I know what you might be thinking. You’re like, no, I don’t expect that of them. I’m just sending the emails. No, that’s what you’re telling them. And so if you must write an email on the weekend, I would suggest putting it on a timer, waiting for it to be delivered. And last, another thing to do with your team. If you are going to have a sensitive conversation with them, or if something bad has happened at work, make sure that you’re resolving or having these conversations before the weekend. Don’t let your employees drive up their own anxiety, worrying about what Monday will bring, what work is going to be like, have those conversations on a Friday. So they can truly marinate in that feedback or listen to that and then use the weekend to recharge. Now, one of the worst things you can do is schedule a meeting with someone. Hey, we really need to talk about your performance on a Friday at three o’clock. What do you think the employee’s going to do? They’re likely going to say, Oh my goodness, am I doing okay? Am I not doing enough? Do I need to work this weekend? Just to show that I’m doing enough. And that email wasn’t the intense trigger. Someone to not be able to relax, refuel and recharge, which is what we want, especially if you even want them to be level-headed in a conversation that may be sensitive. So be mindful of when you’re sending sensitive emails, or you’re communicating something sensitive. That is not something where they have to wait two days and anxiety to be able to figure out the information. Now, this was my take on burnout and some of the things that we can do, but if you join us later this month, I’m actually going to be talking to an expert on burnout. And this is a very, very important topic. This is why we are going to do it twice because many people right now today are extremely burnt out. Thank you so much for listening until next time.   The post Minisode: Burnout in the Workplace with Jenn DeWall appeared first on Crestcom International.

The 4 C’s of Peak Performers with Val Jones, Former Elite Figure Skater Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down and talked to the expert in peak performers, Val Jones. Val is a former elite figure skater, and she has shared the podium with Olympians like Kristi Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding, and Nancy Kerrigan. Her own Olympic dream was crushed when she sustained a career-ending knee injury. In recent years, Val has had eight major surgeries in nine years and contracted a potentially deadly complication on the fifth surgery. She has not only survived these but has found a way to thrive in spite of them. Taking from her own experiences, Val has developed proven approaches on how to overcome obstacles, persist through problems and come out on the other side even stronger. She has taken all of her experiences and knowledge and is influencing audiences through keynote speeches, her training programs, and her book, Sharpen Your Edge, which was released last November. I’m happy to introduce to you the only human on the planet who can perform a triple Lutz but does not know how to ride a bike-Val Jones- as we sit down and talk about the four Cs of peak performance. Enjoy! Meet Val Jones, Former Championship Figure Skater Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. It’s Jenn DeWall. And today, I am sitting down with performance consultant, author, speaker, and coach— Val Jones. Now Val Jones can do a triple Lutz. So that’s the first starting point. But for those that may not know, Val’s got quite a track record. She has skated professionally with some of the most successful skaters in the world. And she is just got story after story. But if we’re talking about someone that really has expertise in peak performance, there is no better person to talk to than Val Jones. Val, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. I’m so happy to have you. Val Jones: Well, thanks for having me, Jenn, we’ve been talking about this for quite some time, so I’m glad we finally made it happen. I’m super excited to sit down with you today and share any nuggets that I’ve learned in my years. Jenn DeWall: No kidding! We’re excited to hear them. And yes, I’m so glad that we finally made this happen. Of course, that’s how life goes.  It ebbs and flows, things happen, but we’re finally here in this moment, and now there were many reasons why I wanted to bring you on the show, but I want you to introduce yourself to our audience. If you could, could you tell a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, and your background with our listeners? Val Jones: Yes. I often joke that I’m probably the most famous, not famous person ever. If one thing had been different, my whole life would have been different. So yes, I had the privilege and the honor of skating and competing against names that you probably know: Kristi Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan. I could clearly see my path to the Olympics. It sometimes felt like it was just, you know, within arm’s length. But then tragically, training the triplets, actually- I blew out my knee. And my surgeon was like, well, I think I could put you back together, Val, but it’s my professional opinion that you never skate again. You never compete again. And so, in just one instant, my whole life fell apart. What I couldn’t have even imagined at 18 was that sometimes plan A isn’t the plan at all. And I couldn’t have even fathomed that I would be doing this now and how God would use my story to do what I’m doing now. And so I just feel, I feel blessed. I feel so proud of the things that I’ve been able to do with seemingly a tragic story. And so much I’ve learned. I honestly feel that who I am today was developed at five o’clock in that freezing cold rink when all of my friends were snuggled up in their beds sleeping. It makes you tough. