Join LaTonya Wilkins in this enlightening episode of the Leading Below the Surface podcast as she explores the crucial role of caregiving in today’s society. Featuring expert insights from Kate Washington, author of “Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America,” this discussion delves into the evolving terminology surrounding caregiving, the emotional and practical challenges caregivers face, and the importance of support systems in the workplace. Discover innovative strategies for fostering a supportive workplace culture, recognizing diverse family structures, and advocating for inclusive caregiving policies. Whether you’re a caregiver or an employer, this episode provides valuable insights to enhance well-being and promote resilience in caregiving roles. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that champions the power of community and connection in caregiving!

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Quotes:

Kate Washington: – There are studies that show that even when men are involved in caregiving, they are tending to do much more of the lighter lift tasks, whereas women are doing the physical hands-on care.

Context: Kate presents statistics on gender roles in caregiving, revealing the disproportionate burden placed on women for more demanding caregiving tasks.

Kate Washington: – There is a real need for community-based caregiving models. We can look to people who might be single and aging in place or like living in co-housing communities or seeing their chosen family instead of their family of origin.

Context: Kate discusses the potential for community-based caregiving models that can alleviate the burden on traditional family structures.

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Resources from today’s episode:

You can learn more about Kate: https://www.kawashington.com/index.html

Learn more about the Change Coaches Coaching Sprint⁠ by emailing ⁠[email protected]⁠

–Change Coaches Guide to Create Psychological Safe Conversations Across Differences

–Change Coaches Newsletter

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Transcript:

00:00:00 – LaTonya Wilkins Are you wanting to close the year out strong? Our Change Coaches offerings include retreat facilitation and leadership accelerators. Check out changecoaches.io for more information or email us at [email protected] to find out how we can support you and your organization in 2024 and beyond.

00:00:21 – LaTonya Wilkins Are you looking to navigate 2025 with clarity and vision? Look no further than our 60-day Change Coaches coaching sprint, Thriving Through Resilience. This sprint features valuable components. You’ll have three one-on-one coaching sessions with me through January and February, along with one 20-minute laser coaching session for any immediate concerns. You’ll also have access to community events and our resource library. Learn more in the show notes and sign up. Hope to see some of you there.

00:00:57 – LaTonya Wilkins Welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast, where we explore how to navigate and thrive in today’s changing workplace. I’m your host, LaTonya Wilkins, Executive Coach, Founder and CEO of Change Coaches, and Author of Leading Below the Surface. Today’s topic is caregiving, which has likely touched us all in some way.

00:01:26 – LaTonya Wilkins Many of you know I have experienced significant loss and participated in caregiving. The term caregiving has evolved for me; I previously thought of it as caretaking. We will discuss this evolution. Additionally, organizations could do more to support caregivers, especially regarding various family situations. This support could take the form of DEIB, Leading Below the Surface, or wellness programs. We all can do more. I hope everyone listening today is willing to take action. Now, let me introduce our guest, Kate. We’ve known each other through mutual connections for a couple of years. As fellow authors, our friends have encouraged us to connect. When we finally got in contact, I wanted to have you on my podcast. Kate also just got a new book deal, so I’d love to celebrate that. She’ll tell you a little about it. Kate, did I miss anything? Oh, one other thing, her book, Toast, is behind her if you’re watching us on YouTube. It’s about caregiving and burnout.

00:02:49 – Kate Washington What did I miss, Kate?

00:02:54 – Kate Washington I’m working on a new book called Watersheds. It is a personal story that follows Caregiving and Burnout because I felt very much like Toast at the end of the period I wrote about in my first book. I’d love to discuss caregiving, caretaking, and why it can lead to burnout, as well as what employers can do. The new book is about a challenge I set for myself when I was about to turn 50 and felt stagnant at midlife.

00:03:25 – Kate Washington I decided to visit 50 different swimming holes in California, where I grew up. It reignited my creativity and brought me joy. For the first time in many years, I was doing something solely for myself.

00:03:50 – Kate Washington It led me to change my approach to life.

00:03:55 – LaTonya Wilkins How far along are you with this book?

00:03:59 – Kate Washington I sold it from a book proposal and have written a couple of chapters along with a detailed outline. I also kept a blog of all the swimming holes I visited, so I have raw material to work with. The next step is to turn that material into a coherent story.

00:04:22 – LaTonya Wilkins This sounds like a fun book to write. You must be excited about it.

00:04:26 – Kate Washington I hope so. It’s gray and rainy where I am, so writing this book will remind me of summer and whetting my appetite for swimming when warm weather returns.

00:04:39 – LaTonya Wilkins We’ll provide more information on how to find Kate and follow her as her new book comes out, as well as about Toast. Now, let’s get to the topic.

00:04:48 – LaTonya Wilkins When did the term caregiving become preferred over caretaking, and is there a difference between the two?

00:05:02 – Kate Washington I haven’t examined the exact time, but I think it became more common in the 70s and 80s. Caregiving refers to unpaid family caregiving for the ill, elderly, or those needing extra support. The term has also been applied to parenting and caregiving for children, which creates some confusion.

00:05:31 – Kate Washington I considered this while writing the book. Caretaking sounds more like managing a large estate. I have a background in Victorian literature, and caretaking seems less human. However, I recognize that the term is still used. Many people only become aware of caregiving when they face that need in their family or friend group.

00:06:13 – Kate Washington Recognizing caregiving as a role is the first step toward providing the necessary support. I didn’t see myself as a caregiver until I was deep into the experience. There are many tasks associated with caregiving, especially in severe illness or ongoing decline, like dementia. People often overlook these tasks because they are not hands-on care, such as managing finances or health insurance. It’s important to highlight the lack of awareness of the term until one is in the situation.

00:07:05 – LaTonya Wilkins I’d love to hear your caregiving story in a minute. It’s interesting that you didn’t think of yourself as a caregiver.

00:07:17 – LaTonya Wilkins When my mom passed away in 2014, I was in my early 30s. I didn’t see myself that way either because I wasn’t with her every day; she was living in Iowa.

00:07:40 – LaTonya Wilkins I realized how that term clicked with me. I was her emotional support as she went through everything, which I never thought of that way. I thought of it as the nurse coming in and being hands-on. But there’s this whole emotional piece that comes with that. I’d love to know your caregiving story and if that was part of yours as well.

00:08:04 – Kate Washington It’s interesting that you point out long-distance caregiving is increasing as families have scattered. It’s real and demanding. Many listeners have experienced that because it’s hard to keep track of things from far away while managing your own life. Another thing about the term you mentioned is that there’s also a slippage with paid caregivers and in-home care support people.

00:08:34 – Kate Washington The term caregiver can mean different things. In my caregiving story, I was not a long-distance caregiver. I cared for my husband, who is now divorced. This was in 2015 and 2016.

00:08:49 – Kate Washington He went through a very acute bout with lymphoma, a blood cancer, and a bone marrow transplant, where he was hospitalized for four and a half months. We had young kids, nine and five, when he was diagnosed. I was also managing the home front with them. During his bone marrow transplant, he lost his vision, the ability to walk, and the ability to eat. He was very close to dying.

00:09:16 – Kate Washington It was incredibly stressful. Two to three years of acute illness. In some ways, it sneaked up on us and on me as a caregiver because there was a long process to diagnosis. Even though his cancer was aggressive, it wasn’t clear that it would need treatment or what to do because it was rare. I provided emotional support as his spouse, called the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, found peer-reviewed articles, talked to doctors, and coordinated health insurance and denied claims.

00:09:58 – Kate Washington I didn’t think of caregiving until he had a crisis and was admitted to the hospital. It became a full-time commitment, with constant trips to the hospital and picking up the kids from aftercare. For a couple of years, it consumed me, and I couldn’t work. I’m a freelance writer, so I had to set aside work and dip into savings because if I don’t work, I don’t make money.

00:10:30 – Kate Washington Fortunately, he was a university professor with great benefits. The variability of benefits in our health system can significantly impact families during care and illness crises. There are many layers to this experience. I couldn’t think about writing a story or billing for it while managing everything.

00:11:08 – Kate Washington Getting up, going to work, and racing to the hospital is a tough road for caregivers.

00:11:17 – LaTonya Wilkins It’s interesting that you are a freelancer and still couldn’t work. My mom had heart disease, and I didn’t know about it as a child. Family members helped take care of us. In the end, I was in denial, thinking she would be okay. I remember having to leave for weekend trips as it became harder. When she passed away, I wasn’t expecting it. My employer wasn’t supportive during that time. I also lost my sister suddenly when I was young, working my first job at a business school. My workplace wasn’t understanding, and I struggled with caregiving for myself during that time.

00:12:33 – LaTonya Wilkins Let’s talk about this. You mentioned your husband has good benefits. Why do you think caregiving isn’t recognized in the workplace?

00:12:44 – Kate Washington There are many reasons for this. One is that we are expected to be our professional selves and set aside family responsibilities in the workplace. The American workplace and other cultures often emphasize individualism, where families are expected to manage on their own. The prevailing mindset focuses on the nuclear family rather than extended family support networks.

00:13:20 – Kate Washington Problems are often kept behind closed doors, and people tend to be stoic. The pandemic exposed this issue, as we could not hide the chaos in our homes while working. There is a significant separation between home and the workplace. In a society without mandated paid family leave, we are limited to unpaid family leave in a few states, which lacks flexibility.

00:13:53 – Kate Washington It is up to individual employers to provide support. Many employers focus on the bottom line regarding unpaid family leave and overlook the larger picture. Supporting employees as whole individuals can lead to better work, increased loyalty, and longer-term relationships with valuable employees. Caregiving is often unpredictable; for example, you might need to take an afternoon to take a family member to a doctor’s appointment rather than taking a full day or a 12-week leave. The leave is often limited to specific family members.

00:14:37 – Kate Washington There is often a lack of flexibility to adapt to unpredictable caregiving situations. Many factors affect caregivers. Statistics on caregiving are available, including an AARP report released every five years. A new report is expected in 2025, but the 2021 report indicated that there are 53 million caregivers in the US, which includes adults caring for other adults.

00:15:12 – Kate Washington A significant portion of the workforce consists of people in their earning years, including many seniors caring for each other. A high percentage of people are both working and caregiving. I forget the exact statistic on the number of people in the workplace with care responsibilities, but it’s shocking that 70% of caregivers do not disclose their caregiving roles at work.

00:15:45 – LaTonya Wilkins That’s a telling point. The individualist culture discourages revealing caregiving responsibilities as it may be perceived as a weakness. People fear being seen as unable to perform their jobs, which I experienced in my job.

00:16:10 – LaTonya Wilkins After losing my sister, I hesitated to take time off, even though I had the time available. Many companies discourage taking time off, similar to unlimited PTO, where people are reluctant to use it. The statistic of 70% raises questions about what people are concealing.

00:16:33 – LaTonya Wilkins It seems that women and people of color are shouldering more caregiving responsibilities. I have two brothers, but I provided most of the emotional support. One brother handled more of the tactical aspects, which is valuable, but I wonder if the majority of caregiving falls on women and people of color.

00:17:06 – Kate Washington Your experience reflects the statistics. Studies show that even when men participate in caregiving, they often handle lighter tasks, while women perform more physical care. Women are more likely to assist elders with toileting, shower-ing, and wound care. There is a higher burden of physical tasks on women. Reliable statistics indicate that 61% to 75% of serious caregiving is done by women, depending on the study.

00:17:57 – Kate Washington Women of color disproportionately engage in caregiving and enter this role at a younger age on average. Younger employees are more likely to be involved in caregiving compared to their white counterparts, especially white males. Employers interested in DEI and retaining excellent employees, particularly women or women of color, need to consider how to support these employees facing different and greater pressures.

00:18:47 – LaTonya Wilkins It’s interesting how this compounds with workplace oppression and the expectations placed on women to care for others, especially women of color.

00:19:04 – LaTonya Wilkins I read an article discussing how many organizations are revamping their EAP programs due to low usage and inadequate support for employees. Some of my coaching clients have struggled to find effective coaches or therapists through their EAP. I have been exploring novel services like concierge care coaches. Are these gaining traction in the workplace, or what other innovative benefits are emerging around caregiving?

00:19:47 – Kate Washington There have been significant efforts in this emerging space since my book came out in 2021. Many startups are trying to scale care, which is inherently individual. One notable company is Inicare, which offers a multifaceted benefits package for employers, including platforms for caregivers, health providers, and employers. It is an app-based service that helps marshal support.

00:20:34 – Kate Washington Many concierge and care services are emerging. The future of caregiving involves assistance in finding and sourcing care. It can be challenging to navigate the marketplace for in-home care or facilities for loved ones, especially during times of crisis or urgent needs.

00:21:02 – Kate Washington The challenge with using concierge and coaching services is ensuring they are equitable due to their cost. Employers may not have these resources readily available, but exploring creative ways to offer care-related benefits to employees is important. There is an emerging marketplace that HR departments could consider.

00:21:35 – LaTonya Wilkins It seems these ideas may not be as novel as I thought. I often discuss below the surface leadership. How can we lead and support others until they feel comfortable opening up? This concept remains largely in my head.

00:21:57 – LaTonya Wilkins I intended to ask about alleviating burnout, which I believe relates to not being able to be oneself, leaving personal problems at home, and trying to overbalance everything. What can we do to foster open conversations with caregivers and support them at work?

00:22:21 – Kate Washington This issue relates to culture change, not just in the workplace but in society. We need to talk more openly about caregiving. Leaders should address these challenges publicly. Rosalind Carter, the late former first lady, founded a caregiving institute and highlighted that everyone falls into one of four categories: caregivers, those who will be caregivers, those who will need caregivers, and another related category. This illustrates that even those in leadership roles face caregiving challenges. Keeping these issues hidden promotes a culture of silence about being human. Caring for each other is a fundamental aspect of humanity. I’m not suggesting we disclose every detail at work.

00:23:50 – Kate Washington However, we should create an open atmosphere where we can bring our whole selves to the workplace. It should not be taboo to discuss the struggles of being a caregiver; this is a crucial first step.

00:24:08 – LaTonya Wilkins I think what you’re saying is to paraphrase, lead by example, and talk about your own weaknesses. We discuss psychological safety, and sharing a weakness or failure creates immediate psychological safety because it shows you’re not perfect. Can people start with culture change by opening up on their team?

00:24:36 – Kate Washington Yes, exactly. Sharing a challenge doesn’t have to be a failure or struggle. It creates an open atmosphere and allows team members to feel safe in adopting the same approach.

00:24:55 – LaTonya Wilkins I was with a friend last night, a coach. We’ve known each other for a couple of years, but our friendship has been work-based. Last night, she shared her story of loss.

00:25:13 – LaTonya Wilkins This relates to what you said because I’ve been open about it. When you are, it shows people that it’s okay. I once had a boss who lost their spouse to cancer and was public about it.

00:25:32 – LaTonya Wilkins They took time off work and ensured everything was good. This helped us know that if something happens, we’re okay. It’s great to work for a boss like that, who you see going through something difficult but taking the space to handle it.

00:25:53 – Kate Washington Times of grief and loss are powerful moments where leaders can show vulnerability. I’m thinking of your story about not feeling you could take the time you needed after your sister’s loss. It might have been different if you’d been in a workplace with that boss who modeled that for you.

00:26:15 – LaTonya Wilkins Right. At that time, I knew someone who was judged because her husband was very sick. She had to leave due to her erratic schedule, and they were upset about that.

00:26:31 – LaTonya Wilkins You’re right; it’s a big difference.

00:26:37 – LaTonya Wilkins All of us can strive to do that. When I talk about leaving below the surface, we don’t have to change the entire OR culture. It’s our team culture and the relational leadership we practice. We can make it psychologically safe to discuss these topics.

00:26:55 – LaTonya Wilkins Some of you listening, who are deep in DEI or are DEI practitioners, may notice we are discussing traditional concepts. We talk about gender, mentioning man and woman, and focus on binaries. This is something I consider when thinking about caregiving.

00:27:20 – LaTonya Wilkins Many people might feel left out. For example, if you’re queer, have a different type of relationship, or don’t have children, you may not feel recognized. There has been more work around parents, and while it’s not perfect, those without children who need to care for something may not receive the same acknowledgment.

00:27:47 – LaTonya Wilkins If your child gets sick, for instance, and you’re single with no kids, but your dog gets sick, the response is different. If you have kids and your child has a cold, you can take the day off, and others will relate to that experience. This raises another question: how can we be more open to different family structures? Leaders often have traditional views, focusing on parents with aging parents or a sick spouse.

00:28:25 – LaTonya Wilkins But what if you don’t fit into those boxes?

00:28:29 – Kate Washington That’s a great question. It’s important to look at the full spectrum of experience. I briefly discussed this in my book and wish I had explored it more. We can learn from the queer community and other groups about caregiving and recognizing alternative and chosen family structures. Many models of care emerged from the AIDS crisis in the 80s when individuals were estranged from their families of origin.

00:29:14 – Kate Washington Networks of friends and groups came together to care for each other. This approach is beautiful and valid. We need to view it as a society because traditional one-on-one caregiving, such as caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s, is not sustainable. Caregivers are overwhelmed and often have multiple care obligations within a family. If we consider networks of care, we can support people who are single and aging in place, living in co-housing communities, or relying on their chosen family instead of their family of origin. This approach distributes the caregiving load, allowing one person to help on Tuesday and another on Wednesday, which lightens the burden and fosters strong connections for everyone, including the care recipient.

00:30:17 – Kate Washington Caregivers often feel they know how to provide care and struggle to let go, leading to burnout. We can find ways to encourage more participation from siblings, as one sibling often takes the lead while others do not step up. Exploring networks of care outside traditional nuclear family structures offers promising solutions.

00:30:52 – Kate Washington I hope employers and the larger culture will validate these relationships. A recent book by Reina Cohen discusses friendship as a cornerstone of life, which I find interesting. Many people are exploring how to move beyond insular living arrangements typical of the 1950s suburban nuclear family model.

00:31:31 – Kate Washington I believe the future of sustainable caregiving lies in these new approaches.

00:31:37 – LaTonya Wilkins I resonate with the idea of networks of care. I think this is the future, where people have chosen family structures that include different ages and types of care.

00:32:00 – LaTonya Wilkins It’s not just the nursing care. It’s about having children, older people, or friends around. I find that interesting. Do you think we’ll see more of that? I think it’s going to catch on.

00:32:23 – LaTonya Wilkins Do you think traditional people would be open to this? I see different ways to get health insurance and coverage, like subscription models. The caregiving industry seems right for disruption, as does senior living.

00:32:48 – Kate Washington I agree. There are models emerging. You mentioned whether traditional people can accept this. Churches and church groups already do this by providing support, like bringing casseroles when someone is sick. We see models of connectedness in traditional cultures, as communities had to support each other.

00:33:27 – Kate Washington We’re social animals who need to care for each other. Every human is born needing intensive care, and most of us need care throughout our lives. The current way of caregiving in America is a historical anomaly, stemming from the individualized suburban model of the 50s that many cling to.

00:34:07 – Kate Washington This model isn’t working for most families, not just in caregiving. We are in a chaotic cultural moment, and the healthcare industry is facing crises.

00:34:26 – Kate Washington The way forward must focus on togetherness and openness, relying on each other.

00:34:36 – LaTonya Wilkins You made a good point. I visited a family member this weekend, and we discussed how church structures have evolved to be more inclusive. For those who think our discussion is too futuristic, I understand the skepticism.

00:35:04 – LaTonya Wilkins You’re right. It’s been ongoing, and I think younger generations want to be with people they love rather than out of obligation.

00:35:19 – LaTonya Wilkins Anything else you want to add on caregiving before we close with how we can find you?

00:35:28 – Kate Washington My book, “Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America” by Kate Washington, is widely available. You can find my website, which may be included in the show notes, and I’m active on social media, especially LinkedIn. I enjoy hearing from readers. We discussed earlier how many people don’t recognize caregiving as a role.

00:35:57 – Kate Washington One meaningful aspect of my book is receiving emails from people who found me through my website and the book. They express that they didn’t realize others experienced similar feelings and challenges as caregivers, and they felt more seen and validated by my writing. That means a lot to me. I invite anyone to reach out.

00:36:27 – LaTonya Wilkins Great. Definitely reach out. I read your book and plan to read it again, especially with aging relatives on my mind. Thank you everyone for listening today. If you liked what you heard, please leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

00:36:46 – LaTonya Wilkins Thank you, and we’ll see you next time.

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Connect with us: 

Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Learn more about ⁠Change Coaches⁠ 

Follow LaTonya on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Follow Change Coaches on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

For More on the Book ⁠Leading Below the Surface

Study mentioned in today’s episode.

In this solo episode, host LaTonya Wilkins shares powerful insights and actionable self-coaching prompts to help you unlock personal growth, embrace authenticity, and elevate your mental and emotional well-being. Discover what it truly takes to achieve a breakthrough, how to recognize its impact, and how to set meaningful goals and intentions without compromising your mental health. LaTonya’s practical guidance will inspire you to redefine success on your own terms and pave the way for transformative growth. Grab a pen and paper—you won’t want to miss these insights.

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Quotes:

LaTonya Wilkins: – A breakthrough is something very holistic. I don’t see it as just your cash flow sheet or your balance sheet.

Context: LaTonya discusses the true meaning of a breakthrough, emphasizing that it encompasses more than just financial metrics, but rather involves personal growth and authenticity.

LaTonya Wilkins: – You find that you aren’t apologizing for as much anymore, if anything at all.

Context: This quote highlights the transformative nature of a breakthrough, suggesting that it leads to greater self-acceptance and confidence.

LaTonya Wilkins: – Everything is integrated, everything is aligned.

Context: LaTonya reflects on her journey, explaining how various aspects of life, including business and personal relationships, are interconnected and influence one another.

LaTonya Wilkins: – There is a positive correlation between well-being, authenticity, and engagement.

Context: This statement is based on a study from New Zealand, which LaTonya uses to illustrate the importance of emotional and relational measures in achieving breakthroughs.

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Resources from today’s episode:

– Learn more about the Change Coaches Coaching Sprint here or email [email protected]

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Transcript:

00:00:00 – LaTonya Wilkins Hello everyone and welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast. I’m your host, founder and CEO of Change Coaches and author of Leading Below the Surface. I’m recording this podcast at the end of December 2024. I recently returned from a yoga retreat, which was interesting, and I’ll write more about that in the coming weeks. Be sure to tune into the podcast and follow us on social media to not miss that article. Before we start today’s podcast, I would appreciate it if you could hit the follow button.

00:00:42 – LaTonya Wilkins Whether you are on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or another podcast app, please hit the subscribe button and leave us a review. That could be our New Year’s gift or everyday gift. Thank you. Today’s topic is a self-coaching edition, and I’m making this podcast as a gift to you. Many of us either can’t afford a coach, don’t have time for one, have had coaches but aren’t ready for the next one, or currently have a coach who isn’t meeting all our needs. If you relate to any of these situations, then today’s episode is for you.

00:01:12 – LaTonya Wilkins This episode is also for those looking to close the year strong and start the new year authentically, honoring your needs and well-being. As we get started, you might want to have a pen and paper on hand. You may also want to stream this on Apple or Spotify first and then watch it on YouTube later. I want to help you feel coached through this. The purpose of this episode is for you to feel coached by the end and to have actionable steps to move forward in 2025, experiencing the breakthrough I mentioned.

00:02:34 – LaTonya Wilkins First off, what is a breakthrough? I wanted to start with that because many words like breakthrough, game changing, and life changing are overused. When I started Change Coaches five years ago, I tried to understand what success looked like for me versus what it looked like for others. I had several coaches during my entrepreneurship journey.

00:03:16 – LaTonya Wilkins The first couple of coaches I had were more conventional around success, which I needed at the time. The coach I invested the most in, from August 2023 to August 2024, helped me see a breakthrough. I didn’t notice the breakthrough right away, but I recognized it a few months later.

00:03:45 – LaTonya Wilkins This breakthrough affected not just Change Coaches but also my life. Today, I want to share what that breakthrough looked like for me, my challenges with the cliche definitions of success, and how you can find your own success while experiencing a breakthrough. So, what is a breakthrough?

00:04:16 – LaTonya Wilkins This word is overused. I see a breakthrough as something holistic. It’s not just about your cash flow or balance sheet. While financial aspects can be part of it, a breakthrough means you stop apologizing for things. You remove things from your life that no longer serve you. You trust the universe and your path, surrender to that path.

00:04:45 – LaTonya Wilkins That is what a breakthrough looks like. Early on in coaching, I focused on two goals: how to start a business and how to maintain and grow it. Those were my three goals: start, maintain, and grow.

