IT Leaders

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;28;10
Speaker 1
This IT leaders talk is brought to you by expedient, your nationwide full stack cloud services provider and expedient. We believe great. It starts with great leadership. Enjoy the conversation. It has been a couple of years since I've been here. Was anybody here the last time I was here? Do you recall? Okay, people. Okay. Yeah. You might not ever remember what I said, but I'm a six foot tall redhead, so people like to remember that part of it.

00;00;28;12 - 00;00;42;23
Speaker 1
My mom. So I couldn't get away with anything. But I got away with a whole bunch of stuff. So, you know, when Doug first approached me a couple of years ago and he said it networking, I was like, oh, boy. Like, there's going to be three people here. And walked into the room very similar to this packed full.

00;00;42;23 - 00;01;04;18
Speaker 1
And I love that it's still going so strong and expanding. So that's really cool to see. So when I was thinking about what I wanted to say, we're all seasoned professionals. We've been doing this for a little while. We've been to lots of conferences, we've read leadership books, we've done the masterclass, the TEDx talk, and I really wanted to offer something different from a leadership perspective to have this kind of looking more internally.

00;01;04;18 - 00;01;22;17
Speaker 1
So what is it that is really important to you as a leader? How can you get both the best personal and professional life, for yourself in this one beautiful life that we get? So I like to start with this because this is why self leadership matters so much. And we'll get into kind of what self leadership means here in a few minutes.

00;01;22;19 - 00;01;45;15
Speaker 1
But I love this dress performance curve. Has anybody seen anything like similar to this dress. Yeah yeah. So this is actually from some resilience framework that I've used in the past. But the important part here is this peak performance zone. And I like to call this like the happiness zone. It's not just about are we driving the outcomes for our business that we're working for every driving the outcomes for ourselves.

00;01;45;15 - 00;02;03;08
Speaker 1
It's more about how do we really create a fulfilling career and a fulfilling life. And so that's where we want to always be. But we know that we have these tip offs into overload, right? When we have a certain amount of stress, they get into overload or overwhelms. We don't know what to do. And then it's a little slower over into boredom.

00;02;03;08 - 00;02;25;08
Speaker 1
Who has ever been bored in a job that they have? Yeah. Me too. Most of us have. Who's ever been overwhelmed in a job that they've had? Yes. Neither feels good. Right. So we want to stay in that kind of peak performance zone. And this red shading area is kind of, how we can expand that zone through self leadership, through self-development.

00;02;25;11 - 00;02;41;26
Speaker 1
And I think we often think of leadership as something we do external to ourselves, how we lead our teams, the way we show up for our teams, how we communicate, how we build trust. But this is going to be more about how we do that internally for ourselves. Has anyone here had a leader that was just like Kash?

00;02;41;27 - 00;03;04;13
Speaker 1
This person just knows who they are. They're in lockstep with their values and you can tell by the way they lead. Has anyone had that experience to be able to? Kind of. Yes. Me too. And you followed them right? Like you would follow them off of a bridge. That's what I say all the time. So that's why this work is so important, to be able to kind of really just be that person so your team can lead naturally with you.

00;03;04;15 - 00;03;21;09
Speaker 1
So I compiled just kind of six different things that I kind of see in the last six years of coaching people, where people kind of fall into some pitfalls, where they really struggle. This is not the stuff you're going to hear, probably at a conference or in a leadership book, because we don't really talk about this stuff.

00;03;21;09 - 00;03;39;23
Speaker 1
It's a little deeper than, than what we typically go in, in, leadership. So I'm just going to kind of walk through these six domains of self leadership, and kind of explain what they are. And then I would love to hear from all of you examples of how maybe you've done some of these things, or what your own self leadership looks like.

00;03;40;00 - 00;04;00;17
Speaker 1
I think we learn best from those around us. So I'm going to start with EQ. Most of us have heard heard of this one emotional quotient emotional intelligence, not brand new information. Why is it important? So I'll give you an example. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was working with a leader and she was she's super high achiever, always has been.

