Work Mom Says®, Don't Be An Idiot!

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Work Mom Says®, Don't Be An Idiot! episodes

September 16 Episode 68 – “Redefining Self Care: Intentional, Not Occasional”
Episode Summary
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Host Lori Jo Vest sits down with Sharnell James, founder of Dear Self Care, for a candid, funny, and sometimes emotional conversation about what self-care actually means — and why it’s a decision, not a spa day.
Sharnell shares how Dear Self Care was born out of her own undergrad burnout and depression, breaks down the five types of self-care (mental, emotional, social, physical, spiritual), and gets real about the moment she punched a hole in her wall while learning to stop suppressing her emotions. Lori and Sharnell trade stories on trauma, family relationships, boundaries, and the guilt of putting yourself first — closing with practical go-to self-care habits for a genuinely bad day.
Guest
Sharnell James — Founder, Dear Self Care
What You’ll Learn
Why self-care is a daily decision, not a nail appointment or bubble bath — and why “the world is designed to drain us” (a line Sharnell borrows from Mel Robbins)
How Dear Self Care was born out of Sharnell’s own undergrad struggle with anxiety and depression
The five types of self-care — mental, emotional, social, physical, spiritual — and which one people neglect most
Why suppressing emotions (instead of feeling and controlling them) shows up later as burnout, autoimmune issues, or worse
Early warning signs you’re headed toward a breakdown: forgetfulness, poor sleep, irritability, changes in eating
Why “self-care isn’t selfish” and how to stop managing other people’s reactions to your boundaries
How to build a self-care habit that sticks — starting with two hours a week for the gym
Go-to recovery moves for a genuinely bad day: comfort shows, music, hobbies, and calling your “bucket holders”
Notable Quotes
“Self-care isn’t selfish.” — Sharnell James
“We are in a world that is designed to drain us.” — Sharnell James
“If me doing this for me means I’m going to lose you along the way, that means you were never supposed to be a part of this journey to begin with.” — Sharnell James
“It’s never too late to take care of yourself.” — Sharnell James
“Find your bucket holders.” — Lori Jo Vest
Timestamps
00:12 Welcome & introducing Sharnell James, founder of Dear Self Care
01:00 What Dear Self Care is and how it started
02:01 Sharnell’s undergrad burnout at Grand Valley State, and how the show Dear White People inspired the brand name
05:13 Self-care as a decision, not a spa day
07:16 Where to find Sharnell’s content (Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, Substack)
08:00 EQ and self-care
08:32 The types of self-care, and the book The Mountain Is You
11:40 Lori on trauma, suppressed emotion, and autoimmune stress
12:59 Recognizing the warning signs of burnout
15:12 Sharnell’s story: punching a hole in the wall
18:13 Healthy release outlets (therapy, rage rooms)
19:49 Leaning on your community
20:11 Lori’s “bucket holders” concept, and her friend Denise
21:24 The five types of self-care, defined
22:25 Social self-care: curating your feed, doom-scrolling vs. taking action
25:06 Choosing the right friend circle
27:24 Which type of self-care people neglect most (emotional)
28:20 Lori on EQ in her business partnership with her husband
31:06 How the gym became Sharnell’s self-care foundation
33:19 “You were never meant to be part of the journey”
34:29 Affirmations, the inner critic, and asking “what would I tell a friend?”
35:29 Sharnell’s relationship with her mom
38:05 The self-care myth Sharnell wants to retire: “self-care isn’t selfish”
39:10 The oxygen-mask metaphor; you’re not responsible for other people’s emotions
40:22 Sharnell’s go-to self-care practice for a bad day
42:57 Guilty pleasure: Real Housewives of Atlanta
43:32 Why hobbies matter
45:01 Where to find Sharnell, and what’s next for Dear Self Care
45:37 Closing
Resources & Books Mentioned
The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery by Brianna Wiest
Dear White People (TV series — inspiration for the Dear Self Care name)
Mel Robbins (referenced for “the world is designed to drain us”)
Dear Self Care — Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Substack (@dearselfcare)
About Nagham Alsamari
Sharnell James is the founder of Dear Self Care, a mental wellness space focused on healing, reflection, and intentional self-care. She started Dear Self Care while an undergraduate at Grand Valley State University, after her own experience with anxiety and depression, inspired in part by the TV series Dear White People. She is currently building out a full website, merch, and plans for a podcast and return to regular blogging.

(Her public Substack bio lists her credential as LLMSW and describes Dear Self Care’s focus as centered on Black and BIPOC communities — confirm both with her before publishing; see flag above.)
Connect with Nagham Alsamari
Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook: Dear Self Care
Substack: @dearselfcare
Transcript
[00:12] Lori Jo Vest: Hello, everybody. I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot, where we talk about different ways to play the emotional contact sport of business, so you experience less drama and more success. So today, my guest is Sharnell James. I am so excited about this episode. We’ve talked about some heavy things lately, and Sharnell is the guru of self-care, I would say. I met Sharnell out in the networking space, out in the world, and she just has this really great approach to mental health and wellness. And I think this is going to be one of our best episodes. So, Sharnell, hello. How are you?
[00:58] Sharnell James: I’m great. How are you?
[01:00] Lori Jo Vest: Very good. So you’re the founder of Dear Self Care, which you describe as a mental wellness space focused on healing, reflection, and intentional self-care. Tell me about your business.
[01:14] Sharnell James: Yes, I just want to say thank you so much, Lori, for having me. You have always just been a light in the networking world space, I would say. Whenever I see you, you’re just always so excited to be present and excited to be a part of everyone’s journey in some way of supporting them. So thank you for having me.
[01:34] Lori Jo Vest: It’s kind of — I always say I take after my great-grandmother. When I met her, she was in her 90s, and she was just so loving, and I always wanted to be that. So I think I’ve become that over time, and it’s so much fun to just be loving and caring about other people. So I draw those people in, and it’s really fun. So tell us about your business — how did you start it, and what’s it about?
[02:01] Sharnell James: Absolutely. So back to the initial question — Dear Self Care was birthed in the midst of my own, I would say struggle, but I wouldn’t call it a struggle — it was a journey. At the time I was in undergrad, going to Grand Valley State University, and I was involved in everything. When I say everything, I mean everything — I was an RA, president of the MPHC, in my sorority, a girlfriend, a daughter — all of these things. And because of that, being so busy, I was pouring into all these cups and I was not being poured back into. I found myself not eating — if you know me, you know I love to eat, Lori. Not going to class, canceling meetings, standing friends up. I literally, in my dorm, went on Google and typed in “signs of depression,” and my whole wig was blown back — because one, in our community, nobody even talks about mental health for real. And if you talk about mental health, it’s “you’re crazy,” “that’s what white people deal with,” “you got to go pray about it.” But also, it was hard for me because I’m that girl — everyone knows Sharnell as positive and upbeat. It was a hard pill to swallow. So I did my work, went through therapy, got professionally diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and depressive episodes. And in that journey I learned it’s not only me. During my depressive episodes there was this show called Dear White People, and I loved it — it was perfect because it was the 2016–2017 era, Black Lives Matter was really big, the Trump administration had just won the election, and the show was addressing social justice issues happening at a PWI for the Black community. There was this girl, Samantha White, who had an anonymous radio show called Dear White People — she was just badass, calling things out — and later people found out who she was. I wanted to do something like that, but I wanted people to know who it was, because I have a big personality and I didn’t want depression to take that away. That’s where Dear Self Care was born — because of that show.
[05:13] Lori Jo Vest: Got it. And one of the things you said on our prep call that I thought was so great — most people, and I’ll admit I’m guilty of this, think of self-care as going to the nail salon, taking a bubble bath, or a spa day. You actually say it’s a decision you make. What do you mean by that?
[05:36] Sharnell James: You have to make the decision to choose yourself every day. Everybody I talk to asks me, “How did you get so disciplined?” And I say, I made the decision. It wasn’t easy. But you have to choose yourself every single day. We are in a world that is designed to drain us — I heard that from Mel Robbins, and even though I call myself the self-care guru, I’m still learning. When she said that, I thought, she is absolutely right. From the social-political climate we’re in right now, from work, from being a mom, a wife — all of these roles are almost designed to drain us. But you have to be willing to take a stance and say, “No, I’m going to choose myself.” And choosing myself looks like this.
[06:34] Lori Jo Vest: I’m being reminded of how infrequently I choose myself. So that led you to start a business, because you know how important it is to choose yourself. Tell me — where does your content and advice come from? I know you say self-care has got to be intentional, not occasional. Where does it show up?
[07:16] Sharnell James: My official website is currently in the making — I was actually editing it right before I logged on, so that’ll be coming out soon. But people can find me on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook. I’m also getting back into blogging — Dear Self Care was initially supposed to be a podcast, but I love journaling, so I use blogging as a way of journaling. I’ll be getting back into that on my Substack.
[08:00] Lori Jo Vest: Got it — so if they go to Instagram and look up “Dear Self Care,” that’s where they’ll find your content and ideas. So how does EQ — emotional intelligence, which I am so married to, I love studying it — how does EQ work together with self-care?
[08:32] Sharnell James: So, as I’ve been learning about myself and my journey, I do a lot of things in phases. There are four types of self-care — and honestly, Lori, it was after our prep call that I realized how intentional I’d been about this. I started with mental health self-care — therapy, physicals, the gym. Spiritual — I came back to Christ. Social — I’m still navigating that, because friends come and go and you have to put up boundaries. But emotional self-care was something I don’t think I truly understood the importance of until I was faced with recognizing my own shit of emotion — can I cuss on here? Sorry, Mom. I was reading The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest, and she talks about emotional intelligence and self-sabotage. There’s a part in the book where she asks: have you ever been crying about something and just yelled, “I don’t ever want to fucking feel like this again”? I have. And she talks about how, as people, we’ve been taught to suppress our emotions rather than control them — which goes back to the idea that the world is designed to drain us. When something happens to you, you’re expected to just pick it up and keep going. Even think about grief — I’ve lost a lot of people, and I’m just now learning how to grieve, because I watched my mom and dad just keep going and going until they break. Emotional self-care is so important because it’s allowing yourself to feel what you have to feel. I’m not saying wallow in sadness or anger — but sometimes you have to allow yourself to feel those emotions so you can learn to control them and become a better version of yourself. It’s not easy, because when you think about how much you’ve suppressed, it gets ugly. But you create different things to help you release those feelings.
[11:40] Lori Jo Vest: Absolutely — and I’ll out myself here too. I come from severe trauma and poverty and abuse as a child, and some of us with that background don’t even know something’s bothering us to the extent it is, because we’ve suppressed it so much we don’t feel it. I have to be really careful to pay attention to how I feel about what’s going on around me, and sometimes I have to draw those feelings up because they’re so suppressed. But if I don’t, I end up in the hospital with some kind of autoimmune flare, because autoimmune disorders are triggered by stress, and one of the biggest sources of stress is not allowing your emotions to come out so you can process and manage them. So how do you recognize when — I mean normal people, not me — how do you recognize you might be headed toward a crash or a breakdown because you’re not practicing the self-care you need?
[12:59] Sharnell James: Let me put my stuff out there too, why not — that’s what we’re here for. I have this thing where my therapist cracks up at me every time I bring it up. Yes, I have a therapist — I am a therapist, and therapists have to have a therapist, that’s the only way we stay sane. I told her my biggest fear is doing a podcast or public speaking and somebody in the crowd thinking, “she’s lying, she doesn’t do any of this” — so let me put myself out there first. For me, when I’m on the verge of burnout, or my emotions have been suppressed for so long that I’m about to break, I get very forgetful — it ties into my anxiety, because my mind is racing about every little thing, and I forget the small stuff because I’m so focused on the big issue clouding my judgment. Sleep — I don’t sleep as often, so if you go to bed but still feel lethargic or exhausted, it’s because your mind is still racing and focused on something else. You’re tired emotionally. Irritability — you get very snippy with people. Eating habits go up and down. Or you can do all your morning routines that are supposed to make you feel good, and you still just don’t feel good — that means there’s something deeper. This year I was faced with that with my emotions around anger. Growing up, I was surprisingly a person who got angry — I’m a Gemini, so there’s that two-personalities thing, being sweet but then “don’t try Sharnell, because she’s going to go off.” I never liked that side of myself, so I always tried to just be positive — until one day it just wasn’t working, because I’d suppressed so much instead of learning to control it. And Lori, I kid you not — you’re the first person outside my circle to hear this — I punched a hole in my wall.
[16:02] Lori Jo Vest: You were really mad.
[16:04] Sharnell James: I was pissed. I looked at my wall and thought, “Oh my god, what just happened here?” But I felt a sense of relief, and that’s when I knew — okay, this emotional self-care puts you to the test, but you can’t back down now. I patched the hole, but I haven’t painted over it, because it’s a reminder that you can be both things — you can be positive, and you can be mad as hell. You can be joyful, and you can be sad. There’s no balance if you don’t allow yourself to feel both. There’s no bad emotion, as long as you let it be good for you.
[16:57] Lori Jo Vest: I always say if you don’t have the low lows, you can’t have the high highs — you can’t have joy if you never experience grief. I’d add: my mom was an alcoholic, and she used alcohol as an anesthetic. In my young adulthood I did the exact same thing — I hated that my mom drank, and I was a normal drinker most of the time, but every time I overdid it and woke up hungover, something had happened that I was ignoring, that I’d told myself wasn’t bothering me when it actually was. So being in touch with yourself and having insight into your behavior — you punched a wall, I drank too much — those are really good signs that something needs help, needs assistance, is beyond what you can take care of on your own. What would you tell people to do at that point?
[18:13] Sharnell James: Therapy, of course. But you’ve got to find something that lets you release — and release healthy. There are rage rooms now —
[18:24] Lori Jo Vest: I want to go to one!
[18:24] Sharnell James: Me too — I need to plan a “Dear Self Care” event for us to go break some things. You gotta get it out. Circling back to working out — that’s why I work out so much, because of my anxiety, it shows me I’m bigger than my own thoughts. If I can wake up at 4:30 a.m. and go lift weights, I can do anything in the world. Other times I’m angry about something, I go to the gym, focus on that, and release it there, then go home and do what I have to do. So you’ve got to find your niche — it’s not just the gym. Sometimes I take walks, I journal, I spend money — I’m the one who’s going to buy myself a gift to make me feel better.
[19:22] Lori Jo Vest: I will too. I have a Peloton bike, and when I’m not having a good day, I can get on it for 20 minutes, dripping sweat, and think, “what was I even mad about?” I don’t remember — I think anger brings chemicals into your body that you can actually sweat out.
[19:49] Sharnell James: And finally — the biggest piece — lean onto your village, your community. You do not have to do this alone. A lot of times when we’re angry we feel like no one’s going to understand, but sometimes you just want somebody to listen. They’re there — lean on them.
[20:11] Lori Jo Vest: I like to say: find your bucket holders. I have girlfriends and we do this for each other — “can you just hold my bucket while I yell about this” — and you get somebody to listen while you vomit out all the crap, then throw it in the trash, and you feel better. It’s really normal for me and my girlfriends to call and say, “I need somebody to hold my bucket.” One of my girlfriends, Denise, well into her 70s, brought that to me when I had breast cancer — she’d say, “you can’t outrun that, honey, just talk to me” — and I would talk and talk and feel better. Find your bucket holders, and you can literally ask people, “will you hold my bucket today?”
[21:24] Lori Jo Vest: So — the other thing we talked about that I found so interesting is that there are different types of self-care to support different aspects of who you are. Tell us about those.
[21:24] Sharnell James: As I mentioned earlier — you have your mental self-care, which is seeking therapy, learning your old patterns. Then emotional self-care. Then social, physical, and spiritual. With spiritual, it’s whatever keeps you grounded — for me that’s church, prayer, meditation. Social self-care is setting boundaries, making sure your support systems and what you’re feeding into yourself from social media and podcasts are good for you.
[22:25] Lori Jo Vest: Huge — curate your feed. That’s all I can say.
[22:38] Sharnell James: With our algorithms, whatever you engage with is what you’ll keep seeing on your feed, so I hope it’s something positive, because social media can be a lot — there’s so much happening, and even keeping up with heavy news, you want bite-sized information, because it can become heavy.
[23:08] Lori Jo Vest: And there’s only so much we can do. Personally, as a social justice person, I’ll share things about what’s happening in the country that needs to change, but I have to really watch what I’m ingesting, because I can get stuck in that righteous-anger place, and it’s not productive. What is productive is picking up the phone, calling the White House, calling Congress, calling my local reps — because just scrolling about something you’re upset about is worse for your stress than feeling like you have some agency to act. So don’t doom-scroll — pick up the phone, write a letter, send a text. And you can always unfollow anything that upsets you so you get a really good feed. I follow weird art for weird people and a ton of musicians, so my feed is musicians, art, and my girlfriends — what I’ve decided I want to look at. Social doesn’t have to be crap, but you have to be intentional about it.
[24:48] Sharnell James: Absolutely — otherwise it’s going to drain you.
[24:54] Lori Jo Vest: And finding the right friends or social circle — how do you decide who feeds you socially and who doesn’t?
[25:06] Sharnell James: I’m currently in that season — recognizing who I want in my circle for this next phase of my life. As I come into this positive personality while also honoring my other emotions, I want people around me who can do the same. I never want to leave a friend hangout feeling drained — I want to be around friends where we’re able to pour into and uplift one another, hold each other accountable, and just be peaceful.
[26:07] Lori Jo Vest: Sometimes that means saying goodbye to a friendship or a family relationship — if you visit a certain part of your family and have to recover for three days afterward, maybe you shouldn’t be going. Some people are good for your soul, and some just aren’t. I like the soul-feeding people — those are my people.
[26:31] Sharnell James: And one thing I’ve learned — you’re born into a family, but there’s nothing like the family you create. My “lion sister,” who I pledged with — my sword sister — is the perfect depiction of that. She’s quick to say, “nope, this person can’t do this to my family,” because she has to protect her family.
[27:05] Lori Jo Vest: That’s a great example — you get to decide who’s in your life and who’s not. So, back to the types — which of these do you think people neglect the most, and which do you prioritize?
[27:24] Sharnell James: The one people neglect the most is emotional self-care — because, as we said on our prep call, a lot of adults are like eight-year-old children, because they don’t know how to deal with their emotions, and that’s why a lot of leaders aren’t good leaders. For me right now, if I could, I’d prioritize them all — but as far as ranking, number one is emotional, which leads into spiritual, then mental, then social, then physical.
[28:20] Lori Jo Vest: I think physical feeds the rest and helps support them. My goal with EQ — and I’m just starting to see it happen once in a while — is that my husband and I are business partners, eight years now, and we have very different personalities, so it’s not always easy. I have to be mindful in conflict to stop and check what I may be about to do before I do it, instead of going straight to “well, you need to —” because those intimate relationships give you the most opportunity to grow. You’ll be snappy with your mom, your sister, your husband.
[29:35] Sharnell James: No one told me that about intimate relationships. With my boyfriend now, he’s the main reason emotional self-care is number one for me, because he’s not going to put up with me shutting down and suppressing — we’re going to deal with it. You need people like that to hold you accountable.
[30:04] Lori Jo Vest: When I met my husband, I said he was the only man I’d ever met who owned his own shit — when he messed something up or acted out, he’d apologize for it, own it, change it. That’s the kind of people you’re looking for — people who understand that snapping at me because you’re in a bad mood isn’t a good move. If I made you irritated, fine — you’re irritated, but that doesn’t mean you get to act out. Part of self-care is really choosing the right people. So how do you go about making that decision, if you’re like me — always running around, too much to do, not enough attention to yourself?
[31:06] Sharnell James: It started with the gym. Growing up I was always athletic — track, volleyball. Of course, as you get older you slack off, and the pandemic had all of us in the house drinking wine and eating everything.
[31:27] Lori Jo Vest: We made pandemic cookies for about two years — I finally had to stop.
[31:35] Sharnell James: Me, cookies, and wine — we were locked in, and I didn’t like how I felt. But getting back into the gym is a mental thing. I started about four years ago and was very inconsistent, until my trainer called me out about it. At first I was like, “don’t call me out” — but the version of myself I was working on becoming sat with it. I sat in my car and told myself: you’re able to show up for everybody — work, your students, a partner, your parents, your siblings, your friends. Can you dedicate just two hours to yourself? And the rest was history. It was a mindset shift — from “I have to go to the gym today” to “I get to show up for myself by going to the gym today.” Think about it — we’re able to maneuver our schedules for everybody. Your friend calls having a breakdown at noon, and you rearrange your day for her, but we can’t maneuver our schedule for ourselves. I stopped flaking out with certain people to make sure I went to the gym, because I had to do this for me — and if doing this for me means losing you along the way, that means you were never supposed to be a part of this journey to begin with.
[33:31] Lori Jo Vest: I love it. I used to do adult-children-of-alcoholics work, a 10-step program, back in my 20s — one of the things they had you do was talk to your inner child, and consider bringing your inner child with you when you go places. Would that child wear a seatbelt? Would you make them eat a good breakfast, drink enough water, exercise, play outside? Sometimes you have to look at how you treat other people and forcibly apply it to yourself — and it’s hard, because we’re not used to it.
[34:29] Sharnell James: Yes, absolutely — that’s another thing I try to do, even with picking my affirmations, because it’s so easy to get caught in “I messed up, I should have done that” — we’re our own worst critics. My therapist makes me ask: what if this was a friend talking to you? If a friend said, “I’m struggling to show up for myself, I don’t know what to do,” what would you tell them? “Show up for yourself.” Sometimes we have to talk to ourselves as if we’re talking to another person.
[35:12] Lori Jo Vest: Huge — sometimes we won’t do things for ourselves that we’d do for others, and it’s about prioritizing. If you’re not healthy and not feeling good, you can’t really be there for other people the way you want to.
[35:29] Sharnell James: You can’t. And that’s the other thing I’d love to touch on — aside from what I went through myself, the other reason I got so big into self-care in my 30s is my mom. She and I went a couple of years without talking, because I was upset with her for being human. I saw a post that said you reach the final stage of womanhood when you understand your mom — that she wasn’t a villain, just a person. My mom had me at 30, and I’m 31 today — I couldn’t imagine coming home at 31 to three kids and so much of life she didn’t get to live. Watching how her not taking care of herself shifted our dynamics as her children — that’s why it’s so important to show up for yourself. Now she’s doing things for herself, and I love that. It’s in honor of her, and it’s also to show her that it’s never too late to take care of yourself.
[37:04] Lori Jo Vest: Shout out to Sharnell’s mom — take care of yourself! She raised a wonderful daughter. I think that’s really important to talk about, because a lot of times we’re mad at other people when, if we put ourselves in their shoes — I’m the same way with my mom. I didn’t talk to my mom for decades, and when I finally did, it was after I’d done a Landmark course, and they said, “unless you’re good with your parents, you can’t be good with this world.” Not that you have to accept whatever they did — just that had you been raised in the exact same circumstances, at the exact same time, you probably would have done the same thing. Once you understand that, it shifts the relationship, and you give up a lot of your anger. That sounds really healthy.
[38:05] Lori Jo Vest: So, as we wrap up — what’s one self-care myth you’d like to retire?
[38:15] Sharnell James: That self-care is selfish. It’s okay to be selfish — goddammit, it’s okay. And I say that in the kindest way — of course you don’t want to be hurtful to other people, but people are going to be hurt no matter what when it comes to putting yourself first. If that means someone’s mad at me because I put myself first over them, then be mad — because I don’t want to deal with the resentment of not choosing myself. Sometimes you have to be a little selfish, because we’re always selfless, especially as women.
[39:10] Lori Jo Vest: Honestly, they say this all the time — put your own oxygen mask on first. There’s so much we’d do for someone else that we’d never do for ourselves, and we think we can control other people’s emotions — “if I do that, they’ll be mad.” They might not be, or they might be mad no matter what you do. You’re not responsible for their emotions — that’s on them. Do what’s good for you and yours, let the chips fall where they may. You don’t have to be unkind, but make your own decisions. I’m in my 60s, Sharnell, and I still struggle with this — not wanting people to be mad at me. But they’ll get over it.
[40:02] Sharnell James: I can preach it — it sounds good, but I’m still working on it too, because when you’re a kind person who wants everyone happy, it’s hard. But darn it, they’re gonna be mad. Love them anyway.
[40:22] Lori Jo Vest: They’ll get over it. So — favorite go-to: let’s say you wake up, spill coffee on the shirt you wanted to wear, run out the door, get to your car and it’s out of gas — a really bad day. What’s your go-to self-care practice to pull you out of that?
[40:43] Sharnell James: If it’s a “wake up and the day’s already going wrong” kind of morning, I’m the first person to say, “you know what, the day’s canceled — I’m staying home, I’m getting on my couch, I’m going to watch TV.” When stuff happens back-to-back like that, sometimes I think maybe the universe is telling me to slow down, so I’ll literally stay home. Law & Order: SVU is my comfort show, also The Parkers, and right now I’m rewatching This Is Us — if I have any excuse to stay home and watch This Is Us, I’ll take it. But if I can’t do that — can’t just call in the day — I stop and breathe. If I’m angry or emotional, I let it be, I talk myself up, put on some Megan Thee Stallion, and tell myself I can do hard things, and I keep pressing.
[41:55] Lori Jo Vest: I love it — two things you said: music is so good for the soul. Find those five or six songs you can turn to. I’m a big dance person — no training, but always dancing around the house, and my husband knows I’m in a good mood if I come bopping into his office with music in my head. It helps move energy. And the fact that you can make yourself a promise — “when I get home, I’m going to do this” after a rough day — gives you something to look forward to. For us it’s the Twilight Zone — we’re always on a marathon, with five or six episodes recorded so we can watch anytime. There’s something comforting about that craziness.
[42:57] Sharnell James: Another funny one for me — Real Housewives of Atlanta, the seasons with NeNe Leakes. There was a moment this year I was distraught — hadn’t had any girlfriend time because I was so busy with Dear Self Care — and I turned on Real Housewives, poured a glass of wine, and was cackling so hard you’d have thought I was on the episode with them. I felt so good.
[43:32] Lori Jo Vest: Guilty pleasures are always good for self-care, in my opinion. I bake, too — I don’t know what that’s about, but I’ve started baking bread because my husband loves it. We raise monarchs, too — having hobbies and things you enjoy just for you is another way to practice self-care.
[43:56] Sharnell James: Hobbies are so important, especially as you get older — you need a hobby or two.
[44:00] Lori Jo Vest: And it’s not childish — it’s feeding your mind and giving yourself things you do just because they’re fun.
[44:08] Sharnell James: Right — for my birthday this year my boyfriend got me an iPad, because I already had a Nintendo Switch and play Mario Kart almost every day. Now on the iPad I’m playing word search, because I need to sharpen up my vocabulary and train my brain. I play spades because I love card games — I’m always playing a game. I have an app called Venue where I’m kind of an interior designer for people — I love this mindless entertainment.
[44:42] Lori Jo Vest: Except it’s not really mindless — you get to have fun and make things happen. So, as we wrap up — one more time, tell people where to find you and what you’re planning for the future. It sounds like a blog or a podcast might be coming.
[45:01] Sharnell James: Everyone can find me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn under Dear Self Care. I have some great things in the works — my website, my platform, some merch, as well as podcasting and blogging. There are things coming out in the next few months as we close out the year, which I can’t believe is coming up so soon. That’s where everyone can find me.
[45:37] Lori Jo Vest: Thank you so much for being here today, Sharnell — this was super fun. Self-care is critical to a successful life at home and at work. It really is — if you’re not at your best physically, emotionally, and socially, you’re not going to be your best in the workplace either. With that, we’ll sign off. If you’re watching on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button, and share if you’re interested — leave us a comment. We have a website at workmomsays.com — you can find a contact form there if you’ve got someone you’d like us to have as a guest, or a question you’d like me to answer. I’m also on LinkedIn, and I’m an open networker there — just let me know you’re connecting as a listener to the podcast.
Who Is Our Ideal Listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional contact sport of
business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re
responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that
what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What Value Can People Get From Listening to This Podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability
to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go
into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships
that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive
relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful
when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness,
sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful
mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom.
Why Do I Do This? A Few More Words From Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency
business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there
was to make. I don’t hold myself out as a stellar example of how you should be. I hold myself
out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some
important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people so they don’t have to make
those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t
really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face
at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
The post Episode 68 – “Redefining Self Care: Intentional, Not Occasional” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
47 min
August 19 Episode 67 – “Stop Surviving, Start Bouncing Forward: A Masterclass in Resilience”
Episode Summary
Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s.
Host Lori Jo Vest sits down with Nagham Alsamari, founder of Imkan Leadership Development, for a candid conversation about what resilience actually is — and why “bouncing back” isn’t the goal.
Nagham breaks down her Five Pillars of Behavioral Resilience (Self-Awareness, Communication, Decision Integrity, Burnout Recovery, and Adaptability), reframes anxiety as a signal rather than a problem to fix, and shares her own story of surviving as a refugee from Iraq to explain how self-awareness — not just toughness — is what actually builds resilience.
The conversation covers anxiety, confidence, burnout, community, and closes with book recommendations and details on Nagham’s free Imkan Academy launch event.
Guest
Nagham Alsamari — Behavioral Resilience Trainer & Founder, Imkan Leadership Development
What You’ll Learn
Why “bouncing back” from a setback means you haven’t actually grown — and what “bouncing forward” looks like instead
Nagham’s Five Pillars of Behavioral Resilience: Self-Awareness, Communication, Decision Integrity, Burnout Recovery, Adaptability
Why anxiety is a signal, not something to immediately fix — and a simple pause technique to move from reaction to response
How the DISC behavioral framework explains why we react the way we do under pressure
Why confidence, like resilience, is trained — not something you’re simply born with
A practical reframe for burnout recovery: stop adding, start removing
Nagham’s personal story: fleeing Iraq as a child, years in a refugee camp, and arriving in the U.S. as a 13-year-old refugee
Why building real, in-person community is essential to resilience — and how to start small
Notable Quotes
“My definition of resilience is that you bounce forward… survival is the bridge, not the destination.” — Nagham Alsamari
“The biggest philosophy that I teach is love, learn, and let go.” — Nagham Alsamari
“Stop going to the end of the movie and making it a tragedy.” — Lori Jo Vest
“Confidence is not something you are either born with or not. It’s something you can train and work on your entire life.” — Nagham Alsamari
“If you’re burnt out, your plate is already more than full. Stop adding stuff… start removing.” — Nagham Alsamari
Timestamps
00:00 — Welcome & introducing Nagham Alsamari
02:03 — What resilience really means (“bounce forward,” not “bounce back”)
05:54 — Why self-awareness is the foundation of resilience
08:15 — The Five Pillars of Behavioral Resilience
11:03 — Reframing anxiety as a signal, not a problem
14:20 — Claiming your resilience and the DISC framework
18:55 — Post-COVID discomfort and the fear younger generations face
24:13 — Building real community, and starting small
29:15 — Nagham’s story: fleeing Iraq, refugee camps, and arriving in the U.S. at 13
38:46 — Confidence is trained, not innate
42:15 — Burnout recovery: stop adding, start removing
45:46 — Final advice for building resilience in your 20s
47:55 — Where to find Nagham, and the Imkan Academy launch event
Resources & Books Mentioned
The Magic of Thinking Big by Dr. David Schwartz
A book on happiness by Dr. Arthur Brooks (referenced in conversation; exact title not stated — verify before publishing)
The DISC behavioral framework
About Nagham Alsamari
Nagham Alsamari is a behavioral resilience trainer and the founder of Imkan Leadership Development. Her Behavioral Resilience Training is built around what she calls the Reactor Pattern — targeting why people react under pressure, not just what they should do instead — and is organized around her Five Pillars of Behavioral Resilience: Self-Awareness, Decision Integrity, Communication, Burnout Recovery, and Adaptability.
Connect with Nagham Alsamari
Website: imkanleadership.com
Free Manager Resilience Scorecard
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/leadwithimkan
Instagram: @leadwithimkan
Facebook: @leadwithimkan
YouTube: @leadwithimkan
TikTok: @leadwithimkan
Phone: (734) 560-5434
Imkan Academy Launch Event — August 31: A free, 3-hour event marking Imkan’s 3rd anniversary, covering the Reactor Pattern and DISC personality behavior, with guest speakers on the Johari model and a leadership coach closing session. (Per conversation — confirm current date/registration link on imkanleadership.com before publishing.)
Transcript
[00:00] Lori Jo Vest: Hello everybody, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot. I am so excited to introduce today’s guest and today’s topic, because this is something we all need to talk about more often. Today I want to introduce you to Nagham Alsamari. She is an amazing speaker and just a wonderful human being who impressed me from the first time I saw her speak. She is a resilience trainer and the founder of Imkan Leadership Development, and I am really excited to have you here, Nagham. Say hello.
[00:44] Nagham Alsamari: Thanks, Lori. Hi everyone, thanks for having me. I’m Nagham Alsamari, and I am a behavioral resilience trainer, which means I don’t teach people to be tough or grind through things. Instead, I teach the muscle behind every actual reaction that we take. So when we’re under pressure, instead of reacting on autopilot, I teach you how to actually choose how you show up instead.