00:05:11 – LaTonya Wilkins However, I found that what was missing was how I wanted to feel and what I wanted this to look like. I wanted this to feel easy and fun, but I didn’t realize the sacrifices and mindset shifts I would need to make to achieve that.

00:05:47 – LaTonya Wilkins I will share three coaching prompts on how you can achieve your breakthrough, whether it relates to your business, family, or social life. My breakthrough was broader than I expected; I initially thought it would focus solely on business. However, I realized everything is integrated and aligned.

00:06:27 – LaTonya Wilkins Everything from your body, mind, finances, friendships, and relationships is interconnected.

00:06:40 – LaTonya Wilkins I want to start with a study from New Zealand. Recent studies from Australia and New Zealand focus on well-being, authenticity, and resilience. A 2018 study found a positive correlation between well-being, authenticity, and engagement.

00:07:13 – LaTonya Wilkins You might wonder how this relates to breakthroughs. It connects because we often focus on end goals and material measures, such as financial outcomes, rather than emotional or relational measures.

00:07:46 – LaTonya Wilkins This study highlighted why conventional measures of success frustrate me; they often overlook authenticity. Well-being and engagement are not just nice to have; they are essential.

00:08:20 – LaTonya Wilkins Engagement is what organizations measure. There is a positive correlation, meaning that increasing these factors will positively affect each other. While it’s not causation, they will reinforce one another. 2024 has been a year.

00:08:54 – LaTonya Wilkins I spoke with my tax planner a couple of weeks ago. She mentioned how many people had challenging years. I felt grateful because I turned my year into a productive one at Change Coaches and experienced personal growth. I realized I needed to focus on more than just cash flow and clients to run a business. My perspective shifted when I stopped concentrating on numbers and started focusing on other aspects.

00:09:47 – LaTonya Wilkins What are those aspects? Instead of sharing my experiences, I will provide a few coaching prompts to help you discover your own insights. These prompts come from a holistic coaching perspective, allowing you to define success for yourself without external pressure.

00:10:20 – LaTonya Wilkins These prompts encourage long-term thinking and give you the time to explore your path. They do not force you to make immediate decisions or dictate your actions. This approach is beneficial when seeking breakthroughs during challenging times.

00:10:46 – LaTonya Wilkins Let’s get started. Before I present the prompts, take out a pen and paper or reflect on this in your mind. Consider the breakthrough you want to achieve. It may be difficult, but if your initial thought is about making a specific amount of money or establishing a new relationship, start there. For example, you might aim to make a million dollars in 2025 or seek happier friendships and a larger community.

00:11:28 – LaTonya Wilkins Begin with that big goal, then think about a sub-goal. What would achieving that feel like? What impact would it have on you?

00:11:45 – LaTonya Wilkins If it’s the million dollars, what would that do for you? If it’s the community, what would that do for you? If that’s hard for you, what would that feel like? How would that change you? How would that get you closer to the authenticity and well-being we discussed? Take a minute to consider your top goal, think of some sub-goals, and reflect on what that would do for you and how it would feel. Let’s start with the first prompt. These prompts may not be what you expect. As a coach, I learned that you need to dig deep to experience breakthroughs. Surface success lasts only so long.

00:12:46 – LaTonya Wilkins To help you get below the surface, these prompts are necessary. Before I give you the first prompt, you might want to revisit the last episode where I interviewed Jonathan Gutierrez about somatic coaching. This is a somatic question.

00:13:05 – LaTonya Wilkins Even though I took a somatic coaching class during my first coach certification, I didn’t know how to use somatic methods effectively. It took me two years after that class to understand how to integrate them into my coaching. Jonathan and I discussed how to incorporate somatics into leadership, whether you’re leading a business, a team, or managing a group. Consider how you can use somatics in your life for coping and resilience. The first step is exploring your body. Reflect on your body over the last month.

00:13:55 – LaTonya Wilkins This may sound like a silly question, but trust me. I use breathing methods during my meditation called pranayamas and apply yoga tactics. There are various counting breathing exercises you can try. Take a minute to breathe, sit down, connect with your body, and think about where you have felt tension in the last month or three months. Consider what feels hyperactive, underactive, or blocked. I’ll share my example from the first three months of 2024.

00:14:49 – LaTonya Wilkins In the first half of 2024, I had many changes and changed coaches. I changed my entire staff and had some changes in relationships. I learned that I held tension in my chest and stomach.

00:15:13 – LaTonya Wilkins I knew this because my digestion was not where I wanted it to be. My stomach would cramp, and my chest would feel tight, but my stomach was the main issue. Over the last few months, I attended a yoga retreat and a joy retreat last month, which helped me see this.

00:15:42 – LaTonya Wilkins I started studying and doing energy work, which helped me understand that my energy was blocked in those areas. A quote that stuck with me is, “If your gut’s not healthy, you’re not healthy.”

00:16:00 – LaTonya Wilkins I realized I was holding things in my gut, and I was aware of the anatomy involved. Once I understood that I was blocked, I could work on opening up those areas.

00:16:29 – LaTonya Wilkins After recognizing the block, I needed to unblock it. I realized I wasn’t making decisions and wasn’t tapping into my power.

00:16:54 – LaTonya Wilkins Once I tapped into that power by trusting myself and my decisions, I hired a chief of staff, my first at change coaches. I immediately felt unblocked. I stopped trying to control everything.

00:17:19 – LaTonya Wilkins I let go and didn’t steer the ship as closely. It’s funny because someone on my team said, “LaTonya, wow, you’re getting told what to do.” Yes, I had to give up control.

00:17:37 – LaTonya Wilkins It took me a while to understand my purpose in this business and as a change coach. I know my purpose as an author and one-on-one coach, but I didn’t grasp my purpose in change coaching until now.

00:18:12 – LaTonya Wilkins My purpose is to serve clients, connect and expand the business, and enjoy my work. When I love this work and have room to enjoy it, everything else falls into place. It may sound cliché, but it’s true.

00:18:38 – LaTonya Wilkins Bringing on my chief of staff and allowing her to handle tasks I thought CEOs needed to do has been game-changing. While the blocks aren’t completely gone, understanding where they originated and recognizing the activities that aggravated them led to my breakthrough. Consider what’s hyperactive, underactive, or blocked in your body. Some of you may be in your head a lot, so examine how your mind reacts.

00:19:25 – LaTonya Wilkins This is a big topic, and I welcome anyone who wants to discuss it further or explore coaching on this. I enjoy talking about this, and I can share the energy work I’ve found beneficial.

00:19:48 – LaTonya Wilkins The hardest and most courageous thing I’ve done this decade is giving up things that no longer serve me. My question to you is: what is no longer serving you? What are you afraid to give up? This is challenging, and true breakthroughs may take years to achieve.

00:20:36 – LaTonya Wilkins What these things are and how to give them up. Some examples could be relationships. I’ve realized how many relationships were blocking me. It was hard because of their longevity. These are people I cared about, but they were blocking me in certain ways.

00:20:59 – LaTonya Wilkins It’s not black and white. You have to figure out how to manage those relationships. I’ve decided that with some family members, I don’t need to be closely connected. They know how to reach me, but I don’t need them on my social media.

00:21:21 – LaTonya Wilkins I noticed how that was affecting my energy. People compliment me on my kindness, but there’s a difference between niceness and kindness. This year, I decided I don’t want to be nice anymore. It’s okay to look out for myself, protect myself, and have good boundaries.

00:21:58 – LaTonya Wilkins What’s no longer serving you? Is it friendships? Sometimes friendships or relationships are temporary. Are there things that helped you get here but won’t help you move forward? It’s hard to let go.

00:22:21 – LaTonya Wilkins This took me years. There were relationships I knew deep down weren’t working, but I held onto them. You don’t have to completely eliminate them, but redesign your relationships. Relationships should always be redesigned.

00:22:45 – LaTonya Wilkins I kept a friendship diary, a relationship diary, and a team diary. This included team members who were no longer serving me. It could also be a job or a way of thinking that’s no longer serving you. Maybe that way of thinking was useful before, but now you want it to look different.

00:23:02 – LaTonya Wilkins Another example I’ll give you.

00:23:18 – LaTonya Wilkins If you want coaching on this or want to discuss it more, let’s do it. I’ve experienced significant loss in my life and realized I have healed from that. I had certain people who helped me during that time, but I grew beyond that.

00:23:51 – LaTonya Wilkins They didn’t need to be in my life anymore, and I didn’t need to be in theirs. It’s like a support group; you might have deep friends there for a while, but then you move on. You might go through an executive leadership cohort and then continue growing in different directions. It doesn’t have to be good or bad. Some things are just a season, reason, or lifetime.

00:24:30 – LaTonya Wilkins I love the saying that some people are in your life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime. It’s okay if it’s just a season.

00:24:42 – LaTonya Wilkins I have friends from the last year that I redesigned my relationship with, creating new connections. What are you afraid of getting rid of? I’ve been reorganizing my physical space, and when I clear things out, I open up for the new. It creates space for new ideas and environments I want to manifest at home.

00:25:26 – LaTonya Wilkins Let’s move to the third prompt. This is a big question, and you might ponder it for several months. Going back to the study on the correlation between authenticity, well-being, and engagement, if you find yourself not engaged, maybe those two elements are missing. However, correlation does not imply causation.

00:26:01 – LaTonya Wilkins The study didn’t prove that might be the case. I’m reflecting on this study and considering more possibilities. If you’re not engaged, maybe you can’t be authentic or have well-being. How do you define success? How can you build success in a way that honors you? This has been my big question for a while. I started Change Coaches five years ago and did it full time for three years. I had a part-time job until the end of 2021, and in 2022, I focused on my own work. It hasn’t been what I expected.

00:26:43 – LaTonya Wilkins I was excited, but it wasn’t what I anticipated. I hadn’t defined success in a way that suited me. Many definitions of success have been presented to me that don’t fit, from friends to coaches. I interviewed many coaches to find the last one I had, who was the most impactful, even though each coach brought something valuable.

00:27:31 – LaTonya Wilkins Let’s discuss the definitions of success I encountered. The first was money—make a million dollars. I listen to million-dollar podcasts and money-making podcasts, but that’s an end goal. I wasn’t considering the means to achieve it. I wanted my goals to focus on the means. Once you clean up the trenches, you need to focus on the foundation first.

00:28:17 – LaTonya Wilkins I’m a big plant person, so you must think about the soil, fertilizer, plant the seeds, and water them. There will be seasons. One of my plants needed a plant doctor because it seemed to be dying. I had to revive it, redo the soil, and replant it. Sometimes you have to replant things and reassess.

00:28:53 – LaTonya Wilkins This plant grew well for many years, and now I need to replant it. I don’t know if it will survive. Welcome to running a business. The million-dollar goal would be for this plant to be 12 inches tall in a year. You have to focus on all the other aspects. You can still have that big goal, but consider your sub-goals and what they will look like.

00:29:25 – LaTonya Wilkins You might think about whether you need to focus on insights or the foundation before considering big goals. I was listening to a podcast where an entrepreneur mentioned that you can’t have a million-dollar business without processes in place.

00:29:51 – LaTonya Wilkins Not having a chief of staff until this year made it hard to reach those levels. Think about what that foundation looks like and what success means to you. I want to spend some time on this before we close. I could talk about this all day, but we have a 20-minute podcast. I would love to have a conversation with some of you after this.

00:30:25 – LaTonya Wilkins Email me at info@ChangeCoachesio. Many success measures were presented to me. Some people left executive positions to become coaches and wanted to make a lot of money without taking a pay cut, so they pursued high-ticket items and advised me to do the same.

00:30:53 – LaTonya Wilkins They claimed that was success. Someone told me there are no feelings in business, and I was surprised. I interviewed coaches, and their views varied. I understand what that coach meant, but there are feelings in business. Let’s return to the plant.

00:31:13 – LaTonya Wilkins I understand the quote, but regarding the plants, I think about feelings. I felt disappointed about the plant, but I won’t let it derail me. That disappointment motivates me to bring in an expert to help figure out the next steps.

00:31:38 – LaTonya Wilkins Think about what you want success to look like. If you’re struggling, consider that we often focus on material goals, especially in American culture. What do you want success to look like?

00:32:04 – LaTonya Wilkins For me, success means waking up excited to connect with all of you and feeling like I’m making a change in the world. I want to focus on building community and deepening connections. When I focused on material goals, I couldn’t do those things.

00:32:32 – LaTonya Wilkins I had to step back and consider what kind of business I want to wake up to every day. One concept I teach at Kellogg is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The bottom level includes food, water, and shelter. Focusing solely on those can keep us in a fight or flight mode. When I started, I focused on those needs, which hinder my self-actualization. It’s important to address those basics, especially if you’re starting a business or building relationships, but don’t stop there.

00:33:27 – LaTonya Wilkins You can start with the basics, but aim for more. Reflect on the plant; do I want that plant just to survive or do I want it to thrive? Right? Survival is necessary at first, but then you gotta think about thriving.

00:33:41 – LaTonya Wilkins Sometimes you can focus on both survival and thriving simultaneously. Stay in the flow of the plant’s growth. Once it survives, it can thrive. Now, I need to repot that plant.

00:33:56 – LaTonya Wilkins Every day I see it, and I think I need to repot that plant. To recap, today we discussed the positive correlation between well-being, authenticity, and engagement. I provided three prompts to help you move toward a breakthrough.

00:34:21 – LaTonya Wilkins I hope this was helpful. I would love to hear from you. You can email us at [email protected]. I suggest having a sheet of paper to jot down your thoughts as you go through this. Share your insights with me. Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

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Connect with us: 

Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Learn more about ⁠Change Coaches⁠ 

Follow LaTonya on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Follow Change Coaches on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

For More on the Book ⁠Leading Below the Surface

Study mentioned in today’s episode.

In this episode of the Leading Below the Surface podcast, host LaTonya Wilkins welcomes somatic coach Jonathan Gutierrez to explore the transformative power of somatics in personal and professional development. Together, they discuss how body awareness can enhance emotional intelligence, improve interpersonal relationships, and foster healthier communities. Jonathan shares valuable insights on interoception, visualization techniques, and the importance of self-reflection in combating negativity bias. Tune in to learn practical strategies for integrating somatic practices into your coaching, leadership, and everyday life to navigate the challenges of today’s changing workplace.

Jonathan Faxas Gutierrez (he/him) is a somatic life coach, meditator, and flow enthusiast dedicated to helping individuals rediscover vibrancy and joy in their lives. Trained at the Mindfulness Coaching School, Jonathan’s journey into the helping field began over seven years ago in a transformative men’s group that inspired him to create and lead his own, fostering spaces for vulnerability and connection. With a focus on inclusivity, Jonathan’s practice supports clients across the gender and queer spectrum, offering guidance for those feeling stuck, disconnected, or seeking growth in mindfulness and meditation. Known for his deep presence, compassion, and curiosity, Jonathan creates a supportive environment for clarity, growth, and ease.

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Quotes:

Jonathan: – Learning to listen gives you your compass towards what feels like good community.

Context: Jonathan highlights the significance of self-listening as a guiding principle in finding and nurturing healthy community connections.

LaTonya: – It’s almost like when we do our workshop, like if we exude that the whole time and we’re not reacting, then we get that effect from other people.

Context: LaTonya reflects on the impact of maintaining a calm demeanor during workshops, suggesting that it encourages similar responses from participants.

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Resources from today’s episode:

– You can learn more about Jonathan at his website: https://www.jfgcoaching.co/

– Learn more about the Change Coaches Coaching Sprint here or email [email protected]

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Transcript:

**00:00:00** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Exciting news! The Leading Below the Surface podcast is now available on YouTube. You can stream your favorite episodes on your smartphone or watch them in video format. Visit our Change Coaches YouTube page to subscribe and not miss an episode. If you want to close the year strong, our Change Coaches offerings include retreat facilitation and leadership accelerators. Check out Changecoaches IE for more information or email us at [email protected] to find out how we can support you and your organization in 2024 and beyond.

**00:00:52** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast, where we explore how to navigate and thrive in today’s changing workplace. I’m LaTonya Wilkins, your host, founder and CEO of Change Coaches, and author of Leading Below the Surface. I’m excited to welcome our guest today, Jonathan Gutierrez.

**00:01:23** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Jonathan is one of our coaches at Change Coaches. We’ve spent extended time together serving clients and delivered a week-long workshop. I know his favorite snacks and schedules. He knows a lot about bats, which surprised me at first.

**00:01:50** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Jonathan is a spiritual person and very calm, which impressed me given his knowledge about bats. I’m excited to discuss Somatics with him. As we record this in late December 2024, people are starting to think about next year. We hope to provide practices to prepare for 2025. If you’re listening later, this will serve as a primer on somatic coaching, whether you’re a coach, curious about it, or interested in mindfulness and well-being. Jonathan, what did I miss?

**00:02:35** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Oh wow. That was pretty good. I’m glad you remembered the bats. That was fun.

**00:02:44** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Would you care to tell that story? I think it’s a very interesting place to start and relevant to our discussion today.

**00:02:52** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** So wait, the story of us in the bats and Cape Cod or the story of me in the bat? Both.

**00:02:57** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Yeah. How did you know that was a bat?

**00:03:04** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** I’ll give some background. We did a week-long retreat in Cape Cod, which went really well. It was the first time we met LaTonya, and we both noted we were shorter than we thought. They had us at an Airbnb in a marsh with bats flying around, diving for insects.

**00:03:26** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** I knew they were bats because I live in Tucson, Arizona, where we have bats. I visited hot springs a couple of hours outside Tucson, where bats live in an old barn. Every day at sunset, the bats swarm out, creating a beautiful experience. If you’re brave, you can sit in the barn as they do this.

**00:03:51** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** A few friends and I sat in the barn, and the bats swirled around us before flying out as the sun set. That’s how I know about bats.

**00:04:03** – **LaTonya Wilkins** You explained that perfectly. Do you mind if I mention your spiritual experience with bats?

**00:04:12** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Go ahead.

**00:04:14** – **LaTonya Wilkins** You were in a cave, and you let them fly at you. You stood there and felt it was spiritual. I would have probably run out. What helped you stay there, and why did you find it spiritual?

**00:04:34** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** I think the practice of somatics and meditation helped. I’ve been meditating since I was 11 or 12 years old. Through that practice, I learned to stay calm and grounded, which allows me to be with experiences without reacting strongly.

**00:05:03** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Developing that capacity makes life more interesting. When bats fly around, I can feel the experience without getting overwhelmed. It becomes a spiritual experience, feeling the presence of these living creatures around me.

**00:05:34** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Spiritual.

**00:05:35** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I need to work on that. I was recently in Costa Rica and saw sloths, which I found very calming. They also showed us spiders, and I want to work on my fear of them. Maybe my goal for 2025 is to handle exposure better.

**00:06:00** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Maybe it’s even somatics.

**00:06:02** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Yes.

**00:06:03** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Certain things still scare me, like how spiders look. I love hiking and camping, but having them fly around me is still challenging. Let’s all work towards overcoming that fear. For those afraid of spiders, I understand. I’m going to work on it too, as Jonathan suggested.

**00:06:31** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I met you at the mindfulness coaching school, where I first learned about mindfulness and somatics. We also did EMDR, which was interesting.

**00:06:55** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I took an EMDR class. What are somatics, and are they only for certain people? I’m interested in your experience with somatics and the types of people who usually engage with them.

**00:07:20** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Somatics are not just for specific types of people. It’s a complex topic, but we won’t delve into that now.

**00:07:37** – **LaTonya Wilkins** That’s a whole other podcast. I could discuss that extensively.

**00:07:42** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Somatics comes from the Greek word soma, which means body. The somatic approach focuses on becoming aware of what is happening in the body. Interoception refers to the ability to feel and sense inside the body. We have nerve endings and pathways throughout our body that we can activate with practice.

**00:08:11** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** For example, I can ask myself what my heart feels right now. When I see a spider on the wall, I can pause and feel inward. How does my body respond? Is my heart beating faster? Is my stomach tight? Am I getting sweaty? Noticing these bodily responses can teach us a lot, and that’s a quick definition of somatic work.

**00:08:59** – **LaTonya Wilkins** It sounds like somatics applies to everyday life, not just to those exploring New Age concepts. I read studies indicating that somatic experiences or traumatic experiences can be stored in the body. I enjoy the work of Young Pooyloow, especially his book “The Way Forward.” He discusses being around people who affect our nervous system. Would that also be an example of somatics? How would you advise people to approach that?

**00:09:50** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** The human body and experience are relational. We are social creatures, and while our physical body ends at our skin, we impact each other beyond that.

**00:10:13** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** We affect each other. When a mom holds a baby and remains calm, the baby calms down. This relational energy works over Zoom as well. My calm nervous system helps relax my clients, and we become who we are around.

**00:10:33** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** This is part of somatics because our bodies and nervous systems react to external stimuli. My work as a somatic coach involves becoming aware of how your body reacts to the world and how the world reacts to your body and experience. This information can influence and change how we live our lives.

**00:11:04** – **LaTonya Wilkins** It’s interesting that we respond to others. There’s an ideology around highly sensitive people. I tend to go to bed early and avoid large crowds. I get stressed at concerts and often leave early to avoid the rush because I feel sensitive. How would you respond to that?

**00:11:41** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I wish everyone in my life would respond like I do and help create calm situations. What would you say to those who don’t experience that? I appreciate the example with the baby, but in romantic relationships or friendships, one person may be calm while the other is not. Is it that they are unable to respond?

**00:12:19** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** That’s a good question. It depends on the person and the relationship. We have the most control over ourselves and our experiences. Staying in tune with your own experience in a centered way and being authentic and taking care of yourself does ripple out, even if it’s not immediately obvious.

**00:13:03** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** If you are good at that practice, it will ripple out to your partner. If you go to bed at this time and it matters to you, it will impact the people in your house. The more you can stay with that, the better. It is hard.

**00:13:26** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Our country and the world move at a fast pace that is chaotic and leads to anxiety. It takes work, commitment, and daily small practices to keep yourself centered.

**00:13:53** – **LaTonya Wilkins** When you say that, I hear you. It’s like in our workshop; if we exude calmness and do not react, we get that effect from others. We’ve heard that when we show patience, others can be patient with us. Being intentional about relationships and responses is important.

**00:14:24** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I’m a research nerd, and there aren’t many studies on somatics. I use them wisely in my coaching because not everyone is patient. People are often more interested in visualizations.

**00:14:46** – **LaTonya Wilkins** This leads to my next question. How can somatics provide more clarity? People are considering visualization and mindfulness as tactics for the new year. What is the relationship between those two?

**00:15:16** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Visualization is a powerful tool, and I like to link it with somatics. This is what comes to mind for me to answer, especially for the new year.

**00:15:34** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** I just did a workshop for the holiday season right before this call. It focused on finding more ease and intention over the holidays. I had everyone close their eyes and visualize themselves at the holidays with their family. I asked them to put themselves in that room, smelling the scents and seeing the lights. Once they were there, I asked how their bodies felt.

**00:16:09** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** One participant noted that their shoulders went up because their mom frustrated them. They felt tightness in their chest and throat. When this happens, they tend to respond rudely to their mom. I encouraged them to visualize taking care of themselves by leaving the interaction, going to their room, and taking a few deep breaths.

**00:16:44** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** I asked them to connect back to their intention of being loving towards their mom. They noticed their shoulders relaxed and their breathing slowed, helping them feel more grounded.

**00:16:59** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** They mentioned they would lay down for five minutes before going back out.

**00:17:03** – **LaTonya Wilkins** The part that really stuck with me is that many people can relate to having difficult family members. Imagining being in that situation and being successful is significant.

**00:17:25** – **LaTonya Wilkins** What is the somatic part of that, and what is its significance?

**00:17:32** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** The somatic part involves noticing how your body responds to the situation. Many people experience physical reactions like raised shoulders, tight chests, sweating, and feelings of anxiety, which often manifest as jitteriness. However, they may not be aware of these responses as they occur below conscious awareness. The somatic piece is about becoming aware of how your body reacts.

**00:18:03** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Most people aren’t aware of their body’s responses. We often focus on our thoughts, like feeling annoyed, but our bodies also feel that annoyance. The somatic piece involves recognizing this connection. When you become aware, it serves as an early warning sign; for example, you might start sweating or notice your shoulders tense up.

**00:18:29** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Once you recognize these signs and practice awareness, you can notice changes in your body, like your shoulders tensing up, and then take care of yourself.

**00:18:42** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Yes, it’s about awareness.

**00:18:46** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Exactly. The somatic piece builds awareness of how your body responds to situations. Once you recognize your body’s response, you can determine what it needs for care.

**00:19:01** – **LaTonya Wilkins** That’s interesting. We’re going to discuss some exercises, so stay tuned. You spend a lot of time coaching. How does this apply to the business world?

