Themes discussed in this episode

• The value of being a lifelong learner
• Personal growth training programs – Incl. Landmark Education
• Talk therapy as a way to grow your emotional skills
• Putting a supportive community around yourself
• Using art, music and other endeavors to grow personally and professional

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:01 – While growth may start as setting goals or making plans for your future, it can become a positive addiction to growing your skills and mastering your emotions
2:21 – The impact of cultural and familial conditioning on one’s mindset and the importance of changing these beliefs
9:49 – The benefits of therapy for emotional growth and managing difficult client relationships
13:36 – Feeding your mind with quality literature, music, and other forms of intellectual stimulation
16:20 – The importance of surrounding oneself with positive and supportive people

Top Quotes

1:23 – I frequently say I’m addicted to personal growth. I am. I’m always looking to learn something new, to try something new, to jump in with both feet, with new technology, with new marketing tools, things like that, because it’s exciting. It’s interesting to live a life that has variety in it and that challenges you.
3:38 – The Landmark Forum basically teaches you that there’s what happens in your life, and there’s the story you tell yourself about what happened, and your power lies in that story.
11:16 – If you’re struggling with emotions, because sometimes it can be so challenging for us to unpack what it is in our heads that is causing us to be so angsty or to feel so much discomfort in a difficult client exchange. So therapy is a really great thing

Links

Transcript

00:00
Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest, also known as Work Mom. Thank you so much for being here for this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot.

Today, I want to talk about personal and professional growth and the value of becoming a lifelong learner. One of the things that I picked up in my thirties that I highly recommend is that you make a commitment to both your personal and your professional growth.

If you want to hit the goals you’ve set for yourself, if you want to excel in life, if you want to experience new and different things, have challenging work, express your passions, make a difference in the world, all those things that so many of us aspire to, yet many do not.

01:00
Taking a mindset of continuous learning and continuous personal and professional growth will serve you well. If you don’t have it yet, get started. And I can promise you that what starts out as goal setting or you know, maybe a chore can turn into kind of an addiction.

And I personally, I frequently say I’m addicted to personal growth. I am, I’m always looking to learn something new, to try something new to jump in with both feet. with new technology with new marketing tools things like that because it’s exciting, it’s interesting to live a life that has variety in it and that challenges you.

Focusing on that growth and developing a continuous growth mindset will be really helpful as you seek to either you know fly up the corporate ladder and become a C-level executive or maybe you want to become an entrepreneur or you want to become an independent you know millionaire there’s all kinds of ways to get there so if you have big goals get started by focusing on your personal professional growth.

02:00
And I’m going to tell you a little bit about some of the things that I did. Early on in my thirties, I had a good friend that suggested that I take this personal development course called Landmark. And the company that runs it is called Landmark Education. They are all over the world. And they do amazing things when it comes to changing how you think.

We are conditioned, or as one of my favorite authors would say, domesticated into thinking that we have to be a certain way, act a certain way, perform a certain way, learn a certain way, and that our past has a huge impact on who we are now and we’ll never reach those goals because they’re just too hard. So we get conditioned by our culture, by our family, by the people we are surrounded by.

And what Landmark did for me, they have two courses that I did, I could have done more, but I felt good about the two I did. And that was enough, called the Landmark Forum. And what’s the other one? Landmark Forum and I have to go look that up. So the two courses that Landmark offers are the Landmark Forum and the Advanced course. They have others as well, but I didn’t take any of those. I was good with the two that I took.

03:00
So the Landmark Forum What I recommended to everybody, probably not because it’s a specific type of in your face training that forces you to confront all kinds of things. And if you’re not open minded and open hearted enough or strong enough when you do it, I don’t know how it would work for you. I know it worked for me. I was in a great place.

And the forum basically teaches you that there’s what happens in your life, and there’s the story you tell yourself about what happened. And your power lies in that story. You can look at your past as something that drags you down. You’re a victim. And you may have been a victim of something horrific.

Trust me, I understand that. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve had several traumatic experiences and people that have done horrific things to me. And I’m not a victim. But society may encourage you to be a victim and kind of wallow in it when you have the power of not doing that.

04:00
And Landmark Forum basically taught me to let go of all those rocks I was holding on to. as I went through life and tried to do better, be a better person. And one of the ways they did it that was absolutely hilarious, but it kind of explains it. This seems like something that wouldn’t work, but it did.

There were one hundred and eighty people in this room. sitting in those really uncomfortable conference center chairs that we’ve all sat in. And the room has, you know, the fluorescent lights and those funky ceiling panels and the rooms, the carpeting is kind of ick, and it’s just it’s just very, very, very basic. It’s not meant to be comfortable. And honestly, I think they do that on purpose because if you’re too comfortable, you’re not growing. I mean, that’s just kind of a fact of life. If you’re too comfortable, you are not growing.