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. And when you, so you mean like getting up and going into the rink and practicing and putting in the work, is that what you’re kind of referencing is your life, your time, energy, everything into it. Val Jones: I skated six hours a day, six days a week, from the time I was six years old. So I would skate for three hours in the morning, then go to school, then skate for three hours in the afternoon. Dinner, homework, shower, and bed from the time I was six. So not a normal childhood. My parents weren’t crazy. They weren’t crazy. They didn’t make me do it. The ice is where I wanted to be. And so yeah, and that was 36 hours a week. That was just on-ice training. That didn’t include my off-ice training of strength and conditioning. And I took a ton of ballet classes, and later on sports psychology, I worked with a sports psychologist. So I devoted, I was all in, I had all my eggs in the proverbial basket, which is kind of what you have to do with a big audacious Olympic dream. You have to be all in. Finding a New Direction Jenn DeWall: How did you pivot that? Knowing that there might be even leaders listening, where they have a big dream, they have a big goal. They may have invested a lot of time and energy. And maybe that was their primary, all of the eggs in one basket. How did you pivot that upon getting that devastating news that they were recommending that you shouldn’t skate again? Val Jones: Well, I think in my heart, Jenn- and we’ve known each other for quite some time- but you will get a very clear indication of my personality. And being a competitor isn’t what I do. It’s who I’ve always been. It’s who I’ll always be—and competing at that level hanging around. I was so blessed. I got to train not with one, not two, not three, not four, but five. I trained with five Olympians, and that’s kind of how I came into being a speaker, and peak performance expert is because from that time I have paid attention to peak performers, and not everybody hears that I’m an athlete, and they automatically think that I only work with athletes, no peak performers come in all shapes and sizes. They are CEOs, and they are entrepreneurs. They are solopreneurs. They’re the mom with six kids who was the PTA president and had a side gig. You know what I mean? So they come in all shapes and forms. And so how I pivoted was I took the things that I learned competing at that level. And I really, over the last, say, 20 years, it came upon me like, Oh, these things are consistent throughout peak performers. And I used that to my, to my advantage. And I’ve been in some sticky situations, which we’ll talk about in our talk today. And so that’s kinda how I came up with our topic today, which is the four Cs of Peak Performance. And it’s just things that I’ve learned through life, and I’m not sure who’s it, but somebody once said, what do you get when you don’t get what you want? And the answer is you get experience. Val Jones: And so everything that I’ve learned, I’ve either learned firsthand the hard way. You know, graduated from the, from the hard school, the hard knocks of life, or I’ve learned by watching and interacting with other people. Jenn DeWall: I love that a deep amount of experience. And it’s not just any athlete that you maybe initially learned this from. These are Olympians. These are high caliber, you know, just like yourself, investing six hours in training (each day). These are not people that take it lightly. I can tell you too that I had a past in figure skating. And guess what? I couldn’t do any of the things because I was just the girl that wanted to wear the leotard. And the skirt, and I so admired, you know, while you were skating with them, I was writing them letters, hoping that I could be their fan base. What is Peak Performer? Jenn DeWall: So I guess my, the closest I’ve ever gotten to Kristi Yamaguchi, I think was writing her a letter or writing her letter because they used to give you these books of like addresses to the stars. And so I wrote her a letter and then she sent me back a signed postcard. Ooh. Yeah. And she, she also sent my best friend one too. It wasn’t that special. And they actually were stamped. And I was so disheartened. Like you didn’t really personally write that, but you know, in any event, I was kind of that observer. But you were the one that actually did that. And I love that you have this message that you’re going to be able to look at peak performers because it’s not just athletes. I love that you clarify that. Yeah. We might think of a performance as athletes wanting to do their best, but all of us want to do our best, no matter where we are. What separates a peak performer from a typical performer? Maybe from me?  