00;04;00;17 - 00;04;13;11
Speaker 1
So she was kind of complaining that her team wasn't doing what she needed them to do. Who has ever experienced that? Where they're like, why don't they just do what I want them to do? Why can't they do this? So she was lamenting, I don't know why they can't work as hard as I do. I don't know why they can't return their emails.

00;04;13;11 - 00;04;28;06
Speaker 1
I don't know why they can't, you know, get these deliverables to me. When I told them the due date was so, I said, oh, well, what are you experiencing from an emotion perspective? Let's just start there. So we pulled up our little emotions wheel and she was like, oh, resentment. That is it. These people just don't do you know?

00;04;28;08 - 00;04;48;23
Speaker 1
So she pull up her you know she said resentment. And I said okay that makes sense. And I'm like, I have a hunch that maybe there's a little more than that. I'm like, what about envy? Is there any part of you that has some envy? And her face was like, what? How did how did you know that? Yes.

00;04;49;00 - 00;05;12;24
Speaker 1
I'm so envious of the fact that these people have less pressure than I do. They are not working, at night. They're not working on the weekends. So yes, I'm envious. So why? This is important. We can sit in resentment all day. That's a total victim mentality, right? I'm resentful. The ends. There's nothing to do there because other people have to do something in order to change that.

00;05;12;26 - 00;05;31;22
Speaker 1
But in the on the other hand, now we have something actionable. So I said, okay, so what is it that you want? What's reasonable? What can we maybe challenge that might be self-inflicted here? To be able to get more of what you want in in your work life. So she said, well, I have this rule that I have to return all my emails in 24 hours.

00;05;31;22 - 00;05;52;15
Speaker 1
So I'm like, okay, 24 hours. That's pretty, pretty tight turnaround for a non-urgent email. She goes, yeah, my company says 72, but I do. I do 24 because I'm a high achiever. And I'm like, okay, here is a starting point. So she agreed, okay, I'm going to start. Not returning all of my emails within 24 hours next session, which was yesterday.

00;05;52;15 - 00;06;10;17
Speaker 1
She said, guess what? A lot of those things just kind of took care of themselves in a couple of days, right? Like, yeah, if we don't respond, just let it. Yeah, just let it take care of itself. And I'm like, ding ding. She had to experience that for herself to be able to understand that. But that all came from emotional intelligence okay.

00;06;10;20 - 00;06;28;23
Speaker 1
So that's why it's important to kind of understand and to be able to read the room. Right. It's really hard to be an effective leader if you're delivering tone deaf messages, because you can't understand what people are experiencing and feeling in the room around you. Okay, resilience. I think we know on the surface what that means, but just throw out some definitions of resilience.

00;06;28;23 - 00;06;34;15
Speaker 1
If you were to say what what it means for you.

00;06;34;17 - 00;06;36;04
Speaker 2
Able to handle hard things.

00;06;36;06 - 00;06;41;28
Speaker 1
Able to handle heartaches. That's good. Yeah. They were able to keep going. To keep going. Yeah.

00;06;42;00 - 00;06;46;27
Speaker 2
You let you let your business stuff roll out of your back. It's not your real life.

00;06;47;00 - 00;06;49;29
Speaker 1
That's an interesting word. Okay. I like that area.

00;06;50;06 - 00;06;52;21
Speaker 2
Ability to bad or difficult situation.

00;06;52;24 - 00;07;13;12
Speaker 1
Very busy. Wow. That's really close to the actual definition. Through some resilience framework. So it's really just the ability to advance despite adversity. Right. The full of adversity. Our jobs are full of adversity. Our personal lives are full of adversity. And we have to be able to kind of move through those things. It doesn't mean we just push them aside and don't address them.

00;07;13;15 - 00;07;33;13
Speaker 1
There may be some hard days. We have to manage that. We can't just ignore everything that's happening to us. But we can't move forward despite that adversity at adversity. So resilience is, really important. I do see a lot of people really struggle with that, especially new on in their careers and new in leadership positions. It's a real struggle.