[01:04] Lori Jo Vest: I need this lesson. So tell us a little bit about your business — if someone wants to look you up right now, where would they find you?
[01:23] Nagham Alsamari: Easiest place: imkanleadership.com. I’m also on social media — LinkedIn, and you know, everywhere.
[01:33] Lori Jo Vest: And I would suggest you follow her, because she has wonderful videos and she also has events. We’re just going to dive right in — we’ll get back to how you can get in touch with Nagham when we’re done here. So, what is resilience, really? We all have our own idea of what it means in our heads. How is it different than just being thick-skinned, or stoic, or just “oh, you can’t get me down”? What is resilience?
[02:03] Nagham Alsamari: If you look it up in a dictionary, it’s going to tell you resilience is the ability to bounce back from challenges, right? To me, that’s not a good enough explanation — it’s only a partial definition. The thick skin, the toughness — that’s good, and it has its place, but that’s not everything you need.True resilience, and how I define it, is that when you go through tough times — which every human being on earth does — if you just “bounce back,” you’ve learned absolutely nothing. You’ve grown zero percent. My definition of resilience is that you bounce forward. You don’t just survive the problems you’ve gone through and go back to point zero where you started. You survive, and you treat that survival as the bridge — not the destination. Survival is the bridge that gets you to become more resilient. When you’re more resilient, you’ve bounced forward. You’ve learned new skills, you’ve grown, you’ve created more opportunities for yourself — because on that bridge of survival, you’re picking up lessons and learning from them instead of just running away, trying to get through the day, or get through the year.
[03:50] Lori Jo Vest: I love that. It’s not really about just getting through something or buckling down and holding on — you might be missing some of the lessons you could be learning, right?

[03:58] Nagham Alsamari: A hundred percent. And that’s why I think you need to be vigilant. The biggest philosophy I teach is Love, Learn, and Let Go. When you’ve gone through a challenge, you’ve got to love the experience, because there are lessons to be learned from it, and you can lead others through it. And if you can’t handle all of it, just let it go — because a lot of us just ruminate: “why me,” and all of that — instead of looking up and seeing that these challenges are actual opportunities and lessons you can learn from and become much better than you are.
[04:44] Lori Jo Vest: Exactly. Actually — let me out myself. I learned a lesson earlier this week. I have a relatively new client I’m not 100 percent well-versed in yet, and there was a meeting of 15 people, and I said something really dumb. It wasn’t intentional — there was a piece of information I was missing, and I made a comment publicly that was just wrong. Twenty years ago, I would have thought, “Oh god, I’m so stupid.” This time I thought, “Well, I didn’t have that piece of information — now I do. Shake it off and move forward.” I think self-awareness really played into that. Why is self-awareness the starting point for resilience?

[05:54] Nagham Alsamari: There are five pillars of resilience as I’ve defined them, and the first is self-awareness — it’s the foundation, because you won’t be able to pick up on those lessons if you don’t have that self-awareness. It’s so easy to translate it as something else — to say “oh, I just overthink things,” or “I’m a perfectionist” — without actually understanding why you’re a perfectionist, what behavior is associated with it, and what you can actually do about it.I was coaching someone, and near the end of our coaching journey I asked her if there had been a transformation. She said, “One hundred percent — I now understand why I seek perfectionism.” She was a high-C personality who did a lot of overthinking and analyzing, and now she has the tools to pause herself before she continues chasing perfectionism in her projects. Instead of practically thinking about a solution, we overthink everything to the point where we forget why we started thinking about it in the first place.This is why I call it behavioral resilience, not just resilience — it starts with the strengths you have inside, and how you actually use them on the outside. Once you become more self-aware, you become a much better observer of other people’s behavior too — instead of wondering why someone’s upset because of something you said, you become more aware of their personalities and why they behave the way they do.

[08:04] Lori Jo Vest: Got it. Should we go right into the other pillars while we’re here?
[08:15] Nagham Alsamari: Sure, we’re going to go off-script a little. I can go through them quickly, I think it’s important. They all connect back to that foundational pillar of self-awareness, because how we communicate has a lot of other components to it. So: second is communication. Third is decision integrity — people make hundreds of decisions every day, and most of the time we doubt ourselves, we’re not actually a hundred percent sure of our decisions. Resilience teaches us that. Fourth is burnout recovery, because most of us have no clue how we got to burnout or how to get out of it. And finally, adaptability — a huge one, especially after we all found out post-COVID how necessary that was.
[09:36] Lori Jo Vest: Oh, we did. Did we ever learn to be adaptable, or did we suffer more?
[09:40] Nagham Alsamari: You suffer more if you don’t learn how to be adaptable.
[09:43] Lori Jo Vest: I really like how you say it’s behavioral. I’m not a therapist, I’d never say I was a psychologist or giving psychological advice — that’s not what I do. But I know from my own experience in therapy: you can do talk therapy, where you’re just reiterating what you’ve gone through, and a good therapist is also going to bring a psychoeducation piece — a behavioral education piece — so you understand you have more control over how you think and what you do than you believe. And we do have a lot more control. When you learn those behavioral actions, it just makes life easier. So I really love that you’re talking about it as a behavioral thing.Let’s talk about anxiety, because so many of us suffer with it. You define anxiety a little differently — you call it a signal, not something that automatically needs to be fixed. I love that, because we all want to know: what do I need to do to get “un-anxious” right now? What does that look like in practice?

