Breakfast with Stephen

This episode explores the importance of assumptions, choices, viewpoints, and purpose to formulate a successful strategy. 

My special guest is Jessy Hsieh, Clinical Assistant Professor at New York University Stern School of Business. Jessy’s research interests include strategy, creativity, digital sociology, and philosophy of education.

A good strategy questions all certainties and assumptions with a curious, open, and flexible attitude. Strategy is not a rigid plan based on dangerous false assumptions but the smallest set of choices that optimally guide or force other choices.

The best strategic ideas require leveraging different points of view by listening to your people and giving them a voice. Strategy is about choosing, and choosing is the freedom to reframe challenges to make us feel we have agency in our personal and professional lives.

Listen to the episode:

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Subscribe to Pity Party Over

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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Pity Party Over the podcast for people teams and organizations seeking practical ideas for results in greater happiness. I'm your host, Stephen Matini. Let's pause, learn and move on. Pity Party Over is brought to you by ALYGN, A L Y GN . company.

Stephen Matini: Hi everyone I'm Stephen and welcome to Pity Party Over. This episode will explore the importance of assumptions, choices, viewpoints and purpose to formulate a successful strategy. 

My special guest is Jessy Hsieh, Clinical Assistant Professor at New York University, Stern School of Business. Jesse's research interests included strategy, creativity, digital sociology and philosophy of education. Jesse teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses and she is currently pursuing her PhD in the department of Applied Statistics, Social Sciences and Humanities at New York University.

Stephen Matini: I am curious to know where you grew up, and what were your early experiences that somehow shaped where you are now.

Jessy Hsieh: I was born and raised in New Jersey, Parsippany New Jersey to be specific, but you know where I grew up, and who I am and where I'm from is a compilation of what I would say everyone before me. So a little bit about my, my parents were both in, one born, my dad was born in Southern China. My mom was born in Northern China. 

Their families in 1949, they all went to Taiwan. They were both raised in a small, a small city in Taiwan, but it wasn't until they both came to the United States for graduate studies that they met. I might have been born in Morristown New Jersey and raised in Parsippany New Jersey, but the history of where I'm from is a confluence of so many chance occurrences that created me.

Stephen Matini: What would you say that has been the biggest contribution of your parents in the way you think, the way you are? 

Jessy Hsieh: Strategies at the confluence of choices and chances, so chances, things that you don't have any control over and choices, those decisions that you make to kind of pivot or to make those moves.  My dad was a, he's retired now. He was a biochemical engineer, and those that was really, not really by choice, but something that he was very good at and that he knew that he could get a scholarship to study here in the United States. 

For my dad was always very interested in history and my mom was a very accomplished, she loved to paint in her in her free time. I come from a family of scientists, but always there was this artistry, humanities, there was a crux of people's interests that they weren't able to pursue. So for me, I think that where I learned to appreciate both scientific mindset and although also the artistry and interpretive mindset of artists, and putting them together in terms of my teaching as well, just a science and an art.

Talking about strategy and a confluence of choices and chances, things that you cannot control and things that you can control. One of the most salient memories I have was when my mom died from cancer when I was 17. That was a very, very big learning for me, because she was the only person whose opinion really mattered to me when I was growing up. And so having no longer be able to rely on that, I had to really make a lot of decisions for myself. That's important to me? What do I have at hand? What's the environment and then to make those choices? 

Because I could not rely on the wisdom, the opinion of this person who matter so much to me. So that to me is a very formative experience. This person was removed from my life. It actually forced me really rely on my own thinking, my own decision, making my own kind of internal motivator, and also internal compass to make those decisions, to own those decisions, and to move forward.

Stephen Matini: Do you look like your mom?

Jessy Hsieh: I look like both my my dad and my mom I think.

Stephen Matini: In 2015 you said, you tweeted, “Strategic equals skeptic of false a certainty, citizen of enlightened ignorance.” So has that thought changed since?

Jessy Hsieh: Skeptic of false certainty, yes. And then also citizen of ...?

Stephen Matini: Enlightened ignorance.

Jessy Hsieh: That definitely works, still holds! I actually don't think that that could be mine. I must I must have been somewhere where I heard that or something. I should have, I should have credit that, or if it's mine, that could work. I mean ...

Stephen Matini: I think it sounds like you, yeah.

Jessy Hsieh: Yes because I think that one of the biggest challenges when people think strategically or when formulating strategy is false certainty. The moment somebody says like this is definitely the way we should go ... to me, it’s kind of like we're not cynical of that possibility, but the skepticism is really like, okay, why? Are these decisions in this statement ... are these based on assumption of the past that might not be true to reality, and that are basically guiding you to think something that is certain when it's not. 

The only thing worse than uncertainty, is false certainty. That's kind of where I would think strategy really comes in. We're always going to live with uncertainty, because there are so many things that are out of our control. The only thing worse than living with uncertainty is being falsely certain that you know the right answer, that you know the right course, that you know, or assume that what you are doing is either wrong or right, right? So false certainty is the danger.

And enlightened ignorance. I think enlightening ignorance was definitely a phrase that I've heard somewhere before. I'm definitely not as poetic as that, be able to come up with that. But enlightened ignorance really is, constantly being in the state of asking questions, never being falsely certain about what you think is true, what you think is the right course, and being flexible. What's the next thing I want to know? What's the next thing that I can clarify. There's so many things that we don't know. Let me find out what I can know. 

Stephen Matini: It is my understanding that strategy typically involves two major processes. One is formulation, which includes a strategic planning and strategic thinking. The second one is implementation, which refers to the action plan taken to achieve the goals. Do you have a similar approach or a different one? 

Jessy Hsieh: The definition of strategy that I would use is from Eric J. Van den Steen. His definition of strategy I love just because it kind of encapsulates both. It can go for individuals, it can go for groups, it can go for organization. So his definition is that strategy is, “The smallest set of choices to optimally guide or force other choices.” I love this, this is about the formulation and also it guides action. 

As an individual. What's your strategy for this? Sometimes it be like, I need to find a new job, I'm going to find a new job, right? That's in my mind, not a strategy, that's an action, maybe a tactic. That’s an implementation of something, right? Perhaps in terms of a strategy might be something like, I want to work in a place that utilizes my organizational skills or something like this. That is a decision to formulate that guide. 

We want to be best in kind in this, or we want to develop innovative strategies. Even just using the word innovation is actually again, falsely certain. What are those choices you need to make in order to continue? Formulation. That set. That set of choices. Then implementation. What do you need to take action on those choices? A job is something you do to make money. A career is a job you're good at. And a profession is a career you want to get better at. It's about coming up with these constraints.

Again, another strategy thinker that has really influenced the way I think, the mindset, but also how I live my life, my work here, is Adam M. Brandenburger. Adam M. Brandenburger is a professor here at NYU, and he has this four seeds of creativity. What are your constraints? What are your context that you were in? How can you look around to see what you're in and do something opposite? And combination. What are those choices that you can actually take something and add it to something else? 

Because if it's too broad, it's too vague, it's really hard to take action. It's almost in-actionable, un-implementable if you will. It’s about that sweet spot, formulating some sort of idea or action, formulating that set of choices, and then using that set of choices to implement. Formulation, implementation are all part of the thinking process and action taking process this idea of strategy really lends itself to.

Stephen Matini: One of the things that I used to hear a lot from clients in the past, what is a strategy for the next year? For the next three years? For the next five years? And somehow this concept has become almost ridiculous, in a world that changes all the time. How is a strategic approach changed in your opinion?

Jessy Hsieh: They always think about the strategic plan. I think I heard this from Adam M. Brandenburger, or he may have quoted somebody else, foolish is the person who comes into battle or comes into something with a plan. It's not flexible enough. Plan all you want, maybe schedule you want and have all these goals, but things often don't turn out to where you want them to be. Using time as a strategy is time-bound, is like a goal, by year one. This is what I will have done.  Those are goals. Not necessarily strategies. Strategies are choices, like choices that you're making. 

The key thing about strategy is these decision notes. Every little pivot, any one of those things could lead off two totally different timelines if you will. There's multiple outcomes that could come from any type of decision at any moment that you decide to take another course. If you're a retailer, are we going to be a fully organic or we only use organic cotton for our garment?

That's a strategy, because it limits what you will do. The best in kind in providing fully sustainable organic products. That gives you a direction, that guides other decisions that need to be made. That guides then who you're gonna get as your suppliers, who are you going to target as your customers, how you might have to price things in the future, like these are all those are the types of decisions that are going to guide other ones. Is it a plan? Not necessarily is it time bound? Not necessarily. Time is a helpful tool to help meet targets, or to meet goals, and to see if you're on the right track, or making progress. But strategy is decidedly not a plan. It's a set of choices that you're making. That you have to decide upon a set of choices. A set of decisions. Yeah.

Stephen Matini: With that said (laughter) ... the notion of choosing is so central in the way you approach strategy. What are the ingredients to choose well?

Jessy Hsieh: I want to say that about you Stephen, what do you think are the ingredients?

Stephen Matini: For me the first thing that I thought about is to be aware of how I look at things, because everything can be interpreted in so many different ways, you know. What is objectivity? It doesn’t exist. So for me to become mindful of how I look at things could be probably one of the most important steps. 

The other one that I thought about is the multitude of points of view, or different ways that something can be can be looked at, to be mindful there could be other interpretations, other angles that I'm not aware of. 

When you were talking before ...it is about choosing. It's not just about a plan. For me, it's probably the soulfulness of why I do what I do. So if it's a company maybe it's something that is deeply connected with the vision, mission and values. Because to get there there could be so many different routes, but the soul of the organization, why we do what we do, probably is one of the components that is going to dramatically kick out some of the choices.

Jessy Hsieh: Yeah, for sure. I love, I love how you're talking about this choosing well and then also purpose. Why are you doing what you're doing? Simon Sinek, you know, always start with why. Because why, if you had that, then the what, the what comes from the why, and how is near infinite. It helps you limit those choices. So like why are you doing what you're doing. 

In terms of choosing well I have had many, many jobs, many things I've gotten paid to do, investment banking, so many different things that I've gotten paid to do. From there, I'm like well what is it, what is it that I'm actually good at? I could have chosen, right. I probably could be good at it. I haven't really tested. But my last job for example, you know, working at an investment bank. I was getting paid, I liked what I was doing. You know, I was good at it. It's a career, but why am I doing this? Like do I want to get better at this? And that to me was fundamental kind of purpose question. 

So now I'm in a profession, I'm teaching is something I get paid to do. That I believe that I'm good at, and I want to get better at it. Like every day is something I want to get better at. Why is fundamental, because that's something you can just go back to. It's not necessarily something that you decide on first, but it is something that is foundational. What is essential, what is foundational to your core business, to your organization? Then you go, okay then you can decide what, and how. 

Stephen Matini: Recently I was talking to a general manager that I worked with in the past, and he said, results are really important, but results alone do not do the trick, especially if you want to have a long term strategy. So you have to look at results. Those are important indicators that allow me to understand, yes, I'm going the right direction, but there's so much more than that, you know. Managers, executives are so obsessed about results, and rightfully so. But that's not really a strategy. Not at all.

Jessy Hsieh: No

Stephen Matini: It's just getting by.

Jessy Hsieh: For sure. I think the results are observation, this is data. They're all data to see why did you achieve that excellent result. Why did your, your first quarter earnings outpaced your last quarter. The results are one thing, understanding what it was, and why you achieve those results are much more important, because those are the things that last. Organizations are sometimes just making broad, sweeping decisions. You must come into the office, you must be in person three days a week, four days a week.

However, so they are actually making decisions that are how are we going to do our work in person or totally remote? That’s a how question. You're going deeper into as a General Manager is why do I, why do I want people to come back in person? Is it because I really want to have more, increase a culture of collaboration? Is it because I wanted to increase those moments of spontaneity and generative ideas that can only be captured in spontaneous interactions? 

Utilizing the data from when you were in person, when you were on Zoom. What situations lead to the reason why you're doing it? Were you able to build collaboration particularly on Zoom? Just like we're doing right now, right? We don't need to be in person to be able to have a meeting of the minds. 

As companies are grappling with how to structure their work, other work time, they're going to these decisions without first deciphering when and how. When do we work best? How do we work best?  And what do we want to achieve? Making decisions based off of past decisions, so that you can unearth why did this work well. Results are just indicators of things that work, or are things that don't work, the extent to where things work, and perhaps observation points for how things might be able to work better in the future.

Stephen Matini: Executive roles, those people are the ones who are supposed to make strategic decisions, and yet a good idea may come from anywhere. People that are closest to the issue, most likely they're going to see what's happening. Based on your experience, how would you say that an organization could transition from a model of having people on top being the strategic one, to having everyone in that conversation?

Jessy Hsieh: When you're saying the people on top of losing their identity, could you clarify what you mean by that?

Stephen Matini: I mean the C-suite.

Jessy Hsieh: Each organization is going to be different. But I do think though that in terms of strategic leadership, in order to generate the best possible ideas you want to have a lot of observations. In your organization how can we include all of these ideas so that we can be sure that we are at least having the broadest set, the broadest ideas? Then you amplify those ideas that are generated. 

In terms of strategic leadership, it is part of their identity to ensure that all the voices are heard or at least they're generating as many ideas that they can. Then, how do we raise that to the power of 10? A lot of times people who are in those positions of power, they come from the assumption that they have the best ideas. They've gone up the ranks, they assume that they might have. It's the people who are in leadership come from that thought that will never be falsely certain. 

They’ve risen up the ranks mostly because they now have experience in seeing all the different as many perspectives as I can, even from like multiple functions, multiple perspective, being able to see from different vantage points the organization, then they can operate at the strategic level. A strategist, C-suite, really being able to have this thinking, what are those things that we can move as one? 

Strategy hopefully is really allows multiple functions in organization areas of interest in an organization, multiple people, to be able to move as one organism. At the C-suite level, their identity is not in the title, but their identities really should be in their experience, to see that they can never know it at all, and then also to utilize that experience to help marshal, and bring an organization to be able to move disparate parts as one organism is strategic leadership I think.

Stephen Matini: People have amazing ideas, and actually what they found tremendously frustrating is the fact that often times their voices are not fully heard.

Jessy Hsieh: Yeah, for sure.

Stephen Matini: And those are missing opportunities for innovation, for creativity, and for being more strategic.

Jessy Hsieh: Often times, I think that back to the order of operations, real leadership is empowering, that’s the exponent. Seeing what you have in these parentheses in your organization. What currently exists. People, their ideas, each person's experience and then empowering. That's the exponent. Empowering people who work in your organization to speak their ideas, to feel heard, empowering to give them voice.

Giving them voice often times just asking them, what do you think about this? Give us examples of what is your day to day? What do you think would improve this? That is really just empowering them, before you go outside, you know, to find what other people are doing. Data is quantitative and qualitative. It's not about how much, it's about how. How many ideas do people come up with? How are you empowering people to feel heard, to speak their ideas, so that you can ensure that you are gaining the broadest range, broadest variety, and also the deepest? 

There are many excellent consultants, who bring forth the best ideas, that their experience from seeing across organizations will lead to the best practices. But each organization has such a depth of knowledge that is all kind of within individual minds. How do you get empower those, that diversity, that depth of knowledge, those depth of experience? And bring that and empower people to speak their ideas is critical.

Stephen Matini: All the choices that you made in your life that brought you here, you know, you told me about your mom, your parents ... what is the contribution that you hope to give through your work in strategy? 

Jessy Hsieh: Oh ...

Stephen Matini: That’s deep!

(Laughing)

Jessy Hsieh: That’s really deep. I think for me teaching is the closest that I feel that I can experience infinity, because every little minute that I spend with students, it's just the starting point of a seed that can germinate into infinite different possibilities. What I really hope to contribute is that the students that I interact with, they can see that there nothing is a foregone conclusion, that there is no such thing as the right way. There's no such thing as the one way, that if we are thinking about in terms of that, then we are robbing ourselves of the opportunity to experience the possibility and the infinite possibility of the future. I love teaching. I wanted to get better at this because I it's the closest I've experienced to infinity.

Stephen Matini: There's a word that I don't think we have said in this conversation, but I think it's probably it could be a synonym of infinity, which is freedom. The national strategy for you is so much connected to choosing. You know, for me choosing is about freedom. Choosing is the biggest freedom that you can possibly have. And so the last question for you is this. When you feel like crap, when you're having like a really difficult moment, for whatever the reason, is there any specific choice, or something you do to get out of the funk that somehow, you notice, works well for you?

Jessy Hsieh: The title of this whole podcast Pity Party Over. I just love that. Okay, I just, I just love it in so many different ways. So for me, I would actually say that translating things to action, something that you can do is an initiation of freedom, it’s an initiation of choice, and it's also a way to get out of the pity party if you will, right, like the funk. 

For me, for me, I always feel the most free when I think of things in a different way, so I will give it exam. I recently turned 40. So leading up to this, a lot of my friends were like, oh by the time you're 40 we should have this, we should have a, b and c, we should have, you know, accumulated in some sort of thing. It always seemed like an end point, like 40 just seemed like some sort of endpoint. 

No, screw this, you know, this is just the beginning. So freedom to me is reframing certain situations in a way that makes us feel that we have agency in our life. I want to start a movement, I'm gonna call it my F. F. Y. F. F. It's the start of my 41st year of 40-first. For example, my first time having a dirty Martini, which I've never had, which I love. The first time eating mutton. My first time, my first mammogram that I had, it was also during ... My first time, what else did we do? What else they did? This is the anti bucket list.

I don't care what everyone else has done. This is my first, my first time seeing my friend's new daughter. My first time doing a 2000 piece puzzle. It's a movement to reframe how we're seeing things that are expected to be the end, or the mark of an end of something, and really it's part of the first of a new beginning. What can I see differently? Instead of thinking things are coming to the end or things that I'm losing out, or things that I don't have, constantly going with that mindset. What are the first things that you, you are doing for the first time? You are thinking for the first time, that you are feeling for the first time? Those first. Pity party over, how do I get out of the funk? Freedom is refraining. It's a mindset to look at what currently exists in a new or different way, that puts your own stamp on it. 

This decade. My mom was diagnosed with cancer when she was 45 And she died when she was 50. All of us, if there's anything that we learned from the pandemic, is that there is no certainty about what's going to happen in the next moment. For me switching that from like, oh gosh, you know, what am I going to do to like? Okay, what is it that I can do right now? What is it that's new for me right now? What are those things that I want right now? There's no such thing as a plan. You come to life with a plan, you're going to be sorely disappointed 

Stephen Matini: Miss Jessie, you are a precious gift. 

Jessy Hsieh: Oh Stephen ...!