00;07;33;15 - 00;07;48;26
Speaker 1
So it's a skill you can grow. I think that is something that's really hopeful we can grow this skill. It's not just something you're given. And some people have it and some people don't. Okay. So mindset. All right. So if you go into work every day and say this is going to be terrible I hate my job.

00;07;48;28 - 00;08;04;23
Speaker 1
I don't want to be here. It's going to be terrible. You're going to hate your job and you're not going to want to be there. So there's so much here. And I'm not saying to be toxically positive. I'm saying just to kind of, adjust the way you talk to yourself and talk about the work that you do.

00;08;04;25 - 00;08;22;26
Speaker 1
I don't know if it can be read. Happiness advantages that book. Sound familiar? Have you read the. Yeah. So Sean Aikau, it's a kind of older book, but he's doing tons of research. Well, lots of people are doing tons of research on happiness of all. But the hings are it's like, this feels like this should be innately human for us to be able to just be, you know, happy.

00;08;22;26 - 00;08;42;01
Speaker 1
But we're not, you know, and so everybody's researching it, trying to figure it out. And he talks about just being just a little bit to the right of positive. So if we think of like neutral here and we have skeptical on this side and we have positive on this side, he's like, all you have to do is just be a little bit on the side of positivity in order to be just 10% happier.

00;08;42;03 - 00;09;01;23
Speaker 1
So, actually, in a group similar to this, probably five years ago, I had somebody say that they practice gratitude with their every night and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Tell me more about it. So she said that they do three apples and a lemon. So around the dinner table they say, what are three positive things I happen to be a day, a month, one thing you wish would be different.

00;09;01;23 - 00;09;17;09
Speaker 1
So we're not just only focused on the positive things, we're also kind of challenging what we would have changed. And so I thought, well, that's interesting. I'm a student of my family. I've been doing that for five years now. We just did it last night. My daughter jumps at the opportunity to be able to share her three positives.

00;09;17;09 - 00;09;33;00
Speaker 1
She actually always shares her negative first, which is interesting because they do it differently. And so she'll go longer on the negative. So she does a little more of a skew to see the negative. Right. And so and then she'll share three positives. I had to kind of get it out of her. My son on the other hands like say it was great.

00;09;33;00 - 00;09;47;17
Speaker 1
Here's my three positives. Can't think anything. I changed them like nothing. And then it takes him a little more to actually, you know, be able to to come up with that one thing. So that's why it's so important. Well, we can practice that kind of right balance of what went well in our day and what did not go so well.

00;09;47;24 - 00;10;07;11
Speaker 1
So if you don't do any sort of gratitude practice, mindset practice, I would highly recommend, maybe integrating that into what you do on a daily basis. Compassion. So I don't think it's hard for us to find compassion for other people when people share hard things that are going on, it's pretty easy to be like, oh gosh, that's awful.

00;10;07;11 - 00;10;26;23
Speaker 1
You know, what can I do to help? Where we really struggle is self-compassion and is not something we talk about very often. There is a lot of research around self-compassion, but I think we had it all wrong in our culture around what that really means. I know for me personally, I thought, well, if I'm compassionate towards myself, I'm letting myself off the hook.

00;10;26;25 - 00;10;51;16
Speaker 1
How am I ever going to get anything done if I'm not beating myself up and saying, gosh, I can't believe you did that thing. What were you thinking? However, the research also shows that the opposite is true. So when they have studied the most successful CEOs, athletes that have been at the top of their game, Navy Seals, the one thing they have in common is that they know how to practice self-compassion.

00;10;51;16 - 00;11;12;25
Speaker 1
So it's somewhat tied to resilience where we can do something, we can have a failure, and then we can move forward in a positive way. So self-compassion is huge. I like to use Michael Jordan as an example, which on the surface you might not think he does it feel like that much of a self compassionate individual, but he missed more shots than he ever made.