[11:03] Nagham Alsamari: I’ve got to do my own disclosure too — I’m not a therapist or psychologist either, but I’ve been studying behavior for a long time, starting with myself and my own children, and as a school principal. What I’ve seen, over and over, is that anxiety is basically telling us there’s something going on — something we’re uncomfortable doing, afraid of doing, or it’s irrational and our brain can’t decipher it, can’t translate it. Most of the time when we feel anxiety in our bodies, we jump straight to “I’m not well, I need to get treated.”Instead, I’ve learned — and this is how I teach it — anxiety comes in a lot of different forms: a pit in the stomach, hands shaking, heart beating faster, shallow breathing, shoulders creeping up toward your ears. If you notice one of those things, relax for a second and just think: where is this coming from? Is it fear of something, or an actual inability to do something? A lot of anxiety comes from something like your boss messaging you, “We need to talk.” We go through overthinking, and our bodies translate all of that into something else, because it goes to the amygdala first. If we give ourselves two seconds to calm down and let the thoughts travel from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex — where we can think logically — we’re able to think, “I think my boss wants to talk to me about the project I submitted last week,” instead of “everything is about to go wrong.”
[13:43] Lori Jo Vest: I had a therapist tell me once, and I’ve held onto this for decades — “stop going to the end of the movie and making it a tragedy.”
[13:55] Nagham Alsamari: Exactly. If you’re trying to predict the future — which isn’t going to work anyway — and you’re not doing it in a negative way, it brings you less anxiety. Sometimes that’s the cause of our anxiety, trying to live in the future.

[14:14] Lori Jo Vest: You’ve mentioned that claiming your own resilience can change your relationship to anxiety. Tell me about that.

[14:20] Nagham Alsamari: What I’ve found is that most of the way we react to things comes from a place of strength, not weakness. As an example: you’re going through your day, you get an email about a skip-level meeting you’re not ready for, and you go into overdrive — “what have I done, what mistakes have I made?” The way we react is based on a strength in us. Let’s say I’m a high-C personality — using the DISC behavioral framework — high Cs tend to overthink, need more information, analyze everything to a perfectionist point, or withdraw completely. All of those are strengths, and they’re needed, because high Cs are highly creative and amazing at analysis — that’s why they’re needed in companies everywhere. But we use those strengths incorrectly. Under pressure, I might go to every single person in the office to get more information about why my boss is asking for something.
[15:50] Lori Jo Vest: You’re talking to a high C — I get it, I’ve seen it, I’ve done it.
[15:52] Nagham Alsamari: Building self-resilience means understanding your personality and your own strength, and understanding that the way you’re reacting comes from a place of strength. If you take a minute to pause and yield, instead of immediately jumping to a conclusion, you can think, “what’s my next step,” and respond instead of react. That’s served me really well for a long time.
[16:48] Lori Jo Vest: I bet. I’m kind of addicted to self-help — I’ve got to read all the books, talk to everybody. I think we all have ways of thinking and acting that we could improve so we’re a little happier in life. I’ve been on a quest to be happy since I was a kid — I grew up in a trauma-filled household, and I decided I was going to keep going until I found my happiness. That tenacity has really worked in my favor. But looking back, when I was in my twenties, I didn’t have any awareness or self-exploration — I didn’t realize how much you can use what’s happened to you in the past to create who you are in the future, in a positive way. I think building resilience is part of that — taking what you’ve learned and moving forward.So, I know there are some issues right now with early-twenty-somethings — the kids who were in junior high during COVID. Junior high is such an awkward time anyway, even surrounded by peers. They had COVID, not going to school, being alone way too much, communicating electronically rather than in person. Some of what we’ve seen is that that’s led to a fear of discomfort — I’ve watched young people where some small thing happens and it derails their whole day. What causes that? What do you see there?
[18:55] Nagham Alsamari: I love Dr. Arthur Brooks — he just published a book on happiness, and I love his perspective. He talks about gratitude as the antidote to anxiety — that gratitude can’t coexist with anxiety. It’s already difficult for new generations to come up, because there’s something new every generation is exposed to that our generations before don’t know, and we have to coexist together anyway. My son is 22 and in college — he went through COVID in high school and a little in college. There is a huge fear of discomfort in human beings anyway, but I see it more in younger generations, because they grew up in a time when, even though COVID was a huge fear, it also made things a little easier for the socially awkward — they don’t have to communicate face to face, they just grab their phones and text. Even I, in my mid-forties and a social person, learned during COVID to be a little less social and more reliant on technology — “I can just send words, I don’t have to use my voice.” Imagine people whose brains were developing during that time, who don’t feel they need to rely on socialization.Dr. Brooks talks about how what we need to get out of that is to build actual human connection — not chatting online, not texting, not even video calls — get out and get yourself vulnerable, and connect with other human beings. He actually ran an experiment on that, and people felt a huge difference. It’s not easy, especially if you’re used to not socializing in person — what do you even say? I went through that myself a little when I was younger, learning English — I was afraid to say the wrong thing because I was afraid people would laugh at me. But I had to learn to get over it, open my mouth, talk, make mistakes, and be okay with it.
[23:08] Lori Jo Vest: What’s so interesting is: it’s hard to advise other people to make themselves uncomfortable on a regular basis, and that’s what it takes to build connection, build relationship, find your community. I honestly think one of the most important things we can do right now, in turbulent times, is join and create your own community — so you have the emotional and social support you need. That could be joining a local women’s group, volunteering for a cause you feel strongly about, a grief support group — whatever it is, you create and join communities to give yourself the experience of practice, and to find relationship and support. If you’re a young person and you’re not doing that, start right now. I remember about ten or fifteen years ago, looking at my husband — I was raising my son, working full time, writing a book and marketing it, completely slammed — and I said, “we don’t have community right now.” So I went out and created a couple of different places, and now I have a group of friends I’m on a call with every morning at seven o’clock. I know, we’re crazy — every single day, hanging out with a group of women doing amazing things. It’s a really great way to grow, and to better enjoy your life.
[25:19] Nagham Alsamari: If you find that difficult, what I always tell people is: start small. You don’t have to go all out. Pick one activity to do, once a week, and build on that. I run a speaking club where I coach people how to show up with presence and become more confident — not just in speaking, in any situation under pressure — and of course it comes with the behavioral resilience lens. One thing I didn’t realize, talking to the members last week, is that the club was designed to teach speaking under pressure and confidence, but what they told me is that they were looking forward to coming and connecting with each other. I thought that was such an amazing thing, because people spend all day at work talking to people — but that’s not something they do out of choice. The kind of connection you need to look for is the kind you choose to make time for during your day, not the kind you have to show up to because you have to go to school or work.
[26:37] Lori Jo Vest: Yeah — volunteer at the animal shelter, walk dogs, do things that feed your soul. I think those are really great places to get past some of that discomfort and anxiety, because what I used to feel a lot of that anxiety was — a fear of judgment.

[27:12] Nagham Alsamari: How other people are going to look at you going into a new situation. I learned from one of my self-help courses — of the many I’ve taken — that the reality is, you think everybody’s looking at you; well, they think you’re looking at them. We all feel that way. Nobody’s judging you — everyone’s actually busy judging themselves to begin with, and afraid other people will see how they judge themselves.One thing I want to say too, about that discomfort — how to get yourself out the door: we spend a long time practicing being shy, practicing being unable to communicate with each other, unable to connect. I say “practicing” because we really do — when we constantly tell ourselves “I’m shy,” we’re practicing being shy. How many times have you said that to yourself and it’s actually kept you from doing something? You’re practicing. So what if we flip that around, and instead practice saying something positive — “I’m shy, but I’m going to go ahead and give this a try. I’m going to pick up the phone and call her today” — and that’ll make you feel much better about yourself, and want to do it again and again. We practice all of these negative behaviors our entire lives without even thinking about it — so this is where self-awareness comes back. If you notice you’re practicing these little things you’re afraid of people judging you on, just notice them, and practice the other thing instead. I’ve heard someone say recently that sometimes those negative things — fear, discomfort — are actually exactly the medicine you need. If you can think of them as positive, and just know you won’t die — it’s not a tiger coming to kill you if you walk in that door and volunteer for the first time.
[29:01] Lori Jo Vest: Nagham, you have such an interesting story, if you don’t mind sharing it. It’s so meaningful to me that you came to the U.S. at thirteen years old as a refugee, and had lived in a refugee camp for a couple of years. It’s a really incredible story of what it means to build resilience. Would you mind sharing a little about that?
[29:15] Nagham Alsamari: Not at all. Most of what I’ve learned about resilience was back in my childhood, but I didn’t have a name for it — I only started understanding it looking back, as an adult, using those experiences as strengths, as strength reminders.I was born in Iraq. In 1990, we left Iraq because of the rebellion against Saddam — because our family had participated in the rebellion, we had to leave the country. I don’t know how long it took us to leave, but that time was filled with fearsome memories — I’ll just leave it there — of trying to find safety from place to place, trying to find food, trying to find family members, until we found a makeshift camp where the U.S. Army was kind of in charge, so it felt a bit safer. But there were still bombings going off from place to place, and landmines all over — you had to be very careful where you stepped. I was eight years old. Then we went to a desert refugee camp in Saudi Arabia for four years, where we had to relearn how to live in that new environment, and just hold on and pray when the sandstorms hit, because there was nothing else you could do. I still had the dream of becoming a teacher one day, because that’s what I really wanted to do as I grew up — along with missing family, and all those thoughts as a child.At thirteen, our family was chosen to come to the United States as refugees. It was great, because my first thought was, “yes, I’m going to become a teacher now, I’m going to go to school” — but I had to learn the language, communicate with people, and I was answering about a million questions about me, because I looked different, in my second language, as a child — while also having questions of my own, trying to learn the language and the culture and how things worked here. Kids didn’t understand, and there was a lot of bullying. But I always told myself — I had the wrong definition of resilience back then — I told myself, “I’m going to be resilient, I’m going to endure all of this,” because of the goal I had: graduate high school, go to college, graduate at twenty-one. I had that date set for myself. I was going to become a teacher, because in my experience as a student — in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, and here in America — I felt teachers didn’t do a great job of inspiring students. So even while I was finding safety, finding food, that goal never left my mind. I thought, one day it’s going to become true, and I’m going to inspire kids. Honestly, I felt like that’s what kept me going throughout it. And of course, my faith in God — that if He wants us to stay alive, we will, no matter what.

[33:24] Lori Jo Vest: How did you use that to build resilience? Was it just a natural thing? There are so many potential outcomes for someone with a story like yours that wouldn’t necessarily look like yours.
[33:30] Nagham Alsamari: I know a couple of people who went through the same thing I did, who always use their stories as scapegoats for their behavior — who say, “well, I had a traumatic childhood, so I couldn’t do this or that.” My experience has been — I’m very strong-minded, and if people tell me I can’t do something, I’m going to show them how I can do it, and I’ll come back and show them how it’s done.
[34:13] Lori Jo Vest: Me too. I think that comes from my mom and dad — they’ve always been entrepreneurs, really strongly spirited.
[34:24] Nagham Alsamari: The resilience part is me understanding — I think I was in my early twenties when I realized it takes two things: the mindset, and the behavior outside. Both of those work with each other — it’s not just how you think, because we always have these self-talks, and they’re mostly negative, and they don’t do anything positive for us. That’s when I started seeing patterns in my life — every time I go through a challenge, I fall down, and when I pick myself back up, I’ve learned something new. When I saw those patterns repeating, I learned something really powerful: anticipation. I told myself, “Nagham, life is not easy — from now on, I’m going to anticipate that I’ll see more challenges.” Even right after getting back up from one, even when I feel really powerful, I’m going to anticipate more challenges are coming, and use this learning to help me through them. That was my biggest eye-opener, and that’s when I started reading and learning more about resilience.

[35:53] Lori Jo Vest: That makes a lot of sense. Part of it is who you are — that bright light you had from the beginning — and part of it is the ability to hold onto that hope and keep moving toward it. I think by the time you get to my age — I’m in my sixties — you’re like, “yeah, life is brutal, chaotic, and incredibly beautiful all at the same time,” and you have to accept that you’ll go through brutal times, beautiful times, chaotic times, and it will constantly be like that. It’s up to you to level-set where you’re going to be during times like those. You’ve done an incredible job coming from a background like yours and creating something that uses that trauma and pain to help other people — that’s pretty amazing, Nagham.One thing I wanted to mention — during one of the times we were in Iraq, running from the violence, there was a place we stayed where there was a girl about my age who’d been shot through both thighs, one bullet in, one out the other side — and she was basically paralyzed. I don’t remember the paralysis so much as I remember her face — there are times I close my eyes and I still see her. She had such a pretty smile, such a great, positive outlook on life. I’d look at her and compare my life, and think, “she can’t even walk — look at that, I can walk, I have my legs.” I think that’s also where I picked up gratitude — to be thankful for what I have, and what others don’t. It’s not always easy — it doesn’t always come to you to become more resilient. This is why I teach it now, because I feel like people need somebody to nudge them in the right direction, to help them understand that what they’ve got is a strength they can build on, not something to be afraid of.
[38:30] Lori Jo Vest: I love that — great story, and it’s so meaningful. So, digging back into our outline — you said confidence isn’t something you’re born with. How is confidence, resilience, built, and how do you keep and maintain it?
[38:46] Nagham Alsamari: Just like you maintain shyness. There’s a myth about extroverts — that they’re automatically confident or good speakers. Not true. You may be an extrovert, have no fear of the mic or speaking up, but not be the most engaging person in the room. So confidence is something you can train, just like resilience. Just like you’ve told yourself “I’m shy,” tell yourself you’re confident — but that’s not enough on its own. It also takes learning who you are, and bringing your strengths up to the surface. If I say “I’m an overthinker” and think of it negatively, I hold myself down. Instead, I say, “I analyze things — I’m an overthinker, but I analyze things to understand better, and I can put that to use in some ways, even if I don’t need it for my confidence right now.” This is why I train in my club through a behavioral resilience lens — it’s not just about eye contact or how you present your body, it’s about composure, understanding yourself from the inside, and holding yourself up on the outside.One person I trained had an interview coming up, and she was worried — she wanted to feel confident going in, so she was looking at questions and asking other people about their experience. I told her: close it off, don’t listen to anyone or look at questions — that’s all noise. Look at yourself: how long have you been doing this job, what got you into it in the first place? As she started talking, I could see her beaming, I could see the passion in her face — that’s how you bring back composure, by going back inside and pulling out that strength. She felt so comfortable talking in front of the interviewers because she was building on her own passion. Confidence isn’t something you’re born with or not — it’s something you can train and work on your whole life, but you have to maintain it. It’s like Spanish — I took it in high school and college, was really good, then stopped using it, and now I don’t really understand it.
[41:52] Lori Jo Vest: I just picked up Duolingo for my high school and college French — it comes back, you’d be surprised, and Duolingo is free. I’m bringing my French back with little daily exercises — it’s fun, a good side hobby.
[42:10] Nagham Alsamari: Another way to entertain yourself and challenge your brain.
[42:10b] Lori Jo Vest: I want to circle back to burnout recovery — we didn’t talk a lot about that, but before we wrap up, let’s talk about what it is. You say it’s a pillar of resilience, and if you can address it, you can actually pull yourself out of it — correct?

[42:15] Nagham Alsamari: Yeah. First, most of the time we don’t recognize whether we’re stressed out or burnt out. Burnout can be situational — if I’m burnt out at my desk because of a project, I’ll feel better once I finish it, and that burnout will leave me until the next project. It can also be environmental — you work in an environment that induces burnout, and every time you go into it, or are about to, you feel it. Most of the time, we overdo everything — our plate is so full, and we think, “I’m so burnt out, I need a massage, I need a vacation” — but what you’re actually doing is adding even more. If you’re burnt out, your plate is already more than full — you need to start removing, not adding. Look inside and see what you don’t need. We tackle everything as it comes, and that’s the problem — it doesn’t help us get through the day. We need to stop and assess: does this meet the two conditions of urgent and important? If yes, it’s a priority. If not, you can schedule it, delegate it, or get rid of it altogether. Most of the time, our calendars are filled with things we think are important that really aren’t, and that’s what’s causing the burnout.The other thing is how we react to what’s said to us. If Lori says something to me this morning, I might start ruminating and overthinking about what she meant, wondering if it’s about something I said last week — but if I actually talk it out with her, or with someone else, I ease myself up, instead of hanging onto it.

[44:20] Lori Jo Vest: I have a prop from an earlier social media project — this is the typical woman’s to-do list. It’s gigantic — it just keeps going. I agree, taking things off that list is huge for your sanity. How many things do you make yourself responsible for that maybe you could let go?

[44:59] Nagham Alsamari: Things that maybe aren’t yours — like imagining or trying to predict how other people are going to feel if you say or do a certain thing. I finally learned to say that other people’s feelings are their responsibility. If you’re conducting yourself in a way that’s compassionate and appropriate, don’t try to manage other people’s feelings — that’s another thing you’re doing that you don’t necessarily need to do.
[45:21] Lori Jo Vest: We could go on and on — this is going to be a really long episode, and it’s going to be one of our best. So, wrapping up: do you have any final word of advice for someone in their twenties trying to build resilience?

[45:46] Nagham Alsamari: I’d say start with self-awareness — not the outward “I know I take my time” or “I’m loud” — I mean dig deeper to understand why you do the things you do. Why do you talk the way you do? Why are you loud? Is it because you haven’t been heard before, or because no one’s allowed you the space or the room? What are the reasons behind it, and what have you been practicing your whole life? Start with self-awareness, become a little more observant of your own behavior, and know that resilience requires that you anticipate problems and challenges happening. Life is full of challenges, and just sleeping and thinking “I’m having a wonderful day, nothing’s ever going to happen to me” is a mistake. If you anticipate that challenges are going to happen, and you’re willing to dig deeper into your brain and find where you’ve been great, and use that to your advantage — then you’ll be okay.One other book I want to recommend is by Dr. David Schwartz — an amazing read, I actually listened to it on the way to everything that made me nervous. It’s called The Magic of Thinking Big. One thing — and Lori, you actually reminded me of it as you were talking — he calls negative self-talk “mismanaged negative imagination.”
[47:26] Lori Jo Vest: Oh, I like that.