**00:19:23** – **LaTonya Wilkins** For instance, consider a leader who wants to create a better or more productive team, or a leader who is afraid to deliver critical feedback. How can they use somatics to navigate this?

**00:19:53** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** That’s a great example. A leader afraid to give critical feedback faces a challenge that seems simple yet is difficult to execute.

**00:20:08** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** This is why coaching is valuable; it’s hard to do alone. To keep it simple for the podcast audience, we can use visualization. Let’s take a few deep breaths together. Visualize yourself sitting across from the person to whom you will give critical feedback.

**00:20:37** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** In that moment, scan your body and see what’s alive in you. You may feel fear, which often causes you to huddle forward, tighten your chest, or quiet your voice. Recognize this and consider how to meet it in a healthier way. Accept that it’s going to happen and open up.

**00:21:10** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Assume a positive posture. When we practice in an embodied and self-compassionate way, we can learn why we have this pattern. Your body can teach you where this is coming from.

**00:21:30** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Identify the protective mechanism that causes you to lean forward. You can practice visualization in different situations. When the moment comes and you’re leading a meeting, you’ll be ready and open, with a good posture.

**00:21:54** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** I’ve practiced feeling this fear and know how to meet it.

**00:22:05** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Knowing what that feels like is important. What does it feel like after you do it? I’m curious about the questions that arise.

**00:22:21** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** You can learn from the experience by fully feeling it. Once you learn from that, you can change the pattern.

**00:22:35** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Before we move to exercises, how can we address the concern about community? It’s a priority for many people. This year, community is a key focus for me and will continue to be important due to technology’s impact. While we use AI frequently, it often leads to isolation and loneliness. Community is essential.

**00:23:20** – **LaTonya Wilkins** How can we use social systems to create healthier and more connected communities?

**00:23:29** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** What a good question.

**00:23:32** – **LaTonya Wilkins** It’s a hard one.

**00:23:34** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Hard, right?

**00:23:38** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I know you don’t have all the answers, so we can just talk about it. This is a fantastic practice.

**00:23:48** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** What comes to mind is what it feels like to be in a good community. I think of a sense of belonging and connection. What does it feel like when that’s not there? It feels like isolation and spinning your own thoughts without bouncing off others.

**00:24:18** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Finding things that give you that feeling of belonging is important. Sometimes we get stuck on what we need or what the community will look like. For me, it’s about being grounded in the present moment. I want to feel belonging and connection.

**00:24:34** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** What does that feel like? It feels warm and nice. Do things that lead to that feeling of belonging and try to create that in your life. That’s the first step.

**00:25:01** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Yes.

**00:25:01** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** It can be different.

**00:25:03** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Writing that down. As I build my community, some people don’t make me feel safe. There’s something that feels repelling, like magnets not attracting. I need to learn to listen to myself when that happens. I used to think I should give them another chance.

**00:25:45** – **LaTonya Wilkins** For example, if I’m at a networking event and feel uncomfortable, I just walk away. Why stay if they make you feel that way?

**00:25:59** – **LaTonya Wilkins** But is that even possible? I think about that a lot. What if we could just walk away? If it’s your team or organization, what do you think about that? Believing that leads to a place of abundance over scarcity. A lot of us think, if I walk away from this networking event, who will I talk to?

**00:26:23** – **LaTonya Wilkins** What’s next? Did I waste my time?

**00:26:27** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Yeah.

**00:26:27** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Is this like, what’s next? Did I waste my time?

**00:26:32** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** There are a couple of important points you made. One is learning to listen to yourself. When you feel the magnet repelling or you don’t feel safe, that’s what we’re all touching on. If you’re not tuned in or practiced enough to listen to yourself, then you won’t know. Even if the magnets are pulling together, if you can’t listen, you won’t recognize it.

**00:27:07** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** If you feel scared and unsafe but you’re not listening, that’s how you can really find your compass. Learning to listen gives you your compass towards what feels like good community. The other piece around walking away is challenging. I’ve been playing with that a lot myself. What has worked for me is leaning into trust and abundance. I need to trust that if I follow that compass, it will lead me to the next thing that’s more in alignment. Just listen to the compass, follow it, and trust. Miraculous things happen when you do that, as Michael Singer discusses.

**00:27:57** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** That’s the way to go.

**00:27:59** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Yeah, we like that. We like him.

**00:28:04** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Trust yourself helps you learn to listen to your inner compass.

**00:28:11** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I also have the book you told me to read. It’s on my shelf. I’ve started flipping through it, but it was Surrender Experiment. I have that one too. The UntetherED Soul is probably one of the reasons I started my business.

**00:28:36** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Originals by Adam Grant were instrumental. Jonathan loves the Surrender Experiment, which I plan to explore over the holidays.

**00:28:47** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Okay.

**00:28:51** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Let’s get into some exercises. What’s an exercise we could engage in now that others can join us for?

**00:29:07** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Folks, put whatever you’re doing aside. If you’re at the gym or multitasking, you may want to pause this and watch it on YouTube to do this with us. What’s the activity? Let’s do it.

**00:29:23** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Yeah.

**00:29:24** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Hmm.

**00:29:24** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Since it’s the end of the year and we’re approaching 2025, I think it could be cool to do a visualization around the new year and what we want to achieve, combined with some somatics. What does this feel like? How does that sound?

**00:29:44** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Yeah, let’s do it. This can apply to any new endeavor you want to try but feel afraid to pursue.

**00:29:55** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Okay, let’s do it.

**00:29:57** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** You want to try something that feels right? Something you want to work towards? How much time do we have, Latonya?

**00:30:04** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** How much time should I use for this?

**00:30:06** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Let’s do five minutes.

**00:30:07** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Five minutes?

**00:30:08** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Yes.

**00:30:08** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** All right, so we’ll do five minutes. I invite you all to find a comfortable place to sit down. If you’re walking, you can continue, but try to slow down what you’re doing.

**00:30:30** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** This will just be five minutes. Anything I say is an invitation, and you can ignore me if it doesn’t feel right. Let’s close our eyes if you feel comfortable.

**00:30:45** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** If you don’t feel comfortable closing your eyes, look down at your table or the ground with a soft gaze. This will last five minutes, so take a couple of deep breaths to help you settle. Think about your year, next year, or something you want to call in. A good prompt is, how do you want to show up for this thing?

**00:31:32** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Maybe it’s a meeting, a workplace goal, or how you want to interact with colleagues in a certain situation. Picture yourself at this event, seeing the people around you, smelling the smells, and feeling the feelings.

**00:32:15** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Now, focus on your body. This is called interoception. Feel your shoulders, neck, jaw, chest, and stomach. Notice what it feels like to be in this future experience. Identify where you feel the strongest sensations and emotions.

**00:32:36** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Notice the texture or emotion of this experience. Ask yourself, what does my body need in this situation? Without overthinking, see what the answer is. Consider how you can honor this need for your future goal. It might involve self-care, growth, or speaking up more.

**00:34:16** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Picture yourself honoring that need. Visualize yourself doing that thing, whether it’s laying down, going for a walk, or getting more sunshine.

**00:34:33** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** As you honor your need, feel your body again. Notice how your chest, stomach, and shoulders feel. Recognize this as you honoring the intuition and wisdom your body provided.

**00:34:57** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** This is you listening to your inner compass. Take three deep breaths to start to close, really sigh it out, and begin to move your body again.

**00:35:29** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Are you moving your neck and shoulders? You can open your eyes if you want. You could write down what that need was and how you’re going to honor it to remember.

**00:35:53** – **LaTonya Wilkins** For those watching on YouTube, I did the whole exercise and hopefully you feel as centered as I do. Can I share my example?

**00:36:09** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Yes, please.

**00:36:10** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Others can email us your example if you’d like. We put our contact information in the show notes, and you can also comment on YouTube. For me, I felt like my body needed abundance, to feel that this could happen. Reflection will help me do that.

**00:36:46** – **LaTonya Wilkins** It’s not a quick fix, but it’s an answer.

**00:36:53** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** What do you need to reflect on?

**00:37:03** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I think naming my past successes is important. Reminding myself how great those were and that they worked. I sometimes fall into negativity, which I think we all do.

**00:37:37** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I need to jot down all the things. I’m also taking some space for a yoga retreat, so I have time for that. Feeding my body with good energy is what I need.

**00:38:04** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Totally.

**00:38:05** – **LaTonya Wilkins** That comes from yoga and reflection. Some of yours might be different. Jonathan, do you have an example that comes up for you?

**00:38:16** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Thank you for sharing that. It’s helpful for the listeners. I’ll reflect back what I heard. Your body needed abundance and expansion. To achieve that, you need to reflect on your past successes, write them down, and that will help you feel more abundant and expansive.

**00:38:50** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** This tool helps by allowing us to listen to our bodies. I don’t have a specific example right now.

**00:39:02** – **LaTonya Wilkins** That’s okay.

**00:39:04** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** For example, someone in the workshop expressed a desire to feel more loving and caring towards her family. Her body indicated that she could achieve this by taking care of herself and taking breaks. As a mom, I often feel obligated to keep busy during the holidays, but I can be more loving and caring if I take those breaks.

**00:39:32** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** This wisdom from her body shows how we learn to listen and grow.

**00:39:42** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I love that. Understanding what that need is and how to fill it is important.

**00:39:51** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Yes.

**00:39:52** – **LaTonya Wilkins** We need to wrap up, but I want to share about the mindfulness videos on your webpage or the audio resources.

**00:40:08** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Audio, yes.

**00:40:10** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Audiocasts. Please tell us about that and other resources related to Somatics, and how we can contact you.

**00:40:18** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** To summarize the practice in one sentence: first, feel your body and notice what’s going on. Ask your body what it needs, then ask yourself how you can meet that need. The two questions are: what do I need right now? How can I meet that need? This will support you on your journey.

**00:40:37** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** On my website, which we will link, jfgcoaching.co, I have recorded guided meditations and visualizations on various topics, including grounding and somatic exercises. These are short, around five to ten minutes, and can be very supportive.

**00:41:17** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** I conduct a monthly free online workshop focused on different tools or topics. Recently, I covered GroundING and this month, I focused on Setting Intentions for the Holidays. These workshops are a great way to learn new somatic tools.

**00:41:42** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** We practice live during the call for an hour, and I provide some live coaching as well. This is a way to engage with the experience.

**00:41:51** – **LaTonya Wilkins** That sounds great. How can people find out about these workshops? Is it on your website?

**00:41:59** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Yes, you can visit my website. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you will receive updates directly.

**00:42:05** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I need to subscribe. I’m not sure if I’m on your list.

**00:42:08** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** I will subscribe.

**00:42:10** – **LaTonya Wilkins** People often hesitate to subscribe. I’ve experienced that too. I receive LinkedIn messages from people saying they didn’t know about certain updates.

**00:42:22** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I will subscribe to your newsletter. We won’t spam you, and you can unsubscribe anytime. Please subscribe to Jonathan as well.

**00:42:39** – **LaTonya Wilkins** I hope everyone leaves with at least one tactic to share with their teams. This tool can be beneficial in various situations.

**00:42:53** – **Jonathan Gutierrez** Thank you for having me, LaTonya. This was enjoyable.

**00:42:56** – **LaTonya Wilkins** Thank you, everyone. We’ll see you next time.

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Connect with us: 

Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Learn more about ⁠Change Coaches⁠ 

Follow LaTonya on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Follow Change Coaches on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

In this enlightening episode of the Leading Below the Surface podcast, host LaTonya Wilkins chats with Maha Abouelenein, bestselling author of Seven Rules of Self-Reliance,” as they explore the core principles of self-reliant leadership and how investing in oneself can empower personal and professional growth. Discover actionable strategies for creating value for others, the significance of treating your reputation as currency, and the importance of fostering meaningful connections through a “service-oriented” networking approach. Tune in to learn why self-reliant leadership isn’t selfish but a powerful way to enhance your contributions in both your personal and professional life!

Topics explored include: Reputation Management, Career Development, Building Meaningful Connections, Building Meaningful Connections, Book Launches

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Quotes:

Self-reliance is not about not needing anybody or not needing help – it’s about empowering yourself and investing in yourself first.

Don’t go for the ask first – be a long-term player.

Treat your reputation like a currency; know what it worth and its value;

Seek to know what others value and focus on delivering that.

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Resources from today’s episode:

– Change Coaches Guide to Create Psychological Safe Conversations Across Differences

– Change Coaches Newsletter

– Leading Below the Surface LinkedIn Newsletter

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Transcript:

A: LaTonya Wilkins

B: Maha Abouelenein

00:00 A Welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast, where we explore how to navigate and thrive in today’s changing workplace. Hello everyone, I’m your host, LaTonuya WWilkins, and I’m excited for our guest today.

00:01:17 – A She is the author of The Seven Rules of Self-Reliance and has an interesting career, having worked with notable people, including Gary Vee. She was introduced to me through a friend from different social circles. I welcome Maha. Maha, how are you today?

00:01:46 – B I’m so grateful to be here. How are you?

00:01:48 – A Good. We’re recording this right before the US Thanksgiving holiday, so I’m looking forward to some time off. How about yourself?

00:02:02 – B I love turkey and football. It’s my favorite way to spend a day off in sweatpants, watching television, playing games with family, and just relaxing. The best part about taking a break is that everyone else is on break.

00:02:20 – A Right.

00:02:20 – B No one is looking for you. It’s hard to disconnect when the office is still running. During Thanksgiving, everyone can completely disconnect, making it a special time of the year.

00:02:38 – A Yeah. So who is your team? You mentioned football.

00:02:42 – B I’m a huge sports junkie. I’m from Minnesota, so I represent the Vikings.

00:02:48 – A Okay.

00:02:49 – B I love watching the Vikings. My favorite player is Josh Allen from the Buffalo Bills. I’m a huge Swifty, so I keep an eye on Travis Kelsey. My team is definitely the Vikings, but I enjoy following certain players and seeing what they’re up to.

00:03:11 – A That’s interesting. I’m a Bears fan, unfortunately. I’ve been a fan since the 80s.

00:03:18 – B Those were the days of the Bears with Mike Ditka, the Refrigerator Perry, and Jim McMahon. The Bears were the team.

00:03:31 – A Yeah, that era never returned. We deal with a lot of disappointment. We’re cautiously optimistic about Caleb Williams, but we’ll see. There’s a lot of pressure.

00:03:47 – B A new rookie in a new system with changing offensive coordinators and coaches faces a lot of pressure, especially as the number one draft pick. He’ll find his rhythm.

00:04:00 – A We’ll see. Hopefully. You’ve been on a book tour, right? How’s that been going?

00:04:09 – B I learned that writing a book is easy, but selling it is hard. The publishing world is very different from digital media and communication. The learning process was a big curve for me.

00:04:25 – B I did a book tour in New York, Miami, LA, Chicago, DC, Dubai, and Riyadh. I engaged in press, bookstore signings, talks, and podcasts to reach as many audiences as possible. It’s been so much fun.

00:04:48 – A What has been your favorite part? I loved the signings and bookstore talks during my book tour.

00:05:01 – B I visited a bookstore in Miami called Books and Books in Coral Gables, one of the oldest bookstores in the country. It felt like a library with wall-to-wall books and ladders. Having conversations with readers about the book was really fun. My favorite part of the tour was visiting the bookstores.

00:05:28 – B Every time I went into a bookstore, I bought books and carried more books. I love holding, collecting, and underlining my books. Many people can’t borrow my books because I’ve marked them up and dog-eared the pages. It’s been fun.

00:05:46 – A Oh great. That’s a blast.

00:05:48 – B What about you? What did you love about your book launches?

00:05:51 – A The biggest thing was the readings at bookstores or walking into my neighborhood bookstore and seeing my book there. I also enjoyed doing keynotes where people would come up for me to sign their books, which were often marked up. That was my favorite part.

00:06:16 – A But as we discussed before, it’s not all great. It’s hard launching a book.

00:06:26 – B Hard launching a book.

00:06:27 – A Yeah.

00:06:27 – B I’ll share two fun stories. One is when I was flying from Miami to Chicago. As I got off the plane, I noticed a gentleman in front of me reading my book. It was a meta moment for me. He had been reading it for four hours.

00:06:40 – B I asked him how the book was, and he said it was incredible. He showed me all the post-it notes and underlining he did during the flight. When I told him I wrote that book, it was a weird and rewarding moment. He realized I was the author and knew a lot about me.

00:07:17 – B He wanted to ask me about several things. That was a fun moment. One time, I went into a Barnes and Noble and asked for a book called Seven Rules of Self Reliance. I waited for her to look it up and walk us to the spot to find it. It was the first time after my book came out that I went into a bookstore to see it.

00:07:42 – B It felt surreal. They recognized me as the author, and I signed some books in the store. They even put a sticker on them saying “author.”

00:07:52 – A Wow.

00:07:52 – B I was worried they might not have it. We were filming with my niece, and I thought, what if we get there and they say they don’t have any copies? But they had it, so it was great.

00:08:05 – A Yeah, isn’t that fun? It reminds me of when I launched my book and went to conferences where people asked me to sign their books. It was surprising to see people recognize me. I went to the grocery store in Chicago recently, and someone whose book I had signed elsewhere was there. We talked, and it’s a small world. I feel so grateful.

00:08:40 – B I’ve noticed that books are becoming more respected and appreciated. People are tired of screen fatigue and want quiet time to read and learn. There’s a resurgence in genres that weren’t popular before, like romantic fantasy novels. People enjoy reading again and value that solitude.

00:09:14 – B People appreciate that quiet time and solitude. We spend so much time on our computers and social media.

00:09:23 – B Spending time with a book, even just 10 minutes a day, is becoming a trend. People enjoy buying, collecting, and reading books. This trend highlights the value of holding a book and reading it, creating a meditative process. You can read on a plane, at home, or by the fireplace during a long holiday weekend. Finding time to learn through books is important.

00:09:57 – A That’s not surprising because of the prevalence of AI.

00:10:04 – A When you mentioned fantasy, I think people seek something novel and authentic. I participated in a LinkedIn Top Voices video session where we discussed the power of video. LinkedIn noted that video content is skyrocketing because people prefer hearing from those who are in the field daily rather than major news outlets.

00:10:34 – A People want genuine voices, not AI-generated content. I love seeing this shift.

00:10:41 – A I would like to discuss your book. I’ve been looking through it, and the title caught my attention. For me, “leaning below the surface” represents empathy and connection. When I saw “self-reliance,” I thought it sounded selfish. Can we discuss that?

00:11:06 – B The term “self” often puts people off, suggesting selfishness. The book, titled “7 Rules of Self Reliance,” may seem like a guide to independence, but it actually conveys the opposite message.

00:11:24 – B It’s about empowering yourself and investing in yourself first. Before asking for something from your employer or your team as an entrepreneur, consider how you can rely on yourself. Can you build relationships? Are you good at networking? Are you building your personal brand and reputation? Are you creating value for others? Are you creating the opportunities you want to see in your life? Self-reliance is about taking responsibility for what you can do and what you want to see in your life.

00:12:07 – B Many times, we wait for permission from others. We expect others to bring opportunities or invest in us when we have the capability to do it ourselves. This is the new playbook for operating in today’s world: do for yourself first before asking others for help.

00:12:29 – A I was thinking that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. Is that correct?

00:12:36 – B Not at all.

00:12:36 – A Great.

00:12:37 – B If you want something done, invest in yourself so you can be of value to others. One chapter is called Be a Value Creator. How can you rely on yourself to create value for others? Anticipate needs and deliver what they may not know they need. A simple question can be, “How can I help?” What are your interests? What challenges are you facing? Can I introduce you to someone who might assist you? I rely on myself to bring value.

00:13:19 – B I don’t expect others to hand it to me so I can pass it on to you.

00:13:23 – A That’s different. I was raised to go after what you want. My working-class background instilled a mentality of relying on yourself, hard work, and not waiting for others to act for you, while also asking for what you need. What inspired you to write a book about this? Was there a specific event in your life?

00:13:52 – B I have worked for 30 years, 20 years as an entrepreneur. I held two full-time jobs, one at General Mills and Sports Marketing, and another at Google Header Communications and Global Public Policy in Dubai. When I looked at the throughline of my career, I identified key lessons. I relied on myself to find answers, my skills, my experience, my relationships, and my knowledge.

00:14:22 – B These are the four key elements I consider when I think about holding all the cards in my hand. For example, networking is often daunting and difficult. How do I network through social media, LinkedIn, or Zoom calls? I realized the importance of building my own network. If I need something, I prefer not to ask others for their network to get it done for my client. I want to rely on myself to build relationships and my network.

00:15:08 – B Having a network is not about asking for favors or getting tickets to a game or a job for a relative. It’s about serving my network, showing up for them, and nurturing those relationships so they can bring me into their network. I believe there are two currencies in this world: having the right relationships and maintaining a good reputation.

00:15:27 – B A good reputation and personal brand attract opportunities. They allow me to open doors for myself and my network and create value for others. It involves a push and pull; I must work hard to ensure people know who I am and what I do, or if I have a reputation for delivering results, opportunities will come to me.

00:15:51 – A I love this example about networking. Can we dive into this a little more? I always talk about networking below the surface, but how do people leverage their network or work towards the big ask, like a significant introduction or a raise? What advice can you give folks reflecting on the rules of self-reliance?

00:16:24 – B Don’t go for the ask first. Think about it in a couple of ways. Be a long-term player.

00:16:33 – B Make continuous deposits in someone’s trust bank so you can make that withdrawal later. Focus on building a relationship, getting to know them, serving them, or introducing them to someone. Send them an article; be of value first. I don’t like the give-and-take model where you do something to get something in return.

00:16:57 – B Think of it as a long-term play. If you want to build a relationship with a powerful person, take a couple of steps back. Build equity in the relationship and think about how to serve your network. When you approach relationships with a giving mindset, you set a better foundation than if you focus on taking.

00:17:27 – A It’s like the give-and-take model from Adam Grant, and it matters.

00:17:32 – B It really matters. If you can be someone people rely on, trust, and consistently deliver results for them, then you can make the ask. I don’t create a relationship to get the ask right away. I think about how to create value for them. Should I connect them to someone? Could I be a super connector? Help them unlock a problem they care about? This shows you’re intentional, listening, and value the relationship.

00:18:05 – B It also shows you’re not there for a hit-and-run. You’re not just taking what you need and leaving. You’re trying to consistently show up for them in a meaningful way.

00:18:16 – A What would you say to someone who feels that it takes too long? They might say they’ve sent five articles or things to add value, but this person still isn’t noticing them. What would you say?

00:18:35 – B It happens. You consistently show up for someone, and they don’t deliver. How did you frame the ask? Did you provide reasonable information? Often, people say they need help but aren’t specific about what they need or if it’s time-sensitive.

00:18:54 – B You have to be specific about your ask and the relationship to what you’re trying to create. Networking is a transparent process. You’ll know right away if someone can help or not. I treat my networks the same way they treat me. If I can help, I do.

00:19:18 – B If I can’t help, I say so. I might think of someone who can assist. Be honest about your capabilities to avoid stringing someone along.

00:19:29 – A I love that. It’s surprising how many people don’t ask. I do that too. I wonder why someone isn’t noticing me. Then a friend asks what I asked for, and I realize I didn’t ask for anything specific.

00:19:55 – A It’s a step you have to be intentional about.

00:20:00 – B I was going to read you something for the book. About being a long-term player, seek to know what others value and focus on delivering that. Create value behind the scenes. What can bring someone behind the scenes?

00:20:17 – B Let me give you an example. We are on this podcast today. I will create value for you behind the scenes. How do I build my relationship with you? Is it sharing the podcast with my audience? Is it asking friends to subscribe to my friend’s podcast because I love this show and believe you’ll gain insights from it?

00:20:40 – B Is it connecting you to a guest you want on a future show? That’s networking and adding value. Many people don’t consider networking beyond getting a job or making an introduction.

00:20:53 – B It could be as simple as spending 10 minutes a day networking on social media, sharing friends’ posts, commenting on their activities, and staying attentive to what’s important to them. Are they traveling? What events are they speaking at? Can I help promote their work? This requires little time and no money, and it shows up for people consistently. Can you allocate 10 minutes in your calendar to network on LinkedIn, Instagram, or your preferred platform to create value for your network?

00:21:29 – B That’s what I’m talking about.

00:21:30 – A It’s like the saying that the people who talk about you when you’re not in the room are the ones you want in your life. I’ve had referrals from people like that, and I was surprised.

00:21:48 – B Behind the scenes is where you didn’t expect it. That’s where the intentional relationships create value for you without you even asking.

00:22:02 – A What are the rules? What are the seven rules? Let’s go through those.

00:22:06 – B The first rule is to stay low and keep moving. We live in a world full of distractions. If you have a goal that you care about, how much time do you dedicate to focusing on it without getting distracted by clients, family, or other aspects of life? Can you carve out time to focus on what you need to do?