00;11;12;25 - 00;11;28;19
Speaker 1
So if you look at the top NBA scorers, they miss more than they actually make and they're the top scorers. So there's no way that he went down the court, shot a ball and missed it and ran back down thinking in his head, you're such an idiot. You've made that shot so many times. How did you miss that shot?

00;11;28;26 - 00;11;45;19
Speaker 1
What is wrong with you? I hope they don't give me the ball next time. No, that wasn't his. His inner monologue, right? He was saying, all right, give me the ball next time, because I know I can make that shot. So he got the ball, made the shot. Of course, you know. And so that's why self-compassion is so important.

00;11;45;22 - 00;12;06;20
Speaker 1
And I know this is really hard when I see people that are so tough on themselves, so hard on themselves, they would never be that hard on anyone else in their life, or even on the team member. So keeping that in mind, self-compassion is critical. Worth. Oh my gosh, how many, how many of us? When we introduce ourselves, we introduce ourselves by our title, right?

00;12;06;20 - 00;12;28;07
Speaker 1
Even in, in personal settings, we'll often do that. I see so many people get tied up with the work that they do, where it is their entire identity, and then what happens when something's not going well in that work environment or somebody, does a reorg? I've heard multiple people talking about that. Like it had nothing to do with you.

00;12;28;07 - 00;12;49;19
Speaker 1
It just was a change that could really rock our world if our entire identity is tied up in what we do for a living. So I would highly recommend coming up with some other ways that you find worth. And self-worth in in either your personal or professional life. So to Doug's point about mentoring, I have had some amazing mentors.

00;12;49;19 - 00;13;14;20
Speaker 1
One of them is sitting right here. I have had some amazing mentees. Both have given me so much. So there's so much opportunity for us to be able to give some of that wisdom and skill that we have, and be able to, to mentor other people as it's been done for us. So that's one example. I volunteer for kids, boys outside of the work that I do, and that gives me a ton of self-worth.

00;13;14;20 - 00;13;34;26
Speaker 1
I really feel like I am adding value in that space to be able to help protect some of our most vulnerable kids, in Marin County. So those are just some, some opportunities that give me self-worth outside of the work that I do, because the work can always be taken away. So I would just highly recommend that you come up, come up with some other ways that you feel worthy.

00;13;34;28 - 00;13;51;12
Speaker 1
In, in this life and in the work. And then the last one I like to call social care. I think we really screwed up, things by calling it self-care, because it's kind of gotten dumbed down in a lot of ways. Self-care for women in particular, I think they tell us, like, it's bubble baths and pedicures.

00;13;51;15 - 00;14;09;04
Speaker 1
Okay. And that doesn't solve all my problems, for sure. I actually hate pedicures. Too much time. I can't stand it. So I'm like, I like the end result. Don't want to be here for this lot. So I call it soul care, because I really do think this is such an individual thing for all of us. We have to really figure out what it is we love and do more of.

00;14;09;04 - 00;14;31;12
Speaker 1
That has to be part of our everyday life. I personally love to sing and so I have sang in some choirs outside of of work, volunteer sing as a volunteer singer. At this point in my life, I can't commit to full time singing. But I would love to do more of that. So that is one of the ways that I kind of light my soul on fire, because it's always been something I've done.

00;14;31;12 - 00;14;49;17
Speaker 1
I used to hold entire concerts in my house while no one was there, screaming through the house, which I still do sometimes. So, but it really does. I mean, I could be just the break I need in order to get back to work that I need to do. So I'm kind of curious after I've kind of went through all these, what is soul care for some of you?

00;14;49;17 - 00;15;06;02
Speaker 1
And it can be weird as heck, I don't care. I've got a whole bunch of weird soul care, tactics as well. So I would love just to hear from you what soul care really means to you. There's a local place called Spangler. I don't know if anybody's heard of it, but it's spinning strength and yoga, and it's instructor led.

00;15;06;04 - 00;15;24;21
Speaker 1
And as a mom and somebody who is making decisions all day, it's really nice to go and just see. All I have to do is make sure my spin number is in the green zone, and I don't have to think about anything else. And the instructor is telling me, snap! So what I need to do. So show me that is a soul care moment where I'm not mom, I'm not this manager.