[47:29] Nagham Alsamari: If it’s left up to us — but reading that book really helps put perspective on how we think, and how thinking bigger and more positively can help us see through things, not just around them.
[47:39] Lori Jo Vest: I love it, great way to wrap up. So where can people find you and your work?
[47:55] Nagham Alsamari: I’m on LinkedIn and Instagram — @leadwithimkan — or imkanleadership.com is my website. August marks the third anniversary of Imkan, and on August 31st we’re celebrating with the Imkan Academy launch — a three-hour free event where I’ll be breaking down something called the Reactor Pattern, and going deeper into DISC personality behavior. I’m having a couple of guest speakers — Voices of Resilience — who’ll be talking about the Johari model, and we’ll close the day with a leadership coach talking about rising up from routine and doing something with your life. The whole event is free — there’ll be networking and prizes, and I’d love for everybody to join. I can send you the link for the show notes, Lori.
[48:40] Lori Jo Vest: I will put it in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us today — this was absolutely delightful. I’ve learned a lot, and I’m sure our audience has too. We’ll put information on how to reach you in the show notes with links — go get to know Nagham on LinkedIn, follow her on Facebook, wherever you are. Find Nagham, and she will help you learn more about resilience — her videos are amazing. And if you’re listening or watching this on YouTube, please do me a favor and subscribe — hit that subscribe button, give me a like, maybe a comment if you’re really feeling it. We’ll be back soon with another episode of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot, where we teach you how to play the emotional contact sport of business, so you can experience less drama and more success. We’ll see you again real soon.
Who Is Our Ideal Listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional contact sport of
business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re
responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that
what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What Value Can People Get From Listening to This Podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability
to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go
into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships
that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive
relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful
when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness,
sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful
mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom.
Why Do I Do This? A Few More Words From Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency
business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there
was to make. I don’t hold myself out as a stellar example of how you should be. I hold myself
out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some
important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people so they don’t have to make
those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t
really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face
at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
The post Episode 67 – “Stop Surviving, Start Bouncing Forward: A Masterclass in Resilience” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
51 min
July 23 Episode 66 – “Getting Uncomfortable: The Entry Fee for a Successful Career”
Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s.
#WorkMomSays growth feels like garbage — and that’s exactly how you know it’s working.
In this solo episode, Lori Jo Vest gets real about one of the most important — and most avoided — truths in professional and personal development: discomfort is not the enemy. It’s the entry fee.
Drawing from her own experience joining an ad agency creative department at 48 years old with no idea how agency life worked, and from raising a son she deliberately pushed into uncomfortable situations.
Lori breaks down why our brains are wired to treat a scary email like a saber-toothed tiger, why “waiting until you’re ready” is a lie, and how leaning into discomfort — one rep at a time — is the only real way to grow.
This episode is especially for anyone in their 20s who is still learning that the people who avoid discomfort are the same people who can’t hold a job, struggle in relationships, and never quite get where they want to go.
Themes Discussed in This Episode
Why growth feels terrible — and why that’s actually a good sign
How your brain can’t tell the difference between a difficult email and physical danger
The lie of “waiting until you’re ready”
Discomfort vs. actual danger: how to gut-check the difference
Staying curious as a strategy for pushing through difficult situations
The difference between self-care and self-avoidance
Building resilience as a professional skill
How to advocate for yourself — and why most people never learn
Episode Highlights
0:11 – Lori sets up the episode with a truth nobody tells you on your first day: growth feels horrible. If it felt good, everybody would be doing it.
0:11 – The brain science behind avoidance: your nervous system responds to a tense email or a confrontational meeting the same way it responds to a predator. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn — when those responses show up, it’s a signal to push through, not back away.
0:11 – You will never be ready. Lori makes the case that readiness is a myth, using the universal example of new parents: nobody feels ready, and they jump anyway.
1:14 – Lori’s personal story: hired into an ad agency creative department at 48 years old, surrounded by people who seemed smarter, cooler, and more in-the-know. Six months of intense discomfort — followed by six years of growth, comfort, and confidence she couldn’t have built any other way.
4:59 – An important distinction: not all discomfort is the same. Discomfort from growing is different from discomfort caused by someone misbehaving, a narcissistic boss, harassment, or an abusive environment. Gut-check it.
5:30 – Staying curious instead of anxious: instead of asking “what happens if I get this wrong?” try asking “what could happen if I learn how to do this?” Curiosity is one of the most practical tools for navigating uncomfortable situations.
7:18 – Discomfort as a rep: every time you send the scary email, speak up in the meeting, ask for the raise, or have the awkward conversation, you’re building a muscle. The more reps, the stronger you get.
8:00 – Lori’s parenting story: she made her son, now 27, go into the pizza place and get his own chips and soft drink at age 8 or 10. She also let him advocate for himself when he wanted something she’d said no to. He told her as an adult it made a significant difference — and that most of his friends never learned how to do it.
11:30 – The self-care trap: self-care is important and necessary. But when it becomes self-avoidance — “I don’t feel good about that, so I’m not doing it” — it stops being care and starts being a ceiling.
13:00 – Put on your big girl pants. Discomfort is not the enemy of a good life. It’s the entry fee. If you want the job, the boss who treats you well, the career you actually love — some discomfort is part of the cost.
13:42 – Lori’s challenge to the listener: pick one uncomfortable thing to do this week. One conversation, one task, one moment you’ve been avoiding. Do it. Then notice how you feel when it’s over.
Top Quotes
0:11 — “Growth feels like garbage. It’s horrible. If it felt good, everybody would be doing it.”
0:11 —“Avoiding discomfort is one of the most damaging things you can do to your relationships and your career.”
5:30 — “Instead of looking at something that might happen that could be bad and creating anxiety in your body, swap that out with curiosity.”
7:18 — “Discomfort is a rep. The more reps you do, the stronger the muscle.”
13:00 — “Discomfort is not the enemy of a good life. It’s the entry fee.”
13:42 — “Comfortable people don’t have origin stories. Comfortable people are not at the top of the success ladder.”
Transcript
0:11
Lori: Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot. This episode is going to go deeper into a subject that I feel really strongly about. I didn’t learn this until I was well into my 30s, so I’m hoping that if you’re in your 20s and you hear this and learn this and hold on to it, it will serve you so well over time.
Lori: You know what? Nobody tells you when they hire you, or when you get out of college, or when you’re starting a new project — growth feels like garbage. It’s horrible. If it felt good, everybody would be doing it. So the people that are not successful, that can’t hold a job, that have difficulties in relationships — those are people who do not like to be uncomfortable and avoid it. In reality, avoiding discomfort is one of the most damaging things you can do to your relationships and your career.
Lori: We are wired, unfortunately, to avoid discomfort. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between that scary email from a coworker that’s not happy with you and a saber-toothed tiger. It has no idea. So it immediately goes into protection mode and causes you to not want to act, or to bring up your trauma response — fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. When you find yourself doing those things because you’re uncomfortable, push through it. In work situations, you will not die from discomfort.
Lori: There’s a lie that’s told out there about waiting until you’re ready. You will never be ready — and guess what, that’s okay. Ask any parent of a two or three year old: did you feel like you were ready when you had kids? None of us are ever ready for the levels of discomfort that great big change can bring. You’ve got to jump anyway.
1:14
Lori: I’ll tell you a little story. I was hired by an advertising agency at 48 years old to join a creative department and work on some Kimberly-Clark brands. I was like a fish out of water. I was like an alien on another planet. I was so uncomfortable because everybody there was just so cool and so funny and so smart, and I didn’t feel like I fit in. I had no idea how an agency worked — the hierarchy, how you get things done. You can’t go directly to the person that does the job, or you’ll get in trouble. How did I learn that? I got in trouble.
Lori: I took a job I knew I was qualified for, but I had no idea how to do once I got into the building. I felt like everybody was so much smarter than me. It was pretty stressful. But while I was feeling all that imposter syndrome, nobody around me gave me any indication that they didn’t have full confidence in my abilities.
Lori: Looking back, I can see all that discomfort lasted for about six months. After six months, I was in that position for about six years. I felt so comfortable and so good. I grew, I stretched, I learned so much. So discomfort does not equal danger. There’s a huge difference between “this is uncomfortable because I’m growing” and “this is uncomfortable because something is actually wrong.”
4:59
Lori: Gut-check those questions when they come up. In most cases, your discomfort will come from “I don’t know how to do this yet.” If it comes from somebody misbehaving — if somebody is hitting on you, if somebody is being abusive in the workplace, if you’re working for a narcissist — that is not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is the day-to-day discomfort that comes from trying and doing new things, or growing your thought processes.
Lori: One of the things you may need to do in a work environment is learn to listen. Every one of us has gone into a meeting thinking we know the answer. And you go in with three or four other people, and they all have their own ideas, and you have to open up. You have to let go of your ego. You have to be open-minded and work toward a solution that works for everybody.
Lori: Stay curious. Instead of creating anxiety in your body over what could happen if you don’t do something correctly, swap that out with curiosity. What could happen if I learned how to do this? What could happen if I had support from my team? What could happen if I leapt into this situation and did my very best?
Lori: Sometimes your body will lie to you. You’ll walk into a situation, and the fear impulse comes — your whole body gets cold — but you’re not going to die. The three people in that room waiting for you for that meeting are not tigers. They’re not going to kill you. Look at discomfort as a sign of growth, and that will help you lean into it and grow faster.
7:18
Lori: The payoff when you lean into discomfort: when you practice being okay with that little bit of anxiety that tells you “I don’t know how to do this and everybody’s going to know” — when you lean into that instead of backing away — send the email, speak up in the meeting, ask for the raise, do the hard workout, have that awkward conversation. Consider that a rep, like going to the gym. Discomfort is a rep. The more reps you do, the stronger the muscle.
8:00
Lori: My son is 27 now. Love him to pieces — he’s a great big human, about six-three. He told me as an adult how much of a difference it made that I pushed him into discomfort as a child.
Lori: A couple of things I used to do. I taught him how to advocate for himself. For example, we’d pick up pizza, and he’d say he wanted chips and a soft drink — that’s what we call a pop in the Midwest. I’d say, great, go ahead and go in and get them. He’s eight or ten years old. “Mom, I don’t want to do it. I’m not comfortable.”
9:24
Lori: If you want the chips and the soft drink, you will go in and get it. And he would go in and get it. The other thing I used to do: when he wanted to do something or go somewhere and I’d said no, I would allow him to advocate for himself — to tell me why he thought I should reconsider. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes I’d say, “You’re right, go ahead.” Other times I’d say, “Nope, still don’t agree.” But I always allowed him the chance to advocate for himself.
Lori: He said that’s a huge difference between what he sees out in the world with his friends — that people don’t know how to advocate for themselves. They have a fear of going into a situation with the boss. The boss says you can’t have the vacation you scheduled three weeks ago, and a lot of people just go, “Oh, well.” If you push yourself past the discomfort of speaking up for yourself, you may get that vacation. Odds are you will. I’d say eight times out of ten you will get what you want if you have a sound reason and approach the conversation from a place of curiosity.
11:30
Lori: Here’s a little tough love. There is a huge conversation online about self-care, and yes — self-care is so important. We need to give ourselves time to regroup after a difficult situation. We need rest when we’ve worked really hard. But self-care can actually get in your way if it turns into self-avoidance: “I don’t feel good about that, so I’m not doing it.” That might work in situations that are actually not safe. But if it’s a project you don’t want to work on because you’re uncomfortable, and you push back and don’t do it — that’s a whole different situation. Discomfort is not a lack of self-care.
Lori: Think of it as building resilience. If you can be more resilient than the next person, you’re going to be able to weather the storm, get the job when things are difficult, and solve problems. A lot of things open up when you don’t let every little thing knock you over.
13:00
Lori: Put on your big girl pants. Discomfort is a part of life, and it’s okay. It’s not the enemy of a good life. It’s the entry fee. If you want to be a successful person — have the job you really love, have the boss who treats you well — the entry fee is some discomfort. I really love the phrase “get comfortable being uncomfortable,” because that challenges you: is it really discomfort, or is it a little anxiety? And if it’s a little anxiety, push past it.
13:42
Lori: Pick one uncomfortable thing to do this week. One thing you’ve been avoiding — whether it’s a conversation, a task, or something that just makes you uncomfortable — and just do it. Then see how you feel afterwards. When it’s over, maybe you’ve had a really positive outcome to something you were really afraid of. It can happen. A lot of times it will.
Lori: Here’s my sign-off: comfortable people don’t have origin stories. Comfortable people are not at the top of the success ladder. Go be uncomfortable, and I’ll be here to hear about it when you’re done. Reach out to me on LinkedIn. And if you’re watching on YouTube, please subscribe, give me a like, maybe a comment — so I can bring this helpful information to more people, so they can learn how to play the emotional contact sport of business and experience a whole lot less drama and a whole lot more success.
Who Is Our Ideal Listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional contact sport of
business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re
responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that
what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What Value Can People Get From Listening to This Podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability
to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go
into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships
that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive
relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful
when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness,
sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful
mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom.
Why Do I Do This? A Few More Words From Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency
business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there
was to make. I don’t hold myself out as a stellar example of how you should be. I hold myself
out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some
important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people so they don’t have to make
those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t
really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face
at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
The post Episode 66 – “Getting Uncomfortable: The Entry Fee for a Successful Career” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
16 min
June 18 Episode 65 – “Men and Trauma: How It Shapes Everything”
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#WorkMomSays trauma doesn’t come back as a memory — it comes back as a behavior, and until you understand that, you can’t change it
In this episode, Lori Jo Vest is joined by Dr. Kevin Scott, trauma specialist and Marine Corps combat era veteran, to explore how unaddressed trauma silently drives the way men think, feel, and behave in the world — at home, at work, and in relationships.
Drawing from Dr. Scott’s clinical expertise, his personal journey through dark and tumultuous
chapters, and his work doing crisis intervention training for law enforcement, the conversation
covers everything from big T vs. little T trauma to moral injury, trauma response styles, mother
woundedness, and why men are so rarely given the tools to express or even recognize their
own pain.
Lori and Dr. Scott also share practical guidance for anyone — man or woman — who is
struggling with unresolved trauma and wondering where to even begin.
Themes Discussed in This Episode
What trauma actually is, and why secondary and vicarious trauma are just as real as direct trauma
The difference between big T and little T trauma — and why no one gets to tell you what’s traumatic for you
Moral injury: what it is, where it comes from, and how it shows up far beyond the military
Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn — trauma responses and why most of us don’t recognize our own
Why men in particular struggle to voice emotions, and how society’s messaging makes healing harder
The concept of “mother woundedness” and how early attachment issues can drive resentment and relationship struggles
How the digital age and social media have made trauma incessant and normalize
Practical first steps for anyone hesitant to seek help — including why you don’t have to eat the elephant in one bite
Episode Highlights
0:14 – Lori introduces Dr. Kevin Scott and sets up the conversation: what happens when men’s struggles with emotional expression aren’t about willingness — but about trauma they may not even recognize?
2:00 – Dr. Scott shares how he came to specialize in trauma, including the Viktor Frankl moment that changed his life: the idea that suffering is no longer suffering once your pain has meaning.
9:36 – Trauma 101: Dr. Scott offers his definition of trauma — any disruption, short or long term, that affects a person’s physical, social, emotional, and spiritual space — and explains why secondary and vicarious trauma are just as real as direct experience.
11:40 – Dr. Scott introduces moral injury, a term with roots in the military that applies to anyone who has had to act against their own values — in parenting, marriage, substance use, and everyday life.
18:20 – Lori and Dr. Scott break down trauma response styles — fight, flight, freeze, and fawn — and why Lori’s lifelong fawning response (“if everybody likes me, I’ll be safe”) shaped so much of her early life.
19:49 – Dr. Scott shares a key insight from world-renowned trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk: trauma doesn’t come back as a memory — it comes back as a behavior. Understanding that changes everything about how we see difficult people, including ourselves
22:47 – Why do some men struggle with authority from women? Dr. Scott introduces the concept of “mother woundedness” — and gets real about how early attachment failures can generate loathing and resentment that goes far beyond ordinary misogyny.
27:18 – Dr. Scott reflects on how a generational shift in parenting has left young men without the emotional vocabulary to express disappointment, shame, fear, or loneliness — and how toxic masculine norms make it even harder.
33:07 – The digital age has made trauma incessant. Dr. Scott explains how a person can now be traumatized from the moment they open their eyes to the moment they close them — and how society hasn’t begun to catch up with what that means.
39:04 – Psychoeducation as a tool for healing: Lori shares how understanding cognitive distortions — like magical thinking — has helped her catch herself in the moment and choose a different response.
43:21 – Dr. Scott tells the story of dismissing his sons’ pain — until he got his own fingers caught in a garage door. The lesson: we owe it to young men to say, “Hey, it’s okay. That hurts.”
48:03 – What to say to a young man who knows he’s struggling but doesn’t want to sit in a therapist’s office. Dr. Scott’s answer: don’t try to eat the elephant in one bite. Start with one drawer. Ask yourself what one thing you could let go of that would make your days better.
51:00 – Lori shares her own experience with groups, sobriety, and the simple but powerful act of telling someone you’re struggling — and how relieved others feel when you do.
Top Quotes
2:21 — “Pain is no longer suffering — your suffering is no longer suffering once your pain has meaning.”
19:49 — “Trauma doesn’t come back as a memory. It comes back as a behavior.”
28:36 — “Society has only taught us, especially as men, that you have to be tough — this strong, macho individual.”
9:04 — “Mastering moving on without closure. I can’t fix everything. You do not get this time back.”
45:26 — “If life hasn’t brought you to your knees where you have shed tears — I’m talking about those visceral, gut-level, ugly-face, snot-still crying — stay away from those people.”
48:49 — “Don’t try to eat the elephant in one bite. Start with cleaning one drawer. Just one drawer.”
Resources Mentioned
The Crisis Peer – Dr. Kevin Scott’s website: TheCrisisPeer.com
SAMHSA – Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (trauma definitions and resources)
Community Mental Health Organizations (CMHS) – Search your local area for crisis support
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
NA (Narcotics Anonymous) – “The therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel”
Transcript
0:14
Lori: Hello everybody, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of
Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot, where we talk about how to play the emotional contact sport
of business so you can experience less drama and more success. And today we are talking
about men, trauma, and how it shapes everything. I have an amazing guest today, Dr. Kevin
Scott, that I found on LinkedIn. Dr. Scott had some videos about men and trauma, and I know
we talk a lot about men needing to open up, but what if the difficulties that men experience with
emotional expression aren’t about willingness? So today we’re going to go deeper into how
trauma shapes the way that men move through the world, and oftentimes anyone doesn’t
realize what’s causing them to behave the way they do. So, meet Dr. Kevin Scott. Hi, Dr. Scott.
How are you?
Dr. Kevin Scott: Oh, Lori Jo, how are you doing? First of all, thank you so much for allowing me
to share this space with you and your audience. Looking forward to having a very dynamic and
robust conversation about a wonderful topic — very much needed.
1:54
Lori: So how did trauma become your specialty?
Dr. Kevin Scott: For most individuals, we don’t go out saying, “Hey, I want to specialize in trauma.” For me specifically, it was just a culmination of my life experiences and some very poor choices that I made on my journey. I was in one of many dark, tumultuous moments, and someone had given me a book by Viktor Frankl called Man’s Search for Meaning. And one of the things he said stuck out to me — being an existentialist theorist and the inventor of logotherapy — that pain is no longer suffering, or your suffering is no longer suffering, once your
pain has meaning. That was my aha, coming-to-Jesus, Oprah moment. When we are able to
give our somatic and physiological pain a voice and articulate what we are feeling, that is such a major breakthrough. I tried to run from this calling, Lori Jo, trust me. But divine intervention kept bringing me back.
4:23
Lori: I love it. Well, I’m big on trauma because I’m big on drama. I have experienced a ton of it
— extreme poverty, different kinds of abuse, alcoholism. And once you understand it, know
thyself is one of the best pieces of advice you can give anybody.
9:36
Lori: Let’s do a little quick Trauma 101. What is it?
Dr. Kevin Scott: Trauma to me — if you want a clinical connotation — is any disruption, short
or long term, that an individual experiences, whether it be a series of events or a single event,
that disrupts their physical, social, emotional, and spiritual space in any manner. And
understand this: you do not have to be the direct, primary experiencer of trauma. Secondary
and vicarious trauma is just as real as direct trauma. In fact, a lot of individuals are dealing with
secondary vicarious trauma and conflating it with anxiety and depression — which may also be
symptomatic — but it can also be trauma. There’s another term I’ve been doing a lot of trainings
on: moral injury. There’s a strong association between moral injury and trauma, for a lot of
different reasons.
11:32
Lori: Okay, I have to ask — what is moral injury?
Dr. Kevin Scott: Moral injury has its roots in the military. It is the result of having to engage in a
behavior that is the antithesis, diametrically opposed, of your belief and value system — your
moral compass. A perfect example: I am a Marine Corps combat era veteran of the Persian Gulf
War, and I truly believe that’s why so many Vietnam veterans are so reluctant to talk about their
experiences. They were engaged in behaviors that went totally against their moral compass. But
moral injury isn’t just applicable to the military. We have moral injury as parents, in marriages, in
substance use disorder. Once you start peeling back those layers of the onion, you realize just
how many people are carrying it.
14:51
Lori: Let’s talk about the difference between big T trauma and little T trauma.
Dr. Kevin Scott: Big T trauma is associated with your major disruptions — natural disasters,
physical abuse, verbal abuse, growing up in very abject circumstances, sex trafficking, military
combat. Little T trauma is lower on the hierarchy, but still very real — things like bullying, not
feeling validated by peers, the pressure of those very malleable teenage years. I’ll give you an
example. My oldest granddaughter went to prom, and one day she had a bandage on. I asked
what it was for, and she said she had a pimple. And I realized — who am I to tell you what is
traumatic for you? At 16, a pimple can feel traumatic. I’ve had to learn to shut my mouth and
say, we don’t know what’s causing that person to react the way they do.
18:20
Lori: One of the most interesting aspects of trauma is our trauma response — fight, flight,
freeze, fawn. I didn’t learn until I was in my late 50s that I’m a fawner. My whole life, if
everybody liked me, I’ll be safe. What do you find young men do? Are they aware of their
trauma responses?
Dr. Kevin Scott: I would say very cautiously that I don’t think any of us truly understand why we
respond the way we respond. I had the opportunity to study under and meet world-renowned Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, who wrote The Body Keeps the Score — arguably one of the most
profound trauma experts in the world. And one of the things he says is that trauma doesn’t
come back as a memory — it comes back as a behavior. Once we understand that, we have no
idea what’s making this individual go from zero to 60. What if from a very early age an individual
was always in survival mode? That’s where they’re working from. I’m convinced, Lori, that we all
have a trauma response mechanism that very few of us first acknowledge exists, and then
come to the full realization of what is causing it.
22:42
Lori: Why do some men have such a hard time with authority from women?
Dr. Kevin Scott: That could be four other episodes. But when you discuss it, there’s a concept
called mother woundedness in men. When we have those attachment issues — and I won’t
sugarcoat this — we have some men out here with some very effed-up images and feelings
toward women that go well beyond misogyny. I’m talking about loathing, hatred, resentment,
and bitterness that stems directly from childhood and a lack of attachment bonding.
26:11
Lori: For those of us who love young men and want to see something done to help them, what can we do?