00:22:31 – B Staying low doesn’t mean being low profile. It means being self-reliant. To achieve your goals, you need to focus and recognize the distractions in the world today.

00:22:44 – A I love the idea of staying low. Is disconnecting from too much political news part of that? Or scrolling too much on social media?

00:22:57 – B Yes, it can consume a lot of time. If you sit in front of your inbox all day, you take on other people’s priorities, which can corrupt your day. I like to close my inbox for an hour to focus on my writing. Otherwise, I just respond to others all day, which distracts me from my goals.

00:23:24 – B It’s important to know when to turn off distractions to focus and keep moving. You will face distractions, setbacks, and urgent matters. You need the mindset to put your head down and get the work done.

00:23:43 – B Many people want to put in hard work but worry about recognition or credit. If you do the hard work, it will speak for itself. Rule number one is to stay low and keep moving. Rule number two is to be a value creator. Consider what you can do to create value for others. Is it helping them unlock something for their business, making an introduction, sharing an idea, or providing support? Small actions can lead to significant impacts. Think about how you can create value for your family.

00:24:13 – B What can I do to create value for my colleagues and customers? Find a value chain or value proposition for them. That’s rule number two. Rule number three is crucial: don’t be a waiter. We’re often waiting.

00:24:34 – B We’re waiting to lose weight, waiting for more money, waiting for everything to align. We fear failure and seek permission from others.

00:24:43 – B We get stuck in analysis paralysis, trying to make decisions. When you’re waiting, you sit in your comfort zone, hoping things will get right. The ducks won’t be in a row. Take the first step.

00:24:59 – B Many people realize they’ve been waiters, waiting for opportunities instead of nudging them along themselves. They wait for permission.

00:25:12 – A I relate to waiting for permission. Earlier as an entrepreneur, I waited for clients to respond, hinging my business success on two people instead of seeking new opportunities.

00:25:37 – B Often, we wait for the right opportunity. Yesterday, I spoke with women in Minnesota who had business ideas but were waiting for the right moment to start. They knew what they wanted to do.

00:25:54 – B When I asked what they were waiting for, they realized it was fear of judgment. They worried about what others would think of their business.

00:26:07 – B I told them that’s a poor way to live. Everyone is on a different journey, and we judge ourselves more than others judge us.

00:26:21 – A Yes.

00:26:22 – B Rule number four: unlearn, relearn, and invest in yourself. Don’t wait for someone to invest in you, like waiting for a manager to take you to training for a promotion.

00:26:35 – B You can learn anything today on the Internet for free. YouTube videos, podcasts, and meetings with others to learn about their business or industry are all free. Consider how much time you spend each week or month learning something new.

00:26:52 – B Is it pickleball, ChatGPT, an application, photo editing skills, or graphic design? Whatever you’re passionate about, related to your job or not, should be part of your daily learning. We are living longer and making more money, which changes our relationship with time.

00:27:16 – B We need to prioritize learning. Unlearning involves identifying things that no longer serve us or are no longer true. For example, the idea that where you went to school dictates your future is outdated. Many companies no longer hire based on CVs or education; they look for empathy, kindness, teamwork, resourcefulness, and reliability.

00:27:43 – B The importance of soft skills in leadership and talent acquisition is something we need to unlearn. People from any industry can succeed in various roles without having specific skills from that industry.

00:28:15 – A This reminds me of the concept of unlearning, which is popular in coaching. It involves unlearning how you respond to certain situations or the expectations you hold, as these can limit you.

00:28:22 – A Remembering our longevity is important. We can have several careers in our lives today.

00:28:40 – B Careers are no longer linear. We don’t just do one thing. They want you to have a day job and interests outside of work because that gives you more perspective and insights. Inputs from multiple avenues make you a better person by providing information from various frameworks.

00:29:05 – B I like to learn from different creators. I switch up the podcasts I listen to to avoid getting stuck in one framework. The world is abundant, and it’s a great time to be alive. You can access rich content from various resources.

00:29:23 – B You can learn anything from anyone, from how they build their business to how they pack their suitcases. We have unlimited access to unfiltered broadcasts from anywhere.

00:29:41 – A Right. So all that free learning, what else? What’s the next one?

00:29:45 – B Rule number five, the biggest chapter of the book, is to treat your reputation like currency. Consider its worth and value. Replace the term personal brand with reputation. Everyone needs to think about their reputation. Do you make an effort to build, control, and invest in it to increase its value?

00:30:08 – B This chapter discusses how to build your reputation online and offline. How you treat people in real life is more important than how you treat them on social media. If you work at a company, consider your reputation. Are you resourceful? Are you a good team player? Are you a good listener? Make sure people know what you stand for. If you’re an entrepreneur, a strong reputation is essential to attract the right talent, investors, suppliers, or partners.

00:30:44 – B All of that matters. We live in a world of cancel culture. Your reputation is everything; it can vanish quickly, and one viral video can destroy your career. Pay attention to it, be intentional, and don’t think that you don’t need to worry about your reputation.

00:31:04 – B You’re wrong.

00:31:07 – A Your reputation is greater than your personal brand. The personal brand feels temporary and self-focused.

00:31:19 – B It’s not about self-promotion; it’s about idea promotion and thought leadership. Take a moment to think about your personal brand. What words would people use to describe you? What do you want your brand to represent? Identify what you want to be known for.

00:31:41 – A Right.

00:31:42 – B Rule number six is to be a long-term player. We live in a world that seeks instant gratification. Consider the long-term benefits of building relationships. This chapter discusses networking in today’s digital world.

00:32:07 – B It provides tips for entrepreneurs, introverts, and employees. For example, how to network within your organization, like at Target, to connect with people for lateral moves or future opportunities.

00:32:45 – B The last rule is to live with no regrets. Your life experiences do not define you; they are part of your story. Consider how to turn struggles into strengths and setbacks into comebacks. Reflect on what will fulfill you the most to avoid saying, “I would have, should have, could have.”

00:33:03 – A Regarding no regrets, what are your thoughts on self-compassion and forgiveness?

00:33:14 – B I think we are harder on ourselves than on others. Nobody judges you as much as you judge yourself. Self-compassion is important. We spend time avoiding negative self-talk and limiting beliefs. Most of the time, we doubt ourselves and our capabilities, thinking we can’t do something or lacking the confidence to try something new.

00:33:43 – B Mostly because you’ve never been asked to do it. You’d be surprised at what you’re capable of when you actually try. I learned that the hard way. Someone asked me to do something I thought I couldn’t do, and they challenged me by asking how I knew if I had never tried.

00:33:57 – B You have to put yourself in the arena to gain experience and understanding. You’ll learn about your capabilities and realize what you want to pursue or avoid. I went through that experience to learn. Self-compassion is a crucial part of self-reliance, helping you understand your capabilities, maintain self-awareness, know when to ask for help, and identify the areas you need to invest in.

00:34:27 – B That’s where it starts for me.

00:34:28 – A This is awesome. Let’s explore how to apply these principles. I have the book here. I want to take a crack at this before Maha does.

00:34:48 – A I love the idea of staying low and keeping moving. There are many distractions and FOMO. Sometimes we go on social media when we shouldn’t. We need to focus on our work and keep moving.

00:35:04 – A Being a value creator means understanding what that value looks like, especially in leadership. I also appreciate thinking of your reputation as currency. What do you know about your reputation, and what insights does that provide about where to focus? Sometimes, you may not be doing what your biggest fans want, and those are the people you add the most value to, but you might not be following that path.

00:35:38 – A You’re not flowing with that river. You’re seeking a different group of people. Understand your reputation and use it as a guide. How about you? What are some ways you would encourage people to apply these concepts?

00:35:53 – B It starts with managing your time. I have no meeting Wednesdays on my calendar to think and catch up. If you want to stay focused and avoid distractions, examine how you spend your week. Could you dedicate one hour on Sundays to learn or 30 minutes on Tuesday nights? Block time for what matters, just like you do for family, workouts, hobbies, or friends. Relationships are important. Find time in your busy week for these activities.

00:36:31 – B Investing in yourself is crucial. For me, it’s about optimizing my schedule and calendar. How I spend my time matters. Dedicating one hour a week adds up to four hours a month, which compounds into significant effort over the year.

00:36:55 – A That’s important. I noticed this week that some meetings were removed from my calendar. That one hour of unstructured time makes a big difference.

00:37:10 – B I discuss in the book how much effort it takes to do nothing.

00:37:17 – A I need to read that.

00:37:19 – B We often think we need to be busy and productive, but scheduling time to do nothing is important. I’m reflective and like to think through our actions. I ask if we’re doing things right or if we should focus on something new. I need time to think. If I’m constantly executing, I miss input from the market, trends, culture, and my team.

00:37:51 – B You need to pause.

00:37:53 – A Yeah.

00:37:54 – B To be a good writer or provide effective strategy, I need to gather information from multiple sources to feel well-read and well-versed on a topic.

00:38:06 – A Right. This has many valuable insights. How can people find you?

00:38:12 – A We’ll also include some information in the show notes.

00:38:15 – B I would love for people to follow me on LinkedIn and join my newsletter. I send out a weekly newsletter with useful tips. You can find me on social media under my name, Maha Abu Aln. It’s a bit challenging to spell.

00:38:27 – B You can also follow me on Instagram. I conduct workshops and offer free sessions to teach people how to gain publicity or start their own podcast. I want to connect with the community. If you read the book, tag me and share your favorite rule or the rule you plan to implement in 2025.

00:38:49 – B It’s exciting to see how people apply these rules. Each chapter includes reflection exercises, a cheat sheet, and a summary to help you implement the rules.

00:39:02 – A I plan to subscribe to the newsletter today because many insights resonate with me and I believe they will resonate with our clients as well. Thank you, Maha, for joining us.

00:39:17 – B Thank you.

00:39:18 – A I’m glad we connected. This is just the beginning of our relationship. Thank you to everyone watching or listening. This is a reminder that we are also on YouTube. You can find us on changecoaches.io and The Change Coaches YouTube channel for episodes of the Below the Surface podcast. Thank you, and we’ll see you next time.

00:39:39 – B Bye. Thank you.

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Connect with us: 

Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Learn more about ⁠Change Coaches⁠ 

Follow LaTonya on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Follow Change Coaches on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

In this episode of the Leading Below the Surface podcast, host LaTonya Wilkins engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Ryan Mayer, a certified ADHD coach and advocate for neurodiversity. Together, they explore the importance of understanding neurodiversity and its implications in the workplace. Ryan shares his personal experiences with ADHD and how it has shaped his mission to create inclusive environments for neurodivergent individuals. Listeners will gain insights into effective strategies for accommodating diverse cognitive perspectives, debunk common myths surrounding ADHD, and learn the significance of fostering open dialogues in organizational settings. This episode is a must-listen for leaders and individuals seeking to enhance inclusivity and productivity within their teams.

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Guest Bio:

Ryan Mayer, a certified ADHD Coach (MBA, ACC, DOBE), is dedicated to empowering adults with ADHD to achieve their full potential. Based in Cleveland, OH, he leverages personal experience and evidence-based techniques to develop tailored strategies for his clients. Specializing in corporate education and training, Coach Ryan aims to revolutionize workplace culture by advocating for neuroinclusion.Through his Conquer Your ADHDTM System, he helps business leaders and busy professionals thrive. Ryan hosts the More than ADHDTM podcast and his work has been featured in Employee Benefit News, Forbes, ADHD Online, and Fast Company. Outside of coaching, he enjoys basketball and non-fiction audiobooks. Ryan lives with his wife Andrea and their three children.

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Resources from today’s episode:

– Change Coaches Guide to Create Psychological Safe Conversations Across Differences

– Change Coaches Newsletter

– Leading Below the Surface LinkedIn Newsletter

– Follow Coach Ryan on YouTube

– Follow Coach Ryan on LinkedIn

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Transcript:

00:00:00 – LaTonya Wilkins

Are you wanting to close the year out strong? Our Change Coaches’ offerings include everything from retreat facilitation to leadership accelerators. Check out Changecoaches IE for more information or email us at infoangecoachesIO to find out how we can support you and your organization in 2024 and beyond. Welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast, where we go beyond the book and explore how to navigate and thrive in today’s changing workplace. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast. I’m Latanya Wilkins, your host, and today I have a guest, very special guest.

00:00:51 – LaTonya Wilkins

This guest I met at ICF, which is International Coaching Federation. They have a Midwest conference every two years. And I met Ryan at ICF  Midwest. We really clicked. We talked a lot.

00:01:07 – LaTonya Wilkins

We met at a couple different breakouts and sessions and we had a lot of really interesting discussions. One of the sessions we met at was around neurodiversity and so I invited Ryan to talk about this because he is an ADHD coach and so welcome Ryan.

00:01:28 – Ryan Mayer

LaTonya, thanks so much for having me. It’s great to see you again. I know both of us have had crazy schedules since the conference, and I just pulled this up in preparation for our conversation. And for those who might just be listening, this is the program we had from our Midwest conference. And the the title, the theme of it was Flow Boldly.

00:01:49 – Ryan Mayer

And before we hit record, Latania and I were just saying how neither of us is too worried about this because we’re just going to flow naturally in this thing, right?

00:01:56 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yes, yes, flowing. And this is like one of the strengths of theing Below the Surface podcast. It’s all about flowing. Some of you probably listened to our last episode on Improv, but anything you want to add to my intro? What else?

00:02:15 – Ryan Mayer

I am not just saying this because I’m on your podcast, but Latanya had a session around what this podcast is about, Leading under the Surface. And what does that mean? And it was just so impactful for me and the ability that Latanya has to get into the deeper topic with the audience or with her clients. You can just tell that she’s passionate about what she does. And so I knew that that was just the beginning of some exciting conversations we would have. And I wore the shirt to commemorate our first meeting and I was wearing this shirt and I remember I went to a.

00:02:57 – Ryan Mayer

I was staying in an Airbnb like a mile away from the hotel, so I had to hustle to get to her early morning session and my shirt says never Give up. Because for those of us who may identify as neurodivergent, we have to overcome a lot of obstacles every day, both in the workplace and at home. So I always make sure to spread the message to whoever needs to hear it today to just never give up.

00:03:24 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s such a timely message. Not giving up. It’s interesting because this morning I was telling my team, I’m like, yeah, this morning I did a meditation.

00:03:38 – LaTonya Wilkins

It was all about patience. And it’s like not giving up and having patience around. The pace of the universe, which has been kind of my theme is, yeah, the universe has a different pace than sometimes I want to.

00:03:53 – Ryan Mayer

I absolutely love that.

00:03:56 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, yeah. So I’JUST really been thinking about that. So I know you are an ADHD coach, Ray. Is that what you call yourself?

00:04:03 – Ryan Mayer

Yeah, so I call myself a certified ADHD coach. And one of the areas of focus for me especially this year has been focusing more on my neuro inclusion program, which is taking what I’ve done with individuals and groups and bringing that into the workplace to really help to foster more welcoming environments, which I know is something that you’ve worked really hard to create at the organizations you work with and the one that you’re leading. So, yes, I have ADHD myself and I basically describe it as I became the resource that I so desperately needed during my time in the corporate world, but just couldn’t find anywhere. And so the fact that I am wired the same way as many of my clients are, there’s just this deep connection that happens right away because I see them and I tell them, hey, you are creative, you are a beautiful person, regardless of what challenges you may have faced. So it’s just great to be able to provide that space of belonging for them.

00:05:14 – LaTonya Wilkins

So that’s a really good place to start. So re you’re talking about neurodiversity and inclusion and how those two go hand in hand. So let’s first talk about neurodiversity and what it is, because I think a lot of folks listening, they might have a high level knowledge. I know I was at that level, kind of a novice. I still don’t consider myself real advanced.

00:05:37 – LaTonya Wilkins

I would probably say intermediate. But we do have some people that are brand new to this. So let’s first talk about what is neurodiversity. I say neurodiversity. I know it’s a.

00:05:48 – LaTonya Wilkins

There’s also the word neurodivergence, which makes.

00:05:50 – Ryan Mayer

Me feel like that’s separate and it is. That’s exactly where I was going to go with this. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to bring some awareness because that’s really what I see one of my main roles as. I know that you talk a lot about leading beneath the surface and what my sort of tagline is, I want to help, especially business leaders. To start, I’m using air quotes, seeing the invisible.

00:06:17 – Ryan Mayer

And what I mean by that is seeing the invisible potential that might not be apparent right away in people who are neurodivergent. So let’s talk about the difference. Every group of people, no matter how big or what part of the world you’re in, that is neurodiversity. Because what it means is that everybody. No two brains, I’m using four fingers.

00:06:41 – Ryan Mayer

No two brains are exactly the same. So that brings diversity of thought. And obviously up until just the last couple of years, diversity was always looked at from what’s your identification of gender or sexual orientation or what’s your race or all these different areas for diversity. But people are thinking of that from the outside. This is more inside.

00:07:09 – Ryan Mayer

How is your brain wired? So if you picture a bell curve, most of the people that are in, you know, the middle of the curve, that’s what would be referred to as a neurotypical group of people. So they are wired in a very similar way, but still different from each other. But out on the edges, that’s where those of us who would identify as neurodivergent are, because we are clinically divergent from the majority of people out there. So an individual person can be neurodivergent, but it is groups of people who are neurodiverse. Okay, does that make sense?

00:07:49 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, it’s kind of like diversity versus diverse candidate ca.

00:07:53 – Ryan Mayer

Because there’s no.

00:07:54 – LaTonya Wilkins

There’s no such thing as a diverse candidate. And it’s like being called that as like an insult. Cause it’s not. It’s like you have a diversity in the pool. So when I hear the word neurodivergence, I feel like it’s othering.

00:08:09 – LaTonya Wilkins

What do you think?

00:08:11 – Ryan Mayer

I think it depends on the audience and the. Not the educational level, but the level of understanding that they might have around the topic. Because I take a lot of pride in identifying as neurodivergent. And yes, it is othering in some ways. I’ve never heard that term, but I really like it.

00:08:31 – Ryan Mayer

I bring something very unique to the table, and I know that. And there’s a phrase or a word that gets thrown around a lot in the neurodiversity space. And specifically People that may have ADHD or autism about having a quote unquote superpower. I do not like that at all because that makes it seem like it’s only a positive. But I would say that those of us with a neurodivergent condition, we have exceptional gifts, but we have very unique challenges.

00:09:08 – LaTonya Wilkins

Exceptional gifts, but unique challenges. I love that as a sound bite for this. That is like the essence of everything we’re talking about. Yeah. Because the world’made.

00:09:20 – LaTonya Wilkins

Isn’t the world made for neurotypical people?

00:09:22 – Ryan Mayer

Correct. So imagine you as a listener or a viewer right now. Imagine growing up in a world that you just knew the whole time. You never really felt like you fit in. There was just something different, something unlike most of the people around you.

00:09:39 – Ryan Mayer

And that no matter how hard you tried doing something the way everyone else was doing it, you just couldn’t get yourself to do that. And that’s essentially how I felt, that I am living in a world that’s not built for me.

00:09:55 – LaTonya Wilkins

So let’s unpack this a bit. So when did you know you were first different and how.

00:10:04 – Ryan Mayer

So what’s interesting, and this will be a good kind of high level thing to talk about first, even just the label that those of us with our brain wiring have adhd, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. So it already seems like there’s something wrong with us because it’s disorder. And then it makes it seem as though we don’t have attention to give. But that’s so inaccurate because it’s not that we have a deficit in attention, we just have variability in our attention where a neurotypical person. So like I’m going to say an average normal person.

00:10:50 – Ryan Mayer

And normal is another triggering word for people. But people who are neurotypical can call upon their attention at will and they can say, okay, this might not be my favorite thing to do, but because it’s a priority to my company or someone needs me to do this, I’m going to do it. For someone like me who is neurodivergent. When I go to do that task that I’m not really interested in or not really good at, it’s almost like going to try to start your car and the spark plug isn’t working. Like you just hear like the engine likeinginginging like it’s turning over.

00:11:27 – Ryan Mayer

It won’t go. So it’s not that we don’t want to do the thing or even that we don’t know how or that it’s important we know all those things. It’s just that there is a biophysical, biochemical impediment that stops us from doing the thing. So where this came into my life is throughout grade school. I did really, really well.

00:11:51 – Ryan Mayer

And a lot of times that had to do with my mom when I was growing up, would read my textbooks to me, and we didn’t think much of it. It was just. That was kind of our routine. Our ritual is we would sit down and mom would read. I would listen just like it was story time.

00:12:06 – Ryan Mayer

And I could see everything in my mind. But then later on, when it was time for me to start reading, obviously I knew how to read, but to start studying myself, there just was this absorption and retention issue. So I also have dyscalcula, which is a challenge with numbers. And so when I could understand, when I could see how the thing worked, that was okay. But then when you got to a certain.

00:12:35 – Ryan Mayer

Like, the algebra and, like, junior high and high school, the wheels really started falling off for me. So it was really weird because I’d always done really well. And then all of a sudden, it seemed like almost overnight, it was like, oh, man, I can’t. I don’t know how to do this. And where I noticed it the most was I was in math class in high school.

00:12:57 – Ryan Mayer

And it was like, no matter how much I studied, no matter you, like, how hard I was working, I was almost always the last person to finish the exam. And not that I have to be first or anything, but it just seemed really strange. I, like, I think I shouldn’t know this material. I just feel like I. This is not normal.

00:13:18 – Ryan Mayer

So we looked into it, and sure enough, as the doctor, the psychiatrist, was reading through the description of adhd, it sounded awfully familiar. And it was like hearing an autobiography being read about me. But it was actually a big sense of relief because it helped me to accept the fact that it wasn’t something I was doing wrong. Okay. So it’s like, if this is just how you are, it’s like, you know, you’re wearing glasses, which are very fashionable.

00:13:53 – Ryan Mayer

Are they also prescription glasses?

00:13:56 – LaTonya Wilkins

Of course I would not. Yeah.

00:13:58 – Ryan Mayer

So I just don’t want to assume, because sometimes I’m like, you wear glasses, and they’re like, oh, these are actually just for. Yeah, but if someone wears glasses or contacts, imagine you being told your whole life, like, just squint harder. Everyone else can see. Just look at the board and squint harder and look harder, and you’ll see it. It’s like, no, it just doesn’t work that way.

00:14:18 – Ryan Mayer

So realizing that that’s how it was for me, for my brain, it was like, oh, so there’s that sense of relief for me. So that’s, that’s how it first came about. And then from there I was able to start getting accommodations put in place. And in schools, in a school setting, most high schools and colleges will have support structures in place. It was once I got into the working world where it’s a total roll of the dice if you’re going to get the support you need or not.

00:14:52 – LaTonya Wilkins

So would you. Thank you for sharing all that. Would you say that. So I know it took you longer, it was a little harder. Would you say that you.

00:15:03 – LaTonya Wilkins

Your grades were affected and like a very traditional system, or would you say you just needed, you simply needed accommodations?

00:15:12 – Ryan Mayer

So when we got into certain categories of math and sciences, it would be like, imagine writing something in your mind’s notebook, if you will, and then you go to the test and you’re in your mind, you open the notebook and the pages are blank. It’s like, wait a minute. No, no, no. I just wrote these in my mind last night. They should definitely be here.

00:15:36 – Ryan Mayer

But for certain topics that my brain decides, oh, I’m not really interested in this. It just can’t hold on to those concepts. So, yes, I needed more time, but there was absolutely a, an impact to my GPA and things like that too.

00:15:54 – LaTonya Wilkins

Okay, and so what helped you? What helps you? What kind of accommodations did you need specifically that would help you in this way that might help other people as well?

00:16:06 – Ryan Mayer

Sure. I’ll never forget this experience in college. It was almost like something out of a movie when you’re in that kind of stadium style seating, like a lecture hall, and there’s like over 100 people taking the exam while everyone else was hard at work doing their accounting, which was one of my arch nemesis subjects. All I could hear was people chomping on their gum or tapping their foot or clicking their pen. And it’s not that I wanted to hear those.

00:16:45 – Ryan Mayer

It’s just that those of us with adhd, we just have a heightened awareness even when we don’t want to. So, like, I remember being a recent grad and I was in my apartment and my roommate had hung a clock, like, in the hallway, and I could hear the ticking in my room, so I had to take the battery out of the clock. It’s that kind of thing. So the accommodations I got. Because after, during that time, I had what I assume would be like a, like a panic attack, basically where I had to go to the bathroom putting cold Water on my face, like hey, everything’s fine.

00:17:21 – Ryan Mayer

You’re going to do this. And so I got the accommodations of being able to have a distraction, reduced environment so I could go to the testing center where there’s not a lot of visual or auditory distractions. I get to wear earplugs and then I would get time and a half to take the exam. And so that’s something that I qualify for and it’s not going to hurt anybody else or anything. So that really helped a great deal.