I mean, I know one of those is time. What other things separate us? Val Jones: For me, my definition of a peak performer is somebody who can execute under pressure. And it applies to everything. It applies to business. It applies to finance, as it applies to marriage, it applies to relationships. If you can execute under pressure. To me, that is my definition of peak performance. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Under pressure, which is the hardest time, that’s what many of us put our, I guess, might put our head in the sand or might just say, I’m ready to run. So you came up with a framework on the four Cs of peak performance that I’m so excited to talk about this because it’s based on your experience of observing all these extraordinary people. What are the four Cs of peak performance that we’re going to be walking through? #1-  Commitment Val Jones: So I’ll run through them really quickly, and then we’ll double back, and we’ll go, we’ll navigate through each one individually. So the four C’s are Commitment, Compromise, Control, and Course-correction. Okay. So number one, the first one, really speaks to my heart is Commitment. When people tell, when I tell people that I was headed for the Olympics and that I trained six hours a day when I was six years old, the question I get asked most often is, how did you do that? How did you do it? And it was because I had a dream. I had a dream, and I was fully committed to it. If, if your, if your listeners haven’t listened to or read Simon Sinek, Start with Why, that is a powerful book. I knew my why. I knew it’s six years old that I wanted to represent the United States of America and compete as a figure skater in the Olympics. And I think when you know your, why the how doesn’t become necessarily easy because it was never easy, but it becomes more tolerable. It becomes a little bit more palatable. Trust me, you know, there were times at six years old, and my alarm went off at 4:30 in the morning, and I would hit it. And I would think this is nuts. I don’t know. And even at six years old, I was fully aware that none of my friends were doing this. But I knew my why. I knew my why. And so, whatever it is, if you are the CEO, if you’re an entrepreneur, if, if you’re in a marriage, if whatever it is in your life, you have to be fully committed. It’s not something in it. And especially the bigger your dream, the more audacious your dream, you can’t go at it, you know, half, you-know-what. You have to be all in. And when you are pursuing a dream of going to the Olympics, you literally have to put all your eggs in one basket. So being committed for me was sacrificing what I wanted now for what I wanted most. And so on those mornings, when my alarm went off, and I didn’t want to get out of bed, I was like, you know what? There will come a day when I can rest, but today’s not that day. That comes later. So, sacrificing what you want now for what you want most. And the other important thing about being committed is the bigger your dream, the bigger your goal, the more outside of your comfort zone, it is, you have to accept failure as part of the process. It’s Not Failure. It’s Feedback. Jenn DeWall: Now, how, how do you do that? Right? Because I know that you can be committed, but you’re also talking about performance at levels that I could only dream to aspire to. And you know, how do we stay committed when we might feel like we’re failing or someone else is faster, better, whatever we might say, how do we, how do we then, you know, persevere through that? Val Jones: So I feel like it’s a, it’s a mind shift because, let’s be honest. Okay. You know the day came when I said, Okay, I’m going to learn the double axel today. It’s not like I put my skates on and went out there and did it on the first try. Not Kristi Yamaguchi did that. Not Brian Boitano did that. That’s not how it works. And so if you can switch your expectation to this isn’t a failure, it’s feedback. It is feedback. So I’m not sure if Malcolm Gladwell is right in his 10,000 hours to master something. But Jenn, I can tell you, girl, I probably fell 10,000 times before I ever landed on my feet. But here’s what it was. Every time I fell, it was feedback. Did I not jump high enough? Did I not rotate fast enough? Was I- look, if you’re rotating two, two and a half, three rotations in the air in under a second, and you are, if this is my body, if you are either 1% off access, do you see that 1% off-axis, a little thing called gravity takes over. And guess where you end up? With your butt on the floor. It wasn’t ever a failure. It was just feedback. Until collectively, 10,000 falls later. I took all the failures and all the feedback of those 10,000 attempts. And then you land on your feet, and then you’re like, Oh, how do I do, how do I replicate