00;15;24;21 - 00;15;41;00
Speaker 1
I'm just a girl on a bike trying to maintain a green zone and I love that. Yeah, this vision fatigue is a real thing. I think when you're a leader, it is constant. It's like I can't even decide what I want to eat for dinner by the time I get home. I mean, that's exhausting for sure. That's a great one, I love that, yeah, yeah.

00;15;41;00 - 00;15;48;02
Speaker 1
And I love the idea of like, somebody telling me what to do for a change, thank God. Yes. Yeah. Well, what else for people? Soul care.

00;15;48;04 - 00;16;10;00
Speaker 2
Cycling. I love, you know, riding the spirit along like I am. Saturday we ride for 7 or 8 hours straight, and, you know, you get to think about a lot of different things that flirt. I stop and send myself messages. The results are like, oh, this is something else that you do. This is it's none perfect for me.

00;16;10;00 - 00;16;13;07
Speaker 2
And then I dance Society yoga last year, which is great.

00;16;13;09 - 00;16;15;20
Speaker 1
That is, do you do it on your own or do you go somewhere?

00;16;15;20 - 00;16;16;24
Speaker 2
Just spread it like this?

00;16;16;24 - 00;16;31;26
Speaker 1
Yeah. That's amazing. Both of those things have a real meditative like metaphor to properties, you know, so I hear a lot of people cycling. I do my best thinking on the Mona. I'm like my dogs, or I'm just looking kind of at nature and I'm like, oh my gosh, I have all these appetites now with that. So and you're coming into your season right now.

00;16;31;26 - 00;16;47;21
Speaker 1
This is a great time of year for bikers for sure. Yeah. Today was my 443rd day in a row of running one mile outside every day.

00;16;47;24 - 00;17;18;21
Speaker 1
Yep. For winter. Anyone wants to join me? Me? Is that, I just it's my way of getting outside every day. Rain, shine, snow, sleet and just being outside. I work from home, so sometimes that's my only time outside. Although most days I'm carpooling bits. But anyway, yeah, it keeps me sane. Gotcha. Amazing. Well that's inspiring. Yeah, I hate running, so I'm not going to do the running thing, but I love I love the idea of the consistency.

00;17;18;21 - 00;17;19;22
Speaker 1
That's great.

00;17;19;24 - 00;17;45;22
Speaker 2
So since measurement of exercise oriented I thought it for a line out. I do a, a book for, one of my grandkids. She's turning nine, this year, every year she gets it for Christmas, and it's based off of one of her loves, Bunny. Kind of started out as an accident. But, we're actually going to be going to the prop building, with her over the next couple days.

00;17;45;22 - 00;18;07;25
Speaker 2
We're going out to a family compound. Out for 4th of July. There happens to be a 50 cal rated firing range there. So this year, bunnies book is going to be Bunny goes to the range, learn about, you know, the Constitution and Second Amendment. And how cool is stuff up. We also had Bunny Goes to Iceland.

00;18;07;28 - 00;18;30;20
Speaker 2
We've had Bunny goes to church. So but it's just it's a completely different process. Aside from the fact that I get to spend time with, you know, my nine year old, which is great. It's different from what I do normally. You know, the prop building is fun. The thinking about what's the storyline, what educational stuff do we want to put in here?

00;18;30;20 - 00;18;49;25
Speaker 2
What fun stuff do we want to put in here? Especially the one, where we did Bunny Goes to church, Life Church, Noblesville, and the pastoral staff there. So I bunny in way more places than they ever thought I was going to have gone. And suckering those people into letting me do it is, it's fun as well.

00;18;49;25 - 00;18;59;12
Speaker 2
So anyways, it's a it's a very different, you know, creative outlet from, from, you know, what I do for work. So, anyway.