Stephen Matini: Thank you for doing this with me. We should do this again.

Jessy Hsieh: Yeah, absolutely.

Stephen Matini: Thank you for listening to this episode of Pity Party Over. 

In the episode Jessy points out strategy as a confluence of choices and chances, things you can control and things you cannot control. 

A good strategy questions all certainties and assumptions with a curious, open, and flexible attitude. Strategy is not a rigid plan based on dangerous false assumptions, but the smallest set of choices that optimally guide or force other choices. Understanding the context of those choices is also critical.

For individuals, teams and organizations, choosing well requires awareness or why we do what we do. Purpose drives results, and results tell us how things might be able to work better in the future. 

The best strategic ideas require leveraging different points of view by listening to your people and giving them a voice. Strategy is about choosing, and choosing is the freedom to reframe challenges to make us feel we have agency in our personal and professional lives.

If you are interested in developing your strategic thinking, you can contact me via email, LinkedIn or Twitter, or sign up before a 60-minute complimentary Live Session. Please check the episode's notes for information.

If you enjoy this content, please subscribe to the Pity Party Over podcast available on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify and many podcast platforms and apps.

I invite you to browse our leadership and managerial development programs at alygn.company dot. ALYGN is spelled A L Y G N . company.

Be happy, be well, and until we connect again, thank you for listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

This episode explores how “Human to Human” conversations can help leaders bring the best out of people to deliver outstanding results.

The special guest is Carly Anderson, an Australian-American leadership and executive coach. Carly began training as a coach in 1998 and became a Master Certified Coach in 2004 by the International Coaching Federation, the leading coach credentialing body.  Since then, Carly has mentored hundreds of coaches, becoming one of the most authentic voices for leadership development.

Leading people through change requires a carefully organized process. However, leveraging people’s potential and boosting motivation entails integrating a consultative-training approach with honest, kind, authentic conversations.

Human-to-Human conversations mean creating space where people can be seen, heard, and acknowledged as whole beings. That is where fundamental transformation, actions, and behavioral change occur.

Listen to the episode:

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Podbean

Google Podcasts

Subscribe to Pity Party Over

Sign up for a complimentary Live Session

Contact Stephen Matini

Connect with Stephen Matini

Leadership & Management Development

Connect with Carly on LinkedIn

Carly’s mentor coaching programs at www.carlyanderson.com

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Pity Party Over, the podcast for people teams and organizations seeking practical ideas for results and greater happiness. I'm your host, Stephen Matini, let’s pause, learn, and move on. Pity Party Over is brought to you by Alygn, A L Y G N . company.

Stephen Matini: Hi everyone, I'm Stephen, and welcome to Pity Party Over. This episode will explore how Human to Human conversations can help leaders bring the best out of people to deliver outstanding results. 

My special guest is Carly Anderson, an Australian-American leadership and executive coach. Carly began training as a coach in 1998 and became a Master Certified Coach in 2004 by the International Coaching Federation, the leading coach credential body. 

Since then. Carly has mentored hundreds of coaches, including myself, becoming one of the most authentic voices for leadership development.

Stephen Matini: The question that I have, the first one for you is this one: I know a bit about you know that you're Australian, and here and there you told me different things about yourself. But I'm curious to know what are the these steps that brought you from the beginning to where you are right now? Like you were born in Australia now you are in the US, so which were the main steps in your, of your development? 

Carly Anderson: As always life doesn't happen as a straight line. If you had said to me this little girl born in a very small country town in South Australia would be talking to Stephen who's in Italy from, and I'm in Los well I'm not in Los Angeles but I'm in California, and that you would consider me one of your mentors. I would go, no way that could ever happen!

Yeah, I came from a very middle class, lower class family who none were educated, and, and somehow I was not like them. So I guess that thing was I always had ambition. I didn't know what that ambition was, but I just knew that I had to keep learning. 

So from a very young age, I just noticed when I look back now on that person, I was that I was always just a learner. I mean just ... I studied, well, I always I loved history, I loved Mesopotamia. I loved ancient history for some reason, then I love sport, and so I would just practice because I love the act of getting better.

So if I go through my life, that's what drove me to be honest and how I'm here because learning took me to the next place. And also this unknown drive as to I don't belong here and I don't know where I belong and I don't know why I'm not comfortable in my own skin, which for a very long time. 

Until my early 30’s, I did not feel I felt something was wrong with me, and I didn't know what. And all of my family were like in the country town and here already I had moved to the city by the age of 19 and that was considered like ... what?

And then I can tell you, I mean from there I got a job in an advertising agency in Adelaide and I went to see “Cats” actually at the Sydney Opera House with one of my girlfriends who was very sophisticated. My first ever trip to Sydney when I was 23. And I was staggered by the beauty of looking from the airplane seeing Sydney for the first time and how green it was. And I came from a place which was very not green. 

And then we went to the Opera House and I was stunned by the beauty and I remember Andra, her name, was saying to me on the way home, I don't know and she was a laboratory assistant technician. She said. “I don't know why I'm going back to Adelaide?” Uh and I went, “Oh I don't know why am I going back to Adelaide!” 

And so then I asked for a transfer to Sydney with the advertising agency I left without knowing I had a job but I interviewed for the same agency when I got to Sydney and they gave me a job in the media department which I loved, and then I just got promoted because I was a learner and got better and better and eventually ... I left that industry but I wanted to be, I was driven by wanting to learn and I engaged in personal development. 

So I did my first personal development course when I was 27 or eight, I've just been fired from my job, and it was perfect timing. They collided where I did this personal development course, which was transformational for me. And so that then led me to wanting to have my own business. So then I had a strategic planning company, had employees, I went from being employed to being an employer. 

And then someone said to me, coaching is coming to Australia and bringing the first ever coach training program to Australia, it was 1997, and I think you'd be a great coach. And I said to my peer colleague, I said, “”hat are you talking about? I don't know what you mean." Sports coaching was all I knew. So he said, look, I'll send you the brochure when I get it. Okay. 

So four months later send me, sends me the brochure and I was like, okay, so I did it. And short story is I within a year sold my half of the business trans started to be getting involved in coaching, Went to a coach conference coach conference in 1999 in Orlando in Florida and met Michael, didn't do anything but a year later we met at the same conference, but this time I was in Vancouver and I came from Sydney, he came from Philadelphia and this time we were both free at the first time, we were both involved in relationships. 

And then we married in 2001 and here I am living for 20 years with the most wonderful human, 21 years married soon and ... that's how I'm here and that's the steps I guess.

Stephen Matini: So coaching really you discovered it early on, like at the very beginning of coaching ... how interesting.

Carly Anderson: Yeah, 1998 was when I encountered it. 1992 was when you know around that time was when it really began. So I was about six years in ... yeah.

Stephen Matini: What coaching had that your previous career did not have?

Carly Anderson: Yes. Well this is good because I had been an employee but now as an employer and I had five employees at the time that I heard about I learned about coaching. And so my company what we did was take the strategy vision and values of large organizations, like banks and insurance companies and others, and translate that into stories, into graphics, into pictures into corporate storytelling before it actually was that. 

What I noticed is from the C suite down through the organization we would have great conversations, they would take the information but nothing happened. No change happened. It was just communication and making lots of money but I didn't feel like I was making a difference. 

So after about five years of doing this I was going there's something missing and then along comes coaching I was like oh ... okay this is what makes something that you are talking about from a consultative perspective, and takes it into transformation and action and behavior change. That's what was missing until I coaching came along,

Stephen Matini: You learned quite a bit of leadership, and also your own leadership style, and what could work for you or not based on having bosses, and you as a boss.

Carly Anderson: So interesting to how often we get messages in life about things and I guess that's also true with for me about people making people important versus process, because I was very much into the process of learning and getting better, and I never thought about humans along the way until much later in my life really. 

And so one of the first things that I noticed is when I was preparing for this with you which I think is a fabulous thing that you're doing here, it's just discussing things about people and get out of the pity party and just think it's wonderful what you're doing. 

And so the first thing I thought about was my first boss was a part time job in my small country town where I grew up, and it was a real estate agency that had a small travel agency with it, and I was the receptionist at the time, and I realized he was such a kind, you know when you look back people often say who made a difference in your life?

Well this my first boss, his first name is Paul, I don't even know if he's still alive, I tried to find and I could not find him a number of years ago. Kind, very, very interested in my development from the beginning. He could see I was an introverted, sort of quiet person, and he he was a Rotarian. And so he's said, I think it would be good for you to learn more about people.  And so how about you raise money for charity for the rotary club and that will help you just that process. 

And he was just this really kind person and he made a difference without him seeing that and helping me in that way, that was hugely important to me. And I didn't realize he was really seeing me as a human being for the first time. That's the first time I ever felt like I was really seen by somebody in my life. 

Stephen Matini: There are two words that you use, even in the past, and I have learned them from you. One is when you talk about talk to people from “human to human,” and then I guess maybe the opposite is “process”, which is, you know, when you get more, I guess formulaic? So what is a “human to human” conversation”?

Carly Anderson: What we're having right now.

Stephen Matini: Thank God!

Carly Anderson: Yeah! Because I'm interested in you, you're interested in me, we're interested in how you think feel, act, react ... I mean, I wanted to ask you how come you wanted to live in the United States? You see that's a human, I'm interested in you. I'm not trying to get something from you. I don't care about the act of it. It's like what's important to you about that. 

That's me being curious about you as a human being. And when we actually show and demonstrate that we are curious and understanding, wanting to understand or seeking to at least understand a little more about the person that we're engaging with unconsciously we're also saying: you matter. 

And that you're important as with when I treat somebody like which I used to, you know, it's like get this done. I want this done by this time. We have to get we've got deadlines. Of course everybody wants results. It's how you go about it. The behavior we all have is a choice, whether we realize it or not, and we're either choosing to make results the way we speak. We're saying you're not important. The result we get out of this is more important. 

As with if I say, how do you go about? What, what's making this difficult for you or what do you find enjoyable about this? Okay, so how does that make you more productive or what do you need in order to be more efficient? I'm interested in you as a human being to get the result, and it makes a big difference. 

Probably know this Stephen, I can't quote exactly now where it's from. But it was originally the Gallup organization that did a survey that showed that people leave organizations mostly because their direct superior doesn't care, doesn't show they care about them. They only get feedback when they've done something wrong. And by the way that's I'm interested in that. Why do you think they don't give feedback when they're doing things right? I'm really interested in that from your perspective as well. 

Stephen Matini: The way that I see it is that some people tend to be more naturally people-oriented, and some people tend to be very task-oriented. We need both. You know, we need both. You need to have an eye on results. You need to have an eye on people. The question is always, can you teach people to be more sensitive to people? Like one of the questions that I received most of the time is that, can you teach empathy?

Carly Anderson: I'm with you. Well, I've noticed observed in myself, first of all, I didn't have empathy and I've developed it and it's definitely something you can develop.

Stephen Matini: You?

Carly Anderson: Yeah. No! I mean, No, I did not have empathy. I mean, for instance, when I was a young manager, I was around 26, in the advertising agency, I worked in if somebody was two or three minutes late who was coming to see me for a meeting from an external supplier, I wouldn't see them. I'm sorry you're late by three minutes. I was like rigid originally to process. And no, I've learned that, I've learned that it actually matters that, you know, and seek to understand people.

Hence, one of the reasons I love coaching is that keeps me honest in my own development, because to me I'm always wanting my behavior on the inside. I want to be a person that appreciates myself and appreciates others. I've learned both are important. And if I've had, I've chosen to develop empathy and I've worked with. 

I remember one person I coached who was a medical person who was in charge of a large research and development division inside of a medical devices company, and he was brilliant. He is brilliant. I imagine, I'm not coaching anymore. Brilliant. But the feedback was, this guy doesn't trust anybody else in the team is team to be as good as he is. And so he doesn't give much over two people and he's losing good people. We need him to stop because we think he's brilliant but ...

He and empathy, I'd say to him, “What do you think is going on here for you that you don't trust people?” He goes, “Oh it's not about trust." “Then, what is it?” He says, “Well I just need to get the result done or whatever. I don't care what other people think." “So, just checking, where in your life do you care about people?” He said, “With my son who's disabled.” 

And ... so by him actually ... I had no idea. I've been coaching him for a little bit already before this came up. And he realized that he was compartmentalizing his ability, he was so empathetic toward his son, I saw no empathy, no caring in his work environment, and he'd split himself in two. 

And once he realized and started to understand that he could in fact maybe be a little more kind, or empathetic two people in the workplace, and maybe that that was something he'd learned how to do really well with his son, it transformed him, and his environment, and his results, and people stayed, and the thing just shifted. 

So yes it's not only can be taught but I think sometimes people do already have empathy or caring and part of their life, they've either blocked off, shut out, or forgotten about for whatever reason. 

Stephen Matini: On your website, carlyanderson.com you have so much information that I that I love. There's um, there's one thing that I took you say, “I believe that we all want to be valued and respected for who we are. It's the behaviors and beliefs that we use unconsciously that can stop us from being valued and respected as we want to be.”

Carly Anderson: Yes, exactly. Which is part of a broader statement. My husband and I have a corporation together. Full it's called Full Being, F U L L Being Coaching and our tagline is, “Because who you are makes a difference in what you do.” Coaching the person taking actions is more powerful than merely coaching what actions to take. People have a greater capacity to solve their own problems than they currently employ. And we're dedicated to enhancing, enhancing and strengthening that ability.

Stephen Matini: Statistically lots of leadership development programs fail. Tons and tons of money are spent in leadership development and they fail. Based on your experience, what would you say that are some of the most important elements to pay attention to, to make sure that the program, a leadership development program, when it's deployed, is successful? 

Carly Anderson: Group and individual coaching and teamwork, team building and all of that. Yes, it's a multi functioned approach. You have to take it from a just a teaching or training approach alone is minimally ... in fact, there are statistics that show just doing that you're going to get minimal retention of action and behavioral change. 

Without some ongoing process to have behavior because habits take a while to change mindset beliefs, attitudes, behaviors all have to be something that you engage with as a process. And so if you don't have a process for doing that and coaching is a process, because you have, it's not a once off session. Like a training session can often be, well, let's go learn about emotional intelligence, let's go learn about empathy. 

Well now you got to practice it. So whether you do that in the team coaching, individual coaching, it has to be an ongoing amount of sessions that creates the opportunity for accountability, because when you come back ... I have a coach as well, and I go through cycles of coaching even though I'm 24 years into my sort of developed my coaching.

I still, I love being coached, and I employed two different coaches for two different purposes right now. And it's great, I love the accountability because when I go to my next session, if I've said I'm going to do something ... I like to, I want to know that I'm going to show up and not have, it's not that I'm trying to please my coach, but it's a good accountability for me! So you need ongoing support in order and that's what coaching offers, whether it's team and or individual. 

Stephen Matini: Based on your experience. Is there a certain specific formula, combination, or percentage that you would use these two, coaching and training? 

Carly Anderson: I've been part of effective corporate programs which have had a two day training or started out first of all with some sort of assessment, especially when you've got smart people, really smart people, you have to give them something that gives them a current ... especially about themselves and about not only their brain but about their emotional intelligence of some kind.

And so when you have an assessment that you can debrief first. Then they go into some training for a couple of days or a half day, a half day or half day, I think half days can be effective. I don't know about any less than that or whether it's being on Zoom for three or four hours is tiring I find, at a time.

So some sort of process where they're getting the information and then next is coaching after that, which is to me maybe the micro learning that takes it into behavioral change versus the information. But I found that when I've been part of those programs, assessment, debrief training, and then coaching, I found those to be, they've been very effective from companies I've worked with. 

Stephen Matini: For those companies organizations that are evaluating the opportunity of “human to human” type of leadership development. What would you say? How would you explain to them the value of this approach 

Carly Anderson: When you actually engage in this, like we are right now in conversation there's something magical that emerges in ... I mean I feel the energy just talking to you Stephen, and the vibrational excitement. You know, it's like a popcorn, in a good way! 

Most people think they know how to listen until they start going through a say a coaching training program and then they realize how much they don't hear. And fundamental, fundamental to anybody is are you really hearing what the person is saying and there's so many levels to listening.  I think that's the fundamental training that needs to happen. 

If you don't know how to listen, what you're doing is just listening long enough to respond, or react, or have the solution, and so it doesn't actually show that you're actually taking much notice of that person in front of you. 

And listening is where you have to, first of all also listen to what you're saying to yourself. Most people are saying things like, I can't get this done, I'm overwhelmed, there's too much to do, I need to get this out the door. And so what they're not hearing is, I'm afraid I'm not going to be good enough, I'm afraid that if I don't get this done, I'll be fired. 

So therefore there's so much we say to ourselves that we don't hear, and then there's so much when we can't hear ourselves, we don't hear others as well. So there's so much around listening that can be done. I think training and listening skills is so under valued. 

Stephen Matini: This podcast as you know is called Pity Party Over, right. When you're in a funk, essentially, is there anything specific that you do, to get out of it, to pity party over, to move on?

Carly Anderson: Yes, I think it's a fabulous saying. Wes. So choice, choosing, that’s, the number one thing out of a pity party is no matter what's happening, like, Gosh, I'm nearly 60. As much as I'm healthy and all that, I almost died five years ago. Now, there was things outside of my control that happened that meant I ended up having a misdiagnosis for six months, and I had 60 blood tests and still didn't know one new doctor came along within 24 hours we had a prognosis. 

I had surgery. I had ... removed that was killing me and treatment, and I'm fine. Now, that process taught me a lot about where I choose to put my attention. And right now five years later, I also have choices about what I put my attention on. So, pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional as they say. Now, whether I go, oh well I've got pain or oh Gosh, I got this diagnosed for six months and almost died. It's like, oh, what can I do? 

So I kept going. I kept going, I'm choosing to find an answer. I am choosing to ... and at this point take care of myself in ways physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social. And so my pain level right now is almost zero. And yet a month ago, it was pretty high, in my body. But every moment I choose, I'm choosing to embrace what's happening to me now because that's the power. The moment I think it's all being done to me, then the pity comes in. 

Stephen Matini: It's called locus of focus. 

Carly Anderson: Ah ...!

Stephen Matini: Yeah, essentially thinking that I'm fully equipped, I have the resources to choose, or someone else has chosen for me. Either the economy or, you know, Covid or whatever, it might be other people. You know, and it's um ... To me what you're saying is freedom, it is really having the freedom of choosing, it is the most incredible thing

Carly Anderson: Yeah, but just to add to that, it is the words we say that matter. So for instance, I had cancer five years ago. I never called it that I said I had a visitor. 

Stephen Matini: A visitor!