that? How do I do that again? So I don’t know what it is for your listeners, but failure isn’t such a bad thing. If you can make that mental switch, it’s not a failure. It’s just feedback. And I feel like when, when you’re chasing down your goals and dreams, it’s The feedback is, is part of the process. You have to do the right thing at the right time and in the right order, right? If you were building a house, you went and put the roof on before you poured the foundation, the right thing at the right time and in the right order. And that’s why I’m so blessed to have trained with the people that I trained with. Because to have coaches that can see things that you don’t see and know things that you don’t know to tell you what the process is. Jenn DeWall: I think that’s an important reminder too, that I think a lot of people we live in this place that we expect everything to come maybe faster than what we want it to, or we’d like to read a book to help that maybe it will resolve something for us, a pain that we have. And we don’t necessarily look at it from that structural perspective of like; everything’s going to have its place. You can’t just rush to one piece with you. You can’t cut corners with it. There’s no progress within that. What Did You Learn? Val Jones: No, and I probably really did have to fall 10,000 times before I ever landed. And, and failure is such a shameful thing in our society. And my poor kids, you know, growing up, I have two children, and you know, we, my husband and I, never protected them from the consequences of their actions, and we let them fail. And here’s how we responded to it. They’d come home. Oh, mom. I didn’t make the team. Good. What’d you learn? Oh, mom, I didn’t do so good on the test. We’d say good. What’d you learn? No matter what happened, good or bad, whatever it was, our response was Good. What’d you learn? And they’re young adults now. And so I had something happened in my own business that I didn’t. It didn’t quite go the way that I wanted to. And I was telling my family about it at dinner, and my daughter goes, Good. What did you learn? And I was like, Oh, and instead, the tables have turned back. The last thing I’ll say about the failure feedback loop is that if you want, as part of being a peak performer, if you want to get to that next level, and here’s a little truth bomb, and I’m not a Debbie downer, Jenn, I’m not. But here’s the truth, whatever habits, thoughts, and actions, and behaviors that got you to this point in time are not going to be the same behaviors that get you to the next level. So if you’re a million-dollar business and you want to go multi-million dollar business, you have to do multi-million dollar business things. You have to think, act, behave and have habits. And that’s where surrounding yourself with mentors and the people who already occupied the space that you want to be, go hang out with them. Go see what they do. So I grew up, I grew up in Sacramento, and I actually left home when I was 11 so that I could go train in the Bay Area with Brian Boitano and his coach. And let me tell you, going from my rink where me and my friends trained and then seeing how Brian was like night and day. Jenn DeWall: How so? How so? Val Jones: It was. It was just the little simple things like I would just put my skates on and go out and skate. Brian would take 10 to 15 minutes. He would warm up. He would do some jogging. He would do other exercises. He had a little journal that he would journal what his training was for the day. He just thought, acted, and had different habits than my friends back home did. And when I was then surrounded by him and four other Olympians, all of a sudden, my behaviors had to come up, my rituals had to come up, my thought patterns, my habits, everything had to come up so that I could be competitive in that environment. Jenn DeWall: I love that message. Val Jones: It made me better. So yeah, whatever habits you have, if you want to get to the next level, seek out the people who already exist there and emulate don’t copy, but emulate what they do. And soon, you’ll find yourself rising to that level as well. Jenn DeWall: That’s such an important reminder because I think a lot of us, again, want to cut corners. Maybe we just don’t. We want that goal, but maybe not bad enough that we’re not willing to look at someone and say, yeah, I’d be willing to do that. Val Jones: And being committed, Jenn is hard. And it hurts. I moved away from my family when I was 11. I left my dad and my siblings. I didn’t go to high school. I didn’t date. I didn’t party. I didn’t go to dances or football games. You want to know what I did? I trained. For me, being committed means I had to train those hours, and it’s the perfect segue into our next C. #2 – Compromise Jenn DeWall: All right, let’s go with that. So, first C, we gotta be committed. We gotta be a peak performer, gotta be committed. What’s our second C? Val Jones: The second C is you are going to have to compromise. You’re going to have to give a little, to get a little, or you’re going to have to give a lot to get along. And I’m not sure what it is for your audience. Is