00;18;59;14 - 00;19;18;12
Speaker 1
Yeah, creativity I think, is so important. And people tell me all the time, I'm not created, I'm not artistic. And I'm like, everybody is creative. We were born creative. There's some really interesting research about creativity. So they had studied and that was like 15 years of five year olds, and they had assessed them for creativity. I think it was NASA.

00;19;18;12 - 00;19;35;13
Speaker 1
They did a study. It was like in the 80s, and they had assessed these five year olds and like 99% of them were high on creativity because NASA was trying to figure out how can we get these people to, like, be more creative and come up with better solutions? So the five year olds, like 99% of them, were creative great.

00;19;35;16 - 00;19;54;16
Speaker 1
The 1% was just having a bad day. Like, I don't know what's going on with that white kid. And then they did it with their actual people at NASA. Study them. Only 1% of people of grown ups came out as creative. No wonder we don't have creative solutions in our businesses because we've kind of engineered it out of us.

00;19;54;19 - 00;20;11;28
Speaker 1
So I love that you're kind of igniting that outside of work, because that is going to make you more creative inside of the job, for sure. So I love that. I have never heard that one before. So that is brand new for Soul Care. Cuda was I love it. I love when they're unique and different because I think it highlights how unique and different we are and what our needs are.

00;20;11;28 - 00;20;20;17
Speaker 1
And just do the weird thing. If it makes you happy, like who cares, right? Anybody else have a good soul care or even self leadership? Yeah. Go ahead.

00;20;20;24 - 00;20;27;21
Speaker 2
Reading fiction. I've read so many self-help books over the years, my mind wanders. I can't stay, and I'm.

00;20;27;21 - 00;20;29;19
Speaker 1
Over it now, right?

00;20;29;21 - 00;20;45;09
Speaker 2
I read fiction, I'm often engaged to 20 books series that I adore. I just started my third pass through. You know, young man, middle age older guy now. And it makes me so happy to listen or to read those books.

00;20;45;13 - 00;20;56;18
Speaker 1
He had it so fun to to read things over again or watch things over again where you're like, I'm a different person than I was the first time I read this or saw it. So yeah, you get so much more out of it. That's amazing. Yeah.

00;20;56;21 - 00;21;15;16
Speaker 2
I like I like to cook, got some specific directions involved, so I don't have to think about that necessarily. But there's still a little bit of room for creativity for what makes it up a little bit. But then you kind of get that, that gratitude of. Yeah, you'll see some joy to. Yeah. No.

00;21;15;18 - 00;21;35;22
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. I think cooking is incredibly creative for sure. Yeah. Even if you are following a recipe, there's still a lot of creativity that goes into what it looks like, all the things. So yeah, I'm going to build on that. Once a month I plan, make a meal and serve a meal to a women's homeless shelter, down in Indianapolis, and I kit and a couple of these, but.

00;21;35;23 - 00;21;53;28
Speaker 1
And I just did it, this past Saturday. And so you get to have conversations, you get to kind of understand some of their stories, and then you get to bring them joy. And it's one of the coolest things that I do. Yeah. The interesting thing about volunteer work is people think like, oh, that's so amazing. You volunteer, you're like, well, it's kind of self-serving because it makes me feel great.

00;21;54;01 - 00;22;12;21
Speaker 1
Oh, so yeah, yeah, that's great, I love that. That's a good thing. Anybody else have any comments just around self leadership in general and any of these six pillars that I kind of created out of what I've seen in the world and experience with leaders.

00;22;12;24 - 00;22;15;11
Speaker 2
It's great.

00;22;15;13 - 00;22;17;04
Speaker 1
Hey. Yes. Go ahead.

00;22;17;06 - 00;22;39;11
Speaker 2
I was just going to say, you know, take in a lot of these things into your one on ones and making sure that high achievers that you're mentoring or leading coaching, as a leader. Yeah, that they're not too hard on themselves, that they're, that they're taking care of themselves, not going to burn themselves out. I think that's one of your key roles as a, as a leader.

00;22;39;13 - 00;22;41;11
Speaker 2
As to to teach that.