00:17:53 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, I didn’t even know. I think we talked about this at ICF Midwest that the over sensitivity to noise and activity is something that happens when you are neurodivergent. And you know, I’m curious becausee I know you said you knew you were different from a young age. I could say that for other reasons. But did you get made fun of?

00:18:21 – LaTonya Wilkins

The kids underestimate you what you feel like?

00:18:24 – Ryan Mayer

Not really because a lot of like even while these challenges were happening throughout high school, college and even into the working world. On the flip side, as I said a little bit earlier, we had exceptional gifts. We had these strengths that would outshine any of our weaknesses. So for example, like when you and I got on to the episode here today, I’m not nervous at all to come on and have. It’s just a conversation.

00:18:55 – Ryan Mayer

Just like when I present in front of hundreds or thousands of people, I’m not really nervous. Whereas other people obviously have a lot of stage fright or they really shut down in front of large groups. I was the student government president and head of the spirit and rally committee in high school. So I was up in front of our entire school on the microphone getting everybody cheering. I’m like calling the sections out, tossing candy into the stands and stuff.

00:19:26 – Ryan Mayer

So no, they weren’t making fun of me because some people admired the fact and they didn’t know that I. My challenge is about not being able to do well in math courses or whatever. And I never let it hold me back or make an excuse because that’s one thing that I think is important for people to know when it comes to accommodations that we as neurodivergent folks are still. We still expect ourselves to be held to the same exact standards as far as results and output. And that’s when I do my neuro inclusion training for corporate leaders.

00:20:05 – Ryan Mayer

I’m helping them to see it’s not that they get that a neurodivergent employee gets special treatment. It’s just helping the employee to be able to show up as Their best self. There’s a concept known as masking, where it’s essentially, you said, growing up in a world that wasn’t really made for me. So when I’m in those situations where I know this is not a strength I’m having to expend a lot of energy trying to maintain this Persona, this image, this facade, essentially, when that’s not the best use, just like, why don’t you just put me in a better spot so that I can just be who I am so I can help add value. And I’m thinking in college, like the best job I ever had in my entire life, hands down, was when I was a campus tour guide in college.

00:20:59 – Ryan Mayer

So I loved that because I could internalize the script. I knew I had to cover certain bullet points, but I could put my own personal spin on it with stories and talking about experiences and whatnot. And there were times where parents would come up to me afterwards and say, hey, Ryan, do you have any plans after graduation? And I would literally get job offers from people because my skill set is valuable. So I just know that don’t there’s things I don’t do well and things that I excel at. So.

00:21:37 – LaTonya Wilkins

You obviously have a lot of self awareness and you’re a coach and then you do this work professionally for a living. And so one of the things I think we all struggle with, like, we don’t have the knowledge that you have. And one of the questions that I asked you and some other folks at ICF Midwest I’d love to pose for my listeners so they can hear it as well, please. But so let’s say you meet someone and they tell you they have ADHD and they’re a colleague or maybe there’s someone that is a friend, what are some tactics we can use in order to maximize that relationship? Because I shared with you, with me, I was struggling because I didn’t know that that person had adhd. And they revealed that to me later.

00:22:31 – LaTonya Wilkins

But then I didn’t know what to do with it. So what can we do to help people?

00:22:38 – Ryan Mayer

Well, I know that there’s a phrase out there I heard recently that I applies to a lot of situations, but it also applies to someone who may be neurodivergent, which is when you met one person with adhd, you’ve met one person with adhd. In other words, my best advice to anyone who’s listening or watching or tuning into this, if you do have someone in your life or you find out someone, whether they’re on your team or a friend or whatever has. And obviously I can speak to ADHD specifically, but you can just ask them, like, hey, thanks for sharing that with me. Is there anything I can do to make sure that, whether it’s friendship or in the workplace, like, what can I do to help you be your best and show up as your authentic self? And I would have loved to have been asked that by leaders or managers, because I would have said, as I had to request later, with formal accommodation requests, hey, I’m a very distractible person. So it’s not good for me to be sitting where I am, which is in an open office environment right alongside the main walkway.

00:23:52 – Ryan Mayer

I worked at a tech company, so it was like an open office. And then people were walking back and forth. Anybody who went to, like, go to the cafeterio, go to the bathroom, just leave the sales area where I was, would walk past me. And then when they walked towards me, just instinctively you kind of look up. And about an arm’s length away from me was the printer for the entire floor.

00:24:17 – Ryan Mayer

So all like 200. Some people, anytime they printed something, it was right by me. So what I would have loved if someone asked me that, because I would have said, can you just put me over there on the outskirts, facing away from everyone? And then I’ll be able to focus a lot better. So it’s just little things like that, or if you’re trying to have a conversation with someone, maybe the environment that you’re in might be a little bit overstimulating, whether it’s the lighting or the background noise. So I hope that that helps.

00:24:48 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, it’s almost like asking them how you could best support in those situations because you’re not a monolith. I think that’s one of the things you’re saying. It’s not a monolithic thing. So asking the person, and may even maybe not being afraid of that as well, would you say? Because I think some people are. They get a little timiduse, they don’tnna be rude.

00:25:16 – LaTonya Wilkins

Sure. But what are your thoughts on that?

00:25:19 – Ryan Mayer

And this also is right up against this other topic of you mentioned, to kind of set up this scenario that the person shares with you that they have ADHD because of the atmosphere that’s out there and the stigma that still exists and persists around. I’ll just say specifically adhd. But other people who are on the neurodivergent spectrum, sometimes people may not be comfortable just openly disclosing that they have that. But. So if it’s someone who does openly disclose and say hey, I’m sorry, I have ADHD and this might be hard for me or whatever.

00:26:01 – Ryan Mayer

Well, then they’ve sort of given you, in this case, the person they’re talking to, the green light that. Okay, we’re talking about it now. So if they say, you know, I have adhe. Okay. Hey, thanks so much for being willing to share that.

00:26:16 – Ryan Mayer

Um, is there anything I can do to make this better for you? Is there anything in here that’s too distracting or anything? Stuff like that?

00:26:25 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, that’s. That’s excellent. Like the asking about specifically distractions.

00:26:30 – Ryan Mayer

Yeah.

00:26:31 – LaTonya Wilkins

Are things that, that might trigger the person I know.

00:26:33 – Ryan Mayer

For example. Oh, sorry, U just. No, go ahead. Like when my wife and I go out to dinner or if we’re going out with friends, if we’re going to a place where there’s going to be tvs, for example, I am very intentional about sitting with my backs to the television because I just have radical acceptance of myself, as you alluded to, with just having self acceptance and self awareness that I will not be able to be fully present with the person that I really would like to be present with if there’s a TV anywhere in my purview. So I really try to sit in a spot where I don’t see anything else except the people I’m with so that I can, you know, be with them and be fully present.

00:27:25 – Ryan Mayer

So my wife has. Obviously we’ve been together now, we’ve been married for 11 years. And she does a great job of like being just watching out for me in that way. Be like, hey, Ryan, do you wanna sit over here? And even if we’re not like broadcasting to everyone, why, that’s just little things like that that can make a big difference.

00:27:44 – LaTonya Wilkins

Great.

00:27:45 – Ryan Mayer

Yeah.

00:27:46 – LaTonya Wilkins

So what common mistakes do people make around accommodating neurodiverse people?

00:27:55 – Ryan Mayer

I’m really glad you asked this question because if I were to ask you. Okay, Latania, when you think of adhd, like, what comes to your mind?

00:28:05 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, I mean, like I said, I know people that have shared with me that they have adhd. So I think one of them was. Look at you, Coach Ryan. I think one of them. I know you’re trying.

00:28:22 – LaTonya Wilkins

You think you’re sneaky, but you’re not.

00:28:25 – Ryan Mayer

No, I’m not being sneaky. I’m asking that question. No, I’m just asking because inna. I’m gauging how inna answer your question.

00:28:34 – LaTonya Wilkins

Right, right.

00:28:34 – Ryan Mayer

I wanna see where you’re ate.

00:28:36 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah. So in this person, it’s a good question. Cause and with the people that I know that have adhd, what I’ve experienced is we never get everything done. We have a 30 minute meeting and we end up talking about a topic for a very long time. I think the focus, like my focus is different from the other person’again.

00:29:05 – LaTonya Wilkins

It depends on if it’s coaching, fine. But if it’s like a project meeting or something, you only have so much time and so yeah, it’s hard to keep things within the lanes that I would like sometimes. Those are a couple of examples.

00:29:23 – Ryan Mayer

No, that’s great.

00:29:24 – LaTonya Wilkins

Really easily distracted. Those are things.

00:29:27 – Ryan Mayer

And now I see why you were laughing because you went in a much different direction than I was thinking. Because what I was going to say when I asked people like, hey, what do you think of. And sort of the stereotypical example is a grade school boy who can’t sit still in class. Like that’s sort of what I meant is that’s like the poster child for adhd. Well, one of the biggest misunderstandings, which is now having a really big ripple effect which I will explain is that many times young women got completely overlooked growing up because there is.

00:30:05 – Ryan Mayer

So there used to be two different forms and this is in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Right now they’re on the fifth edition and it’s been a really long time since they’ve updated it. But anyway it used to be some people might relate because they’ve heard ADD and adhd. So they think of ADHD as like that boy who can’t sit still. And ADD previously was very much like that person who’s more like their, a dreamr, they’re inattentive, they can’t really pay attention, they’re spacey.

00:30:38 – Ryan Mayer

But in the DSM 5 they brought these two together. So now the inattentive, the primarily in attentive presentation as well as the primarily hyperactive presentation are both under the umbrella of adhd. So ADHD is kind of like the overarching term. But my point here is that women who they, they may have been very talented but they weren’t squirming in their seats or disturbing class. If they had challenges, people would say to them, and this is a very again stereotypical thing, how could you have adhd?

00:31:19 – Ryan Mayer

You’re so smart. It’s like what? That doesn’t make sense. And oh no, you can’t have adhd, you’re a girl, you’re a woman. And it’s like, no, it actually affects equal parts, equal split of male and female. The problem is most or I not the problem, but the challenge is that most females would fall into more of the primarily inattentive type of adhd, which means that the hyperactivity component is happening in their mind.

00:31:51 – Ryan Mayer

In other words, when they’re in a conversation with someone, they’re off somewhere else. They’re not really able to fully be present or focused. Whereas for me, the manifestation of it for me is, this is why I love being a coach. Because when I’m talking with someone, they are my world. They get 100% of my attention.

00:32:08 – Ryan Mayer

And so the misunderstanding is that women got overlooked, and now, as a result, as they’re growing up, they get misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, generalized anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, sometimes when it was actually inattentive, adhd. But most people didn’t realize that women can also have adhd. So now there’s this entire group of women.

00:32:36 – LaTonya Wilkins

So. Interesting.

00:32:37 – Ryan Mayer

Yeah. And it’s wild because when I first heard it, I thought, well, that seems like kind of a big generalization. But the vast majority of women, whether they’re clients or friends or just contacts of mine who I know who have adhd, they were most likely diagnosed later in life. And where these symptoms start to show up. Like, they probably found coping mechanisms throughout life.

00:33:04 – Ryan Mayer

But then when they have a big transition, like you get married, or you get a new job, or a baby comes along, or you’re moving, or you have a wedding, or you. There’s a global pandemic, hypothetically, all of a sudden, it’s like, wow, I can’t handle this for some reason. This is strange. And so all these women are starting to figure out, oh, my gosh, I have adhd. So that’s.

00:33:25 – Ryan Mayer

I would say, out of everything, we’ve already covered two of the biggest misconceptions. One is that if you have adhd, you can’t pay attention, which is not true. We just have situational and things need to be new, novel, interesting, or something we enjoy and that women can’t have adhd. Those are the two, I would say.

00:33:48 – LaTonya Wilkins

I didn’t realize this was so gendered because it’s interesting, because Another interesting story. So one of my friends, her husband just got diagnosed with asd. And then we started having a conversation about women and asd, or people that identify as women. And yeah, I guess that women just’t. Or people that identify as women aren’t diagnosed, which I never even thought about that.

00:34:26 – LaTonya Wilkins

That’s something that is pretty prevalent.

00:34:31 – Ryan Mayer

It is. And then as a result, so many people are out there. And that’s part of the drive behind my mission of helping to Change the way the world sees those of us with invisible disabilities. Because so many people are just getting missed. And that’s why during the pandemic when everyone was sort of forced to be at home, that’s when things blew up for me in a good way.

00:34:57 – Ryan Mayer

On social media. I had been about a year earlier been let go from another corporate job because I couldn’t do the administrative follow through component that was part of the job. So I started saying, you know what, I am done trying to pretend to be someone I’m not. I’m going to start sharing my story on social media. I went from zero followers and this specifically was on TikTok at the time, zero followers to 330,000 followers in 60 days.

00:35:32 – LaTonya Wilkins

Oh wow.

00:35:33 – Ryan Mayer

Where just a few videos go viral and whatever. But it was like, I feel it was the perfect storm where this was a mess. It’s much less about Coach Ryan is the reason. I think it was because this was a time when people were ready to hear the message and they were seeing going oh my gosh, that looks a lot like my life. I would get a lot of like stop watching me or like do you have a surveillance camera in my house?

00:35:59 – Ryan Mayer

Because this is exactly what it’s like, those kind of things. So that’s when I started getting out there to spread the word more. And even this next week I’m going to the International ADHD conference which happens every year. And it’s just really gratifying, I guess to just to see that there is this growing awareness around it.

00:36:28 – LaTonya Wilkins

Such an interesting conversation folks, but we do have limited time so I do wanna kind of get into our final question, which I think you ll have a lot to say about this, especially after you just talked about the conference that you’re going to. But I know you also do training, you help a lot of folks. I follow you on LinkedIn. I know you have things there, we’re connected there. So what tips do you have around leading across neurodiversity and what are some of the things that you might share with companies that you’d be willing to share with the leading below the surface audience today?

00:37:04 – Ryan Mayer

Absolutely. And I’m an open book because I want to put as much out there as I can and certainly happy to take a deeper dive with anyone who wants to have a conversation. But after running my coaching business for like three and a half, four years, at the time I was reaching a lot of people, but from a business perspective, I needed to figure out how to be able to keep this as a sustainable enterprise. For me. And so it sort of dawned on me, okay, I was going from trying to help the individual or the group to help themselves so then they could go into the workplace and advocate.

00:37:49 – Ryan Mayer

And it was actually a mentor of mine who said, why don’t you just go pitch to the companies? You are very polished, professional’t you? And you’ve experienced it in the workplace. That’s what you’re most passionate about. Go talk to the leaders to educate them. And they already have money for this kind of stuff. So it was like, oh, this light bulb went off, right?

00:38:11 – Ryan Mayer

So now I have this neuro inclusion program where I can go in and help them to understand there are people on your team that are so close. Like Tony Robbins calls it a 2 millimeter shift. If we can just make some slight adjustments that you could unlock a superstar of an employee. One story that comes to my mind is that at one of the large organizations I worked for, again gets back to my strengths, that I love being up in front of an audience. So part of my job was to go out to the various departments in this health system I was in and do presentations to the new employees, talk about benefits and things like that.

00:38:58 – Ryan Mayer

Well, I saw some of my other colleagues doing it and I was like, no wonder no one likes these. It was a sleeper. It was so boring. So then other departments would request that I come out to do the presentation. Can you please send Ryan?

00:39:12 – Ryan Mayer

Because the other ones are really boring. So I went to some of my other colleagues who I knew didn’t like presenting, and I said, hey, I’ll tell you what, I’ll take all of the departments that you are required to go speak to and I’ll do all the presentations for you if you just do some of my administrative stuff like in the CRM system. And I remember my colleague was like, are you serious? You would do that? I m like, yeah. She’s like, that’s too easy. Yeah, let’s go.

00:39:40 – Ryan Mayer

So we’d started doing this. People were loving it. And then my colleague was happy because for her, she could do all of the work I couldn’t do in a fraction of the time I could. But then, dun, dun, dun. I got called into the executive director’s office and he says, what’s this I hear about you taking over all of the presentations for your colleague?

00:40:01 – Ryan Mayer

And I said, well, yeah, this is a concept known as job carving, where you essentially trade different pieces of the daily duties to get better results for the organization. So we were utilizing both of our strengths instead of both of us being Forced to do things we’re only average or below average at. And he just shook his head. And I remember how much shame I had when he’s like, look, Ryan, that’s a very creative idea, but please go back and do your job the way we told you to do it and let us come up with the solutions. Okay.

00:40:38 – Ryan Mayer

Or something to that effect. So what I do is help to go out there and raise the awareness around. If you could just help to provide a better environment for your employees. Like, hey, what can we do to be better for you? Because there is a real bottom line impact on the cost of turnover, the cost of backfilling those positions, the recruiters who have to repeatedly try to do that when. What if you could just have an area where people could work quietly or work remotely or have flexible start and leaving times.

00:41:15 – Ryan Mayer

Like, why does it have to be 9 to 5? Someone created that one day. Well, what if it was 10 to 6? And that would allow the person to do what they need to do to get on to work on time instead of having them get disciplined and then eventually let go because of attendance issues. So that’s just one little tiny example, but just helping to make what I call sensible shifts in the organizational structure. And it all comes down to that conversation that you might have with a friend who discloses to you, what can I do to help you to be more effective, to be the best you to show up at work as your whole self. Because I think companies are surprised to realize how simple it actually is.

00:42:05 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, yeah, that’s an excellent example around the job carving and how organizations can be so rigid when something that small could be just the accommodation. It doesn’t hurt anybody. It’s just, yeah, as a leader, you just won’t be able to control everything, but it doesn’t hurt anyone. And it’s not diminishing performance or anything like that, or affecting performance in any way.

00:42:28 – Ryan Mayer

That’s the part that was blowing my mind too. It was enhancing performance.

00:42:31 – LaTonya Wilkins

Right.

00:42:31 – Ryan Mayer

Because instead of having to follow up with Ryan to be like, hey, don’t forget to update all your files in the CRM, or having to listen to another department complain about how boring the benefits presentation was, everything was going better. So that’s the thing is like, we’re going for results because results get respect.

00:42:50 – LaTonya Wilkins

Right? Yeah. This was. So, folks, I’m sure you learned a lot today. I know I did. And I expanded even my knowledge around this, even though I’m reading a couple books around neurodiversity right now.

00:43:02 – LaTonya Wilkins

But where could people Find you Ryan. And I HEAR you’re on TikTok. I didn’t know that. I actually just got ono. I have to be careful on TikTok.

00:43:13 – LaTonya Wilkins

You can really take your time and so you just get real absorbed in it. But I’ve started.

00:43:20 – Ryan Mayer

It’s a slippery slope.

00:43:22 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, I at least started putting some feelers out there to decide do more.

00:43:26 – Ryan Mayer

I understand. And my quick little snippet on that is for the amount of content I put out. I quickly realized that I needed to do it selectively. So now I have a team that helps to distribute the content so that I don’t get sucked into that slippery, slippery slope of doom scrolling. So I realized with my wife’s help when she said, hi, your family’s over here.

00:43:56 – Ryan Mayer

I’m like, right. So anyway, thank you so much again for having me on. This was as fun as I knew it would be. But people can find me on my website, which is ryanmeercoaching.com.

00:44:09 – Ryan Mayer

and that’s M a Y E R. And then I would say I would direct him m actually more towards my YouTube, which is Ryan Mayer coaching on YouTube. And you can find me on Instagram @adhd coach Ryan Mayer. But yes, I’m pretty much on all the platforms and would love to just keep the conversation going with people around. The value not only of supporting other humans, but also for your business to learn more.

00:44:41 – Ryan Mayer

And my three steps in this neuro inclusion program, again I’m an open book, is educate, equip and empower. So educate the top leadership so they know what it is. Kind the stuff we talked about today. Equip midline managers of how to have conversations like the one we talked about and then empower the frontline employees of how to advocate for themselves. Even if they are not comfortable disclosing, they can simply say something like I do my best work when dot dot, dot.

00:45:13 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yes. So Ryan, before we close, I know you have a special gift you want to give the audience.

00:45:20 – Ryan Mayer

Oh my gosh, I almost forgot. Thank you for reminding me. So a huge change in my whole business. Like the whole goal here is to help more people more often. And one of the biggest barriers, which I’m sure you’ve run into, latanya is price point sometimes.

00:45:36 – Ryan Mayer

And the most heartbreaking thing for me was having great conversations, connecting with people on a deep level. And then they would hear how much my one on one or group coaching costs and they go, oh, I can’t afford that. A company approached me that could take my coaching and put it into an AI offering. So I want to offer free seven day premium trial for all of the lead below the surface fans out there. So we’ll have a discount code in the show notes for you.

00:46:06 – Ryan Mayer

But it’s everything from my coaching, even my voice, which is like, kind of crazy. I’m all packaged in there so you can check it out and have 24. 7 access to my coaching.

00:46:17 – LaTonya Wilkins

Great, thanks. We’ll also put that in the show notes, folks.

00:46:20 – Ryan Mayer

Cool, thanks.

00:46:21 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Ryan. And we’ll also put all of this. He’s got some dance moves. I see.

00:46:28 – LaTonya Wilkins

I don’t know. Now I feel like we need some music here to close out, but we’run out of time, folks. But yeah. So we’ll also put those links in the show notes. So thank you folks and we’ll see you next time.

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Connect with us: 

Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Learn more about ⁠Change Coaches⁠ 

Follow LaTonya on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Follow Change Coaches on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

In this bonus episode, LaTonya Wilkins shares a few key insights about how to navigate the U.S. Election results as a leader. She focuses on the importance of self-care, resilience, effective communication, taking care of others, and fostering a culture of belonging within teams.

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Resources from today’s episode:

– Change Coaches Guide to Create Psychological Safe Conversations Across Differences

– Change Coaches Newsletter

– Leading Below the Surface LinkedIn Newsletter

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Transcript:

00:00:00 –  Are you wanting to close the year out strong? Our Change Coaches offerings include everything from retreat facilitation to leadership accelerators. Check out changecoaches.io for more information or email us at [email protected] to find out how we can support you and your organization in 2024 and beyond. 

00:00:30 –  Welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast, where we go beyond the book and explore how to navigate and thrive in today’s changing workplace. Hello everyone and welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast. I’m your host, LaTonya Wilkins, Executive Team Organizational Coach and author of Leading Below the Surface. Today, I’m doing a bonus episode around the US Election results. Although I’ll focus on the US, this has global appeal and will be a shorter episode.

00:01:09 –  I wanted to share this because I recorded a video this week on LinkedIn during the week of November 4th, 2024. I recorded a video after many unexpected calls with coaching clients, particularly senior leaders, CEOs, and C-suite leaders who were unsure how to respond to the election results. This isn’t just about personal reactions; it’s about how to communicate with teams and what steps to take next. We will be doing a Change Coaches series around this, so keep an eye out for that.

00:01:59 –  Make sure to join our mailing list if you haven’t already, as we’ll discuss this further. You can also follow me, Latanya Wilkins, and Change Coaches on LinkedIn for updates.

00:02:11 –  Today is a short episode to help us prepare to lead through significant change. Whether you wanted this change or not, it will impact you as a leader. I will discuss some points from the video and will follow up on this topic in the future. Subscribe if you enjoy this episode. We will mix this content with other topics about Leading Below the Surface and leading in today’s environment.

00:02:51 – Many people have reached out to me via text, email, and calls. As an executive coach, I expected to help people navigate this situation. I also teach at Kellogg, Northwestern, and students are reaching out as well. Some are sharing personal thoughts, while others are asking what to tell their teams.

00:03:19 –  I want to be composed and ensure we practice inclusion. I shared a story about my grandmother on LinkedIn, and I’ll give you a shortened version here before discussing two considerations for the next four years of our personal and organizational lives. In 2016, I felt stressed about the world, which motivated me to write Leading Below the Surface.

00:03:50 – My stress stemmed from focusing on things I couldn’t control and my dissatisfaction with leadership in organizations and their support for people and cultures.

00:04:12 –  It was a challenging time as I was making significant life changes. My mom passed away in 2014, prompting me to reflect on life and how I wanted to show up as a human. However, I felt stuck and hopeless. During this time, my grandmother, who lived to 93, sat me down.

00:04:42 –  At that time, she was in her mid to late 80s. She was direct and told me to stop it, saying, “Child, you don’t understand.” She shared the difficulties she faced in her life to improve ours.

00:05:11 –  My grandmother made my life noticeably better. It’s not perfect, but I appreciate the life I have today, which is remarkable given her struggles. She impacted many people, working as a cafeteria worker and connecting with many kids in town.