So anyway, so you go in there with all these people and they do you do several different exercises over the course of three solid days, all day Friday from like nine in the morning till nine o’clock at night, all day Saturday from maybe ten o’clock in the morning till ten o’clock at night. And most of the day on Sunday. And it gets grueling. It really does.

05:00
However, they have you do these exercises, all different kinds, several of them throughout those days. And one of them that really stuck with me was they had you spend twenty minutes writing about something that you were suffering about. And I was suffering about my ex-husband. I was in the middle of a divorce and I wrote just this big long thing to keep writing, keep writing. You’d start writing, you know, you’d think you’d told your story.

They say, no, keep writing, keep writing. And you just write and write and write. And you’d have maybe five or six pages of, you know, things that were really awful and that you were suffering about. It was just horrific. You know, when I was writing mine, I was crying and people were next to me were crying and people were looking angry. And I mean, it was a really big deal.

And then they tell you to stay. They partner you up. They tell you to partner up with someone sitting near you that you don’t know and move your chairs together so that you’re facing each other. So you’ve got all these people and, you know, little twosomes. And then one person listens while the other person reads their story.

06:00
I had five pages. I read the whole five pages. I’m crying. This poor person sitting across from me is just like listening, trying to be empathetic, I’m sure. And I’m reading it over and over and over. And by the time I read it maybe six times, seriously, I was looking at that paper and going, “what is my problem? oh my god I’ve been suffering about this.”

All it took was was writing out your story and then reading it in that context to another human being who doesn’t know you for your brain to kind of go wait a minute this is this is truly a story. You don’t have to tell it that way and it changed the way I thought about the past and also the present. It means that if somebody acts ugly to you you’ve got a myriad of ways that you can respond because you can tell yourself a different story.

07:00
For example, I have a really difficult client right now and I at the beginning of the relationship was getting a little snippy I was feeling uncomfortable and micromanaged and I was really struggling with it and my landmark training came back to my mind.

Keep in mind landmark was years ago and it still exists, but I took my landmark courses twenty five years ago and this person that I’m working with is now someone over the last nine months I’ve been really working on being what I call intentional with her.

Because I want to be intentional in how I respond to any comments she makes anything she says that are, you know, is worrisome. And since then, I’ve completely changed how I look at her and I just don’t see or hear any of the negative tones and things or if I do notice that I laugh, I don’t get angry and you know, get defensive, I just laugh.

08:00
So being intentional is something you can do when you realize that there’s what happens and the story you tell yourself about what happens. So there were tons of other exercises around those types of topics at the Landmark Forum.

And the next course is the advanced course, which talks about your future. Instead of thinking that you’ve got to chase your dreams and run toward it and it’s so hard you’ll never get there, they teach you to experience it now, basically. Feel the feelings, look at what you really want, be clear about it, and then pull yourself toward it. Behave your way toward that goal.

And again, it’s a different way of looking at your future. By visualizing it really strongly and then pulling it toward you with your actions and your thoughts, you realize that goals don’t have to be hard. You can start experiencing the joy of having achieved that goal now And believe it or not, I’m not sure how it works. It could be your subconscious mind, it could be the universal energy, it could be anything, but it will bring it towards you.

09:00
So my whole point in talking about landmark is that landmark courses really helped me up level my internal conversation, so that I knew that learning could be life changing. Personal growth could be life changing. And so I really got on the path. I think I was about thirty seven at that point. So don’t wait that don’t wait as long as I did. But I was about thirty seven.

And since then, I have decided, you know, pretty much to experience new things, do new things, try new things and create a life that I love, that I enjoy. And I have managed to do that by just continually looking for that next way of growing, learning, being a better human being.

Another example of that is therapy. If you are in a emotional state, you’re having difficulty playing the emotional context sport of business because your emotions are getting in the way. The example I shared earlier with about this client, I was struggling with my emotions and I’ve been doing this sales thing for a really long time. And I was really struggling. I was having a hard time being friendly and professional and kind, which is what you’re expected to do in business.

10:00
And as a result, I had to concentrate on being intentional with all my interactions and continually reminding myself that this was a client whose work I really, really enjoy doing. So I have to tell you the landmark work help work really helped me in that.

So if therapy is something that you think you might benefit from, give it a try. Psychologytoday.com has an amazing directory of therapists. I just found my therapist there about a year and a half ago. And it’s a really good thing to do if you’re struggling with emotions because sometimes it can be so challenging for us to unpack what it is in our heads that is causing us to be so angsty or to feel so much discomfort in a difficult client exchange.

So therapy is a really great thing and you can find affordable therapists. There are therapists out there that will do sliding scale billing or negotiate a rate for you if your insurance doesn’t cover it. So that is always a good thing to do. If you don’t find the right therapist the first time, find a different one until you find that person that you mesh well with.