00;22;41;13 - 00;22;59;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I know when I was struggling in a leadership position and I was just thinking, like, I can't do this if I can't do this, plus the family and all the things, I was blaming everybody else when it was actually self-inflicted. So how do we get people to see that something is actually self-inflicted and they have the power to make a different choice in that?

00;22;59;21 - 00;23;04;06
Speaker 1
In that scenario, most of our problems can be solved if we get out of our own way.

00;23;04;09 - 00;23;10;16
Speaker 2
Yes, just resolve this often. I've had that conversation with somebody and said, oh, I just need to take my own advice.

00;23;10;18 - 00;23;25;18
Speaker 1
That's right. Yes. Yeah. It's not just take saying it out loud to somebody or somebody saying, hey, I've noticed something. Tell me your thoughts on that. Those are great coaching questions. And coaching as a leader is a is a key skill for sure. To be able to help people kind of figure these things out for themselves.

00;23;25;21 - 00;23;45;01
Speaker 2
So I want to build on because that's actually something I, I find that it's I just went through reviews with everybody, but the first one was the boss saw me was much, much, too much different. So one of the things that I found is when you're, you can take you got to drive your guard around your people just to little down.

00;23;45;01 - 00;23;59;27
Speaker 2
Right. You know, you got to be like first ten of them. But I find that, so I have a problem with, like, as I'm giving an answer, I think about when I think of a way to make it better. So I'll tell you that again. And then I think about another way that I tell you again. Right.

00;23;59;27 - 00;24;14;17
Speaker 2
So you get to hear the same thing three times. And that's about as fun as it sounds. And there's a person I was talking to and during their review and I told them I like that's a problem. I have two, right. So now we were having a discussion about how do you do the kind of like beer, right.

00;24;14;19 - 00;24;32;02
Speaker 2
What's good about it is yeah, you're doing the leadership part okay. But I'm also working on my health issues at the same time because, you know, I've spotted an opportunity. And it's an opportunity I feel like. Right. I could drop my guard a little bit and say, I do that, too. Okay. Yeah. Here's a couple of things I do.

00;24;32;07 - 00;24;49;08
Speaker 2
Well, what are some things you do? So I feel like I walk away that I've built a better connection. Right. We've worked together to kind of troubleshoot something, but I feel like I walk away from it. I've also got something out of that. Right. So it's I always say this is like the Italian army, right? I'm always looking for a cut.

00;24;49;10 - 00;24;51;06
Speaker 2
Can they get out of this?

00;24;51;09 - 00;24;53;06
Speaker 1
But I'll say no.

00;24;53;08 - 00;25;11;04
Speaker 2
But I find that we usually we go to talk to your folks about things that, development opportunities or things like that is good to take a stock of yourself and see what it is that. Me too. Because again, it's good to be vulnerable in front of your people and you help them work something out humanizes you, but you could probably get some out of it, too.

00;25;11;10 - 00;25;24;24
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah, I'm all for the win. Win. Like, let's be a little self-serving in some of these things as well. But yeah, taking off the armor. I mean, my goodness, like, that armor is heavy. Sometimes it's time to take a little bit of it off in front of our people, to be able to show them that we're real villains.

00;25;24;26 - 00;25;28;02
Speaker 1
No doubt that vulnerability makes connection, for sure.

00;25;28;05 - 00;25;59;04
Speaker 2
I think one thing that fascinated Rachel is just this idea of extending grace, and also having a high standard and balancing that, and then time that back to the curve you showed before just where that overload category, how much of that is self-inflicted, where I might be putting more pressure on myself instead of enjoying the journey and taking things too seriously, I almost erode that ability by racking up that stress in ways that I could be, you know, just giving myself a little more grace and making it easier to enjoy the journey and letting things breathe a little bit.

00;25;59;04 - 00;26;16;17
Speaker 1
Death. That's so true. I think both of those ends of the spectrum, the boredom and the overload is usually self-inflicted, right? Like I tell my kids all the time, well, if you're bored, that is a space for creativity. Good luck. Like, yeah, have a bad time. There's so much opportunity there. So I love that you gain that.