00:05:44 – She experienced Jim Crow laws, which influenced her decision to migrate north to Des Moines.

00:05:57 –  I grew up in Marshalltown, Iowa. My mom met my dad there. My grandmother fled Jim Crow laws around the time of Emmett Till. She worked for over 50 years in schools and was a hardworking American.

00:06:07 – At her celebration of life, many people I didn’t know shared how amazing she was. She experienced a lot and often spoke about Richard Nixon, world wars, and the Vietnam War. Her message was that we get through challenges, and if I remained in a negative state, I wouldn’t reach my full potential. That conversation changed my life.

00:06:27 –  I developed a buffer when facing difficult situations. I changed my habits; I stopped consuming every piece of news. Now, I pick and choose what I engage with. I avoid trauma dumping and hot takes, as they trigger me.

00:07:04 –  Why am I bringing this up? On Tuesday night, we learned about a change in administration in the U.S. and that there is much we don’t know about the electorate. I don’t want to delve into the political aspects as I’m still unpacking it. I approach this from a place of curiosity.

00:07:38 – As leaders, we need to navigate this by focusing on ourselves and then on others.

00:08:17 – First, let’s talk about yourself. Leaders often neglect self-care. Good leaders tend to prioritize others over themselves. It’s important to think about your needs while also considering others. It’s okay to put others first, but you need time for yourself too.

00:08:44 –  If you often put others first, you schedule self-care time. You effectively manage calls and emails during this time to recharge so you can support others effectively. Many struggle with balancing self-care and caring for others, especially when their workplace requires more attention. Statistically, voter sentiments are divided, and uncertainty remains regardless of how people voted. Understanding the support people need requires time for self-reflection.

00:09:33 –  As many know from Leading Below the Surface, personal belonging and listening are crucial now. We need to listen without an agenda, observe body language, and read the room. We must connect with emotions, which is difficult if we rush or focus solely on our agendas. Taking time for one-on-ones and asking your team what they need is essential.

00:10:04 –  I asked my team what they needed. Some moved on, and that’s okay. Equity means providing people with the access they require. Regarding taking care of others, you don’t need to have all the answers today.

00:10:56 – I talked to some leaders, and they’re trying to figure everything out. This week, have one-on-one meetings and share a team message. The long haul will happen over time. We will also do community events to help with that.

00:11:17 – In the longer term, there will be tactical things to consider, such as how to communicate, what it will look like, and your philosophy around this. You need to create a culture of belonging and inclusion. There are many questions, and you may not have answers right now. As Toni Morrison said, there are years we ask questions and years we answer. This might be month to month, so understand and accept that.

00:11:51 – I want to wrap up by asking how you want to show up for yourself and for others this week. I will drop a link in the chat to sign up for our newsletter to join upcoming community events if you want to explore this topic further. Thank you for joining us, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

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Connect with us: 

Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Learn more about ⁠Change Coaches⁠ 

Follow LaTonya on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Follow Change Coaches on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Join LaTonya Wilkins in this engaging episode of the Leading Below the Surface podcast as she welcomes improv expert Bob Kulhan. With a rich background in comedy and professional development, Bob shares his insights on the transformative power of improvisation in the workplace. Discover how the principles of improv, such as “Yes, and,” can foster psychological safety, enhance team collaboration, and encourage innovative thinking. Whether you’re a leader or a team member, you’ll gain practical tools and exercises to create a more connected and dynamic work environment. Tune in to learn how to embrace change through the art of improv and enhance your workplace interactions.

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Resources from today’s episode:

– Change Coaches Guide to Create Psychological Safe Conversations Across Differences

– Change Coaches Newsletter

– Bob Kulhan Improv Course

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Transcript:

A – LaTonya Wilkins

B– Bob Kulhan

00:00:00 – A Are you wanting to close the year out strong? Our Change Coaches offerings include everything from retreat facilitation to leadership accelerators. Check out Changecoaches IE for more information or email us at infoangecoachesIO to find out how we can support you and your organization in 2024 and beyond. Welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast, where we explore how to navigate and thrive in today’s changing workplace. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leading Below the Surface podcast. I’m Latanya Wkins, your host, and today I have a guest.

00:00:50 – A This is a true Chicagoan. We met at an ICF Midwest conference where I attended one of his sessions. It was amazing, and I loved it so much that I invited him to come today. He talked about one of my favorite topics: improv. I have a strong interest in the arts, especially in Chicago, where I enjoy going to Second City. So, I invited Bob Colohan to discuss improv and how we can use it in the workplace.

00:01:41 – A Bob, do you have anything to add to the intro?

00:01:44 – B Latanya, you did a good job. Chicago, and specifically the Cubs, will always be a part of me. I moved to the East Coast, to Brooklyn, and now I’m in New Jersey, but I will always be a Chicagoan.

00:02:02 – A I sometimes wonder about that. But you made the move.

00:02:08 – B I did it. I performed on big stages, including the main stage of Second City as an understudy. When they didn’t offer me the stage, many people moved to New York or LA, but I chose to move to the city.

00:02:24 – A You have a strong background, and I saw more evidence of that before we started recording. What made you move to New York?

00:02:35 – B I’m an improviser and sketch comedian, and Chicago is the place to learn it. I’m originally from downstate Illinois, from a town called Effingham, which is quite small.

00:02:53 – B I started in Chicago, studied improv, and moved to LA when my friends did. I worked with UCLA for about 10 years and Columbia Business School for a similar duration. I know New York fairly well and consider myself a city guy. LA is a massive sprawl, while New York is more concentrated in Manhattan and Brooklyn, which I love.

00:03:46 – A It’s a fun place. Have you done any stage work there?

00:03:54 – B Yes, I performed last night.

00:03:57 – A Tell us more about that.

00:04:01 – B Once you have kids, time becomes a diminishing resource. I moved to Montclair, New Jersey, and realized I couldn’t keep commuting to the city and getting home at 1 AM. By coincidence, a founding member of the Annoyance Theater, Gary Roran, moved to Montclair around the same time. Abby Schur, who performed at ETC, also lives nearby. We created Montclair Improv, and many talented improvisers joined us. We perform a couple of times a month, and last night we performed at the Montclair Film Festival.

00:05:09 – A That sounds like a lot of fun. You also do consulting, right?

00:05:19 – B About 25 years ago, I started applying the tenets of improvisation used in comedy to personal and professional development through the behavioral sciences. This led me to become an adjunct at Duke University Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School. I teach people how to use these techniques for communication, collaboration, creativity, innovation, adaptability, conflict resolution, and ultimately to create psychological safety.

00:05:57 – A That’s awesome. What have been some of your favorite student stories? I teach at Kellogg as well. What’s been your number one story about teaching students something beneficial?

00:06:16 – B I don’t know if I have a single story. Many things come to mind, especially about the challenging students. You start to crack them a little, and they begin to think differently. They start questioning their attitudes and language with peers, realizing it may not produce the outcomes they want. You see their growth and discovery, which increases the likelihood they will apply these lessons in real life, at home, with partners, children, and in daily conversations within their organizations. This creates the sustainable impact of what we do.

00:07:31 – B I have been fortunate to witness this growth hundreds of times over the last 25 years. That growth is what you teach.

00:07:43 – A Right? It’s about day-to-day life that business schools often overlook. Your students appreciate this. When I attended business school, I didn’t have access to an improv class or personal leadership insights like I teach at Kellogg. So, let’s get into it.

00:08:03 – A How would you define improv? When I took my first improv class, I did activities in corporations for retreats and offsites. However, my first improv class was completely different. I would love to hear how you would describe it.

00:08:21 – B I’m going to counter this. Since I’m a 30-year veteran of improv, how do you describe it?

00:08:28 – A I love that. Now we’re getting into a coach mindset. The way I would describe it is that it wasn’t what I expected. I thought it would be like some corporate trainings that felt cheesy. These are people I really want to train with. It didn’t feel safe and felt fake. But when I did it at Second City, I would say it’s a way of opening yourself up by removing judgment from your mind. There’s no judgment, and it’s very sensing. So number one, remove judgment; number two, focus on sensing; and number three, follow your heart and intuition. It’s interesting because you connect with people you might not like at face value, but you still connect with them. It’s hard to explain. What do you think of that definition?

00:09:39 – B I love the way you worked through that. It’s great to see.

00:09:42 – A It was kind of messy, but there you go.

00:09:45 – B Improv is messy art. Art is messy. If art isn’t messy, you’re painting by numbers, which is not art. Creativity is messy, and you need to have messy conversations to think through things and create space for that.

00:10:00 – B Regarding the comedic side, improv comedy and sketch comedy, when you host an event, I remember something the late Noah Gregory instilled in me. When I used to host, I would say we’re just making stuff up off the top of our heads. However, you undermine the integrity of the art and the people who do this. You need to think about how you’re framing this.

00:10:34 – B As a comedian, I think improvisation is about being in the moment and performing at the top of your intelligence in real time with others. When directing it to comedy, we frame it as something created in the moment. What you see is what we see. We don’t know what’s going to happen.

00:10:55 – B You break it down in simple ways. On the comedy side, when moving to personal professional development, we define improv in my company, Business Improv, which has been around for 25 years, based on three core competencies: reacting, adapting, and communicating.

00:11:17 – B Reacting is not a one-off; it is ongoing, focused, and present in real time. Adapting involves how, where, and when you do this, the parameters, and the goals. Reacting and adapting are both rooted in communication. We are not in a vacuum; there is always someone or something in our environment that we interact with.

00:11:43 – B This links back to performing at the top of your intelligence and defining this through the suspension of judgment and getting out of your own head. Ultimately, gut decision-making, core decision-making, intuitive decision-making, and instinctual decision-making are all part of improv.

00:12:07 – B It is based on our learned experiences, education, drive, passion, strategy, and the environment or people we engage with. It is a complex art form that reduces to reacting, adapting, and communicating.

00:12:31 – A I love that. His definition is much better than mine, and you can tell he’s a pro. I want to discuss reacting because, in my work leading below the surface and building connections across differences, I see how we react to each other all the time. I notice it when coaching teams, individuals, and during workshops and keynotes.

00:12:55 – A Can you elaborate on reacting and its importance for improv?

00:13:03 – B Reacting is part of what we do. One challenge people face is feeling like they have no control over this; they think it’s just who they are. Another key part of improvisation is slowing the brain down to be present and in the moment.

00:13:26 – B Speed and spontaneity don’t always go hand in hand. Sometimes we have to move quickly, whether on stage or reacting to an unfavorable situation. Other times, we get caught up in a riptide and start moving quickly. In conflict, this can turn into a fast exchange instead of allowing ourselves to pause. As a baseball fan, I suggest taking a pitch. Let the pitcher throw a few pitches to get a feel for how the ball is moving before swinging.

00:14:01 – B Reacting and reaction are different. It does not have to be fast to be effective. You can take many paths with that great question of yours.

00:14:27 – A It doesn’t have to be fast to be effective. Write that down. Also, observe before you react. See what’s going on with the pitcher.

00:14:38 – A For those who aren’t big baseball fans or don’t love sports analogies, it’s still relevant. Often, we don’t take time to listen. Think about times when you’re in conflict with someone, even at home. The last thing that makes conflict worse is not listening and reacting.

00:14:58 – A When I met you at ICF Midwest in Ohio, I attended your workshop about using improv to coach teams. What benefits have you seen from using these concepts with teams?

00:15:29 – B I mentioned this at the start of our conversation. The ability to create psychological safety is crucial. With psychological safety in teams, you can communicate, collaborate, and innovate. You can also have difficult conversations and explore topics with candor to ensure diverse perspectives are represented.

00:16:03 – B In a psychologically safe environment, you aim to unleash perspectives from people. Perspective differs from opinion. If you give me your opinion, we can debate it, but if you share your perspective, it’s challenging to debate because it reflects your unique lens on the world.

00:16:30 – B Perspective relates to biases and objective observations. For example, if we witness a car crash from different sides of an intersection, we all see the same event but from different angles. This perspective alters our individual realities. When you create this environment within a team, members start sharing their observations honestly and openly while respecting others’ views.

00:17:13 – A It’s interesting that you mention respecting others’ views and psychological safety. When you work with teams, do you find that you disarm them quickly with exercises, or does it take time?

00:17:31 – A I found improv classes disarming. I entered as an entrepreneur focused on my impression and what others thought. Everyone in the class likely felt the same apprehension. However, I felt disarmed by the first activity. Is that something you observe in your work as well?

00:18:06 – B There are certain things to consider as we approach the real answer to this question. We need to dispel some myths about improvisation. One common myth is that improvisation is only associated with comedy, which leads people to dismiss it as frivolous.

00:18:25 – B Another myth is that improvisation only occurs when everything goes wrong, in scramble mode. This view diminishes the intelligence required to improvise well. Once we dismiss these myths and engage people in improv games, they relax, have fun, and start laughing.

00:19:06 – B Laughing releases a chemical cocktail in our brains, including cortisol, oxytocin, endorphins, and dopamine. This release fosters trust and happiness. When people laugh together, they feel safe, enjoy themselves, and lower their inhibitions, leading to a fun experience.

00:19:38 – A It’s interesting that one of the myths is that improvisation is all about comedy. Just because you’re laughing doesn’t mean it’s comedy, which is an important point.

00:19:51 – B That’s correct. It just means you’re having fun.

00:19:53 – A Right. Some people view it as frivolous or a waste of time, but laughter can significantly impact team bonding. People often forget to laugh in the workplace.

00:20:12 – B Yes.

00:20:13 – A This is a great way to encourage laughter naturally, fostering bonding with each other rather than at each other.

00:20:19 – B It’s important to note that comedy is a style of entertainment.

00:20:28 – A Right.

00:20:30 – B When performing on stage, especially in a comedy setting, it needs to be funny because the audience expects to laugh. However, much of this work focuses on connecting with each other.

00:20:48 – B This bonding experience occurs not only from our previous discussions but also from personal struggle. Personal struggle, as I gathered from your joy conversation, doesn’t have to be a significant challenge. It can simply involve getting used to exercises alongside others who may feel anxious about participating. Eventually, you share a great experience, overcome the anxiety, and connect through laughter.

00:21:22 – B Suddenly, you create a memorable experience that relates to transferability and sustainability.

00:21:28 – A Yes. Pamela, if you’re listening, we’re talking about you. For those who missed that episode, it was one that Bob recently listened to.

00:21:41 – A It was one of the best this year. Everyone on the podcast is great, but I would say that in our last quarter, it stands out. Joy is particularly important right now, and it relates closely to this topic.

00:21:56 – A I will add that improv brings joy. It brought me a lot of joy, and I had fun. I still talk to the people from my class.

00:22:06 – A One person in my class was 19 years old, and I am old enough to be that person’s parent.

00:22:19 – B Yes, you are in your early twenties.

00:22:22 – A I know. I’m only 22. Another thing you did that I loved was provide us with some exercises. I noted several down and tried a couple. For those wanting to try this in the workplace, what are one or two accessible exercises to start with?

00:22:49 – B Let’s go classic. Yes, and is the cornerstone of improvisation and has many definitions.

00:22:57 – B For us, it’s about accepting what someone gives you, not necessarily agreeing with it. It’s about acknowledging what you receive, whether it’s good or bad. The focus is on your reaction, whether verbal or physical. Clinging to “yes and” versus “yes but” is crucial in conversations.

00:23:25 – B This approach can easily shift the direction of a conversation. Encouraging “yes and” instead of “yes but” is fundamental and represents the easiest change to implement.

00:23:37 – A I coach teams on this, and it significantly improves their interactions, especially during times of change or distress within the organization.

00:23:56 – A What else would you recommend that is easy to implement?

00:24:00 – B Since we’re discussing team coaching, have your team tell a story one word at a time.

00:24:09 – A Yes.

00:24:09 – B Alternate speaking one word at a time, going around the circle or in a Zoom meeting. Assign each person a number and focus on telling a coherent story. This addresses challenges in collaborative communication and creative idea sharing, particularly the concept of groupthink.

00:24:40 – B There is a significant difference between groupthink and group mind. Group mind is a term coined in Chicago. Groupthink involves sacrificing your thoughts to conform to the majority, which is a simplified definition but captures its essence.

00:24:58 – B Group mind involves everyone sharing their thoughts and perspectives openly and honestly, contributing to the greater good of the team, product, or process. In this exercise, when everyone focuses forward, they develop a group mind, navigating the story together. This focus shifts from individual contributions to making others look good. When everyone aims to make the story succeed, they align with each other, and diverse perspectives become valuable gifts that empower more contributions.

00:25:54 – B That’s what a group mind is all about.

00:25:57 – A Groupthink versus group mind. I love the story example of telling a story one word at a time; that could be really fun.

00:26:09 – A I enjoyed starting exercises with counting from one to ten or twenty, where no two people could talk at the same time. I still use that one; it’s fun and similar to the story exercise.

00:26:27 – A It’s part of the same origins.

00:26:28 – B Yes, the difference is, if two people say a number at the same time, you have to reset and start at zero again.

00:26:46 – A Yep, reset.

00:26:49 – B Participants must figure out when to contribute without stepping on each other’s toes, leading to a high probability of simultaneous contributions. It’s no one’s fault; you reset and start counting again until you reach twenty. You can also do this with the alphabet.

00:27:12 – A A through Z could be fun. I haven’t tried that one yet; it might be good with kids.

00:27:18 – A We’re getting towards the end of our time here, which is sad because I’m enjoying this. I want to ask you about fears because some listeners might want to use improv in the workplace.

00:27:37 – A How could people overcome their fears with using improv in the workplace?

00:27:42 – B What’s the best way to eat an elephant?

00:27:46 – A I don’t know. What if I’m a vegetarian? I don’t know if that’s a good question.

00:27:50 – B Right, I just alienated all the vegetarians.

00:27:55 – A I would be a vegetarian if someone asked me to do that.

00:27:57 – B I’ve never had elephant before either. There’s an old adage: what’s the best way to eat an elephant? The answer is one bite at a time. When you think about the enormity of this elephant, you might feel overwhelmed.

00:28:28 – B Change is hard and cumbersome. Instead of focusing on the grand picture, think about the first step in that change, or one bite of the elephant. It’s like felling a giant tree. Most people are not Paul Bunyan who can chop a tree down with one swing. You need to hit the tree multiple times to get it to fall.

00:28:43 – B If you’re afraid of using these techniques, consider what one thing you can do. You could take classes, read books, or start with simple techniques to practice with your peers. If you have a peer coaching group, you can go through challenges together and learn from each other. You could also practice with mentors, significant others at home, or your children.

00:29:20 – B As you mentioned, there are simple ways to practice before working with clients individually or in groups. I liken business improv to riding a bicycle. The first time you ride, you have training wheels. You might not understand why you’re doing it. The first time you take off the training wheels can be awkward and scary. You might fall and hurt yourself, making you hesitant to try again.

00:29:49 – B I encourage my daughter to ride her bike despite her reluctance. Eventually, she gains confidence and feels a sense of accomplishment. The joy comes when she realizes riding is fun. She enjoys the wind in her face and the freedom of transportation. There are many benefits to simply getting on the bike and riding.

00:30:26 – B It’s about tackling challenges one step at a time.

00:30:32 – A Yes, and we can all do it. We all had to learn how to ride a bike.

00:30:42 – A Collaboration is key.

00:30:44 – B If you need to coach, you can do this.

00:30:52 – A Where can people find you to learn more? I see you have a book; please share that as well.

00:31:01 – B You can find my book, “Getting to Yes, And,” at Business Improv. I’m also on LinkedIn.

00:31:08 – B We coach coaches and teach people how to use these skills. We offer an online program called Improvisational Communication for those who want to practice at home. We also provide masterclass coaching for those interested in workshops. We teach tools and techniques and would love to work with you. Find me on LinkedIn or at Business Improv.

00:31:37 – A Thank you for joining us, Bob. We will include that information in the show notes. Thank you for joining the Leading Below the Surface podcast, and we will see you next time.

00:31:46 – B Thank you. I had fun.

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Connect with us: 

Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Learn more about ⁠Change Coaches⁠ 

Follow LaTonya on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Follow Change Coaches on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Join host LaTonya Wilkins in the Leading Below the Surface podcast as she explores the art of ‘meandering in the muck’—a transformative approach to navigating personal trauma and adversity in today’s ever-changing workplace. With insights drawn from her experience as a coach and author of Leading Below the Surface, LaTonya delves into the complexities of vulnerability, courage, and personal growth while offering practical strategies to embrace uncertainty and foster resilience.

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Resources from today’s episode:

– Change Coaches Guide to Create Psychological Safe Conversations Across Differences

– Change Coaches Newsletter

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Transcript:

00:00:00 –  Are you wanting to close the year out strong? Our change coaches’ offerings include everything from retreat facilitation to leadership accelerators. Check out changecoaches.io for more information, or email us at [email protected] to find out how we can support you and your organization in 2024 and beyond.

00:00:29 –  Welcome to the leading Below the Surface podcast, where we explore how to navigate and thrive in today’s changing workplace.

00:00:41 –  Hello everyone, and welcome to the leading Below the Surface podcast. I’m LaTonya Wilkins, your host. I’m excited to be back for season three after a hiatus. We took this break to absorb feedback and expand our reach so more people can benefit from this podcast. I have three exciting announcements before we get into today’s episode.

00:01:17 –  First, while the main medium of this podcast will be audio, we will also have a video component. This will include long-form trailers for those who enjoy YouTube. Our main medium will remain audio, but you will have a chance to watch the videos and see highlights from each episode.

00:01:45 – Our episodes typically run around 30 minutes, while video episodes will be around 15 minutes. The video will include highlights, but for the full version, you will need to listen to the audio. This will be available immediately. The second announcement is that we will be posting transcripts. You can access these transcripts in your podcast app or on our website at changecoaches.io/podcast. The third announcement is for you. I appreciate all the notes you’ve sent about how this podcast has helped you.

00:02:28 –  If you feel that way, please leave us a review. This helps us connect with others and grow this community. If this episode resonates with you, please share it with someone else who might benefit. You can now share it in both video and audio form.

00:02:55 –  For those who are audio enthusiasts, don’t worry. The video will provide another way to engage. We will mainly focus on audio, so you can listen while working out, walking, or just hanging out. You can still have us with you while on the go. Now, let’s discuss today’s topic: meandering in the muck and using this tactic to navigate through a traumatic event.

00:03:29 –  Many of you have read “Leading Below the Surface,” but if you haven’t, you can find it on Amazon or other book retailers. For those unfamiliar with the concepts, I discuss meandering in the muck extensively in the book. I originally addressed it in the context of change. Let’s explore this further, but first, let me explain why I chose this topic today.

00:04:03 –  I recently started a new quarter at Kellogg at Northwestern University, where I teach a class called Personal Leadership Insights. This class focuses on coaching MBA students regarding strengths, needs, values, and essential leadership aspects. I enjoy teaching this class. I posted about it on LinkedIn and asked others what they are excited about this fall.

00:04:36 –  I received several comments and direct messages. The common theme was that something is in the air, and people are making bold moves and changes. This resonated with me because I observe this trend, but I also see many individuals facing traumatic events or significant challenges, such as entering new markets or dealing with difficult relationships.

00:05:04 – I want to address the idea that experiencing something great is not mutually exclusive from going through trauma that needs change. This is a process. I wrote “Leading Below the Surface” because of the culture in the US, where we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and just move through things. But that approach has never worked for me. It was the path given to me.

00:05:39 – It wasn’t until I became a coach and did my own deep work through my losses and troubles that I learned to meander in the muck and use that as an art to get to the other side of trauma. Today’s episode will cover research on how the pandemic has affected society, what meandering in the muck means, and three tips on using meandering as a tool to navigate difficult situations.

00:06:29 – Let’s start with the research. I found an article that discusses how COVID has impacted us as a society. Most information focused on death, birth, and marriage rates. This snippet will help start the conversation.

00:06:50 –  This excerpt is from an evidence-based article on nature.com. It states that before the pandemic, marriage and birth rates were decreasing, while divorce and death rates were increasing, with only the trend in birth rates being statistically significant. The immediate effect of the pandemic was a significant decrease in the divorce rate, but there were non-significant effects on birth and marriage rates.

00:07:17 – However, in the months following the onset of the pandemic, there was a statistically significant increase in divorce and death rates. I find it interesting that we can see how the pandemic has affected us through data. This article discusses these indicators, which I believe can help us understand the overall well-being of society.

00:07:50 –  This is an opportunity for all of you to think about one or two things that might have affected us during the pandemic. Please take a minute to jot down any traumatic events or shifts you’ve experienced since the pandemic. Consider what has been difficult and what feels like a process where you take a step forward and then two steps back.