Carly Anderson: So no one around me who knew about it, could call it that, you had to call it the visitor, how’s the visitor, because that visitor was the mindset, and that's how I could choose.  Now. To me, the cancer cells were a result of the tumor that was poisoning my system. So I was lucky that it was stage one and it was very treatable and you know, there was, my body was able to have blood infusions, and my bloody was able to recover within about 6, 8 months. And it was good. 

However, consciously choosing the words that we use about our life situation makes a difference, to the pity or not, to the locus of focus ... hands down.  If I say every day, I don't sleep because sleep is one of my challenges. Last night I got seven hours of sleep in one without waking up. That hasn't happened in two years, literally. I'm working on it all the time from many different aspects. But if I said, and every day I say to myself, I am having, I'm going in with, I'm giving myself the best opportunity to have the best, most restful sleep versus, oh, I'm not sleeping well and it's affecting me and it's all bad!

It's like the words I used to describe my experience matter and that's the same with our clients when we hear our clients saying, I don't believe this person is able to do the job. Well, okay, then they won’t. Or, I don't trust this person. Well, why not? What would have to change in the way you're viewing them, and the words we use, and how we then frame up our experience determines our experience.

Stephen Matini: This is fun. You know, you're you're so precious. Thank you so much for the for for doing this with me for the time that you gave me. 

Carly Anderson: Such a delight. I was so excited to have this opportunity with you. Thank you for inviting me. 

Stephen Matini: Thank you for listening to this episode of Pity Party Over. As Carly pointed out, there's so much we say to ourselves that we don't hear, and when we cannot listen to ourselves, we don't hear others. So this episode is an invitation to all of you listening to create the necessary space to pause and listen. 

Leading people through change requires a carefully organized process. However, leveraging people's potential and boosting motivation entails, integrating a consultative, teaching and training approach with honest kind, authentic conversations.

“Human to human” conversations mean creating space where people can be seen heard and acknowledged as a whole being. That is where fundamental transformation, actions and behavior change occur. 

Everybody wants results. The bottom line is made of profits, savings, outcomes and outputs. All these are good health indicators for an organization. The choice though is between focusing on results alone, or taking the time to listen to people to create relationships that deliver outstanding results.

If you're interested in developing human to human conversations, you can contact me via email, LinkedIn or Twitter or sign up for a 60 minute complimentary Live Session. Please check the episode's notes for this information.

If you enjoy this content, please subscribe to the Pity Party Over podcast available on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify and many podcast platforms and apps.

I also invite you to browse our leadership and managerial development programs at ALYGN. Alygn is spelled A L Y G N . company. 

Be happy be well and until we connect again, thank you for listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

This episode explores the importance of being accountable for personal and professional success. Our special guest is Dr. Charles Panarella, Director at Florida State University International Programs in Florence, Italy. Charlie is Italian-American with a Master’s degree in Italian Language and Culture and is currently completing his Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. 

In the episode, Charlie shares his experience helping college students find their voice by overcoming the victim mentality. Accountability is a crucial developmental step for the managers and leaders of tomorrow, and an awareness seasoned professionals need to leverage to perform at their best.   

Listen to the episode:

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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Pity Party Over, the podcast for people teams and organizations seeking practical ideas for results in greater happiness. I'm your host Stephen Matini. Let’s pause learn and move on. Pity Party Over is brought to you by www.alygn.company.

Hi everyone I'm Stephen and welcome to Pity Party Over. In this episode we will focus on the importance of being accountable for personal and professional success. 

Our special guest is Charles Panarella, Assistant Director at florida State University International Programs in Florence, Italy. Charlie is Italian-American with a master's degree in Italian language and culture and is currently completing his PhD in applied linguistics from the University of Nevada las Vegas. 

In the episode Charlie shares his experience helping college students finding their voice by overcoming the victim mentality. Accountability is a crucial developmental step for the managers and leaders of tomorrow and an awareness seasoned professionals need to leverage to perform at their best.

Stephen: You were born State Island New York, and  I love when you talk about your dad, why don't you tell me something about your dad?

Charlie:  Yeah well he was a very special guy. I mean he grew up in the 20s, he was born in 1922. So basically he was you know part of it I kind of skipped a generation let's say, because he had me when he was 55 that was like another world unto itself in the United States that generations like the pre World War Two generation they have kind of like this.

Let's say these characteristics of being a very tough skin, very hard nosed generation and stuff like that. So when he grew up in the twenties, you know, by the time he became conscious of his own life in terms of like, you know, when you're a child and you start to realize what's going on, uh the great depression had begun and the stock market crashed and stuff like that.

And then, you know, my dad basically grew up on the street so he didn't have an education and maybe had a third grade education at best from what he told me. He couldn't really read or write so well. So all his experience and everything that he taught me was basically how he lived his life. And he passed on these different things to me, including the love for Italy, my cultural background and things like that.

Yeah. He used to tell me all the time, you know, eventually he's like, I have my PhD in the street. He said, but he always used to say to me all the time, Charlie, you're green, you're green, you gotta learn, you gotta learn like it didn't happen until I was about 30 years old when we really felt like we were on the same page because for a while we didn't really see eye to eye, nothing that we didn't love each other.

But I mean there were times when we weren't just we weren't on the same page, we weren't clicking, we weren't getting along, you know, I was like, I was missing him. He was missing me. And when I say miss, I mean misunderstanding and shortly after, you know, as time passed, my mom was on the phone with me and she's like, hey, you know, your dad wants to talk to you because it's on the phone, he starts telling me how proud he is of me and you know, I'm like 38 years old, 37 years old, waiting to hear this, you know?

But after all these years, I'm like, you're saying, you know, because I don't have to worry about you anymore. You know, you can take care of yourself. You know, you don’t, you don't need me for certain things anymore. Um, you know what to do. The greatest compliment he ever gave me. He told me that I became the man he always wanted to be.

Stephen: Oh, WOW!

Charlie: Yeah. And I never, he was actually, he's the guy I always, it might want to be. So we had a mutual respect and love for each other was very deep.

Stephen: You shared with me that it was a failed relationship that helped you gaining clarity of the route that you want to take, you know, with your profession.

Charlie: So, you know, the fast forward a little bit, I end up going to college on the west Coast. Um, you know, I meet this girl and it's fantastic. You know, it's kind of like the first time I ever really fell in love with the girl and uh and so it happened later, I was 25 26 you know, um and this didn't work out and I was like thinking to myself all the time, like when my mom and dad taught me this, they said this is a family and this is the way this has got to be an etcetera etcetera etcetera. 

I'm thinking, I kept beating my head against the wall and thinking, what, what went wrong? I don't get it, I don't understand, this has to be something to do, this has to have something to do with my upbringing where I come from, but I think it goes deeper than New York, I go, I have to go to Italy, I have to go to Italy and find out if I'm crazy, right?

So from the second that I got off the plane, I never had culture shock, everything was fine, everything was fantastic. It started reminding me of my childhood and stuff like that to myself. You know what, I don't think I'm crazy, I think I'm just probably a little Italian go, it was, it was like a second home. Yeah. And so I, I realized that that part of me that part of my identity was very strong and it was very important to me um you know, as well as, you know, certain things about the Italian-American side of things. The American side of it is that which is some of the things that I incorporated my classes that I guess we'll talk about um the mentality yeah it was very important to me so I came here because of that and it just kind of like set me on a path to what I'm doing.

I really wanted to perfect Italian,I wanted to study Italian, I was like what better way to do that than to be a teacher and of Italian language. And then I said well besides that I want to go to Italy for an extended period of time, you know a week, you know American vacation a week or two, it's it's like flies by in a second year and before you know you're already back to work.

I was like that's not enough, I go I need I need a month or two or three or whatever it is the summer. So being a teacher would offer that and that's how I ended up getting into education.

Stephen: You are the assistant director at F.S.U., Florida State University. What would you sa that are are the biggest misconceptions about going to college?

Charlie: I think people look at it as a place where somebody's gonna go, I'm gonna go to a class, somebody there's gonna be a teacher there who studied this material for X. Amount of years and they're gonna magically insert information into my brain and I'm gonna be able to take this information and I'm gonna just go out in the world and I'm gonna be successful and I'm gonna, you know, overcome everything and everything's gonna be fantastic. I think that's one of the things that is something that it's a misconception, it's also maybe a little misconception, I'm maybe thinking of this now that, you know, students absorb a lot of these things, you know, it's not the students are not just numbers, they're not just, you know, there to just write papers that they're individuals human beings.

So part of education in my opinion, and this is what my dad used to tell me all the time. He's tell me Charlie teach him about life. I feel that if we're gonna have a person in front of us as a, as a as a teacher, as a professor, I signed the moral contract with them already to, you know, not to hold their hand, but you know, to give them whatever I can personally, that that will help them succeed, not to lie to them, not to make them feel good about things. Of course I want them to feel good, but also that life is not fair all the time, but they don't have to beat themselves down.

They don't have to feel like defeated or they feel like, you know that the world is against them, I want them to be able to accept these things and be able to say, okay, how can I create a plan to succeed, how can I get around this? How can I have this fire in my body that gives me that will that I want to conquer these problems and these problems and these issues.

Stephen: It's interesting because different people approach teaching differently when I got into this, I never planned to teach, it was actually a friend of mine who said, I think you would like this.

I walked into the classroom, I saw the students and I had this sense of warmth, you know, they were smiling. I don't know, I fell in love with it right away and I think now I know how what was the feeling, because I've been teaching for, what is it 11 years now, so it's been a while. 

Charlie: It’s the same for me.

Stephen: And I think what I, most of all what I what drives me is I think I wanna be the type of person that I very often I could not find when I was a student. 

Charlie: Well one of the things that hit me more than anything and this is at the beginning of my teaching career, I was at a college in Manhattan where it's like I always say this it's kind of half true and half not, but you know, some of the kids are like going to jail and they're just getting out of jail. I mean they had it was a rough school great kids though because when I was there after my first semester was the toughest because I had to get, it was like I would say it was like a scene out of dangerous minds because nobody's paying attention.

People are throwing notes across the room, that kind of thing. Um And I go into my chair and I told her, I said Maria, I go, these kids can't go through life like this. And she looked at me and she goes Charlie, it's not hard, they just need somebody to care about them and you're gonna be fine. And I looked I looked both ways inside of me and I'm like that's it, that's all I have to do. She says, yeah, just do that, trust me and you'll be fine.

Stephen: When you and I shared ideas for this episode. You pointed out the importance of losing the victim's mentality. I find this concept crucial in the developmental path of all of us students included. 

Charlie: If they don't root out this way of thinking early on in life, it doesn't mean that they can't get out of it. And I think it may be a little bit harder. But what's gonna happen is they're going to put themselves in situations now that they're gonna have to dig themselves out of a hole.

Why? Because there's this negativity hole that they've been digging for 30 years or 20 years or 15 years however long it takes them to quote unquote, wake up from being a victim and I think one of the things that I see all the time is like.

It's good that you want to express yourself. It's good that you want to talk about things. It's good that you bring things to light. But I want to know what are you gonna do about it? You know, I use, I use Navy Seals, the United States Navy Seals for special forces soldiers, some of the best in the world, apparently from what they say. And this is the kind of mentality that you guys, these individuals that go in these dangerous situations.

They choose to be there and not only do they choose to be there, they actually think positive, believe it or not. So I'm not telling you this just to make you feel good. You know, if these guys can do that at that level, think about what you can accomplish as a civilian, as somebody who can is focused on their personal goals, your everyday life and that the imminent danger that your life is in danger is not there, but but hold on, I told him I go, I don't think that there isn't a danger because there is a danger. Your danger is invisible. Your danger is slow. Your danger can happen after 10 years of thinking in a way that's gonna be detrimental to you.

So, you start at this starting point and little by little you go off the track, it's like a train track that goes off this path and then one day you wake up and you save yourself, “Well how did I end up here?” Well you ended up there about 10 years ago. We weren't thinking when you weren't looking at life the right. So to have this mentality that I can't do it or the world is against me or they want to make excuses all the time and why they can't do something. My answer is there's a solution to everything, find a solution. And if you can't find a solution that is quote on quote easy because everybody looks for the you know the most efficient, easy way to go.

Sometimes the solution is not gonna be easy but the only way to get from point A to point B is to get that mentality in your head, get on you get on your feet and press forward and keep going until you get you have to will it at some point because sometimes there is an answer but the answer is not going to be simple and what are you supposed to do? You have a way to do it? But if you choose not to take that role and do it, your solution is never gonna happen. So you have to persevere, you have to lose the victim mentality in thinking that I need somebody to help me, I need somebody to you know to pick me up. 

But what happens if you find somebody like that which is fantastic because I love I love talking with people like you especially, you know, who believes in these kind of things. But what happens if Stephen is not there? What happens if Charlie is not there? What are you supposed to do? Okay, that's it. Game's over.

I try to get them to put the focus back on themselves and give them control of their life because as a victim, you don't have control. You're giving control to the outside world. And if you let the outside world control you to that degree, you're gonna feel even worse because you feel like, oh I can't do anything because the control has not been, it's not been put back inside once you decide that I have control and I had my way of looking at this and approaching this, even if it's a bad situation, you're gonna already feel better because you're in control 

Stephen: What you're saying, it is really the core of this podcast. I think it's normal to have a pity party to feel a victim. And it's really, really hard when you made a bunch of decisions in the past, thinking that you were doing the right thing, but you still end up in a place that you never hope to be. That's really, really hard. In your opinion, what is it that some people seem to be able to overcome that victim mentality and other people get stuck?

Charlie: Well let's talk about these quote unquote talented people, the ones who have it easy. So there's 500 NBA players that exist that are on teams that's usually the number of approximately. You can take the worst NBA player and some videos of this on on Youtube.

The worst NBA player put them against some of the top college basketball players in the United States or even maybe in like a G league or whatever it is and they will wipe the floor. And I'm talking about guys that scored like 200 points in their ten-year career, which is next to nothing.

You know, just goes to show the talent level that exists. Well, why is there this disparity between someone who is so talented at the 500 rank position in the N.B.A. and like Michael Jordan. What’s the difference? The difference is, is the mentality they have to push themselves to work hard. They have to push themselves to be the best of the best at that point because now the competition is so stiff, they have to find any angle that they can and it's a curve that increases at a decreasing rate.

So you're going to be very, very good at this. But your progress may be very, very slow. But these people are so driven, so interested in being the best or perfecting whatever they want to perfect that they end up becoming out of the school of people who are so gifted, quote on quote hating and using that term. Um that they become the best of those people. So, you know, it's not just, it's not just people who who don't know have, let's say advantages or quote on quote talents, we're talking aboutIt shows up among people who have high level high ability in doing things.

Stephen: There are infinite nuances between the victim mentality and taking responsibility for our life. You mentioned the importance of understanding what fear is and how fear plays between these two apparent opposites. Would you mind telling me more about fear?

Charlie: Yeah. So I think everybody's afraid all the time. I was um you know, I was always scared of like, well, what's gonna happen, I don't know what's gonna happen. Now, Michael Jordan brought this, you know, and I kind of stole this from him because Michael Jordan's said, fear is an illusion. Fear is when I'm not sure of my skills, I've been nervous before, but I've never been afraid because I'm confident in my skills.

So basically, um I think fear comes from the unknown and I think the unknown can be like, you know, the same thing with these these special forces soldiers and things like that when they've been through situations, you know, and practice these situations when the time comes when it's real. They've done this so many times, that there is no fear. Of course there's this innate nervousness that they have as anybody would because they want, they want to succeed to have that desire, that adrenaline's flowing through your body, but they're not afraid though.

There's a difference. You know, and I think when you're afraid, you're afraid because you think something bad is gonna happen, I'm not sure how I'm gonna do, I'm not sure that I have the ability to do this. They know they have the ability, they're just nervous that maybe this time I might miss it or not make it, it's not the ability. They know they can do it. It could be the 20%, like, for example, if they make the shot seven out of 10 times because nobody's perfect.

They're nervous that it's gonna be the three times they miss it, as opposed to the seven times they make it because they know they can do it. Whereas somebody who doesn't believe in themselves, it's going to be afraid of everything because they're gonna be afraid of failure.

If I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna, something bad is gonna happen. Um, but at the same time, I think they sit there and think to themselves instead of something good happening tomorrow, which is possible. They always think something bad is gonna happen, something, what if this happens, what if it doesn’t, what if something good happens? So what they do, they're always like thinking of every which way that they're going to, they're not going to succeed. But in the, in the reality, if you, even if you don't succeed and you have to get over this fear of, quote unquote failure, even if you don't succeed, what can you learn from that failure?

One of the Navy Seals that I used to follow, that he passed away because of cancer. But one of the things he said, he read this quote on a pamphlet when he was being, you know, when he was interested in becoming a navy seal, he said there's two ways that a man can lose when he quits and when he dies, which means that if you don't decide to give up as long as you're alive, you got a chance. 

Stephen: Never thought that way (laughing).

Charlie: So wait, I mean, so, you know, it's over. I tell the kids, I'm like, listen, it's over when you decided it's over and what's what's gonna happen. You know, are you gonna die from this? If you go and talk to that CEO if you write an email to a company or if you decide that you want to open up a business, what's gonna happen to you really? Are you gonna die because of this, 99.9% of the time, it's not gonna happen. You know, who knows? You may have that weird situation, but I mean, nothing bad is gonna come of it. So if you get that out of your head, that nothing bad is gonna happen and who cares that fear is no longer there because you know what you're doing, you're focusing on development instead of a, an outcome.

And that's one of the things they talk about in this book, “Mindset” by Carol Dweck, who is a professor at the University of Stanford, Stanford University is that if you focus on development, your focus on getting better. So there is no failure because development means that I'm gonna learn as I go as every level, I'm gonna make mistakes, I'm gonna fix it, I'm gonna learn what to do next and so on and so on, and I'm gonna keep continuing to become an expert, even if I'm really good at something because I'm not practicing or if I'm not really good at something, I can get better at it if I practice.

So that outcome, that moment in time doesn't define who I am. What's more important is the journey. And I always say that Tom Brady, he won seven super bowls. Well, Tom Brady didn’t, he had seven days of his 20 year NFL career that he had that moment of feeling that he won a championship the other 10,000 days or however many days that I haven't done the math, what was he doing? He was practicing. So he wasn't a champion, he didn't win the Super Bowl every day for 20 years. He wanted seven times, which is seven days out of a 20 year career. 