it time? Is it money? Is it carbohydrates? Like mama likes her Oreo cookies, you know, but unfortunately, Olympic figure skaters don’t eat Oreo cookies, and they are my favorite. And how much are you willing to compromise? What only you can answer that and the amount of compromise I feel like it really is. It really does go hand in hand with your goal. Make sure that I, I feel like I’d be negligent if I said don’t compromise the wrong things, you know compromising fast food or not going out and partying or dating or going to dances. That seems easy for me. Because I was just like, look, I have a goal, and I have a dream, and it’s bigger than my right here and right now. Yeah, it was hard. But here’s, here’s what partner compromise is. It’s giving kind of going back to commitment, giving up what you want now for what you want most, and Jocko Willink. He’s a Navy Seal. He says this all the time, that discipline equals freedom. So I’ve been an athlete. For most of my life, I’ve spent the last 13 years in the CrossFit arena. I’m doing that. I’m pretty regimented about my nutrition. In fact, I don’t even like to say diet, but here’s the thing. It sounds contradictory. Well, how can discipline equal freedom? Right? And using nutrition as an example, I am not going to miss birthday cake with my kids. And just not like there isn’t anything that I’m training for that I would miss that. And you know, but here’s the thing. I can’t eat a whole birthday cake every day. I’d weigh 800 pounds and have diabetes. But when it comes time for my children or even my own birthday, because I know I’ve done the hard work before and have been disciplined with my nutrition, I can enjoy the crap out of that piece of cake. And it gives me the freedom to enjoy it rather than beating myself up over it. Oh my God, how many burpees am I going to have to do to burn off this cake? Or how many miles am I going to have to run? No, I don’t have to do that because I have been disciplined with it. Jenn DeWall: So would that be kind of your advice if, if someone is struggling to think about how do I even start with looking at where I should compromise? Like, is there a specific way that we should look at compromise? Because I think for not focused, we can very quickly say, well, I guess maybe I can give that up because I have to compromise somehow, but then it may not be the right thing to compromise. Do you have any recommendations for how you would even approach that? Val Jones: Well, so I feel like the easiest thing to compromise and give up, and it doesn’t matter what you want to do, but it’s this, and Jenn, I’m guilty too. Are you ready? I’m ready—social media. Get rid of it. Look at your face, haha! Jenn DeWall: I mean, I don’t love it. I will agree with you. I’m awful at Instagram. I’m, I’m really not great at Facebook, but okay. So compromise for you is like- why social media? Is it because you noticed that that is a deterrent to the goal? Or why, why social media? Val Jones: I just feel like as a society, we are always, you know, like this (head down) on our phone and understanding that when I look at other women my age or in my, in my business and they’re killing it, and I’m, and I’m comparing my beginning with their middle or their peak and it doesn’t make me feel good. There’s nothing about social media. That makes me feel good. Because what you’re saying is somebody’s highlight reel, and it’s not, it’s not true. Or maybe, maybe it’s not social media, maybe it’s TV, maybe it’s gaming. But when you look at, when you talk about compromise and how do you decide what you can compromise, what is interfering with you? What is taking time away from you that won’t produce anything? Watching TV doesn’t produce anything. Get rid of it. If gaming doesn’t produce anything unless you’re making money off of it, right? Get rid of it. So if it’s not directly and positively impacting your goal, you got to compromise, and you got to get rid of it. That’s how, Jenn DeWall: I love that. It’s up to everyone. It sounds like what you’re saying is, first and foremost, you’ve got to have a real honest conversation. What are you not giving up? That’s actually keeping you stuck. And it can’t be something that you’re blaming on someone else. You have to look at your own life, your own choices, how you spend your energy, and then go from there. Peak Performers Have Serious Habits Val Jones: So all the peak performers across the board are dead serious about their habits. And if you, if I was to follow you for three to five days and watch your habits. Jenn DeWall: Oh no! I don’t know if I’d be scared or excited. Val Jones: Habits of a peak performer, I’ll say, you know, for an average person, for lack of a better word, the habits of an Olympian versus the habits of just, you know, the weekend warrior could not be any further apart. And so, not only does discipline equal freedom but when you are consistent with your habits, consistency equals momentum. Consistency equals momentum. So whether your goal is a business or a relationship or finance or whatever it is, look at your habits. If you’re, if whatever your habits are not contributing