00:08:22 –  It’s ongoing. So take a minute to reflect on this. I’ll provide some examples I’ve seen as a coach. You might have experienced a layoff, received a promotion you feel unprepared for, started a new business, ended or begun a significant relationship, or experienced a loss. These are all situations some of you may have faced.

00:08:59 –  I want to introduce a couple of frameworks because if you embrace the process of meandering in the muck, it can be a useful tool to navigate through these traumatic situations. It may not be easy, but it can help. Let’s discuss what meandering in the muck entails. On page 152, I describe this concept, so I will read an excerpt.

00:09:36 –  Meandering in the muck is often underrated. It involves getting comfortable with the discomfort that diversity brings into the workplace. I discuss this through a DEI lens, but we will explore it through other perspectives today. Now, let’s continue with the excerpt on meandering in the muck.

00:10:02 –  It takes vulnerability and courage to meander in the muck, and many of us avoid this experience. Many of you may have read Seth Godin’s book “The Dip.” He describes the dip as a time when you find yourself in the muck and must decide whether to let go of something or hold on to it.

00:10:33 –  You have to decide what you want to do. It feels like you had success, then suddenly you don’t, and you’re stuck. When you’re in that dip, you look up and see darkness, and that’s okay. This concept relates to coactive coaching, which I studied. They talk about the pit, the darkest spot of getting through something.

00:11:04 –  I often choose the example of going through a loss. I’ve experienced significant loss with family members. Some passed away unexpectedly, like my sister who had an aneurysm. In my twenties, I was in the pit for a long time after that. Over the years, I would slowly emerge from the pit, only to go right back in. It felt like a sway within that pit.

00:11:36 – Entering the muck looks like that. I discuss the five stages of grief, which you can pass through and sway back and forth between.

00:11:52 – That’s why re-meandering in the muck is important. These are different lenses to consider. What does this have to do with traumatic events? Look at what you wrote down or thought about regarding a traumatic situation you are experiencing. How can you get to the other side of that? Notice I didn’t say get over it. It’s about getting to the other side.

00:12:19 –  Here are three tips to meander in the muck and get to the other side. The first is journaling every day. Many of us think that more activity will get us out of the muck. For example, if you wrote about your business, whether starting, running, or trying to scale it, and it’s not going as planned, you might feel stuck and need to figure out the next direction.

00:12:49 –  Some of you may think that activity will get you there, but it doesn’t. A useful tool is journaling. Instead of trying to do more activity, take a step back and journal. You don’t need prompts; sometimes, freewriting works best.

00:13:08 –  I discuss this often. Use the morning pages from the artist’s way framework. Write out your stream of consciousness. This practice will benefit you more than you realize. You might think you’re wasting time, but you’re not.

00:13:25 – Start with journaling and understand its power. If you’re struggling, it doesn’t have to be traditional journaling. You can try video journaling or audio journaling. There are many options available. Establishing a practice is essential. The second important point is finding ways to take breaks from the problem.

00:13:59 – We often want to dwell on the problem, searching for every detail instead of taking a break and remembering it will still be there when we return. What should those breaks look like? They could involve a trip, working out at the gym, doing yoga, or engaging in energy work. Take time away from the issue without thinking about it.

00:14:33 –  Avoid doing activities like massages just to rest your brain while still thinking about the problem. Engage in something that completely removes you from the situation while you navigate through the challenges. This leads to the next point: using your brain in different ways.

00:14:54 – This is important. Take your inner artist and apply it, especially during cerebral events. Engage in activities like drawing, visiting an art show, or attending a concert. Use your brain in different ways to give it a break and disrupt its routine. This can help you gain clarity and see situations fully. I believe in doing something artsy once a week to connect with our inner artists.

00:15:40 –  Try to have a date with yourself, a date with art. Move in the direction of taking your brain away from its typical activities and give it a different experience. I also suggest sound baths, which my yoga studio offers. They provide a unique sensory experience for your brain and body that you won’t encounter every day.

00:16:19 –  Find experiences that allow you to use your brain differently or experience something new in your body. Lastly, trust your gut and intuition throughout this process. I’ve often tried to explain my way out of situations, as have my clients, even when their bodies signal something different. Taking breaks is crucial; without them, you fill your time with activity and remain in the flight part of your brain. This prevents you from accessing the rational part of your brain, which can impair your judgment and ability to connect intuitively, not just with your brain but also with your body.

00:17:09 – Opening space allows us to experience things intuitively and trust our gut. Many of us struggle to trust our instincts and often try to explain our feelings. I participated in some somatic coaching recently, where the coach asked me what I felt in my body. I attempted to explain it intellectually instead of simply expressing what was happening. This tendency to over-explain can block our intuition. It’s important to just be and trust your gut. Another tip is to write down your gut feelings to avoid ignoring them later, which can be part of your journaling process.

00:18:10 – To recap, we discussed the art of meandering through difficult situations, particularly how the pandemic has affected us. I provided four tips to navigate through challenges.

00:18:36 –  Number one, journal every day. Number two, take breaks from thinking about the problem and engage your brain in different ways. Number three, and number four, trust your gut while creating space for it.

00:18:47 –  Now that I’ve shared these tips, I want to conclude with some thoughts on traumatic events. These tips are not meant to speed up or slow down the process.

00:18:57 –  The process will unfold as it will.

00:18:59 –  These tips aim to help us reach the other side with more expansion, abundance, and opportunities, rather than struggling and finding ourselves back in difficult situations. This is why these tips are important. They are not a magic solution to make things easier. Meandering through challenges is hard.

00:19:33 – None of us want to be in difficult situations, and I certainly don’t enjoy being there. However, there are ways to navigate through it.

00:19:39 –  There are many.

00:19:42 –  We often dislike certain tasks that drain our energy, such as managing finances. These obligations can feel burdensome. However, we can find ways to make these tasks more enjoyable, take breaks, and engage our minds differently to navigate through them effectively.

00:20:15 –  I wish you all the best in getting through these challenges. Remember, you can handle this.

00:20:22 –  You can handle this.

00:20:23 –  You can emerge happier and healthier on the other side. Thank you for joining us today, and we’ll see you next time.

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Connect with us: 

Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Learn more about ⁠Change Coaches⁠ 

Follow LaTonya on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

Follow Change Coaches on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ 

In this insightful episode of the The Leading Below the Surface podcast, host LaTonya Wilkins chats with Loren Sanders, author of Empathy is Not a Weakness. Loren shares about her transformative work with empathy as well as providing tips and tricks as you approach conference season; how to strategize, maximize learnings, and the value of building your network.

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Resources from today’s episode:

– Change Coaches Guide to Create Psychological Safe Conversations Across Differences

– Change Coaches Newsletter

– Connect with Loren on LinkedIn

– Loren’s Website

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Transcript:

00:01:05 – LaTonya Wilkins

Hi, I’m LaTonya Wilkins, your host, and today I’m joined by a guest. Her name is Loren Sanders. So let me tell you a little bit about how I met Loren.

00:01:33 – LaTonya Wilkins

So we actually met in Champaign, Illinois, of all places. And what was so interesting is she had reached out to me because we were kind of doing similar things in our careers, and we had such a great relationship. I invited her to speak at one of my classes at the Gies College of business was a leadership class. Students really enjoyed it. And then our lives have evolved.

00:02:00 – LaTonya Wilkins

And over time, she has kind of moved on from champagne. She’s kind of doing some other things now. She wrote a book, empathy is not a weakness. So we’ve connected on that. One more little nugget about Loren.

00:02:15 – LaTonya Wilkins

Actually, her dad is in the same profession as my partner. And so it was so funny because he is like this well known person in that profession. So we had all these little nuggets of connection, and that’s one of the things that kind of brought us together. And what’s really neat is that we’ve stayed together as friends, as partners, as supporters. So, Loren, what did I miss?

00:02:36 – Loren Sanders

I think you missed the part where I want to be you when I grow up, and you think I’m kidding, but I’m actually serious about that.

00:02:45 – LaTonya Wilkins

Oh, I love that. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah, you just made my day with that. But I appreciate that.

00:02:53 – LaTonya Wilkins

But, yeah. So let’s dive right into this. So today, folks, we’re talking all about how to make the most of your learning investments. We’re going toa talk about other things, but personal learning investments. Like I said, Loren’s also written a book, and that’s kind of where I want to start.

00:03:11 – LaTonya Wilkins

But don’t worry, we will get into the learning stuff. I know it’s fall conference season, so we all want to get into that topic. But first, Loren, tell us a little bit about your book, why you wrote a book about empathy.

00:03:23 – Loren Sanders

I would tell you that I didn’t write a book about empathy, but I wrote the book on empathy. And the difference is there’s a lot of books out there about empathy and what it is, and people are always talking about what it is and how it’s different from sympathy and, and how everybody needs to do it, but nobody ever gave anyone a plan about how to get there. And my book is really a seven week reflection for people to be able to self reflect and determine whether or not they might have a problem with empathy. And the readers have interestingly told me that they read it twice, the first time for the content and then the second time to actually work through the process. And it just makes my heart happy when people say that it all stemmed from having been a toxic leader in my past and not actually recognizing that I was that person.

00:04:20 – Loren Sanders

And I tell a little bit of that story in the book, but self reflection is really the catalyst for change. Self awareness makes a difference, and if you don’t know that you really suck, then you’re never going to be able to change. And that is really, it’s, the book’s a little bit about my journey. It’s a little bit about other people’s stories who have ever been treated horribly at work or who have overcome being toxic leaders. And it blends all of that together with some framework around what you can do to continuously practice being empathetic.

00:05:00 – Loren Sanders

Because I will argue all day long, and if people want to contact me for this argument, they are more than welcome to do that. But it is a practice. It is not a skill.

00:05:12 – LaTonya Wilkins

So you shared a lot of vulnerability. That’s one of the things that I was listening for as you were talking, and one of the things I noticed. So is that what made you write this book? It sounds like maybe you were, you were kind of sick of people, maybe not being empathetic, or maybe was there something, a defining moment in your career that made you say, okay, we need to write a book. I need to write a book about empathyuse really, I need to write the book about empathyus. Really I really want people to see something different.

00:05:42 – Loren Sanders

For me, I love hearing other people’s stories and having taken the journey of being not empathetic at all to being a much more empathetic human, I started listening more to what people were saying and similar to you with leading below the surface. There is real impact in hearing other people’s stories, especially people who don’t look like you, maybe don’t act like you maybe are outside of whatever the box is that you’re used to being in, and hearing their experiences, especially in the workplace, and recognizing that we have a huge problem with toxic leadership. And it goes beyond the impact of people at work. It hurts them, not just at work, but it gets taken home, and it impacts families, and it impacts everybody that surrounds people who are in this space. And we really need to do a better job of creating opportunities for leaders like this to not be recognized for being great leaders because they make a lot of money for a company, but to leaders to be recognized when they actually help other people be better and drive business results that way.

00:07:09 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, yeah. Those are all such important points of how this affects everyone. And really, one of the things I really heard you say, too, is that you are un empathetic at one time. And just admitting that and being able to say that because it can be hard to be empathetic. You know, it’s interesting, I was doing a keynote the other day, and after my keynote, someone came up to me and he asked, how do I do this?

00:07:35 – LaTonya Wilkins

How do I do this? And, you know, I gave him your book as a resource. But, you know, I was, you knowus. And that’s what I talk about. Like, how. How do you access them?

00:07:43 – LaTonya Wilkins

I mean, it’s hard. And, like, your stories are good because people can go into that and see themselves in those stories.

00:07:50 – Loren Sanders

I think out of all the stories in the book and all of them impacted me and all of the people who shared their stories, I cannot than enough. But there was one person who told me their story about how being overworked and burned out and in a toxic situation drove them to a psychological crisis that ended up putting them in the hospital. They were actually having delusions of things that weren’t true and realizing how much impact one person can have on your life. In some ways it’s harrowing, and other ways you kind of think, well, that’s ridiculous, but it’s real and it’s happening to people, and it’s not okay.

00:08:31 – LaTonya Wilkins

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Anything else you want to say about? We’renna, come back to this later. And I want to get into some of the other stuff that we’re goingna talk about because again, you wear so many hats and so you have so much great knowledge that I think people are looking forward to hearing.

00:08:50 – Loren Sanders

The last thing I’ll say about this is if you’re not practicing empathy, you’re getting worse.

00:08:55 – LaTonya Wilkins

1. Yeah, that is powerful. If you’re not practicing empathy, you’re getting worse. Yeah. And it’s like you don’t have to be right, folks.

00:09:06 – LaTonya Wilkins

You don’t have to completely understand. Right? You don’t have to agree. But we’re getting into fall and people are really starting to step into fall conference season. And so a lot of folks are also investing in new programs. A lot of folks are going back to school.

00:09:23 – LaTonya Wilkins

A lot of folks are going to be going to new conferences. They’going to be taking on some new learning experiences. So what’s some of the advice that you would give them to make the most out of these learning experiences? And the reason I ask is because I know I was recently at a conference that was probably one of the best conferences I’ve been at in a long time. It was the Institute of coaching at Harvard, and I just haven’t had time to kind of go back to everything. I mean, the connections were great, but what would be some, maybe a couple tips that you give people around how to navigate this conference season or a new learning and making sure they get the most out of their dollars?

00:10:04 – Loren Sanders

The first thing is, if you think the magical budget fairrry is going to come out of somewhere and give you the budget to go to these things, we’re doing the wrong thing. A lot of organizations are not even paying for conferences right now, so I would choose wisely. If it’s your own personal budget and knowing that you’ve made that investment, I want to ask the listeners, how many of you have notebooks full of notes that you’ve taken from conferences and never looked at again, it might be a good opportunity to go back through and read through those notes and figure out what am I going to do with this information? And if you’re headed to a conference, maybe have a reflection plan in mind at the front end, there’s the breaks in between the conference sessions, and we run around and some of us take everything we can from the vendors or run around and try to get that card filled out and then get all these little chotchkis that we end up getting rid of later because we don’t need all of those things. Maybe take that ten or 15 minutes to just sit, even for five of them, and think about what am I going to do with the information I just got? How am I going toa put this into practice in my work, in my life, in my ability to grow somebody else and just take a note on that and then compile those when you get back home, take the time, schedule the time so that you can intentionally go through what you learned and figure out how it fits for you and how you can use it to develop yourself more or develop your team more.

00:11:44 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, I love that. So the reflection plan and making sure that you have that out and that you have that pretty much done before the conference, would you say yes?

00:11:57 – Loren Sanders

Definitely.

00:11:57 – LaTonya Wilkins

Okay. And maybe even setting up some time in between. Ye yeah. And then, like, I think the other question around that just to ask a follow up is, what do you think is enough to get from a conference? Because I find a lot of times people are beating themselves up or they’re thinking, oh, my gosh, I wasted money. But if they do one thing, or if they’re able to do one thing differently, what would you say that could be?

00:12:26 – LaTonya Wilkins

Or how should they think about that?

00:12:28 – Loren Sanders

I will say, again, I’m a super nerd. So prior to going to a conference, I will pour over the education sessions.

00:12:35 – Loren Sanders

And try to figure out what I.

00:12:37 – Loren Sanders

Want to get out of the conference before I even show up at, at the conference. Choosing my sessions very carefully because of what I’m trying to learn or what I’m trying to take away, and then creating the reflection plan around whatever that plan is and deciding you can’t boil the ocean, I think it’s important to know what I’m wanting to get out of this is x, and I want to implement maybe one to three things in the next. I would say six to twelve months, and maybe it’s longer than that. But understanding the why behind the choice of the sessions and what they can do for you, for your organization, for your own development, I think that becomes more important than the quantity, I think really choosing well and thinking about outcomes versus how many inputs can I get?

00:13:39 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, I like that. You know, and it’s interesting when I brought the IOC conference, it’s interesting because I feel like I made a lot of connections, and there are a lot of people there that I’d read leading below the surface, or they’d been to other, they’ve been to webinars or workshops that I’ve run. And so that part was the part that was kind of intangible. And so let’s kind of talk about that? Like, what about how do, what’s the trade off? Or what’s the relationship with that? Because you might have a plan and then the entire plan goes down the tubes when you find out that someone you really want to meet is there. Or you get into this side conversation and it’s so deep that you decide just to stay with them instead of go to a session.

00:14:25 – LaTonya Wilkins

So would you say relationships are just as important?

00:14:29 – Loren Sanders

Oh, yes. I think relationships are fuel for helping us grow. And so if you meet that amazing person and you have a great conversation and you think about things that you can do together or how you can help each other, that’s as valuable as a conference session. And I wouldn’t throw that away. Most of the time you can get the notes from the session you were going to go to from another person.

00:14:54 – Loren Sanders

A lot of times they’re posted on websites. Sometimes they’re even recorded and you can listen to them, or that person has a site you can go to and learn a lot more about what they do. Chances are these days they probably have a podcast, too.

00:15:08 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny. Yeah, I’m glad you were re saying. Cause it’s like I still have all these notes in a folder and I, I went back and I’m like, okay, I think I probably got more from that than I thought.

00:15:19 – LaTonya Wilkins

So I did have one more question as we’re talking about this before we end, and this is probably a question that is on many of your minds, so, AI. So when I was at this conference and other conferences, but actually IOC specifically, Martin Siegelman had a chat bot assistant that he had rolled out and he was having a beta test during that time that basically you could ask questions about positive psychology or other items, and he had preloaded the answers. And so you were able to get these answers to these questions. And so I would love to hear your thoughts on AI and learning and development. I know for me, for myself, I use chat GPT, I have a couple other AI’s I use mainly for writing, sales purposes, marketing purposes.

00:16:15 – LaTonya Wilkins

But do you think, what are your thoughts around? Is AI going to be a big, is it going to make a big splash in learning and development? And maybe how can we use it? As we’re talking about these conferences and we’re talking about forgetting everything we’re learning, is it a viable tool today? And if not, how do you see that evolving in the future?

00:16:38 – Loren Sanders

I think AI is here to stay and it’s been here for a really long time. We just wasn’t in the form of.

00:16:44 – Loren Sanders

Chat GPT but we’ve used it for a lot of things where I think it’s helpful in learning and development is maybe you need to create a rubric on something and you’re not really sure how to put the phrasing into it, or you’re trying to create some sort of video script and you want to make sure that it flows. But the problem is you better know your content before you start to use AI because it lies. It’s not always accurate, 100% and nobody AI is not going to take your job. Somebody that knows how to use it is going to. And the more you can partner with it, the better off you’re going to be. I love to say never accept the first answer the AI gives you. There’s so much more impact in just continuing the back and forth. And please always check the research and the references that it gives you because a lot of times those aren’t right. It’s not perfect. It’s a partner.

It is not. It’s not doing your job for you.

00:17:52 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, it’s very limited in. It’s interesting because the new version starts to have sources, but it’s like the same sources over and over, which it’s helpful to get started then. But I agree, and I think one thing I was really surprised about is I could dump in a description of something or ask it for a learning plan, and it’s pretty good with that. But you’re right, the facts. I probably wouldn’t trust it maybe just to get started, but it’s pretty good with anything.

00:18:23 – LaTonya Wilkins

Writing, planning. I found it to be pretty like does a better job than I would, but especially if it’s my content first and making it better.

00:18:32 – Loren Sanders

And I would tell you also, it’s not super innovative. Remember, everything that AI has and accesses are things that have already been done or things that have already been researched. So if you’re trying to be innovative and want to be future focused, forward, different, it can give you ideas. But that’s not the tool. Your brain is a better tool.

00:18:54 – Loren Sanders

Your collaboration with other people is a better tool.

00:18:58 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, yeah, I agree with all that as well. So finally, how can people find you?

00:19:05 – Loren Sanders

Definitely find me on LinkedIn. That’s probably where I share the most impactful content that I have. I also have a coaching website and a book website. Loren three six five.com is my book website.

00:19:22 – Loren Sanders

Rocxaloccoaching.com is my coaching website. I will respond to anybody who reaches out to me through LinkedIn or any.

00:19:29 – Loren Sanders

Of those other ways.

00:19:32 – Loren Sanders

I don’t ever turn down a conversation with somebody unless they’re trying to sell me something weird, which happens a lot, but real, intentional conversations with people I love.

00:19:45 – LaTonya Wilkins

Thank you so much for joining us, Loren. And folks, have a wonderful conference season and we’ll see you next time.

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In this episode, host LaTonya Wilkins takes a dive deep into the transformative concept of joy with Dr. Pamela Larde! Dr. Pamela Larde is a leading expert on the psychology of joy. She has dedicated her career to exploring the nuances of joy, contrasting it with happiness, and understanding its significance across diverse populations. Together, LaTonya and Dr. Larde explore the profound differences between joy and happiness, uncovering how joy serves as a vital state of being that transcends external circumstances.

Dr. Larde shares powerful anecdotes from her research, including the resilience of military veterans and college students in their pursuit of joy. The emergence of the #BlackJoy movement during the 2020 protests serves as a poignant example of how joy can flourish even in difficult times. Dr. Larde’s innovative concept of joy resilience highlights the ability to maintain joy as a survival strategy, making her insights invaluable for anyone looking to enhance their well-being.

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Resources from today’s episode:

– Change Coaches Guide to Create Psychological Safe Conversations Across Differences

– Change Coaches Newsletter

– Dr. Pamela Larde LinkedIn

– Get the “Joyfully Single” book!

– Dr. Pamela Larde’s Instagram

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Transcript:

00:00:00 – LaTonya Wilkins

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the leading below the Surface podcast. I’m your host, Latanya Wilkins. And today I am joined by a really fun guest, I should say a joyful guest because that’s today’s topic and there’s gonna be lots of laughter And Joy in this episode. And so I really hope all of you enjoy it. We have a big treat for you.

00:00:22 – LaTonya Wilkins

So my guest is Doctor Pamela Larde. And I met Dr. Larde. Let me tell you a little story like I do with all my guests. I think I met Dr. Larde through IOC and we became fast friends. Like, we really were vibing with each other and our research and all the things that we do, just having a lot of fun.

00:00:45 – LaTonya Wilkins

She’s someone that pushes me to have more fun. And so for those of you who know me, I’m like that Leo Virgo cusp. Sometimes I get into that virgoism a little too much. So Dr. Larde helps we get out of it a little bit about her. She does so much and I’m always surprised by how much she does.

00:01:07 – LaTonya Wilkins

But she is a professor, she’s a coach. She has her own coach training firm. She also does work with IOC. I’m leaving out more. She’s a mother, she’s a friend, she’s all these things.

00:01:20 – LaTonya Wilkins

And she’s just a very joyful person and fun person to be around. So what did I miss? Pamela?

00:01:27 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Maybe social scientists. That’s probably the only other know, do a lot of research. That’s where the joy work is rooted. So that’s probably it.

00:01:37 – LaTonya Wilkins

Social scientist. Yeah. So that’s really, let’s dive right in because that kind of takes us to where I was thinking we could go first. So you call yourself a social scientist, but I picked up your book all about joy recently and I really loved it. Joyfully single and just tell me a little bit about how you got into joy.

00:02:04 – LaTonya Wilkins

Like, you went from social scientists to joy scientists. If it’s okay if I call you that.

00:02:09 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Yeah, yeah. And I’ve heard Joy researcher, joy Scientist. You know, I’ve really, from the time that I finished my doctoral work back in 2009, I’ve always studied people and the barriers and how they overcome challenges. And I realized that when people are overcoming their challenges, they are actually seeking joy. I was looking at different populations of people, people who have divorced, people who are the first in their families to go to college, military professional when they return home, and their families and how they help their family member reintegrate after combat.

00:02:48 – Dr. Pamela Larde

And I often got the question, what are the commonalities between all these populations. Another one was college students who had experienced trauma. And I actually had to take some time and look at it like, what is the commonality? I mean, everybody’s experiencing trouble or challenge, but what is it they have in common? And it was very clear to me that they’re all seeking joy in some capacity. They’re all finding their own ways to secure joy in their lives. And this happened right before the pandemic, December 2019, when I.

00:03:23 – Dr. Pamela Larde

It became very clear to me that joy is the direction to take this research now. And so I spent the pandemic examining joy, and it was an interesting lens because I’m looking at how people find joy in some of the scariest times, you know, that we’ve had in our lifetime.

00:03:43 – LaTonya Wilkins

That is so interesting. So now we’re gonna get a little coachy here, folks. So sorry, but would you say that was your intuition that was telling you what’s joy? Was that a science based realization or where did that come from?

00:03:58 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Yeah, I mean, that’s a really good question because I have a feeling that part of it comes from my own disposition of joy that made me want to dive into it more. Because as I’m looking at all of the populations and the commonalities I could have landed at, they’re all striving for a goal, you know, or I could have said that they’re all experiencing change and transition in their lives. But for some reason, the joy is what really stood out for me, and that is what made me dive into the literature on joy. And when I dove into literature, I realized there’s not a lot of literature on joy out there. And.