So the focus shouldn't be the end result. The focus should be the development the process that you go through. Even even professional athletes have to learn how to lose before they win because they don’t, they don't develop the grit, they don't develop that perseverance. They don't develop these certain things that, that take, let's say a sustained because if you want to sustain success, you have to have these things, you have to have these qualities because if you just get lucky, you know, and things happen to go right for you, which can happen, but you're not mentally prepared for what's gonna come next. If something wrong happens, you have no idea how to handle a crisis. 

Stephen: I think it's almost inevitable that you blame yourself, you lose faith and you lose your strength. I so wish that I that I knew back then. What I know now, not completely, because now I know, as you said, truly it is a process and it's gonna be uncomfortable many times, it's not going to go the way that I want, but it is true, bettering myself that eventually I'm gonna get there.

Charlie: And then once you get to the point where you're comfortable with being, nothing really bothers you, you know, and maybe it does, but you know how to handle how to channel that energy.

Stephen: Well, sometimes despite our best efforts, we are in a funk, we feel miserable about our abilities about life in general. So when you feel discouraged, not motivated, what is one of the best way for you to pity party over, to get out of the funk?

Charlie: If something like bad happens to me, I basically try to piss myself off because the more I get aggravated, the more I get this, this fire man, I don't have to explain it anymore, but I just need to win, I need to conquer. I need to figure out a way, I don't care if it comes hell or high water, I am gonna get to the other side of this problem. So I get to the point where if something happens, I really think about like even I have to trick my mind because it's something I kind of picked up from some of the things I read about Michael Jordan's basically, there were times when he got on the court and maybe he wasn't feeling at that, he was like, you know, I feel an average, but tonight it's an important game. 

So he'd be going up against people that maybe he'd never played against before. They, I mean they obviously knew who he was, but these are like just average guys and stuff like that. He walked on the court and then then they walked up to him like you know, a good game and have a good, have a good game, whatever good luck. And he looked at them and he would say, I heard what you said about and the guy looks at me goes what I say, I don't even know you, it was the first time I met you, he goes, I heard what you said about me tonight, you're gonna pay for it and he would, he would come up with some kind of crazy way to motivate himself to get him aggravated like this person is trying to stop me from reaching my goal, this person is trying to prevent me from doing what I want to do.

So I started doing that and the more I started thinking about even if it wasn't true, people telling me I couldn't do something or you'll never do that or you don't have the buildings, you you don’t, you don’t, you don't understand, the more it would piss me off to make me want to do it even more. So the second that I run up against the problem, the first thing that goes in my head is alright, here we go, it's time for me to turn on the power all the way and now I'm gonna, now I'm going to destroy this problem in front of me, 100,000%.

Stephen: Basically channeling your energy.

Charlie:  Absolutely yeah, it's a way for me to challenge my energy and you know, I think some of it comes naturally now because you get into these habits, they could be good habits or bad habits. So I started saying to myself, I want to develop good habits. So these good habits of attacking problems is well what's the quickest way to get to a solution, Start doing something that's going to get you to a solution, did you do everything that you could have done Charlie and if the answer is yes.

Alright, let's find another way to figure this out if the answer is no, I'm gonna be disappointed in myself because why I let this happen and this is and this is what I tried to tell the students this victimization, this this victim mentality, you know what you're doing? My parents did this to me, society did this to me, this did this to me. No, you did this to yourself. Nobody's saying that other people don't have advantages and disadvantages. There could be people who are born in rich families that fall flat on their face because they have all the advantages in the world, but they don't take it, they don't take advantage of them and what happens, they just they they fail because they don't have they don't they don't take responsibility for themselves.

Stephen: So if professionals, anyone really educated students needed to get in touch with you to talk about any of these topics, how could they find you?

Charlie: They can find me on LinkedIn I'm on there. Um I mean even like just on the F.S.U. website there's that as well. Um I have an Instagram account. I just got to post videos and stuff like that about food because I go around Italy, I'm a food lover. So I always put it's all it's all pictures of Italy and food has nothing to do with motivation. I mean it's another avenue, I suppose the content.

Stephen: Maybe there could be an angle to get into motivation through through food.

Charlie:  Yeah exactly. I'm always motivated to eat so ah ah ...

Stephen: Thank you for listening to this episode of Pity Party Over. In the episode Charlie and I loosely used the victim mentality expression to highlight the importance of being accountable to avoid negativity.

In psychology, a victim mentality indicates a learned behavior characterized by helplessness, often evolving as a defense mechanism to cope with adverse life events.

People who constantly blame other people or situations for their misfortunes have a victim mentality. When we are stuck with no apparent way out ,we may experience different degrees of the victim mentality. 

We might not have caused the circumstances we experience but we always have the freedom to change the outcome based on how we respond and that's our responsibility, and greatest freedom. 

As Charlie pointed out, get comfortable at getting uncomfortable, knowing that success comprises both winning and losing. You may start by identifying small things you can take to make a positive difference. Focus on development rather than the outcome.

If you have any questions pertaining how to develop accountability, you can find my contact information in these episodes notes. If you enjoy this content, you may subscribe to my podcast or blog Pity Party Over and we can also connect on Twitter and LinkedIn.

I invite you to visit a website, alygn.company. ALYGN is spelled A L Y G N . company where you can find many routes for managerial and leadership development. 

Be happy, be well and until we connect again, thank you for listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

This episode explores the importance of resilience for leadership development. Our special guest is Maria Giovanna Vianello, Global Leadership Development Consultant at Novartis, a well-known Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation.

In Maria’s experience, “Leadership is not the power you are giving yourself, but the power people give you because of the role model you represent.”

Maria has been dealing with type 1 diabetes since she was a kid. Her story shows how our biggest struggles might reveal our life mission, in her case, helping leaders reach their highest potential. 

Resilience for Maria is being “mindfully tenacious,” which combines perseverance and taking care of her body. Resilience requires incremental proactive steps and avoiding perfectionism, which depletes adaptation resources. 

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Transcript

Stephen Matini - Welcome to Pity Party Over, the podcast for people teams and organizations seeking practical ideas for results in greater happiness. I'm your host, Stephen Matini, let’s pause, learn, and move on. Pity Party Over is brought to you by ALYGN, A L Y G N . company.

Hi everyone I'm Stephen and welcome to this episode of Pity Party Over. How are you? Today we will talk about the importance of resilience for leadership development.

 

For many resilience equates to toughness and elasticity. Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Also it is the ability of a substance to spring back into shape. Essentially life has ups and downs and resilience is how long it takes me to get up when I experience a significant changes, setbacks and disappointments.

The special guest for this episode of Pity Party over is Maria Giovanna Vianello. Maria's Italian, she's a global leadership development consultant at Novartis, a well known Swiss-American Multinational Pharmaceutical Corporation where Maria has worked for almost 10 years.

Maria has a master of business administration and a master of science in business and organizational psychology. Currently she's completing her PhD in transformative studies at the California Institute of integral Studies.

In this episode Maria shares how her hardships helped her become resilient and also unveiled her mission to help leaders do the same.

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I was reading your questions and truly thinking about resilience and when did I realize that I had to be resilient in my life? When did I truly develop consciousness about it? When it was natural? What did I keep from my natural attitude? You know when I was young, for example, I mean, you know my life story, you know, I was struggling with with you know, health issues since I was very young. And so I, I believe that there was a some, some sort of traumatic event, not a fast moving event, a kind of a slow moving event, but in any case it had a huge impact in my life. And so what did I leverage of that throughout my life?

Stephen Matini - If resilience were a percentage, what percentage would you say is your natural resilience, your natural attitude and how much of resilience you have acquired through learning and anything that you've done?

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I think my natural percentage will be around 65%. Which I think it's above 50, so sounds good to me. Uh but still, when I'm in very challenging situations, I need to do something else. In addition I need to almost pose, take a deep breath and tell myself, okay, wait, you need to do something else. Your natural level of resilience is not enough.

You need to strengthen your, your capabilities to go to the next level where things will maybe not look easier, but you can get through this challenging experience in one way or the other. And uh and at the same time, because I think that is part of the consciousness, um you can take care of yourself in the process because maybe now that I'm thinking about my own natural resilience level, maybe that can be pretty high, but I could have the tendency maybe even 75% without thinking about it, right? I can go through stuff, you know head down, do move and progress.

But then if I do that and I don't take care of myself, then there is a moment when the all ecosystem, the all infrastructure boom ... falls apart and this is when you have to to deal with challenges and troubles and and it can be confusing daunting and just and then you lose time and you lose resources and you don't know when you can recover because you are completely out of your control.

Stephen Matini -  So I can be resilient, but I also need to take care of myself in the process.

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I think that was a huge part of my personal development, I would say most probably during the past 5-6 years or so, I realized how much taking care of my mind was important but my body, it's connected with the mind. And so unless you usually properly you drink, you hydrate yourself properly, you drink enough water, you allow yourself to eat nutritious food almost like celebrating yourself like a gift. So to say you cannot be truly completely resilient. 

Stephen Matini - What does resilience mean for those who do not know what resilience is, and what does resilience mean to you?

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I think that more or less universally and here I just go back to my coaching and leadership development, you know know how ah it's the capacity to bend and not to break metaphorically when you are dealing with a challenging situation. You adapt, you re-adapt and adapt over and over again and you can make sense of yourself why you're doing that.

So it's not just happening by chance because that is not enough. And for me it's more or less the same with the, with the addition of uh you know specifically caring of about your health, it's crucial and that is my, you know, my additional understanding was there. I thought for a long time that learning things from books and and and studying and then be very diligent in my job, taking care of every task in in challenging times.

I can do things uh and I can do things and to end and top quality and so I am resilient because even if there is a lot of mess, I can go through the mess and see things through, right? But that's not enough because if you don't take care of yourself, you will be in trouble from your letter. And that's I think a very recent, maybe the most recent learning about resilience as a process of it all.

Stephen Matini - For some people, resilience is a synonym for perseverance, tenacity, determination. But you seem to have a different explanation, a different, a different way to explain what resilience is which is mostly connected to taking care of myself 360°. 

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I think it's it's about being tenacious but with awareness, be mindful later nations because when you are tenacious, you are using resources in your body and because of the adrenaline under pressure, you are resilient because you are under pressure and so you have to deliver, deliver, deliver.

And with the adrenaline you don't feel the pain in the body. You don't feel you maybe need to drink some water to eat nutritious food. Okay. I don't really need to sleep every night ... 78 hours. I just who cares. I have a lot of things to do and so you go on and on and on and you are tenacious and maybe you will get at the end of the process and you will achieve the results and you will go through the mess.

But at the end, how long would it take to recover and what if something else happened in the meantime, when is the resilience reaching you know the edge of your own capacity? Because I think there is an edge for that and and that's the end. And so what can you do to prolong that?

To avoid that you reach the ceiling almost this glass ceiling and there's nothing else you can do about it. But if you are tenacious and mindful about being tenacious, I think that makes you resilient.

Stephen Matini - How do you become mindfully resilient?

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I don't know how in general, I know what for me. Um I think we in general as human being, maybe because of the school system, since we are very young, we are inclined to think that we have to do things aiming for perfection? Mhm That's beautiful, right?

Achieving perfection is beautiful, but I don't think that is crucial in an extremely challenging, complex situation when you don't know how things would develop. So to me, it's not about perfection, it's taking things step by step, being compassionate with myself in the process, finding time to acknowledge and celebrate every tiny tiny little step.

I can share my example. Recently I moved back from, from Singapore to Europe, back to Italy to my home country. I organized the move and the old logistic in in three weeks I had to do most of the things on my own, booking flights organizing the move and all that sort of stuff that you do when you are moving across the world.

Stephen Matini - Yes

Maria Giovanna Vianello - Then I arrived back to my country and I realized that it's almost more complex to move back in your own country rather than being an expat in a foreign country, right? Because if you are an expat, someone will tell you what you are supposed to do. But if you are back in your country, you're supposed to know everything about rules, regulations and permits and and and and everything.

So I realized, oh my God, I am on my own, how am I gonna do that? Right, just crazy. What am I gonna do with the, with the custom for for the move? How am I going to rent an apartment? How do I get my documents? How do I open a bank account? I mean, these are all the basics, right?

But even that for me was extremely challenging. But to do that, um I have to do things step by step very slowly uh Giving myself the time, acknowledging that I cannot do 10 things per day because that will be too tiring and I mean, I will expose myself to, to doing mistakes. But if I do tiny incremental steps every day, I can achieve way more. And if I do any of the things one at a time, even if I do a mistake, it's going to be a tiny little mistake. Not a big one because I'm engaging with, with a small step and, and with those tiny incremental steps, uh you can almost assess your own well being in the process because you are not rushing too much. And that made a huge difference.

So If you ask me after a month, I moved back on April 27. Now it's ah you know, June six a mouth and a week. Do I feel tired? Yes. Did I achieved what I needed to achieve? Almost. Um Am I fulfilled satisfied at ease with the process that I'm facing, I do. When I go to bed at night can fall asleep, which is amazing and priceless. And that's because I did all these tiny little incremental steps and again, I did some mistakes and it's not over yet and it's going to take, I think a couple more months to finalize everything. 

I mean I don't have a driving license and I need to go through a, the approval process to get my driving license because it expired when in 2020. So because of Covid, I could not travel back to my country to renew the driving license. And so I need authorization from the, you know, it's all complex and, and I can not fix this in one day. But I know that one step at a time I can also deal with that part. It's not perfect because I need a car.

Honestly, I would really like to be able to drive a car to go around instead of taking public transportation and then walking. I mean it takes me twice the time to go from one place to the other. But again, it's not about perfection. There's nice weather outside and I walk and I tell people I'm running five minutes late. I'm so sorry, but I don't have a car. So please can you wait for me? And that's how it's working for me right now. 

Stephen Matini - And it's bizarre because when you get back to your country, you are in a place that in the meantime has changed. You have changed. So it's like almost to move to a foreign country in many ways.

Maria Giovanna Vianello - Yes, it is. And and it's all about having the right expectations. Again, it's not about perfection because if I would have expected that everything was perfectly falling in place, moving back, I would be right now, extremely disappointed. 

Stephen Matini - You were mentioning earlier on that experiences that you went through when you were young. Also some health concerns might have contributed to your natural resilience. So, I know quite a bit of you because of our friendship, because of our our professional doings. But for our listeners, I would like to ask you where you grew up and how those experiences have shaped also your your professional choices, the professional direction that you took.

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I grew up in a, in a family of doctors, physicians where be perfectly in tune with your body and taking care of yourself was crucial. And and I mean it was normal, right? The other part of my family, they were teachers. And so again, that was about perfection, getting things right, learning and and and being a very proficient student at school, that that was also part of, you know, of my family context. And so when I was diagnosed, I was nine years old, I was diagnosed with diabetes type one, which is an incurable disease. You have to leave for the rest of your life out of the blue because it was an immune reaction to, to an infection, something like that. So my body overreacted to an infection.

My family was extremely concerned because they were not used to deal with unhealthy people in the family. We were very lucky, you know, and and I was the first one with a real disease that require injections 4,5, 6 times per day. And uh, and how do you allow yourself as a parent to, to help your daughter to develop the capacity to inject herself with medication when she is nine years old. I mean it's it's it's just unbelievable.

I think my parents did an amazing job to keep me accountable and it wasn't a walk in the park, but I had to step up and be responsible for myself and the price to pay for not being responsible because when you're very young and you are, you know, just a kid, what is responsibility really I want to play and it foods that other kids eat, but I couldn’t, that was very dangerous for me. I mean, not impossible but dangerous.

Uh, and so when you have to take care of yourself to, to the degree of uh being aware that if you eat a certain amount of, of something, you will trigger some reaction in your body that will be very negative. And so that is extremely challenging for a young kid, I had to develop the capacity to to take care of myself despite the odds. Despite this extreme situation, despite my family being extremely concerned, I had to build trust to make sure that they can trust me. I had to build trust with them. 

So I had to show up is a very responsible person who can get things done from end to end can take care of herself. And uh and I have to be reliable but to be reliable. I have to learn from mistakes because unfortunately everybody is unique. Everybody reacts differently to medications and so you have to learn by mistakes basically that took me a lot of energy, a lot of devotion for my, you know, for taking care of my disease, A lot of positive thinking because being upset that was just being in trouble. 

Stephen Matini - Your family taught you or you figured it out? 

Maria Giovanna Vianello - We were learning together. There was no way to learn. There was, you know, at that time. I mean that was more than 30 years ago. There was no Internet or not reliable sources on Internet or anything like that. There were no books. Um, not so many people. I mean there is a small percentage with people with diabetes, type I.

There are many people that have diabetes type II, but type I is, it's very limited. So unless you really have met in your life, somebody who has that specific disease, even doctors sometimes struggle to give you specific indications that they can give you a approximate instruction. 

But you have to try and so you have to go back to the doctor every 4 to 5 weeks and check again over and over and over again 4 to 5 weeks if you are doing good if you are not, it's almost a daily trip to the doctor to check your blood sugar level and especially when you are young and and almost on going up and down your blood sugar level is going up and down.

And that can be very dangerous, especially during the night, you can fall asleep and you don't wake up and that's um, that's extremely dangerous because there's no oxygen to your brain to do all the things we have to learn together. We have to be very patient with each other. I think my family sometimes was very scared, but because I realized that if I would show up in those moments where it was very difficult to make a decision about, you know, dosage of medications uh if I show up with the attitude of trust me, we can try and see and I will take care of myself for the next 10, 12 hours, don't worry, everything is gonna be fine with that mindset. They were giving me the chance to try and so be resilient, allow me to grow up and to practice and and learn by mistakes. 

And today, after 32 years of this very impactful disease, I must say I am healthy, I do sports and I have a meaningful life which challenges of course like everyone, but I wouldn't say that I have more challenging situations to deal with compared to someone who is not diabetic. So um I have a normal life and that that's because I'm resilient I think, but I learned resilience when I was very young. 

Stephen Matini - How this impacted your professional choices? 

Maria Giovanna Vianello - That’s a marvelous question, because that had a huge impact on my professional choices. My passion for supporting people, transformation, uh leadership development, coaching, which is you know, the core component of my job and what gives me energy every day. Um that is all connected with the idea that I was so lucky in my life to meet people that from very early stages helped me to develop, to grow to make decisions, people that were not telling me what to do, but they were rather holding the space for me helping me to think about different perspectives, see reality from different angles they were holding the mirror and giving me the chance to face, you know what I was experiencing.

And that helped me a lot. And so I decided what if I can do that for other people, I am supposed to be quite experience, I'm not saying that I'm good at that, but I'm definitely quite experienced because I learned from practicing and I had to and I will never stop because my disease will stay with me for the rest of my life. So because of that, why why don't I use that just to help other people, why why not leveraging something that was an issue for me to help other people to unleash their potential to generate more positive energy in their life, not necessarily to get a better version of themselves.