11:00
And it really does give you an educated, objective outsider point of view on your thoughts and feelings so that you can maybe call yourself out on things. Sometimes we have distorted thoughts. We are thinking things that aren’t true. It’s called cognitive distortion,s and cognitive distortions can be dangerous. They can really get you in trouble. And we don’t want that.

You know, they can get you in trouble at the workplace. You’re assuming that, you know, cognitive An example of a cognitive distortion at work would be your coworker came in and sat down next to you. They were a little huffy and they slammed down their lunch and they ran off. And you’re thinking, oh my God, what did I do to make them mad? And you’re going into that mode where you think they’re mad at you, but the reality is they’re not. They’re not mad at you. They just had a really bad morning.

12:00
And, you know, those kinds of things can get you in trouble at the office because you can feel like, you know, you’re always kind of on guard. Maybe you’re a sensitive human being. I’m highly sensitive.

I can struggle with trying to determine how someone’s thinking so I know how to behave so I keep them happy. That’s not your job. Keeping other people is not your job. keeping other people happy is not your job. And so getting the kind of help that you need some, you know, mental tuning up, as I would call it, is always a good idea.

Other things you can do that will keep you moving in the right direction are reading books. I discovered that I am ADHD. I didn’t know that. Women frequently don’t get diagnosed until later in life. And I have a book that my therapist recommended that is a workbook that I’ve been going through and learning a ton about it so that I can kind of compensate, put some guardrails around myself and function in a more organized fashion. I say I’m a chaos monster. So if you’re a chaos monster, you might want to check and see if ADHD is somewhere up there in your head too.

13:00
So what else can you do for personal growth? Create some supportive habits. One of the ways I’m really supporting myself is waking up every morning and doing affirmations. I worked with a health coach for a month and decided that doing some affirmations in the morning as part of that effort would set me up for a better mindset for my day.

And that’s really helpful when you get up and you say, I am a divine child of the universe. I am loved and protected by the universe and I am creating financial abundance or financial stability for my family and I am a loving and intelligent and productive human being that deserves all the good that I can muster.

When you put those kinds of things in writing and you write five or six times each of those sentences, it sticks with you throughout the day it really does. It helps you get in a mindset that is boosted as soon as you start.

14:00
Feed your mind in whatever way you can. Sometimes that means listening to classical music, watching the top one hundred movies, reading really good literature, solid, really wonderful literature. ingesting quality art is an amazing way to grow as a human being because you get different perspectives.

With reading and audio books, you can, you know, really increase your vocabulary and your speaking and writing ability. Listening to fantastic music is just so good for your mind and your emotions. I find that if I need to be productive, I can put on a certain kind of music. There is a type of music called binaural beats that’s really good for meditating and, you know, creating, ideating something if you’re trying to be creative and you want to come up with an idea.

15:00
So there’s all kinds of different ways to support your personal growth and professional development. And whatever ways you can, make sure you’ve got at least one of those initiatives going on at all times. I would just make that a habit.

Maybe join a masterminds group. Those are really great for pushing you to grow in the direction that you want to go. Because if you’re in a masterminds group, you’re able to share your hopes and dreams, and the people that are in that group with you, provided you’ve got a really strong group, will help push and motivate and inspire you to get there. So again, personal growth and development, have a supportive group of people around you

I’ve heard it said, and I really firmly believe it’s true that you are, you personally are the result of the five people you spend most of your time with. If you are spending your time with people that are negative, that demean you, that drag you down, that cause you emotional upset, you need to change out those people.

16:00
Trust me, you need to change out those people. I’ve done it. I’ve had some situations in my life where I was in just toxic relationships, either with a boss, a family member, a coworker, and removing yourself from it instead of continuing to try to make it better or try to figure out why you’re maybe being mistreated.

Just walk away, find a new job, you know, be less available to those friends and family members, or just cut them out entirely. Because you cannot grow if you are surrounded by or impacted by people that want to drag you down and pull you back it’s just not a good thing for anybody so take that seriously.

17:00
If you’ve got somebody in your life that’s really causing you all kinds of emotional upset figure out what to do about it it’s you know don’t let it go on for years because it can and it will um if you set your up such as it can and it will if you set yourself up for that.

That’s what I’ve got for you today. Thank you so much for listening. If you are watching on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button. Give me a like, give me a comment. I’d love to hear from you. I am an open networker on LinkedIn and you can reach me there at Lori Jo Vest.

And I also have a website at WorkMomSays.com that has all kinds of great information, lots of episodes, even the early ones where we were just really silly and just had a lot of fun, as well as some great resources. I have a book that’s on Amazon as well. It makes a great gift for college students and newly minted young professionals. So that’s what I have. Thanks so much for joining me. I’ll see you again soon.

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.

Episode 26 – “The Origin of Work Mom Says (Plus a Sneak Peek at My Upcoming Book)” appeared first on Work Mom Says.