00:04:40 – Dr. Pamela Larde

And the literature that’s out there, nobody agrees on a definition. And so I really wanted to dive into it more, help with the language around it, and help to understand and help other people understand what joy actually is, deciphering it from happiness, and creating that academic conversation around it that I wasn’t really seeing happening.

00:05:08 – LaTonya Wilkins

That’s so interesting. Cause there’s so many places that we could take this. But I can’t help myself but ask you about defining joy and how no one agrees on a definition. So how would you define joy?

00:05:24 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Well, so part of my definition of joy, I’ve integrated the American Psychological Association’s definition of joy. And what the American Psychological association says is that it’s this experience of, what is it? Euphoria. And it’s not necessarily what’s happening on the outside, but it’s something that’s sort of rooted. It grows out of the spirit. So one of the things that I add to it is that it exists regardless of whether or not we’re having good times or bad times.

00:06:01 – Dr. Pamela Larde

It’s not about it’s a good moment. It’s a happy moment. So now I feel joy. It actually can live in some of the most difficult and challenging seasons of our lives. It’s something that we pull from within to experience.

00:06:16 – Dr. Pamela Larde

So the addition of the American Psychological Association’s definition, I add to it that it exists regardless of what is going on in our environments.

00:06:30 – LaTonya Wilkins

So it exists. It’s a feeling of euphoria, number one. And number two, it exists whether or not we opt into it or plug into it. Is that what you’d say? It’s just naturally something that’s there?

00:06:43 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Well, it’s something that we. It happens with intention. So we have to opt in. We have to choose to live out that joy. Now, there are some people who we may think, you know, oh, they’re just naturally joyful.

00:06:57 – Dr. Pamela Larde

It just happens for them. For some people, that might just be a product of their personality or the way they were raised. For other people, they had to work really hard to make that happen, and it became a part of, you know, who they are.

00:07:13 – LaTonya Wilkins

So this is interesting. Cause is it possible because I see people in the world that the world we talk about the world worlding, and there’s so many things going on, and some people are even guilty, feeling guilty to experience joy. And is that maybe one of the reasons why a lot of people are depriving themselves from it or a lot of people aren’t experiencing it?

00:07:41 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Well, there is a lot of that. There’s a lot of. And it’s one of the five barriers to joy that I talk about in the book is guilt. And there is a combination of us guilting ourselves and thinking, you know, I interviewed a guy one time, and he was talking about, and he’s particularly a black male. And the reason and his identity is so important in this because he was experiencing joy sort of in solitude, because he was having, you know, he had friends and family members who were also black men who were struggling, particularly around the time that George Floyd was murdered.

00:08:22 – Dr. Pamela Larde

And it was kind of like, how dare I show or express any kind of joy? I think he had just gotten a promotion, and some good things had been happening in his life, but he also just had a pract practice of living joyfully. But his guilt kept him sort of experiencing joy in isolation. I’m not going to do that in front of the guys. I’m not going to do that in front of because they’re struggling. I don’t want to do that in front of them.

00:08:47 – Dr. Pamela Larde

But there’s also people who shame us for experiencing joy. And so you can sweep the Internet and you can find people who are all about a particular social cause and, like, how dare you celebrate x, Y and z or make a big deal about these trivial things when people are dying or when people are oppressed or people are in prison. Pick your issue that you want to focus on. And so it’s almost like I’m not allowed to enjoy life while other people are struggling and suffering in life. And that just creates this other dynamic of guilt and shame.

00:09:29 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, it’s so interesting that you say that. I even want to double click on that because it’s like even you and me. Don’t you sometimes feel bad to share? I mean, I know I could feel bad to share happy things, but I had to get over that through my own mental health journey and my own growth journey where I don’t feel guilty anymore. Or sometimes I still do feel guilty. And I’ll write a disclaimer of, like, hey, I know all these things are going on in the world, but we have to be able to celebrate our successes.

00:10:01 – LaTonya Wilkins

Like, when we look at coaching science, I mean, that’s vital to growth. And so how would you respond to that?

00:10:11 – Dr. Pamela Larde

So sometimes feeling like you have to give a disclaimer or, I’m not gonna share this over here, or. I think part of that, what’s really important is for us to have our, our community of people that we know we can just be ourselves, be our joyful selves around. I have a coach colleague. Her name is Dawn Taylor, and she has created this concept or this idea called brag buddies. And these are people that we know.

00:10:41 – Dr. Pamela Larde

If something great happens, I can call them up and I can do my little bragging about myself, oh, my gosh, this has happened. And. And they’re not going to look at you like, okay, so you think you’re all that, oh, okay, so it’s all about you now. And, like, you don’t get that from them because they are a trusted group of people. One person, two people.

00:11:00 – Dr. Pamela Larde

However, you know, whatever works for you, who, you know, you can trust with your. And it’s funny, we talk about trusting with your vulnerability, you know, mostly the negative things and the hard things and the traumatic things. We need people we can trust with our joy as well because people can stifle it, people can block it and be the barrier to our joy.

00:11:26 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, I love that. Brag buddies. That’s such a nice framework to kind of hold on to. And it’s got that alliteration in it. And it’s like, once you reach a certain level, it’s like, what do you think?

00:11:39 – LaTonya Wilkins

All your friends have to be brag buddies, right. I think it’s impossible because it’s. It’s like the worst thing. I mean, you have only so much time in the world, and so you have to be able to hang around with people that can celebrate you, and you can celebrate them. Right.

00:11:55 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Otherwise, I mean, so people go through their things, you know, people things. And they have seasons where they can’t stomach your joy. Like, I don’t wanna hear anything else about your freaking joy, you know? And so there are seasons where people struggle with your joy. And I’ve had this happen with some people in my life who are really close to me, and I’ve realized, yeah, this is not a season where they can take that in. And so I’m more there for them in the ways that they need me to be.

00:12:25 – Dr. Pamela Larde

And then I take my joy celebrations elsewhere. Not that I withhold my joy from them, but I’m also respectful of what they’re able to take in at any particular season. So it could be people you’ve rolled with for years and decades that they might hit a season in their life where it is just really difficult for them to swallow that joy.

00:12:48 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, I love that idea of seasons, right? Where there might be a lot of joy in one season and the next season maybe not. And I. This takes me into our next question. In our next topic, I’d love to chat about is, are there differences in joy across demographics? Because you brought up George Floyd, you brought up 2020, and I know in 2020, it was like, if you look at any black, I mean, it was really hard for any of us to see any joy or to. To intentionally participate in joyful experiences.

00:13:24 – LaTonya Wilkins

So in your research, I’m curious, have you seen any discrepancies in or any imbalances of how people experience joy by demographics? And what does that look like?

00:13:37 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Well, so I first want to just address black people experiencing joy in 2020. It’s interesting because that is when we were having the hardest time. We were pushing for changes in law enforcement here and actually, globally, there were protests about things need to change. And guess what grew out of that black joy movement? Hashtag Blackjoy. Black men frolicking.

00:14:06 – Dr. Pamela Larde

I don’t know if you all seen it. If anybody hasn’t seen black men frolicking, type in hashtag black Menf frolicking on Instagram or any of the social media, and you’re going to see all these videos of black men who are like, what is this frolicking thing? Okay, let me try it. And they’re out in fields and they’re running, and they are wherever they are, and they. They are experiencing this thing called frolicking. So this grew out of that time that was really difficult for us as we are experiencing pushback and all of the negative, I guess, responses to protesting and pushing for change.

00:14:47 – Dr. Pamela Larde

That’s when it happened. But culturally speaking, I have seen some differences in how joy is expressed. So one of the things, when I was researching language around joy in Swahili, for example, their joy was very similar to family. So in trying to look at the translation of joy and Swahili, family is what came up, which is really interesting because it speaks to the value of community. That’s not necessarily a big thing in the western world.

00:15:28 – Dr. Pamela Larde

And on, you know, it is more about individual, you know, individualism and what can I do to seek out my joy and do my healing and do my therapy and what needs to be done? Which is not knocking it, but it’s a very different take on. On how to find our well being and how to find joy.

00:15:50 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, it’s. It takes me back to when we were in London together. So we went to a black coaching conference in London. Was that what, July. Gosh, summer has flown by?

00:16:05 – LaTonya Wilkins

June.

00:16:05 – Dr. Pamela Larde

June, yes, that.

00:16:08 – LaTonya Wilkins

That was. It was an amazing experience. But Doctor Gifford, I think you missed his talk. But it was interesting because he was talking about black joy, and he. He did a talk about whiteness and how all that kind of disappeared because joy was like a.

00:16:27 – LaTonya Wilkins

Like a natural part of the black experience until we all got socialized into whiteness. It was a really interesting presentation, and. Yeah. Yeah. So that kind of tracks with that.

00:16:38 – LaTonya Wilkins

And I think it also, at that time, I think there was also a movement where mental health was being stressed more and more for activists. And I’m seeing that, like, I’m still seeing people have a hard time with that. But good activism involves that and involves joy. Right. It involves being able to laugh and being able to have community.

00:17:01 – LaTonya Wilkins

And so does that also all that stuff kind of relate to that time as well?

00:17:05 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Absolutely. And if you look at any social movement, there are moments of joy embedded in those social movements. We can look at the one that’s most referenced in the United States, which is the civil rights movement. And if we were to do a study on joy, which I’ve done small examinations of joy. You find it.

00:17:27 – Dr. Pamela Larde

You find it in Martin Luther King shooting pool in couples and moments of love and different things that are happening that demonstrate that people are maintaining their joy. If we take it to the women’s rights movement, you. There was this whole, let’s burn our bras. Like, there’s some joy in burning a bra. So even the means of communicating here is what we’re trying to say and what we’re trying to do had levels of joy that was infused into it, and that’s how our movements tend to go.

00:18:03 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah. Yeah. You just made me think about. When you said Martin Luther King playing pool, you made me think about Obama playing basketball.

00:18:10 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Yes.

00:18:13 – LaTonya Wilkins

And I. He was actually pretty good. Yeah.

00:18:16 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Yeah, he’s pretty good. And as president, I can’t imagine the level of stress, and especially being the first black president, the level of stress that you’ve got to have. And if, again, I can see doing a study on the ways in which the Obamas sought out joy during the time in the White House because they needed it, how else were they going to survive and then preserve the integrity and the. And the beauty of their family without having joy being a part of the journey? And they can’t. It’s.

00:18:49 – Dr. Pamela Larde

It’s intentional. It wasn’t.

00:18:51 – LaTonya Wilkins

Joy was.

00:18:51 – Dr. Pamela Larde

It wasn’t going to just come to them. They had to literally create it.

00:18:55 – LaTonya Wilkins

Right, right, right. It’s like, you know, I was having a conversation, and this is interesting, and this kind of takes us into misconceptions, but with one of my asian coaching colleagues, and she said, like, there’s been, you know, she lives in Seattle. And we were talking about some of the tensions between black, black people in Asians and Seattle. I didn’t know about that history. But she was just like, yeah, she really filled me in.

00:19:22 – LaTonya Wilkins

I mean, I think I heard. I heard surface pieces of it, but nothing deeper. And she was telling. We were talking about the big thing that her asian friends don’t understand about black people. And it’s like, why do they laugh?

00:19:37 – LaTonya Wilkins

Why are they so happy all the time when the world is so evil? Like, hard to them, hard on them. And, you know. Cause I think the asian cult. I mean, this, folks, this might be a stereotype. And this was.

00:19:47 – LaTonya Wilkins

I’m just telling you about my conversation. I’m not endorsing what my asian colleague told me, and I’m also not stereotyping, just so folks know. Inna put that disclaimer out there, but it’just, I could see why people would think that, but we’ve been doing that here. I mean, I’m a descendant of slaves and my great great grandma whether was a slave, but we still had a lot of fun in my family. Like, that was.

00:20:09 – LaTonya Wilkins

The thing is, like, my grandma just, made us laugh and we. Yeah, there was some tough love and there was some strictness, but I just can’t imagine growing up, you know, in black culture without that joy, without that laughter. Right. I mean, it’s. But it’s so interesting because I think that was our way to cope, right?

00:20:27 – Dr. Pamela Larde

I mean, what is. What would that life be with the absence of joy? Who would want to keep living? Who would want to keep going or fighting for anything if joy didn’t exist in, you know, at all? I mean, the term or the phrase I gotta laugh to keep from crying is. That’s embedded in black culture because it is a strategy, it is a survival strategy. And that’s one of the reasons why. Part of the research around joy, I’ve coined the term joy resilience because it is a type of resilience that’s rooted in our pursuit of.

00:21:05 – Dr. Pamela Larde

It’s what we need to survive.

00:21:07 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, now’re joy resilience, folks. Write that down. I got get my own notebook out over here. Wr this down here. Yeah, that is, that’s.

00:21:20 – LaTonya Wilkins

That is such a timely phrase. Right. Especially with everything going on in the world. I mean, it looks like every time you look up, something’s changing or something’s different. And, you know, I coach CEO’s and it’s like it’s all over the place, you know?

00:21:35 – LaTonya Wilkins

And, yeah, so the joy resilience, that’s another way to give your clients permission or your colleague permission to experience joy. But what other misconceptions are out there about joy?

00:21:48 – Dr. Pamela Larde

You know, I think that a lot of people think that joy is this easy, feel good, fluffy word when it is actually, it is very. It’s tough. It’s not an easy thing to embody. It takes practice and intention and it’s not something that just fades, you know, quickly. It’s not.

00:22:12 – Dr. Pamela Larde

There’s a lot of, you know, conflating of happiness and joy and using the words interchangeably. I think it’s important to remember that, that happiness is just like it sounds. It’s based on what’s happening. It’s environmental, it’s. It’s our response, our natural response to the stimuli that’s happening in the world.

00:22:28 – Dr. Pamela Larde

So I’m feeling happy. I’m doing things that. That give me a happy life, which is very different than joy, which is a state of be being. It is a combination of our ethos, like who we are as people. It is a combination of emotions and the experiences we create and the physiological responses that we have, you know, to.

00:22:54 – Dr. Pamela Larde

To experiences and how we’re living our lives. So I think one of the big misconceptions is that joy is just this. This fluffy woo kind of thing when it’s actually. It’s just so much deeper than that. After one of my presentations, somebody asked me, and I save all the questions because they’re all such great questions, why study this like, we know what joy means?

00:23:20 – Dr. Pamela Larde

We look it up in the dictionary, and it means that, you know, X, Y, and z. What’s the value in actually creating research around this? And I think because people struggle so much to grasp it, to claim it, to talk about it, it’s taboo in certain environments. And so I think it’s important to research so that it becomes more palatable. And we have strategies. Believe it or not, people need strategies in order to integrate joy in their lives.

00:23:52 – Dr. Pamela Larde

And one of those strategies I going bring in is play. And so when we were in London and having that experience of play.

00:24:03 – LaTonya Wilkins

We’Ll get to that. We’ll get to that. No, but that’s made me fall off a bicycle. Was that whatever that thing was? Nothing was. But, okay, before we move on to the strategies and the tips, so let’s just use an example of someone getting us.

00:24:22 – LaTonya Wilkins

I’m kind of fascinated by his concept of happiness versus joy in single man and when he talks about it, but, okay, so let’s pretend someone gets a new job, and they’re really excited about it, so they’re happy about getting the new job. Like, the new job brings them happiness, but the joy would be the actual things that they do in that job to remain joyful. Is that what you’re saying, or is it different?

00:24:48 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Well, so Joy can also be responsive to what’s going on in the environment. It’s not that it can’t be. It’s just that that’s pretty much according to what I’ve read, in my opinion. And I’m sure some of the happiness researchers would disagree. But happiness is more about the environment and doesn’t necessarily.

00:25:13 – Dr. Pamela Larde

It’s not something that it grows from within. It’s not necessarily a part of your personality and your system, whereas joy is a part of your value system, your character, your beliefs. And so getting that job, the joy comes in. Now I get to live out another, you know, facet of who I am now. I get to embody my purpose in a way that I have been, you know, that feels in alignment with who I am.

00:25:41 – Dr. Pamela Larde

That’s where the joy comes in, because it’s. And I’m not going toa lie, there’s also. I can pay my bills, and being able to pay my bills is another asset or aspect of fulfillment and purpose and those kinds of things. So that’s where the joy comes in. It’s that part of you that is doing the being.

00:26:05 – Dr. Pamela Larde

It’s the being, you know, part of who you are.

00:26:07 – LaTonya Wilkins

The being. Yes. Yes. Not just the environmental stuff that you’re experiencing. Yeah.

00:26:13 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Right. I mean, we could be happy about a great new, amazing salary, but we can also be joyful about how that is going to allow us to sustain the kind of life that, you know, we. That’s in alignment with who we are.

00:26:29 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yes, I think. Yeah, that’s helpful. That’s a, that’s a helpful example. So how many of you folks listening want more joy in your life? Well, you’re gonna want to stay on for this last segment. So what are some of the tips?

00:26:44 – LaTonya Wilkins

Maybe you can give us a few tips around ways to create more joy in our lives, because I know for me, like, it’s hard. I mean, you have to schedule in things and then sometimes you feel guilty, and sometimes those are the things that you cancel first. I mean, I do. I don’t know if you’ve read the book the artist’s way. I’m really into that.

00:27:02 – LaTonya Wilkins

I’m really into the whole philosophy. And so I try to schedule this stuff in based on that. But what are some other ways that people, some strategies you have that people can create joy in their lives?

00:27:15 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Well, I agree with the scheduling it in, but also making sure that it is just as important as anything else that you have scheduled in so that it doesn’t get canceled first. And it that, and I also recommend scheduling in just gaps so that it doesn’t. There are moments where you don’t need to be doing anything. And to your question about misconceptions of joy, a lot of people think you’ve got to be doing something. You’ve got to be outwardly expressive about it.

00:27:45 – Dr. Pamela Larde

It’s got to be loud. It’s gotta be visual. It could be just you sitting down quietly with your eyes closed for a half hour in between meetings to just take in life, to release whatever has been, you know, overwhelming. Those are the kinds of things that also bring joy, is quiet moments, peacefulness. And it’s not always in the doing.

00:28:10 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Remember, it’s in the being. And so who are you allowed allowing yourself to be in those particular moments? But I would also say I’m going to come back to the idea of play. Like, we don’t necessarily. We abandon that in a lot of ways after childhood. And I want us to reintroduce ourselves to play.

00:28:32 – Dr. Pamela Larde

I am in. Even though I wrote joyfully single, I’m now in a pretty serious relationship. And one of the first things that he discovered about me was, oh, she likes to play. She likes to go out and, you know, and walk or run in the woods or, you know, play in a water fountain that might have, you know, we might be walking by and just random things. And that’s contagious because he is a very straight laced cool and collect guy.

00:28:58 – Dr. Pamela Larde

But I’ve noted he jumped in a water fountain once, you know, and so things like that, your play isn’t going to look like somebody else’s. So I think it’s important to define what that is and what that looks like and do it and create those moments. One more thing I will say is probably the most important way to create and sustain joy is with the people that you are surrounded by. Allowing the people who are nurturers of your joy to be the ones that are closest and have the greatest influence on you, and the ones who are hinderers of your joy that they’re a little bit further out, that you can’t get rid of all of them. We can’t just cancel everybody.

00:29:43 – Dr. Pamela Larde

We’ve got parents and siblings and relatives that we’ve got to have around, whether we like it or not, but knowing where they’re supposed to be relative to you, in proximity, so that they’re not stifling your joy. So the people that are around you, I think, and it’s not even. I think it has been evident in my research and the research of others have the strongest influence on and how we live out our well being and how we live out our joy. And I don’t know that we understand enough how impactful our surroundings, our surrounding people can be to us.

00:30:19 – LaTonya Wilkins

So just maybe even do an audit on that to see, like, I did a. I think I tell people this, I know I tell my MBA students this, but I did a friend diary a couple years ago, and I never thought I would do that. But it’s kind of the same thing. It tells you so much about who your friends are, who you wanna get closer to. But I love that even taking that a step further and rating the amount of joy that people bring you.

00:30:45 – LaTonya Wilkins

And then you might need to shift to another season, right?

00:30:49 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Absolutely. Yes.

00:30:51 – LaTonya Wilkins

You know what kind? Season’s a different composition. Right.

00:30:54 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Move people around and it’s. Again, it’s not about canceling people who. Or making big explorations that. Okay, I’m moving you out of this range because you’re, you know, it is just knowing for yourself what’s working for you and what’s not. There’s people that I’ve had to kind of just tiptoe a little backwards from for a little while because they’re stifling the joy.

00:31:16 – LaTonya Wilkins

Right.

00:31:17 – Dr. Pamela Larde

But it’s also not about. I’m only going toa surround myself with people who are joyful. Joy is contagious. And so you do have the opportunity and the power, too, influence other people. It’s just so important.

00:31:32 – Dr. Pamela Larde

I love that. Aware of the extent to which that is diminishing you. If it is, you know, just awareness is key.

00:31:41 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, I love that. I love that it’s contagious and that, you know, it. It’s so interesting, I know we’re gonna wrap up here in a minute, folks, but just a couple more things on play. For those of you that think about play and you think of it as, you know, when I hear that word, I’m like, oh, my God, it sounds so privileged. Know?

00:32:01 – LaTonya Wilkins

And it doesn’t. It’s not so bougie, but it’s interesting because I had a really unexpected visitor last week, and it’s one of my favorite college friends. And we always joke about how we’re gonna get old together and we just laugh. Like, just laugh so hard. Like, the hardest I’ve laughed all year when we’re together.

00:32:23 – LaTonya Wilkins

And, you know, I think that it’s things like that. Like, if any of you are having a hard time with that word, it’s just things like that, like finding those people that make you laugh. Or sometimes I’ll even turn on a Netflix comedy special and I’ll just laugh. Or I’ll, like, go, I live in Chicago, so I’ll walk to the lake and I’ll people watch and I’ll just laugh. Some of the left with some of the people and just some of the funny things they’re doing and.

00:32:52 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah, but I think it’s. Right. I mean, it.

00:32:55 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Well, yeah. And the thing is that, so we do, I think probably the word might throw people off, like, oh, play. You know? But if you think about it, it’s. You can find play happening across so many different demographics, so many different socioeconomic statuses. Sometimes, you know, the play is very serious, like chess, you know what I mean?

00:33:21 – Dr. Pamela Larde

But it’s something that still functionally allows for you to just to release and be yourself and exercise in your. Your zone. And that’s really what I think play is. And this. This can happen at work.

00:33:36 – Dr. Pamela Larde

This can happen with a client that you are talking to. This can happen on this podcast. It’s just, you know, are you in a place where you’re in your zone and you are not having to be on and you’re just allowed to just be who you are? I think play when, if we can think about it that way, it might change the way that we do it, because it could be just walking to the lake and people watching, because that allows. I love doing that. That’s the most authentic side of me that there is, is people watching.

00:34:08 – Dr. Pamela Larde

What are they doing? I know that’s funny or that’s, you know, romantic or whatever it is, you know?

00:34:14 – LaTonya Wilkins

Right. It’s getting into a. I always end up talking to people. Like, they just want to talk to me. So I end up in this deep conversation that’s playful and, yeah, it’s fun, but.

00:34:23 – LaTonya Wilkins

So, one more question. So where could people find you, number one? Well, actually, it’s two. Where can people find you? And then what other resources do you have that we can leave in our show notes around joy?

00:34:37 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Yeah, so I have an epic joy retreat coming up. So I’ve gotta say that. Cause that’s one of the things that is a manifestation of the science and the research, and it’s a practical application. How do we infuse joy into our lives, our personal and professional lives, on an everyday basis? So that is. So the one that’s coming up is November 27 through December 2.

00:35:02 – Dr. Pamela Larde

But we’re looking at doing fall and spring retreats. So, because everybody’s not going to be able to do the holiday season, so there’s also the fall. So that is huge. And I’m super excited about that. And then I am on.

00:35:18 – Dr. Pamela Larde

I think LinkedIn is probably the way people contact me, you know, most commonly in Instagram. So I’m Joy researcher on Instagram. And then just my name, Pamela. Pamela Larde, know to say my name. Anna on Lin story, folks.

00:35:35 – Dr. Pamela Larde

Right, right. So. Or you might be able to find me somewhere at a local hotel lobby or really cute wine restaurant, writing at the bar by myself, and so come say hi. That’s my form of play, is to be able to just sit somewhere publicly, write, and then engage in conversation with whoever’s next to me.

00:35:57 – LaTonya Wilkins

Yeah. And she won’t be shy, so don’t be afraid to speak to her. And so this has been, this has been a joy today, Pamela. So thank you so much for coming on our show, folks. We will leave all the resources mentioned and our show notes and thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you next time.

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