I believe we are already the most beautiful version of ourselves, but just sometimes we miss the awareness of that with the work I do, how I can help people to understand that they are amazing and beautiful and powerful and there is no limit to what they can achieve because of my experience because of all the pain I went through and uh and because I am definitely an example that there are no boundaries, there are no limits, you can always overcome challenges, maybe sometimes what you are missing, it's only another angle on the problem that you're not seeing. But as a coach, as a leadership development practitioner, I can help you to see that and with that you can go to the next level of your life, your existence and and do amazing things. 

Stephen Matini - How old were you when you decided to get into human resources?

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I think I started with the idea that I was very good at solving problems, that was my first step and I was around 17 years old, 17, maybe 16, something like that young, you know, before starting a real job, I could say, oh my God, I was at school, I mean doing some, you know some, some school projects and I could just see myself very passionate about solving problems. 

And then I took another intermediate step when I realized okay I can be quite efficient in the problem solving thing, but it will be way more efficient if I can help other people to solve their own problems and I don't you know I don't get myself tired of solving other people's problems so I have them, I don't tell them what to do, but there are ways to help them and then the next step after that was okay.

What if I do not only help people to solve their problems? What if I help people to transform to evolve to mature? And this is where you know I think 10 years ago I decided that coaching a leadership development where my my sandbox, so to say a place where I can bring my experience into the game and without pretending that I know creating a safe space to have conversations about each other challenges and grow together.

Stephen Matini - So based on your experience, why resilience is necessary as a leader?

Maria Giovanna Vianello -  I think because when you are a leader, formal or not, I mean it doesn't matter if you really have a proper job title Leader of something. We are all leaders in our life. That's something I strongly believe when you are a human being, you should role model, that challenges can be overcome can be dealt with. That there is hope that there are possibilities and possibilities are literally endless and it's up to you. 

But the way you show up the resilience, you you spread around the world with your family, with your friends, with your colleagues, that is, you know, something that would make the difference in the life of other people. And again, it's incremental, it's tiny, tiny, tiny, it's it's not about delivery worship on resilience, but it's literally every day, how can I show to other people that life is full of possibilities despite we're all facing so many challenges over and over and over every day.

Stephen Matini - I think there's a misconception. There's a misconception about leadership as something ... some sort of power you have to influence people whichever way. And from a leadership development standpoint. Also based on what you're saying, the biggest chunk is actually taking care of yourself into becoming mindful as a leader. So you can set the example. I always love to say that people look up for consistency and you cannot lead people, you cannot influence people if people don't see the very specific behavior you want them to acquire, in you, if you don’t walk the talk. 

Maria Giovanna Vianello - If you show up to your team tired not caring about yourself, how do you pretend that people will then be able to continue to do their task, their job despite all the complexity they are facing. If you are not showing up the way you want them to show up. The power of a leader is the capacity to influence other through their own actions, not through the words because words are beautiful and I mean people can say a lot of amazing things, don't get me wrong, but then it's action that makes the difference.

And if your action is not consistent with the word, this is where leadership, it's not sustainable and it's not what makes the difference and it's just confusing and and you don't have credibility. So yes, I think leadership is about power but it's not the power you are giving yourself. It's the power other people assign you. Because of the role model you represent. 

Stephen Matini - It seems to me that you believe that resilience can be taught, resilience can be developed. When resilience is low, and you are a leader, what to do? Where would you start based on what you have learned, not just on yourself but also helping others, you know, developing their resilience.

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I think it's about taking time short amount of time. Again we are talking about small, tiny incremental steps in the right direction, taking time to reflect in a challenging situation, maybe a few minutes per day when you wake up or when you go to bed, how many times during the day was I resilient enough in front of my family, with my friends, with my colleagues, how resilient do I feel well that's do I need?

Which kind of support help do I need to increase my resilience, my capacity to stay strong despite the challenges I'm facing, taking care of myself, how can I do that, What do I need because I think there is no perfect recipe and every time the way you develop resilience in different situations can be completely different. My way to recharge is making sure that I have some outdoor time, maybe even half an hour every day. That's my resilience building resilience time, right?

So if we can all find a small amount of time every day, 10 5 minutes, our resilient time dedicated to resilience, I think that will be sufficient to turn that tiny little muscle that we all have into something stronger and stronger and stronger.

But it's a matter of not doing that overnight because we can attend worship on resilience to learn techniques and there are plenty, we can read books on resilience, we can spend times with resilience guru that's all possible and extremely, extremely useful. But if at the end of the day we do not take the time to practice consistently. It is irrelevant.

Stephen Matini - One of the most frequent misconception that I see is underestimating the organizational context, there's a lot of focus on what's happening outside, you know, as a leader, you're supposed to be strategic, you're supposed to read it very well the external environment but there's not quite full awareness of the organizational climate.

And so often times in the past that had leaders, they want to initiate programs, even leadership development program without preparing the organizational context, without doing the work on themselves to set the example and as a result the leadership program could have been really great but then those people that went through that training that coaching inevitably were faced with a lot of barriers. So one of the misconceptions that I've seen is an excessive focus on the outside more than the inside.

Before you said that when you were talking about the definition of resilience, you said it is I believe you said it's the ability to bend so for you, the perfect metaphor for resilience. What would it be like? Like a bamboo for some people is like you know it's water, it's a rubber band. What would it be? The metaphor for you?

Maria Giovanna Vianello -  I think it's a bamboo in the wind, very strong wind. Think about Japan, you know one of my favorite countries, whether it's that strong strong wind in winter, you can literally see bamboo bending in ways that you say, how is that thing not breaking right, how come? But the bamboo, it's very flexible, it is strong but it's also extremely flexible. Almost never break.

Stephen Matini - The reason why this podcast is called Pity Party Over is an expression that I used to say all right I am sick and tired of this situation, I had it enough and now I'm going to move forward. And so when ...  you are resilient, for sure, I've seen you through literally thick and thin and I'm always surprised to see how resilient you are ... When you have a moment of pity party, you know I feel really bad about the situation or myself, is there any specific way, favorite way to pity party, you feel, you know, self indulgently sorry for yourself?

Maria Giovanna Vianello - Sometimes when I do mistakes that are public, when I do something and people really notice that I did something there's no doubt and I screwed up and in the open, right literally under the spotlight and it's no way I did it and sometimes it's I did it again because sometimes I can be pretty repetitive in some of my mistakes. That is usually those moments where I get very upset with myself. I learned to spend less time about complaining about myself and my mistakes done in public because usually I do mistakes in public. But yes that's my time where I am just again. No. 

Stephen Matini - Well when that happens, what do you do? Do you spend time alone and do you sob do you what do you do? 

Maria Giovanna Vianello - I developed a very fruitful relationship with food. Food influences my my mood right a lot. And so if I really have a bad day, I try to prevent myself a proper dinner, nutritious food, not junk food. Absolutely. But I really take care of something I can control take is done. Everybody knows about it. It's going to take a couple of days to fix it. Reputation has been impacted. I can be pretty harsh with myself as you can hear because maybe if you talk to my colleagues, they will say oh no, come on. What are you talking about? But I, I can be, you know, pretty strong. I have a pretty strong opinion about myself. So that’s, that's what I'm talking about. And in that case I really give myself time and space to relax and, and with food.

Stephen Matini - So food is one of the way that you overcome a difficult moment. Like you're taking care of yourself through food, which you said before, be mindful of how you treat yourself eating well. Is there any other things that you would like to share with the listeners on how you overcome that bump?

Maria Giovanna Vianello - Again, that's something very personal and maybe it’s, it's something silly, but I buy myself flowers, nothing super fancy. But I buy myself flowers and usually put the flowers on my desk close to my laptop where I work and every time during the day where I feel, oh my God, now I have to deal with this challenge and it's going to be a challenge. I will be facing for a few weeks a month or so. I look at the flowers and I feel better. I don't know why, but maybe they are called and fragrant and, and I, I don't know, but it's just beautiful. They have a very positive impact on me.

Stephen Matini - So let's say someone wants to develop as a leader. They want to work on their resilience. Where they can find you online if they want to get in touch with you.

Maria Giovanna Vianello - Um my LinkedIn profile Maria Giovanna Vianello on LinkedIn, that will be the place to reach out and have conversations about life challenges and resilience.

I think it was lovely to spend time on something that I take for granted so often because I know I develop resilience since I was young and I and I take that capacity for granted in challenging moment has been extremely crucial. So today talking about it was awesome, almost like a celebration and I want to thank you for that because you are offering me this amazing safe space to talk about such a crucial, important topic of my life and thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Stephen Matini - It is my absolute pleasure as always, thank you.

Stephen Matini - Thank you for listening to this episode of Pity Party Over. I invite you to connect with Maria Giovanna Vianello on LinkedIn for any suggestions on how to leverage resilience and mindful leadership.

Maria has been dealing with type one diabetes since she was a kid. Her story shows how our biggest struggles might reveal our life mission. In her case, helping leaders reach their highest potential. 

Becoming resilient for Maria meant making her body a priority, something we so often neglect when we get busy with millions of things to do. For Maria becoming resilient implies being proactive, taking incremental steps in avoiding perfectionism, which depletes adaptation resources.

Leaders should role model not just ask people to change. You cannot influence people if you're not mindful of your own development and send an example for others to follow.

People have to see in you the behaviors you want them to develop. As Maria said it so beautifully, “Leadership is not the power you're giving yourself but the power people give you because of the role model you represent.”

If you have any questions pertaining how to develop residence, let's talk. You can find my contact information in this episode's notes. If you enjoy this content, you may subscribe to my podcast or blog Pity Party Over, and we can also connect on Twitter and LinkedIn.

I invite you to visit our website, alygn.company. ALYGN is spelled A L Y G N.company where you can find many routes for managerial and leadership development.

Be happy be well and until we connect again, thank you for listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

Empathy is the ability to understand others’ emotions and see things from their point of view. By understanding how people feel, empathy helps us respond efficiently to any situation. 

As professionals transition from non-managerial to managerial and then strategic roles, the ability to connect with people becomes crucial both to get things done, and make a vision become a reality.

Can you learn how to become more empathetic? 

The special guest for this episode of PITY PARTY OVER is Elia Nichols, an actress who has worked in TV, film, and theatre in the United States and Italy, who also has built a successful career as public speaking and communication coach. Elia received her Bachelor of Arts in theatre from Tulane University and her Masters of Fine Arts in acting from the University of Texas at Austin.

Elia points out there is empathy at an emotional and physical level. We can practice empathy by using an outside-in and inside-out approach as actors do. 

With outside-in empathy, we observe the context and circumstances of the other person, their body language and voice. I can put myself aside and speak less to create a space for listening to the other person.

With inside-out empathy, I experience the other person's emotions by tapping into my own experiences. I may not have lived the same issues as that person, but I may tune in to incidents that have a similar emotional charge. 

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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to PITY PARTY OVER the podcast for people teams and organizations seeking practical ideas for results in greater happiness. I'm your host, Stephen Matini, let’s pause, learn, and move on. PITY PARTY OVER is brought to you by ALYGN, A L Y G N.company.

Hi everyone I'm Stephen and welcome to this episode of PITY PARTY OVER. How are you today?

We will talk about the power of empathy to connect authentically with people.

Empathy is the ability to understand others’ emotions and see things from their point of view by understanding how people feel, empathy helps us respond efficiently to any situation.

Can you learn how to become more empathetic?

There are a lot of studies on the matter, for instance research suggests that the activation of mirror neurons in the brain plays a part in our ability to empathize with others; essentially we tend to mirror the behavior we observe. 

Teachers, doctors, psychologists, social workers, counselors, coaches and salespeople and consultants. All these professions require loads of empathy to connect with clients, patients and students effectively.

I've always been fascinated with actors because they must embody the perspective of multiple characters and grasp their beliefs, intentions and emotions.

So the special guest for this episode of PITY PARTY OVER over is Elia Nichols, an actress who has worked in TV, film and theater in the United States and Italy. Elia is also a public speaking and communication coach, so I decided to talk to Elia and hear from her experience what it takes to become empathetic.

Stephen: When did you decide to become an actress?

Elia: I was seven years old, I saw Othello, Othello came to my little town. It was a national tour and they came to the auditorium of our local university and I think I was in the front row, and my parents brought me and I just, it transformed me.

I mean from this first word until the end of that play, I just was wrapped and I vividly remember this one moment where Desdemona was at the edge of the stage and I think she was begging a fellow not to kill her. I think it was that moment.

And I just, I completely lost myself in them and I thought, oh my God, this is real, this is real. I looked there was no fourth wall, you know, I mean I totally lost myself in in their performances and I literally walked away from that night and said I'm going to be an actress.

And I remember literally when I was seven, I told my best, one of my best friends, Becky Reiser,

I said I'm gonna be an actress and I'm gonna win an Oscar. And she said, I'll make you a $5 bet that you're not gonna win an Oscar. And I said, yeah, I'll bet, you know, I still owe her $5 because I haven't won the Oscar yet. But but I did become an actress.

And um as I said, I just did everything I could to perform. And because there was no theater from seventh grade on my parents would let me go away in the summers to New England and do theater summer programs because there was nothing in Louisiana.

And so I fly by myself to Connecticut and Massachusetts and Boston to do theater. And then when I got to university I got my bachelor's degree in acting. That's when I finally learned what it means to be an actress, right? Like how, how I actually learned technique and, and then I got my Masters in acting. So after that I felt okay now I'm now I'm an actress, I actually know what I'm doing, but I needed even the Masters, I'm a student, I'm a student. I like to study. 

And by after my Bachelor’s, I remember a lot of people in my program said I'm done,

like I'm sick of studying, I'm done, I'm ready to be out there in the world and they went to New York immediately after their undergrad. I'm not ready yet. I knew inside of myself that I hadn't honed my talent enough, you know? And thank God because it was so true. I mean my Master's program changed radically changed how I act interactively changed my life in general. The things I learned there were wildly life changing.

Stephen: And then what happened after that?

Elia: So we we had a showcase as you often do in master's programs and actors showcase. We flew to New York and L.A. And we auditioned for agents and casting directors and I got a manager from L.A. from that showcase. And I got an audition for Warner Brothers from that showcase. And so I said, okay, I guess I'll go to L.A. You know, it kind of shows it for me.

And I went to L.A. And I hated it, I hated L.A. It was so not my place. Um first of all because at 24 I was considered old in L.A. So bizarre to me. You know, I I thought what are you talking about? I'm so young, you know? But honestly the people that make it in L.A. Usually get there, they are child actors often. Right?

So they get there when they are 7 or 8 or 10 or they grow up in the area, you know, they grew up in California and so they make the connections that you need to have early on. And so by the time they are 21 or 18 and can really finally play the, you know, the adult, the teen and adult roles, they have enough connections to get the right auditions. But when you arrive to L.A. at 24, you don't know anybody. By the time you make enough connections, it takes about five years, you're 29 and then you’re old. Right? So I realized that pretty quickly when I got to L.A. 

And the other thing is that, you know, I'm from Louisiana and in Louisiana we eat really well,

you know we drink well too, right. I mean we eat, we eat jambalaya and gumbo and shrimp and crab and crawfish and you know drink bourbon, mint, juleps. And so I grew up loving to eat and then you get to L.A. and everybody's on a diet, you know and everybody's detoxing and everybody's going to the gym constantly.

And so all of a sudden I was going to the gym 18 hours a week. So three hours a day, six days a week. I was on the South Beach diet. I've always been thin. I've never had a problem with my weight. I'm very lucky. I just have my, you should look at my mother, she was stick, you know,

she looks like an ostrich or something and her legs do and and so but but I was on the South beach diet because that's what you do and you know, and I was, I looked perfect. I mean I literally had, I was in the best shape of my life, I was perfect, I was toned, I was thin, I was you know, I was healthy. 

And I remember one day I went into my manager's office and he said Elia, you look good but keep going to the gym and I said you know what, no, there is no less of Elia than this. I'm not going to become anorexic for you in this industry and I already go to the gym 18 hours a day and I'm on the southeast side, so there is no less than this and he was like okay, you know it's just that the camera puts on pounds and I was like well then maybe this isn't the right place for me, you know and I had, I had already studied abroad in Italy and I loved it and I thought you know, I ate ridiculous amounts of pasta in Italy and was still thin, I think I should go back there, it was so happy and so I did you know, I just did and I've never looked back yeah ... 

And then when I when I moved to Italy, okay, immediately founded a co founder of theater company in in english english speaking theater company and from then we, we just worked constantly and we made such amazing productions and then agent saw me and director saw me and they started hiring me and then I had a great business, I mean I've had a great career that that has been varied and stimulating and wonderful, so I think it was right, you know, here I'm kind of a big fish in a small pond and there I was a small fish in an enormous pond and I think it was all all right for me. 

Stephen: I have this huge, truly huge admiration for actors because it's a tough life, they come across as professionals in empathy, you know somehow being able to empathize to this story, the character, responding to others ... they really are masters of empathy. What have you learned about empathy because of your acting career?

Elia: I think I've learned everything, I think I am intuitive and I think intuition and empathy go, they run in parallel that they are connected course as an actress, you are trained to understand people from the inside out and from the outside in and you literally, you know, they literally talk to you about that and I'll give you an example, there are certain roles where the costume is so important and until you put the costume on, you don't really understand that person that's outside in right?

So that's an outside in empathy. Whereas inside out as I understand the emotion, I'm feeling the emotion and therefore I externalize it. And so that's an empathy from inside out. Right? So as an actor, you're trained in both. You know, we were literally sent out with journals to observe people to just watch people, we watch their body language, we had to record their voices.

We I had a dialect class where they would they would make us interview people from different countries. So you had to find people on our campus. I went to the University of Texas at Austin and you had to find people in your on the campus that had different dialects. So I found a French person, a Russian person and an Irish person. You had to call you to make a monologue from their recording and study their dialect and act the monologue in their dialect in French,

but speaking french English, right? So a French person speaking with a French accent, not not dialect accent and that was actually really, really helpful and continues two absolutely affect the way that I relate to people.

There's a lot of my clients as opposed to, you know, I'm a public speaking coach as well as an actress and a lot of my clients have accents and we, we talk about that because of course it affects the way they speak English, their accents come out in different ways and we talk about that.

I wonder if you, you're like this, like when I watch movies that are really engaging, I get so into the movie that when I'm done with the movie, I think I'm the character in the movie, it takes me two or three hours to leave that character and become Elia again and I've always been like that.