to the positivity of that goal, get rid of it, be consistent, be consistent about it, and be disciplined about it. Jenn DeWall: Yes. I love this! We’ve got to be consistent. And if I said the other thing, it sounds like no more excuses! If you watch TV for the last three hours, can you really be mad that you didn’t get a new client or that promotion if you’re not doing anything to invest or lose whatever your goal is, but it sounds like there’s that piece— there are no excuses. You just have your lane of choices, and you’ve got to choose which ones you go down. Val Jones: Exactly. Do you want to know what you should never compromise, Jenn? Jenn DeWall: Yes. Yes, I do. Yes. I do. Val Jones: Never, ever, ever compromise your morals or your ethics. That is a slippery slope that you do not want to go down, which brings us perfectly into the next C, which is control. #3 – Control Jenn DeWall: Control. All right. Val Jones: And Jenn. It’s not control over anyone or over anything. It is over yourself and your emotions. I don’t know if this is the word, the “peakiest” of peak performers I know, and have had the privilege to work at work with are Navy Seals. They are in a very heightened state. The very lives of themselves and their teammates are at risk. You want to talk about performing under pressure, but they are all cool, calm, and collected. Every single one of them. They don’t get rattled. Now, if you do not have control over yourself or over your emotions, I believe that this is a skill that you can actually learn. I think some people are blessed with more control than others. But it is something that you can learn. And I like to tell this story, and here’s how I learned it. After I blew the qualifier for the, I believe it was the 1986 nationals, I came back to the rink, and Brian [Boitano] said, Val, there, there are two kinds of skaters. He said there are great skaters. Now I’m gonna pause here. Brian was a great skater. In the seven years that I trained with him. I think I may have seen him fall. I can only count on maybe one hand. He is by far the best executioner and the best, like his technique is irritating to me. Perfect. Jenn DeWall: And we’re talking about Brian Boitano because we don’t get to call him Brian, right? Val Jones: So then he goes, and he’s like, so there are great skaters. And then there are those that skate great. Well, guess what? I skated great. The poor judges never knew who was going to show up on the ice that day. Was it going to be Val who was on fire, or was it going to be Val whose fanny is on ice. So after blowing the 86 nationals, I have to, I have to stop and tell, just educate a little bit. So most of the jumps in figure skating, you enter into going backward except one, the double axel you enter into going forward. So I think it was a little bit of a mind screw with me because I could see where I was going and it kind of freaked me out when a figure skater goes for an intended jump. Say the double, double axel, and doesn’t complete the rotation. The intended rotation is called popping. Instead of doing a double axel, I would only do a single axel. Okay. So I popped it. So I popped, I popped my double axel, which costs me the trip to the nationals that year. And so my coach says, we’re going to do 100 double axels today. If you fall, that’s fine. If you touch down with your arm on ice, that’s fine. I don’t care if you fall out of it. That’s fine. But if you stop, you’re going to start over. Jenn, I had to start over, not once, not twice, but three times. I was there for nine and a half hours that day. Wow. And I was the closest that I ever came to a condition called rhabdo. I couldn’t walk for two weeks. Here’s the thing why I tell that story. I gained control over my mind in that, and for the rest of my competitive career, I did not pop a double axel again, in competition ever. And the panic and fear were trained out of me. Fear and panic can be trained out. It doesn’t go easy, but it can go, but you’ve got to have control over your emotions. And that’s what made Brian a great skater and made me only a skater who skated great. Jenn DeWall: But that’s a really powerful story because I think there is still the piece where gosh, if I think about my temperament at that age, I imagine that if my coach said that I needed to try that, I’d be like, I’m done. You know that is the breaking point where my emotions absolutely would have gotten the best of me. How do you remind yourself that you get to stay in control, that you are the one that controls it? Do you have any tips for your peak performers and how you remind them that they always get to choose that? Val Jones: Well, I’m only human. You know, I don’t always execute everything well, but I have to remind myself that, that, you know, like, let’s take COVID for you. Like, this is a very real thing that we are still in. The only thing that you can control over is your attitude and your work ethic. That’s all you get to control over. And so when I feel myself sliding to a point where I’m trying to control other than those two things, I kind of have to, you know, whack myself in the head and be