Dr. Kevin Scott: There are a lot of nuances. A person being without a positive male role model
does not remove their responsibility to grow into a responsible man. You have to find the
surrogates. There are a lot of damn good, strong single moms out there. But I truly believe that
starting with my generation — I’m a boomer — we began a downward, deleterious trend in
parenting. We wanted to give our children more than we had. We didn’t want them to
experience the inconveniences we had. And I don’t believe they have the overall resiliency that
we had. I also truly believe that we have not taught our young men, across all different cultures,
to voice their emotions. They don’t know how to express disappointment, shame, hurt,
frustration, fear, or loneliness. Society has only taught men that they have to be tough, strong,
and macho. And then what about the man who is not as masculine as society wants him to be?
We have a very eclectic group of individuals in our culture, whether people like that or not.
33:07
Dr. Kevin Scott: I am so grateful I don’t know how I would have navigated this digital age.
Social media has made trauma incessant. You can literally be traumatized from the time you
open your eyes in the morning to the time you close them at night because of social media and
the digital age. And society has not caught up with the depth and breadth and magnitude of that.
We live in a very normalized traumatic society.
37:02
Lori: If you have trauma in your life — some difficult experience — and you find yourself
behaving in ways that don’t suit you, going to a therapist and spending time unpacking that stuff
can help you develop coping skills and ways to manage your thoughts and emotions that help
you behave more in a way that suits your values, your spirituality, your moral compass. My
latest therapist gave me a piece of paper with about 30 cognitive distortions on it. Now when I’m
getting myself in trouble, I can stop and go — oh, that’s magical thinking, Lori. Stop.
43:21
Dr. Kevin Scott: My oldest son got stung by a bee and cried, and I told him it couldn’t have hurt
that bad. My youngest got his fingers caught in a garage door and was crying, and I said the same thing. Then one day I got my fingers caught in the garage door. I turned into an eight-
year-old child. I had to go back to my sons and apologize. The point I’m trying to make is this:
as men, we have to have conversations with our sons, nephews, brothers, colleagues — and
tell them it’s okay. It’s okay. How can you tell someone going through a divorce to just suck it
up? No. That hurts. Period. Men are vulnerable. Men have feelings and emotions. Any man that
says he doesn’t is lying. I truly believe a good cry is very therapeutic.
48:03
Lori: What advice would you give to a young man who’s struggling but resistant to therapy?
Dr. Kevin Scott: There’s a saying in NA — Narcotics Anonymous — that the therapeutic value
of one addict helping another is without parallel. You can substitute the word addict with
anything. So first: you are never going through your trauma alone — even though it feels that
way. There is a phalanx of individuals who will stand and support you. Second: instead of
looking at cleaning your whole house, or renovating it, I would say — can you just straighten out
one drawer? Just start with one drawer. Ask yourself, what one thing could I get rid of that would
make my days better? Don’t try to eat the elephant in one bite. It took a long, long time for Kevin
to learn how to love Kevin again.
51:00
Lori: Groups have been really valuable to me — Adult Children of Alcoholics, for example. I am
completely an alcoholic. If I take a drink, something’s going to happen, and it’s not going to be
good. How did I get where I am? Groups. Community. Support from other people. If you’re
struggling, share it with someone. Find a safe person. Because I think a lot of people are
relieved when someone else says, “This is what’s going on with me.” It’s like: oh good, I don’t
have to put up the big facade either.
Dr. Kevin Scott: Absolutely. If you think you’re the only person going through this, go Google it.
Watch how many groups pop up. And if you don’t see your group, start it — and watch how
many people come in.
52:27
Lori: Dr. Scott, thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you?
Dr. Kevin Scott: My website is TheCrisisPeer.com. You can reach out to me through the
contact information there. And for anyone dealing with trauma or needing any kind of resource,
call your local community mental health organizations — places like Common Ground and
others — and just Google them from your local area and start there. Lori, I think you’re doing a
fantastic job reaching young individuals and your audience. I’m truly humbled. Thank you for
sharing this space.
53:49
Lori: We will definitely have you back. Thank you so much for joining us, listeners. I’m on
YouTube — if you’re watching, please hit that subscribe button. We also have a website at
WorkMomSays.com. If you’d like to get in touch with me, be a guest, suggest a guest, or just
have a question you’d like me to answer, reach out to me there. I’m also an open networker on
LinkedIn. Thank you again for joining us, and we’ll see you soon with more helpful information to
help you play the emotional contact sport of business and life.
Who Is Our Ideal Listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional contact sport of
business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re
responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that
what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What Value Can People Get From Listening to This Podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability
to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go
into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships
that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive
relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful
when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness,
sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful
mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom.
Why Do I Do This? A Few More Words From Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency
business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there
was to make. I don’t hold myself out as a stellar example of how you should be. I hold myself
out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some
important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people so they don’t have to make
those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t
really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face
at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
The post Episode 65 – “Men and Trauma: How It Shapes Everything” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
0 min
May 21Episode 64 – “You Can’t Block Real Life” — Unlearning What Technology Taught Us
#WorkMomSays technology has changed the way we communicate, handle discomfort, and build relationships, and not always for the better.
In this episode, Lori Jo Vest is joined by Justin Allen of Hunter Engineering Company to discuss how social media, smartphones, and constant digital stimulation are impacting emotional intelligence, workplace communication, attention spans, and confidence for younger generations entering the workforce.
Drawing from Justin’s experience training young automotive technicians and raising six children, the conversation explores how online habits like avoiding conflict, seeking instant feedback, and replacing real interaction with screens are affecting human connection, anxiety, and career development.
Lori and Justin also share practical advice for rebuilding interpersonal skills, embracing discomfort, and creating healthier real-world relationships in an increasingly digital world.
Themes discussed in this episode
How technology and social media impact emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills
The effects of instant feedback, comparison, and online validation on anxiety and confidence
Why younger generations may struggle more with conflict and discomfort
The importance of practicing real-world communication and human connection
How embracing discomfort helps people grow personally and professionally
Episode Highlights
Time-stamped inflection points from the show
00:12 – Lori introduces guest Justin Allen of Hunter Engineering Company and sets up a conversation about how technology is impacting emotional intelligence and workplace communication.
04:23 – Justin explains his work training young automotive technicians and discusses how shorter attention spans and digital distractions affect learning environments.
07:27 – Lori and Justin discuss how social media has taught younger generations to avoid discomfort, conflict, and awkward conversations through blocking, muting, and scrolling away.
13:12 – The conversation shifts to the impact of social media validation, instant feedback, and unrealistic online comparison on anxiety, depression, and self-worth.
21:06 – Justin and Lori share practical advice for rebuilding human connection: getting out into the world, talking to people, joining groups, embracing discomfort, and developing interpersonal skills through real interaction.
Top Quotes
11:03 — “You didn’t have to talk about it. You didn’t have to engage in awkward conversation or anything else like that.”
16:03 — “The problem that we have with the youth today dealing with things like anxiety and depression is because strangely our brains believe whatever we see and hear.”
23:25 — “Start to think of discomfort as a feature of life, not a bug.”
31:36 — “You just got to keep swimming. You just got to keep pushing and waking up and brushing your teeth and doing the things.”
Transcript
00:12
Lori: Hello everybody. I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. Today we are going to talk about the impact of technology on interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. I met the coolest guy on LinkedIn. I was just blown away by just who he is online, and I watched his videos. His name is Justin Allen. He’s with Hunter Engineering, and I was watching his videos, and I was like, “Oh my God, you need to be on Work Mom Says.” So I reached out to Justin and said, “Okay, tell me who you are and what you do. I think you might make a really great podcast guest.” And so we start talking about it, and oh my God, he’s perfect for this show and this audience. Hi, Justin. How are you?
Justin: Hey, Lori, I’m doing great. I hope you are today.
Lori: Absolutely. And as we started talking, I realized that Justin is really tuned in with the young adults that he works with on the impact of technology and how it teaches you things that may not work in real life, right?
Justin: Absolutely. Yeah.
Lori: Justin, give us a little bit of background. Tell us about yourself.
Justin: Hey. Well, okay, so my name is Justin Allen. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I grew up working on anything and everything I could get my hands on. My dad was a Bob Vila fan, I guess, right? So we grew up working on the house, working on the cars, working on the bicycles, and just was fortunately blessed with a father who had a can-do attitude with those kind of things. And so we were just taught to fix things. Why would you pay somebody to fix it if you can do it yourself? And I think it created a curiosity about how things work, right?
And so here, 51 years later, I am very blessed to be able to help other people understand how things work and kind of pay that on, right? I work for Hunter Engineering Company as a regional trainer for North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and almost every day I get to be in front of humans that are nervous or anxious or confused about something that they’re expected to do, and they don’t know what they’re doing necessarily, and it’s creating a lot of stress and anxiety on their parts. And I get to try to turn that stuff around, and I love it.
02:38
Lori: I can tell. I could tell when we talked on the prep call before this recording. You have this really passionate desire to help other people. I mean, that’s just obvious. Where does that come from?
Justin: Honestly, I’d say it comes from my parents. I was very fortunate to grow up in an environment with supportive and encouraging parents. I’m the middle of three children, so naturally I’m the best one, and so my parents loved me the most. And I’m just kidding. It was just a neat thing to have people saying, “Go get it. You want to do that? Let’s go try it. What’s holding you back? Give it a shot.”
And there’s a lot of humans that don’t come from that environment. There’s a lot of people that are being held back by something, whether by parents or peers or coworkers or their friend group telling them, “Why bother doing that? You’ll never succeed.” There’s a lot of that kind of negativity. And so yeah, I’d say I really got it from my parents and honestly their parents before them. I don’t know how to have opportunity and keep it to myself, I guess.
Lori: Love that. We need more people like you in the world, Justin. Let me tell you, more people like you in the world.
Justin: Honestly, like me, but at least with a heart, right? We don’t need a bunch of me. I can rattle off all my toxic self-talk for you right now, but I know you’re right. We need encouragers.
Lori: We all have that negative self-talk, right? It’s all those little voices in our heads. Guess what? You’re not the only one. Listeners, you are not the only ones with voices in your head.
Justin: That’s it. We’re on this ride together.
04:23
Lori: Exactly. So Justin, you work with a lot of young adults right now. Tell me a little bit more about the type of training you do with them that’s maybe not EQ-based. So what are you typically training them on?
Justin: Right, absolutely. And so for people who don’t know, Hunter Engineering Company is in the automotive industry. We produce equipment that allows shops all over the world to take better care of you and your car. So tire changers and balancers, alignment machines, brake lathes, things associated with advanced driver assist systems and technology.
We don’t do a lot of different things, but we try to do them very well. And so one of the ways we try to help people utilize them very well is to provide training for them as well. And so I train in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and it is largely to younger technicians that are trying to get into a field that doesn’t have a very good funnel. We don’t have a very good funnel into our industry helping people with the natural skills, or at least the curiosity or whatever, to go into it.
So we’re taking anyone and everybody that we can get our hands on and trying to help them be more comfortable with it. So for me specifically, it’s helping them understand technically how does this hardware work, and how does the software work, and how do I physically make adjustments on a vehicle or change that tire appropriately to be as efficient and safe as possible.
Justin: And I’ve been in the automotive industry for 28 years at this point and had a number of different roles in it. And that’s part of what’s fun too. I am a professionally trained theater kid who went to college for theater stuff, and I landed in an industry that I didn’t necessarily expect to. I love cars, I love people, and those are the two things that brought me there.
And in any industry, I think if you just show up and you want to learn more and you want to grow and you want to take care of people, they’re going to make that work. And so yeah, it is a great industry, and people can come in and start changing oil in cars, and next thing you know they’re managing a store, and then they’re overseeing a bunch of stores, or maybe they move into airline mechanic work or whatever, right? Almost everything on earth is going to be dependent on some kind of motorized transport mechanism to make it functional. And so yeah, helping. There’s a lot of humans to turn wrenches. Anybody who wants to come and join us, come on. We got space for you there.
07:27
Lori: So one of the things we talked about when we were on our call is not only do you train them with the technical skills to work with the equipment and in the field, but you also kind of inadvertently end up dealing with some of the emotional intelligence challenges that this generation coming up has, right?
Justin: Well, I have six children of my own as well, so I see, and my kids are in age range from 18 to 25 right now, and so a lot of the people I work with are in a similar age category. I get to see the struggles and challenges that they face from my own home vantage point and watching social things where you go off to school events or whatever and then seeing these technicians that are drawn to the glowing boxes in their pockets, just like you and I are in a lot of cases, right?
The humans all enjoy the glowing shiny boxes. And so just in that classroom environment, it’s easy for all of us to get distracted by those kind of things. And so I found from an education point that, man, you got to keep moving. You got to keep them engaged, right? Because I think the TikTok-ification of entertainment has given us all a shorter attention span. And yeah, it’s a very relevant thing to know that you’re up against it when you’re trying to teach people.
Lori: What I thought was really interesting is technology has taught our 20-somethings some interesting habits that work in virtual reality, but not necessarily in real reality, like avoiding things, avoiding conflict, blocking someone or muting something. And that has caused some emotional things that I didn’t think were expected. I didn’t realize that the tie was so close until this group of kids became adults and started entering the workforce.
Justin: Yeah. I mean, you figure the people that really started to get impacted directly in their human interactions by the social media things. I think I got on Facebook in 2008, I think. And they talk about the children that were born around 2001 to 2003. You get to 2011, 2012, 2013 or whatever, and they were of an age where they were getting their hands on phones, right? Because the parents, my generation, was unfortunately pretty quick to pass over that thing because it was so magical and it could calm that kid down at dinner out or something like this.
Like we created a monster by passing these off to the kids when they were younger because they started to learn some tricks about it. One of the things would of course be the fact that if they didn’t like anything, just move on past it. There’s always something else. There’s always more entertainment or something else to engage you with. That whole dopamine engine that the internet can be.
10:38
Justin: But they also learned on social media that if something got awkward between you and somebody else, you could simply, with a couple of taps of a finger on the screen there, just block them. You didn’t have to talk about it. You didn’t have to engage in awkward conversation or anything else like that. You may never have to see them in person again, but you could certainly block them online.
And it is funny, like on the one hand, we know certainly that if somebody in your life is being abusive and hateful and creating chaos in your life, block them. It’s great to be able to block them. But then in terms of the social skill development with people who actually are in your life, that may be family members or students that you’re in school with or whatever, in real life you can’t do that quite the same, right? I can’t be angry with my child and just block them at home and never have to interact with them, not in a way that’s healthy for a relationship, right?
Lori: No, it does not. And I think too, one of the things that came up for me is that the technology literally teaches you to make discomfort disappear, and that’s everybody. Even to the point where, and I know I do this, I’m standing in line somewhere, I’m a little bored, bam, there goes the phone. I’m not bored anymore. I’m entertained.
So any type of tiny discomfort, from boredom to annoyance, you’re annoyed with somebody, so you block them. So you don’t get the emotional skills development because you’re not engaging. But when it comes to your boss, your coworkers—
Justin: Yeah. I mean, that turned into that quiet quitting idea of work too, right? To just kind of not engage anymore, don’t participate anymore or whatever.
13:12
Justin: And yeah, it’s interesting to be of an age where we have seen this entire experience. We’ve got the analog life before, right? And then we saw this transition. And our generation, you and I, we got excited. This has been fun. There’s been a lot of fun stuff that we could see and do and engage in.
And now we’re seeing these strange ramifications on the actual humans and their interaction. It is challenging. It’s hard to imagine how it works next, kind of, you know? We’re moving into an era where we can’t believe anything we see on the internet anymore, period, because the imagery—
Lori: Yes.
Justin: It cracks me up that they’re trying to make sure that you label anything created as AI. Make sure it has a little label on it letting people know it’s AI.
Lori: My eyes are rolling out of the back of my head.
Justin: I know. It’s like telling everybody, “Hey, what if we told everybody to wash their hands after they use the bathroom? That’ll fix it.” Same idea.
Lori: Other false lessons: instant feedback. These are other things that tech teaches young people or has taught young people. Tech has taught you things that you now need to unlearn. Feedback, right?
Justin: And not only feedback, but you’re craving that positive feedback. We’re only posting things that we think are going to receive positive feedback because that feels good. People like positive feedback.
And so yeah, we’re doing anything we can do to possibly not feel a moment of quiet and boredom. We’re doing anything to contort our bodies and positions to capture that golden hour sunlight in that particular outfit so hopefully so many of our friends are going to click that little heart button on Instagram or whatever.
16:00
Justin: And the kids, this is what’s fascinating, and I’m sure it applies to adults to a degree, but the problem that we have with the youth today dealing with things like anxiety and depression is because strangely our brains believe whatever we see and hear. They believe it.
And so they see friends all over the place, all of their images on Instagram make it look like they’re having a glorious time. And so the kids believe that. Like, “Look at how great my friends’ lives are even though they know how hard they work to make it look great when it isn’t great.”
So even though they know that’s what they’re doing, they see other people and they don’t filter it that way. They genuinely believe that this other person has a life that’s so much better than mine, and my life is miserable compared to that.
Lori: It really is. That’s why I love the people that purposefully put themselves out there ugly. There’s this one woman that does this thing where she calls it “chinning,” and she takes pictures of herself with as many chins as she can have for Instagram, and it’s hilarious.
Because really that’s one thing that I’m seeing maybe will help us turn this tide, is the overly perfect AI slop makes authentic things and visuals so much more appealing because your brain knows it’s not real.
18:29
Lori: What do you think these problems, these challenges and these unique inabilities to actually practice some of these emotional skills, what is that causing? And are the young adults aware of it? Do they know it’s a problem?
Justin: I mean, there’s so much fascinating data out there about social interaction among younger people. I only heard this a couple of days ago and thought it was intriguing. Young people aren’t dancing. You want to know why? Because somebody’s going to record it, and if they look awkward then it’s going to be all over social media.
And it turns out teenagers are a little insecure about body image sometimes, right? The last thing they want is that stuff regurgitated all over TikTok or Instagram, and that’s what happens. So the kids are literally not dancing as much.
Lori: There’s a big gap too. What I’m finding is young men will often be really, really confident based on their online experiences, their favorite game, how they’re at the top of the chart, they’re on Twitch and they’re just killing it, and then they get out in the real world and their job sucks and they’re not happy.
Justin: Yeah.
Lori: That gap of those personal skills that they supposedly are using online, you have to develop those in person too. So to me, what can we tell young people that will actually help them?
21:06
Justin: Oh gosh. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the thing to tell young people that you knew would help them and then they would actually listen to you and do it?
We went through COVID with six teenagers, and the laying around on the couch and the watching YouTube all day and the misery of it all. Kids, you don’t need a whole lot to feel better than you do right now, but you’re going to need to physically move your body and you’re going to need to find some kind of purpose.
And on the interaction with other humans front, it’s so easy to sit on your couch and scroll through social media or dating apps. But I tell these kids, if you will go somewhere where humans actually are and observe that human across the room and then go talk to them, it’s okay. You’re allowed to talk to people.
Think of something you enjoy doing, if that’s hiking or playing chess or board games or casual theater outside, whatever it is, and go do it with actual people. Join a church, join a bicycling club, it doesn’t really matter. Find something where humans are doing something that you find interesting.
And that’s going to be a lot more rewarding than sitting on the couch and trying to scroll through humans.
23:17
Lori: One of the things that I would say is going to accompany that kind of initiative is discomfort. Start to think of discomfort as a feature of life, not a bug, okay? Because the more—I remember hearing this when I was in my 40s and somebody said, “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”
Because if you want to grow, that’s where the growth happens. If you want to make something happen, you can’t be afraid to pick up the phone. You can’t be afraid to walk in and talk to strangers. If you want to really make something happen with your life, even if you just want to make a really nice life happen for yourself, you have to engage with other people and create connected, positive relationships.
Learning how to do that is really important. Joining groups, going to networking events, show up, promise yourself you’re going to talk to three people and do it. Push yourself through it because the more you do it, the easier it gets.
24:55
Justin: And that is a tough thing for a lot of people, to show up to a room of strangers and go talk to people. And so the encouragement I’ll always give anybody is you’re going to walk in that room and it’s really easy to spot the people that are right at home. They’re the loud ones. They’ve already got two or three people around them.
Look for the people that also look like they’re not really all that comfortable. That’s a great place to start.
And if you walk up to them and introduce yourself and they reveal through their behavior that they genuinely want to be left alone, that’s easy to read. Well, that’s easy for me to read. I don’t know about these young people because they don’t read facial expression and they don’t read things like sarcasm the same way.
They’re so accustomed to reading text communication that any elevated tone is perceived as yelling. There’s a lot of range between elevating tone and yelling.
26:32
Lori: The other thing I would say too is intergenerational relationships are really important, and we don’t put enough emphasis on it. Having friends in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 80s, because you’re going to learn more and you’re going to develop those human skills.
Justin: Right. What do you do when you’re a generation that doesn’t have to talk to anybody to learn anything because you can learn it all on YouTube? Why would you talk to anybody, right?
Another sad way this is impacting us is family reunions and things like that are vaporizing rapidly because people think, “Why do I need to go see my cousins in person? I watch them on Facebook all the time.”
And it isn’t the same. That ease and convenience of the internet is impacting everything for sure.
28:27
Lori: We’ve got to get out of that. I know there are little pockets of people starting to go back to flip phones and things like that, but I think we’ve passed that point.
Justin: The pendulum is always swinging. I want to believe that after COVID and all of that isolation there’s going to be more hunger for real human interaction again.
My kids now crave phone calls. They don’t want to text anymore. They want to be spoken to. And I’m so excited about that because I literally had to ask them, “You guys aren’t responding to my text messages. What is your preferred method of communication?”
And they said they’d much rather have a phone call or FaceTime.
30:37
Lori: Oh, that’s great. I love that. Now I’d love to wrap up with the piece of advice that we talked about from Dory.
Justin: As a human who has had some ups and downs, I have sat on the front porch in the rain waiting and hoping somebody would come home to see me. I’ve been through divorce and had to walk away from my kids crying at the front door. Brutal moments.
And yeah, Dory in Finding Nemo really summed up what is my philosophy in life. We’re all going to have chapters. Some of them are heartbreaking chapters, some of them are working-three-jobs chapters, some are flat-broke-no-money chapters.
I believe you just got to keep swimming. You just got to keep pushing and waking up and brushing your teeth and doing the things.
If you have a vision for what you want your life to be like, it’s really not that hard when presented with a choice which way to go. Just keep trying to do the best you can.
And if you make a choice and things are miserable, congratulations, you’re allowed to make another choice. Thank goodness.
32:36
Justin: There’s another chapter waiting for you. Keep laying the bricks. Lay that foundation to get to whatever it is you want to do because you’re not as stuck as you think you are.
If you are miserable, maybe the choice, as painful as it sounds, is a bus ticket and you go to some other town and start over. You’re allowed to do that. Staying miserable under miserable circumstances is a tough way to live.
Lori: Absolutely. When I was in my 20s, about every seven or eight years I would change everything. New job, new boyfriend, new apartment, new car, new neighborhood, the whole thing. You can start over.
Tell me how people can find you if they want to connect with you online.
34:00
Justin: Absolutely. I love to connect with people that are looking for positive opportunities in life and to be encouraging. I’m found on most social media, which is hilarious when we talk about the evils of it. It’s as good or evil as you want it to be.
And so I choose to be a force for good out there if I can. My first initial, letter J, then my last name Allen, then the word Hunter. You’ll find me as that on just about everything. But on LinkedIn it’s just plain old Justin Allen.
34:42
Lori: Follow Justin seriously. You’ll have a happier day every time you see any of his content.
So again, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says. If you are watching on YouTube, please do me a favor, give us a subscribe, a like, maybe even a share, and we’ll be back soon with another episode of Work Mom Says to help you learn how to play the emotional contact sport of business so you experience less drama and more success. Take care.
Who is our ideal listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What value can people get from listening to this podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness, sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom

Why do I do this? A few more words from Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there was to make. I don’t hold myself as a stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people, so they don’t have to make those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!
The post Episode 64 – “You Can’t Block Real Life” — Unlearning What Technology Taught Us appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
36 min
April 24Episode 63 – Will AI Take Your Job? Let’s Actually Talk About It
#WorkMomSays the real risk isn’t AI, it’s how you respond to it. In this episode, Lori breaks down the growing fear around AI in the workplace and what the data actually says about job loss, hiring shifts, and future opportunities.
She explains why entry-level roles are being impacted, what skills are becoming more valuable, and how to position yourself to stay relevant and employable.
With a mix of realism and practical advice, Lori shows how adaptability, emotional intelligence, and AI literacy can help you navigate this shift without panic.
Themes discussed in this episode
The reality behind AI job loss vs. job creation
Why entry-level roles are most affected by AI adoption
The importance of adaptability and cross-functional skills
Building AI literacy without becoming overly reliant on it
How to position yourself for long-term career stability
Episode Highlights
Time-stamped inflection points from the show
00:12 — Lori introduces the topic of AI and job security, sharing data on how different age groups perceive the risk of AI replacing their jobs.
01:23 — A breakdown of how AI adoption is already impacting hiring, especially for younger workers and entry-level roles.
02:23 — Conflicting expert opinions on whether AI will eliminate jobs or create more opportunities in the long term.
03:40 — The key traits that make employees more “AI-proof,” including critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and adaptability.
05:03 — Why becoming AI literate is essential, and how learning to prompt and use AI tools can improve your employability.
Top Quotes
02:28 — “AI is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s not there yet, but it will be there.”
03:40 — “So if you’re good, you’re in your position currently, and you’re doing your darndest to do your best work every day, you’re probably okay.”
04:56 — “Those are skills you can work on that will make you more employable during these times of AI threats.”
06:02 — “Bad prompts equal bad AI content.”
Transcript
00:12
Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. I am here today to talk about AI. Will AI take our jobs? Let’s talk about it. There are so many things happening out there right now related to AI that I really want to dig into it, talk through some statistics and some realities that we all need to consider in the workplace right now. The fear is valid. But here’s the data. 18 to 24 year olds are 129% more likely than those over the age of 65 to worry that AI will make their job obsolete. Makes sense. If you’re over 65 you’re probably maybe going to retire, or, you know, you’re dug in, you’re not going to really have to look 10 years out, which is what a young person has to do. 49% of Gen Z job seekers feel that AI has reduced the value of their college degree and entry level job postings are down by roughly 35% since January of 2023.
01:23
Yeah, there is a lot happening in the AI space right now. There’s a lot of big talk about what it has potential to do in most workplaces and most industries. There’s a lot that it can do, and there’s also things that it can’t do. So let’s get into what’s actually happening. Companies that are adopting AI into their workflows cut junior hiring by 13% according to Cornell University, and employment for workers aged 22 to 25 in those AI-exposed roles like, you know, copywriting, accounting — there’s a lot of things AI can do — those AI-exposed roles fell by 6% between 2022 and 2025. Young software developers saw a drop of nearly 20%. That’s huge. That’s something to think about, that’s something to look at currently.
02:23
Right now, it’s April 13, 2026. I am of the belief that AI is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s not there yet, but it will be there, and when it gets there, it’s going to be a little crazy. Our digital agency, we’ve attempted to use some AI to do some programming. It’s not there. It requires a lot of adjustment to make it what you want it to be, even if you do get a good starting point. And sometimes it just doesn’t work. So let’s talk about what the experts are saying. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei — A-M-O-D-E-I — warned that AI could eliminate 50% of entry level white collar jobs within five years, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Wong pushed back. Historically, greater productivity leads to more hiring, not less. So it’s a little crazy, but there are organizations that are actually predicting that 92 million jobs will be displaced by AI by 2030, but 170 million new ones will be created. That makes sense. AI is suppressing hiring more than destroying existing jobs out there.
03:40
So if you’re good, you’re in your position currently, and you’re doing your darndest to do your best work every day, you’re probably okay. AI probably won’t come in and replace you. If you’re slacking, you may be replaced by someone who can simply do a better job and is more committed than you are. But both of those CEOs, the Anthropic CEO and the Nvidia CEO, can be right. It could eliminate jobs. It may make more hiring happen, but neither one is helping you right now, right? So as a worker in this economy in 2026, what I would say is that most protected workers, those who are going to maintain their positions, are really good at critical thinking. They have emotional intelligence, which is what we talk about on this show. They are creative, they’re adaptable, and they have cross-functional expertise. So you want to make sure that you fit into those categories. Are you a critical thinker? Do you actually display emotional intelligence? Are you calm? Are you committed to your job? Are you adaptable? Are you able to pivot when that needs to happen without a lot of drama? Those are skills you can work on that will make you more employable during these times of AI threats.
05:03
We also hear that 40% of core job skills will change by 2030, but 60% won’t. So that’s a pretty significant chunk that will not change in the next three years. Now, once we get past that, things are going to change, of course. So what you want to do right now is you want to make sure that you are AI literate. And what that means is that you know how AI works. You’ve dove into the tools. You’ve tried them for different things. You have experimented with visuals, with programming, maybe with numbers. You’ve used it in a lot of different ways so you have an idea what it does. That is something you can do right now on your own. You don’t need to learn to code, but what you do need to learn to do is to prompt and direct AI in ways that are meaningful and in ways that let it give you the kind of data and information that you want it to give you. Bad prompts equal bad AI content, you know, bad AI whatever it is you’re creating. So make sure that you are learning how to use the tools, even if you’re not really pro. I’m not a huge fan. I think that I would much rather see human content, human workers doing the work. I think AI is overrated. That will change, and so we darn well better get ready for it. So you definitely want to include AI in your five year plan.
06:32
So 2026 to 2031 is when career transitions are expected to peak. You want to plan for adaptability. You’re not going to look for a specific title. I want to be a marketing strategist. You might want to be a marketing strategist, but you are also willing to do some account work and some project management. Maybe you want to be a certain type of accountant. You may need to be flexible in how you use those skills and what particular jobs you’re interested in taking so that you’re adaptable. Titles don’t matter. What matters is your personal revenue, your stability and your happiness in your job. Those are the three things that really, really matter more than anything else. So if you ever feel like you get passed over for a promotion or a manager tells you they’re restructuring due to AI, seriously ask questions, because if you don’t, you’re not going to have the information you need to move forward, right? So ask what skills your boss needs as AI causes restructuring, document the wins you’ve had in those areas that are important. Where have you shown strong problem solving skills? Where have you shown strong ability to resolve conflict or tamp down drama? Where have you been winning and make sure that your boss knows about that, and then build visible AI fluency before the next restructuring. So make sure that you are trying the tools to see how they work in your workplace, if that’s allowed — only if it’s allowed, right? It may not be, but if it is, see how it can contribute and help you with your job.
08:19
Just to give you an example, we don’t do a lot of AI copy because AI copy can be, you know, it’s very obvious. So what we do in a lot of cases is we will ask AI for creative ideas. We’ll ask for outlines. We’ll ask for it to write headlines, subheads, ideas for April Fool’s Day content for our clients. So there’s a lot of things that you can do. So think about in your position how AI might be helpful to you, and see if you can experiment. Because that’s one of the things that is going to again make you more employable, is knowing what’s happening in the world, knowing how it’s going to impact your industry, your career field, your position, and adapting accordingly. So I believe in you. I know you can do this. I know you can stay employed. I know that AI is going to move things around, but I prefer to pay attention to the second CEO, the guy from Nvidia, who said that historically greater productivity leads to more hiring, not less. So go into it with that attitude.
09:31
So that’s what I’ve got for you today. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. If you are watching on YouTube, please subscribe. Hit that subscribe button. Maybe give me a like and a share or comment something to help me get bigger numbers there. We’re trying to reach as many people as possible with the Work Mom EQ assistance to help you actually achieve more success and less drama in your career. So thanks again. I’ll be back soon.
Who is our ideal listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What value can people get from listening to this podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness, sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom

Why do I do this? A few more words from Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there was to make. I don’t hold myself as a stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people, so they don’t have to make those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!
The post Episode 63 – Will AI Take Your Job? Let’s Actually Talk About It appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
0 min
April 07Episode 62 – Bulletproof: How to Take a Hit and Stay in the Game
#WorkMomSays feedback isn’t an attack — it’s an opportunity to grow, if you know how to handle it. In this episode, Lori Jo Vest breaks down why feedback feels so personal, especially early in your career, and how to shift from defensiveness to strategy.
She explains why being “coachable” is one of the most important traits for career growth, how managers actually view feedback conversations, and what to do in the moment when criticism hits hard.
Through real workplace examples, Lori shares practical ways to pause, respond professionally, and use feedback to your advantage — helping you stand out, grow faster, and stay in the game.
Themes discussed in this episode
Why feedback feels personal and how to separate your identity from your work
The importance of being coachable in professional environments
How managers view feedback as an investment in employees
Practical strategies for responding to criticism without reacting emotionally
Handling difficult or unfair feedback from clients and coworkers
Episode Highlights
Time-stamped inflection points from the show
00:07 — Lori introduces the idea that feedback is not an attack, but a necessary part of growth in your career.
02:03 — The difference between school and work: being right vs. being coachable.
04:00 — Why defensiveness, shutting down, or over-apologizing can damage how managers view your potential.
07:21 — A real-world example of receiving frustrating feedback and choosing not to react emotionally.
11:50 — How to handle difficult or unfair client feedback professionally — and when to simply let it go.
Top Quotes
00:34 — “I talk a lot about how feedback is love. It’s not an attack.”
04:00 — “Navigating criticism and negative feedback at the office is a key workplace skill, and it directly determines how managers see your potential.”
04:56 — “So feedback is data. It’s not a verdict.”
11:52 — “Customers can often act really awful and give you feedback that might be completely incorrect.”
Transcript
00:11
Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot. Today, we are going to talk about feedback. If you’ve listened to me, you know all the episodes — we’re up to 62 now. That’s a lot of episodes. I talk a lot about how feedback is love. It’s not an attack.
So today, I want to talk about how to take a hit and stay in the game. And I always say that business is an emotional contact sport. It really is. And how you manage your emotions in difficult situations is what will make you successful, or have you just staying at the same rung on the ladder for the next 20 years. You don’t want that. Trust me, you don’t want that.
01:00
So, your manager just told you your presentation missed the mark. Your stomach dropped. Your face scrunched up. And now it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and you are just continually looping that conversation in your head.
Let’s talk about what really happened and what you can do so that those kinds of hits don’t hit you so hard. The moment someone critiques your work and everything in you wants to deflect, defend, or disappear, you don’t have to do any of those things. You need to be strategic. The second you feel that feedback hitting you hard in the gut, pause.
02:03
Because I’m going to give you a whole new way of handling that that will have you actually enjoying feedback and learning from it and having it make you look like one of the best employees on the roster. So here’s the thing. School trains you to be right. They train you how to find the right answer, how to write the right paper. But work needs you to be coachable.
And that means some of the ways you do things may not always fit the culture, the environment, the boss. Your boss may want something different. That happens. In college, your feedback was constant and very clear — grades. Here’s a rubric. You can do exactly what’s on the rubric. You know you’ve got it right.
02:50
At work, you don’t have a rubric. I don’t know that there was a job ever where I had a very consistent and completely 100% applicable job description. In most cases, you have a job description that’s kind of approximate. They throw you in and you figure it out. That is completely normal.
So, when you start that new job and you feel like, oh my God, I have no idea what I’m doing, you’re right. You don’t know what you’re doing. Until you’ve been with a company six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, you don’t really know how it works.
03:32
So, first things first, be gentle with yourself when you start a new gig. Because it can be really difficult when you’re learning something new. You think you’re supposed to have all the information. You’re supposed to know what’s expected of you. And you just don’t. And that’s okay.
The emotional math is when your work is you, criticism of it can feel personal. And what that means is when you start a new job and somebody calls out something they want you to do differently, it can feel like they’re really coming at you.
04:00
And you may want to defend yourself and talk about why you’re doing it right. But defensiveness, shutting down, over-apologizing, all of those things cause you to lose points. Navigating criticism and negative feedback at the office is a key workplace skill, and it directly determines how managers see your potential.
You’ll hear people use the word coachable. And what coachable means is that you can listen to someone’s feedback, consider how you can change or that you should change, and do so.
04:56
If you’re not coachable, you’re standing up like this and saying, no, no, no, I’m not doing it that way. This is why my way is better. At the workplace, it’s not a good idea to be defensive. Being coachable is the totally appropriate response and what most managers expect out of their stellar employees.
And so here’s how you can reframe a negative feedback situation so that you will come out shining no matter what that feedback is. So feedback is data. It’s not a verdict. It could be somebody’s opinion. It could be something they simply just prefer. But if they’re the boss, great. That’s great. You do it their way.
05:39
If a manager is telling you what you’re doing wrong, they’re actually making an investment. As a leader, I have managed, you know, I don’t know, maybe close to 100 people in my lifetime. The people that I don’t feel are going to learn from what I’m telling them, I don’t bother.
The people that I know can grow and that I see moving forward and growing in the company and in their careers are the ones that are coachable, that take the feedback. And they’re the ones that I want to talk to about things they can do to evolve their skillset. If you’re somebody who I don’t see as coachable, I won’t bother. But you’ll also be the first one that gets let go.
06:28
When something happens or sales decline or you lose a client, your boss has decisions to make on the daily about the staff, how much that staff costs them, how much staff is needed to manage the workload. And if you’re the person that doesn’t listen to feedback well and isn’t open to it, and doesn’t have the ability to really consider it, you won’t be on that list of people that the manager is investing their time in. You’ve got to think of it that way.
So when you get feedback that’s hurtful, and I’ve had some feedback that was just nuts — I may have told this story before, but I’ll tell it again because it’s so funny.
I used to write social media copy and I wrote something. It was a post targeted to women in their, in midlife, you know, 40s, 50s. A lot of women carry a little extra weight.
06:50
The quote that was shown on the graphic was your dress size doesn’t matter any more than your shoe size. And as a woman in midlife writing that content, it really resonated with me because nobody ever asks you your shoe size or looks at your shoes and goes, oh my God, your feet are so big. But people do comment and feel bad about their dress size. And so, you know, I’m presenting this deck of copy and I’ve got a room full of, you know, six or eight people. Everybody’s chiming in with their thoughts.
Someone looks at that post and says, well, what about women with big feet? And I wanted to roll my eyes so hard that they fell out of the back of my head, but I didn’t. I just sat quietly and watched what the room did because I had creative directors and people that were above me in the room.
07:43
And I watched what they did because from my perspective, it was a really strong post that would resonate with a lot of women. From this art director’s perspective, I don’t know, maybe she had big feet. It was something that would offend a certain portion of women. From my perspective, that portion of women was going to be very, very small.
I watched the room and what happened was everybody kind of went, well, yeah, I guess that could be seen as being negative. And I literally wanted to, again, roll my eyes out of the back of my head. I didn’t. I thought about it for a minute and I went on to the next post. Great, we’ll change that. We’ll find another new quote.
But I didn’t react. I didn’t say, well, you know, that’s ridiculous. Or, well, I felt that. And my voices in my head were saying that. That’s ridiculous. You know, how many women are worried about their shoe size? I don’t think I’ve ever met one. And that wouldn’t have been the right response.
08:49
So that’s not what I did. I was quiet, listened to everybody, said, oh, well, okay, that’s cool. We’ll find another option. Keep moving forward. That is the best thing to do in those kinds of situations.
Now, if your feedback from your boss is something about how you perform, like I got some feedback once that I sent too many emails, that I needed to have more direct one-on-one conversations with the office instead of sending emails and CCing people. Now, I had thought that I was doing it right, that I was making sure my bases were all covered, you know, making sure that everybody had all the information they need, informing people. He said I was filling up people’s inboxes.
He’s the boss. Like, cool. All right. So now, you know, from that point forward, I would walk over and talk to someone instead of sending them an email.
09:40
But downside of that is if they weren’t at their desk, you got to keep going back over and over again until they’re at their desk. So I made a kind of a deal with myself where if they were at their desk and I could talk to them, I would. If I couldn’t, I’d send a quick email, but I would CC a lot less people. That worked for me and for him.
I didn’t take it personally, even though I really did feel like I was protecting myself by sending emails. He was a more casual guy. I didn’t like it, so I stopped doing it.
So what do you do when someone confronts you about a particular aspect of your behavior in the workplace that they want you to change?
10:16
Pause before you react. Take a breath. Maybe go to lunch. If it’s something that is really bothering you, take a walk. Go get a cup of coffee. Give yourself, you know, 20 minutes at least, if not a few hours to respond.
Ask one clarifying question. This buys you time and also reflects maturity. So if you are in a situation where somebody says, well, I really need you to not send so many emails, I probably should have responded with, you know, well, tell me more about that. Or, well, why do you think there’s too many emails? Or, you know, is that something that you’d like me to change?
And by asking that question, it does buy you more time. It actually allows you to just stop for a minute in that conversation.
11:10
Maybe ask a couple of questions. And if you, even if you don’t feel like it, thank them. Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate it.
And then come back with what you have changed once you do. So, for example, I went a month or two without sending as many emails. The next time I had a one-on-one with that manager, I said, you good? You know, I’m better with emails. He’s like, oh my God, absolutely. Yes. Yes, absolutely.
So, you let them know that you have identified with the issue that they’re bringing up and that you are doing something about it. Get their confirmation that it’s working. That’s always a really good thing. Now, if you’re dealing with a client, this is where it can get difficult.

11:53
Customers can often act really awful and give you feedback that might be completely incorrect. You’re going to do the same thing. You’re going to pause before you react. You’re going to ask a question or two, maybe three, to kind of get them talking. And the more they talk, the more you’ll understand what it is they’re specifically asking.
Thank them, and thank them genuinely, because anytime anybody gives you feedback, it’s love. And then let it go.
I had a client that actually fired us, fired our agency a couple months ago. And they had been really crabby, really combative. Our styles were not meshing. Their expectations were very unrealistic.
12:40
And I got an email that said, you know, we’re disengaging from this relationship immediately. And then it was like six paragraphs long. And I looked at that email and went, you know, I could respond to each of these paragraphs and each of these points that she made because she wasn’t correct in the things that she was saying.
She was reflecting her desire to essentially have us full-time assigned to them as our only client. And we couldn’t do that. We couldn’t give them the time and attention that they wanted because they really wanted a full-time person on their staff. Didn’t work.
13:18
So I knew that no matter how I responded, she wasn’t going to be able to hear it, see it, feel it, agree with it. So why bother?
So I just sent an email that said, understood. Here’s all the materials and links to get them. So if you need anything as we wrap up the relationship, please let us know if we can be of service to you in the future. And what that did was that let me step away from that situation cleanly. I didn’t have to think about it anymore. I didn’t have to worry. I didn’t have to go back and forth. I didn’t have to even read the email if I didn’t want to. And I don’t really think I did.
13:57
I didn’t finish it because it wasn’t a legitimate relationship that I was interested in keeping. And it wasn’t the kind of feedback that was going to change anything for us because we were not going to change our business model based on that one client’s desires.
So we weren’t going to be able to help her. But she was giving us feedback. It was really negative. It felt like a punch in the gut. And I responded very professionally in a way that I could feel good about. And then I let it go.
14:28
And it was the best. I haven’t thought about it in weeks until I just mentioned it. So that’s what I’ve got for you today. Thank you so much for joining me.
If you are watching this on YouTube, please give me a subscribe and a like. We’d love to reach more people with this work because I love sharing how to play the emotional contact sport of business with young professionals. It’s not changing who you are. It’s just changing how you behave and thinking strategically so that you can make strong decisions that help you climb that career ladder and get that position or that dream that you’re really chasing.
So you can also visit my website at workmomsays.com. I have a contact form there. I am also an open networker on LinkedIn, so I’d love to hear from you. If you have an idea for a guest I should have on or a topic you’d like me to cover, please get in touch. Otherwise, I’ll see you in a few weeks with some more helpful information to help you learn how to play the emotional contact sport of business. Thanks so much.
Who is our ideal listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What value can people get from listening to this podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness, sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom

Why do I do this? A few more words from Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there was to make. I don’t hold myself as a stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people, so they don’t have to make those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!
The post Episode 62 – Bulletproof: How to Take a Hit and Stay in the Game appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
16 min
March 18Episode 61 – WorkMomSays: You’re On Your Own. Good.
#WorkMomSays no one is coming to save your career — and that’s actually good news. In this episode, Lori Jo Vest explains why uncertain economic times require professionals to take ownership of their careers instead of waiting for recognition, promotions, or opportunities to appear. She shares real workplace examples, including disengaged employees who quickly lost their jobs and a personal story about advocating for authority at work.
Lori breaks down how engagement, curiosity, and an ownership mindset make employees harder to replace, and why proactive professionals who continually learn, volunteer, and advocate for themselves are the ones who stay employed and advance when the economy gets tough.
Themes discussed in this episode
Taking ownership of your career instead of waiting for someone to promote or recognize you
Why employee disengagement can quietly damage long-term career prospects
How economic uncertainty makes engagement and performance even more important
The three things professionals often wait for that rarely come: recognition, opportunity, and permission
Developing an entrepreneurial mindset and becoming a continual learner in your field
Episode Highlights
Time-stamped inflection points from the show
00:11 — Lori explains why the idea that “no one is coming to save your career” is actually empowering and why professionals must take responsibility for their own growth.
01:14 — Why disengagement is rising in the workforce and how employees who simply wait for assignments put themselves at risk during layoffs.
04:09 — Lori shares a real example of an “actively disengaged” coworker whose lack of effort quickly led to losing his job.
06:13 — A personal story about asking for authority at work — and how advocating for herself changed the trajectory of her career.
14:02 — A critical question every professional should ask: are you showing up as an asset or a liability to your organization?
Top Quotes
00:11 — “No one is coming to save your career. You get to do it yourself.”
05:46 — “There are three things that young professionals sometimes wait for that never come. And those things are recognition, opportunity and permission.”
14:02 — “Right now, are you being an asset or a liability?”
16:00 — “Be curious. Don’t be anxious. Be curious.”
Transcript
00:11
Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot, where I teach young professionals how to play the emotional contact sport of business so you experience less drama and a whole lot more success. So today we’re going to talk about something really timely. It is a bizarre time right now in the world. I know things are really expensive. AI is coming for our jobs. May or may not be, we don’t really know. We are in an economy that seems to be suffering. Unemployment is up, tough times.
And during these times, it’s really easy to get worried about your own job. So what I want to talk about today is the fact that no one is coming to save your career. You get to do it yourself. And I know that sounds Pollyanna, but you get to create your career, especially if you’re young.
01:14
So right now, worker disengagement is at a historic low. So people are quietly quitting or job hopping, or they’ve gotten laid off, and maybe they’ve had a long, extended time period being laid off, and they’re trying to freelance, or they’re working outside of their industry just to put food on the table. But a lot of people that have the jobs that they like, in career positions right now are still waiting for somebody else to promote them or make them irreplaceable.
A lot of young professionals don’t know how to create a reputation for yourself, how to generate a work pattern that people really like that gets you that seat that is still remaining when the layoffs happen. Layoffs will happen. We are in a position right now where we don’t know what the economy is going to do. And I’ll tell you one thing — as the owner of a small digital marketing shop, the employee who is on it, who is taking care of business, doing everything that they know needs to be done, volunteering for extra assignments is the one that I’m going to be sure doesn’t go anywhere if I do have to do layoffs.
Now the person who waits for assignments, who maybe makes mistakes and repeatedly doesn’t solve what’s causing the problem, maybe doesn’t show up on time, maybe just isn’t as invested in the company as the other employee — they’re the one that’s at risk. So what you want to do is put yourself in that position of being that engaged employee.
02:50
Some statistics here that I think are really interesting. They define employee engagement as people who show up ready to do the job, give it their full effort and do their best, and that is a certain percentage of people in the workforce. Employees who are not engaged may be spending more time on social media. Maybe they’re taking a few extra minutes in the coffee room while they’re chatting with their coworkers before they get started.
And they’re coming back late from lunch and they’re just kind of skating a little bit. And there are a lot of positions where you can skate. It’s never, ever a good idea. Just because you can does not mean that you should, because when times get crazy or a little dicey, like they are right now, the ones that go are the ones that are disengaged. We actually had a couple of years ago — we had 88% of people who described themselves as engaged. Now we’re down to 64% of people saying they’re engaged, and there’s actually a category which I think is crazy. There’s a category called active disengagement.
04:09
Now I don’t know what that is. I don’t really know how they describe active disengagement specifically or what the percentage is right now, but I sat next to a guy when I worked in big agency land that was definitely disengaged. And he was a young guy. He had some talent, but he showed up late, left early. He was always away from his desk.
He might leave his jacket there, his lunchbox or whatever, but he was never there. And that wasn’t because he was in meetings, because people were always coming by and saying, “Hey, where is Jake?” Wasn’t there, and he often came back from lunch smelling like alcohol, and he just was kind of phoning it in. Trust me, he didn’t last very long. That is an actively disengaged employee. You definitely don’t want to be one of those if you want to have a successful career or make a lot of money because people who are actively disengaged don’t really make a lot of money because they never get promoted.
05:06
So look at this as an opportunity to be a little introspective. Where are you not engaged in your job? How can you be more actively engaged, not necessarily spending more time on the job, but paying more attention, truly giving it your all? That is what is going to make you successful.
So disengagement isn’t just a feeling — it’s an active attitude toward your workplace, and it’s a career killer in slow motion. Trust me, Jake lasted probably six months and then he was gone, and I did change his name to protect the not so innocent, so that’s not really his name.
05:46
So the other thing that I want to talk about during times like these is there are three things that young professionals sometimes wait for that never come. And those things are recognition, opportunity and permission.
And I’ve got to tell you, you can wait for someone to give you recognition, or you can ask for what you want. And I’ll give you an example.
06:13
Now, I was in my 30s, and I thought I was something, I guess, you know, when you get to a certain point in your career and you’re doing great, you’re really happy with it, and you’re performing at a high level. Well, the studio I worked for, I was sales director, and we went through a little bit of a hiccup in the economy. The economy got pretty bad in Metro Detroit back in the 2000s and so we had to cut the payroll budget, and the owner cut the operations guy.
Now the director of operations was the guy that everybody went to when something was wrong, when a customer was acting up, when somebody was complaining about an invoice, when somebody scheduled time and didn’t show up, or two different clients showed up at the same time to work with the same person. Those kinds of problems that will happen in a production studio. And when he was let go, what happened was everybody was lining up outside my door because the owner was kind of off campus most of the time. He really wasn’t around that much.
07:31
And what happened was, over three to six months, I ended up having no authority, but a lot of responsibility, because if somebody came to me with a problem, I didn’t just go, “oh well.” I’d go, “oh God, now what are we going to do?” and I’d be the one trying to figure it out.
So what I did, because it really kind of bothered me over time, and I ended up spending so much more time doing that, is I asked him, “Can I take you out to lunch? I want to talk about what’s happening at the company right now.” And I set him down and said, “I’m really struggling right now because I feel like I am keeping the place running, but I don’t have the authority to do the things that I need to do.”
09:19
But when it comes to leading a project or suggesting an idea or volunteering, you don’t have to wait for permission to do those things.
So I really think that by asking for what you want, by advocating for yourself during this kind of an uncertain economy, you will do better than someone who’s just coming in every day, sitting at their desk and not having a lot happen that has management looking at them in a positive way. That’s what you want to do. It’s not manipulative. You want to perform at the highest levels all the time and during times like these it’s even more important.
10:14
So the other concept I want to introduce here is ownership. If you are sitting back as an employee waiting for your employer to recognize you, give you opportunity, train you, make you a better account executive, a better musician, a better teacher, a better auditor or accountant — whatever it is — take ownership of your career and whatever it is you’re managing.
You’ll hear people say that having an entrepreneurial attitude at work is a really good thing. And here’s why I say that: if you’re an entrepreneur, you know that the buck stops with you. Everything stops right here.
11:37
And you don’t need a budget, you don’t need a formal mentoring program. You need to make a decision that you are going to take ownership. Start asking for stretch assignments. Find a mentor, ask someone if they’ll be your mentor, and go out there and find opportunities to learn.
And I’ll give you one example: if there’s a trade association in your industry and they have regular events, go to those things. Because over time those events contribute to your knowledge base, and you’re able to listen to people who are at the top of their game talk about their field.
13:03
So next up I want to talk about how to stop waiting and start moving, how to make sure that you stand out. And one way to do that is to have that conversation with your boss that changes everything.
It can be anything from “Hey, I have this responsibility now. I need the title.” Or “I really don’t like being a copywriter anymore. I want to see if I can learn graphic design.” Or “I’m in sales right now but I’d like to do something different.”
14:02
And one thing to consider — this is a really great question to use with your coworkers, your team and yourself — is right now are you being an asset or a liability?
Are you an employee that comes in, does the bare minimum, gets paid? Then you are a liability. Now if you’re the high performer giving it your all, you’re the asset. They won’t want to let you go because if they do there will be a big missing piece.
15:03
So how do you make that mindset shift? It’s not easy because we all come with our habits. We come to the workplace with our life habits. We may have gotten them from our parents.
My mother was one of those people that, God love her, when it got hard she quit. And because of that she was always kind of at a clerical or admin level even though she was really smart.
16:00
The decision to say “I am going to be an asset” and do everything I can to be that employee that is hard to replace doesn’t happen overnight. Be the one that’s a lifelong learner. Be curious, be humble, and don’t worry about being a rookie.
Honestly, I don’t think any of us really know what’s going on. We may have wisdom, but we’re all just kind of making it up as we go along.
17:06
So that’s what I’ve got for you. I really appreciate you listening today, and please take a minute to go to my website at workmomsays.com. You’ll find transcripts, blog articles, and the archive of past episodes there.
If you are watching on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button, give me a like and even a comment. I would love to hear from you.
I’m also an open networker on LinkedIn, and I’m Lori Jo Vest there. Please get in touch with me if you’d like to connect — just let me know that you’re a podcast listener. So again, take care, and I’ll be back soon with another episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot.
Who is our ideal listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What value can people get from listening to this podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness, sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom

Why do I do this? A few more words from Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there was to make. I don’t hold myself as a stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people, so they don’t have to make those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!
The post Episode 61 – WorkMomSays: You’re On Your Own. Good. appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
19 min
March 03Episode 60 – Confident, Fluent, and Wrong: AI & The New Workplace Trap
#WorkMomSays In this episode, Lori shares why artificial intelligence can become a workplace trap when professionals rely on it without verification. While AI can be a powerful productivity tool, overconfidence and delegated thinking can lead to costly mistakes, damaged reputations, and even career-ending consequences.
Through real-world examples — including fabricated legal cases and marketing analytics gone wrong — she explains why hallucinations happen, why long AI chats can increase inaccuracies, and how to build guardrails into your workflow. Lori emphasizes that AI should accelerate your thinking, not replace it, and that verification is now a professional responsibility in the modern workplace.
Themes discussed in this episode
Why blind trust in AI is the real career risk
How AI hallucinations can lead to legal, financial, and reputational consequences
The danger of using AI for delegated thinking instead of supported thinking
Why long AI chat threads may increase inaccurate outputs
Practical guardrails for using AI responsibly at work
Episode Highlights
Time-stamped inflection points from the show
00:12 – Lori opens with a real courtroom example of hallucinated case law and explains how AI mistakes can become career crushers.
01:36 – A firsthand story of AI overstating mailing list data by 100x — and why confidence doesn’t equal correctness.
02:15 – The Reddit story: executives making business decisions based on unchecked AI analytics.
03:16 – Why long AI conversations may increase hallucinations and how to properly verify sources.
04:38 – Practical AI guardrails: verify facts, cross-check numbers, restart long threads, and triple-check high-risk data.
05:18 – AI should accelerate your thinking, not replace it — and why trusting AI more than your own brain can cost you your job.
Top Quotes
03:10 – “Don’t get caught by AI hallucinations. You don’t want it to happen.”
04:25 – “You don’t want to use AI for delegated thinking. You want to use it to support your work and your thinking. It’s a draft partner, not a decision maker.”
05:46 – “Don’t be the person who gets fined or fired because you trusted AI more than your own brain.”
Transcript
00:12
Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot, and I’m here to help you play the emotional contact sport of business so that you can experience less drama and more success. So today we are talking about AI and how it can be a workplace trap. Be careful. Just recently, there was an attorney that submitted a brief to a judge in a courtroom that had hallucinated case filings that it had referenced. So it actually went out there and not only looked for case filings, but it made some up, and it went all the way to the judge, and those cases that were referenced didn’t even exist. So you can see how that could be a career crusher, right?
01:02
You can be a smart person with really good intentions and still get it totally wrong if you’re using AI, because the problem isn’t AI. The problem is blind trust of AI. It’s not the villain. Overconfidence is the villain. So honestly, I’ve been pinged by it myself, where I uploaded a spreadsheet of information about a mailing list, and it gave me all this great analysis of what was in it, but it was completely wrong.
01:36
One example — I asked about a particular type of name, you know, a particular category. Did we have a lot of people in this industry on our mailing list? And AI said, yes, you have 4,000 of those people. We didn’t have 4,000 of those people. We had 40 of those people. It was working from my data that I uploaded, and it still completely gave me the wrong number. So just because AI sounds confident, just because it references a source, does not mean it’s correct. You’ve met people like that. AI is a person like that. So be careful.
02:15
So why is AI a career risk right now? Well, because a lot of people have way too much confidence in it, and they’re using it for things like projections and analytics. My husband was just reading something on Reddit over the weekend that he mentioned to me, and I was just like, oh my God. And it was a marketing department that had taken their analytics and uploaded it to an AI tool and had it analyze it for the last, you know, three to six months, and that’s the data that they gave to their C-level leaders who made business decisions based on that data. And three to six months later, when they actually looked at the data and compared it to the source, it was completely incorrect, and that person that made the decision to submit that AI data without checking it is in an incredible hot seat. I cannot imagine what that would feel like. Don’t get caught by AI hallucinations. You don’t want it to happen.
03:16
A couple points. Some of the things that happen that they’ve noticed is that if you are using one long chat on the same topic, you may feel like the more you use this same chat for information on a particular topic, the more informed it will be. In fact, the polar opposite is true. They say that hallucinated data is more likely to occur in long AI chats. So something to think about. What I tell people to do, and what we do at the agency that I run, is we actually ask for sources. We ask, is this correct? Is this true? Show us the sources. And then we go look at the sources. Because one of the things that happens with AI is it will look at a source, grab a couple things, and present data with that source. But when you go look at the actual source, the article may not say that at all. So if you’re using data from an AI chat, ask for the source and go look and double-check it, because you don’t want to use AI for delegated thinking. You want to use it to support your work and your thinking. It’s a draft partner, not a decision maker. So be extremely careful.
04:38
And here’s how to use AI without looking like an idiot. Verify anything factual. Always, always ask for sources. Cross-check your numbers. When long threads are happening and you realize you’ve gone, you know, a couple scrolls down — it’s a long conversation with chat — go back, start a new one, and that will help ensure that the information is more accurate. But again, still double-check it. If it has anything to do with money, law, health, your reputation, or data for decision making, double-check it. Matter of fact, triple-check it, because it’s going to get a lot of people in trouble, because we just have too much confidence in it right now.
05:18
So what I would tell you is make sure that the tools you’re using accelerate your thinking — don’t replace it. Don’t be lazy. Honestly, I can say that I’ve done it. I’ve gone, oh yeah, I’m sure that’s accurate, and sent it along. Don’t learn the hard way. One of the things that I always say as Work Mom is I learned the hard way so you don’t have to. Always make sure that you’re double-checking the information, and don’t be the person who gets fined or fired because you trusted AI more than your own brain. Your own brain is always going to give you better information, and you can affirm what you find in AI. So what I would say is do me a favor. Share this with your team. Share this with people around you, and talk about AI guardrails at work. Talk about how you can build verification into the work that you do so that you don’t ever get stuck with an AI hallucination causing big problems for you.
06:17
So that’s what I’ve got for you today. If you are watching this on YouTube, please do me a favor — subscribe, like, give me a comment. I’d love to hear what you want me to talk about. We have a website at workmomsays.com where you can go and send me a message and let me know if you have a person that you’d like me to invite onto the show, or if you personally think you’d make a good guest. If you have a topic or a question you’d like me to answer, that would be great. I’d love to hear from you. I’m also an open networker on LinkedIn at Lori Jo Vest. I would love to hear from you there as well. So that’s what I’ve got for you. I will be back soon with some more helpful information to help you play the emotional contact sport of business. Take care.
Who is our ideal listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What value can people get from listening to this podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness, sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom

Why do I do this? A few more words from Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there was to make. I don’t hold myself as a stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people, so they don’t have to make those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!
The post Episode 60 – Confident, Fluent, and Wrong: AI & The New Workplace Trap appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
8 min
February 06Episode 59 – Dealing with Difficult People: What to Do When You’re the Only Adult in the Room
#WorkMomSays dealing with difficult people isn’t about fixing them — it’s about protecting you. In this episode, Lori shares practical, emotionally intelligent strategies for handling challenging coworkers, clients, and bosses without losing your cool or your dignity.
Through real-world examples, she explains how compassion, kindness, and emotional regulation can be powerful tools in business, why becoming “emotional Teflon” helps you stay calm under pressure, and how to set boundaries without becoming confrontational or tolerating abuse.
She emphasizes staying grounded, solution-focused, and unbothered — so you can perform at a high level and be the adult in the room, even when others aren’t.
Themes discussed in this episode
Protecting your emotional regulation when dealing with difficult people
Using compassion and kindness as professional tools (not weaknesses)
Becoming “emotional Teflon” and not absorbing other people’s chaos
Setting boundaries while staying calm, grounded, and professional
Episode Highlights
Time-stamped inflection points from the show
00:12 – Lori explains why this episode isn’t about fixing difficult people, but about protecting your emotional stability and dignity at work and in life.
01:42 – Reframing the “villain”: Lori shares a client story that illustrates how kindness and professionalism can change difficult dynamics over time.
04:53 – Why kindness is a superpower, and how compassion helps you perform better in business and leadership situations.
06:52 – Becoming “emotional Teflon”: learning to armor up emotionally, stay regulated under pressure, and stop absorbing other people’s chaos.
11:00 – How to be kind without breaking boundaries, why compassion doesn’t mean tolerating abuse, and when it’s appropriate to disengage or escalate.
Top Quotes
01:08 – “They can make you hate your job. They can make you not want to go into work. They can make you get anxious the night before you know you have a morning meeting with them. But this episode isn’t about fixing that person. It’s about protecting you and walking away with your emotions nice and steady, no disruption, no triggering. You keep your dignity.”
04:53 – “Because kindness is a superpower. Remember that it is a superpower. It’s something that you can pull out and use in just about any situation when you have an angry customer. Kindness. It works.”
05:16 – “Try to learn how to become emotional Teflon. And what that means is, when you see somebody roll their eyes, get a tone, make a passive aggressive comment, I don’t care. They don’t threaten me. And if it makes them feel more in control, or if they’re annoyed by the fact that maybe I didn’t recall the email I got three weeks ago, go ahead and be annoyed. It’s totally okay.”
12:06 – “You can be generous and still unavailable for nonsense. You don’t have to be tolerant of abuse. So you talk about what you do, you talk about what you need from them, and when you’ll disengage.”
Transcript
00:12
Hello. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot. Today we are going to be talking about dealing with difficult people. We all have to do it. You may have a difficult person in your family, you may be working for a difficult boss, and you may have a great job, but your coworker drives you crazy because they’re just crabby all the time.
Here is how you deal with that, and I would actually consider that in those cases, you may be the only adult in the room who knows how to act like a mature human being, and that’s reality. There are a lot of emotionally immature people running companies in high-level positions because they’re really smart, but they may not have very high EQ, emotional intelligence, and that’s what we talk about here at Work Mom Says.
So basically, we all know that person. You’ve got them. They can make you hate your job. They can make you not want to go into work. They can make you get anxious the night before you know you have a morning meeting with them. But this episode isn’t about fixing that person. It’s about protecting you and walking away with your emotions nice and steady, no disruption, no triggering. You keep your dignity. You perform at the level that you know you can perform emotionally, and this also works in your personal relationships. So let’s not forget that.
01:42
So first things first, one of the things that I think is really, really important to do and kind of easy is to reframe the villain, whoever it is. I’m going to tell you about a client that I had that, I mean, she would bark at me on the phone. I’d call her, or she’d call me, and I’d say hello, and it would be “mamma, mamma, mamma,” you know, bark, bark, bark.
And I really think that she thought she had to be aggressive to be effective and that nobody respected her. She was really introverted, so I’m sure it was difficult for her to call us in the first place. And at that point, I actually shared an office with a young woman. We worked together in sales and account management in this video studio.
So we would get this call from this client and, oh my God, it was just like, wow, that was a tough one because she was so aggressive. And if someone has been rewarded for their bad behavior, like maybe this person that we were dealing with was constantly being, you know, treated poorly by her coworkers or her boss, she just decided she was going to vent it on somebody else, and we happened to be the closest, easiest subject for that venting.
And if it’s worked for her, then why wouldn’t she keep doing it? The problem was that we did not like dealing with it. We, myself and my office mate, didn’t like it. And so we started talking about how we could make it better. And so we decided to be overtly kind, not fake.
03:18
We didn’t give in to requests that were not good or that cost the company money, but we were always calm, always professional, always, “How are you?”
And I remember one time the power of kindness was really, really obvious when she actually started telling me that she had to stay home that day and was waiting for a new couch to show up, and she started telling me all about it. And I thought, wow, this is really unusual because she never told us anything personal before.
But after a few months of our approach being overtly kind, giving her what we thought she needed, which was somebody to take care of her and be polite, she responded to that. And she actually got to the point where she would come to our parties. It was wild to watch the transformation.
04:08
And so one of the things to remember is if you are generally a compassionate person, you will do better in business. If you don’t think you’re compassionate, go look it up. Find out how you can become more compassionate, because compassionate people do better in business.
We are able to put ourselves in other people’s places. And all I could think of when she would call and bark at us was that she’s just not very happy. So maybe if some people are nice to her, she’ll be a little happier.
I know it sounds manipulative because we were trying to be nice to her so that she would be nice to us, and we knew we were going to have to work with her a lot. She was a production manager at an agency that was a long-time client. We dealt with it, we figured it out, and it worked. Because kindness is a superpower.
04:53
Remember that it is a superpower. It’s something that you can pull out and use in just about any situation when you have an angry customer. Kindness. It works.
So one of the things that I also tell people, and I highly suggest you maybe put this on a board if you’re a sensitive person, put it up in your office or on your computer. I have little Post-it notes on my computer. Try to learn how to become emotional Teflon.
And what that means is when you see somebody roll their eyes, get a tone, make a passive-aggressive comment. I mean, I’ve got clients that do this. As I told you, if you’re like, “Oh God, I’m sorry, I know you told me, but I forgot,” or “in that email I sent you three weeks ago,” and I’m like, I’ve gotten 3,800 emails in the last three weeks. Let me go look it up so I know exactly what we’re talking about.
But those kinds of little slights and backhanded comments, I don’t care. They don’t threaten me. And if it makes them feel more in control, or if they’re annoyed by the fact that maybe I didn’t recall the email I got three weeks ago, go ahead and be annoyed. It’s totally okay. I get it.
I probably should have had those all lined up. I do the best I can. I’m a little ADHD, so I’m not always perfect, and I give myself grace for that. And so when you can become emotional Teflon and not let those little things bother you, you will learn how to stay regulated under pressure, which is always important.
If you’re in an emergency situation at home, staying regulated could be important to somebody staying safe, right? Don’t absorb other people’s chaos. If somebody calls you when they’re in a huge upset, you don’t have to go there with them. And the kinds of things that you learn to be able to handle people at work will serve you in your personal life as well. I can tell you, it really does help.
06:52
So becoming emotional Teflon means that you always look at the logical side of the situation before you look at the emotional side, and I will own that sometimes means putting on some armor.
I had a particular client that I’ve worked with now for about a year and a half, and there’s a tone that this person uses in their voice. And a lot of people, over the last year and a half, I have found out, don’t like that tone. Well, neither do I, but I was taking it very personally.
And so when I realized I needed to get my emotional Teflon back, I looked at it as armoring up. The tone that was used had nothing to do with me. It was just that person. And now we have a great relationship. It’s not a bad relationship, because I just let those tones and backhanded comments roll off.
They’re just noise. They are not something that’s threatening me. It’s not something that’s causing me physical pain. It’s not causing me to lose my job. I know I’m doing a good job. It’s just noise. And if you can look at it that way, again, you’re going to be better off in the long run, both at work and at home.
08:22
Last one for today is build your compassion muscle. Some people never learned how to ask for something without being demanding, how to express frustration in a logical way, so when they do, it’s attacking.
They don’t know how to trust that someone’s actually listening to them. Maybe they feel disrespected. Maybe they’re dismissive and don’t realize it. Maybe defense is just their natural trauma response, and so they always come across in a way that is difficult for others.
That doesn’t mean it’s personal. You can look at that person and say, oh man, wouldn’t it be horrible if I never learned how to behave like an adult? And you can actually be compassionate for that person and just hear what they need and ignore the rest.
They haven’t learned. They haven’t built those emotional skills that you have and aren’t able to be more kind in asking for what they need or resolving a problem. Some people think, “If I’m not a jerk, I won’t get what I need out of this situation.” And they may feel that way everywhere. Like nobody gives me what I want. Okay. Well, let me see if I can help you.
09:41
So what I typically do in those situations, especially with customers and coworkers, is to quietly focus on taking care of what they need, not responding to any of the rude comments or questions that are digging too deep.
I may say, “Let’s just focus on getting this managed. We can dig into the why later, but right now we’re in an emergency state.” Let’s just get this done. Then meet that request cleanly and efficiently, and follow up with either a phone call or a thank-you note to say, “Hey, I’m hoping everything is good. I’m glad this was resolved, and I’ll get back to you with what we’re going to do so it doesn’t happen in the future.”
You want to treat those emergency situations with calm, focus on the solution, and then follow up afterward to figure out the why. And the reason that works is because it disrupts the script of the complainer. If you are focused on the solution, it keeps people from whining and complaining. It breaks that pattern.
11:00
So be kind, but that doesn’t mean you have to break every boundary. You can still have boundaries. Be calm, but that doesn’t mean that you’re weak.
Sometimes you have to stand up and say, “No, I’m sorry. I can’t do that, but I can do this instead.” Compassion doesn’t mean you’re a doormat. If somebody’s really beaten up on you and they’re not responding to any of the things I’ve talked about here, that may be the time where you say, “Excuse me, I’m going to have you talk to my boss,” or “I’m going to have you talk to someone else.”
Anybody who is abusive gets sent packing. You should not be subject to that in the workplace at all.
12:05
So remember, you can be generous and still unavailable for nonsense. You don’t have to tolerate abuse.
You never win by matching energy. You never win by going to that same negative, ugly place. You win by staying grounded, regulated, and in control. You’re thinking strategically. Your emotions are way back there.
13:08
That’s why I talk about armor. You might want to armor up so your emotions are not impacted by what’s happening.
Don’t look at the nasty part of what the person is doing. Look at what they need to move along. Not how they need to be defeated, but how they need to be handled. How can I manage this situation to get this person to move along, either to somebody else or to a happy ending that solves the problem they had?
If you remember this, you will definitely be able to handle difficult people with finesse. Be kind, be calm, be unbothered. Be the adult in the room. Sometimes that’s your job. And if you get good at that, trust me, you’ll be invited into a lot more rooms.
13:58
So that’s what I’ve got for you today. If you are watching this on YouTube, please do me a favor and subscribe to my channel. Maybe like this video and share it with your audience.
I’m here to share how to play the emotional contact sport of business so you can experience a whole lot less drama and a whole lot more success. I have a website at workmomsays.com, and I am an open networker on LinkedIn at Lori Jo Vest. Please check in with me there. Just let me know that you’re a listener. I would love to connect with you. Take care, and I’ll be back soon with another episode.
Who is our ideal listener?
This podcast is for young professionals who want to learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.
How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic, and Work Mom Says can help you.
“I tell people to back up, put down the magnifying glass, and look at the big picture when you’re responding to something,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom. “In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week.”
What value can people get from listening to this podcast?
Listening to Work Mom Says can help you grow your mood management skills, grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view. This makes it easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.
On Work Mom Says, we also offer tips and tricks for creating connected positive relationships that last over time. People will want you on the team if you can create connected positive relationships and work environments. You become an asset, and you will be more successful when you’re an asset.
“I also like to talk about developing traits like optimism, persistence, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness, sticking with things, and approaching every project with a curious mind instead of a fearful mind,” said Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom

Why do I do this? A few more words from Work Mom
I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business and had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there was to make. I don’t hold myself as a stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised, battered, and beaten up and learned some important lessons. I’d love to share these lessons with young people, so they don’t have to make those same mistakes or be the idiot I was.
I also want to help young professionals realize that many things our culture prioritizes aren’t really important. We talk a lot about what should be important and how to present your best face at the office so that you can succeed.
I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and it’s gratifying to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner.
Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!
The post Episode 59 – Dealing with Difficult People: What to Do When You’re the Only Adult in the Room appeared first on Work Mom Says®.
15 min

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