I remember like sitting in a cafe in Austin Texas and seeing this woman who I thought, okay, actually that's it, that's her, you know, that's that's my character and I remember kind of taking on her posture, you know, and what the and trying like what does that feel like, oh gosh,

it feels out of balance. It feels so heavy and once you start doing that, you realize what that must feel like literally to be that person and to live in that person's body right?

There's even an empathy not just on an emotional level but on a physical level because I really believe strongly that all of our emotions and life circumstances stress happiness, everything. I mean it is it manifests in your voice and your body, right? And so if you're paying attention enough, you know where people are emotionally right? And I think all of that is thanks to the acting training and the curiosity, just the natural curiosity of wanting to observe somebody somebody and understand them. 

Stephen: When I do trainings and we do work on empathy, I ask around people from 1 to 5 how empathetic do you think that you are? You know, some people will give themselves different scores and say well I think I'm highly empathetic, I'm four and three I'm not and then we do simple observation type of exercises and everyone gets it. If you have to read between the lines, what do you think is happening here? And people are so precise.

I truly believe that everyone has that ability and all that it takes is sometimes too get out of the funk of your head and just simply focus on that person get and it's incredible to see how accurate people are. People always get it truly never happen to someone responded by saying I don't know, you know people are very, very intuitive you know and you said that you know intuition and empathy go hand in hand. I think it has to do a lot with observation. Our lives are so busy that people simply forget to look at other people.

Elia: Oh so that's because I was curious if you think that everybody can be empathetic and can learn empathy then what's blocking them from not being empathetic.

Stephen: I think what prevents them different things. “Buziness” I think is a huge thing. You know, we live busy life. The other thing you got to have a genuine interest in people.

Elia: Yes, I agree. I think it's all about real curiosity really wanting to understand somebody really wanting to listen to them. I mean that's where active listening comes in, right? You can't you also can't empathize if you're not actually listening to the person because you're not you're not taking your thoughts are getting in the way or your actions are getting or your cell phone is getting in the way, right? But if you're really focusing on the other person and then it's actually quite easy to empathize and understand them. 

Stephen: It’s the biggest struggle that a lot of business people have. You know, as they transition the career they go from “I do my staff”, I have become a manager then eventually more strategic, you know, leadership position, at some point it really becomes being an expert of people more than anything else. You have all the skills to let's say to read a financial report or um you know, your industry, you have enough experience to understand how something works. But it really becomes a job of understanding people.

Elia: Curiosity is quite innate, curiosity is not everybody's curious, you know?

Stephen: True. And also, I think another indicator for me is um silence. Like if I'm empathizing, if I'm really listening to someone, I live center stage to the person and I observed and you see that through silent, are you talking all the time? How can you empathize with someone if you're the one constantly speaking? How did you get into public speaking?

Elia: When I was in graduate school, they made us teach a few classes. So we were getting our masters and they made us teach undergraduate elective classes and I had to teach introduction to acting and training the speaking voice and training the speaking voice was partly, you know, a public speaking class. Part of it was literally literally training your voice so that you have more control and more variety. 

But another part of it was obviously they at some point have to get up and speak and so it began there. So I've kind of always done both. Actually, when I moved to Florence, I started teaching, I was asked to teach at a university here and the class they gave me was body language and communication and it that too had elements of public speaking in it. The final, the, the two final assignments that they had to do performances that they had to do, they were basically public speaking assignments in the end. So I've kind of always done both.

But then in 2019 I remember my husband who is a lawyer, he came home one day and he said, oh what's a coach? I said, well a coaches and I explained it, it explained that they help people, you know, become more aware and they help people, you know, hone their skills and become better, empathize ear's and better blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, right? And he said, well you could do that but you could do it for public speaking. And so when he said that it kind of just clicked, I said I could be a public speaking coach and that sounds really exciting. Really interesting and I literally just did it. I went and I got my Partita IVA, my fiscal code, and I started creating classes and I just put the word out there and and I just took off and I haven't stopped.

Stephen: Do you have a favorite client to work with?

Elia: No, I'm I feel really fortunate because I have tons of very different clients. So I, one of my first clients was a politician. He was, he was running to my first clients actually. Now I think about it, they were both running for, one was running for the European parliament and one was running for the they were both running for the European parliament actually, and they had they had me coach them on their you know their speeches and presenting their campaign and so that was really interesting. 

But I love the variety of my clients because right now for example I have high school students who are working on their college interviews and they desperately need practice and awareness of what their body language and voice are communicating and how to get the messages out in a concise, inspirational, you know way. 

And then I have C.E.O.s who realize that while their leadership skills are powerful or they're strategizing or analyzing skills, you know, analysis skills are really good at home and they're not good communicators yet.

And so I work with them a lot. I even working with a housewife right now who's been housewife for 14 years raising two daughters and wants to get back into the workplace and feels really intimidated by that and has no idea how to present herself, you know. And so it's really exciting the massive variety of types of clients that I have. So no I don't really have a favorite client,

Stephen: What have you learned from all these experiences to help you running your business and making it sustainable?

Elia: I’m not a natural entrepreneur, I am, I realized when I founded the theater company, I co founded it with five other women but the main one, her name is Shaun Loftus and Shaun is a true creator, she is the one that has a wonderful, amazing ideas, you know, and she dreams them up and I realized she and I were great partners because I am fabulous at realizing those ideas, I can make anything happen, but I don't have the original ideas, I'm not the creator. And in fact if you think about an actor that's even true as an actor, actors are given their characters, they're given their lines. So an entrepreneur as the original idea, right? They are that that's the whole basis and so it was very difficult for me to be an entrepreneur. 

Now the good thing is I have a lot of drive, so I'm not one that is afraid, you know of trying things out and pushing my goals, but I've never taken a course in business, I've never taken a graphic design course, I've never taken a web design course and I regret that immensely in the end when you get out there as an artist, you are your own business and you need to think as a business person because otherwise you don't get jobs and luckily my husband is an entrepreneur, his mind naturally works that way. So he has been very helpful, he's coached me along where you need to do this, you need to do that. He, we we have a few friends that are brilliant entrepreneurs and honestly you have been really helpful for me.

Stephen: Me, me, me?

Elia: Absolutely as a coach with with more more years of experience than I do. You're further down the line and you've been so generous to share your, you know, your processes with like processes with me. Um, so I've actually needed the help of others to, to, to get on this road, you know, but what one thing I do think has has certainly helped me is that I am good with people.

Part of it is empathy part of it is that I am naturally curious, I love people, I love to speak to people and so I am going to establishing the relationships that are necessary to get the job.

Stephen: The name of this podcast is PITY PARTY OVER. The reason for that pity party is when you feel bad about yourself, right? Like poor me, poor me. So what is your favorite way to pity party?

Elia: I don't think I pity myself actually, what I think I don't have enough time if you want to know the truth. I really don’t. I think that as a mother and two young kids and uh, you know, and an entrepreneur and I'm quite social, I love to see my friends and I love my husband and so I don't literally think I have much time to sit in pity.

What did occur to me though is these patterns that everyone present themselves back in my life and they always have and that pattern is this and I am really busy and then I do something really well and I get a lot of attention for it. I obviously know I'm not aware of this in the moment, but I obviously that manifests as egotistical attention seeking and she's forgotten about me. 

And someone in my life in that moment comes out and says, Elia, you've forgotten about me and you're only thinking about yourself right now and it's not nice or aliens get off your high horse. You know, this success was not due just to you, It was created by a team. I mean, I vividly remember probably three or four moments in my life when a good friend that was literally just like slap me down. Okay? 

And I I'm very thankful, very thankful for those moments because it's very clear that I'm not a nice person in those moments, I'm not my best self, but when your ego starts to really eat that up and enjoy it, you do forget about the other people around you that helped you get help, get you there right then, and then that that are important to your life. 

And so when that happens, they slapped me down, I reflect um ... And I usually have to go and meditate because it means that I'm kind of out of myself. You know, I'm literally if you if you looked at like my auras or looked at you look at me from an energy level, like I'm separated from myself, and so I have to meditate and ground myself again.

Um ... I usually stop drinking wine for a few days because I've noticed that like that glass over dinner makes me more superficial. I usually have to literally stop drinking wine for a few days because I need to return to the clarity so I will meditate and I will get, I will kind of detox or if you don't, you know, just just make things simple and then try and concentrate on the people around me instead of myself. Because that is what helped has helped me a lot is is really putting my focus on others because then you have a new perspective,

Stephen: So you Pity Party Over cutting down the wine and then you say meditate. Is there any specific type of meditation that you do that seemed to work really well with you?

Elia: Yeah, I studied two different types. One is called Theta healing and just a woman I met in Florence taught it and I was really just curious to learn something new. So I went and learned this technique with her and it's really, really powerful because it grounds you to the earth and kind of the sky and and and everything in between and um I don't know, I really connected to,

it was very easy for me to visualize. I'm not a person that I've never studied meditation that's not guided. So I'm not that good yet. Um and I would love to someday I feel like at the moment I don't have time for it, but I eventually want to want to learn how to just meditate in total silence.

Stephen: Anyone should work with you, you are super prepared. You are fun. Your energy is what is the word is cathartic? I think anyone shoot him should contact you and thank you so much for doing this with me.

Elia: This is so much fun and I think anybody should hire you as well because you are one of the most prepared and empathetic person people I've ever met in my life and I have to say that you're one of the best listeners that I've ever met.

Stephen: Oh wow, that's a huge compliment!

Stephen: Thank you for listening to this episode of PITY PARTY OVER I invite you to discover Elia's programs on presentation techniques, soft skills and nonverbal communication at elianichols dot com. Elia is E L I A and Nichols is N I C H O L S.com. You can also reach Elia via email, Linkedin and Instagram. You can find Elia's contact information in this episode's notes. 

As professionals transition from non managerial to managerial and then strategic roles, the ability to connect with people becomes crucial both to get things done and make a vision become a reality. 

A good starting point to develop empathy is to become aware of those characters in movies and TV shows that deeply resonate with you.

As Elia pointed out in the episode, there is empathy at an emotional and physical level. We can practice empathy by using an “outside-in” and an “inside-out” approach as actors do.

With “outside-in” empathy, we observe the context and circumstances of the other person, their body language and voice. I can put myself aside and speak less to create a space for listening to the other person. 

With “inside-out” empathy I experienced the other person's emotions by tapping into my own experiences. I may not have lived the same issues as that person, but I'm a tune in two incidents that have a similar emotional charge.

If you have any questions pertaining how to develop empathy, let's talk. You can find my content information in this episode's notes. If you enjoy this content, you may subscribe to my podcast or blog pd party over and we can also connect on Twitter and Linkedin. 

I invite you to visit our website algyn.company. ALYGN is spelled A L Y G N.company, where you can find many routes for managerial and leadership development.

Be happy be well and until we connect again, thank you for listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

Marathon runners know more than any other athlete about sustaining a proper pace while getting to the finishing line as fast as possible. "Running in the Green" is a heart-rate based training approach for marathon runners. This method aims at improving performance by training within a heart range that feels comfortable rather than pushing to the max.

I learned about the "running in the green” approach from British designer Rebecca Milner, the guest of this episode of Pity Party Over. Rebecca is a surface pattern designer whose phenomenal work spans wallpaper, textiles, clothing, and furnishings for her international clientele. 

Rebecca studied at Central Saint Martins in London and currently resides in Florence, Italy. Rebecca is an entrepreneur, and she also runs marathons, from which she has learned a lot of lessons to run her business at a sustainable pace, Rebecca Milner Design. 

Running in the Green refers to the pace that allows us to reach our goals without running out of fuel, so that we can enjoy the journey of becoming someone, of achieving something. 

Running in the Green is also the awareness that we do not need to accomplish everything at once, but we need to focus on what we can do today by changing our perspective, from the finishing line to small steps.

Listen to the episode:

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Apple Podcasts

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Leadership & Management Development

Rebecca Milner Design A surface pattern design brand exploring playful escapism through color, pattern and print

Connect with Rebecca Milner via email

Connect with Rebecca Milner on Instagram

 

Transcript

Stephen (00:04): Welcome to PITY PARTY OVER the podcast for people, teams and organizations seeking practical ideas for results in greater happiness. I'm your host, Steven Matini let's pause, learn and move on. PITY PARTY OVER over is brought to you by ALYGN, A L Y G N.company

Stephen (00:29): Hello everyone. And welcome to this episode of PITY PARTY OVER. How are you? I hope you're doing really well. Today we're going to talk about achieving goals at a sustainable pace. 

Marathon runners know more than any other athletes about sustaining a proper pace while getting to the finishing line as fast as possible. Running in the green is a heart-based training approach for marathon runners. This method aims at improving performance by training within a heart range that feels comfortable rather than push to the max. 

I learned about running in the green from British designer, Rebecca Milner the guest of this episode of PITY PARTY OVER. Rebecca is a surface pattern designer whose phenomenal work spans wallpaper, textiles, clothing, and furnishings for her international clientele. Rebecca studies at Central Saint Martins in London and currently resides in Florence, Italy. 

Rebecca is an entrepreneur and she also runs marathons from which she has learned a lot of lessons to run her business at a sustainable pace, Rebecca Milner Design.

Stephen (01:36): Rebecca, I know quite a bit of things about you. I know where you come from, you share a lot of things from your past, your family. You’re British. For our listeners, I would like to ask you as a first question, why don't you share where you grew up? What was the surrounding that influenced you?

Rebecca (01:54): So, yeah, I'm British and I grew up in, in England, went to school there and everything, but I think probably the most influential thing that happened when I was young is my dad was to live in work in Italy when I was younger, when I was 13. And that event kind of changed the trajectory of my life, I would say because I just completely fell in love with it immediately, instantly. I decided at the age of 13 that I wanted to live and work and the rest of my life. So that was kinda a, a really big thing. Um, and in terms of what I was doing, what I was interested in, I was always interested in art that had always been a thing. And then I think when I came here and I saw these really great artists, who'd done all these incredible works of art. I was just really set on the fact that that was what I also wanted to do.

Stephen (02:43): Did your whole family move to Italy when you were 13 or just, uh, some members of the family?

Rebecca (02:49): Yeah. I know we all moved together. There were six of us to Naples.

Stephen (02:53): Ooh.

Rebecca (02:54): I love Naples. Everybody seems to have an opinion about it. Um, it feels like an open air playground, a giant playground just for me. And I was so young that I, we lived an amazing life. We just would go to parties all the time, down to beach all the time. We would go and explore Italy. I've seen more of Italy than I have England.

Stephen (03:13): What was your first impression of Naples? The first thing that you noticed?

Rebecca (03:19): The volcano, obviously, I learned about the volcano when I was six years old and it terrified me and it was thing I was petrified about. I never, I didn't wanna go there to begin with, cause I was so afraid it was explode. Um, and that , I have to be watching my back every day in case it's erupted . Um, so that was kinda a really dramatic side to it as well. Cause I had this kind of fear mixed in with excitement. Um, but uh, yeah, apart from that, like I remember we came in on the tangent alley and was flying high above the, above the city and all these high rise buildings, colorful yellow ones with, um, washing hanging out. And it was, yeah, it was just an amazing impact. And I love cities on the sea as well. That's all sort of exciting vibe to me and the sunshine, the heat, just, yeah, the smells, the, the dogs, there was so many dogs barking. How you sleep at night?

Stephen (04:16): You know, I went to Naples only once for, I think it was four days, five days and he rained the whole time oh, I know. So I have to go back, but I, no, I thought it was great. I went there for Easter and then I visited all the surroundings. I went to Pompeii and Pompeii mm-hmm blew out my mind. I thought, oh my God, this is so big. It was incredible. I really love it. Yeah. I wanna go back. So at the time you already spoke Italian or not at all?

Rebecca (04:43): Not at all. No, I would, um, my dad had a, he'd been out there for a few months before, so he had a grammar book, so I would grab his book and read it in the evenings and learn the names of the vegetables and a few directions and stuff like that. Um, but that was kind, that was it. Yeah.

Stephen (04:59): And how long did you stay there with your family? In Naples?

Rebecca (05:02): Two and a half years. I was still at school in England. So we were coming out for the holidays. Um,

Stephen (05:09): So how did you manage to learn Italian then?

Rebecca (05:12): So after that I went back to school and they offered it for a level. So I did two level, two years of a level. And then, and then I came to Italy for nine months. I came to Florence for nine months to study at the British Institute. Uh, and yeah, but it was difficult to speak Italian then at that point, because lots of students and everybody you spoke to wanted to learn English. And so they would end up speaking English and it was easy to speak English. So, so I did, so I can't say I learned that much in that year. Um,

Stephen (05:47): When the whole, um, design art component came into your life? Was back then in Naples or you started before?

Rebecca (05:56): That was always something that was kind of in me, I guess, from the start, from a young age, I knew that I wanted to work with my hands doing something creative, and I knew that I wanted to run my own business, but I didn't know what that would take or form that would take. Um, it was just a kind of big idea, but I loved to make things that was always something that gave me a lot of peace and a lot of joy. And at school I studied art and textiles in particular. Um, and then after being in Florence for a year, I was, I had a place at university to study Italian, but I just decided, no, I can't do that. I have to go to art college. I have to I did that. And then when I went to art college, there were so many new things to try at school. I'd always done textiles and I knew all about that. And I kind of, there was a part of me that wanted to try something new. Um, so I went towards graphic design, which strangely seemed very exotic. And uh, I dunno why, but it did.

Stephen (06:58): One of the ingredients that you share in the past is also your love for running. So when did you start running?

Rebecca (07:06): I started running very late in life, probably only in 2016, I think. Yeah. So it's only been six years or so, but I always had this desire to run, but I never believed that I could run because at school we had this “one meter, no one mile” challenge every year and I never was able to do it because I would always kind of conk out before the end is, oh, this really heavy labor breathing. And so I never believed that I was able to run. I could did the 200 meters, that was fine, but anything longer was just yeah. And no, no. And then obviously living in England, the London marathon is a big thing. So you see that every year and you see people running along, carrying fridges on their backs or, you know, Big Ben or something. People of all ages, all walks of life. And I would look at these people and think my God, you know, how can they do that? It just seemed like a mystery. Um, something completely unattainable to me, which is always something it's, something feels like that. It always becomes a bit of a challenge in my mind, you know, something so unattainable that other people can are doing. Can I do that myself? So it had this kind feel for me.

Stephen (08:21): What made you decide to get into marathons?

Rebecca (08:24): Well, it, it was something I wanted to do because I saw one day in London, I saw I was walking along to the pavement and I saw this billboard and there was a man sitting on the billboard wrapped in one of the silver foil sheets that they give you after the marathon. And the caption at the bottom said, “One less thing I have to do in life.” So it was like, really kinda, for me, it felt like a personal challenge. Um, and I started applying while I was still in London to run the marathon, even though I wasn't running, I had no training. I had no idea what I was doing, but I would just apply because it was so difficult to get into. Um, luckily they rejected me time. After time I moved to Italy and I still hadn't done any running. Um, but one day I saw near the Duomo, there was this running club on a Wednesday night and they would run eight kilometers.