like, Okay. I can’t control that. And you see, that’s where Tonya [Harding] lost it. Jenn DeWall: There are so many things I want to add to that, but I won’t, Tonya, Tonya Harding. That’s what we’re talking about. People that may not be as familiar. You Can Only Control Yourself Val Jones: Yeah. She and her team allegedly. Well, she didn’t, but her husband at the time and her bodyguard whacked Nancy Kerrigan in the knee with a, with a bat or something. Yeah. Like a pipe or something, you cannot control the outcome. And I know that that sounds counter-intuitive. You can train, you can control your attitude. You can control your workout ethic, but you cannot control the outcome. And that is where Tonya lost it because she or her team tried to control the outcome. Now I’m going to be completely transparent with you and your audience. There were times that I skated, and I should have won, but I didn’t. And there were times that I skated that I did win and I shouldn’t have. You can’t control the outcome. You can only control your attitude and your work ethic. That’s it. That’s all you can control. And so, as you’re traversing to your own, the path to, to your peak performance, ask yourself, am I controlling those two things? It’s it doesn’t have to be any harder than that. Cause anything outside of your work ethic and your attitude you really don’t have control over. Jenn DeWall: I think that’s a really powerful point that you just made that we have to detach. We can do our best to get to that outcome, but we can’t control it. We can make sure that we make the choices, but we can’t control them. Like things will always change. Val Jones: The only thing that you can do. And I’m not a Debbie Downer, I’m not, but here’s what I know to be true about life. If you have a heartbeat at some point in time, you were going to experience pain, heartbreak, disappointment, and fear. And here’s what I try to do when I am facing those. I asked myself, how does my best self show up at this moment? What would the very best version of me look like in this scenario? Or in this situation? Do that. Jenn DeWall: I love that. So acting, you know, from the person that we want to be, maybe not necessarily who we are today, but who that person is, that’s accomplished that goal or strategy or whatever the task is at hand. Val Jones: Yeah, because things will go wrong. Things will go wrong. It’s okay. We talked about failure earlier, but how does my best self handle that? #4 – Course-Correction Jenn DeWall: Yeah. So what happens? So your fourth C is course-correct. So is that, is that what we’re saying? When things go wrong- Val Jones: Do you see what I did there? It was a perfect segue. So here’s what I know about peak performers. All peak performers are they’re extremely and highly self-aware. They know when they are going off track, and they can make a small minute adjustment to get back on track. And so eventually, in that double axel or in that jump or whatever, if I was back to that 1% axis pull, Oh, I was able to figure that out and correct. And I can only tell you how hard it is to correct when you’re turning three revolutions in under a second, but it is possible. And I’ve worked with other Olympic athletes. I’ve worked with luger and Oh my gosh. Like the amount of course-correction that athletes make are truly, truly incredible, but it applies to anything. You don’t have to be an athlete. If, if your marketing plan isn’t going? Course-correct. Are you a speaker? And all of your, all of your keynotes got canceled- course-correct. Your parenting tactic isn’t working, then course-correct. Like there’s not a single thing that I can think of where it doesn’t apply. Like course-correction is so critical, right? They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over expecting a different result. Well, stop, do something different, figure it out. Because honestly, the truth is the path to success is never a straight line. As much as we want to think that it is, it’s just not and everything you do. And now we’re back to that habits. Do you see how everything, everything you do is either bringing you toward your goal or pulling it away from you? So I had written on, on a little index card, you know, being thin and figure skating is a big deal. And so I had written this on, on a little index card, and I kept it on my fridge for a year. And it said, is what you’re about to put in your mouth, bringing you towards your Olympic goal or away from it. And I have that on my fridge for years because, as an athlete, I had to fuel my body with good nutritious things. So in the spirit of you can only control your attitude and your work ethic as you were working towards your peak performance, which is what you’re doing, bringing yourself to your goal or away. I mean, it’s a yes or no, right? Jenn DeWall: Yes. Yeah. Again, thinking about taking that responsibility, I love how you brought that back to reinforcing commitment. Yeah. The Olympics is where I want to be. Is this bringing— is eating this, knowing that nutrition is so important- going to help get you there? And if it’s not, why in the heck am I doing that? Peak