00;26;16;17 - 00;26;26;27
Speaker 1
And so I think a lot of for high achievers, a lot of our stuck is really, truly self-inflicted. You can we can still have excellence without having so much pressure and stress for sure.

00;26;26;27 - 00;26;49;22
Speaker 2
So yeah, I think for a lot of the high achievers and I catch myself doing this all the time, it's really, really, really hard to say no because in your mind you go like, yeah, I can solve that software problem or that, you know, project scheduling problem or you know what? I can see how strategically we can move that that added up.

00;26;49;24 - 00;27;22;10
Speaker 2
Your mind is already clicking. And before you realize that you're already, you know, pushing that overload boundary, you've committed to something because it sounded like an interesting challenge to you or, you know, you could do better. So I think, you know, I don't think I've ever had a manager or seen a manager that truly overloaded a person. I've seen managers asking and then, you know, the this is where I'm broken myself.

00;27;22;10 - 00;27;33;13
Speaker 2
The idiot saying, yeah, sure, of course I'll take it when you really should be saying like, no, I'm full. So either take something off my plate, right, or go find someone else.

00;27;33;14 - 00;27;52;05
Speaker 1
Ooh, boundaries. Yes, I work on that one all the time with people because it is so self-inflicted. Like we're saying yes, when we really mean no. It's not a hell yes and no. That's my favorite motto. And we live in the Midwest. That's the hard one. We want to please everybody. We're like, yes, yeah, but our Italian over here come by, teach us something about some outreach.

00;27;52;07 - 00;27;53;28
Speaker 2
That we actually have achieved. Yeah.

00;27;54;01 - 00;27;54;24
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;27;54;26 - 00;28;27;26
Speaker 3
So, your next slide, Rachel. The way it landed on me was put you on mask first. I've been thinking about this and if I. I'm not taking care of myself, my makeup is not full. I'm not going to be able to help others. So there goes my self-care. If I don't have compassion for myself, then I'm going to enter into the room of critical conversation with a negative mindset that goes two of my self, leadership, whatever you call this quadrant of morals.

00;28;27;28 - 00;28;36;28
Speaker 3
So I really like this, and I'm going to be thinking about this a lot because it's like I have to put on my own mask first in order to be able to help someone else.

00;28;36;28 - 00;28;50;18
Speaker 1
Yes. Well, and that is kind of the underlying theme. I made it look fancier than just put your your oxygen mask on first. But that's what it is like. It really is taking care of yourself first. And we think that we need to give to others before we do that. And the opposite is true. We know that.

00;28;50;21 - 00;28;53;22
Speaker 2
We're not here.

00;28;53;24 - 00;29;19;21
Speaker 1
I don't know. You're if you're color coding as an intentional. But as I reflect on this, like, self-care is definitely the first one to fall off. And the others, like, we're in a room full of learners we can self improve on, but social care is the last. I'm a mother of two under four. Yeah.

00;29;19;24 - 00;29;38;23
Speaker 1
I haven't done my soul care at 70 watercolor for four years. So this is. Yeah, I think you're spot on. The coloring is not intentional, but I love that you kind of pull that out. I think that's that's very true, especially for for young parents. I will tell you, as a mother of a 12 to 9 year old, you'll get that time.

00;29;38;23 - 00;29;42;19
Speaker 1
It will happen. It's not forever, I promise.

00;29;42;22 - 00;29;46;02
Speaker 2
Rachel, how could people engage with you if they're interested?

00;29;46;02 - 00;30;02;19
Speaker 1
Read more LinkedIn is a great spot, so I'm on there all the time, so just send me a message on LinkedIn if you have any questions or even just comments about, you know, the talk, I would love to hear that. It's always fun to kind of refinance saying think about things in a different way. So LinkedIn is a great spot to connect with me and we can go from there.

00;30;02;21 - 00;30;03;07
Speaker 2
Thank you.

00;30;03;09 - 00;30;10;12
Speaker 1
Thank you.