Rebecca (09:08): So I thought, okay, I'll join them. And I signed up with the slowest group, um, and I managed to do my first eight kilometers. I dunno how, but somehow. And then I kept going with him and after a while I was like, Hey, I can do eight kilometers. If I can do eight kilometers, maybe I can do 21. Maybe I can do a half. So I signed up with a trainer to do a half marathon and he gave me the program and I thought to myself, okay, all I have to do is follow the program. I trust the guy, you know, I'll just see what happens. Um, and sure enough, I was able to run a half marathon, which was amazing to me. And then I thought if I can run a half marathon, maybe I can run a full one. So I signed up for the same guy, asked him for a program for the full marathon and seven months later I achieved it

Stephen (09:55): Dear Lord. Wow. I could never do it!

Rebecca (09:58): You say that, but , that sounds like a challenge to me.

Stephen (10:03): Well, sure. Maybe, maybe. So you didn't have any sore back? Nothing. I mean?

Rebecca (10:08): Oh yeah. I couldn't walk four days after

Stephen (10:13): I would be a mess if I, no, I used to, I used to run a lot, um, because I don't know if I told you this, but, um, I used to play volleyball. I started out, I was 13 and I did it up to 20 years old. So anyhow, when I stopped, I didn't have a sport to do. I, I worked out and I decided to start running. So I would go, you know, here in Florence, um, to the park, near my house every morning, religiously. And, and I did that for long this time. Like for years and years and years, it was my meditation essentially, but I never, I never done it with intention of, I have to accomplish this, you know, I have to compete against people just for me, but I know the feeling. It's incredible. 

What do you love the most about running other than the challenge of pushing yourself, doing something that seems to be unachievable?

Rebecca (11:02): The sense of freedom that it gives you when you, especially in those moments, when you can forget about your body and the pain that you might be going through and you just get those moments of mental freedom, not only the physical freedom of, and you know, that feeling there, but just like just, you could just forget about everything else and you're just in this kind of zone, everything else just kind of goes and suddenly something will happen. You'll be like, oh, brought back into your body. But then you realize you've had that amazing moment of just kind of liberation. So it's just a kind of, yeah. Feeling of freedom.

Stephen (11:40): There was a moment when I started running and I still remember it, you know, like when you start running and you're always out of breath, like what you said. Yeah. And there was one day, I don't remember how many months it took to get the point that I was running. And it felt like I was flying. Like there was no effort. It really felt, oh my God, I'm running on a cloud. And I still remember the feeling, you know, it didn't happen at first, but eventually I got, you know, at that point. 

The thing that was curious to ask you is this one you mentioned in the past to me, the whole notion of, uh, “running in the green” now, which is part of your training. So how does that work?

Rebecca (12:17): So running in the green is something I have discovered lately because I, I suffer a lot when I'm running. I find it incredibly difficult. Um, I'm always huffing and puffing and struggling to, to go any faster because I literally can't breathe or I can't speak. I, you know, there's a lot of, um, effort and I look at other runners and they just seem to glide along and it seems so easy for them. And I'm like, what is the difference between me and them? Like, how come I'm having such a struggle Fest and they are just gliding. Um, so I did a lot of research, um, and it turns out there's this thing called heart rate training, which was a complete, um, unknown to me. Cause I would just go out and give what I could go as fast as I could, but I was always suffering.

Rebecca (13:01): So with this method you run like there's five different heart rate zones, I think. And you run in the green, which is a kind of, um, aerobic state. So you can run for a long time at a level that you can have a conversation at. So you're breathing well. And if you do that for a long time, it's supposed to develop your aerobic capacity so that you can eventually run faster at that same heart rate. Yeah. So you can kind of develop your ability. And that's what I'm hoping now is kind of the idea of this has opened up a whole new world of potential running, how it could feel if I could actually go out there and, you know, feel okay when I'm doing it, not feel like I'm gonna pass out every that's a bit extreme, but you know,

Stephen (13:45): So if I understood it correctly, it's basically the notion that I can improve it without killing myself.

Rebecca (13:50): Yeah, exactly. This could actually, um, feel good. I could go out there and do better and have a good, you know, feel good while doing it. Not have to kind of go out there and feel like I'm at the max every single time.

Stephen (14:06): You and I talked about so many times how exciting and challenging it is to run our own businesses. You know, you and I are in different industries, there are ups and downs, sometimes it’s super hard, anxiety and fear, excitement, possibilities, and all the whole gamut of things that happened to, to people that want to run their own business. What did running teach you? You know, they, maybe you, you have used in your business.

Rebecca (14:31): I think for me in both places, both in the running and in the business, I feel a lot of overwhelmed. So obviously in the running that comes into that translates into a physical form, you know, I've got a lot of breathing difficulties and, and kind of feeling physically that this is very difficult. And in the business, I feel overwhelmed so often because there, I feel like there are so many things to do. I don't know a, how to find the time in the day or B how to get started, which one to do first. It just, sometimes there's still to be such a weight of stuff to do. I, I kind of get bit like a rabbit in the headlights and I don't know which way to go or how to start. And so when I discovered the idea of running in the green, I was like, Ooh, you know, that could be possibly a way or like a philosophy that I could take and adapt into my business.

Rebecca (15:23): Um, maybe one way is to, instead of feeling like, okay, I've got X amount of hours to, to work on this or a day or whatever, feeling like I have to get the whole thing done. You know, like tomorrow I've got tomorrow to do it. I've gotta achieve the whole of my website. I've gotta achieve the whole of this or that. Just, you know, breaking it down, small, manageable chunk size pieces that I can actually do and not looking at the, the great distance that I have to cover, but just breaking it down into bits that feel manageable and that feel achievable so that when I've done that little bit, I feel good and I don't come away feeling, “Ah!” You know, um, so just kind of re-dimensioning it and putting it into a better perspective,

Stephen (16:11): Running a business is a marathon. It is a long, long marathon that takes a good pace. Otherwise you end up, you know, out of breath completely, absolutely the whole notion of this podcast it's called PITY PARTY OVER because I was interested in exploring how people get out of a funk. You know, when you feel bad when somehow you get stuck, uh, maybe you go through the same cycle again and again and again. And so the first question is this, how do you love to pity party? You know, when you want to be, indulgently sorry for yourself. What is your best pity party moment? What do you do?

Rebecca (16:51): I think I kind of probably pace around and feel like I have too much to do and, and make endless lists of like all the kind of things in different. I mean, I could show you my desktop. It was filled with so many different forms of this. I love to overwhelm myself and, um, myself, I'll never get it and that a failure, I, how it's never gonna work out all those kinda, really negative things. I just, you know, I love to pile them on top of myself, really wallow and all that.

Stephen (17:28): That sounds a lovely pity party.

Rebecca (17:30): Oh, it's great.

Stephen (17:32): You know, but yeah, I I'm, I'm a firm believer that we need pity parties in order to move on. I mean, if you don't hit rock bottom multiple times, it's really difficult to, I think, to develop the stamina, you know, the resilience to get somewhere else. And I, I also strongly believe that when you really, really get fet up is when miracles happen, when you push yourself, you know, extra hard and you get out. The second question is how do you pity party over? So based on what you have experienced, what are some of the tools that you use in order to get out of the funk?

Rebecca (18:04): one of the ways, well, often my pity party happens when I'm sitting here at my desk. And so it kind of feels a bit swampy, um, you know, these lifts of like a fog or like a mud I have to move through. Um, so one of the things that I do is I get up and I leave my house and I go for a fast walk because I feel like physical movement really helps me to get out of that mental stuck, stuck-ness. And then I have a couple of like mantras that I'm always telling myself, you can do this, you always do this. You always get it done. I just kind of repeat that to myself. And especially if it's something visual that I'm trying to, if I'm feeling stuck in a kinda ... with a, with a design or, or just with anything really, I really, I feel like moving helps me just to shift perspective and I get more ideas by seeing things. Yeah. And just moving through the space and it just telling myself I can do it. And then I come back when I come back in, I'm often in a different mindset, so I can sit down and do something. Even if it's not the whole thing, I can get something done.

Stephen (19:08): I love that. And actually I do the same. I go for walks, Running a business is hard. What would you say that is the biggest motivator to put yourself through this ordeal of ups and downs and doubts and, and excitement?

Rebecca (19:25): To me it's like pulling something intangible that's in my head, into the physical world and making it real. That is, has always been a great giver of joy. I love to imagine things and digitalize stuff. Um, and then make it physical.

Stephen (19:48): Make it physical.

Rebecca (19:48):  Yeah.

Stephen (19:50): When you were talking about running, you said something that got stuck in my head, you said, um, you talked about freedom, feeling of freedom. And also you said that about art. Is freedom, something important also is one of the reasons why you have your own business?

Rebecca (20:04): I think so. Absolutely. Yeah. I love to feel that I'm driving my own train and that I can decide where I'm going. You know, I've got this gift of life. I'm here on the planet, and it's really fun to think that you can kind of shape or achieve what you wanna achieve. I mean, obviously within some limits, you're not necessarily gonna achieve everything, but to, to be able to have an idea and, and to, to able to work towards that, have that a goal and take the steps and make it happen and make it come true is such a rewarding thing for me. Um, yeah. And, and to be able to decide that for myself and not have somebody say, okay, you need to shuffle 10 envelopes today. Or, you know, to be able to make those decisions for myself is, is a great freedom.

Stephen (20:51): I am a huge fan of your designs, and I'm not saying this because you are here, you know, we are recording this I think the first design you showed me must have been the tiger. I think when you show me that what I loved about your design is how they look intricate. And at the same time, they have all these different flavors. They remind me of places, emotions that I went through, that I cannot quite pinpoint. When people use your designs, you know, it could be wallpaper, it could be something printed on a pillow. What do you hope people to feel?

Rebecca (21:23): Happiness. I hope that it brings a smile to their face, that they, that when they encounter my work in a shop or on a website or wherever it might be, that that's something about it just gives them a bit of joy and lightens up their day. And if I can make somebody smile, if I can make somebody laugh, then, then my job is done.

Stephen (21:45): Amen.

Rebecca (21:46): , ,

Stephen (21:48): It's a wonderful vision for your business where people can find you online. If they want to check your, your beautiful designs,

Rebecca (21:57): They can find me on my website, Rebecca Milner Design.com, and also on Instagram at Rebecca Miller Design.

Stephen (22:06): Wonderful Rebecca, it's been a joy to hear your experiences and all that I can say. I wish for your business to get bigger and bigger and bigger because your talent is huge. So your heart

Rebecca (22:19): Thank so much.

Stephen (22:21): Thank you. Thank you. Bye

Rebecca (22:23): Bye.

Stephen (22:25): Thank you for listening to this episode of PITY PARTY OVER. I invite you to enjoy Rebecca's creations at rebeccamilnerdesign.com. And also you can find Rebecca on Instagram at Rebecca Milner Design. Rebecca is spelled R E B E C C A and Milner is M I L N E R. You can find Rebecca’s business details in the episode’s notes.

So running in the green refers to the pace that allow us to reach our goals without running out of fuel, so that we can enjoy the journey of becoming someone, of achieving something. 

Running in the green is also the awareness that we do not need to accomplish all at once, but we need to focus on what we can do today by changing our perspective, from the finishing line to small steps.

You have any questions pertaining how to proceed at a sustainable pace with your professional endeavors. I would love to talk to you. My contact information are in the episode's notes. 

If you enjoy this content, you may subscribe to my podcast or blog PITY PARTY OVER, and we can also connect on Twitter or LinkedIn. 

I invite you to visit our website, align.company, ALYGN is spelled with a Y, A L Y G N.company, where you can find many routes for managerial and leadership development.

Be happy, be well. And until we connect again, thank you for listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

How do you strike the perfect balance between jumping to a conclusion too quickly or missing out on an opportunity? I want to share some observations on the importance of slowing down to make sound strategic decisions.

 

Listen to the episode:

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Podbean

Google Podcasts

Subscribe to Pity Party Over

Sign up for a complimentary Live Session

Contact Stephen Matini

Connect with Stephen Matini

Leadership & Management Development

 

Transcript

Welcome to Pity Party Over the podcast for people teams and organizations seeking practical ideas for results in greater happiness. I'm your host, Stephen Matin. Let's pause, learn and move on. Pity party over is brought to you by ALYGN, A L Y G N dot company.

Hi everyone I'm Stephen, how are you? I hope you're doing great wherever you are in the world. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Pity Party Over that is dedicated to decision making.

This episode of pity Party Over doesn't want to be an all inclusive recipe on how to make great decisions. Decision making is one of those topics that is largely investigated. Virtually every single day I noticed new articles, new studies are conducted on decision making. And decision making is quite complex. There are many ingredients that come into. So there are a lot of facets that we need to consider and what I want to do with this episode. I would like to share just some observations on how managers and leaders make decisions, and also I would like to point out some of the challenges that I see them facing on a daily basis as they try to make good decisions. And then I would like to point out a couple of things that I hope I'm going to help you out making better decisions.

The reason why decision making is quite complex these days has to do a lot with change. We live lives that are super complicated, in which realistically it only takes the tweet of someone to change markets, for opportunities to arise for troubles to come up. And so one of the questions that I receive a lot from clients is what is the right pace of decision making, meaning how fast or how slow should I go in making those decisions? How do you strike the perfect balance between a jump into a conclusion too quickly or maybe not doing it fast enough and so I'm going to miss an opportunity.

And so as I often do when a research for my episodes of Pity Party Over, I came across an article written by Chris Lowney, I hope I'm pronouncing his last name correctly. Chris is the best selling book author. He wrote this article in 2021 on Forbes, which I really love, it is “Called make better decisions slow down if the lion isn't coming.” I really like Chris’ article because it contains a lot of interesting points about decision making. He writes beautifully, you know, very clearly, very to the point, so I'm going to put in the notes of this episode all the information that you need if you want to read the article and definitely do it because it's really cool.

There are a couple of points that Chris makes in the article that I found really interesting. The first one is the impact of the organizational culture on how people make decisions and specifically Chris points out the dangers for managers in macho corporate cultures that regard decisive and fast as the synonyms.

So this one pertains specific cultures, organizational cultures, in which if I do not come across as decisive, self assured, but then I may not be a good leader and for sure many situations we have to do just that we have to make swift decisions but in other instances that could lead it to big big big disasters. 

So we do know how perceptions are important in ... when we work, you know we are constantly seen by the people, how we come across, it is absolutely vital and so what Chris also does in the article, it points out the opposite of moving too fast which is moving too slow and he says that it's really important for professionals to cultivate the courage to make timely decisions and to avoid what he defines analysis paralysis, which can happen very easily when to give an example,

you don't have enough time to make a decision, you are urged to make the decision, you may not have all the data that you would like to have to make the decision and as a result you freak out.

So that's also another problem that can lead it two more issues. So this dichotomy between fast and slow Chris writes really nicely, he says, bottom line “Some of us habitually go fast precisely when we should be slowing down and vice versa,” so it really is a balance between the two. It just depends when I'm supposed to go fast and when I'm supposed to go slow.

Now how we make decisions is not just a matter of personal preference, personality, what my behavior is, but can also be explained by understanding more deeply some of the mechanics of our brain. A lot of information pertaining decision making comes from neuroscience. So neuroscience is the study of the nervous system and neuroscience. These past 20 years have advanced a lot because of the magnetic resonance imaging which is the M.R.I. So you might have taken M.R.I. when you injure yourself. So M.R.I. are these big scans, you know, they look like pipes, tubes in which a specialist puts you through. Essentially through a magnetic field they are able to create a visual mapping of your internal organs. And because of M.R.I. we know quite a bit about the brain. We know that based on external stimuli, you know, what happens to different regions of the brain. 

In its most um simple explanation in terms of how we interpret reality, how we make decisions, our brain essentially constantly compares what's happening to us in the present moment with anything that has acquired and stored, you know, from the past.

So all my experiences, all that I went through in the past that represents a database that I use whether I like it or not, consciously or unconsciously, in order to determine what's happening to me in the present moment and to make decisions. 

Mostly in Western societies there's still a strong stigma around emotions, what emotions are, whether or not, whether or not it's good to use emotions when you do business because oftentimes being rational, be called be detached is something that is associated with a good decision making and anything that pertains emotions is seen as um dramatic, it is seen as something that somehow would hinder my ability to make decisions.

But for neurosciences, what we know is the fact that the very core of my brain, the so called the limbic system, the engine of my brain is very much my emotional center and these emotional center impacts everything, impacts how I interpret information. It conditions strongly how I respond to those situations and also impacts how I make my decisions.

And you must have heard a term that is really popular right now, a ton of articles have been written about the amygdala. So what is this? Amygdala and how it's connected to the brain. Essentially, the amygdala, there are two, the amygdalae, are two glands almond shaped are really small and they are located at the center of my limbic system, the emotional center.

And so the amygdala is some sort of home security system. It is a mechanism very ancient that really we inherit from our ancestors and essentially every single time I am confronted with a situation that could be dangerous for me, the amygdala fires ,the amygdala activates and what it does it produces a series of events, a cascade of events that produce hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol that flood my system and create a state of alert.

So that's the reason that the amygdala is associated with strong emotions such as stress, anxiety and fear, which are not really that comfortable to feel, but as I said, it's an alarm. It is a system that has been designed to really preserve a life, you know, to to help us surviving.

And our lives have gotten really complicated, definitely way more complicated than the lives that our parents used to live or our grandparents. We live lives in which complexity, change is happening super fast. We're also surrounded by so much negativity, you know, it is fostered by the media, and it doesn't matter of the media outlet that you choose in order to retrieve information, but it really is a litany of anxiety, of negativity that constantly surrounds us.

And so what this one does, um Particularly now, after more than two years of COVID-19 pandemic are our brains, our limbic system or emotional core has been really tried it out, it is really fatigued and more than ever has gotten difficult for people to make decisions and to navigate through all these problems by making the right move that can help the organizations succeed, that can help your life moving forward, you know, for you to grow. 

So long story short, what we have learned through neuroscience is the fact that our brain is designed to make snap decisions as a survival mechanism. Um when there's not enough time to weigh all the variables, um to be able to have all the data that I need to have to make good decisions inevitably my brain needs to resort to a lot of unconscious biases as a navigational tool.