Performers Lead from the Back Val Jones: Yeah. How much time do we have time for like one more story? Jenn DeWall: Yeah, we do. Absolutely. Let’s do it. I want to hear it. Val Jones: So in course-correction, this is going to be different. Have you heard somebody in the corporate settings say, Oh, good leaders, they lead from the front—have you heard that? Jenn DeWall: Absolutely. Val Jones: Val says no lead from the back. And here’s that story. This is actually in my book called Sharpen Your Edge, which was just released last November. Jenn DeWall: Congratulations! Val Jones: Oh, thank you! So my husband and I went to Banff, Canada, right before COVID hit last year. And as part of our trip, we took a dog sled tour. And the lead musher started to explain what the trip was going to be about. And he said, okay, first thing as a Musher, you have to know your animals intimately, individually, and then as a team. You have to know your animal’s strengths. You have to know their weaknesses. You have to be able to detect when they’re tired, fatigued, hungry. When they have to go to the bathroom, when they’re injured, when they’re, there’s plain bored. So he goes on and says, his, the first two dogs are the lead dogs. They are the best. They can find the path when sometimes the musher can’t; they are also very acceptable to instruction. So if the musher tells them to go a different way, they’re going to do it. The next two dogs are called the pacer dogs. They set the pace for the team. Now you cannot run a trail at the same speed. You have to slow down. You have to speed up when it comes to a hill. And those dogs can also know each other when each other is tired or bored or fatigued or injured. And then he tells us the last two dogs, which are your strength dogs. Now, these dogs, I only, I’m only five feet tall. I almost looked at them right in the eye. I mean, they outweighed me by like 50 to 75 pounds. They were huge. And they are the strength dogs. They’re the brute dogs. They pulled the most weight. The musher said that if you come to a hill, you are supposed to jump off the sled and run with the dogs, run with the team. If you did not, your strength, dogs will look back at you to like, wonder what it is you’re doing. Why are you not running with the team? So my husband went first. I went second. Soon enough. We come to an incline of pretty, actually a pretty steep Hill. And I thought I don’t know this man very well. I don’t know if he was just joking or not. Because it seems kind of funny that the dogs would know if you were on the sled or not. And I thought to myself. I am five feet tall, 120 something pounds. Right. That dog is not the dog that outweighs me by 50 pounds. Right. He’s not going to know. Well, sure enough, Jenn, my male strength dog, his name was Kenai. He gave me a dirty look that I swear if looks could kill. I would be dead. He didn’t know that I wasn’t running with the team. And I was torn between laughing. So like I was laughing so hard, my stomach hurt, but I also wanted to jump off the sled and run, like I was Usain Bolt, because I didn’t want Kenai to bite me. And so that is what so, and here’s what, here’s how I came up with this theory of leading from the back. If you were leading from the front, how do you know what your team is doing behind you? How do you know when your team is fatigued or hungry or has to go to the bathroom or bored or injured? You don’t know, but if you are leading from the back, you can see your team. You can keep an eye on them and where we’re going to pull it all back in if you need to if you identify that. You can course-correct. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. I love that story really about leading from the back. That is such an important, like ending story, to think about how we want to show up as leaders. You shared the four Cs today to commit, to compromise, to control, and course-correct. Well, how do people get in touch with you? Val Jones: You can reach me at www.ValJonesSpeaks.com, or my email is Val@ValJonesSpeaks.com. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. So send her emails, go to her website. Val, thank you so much for coming to coming on the show today and helping our leaders find their peak performance. Val Jones: I’m so happy. I, I hope, I honestly hope that you and your listeners be, do and have everything you want in life. Go after that big audacious dream, and mostly find the champion in you. Jenn DeWall: I love that. Thank you so much, Val! Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s podcast episode of The Leadership Habit. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Val Jones. And if you want to connect with her, you can head on over to valjonesspeaks.com. If you found a lot of value in this or, you know, someone that wants to be a peak performer, don’t forget to share this episode with them. And of course, please, we grow our influence by reviews. So if you can, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service! Until next time!   The post The 4 C’s of Peak Performers with Val Jones, Former Elite Figure Skater appeared first on Crestcom International.