So what is an unconscious bias? It is essentially a belief that you harbor towards something, it springs from the past, it springs from your experience is also very often is acquired through cultural conditioning. And the distinctive feature of unconscious biases is the fact that they fall outside our conscious awareness. It's almost like you make a decision without being fully aware of why you're moving, you're reacting the way, and instead good strategic decisions that require complete centeredness, mindfulness that really require tremendous consciousness.

So that is to say that when you are bombarded by so much negativity, when emotionally you feel extremely tired, when for work you move at a light speed, making quick decisions may be the perfect recipe for disasters. And I'm not saying that every single decision takes a long time to be made, but now more than ever we need to be mindful. We need to probably slow down to be able to make the perfect decision.

With that said another factor that has impacted tremendously our decision making from my point of view is the so called hybrid working practices and what I mean by I mean I'm referring to the discussion that's been going on since the explosion of the Covid pandemic or whether people are more effective working from home or working at the office.

So one thing that I've noticed throughout the pandemic is the fact that the lives of a lot of professionals have gotten even faster. The amount of activities, tasks people have to deal with has literally exploded. That is mostly the result in many cases of people of not knowing exactly how to work from home, a lot of people simply did not have the digital mindset and very often unfortunately, several organizations did not deploy any program to help people transitioning from working at the office to work in a home.

The one thing that I kept hearing from clients during the pandemic was how difficult it was to work from home, although they are clearly, you know, huge advantages, a lot of people did not have to commute. Also, there are less amount of distractions which can foster productivity.

The one complaint that I heard the most was the fact that working from home, you feel detached, you don't have your colleagues right there. So it may become in many instances a very lonesome type of activity. 

Going back to our decision making um discussion, one ingredient that is really important for decision making is the flow of ideas when you have a multiple perspectives coming into place that gives you a nice um ground to make those decisions, to weigh options, and now they were coming off two years of pandemic the one thing that I hear a lot from people is, oh my God now I have to go back to the office now that I got adjusted, I got used to working from home. I finally enjoyed the advantages of working from home. Now I have to readjust myself and going back to the way things used to be.

So there's um a nice a couple of nice reports that I put in the notes of this podcast that point out to the website of the CIPD. CIPD stands for Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. And for those of you who do not know CIPD is the most important organization in the UK for human resources.

What's really cool about these two reports is the fact that CIPD points out how the pandemic has shifted our working practices towards what they call a hybrid model, which essentially can be managed by using some days in the office as some days at home. So these two modalities can be complementary. It's not a matter of which one works best, which of the two may produce better productivity and also decision making. But I found really interesting, the fact that every single person is different. Every professional is different, um we are not the same people every single day, our energy, you know shift from day to day.

And so by finding the right modulation between these two settings, that's when we created the right circumstances for us to work at our best, something that didn't exist before, you know, before our life was completely in the office and then during the pandemic, we were forced in lockdown. But if there's one thing really interesting that we learned from the pandemic is the fact that every person requires a customized approach on how to work. Some people enjoy to spend more time in the office, some people enjoyed instead of working at home. So these two components can be very depending on our needs. 

One of the things that I've seen a lot this past, I would say two years, 2.5 years in a lot of managers and leaders is the so called “busyness,” which is basically the assumption that if you have a lot of stuff to do that you need to go faster. You know, if I go faster, I get more stuff done and this one, it may be completely counterintuitive, but realistically, if you go faster doesn't make you necessarily more effective.You may be under the impression and getting more done. But what can actually do, it can create just a state of increased anxiety and fatigue, which from the point of your decision making definitely is not the best scenario to find yourself in moving frantically from one task to the next, having a lot on your plate.

Sometimes what I've noticed leads to pursuing a lot of goals without fully understanding how each goal contributes to the success of the organization you represent. Also for your own personal success and the reason for that is because not all tasks, not all decisions require the same amount of time required, the same importance.

Usually it's much easier to see what you're doing when you look at things once they happen in hindsight. So when you turn back you see you might see someone super super, super busy and have the impression that you have not really advanced that much in your life. But the one thing that I believe it would be important to remember is this one that when you have a lot of stuff to do usually there are some strategic actions that could potentially allow you to hit the first piece of the domino so that all the other components would follow. The notion of strategy is to be efficient to be economical. 

Sometimes a behavior that constantly rush that is always fast, holding high standards for yourself being a perfectionist. All these components may result from a lack of confidence, the fear of failing, meaning not feeling adequate, and what this one does, it creates a vicious dynamic that hinders decision making. The whole notion of fear as a protection mechanism, just like the unconscious biases that I pointed out before it is something that in many instances creates extra speed, or sometimes does exactly the opposite which is a procrastination. 

In my experience, slowing down is not just striking the balance between taking more time. When I am evaluating different options or maybe postponing a decision. If I feel uncertain if I feel that I'm not ready for it, good decisions require what I call the “mental distance” to evaluate the issues.What it means is to take one step back, maybe a couple of step backs or three. So that from far I may see the details, the components that I need to way to make a good decision and understand maybe that some of them are not as important as I thought they were. 

A metaphor that I often use for this concept is the painter in front of her masterpiece. It's this constant moving closer to the painting and sometimes stepping back so that you can check the colors, you can check the light, you can check the proportions to make sure that everything is in the right place.

As long as your face is stuck too close to the painting, you may not have an overall picture of what you're trying to accomplish. So slowing down, it means above all softening the mental noise 

that is caused by constant rush. You know that deceptive impression that if I do more, I accomplish more, but instead I'm running in circles if I keep rushing. If I keep having my nose is stuck in the issue, it is very difficult to weigh all the options to understand how every single ingredient can be used for good decision making.

There are so many different remedies, so many things we can do in order to soften than mental noise that is caused by constant rushing. One of my favorite is basically spending time in nature.

A lot of research, a lot of psychological research that has been done to show the power of nature on our mental well being and the way we perceive things so our cognition can sharpen because of the time that we spend in nature. 

So there's an interesting article written by Kirsten Weir and published um in the American Psychological Association website, I put in the notes of this episode the URL, hat essentially points out the benefits of spending some time in nature and Kirsten says something really nice.

She says, From a stroll through a city park to a day spent hiking in the wilderness, exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits including improved attention, lower stress, better mood produced risk of psychiatric disorders and even upticks in empathy and cooperation.”

And so what is the pity party over of this episode of the podcast? Pity Party Over is an expression that I used to say now that you went through those hurdles those challenges what you learn from them so that you can move on. 

The whole point of this episode is the fact that we often have to make decisions in business with little data and time sometimes we want them but we don't have them and that's really the biggest challenge in business. Good decision making is basically a balance between pacing ourselves and understanding that sometimes we might have to go faster.

Sometimes we might have to go slower and then understanding that we can play with different settings, you know, working from home, working at the office to make sure that we have the right energy to make those decisions.

My biggest recommendation when you feel anxious, maybe fearful when you feel the stress is about to make your head explode. Sometimes the best option that you have is not to continue rushing is not continuing other people's expectation interrupting your work, but it may very well be closing your laptop, your computer then put some comfortable shoes on and then step outside step outside of your home, step outside your office and to spend some time in nature. 

And what it does when you spend some time in nature, your emotions start slowing down, your thoughts, your intuitions, everything comes together, your limbic system, your emotional core, that is so fatigued to start slowing down. Start finding some peace and at the moment very likely the most incredible solutions may come up from parts of yourself that may feel completely unexpected. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Pity Party Over I hope it was insightful, it was interesting. If you have any questions pertaining how to make better decisions, I would love to talk to you, I'm always available. 

My email is in the notes of the podcast. It is at [email protected]. ALYGN is spelled  A L Y G N.company. If you visit the website online dot company, you will find lots of different routes for individual team and organizational growth. You may subscribe to my blog or to my podcast Pity Party Over, their references are in the notes, and also we can connect on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Be happy be well and until we connect again, thank you for listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

Episode 1 focuses on building greater organizational synergy, what creates synergy, typical symptoms when synergy is lacking, and the importance of communication and leadership when transitioning through change to build synergy.

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Transcript

Welcome to Pity Party Over over the podcast for people, teams and organizations seeking practical ideas for results in greater happiness. I'm your host, Steven Matini. Let's pause, learn and move on. Pity Party Over over is brought to you by ALYGN, A L Y G N.company.

Hi everyone. I'm Stephen. Thank you so much for checking this episode of Pity Party Over wherever you are in the world, I hope you're doing great. So why this podcast is called Pity Party Over? Pity Party Over is an expression that I started using years ago. I was talking to a couple of friends of mine and, essentially means a couple of things. Pity Party Over is that moment when you feel so utterly fed up with an issue that you may have tried to tackle in many different ways, but it's still here in your life, it is still annoying and you haven't been able to find a way out. And so Pity Party Over over is when you're really ready to take the last leap in order to overcome it. And then Pity Party Over over also means what you have learned from a situation. So after all said and done, when a problem, a struggle becomes part of your past, as you look behind, what is that you learn from that situation?

Today's episode is going to focus on organizations. One of the most frequently asked questions that I receive from clients is how do I build a stronger synergy? And what they mean is how do I make sure that my organization, that comprises all kinds of different people, departments, systems, and processes, all this incredible complex machine, how can I make sure that works nicely all together? The reason why synergy is such an important and predominant feature in organizations is because reality is changing at a speed that is absolutely unprecedented. Organizations are faced on a daily basis in front of the scenario that mutates based on really ... someone's tweet. And so what we have seen for these past 20 years are huge technological changes that have revolutionized the way we operate, the way we do business, the way we compete in markets. And yet the ability of humans to adapt to those changes is still the same.

Meaning our brains have not evolved as rapidly as our technology. So now more than ever, it is really important that the organizational machine needs to be really functional. It is imperative that all its components are able to work together seamlessly, are able to interpret such a complex reality and to respond to it in a way that is efficient. So in order to achieve, um, a greater organizational synergy, there are so many ingredients that we need to consider. It's not just a one thing, but synergy comprises the ability to navigate change. So first thing is change, and change is such a big topic that we're going to explore a little bit more in this episode. Communication, communication is an incredible, super important ingredient to guarantee greater organizational synergy. Also, another component to consider is engagement, how motivated people are what's happening to them, why they seem to be into the organization or why there can be be some mismatch or some, uh, misalignment.

Also another super important component is leadership, you know, leadership provides the example leadership helps people transitioning in a moment of change. So that's also another very important ingredient. Anything that goes into organizational design, meaning how the organization itself is structured, how, who does what roles and responsibilities, how functions are organized. That's also something really important. Teamwork, you know, teams are such an important component these days. They do represent the main cells that allow any organization to move, seamlessly, nicely throughout change. So that's also another component only that we need to consider and then so much more organizational culture and, um, many, many other components.

So first thing, first symptoms, what are you going to see when synergy is not there? One of the observation that I make very often to clients is ... gossips. When you hear a lot of people complaining and, um, a lot of negativity, lot of remarks that tend to be more on the heavy side. That usually is an indicator there is something is not quite flowing within the organization. So complaints often times may indicate that something important to people, some needs are not fully addressed, maybe even something more fundamental and as values that drive their lives are not fully expressed within the organization where they work. So, a pasty, negative, dark type of conversation moving around the organization is a symptom that shows that there's really not great synergy. Another clear symptom, in my opinion, of lack of organizational synergy is when roles and responsibilities are not clear, meaning it's not quite clear to everyone who does what, and this is something really common to happen as organizations react to make changes. And, after a while, the whole structure becomes so complicated that know-how knowledge gets stored in silos, different parts of the organization and not properly shared. And, people are quite unsure exactly are what every single function, every single component does within the organization. So unclear roles and responsibility is another sign of lack of synergy.

One thing that I see very frequently working with different clients is this notion that the people on top, top management, the ones who are supposed to provide the strategy for the organization are the ones that should provide all the answers, you know, because of their role, because they are highly paid because of their experience, they should have the answers. And the thing is when we try to increase organizational synergy, the best starting point is actually to put ourselves in a position of listening, listening to everyone within the organization at different levels. And listening means to see from their point of view, what they observe, what is they see from the specific angle of the function, in which they work or the specific role where they work? So, in my opinion, when you collect a lot of data, a lot of quantitative data, a lot of qualitative data that gives you a tremendous amount of information to get the pulse of the organization and understanding what is really happening.

So that's really the point in which I always recommend to start a point of listening, a point of non-judgment in which everyone has the ability to voice out what is it? They see the great thing about listening to people is the creation of a space in which everyone finally has a moment to say what's in their heart, what bugs them, what they would like to suggest in order to create improvement in order to be more efficient. Also, the wonderful thing about listening to people is that you finally understand exactly what can be done in order to create that stronger organizational synergy. There's a lot that can be said about change, but essentially every time we want the organization to perform better, we are going through some sort of change. We are asking people, we are asking teams and the organization to actually operate in a way that is more efficient.

And so it's really important to understand how change works and also how that affects people. And, um, as a general, I would say almost rule of thumb, something that I've seen is that a lot of information and the fear of unknown are often responsible for the resistance to change when people are requested to change and they do not fully understand why that is needed, how that is going to benefit them. Usually that's when they start putting their foot down, they become really, really resistant because simply they don't understand it. You may be observing quite a bit of, um, anxiety, fear, blame, a type of attitude that tends to be more skeptical, even anxious. You know, it mostly results from not fully understanding what is happening.

People actually transition through change through small patient efforts. So when they understand clearly what's in that for them, when they understand the benefits of change, that's when slowly and patiently people start transitioning. It's generally a very, very, very slow process that requires a tremendous amount of patience. And, you know, probably I'm one of the least patient people that I know in my life. And, um, but I have learned throughout living really, personal and professional experiences, that patience is such a key, you know, great things, amazing things require tremendous amount of efforts, consistency, persistence. My mom used to tell me all the time, you know, you're not patient, but you'll see one day you'll learn. And she was right. She was absolutely right. If you are the person in the organization initiating change, you can be for instance, working for human resources, or you could be the head of a department.

And over time, you may have noticed the same issue coming up again and again and again. And so the need of doing something about it. There are some questions that in my experience will be very important for you to clarify. And the best place to clarify them is probably to consult with someone who is not part of your organization. It is very difficult to have the objectivity, to have the emotional distance from an issue and to see it with a clear mind. And so some question you would like to clarify are how do I help others during change? So it has to be very clear what to expect from the change process, how I'm going to deal with resistance to change, how much time should I give to people in order to change, and then how I'm going to make sure that results stick.

So it is a process that require quite a bit of knowledge, and very often people jump into it with a timeframe that doesn't actually match with what actually is going to happen. And so my biggest suggestion is to be fully informed because you see, you cannot perform surgery on yourself. And this is something that a past amazing, wonderful mentor coach used to tell me all the time. She used to say, you cannot perform surgery on yourself, and what she meant to say by that is that through the help of someone is much easier to see clearly an issue, and to navigate through that issue more quickly. The feeling of impotence, feeling powerless is something that I've seen many times in the past. It is a sensation that often times accompany those spearheading change within the organization, it could be the person who started the whole initiative, or could be a set of people that are also responsible to make sure that everyone transition. The feeling of feeling powerless and not being quite sure at what to do is something that is very prevalent during a change type of program. As you are trying to build a greater organizational synergy, one comment that I would like to point out is this one. Feeling frustrated is perfectly normal, it's natural specifically when you have been trying so hard for quite a while to help everyone transition. However, if you do feel super frustrated towards, let's say a staff member, someone who seems to be incredibly stubborn, not willing to change, that could be, it may signify that you do not fully understand the dynamic of change, which really requires once again, a tremendous amount of patience, also requires constant communication so that people can really transition. Everyone has different timeframe to go through change.

People proceed at the same speed. So long story short, change requires patience, consistent efforts, and also super, super important, celebrating every single small victory along the way. Every time we see people coming on board and making small improvements, that's a moment of really celebration and, it can be done in many different ways and believe me a simple, thank you. You know, if it comes from a place of true authenticity and gratitude, it goes a really a long way in terms of boosting people's motivation. So I pointed out a few times the importance of communication when an organization is going through change. From my perspective, I believe that very likely the other component that is vital for change is leadership. And from a leadership standpoint, a general rule thumb is that the more you hide, the less you share with people the reasons behind change, the dynamics of change, the fewer people are on board.

So leadership is such an important component for change because when we create a space for listening in which people can voice out their points of view, and we can help them out facing whichever emotions, whichever frustration, and difficulty that's when we provide the example, people always look for consistency. They look for what I often times refer to as "walk the talk." And so when leadership promotes change, when supports change, endorses change, people understand this is something that is here to stay, that's when the signal comes out nice and strong. So some questions that leadership can ask in order to make sure that everything is ready to transition is: What information, resources, and support do people need to be on board? What do I need to disclose with them to be on board? Are we communicating the reasons behind change How are we supporting each other throughout change?

These three questions in my experience have been really helpful and important to be addressed. So what is the Pity Party Over of change? If you feel frustrated with change, you are under the impression that things are not proceeding, are not developing, and unfolding as fast as you hoped, there are definitely a few things that I suggest to keep in mind. First of all, communication and leadership truly are the queen and king of change. These are two components you truly want to pay close attention to. When the reason behind change is clearly communicated and people are constantly kept in the loop that helps a tremendously overcoming fear and managing any sort of discomfort from a leadership standpoint, your sponsorship sending out a clear message that change is here to stay is fundamental when presenting change, when introducing change to everyone. Remember that people look for consistency.

So it's not enough to ask people to change, but you must be willing to provide the example because people look for consistency. You want to provide regular reports on the steps the whole organization is taking through change to improve its performance. You want to reassure people their feelings are normal and shared by everyone doing change. You want to give people specific tasks and opportunities while navigating change, so they understand how to apply the request for change operationally in their daily lives. And then super important, you want to acknowledge every success doing the change process to keep the momentum going forward.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Pity Party Over. I hope it was informative. The intention with this podcast is to share with you some tips and suggestions to overcome the frustration that you may experience when you want to really move on in your professional life. I tend to believe that the whole point of living is learning. When we continuously learn, we are better equipped on how to navigate through life so that we can enjoy the journey as best as we can. If there's anything that I've learned working alongside so many clients over the years is that growth is always possible. And the process becomes more pleasant and more efficient when you are accompanied by someone who has your best interest and heart. Remember you're not alone. There are so many phenomenal professionals who dedicate their lives to helping people developing. If you need any help, if you want to bounce ideas back and forth, I will be so happy to hear from you and to assist you. So I'm going to put my contact information in the podcast notes you can reach me at [email protected]. I also would like to invite you to visit our website, ALYGN, A L Y G N.company where you can find lots of solutions for individual team and organization or growth. Until we meet again, thank you for listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com